Dear Yuletide Writer - 2020

[simplecoffee]

Hi there! Thank you so much for sharing my fandoms and for writing for me! <3 I am academicgangster on Tumblr, and simplecoffee on ao3.

So, the thing I love most in fanfic is taking canon character dynamics and just...making them More. Taking them further, exploring their natural progression, in either a gen or a shippy way. I've mentioned the character dynamics and ships I love under each fandom, along with some rambly thoughts and prompts - speaking of which, please feel free to pick, choose, mix, match, play with any, all or even none of said prompts, if that's where the muse takes you. <3

I also love hurt/comfort with all my soul, so most of the prompts here will probably contain it to some degree.

I am here for any kind of exploration of character dynamics - h/c, casefic, fluff fic, angst, missing scenes, outsider POV, outsider POV contrasted with canon characters' POV, getting together fic, established relationship fic, you name it I love it. I'm also very much okay with or without smut - I like it, but please don't feel pressured to include it or not to include it. If you do feel inclined toward the lovin', I have a preference for a Mature rating over an Explicit rating, but I will likely enjoy whatever rating speaks to you. :D

I am super open to unconventional medium/narrative styles if you feel inspired to use them - outsider POV, outsider POV contrasted with canon characters' POV, epistolary fic, framing devices such as mission reports, medical reports, audio transcripts/debrief transcripts, text messages or post-its between characters, news articles, official documentation, even drone!POVs for Oblivion, are all amazing.

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Navigation

> Likes & DNWs

> The Shadow (1994)
Lamont Cranston
Margo Lane

> The Hunt for Red October (1990)
Jack Ryan
Bart Mancuso
Marko Ramius

> War of the Worlds (2005)
Ray Ferrier

> Oblivion (2013)
Jack Harper 49
Jack Harper 52
(I am also okay with any canonical or non-canonical Jack in addition to, or instead of, Jack 49 and Jack 52)

> Collateral (2004)
Vincent
Max Durocher
Daniel Baker
(I am okay with not including all three, as long as Vincent is there in all his deeply fucked up glory)

> Minority Report (2002)
John Anderton

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Likes & DNWs
General likes:
• Hurt/comfort of all stripes - sickfic, injuries, emotional h/c, all of it. (This is my favourite thing in all of fandom. Like, I absolutely live for it. ^^')
• Character studies, exploration of canon character dynamics, fallout of canon trauma
• PTSD, scars, illness messing with a character's grip on reality, combat/mission injuries, scars, old injuries acting up, touch starvation, sensory deprivation / sensory overload, characters not believing they deserve comfort or being surprised to receive comfort, selective mutism, hurting characters choking up at moments when they really need to speak (eg. leader unable to tell their worried team they're fine, submissive unable to safeword), stoic characters breaking down when faced with comfort, subdrop, characters bonding over trauma, characters so used to going through hell alone that they can't wrap their heads around someone wanting to help
• carrying, cuddling, characters wrapping ill/injured characters in soft blankets/clothes/their own jackets (especially jackets that are too big for them!), sweater paws, keeping characters warm, aftercare, forehead kisses, hands and touch
• Earned trust and casual intimacy (characters who know each other well or get to know each other well, clothes sharing, characters only allowing touch from people they trust, etc)
• Pain, bittersweetness, sadness, exploring the darker side and implications of canon is great, but I really need some happiness/comfort and hope along with it!

Sexual likes:
D/s overtones. Service subs. Subs With Issues. Praise kink. Hands, fingers, touch; touch starvation. Finger-sucking. Hair petting/brushing. Aftercare. Subdrop and recovery. Tenderness, especially if the person receiving it isn't expecting it, isn't used to it, and it breaks them just a little.
Marking - hickeys/bruising/bite marks; hiding the bruises under clothing. Scar worship. Suit/uniform kink. Partners reverently undressing each other. Wrists bound or held down. Honour bondage. Careful sex / making out when one partner is hurt or ill and feverish (fever sex is, uh, a Thing of mine). Gentleness, affection, emphasis on touch and texture/physical sensation (clothing porn is so very welcome!). Or rough, desperate, life-affirming sex/making out.

There are some fandoms where I like the sex a lot rougher; see the sections under Collateral and War of the Worlds. There are also prompts for dubcon and generally messed up sexual situations under these two, as well as Minority Report and Oblivion.


General DNWs:
• Mundane/depowered/setting change AUs
• Bleak, hopeless endings (as long as there's hope, bittersweet endings are more than fine!)
• Unrequested crossovers and fusions
• Unrequested non-canon background pairings
• Any mention of coronavirus or quarantine/lockdown situations
• Death of requested characters (even if they died in canon)
• Non-canonical character death
• Canon rehash
• Terminal illness
• Non-canonical permanent injury for The Shadow, The Hunt for Red October and Minority Report (to clarify, there are canonical major injuries in The Hunt for Red October and Minority Report that can be interpreted as permanent, and these are a-okay to address as permanent)
• Gastrointestinal illness (nausea/vomiting is okay but not as a focus of the work, and not as a result of GI discomfort - so character getting nauseous or throwing up from a migraine or just severe pain in general, yes; character getting nauseous or throwing up as a result of a severe anxiety attack or PTSD episode, yes; character suffering anything related to food poisoning or GI bugs or overeating and similar, no)
• Pregnancy, menstruation
• Kidfic
• Infidelity (this does not apply to Mr and Mrs Burgess in Minority Report)

Sexual DNWs:
• Noncon or dubcon, except where noted (see Minority Report, Oblivion and Collateral sections)
• humiliation as a kink, except where noted (see Oblivion and Vincent/Max in Collateral)
• gags of any kind (hand over mouth is okay for canons with prompts for dubcon and/or rougher sex like Minority Report, Collateral and Vika/Jack in Oblivion, but I would like it to trigger the character on the receiving end and for there to be some emotional fallout of it)
• anal, dirty talk, spanking, ageplay, scat, watersports, rimming, emeto, A/B/O, d/s-verse, mommy/daddy kink

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And now for some rambling about fandoms and character dynamics, lovely writer!

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The Shadow (1994)
Characters: Lamont Cranston, Margo Lane
Ships: Lamont/Margo

This canon begs for a delightful mix of vigilante h/c tropes and psychic superpowers h/c tropes and I am weak. I love Lamont's ditzy socialite front and how variously hard/easy it is to maintain it; I love how often he gets hurt and apparently has to patch himself up alone (what happens when he's too hurt for him to fix on his own?); I love that Margo is both immune to the Shadow powers and can hear Lamont's thoughts even when he tries to hide them.

I love that in canon, the Margo/Lamont relationship is both beautifully soft and founded in the very basic tenets of consent: Margo is among the only people Lamont's mind-influencing powers don't work on, and therefore by definition she is at his side solely because she wants to be. I also love that this fact messes with Lamont's head a great deal, since he's an enormous disaster sub with a ton of guilt and self-worth issues and doesn't remotely believe he deserves to be loved.


Thoughts/prompts:


Hurt/Comfort, Vigilante/Noir Edition

I'd love some h/c focused on Lamont, with Margo being able to read his thoughts and taking none of his self-loathing/self-sacrificial bullshit. I'd also love Margo and Mo, the cab driver, joining forces to look after Lamont when he's been an idiot things have got too much for him to deal with, and perhaps bonding over looking after their idiot. I'd love to know more about the dynamic between Mo and Lamont, too - how did Mo become, for so many years, the only person who knew Lamont's secret? Did the Shadow save Mo from harm - and was he too hurt afterward to hide his identity from him? Or did Mo find out by accident, and/or in other hazardous circumstances? There must be a ton of stories he can tell Margo from the past seven years.

I'd also love to see something that picks up after the film, with established Lamont/Margo dealing with the hazards of the vigilante business - perhaps Margo finding an injured Lamont collapsed on her doorstep and having to look after him, perhaps her hearing his mind call out from miles away when he's hurting or miserable, perhaps them having to find ways to keep up their Socialite Personas for the public, such as Margo sneaking Lamont out of a party with clear We're Going To Make Out signals while he's really staggering from a gunshot wound. All the Noir Detective and Noir Vigilante and Noir Caretaking tropes! I will eat all the tropes up with a spoon!


Hurt/Comfort, Superpowers Edition

I'd also love some exploration of the Shadow superpowers and how they work (and how they can go wrong) - perhaps with Lamont losing control of them when he's unconscious while hurt or ill, resulting in things breaking, flying around the room, people accidentally getting mind-controlled into doing odd things, maybe someone getting mildly injured, and Lamont being overwhelmed with guilt and hiding himself away when he's losing control for years until Margo realizes she's the only one who can help. I'd also love to see the effects of Lamont sometimes overusing his powers and working himself to exhaustion - perhaps it gives him migraines or gets him sick, leaving him shaky for a few days afterward, or exhausts him to the point of burnout, and this too has been going on for years before Margo walks into his life and realizes he's a whole idiot who can't sustain this way of working forever. Perhaps his occasional bouts of overusing-powers-sickness have been mistaken as hangovers or other debauchery by his uncle/butler/etc, and he's done nothing to disabuse them of the notion because it suits him for them to assume he's an empty-headed layabout. (Perhaps someone finds him in a gutter one morning too deeply unconscious to make it home, and it makes the tabloids and his uncle gives him a Stern Talking-To that he has to pretend he's taking to heart, while Margo knows the real reason and worries and shows up to domme him into letting her look after him.)


Hurt/Comfort, Sexy + Feelings Edition

Speaking of Margo domming Lamont into letting her look after him, that's the exact dynamic for them that I love. Margo is super assertive, knows exactly what she wants at all times, is very very sexual and horny on main, and she's also very generous with comfort when Lamont needs it. Lamont, meanwhile, is all haunted and racked with guilt for his past, and afraid he'll hurt her, and also kind of awkward and embarrassed by her boldness; embarrassed to be wanted as much as she wants him. I'd love to see her taking him in hand and showing him how to let go of his guilt and nervousness and place his trust in her - him all reverent and worshipful, her patiently finding out what he needs (even if it's a long-term project, and even if what he needs is pain or bondage - perhaps especially if it is!), and maybe her giving him lots of praise and aftercare as a reward for being good for her. I also think Lamont might, in his self-flagellating way, sometimes go too far in asking for pain, and Margo might have to figure out when those times are, take care of him and reassure him, and figure out how to help him stop doing that.

D/s or no, I love the idea of Margo putting Lamont in shibari while he's sick, perhaps because they've found it helps keep his powers or power-induced sickness/headaches/burnout in check, perhaps as a simple exercise in comforting touch. I love the idea of Lamont just...not being able to deal with tenderness and being loved, especially so when he's ill or hurt, and Margo having to kiss away tears of sensory overstimulation/general overwhelmedness. Lamont just being very used to curling up and riding out illness/injury alone, and Margo refusing to let him do that and giving him lots of gentle touch and kisses, is such a soft spot for me, as is the fact that she can read his mind and hear his distress from miles away, so he literally cannot hide any kind of suffering from her.


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The Hunt for Red October (1990)
Characters: Jack Ryan, Bart Mancuso, Marko Ramius
Ships: Jack/Ramius, Jack/Mancuso, Ramius/Mancuso, Jack/Ramius/Mancuso
Please no infidelity! (I'd like it if Cathy and Jack were never married - they just didn't work out, or were just friends with benefits for a while, and live separate lives while amiably raising their kid together)

I love this version of Jack Ryan so much! I love that he's a strategic expert and knows which hunches to play, but he's not a field agent and knows exactly Fuck All about field operations! I love every single character dynamic he has, especially the deeply promising ones he has with Ramius and Mancuso. I also love his backstory, his lingering PTSD and likely chronic pain from the spinal injury that ended his career as a Marine, and how he ploughs on regardless of how Very Much He Does Not Want To Be Ploughing On.

I really love the warmth of everything about this film - how deeply idealistic Jack and Ramius are, how Jack is an experienced analyst who knows a lot about strategy and history but absolutely nothing about operations (but still knows he has to try to get Ramius in alive), how Ramius makes sure to gain the trust of his officers about the terrible risk he's taking in defecting, how Mancuso's whole crew clearly loves and trusts him and admires him while he is so protective of them in return - indeed, how committed to duty Mancuso is, but how ready and willing to step up when Jack proves his orders wrong.

I love h/c for all my fandoms, but I particularly love it for this one. Jack and/or Mancuso as the hurt character would be great. I love the warmth of this film, and would love that warm atmosphere to carry over into fic. 💛 I'm very here for all kinds of softness and h/c, with Jack or Mancuso as the centre. (If you'd like some more ideas to bounce off of, here's my Hurt/Comfort Ex writeup on Jack; here's the one for Mancuso.)


Thoughts/prompts:


Jack, Ramius and Mancuso bonding post-film

I'd love to see these three getting to know each other better after the events of the film. I'm especially here for the differences between each dynamic, and how they all play off each other - Jack-Ramius, Ramius-Mancuso and Jack-Mancuso are all delightfully different axes, and whether it's friendship or eventual romance I would love to see how they all play out, and how they all form in the first place. Here are some prompts using the film as a jumping-off point:

• Cold and damp are not great for old injuries and chronic pain, and Jack's had a rough few days. When the action is over and Jack stays on the Red October (and later at a CIA safe house) as Ramius' security detail/fanboy in residence, he tries his best to hide how much he's hurting, but Ramius (and perhaps Mancuso, too) sees right through him, and takes care of him as best he can with the Red October's medical supplies.
• Ramius and Mancuso bonding over submarine nerdery and naval expertise, and slowly falling in love.
• Jack and Ramius going fishing, and getting to know each other, perhaps eventually intimately well.
• Jack and Mancuso striking up an acquaintance outside of the mission, and perhaps eventually falling in love.
• Jack and Ramius, and perhaps Mancuso too, spending some time together in a CIA safe house before debrief, and getting to know each other.


The evolution of their dynamics in the years afterward

I'm also here for what these characters are doing years down the line, what their inner lives are like.

• I'd love to see Mancuso's inner life, since we know less about him than the other two. What do Mancuso's quarters aboard the Dallas look like? What books does he have there, what photographs or paintings? (Are there eventually photos of him with Jack and/or Ramius? Does he take some of their clothes with him aboard, to sleep in?)
• Ramius and/or Mancuso getting to know about Jack's fear of flying, about the trauma response it is. One or both of them holding Jack's hand(s) on a plane, or holding him after a nightmare on the ground.
• Jack's back injury from the chopper crash acting up on cold or wet days, and Ramius and/or Mancuso looking after him with heating pads, medication and such. Jack having to learn to admit he's hurting, and Ramius and/or Mancuso making the effort to learn how to help him when he needs it.
• On a a cold and miserable day when Jack is hurting, Ramius and/or Mancuso coax him into a hot shower and cup his head against their shoulder while the warmth soaks into his back.
• Jack gets shot or otherwise badly hurt. Jack is not a field agent, was not on a field mission when he sustained the injury, and does not react to said injury like a field agent would. There's a great deal of medical trauma and pain, and Ramius and/or Mancuso are Absolutely Furious about it.
• Mancuso gets badly hurt or falls ill while on deployment. Jack and/or Ramius comfort him over the phone or via messages through the crew of the Dallas while he's laid up, or camp out by his bed if things get bad enough that he has to be taken to a hospital on shore, and make an enormous fuss of him and spoil him thoroughly when he gets home.
• Jack and Ramius spend more time together than they do with Bart, but when they do get to see him they're always sure to make him feel welcome (romantically or platonically).


Epistolary Fic Prompts

I really adore the idea of epistolary fic for this fandom! Here are some epistolary prompts:

• I'd love to see an article or an excerpt from a book that Jack wrote about Ramius, and/or one that he wrote about Mancuso. Either way, he's clearly in love with the subject - perhaps obliviously, or perhaps he's in a relationship with the subject and just can't talk about it in the article/book. (I'm envisioning it like, as dramatic as this post, for the record)
• Alternatively, this book extract or article coming to light years later when Jack is the President and Ramius and/or Mancuso is/are his husband/s, and the internet losing their entire minds over how head over heels President Ryan already was for his husband(s) way back around like, 1986-1996.
• Jack and/or Ramius writing to Mancuso while he's away aboard the Dallas, and Mancuso writing back. Maybe before they get together, maybe after, maybe both; hell, maybe that's how they fall in love in the first place.
• Ramius keeping a diary of his experiences in the New World, including his relationship with Jack and/or Mancuso.
• Jack or Mancuso stuck somewhere while sick or hurt, in unfamiliar surroundings (maybe Jack got hurt on another field mission he really shouldn't have been on, or fell ill on a book tour or exerted himself too much and is stuck in a hotel room with his back acting up, or Mancuso got injured or fell ill aboard the Dallas and had to be evacuated to an unfamiliar hospital), writing notes or letters to the object(s, could be the other of the two, could be Ramius) of their pining, all while possibly not entirely lucid. Maybe they read them back later and have some revelations about their feelings, maybe they eventually decide to send them after all, or maybe the intended recipient gets to read them years later instead, when they're happily together.


Further Shippy Thoughts

I love every ship on this ship submarine! Whether it's Jack/Ramius, Jack/Mancuso, Ramius/Mancuso or the whole triad, I would love Jack or Mancuso (or both) to get a whole lot of love and gentleness. Getting together, established relationship, G-rated caretaking to M- or E-rated loving, everything is wonderful. I'd love to see these characters look after one another, make room for one another in their lives, kiss and pet one another a lot, any time from right post-movie to years later, possibly with Jack getting into politics and eventually becoming the President with First Gentleman Ramius and/or Mancuso at his side.

I have a lot of feelings about the idea that Jack's back injury from the chopper crash might leave him in lasting pain that resurfaces on cold and wet days, and Ramius and/or Mancuso would learn how to help him through it. I also love the thought of Mancuso, as a career submariner, not having had many relationships and not being used to being comforted, and so that he'd be quietly overwhelmed when Jack and/or Ramius hug and pet him when he's exhausted, or when he's older and his hands start to hurt when it gets cold.

While I don't think these characters would get up to d/s shenanigans often - I see them mostly as sweet, intense vanilla - I am kind of destroyed by the soft-but-firm-d/s implications of the scene where Ramius presents Mancuso with the Red October. Ramius has enormous Dom Energy in general, especially with Jack, but that scene got me feeling things about Mancuso, who also has a lot of Dom Energy, being the only person in the world whom Ramius would submit to. This goes double because when we see Mancuso give orders on the Dallas, he gives them softly, gently, and everyone immediately leaps to obey; I'd love to see him have the same command style in the bedroom, especially if Jack is sick or hurt and feeling guilty about it and needs to be told to let himself be taken care of, or conversely, if Bart himself is mildly sick or hurt and needs to convince the others to stop worrying and kiss him already, damnit.


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War of the Worlds (2005)
Characters: Ray Ferrier
Ships: prompts are mostly gen-focused, but I'd very much enjoy Ray/OMC or Ray/OFC as well

Generally after some serious h/c for Ray after the film - I'd love some exploration of the ways in which he falls apart, and the ways in which he could start to recover. I'm also very interested in worldbuilding and Ray getting involved in communal trauma recovery post-film, and I welcome OCs and varied points of view. Here is a link to my Darkest Night tag cloud for this fandom, to give you an idea of where my headspace is at.


Thoughts/prompts:


Ray falls apart.

Whether at Mary Ann's house, or otherwise. I'm eternally frustrated by the fact that no one even invited him in for a glass of water after the absolute hell he's just been through. I'm here for Ray doing his best to keep going, possibly not even realizing how exhausted or hurt or sick he is until the kids are safe, at which point his body completely gives out on him.

Maybe Mary Ann doesn't want him around and he doesn't particularly want to impose on her family, but he blacks out literally right there on their doorstep and has to be hauled inside, and there's immensely awkward caretaking while he's very out of it, embarrassed that they're the ones who have to look after him but too messed up to try and leave. (Maybe he does try to leave and not bother them any more, and promptly passes out another time and has to be hauled back in again. Maybe he succeeds in leaving and gets caught in the rain or cold and gets even sicker. Maybe he finds himself crying in secret, or has to explain away the tears to Mary Ann's husband or a stranger.)

Speaking of strangers, I'm also here for Ray getting comfort from someone else - in fact, comfort from a stranger is more likely to be genuine comfort that really helps him. Maybe he passes out in a train on the way home and wakes up in hospital. Maybe, in the longer term, he starts to process all the awful things he's been through and bond with other survivors - does he even have a home to go back to, after Brooklyn was pretty much destroyed? Does the government put survivors and displaced folk up while deciding how to compensate them for the losses they've faced, so does Ray hole up with other people who've suffered, generally try to help out as much as he can with volunteering and relief work, and the people he finds along the way look after him when he crashes? Does he try to help with the rebuilding efforts, possibly while in no shape to do so, and crash on the job? Is he surprised that people care enough about him to make sure he's okay? I'm not opposed to him finding a cute romantic partner (of whatever gender!) who's also been through terrible things and can help him feel less alone, but I'm also very taken with the thought of this small community of traumatized people coming together to help one of their own when he needs it, and him kind of wondering why they'd even notice him or care about him. That's generally what I'm getting at with the injury, nightmare and PTSD-related tags - something happening to Ray, and a stranger, or the community of strangers he ended up a part of, helping him even when he doesn't want to be a bother and doesn't know why they'd care.

My reading of Ray is that he generally didn't see many people outside of work, and that he's the kind of person who does his utmost to help in any situation that needs it but keeps to himself a lot outside of that, so I'm very here for even the slightest bit of comfort, offered hand or kind word sort of breaking him into several pieces.

I've also added the 'child abuse' tag here, as something Ray might find himself having to process. This tag is specifically because of a throwaway line Ray says to Robbie when he's mouthing off and calling him 'Ray': "it's Dad, sir, or if you want Mr Ferrier - that sounds a little weird to me, but you decide." Which sounds to me a lot like he parroted those last two from his own childhood, and I know it's a bit of a reach from there to straight-up abuse but it's a reading I'm really not opposed to. At best there's a lot of emotional distance there between Ray and his own dad, and at worst physical abuse, and I'd read Ray having to confront and/or confess to it having been either, or even verbal or emotional abuse, and that he's tried his best not to replicate it with his kids but still feels like he's failed them in other ways.


Ray falls apart, tries to cope through substances.

Ray has...a lot to deal with, and no one to even listen let alone help. A lot of the altered states tags could be fever or illness related or PTSD related, and I'm super here for that, for someone getting to see how messed up Ray really is, and choosing to stay and look after him instead of leaving him to fend for himself. I'm also here for him trying to deal with the pain by getting as drunk as he can, or accepting a pill that someone gives him, possibly not knowing what he's getting into. (To clarify, I'm not looking for an addiction plotline here, more like a 'very tired, slightly clueless, trying anything once' situation. Though I can see Ray drinking every day, I would rather not see him binge drinking every day.) Also kind of here for someone slipping him something in a drink, either with malicious intent or with benevolent intent (getting him to lighten up or have some fun for once, hoping to stop the nightmares, etc) and that not ending well whatsoever.

Here for someone - as above, a stranger or partner or someone from a community Ray's ended up in - being with him while he's in that messed up altered state, perhaps talking him down from a bad trip or flashback or some kind of delirium, or holding him while he spills sad confessions and talks without a filter, without being able to stop himself talking, about everything that hurts. Very here for all the comfort.


Ray falls apart, tries to cope through ill-advised sex with strangers.

The Above, But More. This is what the sex/BDSM tags are getting at. I'm here for Ray kind of both trying to seek out physical contact, and trying to seek out physical pain to drown out all the mental and emotional pain, and getting those wires so crossed and knotted that he ends up not really knowing which is which. Maybe, because so many people are hurting and everyone deals in different ways, he finds an abundance of people willing to hurt him, and finds that it kind of gets him off, or finds that it's easier to get off to pain than to gentleness he feels he doesn't deserve. Maybe some of these partners aren't in the best of mental places either, and end up hurting him more than he wanted, or he and said partners both kinda forget what safe and sane mean because they have no barometer for it any more, and maybe aftercare kind of isn't a thing and Ray drops hard more than once. Maybe the drop and the pain are the only way he can manage to let himself cry. (Maybe he finally happens to find someone who is really into the aftercare, and it changes his life. Very here for gentleness breaking Ray into pieces here, too.)


Ray tries his best to hold it together, even if he doesn't always succeed, but then additional terrible things happen post-apocalypse to set him back/make him crumble.

These are plot tags for Additional Angst And Pain that could add on to any of the above thoughts to make the darkness even darker, or make for a dark fic on their own. Thunderstorms, for instance, are probably going to be a major trauma trigger not just for Ray but for everyone else who survived the tripods moving through their area; I could see Ray huddling with a fellow traumatized survivor or a bunch of them, one or several of them shaking or crying, just trying to comfort one another as best they can while they weather the storm. Similarly, a broken down car in the middle of nowhere would be an eerie parallel to what Ray experienced in the film - maybe he's alone this time and doesn't deal with it well, or maybe he's with a few other people who are compassionate and help him deal. Perhaps either of these is even a trapped with someone in need of medical care situation, with Ray hurt or sick and unable to hide it when in close quarters to others, and the storm being too intense for anyone to try and get him help until it passes.

Violence is also not unlikely in a survivor camp or just in general in a post-apocalypse scenario, and I could see Ray either stepping in to try and defuse things and getting hurt because of it, or just happening to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and be the kind of quiet, awkward, perceived-as-weird person that those looking for violence like to target. Both the tags for this situation involve impalement or near-impalement - pinned/stabbed to surface as a form of restraint, possibly through a sleeve or through the arm or leg, possibly because Ray was being inconvenient for someone who wanted to steal something or hurt someone else and had to be got out of the way, and crucifixion, for which I'm mostly seeing him being pinned to a surface through the wrist or hand. For both of these I'm interested both in the trauma of the situation itself and in the (probably long-term) healing afterwards - whether Ray ends up just weaker in that arm, or whether he ends up with a limp, or ends up losing the use of a hand entirely, I want to see the healing process and someone, or multiple someones, looking after Ray while he's badly hurt and in shock on top of everything else they've all been through.

There's also a Solitary Confinement tag, for the possibility that Ray is held as responsible by law enforcement for the violent incident as the actual instigators, and is put in a cell while he's hurt, and possibly someone who witnessed the incident or just someone from the survivor camp makes it their mission to get him freed and then help him heal up afterwards.

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Oblivion (2013)
Characters: Jack Harper 49, Jack Harper 52 (you don't have to include both! I am also okay with any other Jack, canonical or non-canonical, up to and including any original character Jack(s) your heart may desire, along with or instead of 49 and 52.)
Ships: any Jack/any Jack, Jack 52/Julia, any Jack/any Vika (anywhere on the spectrum from enthusiastically consensual to noncon with Vika as the aggressor), Jack 49/Vika 49 (dubcon as in canon, or complete noncon, with Vika as the aggressor), Jack 49/Julia (kinda dubcon on 49's part, as in canon, due to 49's identity issues)

Jack 49 is a beautiful man who's had a lot of awful things happen to him. I imagine many other Jacks are equally lovely, and may have suffered just as much.
I love Vika as a character (Original Vika is such a lovely nerd!), but Vika 49 is not good to Jack 49; she canonically shuts him up by coercing him into sex, and by demanding that he kiss her, which he is clearly at least a little, possibly very, uncomfortable with. I really do think Jack is fond of her and into her, but he's also been subject to emotional abuse from her for nearly five years, and that takes a toll.
Julia has so much pain and trauma to deal with, being transplanted in time, learning her husband is dead, so it's easy to see why she was so eager to convince Jack 49 that he is the same as Commander Harper, even though he really isn't.


Thoughts/prompts:


Jack 49 survives, finds a better and happier life.

49's story is filled with people expecting him to be someone he's not - Vika expects him to be her perfect partner, Julia expects him to be her dead husband, the Scavs expect him to be a mindless killing machine (and Beech expects him to be the dead hero he remembers, too). With that in mind, I'm deeply interested in 49 surviving and learning to live as himself - learning who he really is as Jack 49, and that he deserves to be loved as Jack 49. I'm very here for him realizing what he went through with Vika 49 was abuse and he didn't deserve it, and I'm also very here for him falling in love with another Jack who is protective of him and never lets him go through anything like that again.

I'm here for 49 surviving that final scene somehow, perhaps with permanent injuries (maybe he ends up with a limp, having to walk with a cane), and slowly healing both physically and emotionally.


Vika/Jack as abusive relationship that leaves Jack traumatized.

I love OG Vika, but the two Vikas we meet in 2077...aren't good to their partners at all. We see Vika 49, who refuses to listen to Jack when he rambles, guilt-trips him, and trips him into the pool to forcibly make out with him to shut him up, and we see Vika 52, who isn't bothered when Jack is visibly injured and acting off as long as he does his job, and also guilts him into a kiss. It's not unreasonable to assume some (or most) Vikas' relationships with their Jacks might have been as bad or worse. I'm here for anything and everything exploring that. From 49 and 52 themselves and exploring the implications of canon, to any potential original Jack and Vika characters you might think of. The dub/noncon tags are with this in mind, for any Jack and Vika pair including the canon ones. For the physical abuse tag, Vika 49 and Vika 52 didn't seem to be physically abusive (rather tending towards coercion and insidious emotional and sexual abuse), but I could definitely see other Vikas going that far. I'd love to see a Jack who's gone through absolute hell at Vika's hands manage to finally leave her, and begin the slow, painful healing process after years of abuse.

I'm also really interested in Jack/Vika as a healthy relationship, but as the exception, not the rule - I'd love to see a healthy Jack/Vika pair who love each other deeply and support and look after each other even through hardship, but I'd especially like to see them in stark contrast to one or more Jacks who were deeply unhappy or left traumatized by their relationships with their Vikas.

Vika (though it's clearly because she has issues of her own) is super controlling toward Jack. He can't tell her anything or talk to her about anything he does or finds or thinks about, because he knows she'll find something about it he 'shouldn't' be thinking or doing; he hides his book and his little forest getaway from her, no matter how badly he clearly wants her to share in them. When he tries, just a little, to get her to see his point of view, she panics and throws his flower away, and he looks so very miserable. In short, I don't think Vika really knows Jack at all - nor does she really know herself at all - and so their relationship ends up more or less inadvertently hurting him. I don't think Vika means to be cruel, but I think she kind of ends up being cruel sometimes anyway, and that's the dynamic I'd love to see explored between these two. Maybe Jack's sick or hurt, and Vika refuses to believe him when he tells her so, and insists on having rough sex anyway. Maybe they're having sex and she ignores him when he asks to stop, or ignores a safeword, and maybe that hurts him physically as well as violating his trust. Maybe she believes that for them to be an 'effective team', she needs to discipline him whenever he does something outside of routine. (Maybe he even liked that to begin with, as a roleplay of sorts, and later realized she didn't quite mean it as roleplay.) Maybe she gaslights him into believing he consented when he didn't. Maybe she's dismissive of his illness or pain or nightmares, but he lives for the few words of comfort she'll bother to give him because he knows it's the best he'll ever get.
(There are some Vika-noncons-Jack prompts in my Consent Issues letter, just in case you'd like to look.)


Jack 49/Julia

There's genuine feeling between these two, genuine memories, but those memories aren't Jack's own, and so Jack 49 has to come to terms not only with the fact that he's never been loved but that, to Julia, he's a replacement goldfish. There's a reluctance to him when she drags him to bed, a possible feeling that he's being used, and yet he goes along with it for the sake of feeling loved for that one night - and then he gives everything up so everyone but him can live. What's going through Jack 49's head when he's letting Julia love him? Is he desperately drinking in her touch, knowing it was never meant for him? Is he in denial? Half overwhelmed and wanting to stop, but also wanting to go on because he needs to comfort her and keep her safe and happy? Is Julia a gentler domme than Vika, and does it hurt that he never got to receive such gentleness before? Does it hurt that that gentleness was meant for Commander Harper instead of him? What about Jack 52, after the film - does he go through similar things?


Jack 52/Julia

By the time Jack 52 finds Julia, it's been three years since she had all the events of the movie hit her at once. When she slept with 49, it was strange for both of them, since they were both hurting in different ways, and Julia wasn't quite able to grasp that 49 wasn't Commander Harper; during the three years it takes 52 to find her, I imagine she has quite a lot of healing to do, and luckily she has the space, the peace and quiet in which to do so.

52, on the other hand, has just been handed incomplete, deeply traumatizing information, and then been left to fend for himself. How did he find the other Scavs? How has he fared for the past three years, being constantly compared (whether unspoken or out loud) to both Commander Harper and 49? We know Vika 52 didn't care about him much; on the basis of the Scavs' attitude to 49, and in the absence of Beech, I can't see them being exactly eager to make friends with him. I'd love to see 52's headspace as he tries to understand what's going on, tries to understand how much he has to heal from, and doing his best to heal but not really succeeding, as a person who doesn't know how to heal in an environment that's really not conducive to healing.

I'd be very here for Julia having healed a little during the three years before 52 shows up, and having come to terms with knowing that 49 was an individual in his own right, that 52 is as well, and that while neither of them is her dead Jack, she has a lot of love to give 52 as himself. Maybe 52 hasn't yet come to terms with that himself, and is struggling and trying his best to be her dead husband, or just to please her in whatever way he can, and Julia has to figure out how much that's stressing him and help him find himself, the real him, differences and similarities to the other Jacks and all, in the bedroom and out, with lots of encouragement and praise.


Multiple Jacks and Vikas with different traumas, different special interests, different lives, so many differences even though they're clones of the same person.

I'd love some worldbuilding and exploration of the differences between the various Jacks as individual people. Please feel free to invent all the original Jacks and Vikas you desire, and show me how they're all distinct people despite their shared traits; show me how their life circumstances, the geography of their territories, the different books they found in ruins, shaped who they are. Show me how their special interests differ! Show me how some Jack/Vika relationships were better than others, and some worse. Show me how some of those relationships last through the Tet falling, and how some don't - and, indeed, how the Tet falling affects them all differently. Maybe some Jacks are permanently injured, and have (or have had) to learn to live with and make accommodations for their levels of ability. Maybe some Jacks and Vikas find each other and try to rebuild when the Tet comes down, and form a close-knit community that looks after its own when they need it.

As mentioned above, I'm very open to exploring healthy, loving Vika/Jack relationships (and how they remain strong through hardship!), but I'm especially here for exploration of those in contrast to the deeply unhealthy ones that leave so many Jacks scarred.


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Collateral (2004)
Characters: Vincent, Max Durocher, Daniel Baker (you don't have to include them all, as long as Vincent is there in all his fucked-up glory)
Ships: Vincent/Max, Vincent/Daniel (in vastly different ways)



For Vincent/Max, I'm super into rough, kinky hatesex, possibly involving cars; for Vincent/Daniel, I'm super into something softer, with caretaking and lots of reluctant mutual understanding. (I'm also generally very into Vincent's motivations and his cynical worldview, especially considering a lot of it stems from an abusive childhood and being passed around foster homes, and probably a great deal of financial insecurity. It's possible the alienation of being queer compounded that, too.)


Thoughts/prompts:


Vincent finding himself torn down and vulnerable.

For Vincent &/ Max, I see this as dark and bitter and confusingly sexual (with the confusion mainly on Max's side). Vincent is a terrible person, and yet you kind of feel for him; Max is a sad bean who never asked to be caught up in any of this, and yet somehow finds it in himself to be an absolute hero and kick ass. Please tell me more about these messed up people and the rough, kinky hatesex they get up to. I'm a-okay with fic set before the film, during the film, or after the film in a universe where Vincent doesn't die.

Until Max got the better of him, Vincent spent most of the film reading Max like a book, and constantly, mercilessly unmasking him to himself. What I'm after with these prompts is a just reversal of that, a re-balancing of the power dynamic between them by means of Vincent being hurt. I'm here for Max getting to see Vincent torn down and vulnerable, to see what an utter mess he is, how held together with trash and duct tape he is under all the posturing. (He's a dick, to put it mildly, but there's an angle or two from which he's...really fucking tragic? When you start to see him coming undone, you really see him coming undone. We know a few things about him that are established as sore spots - that he's been passed around between foster homes and an abusive dad, and that he was military or a military contractor before he became a hitman.)

Maybe this is the same night as the film, and Daniel at the jazz club convinces Vincent not to kill him, or something happens to convince him to let Annie go, or there's just a skirmish with police or a rival assassin group, and Vincent ends up badly wounded - and Max can neither let him die, nor resist the urge to torment him by providing comfort with no explanation, no reason for it that would conceivably make sense to Vincent (a perfect h/c ex tag for this pairing: "comfort as cruelty"). Maybe Vincent gets hurt and tries to fix himself up in the back of the cab, and Max catches sight of all his scars in the rearview mirror, and one thing leads to another and they end up making out roughly, Max noticing every old injury, every stiffness of a limb, everything that points to Vincent having had a hell of a past; noticing every gasp of pain he can't manage to hide. Maybe, for something completely different, Vincent survives the MTA with permanent injuries from the incident that end his career as a hitman, turns state's evidence or just disappears and possibly grows, like, half a conscience (which he hates but now it's there), and gets a card from the Island Limo Company while he's healing up.

For Vincent &/ Daniel, I see this as softer. Here's a more detailed rundown of my reading of their dynamic, but broadly speaking: there could be a universe where their connection over jazz got strong enough to sway Vincent from killing Daniel, and in that universe, there could be another where Vincent survives the MTA and crawls back to Daniel's club gravely injured, hoping for some music or some conversation, or just hoping to die in the one place that's ever given him something like happiness. Maybe in that universe, Daniel saves his life instead.

I'm fascinated by Daniel, and I think (despite, or because of, his criminal past) that he's a compassionate man. Vincent's not expecting compassion, and doesn't know what to do with it, but he's badly injured to the extent that recovery will probably be somewhat long-term, and he's pretty much at Daniel's mercy, and what Daniel decides to give him is gentleness. I am all about Daniel caring for Vincent with attention and affection, and Vincent suffering in silent powerless fury for every second of it because he knows he doesn't deserve anything like this, no matter how much he's always wanted it - things like changing dressings, carrying him, bringing extra blankets when he's cold, sitting beside him when he can't sleep. I am all about Vincent getting to see Daniel go about his daily life, running the club and practicing the trumpet and being nice to people like a normal, very nice man, while Vincent's essentially an invalid and therefore forced to stay there and witness what a happy, normal life can be. I am all about recovery not being linear and Vincent getting suddenly sicker to the point where he's delirious and miserable and ends up spilling his soul to Daniel, talking about the miserable life he's had without all the propriety filters he had with Max, and for Daniel to share some of his own previous hardships in return, and for them to start to bond over that. Maybe they proceed to build a real acquaintanceship over music and Mysterious Criminal Pasts while Vincent is recovering, too sick to pick up targets; maybe eventually it turns out Vincent's permanently injured to the point where he can't be an assassin any more, and has to figure out how to be a person living a normal civilian life instead, and Daniel has experience in that area and can help him out.


Vincent finding himself torn down and vulnerable: BDSM edition.

For Vincent/Max, again, my take on this is dark and bitter and hopeless (this pairing is the exception to my hopeless endings DNW). I'm here for Vincent And Max Getting It On In All The Rough, Fucked Up Ways, during or after the film. Maybe one or both of them are drugged or drunk or high, maybe Vincent's sick or injured so badly he's hallucinating and isn't sure Max is real (and Max isn't sure Vincent's really consenting). Maybe they use banging each other as an excuse to talk out or fuck out their various issues, like Max's with his limo company and Vincent's with his father. Vincent is definitely a masochist; maybe he's surprisingly eager to please, and Max uses that to get revenge for everything Vincent put him through in the film. Maybe he does that by hurting him, or maybe he does it by getting him to confess to (or just talk about) all the times he's been vulnerable in the past. Maybe Vincent's time in the military comes up, in a kinky context or an angsty, bitter context, or both. Maybe they walk away weirdly healed...or maybe just bleeding and ripped apart.

I'd like whatever they do sexually to be more or less consensual, if not necessarily safe or sane - I could get behind mutual dubcon scenarios, where they could be drunk, both under the influence of a ~substance (really fond of acid for this, but also like, nebulous fictional drug that has whatever effects you want it to is also a pretty good choice), or (as mentioned above) Vincent may be hallucinating and not entirely conscious, but I don't want either of them to use physical force to get the other to sexually comply. I don't want either of them to hold disproportionate power over the other - as Max established in the second half of the film, the leash very much goes both ways. (Also Vincent is weirdly fucking principled for a hitman and I could see him as being laughably obsessed with consent, so make of that what you will.)
There are some dubcon-flavoured thoughts/prompts in my Chocobox/Consent Issues writeup on them, here.

For Vincent/Daniel, again, my reading is softer. I love the two of them discovering each other's scars, I love Daniel being the gentlest dom and Vincent just not knowing anything about how to handle that, never really having received gentleness in life before. Vincent asking for pain because he gets off on it, but also because it's all he knows, and Daniel agreeing (for instance) to tie him down but then doing it so gently instead. Vincent, still recovering, insisting he can take more pain or just more activity in general than he really can, and hurting himself more and being furious at himself for having physical limits, and Daniel being like 'I told you so' but also just treating him kindly, like he's a small angry cat who just needs to be humoured a bit. I'm very into surprisingly soft, gentle fever!sex with the two of them, but I'm also into Daniel using Vincent's extra pliability from the fever to order him into things like (angsty version) talking about something terrible that happened to him when he was a kid, or (slightly fluffy but also still kind of angsty version) talking to him about what he thinks about jazz. Very here for Vincent being deathly terrified of being seen, having spent his whole life making sure he's invisible, and not dealing with it well at all. (He might even have an instinct to lash out at some point, and Daniel being six foot two and built could easily just hold him down till he calms.)


Vincent as lapsed Catholic.

This is out of absolutely nowhere, but we know Vincent spent a lot of his childhood being passed around between institutions and foster homes. I'm fascinated with the idea of his having been...kinda generally shoved into Catholicism, like institutions and some foster homes tend to do. I don't think he ever believed or cared about actively practicing, but I do think he might have been fairly often and fairly consistently exposed to the practices and beliefs. Which, as anyone who's experienced close proximity to religion while growing up will tell you, results in some interesting feelings later on in life. Only some of those feelings are Varying Degrees Of Internalized Bullshit. Some of them are that instinctive flinch of fear if you do something Not Allowed, like have a sexual thought in a place of worship, even if you know intellectually that such things aren't wrong; others are that fear fading into delight at flagrantly disobeying every nonsense rule that was drilled into you.

I'm fascinated by the general imagery of the warmth and safety a church can provide, and specifically the deep sense of alienation that comes from participating in church activities while knowing you, for whatever reason, you are not included in that warmth. Whether it's because you're secretly queer (whether or not you've realized it yet), or because you don't fit what you 'should' be in some other way, or just because you're a sullen, angry child who's been through shit they can't process and is probably still actively going through shit they can't process - just standing there knowing all this supposed warmth and solace can't touch you. Hell, there are lots of ways to be wrong in the eyes of the church, most of them extremely innocuous, and no matter how much you grow up and realize you weren't wrong, the guilt of it all leaves a mark on you. I'm really intrigued by the thought of Vincent having had this experience in childhood, and how it might have shaped him, as the angry kid he no doubt was. Maybe he was messed up, but not quite so messed up yet, not particularly a problem child, just...invisible. Maybe he was a problem child, but like...intermittently, the way abused kids are, trying to melt into the walls one day and acting out the moment he's noticed. Either way, I'd like to see how the church just...kind of doesn't help at all, how he fell through the cracks of that system just as much as he did though those of society at large. Maybe he got to see other kids and other people actually find community and healing, while he was just there, on the fringes, knowing neither how to perform adequate faith and be seen as part of the fold, nor how to be a good enough kid in general to merit, say, counseling or academic help. I could see him developing a deep and bitter resentment of this system, just as he has for every other system, and a deep and bitter resentment of the people there who really managed to belong, whether it was parishioners who seemed to have normal lives, or maybe the other foster kids or institution kids he knew. I could see that going double if he were realizing he was gay or bi. I could see that resentment fading from his immediate consciousness as he grew older and didn't have to depend on these systems any more, but I could just as easily see it welling up again as strongly as before if, for instance, circumstances forced him and (Max or Daniel) to take shelter in a church.

I don't think Vincent would ever regret his life as a contract killer. I think he considers it something he was forced into in order to survive, a fault of the system rather than one of his own, and even if he hypothetically grew a conscience about it I think he'd just shrug it off and stop rather than let it tear him up much. That said, I am delighted by the thought that Vincent might have some kind of uncomfortable feeling that he's a sinner, might consider the thought that forgiveness might be offered but ultimately decide he doesn't believe/trust any potential higher power enough to care to want it. (Also that he might be disgusted at the thought of being 'forgiven' for being gay, when perhaps that's one of the only things that's ever given him something like happiness.) I'm also delighted by the general idea of Making Out and/or Fucking In A Church. Like, you can go all out on the blasphemy kink and I'll eat it up with a spoon. All the conflicted feelings mixed with delight on the part of the characters is excellent. Rough dubcon (with Max as aggressor) is excellent if Max is the partner involved, roughness mixed with gentleness is excellent if it's Daniel, as is just a general feeling of surrealness (fever? injury or pain? alcohol or drugs? exhaustion?) and how that interplays with ingrained Catholic Guilt as well as just religious imagery in general. Maybe Max ends up stabbing Vincent to a surface through the arm to pin him down. Maybe Vincent and Daniel arrive with Vincent already injured, bleeding from his hands or wrists. Maybe there's patching up before, or after, there's making out. Please draw all the sacrilegious parallels you like between this garbage sociopathic contract killer and any saint you want.

I am also very, very down for parallels between Max and any saint you want, or especially between Daniel and any saint you want.

Like...if you happen to be considering this, and wondering how much is too much, the answer is 'please feel free to take this prompt and go full Like A Prayer with it'.

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Minority Report (2002)
Characters: John Anderton
Ships: gen, John/Danny Witwer, John/Lara (as not entirely healthy relationship), John/Lamar Burgess (as manipulative and abusive of Lamar towards John), John/Iris Hineman (as noncon with Hineman as the aggressor)

Here for John crashing hard after the film, and learning to rebuild. Also here for exploration of John in fucked up relationships and their repercussions pre-, during- and post-film - John/Lara as unhealthy and mutually destructive, and/or John/Lamar as deeply manipulative and abusive on Lamar's side toward John.
(Definitely willing for John to eventually end up in a happy relationship with Danny Witwer, assuming Danny Witwer Didn't Die.)


Thoughts/prompts:


Pre-Canon: Lamar Burgess manipulating and taking advantage of John so he can have his Precrime poster boy.

This film is full of sexual creepiness towards John - the doctor and nurse hitting on him, Hineman forcibly kissing him, and on a more subtle, insidious level there's Burgess calling him "my boy" and the film implying he's been John's sole emotional support for the past six years - and then revealing he's been manipulating him all along, been enabling his drug habit and possibly deliberately keeping him emotionally unstable so he can have both Precrime, and John as its public face.

I'm here for any and all exploration of how truly awful Lamar was to John, all while keeping both Lara and John himself convinced that he only had John's best interests in mind. I'm especially interested in this turning sexual, with fucked up, manipulative Lamar/John at any time from six years before the film to during - either implicit with Lamar offering John emotional support and implying romance, offering intimate touch but it never reaching the level of kissing or sex, or full-blown Lamar taking advantage of John when he's vulnerable with grief, making him dependent on him emotionally and for dope, thoroughly messing him up. I could see John having a massive praise kink, and Lamar taking full advantage of that to get him to do more and more work for Precrime as well as sexual favours for him. Maybe Lamar starts him off slow, asking for small favours that gradually turn more and more sexual, and John, adrift and lost and overwhelmed with grief for his dead son with no chance to heal, believes Lamar is his only friend and feels like he can't refuse him anything for fear of losing his support. Maybe Lamar offers romance, starts off kissing John tenderly, and then pushes him away, only touching him when he wants to get off, and leaves John desperately wondering what he did wrong, how he can get his affection back. He might pretend to help John with his grief, but really says 'well-meaning' things that keep him deliberately in pain and unable to heal. Maybe he even enables John's addiction by pretending to help, but really sending him to dealers who give him stronger stuff to keep him hooked. Possibly whenever he notices John's doing better, whether with regard to addiction or to mental health, he makes sure to very gently say things that sound concerned and well-meaning, but really deliberately reopen so many wounds that he knows John will be using that night. Maybe he even convinces himself he's doing it for the good of humanity, keeping John able to do his important work as a Precrime officer so potential killers can get caught.

I'd like any kissing or sex to happen after John and Lara separate, but for the Burgesses this particular scenario would stand as an exception to my infidelity DNW as well - Mrs Burgess can know and not mind, or not know, as you see fit. If she does, I'd like John to be conflicted; if she doesn't I'd like him to be absolutely destroyed by it but still helpless to stop or resist Lamar's advances.

I would welcome dark d/s overtones here, too. John as messed up vulnerable sub who doesn't realize he's being manipulated, and has to slowly heal from this 'relationship', along with all the other things he has to heal from after the film. Some tags from Darkest Night that might apply here: Emotional Manipulation • Unhealthy relationships - character is desperate to please partner • Dub/Noncon - Initially Nonsexual Demands Gradually Become More Sexual • Subdrop • Masochistic sub thinks they deserve genuine punishment • BDSM - Character Is Refused Aftercare / Given Inadequate Or Grudging Aftercare • Unable to Safeword • Character should safeword but doesn't • Dub/Noncon - Aggressor promises victim kink they want in exchange for kink that triggers them • Dub/Noncon - Aggressor uses knowledge of victim's kinks against them • Consensual aftercare after nonconsensual sex • Dubcon due to eagerness to please • Abuse - Condescending praise • Gaslighting • Noncon praise kink


During Canon: Dr Hineman coercing John into sex while he's literally on the verge of dying from her plant poison.

Hineman is so deeply creepy and unsettling - she's almost a more intimidating villain than Burgess. That nonconsensual kiss while John was almost dying was all kinds of horrible, and I could easily see her deciding that wasn't all she wanted. Some tags from Darkest Night that would fit this situation: Altered States - Drugs (Nonconsensual) • breathplay/asphyxiation during rape • Character unsure of own consent • Consensual aftercare after nonconsensual sex • Forced Kissing • Forced to Enjoy It • Inexperienced character is confused by noncon

John's already affected by the poison from Hineman's plants that grabbed him and cut him; he's barely able to speak until a few minutes after he chokes the antidote down. Maybe the antidote takes longer to work than we're shown, leaves John weaker than we're shown. Maybe it's a hallucinogen or other mental state altering substance in its own right. I'm down for Hineman coercing and/or forcing John into sex while he's too desperate and emotionally fucked up to really understand what's going on - I'm also down for him enjoying it, for her really blowing his mind and making sure that he enjoys it, and him having really conflicted feelings about it after the film. I am absolutely here for all the recovery plots


Post-Canon: Trauma aftermath, possible addiction-relapse-and-recovery plot, and John's getting back together with Lara really, really not going well.

Post-canon, I'm really interested in how John deals and how he recovers. I'm here for John suffering through aftereffects of the halo (neurological symptoms, maybe migraines, auras, nightmares, flashbacks, days when he's trapped back in that world of torment and can't make it out, not knowing what's real) and dealing with suddenly being blind in one eye, as well as the loss of everything that's helped him survive the past six years. I'm also very here for his addiction getting worse until it reaches breaking point and he has to suffer through getting clean, withdrawal symptoms and all. (I'm very here for an exploration of the addiction plotline in general - I'm disappointed in the film not exploring it. If you want to show me what neuroin actually does, what its effects are, what makes John reach for it in the first place, how he lives with it in the day to day, and how he finally gets clean, I am absolutely down for that.)

Lara/John-wise, I'm pretty annoyed about the ending of the film, so I'm very much down to read John and Lara making an attempt to get back together that doesn't go well - perhaps with her trying to pressure him into making it work while he's all kinds of fucked up both physically and mentally, and him just not being able to deal with anything about it, especially the constant memories of their past life together on top of all the health issues he's dealing with, and one day just calling it quits and leaving even though it tears him apart. They both seem heavy on denial as a coping mechanism, so I could see Lara just trying to ignore how sick and hurt John is, and him following her lead and trying to ignore it too until it gets bad enough that he can't any more. (I'd be down for a potential dub/noncon situation here too, with Lara pressuring John into sex when he's too sick or hurting too badly or too far gone on neuroin to want it, or even to actively participate. Most of the dub/noncon and BDSM tags apply here too, except for the ones that deal with deliberate coercion and manipulation - I don't think Lara wants or sets out to hurt John, but she has very little patience with his trauma and the long time he takes to heal, and so ends up hurting him badly anyway.)


Further Post-Canon: John finally getting to heal long-term (on his own, or with Danny Witwer)

(Please assume all of this is taking place in a world where Danny Witwer Did Not Die! If you'd like to involve Danny, I'd love to see him also in a state of recovery, since he got shot in the chest and is presumably healing from it.)

Consent issues or no, I could see John kind of running away from Lara - not leaving her in the lurch, but certainly having a deeply stressful conversation telling her he can't do this any more, and then getting as far away from her and the NYPD as he can. Does he hole up in his apartment hoping he'll eventually feel better? Does he go to Agatha and the twins if he realizes he's possibly too sick to be alone? Does he just go somewhere offbeat and cut off contact with everyone until somebody starts to worry (is that somebody Witwer)? Does he go through withdrawal alone and eventually come out okay, or does Witwer find him during and hold him through the shakes? Do things get bad enough that Witwer has to drag him to hospital despite his protests and newfound distrust of the system? Does he even get good treatment if they do, or are the medics in this universe just as cruel and uncaring as the police?

Speaking of which, I'm super here for John quitting the MPD and finding something else to do. He's probably had a revelation about the system he used to trust, and he's probably disqualified anyway now because of the blindness in that eye and his other symptoms post-halo. I'd love to see him reconstruct his life when he gets better, adjust to a new normal with essentially a chronic illness if the effects of the halo get better but never fully leave. I'd definitely love to see him do it with Danny at his side, and both of them learning not just how to be with each other and look after each other but also how to be people, not just bland colourless law-enforcement officers in their bland colourless law-enforcement world.

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Once again, thank you so much for writing for me! I hope you have fun creating. 💛

Also, some extra fun stuff:
• Two for One (crossover prompts)
• Wrapping Paper (art prompts)
• Yuleporn (sexy prompts)
• Crueltide (darkfic prompts)