morbane

Welcome and thank you for your interest in my prompts! I'm

Morbane at AO3, and this year I have requested Emelan - Tamora Pierce, Jane of Lantern Hill - L. M. Montgomery, Scholomance - Naomi Novik, Westworld (TV), The Chain - Fleetwood Mac (Song), and Love & Legends (Visual Novel).

My letter-writing skills are rusty and I've reviewed some of these canons more recently than others. I really would like a fic in any of them regardless of the length of prompts. Reading this letter is of course optional; I hope my sign-up/app details are useful on their own, and of course those prompts are optional to follow too.

General likes/dislikes

Do Not Wants:
-Dementia & similar cognitive impairment; amnesia (whether tropey or realistic)
-Drug/similar abuse & dependency & poor decision-making due to chemical influences
-Harm to hands
-Infidelity
-Sexual violence
Please see individual requests for exceptions to these DNWs and how I'd prefer canon instances to be handled.

Likes: I love original characters, outsider character perspectives, and worldbuilding. I like Big Damn Hero moments, and also days in the life, or stories about people who are just trying to make it by in a weird world. I love competence and loyalty. I like uplifting and hopeful messages, and protagonists who champion them. I also like genuinely terrible characters and tragic arcs, and villains with strong motivations and critiques of the protagonists' goals. Characters are welcome in any shade of grey. I like seeing characters screw up and then learn (or not) from their mistakes.

I love magical realism, dramatic weather, trains, telepathy, dragons, and Fae courts and changelings. I like getting a strong sense of time or place, whether it's ours or historical or fantastical. Clothing and transport and etiquette details are wonderful.

For porn, I love telepathy, praise kink, and awkward-but-not-emotionally-disastrous sex; intense oh-god-I-can't-believe-it's-so-good sex; gentle and loving sex. I love emotional intimacy whether or not it comes with physical intimacy. I love mentors and protegé(e) relationships, and relationships between characters who are juggling multiple identities. I love seeing the relationship between two characters at one point in time, and then seeing it again when the relationship is very different. I opt in to break-ups and bitter arguments.

I love it when authors incorporate something about which they have enthusiasm or specialized knowledge, however mundane or weird that thing is.

You're welcome to write in past or present tense. I'm enthusiastic about second and first person as well as third. Epistolary and found-media formats are welcome. I am also opting in to poetry.

Crossover and fusion suggestions: I enjoy crossovers and fusions! Here's a short and very arbitrary list of other canons that might be fun to mix with my requests: Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries; Pokémon (Gens I to III especially, or Pokémon Go); Black Jewels; The Good Place; Sucker Punch (2011); The Neverending Story - Michael Ende (book NOT movie); Wodehouse's Psmith; Dragonriders of Pern; Puella Magi Madoka Magica; Labyrinth (1986); Swan Lake ballet.

Emelan - Tamora Pierce

Trisana Chandler (Gift must contain this character)

From my sign-up: I have an unoriginal but very sincere desire for Tris at Lightsbridge. Academic magic was a path her family explored and ruled out for her (painfully!) early on, and she got the training and support she needed in a very different way... And yet, now that she's so skilled in her most natural power, academic magic could actually be an unorthodox path to finding a good place in the world, and I love that.

I'd love every detail you can make up or give me about Lightsbridge education. Make it feel different to modern higher education and I'll be enthralled. Obviously to start with there's a quasi-medieval setting, but also, how does Lightsbridge usually handle scholars who have a purely theoretical interest vs. those who are expecting to learn to wield power? I have to assume that there are careers and utilities based around knowing how magic works even if you can't wield it yourself. People employing mages, writing laws about mages, defending their realms from and with mages - all need knowledge of how academic magic works.

There are some angles on this I really don't want, even though I've found them satisfying to read at other times. I do not want a story in which people are outrageously prejudiced and wrong about ambient magic (they can be a little wrong! that's fine), and Tris helps take them down a peg. I do not want a story in which Tris has to expose her awesome powers after having initially planned not to, even in the context of being a hero. I just want Tris to get to explore more a more mundane life, one that doesn't inevitably end with being asked to join a war or with people scared of her for her capacity for spying and destruction.

That's not to say you can't explore darker magic themes! What are the ethics around the practice of academic magic? I'm happy with a story about people crossing the boundaries.

I would love to see Tris learn, and take joy in learning and books.

And that's a theme I'd love for you to explore in general if you'd prefer not to write Tris at Lightsbridge. If that's not speaking to you, I'd really like a relationship study of Tris with any one of her siblings or any one of the mentors. I feel like fandom and the rest of canon satisfies my current urge for Circle ensemble fic, but if you want to write a story about Tris and Niko, or Tris and Daja, or Tris and Sandry, or even Tris and Frostpine (etc) I could go for that too.

More thoughts: My favourites of these books, reading in adolescence, were Tris' Book and Daja's Book, and then after that, Will of the Empress is probably my favourite for balancing worldbuilding with a thoughtful look at the four's developing needs and wants in life. I felt dismayed along with Daja at the idea that the four could not go back to Winding Circle to live together, but am content now at the idea that they may live apart or pursue different careers but their bond may remain. So I'd enjoy seeing Tris continue to pursue what will make her personally happy, even if that doesn't take her back to Cheeseman Street any time soon, even if she's always welcome and comfortable there.

I enjoy Tris getting to use her magic in unexpected ways, and having her world expanded through learning about other people's unexpected magic use. As part of the Lightsbridge plot - as it's been alluded to so far - I would enjoy the mild drama of her taking on another identity. One particular way that might be fun is if you write her from the outsider perspective of an OC. But again I'd really prefer this doesn't lead to a dramatic reveal of her full powers.

Shipping Tris is welcome but not at all required.

Jane of Lantern Hill - L. M. Montgomery

Robin Stuart (Gift must contain this character)

From my sign-up: This book was a childhood favourite and I enjoyed Jane's adventures so much. I loved her learning to cook and I loved her friendships and her cats. When I moved out of home, every time I had to hunt for new accommodation, I called upon Jane's joy and enthusiasm for house-hunting to bolster me.

However, on my most recent read, I was completely ambushed by feelings about Robin. First, Jane adores her mother, and Jane is very persuasive. But also, Jane's story has a romance novel lurking in its background and it's kind of fascinating to see things from that perspective.

I want to see Robin as the heroine of her own story: she is the spoiled, favourite child, with plenty of learned helplessness and a flexible spine - and yet she is not witless, and her capacity to love and seek joy is not quenched. She doesn't contradict Grandmother's plans for Jane - but she raises Jane in love, and leaves a door open for Jane to learn to love her father.

As part of Jane's journey, she comes to realize that both of her parents have flaws. Maybe her father should have stood up for Robin against Aunt Irene's meddling. Maybe her mother should be braver. But, thinking on that, I'd like to see the reverse: choices her mother made, or small ways she was brave or true to herself, that Jane would never have seen or might not have understood if she could have seen them.

I'm really fascinated by Robin's world! On a very basic level: in the early part of canon, what did she DO all day? What were her entertainments and the circles she moved in? Her (Grandmother-approved) friendships? Absolutely dive into her relationship with her half-siblings. I know very little about this place and time and I'd love historical detail. If that's your thing, you could basically give me a Robin Stuart née Kennedy fashion show, with the loosest of narrative binding it together, and I'd eat it up.

Robin's fear of "losing" Jane, because of Jane's developing bond with Andrew, was really poignant. I'd love a further exploration of that from her perspective.

And another prompt: I loved the promise of the Toronto lake house in their future, and how Jane will love it. I'd love to see them settle there, Robin figuring out her own feelings about how well Jane takes to domestic management, Jane surprised and delighted to learn any preferences her mother expresses.

Regarding Andrew - I'm okay with a critical view of him, but please don't go all in. Whatever you write, I'd like to finish reading it still feeling positive about canon's ending and the idea of them getting back together (even if that requires some character development for him). Please give me an Andrew that Robin can love, such that I don't feel grim about Robin's future with him!

More thoughts: If you want to try a crossover for this one, I'd prefer it stay mundane - but maybe Voigt's Callender Papers, or Wodehouse's Psmith? Or, a stealth crossover with something I don't know would be fine, as long as it's in service of giving Robin some friends or acquaintances or even merely interesting encounters at a party. I really would love to see Robin's social circle.

The social fiction that Robin is a widow is interestingly tense. Does Grandmother go around telling everyone that? Does Robin have close girlfriends who know the truth? How do they manage the fallout when Robin and Andrew reconcile? (Bonus points if the answer to that allows you to showcase Andrew exhibiting grace, or Robin exhibiting courage or grace.)

We reach a point in canon where Robin admits she hates living in her mother's household. When did she realise that? When she initially eloped with Andrew, was it a movement mainly towards something she wanted, or was there something about her mother's household even then she specifically wanted to gain distance from? When she came back with Jane Victoria, did she ever think it was for the best? Or not? When Jane and Grandmother clashed, was part of her glad?

Scholomance - Naomi Novik

El Higgins, The Scholomance, Worldbuilding (Gift must contain El and Worldbuilding)

From my sign-up: I'd particularly love a story about El in her first couple of years at the Scholomance. She arrived wary and well-prepared, but I can't imagine it's an easy adjustment for anyone (Orion doesn't count). Tell me about the ways her mother's stories and the handbook and so on did NOT match the (un)reality of the school.

Speaking of the school: we see the Scholomance delivering very pointed hints and directions, which often seem cruel (even if cruel to be kind, prioritising survival). And at the point in canon where we first meet El, she's furiously cynical. But we also learn the Scholomance cares in its way, and there's more humanity in El's fellow students than she thinks. So I'd be interested either in the harsh lessons she had to learn... or in missed moments, where two people who could have been friends misread each other, or couldn't yet risk trust, but were capable of it. Give me horror and trauma but sow the seeds of hope.

Dark humour, OCs, and minor character deaths welcome! End any scenario with "and it all went horribly wrong", because this is the Scholomance, so of course it did. Maybe someone tried to keep an actual pet mal.

If you were really hoping to write post-canon, I am also interested in El's cover story life, and what she has to pretend to be doing and the negotiations she has to engage in that make it look like she's NOT suspiciously busy pursuing her actual goals. I'm fond of pretty much any other character, but any of Aadhya, Yi Liu, and Chloe would make me particularly happy, and I'd also love more Gwen. [This is where my exception comes into play - you don't need to include the Scholomance as a character if writing postcanon, and I'm also happy with the Scholomance as barely a suggestion of a character if writing early Scholomance years.]

More thoughts: Before the release of A Deadly Education, I read an excerpt and bounced very hard off it. But when I actually read the full work, I had such a good time with El's prickly, competent, non-stop exposition. The style of explaining the world reminds me favorably of McKinley's Sunshine. The monsters are fun! The rules are fun! The spells are fun! The different affinities and course tracks are fun! And I enjoyed the way El's thoughts are often trying to justify taking the easy way out - all while her feet are marching her inexorably into danger. She gives herself less of a choice even than she pretends that she does.

And by the time we meet her, she's done a lot of surviving and she does basically know the ropes - but I'm so fascinated to see the path along the way. Especially, for every confident pronouncement about the rules of the Scholomance, I am reminded that they were discovered by a particularly fraught process of trial and error, so I'd love for her to be mistaken about some of it: maybe the Scholomance does a thing to try to achieve a particular result in behavior, and it is interpreted a certain way that isn't what the Scholomance intended, and the Scholomance has to do the sentient school version of a shrug and work with that assumption. I'd love to see the school's tactics changing from year to year. When El was in her first year of the school, I bet the senior students' dynamics were quite different from, say, the senior students' dynamics when it was Clarita about to graduate.

The Scholomance doesn't just have to teach wizard children to survive magical horrors, it has to take them through adolescence, so allusions to that in all its dark humor would be fun. No sexual violence please (whether you want to achieve that by worldbuilding or handwaving).

For crossovers, I'm especially tempted by the idea of the Murderbot Diaries. I feel that Murderbot and El have a lot in common, whether they want to or not. For this and other crossovers, maybe the Scholomance has a fun horrible thing called field trips where the void surrounding the school is temporarily a portal to elseworlds?

Westworld (TV)

Emily Grace (Gift must contain this character)

From my sign-up: First confession: I haven't seen the fourth season. I hope that isn't a bother; I'm very happy to be spoiled for its events, or you're welcome to ignore it.

I was fascinated to meet Emily, but disappointed by what happened to her character. She's really interesting to me both as a character and as a vehicle for worldbuilding. Tell me about her relationship to the park! She's hardly a normal guest: she grew up with so many preconceptions about it. In a way I feel as though she and her family never quite get to leave Westworld, even those like Juliet who rarely or never visit.

And yes, wow, the family dynamics. What do the rest of Emily's family look like through her eyes? The Man in Black has a way of taking over a narrative (on multiple levels) so if you write about him please still make it Emily's story as much as you can.

I'd be interested in a story set entirely outside Westworld (physically anyway) or one of Emily's earlier visits. Or a fix-it! The hosts are generally fascinating, and as a small bonus, it might be nice to see Charlotte Hale - partly because I find her interesting and partly because Tessa Thompson is just so beautiful.

More thoughts:I was really enthralled by the first season of Westworld, and enthralled by its beauty - just as a guest would be, I suppose! But I didn't enjoy the Man in Black, so joke's on me, I guess, that I am now very interested in his daughter. And I am interested both in her conflict and resistance to him, and in ways she may have followed his lead in exploring Westworld. She doesn't seem to see Westworld as a playground, but instead connects her sojourns there with some other kind of purpose.

I've seen Season 3 once, and I found it a mixed bag. But I did enjoy all the worldbuilding implications about the integration of AI technologies into ordinary people's lives, and I'd love more of that!

I am very okay with dark themes. If you explore Juliet's suicide, I'd like to learn more about her as a character rather than just as a cause of others' grief and anger and guilt. But mentions are otherwise fine!

For my amnesia and dementia DNWs: it's okay to explore Emily's grandfather's issues and obsessions regarding decay and immortality. It's okay for hosts to be wiped or wiped imperfectly and to feel distress about that.

The Chain - Fleetwood Mac (Song)

No characters nominated

From my sign-up: This song gives me so many FEELINGS, and you can't go wrong with that no matter how you interpret it. Maybe the stakes are world-shattering, maybe they're quiet and personal, but this is about something that matters.

I love the atmosphere of this song. I love the way the wind and shadows and sunrise both ground the speaker in a particular place and moment, and somehow also manage to give it grandeur. I love the drama of the ultimatum, how simple and how open to interpretation it is.

I'd welcome a completely mundane expansion of the story of the speaker and the person they're addressing, fleshing out the characters. I'd also love something fantastical, perhaps springing off either 'running in the shadows' or 'you will never break the chain'. What lies have been told (on either side)? Why is this the moment? Flawed characters are welcome but I'd love the sense of big, complicated feelings to come through

More thoughts: I love this song unreasonably. My Dad loves Fleetwood Mac and I grew up with their music. He and I were able to attend a live performance in September 2019, and when they opened with 'The Chain' I was grinning ear to ear; I wanted to shout, I was so happy.

I say this not because you as a writer have a Lot To Live Up To, but because I am already bringing so much investment and enthusiasm to anything you write. I'm going to listen to this on repeat anyway; I would enjoy a new narrative as an option to think about while I do!

On the lyrics side, I think it's truly genius how raw and absolute and vulnerable this song is about feelings: If you don't love me now, you will never love me again establishes such intense stakes. And at the same time, the imagery about the light and the wind and a precise moment makes it so grounded. It's both of those things together that make it so compelling to me. Whatever is happening, it matters, and also it's occurring to a person who is placed precisely in an environment that exists beyond them and will continue on without them.

So: I would love something where at least one of the characters involved cares a lot about what's happening, and when specific descriptions of the context help ground the story.

I would first love to read the story that occurs to you on listening to the song. But if you're stumped for specific plot ideas, here are some of the original works tags I've thrown into exchanges recently, in case they help? "Girl whose sibling was stolen by fairies & changeling left in sibling's place" ... "Low-ranking Demoness/Fae Tithed to Hell" ... "Previous Magical Chosen One Who Rebelled/New Magical Prodigy Training as Chosen One" ... "Mage Sacrificing Herself to Save World/Ruthless Mentor Manipulating Her Into It".

Sexual violence and infidelity are OK for this canon. Please no crossovers or fusions just for this canon; I'd really like the story you make for the song to have a chance to stand on its own.

Love & Legends (Visual Novel)

Helena Klein, Main Character (Gift must include both characters OR you can leave one out if also featuring the Witch Queen)

From my sign-up: Helena and the MC are adorable together; I love Helena's wonder at finding a happy relationship after she'd convinced herself she never could, and finding someone worthy of protection who feels just as fiercely loyal towards her. Emotional hurt/comfort that echoes canon tone would be welcome, and I also would love to see scenes of Helena exploring new aspects of her magic, with the MC helping - I love magic worldbuilding, and magic used for mundane purposes! For smut, honour bondage would be particularly nice, and also sexual or non-sexual affection and care such as bathing each other, hair brushing, massages etc.

I also love the twisty aspects! Canon takes a fairly straightforward and sanitised route with Helena's redemption arc, but you're welcome to complicate that, with an MC who maybe sees Helena as more intrinsically good (because she needs to) than Helena is, or a Helena whose troubled past makes her unpredictable, withdrawn, or otherwise difficult at times. Dig into just how messed up it could be for Helena to be in love with the person whose face haunts her worst memories.

Canon divergence AU would be particularly fun here! Give me a different meeting; throw the MC into Helena's world at a different point; maybe send Helena to the MC's world at a different point. Setting AU also welcome as long as the general shape of Helena's backstory and powers stays similar.

My "exception" here is that I'd also welcome a story that focuses just on Helena/the Witch Queen, or a story in which the MC and the Witch Queen face off, in which case the other character I requested doesn't have to appear. A twisted Helena/MC/Witch Queen story or a sweeter Helena/MC/Alain story would also be great.

More thoughts: I'd never ever played a visual novel, and then someone in a chat I was in made a pitch for Helena's route in all its dark potential, and I had to try it. I loved it! I loved the warm, earnest, supportive parts, and I loved the psychosexual mess available to explore. I loved the tension of what it meant for Helena & MC to come to trust each other and how rewarding it was as they did.

It's a bulletproof trope for me when a sympathetic character is trying very hard and in a tense situation and surrounded by people who may not be sympathetic to them - and then a supposedly hostile or evil character, or one with good reasons to be aloof, is a secret ally, or wants to be an ally. So this developing relationship was catnip for me.

I really would love Helena & MC's relationship played earnestly "straight", with an emphasis on their supportive bond. But I am also a dubcon and noncon fan, and one of the easiest ways to do that is if the Witch Queen sticks around or reappears and makes things difficult for our heroes. Sexual violence is OK for this canon but please not with Alain, the MC, or Helena as the aggressor (unless forced by the Witch Queen). Other things I'd be interested in: angsty complicated Helena/Witch Queen; super twisted MC/Witch Queen; make-it-fucking-fluffy harem-ish fic with MC/Helena/Alain where both Helena and Alain get to focus on the MC as the better version of the person they tried to love first.

I have no affection for any of the Witch Queen's other generals. I have also played a little of Reiner's and Altea's routes. Altea is charming but I think Solaire is the hero character I'm most fond of.

I'd also enjoy seeing more of the realm! If you want to cross over with other Lovestruck canons, I'm most familiar with Sweet Enchantments; otherwise, I think it could be really cute if the MC's "normal" world was a world with Pokémon?