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Dear AU Exchanger,
I am a very easy recipient so please don't stress over this. I adore AUs so I am easy to please.
I'm requesting fic for everything. But if anyone feels moved to give me an art treat, that would be delightful!
Feel free to use more than one prompt or combine prompts within fandom requests.
General Likes: Hurt-comfort - all h/c tropes that don't infantilize anyone are delicious to me. Injured and stuck without medical care on another planet/behind enemy lines/etc, bedside vigils, tender caretaking, stoic characters pretending they are JUST FINE right up until they collapse - I love it all. The only thing I don't like is characters getting tons of care taking lavished on them for minor illnesses like colds - that hits my infantilization button. (But fevers with delirium are lovely, especially if they make characters babble secrets or true feelings that they'd never in a million years admit to if sober.) Emotional h/c is also excellent.
Loyalty, conflicting loyalties, being torn between a cause or job and the woman she loves - I adore all that. I love knight's vows, soldiers' camaraderie, and tight-knit groups - or being an outcast from a group.I love bonding through shared hardship or a shared hard job, through both being outcasts or both having a secret. I love characters who trust each other with their lives. I also love characters who don't trust each other for good reasons, but are forced to work together/depend on each other.
I like platonic and romantic relationships equally. I like characters entering new or dangerous emotional or sexual territory, like if they're control freaks or emotionally damaged and have never really relaxed and enjoyed themselves, or let themselves be vulnerable, or depended on another person, or lost control of their emotions or desires.
For sex specifics if you write sex, I like BDSM, especially if it's extremely informal (like, the characters might not have even heard the term, they just know they like being pinned down/tying up their girlfriend/etc). I like bruising (spontaneous or ornamental), and rough and/or frantic/desperate sex. I like "let's have sex because we might die tomorrow/we might not survive the war." I like fingering and frottage, especially when partly clothed, reaching into clothes, touching through clothes, etc. I like praise, bondage, honor bondage, and characters discovering kinks for the first time.
I like lavish descriptions of things, from food to clothing to scenery to the human body. I love sexy clothing, which could be slinky 40s dresses or battle-worn leathers. Scars and brands and tattoos are hot.
I like worldbuilding, whether it's of literal worlds or exploring the setting/culture of our real world. I love strange, beautiful/deadly, post-apocalyptic, and mysterious landscapes. I have a thing for ancient but still working, poorly understood machinery or magical items. I like any sort of survival narrative.
I like any kind of writing, from completely straightforward to 5 Things to any sort of odd format that serves the story. I even like second person if there's a reason for it.
General DNWs: Current political figures, stories whose main point is to comment on current social or political issues, literal coronavirus (other pandemics or different illnesses with similar symptoms are fine), real-life terminal illness like cancer, dementia and brain damage, A/B/O, PWP (porn without plot), human pregnancy and babies (kittens, alien lizard babies, magical foals, etc are fine), infantilization, adult/child, incest, on-page child abuse, detailed depictions of dental trauma, detailed depictions of gastrointestinal issues, and bodily waste other than blood, sweat, and tears.
Given that this is an AU exchange, it's fine if you kill unrequested canon characters as part of it being an AU, or kill requested ones in the context of there being more than one version of them. I'd prefer that you not kill requested characters in the main timeline unless I say it's OK.
Biggles
James "Biggles" Bigglesworth & Ginger & Algy & Bertie & Erich von Stalhein
James "Biggles" Bigglesworth/Erich von Stalhein
James "Biggles" Bigglesworth & Erich von Stalhein
ALL: Characters are soulbonded to psychic wolves
ALL: Dinosaurs & Tropical-Type Climate & Flora Survived to Canon Time Period
LL: Dragon Rider AU
ALL: Finisterre (Cherryh Night Horses) Fusion
ALL: Golden Age of Science Fiction-Style Venus AU
ALL: Megafauna Survived To Canon Time Period
ALL: Shadows of the Apt fusion
Canon-specific DNW: WWII/Nazis, even mentions. Assume von Stalhein was a double agent for the Allies or sucked into a cosmic rift for the duration. I would like this to be set during WWI or post-war, if you're doing a version of our history. Please no canon- or period-typical racism.
For Biggles/von Stalhein, I would love for them to have an adventure with feelings, whether those are canon-typical barely subtext or a get-together or an established relationship, in one of my requested AU settings. Hurt/comfort would be great. For the & pairing and the group, basically the same but with platonic feelings.
All: Canon's Plot Is Interrupted By An Alien Invasion
I think this one would be most fun for Biggles/von Stalhein if set during Biggles Goes East or another point in the timeline in which he and von Stalhein are enemies/rivals/on opposite sides, and must band together to fight the aliens. If the group, any time would be good.
Dark Tower - Stephen King
Group: Jake Chambers & Eddie Dean & Susannah Dean & Roland Deschain & Oy (Dark Tower)
Feel free to include any other canon characters with the exception of the ones in the DNWs. You don't need to focus on all the characters equally.
Temporary death or "in another world" death is fine for these characters, as is an AU resulting from a death (i.e., Roland dies in Mejis and Susan goes on as a gunslinger) or a tragic ending where it's clear that even everyone dying isn't the end.
Canon-specific DNWs: Susannah's pregnancy/baby. Mia. Stephen King as an actual character - I liked the metafictional aspects, that was just one step too far with them for me.
ALL: Canon Divergence AU
I really like canon AUs in this fandom, and one of the fun things about it is how many AU premises are actually possible within canon: there are other worlds than these. Feel free to mix-and-match with any of these.
ALL: Crossover - Shared Universe AU
ALL: Dimension hopping to find a timeline that isn't doomed
ALL: Dimension travel
ALL: Groundhog Day timeloop
ALL: Groundhog Peggy Sue
ALL: Time Travel
Do they go back in time to try to save Susan or Gabrielle, or keep the Horn of Eld, or have Jericho Hill turn out differently? Do they try to save the present-day ka-tet? How does that work with the canon paradox issues? Or is there more accidental changing the past, like happened with Roland and Jake, with unexpected consequences? Or do they go back much, much farther in time, to the golden era of Gilead? Or to the far future of Mid-World, when the world has really moved on? Or do characters meet at different times in their timeline, like Roland meeting Jake in New York when they're the same age, or when Roland is a kid and Jake is an adult?
Does our ka-tet walk into the world of The Stand, or keep exploring the other universe that also had the Superflu? Did some or all of Roland's original ka-tet (and/or Susan) survive, with or without him? Do they join up with the present-day ka-tet? Do some DT characters who were never in it end up in it, like some of the Sisters of Oriza or an escapee from Lud? What if David is still with Roland?
What if some of the current ka-tet were drawn earlier or later than they were? (If you do that one, I'd like Susannah to still have some kind of mental/physical disability, even if it's not the same one or not acquired the same way - that feels really key to her character. Similarly, if Eddie was never an addict, I think he should still have some comparable issue (could just be emotional damage.)
This canon would be incredibly fun with the sort of fusion AUs I have next - and given all the time and dimension travel, it could even work as part of actual canon.
ALL: Dinosaurs & Tropical-Type Climate & Flora Survived to Canon Time Period
ALL: Megafauna Survived To Canon Time Period
By "canon," I mean canon in Mid-World, or canon in New York, or canon in some versions of New York/Mid-World but not others, or canon in all - your pick. Maybe in Susannah's version of New York, she uses a small riding mammoth rather than a wheelchair.
ALL: Finisterre (Cherryh Night Horses) Fusion
Instead of khef, the characters have the ambient: a kind of telepathic sharing generated by the carnivorous alien nighthorses they're soulbonded to. Also all animals are telepathic and drive humans insane unless they're guarded by nighthorses. Just another Monday in Mid-World.
ALL: Gateway (Frederic Pohl) Fusion
In this haunting novel, people find alien ships that they don't quite understand, so you can fly them, but you have no idea until it's too late where they're going or how long the trip will be or if you'll arrive somewhere you can't survive or somewhere that will make you rich or save the world. Some ships never return at all; some return with the pilots dead. Plenty of people are desperate enough to try it.
ALL: Shadows of the Apt fusion
The ka-tet as kinden! What kind of kinden? Who's Apt and who's Inapt? Is Oy a friendly, furry spider? Feel free to invent kinden for this, like if you want to make Roland a Pillbug or something.
The Punisher (2017 TV)
Frank Castle & David "Micro" Lieberman
Frank Castle & David "Micro" Lieberman & Leo Lieberman & Sarah Lieberman & Zach Lieberman
Frank Castle/David "Micro" Lieberman/Sarah Lieberman
Frank Castle/Karen Page
Frank Castle/Billy Russo
If you write Billy, I strongly prefer his characterization from S1. This is true even if you include Amy or other canon from S2. If you write Madani, I liked her in S1 and LOVED her in S2--she was a hot mess and it was marvelous. So feel free to be a bit fast and loose about what was going on in which season (especially since this will be an AU anyway!)
I see Frank/Billy as an extremely fucked up, dysfunctional pairing, so feel free to go dark if you match on that one. I'm open to Frank having (resentful, angry) feelings too, or for it to be totally one-sided.
I see Frank/Karen as a pairing of two tough, damaged people who are tender and romantic and ride-or-die with each other. I'd prefer not to go in a super-fluffy or marriage-and-babies direction with them.
Canon-specific DNWs: Dr. Krista Dumont. I'd prefer that you ignore the coda at the end of S2 (after the bus station scene.) Temporary death is fine but no permanent death for Frank, Karen, or the Liebermans.
ALL: Amateur Theatre Group
I've done a lot of amateur and low-level pro theatre, mostly as a stage manager, and when I saw this AU, I realized how hilariously well it fit the Punisher cast. Moody method actor Frank! Put-upon stage manager David! Or some other configuration of your choice.
ALL: Dimension hopping to find a timeline that isn't doomed
ALL: Dimension travel
ALL: Groundhog Day timeloop
ALL: Going back in time to fix the future
ALL: Groundhog Peggy Sue
ALL: Possessed by time travelling future self
I'm thinking of these as a Terminator/X-Men style "the whole future world is fucked" or a more personal but still really disastrous "everyone dies" future (so they're traveling back to canon-present or alternate canon timelines to fix something that happens post-canon) rather than traveling to canon-past or alternate canon timelines to undo stuff that actually happened in canon, like Frank's family's death. However, if you're doing Frank/Billy, Frank trying to undo Billy becoming a villain would be cool.
Both these AUs remind me of a big theme in the show, which is how soldiers who come home from the war are returning to a world that should be better, but they don't fit in and it feels wrong and too soft, and yet it is better. Maybe Frank, or Frank and Billy (at cross purposes), or Frank and Karen (sole survivors?), come back from the fucked future/bad timeline and have to deal with living in a world they're trying to save but don't know if they can ever live in. Maybe the Liebermans are from the fucked future and team up with Frank because he can do things they can't and also seems out of time/place, though for a completely different reason. I could see Amy as a tunnel rat or some such from the fucked future, side-eyeing people from this softer one.
ALL: Gateway (Frederic Pohl) Fusion
In this haunting novel, people find alien ships that they don't quite understand, so you can fly them, but you have no idea until it's too late where they're going or how long the trip will be or if you'll arrive somewhere you can't survive or somewhere that will make you rich or save the world. Some ships never return at all; some return with the pilots dead. Plenty of people are desperate enough to try it.
In canon, the ships fit only specific numbers of people, so I see Frank and Billy trapped together in a Two (or permanently bonded/fucked up by having experienced that) or Frank and Karen bonding and surviving against the odds, or the Liebermans realizing they can't get a ship unless they take on one more prospector to fit a Five... and there is that one angry, damaged guy who's been the sole survivor so often that no one wants to ship out with him...
ALL: Shadows of the Apt fusion
David is clearly the Aptest kinden to ever Apt, but what about the others? (Could be a mixed marriage!) Is Frank an Assassin Bug? Is Billy one kinden disguised as another? Is David forever opening doors for a very ungracious Frank?
ALL: Characters are soulbonded to psychic wolves
ALL: Dinosaurs & Tropical-Type Climate & Flora Survived to Canon Time Period
ALL: Megafauna Survived To Canon Time Period
I just really like psychic wolves and megafauna.
The Stand - Stephen King
Alice Underwood & Maria the Oral Hygienist
Rita Blakemoor & Ray Flowers & Peter Goldsmith & Jesse Rider & Alice Underwood
Solo: Alice Underwood
Solo: Maria the Oral Hygienist
Solo: Ray Flowers
Solo: Rita Blakemoor
ALL: Canon Divergence AU
The Stand - Stephen King: Different characters survive the plague
The Stand - Stephen King: Plague survivors get superpowers
Feel free to mix-and-match, or include any canon characters, including ones I didn't request or ones not in the tagset. I like everyone. I'm a multishipper generally so you can sell me on anything. I loved Kathy Bates' Rae Flowers from the 90s miniseries so putting her in book canon is an option if you match on Ray.
One of the reasons the pre-plague and during-plague sections of the book are so memorable is the wealth of vivid supporting and even cameo characters, like Maria the oral hygienist. She's really just there so we can see Larry pointlessly being a dick, but she feels like a real person even though we only get a glimpse of her. You just know that she's on the phone to her girlfriends bitching about Larry as soon as he gets out of her throwing range.
I'd love to see how these characters, who either died during the plague or whose fate we never learned, would do if they survived instead. Would Rita Blakemoor have done better if she'd run into Alice Underwood instead of Larry? How would Peter Goldsmith and Jesse Rider have coped if they'd been the sole survivors instead of Frannie and Harold, and were now stuck together in awkward partnership? How would Ray Flowers bring his dedication to speaking truth to power to a world where literal forces of good and evil are engaged in a giant game of tug-of-war over the remaining human beings? Who would call to Jesse Rider, and who would he follow?
Also I always enjoy it when the plague gives you superpowers, especially if the powers have unsettling drawbacks and/or reflect something of your personality.
Torchwood
Gwen Cooper & Jack Harkness & Owen Harper & Ianto Jones & Toshiko Sato
ALL: Canon is the evil mirror dimension
ALL: Characters Discover They Are The Evil Mirror Versions of Themselves
I love this crew of terrible sad fuckups. It would be heartbreaking and hilarious for them to discover a "good" mirrorverse and realize that makes them the bad mirror.
The Wilds
Dot & Fatin & Leah & Martha & Nora & Rachel & Shelby & Toni
Dot & Fatin & Leah & Martha & Rachel & Shelby & Toni
Shelby Goodkind/Toni Shalifoe
Dot Campbell/Fatin Jadmani
Fatin Jadmani/Leah Rilke
I love all the girls. I'm a multi-shipper and while the above ships are my favorites, you can sell me on anything but incest. I would prefer that Gretchen and her people not have a large role, with the exception of Jeannette/Linh if you'd like to include her. (I would definitely enjoy an AU where she didn't die.) For the ones with large groups, you don't need to focus on everyone equally.
Please leave the boys out. If you want to set your story in S2 or afterward, please assume everything is the same except the boys were taken somewhere else and the girls never met them. I'm totally fine with a post-S2 story where Seth is tormenting them from the radio tower, so long as the rest of the boys are absent and he gets what's coming to him.
Explicit sex is fine (though not necessary) for this fandom; I assume the girls are all 18 or older by the time they get to the island.
Here's a set of "What if the experiment was actually something else or something additional" AUs.
ALL: Everyone wakes up amnesiac
ALL: Everyone wakes up amnesiac on a spaceship
In this case, the experiment would be to see how the girls recreate/imagine their selves and create a community without knowing their backgrounds or previous relationships. (I imagine they do know their names, or wake up with name badges, or some such.) What would it be like for, say, Shelby to be freed from the image she tries to live up to? And what happens when they find out?
ALL: Superheroes/Superpowers
On the island, but the experiment is to give them powers. I'd love it if the powers related to their personalities or backgrounds in some way. "My superpower is a curse" and "My superpower is killing me" are also good.
ALL: Tethered (Us) AU
What if their dark and hidden selves were literalized and released?
ALL: Characters are soulbonded to psychic wolves
ALL: Finisterre (Cherryh Night Horses) Fusion
ALL: Characters Have Or Acquire Fire Lizards
I just really love animal bonding and how your animals say something about you. Fire lizard mating flights would be pretty great for this canon too.
ALL: Annihilation AU
ALL: Building a settlement on a frontier planet
ALL: The Leftovers Two Percent World AU
I feel like any of these would fit very well with canon, as the girls are alone in a strange land and forced to fend for themselves and lean on each other. The Two Percent World is the premise that 98% of the world's population vanishes with no explanation.
ALL: Character plays a game with Death in exchange for their/somebody else's life
This could work with the moments of surrealism/magical realism, like Leah's meetings with Ben Folds.
ALL: Court of Night-Blooming Flowers (Kushiel’s Dart) AU
And this one is basically me wondering how the characters would be sorted into houses. If you do this one, I would like some sex please.
ALL: Groundhog Day timeloop
ALL: Groundhog Peggy Sue
ALL: Possessed by time travelling future self
Is that why Leah is so sure something is wrong? Is Nora trying to fix things for Rachel, again and again and again until she gets it right? Or if you wanted to do a classic "time loop is broken by characters getting together," this would be delightful for Shelby/Toni or Leah/Fatin.
I am a very easy recipient so please don't stress over this. I adore AUs so I am easy to please.
I'm requesting fic for everything. But if anyone feels moved to give me an art treat, that would be delightful!
Feel free to use more than one prompt or combine prompts within fandom requests.
General Likes: Hurt-comfort - all h/c tropes that don't infantilize anyone are delicious to me. Injured and stuck without medical care on another planet/behind enemy lines/etc, bedside vigils, tender caretaking, stoic characters pretending they are JUST FINE right up until they collapse - I love it all. The only thing I don't like is characters getting tons of care taking lavished on them for minor illnesses like colds - that hits my infantilization button. (But fevers with delirium are lovely, especially if they make characters babble secrets or true feelings that they'd never in a million years admit to if sober.) Emotional h/c is also excellent.
Loyalty, conflicting loyalties, being torn between a cause or job and the woman she loves - I adore all that. I love knight's vows, soldiers' camaraderie, and tight-knit groups - or being an outcast from a group.I love bonding through shared hardship or a shared hard job, through both being outcasts or both having a secret. I love characters who trust each other with their lives. I also love characters who don't trust each other for good reasons, but are forced to work together/depend on each other.
I like platonic and romantic relationships equally. I like characters entering new or dangerous emotional or sexual territory, like if they're control freaks or emotionally damaged and have never really relaxed and enjoyed themselves, or let themselves be vulnerable, or depended on another person, or lost control of their emotions or desires.
For sex specifics if you write sex, I like BDSM, especially if it's extremely informal (like, the characters might not have even heard the term, they just know they like being pinned down/tying up their girlfriend/etc). I like bruising (spontaneous or ornamental), and rough and/or frantic/desperate sex. I like "let's have sex because we might die tomorrow/we might not survive the war." I like fingering and frottage, especially when partly clothed, reaching into clothes, touching through clothes, etc. I like praise, bondage, honor bondage, and characters discovering kinks for the first time.
I like lavish descriptions of things, from food to clothing to scenery to the human body. I love sexy clothing, which could be slinky 40s dresses or battle-worn leathers. Scars and brands and tattoos are hot.
I like worldbuilding, whether it's of literal worlds or exploring the setting/culture of our real world. I love strange, beautiful/deadly, post-apocalyptic, and mysterious landscapes. I have a thing for ancient but still working, poorly understood machinery or magical items. I like any sort of survival narrative.
I like any kind of writing, from completely straightforward to 5 Things to any sort of odd format that serves the story. I even like second person if there's a reason for it.
General DNWs: Current political figures, stories whose main point is to comment on current social or political issues, literal coronavirus (other pandemics or different illnesses with similar symptoms are fine), real-life terminal illness like cancer, dementia and brain damage, A/B/O, PWP (porn without plot), human pregnancy and babies (kittens, alien lizard babies, magical foals, etc are fine), infantilization, adult/child, incest, on-page child abuse, detailed depictions of dental trauma, detailed depictions of gastrointestinal issues, and bodily waste other than blood, sweat, and tears.
Given that this is an AU exchange, it's fine if you kill unrequested canon characters as part of it being an AU, or kill requested ones in the context of there being more than one version of them. I'd prefer that you not kill requested characters in the main timeline unless I say it's OK.
Biggles
James "Biggles" Bigglesworth & Ginger & Algy & Bertie & Erich von Stalhein
James "Biggles" Bigglesworth/Erich von Stalhein
James "Biggles" Bigglesworth & Erich von Stalhein
ALL: Characters are soulbonded to psychic wolves
ALL: Dinosaurs & Tropical-Type Climate & Flora Survived to Canon Time Period
LL: Dragon Rider AU
ALL: Finisterre (Cherryh Night Horses) Fusion
ALL: Golden Age of Science Fiction-Style Venus AU
ALL: Megafauna Survived To Canon Time Period
ALL: Shadows of the Apt fusion
Canon-specific DNW: WWII/Nazis, even mentions. Assume von Stalhein was a double agent for the Allies or sucked into a cosmic rift for the duration. I would like this to be set during WWI or post-war, if you're doing a version of our history. Please no canon- or period-typical racism.
For Biggles/von Stalhein, I would love for them to have an adventure with feelings, whether those are canon-typical barely subtext or a get-together or an established relationship, in one of my requested AU settings. Hurt/comfort would be great. For the & pairing and the group, basically the same but with platonic feelings.
All: Canon's Plot Is Interrupted By An Alien Invasion
I think this one would be most fun for Biggles/von Stalhein if set during Biggles Goes East or another point in the timeline in which he and von Stalhein are enemies/rivals/on opposite sides, and must band together to fight the aliens. If the group, any time would be good.
Dark Tower - Stephen King
Group: Jake Chambers & Eddie Dean & Susannah Dean & Roland Deschain & Oy (Dark Tower)
Feel free to include any other canon characters with the exception of the ones in the DNWs. You don't need to focus on all the characters equally.
Temporary death or "in another world" death is fine for these characters, as is an AU resulting from a death (i.e., Roland dies in Mejis and Susan goes on as a gunslinger) or a tragic ending where it's clear that even everyone dying isn't the end.
Canon-specific DNWs: Susannah's pregnancy/baby. Mia. Stephen King as an actual character - I liked the metafictional aspects, that was just one step too far with them for me.
ALL: Canon Divergence AU
I really like canon AUs in this fandom, and one of the fun things about it is how many AU premises are actually possible within canon: there are other worlds than these. Feel free to mix-and-match with any of these.
ALL: Crossover - Shared Universe AU
ALL: Dimension hopping to find a timeline that isn't doomed
ALL: Dimension travel
ALL: Groundhog Day timeloop
ALL: Groundhog Peggy Sue
ALL: Time Travel
Do they go back in time to try to save Susan or Gabrielle, or keep the Horn of Eld, or have Jericho Hill turn out differently? Do they try to save the present-day ka-tet? How does that work with the canon paradox issues? Or is there more accidental changing the past, like happened with Roland and Jake, with unexpected consequences? Or do they go back much, much farther in time, to the golden era of Gilead? Or to the far future of Mid-World, when the world has really moved on? Or do characters meet at different times in their timeline, like Roland meeting Jake in New York when they're the same age, or when Roland is a kid and Jake is an adult?
Does our ka-tet walk into the world of The Stand, or keep exploring the other universe that also had the Superflu? Did some or all of Roland's original ka-tet (and/or Susan) survive, with or without him? Do they join up with the present-day ka-tet? Do some DT characters who were never in it end up in it, like some of the Sisters of Oriza or an escapee from Lud? What if David is still with Roland?
What if some of the current ka-tet were drawn earlier or later than they were? (If you do that one, I'd like Susannah to still have some kind of mental/physical disability, even if it's not the same one or not acquired the same way - that feels really key to her character. Similarly, if Eddie was never an addict, I think he should still have some comparable issue (could just be emotional damage.)
This canon would be incredibly fun with the sort of fusion AUs I have next - and given all the time and dimension travel, it could even work as part of actual canon.
ALL: Dinosaurs & Tropical-Type Climate & Flora Survived to Canon Time Period
ALL: Megafauna Survived To Canon Time Period
By "canon," I mean canon in Mid-World, or canon in New York, or canon in some versions of New York/Mid-World but not others, or canon in all - your pick. Maybe in Susannah's version of New York, she uses a small riding mammoth rather than a wheelchair.
ALL: Finisterre (Cherryh Night Horses) Fusion
Instead of khef, the characters have the ambient: a kind of telepathic sharing generated by the carnivorous alien nighthorses they're soulbonded to. Also all animals are telepathic and drive humans insane unless they're guarded by nighthorses. Just another Monday in Mid-World.
ALL: Gateway (Frederic Pohl) Fusion
In this haunting novel, people find alien ships that they don't quite understand, so you can fly them, but you have no idea until it's too late where they're going or how long the trip will be or if you'll arrive somewhere you can't survive or somewhere that will make you rich or save the world. Some ships never return at all; some return with the pilots dead. Plenty of people are desperate enough to try it.
ALL: Shadows of the Apt fusion
The ka-tet as kinden! What kind of kinden? Who's Apt and who's Inapt? Is Oy a friendly, furry spider? Feel free to invent kinden for this, like if you want to make Roland a Pillbug or something.
The Punisher (2017 TV)
Frank Castle & David "Micro" Lieberman
Frank Castle & David "Micro" Lieberman & Leo Lieberman & Sarah Lieberman & Zach Lieberman
Frank Castle/David "Micro" Lieberman/Sarah Lieberman
Frank Castle/Karen Page
Frank Castle/Billy Russo
If you write Billy, I strongly prefer his characterization from S1. This is true even if you include Amy or other canon from S2. If you write Madani, I liked her in S1 and LOVED her in S2--she was a hot mess and it was marvelous. So feel free to be a bit fast and loose about what was going on in which season (especially since this will be an AU anyway!)
I see Frank/Billy as an extremely fucked up, dysfunctional pairing, so feel free to go dark if you match on that one. I'm open to Frank having (resentful, angry) feelings too, or for it to be totally one-sided.
I see Frank/Karen as a pairing of two tough, damaged people who are tender and romantic and ride-or-die with each other. I'd prefer not to go in a super-fluffy or marriage-and-babies direction with them.
Canon-specific DNWs: Dr. Krista Dumont. I'd prefer that you ignore the coda at the end of S2 (after the bus station scene.) Temporary death is fine but no permanent death for Frank, Karen, or the Liebermans.
ALL: Amateur Theatre Group
I've done a lot of amateur and low-level pro theatre, mostly as a stage manager, and when I saw this AU, I realized how hilariously well it fit the Punisher cast. Moody method actor Frank! Put-upon stage manager David! Or some other configuration of your choice.
ALL: Dimension hopping to find a timeline that isn't doomed
ALL: Dimension travel
ALL: Groundhog Day timeloop
ALL: Going back in time to fix the future
ALL: Groundhog Peggy Sue
ALL: Possessed by time travelling future self
I'm thinking of these as a Terminator/X-Men style "the whole future world is fucked" or a more personal but still really disastrous "everyone dies" future (so they're traveling back to canon-present or alternate canon timelines to fix something that happens post-canon) rather than traveling to canon-past or alternate canon timelines to undo stuff that actually happened in canon, like Frank's family's death. However, if you're doing Frank/Billy, Frank trying to undo Billy becoming a villain would be cool.
Both these AUs remind me of a big theme in the show, which is how soldiers who come home from the war are returning to a world that should be better, but they don't fit in and it feels wrong and too soft, and yet it is better. Maybe Frank, or Frank and Billy (at cross purposes), or Frank and Karen (sole survivors?), come back from the fucked future/bad timeline and have to deal with living in a world they're trying to save but don't know if they can ever live in. Maybe the Liebermans are from the fucked future and team up with Frank because he can do things they can't and also seems out of time/place, though for a completely different reason. I could see Amy as a tunnel rat or some such from the fucked future, side-eyeing people from this softer one.
ALL: Gateway (Frederic Pohl) Fusion
In this haunting novel, people find alien ships that they don't quite understand, so you can fly them, but you have no idea until it's too late where they're going or how long the trip will be or if you'll arrive somewhere you can't survive or somewhere that will make you rich or save the world. Some ships never return at all; some return with the pilots dead. Plenty of people are desperate enough to try it.
In canon, the ships fit only specific numbers of people, so I see Frank and Billy trapped together in a Two (or permanently bonded/fucked up by having experienced that) or Frank and Karen bonding and surviving against the odds, or the Liebermans realizing they can't get a ship unless they take on one more prospector to fit a Five... and there is that one angry, damaged guy who's been the sole survivor so often that no one wants to ship out with him...
ALL: Shadows of the Apt fusion
David is clearly the Aptest kinden to ever Apt, but what about the others? (Could be a mixed marriage!) Is Frank an Assassin Bug? Is Billy one kinden disguised as another? Is David forever opening doors for a very ungracious Frank?
ALL: Characters are soulbonded to psychic wolves
ALL: Dinosaurs & Tropical-Type Climate & Flora Survived to Canon Time Period
ALL: Megafauna Survived To Canon Time Period
I just really like psychic wolves and megafauna.
The Stand - Stephen King
Alice Underwood & Maria the Oral Hygienist
Rita Blakemoor & Ray Flowers & Peter Goldsmith & Jesse Rider & Alice Underwood
Solo: Alice Underwood
Solo: Maria the Oral Hygienist
Solo: Ray Flowers
Solo: Rita Blakemoor
ALL: Canon Divergence AU
The Stand - Stephen King: Different characters survive the plague
The Stand - Stephen King: Plague survivors get superpowers
Feel free to mix-and-match, or include any canon characters, including ones I didn't request or ones not in the tagset. I like everyone. I'm a multishipper generally so you can sell me on anything. I loved Kathy Bates' Rae Flowers from the 90s miniseries so putting her in book canon is an option if you match on Ray.
One of the reasons the pre-plague and during-plague sections of the book are so memorable is the wealth of vivid supporting and even cameo characters, like Maria the oral hygienist. She's really just there so we can see Larry pointlessly being a dick, but she feels like a real person even though we only get a glimpse of her. You just know that she's on the phone to her girlfriends bitching about Larry as soon as he gets out of her throwing range.
I'd love to see how these characters, who either died during the plague or whose fate we never learned, would do if they survived instead. Would Rita Blakemoor have done better if she'd run into Alice Underwood instead of Larry? How would Peter Goldsmith and Jesse Rider have coped if they'd been the sole survivors instead of Frannie and Harold, and were now stuck together in awkward partnership? How would Ray Flowers bring his dedication to speaking truth to power to a world where literal forces of good and evil are engaged in a giant game of tug-of-war over the remaining human beings? Who would call to Jesse Rider, and who would he follow?
Also I always enjoy it when the plague gives you superpowers, especially if the powers have unsettling drawbacks and/or reflect something of your personality.
Torchwood
Gwen Cooper & Jack Harkness & Owen Harper & Ianto Jones & Toshiko Sato
ALL: Canon is the evil mirror dimension
ALL: Characters Discover They Are The Evil Mirror Versions of Themselves
I love this crew of terrible sad fuckups. It would be heartbreaking and hilarious for them to discover a "good" mirrorverse and realize that makes them the bad mirror.
The Wilds
Dot & Fatin & Leah & Martha & Nora & Rachel & Shelby & Toni
Dot & Fatin & Leah & Martha & Rachel & Shelby & Toni
Shelby Goodkind/Toni Shalifoe
Dot Campbell/Fatin Jadmani
Fatin Jadmani/Leah Rilke
I love all the girls. I'm a multi-shipper and while the above ships are my favorites, you can sell me on anything but incest. I would prefer that Gretchen and her people not have a large role, with the exception of Jeannette/Linh if you'd like to include her. (I would definitely enjoy an AU where she didn't die.) For the ones with large groups, you don't need to focus on everyone equally.
Please leave the boys out. If you want to set your story in S2 or afterward, please assume everything is the same except the boys were taken somewhere else and the girls never met them. I'm totally fine with a post-S2 story where Seth is tormenting them from the radio tower, so long as the rest of the boys are absent and he gets what's coming to him.
Explicit sex is fine (though not necessary) for this fandom; I assume the girls are all 18 or older by the time they get to the island.
Here's a set of "What if the experiment was actually something else or something additional" AUs.
ALL: Everyone wakes up amnesiac
ALL: Everyone wakes up amnesiac on a spaceship
In this case, the experiment would be to see how the girls recreate/imagine their selves and create a community without knowing their backgrounds or previous relationships. (I imagine they do know their names, or wake up with name badges, or some such.) What would it be like for, say, Shelby to be freed from the image she tries to live up to? And what happens when they find out?
ALL: Superheroes/Superpowers
On the island, but the experiment is to give them powers. I'd love it if the powers related to their personalities or backgrounds in some way. "My superpower is a curse" and "My superpower is killing me" are also good.
ALL: Tethered (Us) AU
What if their dark and hidden selves were literalized and released?
ALL: Characters are soulbonded to psychic wolves
ALL: Finisterre (Cherryh Night Horses) Fusion
ALL: Characters Have Or Acquire Fire Lizards
I just really love animal bonding and how your animals say something about you. Fire lizard mating flights would be pretty great for this canon too.
ALL: Annihilation AU
ALL: Building a settlement on a frontier planet
ALL: The Leftovers Two Percent World AU
I feel like any of these would fit very well with canon, as the girls are alone in a strange land and forced to fend for themselves and lean on each other. The Two Percent World is the premise that 98% of the world's population vanishes with no explanation.
ALL: Character plays a game with Death in exchange for their/somebody else's life
This could work with the moments of surrealism/magical realism, like Leah's meetings with Ben Folds.
ALL: Court of Night-Blooming Flowers (Kushiel’s Dart) AU
And this one is basically me wondering how the characters would be sorted into houses. If you do this one, I would like some sex please.
ALL: Groundhog Day timeloop
ALL: Groundhog Peggy Sue
ALL: Possessed by time travelling future self
Is that why Leah is so sure something is wrong? Is Nora trying to fix things for Rachel, again and again and again until she gets it right? Or if you wanted to do a classic "time loop is broken by characters getting together," this would be delightful for Shelby/Toni or Leah/Fatin.
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