THE 2012 HOMESTUCK SHIPPING OLYMPICS

I generally prefer lighter fic, fluff and comedy and happy things, but don't feel that you need to force your fic in that direction, especially if you matched on one of the fandoms that really don't work well for it (hi there, Kill Six Billion Demons). I will ask that if you can please aim for an ending that is happy, or at least hopeful. An unrelenting angst parade down into unending misery without any light at all really is not my thing.

Pairings-wise, if a pairing I mentioned doesn't work for you I'd much rather you write gen than try to force it.

Genre-wise, I'm not generally a fan of major AUs or crossovers. By "major" AUs I mean things like high school or modern day AUs, where the characters are transposed into a hugely different setting. I'm fine with AUs exploring how the story's world and the character's places in it would be different if some events in the story were changed. I'd also really rather not get something that's pure porn, I don't read that much porny fic to begin with and would generally rather get plot or character introspection over a PWP. I like futurefic as long as it's not purely focused on the characters being domestic with kids (I don't mind them having kids, I just get bored by futurefic that focuses totally on the characters' at-home family life instead of anything neat they're doing outside the home).

I like both plotty and character-centric stories (or character-centric plot!). I like missing scenes fic. Not a big fan of canon scenes from a different viewpoint unless you can do it in a way that really twists how the original scene is viewed. I'll admit that I love catching little references to canon sprinkled into a story, nods to previous episodes or quests or whatnot. No issue-fic, please, or trans headcanons.

Warning: Basically all the requests here contain spoilers! Of the two that are currently running (Kill Six Billion Demons and The Good Place) just assume spoilers through my writing this letter on 10-7.

Liar! Uncover the Truth (Visual Novel)
Main Character
Katagiri Keima
Mamiya Haruichi


I requested the MC along with two of my favorite guys, even if they're both liars. Keima because his lover ending stands out as the only one where the guy works his ass off to fix his faults and become worthy of the MC's affections instead of just sorta hovering around pestering her until she decides they're too pathetic to not hear out, Haruichi because even if you don't purchase his complete route he's the only one who across all of his endings (except the bad end, which just feels out of character compared to the rest) is obviously really in love with the MC. Also, his lie is a pretty sexy one. I'd like shippy fic with one of the guys or the other, but you don't need to have the the other show up!

I also really enjoy how the game makes it clear that the MC is not the greatest prize herself, while she's pretty and fun she's also terrible at being an adult and too judgmental (with the two guys here it's very obvious in Haruichi's route, where she's constantly having unkind thoughts about poor Ayumi even though the poor kid's obviously super on her side). The only thing I ask when it comes to picking a name for her is that you go with one that's Japanese.

Liar! is a technically free (though it takes a while to get through without paying) mobile game best described as "Phoenix Wright, the dating game!" After breaking up with her long-time boyfriend the main character goes to a speed-dating event to try to get back in the game, where a psychic at the door warns her that she's going to connect with ten men and one of them is the perfect man for her, but the other nine are all low-down dirty liars. Each chapter is about investigating a few of the guys for whatever trait she's trying to ferret out that time. Obviously, as it is a dating game, I would really appreciate shippy fic!

MC/Keima: After his chapter I really didn't expect his love ending to make like Keima again, out of all the guys he was in the top three of those I came out really disliking after learning their truth (and, as a side-note on disliked ones, please don't have liars number three or five show up!) but, like I said in my sign-up, I really appreciated that the dude worked his ass off for months to make things right and even then is only hoping that the MC would be willing to try being friends with him again rather than expecting romance. So something about her growing to trust him again would be lovely. Or maybe an AU where it was Keima instead of Shizuo who was her college romance, could having her there have stopped his bad habits before they began? Something where Yuri shows up could be fun, she can be so protective of the MC, but how does that mesh with Keima being another of their old friends?

MC/Haruichi: Haruichi was always one of my favorite guys, but after playing through his lover's route I ended up being so satisfied with that as an ending for the MC that I hardly cared about finishing the main game. I love how by the end they've reached a point where he's willing to leave his family for her, she's willing to at least consider joining it for him, and it's not treated like an easy decision on either of their parts. He goes a couple weeks without seeing her just so he can fully consider whether she or the family means more to him! Uncomfortable with the whole Yakuza thing though she is, she all but shoves him back at them when they're in trouble because she knows how terrible he'd feel if he wasn't there to help! A look at his thoughts while he was deciding what he really wanted could be nice. Or something with the two of them slowly navigating where they're going to end up post-game, now that they have time to consider it together instead of it just being all or nothing for one of them. If he does leave entirely it might be fun to explore what happens with his company; it was so important to him that he built this one thing on his own before being called on to take over the Mamiya family, will it still succeed on its own or will it turn out that his parents were secretly helping him out behind the scenes after all without his realizing, and how would either make him react? (Personally I prefer to think that he really did manage it alone, but the MC comforting him when he realizes he didn't could lead to some nice mushiness too).

I know you can find Liar! on the Google play store, I'm not sure if it's in the iStore as well!

Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator
Dadsona (Dream Daddy)
Joseph Christiansen


Soooo, I totally went into this game expecting Joseph to be the guy I would totally hate only to end up on the "Oh my god, give these poor guys a happy ending! He can dump my character while he works through things, that's fine, but that marriage needs to end!" side. So, yes, always more fix-it fic please! And, like I said, I would totally count it as being fix-it if the two guys don't end up together but their time together it just the push Joseph needs to get out of that marriage.

One thing I will say is that I prefer you not run with the word of god that Joseph was comfortably bi all along. He doesn't need to angst over being gay, but if he's not at least firmly in the closet to 99.9% of the world the lack of a good ending just feels even more annoying. Also, no cult-ending stuff please.

Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator is exactly what it sounds like on the tin! You play a dad, you date other dads, it is ridiculously cute, and in all but two cases you live happily ever after. And the other time that isn't the case you at least have the potential for future happily ever after once your love interest spends some time defucking his head. And then there's Joseph, who you hook up with after he's telling you he'd getting a divorce from his horribly toxic marriage only to be told in his ending that he's gonna stay with his wife after all.

Since there are five million ways to read Joseph I'll just break down a couple of me own headcanons of him: he really did think he was being honest with you on the boat (I feel like the morning after scene would have played a lot differently if he'd been lying to get Dadsona in the sack), he's had one-night stands with other willing men beyond Robert in the past but Dadsona is the first he had an actual (cut short) relationship with, and he's not deliberately manipulative with other people but does spend a lot of time lying to himself about what he wants and needs.

So, of course fix-it fic is welcome, whether it's an AU branching off after the third date where he really does just get divorced (and if it is, honestly I'd be fine with it if you wanted to go Robert-style bittersweet instead, with him leaving Mary but realizing he can't just jump straight into a new relationship without straightening out his life first) or it happening later. Joseph watches Dadsona moping around after Amanda leaves for college and can't stand not being there to help him? Dadsona starts actively trying to be a homewrecker because he doesn't care if Joseph still holds off on a relationship with him but that marriage needs to end? A kid at the church goes to Joseph for help dealing with their own parents being in a loveless marriage and how much it sucks and Joseph realizes that staying together for the kids isn't actually great for the kids?

Or, on the non-shippy side, anything else about Joseph's job would be fun. I'm not Christian myself and would rather not go into the nitty gritty about the religious side of it, but his dealing with kids needing help, or arranging more events that go off the rails, or anything like that. I like to imagine that he's actually wonderful with LGBT+ kids, urging them not to make the same mistakes he did (without, you know, admiting he's talking from personal experience) and being firmly on the side of God making no mistakes and loving them just as they are. Or, for gen on Dadsona's side, what does he do? Maybe the other dads, or kids, or both, teaming up to investigate what the hell their new neighbor's job is. Or non-shippy fic about dealing with Amanda leaving for school, or going completely overboard when she comes back for the holidays.

My Dadsona's name is Cassidy, but you don't need to run with that.

Dream Daddy is available on Steam and even on sale for a few days!


Long Live the Queen
Elodie
Ignatius

Ha, I totally didn't plan to request this again when I just got a wonderful story for the pairing in Press Start, but then I saw that *someone else* had nominated Ignatius and went "Well, okay, this is clearly a sign."

You know, the only reason I ever got this ending was because I wanted to get the achievement for getting him to divorce then figured I might as well go for the match, because otherwise I would never be willing to toss Julianna in jail and not release her. So I was honestly surprised when I got it and it turned out to be one of my very favorites. I really like how we know from WoG that the reason he abstains at the vote of no confidence is because he's grateful to her for his position but thinks that she's completely mad for treating his sister the way she did, and it takes you literally making her the very best Elodie she can be to make him see her as someone he could love, and even then she really has to work for it to make him consider marrying someone so young showing that she must genuinely want to be with him to bother. And, honestly, it just makes me happy for the poor guy to finally have someone who really wants him.

In Long Live the Queen you play Elodie, soon-to-be ruler of her country, in the year between her mother dying and her own coming of age so she can officially take the crown. In this time you have to choose what she does from week to week to guide her from being an ignorant kid whose private school failed her miserably to being a competant ruler, which you will almost certainly screw up miserably, probably ending in her death, at first!

Like I implied in the last line, something focused on what it means to Ignatius to have someone really truly want him first and foremost, after spending his whole life being seen as the lesser of two options to his father, then his wife, then (if he gets a divorce) to his his children, could be nice. How does he deal with Elodie's apparently laser-focused commitment on having him as her husband even when he tries to keep her at arms length, does he have trouble trusting she could be serious? And how does the nation react to her long courtship of him? I'm sure some members of the nobility, like Banion, would still spend that time trying to woo her, but even those who don't have a hat in that ring must get antsy over Elodie having no heir and showing no interest in turning her attentions towards someone who seems more willing to give her one.

Or something focused on Elodie, why she chose him, why she doesn't change her mind when placed in "romantic ceasefire". How it effects her friendship with Briony, or something funny with the two of them hanging out when Briony doesn't know and Elodie trying to hide it from her, or figure out how to tell her, or if she should be the one who does.

Or something about Ignatius relearning how to be the one ruling after being given Ursul. Presumably he was taught to be the one in charge when he was young, before his sister was named the heir instead, but it's been a long time since then, are there any misteps along the way as he gets used to being the one in full control instead of just watching and maybe advising? Something contrasting the two of them, Elodie having to learn all about ruling basically from scratch while he needs to dust off those old memories?

You can purchase Long Live the Queen on Steam, GOG, or through Hanako Games' website

Kill Six Billion Demons
Allison Ruth
Cio

With the way the number one trigger of Allison going all slaughtery lately has been things about to cause harm to Cio I've had this mental picture that the way she earns the name Kill Six Billion Demons by suffering a (non-fatal, of course) misstep at some point in her journey which Himself counts as enough of a failure to set the hordes on Cio, and Allison kills her way after every one that dares come after her. After all, she only agreed that if she lost the Court would be set loose to kill Cio, nobody ever said that she'd just stand back and let them harm her.

Kill Six Billion Demons where the goal is not yet to kill a bunch of demons, but you can see it getting there! Allison was just a normal sorority sister when a dying dude stumbled into her room and shoved a magical doodad into her head which marked her as, essentially, heir to the throne of the universe. It transported her into another world while at the same time creatures that followed the dying dude kidnapped her boyfriend, believing that he was the one being marked as heir due to his godly quality of having a cock. Her goal is to rescue him, and take down the other seven beings who've split the multiverse up between them

I love these girls and would love to see their relationship patched up (shippily or not) without having to wait for the strip to get to it! ...Hopefully the strip will get to it. Something when Ciocie notices that somethings gone seriously off with Allison? (Wait, do human eyes change colors like that?) Something where she already has and is keeping mum to work out what's what? Something where Cio is willing to assume Incubus' influence was what caused the fissure between the two of them and not hold the whole conversation with Himself against Allison, and does Allison just let her run with that misassumption (guiltily or with relief?) or does she tell the truth that he wasn't in control then and try to patch things up for real?

If you go with the prompt in my details, throw yourself as far into it as you want! It can just be Allison revealing to Cio that she has no intention of letting anyone kill her or drag her down when losing the bet doesn't seem to be a risk, or you can pick up right in the middle of Allison's fight for Cio's survival. Or a quite moment in between, when no new demons have found them yet.

Or something post-series, when Allison's presumably God-Queen. How does she reward Cio for being her longest-standing ally who doesn't buy into her boyfriend being the actual chosen one? Does she give her a Key of her own, or decide that she doesn't want to gift her something so likely to drag her down into her old ways? Is Cio the only one to still treat Allison like normal, or does she become overawed, or have demonic insticts kick in going 'Too powerful to fuck with, tread carefully' and she jumps back and forth between the two depending on how well she gets forces them down? How does Allison react to any of the options?

Kill Six Billion Demons is free to read online!

Psychonauts
Razputin Aquato
Sasha Nein

Man, this game is my forever girl. I've played it about a billion times, bought it in multiple formats just to shove more money at Doublefine because of how much I love it, and even streamed a playthrough of the thing.

I do ship future Sasha/Raz, but absolutely do not feel like you need to work that in if it squicks you.

I'd love some mission fic. You don't even need to go deeply into what the mission itself is, I'd just be really interested in seeing how the brain-diving we do in-game translates to using it against villains who are actively fighting them instead of people who area generally okay with them being in there. Future summers at camp would be fun too! I always see Raz as continuing to go even when he's too old for it, because he's still too young to be recognized as a real Psychonaut and they're the only ones who treat him like he is one anyway. Maybe he starts acting as a counselor himself?

While I say mission fic, just going into more details of what it's like being a Psychonaut would be great, we see so little of what it entails when it comes to the actual work they do. Or, how do the Psychonauts existing make their world different than ours. This is a world where not only does everyone know that psychic's exist, they have their own branch of the military and top agents have the fame of superstars (or at the very least big-name comic book heroes, since Razputin's view of just how famous they are might be a bit skewed by his fanboyism). What type of effect does that have on the crime of the world? Do regular unpowered people even bother to become major criminals/terrorists/whatever other form of villainy in their world, or does knowing that there are people out there who could explode their brains or rewrite their personalities if they become notorious enough to get noticed cause them to lie low and leave major crime to psychics on the other side of the law?

If you take this one I should say that I really really disagree with the side of fandom that views Sasha as super humorless and emotionless. He's super deadpan, sure, but he tells subtle jokes, and shows concern for the campers (I love the bit when Raz agrees to learn how to fight where it turns out that's just an offer he makes kids to scare them off if his experiments look like they're too much for them, and he doesn't even have the authority to do it when one actually says yes), passion for his work, embarrassment over the mega-censor issue, seems amused by Oleander's grandstanding in the opening scene... a lot of people seem to forget the fact that part of the lesson he taught Raz is that while a psychic needs to have control of their emotions they shouldn't suppress them and turn him into a wanna be Spock.

Really really don't feel like you need to pair them up to make me happy if the thought makes you uncomfortable. If I'd realized how young Raz was from the beginning I probably would never have become interested in the pairing myself, and I'm someone who often ships pairings with a large age-gap. But if you don't have them together I'd rather you not have Sasha and Milla as a couple; pairing Raz with Lili would be fine by me, and so would having Milla involved in the story but I've just never bought Milla's crush as being reciprocated.

Psychonauts is a game set in a summer camp that trains young children in the use of their powers. You can actually watch may own fairly completionist (except fuck figments) playthrough right over here if you'd like to hear my personal rambling about the game or here's a video of just the cutscenes for something quicker (but still 3.5 hours).

The Good Place
Eleanor Shellstrop
Michael
I totally ship the two of them. I loved it when he was a thorn in her side, constantly hanging around and dragging her into things when she was trying to fly under the radar and I love it even more when she's an even bigger thorn in *his* side, constantly upsetting his plans.

Go ahead and focus on any loop, or any of the plans in them (the seduce Michael plan is an obvious stand-out for shippiness potential, but the plan to convince Michael that he was the one in the Bad Place must surely have been fun, and basically all of them could spin off somewhere awesome), or write something about them working together!

The Good Place is a sitcom that just started its second season, about a woman named Eleanor Shellstrop who dies and is informed that she's gone to "the good place", only for her to quickly realize that the person they're describing when they talk about her accomplishments is not actually her. She's not actually at all a good person, although she's not puppy-killingly evil either, and was mixed up with someone else with her same name. So she flounders to learn how to actually be someone worthy of the spot she's in before anyone figures out she's not meant to be there, hoping that if she just lies long enough she can fake it until she makes it.

So, yeah, in all the Eleanor/Chidi vs Eleanor/Tahani talk I walked away all "I'd rather she hook up with the demon, really". I love their dynamic no matter which way they're playing each other, and I've got to believe that over time Michael must have developed some level of respect for Eleanor always being able to see through his deception.

Some other ideas: everything works out and they actually make it to the real Good Place, Michael in tow, but Chidi's lessons didn't really stick so instead Eleanor takes him under his wing with "pulling one over on the goody-goods to make them think you belong" lessons. He finds himself really enjoying being right there watching how her brain works instead of seeing it from a distance? A cycle of the Groundhog's Day loop where he sets himself up as her supposed soulmate so he can keep a closer eye on her. A cycle where she realizes the truth when nobody else is close by and decides to keep quiet and figure out a way to play him in return, when does he have his own a-ha moment about what she's doing? Or something where Sean finally figures out what's up and Eleanor mounts a rescue mission against the forces of hell to save Michael, because he might be a manipulative shithead, but he's their manipulative shithead, damnit!