Dear Treat or Treat Author ('21)

Dear ToT Author,
I'm already more than halfway impressed you matched my requests at all, because I went very self-indulgent on this round. I thank you so much for matching with me and for tolerating my ramblings. I hope you're inspired, and most of all I hope you have fun!

Some general preferences
Yes, please – extra/missing scenes which fit the gaps of canon; unbreakable friendships; teamwork; standing battered but triumphant; character introspection; a touch of the bittersweet; any other characters you want to add that I haven’t already discussed or nominated.

No, thank you – In general, a lot of the common plug-and-play AUs which significantly alter the background of the setting (e.g. ABO, D/s, vampires/werewolves, Hogwarts/school, daemons, total de-powering rather than just backgrounding supernatural elements) – I like a lot of these series not just for their characters but also for their worlds and the effect those worlds then have on their characters. If you’re hit really hard by a generic modern AU, that’s something I can take though. Character bashing: a villainous story role is fine; it’s when the author is clearly frustrated with a character and taking it out on them that I tune out. What I understand specifically by 'futa' or 'G!P' - that is, sticking a penis on a cis woman for the sake of making sure there's dick involved in sex - is not my kink, though actual trans women are fine.

Rating – from General to Explicit, it's fine. Whatever feels right for your inspiration and story. Serious gore or fetishes (vore, scat, et al.) are a turn off, but I can handle most of what you’re throwing at me. My prompts generally don't stray too far toward the sexy side of things but, if you’re going unprompted or just feel like it fits your story, I can definitively say I have no objection to smut.

I'm Seika on AO3, and I have my works, my previous gifts, and some of my bookmarks public, often with notes on them, so you can glance through those if you're inclined to keep researching my bad taste.

Obviously, by the terms of the exchange, everything here is optional. I'm very happy for you to remember that, and to take advantage of it: please don't strain anything trying to fit your writing into my ideas. I'm trying to help spark off some thoughts if you aren't immediately seized by one, not to confine you. That's why my prompts often throw out a scattershot of questions and instances at you, even contradictory ones - you're free to pick up as many or as few threads as you'd like. If a single phrase inspires you, I'll be content.


Warframe ('fic, treat)
Lotus - Obviously, there's a certain amount of difficulty understanding exactly what went on with Lotus in the past right now, given she's ... not such a reliable source, especially while seemingly controlled by her """family""". I'd be very interested in a little glimpse at how you think her involvement in the Old War went down, a more direct interpretation and account than the game's given us. Did she really get caught by the Orokin and reprogrammed? Is that a lie the Sentients are just telling her to control her? Did she genuinely just come to care for the Tenno as the other family/victims of the Orokin, and the children she couldn't have?

Another direction might be the long Sleep-Without-Dream that Lotus arranged for the Tenno after the Old War had ended: the concealment of Lua in the Void, Warframes going into stasis, and the gradual loss of memories of being Operators. Why did Lotus think this was necessary? How great an effort was it to arrange everything? Presumably it was done with Tenno consent - what was the conversation like? Was she sad as she left her children to sleep without being able to talk to them, having to wait by herself for whatever event might need the Tenno once more?

Lotus & Operator - Okay, look. I am really sad for my Operator right now, and quite sad for Lotus, and I would really like them both to be happy again. The moment in the Sacrifice when the Operator begged Ordis "I'd like to hear her" and then could ask for the line where Lotus tells us "My child... so beautiful to behold. How do you feel?" broke my heart.

Screw the Orokin and screw the Sentients. I want Space Mum and Space Child (Soldier) to be back together in their extremely unhealthy co-dependent relationship. You might just portray a moment of tenderness between them at some point in their relationship, or you might outright portray the Lotus' recovery. That could be an active rescue of her from the Sentients and Ballas, completely with some righteous Tenno fury; it could be just the aftermath of that battle, as we reassure her that we're back and she's no longer under their control; or it could be in the time afterwards as she has to readjust to her freedom and her free will, and tentatively tries to rebuild the relationship (which, of course, the Operator never gave up on).

For the L&O prompt, please fluff and maybe some hurt/comfort, not anything too bitter: I really want this one to turn out positively. (And have a terrible feeling canon won't give me my wish).


The Authority ('fic, trick or treat)
Jenny/Shen - Jenny and Shen in the Secret History have a rather sweet, casual, almost domestic relationship. They will tease each other acidly, Shen giving as good as she gets to Jenny, in a way the other members of the team don't usually hit back. But Jenny also shows about as vulnerable a side to Shen as we ever get to see from her, at least when she's not very drunk, and Shen is gentle in her comforting. You might just show more of that; or you might show it came about in the first place.

Jenny/Angie - Angie plays off Jenny in a bit of a different way. Jenny's cynical, beaten down, worn out, and trying to truck on through it all to do good despite that. Angie's new to the game, more open and cheerful, and even a bit more scared, of the situations the Authority gets into and of what it does to solve them. And still, there's a lot alike in them too. Perhaps most of all, Jenny often lights up thinking about her age of "Scientific Romance" and the positives of the future, and that's Angie in a nutshell. I'd like to see how they play off each other, how they make their relationship work.

Other possibilities for Angie: Jenny's first reaction to her time-travelling is to hope that they're not lesbians together. Why did Jenny's mind just happen to jump there, I wonder? What did Angie do to convince her it wouldn't be such a bad relationship? If you like, you could even get future-Angie stuck in 1919 and build something in that time period. Instead, for another angle, what kind of emotions does Angie bring up in Jenny as a successor to the old Engineer, the one who ran with The High and seemed, like him, to be one of the group with genuinely good intentions? What does that mean to her?


A final prompt (trending more to the trick than the treat of the above two) that could apply to both: not having gone much past the first run, I've never seen these two really mourning Jenny - either Shen as a comrade of some years, or Angela as part of her team for a few hectic months (even if they technically met eighty-odd years ago). I think there's a lot of poignancy to be drawn out here.


Planescape: Torment ('fic, trick or treat)

(I've included some text quotes from the game here, since it's not always easy or reliable to get them to pop up yourself)

Annah - A fun little ficlet here could just be Annah's PoV when she first sees this absurd berk with a million questions coming up to her in the Hive: a berk, at that, whom she's pretty sure she remembers handing off to the Dusties...

A bit more of an in-depth, weird prompt: Grace once suggests she'd have been interested in adopting Annah if she'd found her on the streets, and bringing her at the Brothel. (Grace in generally is enormously protective of and kind towards Annah, to a surprising degree). Still, honestly, Annah has a major dislike for Grace, and continually harps on about her treachery and her fiendish nature (which is, obviously, ironic). So how would she react to this crazy, chaste succubus trying to adopt her? What would she be like at the Brothel, brought there either at a pretty young age or as a more awkward kind of teenager? What kind of chaos would she cause? How would she develop and grow up? Maybe how would she react to TNO if he later happened around?

"Hey, don't let the fiendling get to you, Grace. She's just not as pretty as she'd like to be."
"No, she's not pretty. But she might easily be beautiful."

"She is strong and capable, and she is quite passionate. I almost wish I had met her long ago and asked her to come to the Brothel... perhaps things might have been different." Grace studies you for a moment. "What do you think of her?"


Fall-From-Grace - TNO, classically, says the key to all the planes, the key to "what can change the nature of a man?", and the key to any hope for his redemption, is 'belief'. Grace? Grace says it's love.

"Because love would not allow it - and it can bend even the strongest to its will." Fall-From-Grace voice is soft, questioning. "Does it not, Ravel?"

"I would say this - love may move the Planes themselves when it is strong and true, and there is nothing truer in all of my experiences that the truth about one *feels* about another."

"Before you seek to guard others from your feelings, know this - love is powerful, so powerful that it found its way into Ravel's twisted black heart and its touch caused her to value another more than herself. Do you not know the *strength* required to change a heart such as Ravel's? For all the pain it may have caused, I think there is something to be said for the good it has created."

So how, really, did she come to think that? One can understand a succubus having some second thoughts about the raw evil of tanar'ri practices after her backstory, but ... how did she come to so revere love itself? Or, given that she believes this so strongly, why set up a Brothel for Slaking Intellectual Lusts? How does she see the debate, curiosity, and interchange of ideas she fosters there nurture more love across the Planes?

Or, you could write about the fulfilment of Grace's final promise to The Nameless/Transcendent One at the very end of the game.

I CANNOT REMAIN HERE FOR MUCH LONGER. MY PUNISHMENT CALLS, AND FATE AND TIME SHALL SOON BE HERE. I WILL RETURN YOU TO SIGIL, IF YOU WISH.
"That is not my wish." Fall-From-Grace reaches forward, and her hand lightly touches your arm. There is a slight tingling sensation, barely felt, then she takes it away. "I *will* find you again, no matter where in the Lower Planes you will be - just as you shall be able to find me."
IT MAY BE A LONG TIME. WHERE I AM BOUND, TIME IS NOT MEASURED IN YEARS. AND THE CRIMES I HAVE COMMITTED ARE STRONGER THAN ANY CAGE.
"No cage shall separate us, and no Plane shall divide us." Fall-From-Grace's face becomes like stone. "Keep thinking of me, and we shall meet again."
I SHALL NOT FORGET ALL YOU SACRIFICED FOR ME.
She shakes her head. "Just do not forget me."
TIME LAYS WASTE TO ALL THINGS. BUT I SHALL FIGHT IT AS LONG AS I CAN.
"Time is not your enemy. Forever is."

When, where, how do they reunite? What memories remain, in either of them? What has passed over that time, or over that forever, for them both?


League of Legends ('fic, trick or treat)
Illaoi - The obvious, predominant (very bad, if you'll excuse me saying so) event here is Rise of the Sentinels. Illaoi is a priestess of motion, change, life and basically everything that isn't an undead psycho trying to resurrect his wife. She drives back the black mist from all of Bilgewater by the invocation of her god, purifies the damned souls within.

So where the fuck was she meant to be and what was she meant to be doing in RoS? Especially while Bilgewater again got a Harrowing dropped on it?

IDK, gimme a big, cool fight scene against the wraiths or the Ruined or Viego; or gimme some interactions with the Sentinels in her rather hilarious and straightforward way; or just give her something interesting to do amidst this cataclysm.

Alternatively, if we don't want to touch that with a ten-foot pole, Illaoi once promised she would test Miss Fortune as she'd tested Gangplank. What did that look like? What did she see of Sarah in that test? How did she think of her by comparison to GP? What was the aftermath like? (Did she then compare them ... in bed?)

Diana/Leona - again, obviously, the easyish way to go here is Diana as a Sentinel fighting a potentially ruined Leo. You might replace Atreus at the peak of Mount Targon with Leona, see how Leona reacts a little differently to Viego and to the subsequent corruption, how Diana reacts to that in turn, have a nice fight between them; you could follow Diana's thoughts of Leona as she remains corrupted through the rest of the event; you could then parcel off Diana and Leona having a second fight at the climax of the event, with Diana desperate to break through to Leo, and finally a happy(?) reunion.

Other possibilities: Leona coming across Diana's slowly rebuilding enclaves of Lunari on Mount Targon after the ruination, and seeing Diana making progress there; character piece on the actual Aspects of Sun and Moon, and how they feel about their hosts being once - and possibly future - lovers.


Baldur's Gate ('fic, trick or treat)
General note: I don't play the EEs, so anything to do with them will fly over my head.

Viconia - I'd be interested to see some expansion on Viconia's cut content for BGII. In Ust Natha, she was meant to betray the party to the drow (specifically the minor house Jae'llat, who ended up as part of the Jarlaxle plotline), before recognising that House DeVir had fallen and no longer offered any protection for her, and so coming back to rescue everyone from being sacrificed to Lolth (and help kill the Jae'llat Matron Mother who was the only one who knew about the party being surfacers). Various characters get to react to the betrayal and repentance, Viconia can show off some of her normal defiance and sullenness around things not going her way. (A deep friendship romance might also put a different spin on this, with CHARNAME being more shocked or more understanding).

I will also say that I'm a pretty big fan of Viconia's BGI characterisation, where she's a little more naïve about the surface world and a little more open to people who'll actually show her kindness. A little 'fic showing the progression as she starts to find her place among the party and extend some trust would be sweet.

Imoen/Female Charname - I think this relationship can go all sorts of ways, and I basically love all of them. Among the possibilities:

- childhood friends: the two of them as they grow up together in Candlekeep, the hints of a connexion between them, silly and sheltered teenage girlfriends in a fortress with basically no other kids;

- hurt/comfort: Imoen looking after a distraught Charname for the first day and night in the wilderness after Gorion's death, or after a breakdown at the FAI; Charname trying so hard to get through to the dazed and confused Imoen in Spellhold; their more conscious reunion after Irenicus has left Charname soulless too, and they're dumped bleeding physically and spiritually into Bodhi's maze; Imoen trying to help Charname when she's taken her soul back from Bodhi, but Charname is still struggling with Irenicus' theft...

- happily ever after: the pair of them released from the wars and the personal torments of their blood, and either finally beginning a relationship or being able to enjoy and explore it far more than they could before.