patron saint of rented cars

Yuletide Author, hello!

First of all, thanks! It means a lot that you're even here. It's my first Yuletide ever, so I'm all gunshy and pretty embarrassed about my timidly sinful requests. But hey-- I don't have to be that way with you. You offered. You're up for this, Yuletide Author; you get it. You get me. We can make brief, wild eye contact, tabbing between incognito google searches whilst doing heroin & tax fraud.

So, let's get commiserating.

You can find me on tumblr at srahberry. My AO3 is barren, but it's marchpanes, and I really like to pretend no one ever looks through my bookmarks but, y'know, we have that special connection, so go ahead.


Some general guidelines about stuff I enjoy (not exhaustive):


REALLY ENTHUSIASTICALLY LIKE: porn, unhealthy/dysfunctional relationships, power imbalances, dubcon, violence, D/s undertones, praise kink, rough sex, blowjobs, breathplay, unreliable narration, emotional/psychological abuse (esp. subtle), iffy mental states, compartmentalization (possibly unstable), IDENTITY ISSUES/identity porn, things that are really fucked up but written matter-of-factly because the characters aren't acknowledging it, SLOW BURN/UST, confessions, introspection, codependency, pet names/nicknames/titles, robot/cyborg stuff, loss/concession of control, sex pollen, cute boys getting roughed up and maybe bleeding a little, swagger, canon divergence, sad shit, sexy shit, sexy sad shit 

TOTALLY COOL WITH, IF THEY CROP UP: graphic violence, canon-typical gore, drug use, alcohol, cigarettes, abuse references, character death, any au that preserves the original dynamic, mild self harm, semi-public sex, underage, inappropriate guardian/kid intimacy

WOULD RATHER NOT READ: coffeeshop aus, negotiated/explicit consent or boundaries or scenes, pregnancy, body hair, rimming, rape/non-con.


BORDERLANDS
requested characters: handsome jack, timothy lawrence


i'm so fucked up over this series i barely know where to start.

THE SOURCE: a series of FPS video games by Gearbox. in order of release: Borderlands, Borderlands 2, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!. BL2 and BL:TPS are the most relevant to this request. Also, Telltale Games just finished Tales From The Borderlands, an episodic adventure game set after the events of BL2 and heavily involving the same characters.

(A NOTE: I really, really want to treat Tales as part of the same canon for this, but they've been given separate tags in the collection. And maybe you love the main series, but don't care for Tales. No obligation at all; disregard anything here that's against the rules, bad form, or that you think is unreasonable.)

Borderlands is about a viciously inhospitable planet that got colonized (and next up: civilized) by a series of competing mega-corporations & weapons manufacturers, the biggest and baddest of which was Hyperion. Hyperion's gigantic, H-shaped moonbase takes up a good chunk of the planet's skyskape. The CEO of Hyperion is Handsome Jack.

Handsome Jack starts Borderlands 2 by exploding a train full of civilians. He is near-constantly shelling the refugee city of Sanctuary. He is such a murderer, and a sadist, and he is ridiculously proud what he does. Because Handsome Jack is the hero of this story, and you're the bad guys that just won't die.

He reinvented himself so aggressively, and now he's holding the universe at casual gunpoint into playing along. He's in motivational posters. He has a diamond pony. He hired a body-double* before he was even that important. The story of the Borderlands series is basically Jack's nonconsensual confrontation with reality, as forced by the people he's trying to subjugate/save, as well as his own tide of bad decisions. It, uh, doesn't go that well.

(*The body double is Timothy Lawrence. He answered a Hyperion ad because he needed the money to pay off his student loans. Some time later he woke up in an operating room with a new face. He's a puddle of a person and can't do a convincing Jack impression for the life of him. Meanwhile, Jack can't look him in the face without getting very sexy distracted.)

Timothy Lawrence, Property of Hyperion (Until They Can Find The Receipt)

And then, uh... Tales goes in some other directions. I fucking love Tales. It's my favorite game in the series, hands down. I love its every relationship, and how kind it is, and how much it loves this universe. If you're willing to write anything involving Tales, you probably don't need me to explain its strengths. So for the sake of brevity: I mostly love Handsome Jack toying with Rhys's autonomy. 


MY REQUEST: I basically just asked for, uh, Handsome Jack toying with Timothy Lawrence's autonomy. 

I really like the parallel between Timothy Lawrence and Rhys. Jack absolutely wrecked them both. So basically, my actual request is "Jack fucking (with) Timothy Lawrence," but if it happens to be interesting or relevant to you-- I am also really, really into Jack fucking Rhys.

I like the darkness & dysfunction inherent in Jack, and in his free use of the people around him. I really like D/s undertones, massive power imbalances (deliberate & enforced), inappropriate workplace relationships (I'm... absolutely in love with "Jack makes Rhys his secretary" fics), possessiveness, pet names, praise kink, casual physical affection, etc. Definitely take a look at the tags on my Ao3 bookmarks for an idea of what I like here.

Also in my prompt! "5 times Timothy couldn't pull off 'Handsome Jack,' and one time he really, really did." Anything like that would be cool. Examining how they're similar & different, both in theory and in execution, and that maybe the most material difference between them is that Jack is in the deep end, while Timothy is in over his head. ETA: Or um, y'know that heavily implicit possibility that Jack branded Tim after the events of the Pre-Sequel? Jack taking out on Tim what's been taken out of him would be somethin' else. Jack making sure Timothy always matches. Keeping him up to date! Making him come along when he gets a new tattoo? Falling apart like a freshly-handsome psychopath and getting wasted in Timothy's living room? Torture porn and kissing.

ON THAT NOTE. FOR THIS, I'M ALSO TOTALLY COOL WITH READING: torture, non-consensual body modification, amputation, medical procedures, injuries, scarring, tattoos, guns, etc. But I'd rather any of that were separate from sex; no gunplay, for example, but gun violence followed by sex? Great! That goes double if it leads to weird dissonance, like Jack kicking the shit out of Timothy just before they have a tender fuck. And please nothing especially graphic or bloody in the foreground! I like the psychological parts, but not so much the physical details. My DNW's still stand: particularly please no rape, but dub-con is fine.


Whatever you choose to write (I'm so, so easy to please with this) pre-canon setting is totally cool too. Explicit porn would be great, but it's not a must! And I know I went pretty hard up there, but a non-heavy story is also totally cool! Funny & sexy is great; angst is honestly not necessary, and I'd be perfectly happy with a story that's just "fucked up, but we don't need to make a note of that, pumpkin."


WARCHILD SERIES - KARIN LOWACHEE
requested characters: ryan azarcon, yuri kirov

ryan & yuri by @nko538 on twitter

THE SOURCE: A series of military sci-fi books about three young boys, the different ways wartime adults ruined them, and then how they started getting better.

MY REQUEST: I would love a story about Yuri and Ryan getting to know each other on Macedon. I feel like they're on opposite ends of the Spectrum of Lost Boys, and I want to see them bridging that gap (or blithely ignoring it, in Ryan's case) with all the others-- Jos, Cairo, Finch, Evan-- looking on & disapproving to varying degrees.

This short story by the author is pretty much exactly the context I have in mind.

It doesn't have to be romantic! But honestly I'd love anything from Yuri's ruthlessly-applied flirting to full on, ill-advised boning down & Ryan's subsequent walk of shame. The other characters are obviously optional, but I'd be very happy to see anyone listed up there, plus Dorr and Sid.


THE MOST POPULAR GIRLS IN SCHOOL
requested characters: tanner christiansen, jonathan "than" getslinhaumer