Candy Hearts 2025 Letter

Dear Author, 

Hello! I'm kubernetes on AO3. Congratulations on your great taste re: whatever fandom(s) we ended up matching on, and thank you for taking the time to write for me!

While I’ve included prompts for each fandom in case they're helpful, please don’t feel constrained to them if they aren’t working for you, or if some other plotbunny really inspires you; I am a genuine believer in Optional Details Being Optional and will be very excited to read whatever you come up with. And while some of my requests are longer/shorter than others, I want to stress that I love all of these fandoms equally — everything I've requested is here because it's something I'd love to receive!

Major spoilers below for all of my requested fandoms. Also: I love treats!

Quick fandom navigation links:
Anything for Jackson | Henry/Audrey
Scavengers Reign | Kris/Azi
Squid Game | In-ho/Gi-hun, In-ho & Jun-ho, In-ho & Il-nam
Succession | Tom/Shiv
There Is No Antimemetics Division | Marion & Antimemetics Division, Marion/Adam

Some general likes:

• Acts of service (whether between acquaintances, friends, family, or lovers)
• Allusions (historical, literary, science, tech)
• Altered mental states: hallucinations, delirium, intoxication, induced fear, sensory overload / deprivation, memory alteration, mental breakdown, etc.
• Canon-divergence AUs (whether they make things better for the characters, much worse, or just weirder)
• Casefic / missionfic / “monster-of-the-week” / “day-in-the-life”
• Character / relationship studies
• Competence porn 
• Consequences of actions and choices
• Domesticity
• Dramatic irony / foreshadowing of future events in canon / subtle gut-punch moments
• Dysfunctional / messy / codependent / unhealthy relationships (platonic & romantic)
• Engineering & systems, especially the kind that keep things running behind the scenes: maintenance, security, logistics, fault analysis, infrastructure design, etc
• Fic that Gets Weird With It (if you’re ever worrying “is this fic concept too weird?”: the answer is no)
• Horror (psychological horror, cosmic horror, body horror - all the horror!)
• Humor / black comedy
• Hurt/comfort
• Learning to live in the aftermath: stories about people rebuilding physically, spiritually, and emotionally (and maybe getting messy and codependent about it along the way)
• Neurodivergence headcanons (demonstrated implicitly via the way characters think/act, rather than explicitly stated)
• Nonsexual intimacy
• Organizational politics & bureaucracy
• People using logic to deal with a situation / investigate a problem
• Psychological mind games
• Secrets: keeping them, letting them slip, trying to figure them out
• Sickfic / caretaking / convalescence / trauma recovery (heavy on the caretaking; love characters being taken care of. Needing help with basic stuff; being able to get by on their own & realizing they don’t have to; being out of the woods but still weak & exhausted; grinning & bearing increasing awfulness until the adrenaline suddenly runs out…)
• Stoic, hypercompetent, otherwise in-control characters approaching their breaking point
• The subtle, building realization that something is terribly wrong 
• Unconventional fic formats (nonlinear narrative, epistolary, pastiche, metafiction, CYOA / IF, found documents, etc.)
• Unconventional POVs (2nd person, outsider POV, multiple POVs, nonhuman POV, etc.)
• Unreliable narrators
• Whump >:)
• Worldbuilding 

I’m perfectly fine with darkfic, graphic violence / gore, ambiguous / bittersweet / unhappy endings, requested character death, etc. 

Some general DNWs:

• AUs other than canon-divergence (i.e. I DNW setting-change AUs and DNW trope AUs such as soulmates, hanahaki, etc)
• Crossovers
• Explicit sex (fade-to-black and the like is fine!)
• Pregnancy (with the exception of Anything for Jackson and Succession)
• References to real-world current events from 2010 or later (with the exception of Succession)

Anything for Jackson

Henry Walsh/Audrey Walsh

Anything for Jackson is a black-comedy supernatural horror film (1.5 hrs) available for streaming on Prime, Apple TV, and Shudder. I wrote up a promo post for it here.

If there is any truly bulletproof trope for me, it’s “terrible people who are also fiercely, desperately in love with each other fondly bicker like an old married couple as they do horrible things together and gradually realize they're in way over their heads”, and let me tell you, Anything for Jackson DELIVERS. They're just so fun to watch together.
 

• How exactly did these two become Satanists: was it after Jackson’s death, or had they gotten into it long before then?
• As much as I felt their end in the film was fitting, I’d love to see an AU where they do end up burning the house down and going on the run to Mexico.
• But really, any kind of relationship study that captures their dynamic in the film would make me very happy.

Fandom-specific DNW:

• Discussion of pregnancy is fine (and would be difficult to avoid given the general premise of this canon), but please no on-page descriptions of pregnancy-related medical procedures or physical consequences of pregnancy on the body.
• Also, please don't kill Shannon. (Feel free to kill Henry and Audrey, though.)

[ back to top ]

Scavengers Reign

Kris/Azi

Scavengers Reign is a 12-episode sci-fi animated TV series (total runtime approx. 5 hours), available for streaming on Netflix (in the US, UK, Ireland, and New Zealand). I wrote up a Yuletide promo for this canon here.

I really enjoy Kris’s hyper-pragmatic, calculated efficiency, her control-freak tendencies and the possessiveness with which she effortlessly dominates her crew. And I love Azi: “brilliant butch lesbian mechanic” is already catnip for me, but also I love the way she connects to others even as she keeps her own heart guarded, and her stubborn determination, and how her relationship to Vesta transforms over the course of the show. They go together like oil and water, but man I simply cannot resist toxic butch4butch psychological mind games.
 

• I found Kris treating Azi as Terrence’s replacement goldfish weirdly compelling. What if Azi took Kris up on her offer? What if she didn’t, but was forced to leave with Kris (and potentially Barry) anyway? What if the shuttle took off without either of them?
• Or, really, any Kris/Azi mutual-manipulation, enemies-to-lovers, forced-to-work-together-to-survive, etc. situation is going to be right up my alley. 

[ back to top ]
 

Squid Game

Hwang Inho | Front Man/Seong Gihun
Hwang Inho | Front Man & Hwang Junho
Hwang Inho | Front Man & Oh Ilnam

Squid Game is a 2-season dystopian thriller TV series available for streaming on Netflix.

I binged the new season of Squid Game a few days ago and I was definitely not expecting In-ho to be my favorite part of the whole thing, but here we are. I just think he's neat! I love the charming facade he keeps up as Young-il (to mess with Gi-hun's head and prove some Longwinded Point on the Nature of Humanity) and the weird sort of chemistry that creates between him and Gi-hun, and the angry, raw moments where that facade cracks, and how we never quite figure out what the hell he's up to. And I really enjoy the dynamic between him and Jun-ho - Jun-ho's obsessive devotion towards finding him in S1 (and unwillingness to give his identity up to Gi-hun in S2), In-ho being visibly affected by Jun-ho when nothing else seems to faze him & keeping Jun-ho alive from the shadows even at a cost to himself... 

• I'd love to read about how he won his Games, his life afterwards (why did he keep living such a modest life? how did the Games change him, and his relationship with Jun-ho? did the trauma of it stay with him?), and about his path to becoming Front Man under Oh Il-nam's mentorship. 
• What happens after the curtain closes on the Season 2 finale? (I find the idea of In-ho using Gi-hun as his pawn somehow for some sinister ulterior purpose very compelling. Seems like a dude with ambitions. Does he want to gain power outside the South Korea branch? Is he secretly playing some crazy long game to assassinate the VIPs and/or take down the Games? Is he going to try and mindbreak Gi-hun into becoming the next Front Man?)
• Maybe an AU where Jun-ho and co. successfully manage to break into the Games and get Gi-hun/In-ho/the rest of their team out, except Gi-hun still thinks In-ho is Young-il, In-ho is still playing along, and Jun-ho is like "what the actual fuck..."

[ back to top ]
 

Succession

Siobhan “Shiv” Roy/Tom Wambsgans

Succession is a black-comedy corporate drama TV series (4 seasons) available for streaming on Hulu and Max.

They are so delightfully awful for each other and they are everything to me. The power games on top of power games! The desperate craving for human connection even as they’re unable to ask for it! Their protectiveness of each other even as they actively work to screw each other over! The irony of Shiv being much more attracted to the person Tom is when he’s not around her, and by the time he’s finally worn down enough to show her that side of himself things are (almost?) broken beyond repair! Tom loving her and loving nice things and those not being mutually exclusive! The glass scorpion! Bitey! Anyways, for these two I’m most interested in pre-canon and Season 4 onwards.

• It’s implied that Tom met Shiv at a dark time in her life and helped her through it; what was that like?
• What else was going on with them behind closed doors during S4?
• And what happens after the series finale: now that Matsson’s golden handcuffs have essentially stuck them together, how do they reconcile all the awful things they’ve done to each other? How do they approach parenthood — do they try to break the cycle of abuse, and if so, do they succeed?

Fandom-specific DNW: Discussion of pregnancy is fine (given that I'm prompting for Shiv during Season 4), but please no on-page descriptions of pregnancy-related medical procedures or physical consequences of pregnancy on the body.

 
 [ back to top ]

 

There Is No Antimemetics Division

Marion Wheeler & Antimemetics Division
Marion Wheeler/Adam Wheeler

There Is No Antimemetics Division is a sci-fi/cosmic horror web serial novel (approx. 70k words), available for free online here. I wrote up a Yuletide promo for this canon here.

Marion is one of my favorite characters ever — I love "blunt, hypercompetent, traumatized, constantly calculating, ungodly-amounts-of-caffeine-and-tobacco-consuming science hero who suffers more than Jesus" types in general, and making her a middle-aged woman is a surefire way to have me banging down your door. I love her thought process as she’s triaging a situation or working through a difficult decision, and how she’s stoic and caustic and kind of weird and also a brilliant, respected leader who cares deeply about her people, and I’m kind of insane about her marriage? (What if you were the only person I’d ever met who thought in the same way I did, & we built a weird little life for ourselves as the world fell apart around us, & then we had to throw it all away in a desperate, doomed effort to keep each other safe. What if we were ride-or-die to a feral degree even after we no longer remembered each other. What if I went crazy.) Write her doing anything and I’ll be delighted.
 

• What is her day-to-day when there’s no imminent crisis? How did she first get involved with the Division, and from there to where she is today? What was the Division like back when it was the leader of a worldwide Antimemetics Coalition? How does asynchronous research work? What is it like to grieve for something you don't remember?
• I’d love some whump, sickfic, caretaking, hurt/comfort, etc. that explores the physical/emotional ramifications of all the trauma she goes through - and her general tendency to work herself into the ground - further than canon does. God could she use a hug and/or a vacation and/or a 15 hour nap.
• What was 2015 actually like for her and Adam? Marion’s endless loop of destroying herself for the cause and then forgetting it ever happened, even as the scars remain; Adam remembering it all (except, potentially, what she doesn’t want him to? What if that wasn’t the first time she mindwiped him?) and trying desperately to hold her & their marriage together through the fallout as he starts connecting the dots of what’s really going on… I want more of that. (I want more of them in literally any context, tbh.)

Fandom-specific DNW: While I don’t care whether you mention her kids or handwave them out of existence, please don’t explicitly confirm them dead. (FWIW, my headcanon is they’re alive in witness protection somewhere, and Marion did the same thing to them that she did to Adam.)
 

[ back to top ]

Yuletide 2024: 15 recs in 13 fandoms!

My wonderful gifts:

The Assistant | The Employees - Olga Ravn 
Decades after canon, a scientist and her plucky assistant race to find a commercial use for the Objects before their lab loses funding — but not all is as it seems. Some really fascinating worldbuilding here; twisty fun from start to finish. 2.0k.

Final Maintenance Report | The Employees - Olga Ravn 
The last surviving custodian of the Six Thousand Ship prepares a message for their employers. Voicey and stylistically impressive and darkly funny and heartbreaking in all the best ways. 1.1k.

Memetic Fallout | There Is No Antimemetics Division - qntm 
Love in the time of cholera being slowly twisted into an entropic hole in reality. A really touching postcanon fix-it with a fun nonlinear structure and some cool in-universe documentation. 1.5k. 

Fresh Hell Dating Simulator | There Is No Antimemetics Division - qntm 
What if the hacking-an-eldritch-finger-monster-to-death-with-a-fire-axe meet cute from canon was a dating sim? This is so silly, and so fun, and filled with excellent puns, and random lines from it keep popping into my head and making me crack up. 2.6k, interactive fiction.

Some more recs:

Report on the Hal 9000 unit aboard the Discovery One | 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
A postmortem report on the events of the movie, investigating what caused HAL to malfunction — and uncovering some unsettling truths. Does very cool things with multimedia, from some wonderfully creepy visuals to inventing an entire programming language?? 3.0k.

Family Rules | Bullet Train (2022)
In the aftermath of the Shinkansen job, MI-6 takes Lemon and Tangerine's foster mother in for questioning, but she isn't going to give them up without a fight. A charming, delightfully voicey postcanon fix-it that made my heart do a bunch of funny things. 2.6k.

Amongst the Oranges | The Fall (2006)
Twelve years after the events of the film, Roy visits Alexandria at the orange grove. The fic I've wanted to read since I first watched this movie - such a beautiful epilogue to their story. 1.4k.

Parallels | Homecoming is Just Another Word for the Sublimation of the Self - Isabel J. Kim 
A teenage boy and his family get a Christmas visit from his clone. Lovely and heartwarming and also a fascinating exploration of how “instancing” would work in practice. 2.7k.

The Yellow Sine | The King in Yellow - Robert W. Chambers
The general premise of "The King In Yellow, but make it cyberpunk" was an instaclick for me, and the actual fic did not disappoint. So cool and so wonderfully creepy. 1.1k.

A Very Normal Day in the Life of a Polar Explorer | Rayuela | Hopscotch - Julio Cortázar
Went into this fandom blind, but all of the brilliant wordplay in this surrealist romp delighted me enough that I went to go check out the canon. ~2k, interactive fiction.

Until the Storm Recedes | Serious Weakness - Porpentine Charity Heartscape 
Being chained to a bed all day in your parents' vacation cabin leaves you a lot of time to think. You have until the storm recedes to find a way out. Fun and technically inventive, with a strong sense of atmosphere and a knack for building tension. 5.1k, interactive fiction. 

seams | The Substance (2024) 
Elisabeth locks Sue in her apartment… things get much worse from there. Brilliant, visceral body horror, and some deliciously weird character dynamics. 2.1k.

binary black holes | Taste - Sabrina Carpenter (Music Video) 
Vignettes from two immortal women’s centuries-long cat-and-mouse quest to kill each other, and the romance they didn’t expect to fall into along the way. Really fun structure, great chemistry, some truly striking imagery. 2.6k.

What Julian Doesn’t Grow Won’t Burn Him | Trailer Park Boys 
Julian and Ricky get fake-married in a madcap scheme to get Ricky a fancy new trailer to grow weed in. Delightfully fun - feels just like an episode of the show. 6.3k.

Turning a Sphere into Two Spheres | Turning a Sphere Outside In (Huggbees)
A kid genius and her dad work out the Banach-Tarski paradox, and also their family’s… deeply complicated history. Really good pastiche of the original; hilarious and educational to boot. 2.2k.