Dear Heart Attack Writer (WIP)
Nov. 8th, 2020 11:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nonexistentwenchHi, and thank you so much in advance for taking up this challenge. I hope this letter is helpful, feel free to take a peak at my past ones for a general feel of what I like too!
Likes
Here is the stuff that REALLY drives me crazy and is 100% guaranteed to enhance my fic if included.
- Hurt /comfort, in any combination of physical and emotional as long as it's intense and touchy. I especially love mental breakdowns, exhaustion due to overwork, battle wounds, subdrop/domdrop
- Mental illness headcanons, especially in settings where the characters don't have the words to explain what is going on
- Banter, humor, ironic narration, dialogue-heavy fic
- Self discovery journeys
- Character studies, relationship studies, introspection, worldbuilding, backstory. I love to see how dynamics work and what people like about each other in relationships
- Getting together and especially getting BACK together
- Kidfic, both in the raising kids sense and in the characters as children sense
- Angst with an happy ending
- Dysfunctional yet loving relationships, especially with ships from which you really don't expect that
- Dysfunctional families and family dynamics in general
- Cute shenanigans, adventures, mysteries rescue missions
- Characters being overprotective of each other, whether as gen or ship
- Found family, characters recovering from past abuse and bad experiences with each other's help
- Physical affection, fluff, people having fun together and finding things they share
- Past relationships, exes, background ships, background characters: this was meant to be an opt in, but honestly I just really love to see a nicely fleshed out world if the plot of the fic allows it. For the same reason, I'm perfectly fine seeing more than one requested ship in the same gift, whether they're conflicting or not
- Revenge stories
Opt ins:
This is not to be interpreted as "tropes I'm meh about'" but rather commonly DNWd stuff I like and doesn't bother me if included in fic, but I'm not asking you to go out of your way to include (nor that you should go out of your way to include likes either, again totally fine with ODAO, but you get me). Feel free to also ask the mods for anything not included here
- Gender/sexuality headcanons. Honestly literally any headcanon you have
- Pretty much anything stylistically (person, tense, 5 +1 fix, song fic for all i know… Just feel free)
- Underage as long as it's over 13 and without like… 10+ age gaps or manipulation
- Torture and violence, though I prefer it not be excessively graphic, but you can trust your judgment, it's not something that will ruin my gift in any case
- Suicide/self harm
- Abuse, as long as it isn't a requested character being the abuser
- Character death, unhappy endings
- Canon divergence
DNWs
- Rape/noncon (unless said otherwise or backstory
- Cheating
- Unrequited love that doesn’t end either with getting together or with the pining character meeting someone else
- Sex scenes (most sexual elements are perfectly fine. Mentions, jokes, quick descriptions even if graphic or kinky are fine. I just don't want lengthy porn.)
- Eating disorders/body shaming and insecurity
- A/b/o
- Mpreg
- Soulmates AU or similar magical realism stuff like Hanahaki
- Slavefic
- Mundane AUs, which I define as AUs that completely skirt from the original plot, as opposed to those that keep something similar to the plot and stakes of the original canon but changed to a different setting/context. This isn't super clear so feel free to avoid AUs altogether or ask for clarification through the mods!
Romeo and Juliet
Benvolio Montague/ Mercutio
I enjoy them as a very sweet, supportive relationship, but I'm open to and honestly craving some darkness/angst too. A story of how their relationship evolved (from childhood friends, maybe?) would be really sweet. Maybe Mercutio did date Tybalt when he was younger and there is jealousy and possessivity? In a lot of adaptations that have each family as a gang Mercutio and Benvolio seem to be co-leaders, so maybe some cool heist-fic or anyway something exploring the worldbuilding of the feud and how they face it together? Something about Mercutio's death, their last moments together and the way Benvolio has to live with it afterwards.
Something that really intrigues me about them is that dialogue where Mercutio pokes fun at Benvolio for being a violent drunk and in general much more prone to anger than how he acts - and I don't like to think he's joking or talking about himself, Mercutio is really good at seeing under people's masks. So some backstory to that conversation would be nice. Do they have similar things they fight about? I imagine them as having started out as friends with benefits, so did someone get hurt in the process of admitting feelings?I like the idea of both being terrible about it - Mercutio trying to defend himself from vulnerability with clowning, Benvolio being so attached to the idea of himself as stoic and rational and ending up making a mess instead.
You're welcome to involve Romeo as much as you wish, trio shenanigans are always lovely! If you go with them being older, or even just more worldly and protective, I think I would enjoy them worrying about their friend's relationship with a Capulet and doing sleuthing about her and so on.
Mercutio&Benvolio Montague&Romeo Montague
These boys are such a fluff magnet to me, and I would love a story of how they met and became friends. What kind of pranks and shenanigans do they get up to? Is their dynamic always like this or did Romeo moping spoil everything? What is the impact of the feud on them? How much Romeo and Benvolio worry about Mercutio on a daily basis? I think a thing I love about them is how they each have their dynamic with each of the other two and these dynamics can conflict a little, so I'd be really interested with any fighting and torturous making up. Feel free to heap on communication issues and inability to understand their own feelings, they're teenagers after all, it's more than normal. Alternatively, hurt comfort! Maybe they survive the events of the play, but they're hurt or emotionally scarred and have to be there for each other. For example a situation where Mercutio survives the duel, or where Juliet dies for real and Mercutio and Benvolio have to keep Romeo from following her.
Benvolio Montague&Romeo Montague
I love these boys, and I hate how much fic in this fandom tends to pit them against each other. I would just like something sweet and loving, where they may have conflict but it's clear they ultimately would die for each other. I would love kidfic for them, before or after they met Mercutio. You can also play up the dysfunction and crime family aspect of the Montagues, focusing on how they only had each other to whitstand the pressure and expectations and, also, the fact half the town wants them dead and they're supposed to want them dead back when they're two marshmellows who absolutely can't carry on a blood feud on their own. Maybe they're given some sort of heist/sleuthing mission/attack to do as a rite of passage into adulthood together and they have to support each other through it. Otherwise, dealing together with Mercutio's death in a situation where they actually have the time to process it. I imagine Benvolio to be a little older than Romeo, and therefore feeling very responsible for him, but I would love them to be mutually protective of each other and of Mercutio too
The Idiot
Lev Nikolaevic Myshkin/Nastasya Filipovna Barashkova/Parfyon Semenovic Rogozhin
Ok, full disclosure I'm... not sure where I'm going with this. It's obviously a disaster pairing in every e way, but... honestly it's borderline canon? Nastya's story is so raw and real and beautiful, caught between a safety and happiness that feels like pity and the call of self destruction. And all the murder, and the boys having the gay train ride and the crosses exchange and the sleepover with the corpse... you get me. For something more canon compliant I would love something from Nastasya's pov on these events, maybe epistolary or diary entry style, about her internal struggle. If you want to make it canon instead - well, maybe an happy AU where they all escape together, or one where Myshkin stops Rogozhin in time and they all understandably end up in an asylum and sort of have to rebuild the relationship from there. I'm definitely into badwrong and everyone caring about their own lives way less than ideal here, but also that sense of chaos and cloying affection and codepedency you get from the book. When I was studying this in college, my professor highlighted how these three characters are the ones that stick out and are antisocial and irrational in the middle of a perfectly normal bourgeois romance story, and I love this concept. Love doesn't have to be healthy or safe of rational when these are the only people who are like you enough to understand or love you.
Jerusalem Delivered
Tancred/Clorinda
I'm aware this pairing is a huge shot in the dark, but I would love anyhing about them. Something where Clorinda survives the duel (hurt/comfort? mutual hurt/comfort?), whether she might regret her conversion, and how what happens when she finds herself very much alive and having to deal with what her dying choices mean for the war, her involvement in it and her loyalties. 5+1 of Tancred complaining about his pains in love to his comrades! Sensual sparring, the fire/water symbolism their story is so full of, wartime romance tropes in general whether as enemies or later allies. You can also skip entirely Clorinda's conversion if you prefer so. The poem is crystal clear about how Tancred falls in love (and his kink for scary ladies running at him with a sword, bless him) but not much about how Clorinda does, since she avoids him for most of the poem. Is she repressing, or is it her last conversation that seals it for her? I also love the concept of Clorinda appearing to Tancred in dreams when she's dead, so maybe a 5+1 of that is also a concept.
Likes
Here is the stuff that REALLY drives me crazy and is 100% guaranteed to enhance my fic if included.
- Hurt /comfort, in any combination of physical and emotional as long as it's intense and touchy. I especially love mental breakdowns, exhaustion due to overwork, battle wounds, subdrop/domdrop
- Mental illness headcanons, especially in settings where the characters don't have the words to explain what is going on
- Banter, humor, ironic narration, dialogue-heavy fic
- Self discovery journeys
- Character studies, relationship studies, introspection, worldbuilding, backstory. I love to see how dynamics work and what people like about each other in relationships
- Getting together and especially getting BACK together
- Kidfic, both in the raising kids sense and in the characters as children sense
- Angst with an happy ending
- Dysfunctional yet loving relationships, especially with ships from which you really don't expect that
- Dysfunctional families and family dynamics in general
- Cute shenanigans, adventures, mysteries rescue missions
- Characters being overprotective of each other, whether as gen or ship
- Found family, characters recovering from past abuse and bad experiences with each other's help
- Physical affection, fluff, people having fun together and finding things they share
- Past relationships, exes, background ships, background characters: this was meant to be an opt in, but honestly I just really love to see a nicely fleshed out world if the plot of the fic allows it. For the same reason, I'm perfectly fine seeing more than one requested ship in the same gift, whether they're conflicting or not
- Revenge stories
Opt ins:
This is not to be interpreted as "tropes I'm meh about'" but rather commonly DNWd stuff I like and doesn't bother me if included in fic, but I'm not asking you to go out of your way to include (nor that you should go out of your way to include likes either, again totally fine with ODAO, but you get me). Feel free to also ask the mods for anything not included here
- Gender/sexuality headcanons. Honestly literally any headcanon you have
- Pretty much anything stylistically (person, tense, 5 +1 fix, song fic for all i know… Just feel free)
- Underage as long as it's over 13 and without like… 10+ age gaps or manipulation
- Torture and violence, though I prefer it not be excessively graphic, but you can trust your judgment, it's not something that will ruin my gift in any case
- Suicide/self harm
- Abuse, as long as it isn't a requested character being the abuser
- Character death, unhappy endings
- Canon divergence
DNWs
- Rape/noncon (unless said otherwise or backstory
- Cheating
- Unrequited love that doesn’t end either with getting together or with the pining character meeting someone else
- Sex scenes (most sexual elements are perfectly fine. Mentions, jokes, quick descriptions even if graphic or kinky are fine. I just don't want lengthy porn.)
- Eating disorders/body shaming and insecurity
- A/b/o
- Mpreg
- Soulmates AU or similar magical realism stuff like Hanahaki
- Slavefic
- Mundane AUs, which I define as AUs that completely skirt from the original plot, as opposed to those that keep something similar to the plot and stakes of the original canon but changed to a different setting/context. This isn't super clear so feel free to avoid AUs altogether or ask for clarification through the mods!
Romeo and Juliet
Benvolio Montague/ Mercutio
I enjoy them as a very sweet, supportive relationship, but I'm open to and honestly craving some darkness/angst too. A story of how their relationship evolved (from childhood friends, maybe?) would be really sweet. Maybe Mercutio did date Tybalt when he was younger and there is jealousy and possessivity? In a lot of adaptations that have each family as a gang Mercutio and Benvolio seem to be co-leaders, so maybe some cool heist-fic or anyway something exploring the worldbuilding of the feud and how they face it together? Something about Mercutio's death, their last moments together and the way Benvolio has to live with it afterwards.
Something that really intrigues me about them is that dialogue where Mercutio pokes fun at Benvolio for being a violent drunk and in general much more prone to anger than how he acts - and I don't like to think he's joking or talking about himself, Mercutio is really good at seeing under people's masks. So some backstory to that conversation would be nice. Do they have similar things they fight about? I imagine them as having started out as friends with benefits, so did someone get hurt in the process of admitting feelings?I like the idea of both being terrible about it - Mercutio trying to defend himself from vulnerability with clowning, Benvolio being so attached to the idea of himself as stoic and rational and ending up making a mess instead.
You're welcome to involve Romeo as much as you wish, trio shenanigans are always lovely! If you go with them being older, or even just more worldly and protective, I think I would enjoy them worrying about their friend's relationship with a Capulet and doing sleuthing about her and so on.
Mercutio&Benvolio Montague&Romeo Montague
These boys are such a fluff magnet to me, and I would love a story of how they met and became friends. What kind of pranks and shenanigans do they get up to? Is their dynamic always like this or did Romeo moping spoil everything? What is the impact of the feud on them? How much Romeo and Benvolio worry about Mercutio on a daily basis? I think a thing I love about them is how they each have their dynamic with each of the other two and these dynamics can conflict a little, so I'd be really interested with any fighting and torturous making up. Feel free to heap on communication issues and inability to understand their own feelings, they're teenagers after all, it's more than normal. Alternatively, hurt comfort! Maybe they survive the events of the play, but they're hurt or emotionally scarred and have to be there for each other. For example a situation where Mercutio survives the duel, or where Juliet dies for real and Mercutio and Benvolio have to keep Romeo from following her.
Benvolio Montague&Romeo Montague
I love these boys, and I hate how much fic in this fandom tends to pit them against each other. I would just like something sweet and loving, where they may have conflict but it's clear they ultimately would die for each other. I would love kidfic for them, before or after they met Mercutio. You can also play up the dysfunction and crime family aspect of the Montagues, focusing on how they only had each other to whitstand the pressure and expectations and, also, the fact half the town wants them dead and they're supposed to want them dead back when they're two marshmellows who absolutely can't carry on a blood feud on their own. Maybe they're given some sort of heist/sleuthing mission/attack to do as a rite of passage into adulthood together and they have to support each other through it. Otherwise, dealing together with Mercutio's death in a situation where they actually have the time to process it. I imagine Benvolio to be a little older than Romeo, and therefore feeling very responsible for him, but I would love them to be mutually protective of each other and of Mercutio too
The Idiot
Lev Nikolaevic Myshkin/Nastasya Filipovna Barashkova/Parfyon Semenovic Rogozhin
Ok, full disclosure I'm... not sure where I'm going with this. It's obviously a disaster pairing in every e way, but... honestly it's borderline canon? Nastya's story is so raw and real and beautiful, caught between a safety and happiness that feels like pity and the call of self destruction. And all the murder, and the boys having the gay train ride and the crosses exchange and the sleepover with the corpse... you get me. For something more canon compliant I would love something from Nastasya's pov on these events, maybe epistolary or diary entry style, about her internal struggle. If you want to make it canon instead - well, maybe an happy AU where they all escape together, or one where Myshkin stops Rogozhin in time and they all understandably end up in an asylum and sort of have to rebuild the relationship from there. I'm definitely into badwrong and everyone caring about their own lives way less than ideal here, but also that sense of chaos and cloying affection and codepedency you get from the book. When I was studying this in college, my professor highlighted how these three characters are the ones that stick out and are antisocial and irrational in the middle of a perfectly normal bourgeois romance story, and I love this concept. Love doesn't have to be healthy or safe of rational when these are the only people who are like you enough to understand or love you.
Jerusalem Delivered
Tancred/Clorinda
I'm aware this pairing is a huge shot in the dark, but I would love anyhing about them. Something where Clorinda survives the duel (hurt/comfort? mutual hurt/comfort?), whether she might regret her conversion, and how what happens when she finds herself very much alive and having to deal with what her dying choices mean for the war, her involvement in it and her loyalties. 5+1 of Tancred complaining about his pains in love to his comrades! Sensual sparring, the fire/water symbolism their story is so full of, wartime romance tropes in general whether as enemies or later allies. You can also skip entirely Clorinda's conversion if you prefer so. The poem is crystal clear about how Tancred falls in love (and his kink for scary ladies running at him with a sword, bless him) but not much about how Clorinda does, since she avoids him for most of the poem. Is she repressing, or is it her last conversation that seals it for her? I also love the concept of Clorinda appearing to Tancred in dreams when she's dead, so maybe a 5+1 of that is also a concept.
