Dear Trick or Treat Author

[seikasoter]

Dear author,

Hello! May your Hallowe'en be as fun or scary as you want it to be! (I'm good at commitment, can you tell?)

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. G!P is not my kink.

Rating – from General to Explicit, it's fine. Whatever feels right for your inspiration and story. Serious gore or fetishes are a turn off, but I can handle most of what you’re throwing at me. My prompts generally land on the more chaste side of things but, if you’re going unprompted or just feel like it fits your story, I have no objection to smut.

I'm Seika on AO3, and I have my works 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: the "only" constraints are the fandom, characters, medium, and trick/treat choice, which you've all seen already on the AO3 form. I am very happy for you to remember that all this is optional, 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.

Trick or Treat specifics
I feel doubtful that I'll get extra gifts, seeing that my requests are for obscure enough fandoms that I'll probably have a hard enough time being matched. Nevertheless, if anyone feels like throwing extra gifts my way that ignore the trick/treat preferences and medium, I'd be delighted to receive them.


Now, with apologies for the length ...



Fandom Specifics

Magic: the Gathering
Chandra, Nissa, Jace, Gideon
If you’re so inclined, I’d like to do some shipping here: Wizards have been very good lately about offering up queer themes in their work, from Alesha to the Innistrad foresters Hal and Alena, but I'd like to see that capitalised upon a bit more in the main cast. Chandra and Nissa’s confused puppy-love has been coming out strongly since Homesick, and Jace’s regard for Gideon doesn’t exactly look platonic either (“And Gideon with his broad shoulders and ready smile, and—”). A treat on one or other or both relationships would be much appreciated, whether it’s them getting together or what they do when they are together.

Otherwise, some single-character prompts:
Chandra – Chandra isn’t often seen with natural fire. I’d quite like to think about that: say she finds a plane where a wildfire is raging over some vast stretch of deserted land. What does she see in it; what does she admire about it? Alternatively, how about something on her hair catching fire – finding out that this was a persistent thing it was going to do, learning to try to control it, something funny that happened when she failed.

Nissa – Nissa was, to put it mildly, not happy with Innistrad’s soul and mana: harsh and dark even before Nahiri twisted it and Emrakul fouled it. So what are the sorts of planes where Nissa finds their soul beautiful? How are they different from Zendikar, which she first loved, e.g. without the ever-present anger of the Roil? See for example the Kaladesh card Attune with Aether, which was spoiled hours after I wrote this prompt.

Jace – Something Guildpact-y: maybe one of those days when Jace gets to do something that really makes all the headaches of ruling an entire plane worth it. Or Lavinia low-key trolling him over his responsibilities in that Azorius way, like when she arranged all his stacks of paperwork into a maze he had to navigate after he came back from Zendikar. All in the name of making sure the Living Guildpact can efficiently attend to his duties, obviously.

Gideon – Days with the Irregulars, back when he was Kytheon. A time when they could forget their circumstances and just laugh, and Kytheon felt the pressure lifted from his shoulders just for a little while.




Baldur’s Gate
Imoen
Imoen – Something pre- or post-Bhaalspawn War, I think. What’s your take on Imoen first coming to Candlekeep and meeting CHARNAME, for example, and beginning to see that she might be able to make a home there with Gorion and Winthrop and this other kid with whom she feels a strange kind of connexion?
Or, how did she feel when CHARNAME laid down their divinity too and they could return to the world as two siblings untainted and unguided by prophecy? (Alternatively, perhaps, how did she feel at CHARNAME’s ascension, bearing in mind that this is a treat? CHARNAME was “strange among their kin” for their soul’s reaction to the taint, and is heavily implied to have a much more significant part of Bhaal’s essence than Imoen. Is there relief, in a way, that CHARNAME has been able to live up to the weighty destiny that’s always seemed to be laid on their shoulders and which has frankly scared Imoen? A gladness that Imoen’s helped see them through to something that she’s felt could be coming for some time now? Certainly there’ll be a pain at parting, but coming out a victor in the Bhaalspawn War and becoming a deity is still a triumph in no uncertain terms).


Emelan
Rizu, Daja

Rizu – In which Rizu falls rather harder for this strange visitor to the court – and how strange! A Trader (and yet a craftswoman), a practitioner of strange magics even Ishabal and Quen are wary of, a grower of living metal, an adopted-sister to a great noblewoman of the realm (and neither she nor Sandry ever seem totally aware of this, at least not in a way Rizu recognises). But she falls all the same, and when Daja asks her to leave, she says yes. What’s that like in the moment? What’s it like in that terrifying time before they leave and she has to think over all she’s giving up? What’s it like when they’re hurrying to the border and being harried by Berenene’s hounds? What’s it like when Namorn’s protections are raised against them and the Circle are trying to break through? What’s it like trying to fit in Emelan, so far from home? And what’s it like when she finds the moment that not only makes it worth all that, but cements her decision to stay.

Daja – if Rizu isn’t in the picture, then what’s it like for Daja after Namorn, in terms of relationships? Whom does she start the healing process with after Rizu turned out not to be all she hoped? Whom does she explore her new-found sexuality with? What terribly embarrassing wisdom does Lark (or, gods forbid, Rosethorn) share?

Neverwinter Nights
Kaelyn the Dove, Safiya, The Founder

Kaelyn -

What was the Fourth Crusade like? (If Akachi’s was the first, Kaelyn’s the second, and the Spirit-Eater’s the third). For a trick, tell me the story of Kaelyn’s wings turning black. What made that first feather emerge or change from white to black? (When the Third Crusade ended with the Wall yet intact?) When did she see it – did she find out by herself, or did someone else spot it and tell her? What other notes of betrayal and despair in the depths of the Planes – hiding from the gods and gathering dubious allies and mounting her raids – darkened her wings? When did she lose her last white feather?
For a treat, tell me why she goes on anyway. Tell me about the souls in the Wall who scream and cry in the gods’ instrument of torment, but who still somehow know that they have a rescuer out there who could come for them, a champion who wants to protect them, a crusader who values even the Faithless. An angel.

Safiya/The Founder
(I use these characters as a catch-all for the group, the four fragments of Akachi's lover, since Nefris and Lienna apparently aren’t canonical on AO3 presently).
This prompt could probably go trick or treat either way: say something about the division of the Founder into her parts: the aged remnant, Headmistress (powerful and mothering) Nefris, curious Lienna, innocent Safiya. How did the Founder come to the decision? How did she come to accomplish it, given all the horrific foul-ups we see in the Academy over soul division and replication? Were there revelations as the parts of her soul were branched off, and did she change anything in her plan between the creation of the earlier fragments (born together as the Coven’s description of ‘twins’ suggest? One after the other?) and then Safiya? What’s left in the Founder after they’re divided: has she lost her drive to Nefris, her curiosity to Lienna, her past to Safiya? Is the only way she can feel them through the links in their soul? Or are they reflections of something still in her, just sharpened by their independence?