Crueltide

[for_sorrow]

Not every story is pleasant. Not every story has a happy ending. And sometimes, those are the kinds of stories that we really, really want to read.

If you're one of the many people interested in either writing or receiving darkfic for Yuletide, then Crueltide is here to devour your soul for you!

Why Crueltide?Because darkfic isn't to everyone's

Comments

[samgrass]

This is an amazing idea!

AO3: skazka
Letter: Here!
Fandoms:

The Duchess of Malfi (Webster) - This one has tons and tons of canon darkfic tropes: isolation, claustrophobia, gaslighting, imprisonment, incestuous obsession, poisoning, child murder, conspiracy, wrath, insanity (especially historical ideas of love-madness, melancholy, and lycanthropy), guilt and obligation, etc. etc. etc. -- even a little ghost stuff, if you want to expand on the echoey grave scene. Some of my prompts deal with canonical respites and refuges from these things, but I would love fic that explores how dark and bizarre and suffocating this play's psychological landscape is.

Revenger's Tragedy (Middleton) - This one is also balls-out grim Jacobean tragedy, so much the same stuff applies as in the above. Obsession, betrayal, manipulation, untrammeled destructive lusts, poison-smeared skulls wearing people clothes, and in general all that good stuff.

The King Of Shreds And Patches - Canon cosmic horror ahoy! I requested fic about two characters who we only encounter in-game after their encounters with the King in Yellow have totally fucked them over, and there's ample opportunity for fic exploring their pre-canon experiences of creeping horror, slow discovery, and off-kilter thinking getting worse and worse.This doesn't have to be fatal, and I would love fic where Moore, Croft, and/or Marlowe manage to claw their way out of what the play's effects are dragging them down into, but the conspiracy aspects and the loss of self/encroaching of something else, either in oneself or observed in someone else, are very interesting to me.

Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) - This movie is so cozy for a flick about old-ass vampires, but I would absolutely be down for darkfic about it and more of Adam and Eve being genuinely scary. Vampires in the midst of plague outbreaks or watching artists and writers they admire die of tuberculosis, codependent weirdos through the ages, times when Adam and Eve haven't been nearly so benign or restrained (tranquil vampire queen with her horrifyingly loyal pet, much?), outside characters trying to figure out what the hell is up with these two strangers and learning more than they ever should have known, Ian getting dragged into something that's way over his head... yeah.

Wanted tropes: Claustrophobia; corruption; guilt; doubt of one's own senses; cosmic horror mindfucks; uncomfortable interpersonal closeness; PTSD and trauma (though I am especially interested in characters living with trauma rather than being broken beyond repair); invasion of personal boundaries, actively malignant environments/objects; altered states and perceptions, ghosts (more in the gothic horror vein than modern paranormal horror); isolation; subtly 'off' behavior or appearances; psychological horror; characters growing detached from humanity/normal-for-them emotions and behaviors; alien mindsets; people keeping dead bodies (or parts of them) around as keepsakes or for old times' sake; characters or beings mindfucking other people unconsciously or by accident.

Unwanted tropes: Graphic animal harm; brainwashing of children or grooming for sexual abuse; eating disorders; habitual self-harm; medical experimentation; apocalypses or post-apocalyptic stuff. (Fandom-specifically, I would rather not read the Duchess reciprocating Ferdinand's feelings in DoM or the Duchess being physically tortured.)