I hope you find something that inspires you in this letter. If you enjoy rolling with a blank slate method for gift creation, please feel free to take my DNWs and general likes from my AO3 signup and throw everything else out! All of the prompts & likes that are provided in this letter are meant to give you a jumping off point if you’d like one. Otherwise, I’m excited to see what inspires you about these fandoms & ships. :D
The medium spotlights are opt-ins that I have a lot to say about--with likes, and ideas, and tutorial links if those are of interest to you. They aren’t the only mediums I’m requesting. As always, I’m incredibly excited to receive fanfic for everything I’ve requested. Aside from my medium spotlights, I have a smattering of requests for fanart, comics, costume design, interactive fic, location interior design, stained glass sequences, tarot cards, triple drabbles, alliterative long line poetry and narrative poetry. All of my medium opt-ins can be found in the left-hand column of each fandom request. (Note: If you’re on mobile, medium opt-ins will be found before the prompts.)
Good luck & happy creating!
TK Kryptontease :: Ao3 signup link (TBA when signups close)
General Likes
+ Shenanigans. I love when characters have bright ideas and then get up to No Good. I am thrilled to read about the fallout of these shenanigans. Please give me as wild a shenanigan as you want to go. Second-hand embarrassment is amazing. I love the feeling of reading through my fingers, or gently saying "oh no" when characters make Very Bad decisions.
+ Slow (Emotional) Burns. Characters taking a while to learn/figure out that someone else also likes them in my jam. This in no way precludes characters from having sex. In fact, I love characters who have sex--repeatedly!--and then have the emotional awareness to genuinely wonder, “do you think they could possibly like me back?”
+ Canons, but with sex. If I request a ship in a canon, I am 100% down to read a version of that canon’s missions, adventures, cases, or problems...but also with sex.
+ First times. Get-Togethers. For requested ships, I love when I get to see characters fall in love, or tumble into bed for the first time, or experience that first moment that makes them seek each other out. I am far more excited about get-togethers than established relationship fics.
+ Original Works that are plotty. I really enjoy when original works come with a heaping side of whatever kind of problem you want to throw at the ship or character.
+ Case fic (or mission fic). If you’re interested, you could write mysteries for any of the requests in this letter. I love mysteries so much. From the simple-to-solve rather mundane cases (“who ate the last of the cheese?”) to the conspiracy-spanning ones (“unicorns are actually a plot to invade this reality.”)
+ I consider everything on this list extremely optional. If you're interested in writing smut for the pairings I've requested, please feel free to write what you think works best. As long as you avoid my DNWs, I will be interested. If you'd prefer just to write a kiss and then a fade-to-black, or a curtain falls, I'm very okay with that too. Most of the pairings I've requested are incredibly rare. I'd be thrilled just to read a fic where they share the same air and maybe look at each other. If you'd like some guidance on what I enjoy, please read on!
+ A variety of different sex acts. Frottage, Intercrural, Blowjobs, Handjobs, Fingering, Rimming, Anal Sex. Masturbation. Mutual Masturbation.
+ Kinks that play with the border between fear & desire. Fights that become fucking. Characters that are trying to kill each other… and decide to resolve their differences by fucking instead. Anonymous sex. Identity play. Under negotiated Kink. Kink that isn’t safe or sane.
+ Orgasm Denial. Edging. Ruined Orgasms. Shitty, Awful Sex. Interrupted Sex. One character falling asleep after sex. Only one character getting off.
+ Dubious Consent. I enjoy dubcon where both requested characters are coerced by external events/people/situations like fuck-or-die, or precursors-made-them-do-it, etc. Sex where characters aren't into it at first, but are fully onboard by the end.
+ Voyeurism. Sex in Semi-Public Places. One half of a ship watching the other with a third party, or by themselves.
+ sexual situations involving anyone younger than 16.
+ ageplay or infantilization
+ bodily-fluid based mentions. Small mentions of spit, sweat and come are okay.
+ mpreg, pregnancy, or Omegaverse.
+ genderswaps or gender changes to requested characters.
+ noncon.
+ fic that mainly focuses on characters' encounters with prejudice. This includes fic that is mainly about characters experiencing or reacting to bi-, homo-, ace- or transphobia; racism, sexism, misogyny, etc.
+ Monument Valley-Specific DNWs: Gore, sexual content, Monument Valley 2 spoilers
+ Art Sqool-Specific DNWs: Professor/Student relationships; Failing Out of Art Sqool
+ Eternal Home Floristry-Specific DNWs: AUs without flower arranging; non-canonical character death
+ The Kiss-Specific DNWs: Animal Harm
+ Assassin’s Creed-Specific DNWs: AUs where Bayek or Desmond (or other canonical assassins) aren’t Assassins. Canonical fluid-based, noncon, and mpreg incidents with Set are exempt from my general DNWs.
+ Ancient Greek Religion & Lore-Specific DNWs: For this fandom, I have only two DNWs: Teucer dying & sexual situations involving anyone younger than 16. Otherwise, none of my other general DNWs apply. Go wild!
+ Princess and the Pony-Specific DNWs: Sexual content, requested Characters Dying, downer endings
+ Original Work Ships-Specific DNWs: sad/unhappy endings; requested character death; crossovers with other pairings or canons; original characters named Matt or Matthew; miscommunication plots leading to accusations of cheating/infidelity/breakups between requested characters
+ Original Work Solo Character-Specific DNWs: Gore, sexual content, requested character death; Original Characters being named Matt or Matthew.
Space-defying optical illusions in a lush isometric world
General Likes
sacred geometry • puzzles • slice-of-life descriptions & illustrations • gentle sunsets • voxel/hexel/isometric descriptions & artwork • characters sitting on totems • levels that feature rain & stormy seas • phases of the moon • Ida’s journey for forgiveness
Monument Valley-Specific DNWs
Gore, sexual content, Monument Valley 2 spoilers
Prompts • • •
+ Using the level titles as jumping-off points for a story. "In which Ida embarks on a quest for forgiveness" is one of my favorites. Once Ida decides to embark on the quest for forgiveness, she goes at it pretty hard. What is driving her towards her goal? Who does she need forgiveness from? The storyteller? The crows? Herself? Someone else?
+ "How far have you wandered, silent princess?" What has Princess Ida been doing for all of the years that she has been punished for stealing the sacred geometry? Why did she steal the sacred geometry from Monument Valley in the first place? Was there something she wished to achieve with it? Any amount of pre-canon speculation that you'd like to do is wonderful. Was Princess Ida using the Sacred Geometry to fight surreal battles that the Storyteller or the world-that-passed in Monument Valley wouldn't understand?
+ How do the level screens interact with the game? The level screens are these lovely intricate abstract buildings/temples. If you're interested in metafiction, or the way that game mechanics translate into the world of the game, I'd love to know more -- are these temples to the memory of Ida's journey that others (in-universe) can experience? Are the temples memories that Ida keeps locked inside of her? Are they physical places that Ida can visit in Monument Valley, before they send her to the space-defying puzzles?
+ What are the sacred geometry? Why did Ida need them so much that she stole them? Are the sacred geometry things, or are they sapient? Did they have any type of feelings about being stolen? Did they convince Ida to return them to the temples?
+ Post-canon stories! Stories from the perspective of the crows would be wonderful. The "thieving princess" chose to steal the sacred geometry, and the crows were punished with her crime. What was their perspective on Ida's quest for forgiveness? How do the crows feel now that Princess Ida has lifted the curse? Are they willing to welcome her back?
Art Likes • • •
+ Art that use text/typography in unusual ways. I also just dig the type design in the game itself. Incorporating that into a comic would be amazing.
+ Surreal or emotional journeys.
+ Abstract art.
+ New levels & Reinterpretations of canon levels. Have you ever wanted to try drawing your own Monument valley level? I'd love to see it! Do you think that one of the original levels would have been perfect with different colors? Or if a daytime level would look lovelier at night and vice-versa? GO FOR IT. I love the isometric space twisting of this game, and its haunting symmetry.
+ World maps. What does the Monument Valley look like from a bird’s eye view? Any style of map would be amazing. Isometric maps. Super Mario World pastiche maps. Explorer Maps. Allegorical Maps. Treasure Maps. An in-universe style map.
+ Characters staring into a beautiful sunset.
+ Color palettes from the game; limited color palettes.
+ Small character moments. Princess Ida dangling her feet off of a Totem? Princess Ida alone in the Hidden Temple?
+ Tarot or Oracle Card-inspired artworks. This is such a fun trend in Dragon Age: Inquisition art, and this would be RAD AS HELL here.
+ Artworks where you play around with time/space/viewer expectations. Where's Waldo, Monument Valley edition? I'm into it!
+ Title Screen or Level-Picker or Level Complete inspired art.
+ Art styles reminiscent of Land's End. I recently learned that the maker of MV created a VR game! Want to fuse these two together, please go wild!
Learn to Draw Good! Weep At Widly Inconsistent Grading Criteria! The Most Realistic Art School Simulator Available!
General Likes
1st, 2nd, or 3rd person POVs • non-binary pronouns for Froshmin • epistolary fic • unusual fic formats embedded in the narrative (like: reviews, recipes, wikipedia articles, etc) • art installations and shows • museums • mystery & case fic involving stolen artworks, forged artworks or stolen identities • worldbuilding • modern/contemporary art • over the top art criticism •
Art Sqool-Specific DNWs
Professor/Student relationships; Failing Out of Art Sqool
Prompts • • •
+ It's Froshmin's first day at Art Sqool! Where did Froshmin come from? What are they hoping to learn from art sqool? How hard is it to collect all of the tools and learn all of the skills? Is Froshmin challenged by Art Sqool? Did they think they were signing up for an Atelier-caliber school, where they'd draw nude models all day...instead of..... whatever this is?
+ Froshmin meets another student! Froshmin’s used to having the run of the Art Sqool campus. What will they do with the new student? Bond? Form a rivalry?
+ What’s a Sqool experience without supplies? How does Froshmin learn art without BOOKS? What kind of first year experience is it without having to struggle through a student bookstore, having to browse a bunch of weird textbooks, and trying to figure out ways not to buy them at full price. (If you have any definitive ideas about this, I’d love to see some Bookshelf Limbo style book previews for these fake texts!
+ Worldbuilding! What is the Art Sqool campus? Is it an actual place? An art dimension? An artificial intelligence-projected place? Is it THE MATRIX except with Art? Just where ARE the other students anyway? Does the school have its own pocket universes for each artist? Or is Froshmin the only student brave enough to enroll?
+ A Year-in-the-Life. Froshmin has struggled their way to complete their first year in this strange dimension's art curriculum. They’re nearing the end of the year, when it’s time for the End of Year Art Show. Will they get in? Will anyone else attend? Is the artwork actually any good??
+ If you have any ideas, I'm happy to read whatever you have to say about this game! Give me your best and hottest takes on being an art student. Does Froshmin rant about the unfairness of an AI grading their excellent artworks? Or does Froshmin just enjoy the freedom of Art Sqool?
+ Art Sqool, casefic style: is there a mystery to unravel in the strange pictogram level? Is someone trying to contact Froshmin, or warn them of the dangers that lurk in the clouds?
Art Likes • • •
+ The updated Art Sqool's gradient & sparkle background
+ Your best Art Sqool drawn masterpieces
+ The High-effort art you WISH you could submit for your assignments
+ Vapourwave aesthetics
+ Googly eyes on things that should not have googly eyes
+ MS Paint style artwork
+ Fancy portraits
+ Low-poly art
+ Hexel/voxel art
+ Geometric abstracts
+ Art that looks like it was inspired by a Solo Cup
+ Nudes and nude studies
+ Clashing art styles
+ Humorous takes on 19th c. odalisques or nude art models in art sqool’s style (inspiration)
A short game about the power of emotions and flower arranging
General Likes
Pixel art • one-room narratives/”bottle episodes” • slice-of-life descriptions & illustrations • flower arranging • inventing new flowers • creating a book of different arrangements & their “meanings” • sex pollen! • characters having feelings • Gordon getting in touch with his feelings about Sebastian
Eternal Home Floristry-Specific DNWs
AUs without flower arranging; non-canonical character death
Prompts • • •
+ Gordon realizes his feelings before it’s too late. I would love to see how Sebastian/Gordon would play out between these two very lonely individuals.
+ Gordon doesn’t realize his feelings in time. What kind of angsty nonsense would he get up to in the wake of his realization? What kind of all-night reddit posting disaster might he be? A Today I Fucked Up (TIFU) poster? A Relationship_Advice poster? Casual Conversation? Confession?
+ Canon Divergence! What if: Gordon found a new source of flowers. What if: Sebastian was just feeling old and creaky, but still has a lot of years left in him? What if: Gordon and Sebastian branch off a new store together, using their newfound powers combined to exert influence over the crime bosses in the city?
+ Sebastian actually gives us a tutorial about how to arrange flowers. The game never gives us that flower-arranging tutorial! I’d love to hear more about the art of flower arranging, or the meaning of flowers in the world of this game. I would adore hearing Sebastian speak about past arrangements, or to read his notes on different potential bouquets. Any in-universe documents (diaries, plant lists, botanical prints, polaroid snapshots + jotted down notes of bouquet names, flower dictionaries) would be wonderful!
+ Sex Pollen Flowers. Some of these bouquets are supposed to engender feelings of lust. Gimme all of the flower-smut you can imagine. :D Smut Likes include dubcon, fuck-or-die, frottage, clothed/unclothed, mutual masturbation, handjobs, blowjobs, voyeurism, touch starved characters, blindfolds and blind masks, edging/orgasm denial, body worship.
+ Interactive fics that let me explore more dialogue between Gordon and Sebastian or more of the world, or tries to recapture some of the magic of flower-arranging would be wonderful. Eternal Home Floristry is very short, so I’d love any kind of interactive fic that let me linger in this world for longer. It can be pre-, during, post- canon. Canon Divergence or Canon-Compliant IF would both be amazing.
Art Likes • • •
+ Art that use text/typography in unusual ways. I also just dig the lo-fi pixel type design in the game itself. Incorporating that into fanart or a book cover would be amazing.
+ Artwork that uses surreal imagery to depict emotional states.
+ E-rated art that includes one of my smut likes.
+ Bouquets & flower arrangements.
+ Terrariums! Anything that’s living but also in a glass container.
+ Old-timey seed packets. A wealth of vintage seed packets can be found on Pinterest.
+ Color palettes from the game; limited color palettes.
+ Small character moments. Sebastian and Gordon sharing tea together with the flowers. Or holding hands. :D
+ Botanical Illustrations. You can find a treasure trove of illustrations here. Some of my favorites can be found here.
+ New arranging mechanics & reinterpretations of canon.Want to redesign the flower arranging screen? Want to add more STUFF to it? Make it complicated? Make it less complicated? More flowers? Less flowers? TWO BOUQUETS ARRANGED AT ONCE? I’d love to see what you’d add to the canon mechanics! I'd also love to see arranging mechanics in an IF, where you have to arrange flowers via text choices!
Klimt pastiche • art nouveau • slice-of-life descriptions & illustrations • cat shenanigans • cats being embarrassed by their humans • abstract, surreal, and geometric art • art forgery & art heists • Cats living in a magical realism world where they can pretty much do whatever they want, talk if they want to, but they keep up the appearances around humans
The Kiss-Specific DNWs
Animal Harm
Prompts • • •
+ The Cat Acts Out To Get Kisses. I would love to see some Cat Shenanigans that are clearly aimed at earning the kisses they so clearly desire from their owner.
+ The Cat is getting punished with kisses. The cat takes care of the Man in Gold, keeps him company, makes sure his food isn’t poisoned, keeps his pillow warm (and his face too, when he’s asleep). And what does the cat get for his service? KISSES. Augh.
+ Casefic, but with cats! I love art forgery and art heists. Instead of taking this painting as the canon, what if it’s a forgery that’s found hanging one day in the Austrian Gallery Belvedere instead of Klimt’s real The Kiss? The art thief/forger is obviously begging to be caught! I’d love to read anything about this. (For example, is the cat in the painting the forger’s cat? How do they feel about being dragged into Art Crime?)
+ The Kiss is a self-portrait painted by the cat. Magical realism cat starts to paint portraits and leave them in the studio of their down-on-their-luck human! How does the “Man in Gold” react when he sees the painting? Does he attempt to sell it? Take credit for the artwork himself? I’d love anything about this, including the cat and the man in gold being duelling artists or art-world nemeses.
Art Likes • • •
+ Grumpy cats gettin’ smooches.
+ Klimt pastiches of all kinds!
+ Art that use text/typography in unusual ways.
+ Artwork that uses surreal imagery to depict emotional states.
+ Art Nouveau & Art Deco & Symbolist Styles and Paintings.
+ Shin Hanga-inspired scenes of domestic quietude.
+ Color palettes from the painting.
+ Gold. Gold foil. Gold leaf. Interference gold. Gold of all types. I love how this painting is dripping with it. Yellows, oranges, golds, are a favorite, especially when combined with violets & magentas!
+ A painting of a painter painting a painting! Go as meta as you’d like!
+ One of my fic prompts, but art..
+ What would this cat paint, anyway?I’d love to see a series of small paintings that the cat did. Or collections of things they found. Or what cat-sized art supplies would look like. Where would it have to hide its little studio?
Interactive Fic Likes • • •
+ Interactive fic about cat things!
+ Interactive fic about painting!
+ Outsmarting my enemies!
+ Time-loops.
+ Collecting paintings, or lost items around the house.
+ Cat painting simulators!
+ Cat vs. The Man In Gold. Will Cat be able to outsmart owner, and escape the punishment kisses?
Meeting people! Making friends! Murdering them! Or, Get Bayek A Boyfriend 2k20
General Likes
Adventure fic • thievery and heists • historical settings & details • time travel • precursor tech • religion vs. science • Bayek exploring temples unfathomably older than he is • deserts and oases • identity play & identity porn • solar deities and solar imagery • Set’s whole weird self • Egyptian architecture & art motifs
Assassin's Creed-Specific DNWs
AUs where Bayek or Desmond (or other canonical assassins) aren’t Assassins. Canonical fluid-based, noncon, and mpreg incidents with Set are exempt from my general DNWs.
General Prompts • • •
+ How come Bayek doesn’t react to any of the first civilization stuff? Whenever Bayek encounters a message from the Precursors at the Siwa Temple, he acts pretty dang chill for someone watching old technology doing its thing. I’d be interested in a fic that delves into why does Bayek finds it completely normal (he’s desensitized to its wonders due to his grief over his son; or he thinks the gods are communicating something to someone else) or why he doesn’t find it normal, but still remains low-key about it (he thinks the gods are trying to communicate to him and doesn’t care about it while he’s still clouded with vengeance?). I’d love to delve into his relationship with the Precursors. Maybe he does think of them, but only after he finds peace for his son?
+ Trapped in a Precursor Vault. As you might have gathered, I love Precursor stuff. The precursor vaults in AC: Ezio trilogy were fantastic, and would love to see more precursor vaults in Ancient Egypt. The ones that Bayek encountered didn’t seem to want anything from him, but what if he later found one of Juno or Minerva’s science experiments? Give me jumping puzzles! Give me all of the parkour in historical spaces!
+ Bayek has left Egypt and is traveling across the Mediterraean. I would love post-canon fic where Bayek shows up in Rome and gets caught up in further developments in Roman history.
+ The Solar Barque. Bayek dreams of fighting Apep the soul eater on an empty solar barque, that should have seated Ra and his defenders. Where were the gods? Have they abandoned their duties? Been killed? Been defeated by Apep? I would love to read a fic about this for just Bayek like it is in the game, or any of his nominated pairings. Does Bayek have to take up the fight against Apep again? Who might he meet while he’s in the Duat?
+ Time Travel. Desmond Miles, my perennial fave. I am constantly delighted by the prospect of him traveling through time while he’s trying to (or already has) saved the world. What if he ended up back in Siwa? He has, to my knowledge, no recollection of Ptolemaic Egypt. How well would he do if he was thrown into the past with no Animus knowledge to help him out? What would Bayek make of this stranger blundering into his home town? Would he think that he’s a Roman? Something else?
+ In-Universe Personal Documents. Papyri, pottery shards, wax tablets. Give me anything that you think these characters would write, record, steal from enemies (or tombs), keep (or discard). Coptic, Demotic, Hieratic, and Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics are all wonderful and welcome, if you want to use other languages/writing systems.
Ship-Specific Prompts • • • (click a ship to expand!)
+ Bayek/Desmond Miles. Something really funky has to go down to make this ship happen; thankfully, there’s ancient Precursor tech, gods of ancient egypt, the Apple of Eden, and the Eye all ready to make that happen. I’m so curious about how Bayek would take Desmond, who’s SO OBVIOUSLY out of time, and likely not even speaking any of the local languages.
I’m really excited to learn more about time travel and to see characters struggling with communication barriers, but if that isn’t your jam, feel free to completely handwave the time travel and/or communication issues as stuff that Precursor tech allowed to happen, and get on with the Feels.
Here are two men who’ve spent a great deal of their lives (or in Desmond’s case, borrowed life), exploring the consequences of vengeance. Neither of them thought their lifepath was going to be one in the shadows. I’d be really excited to read about these two characters connecting.
I would also COMPLETELY love tropey romance. That stuff is my lifeblood. Fake/pretend relationships, accidental soulbonding, AUs that make Bayek and Desmond a little more proximate to each other (but they’re still assassins), Pride and Prejudice (+Assassins) AUs...all of that would be amazing. Not to mention stuff like mistaken-for-a-god fic. Accidentally-became-a-god fic. Wingfic.
+ Bayek/Solar Deity. In AC:Origins, Bayek tracks a story of Apollo in the Halo of the Huntress, and an oracle gave a prophecy to Bayek… and this got me thinking. Who else was hot enough to be beloved of the Sun? The Eagle and the Sun are an iconic duo. Please go with the Solar deity of your choosing for this one! I am a fan of warriors falling for gods who aren’t from their pantheon, but I’m open to whatever ideas move you. Slow burn romances are good, but I’m also just into characters that set their sights on fucking the sun.
+ Bayek/Set. You know Set would hit that.
Although Set and Bayek never meet in the game, I've had a hankering to ship the god of disorder and storms with the force of chaos that Bayek becomes. Game lore claims that Set is an Isu revered as a god. You could keep that background if you wish, or you can go another direction. If you're receptive to the idea, I'm into the idea that the gods and the Isu are not one and the same. Gods that pre-date or post-date the Precursors adds a layer of complexity to the Assassin's Creed worldbuilding that would be amazing to explore. If worldbuilding isn't appealing to you, I'm also cool with handwaving this whole issue!
How would they meet? Bayek and Set have both ridden the Solar barque and fought Apep, the serpent that devours the sun. Does Bayek have to find Set to take up his old position on the barque? Does Bayek seek him out after his experience in the Duat? Or perhaps vice versa?
The Egyptian gods seem to be mostly absent from AC:O, when Bayek isn't having to fight them in the DLC. Has Set retired to the desert, faded in importance, by the time Bayek goes on his quest for revenge? I dig the idea of Set being a Weird Hermit in the desert, but I'm up for anything, here.
+ Bayek. Give me all of those canon feels. Character studies. Action-adventure fic. The Cat Petting Simulator aspect of AC:Origins. (Seriously, when you get into scritching position, you can attract SO MANY CATS.) I’m here for all of it!
And if you want to serve me up Bayek masturbating sadly in the desert. I will never say no to that. ♥
Art Likes • • •
+ Bayek smooching a grumpy cat. :D
+ Ancient Egyptian Art & Motifs. Ptolemaic Egyptian Art & Motifs.
+ Bayek in the Assassin’s hood.
+ Isu Armor! I love the facemask, the glowing bits, the everything about it.
+ Artwork that uses surreal imagery to depict emotional states.
+ If you’re into it, PLEASE GIVE BAYEK A CHOCOBO THAT LOOKS RIGHT. The chocobo from AC:Origins gives me nightmares. D:
+ Shin Hanga-inspired scenes of domestic quietude.
+ Art Nouveau & Art Deco & Symbolist Styles and Paintings.
+ Gold and black artworks. Gold foil. Gold leaf. Interference gold. Gold of all types. Yellows, oranges, golds, are a favorite, especially when combined with black and sometimes some accenting white or violets.
+ Right in Front of My Salad memes for Set. It’s What He DeservesTM.
+ Tarot card versions of requested characters, especially using imagery from the solar barque dream. Bayek holding his gold shining heart outside of his bloody body. I’M INTO IT.
+ One of my fic prompts, but art.
+ The Bookshelf Limbo style book previews are an especial treat for this fandom, since bound codices may or may not have been invented yet (and I'm not fussed by historical accuracy in the least)! I love the idea of finding Bayek books to help Deal With His Current Issues. I’d also be pleased to see Bayek browsing some really boss-looking scrolls. Something that would help him quiet his rage about his son? Something about grieving, loss, and recovery? Maybe some dating advice??? “The Murderer’s Guide To Getting Away With It” or “Tracking a Conspiracy: How To Find The People Who Screwed You Over.” Serious or cracky--whatever inspires you.
Poetry Likes • • •
+ Alliteration. I love alliterative long line poetry from middle English.
+ Homeric similes.
+ If you enjoy the challenge of writing in meter, I enjoy epic meter (dactylic hexameter).
+ However, neither alliterative, nor epic meter is strictly required if you want to tackle poetry for me. I'm open to a range of poetic forms, as long as they capture narrative movement of some sort!
+ If you'd like to get a sense of what kind of poetry I like, The Shield of Achilles by W.H. Auden is one of my favorite poems.
The War at Troy is a terrible place to discover love; it’s a much better place to discover dirtybadwrong sex.
General Likes
Homeric similes • The Battle at Troy • slice-of-life descriptions & illustrations • Red Figure Pottery • Badass Archery • Spoils of War • Competitions between the Acheans because you can’t always be fighting Troy • Teucer “canonical bastard” son of Telamon also being a bastard in the interpersonal sense too
Ancient Greek Religion & Lore-Specific DNWs
For this fandom, I have only two DNWs: Teucer dying & sexual situations involving anyone younger than 16. Otherwise, none of my other general DNWs apply. Go wild!
Prompts • • •
+ Teucer being a badass archer during the Trojan War. A fic that focuses on his exploits, or some really cool feat that he pulled off… whether canon or completely made up, I’d love either!
+ Teucer and Ajax, or Teucer and Odysseus, or Teucer and (insert your Iliad fave here) compete for a prize. A contest of strength versus skill to win a prize captured from Troy! I would love to have a series of events that are devised to go to the strongest, and then Teucer outsmarts his half-brother using Archery™.
+ Canon Divergence with a side-order of Major Character Death! What if: Ajax didn’t kill himself after he lost his mind and slaughtered the cattle? What if Agamemnon (or the Gods) tasked Teucer with killing his half-brother? BRING ON THE ANGST.
+ Teucer returning home after the Trojan War, only to be banished for his half-brother’s death. A fic that focuses on Teucer’s life after Troy would be amazing. How does he deal with his grief over Ajax’s death, when he’s blamed for it?
+ Ajax/Teucer First time(s). I would love to see a fanwork that tackles Ajax and Teucer only becoming close/intimate while they are fighting together at Troy. Teucer uses Ajax’s great shield as protection during battle, and the other fighters, when they’re in need, think of Ajax and Teucer as a unit. You can’t have one without the other.
+ Any shippy tropes you can think of! Healing cock. Soulbonds. Fake relationship(s). Heats. Time travel. Journeying to the afterlife to save your lover.
+ Any AU where Teucer is still an archer Seriously, as long as Teucer still shoots things with a bow, I’m golden.
+ Plot that is basically just porn setups! What if: Ajax got captured by Trojan soldiers who were outside of the city gates, and he was being held in a temple in a neighboring forest. Teucer having to come rescue him! Oh no, Ajax is blindfolded and tied up. What if Teucer decided to take advantage of this. I love masks, blindfolds, blind masks, bondage, identity play, deception, dubcon, and characters having sex under duress (that they come to enjoy as they are having it). I especially love it if Ajax is ashamed of/humiliated by his arousal. :D
+ Smut, as kinky as you’d like to go. Teucer’s had a close brush with death on the battlefield, and now Ajax is worked up. PWP is absolutely awesome. :D Smut likes: fight sex, rough sex, angry sex, destroying things during sex, anal sex, odd things being used as lube, frottage, handjobs, intercrural, all of the emotional baggage that Ancient Greek societies put on top/bottom roles, body worship, possessiveness, jealousy, Ajax attempting to humiliate Teucer for being a bastard, dirty talk, orgasm denial, impact play, knife play, breathplay/choking.
+ Sex Pollen, either dubcon or noncon. What doesn’t get fucked up when one of the Greek gods has a vendetta? Did Ajax accidentally violate a temple, or disrespect a god while he’s sacking Troy? Result: Ajax is sex pollen’d, and he’ll die if he doesn’t fuck someone. If you take this prompt in a noncon direction, I’d love the heck out of dubcon/noncon happening between Teucer and Ajax, rather than other characters.
Art Likes • • •
+ Red figure pottery. Black Figure Pottery is also rad!
+ Artwork that uses surreal imagery to depict emotional states.
+ E-rated art. Stylized pubic hair.
+ Tile mosaics.
+ Greek & Roman ornaments/border decorations.
+ Pillars! Crumbling or otherwise!
+ Kisses. Scenes of high emotion.
+ Hangin’ out with dick(s) out.
+ ARCHERY. Teucer with his bow. Teucer shooting his bow..
+ Teucer hiding behind Ajax’s shield during battle.
Interactive Fic Likes • • •
+ Time loops. Especially when combined with...
+ Canon-fix-its. Want to give me the chance to save Ajax’s life? Or just to suffer, as I watch unable to stop it? Yes and yes, please.
+ Letting me fight off hoards of dudes (in text) with a bow!
+ E-rated interactive fic. Want to let me choose how long to fuck like that? YEP I’M DOWN.
+ Extremely minimal to extremely florid & detailed prose.
+ Telamon’s judgment of Teucer is now a courtroom drama! Discover evidence! Present a defense! Make Telamon eat his words on the witness stand!
+ Exile(d) Adventures! Beseech the gods while wandering restlessly!
Kate Beaton’s Fat Pony Comics that inspired this book • adventures & quests • slice-of-life descriptions & illustrations • drawings & descriptions of rooms • Fat Pony’s shenanigans • Bleps • the cuddly side of being a Warrior • cozy sweaters • archery • Warrior Competitions • garbage-tier magical items • Fat Pony’s grunts being taken to mean a lot more than they do
Princess and the Pony-Specific DNWs
Requested characters dying, downer endings, sexual content
Prompts • • •
+ Post-canon warrior competition! After their showing at the first Warrior Competition, next year, everyone comes prepared with super-cute animals of their own. How can Fat Pony and Princess Pinecone compete against that?
+ Fat Pony & The Other Horses. The other horses in the stables are fabulous, and then there’s Fat Pony. I’d love to see a story about Fat Pony’s trevails with the other horses. Extra bonus points if a unicorn shows up to put them all to shame.
+ Fuse with Kate Beaton’s original Fat Pony comics! In Kate Beaton’s comics, Fat Pony has humiliated a Prince and become the head of a Crime Family. What if Princess Pinecone’s Fat Pony is on the lam? Does Princess Pinecone need to help Fat Pony stay safe from the mob? Take over the mob? Keep her village safe?
+ Oh no, an invasion! What will the Warriors do when they’re overrun by their nemeses? (Who are their nemeses? Warriors got to have them, right? Mercenaries, perhaps? Because they fight for money instead of glory?) Fat Pony is here to save the day!
+ A creative work inspired by The Lady and the Unicorn. A tarot card inspired by this? A typeface? A fic about The Fat Pony being a timeless being? Princess Pinecone taping a horn on Fat Pony and living their cosplay lives?
+ A sweater contest! This year, warriors are going to have to do some fibrecrafts to win. How will Princess Pinecone wow the other warriors at this competition?
+ Archery competition. Look, I really love archery. Princess Pinecone needs to prepare for an archery competition. Can Fat Pony help? Will Fat Pony do the opposite of help? Only time will tell! I love training montages, and would be thrilled to hear about (or see!) Princess Pinecone learn how to shoot & improve over time!
+ Any idea that you have for this canon. I need more Fat Pony content in my life.
+ Interactive fic would be rad for this fandom! I enjoy pure text adventures, and multimedia IF. Courtroom and casefic shenanigans are a favorite for IF, but I also like IF that allows me to explore or collect things in an inventory.
Art Likes • • •
+ Simple linework. I dig minimal, cartoony styles for Fat Pony!
+ Maps that follow Princess Pinecone’s or Fat Pony’s adventures.
+ Sweaters. Ugly sweaters. Cozy Sweaters. Christmas Sweaters. Fair Isle Sweaters. Sweaters for Pinecone. Sweaters for Fat Pony. That awkward time when they both wore the same sweater on the same day!
+ Pastiches of tapestry, knitting, or other fibrearts.
+ Historical Art Pastiches. Put Fat Pony and Princess Pinecone in there!
+ Visiting cool historical places. Castles! French Chateaux! Gothic Cathedrals!
+ Exploring ruins. Ancient walls. Crumbling pillars!Finding TREASURE in those ruins. Storerooms, treasure chests, and more.
+ Gems, jewels and jewelry. Fat pony in some JEWELRY. Princess Pinecone triumphantly raising the jewelry overhead like a PRIZE.
+ Tarot or Oracle Card-inspired artworks. This is such a fun trend in Dragon Age: Inquisition art, and this would be RAD AS HELL here.
+ ARCHERY. Princess Pinecone learning how to shoot. TRAINING MONTAGE!
+ Design a Coat of Arms for Princess Pinecone. FIERCE WARRIORS need fierce arms!
+ Draw or design a new room for Princess Pinecone. One that has more space for Fat Pony? One with a trophy shelf for her new WARRIOR TROPHY? Possibly with extra training room? Would also love to see designs of her house, Fat Pony's room (a stall in a stable? A small Fat-Pony only house out back? You decide!)
You challenge every expectation I had about the world...
General Likes
Adventures & quests • Slice-of-life descriptions & illustrations • Rivalries (professional, personal, and religious) • Identity play • Badass Archery • Enemies-to-lovers • Quick Sexual Intimacy contrasted with Slow Emotional Intimacy • Spoils of War • (friendly-ish) Competitions between characters • Solving Supernatural Crime • For characters with unspecified gender, any gender you'd like to make them is fine! • For ships with ambiguous genders, I prefer M/M, F/F, M/NB, F/NB, or NB/NB pairings, though I am open to all gender combinations ships!
Original Work Ships-Specific DNWs
sad/unhappy endings; requested character death; crossovers with other pairings or canons, original characters named Matt or Matthew; miscommunication plots leading to accusations of cheating/infidelity/breakups between requested characters.
General Prompts • • •
+ Confronting an enemy/rival! Someone gets stranded out-of-time, and they have to find their way back home. I enjoy quests to return home, adventures in far-away times or places, and general wonderment (and fear) that such a journey might create.
+ Wainscot Fantasy! The world is more magical and unusual that the one that we come from, and all of this information is kept as secret as possible. No one actually expects to encounter the supernatural/divine/magic creatures until they actually do. That’s when the trouble starts… What I enjoy the most about wainscot settings is when one character thinks they know what the world is like, and then get proven that the world is infinitely more complex, weird, frightening and amazing than they’d thought.
+ Trapped in an elevator/castle/magic forest/whatever location is most appropriate for the pairing. I love “trapped in an x” types of fics. Whether the area they’re trapped in is small (like an elevator or cave) or it’s magical (magic forest), or it’s being trapped by obligation (the castle, or a peace talk for a new king)... I like when one half of the ship is forced to contend with the other half, and their relationship maybe grows faster or quicker or more intense than it otherwise would have.
+ Pining! Pining narratives are fantastic, especially when it’s mutual. (And especially when it seems to the perspective character that their affection could never be returned for a host of very good, and very detailed reasons… that are pretty much not true, because the other half of the ship is pining right back.)
+ Miscommunications. I enjoy miscommunications plotlines! I enjoy plotlines when a five minute conversation would clear up a whole host of issues, but characters are too embarrassed/politically compromised/their jobs are too important/their worldview depends on them not asking or saying what they need. Generally the type of miscommunications that I’m into are bad assumptions made about the other person’s emotional state, e.g. “we had sex, and I’m sure he didn’t enjoy it!” I’m here for the full gamut of miscommunication-type foibles, but please avoid the miscommunication DNW I have.
+ Bestiary. So many of these requested pairings have supernatural origins/creatures in them. I love compendiums of creatures, with or without pictures. And I'd love to see a shippy take on the bestiary. The Fallen Angel sending the Knight a document of the denizens of hell, because he keeps rescuing assholes that try to kill him? The Ronin spends his days in the forest making sketches & classifying the tengu, to try to find the one that he remembers from years ago? The Fake Psychic is scribbling down the cosmic horrors that the supernatural being in the tarot desk in showing them? Feel free to include marginalia where the characters talk to each other, if you wish!
+ The Bookshelf Limbo style book previews, because I'm sure many of these characters need Books to help them figure their way around a romance without stabbing, murdering, or otherwise impugning each other's honor. I'd love to see hilarious self-help books. "Becoming the Royal We: Restraint and You!" Or the kinds of conspiracy books that the Unicorn Blogger has on their shelf. Or the Exorcist's crisis about helping a demon getting resolved with increasingly niche books of Occult Manners.
Ship-Specific Prompts • • • (click a ship to expand!)
+ Devout Knight/Fallen Angel He Accidentally Rescues. A knight is returning to his home after time away fighting in another realm. He rescues someone who he sees stuck in a fairly mundane problem, and thinks nothing of it… until he sees the enormous incorporeal wings yawning behind them.
Or a more Arthurian twist: a knight prays for salvation (and his soul) on the way to achieve the grail. Before he reaches the grail castle, he comes across a strange tableau of an angel in chains-- which he assumes is a hallucination or a heavenly trial. He unchains the angel … only to discover that whoops, no, that wasn’t a trial. That was a fallen angel he just rescued.
What I love about this pairing is a believer meeting things that they believed was evil, forbidden, wrong… and then having to contend with his worldview being incongruent with what he meets. I also love cosmic entities/angels that are confined in physical bodies that they might not completely understand or like.
I don’t have any expectations about whether the fallen angel is good, bad, evil, chaotic, cranky, a bastard, scheming, friendly, whatever! I have loved all permutations of fallen angels that I’ve encountered. Some fallen angels I’ve enjoyed have been those in Constantine, Supernatural, Lucifer, Gabriel (2007), The Prophecy.
If you’d like tropey prompts, consider:
+ A knight rescues a fallen angel. By angelic custom, they’re now married.
+ The knight is trying to prove himself worthy. He rescues everyone who asks his help. Someone bids for his help, and he agrees before he knows what he’s agreed to. Next thing he knows, he’s in hell/a fantasy realm, having to fight his way to free his charge.
+ Accidental soulbond. After rescuing the fallen angel, the angel departs--only to discover that they now know whenever the knight is in danger, and feel the pull to go rescue him before it's too late.
+ A New King/A Rival Ruler Who Sends Him Insulting Gifts. A new king takes the throne, and he’s immediately set an insulting gift by a rival king. His advisors urge him to respond, but how bad can a single gift be, really?
I’d love to see a tropey take on this, if you’re game for it! Enemies(or rivals)-to-lovers. Insulting Gifts are Actually Courtship. A gift is so insulting, it results in a duel between kings. A gift is so insulting, the kingdoms' lawyers agree that a breach of treaty has happened, and the rival king has to marry the new king to compensate for his actions.
A slow burn direction would be fantastic too! Maybe the gifts slowly become less insulting, and more...thoughtful over time.
Or, the king and the rival meet anonymously at a masked ball, where they are both attempting to attend incognito. They meet, they fuck, they have no idea who the other person was. Slowly, they start to put the pieces together and discover the fallout of their one-night stand.
Historical settings, fantasy settings, secondary world settings are all pretty great. A medieval/Arthurian flavor is always appreciated, if you have similar tastes, but I also equally love Renaissance & Early Modern settings. Victorian settings. Fantasy settings that encapsulate what you enjoy about fantasy, and gets rid of that pesky problem of historical research are also very appreciated. For this prompt, I'm not so keen about space/sci-fi settings, but I suppose I could be talked around if there's a lot of flowing robes and pomp & circumstance!
+ Demon Purposefully Locked Out of Hell/Confused Exorcist Hired to Get Him Home.
I really, really love exorcists. And I really love demons that get themselves locked out of Hell for one reason or another. Usually the things that get a demon kicked out of Hell would probably make them equally unsuitable for Heaven too, but Earth might be a fine place for them in the meantime.
I love all permutations of how this ship could happen: initially fearful/hostile interactions that become respect/affection/sex. Or, the exorcist and the demon don't like or understand each other but have to work together anyway, because they both agree that the demon needs to get back to hell.
I enjoy a great heaping side of identity porn/teased-out identity reveals with my supernatural ships, so if you want the demon to keep his identity secret, I'm here for that. For example: the exorcist is hired, but he thinks he's hired by someone wanting to get rid of the demon, and is shocked when the demon is like I'm on board, get me home! :D Or: the exorcist knows he's been hired by the demon. But finding out which demon could be an unexpected delight.
Temporary character death/resurrection is a big YES from me for this prompt, if you want to head in that direction. Here are some short ideas that I'd like to throw out there as prompts:
+ The demon's been kicked out for trying to usurp the throne of Hell.
+ The exorcist is gung-ho about destroying demons because they're BAD and EVIL, and then has no idea what to when he meets one that just seems like him, except working for Hell instead of for the Church.
+ The exorcist struggles with an attraction to the demon, after he realizes that the demon saved him once before.
Some Extra Likes for this pairing:
Sympathetic monsters/villains
Death wishes or otherwise reckless behaviour
Suppression of emotion & shame
Characters being assholes because they don't know how to process their own trauma/emotions/feelings
Characters that have a great chemistry, whether it's romantic or antagonistic or friendly, so long as they get under each other's skin
Bondage; consensual sexual violence and pain; fight-fucking. Fighting that was supposed to be fighting and then became fucking. Choking. Breathplay.
Religious kinks about wrestling with desire vs. a vow of chastity that come into play if the exorcist is a priest.
+ Ronin/Bored Tengu.
I love this pairing mainly based on this woodblock print of Kintaro being thwarted by some Tengu who are hidden up a tree. Tengu are demons that have all kinds of guises. I love the large, monstrous bird version of tengu, but I'm here for any ideas that you may have about their appearance. I am interested in any kind of tengu, or you to borrow any details from popular folk tales. I am most delighted by tengu that are overcome by their curiosity and are easily deceived by people.
In certain folkloric practice, there's a distinction between good vs. bad tengu. I leave it in your hands to decide which to write about. My favorite kinds of characters tend to be anti-heroes, or characters that defy easy classification as good or bad (usually because they do "bad" things towards a good or neutral or selfish purpose). I greatly enjoy redemption arcs. So if you wanted to write about a "bad" tengu who comes around to being less of an asshole, or to trying to be good over the course of your fic, I'd be delighted! I also enjoy arcs where a "good" character is seduced to break their vows, so I'd love to see a "bad" tengu in a plotline where a ronin is being tempted to give up his code of honor.
I'd be delighted if you wanted to set your fic in a historical era of Japan, but I'm also open to modern settings, and fantasy/sci-fi settings that are vaguely inflected by Japanese culture & customs.
Here are some prompts, which you're free to take all or only part of:
+ A tengu decides to (or gets tricked into a barter where he has to) seduce a ronin passing through a nearby village. To win the bet, and thus win an object it desires, a tengu has to do its level best to seduce a ronin into bed. The tengu is really not great at mimicking human courtship rituals, but he'll keep trying until the ronin has passed through the area and out of the tengu's sphere of influence. It would be amazing if the tengu, after being rebuffed, forgets the bet and is now focused on FUCKING THE RONIN. How many different ways does a tengu have to plead to get laid around here?
+ A ronin has been hired to defend a remote village against a tengu's shenanigans. The villagers importune the ronin--and manage to scrape together the money to hire him. The ronin arrives, ready to defending the village from an earthly foe...only to find out that the village's problems are supernatural. The ronin is stumped, but he was hired to do a job and he's not going to go back on his word.
+ In disguise as a priest. A caravan of pilgrims and priests hires a ronin to escort them to a holy site. The ronin agrees... and discovers that night after night, new troubles befall the caravan. The ronin lays a trap, only to discover one night that he's captured one of the priests in it. How much should he trust this priest? If he discovers the priest is a tengu, will the ronin keep his secret? Why does the tengu want to go to this holy site anyway?
+ Possession. Some tengu can possess human bodies, toward what end, remains up to the tengu's knowledge. A nobleman has been possessed, and his worried family has summoned a priest on the sly to try to rid him of this bad influence. A ronin is escorting a buddhist monk to the nobleman's estate...he is there to protect the priest, and nothing more. Except when he arrives at the estate, he finds himself immediately drawn into intrigues with the possessed nobleman. The ronin is torn between leaving (and violating his oath to the priest) and the strange attraction he feels to the tengu.
+ Fake Psychic/The Supernatural Being Possessing Their Tarot Deck.
What the ship says on the tin! My love of human/supernatural being ships is so great. I am into fake psychics who are just doing it for the money, and people who are just so good at cold reading that they can pass themselves off as psychics. But there's nothing supernatural about them. But then Things Starts Happening that the psychic can't explain, and they know in their bones that there's no rational explanation for what they've beheld.
I enjoy scenes where something Obviously Supernatural is going down (and the psychic can tell that something that isn't right is happening), but the person they're reading for is completely obvious to the Supernatural Things happening.
I don't have many prompts per se, but here are some ideas that I individually love. Take or leave them as you see fit! :D
Entity starts sending dire warnings to the fake psychic during readings. They're a fake psychic, so usually they barely pay attention to what cards they pull. They're cold-reading their customers, after all. But...it starts to get unsettling enough that even the fake psychic pays attention to the deck. (Bonus points if it's a customer that notices the warnings first!)
Entity starts sending PETTY INSULTS to the fake psychic during readings.
Entity starts openly flirting with the fake psychic during readings. It's just the Lovers and some swords and cups every time. (Sometimes Strength or the Hanged Man. It's fine if the psychic kinkshames the entity. It's probably deserved :D)
A card goes missing and the fake psychic has to replace it before communications can resume. The fake psychic is surprisingly frantic. Their friends suggesting "just buy a new deck/replacement card!" really aren't helping.
The entity manifests physically to the fake psychic as a tarot character.
The entity manifests physically to the fake psychic as a tarot character to warn the psychic of another, hostile entity also manifesting as tarot characters. The psychic is worried. (Also, entity, how is this helping??)
+ Person Who Curates a Conspiracy Blog About Unicorns/Monster Hunter on the Job.
However might these two meet? The possibilities are so intriguing, especially as a rivals-to-lovers kind of setup. Or as two strangers who get thrown together by circumstances beyond their control.
Does the Monster Hunter need special information on unicorns for a job, and the blogger is the only one he thinks might know this information/where the unicorns are? (The sheer number of spells that need a lock of unicorn hair or unicorn horn. Truly appalling!)
I'd be interested in reading a version of this prompt as wainscot horror, where supernatural monsters exist but they're not well known or publicized. Maybe danger lurks on the outskirts of towns/in forests, but no one ever really talks about it. Having the Blogger and the Monster Hunter disbelieving each other from the outset would be wonderful.
I'd also dig the version of this pairing where the blogger and the monster hunter meet by accident. Maybe the monster hunter is investigating claims of something supernatural going down in an area; and the unicorn blogger is there trying to film a rare (expected) unicorn sighting...one thing leads to another, and they're chased by a supernatural danger into an abandoned cabin.
I dig all kinds of urban fantasy & monster-hunting canons. Some of my favorite ones are early seasons of Supernatural ('til about S9), Blood Ties, Forever Knight, Lost Girl, Grimm, Buffy & Angel. If an episode, or a theme, or a monster from one of these shows sparks a story idea, please feel free to follow that! If you aren't familiar with those canons, I have no qualms with you mining your favorite monster-hunting tropes from other canons or your own interests for this prompt.
This prompt calls to me and my love of conspiracy boards. If you are inspired to make a conspiracy board for this ship, I'd love to see what angles you might explore. What kind of conspiracies is the blogger tracking? The existence of unicorns? The nonexistence of unicorns? Do they see a Pro-Unicorn agenda in society due to all of the sympathetic depictions of unicorns? Or do they think that idea of unicorns exist as a cover for something more sinister. I'd adore any kind of conspiracy that you could come up with for the blogger to explore! Likewise, I'm also happy for the conspiracy to just lurk in the background of the fic as an idea that the Monster Hunter just doesn't want to engage with, and the Blogger is happy enough not to bring it up in the company of "uninitiated" people.
+ Surreal or emotional journeys depicted in artwork.
+ Kisses. Clinches! Do your best romance-cover-quality artwork or book cover! Passionate, dreamy, very cheating-to-the-camera poses! Shirtless love interests! Everyone shirtless! Streaming tresses. More fabric than a person should probably wear! Someone looking off into the distance in Deep Thought. I am a sucker for all of these things.
+ Characters staring forlornly at each other/in diptychs, separated by time or space.
+ Narrative maps. I’d love a map that details a ship’s development, whether allegorical, or a map of their world, with notes scribbled with the margins. Where do the characters meet? Where do they fall in love? Where do they battle the forces of unimaginable evil?
+ Limited color palettes. Some favs are: gold, black and white; red, white, black. I also love palettes pulled from Julie Dillon paintings.
+ Characters staring into a beautiful sunset.
+ If I’ve put in an art like or request from another prompt that speaks to you, but you’d like to do it for an original work ship instead, I’m here for it!
Shenanigans • solving puzzles • treasure chests full of shiny objects/loot • slice-of-life descriptions & illustrations • gentle sunsets • voxel/hexel/isometric descriptions & artwork • characters sitting on high places (bridges, cliffs, houses, etc) • rain & stormy seas (and the undersea life that is affected by neither) • phases of the moon • Large, dusty tomes • cute animals • characters who are trapped in dangerous situations • For characteres whose genders aren't specified, I love reading fic about all genders & identities • prefer they/them pronouns for NB characters
Original Work Ships-Specific DNWs
Gore, sexual content, requested character death, original characters named Matt or Matthew
General Prompts • • •
+ Time travel! Someone gets stranded out-of-time, and they have to find their way back home. I enjoy quests to return home, adventures in far-away times or places, and general wonderment (and fear) that such a journey might create.
+ Magical realism! Where the world is more magical and unusual that the one that we come from. Frogs can opine about the bad weather and plan for a new Frog Home; Adventuresome Squids can inherit a magic sword and take up a quest to free their squad from the predations of a school of sharks.
+ Straight up Magic. What if a garbage-tier magical item came into the Queseting Knight's life? What if an Adventurer Whose Magic Stopped Working had to rely on the garbage-tier magical item in a pinch? What if a questing knight just wanted to get a nice night’s rest, but kept being besieged by beds with spring-loaded axes, magical enchantments, and extremely inconvenient doppelgangers trying to steal his life? I’d love to read a magic-is-real adventure, and where it might take the protagonist.
+ Crossovers! If any of these solo characters seem like they’d have a great story if they met, I’d love it! Could the garbage-tier magical item help or harm the Adventurer trying to discover a new form of magic? Would the Questing Knight find the Adventurer Trapped in a Dungeon? What if they started journeying together? Would the Adventurer wonder if it was safer in the dungeon after the knight befell increasingly elaborate traps?
+ Bestiary. So many of these requested characters are cute creatures or have supernatural elements baked into their premises. I love compendiums of creatures, with or without pictures. A Squid bestiary, with the many types of Adventuresome Squid you could meet in the ocean? The many types of garbage-tier magical items that seem to flourish in dungeons, no matter how many of them you clear out? Types of procrastination and how to avoid them? (If only the Fanfic Writer had that one before they set out D:)
+ The Bookshelf Limbo style book previews, because I'm sure many of these characters need Books to help them out of the jams that they've gotten themselves into. "101 Spells to Destroy Procrastination"? "Adveturing Dos and Dont's". "How to spot an ambush!" and more. :D
Character-Specific Prompts • • • (click a ship to expand!)
+ A Sad Potato. The potato is very sad. How did it get that way? Will it ever find happiness? Inspired by an Exchange After Dark emoji, which looks like it's having a Very Bad, No Good Day.
Settings ideas: Fantasy! (Is the sad potato chilling in a food cellar?) Space! (Is the sad potato the first potato in space? Did it grow only to discover it's the Only Potato In Space?) At sea! (Is the potato being transported on a ship??) the 80s!! Involved in a conspiracy somehow (is the potato sad because it's discovered Something Terrible???)
For this request, I enjoy crack treated seriously, serious emotions treated like comedy, epistolary fic, outsider POVs, documentary-style fics, fics styled like newspaper articles, satire.
+ Garbage-Tier Magical Item. Give me your crappiest, most garbage-worthy magical items. Find one that you like at a random item generator? I'd love to hear about how it helped (or failed someone) in a dangerous situation.
Maybe the garbage tier magical item will eventually be eaten by a mimic, who will be very happy with it.
Setting ideas: Fantasy, urban fantasy, anything that you think would be spruced up by a little magic!
For this request, I enjoy books, orbs, knives, spears, cloaks, journal entries, epistolary fic.
+ An Adventuresome Squid.
I would love to see some squid shenanigans. Possibly stealing the diver's camera, and running away with it? Eating boats by accident? I love very small squid up to very large ones.
For this request, I enjoy crack treated seriously, serious emotions treated like comedy, epistolary fic, outsider POVs, nature documentary-style fics, interspecies friendship, tiny squid homes.
If you’d like to do art for this prompt, I greatly enjoy Michelangelo's Creation of Adam and explosions of undersea color on top of my usual art likes.
+ A Squid Emoji of your choosing.
I’ve made a bunch of squid emoji over the past four years. If you’d like to use one of them as inspiration, or remix one of them into your artwork, please feel free!
Using the emoji of your choice as inspiration, I'd love to see a fic/art/etc about that squid's genre. If it's a detective squid, I'd love case fic! If it's a knifesquid, I'd love to see it getting into fights. If it's a sword squid, what adventures is it called to? Any of my prompts that make sense for that genre are welcome, here.
I love: crack played seriously; noirish case fic; tiny world-weary squids trying to make a difference in this crazy world; squids exploring places no squid have been before; abyssal sea trenches; squids getting up to No Good with boats; human & squid friendships, and more.
+ An Adventurer Trapped in a Dungeon.
A D V E N T U R E S.
Being trapped in small spaces!
You know those scenes where a giant mechanism closes, sealing off a character inside, and their torch begins to dwindle? This is the moment that usually someone feels like they're going to get eaten by some terrible creature or beast that lives inside of the dungeon. That's where I'd love if you began a story. :D
Likes: puzzles, ancient temples, mechanisms that seem incongruous to their surroundings; survival narratives; escaping from 'inescapble' situations; escaping from places that had a way out all along, but the adventurer stopped themselves from looking for an exit in that place because they thought it wouldn't be there.
+ A Fanfic Writer Trapped in an Allegory for Procrastination.
Reader, I thought long and hard about leaving this prompt as [in progress]. That about sums up my relationship with procrastination. It has its hooks in me, and I'm really delighted every time I get to joke with people about it.
Reading guides for writers to stop procrastinating are one of my secret guilty pleasures. Most of them are harmless but useless (ask me how I know that you can procrastinate your work by reading guides to stop procrastinating :D!), but some are pretty spot-on, once they untangle the reason why a particular writer is prone to procrastination.
I'd be thrilled to receive fic for this prompt. A fic about an author struggling through an allegory of procrastination to reach their writing goal would be amazing. Please feel free to pull inspiration from my adventurer prompts.
Writing a "self-help" guide about procrastination through the lens of allegory. You be the sage guide this time! Tell us how to avoid procrastination with the most folksy tales, and the most elaborately crafted scenario; with bullet-points and actionable activities, if you'd like! Be as earnest or as tongue-in-cheek as you like; I love self-help writing guides so much.
A fic writer struggling with their fandom. Sometimes, writing a fic becomes the allegory for procrastination when you're dealing with a fandom that makes writing difficult! Demanding fans who want chapter 20 of a fic that you moved on from two years ago! New canon comes out and completely destroys your carefully crafted jokes in your almost-finished PWP. A sequel gets announced and suddenly you're in a fandom flooded with fans who have no connection to the part of canon you know! If you'd like to explore any of these things, I'd love it! Especially if the answer to these problems are things like: "I need to complete a puzzle challenge" or "I think I need to take a road trip to all of the places in canon that are important" or "I need to put together a convention of fans so we can all CONNECT IN REAL TIME." A quick note about using a fandom in this fic: I'd prefer if you made up fandoms/ships/characters completely from scratch. I'd also prefer if you avoided opinions, positive or negative, about any currently existing fandoms. And while I would also prefer that a fic didn't spend most of its time talking about fandom Discourse/wank (even fictional fandom discourse/wank), if your story idea decides to touch on subjects like that, please follow your inspiration!
Procrastination allegory.You can take the allegory as literally, or as figuratively as you like. The writer could be simply going through the stages of/types of distractions that lead to procrastination; or these types of procrastination could be literal, physical places they go (the swamp of despair; the quicksand of wank; the jetty of bad ideas that seemed really good at the time.)
Likewise, I would love to receive any of my opt-ins for this prompt. Would you like to draw a procrastination-slaying weapon? Design a special map for someone's journey through procrastination? Create a fake book about procrastination? Make an infographic about procrastination?? The possibilities are endless. :D
+ Adventurer Trying to Discover a New Form of Magic Because Their Spells Stopped Working.
How did the adventurer lose their magic, and why are they determined to get it back? Is magic a big part of their positive self-identity? Or is it what they think that they bring to a group dynamic? Or is it even more fundamental than that; that the adventurer can't imagine a life without [magic]? The adventurer's motivation is entirely up to you!
What does the adventurer need that magic for, anyway? Do they have a goal that requires magic? Or are they just too set in their ways to switch careers now?
Bonus points if the adventurer resorts to seeking out forgotten types of magic, or straight-up tries to invent new magic from first principles.
And if all that fails, there's always a garbage-tier magical item waiting to be used! :D
Sidebar: due to the many typos in previous versions of this prompt, will also read a fic about an adventurer whose magic stops working because their spelling is atrocious.
+ Questing Knight Who Encounters Increasingly Deadly Traps When He Seeks Accommodation.
(This prompt is inspired in part by the Arthurian tale The Knight of the Cart, where Lancelot experienced harsh treatment from his hosts and an assortment of deadly traps beds that he wasn't supposed to sleep in.)
For this prompt, I'd enjoy reading about a knight just wanting to get a decent night's sleep, and finds himself beset by deadly traps.
I'd also enjoy reading about a knight who wants a decent night's sleep BUT ALSO has not a lick of sense in him, and he constantly chooses to sleep in forbidden places/cursed beds/hostile courts and wonders why LIFE IS SO HARD FOR HIM.
I'd also be interested in a knight has made some small, innocuous gaffe and it follows him around wherever he goes and leads to PROBLEMS SLEEPING. (e.g. he sits in the wrong chair in court, and now suddenly people are lining up to murder or imprison him for the ruler's honor.)
Any permutation on this prompt would be wonderful to read. :D
Traps could be realistic ones, magical ones. They could be set by his enemies who are trying to keep him from his ultimate goal (rescuing a queen? discovering a captured fairy knight?). The knight could be specifically cursed by something he chose to do.
If you want to draw inspiration from Arthurian works, I'm a huge fan of Chrétien de Troyes, Marie de France, the Gawain Poet, Mark Twain, Tennyson. If you want to draw on a historical canon for ideas, please stay away from crossing over with other canons. I'm interested in original characters/worlds. (Crossovers with other nominated solo characters are still okay!) I'm here for a knight in a world of your creation. If you want to do historical research for this prompt, I'm here for that too. Though none is required at all. I enjoy invented detail as much as historical detail! :D
+ A Cute Frog of Your Choosing.
Please send this cute frog on an adventure! I enjoy magical realism adventures (as magical as you'd like to go; anywhere from "frog needs to learn a new skil at Frog School" to "a frog has to discover the source of the scouring heat and journeys to/befriends the sun"). Please feel free to shoot that frog into space, or have that frog pull on a suit of armor, or send that frog to discover a forgotten library to deal with its Frog Problems.
This prompt lends itself well to non-fic mediums as well as fic. I adore frogs however you would present them. As emojis, fanart, in coloring pages. Frog maps of the best ponds. Frog maps of all of the refreshing places to hide around a house. (on top of door bells, in mailboxes, in the drip pan of an air conditioner. :D)
+ Any of my art likes from previous prompts that don’t violate the Original Works:Solo DNWs. Basically anything from my previous prompts that isn’t about sexual content is desired here!
+ Style pastiches. Some of my favorite styles are: Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Shin Hanga, Symbolist Painting, 1930s Magazine Covers, and the De Stijl movement, but there’s hardly an artist or art movement that I haven’t enjoyed (barring my one DNW, Fauvism). I also enjoy pastiches of the style of other canons I’ve requested.
+ Untitled Goose Game Pastiche or Crossover. Art that looks like Untitled Goose Game would be so rad! Goose shows up in a dungeon, completely ready to roll against the monsters therein. The Questing Knight moves from inn to inn, but he can't seem to shake this feathered interloper. Somehow (possibly using a miniature reverse-scuba suit), a Squid and a Goose meet and decide to do crime together.
+ Narrative maps. I’d love a map that details a character's exploits development, whether allegorical, or a map of their world, with notes scribbled with the margins. Where do the characters go? What do they see? Where do they battle the forces of unimaginable evil?
+ Limited color palettes. Some favs are: gold, black and white; red, white, black. I also love palettes pulled from Julie Dillon paintings. Note: if you're making emoji, feel free to throw out my "limited palette" like. The best colors are often high-constrast colors, so they can show up at small sizes.
Hello, and welcome to the medium spotlights! These spotlights are on media that I have a lot to say about, so I decided to put all of that stuff in one place. These media are not the be-all, end-all of what I’m requesting. Spotlights include likes, ideas, and tutorial links. If you are interested in picking up a new medium for this exchange, I hope you will find the tutorial links useful! If you've never made a map, or a crest, or an emoji before, I'm absolutely thrilled by the prospect of you making one for me. :D
Reading these are completely optional! If you already know what you want to make me, feel free to jump right in.
Bestiary
Make tiny monsters come alive in book-format! Collecting all of the things!
I love the bestiary as a way to “collect” things. Just have a bunch of different things, as though they were assembled together in a book (like Medieval Bestiaries), or someone’s journal (like those monster-hunter manuals that would pop up whenever we got a gander at The Diary in Supernatural). I also love the kinds of bestiary where it’s clear that someone is collecting these creatures, whether they’re taking notes about them, Actually Collecting Them, just drawing them as they spot them, or taking snapshots of the Cool Critters They Have Seen.
While I’ve listed a bunch of bestiaries that are mainly drawn, I enjoy them just as much if they’re written compendiums of creatures, critters, beasts, or EGGS.
Things that I like from bestiaries:
Fantastical or surreal creatures. Cute critters!
A blatant disregard for anatomy & structure.
Medieval or medieval-pastiche book pages.
Pastiches of other genres/aesthetics. Ikea furniture manual meets bestiary?
EGGS. How I hunger for different colored and textured and styled eggs. Bird eggs. Monster eggs. Supernatural element eggs. Stone eggs. Jeweled eggs.
Coat of arms showcase a character, a house, a corporation, a city or a nation.
I enjoy coat of arms that take inspiration from the historical rules of heraldry, and then adapt them new, fun ways for modern use. Rules of heraldry may vary a bit from tradition to tradition, and I’m not overly fussed about whether you might want to adhere to them or not. Familiarizing yourself with heraldry might give you some ideas about why certain things are done in certain ways, such as shield divisions. Many free guides are available! And some coat of arms generators can give you some ideas, if you’re stuck. But please feel free to ignore all of this historical detail, and to follow your creativity wherever it takes you.
+ Any of the art movements I've gushed about would be amazing as a coloring page. (Including but not limited to: Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Priarie Style, Symbolist-inspired Designs, De Stijl.
I love designs that I can print out and color to unwind.
I’m a huge fan of small details from patterns, details, and abstract shapes. I’m also a fan of designs with big wide open spaces where I can choose to create my own details. Designs that borrow from abstract styles, geometric tattoos, and other kinds of art that blends realistic details with simple geometric shapes are my jam. So are stars, night skies, and solar system elements. And I will never say no to cute, silly, humorous designs. :D
I love mandala designs that I can enjoy on their own merits, as well as mandala that are meant to be print out and colored.
Black & white mandalas, full colored mandalas. Gold and white on black backgrounds. Yes, yes, and yes.
I’m a huge fan of designs that blend the aesthetic of mandala & other meditative arts with the aesthetics from my requested canons & their aesthetics. I enjoy poring over designs and delighting in their small details. Patterns, intricate shading, and abstract shapes are all wonderful. I’m also a fan of designs with big wide open spaces where I can choose to create my own details. Designs that borrow from abstract styles, geometric tattoos, and other kinds of art that blends realistic details with simple geometric shapes are my jam. So are stars, night skies, and solar system elements. And I will never say no to cute, silly, humorous designs. :D
+ Maps that are based on any art styles from requested canons or Art movements that I love (e.g. Art Nouveau, Art Deco, De Stijl)
Exploration & A Sense of Place That's Been Lost.
Are you thinking of creating a map? Let me count the ways that I love thee! I would like to encourage you in your mappish-thoughts! The fandoms that I am requesting maps in share an element of exploration or a sense of place that’s been lost. What I’d love to see out of a map, even if that fandom already has a canonical map:
Things that struck YOU as being important (that maybe canon did not)
Maps that chart a character’s or ship’s journey
Colors, palettes, styles, and designs that evokes something from the canon
Maps that subvert my expectations. E.g. a tense and moody D & D style map for a canon character’s otherwise warm and welcoming home.
Allegorical maps about the [dangers of that canon]. Maps about the pitfalls of pining? Places where You Can Go Wrong when you are an author trapped in an allegory for procrastination.
Maps that you wish characters had. E.g. Map of Ancient Greece for Teucer where gods would like to Fuck You (Personally) Over, Pls Avoid.
If you are creating humorous maps, please lean into the joke. Don’t feel like you need to be constrained by reality, or the canonical places of things. Geographic accuracy not needed for maps set on Earth!
The Bookshelf Limbo style book preview is meant to entice you into the world of the (fake) book you’re holding. All you need to know how to draw for this request is a hand. Everything else can be left up to your graphic design skills, if you want! These book previews are accompanied by short blurbs about the book.
I’m excited to see what you come up with! I’m always excited for book covers of books that the requested characters or ships would stumble across in-world. I’m also really into book covers that kind of take the piss with the character’s foibles, insecurities, and hang-ups. Anything you’d like to do, from serious to humor would be lovely!
If you’re an old hand at creating typefaces, or you’ve never designed a font before in your life, I promise you that I will be excited to see what you create! I enjoy fonts that capture the aesthetic of the fandom that I’ve requested. Many of the fandoms I’ve requested have fonts embedded in their gameplay. Taking those as a starting point is a wonderful way to explore an aesthetic. I also love everything on my list above, and more beyond that. I deeply enjoy seeing font sketches & fonts in their final presentation form. I fully do not expect finished typefaces. Those take an enormous amount of work. Just some caps or a few letterforms or the lettering of a title is what I’m hoping for! :D
