Little Black Dress - Madness
May. 17th, 2020 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aurillyThings I Always Love
• Devoted Odd Couples: enjoying one another's company; laughing at one another; fond exasperation; friends to lovers; reunions
• Adventures: fish out of water; exploring new territory; complementary skill sets; badassery; laughing in the face of danger or absurdity
• Not Originally Sexual Bondage: I prefer restraint when it, at least initially, occurs for plot reasons. A ties B to the bed for sexy fun? Not my thing. A ties B to the bed to keep B from hurting himself while possessed? Yes! Whether or not it then turns sexy in the story (it certainly can!), it's already sexy to me.
• Hurt/Comfort: stoic character trying to joke their way through pain; shame about desires or how badly they want it; comforter is hiding their own hurt; bedside vigils; patching up loved one's wounds; helping one another through an awful ordeal; fainting; "I thought you were dead!"
• Loyalty & Self-Sacrifice : jumping in front of a bullet; sacrificing career, safety, reputation or happiness for loved one (but it turns out okay in the end!); trying to keep sacrifice or hurt secret from loved one, either out of shame or because A doesn't want B to feel beholden/guilty or because A doesn’t want B to know the extent of A's feelings; B finding out anyway
• Sexy Times: I have no top/bottom preferences in m/m. This letter is so long, so I left general porn likes HERE; they're applicable to any ship, not just the ones there. There's a more detailed version HERE (but the first one is enough, don't worry).
Do Not Wants
*These are the same as in my signup, but with a little more explanation on some. The category headers and organization don't mean much; I'm just trying to loosely group to reduce scrolling.
• Death & Endings: permanent death of requested characters; afterlives; bleak endings; as-if-it-never-happened erasure endings (ex. "it was all a dream" or events of fic are permanently mind-wiped away)
• Sex-Related: D/s dynamics; underage/overage sex or romance
• Headcanons: characters written as ace, aro, or demi; gender identity headcanons
• Ship-Related: non-canon romantic ships, unless prompted; shovel talks; adultery**; yentas and matchmakers; fated love; dark dynamics within requested ships; age differences of 10+ years within requested ships
• Writing-Related: 1st & 2nd person POV (exception for Bertie); phonetically spelled dialogue
• Other: fusions; setting change AUs; goofy crack
**Re: adultery: Please pretend any conflicting canon pairings broke up before the fic started, were canonically killed off, or were never a thing at all. It doesn’t count as adultery to me if someone has every reason to think their old lover is dead or never coming back.
Avengers - Bucky
• Fandom: Avengers movies
• Requested Character: Bucky Barnes
• Relationship Type: M/F
• Character DNWs: Peggy, Natasha, Darcy, Sharon, the waitress on the news at the end of Avengers 1
**Darcy and Sharon shouldn't actually be eligible, since they didn't appear in any of the "Avengers" movies, but I'm DNWing them just to be safe.
Bucky! I ship him with most of the protagonists. I like stories about Bucky building a new life through adventures and/or helping people--not ones where he's brainwashed or pathetic for most of it. Or does the woman you pair him with give him comfort and/or tough love and/or a project to work on? Basically, I’d like something that shows off how great they both are.
I love stories about Bucky’s life in Wakanda. I love stories where Bucky recovered post-TWS in a different place or way than in canon. I love canon divergences in which Bucky escaped from Hydra in some wholly other way; no TWS movie happening. I love stories about Bucky going to space--at any canon divergent point in his journey--or meeting Asgardians all the way back in WWII or something. I love stories that pretend different sets of people were snapped/survived after Infinity War, where Bucky lived and hung out with unexpected people. I love stories that pretend there wasn’t any CW drama and that governments pardoned him, allowing Bucky to be an Avenger. So… I’m open to anything in the canon-ish setting!
Steve is welcome as Bucky’s background friend, but I really want the focus on Bucky/some nice lady. My main desire in Bucky fic is always for him to make new friends (or find lovers) and build a new life of his own; with people and concerns other than Steve’s closest (Earth) friends. That’s why, even though I adore them, I DNWed Natasha and Peggy, and it’s why I’d prefer a fic that doesn’t use Sam as Bucky’s background friend.
I have a pet peeve about fics where Bucky (and Steve) say "ain't" and sound like characters from a 1930s gangster movie. I'd like them to sound like they do in canon, where they speak as 'correctly' as, say, Howard or Bruce do. Cursing is fine, though.
Some additional opt-ins:
• MCU Dudes: Heimdall
• Game of Thrones: Daenerys, Missandei,
• Au Service de la France: André Merlaux (only if set in the early 1960s, please)
• The Magicians (TV): Eliot, Margo, Quentin (this fandom is an exception to my poly DNW, in that I will take any possibly combination of these characters; please note that I have not watched S5)
Wodehouse: Bertie Wooster
• Fandom: Wodehouse - Jeeves
• Requested Character: Bertie Wooster
• Relationship Type: M/M
• Character DNWs: Jeeves, Spode, Sir Roderick Glossop, Tom Travers, Seppings
Bertie is the MOST precious character in my roster of faves. I love his earnestness, his generous heart, his proactivity constantly undone by haplessness, his loyalty to his friends, his sense of humor, everything about him. My favorite parts of these stories are the sections focused on my beloved Bertie with his pals. I love watching them try to deal with various problems--girls they don’t want, aunts, temperamental chefs, etc, on their own. I love friends-to-lovers ships the most. I ship Bertie with any of the other posh young men he’s friends with from Eton, Oxford, NYC, Drones Club, country house visits, etc. There are too many of them to count!
Do Bertie and this guy meet during a country house visit or Boat Race weekend? Or do they reunite there? Is this the first time something happens between them, or is it a getting-back-together story? Or does it take place in London/at the Drones club? Or in New York (I love the NYC setting)? Or a ship? I love a 1930s ocean liner romance/adventure. Or is it a flashback to school or university days? Or did romance blossom during an episode Bertie often mentions but which we never saw (ex. Pongo Twistleton’s birthday party, the time he wrote the article for ‘Milady’s Boudoir’)?
I’ll take anything! I love fic that feels like a Wodehouse plot, but I also love slice of life fic, or fic that adds magic or something else bonkers to Wodehouse’s world. If you want to write 1st person Bertie POV, great. However, I’ll be just as happy with 3rd person POV (the love interest’s, or omniscient, etc.); I've always wanted to read someone else's take on Bertie and his world. You can include a (gen) Jeeves cameo if you want, but I'll be 100% happy if you don't. If Jeeves does appear, please do not have him interfere with the romance, neither as matchmaker nor breaker-upper.
Lost: Sayid
• Fandom: Lost
• Requested Character: Sayid Jarrah
• Relationship Type: M/F
• Character DNWs: Nadia, Ana Lucia, Ilana, Cassidy, Eloise
This will always be my most favorite show. I love the characters, the setting, the action/adventure, the humor, the hugs. I love the theme of characters getting over their baggage via self-help and forced proximity friendships/romances. I love how exuberantly bonkers it was, and how the characters mostly rolled with whatever happened.
Sayid in particular gave me such intense feelings throughout. His giant sad eyes! His pragmatism was such a refreshing counterpart to the science vs faith debates. The way he quietly and unshowily took care of people and situations. His self-sacrificial tendencies. His sexy murder moves. Those moments where he seemed happy and at ease (I wanted him to have more of those moments!)! His old-fashioned gentlemanliness and shyly straightforward wooing. Swoon!
My big thing with Sayid is the arc about how, no matter how wonderful Nadia was as a person, his ‘love’ for her was largely an unhealthy, confused, self-guilt-trip. She symbolized the baggage that was holding him back from being his best self. The narrative was explicitly clear on this, starting from his first centric episode. I always want him to achieve that character arc of letting the memory/idea of her go, moving on, and finding happiness with someone else!
I absolutely adore canon divergences that explore what characters experiencing a time period/setting that they weren't canonically in. For example, what if Sayid (and possibly someone else, too) had been one of the Left-Behinders who spent the three years within the Dharma, either as a replacement(s) for canon Left-Behinders or as additions? Or was Sayid (and possibly also someone else) one of the people who escaped in the finale--again, either as a replacement or addition? Or on the island with Hurley after the finale? Or stuck in the woods for the three years with Claire (or swap Claire out for someone else to be stranded with Sayid)? Or, what if someone who wasn't one of the Oceanic 6 had made it off as well (either as a replacement, or to make it the Oceanic 7)? I'm not interested in the actual divergence that placed the character(s) in that setting; for example, I'd prefer a story that starts a few weeks or months into the diverged Oceanic 6 time period, handwaving the changes to the S4 finale that caused it.
You could also write a divergence where Sayid gets together with someone during the on-island parts S1-S4! Per my general DNWs, the sideways universe played canonically is a massive nope for me. However, I do like the idea of fic that pretends it was a regular, real-life AU that continued; no church scene. Other than the sideways played straight, the only kind of fic I’d be less excited about is a story that takes place entirely during the pre-island flashbacks. Oh, and if you want to pretend the entire zombie!Sayid storyline never happened, that would be great.
Narnia: Edmund
• Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
• Requested Character: Edmund Pevensie
• Relationship Type: M/F, M/M
• Character DNWs: Peter, Susan, White Witch, Miraz, the Tisroc
Edmund was my very first ‘favorite character’, and Narnia's worldbuilding elements formed most of my narrative interests. I love everyone's competency, earnestness, and courage when it counts, but also their flaws, fears, and ill tempers. He’s such a competent badass, blending seriousness and jolliness. I swoon every time I reread Horse and His Boy. I love the moments where he reflects on how awful he used to be (without being OTT angsty about it), and how having had that experience affects the decisions he makes and the ways he treats people later on. I love most of all that being redeemed into a just warrior king didn’t entirely cure Edmund of being a cranky, sarcastic little shit.
I tend to ship Edmund with other ‘nice’, attractive people within a 15 year age range. However, as long as the person is good-looking (I’m shallow, okay?) and Edmund comes out on top, I’d be also down for something kind of messed up (ex. a Rabadash or Green Kirtle sort of thing). I don’t want underage/overage or human/animal ships (half-animals like centaurs count as ‘animal’ enough that they fall within the DNW). FYI, the DNWed characters are totally welcome to make cameos! I like Peter and Susan fine as part of the foursome; I just wanted a focus on other characters. It wasn’t a way to DNW incest (actually, Lucy is the one exception to my poly DNW; feel free to add her to any Edmund pairing).
Given how weird time is between our world and Narnia, I do not care about concepts of timelines. Go ahead and break them! For example, I would totally roll with a story that pretended that grown-up again Edmund got his hands on the rings and went back to Narnia during Rilian's reign. Stuff like that. Or maybe someone from Narnia visited England (again, without respect to canon timelines).
I love slice of life in Narnia. I love adventures and quests. I love ridiculous tropes. Pagan rituals? Wild Bacchanales where Edmund hooks up with someone? Canon divergence where Caspian didn’t win, and everyone was stuck as slaves on the Lone Islands? What if Edmund and Lucy had gotten to explore the sea kingdom in the Last Sea and met someone there? Or was required to stay on Ramandu’s island in order for the ship to go on? What if Edmund had been sent to rescue Rilian instead of Jill and Eustace? What if Edmund and someone else had gone adventuring with the rings instead of dying? Vacations in Archenland? As an exception to my “nice people” preferences, what if Rabadash actually all repressed and messed up about how hot he was for Edmund, and took it out in destructive ways? I will take any ship you want to write!
The end of Narnia, train crash, and afterlife are my biggest DNWs. Please let it be clear that everyone in TLB will get to live out their lives. I don't really want a “fix-it” (i.e. a fic focused on how their canon death was averted that day). I prefer to set the fic before that, or start it after they handwavily didn’t die--explanations for the divergence neither needed nor desired! Separately, I'm not at all invested in the religious allegory elements.
If you’re setting it when he’s still a kid, please keep it to kisses and cuddles. However, hot and heavy when he’s 16+ would be great! I don't know how old everyone was supposed to be at various points, so if you want to say Edmund was 16+ during VoDT and hooked up with an adult then, that's cool (I feel like “adulthood” starts earlier in Narnia, so big age differences don’t feel as weird to me as they would in our world). Otherwise, something set during the Golden Age when he's an adult, or when he’s grown-up again in a canon divergence where Narnia continued/the Friends of Narnia didn't die would be perfect.
• Devoted Odd Couples: enjoying one another's company; laughing at one another; fond exasperation; friends to lovers; reunions
• Adventures: fish out of water; exploring new territory; complementary skill sets; badassery; laughing in the face of danger or absurdity
• Not Originally Sexual Bondage: I prefer restraint when it, at least initially, occurs for plot reasons. A ties B to the bed for sexy fun? Not my thing. A ties B to the bed to keep B from hurting himself while possessed? Yes! Whether or not it then turns sexy in the story (it certainly can!), it's already sexy to me.
• Hurt/Comfort: stoic character trying to joke their way through pain; shame about desires or how badly they want it; comforter is hiding their own hurt; bedside vigils; patching up loved one's wounds; helping one another through an awful ordeal; fainting; "I thought you were dead!"
• Loyalty & Self-Sacrifice : jumping in front of a bullet; sacrificing career, safety, reputation or happiness for loved one (but it turns out okay in the end!); trying to keep sacrifice or hurt secret from loved one, either out of shame or because A doesn't want B to feel beholden/guilty or because A doesn’t want B to know the extent of A's feelings; B finding out anyway
• Sexy Times: I have no top/bottom preferences in m/m. This letter is so long, so I left general porn likes HERE; they're applicable to any ship, not just the ones there. There's a more detailed version HERE (but the first one is enough, don't worry).
Do Not Wants
*These are the same as in my signup, but with a little more explanation on some. The category headers and organization don't mean much; I'm just trying to loosely group to reduce scrolling.
• Death & Endings: permanent death of requested characters; afterlives; bleak endings; as-if-it-never-happened erasure endings (ex. "it was all a dream" or events of fic are permanently mind-wiped away)
• Sex-Related: D/s dynamics; underage/overage sex or romance
• Headcanons: characters written as ace, aro, or demi; gender identity headcanons
• Ship-Related: non-canon romantic ships, unless prompted; shovel talks; adultery**; yentas and matchmakers; fated love; dark dynamics within requested ships; age differences of 10+ years within requested ships
• Writing-Related: 1st & 2nd person POV (exception for Bertie); phonetically spelled dialogue
• Other: fusions; setting change AUs; goofy crack
**Re: adultery: Please pretend any conflicting canon pairings broke up before the fic started, were canonically killed off, or were never a thing at all. It doesn’t count as adultery to me if someone has every reason to think their old lover is dead or never coming back.
Avengers - Bucky
• Fandom: Avengers movies
• Requested Character: Bucky Barnes
• Relationship Type: M/F
• Character DNWs: Peggy, Natasha, Darcy, Sharon, the waitress on the news at the end of Avengers 1
**Darcy and Sharon shouldn't actually be eligible, since they didn't appear in any of the "Avengers" movies, but I'm DNWing them just to be safe.
Bucky! I ship him with most of the protagonists. I like stories about Bucky building a new life through adventures and/or helping people--not ones where he's brainwashed or pathetic for most of it. Or does the woman you pair him with give him comfort and/or tough love and/or a project to work on? Basically, I’d like something that shows off how great they both are.
I love stories about Bucky’s life in Wakanda. I love stories where Bucky recovered post-TWS in a different place or way than in canon. I love canon divergences in which Bucky escaped from Hydra in some wholly other way; no TWS movie happening. I love stories about Bucky going to space--at any canon divergent point in his journey--or meeting Asgardians all the way back in WWII or something. I love stories that pretend different sets of people were snapped/survived after Infinity War, where Bucky lived and hung out with unexpected people. I love stories that pretend there wasn’t any CW drama and that governments pardoned him, allowing Bucky to be an Avenger. So… I’m open to anything in the canon-ish setting!
Steve is welcome as Bucky’s background friend, but I really want the focus on Bucky/some nice lady. My main desire in Bucky fic is always for him to make new friends (or find lovers) and build a new life of his own; with people and concerns other than Steve’s closest (Earth) friends. That’s why, even though I adore them, I DNWed Natasha and Peggy, and it’s why I’d prefer a fic that doesn’t use Sam as Bucky’s background friend.
I have a pet peeve about fics where Bucky (and Steve) say "ain't" and sound like characters from a 1930s gangster movie. I'd like them to sound like they do in canon, where they speak as 'correctly' as, say, Howard or Bruce do. Cursing is fine, though.
Some additional opt-ins:
• MCU Dudes: Heimdall
• Game of Thrones: Daenerys, Missandei,
• Au Service de la France: André Merlaux (only if set in the early 1960s, please)
• The Magicians (TV): Eliot, Margo, Quentin (this fandom is an exception to my poly DNW, in that I will take any possibly combination of these characters; please note that I have not watched S5)
Wodehouse: Bertie Wooster
• Fandom: Wodehouse - Jeeves
• Requested Character: Bertie Wooster
• Relationship Type: M/M
• Character DNWs: Jeeves, Spode, Sir Roderick Glossop, Tom Travers, Seppings
Bertie is the MOST precious character in my roster of faves. I love his earnestness, his generous heart, his proactivity constantly undone by haplessness, his loyalty to his friends, his sense of humor, everything about him. My favorite parts of these stories are the sections focused on my beloved Bertie with his pals. I love watching them try to deal with various problems--girls they don’t want, aunts, temperamental chefs, etc, on their own. I love friends-to-lovers ships the most. I ship Bertie with any of the other posh young men he’s friends with from Eton, Oxford, NYC, Drones Club, country house visits, etc. There are too many of them to count!
Do Bertie and this guy meet during a country house visit or Boat Race weekend? Or do they reunite there? Is this the first time something happens between them, or is it a getting-back-together story? Or does it take place in London/at the Drones club? Or in New York (I love the NYC setting)? Or a ship? I love a 1930s ocean liner romance/adventure. Or is it a flashback to school or university days? Or did romance blossom during an episode Bertie often mentions but which we never saw (ex. Pongo Twistleton’s birthday party, the time he wrote the article for ‘Milady’s Boudoir’)?
I’ll take anything! I love fic that feels like a Wodehouse plot, but I also love slice of life fic, or fic that adds magic or something else bonkers to Wodehouse’s world. If you want to write 1st person Bertie POV, great. However, I’ll be just as happy with 3rd person POV (the love interest’s, or omniscient, etc.); I've always wanted to read someone else's take on Bertie and his world. You can include a (gen) Jeeves cameo if you want, but I'll be 100% happy if you don't. If Jeeves does appear, please do not have him interfere with the romance, neither as matchmaker nor breaker-upper.
Lost: Sayid
• Fandom: Lost
• Requested Character: Sayid Jarrah
• Relationship Type: M/F
• Character DNWs: Nadia, Ana Lucia, Ilana, Cassidy, Eloise
This will always be my most favorite show. I love the characters, the setting, the action/adventure, the humor, the hugs. I love the theme of characters getting over their baggage via self-help and forced proximity friendships/romances. I love how exuberantly bonkers it was, and how the characters mostly rolled with whatever happened.
Sayid in particular gave me such intense feelings throughout. His giant sad eyes! His pragmatism was such a refreshing counterpart to the science vs faith debates. The way he quietly and unshowily took care of people and situations. His self-sacrificial tendencies. His sexy murder moves. Those moments where he seemed happy and at ease (I wanted him to have more of those moments!)! His old-fashioned gentlemanliness and shyly straightforward wooing. Swoon!
My big thing with Sayid is the arc about how, no matter how wonderful Nadia was as a person, his ‘love’ for her was largely an unhealthy, confused, self-guilt-trip. She symbolized the baggage that was holding him back from being his best self. The narrative was explicitly clear on this, starting from his first centric episode. I always want him to achieve that character arc of letting the memory/idea of her go, moving on, and finding happiness with someone else!
I absolutely adore canon divergences that explore what characters experiencing a time period/setting that they weren't canonically in. For example, what if Sayid (and possibly someone else, too) had been one of the Left-Behinders who spent the three years within the Dharma, either as a replacement(s) for canon Left-Behinders or as additions? Or was Sayid (and possibly also someone else) one of the people who escaped in the finale--again, either as a replacement or addition? Or on the island with Hurley after the finale? Or stuck in the woods for the three years with Claire (or swap Claire out for someone else to be stranded with Sayid)? Or, what if someone who wasn't one of the Oceanic 6 had made it off as well (either as a replacement, or to make it the Oceanic 7)? I'm not interested in the actual divergence that placed the character(s) in that setting; for example, I'd prefer a story that starts a few weeks or months into the diverged Oceanic 6 time period, handwaving the changes to the S4 finale that caused it.
You could also write a divergence where Sayid gets together with someone during the on-island parts S1-S4! Per my general DNWs, the sideways universe played canonically is a massive nope for me. However, I do like the idea of fic that pretends it was a regular, real-life AU that continued; no church scene. Other than the sideways played straight, the only kind of fic I’d be less excited about is a story that takes place entirely during the pre-island flashbacks. Oh, and if you want to pretend the entire zombie!Sayid storyline never happened, that would be great.
Narnia: Edmund
• Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
• Requested Character: Edmund Pevensie
• Relationship Type: M/F, M/M
• Character DNWs: Peter, Susan, White Witch, Miraz, the Tisroc
Edmund was my very first ‘favorite character’, and Narnia's worldbuilding elements formed most of my narrative interests. I love everyone's competency, earnestness, and courage when it counts, but also their flaws, fears, and ill tempers. He’s such a competent badass, blending seriousness and jolliness. I swoon every time I reread Horse and His Boy. I love the moments where he reflects on how awful he used to be (without being OTT angsty about it), and how having had that experience affects the decisions he makes and the ways he treats people later on. I love most of all that being redeemed into a just warrior king didn’t entirely cure Edmund of being a cranky, sarcastic little shit.
I tend to ship Edmund with other ‘nice’, attractive people within a 15 year age range. However, as long as the person is good-looking (I’m shallow, okay?) and Edmund comes out on top, I’d be also down for something kind of messed up (ex. a Rabadash or Green Kirtle sort of thing). I don’t want underage/overage or human/animal ships (half-animals like centaurs count as ‘animal’ enough that they fall within the DNW). FYI, the DNWed characters are totally welcome to make cameos! I like Peter and Susan fine as part of the foursome; I just wanted a focus on other characters. It wasn’t a way to DNW incest (actually, Lucy is the one exception to my poly DNW; feel free to add her to any Edmund pairing).
Given how weird time is between our world and Narnia, I do not care about concepts of timelines. Go ahead and break them! For example, I would totally roll with a story that pretended that grown-up again Edmund got his hands on the rings and went back to Narnia during Rilian's reign. Stuff like that. Or maybe someone from Narnia visited England (again, without respect to canon timelines).
I love slice of life in Narnia. I love adventures and quests. I love ridiculous tropes. Pagan rituals? Wild Bacchanales where Edmund hooks up with someone? Canon divergence where Caspian didn’t win, and everyone was stuck as slaves on the Lone Islands? What if Edmund and Lucy had gotten to explore the sea kingdom in the Last Sea and met someone there? Or was required to stay on Ramandu’s island in order for the ship to go on? What if Edmund had been sent to rescue Rilian instead of Jill and Eustace? What if Edmund and someone else had gone adventuring with the rings instead of dying? Vacations in Archenland? As an exception to my “nice people” preferences, what if Rabadash actually all repressed and messed up about how hot he was for Edmund, and took it out in destructive ways? I will take any ship you want to write!
The end of Narnia, train crash, and afterlife are my biggest DNWs. Please let it be clear that everyone in TLB will get to live out their lives. I don't really want a “fix-it” (i.e. a fic focused on how their canon death was averted that day). I prefer to set the fic before that, or start it after they handwavily didn’t die--explanations for the divergence neither needed nor desired! Separately, I'm not at all invested in the religious allegory elements.
If you’re setting it when he’s still a kid, please keep it to kisses and cuddles. However, hot and heavy when he’s 16+ would be great! I don't know how old everyone was supposed to be at various points, so if you want to say Edmund was 16+ during VoDT and hooked up with an adult then, that's cool (I feel like “adulthood” starts earlier in Narnia, so big age differences don’t feel as weird to me as they would in our world). Otherwise, something set during the Golden Age when he's an adult, or when he’s grown-up again in a canon divergence where Narnia continued/the Friends of Narnia didn't die would be perfect.