Multifandom Horror Exchange 2020

Multifandom Horror Exchange 2020

AO3 Username: StopTalkingAtMe

Hi, Mystery Author, and welcome to my 2020 Multifandom Horror Exchange letter. I have no words for how excited I am about this exchange: I am a huge horror fan, love reading it, love writing it, and I genuinely cannot wait to read my gift and dive right into the exchange. Some of my requests may be longer than others, but please don't take this as an indication that I want any request more than the others, because I love all these fandoms and would be thrilled with fic for any one of them. Also, please consider the horror types I’ve requested as suggestions only: if you have an idea for another kind of horror fic that doesn’t fit under the subgenre tags I’ve requested for that particular fandom, then PLEASE consider this permission to go for it. I really do love all kinds of horror, and in this exchange in particular I’d love to see something a bit off-the-wall and unexpected.

Table of Contents

General Likes, Smut Likes and DNWs
Anaconda
Darkwood
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Horrorstör - Grady Hendrix
The River
Thief
Thir13en Ghosts
Vampyr
Z Nation
Zone Blanche | Black Spot

General Likes and DNWs

General Likes

• Character studies and introspection
• Loneliness and isolation
• Atmospheric description, scenery porn, sensory description
• World-building and character development. Backstory
• Horror of all kinds, particularly body horror, folk horror, Lovecraftian horror, and atmospheric ghost stories.
• The Closed Circle trope (the most famous example is And Then There Were None) in both horror and mysteries.
• Case-fic.
• Death fic, mourning, and introspective fics dealing with one character's reaction to another's death. In ships where one character dies in canon, I'm happy for them to not actually appear in the fic
• Endings of all kinds, happy, bleak or bittersweet.
• Canon-divergent AUs, especially post-canon ones where the bad guys win.
• Older characters finding love
• Horror scenarios which involve being trapped in dark, claustrophobic places (especially caves) with monsters (As in The Descent)

Smut Likes

• Consensual sex both gentle and rough
• Fellatio and cunnilingus (especially cunnilingus with fingering)
• Mild bondage and other forms of gentle restraint, holding a person down or restraining their wrists.
• Dubcon, (when requested).
• Realistically imperfect but still pleasurable sex (e.g. taking factors into account such as age, one party feeling shy or vulnerable etc,)
• Ghost sex
• For vampires, bloodplay and biting
• Threesomes (and orgies)
• Sex in grimy, grim, uncomfortable places
• Tentacle sex, entirely consensual or dubiously so
• Monster fucking

DNWs

• A/B/O
• Noncon (Unless requested. Extremely dubious dubcon is also fine if prompted)
• Dubcon involving unaroused characters
• Incest (unless requested)
• Bestiality (monsters don't count here)
• Scat and waterplay
• Formalised D/s dynamics (bondage and other forms of restraint are OK)
• Underage
• Het anal sex
• Breathplay
• Fisting
• Sexualised lactation
• Any variation of the word 'come' in a sexual context spelled as 'cum' (please use 'come', 'came', 'precome' etc)

Anaconda

Requested ships: Terri Flores/Paul Serone
Requested medium: Fic - Emphasizing Sexual Content, Fic- Not Emphasizing Sexual Content Additional Tags: Cosmic/Lovecraftian Horror, Psychological Horror, Killer Horror, Body Horror, Survival Horror, Monster Horror

*Clarification for my Noncon DNW: By 'no violent non-con', I mean no actual physical harm (other than slight bruises) and keep it mostly painless (i.e. mild pain that comes indirectly from struggling against bonds rather than being directly inflicted is fine). I'd prefer the prevailing emotion to be one of anger and/or pragmatism rather than trauma, but a bit of trauma is okay (maybe an awareness of it being something she'll have to deal with in the future, but right now she has to focus on survival). And aroused victim only, please.

~~

I have a huge soft spot for monster movies, and Anaconda is one of my favourites. I unashamedly love it. It’s a fun film to watch, I like all the characters, and something about the setting of a bunch of people isolated on a boat hits my id hard (see my related request for The River). Then on top of that there’s the Terri/Paul Serone thing, which… well… There are very, very few things that hit my id harder than the trope of a woman trying to distract the bad guy by pretending to seduce him (blame it on watching Disney’s Aladdin at an impressionable age). This ship is skeevy and messed up, so dubcon, sex pollen, and forced seduction are all possibilities here… Or alternatively maybe something goes wrong, the rest of the crew goes missing, leaving the two of them stranded, and Terri realises she has to go through with her pretended seduction.

Silly popcorn movie or not, I actually find the character dynamics in it kind of interesting and there’s potentially quite a lot to explore. I like that the characters don’t always act as expected, such as when Gary throws his lot in with Serone, and the pompous English dickhead (there’s always one) much more likeable in a moment of crisis. And then there’s Serone himself: simultaneously revolting, sinister and OTT. I can’t help being delighted at Jon Voight’s scenery chewing, and kind of want to know more about the character. Is all the priest stuff real or is it an act? I also like the idea of exploring the conflict in having to rely on someone who is simultaneously a threat to your life, and I would be particularly interested in explorations of his character where he isn’t just the cartoon villain he almost becomes in canon, but treated as a rounded character, ruthless and brutal as he is.

Setting the ship aside, I really do love the film purely for itself. Ignore the ship completely and give me more canon-style survival horror and I will be happy, I swear.

Please note that this request is specifically for the first film. References to the sequels are fine, but I'm perfectly happy for them to be completely ignored. The only thing I will say is that I really like the imagery of the Blood Orchid in the second film, even if you use absolutely nothing about it except its appearance (my sex pollen prompt is probably relevant here).

Optional Prompts

• An AU where Steven and Serone come to an agreement about which way to travel so there’s no need for the wasp. (Maybe Serone manages to persuade him or they’ve met previously?) How would that change the course of the film, with perhaps the others suspecting him slightly less? After all, he was right about the tribe...
• Something goes wrong, and Terri and Serone are separated from the rest of the crew (or everyone else is killed). Set-up for sex pollen or something more serious. Whether they’re shipped or not (and please feel free to make this gen if you’d prefer), I’d really like to see some exploration of their dynamic. How you approach this probably depends on how suspicious Terri is of him: whether he’s already revealed himself as a villain, or if her suspicions haven’t yet been confirmed (but maybe she’s warming towards him because he saved her life, even if he is a massive fucking weirdo). I’d be happy with either. Also open to her seducing him to prevent him from killing her/leaving her stranded.
• An exploration of where the snakes come from. Use the sequels if you want or ignore them completely and make shit up. I do like the aesthetic of the orchids in the second film (and the, uh, giant snake orgy), but there shouldn’t be any need to have watched the film to use them. Does it occur to Terri at any point that there may in fact be more of a market for a documentary about a massive 40 ft anaconda than the original topic?
• The attempt to distract Serone goes horribly wrong and she has to go through with it (perhaps an AU there aren’t enough of them left to overpower him), or an extremely dubiously consensual no no yes situation. Or with Gary dead, Denise is particularly vulnerable, and so Terri seduces Serone thinking she’s protecting her.
• Why is Serone so obsessed with that damn snake? Is it really purely about money, or is there something more at work? Is it any snake, or is it purely that specific snake that he’s after? And I am, as always, up for backstory and character development.
• I’d love to see something Lovecraftian here, exploring obsession and the possibility that the anacondas are harbingers of an Elder God. Maybe Terri gets sucked into it in his wake, and the near-madness of facing it creates a kind of bond between them, which she can’t escape afterwards as much as she hates him.

Darkwood

Requested ships: The Stranger
Requested medium: Fic- Not Emphasizing Sexual Content Additional Tags: Body Horror, Folk Horror, Killer Horror, Monster Horror, Psychological Horror, Survival Horror

~~

There's so much to love about this game: the Eastern European setting, the grotesque body horror, the creepy dream sequences, the folk horror aspects of the villagers (and their Sow), the character artwork, and the incredibly creepy imagery. I love the vague hints of mythology and echoes of fairy tales (the Wolfman putting on the Huntsman's clothes in a creepy-as-fuck reverse Red Riding Hood) and I can't help wondering if the Chicken Lady is a reference to Baba Yaga.

For this I'd love more of what's in canon. Creepy dreams, gruesome monsters, body horror, the desperate fight for survival when the generator's about to run out of gas and there's something lurking in the shadows. One thing I really like about the game is the sense that the protagonist is himself a complete monster, so feel free to play with that.

Optional Prompts

• Anything involving the confusion between dreams and reality after the Stranger believes himself to have escaped from the wood.
• Survival horror. The Stranger trying to survive a couple of nights in his barricaded shack, or finding himself stranded out in the woods as night comes in.
• An outsider’s POV of the Stranger. A kid from the village, maybe?
• Anything exploring the setting, the dream sequences, the set pieces like the wedding, the confrontation with the doctor, any of the dream sequences, the Sow. Basically, I’d just love to have some of the game’s vibe captured in fiction.
• The Stranger dreams about the man he used to be.

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Requested ships: Female Falmer Servant/Multiple Falmer
Falmer Servant/Falmer Servant
Requested medium: Fic - Emphasizing Sexual Content, Fic- Not Emphasizing Sexual Content Additional Tags: Body Horror, Dark Fantasy, Monster Horror, Psychological Horror, Survival Horror

~~

The existence of the Falmer servants raises so many horrific questions: forced breeding, mind-washing, so many people spending their lives enslaved by the Falmer in the bleak desolation of Blackreach. It's so bleak and grim and gritty, and utterly fucking awful, that I would freaking LOVE to see something exploring their lives, whether you delve deep into the grimdark bleakness or keep it all creepily rose-tinted: this is the world they've been born into and they've never known anything else, and it's not like things are all that much better on the surface world, right? I adore the aesthetics of Blackreach, and The Descent-style vibes I get from the Falmer, so whatever the Blackreach-equivalent of landscape porn is, I'd love that.

Feel free to go extremely dark with this. Consider this a yes please to cannibalism, forced breeding, use of sex pollen and aphrodisiacs, and extremely dubiously consensual monsterfucking. For the forced breeding, I’d particularly love to see it from a horror angle as it’s not something I specifically kink on, although I do love the use of sex in horror.

Optional Prompts

• Love in the time of horror and misery.
• After meeting with an adventurer from the outside world, she's been dreaming about the world above.
• They begin to learn something about the world around them and Dwemer history, perhaps finding out something about the history of their Falmer masters.
• The bleakest slice of life imaginable, but presented as if it's perfectly normal.
• After being dosed with aphrodisiacs, a Falmer servant is fucked by multiple Falmer.

Horrorstör - Grady Hendrix

Requested ships: Amy/Basil
Requested medium: Fic - Emphasizing Sexual Content, Fic- Not Emphasizing Sexual Content Additional Tags: Body Horror, Gothic Horror, Paranormal Horror, Science-Fiction Horror, Survival Horror

~~

This book was so much fun to read. I loved the design of it, with the Ikea-style illustrations and the way they gradually grew more sinister as the plot went on and the horror really bean to ramp up. I would love to see a post-canon fic here, either following Amy and Basil as they try to rescue the friends they left behind, or alternatively the all-night event of the Baby Superstore which is teased in the last few pages. I ship Amy and Basil, but would also be fine with genfic which focuses purely on horror too, or with the ship-aspects taking a back-seat to the horror. For this request, I’d love to see more ghosts. Or some architectural horror: I particularly liked the use of non-Euclydean geometry and impossible corridors. I really liked Amy and Basil, how prickly and defensive she was, and her realisation that there was a reason why Basil had such a stick up his arse about the job, and their shared survivor guilt at the end, with both of them coming to the conclusion that they have to go back in. And mainly I really liked how the setting was used, with a place as ubiquitous and familiar as Ikea used as a horror setting.

Optional Prompts

• The night before going back in, they get together, treating it as what might be their last chance. Maybe each of them tries to persuade the other not to go in, to let them do it alone.
• Post-post canon. They’ve apparently won the day, and got their happily-ever-after, but gradually it becomes clear that something is very wrong and they may never have escaped at all.
• AU where the events of the haunting are different. Maybe a zombie apocalypse AU, whether early in the outbreak when it’s just starting to become clear that something is wrong, or late in the day with the world in post-apocalyptic ruins (and it strikes me that due to the highly defensible layout of the stores, and all the supplies, that Ikea would be the perfect place to hole up in).
• Or a Gothic Horror. I’ve seen that genre described as a woman falling in love with a building. I’m not quite sure how you’d make that work, but perhaps an AU where the ghosts are obsessed with Amy? I’d love to see the tropes and style of Gothic horror adapted to this sort of setting though.
• All the horrors of captivity and Amy and Basil providing mutual support to each other. Thank God We’re Alive Sex, or Shit, We’re Going to Die Sex. I’m happy with either, or just pure hurt/comfort and whump.

The River

Requested ships: Tess Cole/Clark Quietly
Tess Cole/Clark Quietly/Emmet Cole
Solo: Emmet Cole
Requested medium: Fic - Emphasizing Sexual Content, Fic- Not Emphasizing Sexual Content Additional Tags: Body Horror, Cosmic/Lovecraftian Horror, Monster Horror, Paranormal Horror, Psychological Horror, Science-Fiction Horror, Survival Horror

~~

I finally got around to watching this single-series show, only about eight years after it first aired, and it really is the weirdest show. It’s the found-footage story of a mother and son sailing up the Amazon in search of their father and husband Emmet Cole, and making a documentary on the show, and it is completely bizarre from start to finish, with each episode focusing on a different horror trope, from a little ghost girl to zombies. It’s such an oddly contrived concept for a series, and I completely loved it, and am now desperately sad that it didn’t get a second series. I loved all of the characters and would be up for seeing any one of them explored, so consider this a go-ahead to do exactly that rather than the requested characters and ships. I’d particularly like to see Kurt explored, but I’m open to anything, including outsider POV.

Clark was unquestionably one of my favourite characters, and I’d love to see more of his relationships with Tess and/or Emmet. I found the dynamics of their weird little love triangle incredibly appealing, and I am here for that to be explored however you want, whether V-shaped or triad. I would definitely be up for seeing the Clark/Emmet side of it emphasised – the awkward tension in the moment between them after Emmet’s been viewing the footage and thanks Clark for looking after Tess, with Clark claiming to have always been a selfish bastard – god, it’s like catnip. I adored the moment between Clark and Tess in the episode where they all started to lose their sight, too, where he essentially confesses to adoring her and realises that for her there’s only Emmet. Rip my heart out, why don’t you?

I’d love to see something that follows on from the twist in the last episode, a short time afterwards or years in the future. Is there conflict between him and Emmet, or maybe Emmet sees that after everything that happened, he isn’t enough for Tess and that she needs Clark too. Maybe he’ll never be free of the hunger for magic and knows that someday he’ll end up leaving her again.

I’d also love to see more tropey horror here. So if you want, take another horror movie trope, figure out how you can fit it into their journey up the Amazon in the most contrived way (Hey, if it’s good enough for canon...). Explore any one of the horror tropes throughout the series (especially the zombies), or alternatively the one horror trope we didn’t see much of was monster movies: a crossover with Anaconda, perhaps, even if you don’t use anything from that film other than the giant snake.

For the Solo: Emmet request, I’d really like to see something about how he got into magic in the first place. The name of his boat, the Magus, really fascinates me, as does the use of magic throughout the series. How did he get started with the search for magic? What happened to him during the time he was missing?

Optional Prompts

• When did Emmet first learn real magic existed? On one of his journeys or somewhere more urban? And how did it come to consume him?
• One thing I regretted about the last episode was how quickly the Agatha Christie-style mystery of who tried to shoot Emmet was dropped. It’s another trope I love, so I’d love to see an AU of that episode which spins out the mystery for a bit longer, whether the culprit remains the same as in the episode or is different.
• Time loop. A character keeps dying, or has to prevent another character from dying, but keeps failing. I especially love the creepiness of the world breaking down as the time loop progresses. Or moments when it becomes clear that other characters are also trapped in their own loops.
• One thing I really liked about the canon was how it used the documentary footage and incorporated it into the plot, so I’d really like to see something that reflects that or the found-footage style of the show (although I’m not quite sure how you’d go about that in a fic). Maybe something with the creepy feeling of not being able to trust your own eyes, where watched footage differs from what a character remembers happening, and they can’t quite figure out what’s real and what’s not.

Thief

Requested ships: Garrett/The Trickster
Garrett/Viktoria
Requested medium: Fic - Emphasizing Sexual Content, Fic- Not Emphasizing Sexual Content Additional Tags: Body Horror, Dark Fantasy, Folk Horror, Gothic Horror, Institutional Horror, Monster Horror, Paranormal Horror, Psychological Horror, Religious Horror, Survival Horror

~~

Every now and then a game gets hold of you and you can't put it down. I love this series. I love everything about it: the gameplay, the lore, the level design, the characters, and the setting. I love the set-up, the competing factions of the Hammerites and the Pagans, the folk-horror imagery, and the steam-punky vibes. Oh, and Garrett. He's sort of a bastard, tries to be a misanthrope, but then there are those moments when his compassion shine through, like the Trail of Blood mission in the second game which was so sad and unexpected. In the first two games it's interesting to see the difference in his character between the cut-scenes when he's interacting with others (where he's misanthropic, angry, and bitter), and the pre-mission voice-overs (where he's confident, collected, and wry).

I'd love to see some world-building: the City is such a fantastic, fascinating setting, and there's so much scope for exploring, with the mix of old technology with the steampunky vibes of the first two games.

In many ways, this is the perfect canon for horror. Garrett is extremely vulnerable once spotted, and there are some seriously creepy antagonists in the game, as well as certain missions and locations being slanted towards horror, particularly the Haunted Cathedral, Constantine’s mansion, and – most of all – Shalebridge. Not to mention zombies, ghosts, the Hammer Haunts, necromancers, the bleak desolation of the walled off part of the City, the folk horror aspects of the Pagans, the Trickster’s monsters, torture, and the grotesque body horror of the Hag. There’s so much to explore, and I would love to see something exploring any aspect of these games.

Solo: Garrett

Ah man, Garrett. <3 I’ve already spoken about him quite a bit above, so there’s no need to rehash that, but he honestly is one of my OTCs of all time, and if there’s ever been a character who I’d love to see getting whumped, it’s him. So consider this reassurance that I would LOVE a fic that focuses on him and him alone, or which focuses on his relationship with the City (which deserves to be a ship in its own right, honestly), his day-to-day life, or his background.

Optional Prompts

• Shalebridge Cradle. Just that, basically, whether it’s set during the game’s events, or perhaps a pre-canon fic where Garrett is younger.
• Anything that follows on from the loss of his eye. I’d be fascinated to see something which looks at his early relationship with Karras before the events of the second game
• I love the bleakness of the walled-off part of the City, the ruined buildings, the zombies, and in particular the Hammer Haunts. It’s so atmospheric and creepy.
• The Eye fascinates me too, the way it speaks to him, how manipulative it is, and just what the implications are of it coming into his possession at the end of the third game.

Garrett/The Trickster

Basically, I would really love a Bad Guys Win AU here, with the Trickster keeping Garrett alive after the end of the first game. Angst, magical vines, monster fucking, torture, and extremely dubious consent: I'm here for it all.

Alternatively, something set during the course of the first game, where Constantine hasn't yet been unmasked as the Trickster. And if you want to combine this ship with either of the others for this fandom then please do.

Optional Prompts

• Garrett, being Garrett, is nothing but pragmatic, and decides that he might as well make the best of a bad situation and seeks to make himself useful to the Trickster. There's always something else to steal.
• Monster fucking, xeno, and sex pollen - The Trickster doses Garrett with sex pollen and hands him over to his monsters while he watches.
• Constantine invites Garrett to his house to give him the tour, especially of the gardens. I'd love to see more of their dynamic, so stick to pre-slash conversation if you want: that mix of hostility and mistrust and greed. Maybe Constantine slips something in Garrett's drink to make him more voluble (or something in the air in the gardens?). Or, if you want to do smut, then that, whether Garrett remembers it all afterwards or not.

Garrett/Viktoria

These two fascinate me, particularly their dynamic in the second game as Garrett gradually adapts to working with her, even after everything that happened and everything she did to him in the first game. Oh, and speaking of the first game, that cut-scene where she turns up at his tenement? Yeah, he so very clearly wants to fuck her.

There are two things I have in mind for this ship. Firstly, a Bad Guys Win AU like the Trickster ship above, where they are still, technically, enemies, or something that follows canon more closely, and they've become allies.

Optional Prompts

• For the Bad Guys Win AU, heavily dubcon smut which takes full advantage of vines and Viktoria's ability to grow tree branches for limbs. Does she hate him, or is she starting to show signs of the more sympathetic side we see in The Metal Age? Creepy folk-horror imagery is particularly welcome here.
• For the Bad Guys Win AU, after being tortured, Garrett is seriously injured and close to death. Viktoria tends to his wounds.
• Also Bad Guys Win: Garrett fails but manages to escape and is now trying to hide in the City while Viktoria hunts for him. Maybe he manages to capture and imprison her.
• A fic set during the course of the second game when they're gradually getting used to working with one another, and still don't quite trust each other. Does Viktoria try to make amends?
• Also during the second game, with no immediate missions, they have a quiet moment to bond in the forest, gradually getting to know one another even though all the old hurts still sting.
• Or a missing scene from the first game. How did they first meet? What happened after he left Constantine's home? The drink Constantine gives him seems so significant (and it's so creepy), but it never seems to play much of a role in the story. Is it an aphrodisiac of some kind?
• Sometime after the events of the second game, Viktoria -- or someone who looks very much like her -- returns. Whether she's still a nymph or is human, that's up to you.

Thir13en Ghosts

Requested ships: Dennis Rafkin/Cyrus Kriticos
Dennis Rafkin/Kathy Kriticos
Kathy Kriticos/Cyrus Kriticos
Solo: Dennis Rafkin
Requested medium: Fic - Emphasizing Sexual Content, Fic- Not Emphasizing Sexual Content Additional Tags: Body Horror, Cosmic/Lovecraftian Horror, Gothic Horror, Paranormal Horror, Psychological Horror, Survival Horror, Violent Horror

~~

I completely unashamedly love this film and everything about it: the bereaved family who think a sudden bequest from their estranged uncle is going to solve all their financial problems (I mean, good lord, did they actually pay attention to that video will?), the early noughties ghost aesthetic, the ghost-vision goggles, the clockwork workings of the mansion, the closed-circle tropey goodness of the plot, and most of all the characters.

Dennis is virtually everything I adore in a character: touch-starved, self-hating, deeply conflicted, and painfully, agonisingly lonely. Anything that explores his struggles with his psychic abilities, loneliness and inability to touch people is right up my alley and I'm pretty much guaranteed to love it. I ship him with both Cyrus and Kathy, or potentially both at once.

For Kathy, I'd really love to see something that builds on what we see of her character. In canon she has to keep things together for the sake of her grieving father and death-obsessed little brother, but perhaps after she learns about the existence of the occult things change. Maybe she's drawn to occultism despite (or because of) what happened, and finds herself following in Cyrus's footsteps. Or a darker Kathy who's working with Cyrus himself, either in a canon-divergent AU where Cyrus survived or where he's been brought back somehow. Maybe she brought him back thinking she could control him.

Consider my incest DNW waived for Kathy/Cyrus, although I'd prefer if the focus was more on being seduced to the dark side by an older man, than on him technically being a family member. It also isn't clear how old Kathy is in canon, but personally I see her as college-aged in canon, maybe 19-21).

Ghosts are ALWAYS welcome, as is anything exploring the house or Cyrus's particular brand of ridiculously flamboyant occultism. Again, I have no issue with character death and mourning, or blood and gore.

Optional Prompts

• A time-loop set during the events of the film where Dennis keeps dying in a variety of unpleasant ways.
• After the death of her brother and/or father, Kathy returns to the house in order to use its powers for herself. Maybe she finds Dennis there and he tries to stop her.
• Something quieter and sweeter exploring a relationship between Kathy and Dennis where he manages to overcome his difficulties with touching other people and they gradually heal from the experience.
• This could have a happyish ending, or it could be utterly devastatingly bleak, so perhaps at the end it's revealed that they're both dead and trapped in a containment cube and he's been hiding this from her to protect her.
• Architectural horror — something focused around that gloriously OTT clockwork house. Maybe something like that isn’t quite so easy to destroy.
• Dennis and Cyrus and their fucked-up relationship, however you choose to present it: platonic or otherwise. Bonus points for making it vaguely dub-conny and deeply manipulative. Perhaps Cyrus is somehow able to overcome the psychic touching issue with some sort of drug; if you've been desperate for human contact all your life that'd be hard to resist.
• Came-back-wrong: Dennis or Cyrus. Or both.

Vampyr

Requested ships: Jonathan Reid/Edgar Swansea
Requested medium: Fic - Emphasizing Sexual Content, Fic- Not Emphasizing Sexual Content Additional Tags: Body Horror, Cosmic/Lovecraftian Horror, Dark Fantasy, Folk Horror, Gothic Horror, Monster Horror, Psychological Horror, Religious Horror, Survival Horror

~~

Out of Jonathan's three progeny, Edgar is my favourite. I'm fascinated be him: his dubious ethics, and his background with the Brotherhood, and how grateful he is to Jonathan for the chance of becoming a vampire. All the three turning cut-scenes are hot as fuck, but I'm particularly fond of Edgar's scene for the copious amounts of whump and how tender Jonathan is with him, even despite everything he's learned and how angry he is with him. The game does a great job of building up the friendship and professional relationship between them, and I love the way Edgar adjusts to his new life as an Ekon and the eerie feeling I'm left with that maybe turning him wasn't such a great idea after all.

Something I really is the idea of Jonathan cracking and turning dark as a result of having denied himself blood for too long, so not dark from the outset, but as a result of attempting to follow the not-even-once route, and all the delicious wallowing in angst and guilt as a result, but not-even-once!Jonathan and shades-of-grey!Jonathan are great too.

Optional Prompts

• I am always here for incredibly bleak Bad Guys Win AUs. Jonathan loses the final battle, London descends into a post-apocalyptic nightmare, and it's him and Edgar against the world. Has the world adjusted and adapted, or is it just a matter of marking time until the inevitable miserable end?
• Get together fic, whether it happens when Edgar is still human or after he's been turned. Or an AU where a human Edgar survives the theatre, meaning that there's no need for Jonathan to turn him.
• I’m fascinated by the ingame factions, particularly the Brotherhood, so I’d love anything that explores how it functions and/or its history. Perhaps Jonathan is considering joining.
• Whump and hurt/comfort, whether it’s Edgar who gets injured, or alternately, Jonathan gets severely injured and is unable to fight, resulting in Edgar (whether human or Ekon) having to step up to protect them both.

Z Nation

Requested ships: Roberta Warren/Charles Garnett
Requested medium: Fic - Emphasizing Sexual Content, Fic- Not Emphasizing Sexual Content Additional Tags: Body Horror, Folk Horror, Psychological Horror, Science-Fiction Horror, Survival Horror

~~

This is easily my favourite zombie-apocalypse series. I love it so much, how it doesn't take itself too seriously, but has, despite a shaky budget, still managed to create characters who you can't help but love.

Season 4 finally convinced me on Murphy/Warren, but then I went back to rewatch season 1, and fell in love with Garnett all over again. It breaks my heart that he only got six episodes. Seeing the way Warren changes over the course of the series, particularly in season 3, makes it all the more poignant. In the first season, they've just come out of a relatively civilised community, and things haven't quite gone to hell yet. There's just so much chemistry in the way Warren and Garnett interact -- the way they look at each other -- and they have so much history.

I loved the way the show contrasted how gentle and rational Garnett is with how brutal and violent he gets when he has to kill zombies, and the way they fight alongside each other. And I love him as a character, the quiet mentions of his family and how he dealt with their deaths. And the show handled their relationship really well, with the moment of closure in Warren's home town when she says goodbye to her husband. And the moment in Resurrection Z when they're in the cafeteria and trying to claim that they're not a couple, and everyone else is like, Yeah, right. And the episode where Warren mourns him which manages to break my heart all over again with the shots of Garnett looking at her in the car and kjdfhvjkdfih. <3<3<3

For this, I'd love anything horror or action related. Zombies, any of the typical zombie-apocalypse scenarios, with the usual Z Nation weirdness and/or humour mixed in. I have no problem with major character death or extended angst and mourning.

Optional Prompts

• Any kind of case-fic or zombie related action-adventure/horror.
• That Closed Circle trope I mentioned? Basically 'And Then There Were None' with zombies. Which they sort of did already, but I wouldn't say no to more
• Backstory exploring Garnett and Warren's shared history at Camp Blue Sky.
• A fix-it AU where Garnett survives.
• Somehow Garnett is resurrected. Either body horror, where he comes back wrong. Or how he copes when he sees how Warren has had to harden herself. Or, y'know, both.
• Warren gets caught in a time-loop during Resurrection Z and has the chance to make things right. Or it's Garnett who's caught in the loop. (one thing I loved about that episode was the community going to hell, especially the moment when they're stuck in a narrow corridor and zombies are piling up behind them -- that panic and chaos: more please).
• An AU where the apocalypse isn't zombies. Or it's a dystopia of some kind.
• A historical AU where the zombie outbreak happens in the wild west. I adore the western trappings of some of the show's episodes, so I can see this working perfectly.

Zone Blanche | Black Spot

Requested ships: Louis Hermann/Camille Laugier
Requested medium: Fic - Emphasizing Sexual Content, Fic- Not Emphasizing Sexual Content Additional Tags: Body Horror, Cosmic/Lovecraftian Horror, Folk Horror, Monster Horror, Paranormal Horror, Survival Horror

~~

This series, set in a French town isolated in the middle of a murder-forest is so good. I love the format, the way the case-of-the-week procedural mysteries are woven in with both the overarching theme of crime and corruption and with the supernatural forces in the forest. I love the way it uses Celtic mythology, the stunning cinematography and scenery, the modern folk-horror (and arboreal horror) vibe, and the way the forest is presented as both an antagonist and something many of the characters have a symbiotic relationship with.

I'd love to see some scenery porn for this fandom, since the scenery is one of my favourite things about it, and my love for folk horror is particularly relevant here, as is my love for creepy forests, and nature that may or may not want to eat you. I love the ambiguity of the supernatural in this series: while the supernatural forces unambiguously exist, often their influence over the various cases of the week are less clear. I really like that, but I would also be happy to see something where the supernatural forces have much more influence.

Louis Hermann/Camille Laugier

I ship these two hard. I haven’t requested them for a while, but the horror theme of this exchange got me wanting to request them again and see whatever the hell is going on between them in canon with a horror bent. I’m a dedicated multi-shipper, though, and I ship Camille with a few characters, so if you want to ship her with someone else (particularly Laurene or Marion), and keep her relationship with Hermann as unrequited pining or as ambiguous as it is in canon then please do.

I love the contrast between these two: Camille is deceptively fragile in appearance and behaviour, and Hermann's a tough-as-nails woodsman badass with a vulnerable streak, the awkwardness of the age gap, the tenderness between them, the hint of vulnerability that comes from loss and grief, and the mentor/protégé relationship: it's all so messed up and complicated and painfully sweet. And the events of S2E4: that chaste heartbroken forehead kiss. Her expression when she walks away. My freaking heart.

Hermann fascinates me, and I’m particularly intrigued about his relationship with women. He’s massively flawed: there are a couple of episodes where he’s rough with female witnesses, and I love how in S2E4 he pings as a threat even when he thinks he’s being protective. I’m curious about the idea that Camille might have been his second go at creating a female protege, his first being Laurene, but she turned out to have too much of a mind of her own, and so he tried again with Camille because on some subconscious level he thought she’d be more malleable. If you’ve seen the detective show River, I’m also intrigued by the parallels with that in relation to the S2E4, that question of how much of what we see of Camille is actually her and how much is Hermann’s view of her, whether she’s a ghost or a hallucination.

Optional Prompts

• A stranger arrives in a weird town where everyone’s obsessed with the woods? Come on, this canon is made for a Wicker Man-style Folk Horror AU.
• Came Back Wrong - Camille comes back from the dead.
• Or alternatively, it’s Marion who comes back midway through the events of season 1. How does that affect events? Is she dangerous? Does she remember what Camille did?
• Their relationships with the forest and the gods of the forest. I love the idea of a town dying gradually as their links with the old ways lessen. Hermann’s grandparents telling him stories about the old ways, but he doesn’t believe any of it, until he starts to. What did he really see after he shot the Horned God in the final episode? Will the forest exact a price?
• Something I really really love is Arboreal Horror, particularly anything with bodies merging with trees (Such as the Talking Tree in Darkwood). Speaking of Darkwood, I’d love an AU that captures the creepy-as-fuck atmosphere of that game, whether it’s an outright crossover or not. And, crucially, whether you’ve played it or not, since you could get an idea of the sort of thing I’d love for this prompt purely by taking a look at the artwork. (By the by, I’m actually pretty sure that game directly inspired some of the imagery in series 2, so it’s entirely appropriate, :D)

Thanks for reading!