Trick or Treat letter

[linndechir]

Dear Trick or Treat Writer,

First, thank you for writing a fic for me and taking the time to read this first. I'll probably ramble way too much and you will know far more than you really need to know to write a little ficlet for me, but to be quite honest I just copied and pasted a lot of things from my Yuletide letter because they still apply. ;) I will just list a few things I like and things I don't like and then say a couple of things about the fandoms/characters I requested; of course I don't expect you to include all the things I like, but I'd be grateful if you didn't include the things I don't like.



Things I like:

- I mostly like slash: anything from subtle sexual tension to porn, first time fics or established relationships, fluffy or kinky or both, anything as long as it's in character for everyone involved.

- I also like gen a lot: character studies, pieces about my favourite characters interacting with each other, their thoughts and opinions of each other, their first meetings and first impressions (especially if we don't get to see the beginnings of their relationship in canon), background stories about characters' past, missing scenes from canon, fics that explore why the characters made the choices they made in canon, future fics that explore where these characters are going ...

- I'm fine with dark themes (violence, angst, depression, non-con, whatever you need for the plot), but I'd prefer something that isn't completely tragic. A bit of hope would be nice.

- I like themes like loyalty, codependency, obsession, trust, and commitment issues.

- I like characters dealing with moral dilemmas, having to question their principles, or simply wanting to do things they think they shouldn't be doing, for whatever reason. This can be anything from "doing this would shake my entire worldview" to "maybe I shouldn't screw my boss".


Kinks (should you choose to write smut, which is absolutely not necessary):

- clothes fetish: either a fixation on a certain type of clothes the other wears (suits, armour, uniform, boots, gloves etc.) or sex between a dressed and a naked person or characters dressing/undressing each other

- any sort of power play, D/s, humiliation (only if it's fitting for the ship)

- asphyxiation, petting/kissing/biting/grabbing the other's neck/throat

- guns, knives, blood play (again, only if it makes sense for the characters to do this sort of thing)


Some things I do not like:

- major character death, especially of my favourite characters

- complete AUs (in-world AUs are fine as long as they are believable, but no high school AUs or coffeeshop AUs or anything like that). The only exception: I like daemon fics a lot. (Never mind if you don't know what daemons are/don't like the concept.)

- if I've mentioned any characters or pairings I dislike, please don't include them. For all my requested fandoms, I ship the two characters with each other and would not like to read about them shipped with anyone else. If you don't ship the ship I like, I'd rather receive a gen fic than a fic about a different ship.

- genderbend fics of any kind, mpreg, A/B/O, characters being vampires/werewolves/anything other than human (unless they actually ARE something like that in canon; similarily, if the characters are not human or have supernatural powers in canon, I'm not interested in reading fics in which they're just normal people with no powers).

- I have a major pet peeve for descriptions like "the blond one said this", "the taller man did that", "the soldier replied". Please just use people's names and pronouns. I don't need to be reminded of a character's hair colour or height or profession in every paragraph. ;)




Rivers of London
Thomas Nightingale, Peter Grant

Nightingale/Peter preferred, UST or first time or established domestic fluff. If you don't ship them, I'll also glady take any gen exploration of their relationship, of their everyday life together, or anything focusing on how they've changed each other's lives and what they mean to each other. If you absolutely do not want to write about one of them, I'd also be interested in anything from Nightingale's past or anything about Peter and his relationship to magic. But I'd really prefer something that centres on both of them and their relationship (whether romantic/sexual or not) or at least somehow includes both characters. I also have a soft spot for Dr Walid, Stephanopoulos and Seawoll, so if you want them to appear as well, that's cool. (Speaking of that, if you don't want to write about Peter (or if you want to add it to any Peter&Nightingale fic), write me a fic about why the hell Seawoll hates Nightingale so much? Because that really intrigues me. All those comments of "I don't care who you're currently fucking" and "stay away from this man while you still can", that sounds pretty damn personal to me.)

One exception to my no-AUs-rule: I wouldn't say no to a steampunk AU in this fandom. Idk, I think it could be really cool?

I firmly headcanon Nightingale as gay, so please nothing about Nightingale being attracted to women because that just wouldn't work for me.

A few ideas, feel free to combine them in any way:
Tricks: anything with them working a creepy case, sneaking through the fog, rainy dark corners of London, Peter getting hurt/scared and Nightigale protecting (and comforting?) him, generally protective!Nightingale is my favourite thing, Peter being awkwardly turned on by protective!Nightingale makes it even better; expeditions to creepy places, odd corners of the Folly, mysterious books, strange stories from Nightingale's past (told to Peter by the fireplace) ...
Treats: fluffy domesticity (whether slashy or not), getting familiar with and used to each other's habits and quirks, witty banter over breakfast, going out for dinner together, magic lessons, Latin lessons, Peter being enthusiastic about things and Nightingale being patient and fondly exasperated with him (or even cuter: Nightingale getting super enthusiastic about something), sitting together by the fireplace, easing each other's loneliness, cuddling and/or sex to warm up after getting soaked through in the rain ...



Coldfire Trilogy
Damien Vryce, Gerald Tarrant

Damien/Gerald preferred, although I'm okay with gen if it at least keeps the slashy undertones of canon (you know, what with the soulbond and the constant theme of Tarrant "seducing" Damien, Damien constantly going on about how elegant and beautiful Tarrant is etc.). I absolutely do not like the ending of the trilogy, so if you write something set post-canon, I'd prefer an AU in which Tarrant survives as himself (either as a normal, mortal human or as the Hunter, but definitely still with his old looks and name and personality).

A few ideas:
Tricks: Damien's fascination with the Hunter (and how he's both beautiful and horrifying), Tarrant showing Damien the beauty of the dark fae, them kicking ass together, anything kinky with bloodplay and knifeplay (you can't tell me nothing like that happened while they were on a ship and Damien was feeding Tarrant)
Treats: one of them taking care of the other, Damien helping human!Tarrant to adjust to being mortal, Damien's dilemma of caring about Tarrant but having sworn to kill him (and of course not killing him in the end), literally anything actually slashy with them would make me happy




Welcome to the Punch
Max Lewinsky, Jacob Sternwood

Again, Max/Jake preferred, but gen is fine too as long as they aren't shipped with other people. I love Max's obsession with Jake, I love the theme of Max slowly discovering that the real Jake is nothing like he imagined, I love any post-canon scenarios of Jake breaking Max out of prison/prison vans and them running off together, I love Max being grumpy about that and eventually admitting that Jake probably saved his life when he broke him out (cops in prison and all that ...).

A few ideas:
Tricks: anything dark and depressing about Max's obsession with Jake, while he was chasing him or after Jake shot him; anything dark and creepy (though preferably not actually supernatural) about Jake's time in Iceland, tense conversations after Jake breaks Max out of prison ...
Treats: Jake taking care of Max, hiding out somewhere in Scandinavia in front of a fireplace while it's snowing outside, Max trying to comfort Jake somehow after the death of his son ...



Like I said, these are just supposed to give you a few ideas, feel free to do whatever you like with my 'prompts'. I'm fairly easy to please, if you write a nice little ficlet about one of my favourite characters or even better one of my favourite ships and include one or two of the elements I like, I'll probably be very happy. :) I hope you have fun with some of these prompts and writing for me isn't too much of a chore. ;) If you need more information on the stuff I like, I use the same username everywhere, LJ, AO3, tumblr. I also have anon asks on tumblr on, so if you want to ask me anonymous questions about anything, you can do that.

- Linn

Comments

[hamsterwoman]

Waaait, did I completely blank on your being a RoL fan (I remember talking about it in ToH chat, but I didn't think it was with you...) or did I legitimately not know this / it is a recent development??

[linndechir.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, it is a recent development. ;) I think I read the books a month or two ago. I had heard about them before, but people completely failed to tell me about all the things that would actually make me want to read them (as in, tell me about the perfection that is Thomas Nightingale, about Peter's hilarious pop culture references, and about the slash potential of a ship that hits all my shipping buttons). But yeah, I've read the books now and I absolutely adore them and I most definitely need more fic in my life (and I also really need to write some fic as soon as I get around to it).

I think I vaguely remember that the series came up in the ToH chat. Soooo, thoughts? Favourite parts? Favourite characters? Ships and all that? ^^ I really need more people to talk to about this series.

[hamsterwoman]

Oh, good! I never would've forgiven myself if you had been a fan during ToH chat and I failed to take advantage of it, because these are my new obsession. Well, new as in, for about two years now, but still every bit as obsessed, and so annoyed Foxglove Summer pushed again. Aren't they awesome?! :DDD Please talk to me about them!

Nightingale is my faaaavorite! But I love Peter being a giant dork and amateur scientist, and I love his decency, and I love the dynamic between the two of them (this is one of those cases where I'm perfectly happy with either platonic fic or shippy fic). And I love Lesley, too, and have faith in her despite, you know. But I also love so many secondary characters, Varvara (as of book 4), and Stephanopoulos (even though I can't spell her name to save my life), and Abigail, and Dr Walid, and Kumar, and basically everybody in this bar.

Broken Homes is prooobably my favorite book, although it's hard to pick, as I do think the plots are the series' weakness, and I mostly just love the character interaction and scenes of hanging out and teasing each other gently and being dorks.

P.S. I assume you've found philomytha's fic, but do you know about riversoflondon? It's kind of gone dormant again, but I hope that will change with the Foxglove Summer release.

[linndechir.livejournal.com]

No no, I just didn't know any better yet. ;) I'm so glad that my friend talked me into reading them (the wonderful thing is, she talked me into reading them when I visited her in London, so I basically started reading RoL on the flight home and kept thinking "oh yeah, I was there just a couple of hours ago, cool"). And yessss, I can't believe I have to wait for the next one! Shocking.

And yeah, I don't mind platonic fic between them at all because I think it would take them quite some time to get over their awkwardness and also over the fact that they work together and having any sort of relationship would be inappropriate etc. etc, but I'd find it hard to believe that they AREN'T totally into each other. Because Nightingale cares about Peter so obviously and Peter has the most gigantic crush on Nightingale ever. ;) I do like Lesley, I was just always a bit sad when the narrative focused more on her and Peter hanging out than on Nightingale and Peter hanging out because the lack of more everyday scenes with Nightingale is what bothers me most about these books. ;) And yessss, these books have such great secondary characters. Stephanopoulos is wonderful and Dr Walid and, like I said above, I really have a soft spot for Seawoll and I'm so intrigued with whatever is up with him and Nightingale. Because there is so much personal venom between them (on Seawoll's side, really, Nightingale seems a lot cooler about the whole thing) that there HAS to be a story.

I think I like Whispers Underground and Broken Holmes about equally, although tbh I like all of them except for parts of Moon over Soho (namely the obnoxious love interest part and the Peter-behaving-like-a-total-idiot-part for the last 50 pages). But yep, the characters are the best bit and I always get so frustrated when he writes things like "I really needed to ask Nightingale about that" or "Nightingale and I spent the evening doing this or that" and I'm just like "WHY THE FUCK DID YOU NOT TELL ME ALL ABOUT THAT IN DETAIL? if you can spend a chapter on some minor investigation detail, you don't need to brush me off like that now". ;) Also, I think that considering we're four books in already, it'd really be about time to tell us a bit more about Nightingale's past.

I've mostly read linpatatoo's fic on AO3 (her post-Broken Holmes fic is pretty much the best fic I've ever read), is that the same person? And yep, I've seen the comm although I haven't snooped around too much yet, like you said, it seems fairly quiet at the moment.

[hamsterwoman]

"oh yeah, I was there just a couple of hours ago, cool"

That is really neat! (And, heh, you probably don't have this problem, but the US covers for these books are awful, so, since I became a fan, I've been trying to buy the British ones every time we've been through Heathrow. So far I only got Moon over Soho, but the propspect of owning a RoL book from ~London is extra nice, too, on top of the much prettier cover.

Peter has the most gigantic crush on Nightingale ever. ;)

Haha, he totally does. Peter fanboying Nightingale is one of my favorite things -- it's just so adorable.

I like Seawoll a lot, too, and would love to read fic (or future canon, of course) explaining what his beef with Nightingale is.

"Soho" is my least favorite of the four, too, although there are also scenes there that I like. I think both Nightingale and Lesley being less active in that one, plus mind-whammied!Peter make it less fun. With "Whispers", I didn't care for the A-plot as much, or the random CIA lady, but I did love Peter and Kumar hanging out in the sewers, making LotR references and debating sewer-luge vs sewer-bobsled.

And YES to the need for all the Nightingale-and-Peter missing moments canon and/or fic!

(Oh, and, heh, it just occurs to me that in my comments so far I didn't even mention the Rivers; the Rivers are ever so much less interesting to me than Nightingale and the apprentices and the various Met people and hangers-on. Oops?)

I've mostly read linpatatoo's fic on AO3 (her post-Broken Holmes fic is pretty much the best fic I've ever read), is that the same person?

Different person :) Here is Philomytha's RoL stuff on AO3, all of which is worth reading (well, you may want to avoid the mpreg, although I don't like mpreg and I still read it and liked it a lot). There are a few crossovers with canons I'm not familiar with, but I've even read those (and they worked for me). Most of it is Peter/Nightingale gen, but last year's Yuletide's The Purple Jug is slash. I love all of her writing (I actually know her from a different fandom first, and she's brilliant there too), but my favorites are Folly to be Wise (includes protective!Nightingale (but also Ettersberg flashbacks)), and Waterloo Sunset. For shortening-the-wait-to-the-next-book, there's this long casefic, The Birdcage which continues on from the end of Broken Homes (though, warning that there's less Nightingale in most chapters then you will probably want). I'm also very fond of this fic about Nightingale and Dr Walid meeting.

I do really like Linpatootie's fic, too, especially "How You Keep Breathing". Oh, and have you read Though I Sang in My Chains Like the Sea, from an earlier Yuletide? It's still one of my favorites.

[linndechir.livejournal.com]

I heard that the US editions are pretty awful, both the covers and the weird Americanisms that the editors put in because ... idk, they assumed that their audience would be terribly confused by a bit of British English?

I'm currently rereading Rivers of London, and it's really wonderful how Peter starts fanboying Nightingale pretty much immediately. It's utterly adorable. And I really hope that canon will give us some sort of explanation for Seawoll's dislike for Nightingale at some point, but I'll also happily take fanfic explanations for that. I'm generally starting to like Seawoll more and more the more I think about the guy.

All the novels had great moments, but yeah, Soho's plot wasn't all that great and Peter's behaviour at the end of the novel really made me dislike him for a couple of chapters, which is a pity because I generally love Peter and there's nothing worse than when a character you like suddenly behaves in shitty ways that make you question your taste. ;) Fortunately he was back to normal again soon enough.

(Oh, and, heh, it just occurs to me that in my comments so far I didn't even mention the Rivers; the Rivers are ever so much less interesting to me than Nightingale and the apprentices and the various Met people and hangers-on. Oops?)
Same here. I liked Oxley fine, but most of the Rivers are just duuuull. Lady Ty is cool in that "I absolutely despise her, but at least she's entertaining" way, Beverley just bores me (but tbh most characters bore me when they're potential love interests, and I'm not too happy about the prospect of more Beverley in Foxglove Summer). I just want all the Folly- and Met-related stuff.

Haha, okay, I only asked because a lot of people use different names on different sites and then I feel really dumb when someone tells me that's the same person. ;) I had read The Purple Jug before and liked it (just couldn't remember the author's name), but I hadn't read most of their gen stuff because I only looked for shippy fic at first. I did read most of the stuff you recommended now and those fics are great, I need to leave some proper comments one of these days. Haven't read The Birdcage yet - sounds great, but lack of Nightingale is of course a pity. We already have the books for that. ;)

[hamsterwoman]

Yeah, the US covers are terrible (though the new US pubishes is supposedly going to British covers, thank god), and they are full of Americanized "corrections", which is super-silly in this series, because if a reader is put off by "lorry" or "lift" or whatever, they are probably going to throw up their hands at all the (unchanged) British slang and obscure references and London locations and so on.

Lady Ty is cool in that "I absolutely despise her, but at least she's entertaining" way,

Agreed on Lady Ty, and I'm amused by some of the other Rivers in small doses -- Effra and her art degree and such. But, yep, Beverley has never been the least bit interesting to me, and I'm apprehensive about the intimation that she has a large role in Foxglove Summer. Frankly, I'm hoping that, as with the whole "deeply Christian CIA agent" silliness in book 3, the blurb is misleading and Beverley won't be nearly so prominent.

And now I'm going off to read your fic, seeing which on my flist this morning reminded me that I never responded to this comment :)

[linndechir.livejournal.com]

Woops, and I completely forgot to reply to this all week. I'm an idiot.

It's so weird because I imagine that it just really ruins the atmosphere for the reader. Idk, do they think that Americans aren't familiar with the British expressions? Weird. But I also read that the books apparently don't sell very well in the US, and I don't know if that's because of the shitty "corrections" or because many readers are put off by the unchanged British stuff.

Yeah, some of the rivers are not too bad in small doses (also on the other side - Oxley seems to be a cool dude and he and Isis are adorable), but Beverley is possibly the LEAST interesting one of the bunch? And you're right, we should just hope for a misleading blurb because I will be grumpy otherwise (not only because ov Beverley, but also because I can't imagine that the entire book will end up playing outside of London, that'd just be wrong).

[sevenwindows.livejournal.com]

Would read any and all of those Rivers of London ideas!

[linndechir.livejournal.com]

Thanks! :D There is so much fic potential for these books. I feel like I should write at least half of these, but that would be work. ;)