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Dear AU Exchange writer,
Thank you so much for writing for me!
I love AUs of all types and kinds, both the 'different ending' and the 'fusion' type of AU, and I love seeing them applied to my favourite characters to create new and different stories.
If these options look familiar to previous years, that's because "one cake good, two cakes better". Your ideas will be different to any previous takes that have been around, and I look forward to reading how you envision the characters/situation that they're in.
If I have forgotten/missed the AU that we matched on, I absolutely still want it, and apologise for missing it.
Really, in this letter, I'm just throwing ideas around and trying to see if something sticks!
things I like
Fusion AUs (characters from one canon written in another canon as though they've always been there)
Women at the centre of the story and female friendships and dynamics. Women who have agency and determination and make their own decisions (and the men who respect those decisions).
In most fandoms, one thing that I really enjoy is the mingling of professional and personal: a lot of these fandoms have people who work together, but they don't exactly compartmentalise and go home to their own family at the end of the day. Their work relationships are also the big personal relationships in their lives.
I've put a list of pairings I enjoy next to the fandoms. If you want to include any of them, that would be mighty fine! If you don't, then just friendships and interaction is great.
A note about soulmates/soulmarks AUs: I'm okay with the soulmates thing not being sexual, just people who are matched - kind of like the 'found family' trope, only with capital-D Destiny. I also like when the soulmates trope is inverted or subverted - where the sexual pairing aren't necessarily soulmates. (If you need a reference for what this looks like in my own writing, try my MCU fic 'Between Destiny And Love'.) Or you can write soulmates straight - whatever works.
do not wants:
- rape/non-con
- PWP (I don't mind a scene of smut in a longer story, but I don't want the entire story to be about sex)
- cheating partners
- pairings I haven't requested
- humiliation as humour
I've received a number of these AUs in the past. Please don't worry about whether yours is 'original': I am looking forward to see your take on the prompts given. "One cake good, two cakes better!"
I love fusion AUs where the characters are all inserted into another universe as though they were always there. I think that the ones which manage to transpose the characters without identically copying the fusion storyline are particularly clever and intriguing. Also, feel free to mix-and-match the AU options for each fandom: just because you're writing a sedoretu world doesn't mean you can't be fighting vampires at the same time! And what if drift compatibility is like moiety? What if Goose the Angry Flerken is actually a kaiju?
Just make it up and roll with it!
Pacific Rim
Angela Hansen & Chuck Hansen (Pacific Rim)
Raleigh Becket/Mako Mori (Pacific Rim)
Mako Mori & Tamsin Sevier (Pacific Rim)
Yancy Becket & Mako Mori (Pacific Rim)
Mako Mori & Jake Pentecost (Pacific Rim)
Mako Mori & Stacker Pentecost (Pacific Rim)
Hercules Hansen & Mako Mori (Pacific Rim)
Raleigh Becket & Mako Mori (Pacific Rim)
ALL: Black Jewels AU
ALL: Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Pacific Rim: Angela Hansen survives the kaiju attack
Pacific Rim: Tamsin Sevier doesn't die before the movie
Pacific Rim: Mako survives in Pacific Rim Uprising
All: Soulbond - Pacific Rim's Drift as a form of soulbond
Aliens attack and humanity beats them back through power of friendship and love and soulmates. GIVE IT TO ME, YES.
For this one, I'm all about the relationships between the characters - friendships, mentorships, siblings, found family - and, of course, Mako and Raleigh: Drift Compatible. The people who become our own in dire situations and who stay ours even after the situation has passed.
BTW. I didn't like Mako's storyline in Uprising. Skip that, please.
Obviously I'd love to read the Black Jewels and BtVS AUs centring around Mako.
Mako as the Chosen One, Stacker and much of the PPDC as the Watcher's Council... You can fit anyone else in wherever you like, but you don't NEED have to have a Good Vampire 'on her side'. In fact, I'd really prefer there not to be a 'bad boy temptation' or the traditional symbolism of "what the goodgirl/hero shouldn't want but does, and it's constantly used as a warning against her downfall". That's not the kind of story Pacific Rim is, so it would be lovely if you could take the worldbuilding concepts from Buffy without adopting Joss Whedon's particular attitude to heroic women, feminism, and young heroines.
I've always had a yen for a Black Jewels AU with Mako as a Queen growing up with Stacker as her overprotective Warlord Prince father and Raleigh Becket, Warlord Prince who's on the edge of going rogue until he meets Mako and realises she's the Queen he was meant to serve.
What about the 'someone has survived' option? Angela Hansen (Herc's wife and Chuck's mother) doesn't die in the attack that killed her, Tamsin Sevier (Stacker's co-pilot) lives at least as far as the movie timeline and balances Stacker's heavy paternalism out. Yancy survives Knifehead, but isn't physically capable of driving a Jaeger anymore. Friendships and restraining (or freeing) dynamics between parental figures, alternative possibilities - so many canon variants that could be developed! I look forward to seeing where you take this!
Angel: the series
Faith Lehane/Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (AtS)
Angel & Faith Lehane & Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (AtS)
Faith Lehane & Buffy Summers (AtS)
Angel/Faith Lehane/Buffy Summers/Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (AtS)
Angel & Faith Lehane (AtS)
ALL: Black Jewels AU
ATS: Faith joins Angel Investigations
AtS: Faith gets parole and works with the Fang Gang
AtS: The Fang Gang takes on Wolfram And Hart
All: Sedoretu
I kind of stopped watching Angel at the end of S4; just couldn't quite get into S5. As a result, S5 doesn't really exist for me. And I don't like Illyria and what happened to Fred. Definitely ignore that bit of canon entirely. So make up your own Season Five that doesn't go along with canon where the Fang Gang actually get to take on Wolfram and Hart?
Faith is my favourite character here and I'd love to see any of these scenarios including and involving her as much as possible, with all the other characters around her. Maybe Faith comes back to LA and works with the Fang Gang (or gets out earlier and works with them from the Hyperion), or never goes into prison at all. Angel gets his Shanshu, or even just have them resolve to fight W&H to the bitter end.
Alternatively, how do the characters all fit into a Black Jewels AU? Is Cordy a Queen? Or are the Slayers Queens and the courts form around them?
And the slayers in a sedoretu universe? How do two slayers, a vampire, and an ex-watcher/"rogue demon hunter" manage to form a sedoretu? How do they manage to hold onto it?
All The Marvels
Fandom Note
My favourite character in the MCU is Maria Hill. In spite of the lack of screentime, I liked what she was shown to be and the possibilities of her character, and really regret that the MCU decided not to take Civil War in a direction of actually considering what it meant to be superpowered in a normals world. As you can see, there's a range of character dynamics available in the relationships of this and the other MCU options, feel free to mix-and-match as you like.
Canon note
I have not watched ANY of the TV shows at all. My MCU consumption ended at Endgame, mostly out of principle, and while I have vague intentions of watching Thor: Love And Thunder whether they actually pan out is something else. That said, I know some of the spoilers, but none of them have really appealed to me all that much.
Marvel Cinematic Universe: Friendship Is Magic
Bruce Banner & Clint Barton & Maria Hill & Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov & Tony Stark & Thor (MCiU)
Maria Hill & Peter Parker (MCinU)
Maria Hill & Tony Stark (MCinU)
Maria HIll & Pietro Maximoff & Wanda Maximoff (MCinU)
Maria Hill & Pepper Potts (MCinU)
Laura Barton & Maria Hill (MCinU)
Jane Foster & Maria Hill & Pepper Potts (MCinU)
Jane Foster & Maria Hill (MCinU)
Helen Cho & Jane Foster & Maria Hill & Pepper Potts (MCinU)
ALL: Black Jewels AU
ALL: Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
ALL: Pacific Rim AU
All: Stargate Atlantis crossover
ALL: The female characters are the main characters
MCU: Maria Hill lifts Mjolnir
MCU: Maria Hill survives the Snap
MCU: Pepper Potts and Maria Hill are active and involved in Captain America Civil War
MCU: Maria Hill is adopted by the Starks as a little girl
I love the idea of friendships between the women of the MCU - not just the interactions that we see on screen, but the ones that must have taken place off-screen, in part because of who the women are and what they do, but in part simply because they're adjacent to the Avengers and would have crossed paths at some point or another.
For fusion AUs, rewrite the scenarios to emphasise those friendships and dynamics: how are the women involved and interacting? How are they friends or antagonists? How do they resolve the issues between them (plot and character)?
For canon-ish scenarios, give me not only their interactions, but how their interactions change up the universe, what happens when the unexpected happens. Give me new and intriguing plots and conflicts and friendships and everything!
MCU - Superpowered Sedoretus
Maria Hill/Pepper Potts/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark (MCinU)
Jane Foster/Maria Hill/Steve Rogers/Thor (MCinU)
All: Sedoretu
ALL: Soulbonding is the only way to save seriously injured character's life
All: Soulbond - Accidental/Involuntary
ALL: Soulbonds - Feeling Each Other's Emotions
ALL: Soulmate Goose of Enforcement
ALL: Soulmates AU
ALL: Soulmate AU - Soulmate-Identifying Marks
MCU: Pepper Potts and Maria Hill are active and involved in Captain America Civil War
MCU: Pepper keeps and controls Extremis
MCU: Maria Hill lifts Mjolnir
MCU: Soulmates Decided by Goose the Angry Flerken
All: Soulmates Decided by the Angry Goose AU
This is the MCU sedoretu/foursome option. Soulmates and Soulbonds! Necessary bonding in order to save the world! Goose The Angry Flerken!
What if Thor and Steve and Jane and Maria can ALL lift Mjolnir and that's what makes them a matched sedoretu? What if Tony/Pepper/Maria/Steve are a sedoretu between Age of Ultron and Civil War: how does that change things when Tony and Steve find themselves on opposite sides of the line? What about Extremis, and Pepper's sudden 'elevation' to superpower rather than normal human: how does she and her sedoretu deal with this? And imagine the absolute and utter chaos and confusion when four people - at least two of them Avengers - suddenly discover themselves soulbonded in order to save the world/someone's life. Give me all the dealing and feeling!
Go as crackerrific as you like, or go as "serious canon" as you please. I'm not crash hot on the way the MCU went during and after Civil War, but if you want to 'fix it' for me, go right ahead!
MCU - Captain America And The Flerken Of Destiny
James "Bucky" Barnes/Maria Hill/Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov (CA Movies)
Maria Hill/Steve Rogers (CA Movies)
All: Sedoretu
ALL: Soulmate Goose of Enforcement
All: Soulmates Decided by the Angry Goose AU
MCU: Soulmates Decided by Goose the Angry Flerken
MCU: Maria Hill survives the Snap
MCU: Pepper Potts and Maria Hill are active and involved in Captain America Civil War
MCU: Natasha doesn't die and Steve stays in the present
MCU: Bucky is not completely deprogrammed from being the Winter Soldier
MCU: Wanda removes Bucky's Winter Soldier programming
MCU: Someone else is the Winter Soldier
I didn't get around to writing the blurb for this one in the 'additional notes' box, sorry about that!
So this one is a bit like the MCU sedoretu/foursome option, but with more Winter Soldier options.
I love the craziness of the idea of The Angry Goose Of Destiny, herding reluctant soulmates towards their appropriate destiny, or even "the adventures of Goose the Flerken, frustrated by the stupidity of humans". I love the idea of an established relationship or set of relationships dealing with the issues and concerns faced by just one of its members. I love seeing how things could have gone differently if relationships had been stronger than canon made them seem they were. Shift the relational and power dynamics (emotional, psychological, mental, physical) and give the canon an entirely new direction!
Regarding sedoretu pairings, I'd like Steve & Natasha as one moiety, and Bucky & Maria as the other. From there, pick a scenario and write in the relational dynamics and I am there!
If you need more direction on anything, feel free to contact the mods.
--
Finally, these are all ideas that I'm putting out there for you to think about and possibly be inspired by. If they don't speak to you, that's okay - just write what we matched on and it'll be fine.
Thank you so much for writing for me!
I love AUs of all types and kinds, both the 'different ending' and the 'fusion' type of AU, and I love seeing them applied to my favourite characters to create new and different stories.
If these options look familiar to previous years, that's because "one cake good, two cakes better". Your ideas will be different to any previous takes that have been around, and I look forward to reading how you envision the characters/situation that they're in.
If I have forgotten/missed the AU that we matched on, I absolutely still want it, and apologise for missing it.
Really, in this letter, I'm just throwing ideas around and trying to see if something sticks!
things I like
Fusion AUs (characters from one canon written in another canon as though they've always been there)
Women at the centre of the story and female friendships and dynamics. Women who have agency and determination and make their own decisions (and the men who respect those decisions).
In most fandoms, one thing that I really enjoy is the mingling of professional and personal: a lot of these fandoms have people who work together, but they don't exactly compartmentalise and go home to their own family at the end of the day. Their work relationships are also the big personal relationships in their lives.
I've put a list of pairings I enjoy next to the fandoms. If you want to include any of them, that would be mighty fine! If you don't, then just friendships and interaction is great.
A note about soulmates/soulmarks AUs: I'm okay with the soulmates thing not being sexual, just people who are matched - kind of like the 'found family' trope, only with capital-D Destiny. I also like when the soulmates trope is inverted or subverted - where the sexual pairing aren't necessarily soulmates. (If you need a reference for what this looks like in my own writing, try my MCU fic 'Between Destiny And Love'.) Or you can write soulmates straight - whatever works.
do not wants:
- rape/non-con
- PWP (I don't mind a scene of smut in a longer story, but I don't want the entire story to be about sex)
- cheating partners
- pairings I haven't requested
- humiliation as humour
I've received a number of these AUs in the past. Please don't worry about whether yours is 'original': I am looking forward to see your take on the prompts given. "One cake good, two cakes better!"
I love fusion AUs where the characters are all inserted into another universe as though they were always there. I think that the ones which manage to transpose the characters without identically copying the fusion storyline are particularly clever and intriguing. Also, feel free to mix-and-match the AU options for each fandom: just because you're writing a sedoretu world doesn't mean you can't be fighting vampires at the same time! And what if drift compatibility is like moiety? What if Goose the Angry Flerken is actually a kaiju?
Just make it up and roll with it!
Pacific Rim
Angela Hansen & Chuck Hansen (Pacific Rim)
Raleigh Becket/Mako Mori (Pacific Rim)
Mako Mori & Tamsin Sevier (Pacific Rim)
Yancy Becket & Mako Mori (Pacific Rim)
Mako Mori & Jake Pentecost (Pacific Rim)
Mako Mori & Stacker Pentecost (Pacific Rim)
Hercules Hansen & Mako Mori (Pacific Rim)
Raleigh Becket & Mako Mori (Pacific Rim)
ALL: Black Jewels AU
ALL: Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Pacific Rim: Angela Hansen survives the kaiju attack
Pacific Rim: Tamsin Sevier doesn't die before the movie
Pacific Rim: Mako survives in Pacific Rim Uprising
All: Soulbond - Pacific Rim's Drift as a form of soulbond
Aliens attack and humanity beats them back through power of friendship and love and soulmates. GIVE IT TO ME, YES.
For this one, I'm all about the relationships between the characters - friendships, mentorships, siblings, found family - and, of course, Mako and Raleigh: Drift Compatible. The people who become our own in dire situations and who stay ours even after the situation has passed.
BTW. I didn't like Mako's storyline in Uprising. Skip that, please.
Obviously I'd love to read the Black Jewels and BtVS AUs centring around Mako.
Mako as the Chosen One, Stacker and much of the PPDC as the Watcher's Council... You can fit anyone else in wherever you like, but you don't NEED have to have a Good Vampire 'on her side'. In fact, I'd really prefer there not to be a 'bad boy temptation' or the traditional symbolism of "what the goodgirl/hero shouldn't want but does, and it's constantly used as a warning against her downfall". That's not the kind of story Pacific Rim is, so it would be lovely if you could take the worldbuilding concepts from Buffy without adopting Joss Whedon's particular attitude to heroic women, feminism, and young heroines.
I've always had a yen for a Black Jewels AU with Mako as a Queen growing up with Stacker as her overprotective Warlord Prince father and Raleigh Becket, Warlord Prince who's on the edge of going rogue until he meets Mako and realises she's the Queen he was meant to serve.
What about the 'someone has survived' option? Angela Hansen (Herc's wife and Chuck's mother) doesn't die in the attack that killed her, Tamsin Sevier (Stacker's co-pilot) lives at least as far as the movie timeline and balances Stacker's heavy paternalism out. Yancy survives Knifehead, but isn't physically capable of driving a Jaeger anymore. Friendships and restraining (or freeing) dynamics between parental figures, alternative possibilities - so many canon variants that could be developed! I look forward to seeing where you take this!
Angel: the series
Faith Lehane/Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (AtS)
Angel & Faith Lehane & Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (AtS)
Faith Lehane & Buffy Summers (AtS)
Angel/Faith Lehane/Buffy Summers/Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (AtS)
Angel & Faith Lehane (AtS)
ALL: Black Jewels AU
ATS: Faith joins Angel Investigations
AtS: Faith gets parole and works with the Fang Gang
AtS: The Fang Gang takes on Wolfram And Hart
All: Sedoretu
I kind of stopped watching Angel at the end of S4; just couldn't quite get into S5. As a result, S5 doesn't really exist for me. And I don't like Illyria and what happened to Fred. Definitely ignore that bit of canon entirely. So make up your own Season Five that doesn't go along with canon where the Fang Gang actually get to take on Wolfram and Hart?
Faith is my favourite character here and I'd love to see any of these scenarios including and involving her as much as possible, with all the other characters around her. Maybe Faith comes back to LA and works with the Fang Gang (or gets out earlier and works with them from the Hyperion), or never goes into prison at all. Angel gets his Shanshu, or even just have them resolve to fight W&H to the bitter end.
Alternatively, how do the characters all fit into a Black Jewels AU? Is Cordy a Queen? Or are the Slayers Queens and the courts form around them?
And the slayers in a sedoretu universe? How do two slayers, a vampire, and an ex-watcher/"rogue demon hunter" manage to form a sedoretu? How do they manage to hold onto it?
All The Marvels
Fandom Note
My favourite character in the MCU is Maria Hill. In spite of the lack of screentime, I liked what she was shown to be and the possibilities of her character, and really regret that the MCU decided not to take Civil War in a direction of actually considering what it meant to be superpowered in a normals world. As you can see, there's a range of character dynamics available in the relationships of this and the other MCU options, feel free to mix-and-match as you like.
Canon note
I have not watched ANY of the TV shows at all. My MCU consumption ended at Endgame, mostly out of principle, and while I have vague intentions of watching Thor: Love And Thunder whether they actually pan out is something else. That said, I know some of the spoilers, but none of them have really appealed to me all that much.
Marvel Cinematic Universe: Friendship Is Magic
Bruce Banner & Clint Barton & Maria Hill & Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov & Tony Stark & Thor (MCiU)
Maria Hill & Peter Parker (MCinU)
Maria Hill & Tony Stark (MCinU)
Maria HIll & Pietro Maximoff & Wanda Maximoff (MCinU)
Maria Hill & Pepper Potts (MCinU)
Laura Barton & Maria Hill (MCinU)
Jane Foster & Maria Hill & Pepper Potts (MCinU)
Jane Foster & Maria Hill (MCinU)
Helen Cho & Jane Foster & Maria Hill & Pepper Potts (MCinU)
ALL: Black Jewels AU
ALL: Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
ALL: Pacific Rim AU
All: Stargate Atlantis crossover
ALL: The female characters are the main characters
MCU: Maria Hill lifts Mjolnir
MCU: Maria Hill survives the Snap
MCU: Pepper Potts and Maria Hill are active and involved in Captain America Civil War
MCU: Maria Hill is adopted by the Starks as a little girl
I love the idea of friendships between the women of the MCU - not just the interactions that we see on screen, but the ones that must have taken place off-screen, in part because of who the women are and what they do, but in part simply because they're adjacent to the Avengers and would have crossed paths at some point or another.
For fusion AUs, rewrite the scenarios to emphasise those friendships and dynamics: how are the women involved and interacting? How are they friends or antagonists? How do they resolve the issues between them (plot and character)?
For canon-ish scenarios, give me not only their interactions, but how their interactions change up the universe, what happens when the unexpected happens. Give me new and intriguing plots and conflicts and friendships and everything!
MCU - Superpowered Sedoretus
Maria Hill/Pepper Potts/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark (MCinU)
Jane Foster/Maria Hill/Steve Rogers/Thor (MCinU)
All: Sedoretu
ALL: Soulbonding is the only way to save seriously injured character's life
All: Soulbond - Accidental/Involuntary
ALL: Soulbonds - Feeling Each Other's Emotions
ALL: Soulmate Goose of Enforcement
ALL: Soulmates AU
ALL: Soulmate AU - Soulmate-Identifying Marks
MCU: Pepper Potts and Maria Hill are active and involved in Captain America Civil War
MCU: Pepper keeps and controls Extremis
MCU: Maria Hill lifts Mjolnir
MCU: Soulmates Decided by Goose the Angry Flerken
All: Soulmates Decided by the Angry Goose AU
This is the MCU sedoretu/foursome option. Soulmates and Soulbonds! Necessary bonding in order to save the world! Goose The Angry Flerken!
What if Thor and Steve and Jane and Maria can ALL lift Mjolnir and that's what makes them a matched sedoretu? What if Tony/Pepper/Maria/Steve are a sedoretu between Age of Ultron and Civil War: how does that change things when Tony and Steve find themselves on opposite sides of the line? What about Extremis, and Pepper's sudden 'elevation' to superpower rather than normal human: how does she and her sedoretu deal with this? And imagine the absolute and utter chaos and confusion when four people - at least two of them Avengers - suddenly discover themselves soulbonded in order to save the world/someone's life. Give me all the dealing and feeling!
Go as crackerrific as you like, or go as "serious canon" as you please. I'm not crash hot on the way the MCU went during and after Civil War, but if you want to 'fix it' for me, go right ahead!
MCU - Captain America And The Flerken Of Destiny
James "Bucky" Barnes/Maria Hill/Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov (CA Movies)
Maria Hill/Steve Rogers (CA Movies)
All: Sedoretu
ALL: Soulmate Goose of Enforcement
All: Soulmates Decided by the Angry Goose AU
MCU: Soulmates Decided by Goose the Angry Flerken
MCU: Maria Hill survives the Snap
MCU: Pepper Potts and Maria Hill are active and involved in Captain America Civil War
MCU: Natasha doesn't die and Steve stays in the present
MCU: Bucky is not completely deprogrammed from being the Winter Soldier
MCU: Wanda removes Bucky's Winter Soldier programming
MCU: Someone else is the Winter Soldier
I didn't get around to writing the blurb for this one in the 'additional notes' box, sorry about that!
So this one is a bit like the MCU sedoretu/foursome option, but with more Winter Soldier options.
I love the craziness of the idea of The Angry Goose Of Destiny, herding reluctant soulmates towards their appropriate destiny, or even "the adventures of Goose the Flerken, frustrated by the stupidity of humans". I love the idea of an established relationship or set of relationships dealing with the issues and concerns faced by just one of its members. I love seeing how things could have gone differently if relationships had been stronger than canon made them seem they were. Shift the relational and power dynamics (emotional, psychological, mental, physical) and give the canon an entirely new direction!
Regarding sedoretu pairings, I'd like Steve & Natasha as one moiety, and Bucky & Maria as the other. From there, pick a scenario and write in the relational dynamics and I am there!
If you need more direction on anything, feel free to contact the mods.
--
Finally, these are all ideas that I'm putting out there for you to think about and possibly be inspired by. If they don't speak to you, that's okay - just write what we matched on and it'll be fine.
Tags: