A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

I'm requesting fic for everything. But if anyone feels moved to give me an art treat, that would be delightful!

Feel free to mix-and-match AU freeforms within fandoms. For instance, for Punisher I requested both "Amateur Theatre Group" and "Post-Apocalypse." So, for that fandom a Station Eleven-esque post-apocalyptic theatre group would be fine.


General Likes: Hurt-comfort - all h/c tropes that don't infantilize anyone are delicious to me. Injured and stuck without medical care on another planet/behind enemy lines/etc, bedside vigils, tender caretaking, stoic characters pretending they are JUST FINE right up until they collapse - I love it all. The only thing I don't like is characters getting tons of care taking lavished on them for minor illnesses like colds - that hits my infantilization button. (But fevers with delirium are lovely, especially if they make characters babble secrets or true feelings that they'd never in a million years admit to if sober.) Emotional h/c is also excellent.

Loyalty, conflicting loyalties, being torn between a cause or job and the woman she loves - I adore all that. I love knight's vows, soldiers' camaraderie, and tight-knit groups - or being an outcast from a group.I love bonding through shared hardship or a shared hard job, through both being outcasts or both having a secret. I love characters who trust each other with their lives. I also love characters who don't trust each other for good reasons, but are forced to work together/depend on each other.

I like platonic and romantic relationships equally. I like characters entering new or dangerous emotional or sexual territory, like if they're control freaks or emotionally damaged and have never really relaxed and enjoyed themselves, or let themselves be vulnerable, or depended on another person, or lost control of their emotions or desires.

For sex specifics if you write sex, I like BDSM, especially if it's extremely informal (like, the characters might not have even heard the term, they just know they like being pinned down/tying up their girlfriend/etc). I like bruising (spontaneous or ornamental), and rough and/or frantic/desperate sex. I like "let's have sex because we might die tomorrow/we might not survive the war." I like fingering and frottage, especially when partly clothed, reaching into clothes, touching through clothes, etc. I like praise, bondage, honor bondage, and characters discovering kinks for the first time.

I like lavish descriptions of things, from food to clothing to scenery to the human body. I love sexy clothing, which could be slinky 40s dresses or battle-worn leathers. Scars and brands and tattoos are hot.

I like worldbuilding, whether it's of literal worlds or exploring the setting/culture of our real world. I love strange, beautiful/deadly, post-apocalyptic, and mysterious landscapes. I have a thing for ancient but still working, poorly understood machinery or magical items. I like any sort of survival narrative.

I like any kind of writing, from completely straightforward to 5 Things to any sort of odd format that serves the story. I even like second person if there's a reason for it.



General DNWs: Issuefic, real-life terminal illness like cancer (non-realistic stuff like super-soldiers with a limited lifespan is fine), dementia and brain damage, A/B/O, PWP (porn without plot), non-canon human pregnancy and babies or a heavy focus on canon human pregnancy and babies (alien lizard babies, adorable kittens, etc are fine), infantilization, radiation sickness, graphic details of dental trauma, extreme body horror, and the gross kinds of bodily waste (blood, sweat, and tears are fine). Please no death of requested characters unless I specifically say it's OK for that canon.



Dark Tower - Stephen King
Group: Roland Deschain & Susannah Dean & Eddie Dean & Jake Chambers & Oy
Group: Roland Deschain/Susan Delgado
Group: Jake Chambers & Roland Deschain
Roland Deschain

Feel free to include any other canon characters with the exception of the ones in the DNWs.

Temporary death or "in another world" death is fine for these characters, as is an AU resulting from a death (i.e., Roland dies in Mejis and Susan goes on as a gunslinger) or a tragic ending where it's clear that even everyone dying isn't the end.

Canon-specific DNWs: Susannah's pregnancy/baby. Mia. Stephen King as an actual character - I liked the metafictional aspects, that was just one step too far with them for me. Pimples.

ALL: Space Opera AU

A huge universe to explore, but a universe that's moved on and is rickety and not quite right; ships whose hyperspace drives may or may not still work so you don't know until it's too late whether they'll take you to the right destination or drive you insane (or if the AI is insane itself and is going to take its madness out on you) or if you'll ever come back. Are planetary mechanics changing, so seasons last for generations or one side of a planet is perpetual summer?

Do they need to find the planet that has the Tower, or is the Tower something else? Is Oy an alien creature? Do Eddie and Susannah and Jake need to learn to fly spaceships? Is the mark of the gunslinger that they're STILL using gunpowder and bullets even though no one else in the galaxy has for thousands of years, and how might that combine with only thin metal or plastic walls keeping out the vacuum?

Feel free to combine this one with any of the other freeforms, i.e., maybe Susan is leading the ka-tet with or instead of Roland, or the canon ka-tet finds an abandoned but working spaceship or goes through a door into a space opera world.

ALL: Canon Divergence AU
ALL: Character meets the parallel universe counterpart of their dead SO
ALL: Crossover - Shared Universe AU
ALL: Going back in time to fix the future
ALL: Groundhog Day timeloop
ALL: Time Travel to the Future
Dark Tower - Stephen King: Another turn of the wheel
Dark Tower - Stephen King: Different configuration of DT characters as ka-tet
Dark Tower - Stephen King: Different Stephen King characters as ka-tet
Dark Tower - Stephen King: Susan Delgado survives
Dark Tower: someone else takes Roland's place as the Gunslinger

I really like canon AUs in this fandom, and one of the fun things about it is how many AU premises are actually possible within canon: there are other worlds than these. Feel free to mix-and-match with any of these.

Do they go back in time to try to save Susan or Gabrielle, or keep the Horn of Eld, or have Jericho Hill turn out differently? Do they try to save the present-day ka-tet? How does that work with the canon paradox issues? Or is there more accidental changing the past, like happened with Roland and Jake, with unexpected consequences? Or do they go back much, much farther in time, to the golden era of Gilead? Or to the far future of Mid-World, when the world has really moved on?

Does our ka-tet walk into the world of The Stand, or keep exploring the other universe that also had the Superflu? Did some or all of Roland's original ka-tet (and/or Susan) survive, with or without him? Do they join up with the present-day ka-tet? Do some DT characters who were never in it end up in it, like some of the Sisters of Oriza or an escapee from Lud? What if David is still with Roland?

Does Susan have a counterpart in our world, and in what time period? Or is Susan the one who meets an alternate Roland? What if some of the current ka-tet were drawn earlier or later than they were? (If you do that one, I'd like Susannah to still have some kind of mental/physical disability, even if it's not the same one or not acquired the same way - that feels really key to her character. Similarly, if Eddie was never an addict, I think he should still have some comparable issue (could just be emotional damage.)

For other King characters in a ka-tet, feel free to grab anyone you like from any books or stories I've read based on my Stephen King tag, or you can ask if I've read or how I feel about something via the mod. I'm not crazy about the Bachman book characters other than the boys in The Long Walk. I don't think I've written about Gerald's Game or IT here, but I've read them and love Jessie and the Loser's Club. If you do this AU, it's fine to not include any Dark Tower characters.

You can find me going on and on about Dark Tower and what I like about the characters in my Stephen King tag, if that's helpful.



The Leftovers (TV)

Group: Kevin Garvey Jr/Nora Durst
John Murphy & Kevin Garvey Jr

Canon-specific DNWs: Temporary or dream death is fine for this canon but no permanent/real death of requested characters, please. Please no graphic details of animal harm.

I love all the characters in the tagset and would be happy to see any of them.

Nora and Kevin are such a wonderful, damaged, romantic couple. I loved that moment between Kevin and John at the end of S2 when Kevin invites him over. I'd love to see something that follows through on that odd, touching point when their relationship had just shifted from antagonistic to something else.

ALL: Annihilation AU

This movie had such a unique atmosphere, and one that I think would mesh well with the surrealism/magical realism of the show. So what if the Shimmer happened instead of or in addition to the Departure?

ALL: Canon Divergence AU

For any characters other than Kevin, I'd love to see their own "International Assassin" dreamscape, perhaps with someone else venturing into it. Or what if Kevin followed Nora into the 2% world?

ALL: Noir AU

Nora's dogged persistence reminds me a lot of a classic noir gumshoe. Also I think she'd be really hot in noir-type outfits. If you do this I'd like to either keep the Departure (possibly shift it to an earlier time period) or have some kind of other larger cataclysm have occurred, and place your noir against that backdrop.

Leftovers: Different characters departed

Leftovers: Two-Percent World AU

I have a whole lot of prompts on this theme in my last Yuletide letter.



Punisher (TV 2017)
Group: Amy Bender & Frank Castle (Punisher TV)
Group: Frank Castle & David Lieberman (Punisher TV)
Group: Frank Castle & David Lieberman & Sarah Lieberman (Punisher TV)
Group: Frank Castle & Dinah Madani (Punisher TV)
Group: Frank Castle & Leo Lieberman (Punisher TV)
Group: Frank Castle/Billy Russo (Punisher TV)
Group: Frank Castle/David Lieberman/Sarah Lieberman (Punisher TV)

Feel free to include any of the canon characters in a story if it suits, except for my one DNW. I have way more tl;dr about the characters in last year's AU Ex letter here.

If you write Billy, I prefer his characterization from S1. This is true even if you include Amy or other canon from S2. If you write Madani, I liked her in S1 and LOVED her in S2--she was a hot mess and it was marvelous. So feel free to be a bit fast and loose about what was going on in which season (especially since this will be an AU anyway!)

Canon-specific DNWs: Dr. Krista Dumont. I'd prefer that you ignore the coda at the end of S2 (after the bus station scene.) Temporary death is fine but no permanent death for requested characters, or deaths of non-requested characters who don't die in canon.

ALL: Amateur Theatre Group

I've done a lot of amateur and low-level pro theatre, mostly as a stage manager, and when I saw this AU, I realized how hilariously well it fit the Punisher cast. Moody method actor Frank! Put-upon stage manager David! Or some other configuration of your choice.

ALL: Main character Genderbend AU

I'm thinking of this as "always a woman/man" gender swap, not something that happens during the story because of magic or transitioning. I'd like if it kept close to the gritty realism aspect of the series in terms of it not being a gender-equal society, but everything is the same except women got into Special Forces earlier than in canon/RL.

I could see some of female! Billy's fucked-upness coming from gender expectations placed on women, and her being much more constantly aware of what those are, while female!Frank might try to ignore and just bulldoze through them. Were they the first women to get into Special Forces, or were they in the second or third wave? If you had the veteran's group appear (like if you set it post-canon or had Frank in it earlier) it would probably be specifically for female vets. How would everyone's lives have been different, and how would they have been the same? I'm fine with including sexual trauma if you think it fits - it's a major issue in RL (actually, it is for male military personnel too.)

ALL: Post-Apocalypse

This might be a good one for Frank & Leo. I am a sucker for tough guys and young (but also tough in their own way) girls making their way across a post-apocalyptic landscape. If you do that one, please either leave it open whether her family is still alive somewhere, or have them actively trying to get her back to them - please no dead Liebermans however implausible their survival might be. ;) Or else it's the post-apocalyptic Liebermans, inexplicably surviving though to outward appearances they shouldn't be able to, taking in loner Frank Castle who maybe hasn't had any contact with anyone not trying to kill him in literally years. Or Frank and Billy/Madani/Amy making their way across the post-apocalyptic landscape.

I'm think of this one as a far-future, apocalypse happened ages ago AU rather than the canon timeline blowing up. I like the sort of apocalypse where there are remnants of ancient technology that no one understands any more but are still working/valuable/dangerous.

ALL: Dimension hopping to find a timeline that isn't doomed
ALL: Time-travel to fix an apocalyptic future

I'm thinking of these as a Terminator/X-Men style "the whole future world is fucked" or a more personal but still really disastrous "everyone dies" future (so they're traveling back to canon-present or alternate canon timelines to fix something that happens post-canon) rather than traveling to canon-past or alternate canon timelines to undo stuff that actually happened in canon, like Frank's family's death. However, if you're doing Frank/Billy, Frank trying to undo Billy becoming a villain would be cool.

Both these AUs remind me of a big theme in the show, which is how soldiers who come home from the war are returning to a world that should be better, but they don't fit in and it feels wrong and too soft, and yet it is better. Maybe Frank, or Frank and Billy (at cross purposes), come back from the fucked future/bad timeline and have to deal with living in a world they're trying to save but don't know if they can ever live in. Maybe the Liebermans are from the fucked future and team up with Frank because he can do things they can't and also seems out of time/place, though for a completely different reason. I could see Amy as a tunnel rat or some such from the fucked future, side-eyeing people from this softer one.

Groundhog Day time loop

I would like to see things going disastrously wrong, with at least one person dying, and whoever is in the time loop desperately trying to fix it.

ALL: High Fantasy AU

Frank Castle as a damaged, outcast knight! Is David a wizard? Is Leo Frank's squire who helps repair his armor and weapons? Is Amy the thief who tries to make off with them? Are they all on a quest together, or is Frank going back and forth between the apparently abandoned keep where he and David are hiding, and Sarah's fortress/home in the village? Are Frank and Billy knights or dragonriders together, maybe chasing each other across some amazing magical landscape? There's some very romantic aspects to the series that I think would meld well with this AU - all the loyalty and love and broken idealism.

ALL: Hyperspace test pilot AU

I was thinking of this one for Frank/Billy though if you have an idea for the other groups, go ahead. Maybe you never know on each flight whether you'll come back, or come back sane; maybe it's so wonderful that you don't like coming back; maybe it's neither wonderful nor terrible, but so much its own thing you no longer fit in anywhere but onboard (shades of returning from war); maybe the ships are going off to fight so far across the galaxy that there's time dilation and the world has literally changed when you return.

You don't have to actually read the book to write this concept, as I'll tell you everything you need to know, but you could do a Gateway AU - it's a book by Frederik Pohl in which people find alien ships that they don't quite understand, so you can fly them, but you have no idea until it's too late where they're going or how long the trip will be or if you'll arrive somewhere you can't survive or somewhere that will make you rich or save the world. Some ships never return at all; some return with the pilots dead.

Are the ships sentient? Is one of the characters the ship, or the ship's AI? Do the ghosts of dead pilots, or pilots who uploaded their souls into the computer, haunt the ships?



Salem's Lot - Stephen King

Group: Rhoda Curless & Donald Callahan
Group: Rhoda Curless & Eva Miller & Weasel Craig & Bill Norton
Group: Susan Norton/Miranda Mears

ALL: Canon Divergence AU
ALL: Groundhog Day timeloop
All: canon character death didn't happen AU
ALL: Time-travel to fix an apocalyptic future

I like all the characters so feel free to include anyone not requested. Character death is fine for this set of pairings (i.e., Ben is killed by vampires but Susan survives, or Ben is killed in the motorcycle accident and a grieving Miranda decides to visit his hometown), including that of requested characters. Feel free to mix-and-match the pairings.

I would love an AU where a different set of characters became the vampire hunters, whether because the canon hunters tipped them off or because they figured it out independently. What different set of knowledge and skills did they bring to the table? Did events play out similarly, or very differently?

Canon events go so disastrously that it's just begging for a Groundhog Day loop or time travel. I'd be really curious to see Rhoda meet with Father Callahan after he was forced to drink Barlow's blood, and/or in Mid-World. Does Susan meet a different fate if Miranda joins her in the vampire hunt rather than Ben? Do they get involved due to following in Ben's footsteps or because he's there too, or completely independently? Is Miranda the one who used to live in 'Salem's Lot, or just passing through, or already on the track of something sinister - a historical novelist or nonfiction writer interested in the Marsten House?

DNW: Any romance involving Mark. Infidelity. Unrequested poly. If you do Miranda/Susan, I'd prefer an AU where Ben died or where he never got together with Miranda and/or Susan in the first place.



The Stand - Stephen King

Group: Dayna Jurgens/Jenny Engstrom
Group: Larry Underwood & Rita Blakemoor
Group: Nadine Cross & Lloyd Henreid & Whitney Horgan & Jenny Engstrom
Group: Nadine Cross/Dayna Jurgens
Jenny Engstrom (The Stand - King)
Larry Underwood (The Stand - King)
Nadine Cross (The Stand - King)
Nick Andros (The Stand - King)
Randall Flagg (The Stand - King)
Ray Flowers (The Stand - King)

Feel free to mix-and-match, or include any canon characters, including ones not in the tagset. I like everyone. I'm a multishipper generally so you can sell me on anything, but I especially like FF with Dayna and Nadine and Jenny, with each other in any combination or with any woman of your choice. If you include Ray Flowers, I'd be good with book version or female Rae from the miniseries.

Canon-specific DNW: If you want to keep any canon pregnant characters pregnant (it's hard for me to imagine Fran NOT pregnant), that's fine but I'd prefer that their pregnancy not be the main thing going on in the story. I'm OK with canon/requested character deaths and bittersweet endings along the lines of canon - if someone dies, I like the canon sort of "died heroically/not in vain/fulfilling their goals even if their goals were terrible/bonkers (i.e., Trashcan Man)" deaths. Please no endings where someone is left alive but mentally broken, or dies pointlessly.

ALL: Canon Divergence AU
The Stand - Stephen King: Different characters end up in Boulder and Vegas
The Stand - Stephen King: Different characters meet on the road
The Stand - Stephen King: Different characters meet pre-plague
The Stand - Stephen King: Different characters survive the plague
The Stand - Stephen King: Different gathering places
The Stand - Stephen King: Plague survivors get superpowers


What if Flagg was killed or driven away from Vegas, but the other Vegas characters survived and had to pick up the pieces without him? (If you pick the group for this, feel free to leave Flagg out of it, or include him in the form of unsettling dreams that might be traumatic nightmares or might be more than that.) What if Whitney Horgan had actually managed to incite an uprising? What if his group had successfully escaped, with or without Lloyd - would Flagg have pursued them?

What if Flagg and Abagail had their communities in different places, and so some meetings and confrontations played out differently because of who was already there? What if Nick went to Vegas instead of Tom? What if Nadine chose differently? What if she ended up in Vegas but still in her right mind? What if Flagg picked someone else to play demon lover with? It wouldn't have to be a woman. If he wanted a consort/boy toy rather than an incubator, he could have picked, say, Larry.

I really liked how the communities weren't a clear split between good and evil, with apparently basically decent people like Angie Hirschfeld ending up in Vegas and some real jerks in Boulder. What made people choose as they did? What if choice or chance led them another way?

And also, good old "surviving the plague gives you powers!" I always love that trope.

ALL: Crossover - Shared Universe AU

What if some of the Stand characters went through a door into Mid-World, or the ka-tet found the Stand universe instead of the one that was one dimension removed? What if the Shop had been more successful with their Firestarter experiments, and having powers was what made you immune to Captain Trips?

You can check my Stephen King tag for my other favorite books of his. If you're not sure if I read or liked a book, please ask via mod.

ALL: Dimension hopping to find a timeline that isn't doomed
ALL: Going back in time to fix the future
ALL: Groundhog Day timeloop

Are they trying to fix the nuclear explosion, or the bomb in the Free Zone, or Nadine and Harold's bad choices, or the Superflu itself? Is there one group or person trying to fix things, and someone else trying to make sure they stay the same? (Feel free to handwave or not explain why this is possible, I'm much more interested in what they do than in why it's happening.) Or something smaller, like Rita overdosing? Or something much more personal? It could also involve something that didn't actually happen in canon. There's such an emphasis on individual decisions causing huge changes, like the chain of events that led to the Superflu getting out, that I'd love to see some of the myriad possibilities.

You can find me going on and on about The Stand and what I like about these characters in my Stephen King tag, if that's helpful.