Five Figure Fic Exchange Letter (2020)

[tentacledicks]

Hey there! I'm tentacledicks over on AO3 as well, and have fanfic requested for all of my fandoms (with specific art likes listed under the Watch Dogs, Mass Effect:Andromeda, and Detroit: Become Human groupings.)

DNWs -
- Permanent major character death in main pairings*
- Unrequited feelings
- Memory loss/memory wipes
- Suicide
- Incest
- Explicit underage
- CG/L, daddykink, age play

Index

General Likes/Smut Likes
Watch Dogs
Mass Effect: Andromeda
Detroit: Become Human
The Old Guard
Valdemar


Likes-
- Anything that involves kink, especially kink as a way to process trauma and other strong emotions (exceptions: no caregiver/little, daddy anything is an instant nope for me)
- Chronic conditions (mental or physical) focused on as a grind that wears people down until they can't go it alone anymore, hurt/comfort
- Politics, especially the sort of politics that show up in small, tight-knit organizations with all the jockeying for position and careful diplomacy that entails
- Action! Danger! Fighting!
- Worldbuilding, especially worldbuilding focused on cultural notes like fashion, food, and architecture
- Complex etiquette and rules for social interaction, D/s-adjacent interpersonal expectations, outlandish concepts taken seriously when it comes to how people would create rules to handle them (i.e., "murder is legal" in BJT-verse not meaning that you're free of social consequences for murdering someone, just that legal recourse is limited)
- Alternate universes! Canon divergences, setting swaps, role swaps…
- Mpreg, as magicky handwaving, a/b/o, or attempting to be medically accurate in the most horrifying way possible—all variations are good

Smut likes
- D/s dynamics, kinking on D/s dynamics in a nonformalized setting, undernegotiated D/s
- Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics, especially alpha/omega and alpha/alpha pairings (heat/rut sex and breeding kink are both great!)
- Bondage, with things like ropes and straps or spur-of-the-moment tie and clothing usage for getting someone bound down
- Oral of any type (rimming, blowjobs, cunnilingus) especially as a precursor to penetrative sex
- Multiple orgasms leaving characters as absolute wrecks
- Body worship
- Rough sex, violent sex, unsafe and dangerous sex with knives and guns in the bedroom, bloodplay, biting, choking, the whole lot
- Wireplay
- Xeno for aliens, especially in the form of Bad Dragon dicks
- No strong opinions on top/bottom roles for anyone; switching is fine, strict top/bottom roles are fine, just mash them together in whatever configuration you like because I enjoy them all!

Watch Dogs


Fanfiction, Comic

Likes:
- That one Barbara Kruger artpiece that goes "You construct intricate rituals which allow you to touch the skin of other men"
- Trauma and the exploration thereof
- Genuinely well-researched cybersecurity and hacking fic, especially if it comes with a side order of well researched financial crimes and social engineering
- Handwavey computer nonsense for the purpose of moving the plot forward and/or making something funny happen
- Comedy of errors fic where everything just goes wrong all the way up until the minute it goes right
- Sex jokes

Ships:
Aiden/Damien: Oh man, I love how much of the first game revolves around Aiden and Damien’s relationship. It starts with them already on the rocks and going their separate ways when the job goes wrong and it ends with Aiden killing Damien on top of the lighthouse, and there’s so much history there that I’d love to see dug into, especially if it comes with all the toxic and abusive notes that pepper their canon interactions. And I really love anything that kind of pushes at the fact that Damien gaslights and emotionally manipulates while Aiden falls back on violence as a first resort, because that dynamic can be really interesting to explore.

Pre-canon stuff absolutely—how they met, how they became a team, how they ended up at the place where they fell apart after all those years. Aiden without all the trauma of his niece’s death is probably a very different person; at the least, I’d expect him to have a lot fewer compunctions about doing crime for money, and he barely has any of those as is. With Damien there as the devil on his shoulder, I can only imagine the kinds of heists they got up to. I’m picturing lots of rough sex, Aiden topping but Damien in control, and lots of lies piling up around them as they settle into that spiral their relationship became.

During-canon fic, where Damien asks for other kinds of services from Aiden in return for his sister’s safety, is something I’m totally down for too. Maybe he manages to get Aiden to feel something for how they once were too, even if what that feeling ends up being is loathing—at least it means Aiden remembers him, because I get the feeling that Aiden walking away without ever looking back is the thing that chaps Damien’s ass the most.

I do love AU fic for them too though, either full setting change stuff (a pair of mage thieves where something goes wrong in their heist? Dragonriders who don’t get on very well with the rest of their cohort and don’t realize what a mess of a relationship they have?) or simpler, more mundane AUs (Aiden the beleaguered retail manager and Damien the dickbag owner of a rival store!)

Aiden/Jordi: Jordi is such an asshole, and Aiden is also such an asshole, so letting them be assholes together is always fun. I love how much Jordi snarks and pokes and jabs at Aiden, along with his usual rambling humor over the comms when he’s sniping, and I love that Aiden just… takes it all in stride. It’s funny, because Jordi’s the one person Aiden seems to let his guard down around because Jordi’s predictable in all his sociopathy. Which is probably why his betrayal didn’t shock Aiden as badly as it should’ve; there was big money on the table, and Jordi warned him there was big money on the table, so eventually he should’ve expected Jordi to come after him.

I love post-canon fic that dances around that betrayal, Jordi and Aiden working themselves back into each other’s good graces through jobs together until they just sort of fall into bed. I also really love pining on Aiden’s behalf, especially pining while actively fucking Jordi, because Jordi made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t do feelings or love or anything like that (and if there’s one character flaw Aiden definitely has, it’s feeling too much, too deeply, too intensely to handle sometimes.)

I’m also into AUs, any AUs, but especially AUs which deal with the supernatural. Jordi just feels like he could be something unknowable and inhuman, a vampire or a fae or an old god, and it’s really fun to consider how Aiden stumbling into that world could go. Jordi as a guide or Jordi as an opposing force and then there’s Aiden, who’s really good at ferreting his way into situations he absolutely should not be in and then toppling all the power structures on his way—there’s a great urban fantasy AU to be had there, is what I’m saying.

Marcus/Jordi: Confession time: I played WD2 first, and Jordi’s introduction in Human Conditions is exactly what drove me to play WD1. Because he is fucking hilarious, and he’s such a dick to Marcus, who is even less patient with him than he is with Lenni. Marcus has enough room in his life for one murderous weirdo with distinctive fashion tastes, and Wrench at least watches the same movies. And yet! Nothing would bring me more joy than to see Marcus, appalled by his own bad taste, drawn into Jordi’s sphere of attraction.

So enemies to lovers is like, 100% my jam with these two, in basically any shape. I like it as a canon ‘verse thing, where Jordi’s come back to San Fran for whatever reason and decides that he needs Marcus’s help (Marcus’s opinion on the matter be damned) and because Jordi is Jordi, he’s also like, “What if I flirt relentlessly now that I’m in a better mood, huh?” And if Marcus is feeling particularly stupid and/or self-destructive, he looks at that and goes, “I mean sure, I guess, why not,” and ends up offended and dismayed by how much he enjoys it. Maybe even by how much he enjoys being around Jordi once the fear of dying isn’t on the table anymore.

Or! AUs! Total setting swap AUs, where Marcus is some kind of freedom fighter or resistance member in a magical kingdom and Jordi is the assassin that runs across him while targeting a particularly nasty noble, or Marcus is a cyborg with implants fighting against the corporate regime in a more far-flung-future cyberpunk/sci fi setting and Jordi is genetically engineered hitman who works for himself and no other, or Marcus is the Chosen One and Jordi’s the Big Bad who’s just loving the chance to fuck with him… I think that antagonistic relationship between them is really fun and I’d love to see it in other ways.

If you really wanted to hit me in the funnybone, Jordi and Marcus meet on Fetlife and then realize who the other guy is and everything is terrible (wonderful) and Marcus can never let Wrench know he accidentally seduced the fixer from the Anton job into domming him.

Marcus/Wrench: Speaking of Marcus and his terrible taste in men, I adore his bromance with Wrench and all the spots where the two of them hint at maybe wanting more before hastily backtracking. I feel like neither of them wants to ruin a good thing, and it feels like this is the first friend Marcus has had that resonates with him on so many fannish things, while Marcus is the first person Wrench has ever felt comfortable enough with to actually show his soft underbelly.

So like, pining. Especially Marcus pining, because he’s so good at hiding his feelings when he’s uncertain and he’s so good at being the hype man, I could see him talking Wrench into dating other people at first because he just wants Wrench to be happy. And meanwhile, Wrench is over here wishing he could kiss Marcus but taking this as a clear indication that he shouldn’t… There’s lots of room for misunderstandings and angst that resolve in confessions.

There’s also exploring some of Wrench’s backstory, undoubtedly tragic, maybe even with those hints coming out as he’s doing his best to comfort Marcus. I mean, Marcus gets kidnapped by the Bratva and nearly dies in a car crusher, not to mention all the other horrible shit he occasionally stumbles on in their missions—that takes a toll after a while. So Marcus is out here hurting and Wrench is in a unique position to comfort, because he’s been there and he got out and even if it’s not quite the same, he knows some (admittedly poor) coping mechanisms with the horrors the world is willing to throw at them.

Or, more towards the AU side, I’ve always been intrigued by that line Horatio has, about thinking Wrench was an FBI plant at first. So what if? What if Wrench was working for the FBI (or Blume), probably via coercion, and then Marcus shows up and gets him all conflicted about whether he should come clean, even though that’s definitely jailtime at the least, a messy execution at the worst, so there’s all that tension of Wrench’s inevitable betrayal and Marcus having to go rescue him (while still feeling pretty damn betrayed) and realizing that maybe he loves this asshole after all.

Art likes:
Gunfights, gore, action in general—I know it’s harder to draw, but I love dynamic panels and characters breaking across panels in the heat of the moment. Black and white comics could be a lot of fun here, but I also love the pop art vibe that WD2 goes with aesthetically, and I’d be interested to see how that worked in a comic format. If none of the above prompts are really catching your interest, slice of life domestic scenes and action sequences (mission gone wrong? mission gone right?) that end in makeouts are both things I really enjoy seeing comics for.

Mass Effect: Andromeda


Fanfiction, Comic


Likes:
- Angaran worldbuilding! Customs, other hidden worlds, languages, history (both lost and found), relationship dynamics...
- Whumping the absolute shit out of Ryder
- Focus on exploring alien worlds, ancient ruins and technology, uncovering secrets that were never meant to be hidden
- Established relationships
- Slowburn get togethers
- Interplanetary politics

If M!Ryder features, I strongly prefer default Scott’s appearance and name. But if you want to feature his sister (either as the Pathfinder or just as an important character) I don’t care much what her name and appearance is! Go hogwild, F!Ryder is a freespace.

Ships:
Jaal/Evfra: God, I love Evfra. I love that he’s firm, that he’s not as openly emotive as most of the other angara, and that he’s this charismatic force that you can really see shaping the Resistance. And I especially love all of that in contrast to Jaal—who, despite coming off as smooth and confident sometimes, is more uncertain of his footing, still hasn’t found his place, and feels things so deeply and so openly all the time. You can tell that he admires Evfra, and Evfra himself tells you that Jaal is one of his best, and I love all the ways that mutual admiration can turn to mutual pining.

Pre-canon or during-canon fic that revolves around Evfra and Jaal in the Resistance, taking what seems like a hopeless endeavor and transforming it as the tables turn would be awesome. Getting together fic, especially with just heaps and heaps of mutual pining and slow burn is great, especially if there’s a heart-stopping moment or two where one thinks they’ve lost the other (the Pathfinder letting Akksul take a shot at Jaal, and Evfra’s reaction to that, come to mind.) Pouring some hurt/comfort into that and giving a chance for some tender woundcaring, maybe some confessions over bullet wounds?? I’ll eat it all up.

Or post-canon fic where the Resistance is taking on a different shape as the kett are slowly driven out of the galaxy. Destroying the Archon and most of his soldiers struck a blow, but they’re not completely gone yet; how does the Resistance re-orient with their enemy crippled? How do Evfra’s plans change, now that he’s no longer fighting an unwinnable war? What kind of shape would their relationship (either established as romantic/sexual or still platonic with heaps of UST) change when both of them realized that someday, maybe even someday in their lifetimes, they might look out over an angaran world without any kett presence at all? Jaal has had hope, I think, but it feels like Evfra abandoned hope for pragmatism and stubbornness a long time ago, so I’d love to have anything that explores Evfra getting that dream for the future back.

M!Ryder/Jaal/Evfra: I love all three of them, so much. And I love their individual dynamics enough that I want to see how those dynamics play out around each other; I go into the Jaal/Evfra and Jaal/Scott a bit above and below, but Evfra/Scott’s got some great moments, especially if you play the Pathfinder as doing his best to be courteous and not an asshole. He still gets some snark in, but you can see Evfra slowly and begrudgingly deciding that this specific alien may not be entirely terrible. And I love that, almost as much as I love how incredulous he is when he finds out the Pathfinder let Akksul take a shot at Jaal—he expected better of you, Scott! You were supposed to be the one good one!

So, post-canon fic is probably where it works best, but the direction of that post-canon is pretty variable. Scott and Jaal end up taking on a more active role in the Resistance, now that Meridian has been established, because they’ve got some of the most experience with beating the kett at their own game; Evfra becoming more of an ambassadorial figure towards the Nexus and the Initiative planets, especially as the other Pathfinders start working towards finding appropriate golden worlds, so he’s typically taking the Tempest to and from the places he needs to go; all of them getting dragged in seperate directions now that there’s not a single Big Bad to defeat and fighting to make sure they’re all on Aya at the same time so they can catch those stolen moments of intimacy.

But if heavy plotty stuff isn’t what you’re feeling, I’m going to be honest: I would eat 10k of PWP threesome smut up with a spoon. What better way to get over those cultural misconceptions and little misunderstandings than through a sex marathon, I ask you?

M!Ryder/Jaal: I had a couple false starts the first time I tried to play Andromeda, but that just meant that coming back to it later gave me the chance to romance Jaal and holy shit, what a good idea that was. I love the way he flirts with everyone but he gives his heart, without hesitation, to Scott when they fall in love. I also love just how dorky Scott in love is in return, and I love how earnestly both of them try to learn each other’s culture.

So, post-canon fic is always fun. I like mysteries and alien planets, especially when it comes to the Pathfinder team trying to figure out some kind of alien ruin, or Jaardan technology, or hunting up ancient angaran ruins while running across pre-Scourge hints of culture that had been lost. I love worldbuilding a ton, and the Pathfinder team is in a unique position to go zipping across the stars at a given moment, all other responsibilities be damned, just because there’s something sending up a beacon on the other side of the galaxy. (Also, alien horror is great. Some of my favorite Mass Effect missions have been the ones that lean in on the horror of being trapped in space with an unknown enemy, knowing there’s no escape but the vacuum. So playing with that is always enjoyable!)

Alternatively, some straight up whump. Jaal getting injured when they’re far away from an angaran settlement, so the medbay beds that Lexi repurposed for angaran physiology are being put to the test and Scott is worrying himself to pieces over it because he has not, historically, had a good time with loved ones being trapped in the medbay. Or Scott experiencing complications with his SAM implant (or complications from the THREE heart attacks he’s had so far, oh my god, Scott, stop dying) and Jaal being worried sick but not sure if he can show it, because angara are so close-lipped about sickness and careful when it comes to navigating the waters of social convention when illness is on the table. Or anything with angaran bioelectric fields and touch telepathy becoming a plotpoint that saves one, or both, of their lives.

Speaking of angaran biology, and the smutty, smutty purposes to which it could be applied: I’ve always loved the idea of Scott needing a place to fall to pieces, Jaal thoroughly enjoying the concept of sexual domination even if he hasn’t been able to put it into practice, and those two desires intersecting in very sexy way. Petplay, D/s, maybe just some bondage or sadomasochism—I like the idea of Jaal being able to sense some of the emotions of people, even aliens, that he touches, and I really like the idea of him kinking on that absolute submission.

Art likes:
Andromeda is such a vivid game, I get blown away by the colors in it every time I replay. So anything that really cranks the color up is going to appeal to me, especially if it tries to emulate some of the canon comic format and style. PWP comics are a delight (and using monster dildo designs for reference is always a plus) but for plottier comics, anything that puts the characters against backdrops of the absolutely gorgeous environments in the game will get a thumbs up for me. Have you been dreaming of a two-page devoted to an alien planet? Sign me the FUCK up for that, I will go apeshit for it.

Detroit: Become Human


Fanfiction, Comic


Likes:
- Police procedurals, mysteries, crimesolving
- Weird android sex, weird android shows of affection, weird android ailments
- Age gaps!
- Hank getting dragged kicking and screaming towards a slightly healthier lifestyle
- Connor getting dragged kicking and screaming towards treating himself as something other than disposable

Ships:
Hank/Connor: I went into DBH not expecting to ship the hell out of this and then came out of it wondering how it wasn’t canon already. Connor and Hank’s growing friendship over the course of the game lends itself really easily to a deeper form of intimacy, and I love the way that Connor is both eager to please and incredibly confident in himself in the beginning—he gets more uncertain as the ground crumbles out from under him over the course of the game, but he never stops being a unilaterally competent (and wee bit terrifying) character. Likewise, I love those hints about the way Hank used to be a rising star as a detective before he derailed his life so violently.

So, canon ‘verse fic I can take as both shippier retellings of the game with some canon divergence—I really like seeing the events of the game being recast in an explicitly romantic light—or post-canon fic where Connor and Hank are navigating the vagaries of the post-peaceful revolution world. We see very few human/android couples that seem happy about it, and I love reading fic that explores that; not only how humans look at other humans with visible androids, but also how the other androids look at one of their own for falling in love with a human in the first place.

I like alternative takes on robot sex—wireplay, as mentioned in my smut likes, but also things like installable sex mods, weird and different erogenous zones, Connor getting off on Hank getting off but not needing to touch himself… Playing with Connor’s very sensitive tongue is a lot of fun too!

Any AU that makes Connor something other than an android, I’d prefer him to still be a class of person generally denied personhood (and ideally, him still a hunter of his own kind.) A Dragon Age mage that hunts other mages on behalf of the templars, an android bladerunner a la K from Bladerunner 2049, a dragon in human shape hunting down other dragons, that sort of thing. Hank being the one who begrudgingly has more empathy for the people they hunt is something I really like about their early game dynamic, so it’s fun to see that in other worlds.

Art likes:
Something I love to see in DBH fanworks is lots of black & white with pops of color for effect, especially with the androids. This lends itself pretty well to both noir crimesolving minicomics and smuttier comics too, so if none of the above writing prompts are giving you ideas, Hank and Connor sharing an intimate moment in the middle of a bad case or having contextless sex (of any kind!) are both amazing.

The Old Guard (Movie)


Fanfiction

Likes:
- Found family tropes! Especially when that found family falls to pieces and tries to put itself back together again
- Action sequences, gunfights, loving descriptions of decapitation, hilari-horrifying descriptions of healing up from fatal wounds
- Super in-depth historical research and infodumping
- Super handwavey historical windowdressing for the purpose of tropey fun
- Nonsexual forms of intimacy like handholding, face touching, hairdressing, etc.

I haven’t read the comics yet, but have no objections about plot points or worldbuilding being pulled from them!

Ships:
Nicky/Joe: Man, I am just wildly in love with these two, both in terms of pure aesthetic attraction and in terms of how deeply they love each other. Joe’s passionate declaration of love in the van struck me right in the soul. I think it’s fascinating that they’ve never really experienced the loneliness of immortality that Andy, Qunyh, Lykon, Booker, and even Nile experienced, because from the very first time they killed each other, they were in it together. It’s a relationship that could probably veer codependent, but is that really a word that has meaning when they really do feel like two halves of a whole?

Pre-canon get together fic, across the years when they stopped killing each other and started working their way towards loving each other instead would be fantastic, especially if it focused on a lot of the cultural biases both of them bring to the table then. I’m also totally here for the honeymoon across the centuries, snapshots of them loving each other, with or without the rest of the immortals, as they travel all over the world. I’m also here for the wild whump opportunities this presents, because they won’t win all their battles and the aftermath can be great to explore.

I’m also totally here for post-canon fic, either with Andy and Nile or seperate, where both of them spend a while reaffirming that attachment to each other. This is probably not the first time they’ve been tortured, but I can’t imagine that makes it any better—especially not when Andy’s looming mortality has brought the tenuous nature of theirs into sharp relief. What I’m saying is sex vacation, with a side of righteous murder, is on the table. Especially if that sex vacation with righteous murder gives opportunities for both of them to engage in questionable sex practices (I’m really, really interested in how their weird healing factor might intersect with things like suspension play.)

I don’t have strong feelings on top/bottom roles, as stated above, but if smut is involved, I would like to see Nicky worship Joe as much as we see Joe worship Nicky in the movie. They adore each other, overwhelmingly so, and I’d love to have Joe the focus of some dicking down, multiple orgasms, the whole lot.

Andy/Nile: The moment Nile got back up in the plane and kept fighting, I think Andy fell a little bit in love (and so did I.) I like that Nile keeps challenging Andy—on what it means to be immortal, on whether or not it’s time for her to die, on how it’s okay to rely on others sometimes—and I like that Andy challenges Nile back in turn. There’s a lot of tension in their scenes together and it feels like Nile manages to get more out of Andy in a few short days than some of the others have really gotten out of her in years.

I’d really love some post-canon fic following Andy and Nile heading off on their own, maybe to explore the world with fresh eyes, maybe to help some people out in the time Andy has left, maybe just some time for them to spend together, alone. I know Nile says that maybe she’ll let Copley fake her death, but I really want her to visit her family first; let him fake her death for everyone else, but I want her to talk to her mom and her brother, to let them know that this isn’t a repeat of what happened with her dad. Booker had good reasons to warn her off, but I want her to try anyways. I can’t see her giving up on them so easily. And with Andy as her too-old-for-her-years girlfriend in tow, I’m picturing some really awkward dinner conversations there.

Something else I’d be interested in is post-canon fic that treats Andy’s loss of immortality as a hiccup. They don’t know why they keep going until the day they stop. What if it’s really just the magic faltering at exactly the wrong moment before coming back? Played for bait and switch angst, it could be really compelling—because Nile knows Andy’s mortal now, so when Andy finally catches a bullet, that's it, that’s the end. And then it isn’t, but that just makes them both wonder when that magic is going to falter again, for Andy, for Nile, for both of them. After all, can Andy really consider herself so lucky as to get a second chance at this?

Also, to paraphrase Booker, Andy has definitely forgotten more sex moves than most people can learn in a lifetime. I feel like Nile deserves to experience all of them.


Valdemar


Fanfiction

Likes:
- Woobie Vanyel! Absolutely the woobiest
- The cosmology of the Valdemar setting, especially as it relates to fate and consequences
- Haven politics, especially between the Heralds, the Bards, and the nobles they have to work around
- Super plotty fic
- Just gratuitous hurt/comfort; sickfic, injury fic, emotional whump...

Ships:
Vanyel/Tylendal & Vanyel/Stefan: I really love both of Vanyel's lifebonded relationships, and especially the way the dynamic shifts between them. When he's younger, Vanyel was meant to be the solid rock for Tylendal to lean on, with 'Lendal as the emotionally fraught powerful mage in need of comfort. But once Stefan comes around, Vanyel is the emotionally fraught powerful mage in need of comfort, and Stefan his rock of good sense. It's one of those things that I really enjoy, just like I love how 'Lendal and Vanyel were unhealthily codependent but Stefan keeps himself from getting too deep into Vanyel's head (hey, guess he learned from past mistakes.)

So stuff I'd be interested in seeing would be canon-based fic, moving from Vanyel's early days to the twilight of his years, maybe as a rehash or as a total canon divergence. How would things change if the war with Karse never heated up? What if Randale wasn't sick in the first place? What if Stefan never made it to Haven originally, or Tylendal died later in life for reasons unconnected to the family feud? (What if Tylendal's soul split when his twin died, and Stefan was born anyways?)

Alternatively, I'd really love a time travel fic where Vanyel goes to face Leareth and magic circumstances kick him back to the moment Tylendal first opens the Gate. Old, wise, much more emotionally aware Vanyel stuck in his teen body, just about to have his channels blasted open (again!) and put in a position to stop 'Lendal before everything goes wrong this time. I think it could be a lot of fun, whether Vanyel lets events play out within reason or whether he goes forward trying to thwart Leareth's plans with all the knowledge he has of the future now. Especially if this is accompanied by a bunch of guilt of Stefan maybe not being born if he stops Tylendal, and Vanyel being able to see 'Lendal as he is rather than the golden ideal that he'd built his memories into being.

*Considering the nature of canon and how Tylendal/Stefan are technically the same soul, I don't consider 'Lendal dying (or Stefan not being born) to be against my Permanent Death DNW. I'd really prefer one of the main pairings to make it to the end alive, but I'm waiving the DNW as a whole for this fandom so it's not a concern when writing canon events.

Vanyel Ashkervon: I'm always open to just anything with Vanyel! Genfic, shipfic, I'm happy with reading a bunch of words about Vanyel being Vanyel, no matter the circumstances. I'm also more than okay with Canon/OC shipfic, if that's the direction you want to go with this, and PWP is always great.

Some possible canon-compliant fic options could include filling in all those spaces between books that we never get to see. Vanyel's stints on the Border, that transition period when he first started taking over for Randale, his time in Rethwellan hammering out that treaty, the year he spent with Savil getting properly settled into his whites after they went back to Valdemar. I would love to just see more of canon in general!

Setting change AUs and major canon divergence are really interesting; what if Vanyel never went to Haven, what if Vanyel's Gifts actually opened up naturally when he was younger, what if Vanyel stayed on Border duty instead of coming back to help run the kingdom as Randale got worse... And going over to full on setting change AUs, the idea of Vanyel the deeply tortured PoliSci student who wishes he could study musicology is just absolutely hilarious to me, so I'd love to read it.