Dear Trick or Treat Author,
Thanks for writing for me! I hope you have fun, and if there's something you've been itching to write for one of these fandoms/characters beyond what’s in my prompts, feel free to! Some of my prompts sections are going to be longer than others, but I would be thrilled to get any of these. I’ve prompted both tricks and treats, and I’m happy with any tone for any prompt, and feel free to mix and match trick and treat elements if you want.
My AO3 username is
PositivelyVexed.
Requested Fandoms
UsTrue DetectiveThe Hateful EightThe Good, the Bad, and the UglyRed Dead RedemptionGeneral likes - Enemies-to-lovers, friends-to-lovers, unlikely team-ups, characters who don’t quite trust each other being forced to rely on each other
- Ideological conflicts
- Unexpected loyalty or kindness from unlikely characters
- Hurt/comfort, especially with characters who are bad at comforting and/or uncomfortable with being comforted
- Characters who are bad at expressing their feelings, characters expressing their feelings in unconventional ways
- Competence porn, characters learning new skills or revealing hidden talents or depths
- Adventures, daring rescues, daring escapes, daring heists
- Con artists and con jobs
- Road trips
- Loyalty kink, us-against-the-world, fighting back-to-back
- Survival stories, lost in the wilderness, Canadian Shack
- Bed-sharing, huddling for warmth, falling asleep against each other, etc.
- Roaring rampages of revenge
- Internalized homophobia, repressed desires, period-typical attitudes toward sexuality, religious guilt
- Ghosts, monsters, eldritch abominations, curses, deals with the devil, “Came Back Wrong”-type tropes, the apocalypse (zombie or otherwise)
- Characters telling stories, in-universe legends and urban legends
- Scenery porn
- Winter, snow, fall/autumn, deserts, mountains, storms of all kinds
Porn/kink likes, if you're so inclined: - Oral sex, fingering, handjobs, frottage, anal sex
- Clothed/semi-clothed sex, outdoor sex, semi-public sex
- Loss of virginity, first times, first-time-with-the-same-sex sex
- Eagerness, desperation, characters really, really liking whatever they’re doing
- Bed-sharing and/or heat-sharing leads to sex
- Cuddling
- Hair-pulling, hair-petting
- Shoving someone up against a wall
- Characters unexpectedly stumbling into kinks that really work for them
- Informally negotiated kink or unnegotiated kink
- D/s dynamics, struggles for dominance
- Bondage: ropes, handcuffs, characters getting tied up with whatever’s lying around
- Manhandling, rough sex, bruises, biting, spanking
- Bloodplay, gunplay, knifeplay, breathplay
Do Not Want: - Noncon. Dubcon is fine as long as both parties enjoy it and want it on some level. Canon-typical references to rape are fine.
- Pregnancy, babyfic (mentions of canonical pregnancies and babies are fine, but I'd prefer them to not be a major focus)
- Completely alternate-setting AUs (modern, mundane, in space, Regency, whatever)
- A/B/O, D/s-verse
- Breeding kink
- Heavily negotiated BDSM, characters using modern-day BDSM jargon
- Unrequested gender/sexual identity headcanons
- Scat, watersports
- Readerfic or OC-centric fic
- Explicit sex involving characters under 16
Us (2019)Tricks, Fic
Adelaide, RedThis was some of the most fun I've had at the movies in years, and I've been craving more about this story ever since. I love the home invasion horror, the bizarre underworld, the apocalyptic ending, the somewhat slippery question of what the Tethered are, the dark humor, the emphasis on mirroring and coincidences: all of that would be very welcome in any fic you want to write. If you want to dig into world-building for this movie and explore more about where the Tethered actually came from (is Red mistaken about their origin story?) or show us more of the underworld that apparently stretches across the US, feel free. I'd love to see what happens now that the Tethered have risen up. (What's their plan after they get tired of standing in a human chain across the country?) If you're amenable to doppelcest, I would love Adelaide/Red: more of their showdown in the film, with bonus sexual tension and creepy flirtatious overtones? Dance-fighting-leads-to-fucking? Pre-film fic where being Tethered together, and both being aware of that fact, gives them a degree of sexual intimacy that they both simultaneously hate and are reluctantly turned on by? (The film is vague about how Tethering actually works, and especially vague about how it works for two doppelgangers who've switched places, so I'd love to see them discover they have some kind of two-way connection). The two of them sharing sensations or experiences or weird dreams? I'd also be particularly interested in something that explored Red's suggestion at the end of the movie: what if Adelaide had taken Red with her that night they met, instead of switching places? (Especially if that doesn't fix things in a straightforward way and has its own negative or creepy consequences--maybe in this AU Adelaide is still ruthless, and Red still has a streak of messianic fervor, but now the two of them are navigating life together, and now whoever was in charge of the Tethered knows that one of them has escaped?)
AdelaideThroughout the movie, I was rooting for her: her drive to survive, her love for her family, her sense of humor and her resourcefulness. She makes a great POV character. And then we find out what she did to Red when they were little girls, and she became fascinating to me. The depths of her ruthlessness and the lengths she went to in order to escape her original life? Yeah. I want more of her ruthlessly trying to protect the life she has created and the family that she's made. I'm also so curious about what her feelings about the other Tethered are. Does she ever feel any lingering loyalty or sympathy for them? What happens to her and her family next after the end of the film? Post-apocalyptic survival with the rest of the family is welcome, but I'd be equally interested in AU takes on things, where, for instance, she doesn't win during her showdown with Red and instead is taken captive. I'd also be equally interested in fic focusing on her life as one of the Tethered, before the two girls meet, or her acclimation to the world above after she first escapes.
Red I have so many feelings about Red. I loved her even before I realized her history--and learning her origin story was such a gut punch. I want to know everything about this girl who had a normal life before being stolen away into captivity and then growing up to become the murderous revolutionary messiah of a whole nation of underground dwellers. It's inspiring, really! I'm just so fascinated by the journey she went on there. How she got from--presumably--being terrified of this horrifying new world to deciding that she's the messiah who's going to lead everyone in this world to freedom, and that the world of her childhood needs to be destroyed. Does Red have some lingering Tether control over Adelaide, at least in the early days after they switched places? She seems to resent being bound to her Tethered family against her will, and yet they have a pretty functional and even sorta affectionate dynamic going on. Scenes of her struggling to hang onto aspects of her past and learning to connect with the people she's surrounded with? Scenes of her rallying the Tethered to her side? I just love zealous, slightly insane revolutionaries with sympathetic backstories and kind-of-admirable-kind-of-horrifying goals, and Red scratches that itch in a big way for me. I'd love anything about her.
True DetectiveTricks, Treats, Fic
I really liked the atmosphere and setting and cast of characters in the third season, and the emphasis on how this one tragic crime's effects ripple out to affect the entire town and have so many more tragic effects over the years. AUs are very welcome, especially anything that introduces a supernatural or occultic bent to this season. Some kind of
It-esque Small Town With a Horrifying Evil at the Center Targeting Children is really behind the Purcell kids' disappearances? The Lovecraftian overtones of Season 1 return?
Tom Purcell Tom’s life is just the most miserable thing ever, and I want more of it. His guilt, his self-destructive grief, his prickly defensiveness, his willingness to jump into fights that he can't win, his repressed sexuality and desperate attempts to drown himself in religion and alcohol.... yeah. Any and all of that, please. More of his life between 1980 and 1990, especially whatever that hole he was in that Roland pulled him out of in 1985. Also, because I'm still not over the tragedy of his death, I am totally down for Treats that give me all the canon-divergent fix-it AUs. Tom's kids don't die, and he is reunited with them
*handwavey gesture* somehow? AU where Julie gets rescued early in her captivity, or the search for her ends more successfully in 1990, and the two of them are reunited and have to figure out how to live a normal life now that they're the only members of their family left? Maybe he manages to fight off Harris James in the Pink Rooms, but kills him in the process, effectively putting him in Roland and Wayne's shoes with a dark secret about the man he killed?
Shipping-wise, I really like Tom/Roland. The scene where Roland takes Tom home and lets him sleep on his couch basically made me ship it, and I would happily read any missing scene of what might have happened between them that night, or any other Tom/Roland scene that involves one or both of them getting their asses kicked in barfights, sharing some hurt/comfort, drinking too much, and bed-sharing.
Roland WestI really wasn’t expecting to like Roland as much as I did, but he just won me over completely. The care he shows for those around him, his loyalty to Wayne, the fact that he talks like an asshole sometimes but is capable of a lot of kindness, the fact that when Tom dies he immediately pays his respects by going out and getting drunk and picking a fight he can't win. I love it all. I'd read anything with his life alone in the woods with dogs, or another case fic with him and Wayne. I’d love to read something with Tom/Roland or Wayne/Roland. I’d also be down with anything that explores either or both of those relationships in a gen context too. I'd also totally be down for supernatural elements. Maybe out alone in the woods, Roland starts seeing things, or starts to suspect he's being haunted by Tom? (Or Harris James, for that matter?)
Wayne HaysI really like the eeriness and sadness of a detective losing himself in the jungles and hallways of his own mind as the years pass, and I'd love to see that explored more. Leaning into the tragedy or low-key horror of that? Giving him some small victories over the encroaching darkness? Any hurt/comfort themed moments with Roland (or with adult Julie during their brief meeting, or, heck, even ghost Amelia)? I’d also be interested in anything
Memento-ish where Wayne’s holes in his memory are revealed to hide increasingly dark secrets about himself. (Or, on a shippy note, significant moments in his and Roland’s relationship that he’s forgotten?) I also really like the brief hints that the various Waynes of 1980, 1990, and 2015 are crossing paths with each other and able to subtly influence the other’s eras in ways that only he can perceive. I really like the potential for time travel shenanigans implied by that, so anything that leans into that would be amazing. Wayne being haunted by the ghosts of the past, or ghosts of his past selves?
I don't have any prompts for her, but I also find Amelia really interesting, and I think there’s a lot about the whole macabre “everything about this marriage is tied up in a missing children case” that has a lot of potential. It's mostly a source of conflict in the show, but I'd love to see a scene of how their mutual obsessions with tragedies and unsolved mysteries is something that they connect over and help them understand each other.
Julie PurcellOne of the lingering unanswered questions at the end of the show is how much adult Julie even knows about her own past. We know Mike recognizes her and marries her, but we don't even know if she recognizes him or ever recovers her memories. (For the sake of this fic,
please let her remember him if they get married.) I'd really love to get more on her dealing with the aftermath of what happened: her process of recovering her memories from before her kidnapping, lingering trauma from her confused and weird past. (If you want to get really ambitious, something that draws parallels between her own fraught relationship with her own mind and memories and Wayne's would fascinate me.) I'd really love to read something where Julie herself takes on the role of detective and starts unraveling all the unanswered questions she has about her own past: what really happened to her, why she can't remember, who was to blame. Her figuring out what really what happened to her parents and realizing that her father was desperately trying to find her and was murdered when he got too close to the truth, and finding a way to clear his name? Her recognizing Wayne when they meet from her own investigations into her kidnapping? I'd be interested in anything that actually explores Julie's kidnapping from Julie's POV and how she deals with that as an adult. (Note: I'm kind of squicked by stories that treat characters having secrets kept from them for their own good as a happy ending, so I'd really prefer if Julie either knows about her past, figures it out over the course of the fic, or at least isn't actively having the truth withheld from her by Mike or any of the other characters.)
The Hateful EightTreats, Tricks, Fic
Marquis Warren, Chris Mannix
I would love anything about these two very awful people. Of the two of them, I’m more interested in Warren’s background. I love him correctly deducing so much of what’s going on, living on his own (assholish) terms and doing what he needs to survive in a world that’s deeply hostile to him, and I’d be really interested in learning more about his background, his time in the war, and how he found his way to Wyoming, and how he climbed the ranks of the Union cavalry in a time when he shouldn't be able to do that at all.
I love what an eager and obedient partner/sidekick Mannix is to Warren. He’s an awful little shit, but a weirdly charming one, and I’m really interested in how his internal conflict plays out between what he’s been raised to think and desire and what he clearly does want, and all the ways Warren is a strangely edifying corrupting influence on him.
I am a complete sucker for hurt/comfort between these two, especially if it involves bad weather or other mean bastards or both. I'm also down for teamwork, loyalty kink, porn, BDSM, the two of them being forced together by ridiculous circumstances, conning people together, parting ways and then being reunited, storytelling and bullshitting, and competence porn. I’d also be interested in anything where they meet under different circumstances than in the film: Warren's horse doesn't die, and Mannix hails him down for help alone? Mannix comes out west with a bounty on his head and Warren has to take him in alive? They're both taken prisoner for their various crimes and have to escape handcuffed together,
The Defiant Ones-style? I'm also interested in pretty much all of the characters who appear in this film, and would love to see more pre-canon or canon-divergent AU fic with Warren and/or Mannix interacting with any of the rest of the cast.
I love supernatural horror/dark fantasy twists on this canon, and would be interested in seeing pretty much anything in that vein: forced soulbonding (some magical mean bastard with a sick sense of humor thinks it'd be funny?) The two of them slowly figuring out they're in hell or purgatory? Getting cursed with immortality and taking all kinds of chaotic advantage of that? Mannix being haunted by Erskine Mannix’s angry specter?
Ravenous fusion with wendigos and cannibalism? An AU where Warren hunts shapeshifters or ghosts instead of bounties? State-mandated ghost hunter AU? Alternatively,
West World AU where the events of the film are just another story in the park, the whole cast are hosts, and either Warren or Mannix start to wake up?
Il buono il brutto il cattivo | The Good The Bad and The UglyTricks, Treats, Fic
Tuco Ramirez, BlondieTucoTuco is such a fun character, I love his sleaziness, his excitability and complete lack of shame about turning on a dime from murderous to ingratiating when it suits him. I like how he's simultaneously the comic relief character who wears his (slimy, conniving) heart on his sleeve but also has hidden wellsprings of competence and badassery.
BlondieBlondie’s a bit more of a mystery, and I’m okay with him staying that way. I like him being a iconically cool badass and I enjoy both his dickishness and some of his low-key fleeting moments of humanity, including kitten-petting (!) and his willingness to play along with Tuco about his relationship with his brother. I like the idea that he’s developed enough a fondness of Tuco, or at least of their whole antagonistic dance, that he spares his life, but can’t resist the opportunity to humiliate him one last time at the end of the movie. How did he end up running these two-bit con jobs, anyway? Does he have any other con artist tricks up his sleeve, or will he keep milking this one?
I ship the hell out of these two, and I am down for all the grudging hurt/comfort, competence and general ridiculous Spaghetti Western badassery, forced team-ups, competitiveness (including competitve sex, if you're down to take this in a shippy direction), banter, huddling for warmth around the campfire, sharing a smoke, spending their ill-gotten fortunes together, learning about each other's pasts, and weird incongruous cuteness in the vein of playing with a kitten (!) in the film. Something where Tuco blows through his money after the film and finding himself in need of his old partner to pull off one last scheme.
I've requested treats, but I'm not really looking for anything too,
too fluffy with these two: they're assholes who try to murder each other repeatedly, and that's what I love about them. But I'm really into the idea that they do like each other, deep down, so any moments of grudging fondness and camaraderie would make me very happy. Trickwise, I'm into revenge, deception and manipulation, mindgames, dubcon, murder attempts. I love these assholes and their screwed-up relationship (and I ship it madly) and would be down for anything that explores the dark, funny possibilities of their partners-to-enemies-to-who-even-knows dynamic. I also find all the death and destruction of the Civil War a fascinating backdrop in the film, and would love more about how the warfare keeps way-laying their plans and sweeping them up in a much larger bloody conflict that unsettles even these hardened killers.
If you want to give this a Weird West twist, I am 100% down for that. Blondie not being entirely mortal, everything in the Sad Hill graveyard not being entirely dead, zombie soldiers, gunslinging ghosts, the graveyard-is-purgatory. I am down for absolutely anything putting a supernatural spin on this canon.
Red Dead Redemption
I adore the themes of an encroaching civilization that’s bearing down on the characters and about to wipe out their way of life. I love the emphasis on the natural beauty of the landscape and the sense of encroaching modernity on all sides slowly transforming the world into something more recognizable to us, with hints of all the social, political, and technological changes that are right around the corner (Women’s suffrage! Cubist art! Modern warfare! Uh… giant robots!) I also adore all the weird hints of the supernatural (fics taking things into full-on horror or Weird West territory is 100% welcome) and the general darker, creepier corners of this world, how tragic and brutal it is and how easy it is to stumble across heartbreaking reminders of that brutality in the artifacts left behind.
I love the gang and their dynamics, this sense that they’re a ragtag group of people who all have their own loyalties and histories and grudges and affection for one another, and I even love the tragedy of watching so much of that unravel as the gang starts to fall apart.
Arthur Morgan I love Arthur, in all his gruff, tough, morally complex, horse-patting glory. Can we just take a moment to appreciate how great Arthur is? He’s just the best. I would love to read more about him interacting with the world or any random creepy easter egg or monster, especially if it involves him being gruff and snarky, or riddled with guilt about what a bad man he is, or preferably both. On the shipping front, I discuss quite a few of the rare m/m ships I like for Arthur in
this past letter here, and I would still welcome fic for any of these ships, or gen interactions between them. On the het-inclusive side, I also quite like Sadie/Arthur, Arthur/Mary-Beth, and Arthur/John/Abigail. When it comes to gen interactions, I’m down for absolutely anything as long as it’s with canon characters. (Please, no Readerfic or OC-focused fic.) Also, in the spirit of the Halloween season, I would take literally anything with Arthur exploring more of the world and getting into spooky trouble or uncovering the secrets of this world. Also, AUs of some of the creepier missions? Like, maybe the serial killer that Arthur hunts isn’t just a blathering shopkeeper-looking guy, but something actually supernatural? Maybe the Darkness haunting Butcher’s Creek is a real curse, and not just a Scooby Doo ploy by a mining company? Maybe taking the mask from that pagan ritual has grave consequences? The Saint Denis Vampire turns Arthur? He catches a ride on the ghost train? Or just anything where Arthur does more to investigate all the crazy, creepy shit he keeps uncovering (pagan ritual with human sacrifice! Time-travel rock carvings! Giant skeletons! UFOs! What does he think about all this crazy stuff?)
I’m fine with Arthur being high-honor, low-honor, or most preferred, somewhere in between. Regardless, what I find most interesting about the character is the tension between his worst impulses and his better impulses.
Kieran DuffyMuch like the Van der Linde gang and Rockstar itself, I seem to enjoy watching Kieran Duffy suffer.
Unlike Rockstar and the Van der Linde gang, I also just want him to be okay in the end. I like that for all he’s been kicked around by life, he seems to be a fundamentally kindhearted and amiable person, with an optimistic streak that is ultimately tragically misplaced. I find the multitude of indignities he suffers at the gang’s hands (getting rocks thrown at him by a five-year-old! Get headbutted for pronouncing Colm’s name correctly!) kind of darkly funny and also heartbreaking at the same time, and it makes me desperately want a version of the game where there was an actual arc to his story, building towards him winning the gang’s respect or trust. Let him do something useful or grow as a person? Maybe by proving that as a former O'Driscoll lackey he actually has some valuable knowledge they can exploit? Also, whether it's plausible or not, the fanon of Kieran Duffy: Horse Whisperer is incredibly charming to me, so anything where he’s remarkably in-tune with or skilled with horses would delight me. Having him develop as a fighter or an outlaw while still essentially remaining his dorky self would also make me very happy. I’d enjoy seeing him interacting with pretty much any gang member, including ones he never really interacts with in canon. Shipping-wise, I think Kieran/Mary-Beth is incredibly cute, and I wouldn’t be averse to Kieran/Bill where they’re both appalled and disgusted with themselves for being into
him, and there’s lots of confusion and fear on Kieran’s end and attraction-sublimated-into-threats on Bill’s, and eventual clumsy bad-idea sex. (I’m really not into this ship as fluffy romance, though.) One-sided fic where Bill’s got a creepy thing for an alarmed Kieran is fine too. Most of all, though, I’d really love something that forces Arthur and Kieran to bond (in either a shippy or gen way, I’m fine with either) and allows them to come to appreciate and understand each other. I enjoy exploring what might provoke Arthur or any of the gang members to see him in a new light, and develop a better understanding of him.
Also, if you want to combine him with supernatural happenings, I would love that. Arthur finds and breaks a ghost horse and Kieran has to figure out how to take care of a horse that's insubstantial and keeps disappearing into other dimensions? Afterlife as a headless horseman? Trapped in a time loop of trauma that he has to figure out how to break out of? Haunting another character after his death? Being reunited with Branwen in the afterlife? I'll take anything that that allows him some measure of peace or satisfaction, even if he has to be dead for it to happen.
Black BelleAh, our elder stateswoman gunslinger we meet once in a side mission and then never see again. But I just really love her, okay, and I would love to see some more adventures with her at any point in her long and illustrious career. When she was young and just falling into the life? I like her verve for life and her ability to survive, and I like that she's happy to keep running for as long as she can, and seems like she might be smart enough and ruthless enough to do it into the 20th century, so more of how she evades the law and changes (or doesn't change) with the times? Some vignettes from her heyday when she was dealing with posers like Jim Boy Calloway? Snippets of her life, as told and distorted by dime novel writers over the years? What does she do after she and Arthur part ways? AU where she runs into Arthur again? (Maybe she decides she’s all married out, but she wouldn’t be averse to just having some no-strings-attached-fun with him?) Maybe Sadie ends up on her trail at some point in the epilogue, and it’s a showdown between these two larger-than-life lady gunslingers who've lived hard and lost a lot of loved ones in their lives? Maybe there's some fraught bounty hunter/outlaw UST too?