dear press start writer

[ineffabilities]

In general: I like both gen and ship fic in about equal measure, and will read pretty much any rating. I like reading about found families and their dynamics, whether they're an adventuring group that's been together for a while now or a bunch of asshole superheroes that are trying to make things work. I like hurt/comfort, I even like breaking a character (Winter Soldier AUs are my brand at this point) for lots of angst, but my one solid caveat is that there has to be a happy ending. It doesn't need to be completely happy, but I just want everyone to be alive. I love everybody lives AUs bc I'm a wimp who can't stand major character death. I love AUs in general. pls feed them to me.

Do Not Want: gore way above canon-typical violence, bathroom kinks, parent kink, A/B/O and BDSM AUs, bestiality, incest when it would seem OOC for the characters, underage sex where one character is underage and the other is not, graphically depicted noncon, permanent major character death, tentacles, mpreg, knotting, graphic eye trauma

BIOHAZARD | RESIDENT EVIL
Group: Sherry Birkin & Ada Wong (Resident Evil)

AU where Ada picks up Sherry somehow post-RE2, maybe as a way to look out for her if Leon can't, maybe just to spite Simmons! then she grows to care about her in her own right, however, and does her best to raise her, if not right, then at least well enough that Sherry can survive. I would love to see Ada and Sherry bonding over Raccoon and Ada looking out for her—RE6 gave me the tiniest taste of a possible friendship and I want more.

Sherry as a DSO agent running into Ada Wong somehow! while Ada likes to play trickster with Leon, I want to know how she'd help Sherry out on assignments—would she step in more directly? would she also be a little tricksy towards her? how about Sherry, how would she feel towards Ada? on the one hand, she's a mercenary, but on the other hand, she trusts Leon and Leon seems to trust Ada.

group: Leon S. Kennedy/Ada Wong (Resident Evil)

Tam Lin AU - Leon as Tam Lin, trapped in a court that will sacrifice him to hell because he was willing to sell his freedom to save a child under his protection, and Ada as Janet in a cloak of red come to save him (and also fulfill a couple other ulterior motives along the way). or: Ada as Tam Lin, trying to outsmart the court that's trapped her into working for them by enlisting someone she first underestimates into her plan, and Leon as Janet, who comes to save her because he can't turn his back on someone who needs him.

role reversal AU - Leon as the mercenary, Ada as the rookie cop turned government agent. how do things change? what stays the same? what drew Leon into this life and how has it changed him, and what draws him to Ada now? what drew Ada into working for the government? I will not lie, I would totally love to see what happens to their dynamic if you flip their roles like this—Leon in canon seems to just kind of shrug and accept that Ada's just gonna do what Ada wants to do by the time RE6 happens, but I can't see Ada in his role doing the same thing even by the time of RE6.

speaking of Resident Evil 6: AU where Leon takes Helena's advice and goes after Ada after all. what happens after that?

Group: Leon S. Kennedy/Chris Redfield (Resident Evil)

Winter Soldier AU - Leon successfully gets Ashley off the island, but he doesn't manage to get away himself before the cult captures him. years later, perhaps by the time of RE6 or so, there's a mysterious assassin with a reputation for brutal and efficient killings in play working for either the Family or Neo-Umbrella. Chris meets him in Edonia seemingly working for Wal-Mart Ada, and is struck by how familiar he seems. six months later, he runs into the guy again in an underground facility in Lanshiang, and in a brutal fight, unmasks him and is shocked to see: it's Leon, who doesn't remember him or Claire or anything else. what happens next?

AU where Leon gets into the RPD sooner, before the Spencer Mansion Incident. he and Chris hit it off right away - so well, in fact, that they start developing feelings for each other. when he hears that something's gone terribly wrong for the STARS team, Leon decides to go get them out. what happens next?

Chris and Leon get into a relationship and it's going strong when Leon gets a hard hit to the head, and when he next wakes up he thinks it's 1998 and he's late for his first day of work on the job. how does he react to finding out that it's been over twenty years since 1998 and his life is completely different from how he thought it might be? how does Chris react to this younger, more idealistic Leon? what happens to their relationship? how does Leon develop as a person once those twenty years have been wiped away, and how different is that from pre-amnesia? does he ever get those memories back?

where's Leon been since he was last seen in Vendetta? easy: he was undercover on a mission. the mission goes very awry, and Chris has to go save him from it. maybe even saves him from mutating bc he got infected with something? pls.

DRAGON AGE

NOTE: prefer purple Hawke and non-enslaved Fenris! otherwise any world state and any Hawke is applicable.

Hawke (Dragon Age)

what if all the Hawkes survived to see the fall of Kirkwall? how would our Hawke, the main character, be different if they had their family at their back this whole time? would they even have their family at their back, or would they be estranged?

Hawke goes back in time somehow to before Lothering was burned to ashes, and realizes that they've been given the rare chance to try and change things for the better. do they take it? what changes in their lives if they do, and do they regret doing it or not? if they don't take it, what do they do instead? do they take the opportunity to hug their mom, do they say goodbye to their younger siblings, do they try to ensure that something comes to pass? and do they take the slow path back to the future, or is it over in a blink?

if Hawke got left behind in the Fade in Here Lies the Abyss, how does Hawke get out of the Fade?

group: Male Hawke/Varric Tethras (Dragon Age)

Varric's worst nightmare: Hawke ends up at the Conclave and becomes the Inquisitor. in the aftermath, he and Hawke have to navigate Hawke's new role and this new twist in the story of the Champion of Kirkwall. Hawke doesn't entirely trust all these new people, but Varric's the only person he knows and trusts here, so he starts bringing him along on......pretty much every mission, basically! and then they get closer. and closer. and closer. there might be more twists in the Champion's Tale awaiting them than either of them expected.

I am so into the idea of Varric as Hawke's protector, and doing that through his stories. tell me what other things Varric has kept for Hawke via his lies. tell me about the wild fantastic stories Varric tells, to cover for the fact that Hawke is a heartbroken human being, to protect him as best as he can. tell me about the stories they tell each other, and what kind of stories Hawke likes to hear from Varric, whether it's the embellishments of their own adventures or made-up lies about quieter times.

Group: Female Hawke/Isabela (Dragon Age)

Hawke runs away with Isabela after Kirkwall, and becomes a pirate. tell me about their adventures on the Waking Sea. bonus points if the tone cleaves close to Our Flag Means Death, because I think that would be utterly hilarious.

Isabela has always been a character who wants freedom for herself, but hanging around Hawke means she grows willing to want it for other people, to want to be a better person. how does she handle that? especially during Act 2, when she comes back despite herself to help Hawke and kick the Qunari out of Kirkwall?

Isabela writes friend fiction about Hawke. Hawke finds out and is very pleased about it, and in fact offers to help Isabela do some “research”.

HORIZON ZERO DAWN
Aloy (HZD)

I need Aloy to discover 21st century pop culture classics so so badly. please. songs and TV shows and movies, whatever. how does she feel about these bits of culture offering glimpses into life a thousand years ago? does she have critiques about it? does she write fan fiction about it? what can she decipher from them about how 21st-century life was lived before the Faro Plague? god if you can make some kind of archaeological document out of this I would be so happy.

Aloy, and the weight of Elisabet Sobeck’s legacy.

Group: Aloy & Beta (HZD)

talk to me about Aloy and Beta and the fact that they are basically the two halves of Elisabet Sobeck—her public face, fierce and full of fire, and her private face, anxious and worried she’s not enough, somehow. tell me about how sometimes they’re more like each other than they realize, bc Aloy sometimes gets very anxious and doubtful, and Beta can get very angry if pressed hard enough. how do they deal with that?

sister bonding in the post-apocalypse!! Aloy teaching Beta how to hunt and how to shoot an arrow! she’s not going to put the poor girl through a training regimen from hell, but I like the idea of her teaching Beta how to do stuff and also figuring out how to explain these things she’s always just kinda taken for granted. they always did say that you learn while you teach. also: how much like Rost is Aloy when teaching?

Group: Aloy/Talanah (HZD)

love a good getting-together fic. how about post-HFW getting together? the scenario I have in mind is Talanah joining the GAIA Gang while they’re working to try and contain HEPHAESTUS again, and learning about Aloy’s towering importance and also how it weighs on her. I think Talanah would be very sympathetic to her, because as the Sunhawk she also has a LOT of responsibility on her shoulders. maybe they can give each other tips and then the tips lead to Something More?

how would a modern-day AU look like with these two? would Aloy be a daughter of Elisabet and Talanah an activist? or something else?

DEVIL MAY CRY
Group: Dante & Vergil (Devil May Cry)

“that day, if our positions were switched, would I have your life, and you mine?” roleswap AU from Eva’s death onward, where Vergil stayed in the house and Dante went to go play. what do they turn into, afterward? would Vergil start a devil-hunting business in Dante’s place? would Dante want to raise the tower for power, or just to get his mom back?

brotherly bonding while in hell and also trying to find a way out!

I also want to see post-DMC5 action/adventure. Vergil gets out of hell first, but Dante makes him leave him behind bc of like, some kind of heroic last stand/sacrifice type of thing against maybe Mundus or some other huge demonic threat. so Vergil gets everybody on board to go rescue Dante, and meanwhile Dante’s getting put through the same treatment that Vergil went through when he became Nelo Angelo. can they get to him in time? if they don’t, can they save him from what he’s become?

Dante (Devil May Cry)

Dante is so fun and interesting as a character, because on the surface he is all kinds of Cool and Badass, but deep inside he’s an ongoing dumpster fire who’s suffering from all kinds of untreated PTSD, probably. yet he still gives a shit about humanity and these people around him who he loves deeply. give me something about Dante trying to figure out his place in humanity over the years.

I want a Buzzfeed Unsolved episode centered around Dante’s wild shit. I want to see him reacting to that and also to like, the absolutely insane theories Ryan comes up with. bonus points if one of the theories is actually REALLY close to what happened, except for the aliens bit.

Nero (Devil May Cry)

AU where Nero was raised by a different character of your choice! personally I like the idea of a crossover character raising Nero, the funnier the better—maybe Boyle from Brooklyn Nine-Nine adopts him instead of Nikolaj. actually. please can I have this. Nero growing up in the Nine-Nine makes me laugh so hard.

Buzzfeed Unsolved episode about what the FUCK happened in Fortuna, with Nero lying directly to the Ghoul Boys’ faces.

Vergil (Devil May Cry)

I am a sucker for poetry nerds and I think it would be very fun for Vergil to learn about more contemporary poets! like Amanda Gorman or Brenda Shaughnessy. or like, poets like Walt Whitman and e.e cummings. I’ve read William Blake and while I like his poetry, I think Vergil could stand to expand his horizons more. maybe once he and Dante come back from hell, he gets an anthology of poetry or a chapbook as a gift from someone and gets blown away by a few of them. bonus points for quoting them in battle.