Trick or Treat 2020

[iomixit]

Dear Author

Thanks for dropping by! I’ve tried to pick a few spooky canons in honor of the holiday, but I’d love anything you come up with for these canons, which are rarer than I intended, but I love them! If you’d like to get to know me more as a reader, I’m asuralucier on Ao3. My gifts are great; my bookmarks are great. Check it all out! I’m always here for fic I didn’t know I wanted. So as long as you avoid my DNWs, the world is your oyster. Outside of my listed likes, what I love most of all is to receive something that you’ve enjoyed writing! So please enjoy yourself!

For this exchange, I am requesting the following fandoms: John Wick (Movies), UnREAL (TV), Nightcrawler (2014), “Samsa In Love” - Haruki Murakami (Short Story), Burning Secret - Stefan Zweig (Novella), “The Lost Art of Twilight” - Thomas Ligotti (Short Story), Ulysses - James Joyce

A Note on the Battle of the Bands Challenge: As my canons are very rare this year, the world is your oyster! If you think there's a song that could fit, don't let me stop you! The only music genre I'm a bit eh on is hip-hop. But I also love good lyrics so do sell me.

A Note on Art Treats: I love art and would love it if you felt like treating me! I'm terrible at giving out prompts, but honestly, I'd even love a lovingly drawn stick figure or a macaroni collage. If anything strikes you, go for it!

My DNWs are:

-Non-con, anything sexual involving animals, the toilet, tentacles, non-human biology, underage (sexual activities between characters under 18; references/implications fine).
-Second person POV - this is defined as having the narrating character take up the perspective of “You.” If they are talking aloud and happen to mention “you” to an imaginary audience or something that’s fine.
-Non-canonical kid characters. A note on canonical kids - I’m happy for them to turn up, but I’d rather them not take over the plot.
-Character bashing by narrative. Piss-taking fine and encouraged!
-Modern/Mundane AUs or AUs involving space, zombies, werecreatures, or a/b/o dynamics. If you want to have the characters still meet cute in a cafe in-universe or everything is the same except one character is a vampire, then please do! As long as I can recognise the world as canon I will be happy.

General Likes (by no means a complete list):

+ Sexual Tension - Happy for it to be angsty, cracky, anything in between. Just make me squirm while I totally want the characters to bang.
+Literary/Philosophical Allusions, extended metaphors, color theory, wordplay/banter, absurdity - the more obscure the better! I also love characters who read and/or have weird jobs. Pack in a strange little detail somewhere and I’m sure I’ll love it.
+___!Porn: Identity porn, suit porn, food porn, drinks porn, locations porn? Is that a thing? I just like lush descriptions of things.
+Angst. I love love angst. Give me all the angst. Reasons for angst can include: moral ambiguity, guilt, failed ambitions, infidelity, thoughtful portrayals of grief, depression, PTSD, lost loves and all the rest. I also don't mind character death, but please please don't let it be a cheap plot point for angst.
+Smut likes: teasing, helping each other undress/ruined clothing/frottage, blow jobs, tattoo licking, sex in semi public places, voyeurism, phone sex/voice kink, fluid sexual dynamics (no strict top/bottom roles), edging, pain kink/painplay, rimming (for m/m ships only), fingering, cunnilingus, awkward sex, overstimulation, dubious consent (defined as the character being dub-conned still having some form of agency, even if s/he doesn’t have all the information to hand.), differences in sexual experience, sensory deprivation, roleplaying, breathplay/choking
+Other things that I like that are hard to categorise: loyalty/friendship/ride or die, mindgames, locked room scenario, non-linear narrative, epistolary, crack treated seriously, character study, in universe meta, crapsack worlds, worldbuilding, for want a nail, pining, dramatic irony.

John Wick (Movies): Marcus, Winston
Trick or Treat: Either!

My Thoughts on Marcus: I am ever interested in Dafoe’s comment on Marcus as “the father of the pride,” wherein he slaughters all the cubs who aren’t worth it. Why doesn’t he ‘slaughter’ John? What’s their history? Who made the decision not to slaughter him (I mean Marcus)? Why does he like fruit smoothies? WHY DOES HE ANSWER THE DOOR IN HIS BATHROBE WHEN VIGGO COMES TO SEE HIM IN JW1? I have so many questions.I mean, if you wanted to write me crackfic about Marcus being on the phone to customer service for his broken VitaMix I would be all up in that. (You get mega bonus points if this happens on a job.)

In the honor of Halloween, someone should write me that fic of my dreams where Marcus is a shinigami or other supernatural creature of your choice (except my DNWs).

I love all sorts of character study and genfic, but aside from John I would ship him with Gianna (whose name is basically John), Perkins or Viggo. I’m interested in gen interactions between Marcus and the following: Winston, Santino, lol Iosef why not. (I would also be interested in gen variations of ships already mentioned above.)

My Thoughts on Winston: I am so interested in the fact that Winston seems to be so willing to break the rules for John (and other people?). I would be very interested in reading a Winston-gen piece in which he gets his starts - is he a bit of a smart arse and a go-getter? I’d love him organising street-gangs, or being a very upstart bellboy a la Grand Budapest Hotel (and being grumpy about his uniform). I would also love to hear about Big Mistakes he’s made about the Continental, and perhaps learn the reasons he keeps making these same mistakes re: John or other people.

I would also love a piece where they just put Winston on the High Table to keep him out of trouble. Go wild, seriously.

I love all sorts of character study and genfic, but aside from John I would ship him with Charon or the Bowery King or even the Director. I’m interested in gen interactions between Winston and the following: Marcus, the D’Antonios, the Adjudicator (previous missteps? Yes please!), and Harry. (I would also be interested in gen variations of ships already mentioned above.)

UnREAL (TV): Rachel Goldberg, Quinn King
Trick or Treat: Trick!

My Thoughts on Quinn: First, let’s just get it out of the way, WHY ARE YOU WITH CHET? I understand that she’s invested a lot of time in Chet but that still doesn’t make any sense to me. I understand that he grew throughout the series but honestly come on girl, you can do better. Anything with Quinn being bamf with a vodka in hand would do me. How about the other times we don’t get to see re: her going toe to toe with Gary? What if she retired? I don’t mind if you include Chet but I would rather they be broken up or for Rachel to say what I just said above while Quinn is cheating on Chet with Rachel. I really only ship her with Rachel but I would also love weird mentorship vibes with Madison. I also find her interactions with Serena interesting and would be open to Quinn/Serena because there seems to be a lot of parallels there. Do convince me!

My Thoughts on Rachel WOW, hello, my favourite television trainwreck. Shiri Appleby was AMAZING In this role, and I would love anything that celebrates that. I would love to know how Rachel got into the business (through Quinn??) and all the other times she tried to leave. Also that incident pre-canon when she drove a car through the final rose ceremony calling the show Satan’s asshole. Um. WHY?

I obviously ship Rachel with Quinn, but I would also love to receive a post S3 AU with Serena still not being able to find a man and Rachel not being well. I also (probably against the tide of fandom) really like Tommy? So I would love a S4 post canon AU involving him and Rachel, if that strikes your fancy.

Fandom: Nightcrawler (2014): Louis Bloom, Rick
Trick or Treat: Trick!

(My prompts are recycled from RSME, but I think most of them can tend towards gen as well. Just make everything creepy as, and you’re golden.)

Man, this movie. It is so unashamedly L.A. and creepy as fuck. Jake Gyllenhaal’s hollow-eyed stare gave me goosebumps and I kept feeling so sorry for Rick but I definitely shipped it.

Dubious consent (to extremes, if that’s what you’d like) seems a very obvious road to go down here. Given how Lou treats Nina in the film, I’m wondering if Rick puts himself forward for sex/sex related things in order to earn more than 15$ a night, perhaps with the line “I can take more of your shit than she can.” I’m also wondering if Rick is working behind the scenes with the cops to avoid prosecution and he has to wise up Right Quick. Does he succeed or does Lou find out?

I have no idea how this would even work, but I’m a fan of them being accidentally roommates.

I would like Lou to feel guilty near the end of the film and maybe he hallucinates Rick in the faces of his various interns as he gets to be more and more successful. Or maybe Rick doesn’t die at the end and Lou takes care of him, but knowing Lou, that’s probably going to come with strings attached.

Rick comes back wrong! If you can make it work, I salute you.

Rick and Lou meet in the slammer near the beginning of the movie...how would things change? If they don’t get into the news business, what do they do instead? I’m happy to have Rick the bumbling drug dealer and Lou being Lou. As long as LA is still a shithole and our boys are unhappy you can pretty much do anything you want.

”Samsa in Love” - Haruki Murakami: Gregor Samsa; The Hunchback Woman

If you’re interested, you can read the story here
Trick or Treat: both!

Basically, this is Murakami’s version of a Kafka fanfic, where Gregor Samsa turns back into Gregor Samsa and has to figure out how life works again. His parents and sister have disappeared and the world around him seems to have descended into chaos. He meets a hunchback locksmith who comes to fix a lock and falls in love with her. I am open to ship and gen fic for them.

I’d love anything you could tell me about this world. Although we don’t see much of it, we get the sense that the world is much changed. Does Samsa discover any other evidence of his parents around the house? Is he there when the hunchback woman comes back to return the lock? How does he teach himself about life? Does he find any books? What’s the world like when he decides to go outside, perhaps for some milk and bread?

I’d love to know anything about the Hunchback Woman. She’s so tough and no nonsense. I’d love to know, outside of her relationship with Samsa, why she decided to go into locksmithing, her experiences of the world as opposed to her brothers’. What does she tell others about Samsa, or does she tell anyone at all?

I’ve also read a lot of Kafka, so if you want to stick Easter Eggs in there for me, do feel free!

Burning Secret - Stefan Zweig (Novella): Edgar, the Baron
Trick or Treat: Trick!

Burning Secret is here on Gutenberg. I am more familiar with the newer translation by Anthea Bell, but this is perfectly serviceable.

I love Stefan Zweig. He was a guy who was writing in 1920s Austria, but he has a special way of tapping into the human soul that makes faraway worlds seem very near indeed! I’d love anything that expands into the narrow world we see in Burning Secret! I am especially keen to see how Edgar and the Baron might interact with each other once they run into each other again years later. Do they play another version of the same game? Does Edgar as a young man see the Baron trying it on with another young lady and decides to interfere (with interesting results)? (Happy to have the timeline of the whole thing resemble Jeeves and Wooster as in war? What war?)

On a more gen/character study note, I’d love to read about the Baron pre-novel being a charming douche, Edgar in university pretending he hasn’t been influenced by the Baron etc. Feel free to reference Edgar’s tumultuous time as a 12-year-old, but I’d rather it not be the bulk of the fic.

Similarly to the above, I’ve read a lot of Zweig, do feel free to try me with Easter Eggs!

”The Lost Art of Twilight” - Thomas Ligotti (Short Story): Narrator
Trick or Treat: Trick!

Unfortunately, the only place I know that carries this is Amazon outside of the odd bookshop. Still! Really worth it if you’re into your Lovecraft and weird.

I bought a collection of Ligotti’s short stories, Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe rolled into one and “The Lost Art of Twilight” really stuck with me. It’s about a guy who is half vampire half human raised by his Aunt in an old house. A visit from real vampires from France doesn't exactly go as planned.

Ligotti is another one of those authors who excel at wordbuilding in such a limited space. We really don’t meet anyone but a few people and the real vampires don’t really come into play until the last page or so but this world is just amazing! I’d love anything you want to tell me about it. How does the Narrator come to terms of his new un-life being so hungry all the time? He glosses over covering up the death of his Aunt T. but I really want to know what kind of cat and mouse games he played with the authorities with real vampires living at his estate. How does the narrator lose his mind? Bit by bit or all at once?

Or, if you’re really ambitious, I’d love a time travel fix it where the Narrator goes back in time to save his mother. Just anything, really.

Ulysses - James Joyce: Stephen Dedalus, Buck Mulligan
Trick or Treat: Both!

Available online at Gutenberg here.

Their antagonistic relationship gives me life and I just want to see them get naughty with a rosary with all the guilt afterwards I’d love anything really. I obviously ship them, but gen and character studies for either Buck or Stephen at any point in Ulysses or indeed, if you want to tell me what Buck was doing during Portrait of an Artist because he’s missing there - feel free!

In the spirit of Halloween, I’d love Stephen to have iconoclastic nightmares, or Buck to perform less than savory experiments as a medical student that he brings home to the Tower. Or maybe the experiments follow him home? Tell me about that medical school prank gone wrong? Or the liver dinner from hell, or...again, anything.

I’m also down for Buck and/or Stephen to be transported to present day Dublin - I’d still consider this a divergence because I really want to see what their problems look like in the 21st century. Alternately, I’d love it if Stephen were to turn up in Hamlet randomly.

That Bill and Ted inspired prompt where one or both of them time travel back to Ancient Greece for the lols. Maybe they even meet Odysseus/adopt Cyclops/Decide that Helen of Troy isn’t really a fit lassie, what’s the fuss? Just have fun!