#what is with ms shadow lady being caught in the found family trope in her smps lately

[syrupwit]

Letter for Trick or Treat 2019

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Dear Reader: 

Hello, and welcome to my letter for Trick or Treat 2019. Thank you for considering making a work for me!

The primary purpose of this letter is to provide additional inspiration and creative direction. If it’s not doing that for you, feel free to disregard it.

Navigation:

Do Not Want (DNW)

Long List of Likes

For this exchange, I have requested fic only, Tricks and Treats, for the following fandoms:

Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft

Dishonored

Doom Patrol (TV)

Invader Zim

Marvel Cinematic Universe

The Umbrella Academy (TV)

Here we go...

Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft

It’s various-degrees-of-doomed!narrators -- plus Danforth! Lovecraft is great at the doomed narrator thing. What other sorts of terrible or wondrous things can happen to these seekers after forbidden knowledge?

Characters Requested:

Danforth

The Hound Narrator

Robert Harrison Blake

The Shadow Over Innsmouth Narrator

William Dyer

Re: Shipping, If That Interests You: I’m fine with any pairings for this fandom.

Dishonored

It’s creepy whales, trickster gods, and lots of minor characters! This is one of my favorite games of all time. I love the detailed worldbuilding / lore and the many opportunities for filling in backstories and missing parts of canon.

Characters Requested:

Adelle White (yes, the moth from Lady Boyle’s Last Party)

Billie Lurk | Meagan Foster

Daud

Daud’s Mother

The Outsider

Thalia Timsh

Vera Moray | Granny Rags

Waverly Boyle

Re: Shipping, If That Interests You: I’m fine with any pairings for this fandom -- seriously, go wild. On a specific note, I’ve recently become fully awakened to the appeal of Billie/Daud, and am intrigued by the idea of Billie Lurk/Thalia Timsh, Adelle White/Waverly Boyle, and Adelle White/Abigail Ames (look, it could work -- the disgraced noblewoman and the ruthless mole, okay?).

Doom Patrol (TV)

It’s Exchange Patrol! This series is so wonderfully chaotic and ridiculous. I love how messed up the characters are + the ways they support and clash with each other, and how it feels like anything can happen.

Characters Requested:

Crazy Jane

Danny the Street

Rita Farr

Cliff Steele

Victor Stone

Re: Shipping, If That Interests You: I’m fine with any pairings for this fandom. Gen-wise, I’m really fond of Victor’s relationship with his dad.

Invader Zim

It’s my recently revived obsession, back with a vengeance! After a decade and change, the movie reeled me right back in. I love this canon’s particular brand of dark comedy and pessimism mixed with... uh... zaniness.

Characters Requested:

Dib

Gaz

GIR 

Foodio 3000

Invader Skoodge 

Tak

Countess von Verminstrasser

Zim

Re: Shipping, If That Interests You: Dib/Zim | ZaDR is my OTP. I’m also pretty intrigued by the idea of Ms. Bitters/Countess von Verminstrasser. Otherwise, no preferences -- anything is fine.

Marvel Cinematic Universe

It’s the megafandom, or a tiny slice thereof! Since this canon is so darn expansive, I’ll discuss each of these characters separately rather than summarize my interest in the fandom as a whole.

Characters Requested:

Mantis

Mantis! I enjoy her earnestness, her goofier side (“kick names, take ass”; jumping to test the gravity on Titan in Infinity War), and the way her powers’ potential array of uses ranges from tooth-achingly sweet to Thanos-topplingly strong to skin-crawlingly disturbing. I am also a huge, huge sucker for sheltered and socially awkward characters learning to get along with others, and for characters with unhealthy or abusive upbringings coming to terms with the past, and for characters in space exploring space. Basically, though, I’d just like to see more Mantis.

Peter Parker

All iterations of this character have a fond place in my heart, and MCU Peter occupies a particular part of it. I am interested in the pure-hearted hero bit as well as his angstier/darker potential (getting a building dropped on him, getting pushed in front of a train, Mysterio’s illusions, the FFH post-credits scene, the classic Spider-Man backstory that has so far been left untold except through implication).

Flash Thompson

The MCU reinterpretation of Flash as a rich, douchey nerd is very intriguing to me. When he isn’t bullying Peter or playing the butt of a joke, what is he like? ...What do his social media followers actually think of him, anyway?

Re: Shipping, If That Interests You: I’m fine with any pairings for any of these characters, though I am also specifically interested in Mantis/Nebula, Mantis/Gamora, Mantis/Peter Parker, Peter Parker/Tony Stark, and Peter Parker/Flash Thompson.

The Umbrella Academy (TV)

It’s the end of the world, probably! I love this show’s tone and the genre trappings and the complicated family/team drama. Just, all of it.

Characters Requested (Any):

Allison Hargreeves

Ben Hargreeves

Diego Hargreeves

Klaus Hargreeves

Luther Hargreeves

Number Five | The Boy

Vanya Hargreeves

Hazel

Re: Shipping, If That Interests You: I’m fine with any pairings for this fandom, though I will admit to a particular fondness for Allison/Vanya and Allison/Luther.

Do Not Want (DNW)

Character or ship bashing

Non-canonical permanent major character death, *EXCEPT* for the Cthulhu Mythos

Non-canonical permanent body modification (ex. amputation)

Harm to pet animals (if a giant space squid is attacking the character's ship and they have to fight it or something, that's fine)

Parent/child incest

Non-canonical child characters

Extended discussion of Twelve-Step recovery programs (mentions are fine)

Characters in romantic relationships being written as asexual/aromantic

Smut DNWs: A/B/O, master/slave, heavily ritualized/formal BDSM, bestiality, necrophilia, scat, vore, sounding

Long List of Likes (LLL)

Humor: hijinks; absurdity; surreality; comedy of errors; ludicrous/cracky premises treated seriously or unseriously; Rashomon situations where each character shares their uniquely biased perception of an event; that trope where found documents or outsider POV seriously misinterpret canon events/characters; Ember Island Players trope. 

Horror: dark comedy; gallows humor; fridge horror; Monkey’s Paw situations; parapsychology; mad scientists; witches; ghosts; ghost hunters; cryptids; zombies; THE WALKING DEAD; revenants; cultists; rituals; eldritch beings; dying gods; possession; Dark Carnivals; cursed objects; creepy little shops peddling dubious merchandise; secluded or remote locations; big scary buildings with tragic histories; haunted mansions, ships, spaceships, houses, “haunted house” attractions, hayrides, forests, marshes, beaches, islands, etc.; that trope where you aren’t sure if there was really a supernatural occurrence or if it was a trick of the mind, ooohh scary.

Slice of Life: a day in the life of $character; dealing with the everyday challenges of life in a non-mundane universe; worldbuilding elements; missing moments; domesticity; character studies told through small details.

Action/Adventure: missions/cases and snippets thereof; escaping from captivity together; unusual team-ups; undercover as XYZ; identity porn; road trips of the terrestrial, extraterrestrial, aquatic, and supernatural varieties; space travel; visiting other planets; wilderness survival; climactic warehouse confrontations; wacky foes / locations / circumstances for battles; bar fights; fighting back to back.

Gen Relationships: frenemies; reluctant allies; forced to work together; parent-child or sibling-sibling relationships where things may be complicated but they care about each other deeply in the end even if they’re not always great at expressing it; cooperation, camaraderie, and loyalty between characters; lonely/isolated characters taking steps toward opening up to others.

Romance: first times; get-together; feelings realization; friends to lovers; frenemies to lovers; UST; one-sided pining; mutual pining; flirting where one character doesn’t think the other is serious but they totally are; possessiveness and jealousy where the possessive / jealous character feels guilty or the target of the possessiveness / jealousy is into it; monster on a leash.

Smut: characters feeling overwhelmed; lots of emotions; touch-starved; awkwardness; praise kink; xeno; unexpectedly compatible; kink discovery / exploration; characters being really into their partner or what they’re doing or how into what they’re doing their partner is; “I shouldn’t be so into this”; friends with benefits where both characters are pining but feel more comfortable having sex than talking about their feelings.

Miscellany: holidays; holiday traditions; seasons; weather; thunderstorms; getting caught in the rain; stargazing; appetizing descriptions of food; diners, drive-ins, and dives; tea; candles; cats; metafiction; unconventional formats.