Dear Fandom5k Author!

[eglantiere]

Dear author, welcome! Thank you so much for matching on those fandoms of my heart, and I hope you're going to enjoy writing for them. As always - feel free to mix and match the prompts or go ODAO if needed, as long as you meet my DNWs, and hopefully have fun.

Some links:
- my exchange tag (letters, recs et cetera)
- egelantier (fics and bookmarks)
- egelantier

Things I like:
- Hurt/comfort in all its forms is always a sure bet. All the hurt/comfort, you can't do wrong (or be too hardcore) with it. Physical h/c, emotional h/c, captivity scenarios, caretaking, whipping, dungeons, bullet wounds, wilderness survival, whatever. I love hurt/comfort mostly within the context of a relationship (not necessarily romantic - filial ties, friendship, brothers-in-arms comradeship, whichever fits), as an opening for one character to be hurt and for the other to be outraged/terrified/comforting on their behalf. The only thing I'm particular about is who in a particular gets whumped.
- Found families, tight friendships, us-against-the-world, people finding and keeping each other, providing kindness and warmth against the dark.
- Hope and kindness, Clair universes, stories where the entropy tries its hardest but doesn't win.
- Loyalty in all forms! From ritualized (oaths, kneeling, ring-kissing, knights and bodyguards and henchmen and so on) to more casual ways, like standing up for your friends.
- Self-sacrifice (metaphorical and quite literal) and martyrdom (ditto).
- Tropey AUs - space opera! high fantasy! historical! pirates!
- Outsider POVs.

DNWs:
- Hurt no comfort
- Partner betrayal of any kind or infidelity
- Unhappy endings and permanent character death
- A/B/O, hurtcomfortverse, any other 'verses with built-in biology-based inequality
- Hanahaki AUs and variations thereof
- Soulmate AUs
- Mundane AUs
- PWPs

バチカン奇跡調査官 | Vatican Kiseki Chousakan | Vatican Miracle Examiner (Anime)
Roberto Nicholas, Hiraga Josef Kou
Action/Adventure, Angst, AU - Canon Divergence, AU - Genre Shift, Character Development, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Interpersonal Drama, scifi/fantasy

VME continues to be my delight and joy; I'm reusing my previous requests because they already netted me some great fics and I want more. So; VME being sparkly, completely ridiculous, somehow deadly serious despite being completely ridiculous, and full of gorgeous, warm, feelings-filled devotion between Roberto and Hiraga, and I loved each of its weird and wonderful story beats. It's also hella whiplashy in tone, and I guess my prompts will reflect that. In general: bring on candlelit dinners, creepy and twisted cases, true and false miracles, Roberto whump, pining, science, tears and hugs.

In particular:

- Casefics, casefics, all the casefics, all the deliciously weird casefics with all the life-and-death situations you can think of. Cave-ins! Blizzards! Death traps rooms! Ambushes and kidnappings! Cuddling for warmth! Protecting each other! More snakebites and weird amazing hallucinations! Evil cultists! Helpful application of sulphuric acid!
- Alternately, I have this craving for the strange domesticity of their Vatican life; maybe Roberto and Hiraga moving together and navigating the shores of their life together? Dinners and shopping and taking care and this easy, benign understanding they have for each other (honestly, I was dead and gone on the canon from their very scene together, where Hiraga admits to playing his game for the whole night in hopes that it would somehow help his little brother, and Roberto just going with it without missing a beat - and then, well, going to clean and iron for Hiraga, as one does).
- For some reason, I'd really love an old-fashioned sickfic for this fandom. Fever, pain, tender care, gentle blanket-tucking… It just feels like it would really suit. (Somehow I feel it combines well with the previous option)
- I'm sure this wasn't the last time Julia had tried to convert them both to his case, and the events in the finale will most definitely come back to haunt them. So, how?
- Somebody once described Roberto's feelings for Hiraga as 'pining while already being in a committed relationship,' and just. Yes. Hiraga is at once so obviously full of love, and so oblivious of it, that there are endless possibilities for angst here, and I want all of them.- …on unrelated note, I feel like this is the canon where I can actually mention, in Yuletide, that I have a crucifixion kink a mile wide. So, I have a crucifixion (h/c) kink a mile wide, and Roberto is an ideal candidate.
- Bonus option: If you like to serious-ify a cracky canon, go for it! The show uses a very anime kind of Catholicism, mostly aesthetics and trappings, but I'm fascinated with how injecting a bit of the real deal will change things (or not): the actual everyday application of faith, you know? For example, we know from the novels that Hiraga is a true believer but Roberto mostly treats his position as a job that gives him access to old books; I wonder if the canon events changed it, for both of them.
If you like Lauren, I'm of the opinion that Lauren makes everything better (and makes for an ideal outsider's POV).

Fandom-specific DNW caveat: For me, the allure of this relationship, given that both of them are priests, is that they are completely devoted to each other, but they're also at peace with being celibate. I'd prefer to see the same setup in fic - so, no sex between them, and also no angst about having to be celibate.

The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Maia Drazhar (TGE)
Action/Adventure, Angst, AU - Canon Divergence, AU - Genre Shift, Character Development, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Interpersonal Drama, scifi/fantasy

I absolutely adore this book, a story of a previously powerless, painfully self-conscious, horribly isolated person doing his utmost and careful best to do what he has to do. Maia's, at his core, first and foremost kind, and he brings this kindness with him as a banner and as a shield, into a situation over which he has little control and in which he has initially no allies, and sets out to reclaim his empire, one person at a time.

Some prompts that come to mind (but by no means feel constrained by them):

- A development of his relationship with Cala and Beshelar and navigating further the friends/nonecharei divide; and ditto for Maia and Csevet.
- Politics! We saw Maia growing into his role of a ruler; how would he look in it after several years, what project would he undertake after the bridge is built? What civil reforms will he usher in?
- Maia and his relationship with his mother's religion: would it become more mainstream in the court, in Maia's wake? Or would it always be something deeply private and guarded for him?
- Maia on a diplomatic visit to his grandfather, navigating both the cultural divide and the family relationship.
- Maia and Csethiro, exploring and defining their marriage, be it romantic in earnest or something of a more complicated, platonic arrangement.
- Maia in peril: a kidnapping! A dangerous journey! Another, more successful attack within the court! A lingering sickness! A riding accident! A sea journey!
- Maia's birthdays over the years.

Fandom-specific DNW caveat: pretty much every pairing is fine, but please no alluding to Maia being unhappy with Csethiro (Maia/somebody with him and Csethiro being in a peaceful lavender arrangement is fine).

Psmith - P. G. Wodehouse
Group: Mike Jackson/Rupert Psmith
Action/Adventure, Angst, AU - Canon Divergence, AU - Genre Shift, Character Development, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Interpersonal Drama, scifi/fantasy

Those books are my perennial favorites; I adore the kind hilarity of them, and the intensity of the relationship (whether it's taken as friendship or romance). Psmith is one of my most favorite characters of all time. I love his surety and his unflappability, his low key but endless loyalty and protectiveness, the way he manages to warp the world around himself but does it with benevolence, the way the narrative pokes fun at him but allows him to stand unhumiliated. And I love that Mike is his foil but never the butt of the narrative joke, that Mike's intrinsic value is never questioned or doubted, by the text or by each other. I love how different they are and how wholeheartedly they embrace each other nevertheless, neither trying to change or undermine each other, how much they just - adore and accept and support each other.

And so!

- "Like canon but more of it": yes good please. Especially if it includes some version of friends-to-lovers, pining and happy endings.
- Futurefic: becoming adults together, growing old together, their lives changing and evolving and still orbiting around each other.
- ...Having said what I did about Psmith self-surety, I would also read a lot about Psmith secretly having doubts about himself and his own worth in relation to Mike and trying to let Mike go for his own good (family, career, etc.), and Mike having none of it.
- And also literally all the stories about Psmith getting into some trouble he can't get himself out of (ideally on Mike's behalf), and trying to hide it or make light of it, and Mike becoming the rescuer and taking care of him. I always thought that Psmith would make an awesome 'pay no attention to my troubles, have a languid anecdote' kind of iron woobie - iron woobie in a velvet glove? Is it a thing? In any case, yes.
- (For example, I could give or take Mike's domestic happiness in later books, but I loved Psmith's descent from rich heirdom to self-supporting poverty and the way he tried to deal with it by himself and without burdening anybody. Take it to the extreme, and I'll be here with bells on.)
- But also something with a more action/adventure bent and injuries, kidnappings, and accident (see: Psmith, Journalist, only sans racism and Mike is actually there).
- Psmith Hides A Supernatural Secret (he's an elf! he's a selkie! he's an alien!) And Why Would Mike Care No Really.
- The super self-indulgent slavefic option: Mike the bewildered owner rescuing a languid, seemingly unconcerned slave!Psmith and slowly discovering the depths of trouble that will bring? Psmith the jaded, high-ranking slave taking a newly enslaved Mike under his wing and getting into all the trouble trying to keep him safe (and, being Psmith, probably engineering a revolution in the process?)
- Also all the setting AUs! Be it high fantasy or space opera or high sea piracy, those two trampling through it would be amazing.
- A completely optional bonus cracky option: if you like crossovers, Mike and Psmith in literally any canon I've ever requested would be incredible, be it a pastiche fusion or them just dropping into whatever it is, solving some particular thorny issue in their inimitable style, and dropping out.

Babylon 5
Jeffrey Sinclair
Action/Adventure, Angst, AU - Canon Divergence, AU - Genre Shift, Character Development, Hurt/Comfort, Interpersonal Drama, scifi/fantasy

Spoilery!
Commander Sinclair was hands down one of my favorite characters in Babylon 5, and I was devastated when he left the show (I've learned why, after, and - yeah). I loved his dignity and his gravitas, I loved that he was a scary badass but also a skilled diplomat, I loved how her paid attention to grand politics and little interpersonal details at once, I loved how self-sacrificial and secretly self-destructive he was, I loved the warmth and the tragedy, all mixed together. I think he's gotten a really grand story and send-off in canon, all things considered, so really, I'd just - love to spend more time with him (and any other characters you choose, obviously). His war stories, or any daily grand emergency of ruling Babylon 5, or his time with Minbari, or his, hah, othertime with Minbari, his dealing with the Rangers...

(A question that has been plaguing me forever: was he really into LotR and is it why the Rangers wear these completely inconspicuous green cloaks with leaf pins?)

If we're going sideways to canon, I always regretted we didn't get to see more of Sheridan and Sinclair working together - they were really different and had an interesting dynamics, and I wish there was time and space to explore that. And if we're leaving canon altogether, I always thought that B5, given its obvious inspiration, is practically ready-made for a grand style fantasy AU, swords and magic and terrifying enemies and loyalty and martyrdom and last minute salvation; if it's your kind of thing, please feel free to go there.

Final Fantasy XV
Ignis Scientia
Action/Adventure, AU - Canon Divergence, AU - Genre Shift, Hurt/Comfort

Ignis Scientia is exactly the type of competent and loyal martyr I'm weak for. Episode Ignis went all the way there with the loyalty kink and burning the world for the one you love and self-sacrifice and literal martyrdom (EI being canon means never having to be sorry for writing high drama Ignis, ha), and additionally I was so smitten with him in Brotherhood, serious and competent and caring beyond all measure and exhausted and overworked, and just, wow.

I adore the bros either in OT4 configuration or just roadtripping together, in all the intensity and burning feelings of the later chapters or the ridiculous dorkitude of the beginning; I love the way Gladio and Ignis get each other as colleagues and friends and peers and sometimes rivals, and have each other's backs and push each other's buttons, and argue and disagree and still stay true to each other; and I love Prompto and Ignis slowly finding out that they're not that different as they might think, and bringing out the best and weirdest sides of each other.

And some prompts! Feel free to mix and match or add something else, those are just for fun:
- All the stories about pre-roadtrip Ignis being professional and competent at what his does, and recognized in this capacity.
- Overworked and exhausted Ignis, in whatever timeline, who finally slips up (or passes out! oh, passing out) and the others take care of him and recognize the enormity of his efforts.
- Rebuilding the world after the happy ending - frantic efforts! Triaging the resources! Working feverishly! Dealing with accumulated trauma! Reveling in their survival!
- All the fun political action/adventure stuff: negotiations, treaties, assassination attempts, invasions, all that jazz.
- AU with an Imperial!Ignis (or some other Ignis who had a very cold and complicated life prior to the story) meeting Noctis and co and slowly becoming part of the group, healing himself.
- Ignis calmly and secretly doing something harmful/dangerous to himself during the roadtrip for the sake of the group, and the fallout (hiding an injury so somebody else can has curatives, driving through exhaustion, prostituting himself for money they need urgently, feel free to go anywhere).
- Ignis agreeing to Ardyn doing bad, bad things to him to save his king and his friends (practically canon! EI means never having to say sorry.)
- Brotherhood!Ignis getting dismissed from his post for whatever reason, and Noct&co fighting to get him back.

And so on! All the drama and angst and grand gestures and last minute rescues are heartily welcome.

Fandom-specific DNWs: Re: setting: if possible, I'd prefer to avoid the tragic implications of the main ending. So either pre-roadtrip or roadtrip or post alternate ending (where Noct is alive and they're rebuilding the world) stories would really work best for me. (This said? I love blind!Ignis and post-canon blind!Ignis, whether it's getting into detail about him dealing with his new situation or just him living with it.)