Dear Darkest Night Writer,

[psychomachia]

Thank you so much for writing for me! This year, I'm into eerie cults with strange rituals that want you to join them, stalker aliens that want to hunt you, and charming murderers that just want you to love them, Tenma. Also mindfucking, dark fairy tale elements, and people (and aliens) being creepily possessive and obsessive.

DNWs:
Nominated character death - temporary is cool, but nothing that lasts by the end of the story.

Animal harm - made an exception for Midsommar in one regard, because there is canon violence towards bears and I'm not asking you to pretend it didn't happen.

Extreme underage - I'm fine with slightly underage, but I prefer sexual encounters to involve participants 16 and up.

Bodily fluids - not into bodily functions, watersports, vomiting, but blood is totally fine (even lots of it).

Unrequested pairings involving nominated characters - I have made exceptions for a few of the fandoms. I'm fine with references in Midsommar to Dani's relationship with Christian though I'd prefer her not to dwell on it as a great love or anything, Eva's past with Tenma as well as Nina's ship tease with Tenma are both fine, and I do ship Bradford with the Male Commander in XCOM (as well as the other Chosen), so that's fine to include. I don't want them to be the focus of the fic, however.



Apostle (2018)
Group: Thomas Richardson/Malcolm Howe (Apostle)
Body Horror, Forced to Stay Alive Past Natural Lifespan, Loss of Humanity, Non-Consensual Apotheosis

• What would it be like for Thomas after the events of the film? I subscribe to the “becomes the new god” idea, so how does that change him? It's pretty clear it's already messing him up physically - the vines growing into him, his eyes changing, his blood producing natural growth. And how does Malcolm deal with it? Is he scared? Pleased? That wonderful mixture of turned-on and terrified?

Character is incapable of caring for themselves, character uses phrase “it’s for your own good”, Forced Isolation, Obsession, Possessiveness, Touch-Starved, Trying To Learn From Your Mistakes But Learning The Wrong Lesson

• Thomas is injured, Malcolm's lost all his followers, and there's a new god in town. Malcolm's definitely learned not to let people abuse the source of natural life, but I'm pretty sure he's probably just going to translate that into, hey, maybe I just don't have a cult and take care of the god by myself. We don't need anyone else, right?

Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Eldritch Marriage Ritual, Sex Required For Magical Ritual, Sex pollen causes Soulbond

• Sexually, I'm into this relationship being both mutual and messed-up - Malcolm as religious devotee to Thomas's unwilling deity. Maybe the island needs them to fuck to fix all the damage they did? Or the first god really didn't want to go through the whole marrying your god thing, so she waited until she could sucker someone in to complete the process? Maybe they're both tiptoeing around it and whatever fuels the magic decides to speed it up through some sex pollen? Feel free to include the creative usage of vines, tree limbs, and so forth.

Blood Magic, Cults, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Folk horror, Mindfuck

• I'm just into the whole mind-bending supernatural fun of it all. I love the messed-up folk horror, the creepy god and the folk horror aspects. It's such a great creepy, weird movie that has such potential for future fic - what happens when more outsiders discover the island? Or Andrea and Jennifer - they both believe that Thomas is dying or dead, so how do they cope with the new knowledge? Does a new cult spring up to worship and what would they be like?

Midsommar (2019)
Group: Dani Ardor/Pelle (Midsommar)
Conditioned to Accept Horror, Corruption, Mindfuck

• So I really love the idea that at the end, as messed-up as it is, Dani has found a family again. Something dealing with the events after the movie would be great - how does Dani cope with the decision she just made? It's clear that the Harga would be very supportive of her and Pelle's right there, willing to lend a shoulder (or more).  After all, we haven't seen all of the nine days of the festival. What more does it entail?

Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Eldritch Marriage Ritual, Ritual Public Sex, Sex Required For Magical Ritual, Sexual Relationship as Unhealthy Coping Mechanism

• There's so much you can do with Dani and Pelle getting together under the auspices of the Harga. Maybe the May Queen is required to mate with someone for fertility purposes and hey, you know Pelle's going to volunteer in a heartbeat. Or maybe Dani's given some awesome privileges as the May Queen, and she decides one of them is teaching Pelle a lesson about using people. I'd prefer everything to stay relatively consensual - shading towards dubcon is fine, but no outright rape/noncon.

Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Magic, Vampire Sex

• I'm just going to say - what if they were vampires? Pelle's like, hey, friends, let's go see my awesome former commune that have not been around for hundreds of years carefully performing ancient rites and initiating someone in every ninety years, while making sure that they don't outstay their welcome by culling the herd every once in a while. Also, Dani does choose to eat Christian at the end, because you know, he never ate her.

cosmic horror, Cults, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Dreams bleeding into reality, Eldritch locations, folk horror, Oneiromancy

• So something exploring just what the world of the Hårga would be when they're not having festivals to kill people would be fun. What would daily life be like? Is there even more supernatural shit that we don't see that happens? We know they go out into the world - how do they decide where they're going to journey? (BTW, even though I don't subscribe to the cult being involved in Dani's family's death, I could believe that they foresaw it - perhaps Pelle was prepared for it all along, and hung out with Christian because of it?)

Monster (Anime & Manga)
Group: Tenma Kenzou/Johan Liebert (Monster)
Dependent on Enemy for Survival, Dubiously Consensual Bathing, Drugged Sex, Forced care, Hypothermia, Temporary Blindness, Touch-Starved

• I am all about Tenma getting injured/sick/in trouble somehow and Johan taking advantage of it. Falling into a river and getting sick? Sold! Somehow losing his eyesight and stumbling into Johan? There with bells on! There's a needle and he's a doctor and I don't know how it happened, but hey, now he's drugged to the gills? No need to explain - there's a Johan waiting to help him out.

Captivity, Corruption, Forced Isolation, Memory Issues, Mind Games

• Johan and Tenma have been playing cat and mouse, but Johan's growing dissatisfied with their game and Tenma's never going to actually kill him. Maybe it might be more entertaining to corrupt him a different way. True, Tenma normally wouldn't fall for it, but he won't exactly be the same Tenma by the time Johan's done.

Condescending Praise, Kidnapping, Non-Consensual Bondage, Obsession, Possessiveness

• Reunited, Tenma watches Johan shoot Junkers and faints. Johan rolls with it, and decides that if he wants Tenma to kill him, he might as well give him some very good reasons to do so. Kidnapping ensues, Tenma suffers in new, exciting ways, and in the end, the plot of Monster decides to become something else.

Alternate Universe - Killers/Monsters Bonded to Handlers, Imprinting/Soulbonding as a Medical Condition,

• When Johan is brought to the hospital as a child, he imprints upon Tenma. Tenma is oblivious to it, but that's okay. Johan can wait until the time is right. Or how about there's all those horrible experiments with children so hey, maybe the government decided that having created monsters, they need handlers and Tenma gets chosen (Profiling? Some sort of weird scientific database? He just kind of stumbled into it?)

Dark Fairy Tale Elements,

• Honestly, this didn't fit into any of my other categories, but I do love the creepy fairy tale background that goes on in Monster, so if you want to incorporate any of the darker elements of your favorite fairy tales, I'd be up for it!  Or make up your own - the series is certainly encouraging of disturbing children's tales that have terrifying messages.

XCOM (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Group: The Hunter/Male Commander (XCOM)
Alternate Universe - Villain Wins, Forced to work for the bad guys, War Trophy

• ADVENT wins, XCOM loses, and horrible things happen to everyone, but especially the Commander.  Maybe the Hunter decides to keep his prize rather than turn it over to ADVENT, or at least try it out a little before it goes back in the box. Or ADVENT decides that having successfully gone through with the Avatar project, the Commander no longer needs to be their wetware. There is a new alien invader after all, and maybe their new general is ready to serve somewhere else.

Becoming The Thing That You Most Hate/Fear, Body Horror, Loss of Humanity, Non-Consensual Body Modification

• Look, I was already getting body horror from the stasis suit, when they said the Commander hadn't aged. Then the Avatar form kicked up several notches and now I'm just picturing something where the Commander is changed just like the Chosen were - and the Hunter likes what he sees. Maybe he even makes a few suggestions (modifications) of his own? Also, thinking of a scenario where the other two siblings were killed and they need to make some replacements.

Captivity, Corruption, Forced Isolation, Memory Issues, Mind Manipulation, Sensory Deprivation, Touch-Starved

• The Commander is a stubborn sort and won't just willingly work for ADVENT. The Hunter decides that it would be a waste to just have him killed and promises to break him. Of course, he's getting something out of it as well - it wouldn't do to have the Commander completely dull and unable to fight back.

Hunted with Rape as Penalty for Being Caught, Non-Consensual Bondage, Obsession, Possessiveness, Rape is live streamed, Rapist Praises Victim

• There are so many opportunities throughout the game where the Hunter could have caught up to the Commander and had some fun with him. Maybe the Commander is forced to go out to save his team when they all get caught by the Hunter. Or maybe Bradford is captured somehow and the Hunter agrees to a trade - but wants to make it a little more interesting. And you know he's the sort of asshole who'd publicly let everyone know just how they failed the Commander.