alectorine (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alectorine) wrote2024-10-07 06:13 pm
alectorine) wrote2024-10-07 06:13 pm
yuletide 2024
Hi! I'm ![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
sulfate (also at pyrophane) and first of all, thank you so much for participating. I'm so excited to see what you create. I’ve written some prompts, but by no means do you have to include all or any of them—so long as you steer clear of my DNWs, if you have a particular idea you’re burning to write, please go for it. Feel free to spin something entirely out of my likes list and disregard the prompts as well.
You can find me elsewhere on twitterennezahard or highrankership, and on tumblr delineative. If you’re really stuck, my previous Yuletide letters can be found in this tag—if the prompts for any of those fandoms are striking a chord, I’d be happy to receive fic for them instead.
Treats of any kind and length are welcome ❤️
NSFW likes (see here for more details):
General dislikes:
7 Seeds | Mayu
A perennial repeat request! If you’re writing Mayu fic, you can't go wrong—honestly, you could just write out Mayu's internal monologue as she watches paint dry or something and I'd be over the moon, I'm guaranteed to love anything in which Mayu Does Things. Mayu’s emotional maturity, levelheadedness, care for her friends, social charisma, classic Summer A self-absorption, sweetness, and cheerful passive-aggressiveness are what make her my favourite 7 Seeds character out of a cast I absolutely adore.
Summer A gen is everything to me, and I’d love slightly off-key slice-of-life fic exploring Mayu’s childhood/middle-school years within Summer A—what kind of group traditions do they have? Do they try to adopt any horrifically misinterpreted civilian customs on Mayu's prompting? What does her daily routine look like? How has she decorated her dorm room, and who does she room with? Who shares her classes? Who does she view as rivals? Where does she get her supply of cute hair accessories???
I’d also love a canon-divergent AU where Mayu lives instead of Ango and becomes the Summer A leader—what changes, and what doesn’t? Does she still clash with the other teams? How do the other Summer A members feel about her leadership? Who are her favourite civilians? Personally I imagine her attentiveness to others' emotional needs would warp into micromanagey "I know best"-type control issues and ultimately result in much the same outcome as Ango's leadership i.e. attempted removal of threats to the status quo and subsequent exile. But there’s a whole range of possibilities in diverging from canon, and I’d love to see your take on it!
These are all largely canon-focused prompts, but if you wanted to write an AU transposing Summer A's weird claustrophobic childhood-friends-who-can-barely-trust-each-other-anymore intimacy into a different setting, please go wild! Summer A as a competitive sports team? Summer A as an elite idol group? Summer A as a commercial litigation firm or cutthroat investment banking office? Summer A as a witch coven? Summer A as an institutional superhero initiative? I'm interested to see how Mayu might shine in another context!
Here are some potential Mayu dynamics I particularly love, gen and/or ship interpretations both welcome—all optional, just here if you’d like more prompts:
My tag for Mayu is here, assorted thoughts about a Mayu-lives AU can be found here.
Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy | Katrielle Layton, Emiliana Perfetti
How to play: Video game, available on mobile, 3DS, and Switch. I've logged 18 hours for 100% completion, but Emiliana only appears in Cases 2, 3, 5, 8, 11 and 12, so it could definitely be done more quickly. You can also find a walkthrough here.
What I love about Katrielle: her cheerful materialistic self-centredness and love for fashion and food and fine things in life, as well as her compassion and her willingness to go the extra mile to achieve an outcome she believes is just even if it's more than what the law requires, like her resolution of the Goddess of the Thames case.
What I love about Emiliana: her cool haughty primness and perfectionism, and her pride in her intellect and logical prowess, contrasted with the unexpected gap charm of her secret love for romance stories and Maverick D. Rector's movies, her fear of the supernatural, and her kind heart as pointed out by PC Beate—all of which she represses and vehemently denies and pretends not to have despite her transparency.
What I love about Katrielle/Emiliana: the way their rivalry drives them to improve themselves, the deep respect and trust they grow to have for each other to the point where Emiliana of all people has such staunch faith in Katrielle in the Katrielle Layton: Wanted! case, their friendly antagonistic banter, Katrielle's confident openness contrasted with Emiliana's uptight repression, the way their opposing investigative styles of instinctual synthesis vs logical deduction reflect their complementary personalities but at their core they both have the same good heart.
I'm less interested in established relationship fic for them and am more into the rivals-to-lovers aspect. In short, I'd love anything where Emiliana's cool composed shell cracks in front of Katrielle's sunny unfazeability, or where Emiliana gets flustered by Katrielle's directness, or in general Emiliana being super tsundere, whether or not she's aware of her crush on Katrielle. If you're writing porn, I'd prefer it if Katrielle is the top (if relevant) and/or the more dominant party.
Some specific prompts if you'd like more direction:
Out of the rest of the Layton series, I'm familiar with Curious Village, Pandora's Box, Lost Future, and Mystery Room—feel free to draw on any Layton source for lore, worldbuilding, or fun cameo purposes, but I just might not pick up on it if it's outside of those four games.
Alice in Borderland | Kuzuryu Keiichi, Kano Mira
How to read: 65-chapter manga, official English translation available via Viz.
I was instantly compelled upon seeing the hints of shared backstory between Kuzuryu and Mira in the approximately three scenes they shared, particularly Mira's choice to infiltrate the players alongside Kuzuryu. I think of this as a very cerebral yet weirdly psychosexual kind of dynamic where they're mutually interested in each other's minds—Kuzuryu simultaneously being unsettled by and drawn to Mira's endless curiosity without judgment, while Mira gains deep satisfaction from learning about Kuzuryu's experiences with his career in law and of course his resulting plethora of psychological issues, as well as the way he continues to cling onto his ideals about justice and fairness despite his disillusionment, which is something I think intrigues her even if she considers Kuzuryu's quest futile. The way that Kuzuryu is so tortured by morality while Mira seemingly does not care at all (or more precisely cares about everything in the same detachedly inquisitive way) and yet they get along swimmingly is so fascinating to me! They're too self-contained to be codependent, but I see them as thriving off each other despite their stark differences.
Feel free to interpret these prompts in a gen or shippy light, I just really want to see more of Kuzuryu and Mira together in any context! I don't imagine them as a conventional romance but I am willing to see any vision you come up with. Being villainous coworkers can really be the most romantic thing in the world, if you define romance very loosely. I'm also mostly interested in seeing them during their time in the Borderlands but have no objection if you'd like to write something where one or both of them survive and make it back to the real world.
Again, these are all just suggestions—use them or leave them as you wish! Thank you so much, and see you on the other side.
You can find me elsewhere on twitter
ennezahard or highrankership, and on tumblr delineative. If you’re really stuck, my previous Yuletide letters can be found in this tag—if the prompts for any of those fandoms are striking a chord, I’d be happy to receive fic for them instead. Treats of any kind and length are welcome ❤️
General | 7 Seeds | Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy | Alice in Borderland
- apocalypse or post-apocalypse settings
- characters being stabbed or otherwise injured on the shoulder
- clashing worldviews
- dreams
- enemies to lovers where there's still some form of rivalry or resentment, friends to enemies (to lovers optional), rivals to enemies (to lovers optional)
- espionage AU, casefic, fakeout makeouts, undercover as a couple
- fate and/or doom—in the sense of some unavoidable tragedy looming on the horizon even if the characters don't know it yet, or starcrossed lovers, or characters railing against their fate but ultimately unable to avert it, or characters being soulmates except one (or both) is horrified by the idea of predestined love (particularly where they're enemies before they find out they're soulmates). On a happier note, I also like fate in the sense of serendipitous meetings and reunions, and ships that are Meant To Be, in whatever capacity
- leader x second-in-command dynamics
- lotus-eater machines
- magical realism, urban fantasy, any magic/superpowers/witchcraft AU in general
- mentorships
- physicality and nonverbal communication
- pining and repressed feelings, repressed characters pushed to breaking and finally admitting what they want
- pop idol AU, Bleak Boyband Bingo tropes
- power dynamics, power imbalances, difficult/ambiguous/dysfunctional relationships that are intensely felt but hard to define
- roadtrips
- rarepairs, minor characters, multishipping, friendships, ensemble casts, casual/background poly
- sparring
- time loops
- unusual/experimental prose style and structure
- worldbuilding, histories, strong sense of setting
- wound care
NSFW likes (see here for more details):
- breathplay and choking
- competition, violence or rivalry elements
- D/s undertones, undernegotiated or non-negotiated D/s
- edging
- focus on hands/wrists/throats/collarbones
- power dynamics and authority kink
- praise as a form of degradation
- sex pollen-style dubcon
- basically, if it involves the combination of violence and intimacy, I'm in!
General dislikes:
- anything involving pregnancy or raising kids
- daddy kink
- formal BDSM
- graphic descriptions of broken bones—unless there's a supernatural healing mechanic at play, in which case go wild. But either way, other injuries in the nature of bruises, cuts, dislocations, stabbings, etc are all fine.
- graphic descriptions of unsanitary situations, including infections
- graphic medical experimentation
- homophobia (internalised or societal)
- infidelity
- lengthy kink negotiations
- noncon
- public humiliation
- reincarnation AU, A/B/O, high school AU, historical or period setting AU
7 Seeds | Mayu
How to read: 178-chapter manga, available via scanlation sites (unfortunately I don't think there is an official licensed translation). There is an anime adaptation on Netflix, but it's... not great.
A perennial repeat request! If you’re writing Mayu fic, you can't go wrong—honestly, you could just write out Mayu's internal monologue as she watches paint dry or something and I'd be over the moon, I'm guaranteed to love anything in which Mayu Does Things. Mayu’s emotional maturity, levelheadedness, care for her friends, social charisma, classic Summer A self-absorption, sweetness, and cheerful passive-aggressiveness are what make her my favourite 7 Seeds character out of a cast I absolutely adore.
Summer A gen is everything to me, and I’d love slightly off-key slice-of-life fic exploring Mayu’s childhood/middle-school years within Summer A—what kind of group traditions do they have? Do they try to adopt any horrifically misinterpreted civilian customs on Mayu's prompting? What does her daily routine look like? How has she decorated her dorm room, and who does she room with? Who shares her classes? Who does she view as rivals? Where does she get her supply of cute hair accessories???
I’d also love a canon-divergent AU where Mayu lives instead of Ango and becomes the Summer A leader—what changes, and what doesn’t? Does she still clash with the other teams? How do the other Summer A members feel about her leadership? Who are her favourite civilians? Personally I imagine her attentiveness to others' emotional needs would warp into micromanagey "I know best"-type control issues and ultimately result in much the same outcome as Ango's leadership i.e. attempted removal of threats to the status quo and subsequent exile. But there’s a whole range of possibilities in diverging from canon, and I’d love to see your take on it!
These are all largely canon-focused prompts, but if you wanted to write an AU transposing Summer A's weird claustrophobic childhood-friends-who-can-barely-trust-each-other-anymore intimacy into a different setting, please go wild! Summer A as a competitive sports team? Summer A as an elite idol group? Summer A as a commercial litigation firm or cutthroat investment banking office? Summer A as a witch coven? Summer A as an institutional superhero initiative? I'm interested to see how Mayu might shine in another context!
Here are some potential Mayu dynamics I particularly love, gen and/or ship interpretations both welcome—all optional, just here if you’d like more prompts:
- Mayu/Ryo: even though they didn't really interact in canon I'm very interested in the way Ryo’s fake bad boy lifestyle potentially provides an excellent foil for Mayu's student leadership committee energy, and these two have somehow become my series OTP (though I will absolutely eat up any gen iteration too!). Canon-wise, did Mayu hang around on the peripheries of Ryo and Ango’s dramatic rivalry and make fun of them with Nijiko? Did she ever work with, compete against, tutor, or be tutored by Ryo? In a Mayu-lives AU, tell me about her exile roadtrip with Ryo—how the two people least interested in exploring the new world, having prioritised the safety of their friends above all else, begin to turn their focus outwards and reluctantly find beauty in this utterly foreign place. A friend put it as ‘we are trying to preserve this fading world even though in doing so we’ve alienated every other person we wanted to do it for, but this singular other person thinks we’re on the right track, so we can keep going for another day’—anything with that kind of 'us against the world’ vibe would be amazing!
- Mayu/Ayu—as Koruri’s best friend, Mayu must be on top of all the Summer A gossip, and so surely she must have known about the bullying Ayu was going through, especially as they share soil class. Mayu’s also well-respected by her peers, so why didn’t she put a stop to it? Did she try to rationalise her inaction the way Ayu did ('it would be condescending if I tried to help her, she’s strong enough to handle it herself’)? Was there a period, when the bullying had just begun, where Ayu thought that Mayu would step in soon? For all Mayu’s interpersonal expertise, Ayu seems to be the one situation she doesn’t know how to deal with, and I’d love to see something exploring that. In a Mayu-lives AU, how does that friction and misery escalate? Does Mayu seek Ayu out, or does she try to pretend everything is fine between them?
- Mayu/Koruri—the sweetest friendship (plus Nobara, if you like)! Would love any sort of slice-of-life—Mayu: Girl Detective’s investigations into the mysterious Saucer-Eyed Club activities, helping each other study for exams, roommate hijinks. In a Mayu-lives AU, tell me about Mayu and Koruri clashing over Koruri growing closer to the other teams, and how the new world strains their relationship?
- Mayu/Nijiko—I'd love to see Mayu and Nijiko being unexpectedly good friends and classmates, particularly since they share soil class! Maybe a field trip, or studying in the library together, or Mayu waterproofing an extra track jacket for Nijiko? In a Mayu-lives AU, what causes them to fall out, and why doesn't Nijiko go into exile with Mayu and Ryo given her closeness to both?
My tag for Mayu is here, assorted thoughts about a Mayu-lives AU can be found here.
Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy | Katrielle Layton, Emiliana Perfetti
How to play: Video game, available on mobile, 3DS, and Switch. I've logged 18 hours for 100% completion, but Emiliana only appears in Cases 2, 3, 5, 8, 11 and 12, so it could definitely be done more quickly. You can also find a walkthrough here.
What I love about Katrielle: her cheerful materialistic self-centredness and love for fashion and food and fine things in life, as well as her compassion and her willingness to go the extra mile to achieve an outcome she believes is just even if it's more than what the law requires, like her resolution of the Goddess of the Thames case.
What I love about Emiliana: her cool haughty primness and perfectionism, and her pride in her intellect and logical prowess, contrasted with the unexpected gap charm of her secret love for romance stories and Maverick D. Rector's movies, her fear of the supernatural, and her kind heart as pointed out by PC Beate—all of which she represses and vehemently denies and pretends not to have despite her transparency.
What I love about Katrielle/Emiliana: the way their rivalry drives them to improve themselves, the deep respect and trust they grow to have for each other to the point where Emiliana of all people has such staunch faith in Katrielle in the Katrielle Layton: Wanted! case, their friendly antagonistic banter, Katrielle's confident openness contrasted with Emiliana's uptight repression, the way their opposing investigative styles of instinctual synthesis vs logical deduction reflect their complementary personalities but at their core they both have the same good heart.
I'm less interested in established relationship fic for them and am more into the rivals-to-lovers aspect. In short, I'd love anything where Emiliana's cool composed shell cracks in front of Katrielle's sunny unfazeability, or where Emiliana gets flustered by Katrielle's directness, or in general Emiliana being super tsundere, whether or not she's aware of her crush on Katrielle. If you're writing porn, I'd prefer it if Katrielle is the top (if relevant) and/or the more dominant party.
Some specific prompts if you'd like more direction:
- Casefic! If you're interested in going for something more plotty (or even just a single-scene glimpse into a case they're working), I would absolutely eat it up, especially if there's some kind of supernatural element that can bring out Emiliana's very cute fear of ghosts (and Katrielle's penchant for teasing her about it). I'd love to see more of Katrielle and Emiliana not-so-reluctantly working together, divvying up investigative tasks, brainstorming and bouncing theories off each other, bantering and ribbing each other mid-investigation, spurring each other on to be the best detectives they can be, sharing living and/or working spaces, unintentionally growing accustomed to each other's habits... I enjoy both the quaint cozy atmosphere of the earlier cases and the darker, more serious tone of the climactic cases in LMJ so either—or both!—would be welcome. If you'd like some plot inspiration, Detective Conan has a ton of oneshot mysteries that have similar vibes to LMJ.
- In a similar vein to the above prompt, futurefic where Katrielle and Emiliana run into each other at a detective competition (like the puzzle party in the final case) they've both been invited to, after a year or so of not seeing each other. Maybe one of them went abroad for study or work? I can see Emiliana taking up a more prestigious role overseas or getting poached by a high-profile agency. Regardless, they have to work through both the mystery at hand and the big question mark of their unresolved feelings about each other. Perhaps the competition gets derailed by a very real and unstaged murder that forces them to go from competitors to collaborators in order to solve it? Who invited them to the competition, and why?
- For the other contestants, feel free to use OCs (I love the silly Ace Attorney-esque pun names among the LMJ cast) or give your favourite detectives/secret agents/geniuses cameo roles. Some of my personal favourites who I would be over the moon to glimpse if you wanted some options: Haibara Ai, Amuro Tooru, Sera Masumi and Hakuba Saguru from Detective Conan; Franziska von Karma and Ema Skye from Ace Attorney; Valkyrie Cain, Tanith Low and China Sorrows from Skulduggery Pleasant.
- Bodyswap—Katrielle and Emiliana are so different in temperament that bodyswap fic could be really fun for them. There's already a talking dog in canon, so surely bodyswapping is not out of the realm of possibility. How good are they at acting like each other? If the POV character already knows she has feelings for the other, how does she cope with literally inhabiting her crush's body? Which of their friends and acquaintances and coworkers do they manage to fool? Who figures it out? How do they return to their original bodies? I know the usual way the trope is resolved is via sex and I would love to see it if you're interested in writing explicit fic!
- Emiliana wakes up one day with the ability to see ghosts. Terrified and not entirely convinced she hasn't gone mad, she turns to the only person who might believe her: Katrielle. Cue harnessing Emiliana's newfound medium powers to solve murders and cold cases together. You could extend the magical themes further—what if Katrielle's "luck" and "gut instinct" were supernatural or even divine in nature?
- Spy/secret agent AU—or maybe futurefic? They're rival agents working for different national organisations, but they're brought together to collaborate on a cross-jurisdictional project. All the above prompts could equally apply in a spy AU setting. I love all tropes related to going undercover as a couple and fakeout makeouts.
- Optional crossover prompt if you're familiar with Mystery Room—I'd love to see Katrielle and Emiliana working with Lucy and Alfendi (and Hilda?) on a murder case! Maybe a canon divergence AU where serial killer Diane becomes Lucy's Moriarty-style nemesis figure and the case is getting complex enough that Scotland Yard has to call in extra resources in the form of its star profiler? Maybe Katrielle just happens to be in the area for a family reunion and gets caught up in events? Or perhaps Diane winds up fixating on Katrielle, somehow (there's some fun potential for Emiliana to get irrationally jealous that someone else is staking a claim on her rival, and then annoyed at herself for the irrational response. Of course, Diane wouldn't limit her flirty threats to just Lucy and Katrielle...)? I'm 100% open to polyshipping Lucy and/or Diane with Katrielle and Emiliana, but I'd also welcome gen. In terms of Mystery Room-specific ships, I like all combinations of Alfendi/Hilda/Lucy/Diane.
Out of the rest of the Layton series, I'm familiar with Curious Village, Pandora's Box, Lost Future, and Mystery Room—feel free to draw on any Layton source for lore, worldbuilding, or fun cameo purposes, but I just might not pick up on it if it's outside of those four games.
Alice in Borderland | Kuzuryu Keiichi, Kano Mira
How to read: 65-chapter manga, official English translation available via Viz.
I was instantly compelled upon seeing the hints of shared backstory between Kuzuryu and Mira in the approximately three scenes they shared, particularly Mira's choice to infiltrate the players alongside Kuzuryu. I think of this as a very cerebral yet weirdly psychosexual kind of dynamic where they're mutually interested in each other's minds—Kuzuryu simultaneously being unsettled by and drawn to Mira's endless curiosity without judgment, while Mira gains deep satisfaction from learning about Kuzuryu's experiences with his career in law and of course his resulting plethora of psychological issues, as well as the way he continues to cling onto his ideals about justice and fairness despite his disillusionment, which is something I think intrigues her even if she considers Kuzuryu's quest futile. The way that Kuzuryu is so tortured by morality while Mira seemingly does not care at all (or more precisely cares about everything in the same detachedly inquisitive way) and yet they get along swimmingly is so fascinating to me! They're too self-contained to be codependent, but I see them as thriving off each other despite their stark differences.
Feel free to interpret these prompts in a gen or shippy light, I just really want to see more of Kuzuryu and Mira together in any context! I don't imagine them as a conventional romance but I am willing to see any vision you come up with. Being villainous coworkers can really be the most romantic thing in the world, if you define romance very loosely. I'm also mostly interested in seeing them during their time in the Borderlands but have no objection if you'd like to write something where one or both of them survive and make it back to the real world.
- Pre-canon missing scenes—I would love love love to see more from their time as regular players, before they became Citizens. If you're up for writing an original game, I'm a huge casefic and death games fan and would be absolutely thrilled to receive that. Did they ever participate in their weak suits to what I imagine to be hilarious effect before they figured out their specialties? Otherwise, I'm equally as interested in seeing little slice-of-life-in-the-apocalypse moments from their downtime between games. Any sort of worldbuilding would be amazing. Did they both know how to play chess before they came to the Borderlands, or did one of them teach the other? Did they have any other conversational rituals apart from chess? Did Mira teach Kuzuryu how to play croquet? Did Kuzuryu teach Mira about jurisprudence and legal theory; did Mira teach Kuzuryu about psychological diagnosis and neuroscience in return? I really like how amicable and forthcoming they seemed during the casual chess match we see between them—were they always like that? Did opening up to each other come naturally to them?
- I'd love to see more of their ensemble dynamic with Kyuma and Shirabi too, if you were so inclined; I thought the gravesite gardening was so whimsically macabre and would thoroughly enjoy anything with that kind of atmosphere. Did Kuzuryu ever finally join in with radio calisthenics?
- Beach era missing scenes—really interested in this period of time, when they were basically undercover. How did they climb their way to the top ranks? How did they interact as executives, knowing they were being so closely watched by everyone else on the Beach? Did they avoid each other as much as possible or allow themselves an acquaintanceship, since they were both aligned with Hatter's faction? What did they talk about, if they talked at all? Did they check in with each other regarding the progress of Kuzuryu's utopia experiment? What were their relationships like with their other colleagues and rivals? Who did they get along with, and who did they clash with? An, Kuina and Chishiya are my favourites out of the rest of the cast, so if you wanted to elaborate on Kuzuryu and/or Mira's relationships with them in particular I'd be thrilled to see that.
- On a more specific note, I'd love to see more Beach "office" politics. I'm obsessed with bureaucracy and protocols and mundane administrative operations. Tell me all about the executive board meetings and policy arguments and formalised (or not!) decisionmaking processes that presumably devolved into threats of or even outright physical violence between Aguni and Hatter, and how the executives maintained governance of so many people. We got glimpses of the string-pulling going on behind the scenes like the manufactured tension between Aguni and Hatter's factions, and Kuzuryu and Mira seem to be in prime position to pull some strings themselves. I'm sure Mira in particular had her finger on the pulse of the various interpersonal dynamics among the executives and the Beach more generally. Were Kuzuryu and Mira doing any secret chessmaster gambits along the lines of the Hatter/Aguni ideological cold war to keep the Beach residents in check or otherwise further their agendas as Citizens? If you wanted to play around with structure, I think Kuzuryu and Mira would be great at keeping outsider POV-style peanut gallery observational logs on the other highrankers (and perhaps each other?), maybe in the form of file notes.
- Hearts vs Diamonds—the dividing line between the logical and the psychological can be so blurry. How do Kuzuryu and Mira conceptualise it and/or the difference between their worldviews and skillsets? It seems to me that, inverting their specialty suits, Kuzuryu is the one who is beset by emotion while Mira views the world at cool remove. Mira, who simply wants to know more about everything in the way that a black hole indiscriminately sucks in light, seems to embody the impartiality of justice that Kuzuryu agonises over so deeply, and that's something I'd love to see explored. Kuzuryu's anguish signals to me that he truly cares, even if he is unable to do anything about it, and isn't that a truer and more robust foundation for seeking to do justice than Mira's apparent disinterest in humanity other than as a subject of academic focus? Is this something either of them ever realise or discuss?
- Kuzuryu agrees to play test subject for a prototype version of Mira's hallucinogenic teas and experiences a vision like the ones Arisu sees during the Queen of Hearts game—what seems like a world where the meteor crash never happened and he and Mira end up meeting anyway. Maybe Kuzuryu leaves commercial litigation and goes into pro bono advocacy or human rights law or even teaching, and somehow his path ends up intersecting with professionally renowned clinical psychiatrist Kano Mira? Or maybe she's an independent expert engaged by a client of his? Maybe they meet over a community chess set or vegetable garden and they grow closer in a mundane way, or at least as mundane as things can get with Mira's personality involved? But then Kuzuryu keeps having these dreams about playing cards and death games... What causes Kuzuryu to snap out of the vision? What does he report to Mira in the aftermath (or to dream-Mira during)? It would be super interesting to play around with the reality/unreality nature of the Borderlands a little more and leave it ambiguous as to which world is true!
- Superheroes AU—I think this dynamic would be so much fun transposed into an institutionalised superhero setting where they're the superhero equivalent of corrupt politicians, or secret members of an extremist sect, or even supervillains in deep cover who have infiltrated their way up to the governing body of superheroes. I could see Mira having illusion or compulsion powers; maybe Kuzuryu has powers related to memory, or truth-telling, or even instant death to compound his disillusionment over playing with people's lives, especially if he's in charge of something like superhero law enforcement? Again: I love bureaucracy and administration and triple-crossing politicking, and would eat up any iteration with magic involved. Even superheroes and supervillains have to deal with budget reports and leave request processes.
- NSFW prompts:
- Post-game adrenaline high sex that's just about conveniently meeting a mutual physical need... unless...?
- You could go a kind of dark sex comedy route where they have weird intellectualised therapy sex where Kuzuryu is (not) working through his million layers of guilt complexes about the meaning of justice while Mira is observing him like a lab rat in a maze except she's also in the maze, and they're both back and forth monologuing about the human condition and utopia and whatnot. If you also wanted to throw in an angst gutpunch or two, I love being lulled into a false sense of comedic security before being blindsided by anguish.
- In terms of other Alice in Borderland ships, I also like Kuina/An; any combination of Chishiya/Kuina/Arisu/Usagi but especially Kuina/Usagi, Arisu/Chishiya and Chishiya/Kuina; Hatter/Aguni; and Mira/An.
Again, these are all just suggestions—use them or leave them as you wish! Thank you so much, and see you on the other side.