fic in a box 2025

[alectorine]

Hi! I'm 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 explore, 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 twitter ennezahard or highrankership, on tumblr delineative, and on my other dreamwidth rhodochrosite.

General | Detective Conan | Prince of Tennis | Sakamoto Days | Tennis RPF | The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

General likes:

• 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, superheroes/supervillains, 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, the most important person to a character being someone other than their ship partner
• 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!

Art likes:

• blood
• characters interacting with their younger selves or other versions of themselves
• characters wearing hairclips
• characters pointing weapons at each other
• eye closeups
• floral motifs
• hands on throats / backs of necks / wrists
• mirrors reflecting a different scene
• outfit swap or one character wearing a distinctive clothing item belonging to the other character
• penrose stairs
• shoulder injuries
• stylisation and symbolism
• tarot card redraws
• unusual colour palettes
• weird or dramatic lighting and/or composition
• "what's in my bag"-style item layouts

Audio/video likes:

• compilation videos
• dialogue from source video clips
• instrumentals
• minor keys, unusual modes and scales
• string instruments
• synth-heavy music
• texture, harmony, counterpoint, anything that has a bunch of layered sounds happening at the same time

Medium opt-ins for all requests:

• Any - Any Nominated In-Universe Medium
• Any - Creator's Choice of 3+ Different Nominated In-Universe Mediums Per Work
• Art - Comics
• Art - Fanart
• Art - Remix - Art Remix of my Fic
• Audio - Original Fan Music
• Illustrated Text (Art & Writing) - Illustrated Fic
• Unique Rules - Art with Small Animated Elements - Any Nominated Art Tag
• Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - Choice-Based IF Not Hosted On AO3
• Unique Rules - Interactive Fiction - Illustrated Choice-Based IF Not Hosted On AO3
• Video - Any Nominated Video Medium
• Writing - Any In-Universe Documents
• Writing - Recursive Fic of Any of the Recip's Works In This Fandom
• Writing - Remix - Fic Remix of my Fic

DNWs:

• anything involving pregnancy or raising kids
• bitter breakups of canon relationships
• 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
• public humiliation
• reincarnation AU, A/B/O, high school AU, historical or period setting AU

Detective Conan
Quick note on the million names and identities everyone in this canon has - I am using the names I tend to refer to the characters by, but please feel free to use whichever name best suits the story you want to tell. I am caught up to the JP release of the manga and have watched all the movies, so feel free to use whatever parts of canon you like and don't worry about spoilers

For background ships, I like Sera/Haibara, Hagiwara/Matsuda, Scotch/Kir, Vermouth/Kir, Hakuba/Kaito, Hakuba/Akako, Vermouth/Mary, Vermouth/Yukiko, really Vermouth/any woman, and all of the canon ships especially Shinichi/Ran, Heiji/Kazuha and Yamato/Yui.

Fandom-specific DNWs: any reference to top Amuro or bottom Akai, jealousy over previous relationships, Akemi negativity, any mention of Haibara being shipped with men.

Akai Shuichi/Amuro Tooru
Everything about these two is laser calibrated to my id. I have written at length about what I love about their dynamic <here> and <here> if you're interested in reading more of my thoughts, but in essence: I love their rivals to enemies to reluctant allies (TO LOVERS?!) journey. I love the intense grief and heartbreak and betrayal and fury and regret that binds them together, crystallised in the shape of a corpse on a rooftop. I love the identity porn. I love the derangement and delusion Amuro exhibits around Akai despite being an intelligent and competent agent otherwise, and the whole "nobody can kill him except me" thing. I love that Akai is completely unconcerned and even endeared by Amuro's violently murderous intentions towards him. I love that Akai is shielding Amuro from the awful truth about how Scotch died, because he thinks it's better that he is the one to bear the weight of Amuro's hatred than for Amuro to bear it himself. At least Amuro's furious desire to kill Akai in revenge will keep Amuro going and therefore keep Amuro alive. What a terrible act of love! I can't wait to see how everything comes crashing down when the truth is revealed. I really do believe that at the end of everything, after all the smoke and anguish and pain clears, there is real true love.

If the fic is set during their shared Black Organisation years, I would prefer for Akai and Akemi to have already broken up, or for Amuro's interest in Akai to be unrequited at that stage, or for things to stay as unresolved sexual tension between Amuro and Akai.

Some prompts:

• During a Black Organisation mission, Bourbon is dosed with an aphrodisiac. Rye has to deal with a drugged and desperate Bourbon who has unfortunately been crushing horribly on Rye underneath the tsundere antipathy this whole time and is horrified to have that inadvertently revealed. It would actually be so hot if Rye very deliberately does not fuck Bourbon, but I would also naturally love to see the sex part of sex pollen.
• Shortly after his cover is blown and he returns to America, Akai comes back to his apartment one night to find Bourbon sitting in his living room. But Bourbon isn't here to kill Akai... probably. He's here because he's just killed someone for a Black Organisation mission and doesn't know how to deal with it. He is also dealing extremely badly with the still-raw grief of losing Scotch. Akai is willing to give Bourbon what he needs. Terrible coping mechanisms sex ensues!
• I'm obsessed with the I Know That You Know That I Know plausible deniability farce necessitated by the Okiya and Amuro civilian identities and would love to see it drawn out to comical extents (with devastating undertones of the angst underlying everything?). Psychological warfare conducted during grocery shopping run-ins or crossing paths on the street while running "errands" or babysitting the Detective Boys?
• Casefic - I'll eat anything where they're forced to team up. I love seeing them flip from fighting to the death to seamlessly working together when the situation calls for it and/or when Conan plays get-along shirt. It's so funny/sad that despite everything that's happened, Amuro still trusts Akai's capabilities absolutely. Does he realise what he's doing? Does Akai realise what Amuro's doing?
  • Alternatively, tell me about a mission they did together in the Black Organisation. I enjoy the fanon that Bourbon did honeypot work while Rye kept watch through a rifle scope from a nearby rooftop.
• Akai and Amuro have so much crazy intricate history and difficult-to-define feelings about each other in all their various identity permutations that outsider POV on them could be a lot of fun! Some people who might have interesting views on them: Jodie, Vermouth, Kir, Ran, Yukiko, Azusa, Kazami, Gin, the Detective Boys.
• I'd love to see your take on the fallout from Amuro finally finding out the truth about Scotch. What happens once the blade of Amuro's hate is turned away from Akai?
• Any Black Organisation bureaucratic paperwork - mission reports, expense claims, file notes, fake ID documents, performance reviews, career progression charts...
• NSFW-wise, I'm looking for unnegotiated D/s, angry prickly sub bottom Amuro who needs to turn every encounter into a fight for dominance that he inevitably loses so he can be "forced" into submission without having to endure the damage to his pride caused by willingly giving in or the humiliation of admitting to wanting anything from Akai, indulgent but sadistic dom top Akai who is fully aware of this intricate ritual and happy to oblige while bullying Amuro for it, Amuro repeatedly declaring his intent to kill Akai mid-sex.

Prince of Tennis
Generally, I'll adore anything with the classic Tenipuri tone that zigzags between ridiculous farcical comedy and sincere transcendentally beautiful emotional gutpunches and taking stupid things extremely seriously and taking serious things extremely stupidly. Please feel free to lean hard into the superpower-esque nature of everyone's signature tennis techniques, I love seeing them used in non-tennis contexts too. Please also feel free to go all out on the comedically exaggerated violence and injury with zero lasting physical repercussions except where plot relevant, if you'd like.

I am familiar with both manga and anime canon and am caught up with the JP release of the Shinteni manga. Feel free to use whatever aspects of whatever canon you like and don't worry about spoilers. My high school AU DNW does not apply to this request.

Fandom-specific DNWs: any mention of Tamagawa at all, Kirihara not being the next Rikkai captain (you don't have to explicitly say anything in the fic - just please don't include anything about Kirihara being vice-captain), Ryoma/Sakuno, bottom Atobe, top Ryoma, sexism directed at Kotoha.

Kirihara Akaya/Echizen Ryoma
My beloved rookie aces! They both have many compelling rivalries but I particularly treasure this one. I love that they first meet outside of the context of the middle school tennis circuit altogether. I love their parallel narrative positions as upstart baby prodigies appointed to carry on the legacy of their teams once their seniors are gone. I love that one sequence of panels from their first match where their narrative roles seem to reverse and it's Kirihara who is the point-of-view protagonist and Ryoma who is framed as the monstrous antagonist. I think they both represent aspects of pure potential and would love for them to keep learning from each other and spurring each other on and uplifting each other to new heights through their rivalry.

• They keep showing up unannounced at each other's schools to play practice matches with each other. It's courtship for tennis freaks! Do either of them realise it is, though?
• Flirting by trying to maim or kill each other on the tennis court, patching each other up afterwards, and other wholesome rival activities. The rest of Rikkai and Seigaku look on with benevolent fondness or harried alarm, depending on the person.
• I love the Rikkai rooftop gardens as a setting, and it's Kirihara's favourite place on campus - does he ever bring Ryoma there? Yukimura's physical or metaphorical presence highly welcome.
• Futurefic where they've both gone pro and, frustrated by a recent string of losses, Kirihara finds himself spiralling back into old harmful habits and on Shiraishi's advice takes a break from competitions. While on vacation he happens to run into Ryoma, who it turns out is undergoing a similar quarter-life crisis and can no longer access Tenimuho. Together they rediscover the simple joy of playing tennis for its own sake. Maybe they unlock or re-unlock Tenimuho together. Maybe they don't, and that's okay too.
• Even further away futurefic where Kirihara has just retired from professional tennis. Despite Kirihara’s abysmal head-to-head record against Ryoma, Ryoma asks Kirihara to be his coach for the next Open, having intuited that the feeling he had when he played against Kirihara is what he needs to be able to win.
  • The reverse would be really fun as well! Ryoma on a break from tennis or an early retirement, Kirihara seeking Ryoma out to coach him because he understands that he played his best and most complete tennis when he was playing against Ryoma.
  • I would just really love an exploration of what makes their rivalry different from their other key (and arguably more important/character-defining) rivalries!
• There’s a ton of tournament-adjacent in-universe media I’d love to see for Kirihara and Ryoma as pro players — pre- and post-match interviews, paired interviews, ATP challenges and player questions, Buzzfeed/Vogue/Glamour interviews, magazine spots, commercials and brand sponsorships…
• Something exploring their respective planet-sized captain complexes and/or crushes and the uniquely complicated feelings of longing/competition/pressure coming from being the successors to their captains' legacies when those captains are rivals as well as mentors and figures from whom they want validation.
• They're at some luxury event as celebrity pro players where they're the only people they know.
• Kintaro's presence is very welcome as well, to round out the junior aces brigade!

For background ships, I like all combinations of Sanada/Yukimura/Kirihara/Ryoma, Kirihara/An (very fond of the idea that An enrols in Rikkai for high school and becomes the team manager), Yanagi/Kirihara, Inui/Yanagi, Yagyuu/Niou, Jackal/Marui, any combinations of Yukimura/Niou/Marui, Rikkai ensemble gen, Kintaro/Ryoma, Tezuka/Ryoma, Atobe/Ryoma, Atobe/Tezuka and Fuji/Ryoma.

Oshitari Yushi/Kitazono Kotoha
Oshitari's courtesy towards Kotoha despite clocking her as an enemy agent on a datagathering mission to take down Hyotei instantly opened up so many beautiful enemies to lovers ship possibilities in my mind. I'd love to see how Oshitari's actions might draw Kotoha's interest (genuinely romantically, or as a mark to exploit, or both?) and how Oshitari might continue to politely but firmly block Kotoha's reconnaissance attempts while being a perfect gentleman... and maybe how they might develop a real connection through that process.

Feel free to age everyone up in AU contexts for convenience.

Some prompts:

• Futurefic where Kotoha joins the Hyotei team as their manager in high school. I read Oshitari as Atobe's unofficial vice captain, so I'd love to see the division of power and duty between him and Kotoha as manager (and Atobe too, as regnant King in an absolute monarchy?). Tell me all about Oshitari and Kotoha debating lineup strategy, training menus, team concerns, tennis gear maintenance and stock levels, scheduling practice matches with other schools, budget constraints (someone's got to keep Atobe in check - does Hyotei really need another snow machine for the courts?), doubles synergy ie team dynamics gossip, team building exercise initiatives... I want to see all the political intrigue of a mediaeval royal court in the form of high school tennis club bureaucracy! I want witty flirty power struggles that turn into an alliance of mutual respect!
• Oshitari's closed heart ability is apparently strong enough to block out ambiguously supernatural cult brainwashing, and I'd assume it gives him some shielding against Atobe's Insight variations too, but how does it hold up against Kotoha's entirely analog datagathering abilities that work by convincing her target to willingly divulge their secrets?
• What kind of data does Kotoha have about Oshitari? Does she ever share her observations with him? Does she ever try to honeypot him?
• Kotoha's file notes on other characters.
• Spy AU - reconnaissance specialist honeypot Kotoha and handler Oshitari? Or is Oshitari her field partner, or a rival agent? I'd be down for a Detective Conan AU with Kotoha as a Black Organisation agent.
• My entire understanding of the Prohibition era comes from Baccano! but Oshitari and Kotoha would make such a good hardboiled detective x femme fatale combo (my historical/period setting AU DNW does not apply for this prompt).
• Very open to including Atobe in any capacity here to form a sort of Hyotei triumvirate. I like Atobe and Oshitari communicating via smirk emoji and getting along surprisingly well because Oshitari doesn't have a problem with Atobe's authority. I like Kotoha being unafraid to challenge Atobe's authority and entering a passive-aggressive office antagonism with Atobe that is actually also them getting along surprisingly well. I like Oshitari and Kotoha acting as Atobe's right and left hands.

For background ships I also like Ootori/Shishido, Atobe/Tezuka, Atobe/Oshitari, and Atobe/Jirou.

Sakamoto Days (Manga)
Nagumo Yoichi/Osaragi/Shishiba; Nagumo Yoichi/Osaragi; Osaragi/Shishiba
Institutional assassin bureaucracy and the Order being basically an ultraviolent equivalent of in-house legal is a niche that feels like it was made for me, and in that vein I would eat up any kind of Order workplace dramedy. Love my airhead murder prodigy goth princess and her deceptively lackadaisical unexpectedly principled mentor and their unsettling eldritch monster colleague who takes the form of a cheerful man. I like Osaragi quietly trailing after Shishiba in her gothic ghost maiden getup until she turns into a rabidly protective guard dog the moment something threatens Shishiba, and how the full extent of Shishiba’s pride in Osaragi doesn’t become clear until he’s facing his own mentor and calling her the cutting edge of the Order. I like the easy camaraderie and history between Shishiba and Nagumo that is nonetheless no barrier to being ready and willing to kill each other should Nagumo decide it’s a good day to kick a hornet’s nest (basically any random day), and the conflicting personal loyalties that pull them in different directions. I like Nagumo unhelpfully teasing Osaragi to provoke a reaction out of her, and I like Osaragi talking back to Nagumo and telling on Nagumo to Shishiba (Are you worried about the ranking, Osaragi? // ... Shishiba-san, why don’t you kill him on the next assignment? is never too far from my mind. Obsessed with the contrast between Osaragi being sweet with Shishiba and sharp with Nagumo).

I'm up for any flavour of weird couple or throuple or situationship or colleagues with benefits or triangulation you can imagine. Being sympathetically villainous coworkers in the same exclusive killer clique can be the most romantic thing in the world!

Fandom-specific DNWs: top Osaragi, bottom Nagumo, setting change AU (canon divergence and canon-plus AUs eg they’re still assassins but they have even more explicit superpowers/daemons/telepathic soulbonds/the apocalypse is happening/etc are fine, I just don’t want them to not be assassins), requited Kamihate/Osaragi, any mention of Uzuki/Rion.

Some prompts:

• Daily life — tell me all about a typical day in the life of an elite assassin disciplinary committee member. I’m as interested in the quasi-corporate administrivia as I am in the actual kills and would love to see both sides of the job. How often do they get sent on actual assignments versus whatever the assassin equivalent of Every Day I Get Emails is (...is it still emails)? Do they have particular types of assignments they prefer? What do they do with their downtime? Do they hang out when they’re not on the clock? Do they spar or train or work out together?
• In-universe media — this format could really highlight the fun contrast between the gruesome nature of their work and its bureaucratic couching. Some ideas:
  • Various restaurant reviews left on Tabelog under suspiciously familiar aliases that mention increasingly disturbing tangential details in between comments on food.
  • Expense claims — who’s diligent about keeping their receipts (Osaragi)? Who tries to claim outrageous expenses even by assassin standards (also Osaragi)? Who leaves everything until the last day before payday and submits a flurry of seven-figure receiptless claims to accounts? What kind of things are they expensing?
  • Draft mission reports — who writes gold star reports including all the necessary details? Who submits their reports months late with three sentences written down? Who writes up a comprehensive ranking of the local pork katsu restaurants and turns that in as a mission report?
  • Equipment request logs — missionfic written via equipment requisition form submissions would be so much fun. What kind of gear are they ordering from the JAA inventory? Do they request any specific modifications to standard-issue weapons? Something as unique as Osaragi’s briefcase circular saw must be a custom piece—did she get it via the JAA or her own supplier?
• Assassin grad program — I’d love to see the corporate analogy drawn out with Osaragi essentially being Shishiba’s grad. Does Shishiba do any active teaching other than bringing her to different jobs? Do they do post-mission debriefs? Do they have feedback sessions (guest starring Nagumo?)? Their mentorship is so beloved to me and I'd love to see more of any aspect of it. I see them as neither platonic not romantic but a secret special third thing that defies categorisation... but to be clear I absolutely ship them.
• Do Nagumo and Osaragi ever do a job together without Shishiba? Osaragi’s clearly highly influenced by Shishiba’s approach to assassination—does Nagumo try to impart some of his own freakish wisdom to her? Does he encourage Osaragi to take a more bloodthirsty approach to killing (I mean, her signature weapon is a circular saw—I like to think she’s naturally inclined to gorefest violence but tries her best to emulate Shishiba’s “clean” assassination philosophy)? Does Nagumo give Osaragi unsolicited romantic advice regarding Shishiba that intentionally completely misses the point of their mentor/mentee relationship and is designed to piss her off? Does he recognise any of Shishiba’s movement set she’s learned? How does Osaragi respond to Nagumo moving in on her beloved Shishiba-san’s mentor position? It would be funny if Nagumo actually did teach her a useful skill in his typically purposefully annoying way.
• NSFW:
  • JAA ongoing professional development requirements include a compulsory annual honeypot training module. Since Sakamoto retired, Nagumo and Shishiba have had a casual arrangement to help each other cross the requirement off. This year they’re inducting Osaragi into the arrangement.
  • Similarly, Shishiba performance reviewing Osaragi’s honeypot training module practical, Nagumo having generously volunteered to act as Osaragi's partner.
  • Osaragi gets blood splatter or an injury on her chin around the same place as Shishiba’s scar. Everyone is weirdly horny about this.
  • Nagumo decides it would be funny to fuck around with Shishiba and Osaragi and starts heavily flirting with both of them and gatecrashing their tender mentorship bonding moments and basically annoying his way into both their pants.
  • Nagumo offers/threatens to shapeshift into Shishiba during sex, Osaragi reacts poorly.
  • Nagumo and Osaragi having a coworkers-with-benefits post-assassination adrenaline management arrangement going because Osaragi feels too strongly about Shishiba to ask for that kind of casual physical thing with him.
• Optional crossover prompt — I would love to see the Order and the Varia from Katekyo Hitman Reborn crossing paths. Maybe the Varia are in Japan for a Vongola family event or Squalo is dropping by to check on his mentee and Nagumo/Shishiba/Osaragi are on a job nearby or having a meal at Yamamoto’s dad’s restaurant? Maybe the Order has business in Italy that intersects with mafia domain? Are any of them old acquaintances or rivals or lovers or some/all of the above? Do they have conflicting objectives or do they unexpectedly get to work together?
• Also optional but I would love a Rion cameo, even(/especially) if she’s unnamed, for a little sprinkle of emotional anguish. Shishiba and Osaragi are both nothing like Rion, but maybe one of them does something that causes Nagumo to make some comment that is clearly alluding to Rion even if neither of them know who he’s talking about?

Other ships I like: Nagumo/Rion (I personally consider Rion the great and abiding love of Nagumo’s life), JCC-era Nagumo/Sakamoto/Rion, pre-retirement Nagumo/Sakamoto/Shishiba, Natsuki/Shin/Akira, Akira/Osaragi.


Tennis RPF
Carlos Alcaraz/Jannik Sinner
This is my newest ship so anything you create will be super fresh and exciting for me. I love a rivalry of epic proportions where they drive each other to constantly become better and better versions of themselves. I’m primarily looking for intense ambiguous possibly-unrequited longing that can be folded into or mistaken for normal feelings of rivalry which are safe to express, as opposed to any actual established relationship. I’m a sucker for Jannik being the one so tightly repressed he can barely even acknowledge what it is he feels for Carlos, worsened by Carlos’s easy extroverted affection for everyone making it hard to tell whether Carlos feels any specific way towards Jannik, but the flipside where Carlos can’t read Jannik outside of his tennis and is at a real social loss for the first time in his life would be equally as excellent.

I am very new to the current generation of real-life tennis, so apologies if I have made any errors in this request! Please feel free to be as granular and technical as you like about tennis detail and “worldbuilding” and dynamics with other players—my ability to prompt for these things is limited but I will eagerly soak all of it up. Have your favourite players cameo, I’d love to learn more about this generation. For what it’s worth, I am coming from an anime background so if you want to throw realism to the wind and give them tennis superpowers or have Yukimura Seiichi show up I will be overjoyed too. PR dating rumours or not, I do think Carlos’s puppy crush on Emma Raducanu is so cute and funny and would smile if their friendship/dynamic was included in any way.

Fandom-specific DNWs: reference to Carlos’s current (lack of) hairstyle (😭), career ending injuries (non-career ending sports gore very welcome), jealousy over interactions with women.

For this request, my homophobia DNW doesn’t apply, but I would prefer it if homophobia were not a main focus of the work.

These are more general themes I’m interested in than specific prompts—I really just love the world of elite sports. I think pro athletes are a lot like idols and would welcome the application of any relevant Bleak Boyband Bingo tropes:

• Rivalry — so deliciously narrativisable… Jannik’s ice to Carlos’s fire, Jannik’s machinelike obsession with process and pattern to Carlos’s showy disruptive unpredictability, tennis a religion for Jannik and a passion for Carlos. What’s more romantic than having a playing style perfectly suited to exploiting your rival’s weak points! Saw someone say that Jannik is better than everyone else and Carlos tends to be better than Jannik, which is such an interesting dynamic. Anything that delves into what their rivalry means to them / the genuine sportsmanlike happiness they seem to feel for the other’s victory versus the zero-sum bitterness and resentment of defeat / their respective relationships to tennis and the role that the other plays in the development of those relationships, would be amazing. When and how did they realise they were going to be each other’s best rival? Roland Garros? Paris? All the way back at their very first Challenger match?
• Mythmaking and legacy — they’re only just starting out on their best tennis-playing years but they’ve already been anointed by the media as the next legends. What is it like to be on the cusp of tennis godhood, emerging out of the iron fist of the Big 3 that crushed two entire generations before them? How do they handle being at the very start of their own myths and knowing it, as well as knowing that they’ll be forever woven into each other’s stories thanks to the temporal coincidence of being prodigies of the same era? How do they feel about being retrofitted into the legacy of the Big 3? Really interested in the real-time mythologisation and the effect of the media panopticon on their play, their perceptions of themselves and their perceptions of each other.
• They've both described themselves as varying levels of close or not close friends. Let’s discuss that! I’m obsessed with contextual relationships and I think it’s fair to say that they’re so different in temperament they might not have become friends if not for their shared love of tennis. Maybe they don’t talk much off-court, but they know each other in the way that matters the most to them. Dial up the contrast between politely awkward though genuine nteractions off-court (which conceal confused burgeoning feelings that can’t be named, naturally) and perfect soul-sharing near-telepathic compatibility on-court. Simultaneous extreme distance and extreme closeness! Inability to communicate in any way other than through tennis! They have an unparalleled knowledge of each other on the court when they are the most intense and concentrated versions of themselves, so how do they bridge the gap off-court? Do they text? Do they hang out? I know they’ve had a couple of dinner dates—what do they talk about?
• Pacific Rim AU — because obviously they would be drift compatible. Would love for this to still be set in “canon” so their tennis rivalry backstory is preserved. There’s precedent for sports rivals turned jaeger copilots and I think this would be a great way to ventilate their whole distance/intimacy thing. Just shortcut the whole getting to know each other outside of tennis thing with a mindmeld. Nothing like the impending end of the world via giant monster to expedite a relationship!
• “In-universe” media prompts — social media reactions to #Sincaraz moments, twitter fanwars between powerscaling solo stans and shippers, reddit posts, fake RPF, YouTube analysis videos, ATP challenges and quizzes and TikToks, interviews, magazine spreads?
• NSFW prompts
  • Post-match adrenaline high sex.
  • Elements of competitiveness or sadomasochism or risk-taking during sex, especially if undernegotiated and instinctive.
  • Match outcomes or ATP ranking determining who tops.
  • They’re so outwardly courteous about each other I tend to default to imagining 100 years of tortured regencyesque pining but a rivals with benefits dynamic that makes the emotional complication even messier would also be so fun. Resolved sexual tension with unresolved emotional tension!

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
Clemensia Dovecote/Coriolanus Snow
I’m fascinated by the massive gap between Clemensia’s perspective on Coriolanus and Coriolanus’s perspective on Clemensia. My read on them is that Clemensia considers Coriolanus a genuine friend and Coriolanus considers Clemensia a friend inasmuch as he is capable of considering anyone a friend—she is politically and socially useful to him, not unpleasant to be around, and an intellectually worthwhile and typically reliable collaborator. Anything that explores this gap, and any moments Clemensia starts to become aware of it before Coriolanus pulls her back into their old easy classmates dynamic, would be amazing.

Under the veneer of linked-arm co-conspiratorial smile trading I like them toxic, non-communicative, and intentionally so on Coriolanus’s end. I want to see him repeatedly gaslight and manipulate Clemensia while she grows increasingly suspicious and increasingly horrified and increasingly unable to extricate herself from his journey to tyrannical control over Panem. I want to see Clemensia struggle between her sense of morality (dampened as it is by her Capitol upbringing and lack of real empathy towards the Districts) and her attachment to Coriolanus.

Prompts:

• Halcyon high school days — gravitating towards each other at school events ensconced in their bubble of lofty self-assured superiority, cliquey in-jokes, frivolously gossiping about other classmates and events of interest in their shared social circle, playful (or not) academic rivalry, always sitting next to each other in class, looking right at each other when the teacher announces a group assignment. Dramatic irony and sense of impending doom and Coriolanus’s grasping ambition and concealed home life glittering just beneath the surface very welcome.
• In-universe honour student academic paraphernalia — iterative essay drafts they’ve marked up for each other, assignment planning messages and scaffolds, shared notes with gossipy asides scribbled in the margins?
• Postcanon relationship development — they’ve both been so deeply altered by their Mentorship experience and I’m desperate to see anything about how they navigate their reintegration into Panem high society and how they might fall back into orbit with each other, given the many pressures and incentives they have to act like nothing has changed. Are they able to see through each other? Can Clemensia tell that something terrible happened during Coriolanus’s summer sabbatical in Twelve? Does she ever find out the truth about what happened to Sejanus?
• Do they study the same degree at university and end up classmates again? What differences are there between how they worked together before the Games and after everything that’s changed since then? Does Clemensia sense that Coriolanus is heading in an increasingly dark direction? Does she challenge him on it? Does Coriolanus ever pretend to concede, especially early on, only to go behind her back and commit that crime anyway?
• Kingmaking — what is Clemensia doing as Coriolanus climbs through the political ranks? Does she factor into his ambitions at all, since she’s one of the few people he actually seems to feel some measure of positivity about? Does she have her own political ambitions that Coriolanus is bolstering? Does she become an advisor or minister/secretary? Does she get involved in the Games again, or does she stay far, far away? Or does she try to stay away only to find herself drawn back in by Coriolanus’s machinations? Does he frog-in-boiling-pot her into accepting or even participating in his various atrocities? He seems to know exactly how to play her every time she starts glimpsing the cruelty underneath the civility, after all, and it’s surely easier for Clemensia to lie to herself as well than confront the horror of who Coriolanus truly is.
• Exploration of Clemensia’s snake physiology — how has the incident with Dr Gaul changed Clemensia physically and psychologically? Does she heal completely or does she have remnants of snake biology—scaly patches, venomous fangs, slitted pupils, moments of the erratic viciousness she exhibited during the Games? Does Coriolanus use Clemensia’s venom as an assassination tool? How does Clemensia feel about Coriolanus’s part in her change?
• Political marriage — obsessed with Coriolanus's choice to marry Livia because he finds her so unpleasant there’s no chance he might expose himself to the vulnerability of love. Before Lucy Gray, did he ever consider Clemensia as a potential partner because of their existing rapport? After he returns to the Capitol, do the steps he takes to re-establish their friendship and secure Clemensia as a political ally have a purposefully misleadingly romantic slant? Did Clemensia ever expect at one point that they might become engaged as two legacy kids of similarly high societal status with a good relationship? Is the topic of political marriage ever broached? Is there a universe where Coriolanus and Clemensia do enter a political marriage, and is it miserable or do they reach an understanding? When, if ever, does she realise that Coriolanus isn’t capable of loving her? Any worldbuilding about Panem high society is welcome (in general, not just for this prompt)!
• If you were interested in throwing Livia into the mix to create the most unethical non-monogamous situationship Panem has ever seen I would love to see that too, especially if Clemensia is the “hinge” despite Livia and Coriolanus being the ones ostensibly in a relationship. My favourite flavour of Coriolanus/Livia is one where they both have zero actual affection or respect for each other and are mutually using the other for political clout. For this prompt, my infidelity DNW doesn’t apply because I think it would be really funny if both Coriolanus and Livia were separately trying to cheat on each other with Clemensia. Also very very happy for Lucy Gray and/or Sejanus to haunt the narrative in any way, whether or not Clemensia picks up on it.

Other ships I like: Livia/Clemensia, Coriolanus/Lucy Gray, Coriolanus/Sejanus.



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.

- Ash / sulfate