FFFX 2021 Letter

As a general note:

Hi - this letter includes prompts/commentary that didn't fit in the sign-up proper.

I like things that are weird and out-there. I like surprises. I have very few DNWs and if nothing in my letter resonates with you, or even if it does but there's something else that resonates more, you have my full permission to go wild. Even if you do like the prompts, feel free to take whatever you want from them/mix and match.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
Karli Morgenthau
I like sympathetic takes on Karli - her collateral damage isn't worse than the avengers, after all. And her goals are extremely noble. I'm fine with an angle about corrupted morals though, or something else entirely.

Prompts:
- The actress' parents are Irish and Jamaican, if you want to use that for a backstory
- The five years post snap
- Karli ends up in America and meets Sarah during the five years
- Formation of the flag smashers / some typical leftist drama
- No X-Men in the MCU yet, so I could totally see Karli watching X-Men cartoons/reading comics
- Karli in a heist movie style set up

Ships of particular interest: Karli/Sarah, Karli/Sharon, Karli/Helmut Zemo, Karli/Michelle Jones, Karli/Erik Killmonger

Original Works
I think a lot of these relationships double as prompts, but I will add a little info on what I liked about them/what my barebones thoughts on one way they could be written is. Ignore if not useful to you, recip.

Group: Teenager on Way to Becoming the Next Big Bad & Teenager Also on Way to Villainy (OW)
Seems like there's a lot of potential for a complicated superhero world in the background of an interpersonal drama. I could also imagine a frank discussion of what brings people into supervillainy (class?). Fine with any gender combo for the characters.

Group: World-Weary Samurai/Exasperated Tea Shop Owner Who Always Tends To Her Injuries (F/F) (OW)
For me the draw here was the contrast in roles and emotions serving as foils. It might be fun if the tea shop owner is actually older than the world-weary samurai. I also requested it because I know it's something I do not have the requisite knowledge of samurai, in a trope or historic sense, to write it myself.

Group: Vampire Skeptical of Aliens & Alien Skeptical of Vampires & Their Human Friend
I like the inbuilt comedic tension here. I also really really want to know why they're skeptical.

Group: Female Librarian Skeptical About Romance/Regency Lady From Latest Hit Harlequin Novel (OW)
I love how meta this prompt is. (Part of me wants to say that the female librarian is skeptical about romance because book characters from different genres keep coming to life around her and that complicates things)

Group: Female Serial Killer/Her Vampire Lover (OW)
This pairing sounds very dark and sexy and also a little bit like Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Do they know about the other? Is there a pile of dead bodies they're hiding from each other? Do they accidentally target the same victim? Or if you wanted, is the vampire a very ethical vampire who drinks pig's blood from the butcher and is slowly horrified to realize what her lover/girlfriend is doing?

Group: Superhero's Single Mom/Supervillain's Single Mom (OW), Group: Retired Supervillainess/Superheroine She Is Roommates With Who Needs Saving (OW)
Look, I love superheroes.

Prompts:
- Superhero and villain team up to try and break up their respective moms
- Retired supervillainess is teaching in her retirement and runs a dojo

Star Trek: DS9
Benjamin Sisko/Q
This entire nomination is solely based on this blooper video from the Q episode where Avery Brooks breaks character and it's delightful.

Benjamin Sisko
He's my favorite captain and doesn't get a lot of attention in the fandom relative to a few other characters. Anything you write would delight me. I love Sisko's sense of ethics (sometimes they're not great! Unnuke that planet, uninhabited or no), his compassion, his passion, his family spirit. I also love whatever Benny Russel and Mirror Sisko and would consider fic/comics focused on them as a fill for Sisko.

If you want more specific prompts, here is a list I wrote a while back, with more in a tumblr reblog by jazzypizzaz. You can also find my original post copied to this journal if you prefer.

Jake Sisko
Jake is a fun character, love that he doesn't go into Starfleet, love the potential for future fic where he has the weirdest backstory or to see his perspective on work as a writer.

Prompts:
- Dominion occupation on DS9
- Noncanon character interactions: Dukat, Garak, Ziyal, Picard, the Nagus, the borg, Pel..
- Jake/Mardah - that was interesting for a hot second there
- More Mirroverse / More Jake & Bashir interactions
- Something Jake wrote and his POV around writing it
- Jake goes to Cardassia post canon

Group: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak & Elim Garak/Enabran Tain (ST: DS9)
Don't really have anything to say for this beyond 'I like darkfic and trauma, have fun!'

Crossover Fandom
Group: Annalise Keating (HTGAWM TV)/Nakia (Black Panther MCU)
I don't think anyone is going to offer this, but just in case: I love the idea of Annalise discovering Wakanda, I love the idea of two complicated black women forming a relationship.

Group: Mazikeen (Lucifer TV)/Valkyrie (Thor MCU)
Team kind of a dickbag with moral flaws but a heart of gold.

Other: Worldbuilding (Parahumans - Wildbow & Nemesis - April Daniels)
I think the two worlds have some similarities, fusing the worldbuilding elements from either might be really interesting, lots of the characters could have interesting interactions.

Group: Bellatrix Lestrange (HP - JKR)/Bella Swan (Twilight - Meyer)
- Madame Lestrange lives alone in a big mansion in a small town and Bella has discovered her secret - she's a vampire. (Is Bella right?)
- Bellatrix works for the Volturi

Harry Potter
In general, Harry Potter is probably the fandom in which I enjoy crack fic the most, as well as that genre of fic where the main characters solve all their problems wayyy quicker.

Other: Worldbuilding
There's plenty of gaps in the HP worldbuilding and I'd probably be happy to read anything you want to write. I would be interested in pre-canon fic, whether it fills in the Grindewald-Dumbledore saga, or shines some more light on Hogwarts/the first war with Voldemort. I'm interested in attempts to explain how magic works. I'm interested in the world outside of Wizarding Britain. I'm interested in worldbuilding on how the muggle/wizard world got separated or how much the politics bleed over - did wizards participate in British colonialism? How common is it for wizards to rejoin the muggle world in some level?

Some more specific prompts:
- Examples of muggle events that were influenced or caused by wizards - from the lighthearted (that's not really a UFO) to the serious
- POV of several of the British Prime Ministers as they discover the wizarding world - or possibly other muggle politicians
- Wizards abstaining/joining muggle wars
- AU where the wizarding world is revealed to muggles
- Stories from professional wizard dueling masters / training montage
- Normie wizard trying to choose a job
- Wizarding discrimination as derivative of muggle racism/anti-Semitism and how that came about
- POV employee or casefiles for the International Statute of Secrecy who has to record all the different violations - from a young wizard who threatened their abusive parents, a drunk witch who made her own fireworks on New Years Eve, a black wizard who singlehandedly took down a burgeoning hate group, w/e

Cho Chang/Luna Lovegood
This wasn't a tag I nominated but I requested it because it is an interesting rare pair. I think there's a lot of potential for bonding over grief, considering Luna lost her mother and is the sort of person who drops kindness like it's magic. Or post-canon. Or with Dumbledore's Army. Or a fed-up Cho taking out some of her anger on another student who is bullying Luna, which blossoms into something more.

Prompts:
- Luna Lovegood is an extremely successful naturalist who also runs a sketchy wizarding herbal therapy business. She's going to buy the Malfoy Manor.
- Cho & Luna are both imprisoned in Malfoy Manor AU
- Cho is self-harming by offering her blood at a vampire's den. Luna is a young vampire who let a friend turn her as a favor.

Rita Skeeter
Rita is a fun character, at least in part because she's a total dickbag.

I really enjoy F/F stories about her. Stories where she meets up with any of the golden trio post-second war. I'm also fine if she's more of a POV character telling someone else's story, that's interesting too.

Pre-canon stories can be fun - who was she rooming with at Hogwarts? I also want to know more about her work. Is she happy, is she settling, does she have a masterplan?

Prompts:
- McGonagall meets up with her least favorite student (Rita)
- Rita in the slug club
- Rita stalking Hermione post-war, somehow they don't hate each other by the end
- Rita and Bellatrix as roommates
- Rita facing off against another columnist who has it out for her
- Rita's school friend (OC, canon character?) becoming a death eater and her reuniting with them... somehow.
- Rita vs Dumbledore, the final battle (to be waged metaphorically, of course)
- Rita has a hard-hitting anti corruption battleplan that she supports with her gossipy pieces
- Rita actually ends the second wizarding war by casting an avada kedavara at Voldemort when in her insect Animagus, with a very tiny wand

Bellatrix/Narcissa
Some possible character interpretations/prompts:
- Siblingcest as the trauma reaction of two young children
-Siblingcest as the unintended outcome of blood purity rhetoric
- It's us against the world
- Forced to by Voldemort
- The most stable relationship in either of their lives, as they ignore their marriages to reconnect with each other
- They don't actually want to be in an incestous relationship but Narcissa can get Bella out of Azkaban onto parole if Bellatrix has a competent and reliable spouse who can serve as a guardian
- team up against Voldemort
- two women being evil and pretty

Narcissa Malfoy/Harry Potter
Another relationship that I did not nominate but find intriguing. Would be interested in either a darkfic angle or an unconventional but happy relationship angle.

Prompts:
- Narcissa befriends Harry post-war to try and improve her political and social standing. Things get interesting from there.
- Narcissa forced to rape Harry by Voldemort/misc Death Eaters
- Narcissa finds Harry after the battle of Hogwarts - do they talk? bond?
-- darkfic option: she pushes an exhausted Harry back into the bed.
- Draco POV