Dear Id Pro Quo Author (2021)

[scioscribe]

Thank you so much for writing for me! I'm so excited about this exchange. I've elaborated on some tags if it felt like more context/explanation would be helpful, but I promise I would be delighted with any of these. All requests this year are for fic.

I'm scioscribe on AO3 and scioscribe on Tumblr. All requests this year are for fic.

Likes

hurt/comfort, emotional hurt/comfort, ensembles, enemies-to-lovers, enemies-to-friends, friendships, friends-to-lovers, opposites attract, conflicting worldviews and priorities, emotional vulnerability, fix-its, casefic, canon-style adventures, crack played straight, nuanced bad guys/terrible people with moments of goodness or vulnerability, redemption, pining, obvious feelings that don’t quite get admitted to, unconventional gestures of affection, partnerships, power dynamics, shippy gen and ambiguously intense relationships, intimacy, found family, friendships, first-time stories, established relationships, character death, amnesia, characters forced to cooperate, forced proximity, bedsharing, huddling/cuddling for warmth, 5 + 1 fics, slow-burns, fake/pretend relationships, arranged marriage/marriage of convenience, sex pollen, power couples, age gaps, worldbuilding, undercover work, loyalty, tenderness, acts of kindness, trying to do the right thing, identity porn, complicated relationships, relying on each other (healthily or otherwise), moral complexity, long relationships, werewolves with pack dynamics, canon-divergence AUs, added supernatural/fantasy/sci-fi elements

Historical- and canon-typical language, violence, attitudes, and darkness-levels all okay to include.

General Sex Likes/Kinks

clothed sex, wall-sex, rough sex, dubcon/ambiguous consent, teasing, anal play/sex, oral sex, frottage, fingering, gags, dirty talk, hand and finger kink, hair-touching, nipple play, characters giving orders/instructions, roleplay, casual D/s, spaking (including breasts, thighs, and pussy), talking during sex, emotional sex, sleepy/lazy sex, humorous sex scenes, enthusiastic sex, tenderness, loss of virginity, bad/awkward sex (either charmingly funny or downbeat), coming untouched, coming in pants, voyeurism, exhibitionism, collaring, people getting mussed, orgasm delay/denial, overstimulation, edging, begging, historical period- or location-specific sex, sex toys, praise kink, possessiveness, marking/bruising/biting

DNW

ageplay, mommy/daddy kink, explicit sex for characters under sixteen, scat, bestiality, vore. (I'm assuming all the Wilds characters are over sixteen, so sex is fine there.)

Mansfield Park - Jane Austen

Mary Crawford/Fanny Price

A/B/O - Alphas and Omegas are uncommon and discriminated against by betas | Accidental Soulbond | Aftermath of sex pollen | Alternate Universe - Locked Tomb - Necromancer/Cavalier dynamics | Alternate Universe - Same-Sex Marriage is Allowed

This ship has such a terrific blend of sparks, conflict, and genuine admiration, and their worldviews and personalities are so different in a way that makes me really, really want to see them stuck together or inexorably drawn to each other and having to deal with that. I love all forced proximity/forced bonding tropes with them: the idea of some sudden occurrence, like a soulbond or sex pollen, making it a social or moral (at least to Fanny) necessity for them to marry before they even start resolving their differences, is just great. Especially when the sudden occurrence introduces complications of its own, like feelings of violation or different reactions to the sex pollen or the exact effects of the soulbond. And I also love drawn-out courtship and the worldbuilding intricacies of social expectations in a Regency England with same-sex marriage or A/B/O or both. How do the changes in how their world works affect how they relate to each other? Are there still set expectations for who courts whom and who can only accept or decline offers, or are those roles open to anyone? Does that change how they think about marriage?

With A/B/O, I also really like the idea of alpha Mary and omega Fanny and how that plays into Mary pushing boundaries and being "too much," dangerously and otherwise, and how omega Fanny would be even easier for people to justify ignoring because of various ideas about her being small and meek and insignificant. Are they drawn to each other? Do people try to shove them together to just "solve" their abnormality like they'll cancel each other out? What are the different attitudes directed towards them? Do they have much experience with others of their designation or with alphas/omegas generally, or is it a novelty to even be around someone who isn't a beta?

Locked Tomb: I'd be delighted with either Regency England having an infusion of necromancy and Necromancer/Cavalier dynamics or with Mansfield Park as one of the Houses/Mary and Fanny in the Locked Tomb universe generally. And I'm happy with either in either role. I just really love them being in this tight-knit interdependence with complicated loyalty, ambivalence, hierarchy, swords, hurt/comfort, oaths, etc.



Black Panther

Solo: Erik Killmonger
Erik Killmonger/T'Challa

Alternate Universe - Villain Wins | Amnesia - character doesn't remember enemy becoming their lover | Arranged Marriage | Canon surviving character dies; canon dead character survives; revival quest ensues | Character with PTSD can't identify their triggers | Characters are forced to share a body | Enemy uses mindwipe on hero but mindwipe is only partially effective | Masked Ball As An Excuse for Inadvisable Sex | Resurrection - Fought a way out of afterlife for loved one's sake | A seduces/romances B meaning to betray them but catches feelings | Stranded on a Hostile Planet Together | Thing character has built a large chunk of their life around comes to an end; finding a new path | Time Loop

I love the complexity of Erik's attitudes towards Wakanda: he has so much (justified) resentment and rage, but his dad also instilled a sense of it being his "home," and his takeover is more about unleashing the country on the world than destroying it from the inside out of revenge. And that plays in so gloriously with his complex feelings about T'Challa and T'Challa's complex feelings about him.

I like situations where Erik has to deal with actually getting what he always wanted. (I also just love the complex worldbuilding potential of seeing what would have happened if he'd actually been able to carry out his plan and you just had this sudden Wakandan war against global anti-Blackness.) What does he do once he no longer has anything he's working towards? Does he stay king? If he does, what is his kingship like? I also like time loops for this, if he just keeps reliving his time in Wakanda until he starts reacting differently to things and what he wants changes.

There's a whole subset of tags here that are just about Erik and T'Challa in some kind of fraught, ambivalent situation potentially full of a ton of hot yearning, too. Maybe there's an identity porn aspect, where Erik gets into Wakanda earlier to do recon at a masked ball, where he winds up entangled with T'Challa? Does he know at once who T'Challa is, or is it a surprise to him to realize that he's slept with the guy he's planning on eventually murdering? Or maybe Erik decides to seduce/marry his way to the throne, only to start having real feelings for T'Challa? Does T'Challa suspect his intentions? Or what if they had actually waded through all this and formed a solid relationship only to have Erik forget all of that and wake up thinking that his aim is still to take T'Challa down? Or make it darker and more fucked-up: Erik's plan to take over Wakanda involves possessing T'Challa somehow, and they're stuck sharing a body? He tries to mind-wipe T'Challa and convince him they've always been partners, but the memory-loss is patchy and T'Challa keeps feeling like there's something wrong? I'd like them to ultimately wind up with at least their canonical level of weird regard for each other, despite everything, but that doesn't mean Erik can't do some genuinely fucked up things first.

More optimistically, I also just like "fuck it, I love you" tags where they just have more time to work out their canonical relationship. They're suddenly abducted and stranded on a dangerous alien planet and have to work together? Erik somehow fights his way out of the afterlife to help T'Challa go up against Thanos or some other threat? The canon battle ends with T'Challa's death, and Erik decides that he's not letting that happen after all? Just anything where they wind up working together and/or strongly committing to each other and possibly rescuing each other, literally or emotionally.

"Can't identify their own triggers" tag--I love the idea of Erik not really processing his trauma as trauma and just submerging all of it under anger and Machiavellian plans, and T'Challa is eventually able to actually see the vulnerability and damage underneath all of that and address it in some fashion.

Other ships I'm good with: Erik/Shuri, Erik/Okoye, Erik/Nakia. And I've said Erik throughout for consistency's sake, but I'm fine with calling him Killmonger or N'Jadaka, too, whatever works best.



Star Trek: The Original Series

Crew of the Starship Enterprise as a Group

Aftermath of sex pollen - aftermath is awkward but not traumatic | Age Regression/De-Aging | Alternate Universe - Characters are part of underground resistance in world where the villains rule | Character is De-Aged; Reveals Their Childhood Trauma | Character tries to hide their problems but friends are determined to help | Competence - highly effective teamwork | Entire Squad Willing To Throw Down For One Person | Gift Giving | Hurt/Comfort - Character is weak and fatigued but doesn't slow down because they're "just tired" | Hurt/Comfort: Aftermath/recovery from battle | Loyalty Kink: even if the entire world turns against you I will never doubt you | Loyalty | Stranded on a Hostile Planet Together | Stranded Together With No Way Home

I adore the crew's camaraderie, teamwork, mutual support, and all-around competence, and anything leaning into any of that will make me happy. I like them dealing with difficult situations and making the best of them, working through any interpersonal wrinkles; missionfic totally welcome. If any group of people is going to be able to awkwardly but warmly deal with the aftermath of sex pollen in a professional environment, it's the Enterprise crew. I love small, affectionate, tender gestures, so hurt/comfort in any various combinations, mutual or otherwise, are totally welcome, as are things like thoughtful gift exchanges and everyone rallying together behind someone.

De-aging: I'd prefer them to be physically de-aged as opposed to just mentally de-aged. They can lose their adult memories or keep them but just have younger impulses, whichever you like. I really love the idea of the whole crew being de-aged to teenagers for a while and having to deal with some sort of problem. And if Kirk gets de-aged to a certain point, does he suddenly think he was just then in the middle of the Tarsus IV famine or the genocide? I'm totally here for the crew having to deal with the trauma of this kid who is also their captain. Other people's childhood traumas of the non-mass-atrocity variety are also totally welcome.

I have a whole subset of tags that's basically about making them even more of a unit in the face of overwhelming trouble. Maybe the Federation falls or they get stuck in the Mirrorverse, and they wind up having to rally and resist together and figure out how to live when they really are all each other's only hope? Or they're stuck on one planet, maybe way back in time, and there's no chance of them getting off, so they have to rebuild their lives there? Is it a dangerous environment where they all need each other more than ever? What new conflicts appear, and how do they resolve them? I'm also very weak for tropes about normalcy dissolving in extraordinary situations, so if you want to throw anything about them gradually getting more physically affectionate with each other/sharing beds/having amorphous poly relationships, those are all great additions.

T'Pring/Nyota Uhura
Solo: Nyota Uhura

Accidental Soulbond | Alternate Universe - Jazz Age | Alternate Universe - Jazz Age-Inspired Science Fiction | A and B soulbond at A's wedding/wedding reception to someone else | Arranged Marriage | Character A asks to wear B's favor in the tourney | Characters Have Sex As Part Of Diplomatic Negotiations and/or Relations | Courtly Love | Dom/sub - Inexperienced Dom/Experienced Sub | Elaborate Courting Rituals | Mail Order Brides | Pon Farr

Jazz Age AU! I love the possibilities here for Uhura. You have the Harlem Renaissance going on at roughly the same time, so there's a ton of vibrant Black culture going on in New York, and I think all the music and energy and glamour and the sense of pushing at the possibilities of the world would suit her. (Plus, I'm shallow, and the costuming is great.) Musician or singer Uhura? Literary translator Uhura? Does she meet real-life famous people? I would eat any of this up with a spoon, with all the historical detail you want to include. Love affairs are extremely welcome, whether those are with T'Pring or Rand or Chapel or Spock or really anyone else, including OCs and real people. And any of this can be infused into space for Jazz Age-inspired science fiction: I'd love to see what you come up with for that and will luxuriate in any worldbuilding.

Tag subset: Noble Chevalier Uhura! Feel free to twist or alter the worldbuilding however you like to get this, I just really adore the idea of a Vulcan or even a whole Federation where the norms are chivalric and there's hand-kissing and Uhura wearing T'Pring's favor into battle/tourney or swearing herself to her as some kind of knight.

Closer to canon, I really love looking at how a relationship between the two of them could have happened in or around "Amok Time." What if Spock had been called back to Vulcan to deal with T'Pring's pon farr, and Uhura had, ah, relieved him of those responsibilities? What if she had attended the proposed bonding ceremony, and T'Pring's calculated plan for a challenge had fallen apart when she had Uhura spontaneously formed a soulbond? And I love anything that explores the cultural gulf between the two of them. Maybe this is an AU where the relationship between Vulcan and the rest of the Federation needs to be shored up with a politically arranged marriage or some kind of diplomatic sex ritual? Or maybe the cultural differences and the slow arc of getting to know each other gets explored through elaborate courting rituals?

Mail order spouse: I really love the idea of mail order spouses--of a non-skeevy, non-Harry Mudd persuasion--being common with Starfleet personnel, since they don't have a lot of time to get to know people other than their shipmates. (In this scenario, I'm assuming the spouses can stay onboard ship.) Maybe Uhura orders a bride sight-unseen, and has her canon reaction to T'Pring's beauty--but then there's still the awkward getting-to-know-you part. What's T'Pring's motivation for going along? Does she want to leave Vulcan? Travel through space specifically? Or does she have some more pressing, secret thing that drove her to take this deal? How do they warm up to each other? Or is Uhura the mail order bride, maybe one who really wants to study on Vulcan and can't get the access she needs any other way? Or who has just decided that she wants an adventure, and it's a coin-toss between Starfleet and agreeing to marry a mystery Vulcan?

Inexperienced Dom/Experienced Sub: I don't have any preference on who does what here, I just love this dynamic for them so much and think it would be ridiculously hot. Characters gradually discovering and embracing a dominance kink is something I love and never see often enough. I'd be happy to have this on its own or blended with any of the other prompts.



Scrubs

Perry Cox/John "JD" Dorian

Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides | Arranged Marriage - Algorithmic selected marriage | Bad Guys Made Them Do It | Character A wakes up married to Character B after drunken night in Vegas | Character hurt protecting/helping others | Character's superpowers are killing them | Dirty Talk - Character A unexpectedly super good at dirty talk | Finding Someone Sleeping and Putting a Blanket or Coat Over Them | A hopes not to reveal affection for B but oops their protective side just came out now it’s obvious | Hurt/Comfort - Character is weak and fatigued but doesn't slow down because they're "just tired" | Hurt/Comfort - Hallucinations/Delirium | Hurt/Comfort - Concussion or Head Injury | A is a badass; B is protective of them anyway | A is injured B goes berserk | Love Languages | Loyalty | Noncon - Rape Is Recorded and Sent to Character's Friends/Loved Ones | Pet Names/Nicknames Used Instead of Actual Names Until Bad Thing Happens | Sex Pollen - reveals mutual feelings | Truth Serum

I love the staggered power differential/equality these two wind up having. Because on the one hand, Dr. Cox is JD's superior and the object of a lot of doe-eyed hero worship, while JD gets called girl's names and treated as an annoying, needy pest, but on the other hand, it's not just that there's actual mutual affection underneath that and that Dr. Cox's annoyance is at least partly a front. It's that they have a kind of mutual need and respect for each other, too, and they can be mutually protective of each other when necessary. Some of my favorite moments in the series are when we get things like Dr. Cox taking JD's advice when he takes almost no one else's (boggling his therapist's mind) or when we see that JD showing up for him emotionally matters for him. And I love the potential for them enjoying each other and being fond of each other, falling in love even as their relationship remains super-weird and full of snark and rants and girl's names.

There are a couple of tags I've requested where they just sort of wind up involuntarily saddled with each other as semi-equals, and I really like the potential of that. Sentinel/Guide AU! Which one of them is which? How do they react to each other? Is Dr. Cox really resentful at first of the need to work together? Or maybe it's an AU where it's common to have your spouse assigned to you via algorithm, and the computer picks JD as Cox's match? (Meanwhile, Dr. Cox is convinced there has been a huge mistake here.) It would just be really interesting to see how their relationship would develop from such a different start, where they don't reflexively have a mentor/mentee setup, especially since Cox can relate to people differently outside the hospital hierarchy. Kind of related: such a great ship for "woke up married." (I'll totally just take a hand-wave on the timeline re: marriage equality.) How does it force them to confront their feelings? How badly does it break Cox's brain?

And I'm also just down with shoehorning in random SFF aspects. Sex pollen is a scourge that strikes Sacred Heart! Are they just coincidentally together at the time, or do they wind up seeking each other out, maybe to their surprise? (Do they even know they're doing it, if they do?) I also love truth serum, forcing emotional vulnerability instead of physical vulnerability. Do they both get dosed, or just one? Does it start off just funny, with at least one of them not taking the situation seriously? What kind of stuff winds up coming out? Also, superpowers. I'm good with this as either something the affected one has had the whole time or something that just hits suddenly. What power is it? Is it just using it that's killing whoever has it, or is it having it all? If it's just the use, why is it so important to use it? Do they argue over the superpowered one continuing to use the power that's killing him? What kind of effects ensue as this is happening?

Similarly on the reality-breaking scale, deeply implausible OTT h/c scenarios! I always adore these, and I promise I don't need you to come up with a great explanation: I'll just roll with it. I love things like Bad Guys Made Them Do It or "you have to watch a video of your loved one being raped," whether they trigger feelings realizations or come when a relationship is already established. Just: trauma and protectiveness and (if it's the bad guys made them do it prompt) maybe complicated feelings about "I want this but not like this" or not knowing if the other one wants it.

I also adore more grounded h/c, likewise with protectiveness and more open vulnerability/tenderness, and I like either of them as the hurt party. (Or mutual h/c!) I've also requested a bunch of tags not only about the kinds of hurt but also about some kinds of comfort that I'm especially weak for, and they don't have to go together. I'm great with all varieties of both. Each of these tags is an iddy goldmine for me.

Further random shippy stuff I love: JD's overactive imagination making him surprisingly good at dirty talk and coming up with sexual fantasies his partners like, JD realizing that Cox is better at showing his feelings through gestures and being able to really feel that/working out compatible love languages (not that Cox would ever use that term), Newbie/girl's names.

Perry Cox/John "JD" Dorian/Jordan Sullivan

A/B/O - Alpha/Alpha Pair Seeking Omega | Arranged Marriage - Third Partner Forced to Join a Struggling Marriage | Comfort Sex | Dirty Talk - Character A unexpectedly super good at dirty talk | Domesticity | Emotional Hurt/Comfort | Friends With Benefits While Mutually Pining Further Complicated by Unplanned Pregnancy | Hanahaki Disease | Hurt/Comfort - Character jumped in front of a bullet to save someone | Hurt/Comfort - Character overuses magic/powers/etc. to protect a loved one | Hurt/Comfort - Concussion or Head Injury | A is a badass; B is protective of them anyway | Morning after (amazing sex the night before) | Pet Names/Nicknames Used Instead of Actual Names Until Bad Thing Happens | Polyamory - A/B canon couple court oblivious and pining C | Polyamory: Character A slowly discovers that they love both Character B and Character C | Possessive Sex | Sex Pollen - Both/All Affected | Sex Pollen - Only One Person Affected | Threesome - Established older couple brings in young enthusiastic and slightly overwhelmed third

I really adore the potential for this and can really see them all fitting together well, offering each other an actually good blend of affection and pushback, tenderness and snark. (I like them as an eventual equilateral OT3 as opposed to a V.) I tend to like this with Cox/Jordan already being an established pair--I'm really into the poly dynamic where one person feels like it'd be impossible for anything to happen, they're bound to be on the outside forever, and any chemistry or "moments" are just in their head. Please give me all the angst and pining; it's amazing. Maybe Cox and Jordan have actually already made up their minds that they want this, and the general level of sarcasm just means that JD's not sure they feel the same way? Or maybe it starts out as casual sex--Jordan manuevers her way to a threeway for funsies, and it just keeps happening, or maybe Dr. Cox's "Overkill" solution for getting over the JD/Jordan sex is a threesome? Is it actually just his self-sabotaging attempt to scorch the relationship-earth?

There's just a lot of sex and relationship stuff with them that I love. Comfort sex in the aftermath of a really bad day, possibly including when Jordan and Cox are grieving Ben? Hot possessive sex, with some deliberate bruising/scratching/marking? Sex where JD's imagination makes him unusually good at dirty talk/coming up with fantasies his partners like? Ordinary domesticity, holidays, parenting, trying to decide how open to be with family/friends/etc., lazy morning sex when no one has to go to work, vacations: I just love this kind of warm slice-of-life for them. Morning after their first time or a particularly great time, where they're either all blissfully wiped out or not sure how to respond to the situation?

I also love added-in supernatural/SFF/AU elements. Combining the feeling of fruitless "they're married, they're obviously not interested" pining with the "confess or die of continuing to cough up bloody flowers" variety of hanahaki? Perfect cocktail of pining, h/c, romance, and "what the hell, you're a doctor, just do the thing you know you have to do to cure yourself (I can't keep watching you die)" protectiveness. Or sex pollen! I'm absolutely here for all of them being affected--maybe it hits the hospital, and they're all in the same location right then?--but I also like only one of them being affected and just so overwhelmed that they need the other two to pitch in. Extremely hot + kind of a bonding experience!

Unusual marriage AUs are also terrific. I like the idea of Jordan and Cox as an unusual alpha/alpha marriage that reluctantly looks for (or gets assigned) omega-JD for "balance" or in some kind of hyper-bureaucratic scenario where struggling marriages get additional people assigned to them? Maybe it's pre-canon, pre-divorce, when Jordan has had an affair with Petey and their marriage is on the verge of shattering? Or is it during canon? Do they know him already? How does everyone react, and how do they all warm up to each other?

I always adore hurt/comfort, especially as a way to bring JD into the relationship, either because him getting hurt provokes Cox and Jordan to realize some level of feelings or because having him act as comforter inspires the same thing and amps up all the pining. I love the increased vulnerability--possibly combined with bravery, if the hurt character is hurt protecting one/both of the others or if they're overusing superpowers (of your choice) for the same reason--and the response from the comforter(s). Anything in this vein would be lovely.



The Defenders

Ward Meachum & Colleen Wing

Aftermath of sex pollen | Age Regression/De-Aging | Alternate Universe - Bodyguard | Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides | Badass in Distress | Character A takes care of feverish B | Character draws negative attention onto themself to protect another | Character's superpowers are killing them | Character Volunteering for Trauma Because They're Used to It | Character with PTSD can't identify their triggers | Characters Grow Close While Traveling And Struggling To Survive In The Wilderness | Hurt/comfort - B takes care of blinded A after an accident and it leads to feelings | Hurt/Comfort - Hallucinations/Delirium | Person Used to Being Treated Like a Weapon Gets Rescued & Treated Like a Person Again | Torture - Tortured while loved ones are forced to watch | Truth Serum | Undercover - Reformed former bad guy has to go undercover as a bad guy

I love the uncertainty and prickliness between these two. Colleen saw Ward at his worst, and even at his best, their approaches to life don't exactly gel. But--at least post S1--they both love Danny and are likely to spend the rest of their lives getting involved in some of the same mystical ninja shenanigans, so they're still entangled with each other. And they both have huge amounts of trauma related to charismatic and villainous people who shaped their lives and made them complicit in awful things, but they experienced that really differently. I love anything that helps them see the damage that they have in common and understand each other a little better. And there's just so much potential for snark and mutual protectiveness.

Awkward proximity tag subset: I love all the tags that sort of smash them together and force them to figure out how to relate to each other because they don't have any other choice; it's great when characters go into a situation not liking each other and emerge from it being loyal and protective of each other. This goes great with tags where they've been captured together or lost in the wilderness, and they're dealing with torture and survival and each other's psychological damage. And I love how the aftermath of sex pollen tag works with this, because it's like they go through this extreme experience but maybe don't have the presence of mind to process it until afterwards, when they have to awkwardly deal with having had this burst of intimacy. Truth serum kind of falls into this category too, because it's all about them managing these uncontrolled and maybe uncontrollable revelations.

That same thing carries over to the AUs. Maybe one of them ends up with super-heightened Sentinel senses and the other is unexpectedly the one who can best fulfill the role of Guide? (I'm also totally fine with some situation where this was the case from the beginning, if you want to go full universe AU.) Bodyguard AU? Maybe the Hand directs Colleen to act as Ward's bodyguard in or before S1 and Harold orders Ward to go along with it, so they're unwillingly foisted on each other. How does Colleen react to gradually realizing the truth about Harold's treatment of his son? How does Ward react to Colleen's cage fights and financial problems and her entanglement with the Hand?

Hurt/comfort and rescues are always total id catnip for me. Mutual h/c or one hurt and the other comforting are both great, in any arrangement: I just love anything that leans into the sense of reliance, trust, and appreciation that needs to develop in a situation like that, especially when they're not used to offering or receiving this kind of help with each other. It can be a great way to make one or both of them more talkative to open up a little, too. I also love the emotional whumpage that sometimes comes with undercover work and would love to see something where one of them had to pretend to still be Hand-affiliated (or generally awful, in Ward's case) to achieve some goal. What kind of psychological toll would that take, and how would the other one understand or try to help?

They both had such fucked-up childhoods that I'd love to see one or both of them de-aged so everyone has to deal with that. (I prefer de-aging that de-ages them physically as well as mentally.) Teenage years? Younger children? If they're not de-aged together, I'd love to see the non-de-aged one have to act as a reluctant caretaker. It could be really fascinating to see how, say, Colleen might react to a teenaged Ward when she has so much experience dealing with teens.

For the "used to being treated as a weapon" tag, I really like the idea of one of them having been brainwashed into a kind of Winter Soldier-like figure--neither would have nominated themselves to be the #1 person to deal with the other in this situation, but they were the one who was there when the rescue happened, so suddenly they're having to gently reintroduce the other to humanity and try to get them to come back to themselves.



Torchwood

Gwen Cooper/Jack Harkness/Owen Harper/Ianto Jones/Toshiko Sato
Gwen Cooper & Jack Harkness & Owen Harper & Ianto Jones & Toshiko Sato

"Thank Fuck You're Alive!" Emotions Turn Into Frantic Fucking | Accidental Marriage | Accidental Soulbond | Accidental Soulbond - distance and lack of touch and regular sex causes characters pain and illness | Aliens Made Them Do It | Character draws negative attention onto themself to protect another | Character's superpowers are killing them | Comfort Sex | Entire Squad Willing To Throw Down For One Person | Forehead Kisses | Huddling for warmth leads to fantastic sex | Hurt/Comfort - Learning That Love Interest Traded Getting Raped For Character's Release | Loyalty Kink: Formulaic hierarchical saluting/kneeling/etc. but FELT SO DEEPLY AND SINCERELY | Possessive Sex | That ambiguous type of relationship where you can't decide whether to tag it A/B or A&B | Torture - Tortured while loved ones are forced to watch | Werewolves - Pack Dynamics

I really love their Island of Misfit Toys (Only Everyone's Horny) dynamic, with all of them being pretty fucked-up and prone to catastrophic mistakes but also sincerely and deeply attached to each other even when they're bad at admitting it. I love both the collective ensemble relationship and the way each individual set of characters has their own dynamic, and as the "ambiguous type of relationship" tag implies, I'm fine with stuff that exists on some nebulous gen/ship borderline. (Also, it's okay for a mostly-gen story to have background pairings within the ensemble.) Jack's free-floating eroticism and more open physical affection is always great, and I love whenever he's easily demonstrative towards his team, shippily or not. Anything with the team being snarky and vulnerable and damaged and secretly or not-so-secretly so into each other (in whatever fashion) will delight me, and a lot of these tags are just… that.

This is also totally a group of people who would wind up accidentally married or accidentally soulbonded or both, and I'm so excited to see how they would try to make that work. Do they initially try to frame the marriage as not meaning anything? If so, how does it grow in meaning for them over time? If it's a soulbond, how does the bond work? What do they need from each other, and do they ever resist giving or getting it? I'm also just deeply into sex for this poly ship, whether it's something they need because of a soulbond, something that is just part of their relationship, a reaction to an event, etc. I requested a couple variations of sex, but I'm also happy to see it blended into any of the other tags, if you like.

Hurt/comfort: I always love it, and it's so great for this fandom because they're constantly getting themselves into terrible situations that can have flimsy alien justifications beyond our human ken! Some things I especially love in h/c scenarios: getting hurt on behalf of someone else, characters having to keep going through pain and live with it for a while, characters having to conceal pain, other characters freaking out on the hurt character's behalf, stoically dealing with pain, underplaying pain and convincing no one, low-key comfort, hurt that helps another character realize how much they love the hurt character, comfort that straddles ambiguous gen/shippy lines or is just particularly intimate/sweet, comfort leading to shippiness, etc.

The werewolves can be some unique requirement of the job (maybe tied to the original Torchwood werewolf case?) or the whole world can just be a more urban fantasy world in general, whichever you prefer. I just love pack-bonding and -loyalty and different norms for werewolves, whether that's with things like their physicality with each other or their impulses or whatever you like. For the loyalty kink gestures tag, I just eat this kind of thing up with a spoon, and again, I'm fine with it either being a routine part of the world that they haven't cared about that much before or some Torchwood/alien tradition that initially feels weird but grows more comfortable and sincere over time. I love characters embracing these kinds of gestures as a way to indicate feelings they'd have trouble expressing any other way.



The Wilds

Dot Campbell/Fatin Jadmani

Alternate Universe - Bodyguard | Characters Stranded Without Any Other People For Decades | Characters Surprised to Find Each Other at a Gay Bar | Charity Auctions - One Date | Competence kink - different skills complementing each other | Fake/Pretend Relationship | Getting Together - Attraction Revealed During/After Massage | getting high together | Hurt/Comfort - Character wakes up from a coma and realizes that love interest is near | A is a badass; B is protective of them anyway | Oblivious A realises their interest when pining B hooks up with someone who looks like them | Oral Fixation | Post-canon - characters slowly recover from trauma caused by canon | Sex Pollen - Group: requested ship is unexpectedly more into each other than anyone else

I love how these two are ostensibly opposites and yet wind up with such a relaxed, fun, flirty rapport with each other; they have an excellent blend of differences and compatibility. Generally, I love them having this hard-earned mutual respect and affection and just plain working well together.

Their situation on the show is so intense and weird that I'm really curious how they would deal with the aftermath of it, too. What if there were no flash-forwards, and they'd never been rescued? (Maybe the experiment folded and the cover-up involved just having them all drop off the map.) What would their lives and relationship look like if they just had years together on the island? Or if they're able to get home and resume some kind of putatively normal life, how do they deal with everything they've been through? Do they have a hard time being separated? What if one of them is hurt, either during the rescue or after? How does the other react? I'm also really into the idea of them having established a new sense of normalcy that's then disrupted by them getting/realizing feelings for each other when some catalyst happens.

And there are so many cool things that can happen to them within a shorter island time-span, too. Them doing any kind of problem-solving together is always welcome: their team-ups are so great, and I just adore practical survival stuff, too, if you want to throw some of that in. I love whenever we've seen the girls get drunk or high, and I'm so into Fatin and Dottie getting (pleasantly) high and hooking up and just being exuberant and sexual in general. Has Fatin been with another girl before, or does she get to do some exploration too? How do they cross the line into sex/romance? Also, sex pollen: honestly, releasing this wouldn't be the weirdest or most inappropriate part of Gretchen's plan, so it even seems kind of plausible. (Other pairings are totally fine during this, too, including with them, as long as they wind up primarily together as things go on.)

I would also just read so many tropey romance fics for them. I'll never be over Fatin basically teasing a bodyguard AU/bodyguard futurefic; I'm so here for bodyguard Dot, however you want to get there. Maybe that's how they meet--maybe Fatin is performing and has had some threat to her life, and she needs to hire a bodyguard who could also plausibly not look like a bodyguard?--or maybe their post-island life is just dangerous enough that Dot decides to appoint herself to the position?

The charity auction prompt: which one of them is having a date auctioned off, and for what? Is the other a plant, with them already having planned the winning bid in advance, or is this a surprise and their first meeting? I really like all the potential here for a little bit of culture clash, too.

Shelby Goodkind/Toni Shalifoe

Character A abandons plans in order to rescue Character B | Character expected to die but didn't and now has no idea how to live anymore | Character's superpowers are killing them | Characters are forced to fight side by side in a gladiatorial arena | Characters Stranded Without Any Other People For Decades | Holding Hands | Hurt/Comfort - Character Treats Other Character's Injuries | Hurt/Comfort - Hallucinations/Delirium | Hurt/Comfort - Concussion or Head Injury | A is injured B goes berserk | Loyalty | Public Declaration of Feelings

I really fell in love with these two. I love their contrasting demeanors, with Shelby's bubbliness and friendliness contrasting with Toni's laidback cynicism and occasional temper, and I love how much vulnerability and hurt they both have underneath that. I really like how Toni becomes almost chivalrous towards Shelby after she knows Shelby's struggling with internalized homophobia/the weight of her background/the emotional legacy of her asshole dad--when she makes sure to draw Shelby back into the group, it's just really heartwarming for me. I'm rooting for them so much.

I love anything that deals with their growing loyalty and attachment to each other, whether that's protectiveness--one of them goes to the other's rescue in the debriefing facility, maybe? Toni takes on Shelby's dad?--or more emotional stands like Shelby openly declaring herself and coming out because she wants to make it clear that she's with Toni and she's not ashamed of that. Or the two of them figuring out how to move forward in the aftermath of the island? What if they'd gotten rescued the first time they spotted the plane, after their first kiss? I'm fine with the hurt/comfort and rescues going in either direction. I know Toni is the more obviously physically tough one, but slightly unstable T2 Shelby, with her shaved head, seems like she could be great in a fight too. And if the experiment goes wrong and a coverup ensues--in an AU without the flash-forward timeline--then I'd love to see how their relationship evolves if they spend years on the island in relative isolation, building a community with just the other girls.

And we already get some great h/c for them in canon, with Toni getting sick from the mussels, but I'm always, always happy for more, especially once they're in a relationship. Please give me all the scenarios in which they tenderly treat each others' injuries, deal with the other one being dazed/concussed/delirious, etc. I just love the blend of vulnerability and intimacy these scenarios offer.

And, because they're already in a bizarre experimental situation anyway... AU where instead of being put on an island, they're put in a gladiatorial arena, and their feelings develop under ultra-intense situations and mutual reliance. And they both look hot with swords. Or what about a scenario where the experiment involves them all being given some kind of superpower, and one of them is slowly dying from it? Or maybe she had it all along, but she's had to use it more since they landed on the island, and it's taking a considerable physical toll? What superpower is it, and what kind of situations do they wind up in that necessitate using it and might make it hard to give it up even as it's costing a lot?