Darkest Night Letter 2018

[telm_393]

Darkest Night Letter

Hello, writer! I cannot tell you how excited I am for this exchange. Hopefully this letter inspires you, and thank you for writing for me!

LIKES:

- hopeful/bittersweet endings, or endings that are not completely bleak, though I am not closed to unhappy endings

- hurt/comfort, especially emotional hurt/comfort

- mental health issues

- mental breakdown and sanity slippage

- characters never completely recovering from their trauma, but adjusting to a new life and being supported by their friends

- characters standing by their friends no matter what

- caretaking

- crying

- hugging (especially hugging and crying)

- friendship

- loyalty

- aftermath of trauma

DNWs:

- non-con between any of the requested characters

- abuse between any of the requested characters

- pregnancy

- oviposition or things growing inside of people

- broken bones

- guro

- explicit physical torture in the vein of pulling teeth, fingernails, Medieval torture, etc.; medical torture is fine

- eye trauma

- smut

- unrequested ships, though it's fine to mention canon relationships/romantic entanglements

- unrequested alternate universes of any kind

- porn

- unrequested kink

- public humiliation

- genderbending

- issuefic

- gender or sexuality headcanons

- characters betraying each other

Anything that’s not in my DNWs is fair game. Go as dark and twisted as you like. If you top it off with some comfort, that’s great!

Some clarifications that will hopefully actually clarify more than confuse:

I expand on some of the tags I chose for each fandom, but please note that all the things I ramble about related to those tags are suggestions, and if you like some things I suggest and don't like others, go ahead and pick and choose. If your muse is going somewhere that doesn't fit anything I said, then be free! My likes are also there to guide you, potentially.

In the end, the tags are the prompt. Go for any of the characters or groups I chose even if I didn't focus on them if I rambled about the tag(s) you want to write about.

There are tags I don't expand on in each fandom, but that's just because I don't have anything specific to say about them. I'll be thrilled with you writing about any of the characters, groups, or freeforms I chose.

Some fandom sections are also longer than others. This is not a sign that I want one fandom more than another.

If you want to use more than one tag at a time (including character/group tags), feel free! However, you definitely don't have to mix any tags you don't want to, even if I suggest it, and if you want to mix different tags than ones I suggested, have fun with that too.

Basically, if you want to write an Eldritch fic with all of the tags I chose for a fandom, go for it, and if you want to write a fic based around just one tag, go for that too. And anything in between.

Writer, please dig deep into your id and write something you love, and I'm sure I'll love it too.

FANDOMS

THE GOOD PLACE

Group: Team Cockroach

Group: Tahani Al-Jamil & Chidi Anagonye & Jason Mendoza & Eleanor Shellstrop

Group: Michael (The Good Place) & Eleanor Shellstrop

Chidi Anagonye

Jason Mendoza

Eleanor Shellstrop

Michael (The Good Place)

With this fandom, I know that the settings have changed, so you can choose whichever setting you want to go with, and if you want to do a post-s2 canon divergence fic, that would be totally great! Some of my prompts are appropriate for that, some for an everyone lives and is human AU, and a lot of them are for a s2 canon divergence AU where the core four (or most of them) end up in the Real Good Place as opposed to back on earth. 

Of course you can do whatever you want with any setting you want, no matter what I say in my prompts. 

I am fine with some ships, particularly Chidi/Eleanor and Tahani/Eleanor (or both at the same time), but I would prefer the fic not be ship-focused, and if you include both Chidi/Eleanor and Tahani/Eleanor I would rather that it be a V-shaped OT3.

Incidentally, as a prompt that could really go with anything here, I think it would be super interesting to see reboots where the soulmates the core four were paired up with were abusive. I think it would be really interesting with Chidi, who has trouble saying no...

 

 

~ Mental Breakdown

 

 

~ Unrelenting Hurt Eventual Comfort

 

 

~ Rape Aftermath 

 

 

~ Rape recovery process

 

 

Character Survived Their Adventures/Ordeal But Will Never Be The Same

~ Eating Disorders: This would probably work best in a pre canon, post s2, or even an everyone lives and/or everyone lives and is human AU setting, but it would also be really interesting to see how this might play out in the afterlife. One of the characters (or more than one) has an eating disorder before they die. 

Much like, say, Chidi's anxiety, it doesn't go away in the afterlife. Maybe they even get to the Real Good Place and there's still food issues. I'd actually love to see this with Chidi or Jason especially, but anyone is good! (Or more than one of the characters.)

~ Memory Loss: I think that this could go great mixed with Mental Breakdown. Maybe post-s2 in either the canonverse (or, well, a canon divergent canonverse depending on what happens in season 3) or an everyone-goes-to-the-Real-Good-Place AU, everyone gets their memories back. 

This is not necessarily a great thing, because at least one of the characters (I'm thinking Jason, just because he has trouble processing things) isn't really able to deal with the information overload, and has trouble telling the current reality from the past. Maybe it even happens that only one of the four gets all their memories back.

It could also involve Rape Recovery or Rape Aftermath if you decide that one or all of the four went through some dark things during their time in the Bad Place.

~ Mental Health Issues: I'd like to see this with anyone, but especially Chidi. 

~ Past Abuse: I'm still on Jason's various comments about Lynyrd Skynyrd High School and the teacher/s who got arrested for having sex with the students (I think it's implied at least that he was one of the students, and it seems like the entire school was kind of...built on an abusive foundation). I'd love to see how this affected him.

(I’d rather that there not be explicit rape, though.)

~ Recovery Process After Torture: I have this particular vision of Michael especially getting captured and tortured in the Bad Place in a canon AU where the others got to the Good Place. I also envision a fair amount of Unrelenting Hurt Eventual Comfort here when the others (particularly Eleanor) come and save him after bugging the Good Place people for, like, years to let them do that. But he's...not the same. I think this could also go well with Character Survived Their Adventures/Ordeal But Will Never Be The Same.

I could also see any of the characters ending up in the Bad Place in a canon divergence AU where one sacrifices themselves for the others without the others knowing.

(Go as dark as you want on the torture, btw, but I would love some rescue and eventual h/c.)

Also, this could obviously work as a post-Bad Place AU where they try to adjust to the Real Good Place after so much time being psychologically tortured.

 

MIDNIGHT, TEXAS

Group: Lemuel Bridger/Olivia Charity

Group: Midnighters

Lemuel Bridger

Manfred Bernardo

Olivia Charity

~ Mental Health Issues

~ Losing Control Over Powers

~ Trapped Between Life And Death

~ Restraining Someone So They Don't Hurt Themself

~ Brain Damage - I was just thinking...how would psychic powers work with brain damage? He just feels completely lost and distressed because things are more confusing for him now in general, and at this point he can't entirely understand what's going on anymore at all when it comes to ghosts. I'd love to see the other Midnighters supporting him.

~ Hunted by Monsters - The entirety of Midnight getting hunted down by monsters. Not demons, just all sorts of monsters, let your mind run wild and go as dark as you want. If you want to make up some OC Midnighters and brutally murder them, go for it too. (Or if you don't want to brutally murder them, you can also go for that.)

~ Mental Breakdown - I'd be interested in this with Manfred after Xylda finally leaves. She said that they said goodbye during the cancer year, and yeah, they did, but he never really said goodbye to ghost her, and now he feels adrift without her. And his mental health takes a hit, but he doesn't really have anyone to talk it out with. And he just generally feels alone in his head and it's driving him crazy, and sanity's already a balancing act when you can talk to the dead, and this just sends him over the cliff.

~ Outliving Friends and Family - I'd love to see this for Lemuel/Olivia. Lemuel knew he was going to outlive her, of course he did, but it doesn't make it hurt less. Maybe Chuy and Joe can commiserate with him, because I figure many of their friends would be dead by then. I think it'd be really interesting if Olivia doesn't die in battle or anything, just of old age, and maybe some exploration of their relationship as time goes on and on and Olivia gets older and Lem doesn't...I think this could be heartbreaking.

~ Sexually abusive childhood is revealed - How did Lemuel find out about Olivia's past? Did she share it with him? Was there a flashback?

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GHOSTED (TV 2017)

Max Jennifer

Leroy Wright

Group: Max Jennifer & Leroy Wright

There are some vague spoilers for the show in this section.


I just love this show and Max and Leroy so much.

...But the continuity is confusing and it's a little like two different shows at times, so I'd actually prefer you write the story in a pre-retool universe (when LaFrey is still in charge and there's the basic monster of the week plot; this includes the last episode aired, if you want) and kind of ignore everything else. However, I will be happy with literally anything you write for this show, including something specifically set within the retool. I love these characters a lot.

~ Eating Disorders​

~ Rape Aftermath

~ Rape recovery process

~ Unrelenting Hurt Eventual Comfort

~ Delusions

~ Character conceals evidence of abusive relationship: I would really love to see with Max and Leroy, probably with Max being the one to conceal the relationship, because it seems like something he would do, even knowing that his partner is a real, actual cop who can definitely protect him. I can see him pushing Leroy away once he starts getting worried, which is very surprising because Max is more 'clingy' than 'surly'. This could definitely also go with Unrelenting Hurt Eventual Comfort.

Though if you want to go with Leroy being the one to conceal the relationship, hey, go for it--he knows he's supposed to be the stronger one in the partnership, but things aren't great at home and he's quite frankly feeling really weird and vulnerable about it.

(It would be nice if the relationship was found out, though.)

~ Faking Recovery From Injury/Trauma So That People Will Stop Worrying About You: Can I see Leroy getting badly injured or having been in a really scary situation and then acting like it's all totally fine because everyone is being hovery and annoying? You bet I can!

~ Haunted by guilt: I'd love to see this for Leroy and his partner. He can't get over it and he's never going to let himself get over it, and he can be really, really overbearing because of it, but it really keeps him up at night...

Some exploration of his relationship with his previous partner would be great too.

~ Restraining Someone So They Don't Hurt Themself: I love this tag. I would love it in a fic inspired by any of the other tags, or as its own fic. Considering that he is smaller and, uh, more erratic, I would figure Max would be the restrained party and Leroy the put-upon/very worried person doing the restraining, because Max is smaller but man is he a fighter. He even manages to get some hits in. (And then feels awful later.)

This would go really well with a fic also dealing with mental health issues and/or the rape recovery process, with Max developing a sudden penchant for violent self-harm and pretty much no way to control it other than restraint. (It could also be to keep him from hurting himself and others too.)

~ Past Abuse: Max's relationship with his wife was actually really, really bad...

I would just love something exploring the possibility that things weren't great between Max and his wife when she got abducted because she was abusive. Maybe she constantly threatened to leave, up to and including packing a suitcase, which was why when Max told Leroy his wife was packing a suitcase when she got abducted he acted like it was no big deal. I would definitely love seeing him expanding on this to Leroy, completely obliviously, while Leroy becomes steadily more disturbed.

(And, hey, who knows...maybe she's always been an alien or something.)

~ Mental Health Issues - Sometimes the monsters actually are real. Sometimes they aren't. Sometimes Max is mistaken for deluded. Sometimes it's not a mistake. I'd love to see how confusing it could be for someone who's genuinely got mental health issues to live in a world where, actually, a lot of 'crazy' things can actually happen. This could easily go with 'Delusions'.

~ Repressed/Suppressed Memories of Trauma Come Back to Haunt Character: I can definitely see this happening for Leroy. Once he gets back out into the field (sometimes), or at least gets a real partner, his suppressed feelings about what happened to his old partner come back with a vengeance, and they're really disturbing and intrusive. Maybe it causes some violence or violent overprotectiveness of his new partner?

Especially combining this with some of the other tags/prompts--Max's vulnerability/mental health issues make Leroy worry that he's going to lose him too, and it triggers a lot of memories and guilt and maybe a darker part of him that will definitely stand by Max even if he does completely break down and go dark.

____________________

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (2016)

Group: Sam Chisolm & Red Harvest & Vasquez

Group: Red Harvest & Vasquez

Red Harvest

I most want post-canon, canon compliant fic for this fandom unless you decide on the post-Apocalyptic AU.

~ Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalyptic: I would truly love to see any of the groups I've chosen together after the end, all a little worse for wear, and just making a group to survive. You can definitely include the rest of the seven if you want. Kill anyone, though preferably only characters who died in the movie. And this alternate universe can go with pretty much every single one of the tags I chose.

~ Mental Health Issues

~ Mental Breakdown​

~ Grieving the Person a Mentally Broken Character Used to Be

~ Character Survived Their Adventures/Ordeal But Will Never Be The Same Again

~ Brain Damage

~ Recovery Process After Torture

~ Grief/Mourning: I'd love to see this with Red Harvest & Vasquez with Sam having died, preferably as a future fic where Sam dies of old age. Break my heart.

~ Haunted by Dead Character - Well, 4/7 of the main cast die, so...the remaining three get haunted by the dead characters after the battle. I'd like to see Sam and Vasquez and Red Harvest still traveling together, and the dead characters are always there. Maybe all four of the spirits only haunt one of the three.

Maybe Jack haunts Vasquez and Josh haunts Sam and Goody and Billy haunt Red Harvest.  Or different combinations! Maybe it exacerbates existing mental health issues. Go as dark as you want with it. Make it twisted. Maybe throw in some suicide or self-harm.

~ Coming together after trauma - I'd like to see how this might play out with Sam and Vasquez and Red Harvest. They've been through a lot together, maybe it fucks them up in new and exciting ways and they're obviously the only ones who really understand what they've been through. Maybe a codependency thing starts. Maybe something else terrible happens after the others' deaths (that maybe mixes together some of the other prompts) and that just makes them even more dedicated to each other. I'd like to see them taking care of each other.

If you want to go with an AU (modern, post-apocalyptic, etc.) for this where any of the groups go through something horrible and traumatic together and end up becoming angsty friends due to that, I'd love that too. Go wild.

~ Restraining Someone So They Don't Hurt Themself - I would love to see this tag with literally any character, but I have to say that I'd love to see how you'd swing it with Red Harvest. However, Vasquez also seems a likely choice. Maybe for Sam & Vasquez & Red Harvest, one of them goes through something very hardcore (maybe mix it with 'Recovery Process After Torture'?) and kind of loses it (Mental Breakdown), and the others have to deal with it.

____________________

ARROWVERSE (LEGENDS OF TOMORROW)

Group: Nate Heywood & Sara Lance

Nate Heywood

Note that I absolutely love the entire team from s2 on, and if you want to include them in any of the stories, that would be lots of fun. Martin, Jax, and Amaya can be there or not, but I'd love some liminal space between seasons two and three. I love Team as Family too, and Team as Dysfunctional Family even more.

~ Aftermath of Torture

~ Character Survived Their Adventure/Ordeal But Will Never Be The Same

~ Mental Breakdown

~ Only Two Left Alive

~ Faking Recovery From Injury/Trauma So That People Will Stop Worrying About You

~ Rape recovery process

~ Rape Aftermath - I'd love to see this with Nate & Sara, with either of them getting raped and the other finding them (without anyone else there) and then, if you decide to mix it with rape recovery process, trying to help them. I'd especially love if the character who's been raped wants to keep it from the rest of the team. (Especially if the rest of the team still finds out.)

Of course, this also could easily go with my prompt below for Possessed Victim Noncons Victim, since both Sara and Nate would be violated in that situation.

~ Character A Must Send Character B On a Suicide Mission - I totally want to see this with Nate and Sara. I love their relationship. Nate's always got her back, and he's almost a second in command to her. I'm sure that he'd be willing to do anything for the team and for his captain, and it would be heartbreaking to see Sara send him on a suicide mission that he's fully aware is a suicide mission. I'd like character death on this one.

~ Killing a Loved One to Protect Another Loved One - I'd love to see this with Nate and Sara or Ray or the Legends in general if you want to bring them in, with his dad (or both parents) as the one that he has to kill. The absolute worst part is that he barely even hesitates. The Legends are his family, and his parents are...well, they're his parents, but he can live without them. He can't live without the Legends. It doesn't mean that literally murdering one or both of his parents doesn't destroy him.

~ Grieving the Person a Mentally Broken Character Used to Be - This could quite honestly go with any of the other tags, or you could decide on some other fucked up thing that could happen to a character.

~ Noncon Carnival/Circus - Yeah, P.T. Barnum's Circus happened. How about that, but, like, a million times darker? Nate's the one with powers that are actually powers, so maybe an evil circus kidnaps him and Nate and he thinks everyone else is dead and this goes with Mental Breakdown because he's lost his family and he can't take it...and then they find him, but it doesn't really change the fact that he's pretty much completely lost it. I think this could go great with Grieving the Person a Mentally Broken Character Used to Be, and/or Character Survived Their Adventure/Ordeal But Will Never Be The Same.

~ Medical Experimentation - I can definitely see this with Nate. After all, he has powers now and he was literally cured of hemophilia. Maybe an evil scientist finds out about one or the other, and he wants to know how Nate got to be this way. Of course, Nate isn't about to tell anyone that it's Ray who saved his life with his awesome serum, because that could get Ray in trouble...and so on.

Maybe the others eventually get to Nate, but unfortunately he's already broken down and here's another chance for Grieving the Person a Mentally Broken Character Used to Be and/or Character Survived Their Adventure/Ordeal But Will Never Be The Same.

~ Possessed Victim Noncons Victim: I would love this with Nate and Sara, with Sara being the one who gets possessed and Nate falling all over himself afterwards to say that no, he's totally fine, it's all fine, while Sara's tortured by guilt. (This could go great with Faking Recovery From Injury/Trauma So That People Will Stop Worrying About You on Nate's part.)