Hurt/Comfort Exchange 2022 Letter
Mar. 5th, 2022 06:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meikureeHello, and thank you so much for writing/creating for me! Hurt/comfort is a genre I adore, and I'm excited to see what you'll come up with. Please rest assured I'll appreciate your gift, so don’t stress about catering to my requests: the most important thing in this exchange is that you have fun. I hope you’ll find something here inspiring, but if my prompts get in the way, feel free to write what enthuses you instead. ❤️
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meikuree on AO3, if you want a fuller portrait of my tastes. However, in general, I'm really easy to please as long as you avoid DNWs. Gen, f/f, fic of all ratings, traditional hurt/comfort, hurt/no comfort, and whump all equally send me into transports of delight, and I'm happy to read both hopeful and bleak, unhappy endings.
Below, I've elaborated on character dynamics and more specific scenarios, in case that's helpful. Overall, I love hurt/comfort for its character focus—but also love it as an excuse to get characters entangled in Fucked Up Situations. Go wild with anything here. You don't have to include all my likes below -- only those you find relevant!
Treats of any medium are always welcome, including late or very late ones.
General Likes
Hurt/Comfort Likes
NSFW Likes
(I don't know that it'll come up for this exchange, but in case it's helpful: I'm happy to read many varieties of NSFW content from vanilla to dark and dubcon-esque, aside from fringe kinks in my DNWs. Something less common that I do love is sex as an interface for weirdness and liminality, involving, for instance, body horror elements, hallucinations, dream sex, sex you can't be sure is actually happening, and so much more. You don't have to write it at all -- just giving you the option!)
General DNWs
Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021)
Jinx & Vi (either hurt)
Jinx/Vi (either hurt, both hurt)
Jinx and Vi's complicated relationship was catnip for me, pure and simple. I've some prompts below beyond the freeforms but I'd really, genuinely be happy to read anything hurt/comfort-related for them: mid-canon respites, post-canon meetups by way of chance and dangerous circumstance, any situations where they can talk and care for each other, or the very opposite. Feel free to play with the & and / line as you wish -- I find the intensity of Jinx's preoccupation with Vi pretty intriguing. Codependency, messy feelings, intense feelings above all are welcome here, as are tie-ins into conflicts between Piltover and Zaun or between Vi or Jinx. I also think this is a pairing where the potential for hurt/comfort with underlying disquiet or whump-y hurt no comfort is especially rich.
(In my head Jinx/Vi is mostly Jinx -> Vi -- Jinx is utterly obsessed with her sister -- but other takes are welcome, and I don't mind stories where Vi's uncertain reciprocation and/or guilt over their feelings might form the emotional backdrop. I'd prefer nothing overtly romantic until after the timeskip but, that said, I'm also flexible with what I read for these two. Feel free to fudge canon timelines or write post-canon scenarios, if you need to.)
Note: for exchange purposes, feel free to treat Jinx as synonymous with Powder, and write about scenes from Act I.
Some prompts:
• In Act I, Powder injuring herself from a bomb or explosive, and Vi tending to her. Alternatively: Vi having one of her chats about Powder being ready -- what did that look like? Was it in response to another event or, perhaps, a mental block Powder was grappling with?
• Powder processing the grief of their parents' deaths or other events in general, and Vi comforting her. Or the reverse: Vi penting up her grief and Powder trying her best to offer (quirky or unconventional?) forms of comfort. Feel free to couple the latter with Powder's hang-ups over feeling unwanted or unneeded.
• Jinx reconciling with her sister after a near-death experience for either of them (e.g., being trapped in a building, fighting Silco's goons, one of Jinx's explosives going off, etc.)
• Situations where Jinx is hurt and visibly shaken in the aftermath of a traumatic experience (e.g., Singed's operation) and Vi has to help her.
• Jinx injuring Vi, by accident or not, and having to patch her up afterwards amidst torrid amounts of guilt. Purely my id speaking, but... I would not mind if this involved choking (like with Jinx's braids!), at all.
• AUs where they run away together at the bridge scene to mutually tend to their wounds (emotional and physical), or had more time to talk when they first reunited.
• "Maybe you could love me like you used to."
• Hurt/(no) comfort that takes place during the Act III dinner party itself, within that (deliciously!) extreme atmosphere of fear and desperation.
Sevika/Vi (either hurt)
Strong and mean women who can't wait to tear into each other? Sign me up. Too braindead to produce good prompts beyond my freeforms, I'm sorry /o\ but these two are a sparkling tinder of whump potential, and I'd genuinely love to see anything involving these two. At the same time I'd also welcome more mellow hurt/comfort scenarios where they may not get into an all-out fight, but still spar or try to injure each other, in less serious ways. Or unexpected forms of mercy and comfort, especially from Sevika to Vi! (Particularly if, post-canon, Sevika has entered into an uneasy alliance with Vi to find or corner Jinx, and they need each other.)
Background on what I like about these two, if it's at all relevant: there's the aspect of complicated loyalties; Vi resents Sevika for betraying Vander, understandably, but Sevika's not some conniving lackey without a backbone. She has guts and loyalty, she's just pragmatic (again, for understandble reasons) about who she places that loyalty with. I'd be curious to see scenes where Vi and Sevika ventilate any pent-up frustrations over this in a fight.
Note: I haven't played League of Legends, but I don't mind LoL lore; feel free to incorporate it!
Fandom-specific DNW(s): Jinx/Silco. Jinx & Silco is fine.
Dragon Age - All Media Types
Leliana/Morrigan (either hurt, both hurt)
I haven't finished playing Inquisition, so I apologise for any canon missteps here! The short story is that Leliana and Morrigan are one of my all-time beloved ships: they're a wonderful pair of opposites who are, on deeper scrutiny, more alike at the root than either of them would care to admit. Morrigan is blessedly cynical and sharp, whereas Leliana has a lot more faith and hope, in the Maker. And yet, come Inquisition, you see some surprising yet fundamental similarities; they don't interact much (sadly!) but at this point they're both people who've grown into their roles but work from the shadows, pursuing their own plans and missions. They're both purpose-driven, clued into visions and the trajectory of the world, and skilled shapeshifters in their own ways: for Morrigan, literally, and for Leliana, among people and high society, with her history as a bard.
At the same time, they've developed in utterly different directions. Leliana has become wearier and more jaded, while time has sanded off some of Morrigan's rougher edges, melding her to a more hopeful (albeit unconventionally so) perspective on the world. Ultimately, I love the way they hold each other up as mirrors, and the subtle gravity of fate/shared history that drives their eternally intriguing dynamic. When I say you can't go wrong with them, I mean it: I'd adore any hurt/comfort involving them, even if it was as small as Leliana getting a papercut and Morrigan alternately sneering at or bandaging her while they talk.
But since you're here, here are some (non-obligatory!) ideas: there might be rich potential, imo, for ideological clashes (the issue of mage freedoms, Morrigan’s aversion to Leliana’s faith) that ideally don’t make fun of either of their positions. Otherwise: banter with an underlying bite, simmering tension, petty bickering, Leliana singing an ill and unamused Morrigan to sleep (I thought this was a funny image!), Leliana comforting Morrigan about Flemeth or her complex parental legacy/heritage, and Morrigan snubbing Leliana’s war table decisions or role in the Inquisition (to Leliana’s inexplicable annoyance) are all excellent.
Yes, also, to situations that allow their reluctant familiarity or history to show through. Perhaps Leliana overworks herself and comes down sick or needs to be forced to rest, and Morrigan happens to be the only person at Skyhold who knows the exact esoteric permutation of elfroot tea (… or something) needed to cure her. Or Morrigan puts her to bed and lingers for some reason while ribbing at Leliana. Feel free to write something grittier if you prefer: aftermaths of quests gone wrong, torture, broken bones, Morrigan needing to carry a fallen Leliana.
Feel free to bring in Kieran; maybe Morrigan has a minor falling out with Leliana, and Leliana surprises her when Morrigan sees her playing with/getting along with Kieran. Or the opposite: Morrigan surprises Leliana with some of her interactions with Kieran, and Kieran becomes a catalyst for them to reconsider their assumptions about each other (as one small slice of a wider hurt/comfort story).
Note: as confessed above, I... have not finished Inquisition, but I don't mind stories set in it; you don't have to hold back on canon details. I promise I'll catch up for stories, but also, I've already spoiled myself on wikis and other things and know broad strokes of the plot.
Relevant freeforms:
Character is Exhausted From Overwork • Watching hurt/sick character sleep • Altered States - Fever Altered States - Delirium • Character A sings Character B to Sleep • Washing hurt character's hair • Character A falls asleep on B's shoulder • Clashing worldviews • Magical Exhaustion • Magical healing of injuries • Magically induced pain • Comfort after a mission gone sideways • Normally Intimidating A Is Surprisingly Gentle When Taking Care Of Hurt B • Cleaning/treating wounds • Helping hurt character to dress/undress • Comforter strokes sick/hurt character's hair
Fandom-specific DNW(s) and clarifications: per my pregnancy DNW, canon-typical references to Morrigan's pregnancy, or my requested scenarios, are fine. Please don't mention the ritual except in passing, however, although mentions of the wider circumstances are fine.
The Locked Tomb
Harrowhark/The Body | Alecto | The Girl in the Tomb (hurt Harrowhark)
I love the wistful devotion and absence that characterises Harrow’s relationship to The Body and the mysterious but somehow permissive grace to The Body’s presence, the way she shows up in some of Harrow's darkest and loneliest moments as a beacon of gentleness, the intimate reverence with which Harrow refers to her as 'beloved'. Feel free to explore the Body comforting Harrow within echoing hallways and in-between moments on the Mithraeum. I imagine Harrow might be the one actively approaching her, but I'd welcome a Body of ambiguous or malevolent temperament, who might possess her own designs and direct Harrow to merciful -- or dubious ends.
Yes to dubcon forms of comfort, involving sexual fantasies or outright weird sex (with the Body steering Harrow, perhaps?). But I'd also love tender premises, like: the Body carrying Harrow to bed after she's passed out, Harrow praying to the Body in moments of distress and her appearing, or a history of the guises in which the Body has come to comfort Harrow since childhood (over her parents, Gideon, etc). But feel free to write anything at all -- this ship has much untapped potential, and I'd welcome any additions to the fic about them.
Relevant freeforms:
Body Horror • Aftermath of Body Horror • Sharing a bed for comfort • Sharing a Bed – Normally independent character can’t sleep without sharing a bed after hurt/trauma • Blood Loss • Comfort Sex • Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms • Character struggles to forgive themselves • Collapsing from exhaustion • Committing a moral wrong for the sake of other character • Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms • Loneliness • Comforting character who is dealing with grief and loss and has shut themselves off from everyone • Emotional distress from losing something important • Carrying a sick/injured/unconscious character to safety
Harrowhark Nonagesimus/Ianthe Tridentarius (either hurt, both hurt)
I’d be overjoyed to read a wide swathe of hurt/comfort interactions for this ship, from depraved to surprisingly sweet, if you want to write it. Harrow and Ianthe embody the deliciousness of the hovering tension between resentment and unexpected tenderness to me, and their dynamic allows for many hurt/comfort possibilities; beyond the wonderful lesbian psychological torture in canon, they have their capacities for prickly -- but genuine! -- kindness with each other, and I'd welcome moments exploring those slippery threads of care and distance, neither tender nor cruel; the revelation that they're perhaps sometimes just two [Mercymorn voice] children fumbling in the dark of a hostile situation together.
More directly, and probably helpfully, feel free to set up the most outrageous situations to let one of them comfort -- or deny comfort to -- the other person. Your thought process need not go further than "HEY, wouldn't it be great if..." The Locked Tomb is a pretty batshit canon, after all. I've some prompts below, but don't limit yourself to them!
Relevant freeforms:
Body Horror • Aftermath of Body Horror • Sharing a bed for comfort • Sharing a Bed – Normally independent character can’t sleep without sharing a bed after hurt/trauma • Character Accepts Bad Comfort as Better Than None • Cooking food to comfort but it doesn’t go well • Character Suffers Alone • Comforted By An Enemy • Character manages to injure arch-foe and realizes they don't actually want to hurt them • Characters know exactly how to hurt each other emotionally • Hurting someone emotionally in the guise of being supportive • Blood Loss • Neither comforter or comfortee will directly acknowledge that comforting is taking place • Comforter started out trying to manipulate comfortee but now they're not so sure • Character A being their usual awful self is actually strangely comforting to hurt Character B • Comfort Sex • Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms • Committing a moral wrong for the sake of other character
Other prompts/ideas:
• Situations where Harrow experiences dissociative episodes or other forms of hurt from reminders of Gideon, and Ianthe is left to pick up the comfort (or deny it to her!).
• "If Ianthe Tridentarius knelt beside you then, [...] you would press your diminished bloody terror into her. You would crawl like a worm to whatever clinging scrap of solace she would give you.”
• Bed-sharing moments on the Mithraeum, in response to Harrow’s fear over Ortus’s attacks, or other forms of trauma/hurt.
• Harrow and Ianthe trapped in a room together while the Mithraeum is under attack.
• Harrow's notes state that Ianthe cries herself to sleep every night. I'd love to read about Harrow discovering this, in a hurt with dubious comfort or hurt no comfort scenario.
• Necromancy used for romantic, sexual, or comforting purposes, such as: breathplay via squeezing on the veins or aorta, slowing each other's heartbeats, etc.
• An AU where Ianthe still experiences issues adapting to her bone arm (pain, soreness, loss of control) after thesubtextual bone arm sex scene bone arm transplant and Harrow has to step in to attend to her.
• A far-future AU where both are matured lyctors, Harrow never remembers Gideon, and they've settled more into their roles, where they might have unique hurt/comfort rituals after battles or difficult planet missions. (Sorry, for the record, I do love Gideon! Feel free to slip in hints that she's still hanging around, somehow.)
• Harrow and Ianthe comforting each other through homesickness (planet-sickness?): giving each other House artefacts/mementos, or recounting childhood memories and stories to each other. Or: kinking on House titles during comfort sex.
Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Hitch/Annie (hurt Annie)
I bought a one-way ticket to ShipVille for these two in chapters 125-126, when Hitch and Annie rode away from the Military Police basement and seemingly slept together (literally), and again in Lost Girls, when they were roommates (oh my god, they were roommates!). I find the unexpected trust and confidence they place in each other, despite and after everything, to be incredibly compelling. I agree that there might be unrequited pining on Hitch’s part that she hasn’t (or consciously refuses to) admit, and I love their whole deal with missed chances.
Mostly, I love how unafraid Hitch is of Annie, as a fellow (seeming) asshole with a cracked and jaded but existent heart of gold/idealism. They’re both self-aware, hypocritical idealists! Who are clued into the banal evils of their world, but still troubled by the thought of them. I’d adore any hurt/comfort scenarios set before the timeskip, in the trainee or MP era, or during the Rumbling itself (hello, spent-the-night-together missing scene potentials!), or even post-canon when things might have calmed down enough for them to stoke the beginnings of a relationship.
Relevant freeforms:
A takes care of an injured B who is displeased/reluctant about it • Hurt character is reluctant to accept help • Character A discovers things about Character B that change their negative opinion of them • Hand Injuries • Sharing a bed for comfort • Sharing a bed to keep a close eye on hurt character's well-being & needs • Staying Up Together after a Nightmare • trying to help a stoic character without hurting their pride • Cleaning/treating wounds • Platonic bed sharing due to exhaustion
Pieck/Annie (hurt Annie)
Pieck/Annie is the rarepair of my heart -- I'd honestly die for any hurt/comfort interactions between them. Please feel free to kick canon timelines to the curb and set up canon-divergence AUs where Annie never went to Paradis or returned instead of taking a crystal sabbatical, however tenuous. Some specific prompts:
• They're both titan shifters; what about Pieck helping Annie with any side effects of being a shifter? Pieck suffers from numbness, but I imagine Annie could have problems with neck soreness, nape sensitivities, her regeneration taking a huge hit (from sudden, severe injuries), constant hand injuries, or exhaustion from overexerting her limits/not being as skilled at endurance as Pieck is.
• Anything involving the physical, psychological, or emotional tribulations of being a Warrior or titan shifter! Shifter regeneration as a metaphor for chronic pain, if you want to explore that, with the constant cycles of regeneration and injury involved. (Chronic pain can usually only be alleviated, not fully cured, which might dovetail as a good metaphor for their situation as Warriors.) Or this could be a "the main hurt is too massive and unapproachable; comforter addresses smaller hurt" situation.
• What if Pieck was the one who helped Annie learn crystallisation, or at least taught her the craft of enduring in crystalis? I'd welcome any fics focusing on Annie's pains incurred during training, and Pieck helping her through it. (Sidenote: one aspect I love about Annie is that she's... incredibly competent at her chosen areas of combat, but not because of any inborn or natural talent; she worked hard to become good at those things, and I'd love to see that sort of effortful competence and grit reflected in fics for this premise.)
• Emotional hurt/comfort over Annie's estranged relationship with her father.
• Hurt/comfort set in the transition period after Annie inherits her titan.
• Nightmares, insomnia, unspoken midnight comfort. I like the idea of them sharing beds without ever talking about it (whether because they have bigger problems to contend with, or another reason). I like it a lot.
• The 104th trainees had winter training exercises. What if Marley had something similar, and someone got hypothermia and had to huddle for warmth?
• Post-canon, Pieck helping Annie with post-crystal recovery, numbness, and other frustrations.
• Post-canon catch-ups, painful secrets revealed through late night talks, drinking sessions. Annie isn't always emotionally communicative, but she is in control of her emotions, imo; I'd welcome scenes where the emotional vulnerability is restrained, but still there, and where the comfort from Pieck is also correspondingly moderate and thoughtful.
• In an AU where Annie returns to Marley from Paradis, I'd be interested in the overhanging issue of her 13-year term. Do shifters experience any side effects as they near the end of their 13-year timeline? Does Annie allow Pieck to help her with hers, or try to hide them? I don't mind major character death, if you want to include it!
Pieck/Yelena (hurt Pieck)
I enjoy ships with a sense of history and lingering, unaddressed feelings, so these two are my kryptonite. I love the subtext that there was something more to them, beneath the relentless sniping and weirdly flirtatious mocking, as well as the reluctant longing and bitterness that characterises them, at least on Pieck's part. My entirely self-indulgent take is that they were confidantes before the three-year time skip, bonding over anti-Marley sentiments and harbouring a strange, unnameable attraction to each other (that they kept secret from everyone else).
Their differences in temperament and trajectory also fascinate me. I suspect they both dream(ed) of tackling the root of Eldian suffering, but eventually went about it in startlingly different directions that they ended up on opposing sides of a conflict. Yelena becomes a forceful extremist determined to not so much steer as manhandle history, who commits any means necessary to achieve her ends. Pieck in contrast wields more official power than Yelena as a Warrior, but it's clearly a precarious position, such that she's always pragmatic by necessity and much more constrained in her vision and goals (leaving out the entire 13-year borowed lifespan aspect!). There's just so much to speculate on about their dynamic before it soured, and I'd love any hurt/comfort moments that explore little details/moments of closeness between them, or the various push-pull tensions animating their relationship. More directly, feel free to rough Pieck up in any way/degree you wish, and have Yelena deal with the aftermath.
Relevant freeforms:
Estranged Characters - Injured A shows Up on B's doorstep Saying "I didn't know where else to go" • Collapsing from exhaustion • Sharing a bed for comfort • Sick/hurt character falls asleep on comforter • Character A drops the lighthearted facade when Character B is in danger • Neither comforter or comfortee will directly acknowledge that comforting is taking place • Characters know exactly how to hurt each other emotionally • Character with high pain tolerance is in too much pain to hide it • Helping hurt character to dress/undress • Crying • Clashing worldviews • trapped in an isolated place together • Cleaning/treating wounds • Both Captured - Forced to Work Together to Escape • Having to rely on injured/ill character's ability or expertise to stay alive in dangerous situation • Blood loss • coughing up blood
Additional prompts/details:
• Estranged Characters - Injured A shows Up on B's doorstep Saying "I didn't know where else to go": it says estranged, but I don't mind this happening at any point in their relationship. Anything with Pieck getting grievously injured enough for her shifter regeneration to temporarily fail is guaranteed to get me wild. Some ideas: a battle gone wrong, the aftermath of an anti-titan strike; maybe she intentionally suppresses her regeneration to prove a point to Yelena about what Warriors endure? Are there concrete reasons it's a bad idea to look for Yelena, like the secrecy of their relationship, or Yelena lacking medical expertise? Is Pieck actually severely injured, or is it a pretext to be close to Yelena?
• Character with high pain tolerance is in too much pain to hide it: yes to this, especially if you couple this with details about how being a titan shifter impacts Pieck's relationship to pain.
• Sick/hurt character falls asleep on comforter: after a long day, a trying event (a difficult battle; trouble over Porco inheriting his titan; absence of news on Annie’s fate), or a near-death experience. I'd be interested in Yelena's response: does she grudgingly relent? I see this as one possible example of Yelena's fickle but genuine fondness for Pieck.
• Crying: not openly, but I imagine Pieck's veneer of calmness cracking in response to: the death of someone in the Panzer squad; reminiscence over Paradis; medical experimentation/abuse; her role in Marley's military missions.
• Spy AU where they're undercover and Pieck takes a bullet or other injury for Yelena, leading to some mad rush for Yelena to treat her before she bleeds out. Feel free to work in analogues to shifting abilities for this.
• The Locked Tomb AU, if you feel up for it, with Pieck as the cav to Yelena’s necro, and Pieck’s obligations of loyalty to Yelena being used to hurt her, etc.
• Pieck and Yelena end up assigned to the same mission together, and get trapped in something similar to those titan containment spaces at the Liberio festival while Pieck is injured -- how do they get out? Alternatively, feel free to write Yelena rescuing Pieck.
Pieck/Hange (hurt Pieck)
I find Hange’s breathless curiosity over Pieck’s shifter biology adorable, but I also love their unlikely similarities and points of convergence, the fact that these two were willing to set aside personal grievances to work together for the sake of the bigger picture. I would love to see them interacting more closely than they did in canon through a hurt/comfort scenario, and especially ones where they manage to connect across enemy-ally boundaries when Pieck is hurt or injured. Beneath the comedy in the Rumbling chapters, I think they orbit similar valencies of seriousness and thoughtfulness about the world, as people highly dedicated to their comrades, and I’d also welcome any scenarios where that or their mutual competence(s) shine through.
Quick sidenote: I personally headcanon Hange as non-binary (they/them). But I’m not fussy about the issue, and fine with she/her or they/them pronouns for Hange. Feel free to write what works for you.
Relevant freeforms:
Collapsing from exhaustion • Sick/hurt character falls asleep on comforter • Character with high pain tolerance is in too much pain to hide it • Helping hurt character to dress/undress • Having to rely on injured/ill character's ability or expertise to stay alive in dangerous situation • Sick/hurt character can't walk on their own • Jumping in Front of a Bullet • Cleaning/treating wounds • Caring for someone who should be your enemy • Usually competent character is so dazed they can only comply with trusted companion • Blood Loss • coughing up blood • Enemies calling a temporary ceasefire while one of them is injured/ill • Hurt in the wilderness • stranded in a hostile environment with an injury
Other prompts:
• An AU where Hange comes across an injured Pieck in the woods/wilderness on Paradis, and decides to bring her back to base to treat her. Bonus things: Hange's unique knowledge of titan biology coming in useful somehow, or Hange struggling with the dilemma of helping an enemy.
• Any situation where Pieck is too exhausted to fight, and Hange has to support her by the shoulders while fighting for them.
• Mid-Rumbling hurt/comfort set in the moments after the alliance makes it up the ship, with Hange attending to the bite wound Falco gave Pieck.
• Tentative demonstrations of trust within the comfort: Hange draping their jacket around Pieck, Hange going out of their way to use their medical knowledge to patch Pieck up, Pieck directing Hange in a battle against other titans or enemies (because she’s too hurt to fight herself).
• Difficult conversations about their allies and prickly history, while Hange is treating Pieck's wounds.
• Post-canon or mid-Rumbling, Hange trying to comfort a grieving Pieck about her commander.
Fandom-specific DNW(s):
Squid Game
Jiyeong/Saebyeok (either hurt, both hurt)
Oh boy, I love Jiyeong and Saebyeok's contrasting personalities, but ultimately I love their knife-twisting complexities, revealed in such deft and devastating fashion during their game of marbles. Jiyeong comes off cocky/boisterous next to the more subdued and distrustful Saebyeok, but her devil-may-care facade hides someone who's been so thoroughly failed by the system, just like Saebyeok. (I also can't get over the way Jiyeong is fatalistic but still invests time and energy in bonding with Saebyeok, and trying to convince her the world isn't always cruel or hostile. At her heart, I think Jiyeong wants to live a happy life -- she just doesn't know how to get there.) I'd love any hurt/comfort interactions for these two!
For instance: any scenarios where Saebyeok gets injured (e.g., from a brawl, tussle, or other sticky situation), and then has to be tended to by Jiyeong (at home, or elsewhere), especially if it involves hand injuries. Saebyeok is driven by the deep fear of vulnerability or becoming indebted to others -- a completely justified survival mechanism in response to her circumstances -- but I'd love fics exploring how she grapples with this when injured. Does she try to mask or downplay her injury? Does Jiyeong perhaps also try to communicate (through the comfort) that vulnerability isn’t a flaw and won’t lead to her being taken advantage of? Feel free to make it as light-hearted as you want; indeed, it might be cathartic to let these two work out their issues, in a lighter and safer (i.e., non-life or death) situation.
More broadly, Jiyeong and Saebyeok are the definition of "earn your happy ending", so I'd be down for fics exploring hurt/comfort moments in their post-canon road to recovery. (See prompts below for ideas!) I'd also welcome realistic acknowledgements that, yes, the wider issues that brought them to the games (economic precarity, deprivation, etc.) still exist at large -- but that doesn't mean their small moments of recovery don't matter. (Or maybe not: you can write the opposite happening if you want. Grim realism fits well with this canon.)
Relevant freeforms:
Sharing a bed for comfort • Hand Injuries • A talks B down from suicidal ideation • Dubcon - sex becomes uncomfortable for hurt character due to trauma • Character A falls asleep on B's shoulder • Hurt character believes rescue/help has a price tag; surprised when there isn't one • Cleaning/treating wounds • Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms • comfort after a nightmare • Dubcon - sex becomes uncomfortable for hurt character due to past sexual abuse • Sick/hurt character doesn't often show vulnerability (so it's a big deal when they do) • A comforts B by getting them drunk • Character isn't used to being loved and shown tenderness/affection • Comfort focusing on little hurt because the big hurt is massive and unapproachable • Character who's been forced to be independent is finally taken care of • Character Planned to Die but Didn’t • Character A hurting from loss/abandonment by family; Character B provides found family • Hurt character is reluctant to accept help • Nearly losing someone reveals deeper feelings • Sick/injured character holding comforter's arm for support
Other prompts:
• Post-canon, Jiyeong or Saebyeok dealing with nightmares and the lingering effects of the games, and comforting each other in the night or otherwise.
• Dealing with 'off-screen' issues, like Saebyeok's entanglement with Deoksu's thugs or Jiyeong's religious discomfort.
• Survivor's guilt over the games (who expresses it? how?)
• Difficult conversations, with fumbling comfort: Saebyeok confronting Jiyeong about her suicidality. Saebyeok trying to convince Jiyeong, in her own dysfunctional way, that her presence is wanted.
• For a lighter, more fluffy scenario: comfort via cooking for each other; hurt stemming from Jiyeong's complex issues with family or being alone, versus her (maybe!) now having a found family of sorts. Nobody came for Jiyeong when she left prison, which I imagine might be a big deal (especially because it's a South Korean tradition for family members to bring tofu to someone leaving prison -- more details here) -- might Saebyeok make some halting but searnest attempt to reassure her about that?
• Completely an id-driven request, but I’d love an AU where both survive the games but Sangwoo still attempts (unsuccessfully) to strangle/slit Saebyeok’s throat, which then leaves her with lingering distress — that she then attempts to work through with kink. Specifically choking!
• Re: the dubcon freeforms -- I'd welcome them if you want to go there. I imagine intimacy and physical touch might be fraught boundaries for both of them, and I’d be interested in how they negotiate that. Does one try to comfort the uncomfortable party? Does Jiyeong laugh it off, then find the moment blindsiding her? Do they simply repress the discomfort, because that's easier? Feel free to make it messy, or end it happily instead. I also don't need the sex to actually happen if you'd rather not -- I'm more interested in their responses. I’m content to leave the rating to your comfort level but I’d prefer that this scenario not be written in the style of porn without plot, i.e., purely for titillation.
• If you'd rather write something set during the games themselves: tense, late night introspective conversations! Secrets revealed to each other in the fold of darkness, after any of the rounds. Jiyeong patching up her injuries (somehow!), after her near-brush with death during Deoksu’s attacks. Or an AU where the marbles game was averted but the overall Squid Game continued, where Jiyeong finds Saebyeok after the round in the toilets and they have impulsive, charged "we almost died" makeouts? Or something!
• My scenarios have focused on these two in a shipping context so far, but feel very free to involve minor characters like Ali or Cheol, or write genfic. Nine times out of ten, I will love side characters being given greater focus through fic.
I'd slightly prefer fics set in the show’s canon but AUs are fine as long as they’re not 'shop' AUs or high school/college AUs. Fix-its/canon divergences are welcome. No need to justify in-fic how Saebyeok and Jiyeong manage to survive, which contestants survive/die, and so on if you'd rather not! I’d be grateful if fics were set in South Korea rather than North Americanised.
Fandom-specific DNW(s)/clarifications:
I can be found at
Below, I've elaborated on character dynamics and more specific scenarios, in case that's helpful. Overall, I love hurt/comfort for its character focus—but also love it as an excuse to get characters entangled in Fucked Up Situations. Go wild with anything here. You don't have to include all my likes below -- only those you find relevant!
Treats of any medium are always welcome, including late or very late ones.
General Likes
- femslash and complicated, intense, or unconventional relationships between women
- friend/enemies/colleagues to lovers, or scrambled versions of it: enemies to friends then enemies again, etc.
- relationships impossible to define, especially if there’s shared history or repressed feelings
- resentment mingled with affection, loyalty, etc. complicated feelings in general!
- codependency, manipulation, power imbalances
- morally grey/ambiguous queer women
- character studies and explorations
- pre-canon, missing scenes, post-canon/futurefic
- canon-divergence AUs
- 5+1 times
- age differences (if characters are 18+)
- worldview clashes
- worldbuilding/culture/setting details
- second and third person POV
- intelligence/competence
- the weight of legacy/history
- tenderness with/alongside violence
- understated romance
- monsters, monstrous women, creatures/entities who lie beyond human comprehension
- psychological and existential horror
- hopeful/melancholic/bittersweet stories
- experimental prose styles and structures
Hurt/Comfort Likes
- aftermath of torture, battle, traumatic events, or abuse
- bonding over shared trauma or backgrounds
- comfort sex
- confrontations, difficult conversations
- fevers, headaches, states of delirium
- grief/mourning (as the hurt, or: giving another character space to grieve, lending an ear to a grieving character)
- helping hurt characters to dress, undress, or bathe
- nightmares, insomnia
- overexertion, exhaustion from ignoring personal limits
- physical injuries, particularly: gunshot wounds, stab wounds, hand injuries, bruised ribs/knuckles, non-fatal neck bruises or injuries, injuries at the torso/side (bonus if character has to clutch at their waist), bloodied faces or noses, blood loss, coughing up blood
- physical touch as comfort
- cuddling, huddling for warmth
- gently touching scars or wounds (accompanying this: characters noticing cuts, grazes, and bruises on each other's bodies)
- hair stroking and washing
- holding someone to the chest, listening to someone’s heartbeat
- kisses: on the hand, wrist, face, shoulder, etc.
- sharing a bed
- pining (both requited/unrequited)
- recovery and unlearning abuse/trauma (alternately: characters being entrenched further in trauma)
- unhealthy coping mechanisms (e.g., self-harm, drugs, seeking out danger, sex, overworking oneself, etc.)
NSFW Likes
(I don't know that it'll come up for this exchange, but in case it's helpful: I'm happy to read many varieties of NSFW content from vanilla to dark and dubcon-esque, aside from fringe kinks in my DNWs. Something less common that I do love is sex as an interface for weirdness and liminality, involving, for instance, body horror elements, hallucinations, dream sex, sex you can't be sure is actually happening, and so much more. You don't have to write it at all -- just giving you the option!)
- character study via porn
- choking or breathplay
- finger sucking
- oral sex and/or fingering
- recreational drug use during or before sex
- clothing/uniform kinks, partially clothed sex
- focus on hands, wrists, necks, and throats
- friends/enemies with benefits
- consensual pain/violence (especially if characters get off on the pain)
- sexual fantasies and masturbation
- sex as a metaphor for other things
- sex with feelings (whether repressed, intense, or uncomfortable)
- sex described in strange, unconventional ways (preferably in line with the tone of canon)
- erotic body horror; sex that reads mildly or a lot like body horror due to things like altered mental states, dissociation, embodiment issues, or in-universe reasons
- for age-difference ships: characters kinking on the relative experience or inexperience* of the other character
General DNWs
- rape/noncon (dubcon and canon references are fine)
- explicit underage sex under 16
- formal BDSM
- genderswap
- curtainfic/plotless fluff
- pregnancy and kidfic
- parasite/trypophobia-style body horror
- extremely detailed gore/torture**
- stories focused on coming out/sexual identity
- character death by suicide (suicidal ideation is fine)
- mundane, low-stakes AUs (e.g., coffeeshop, high school/college AUs)
- soulmate/soulbond AUs
- scat, emetophilia, watersports, vore, ageplay, raceplay, bestiality, torture kinks, humiliation, weight gain/stuffing kinks, spanking, A/B/O
Arcane: League of Legends (Cartoon 2021)
Jinx & Vi (either hurt)
Jinx/Vi (either hurt, both hurt)
Jinx and Vi's complicated relationship was catnip for me, pure and simple. I've some prompts below beyond the freeforms but I'd really, genuinely be happy to read anything hurt/comfort-related for them: mid-canon respites, post-canon meetups by way of chance and dangerous circumstance, any situations where they can talk and care for each other, or the very opposite. Feel free to play with the & and / line as you wish -- I find the intensity of Jinx's preoccupation with Vi pretty intriguing. Codependency, messy feelings, intense feelings above all are welcome here, as are tie-ins into conflicts between Piltover and Zaun or between Vi or Jinx. I also think this is a pairing where the potential for hurt/comfort with underlying disquiet or whump-y hurt no comfort is especially rich.
(In my head Jinx/Vi is mostly Jinx -> Vi -- Jinx is utterly obsessed with her sister -- but other takes are welcome, and I don't mind stories where Vi's uncertain reciprocation and/or guilt over their feelings might form the emotional backdrop. I'd prefer nothing overtly romantic until after the timeskip but, that said, I'm also flexible with what I read for these two. Feel free to fudge canon timelines or write post-canon scenarios, if you need to.)
Note: for exchange purposes, feel free to treat Jinx as synonymous with Powder, and write about scenes from Act I.
Some prompts:
• In Act I, Powder injuring herself from a bomb or explosive, and Vi tending to her. Alternatively: Vi having one of her chats about Powder being ready -- what did that look like? Was it in response to another event or, perhaps, a mental block Powder was grappling with?
• Powder processing the grief of their parents' deaths or other events in general, and Vi comforting her. Or the reverse: Vi penting up her grief and Powder trying her best to offer (quirky or unconventional?) forms of comfort. Feel free to couple the latter with Powder's hang-ups over feeling unwanted or unneeded.
• Jinx reconciling with her sister after a near-death experience for either of them (e.g., being trapped in a building, fighting Silco's goons, one of Jinx's explosives going off, etc.)
• Situations where Jinx is hurt and visibly shaken in the aftermath of a traumatic experience (e.g., Singed's operation) and Vi has to help her.
• Jinx injuring Vi, by accident or not, and having to patch her up afterwards amidst torrid amounts of guilt. Purely my id speaking, but... I would not mind if this involved choking (like with Jinx's braids!), at all.
• AUs where they run away together at the bridge scene to mutually tend to their wounds (emotional and physical), or had more time to talk when they first reunited.
• "Maybe you could love me like you used to."
• Hurt/(no) comfort that takes place during the Act III dinner party itself, within that (deliciously!) extreme atmosphere of fear and desperation.
Sevika/Vi (either hurt)
Strong and mean women who can't wait to tear into each other? Sign me up. Too braindead to produce good prompts beyond my freeforms, I'm sorry /o\ but these two are a sparkling tinder of whump potential, and I'd genuinely love to see anything involving these two. At the same time I'd also welcome more mellow hurt/comfort scenarios where they may not get into an all-out fight, but still spar or try to injure each other, in less serious ways. Or unexpected forms of mercy and comfort, especially from Sevika to Vi! (Particularly if, post-canon, Sevika has entered into an uneasy alliance with Vi to find or corner Jinx, and they need each other.)
Background on what I like about these two, if it's at all relevant: there's the aspect of complicated loyalties; Vi resents Sevika for betraying Vander, understandably, but Sevika's not some conniving lackey without a backbone. She has guts and loyalty, she's just pragmatic (again, for understandble reasons) about who she places that loyalty with. I'd be curious to see scenes where Vi and Sevika ventilate any pent-up frustrations over this in a fight.
Note: I haven't played League of Legends, but I don't mind LoL lore; feel free to incorporate it!
Fandom-specific DNW(s): Jinx/Silco. Jinx & Silco is fine.
Dragon Age - All Media Types
Leliana/Morrigan (either hurt, both hurt)
I haven't finished playing Inquisition, so I apologise for any canon missteps here! The short story is that Leliana and Morrigan are one of my all-time beloved ships: they're a wonderful pair of opposites who are, on deeper scrutiny, more alike at the root than either of them would care to admit. Morrigan is blessedly cynical and sharp, whereas Leliana has a lot more faith and hope, in the Maker. And yet, come Inquisition, you see some surprising yet fundamental similarities; they don't interact much (sadly!) but at this point they're both people who've grown into their roles but work from the shadows, pursuing their own plans and missions. They're both purpose-driven, clued into visions and the trajectory of the world, and skilled shapeshifters in their own ways: for Morrigan, literally, and for Leliana, among people and high society, with her history as a bard.
At the same time, they've developed in utterly different directions. Leliana has become wearier and more jaded, while time has sanded off some of Morrigan's rougher edges, melding her to a more hopeful (albeit unconventionally so) perspective on the world. Ultimately, I love the way they hold each other up as mirrors, and the subtle gravity of fate/shared history that drives their eternally intriguing dynamic. When I say you can't go wrong with them, I mean it: I'd adore any hurt/comfort involving them, even if it was as small as Leliana getting a papercut and Morrigan alternately sneering at or bandaging her while they talk.
But since you're here, here are some (non-obligatory!) ideas: there might be rich potential, imo, for ideological clashes (the issue of mage freedoms, Morrigan’s aversion to Leliana’s faith) that ideally don’t make fun of either of their positions. Otherwise: banter with an underlying bite, simmering tension, petty bickering, Leliana singing an ill and unamused Morrigan to sleep (I thought this was a funny image!), Leliana comforting Morrigan about Flemeth or her complex parental legacy/heritage, and Morrigan snubbing Leliana’s war table decisions or role in the Inquisition (to Leliana’s inexplicable annoyance) are all excellent.
Yes, also, to situations that allow their reluctant familiarity or history to show through. Perhaps Leliana overworks herself and comes down sick or needs to be forced to rest, and Morrigan happens to be the only person at Skyhold who knows the exact esoteric permutation of elfroot tea (… or something) needed to cure her. Or Morrigan puts her to bed and lingers for some reason while ribbing at Leliana. Feel free to write something grittier if you prefer: aftermaths of quests gone wrong, torture, broken bones, Morrigan needing to carry a fallen Leliana.
Feel free to bring in Kieran; maybe Morrigan has a minor falling out with Leliana, and Leliana surprises her when Morrigan sees her playing with/getting along with Kieran. Or the opposite: Morrigan surprises Leliana with some of her interactions with Kieran, and Kieran becomes a catalyst for them to reconsider their assumptions about each other (as one small slice of a wider hurt/comfort story).
Note: as confessed above, I... have not finished Inquisition, but I don't mind stories set in it; you don't have to hold back on canon details. I promise I'll catch up for stories, but also, I've already spoiled myself on wikis and other things and know broad strokes of the plot.
Relevant freeforms:
Character is Exhausted From Overwork • Watching hurt/sick character sleep • Altered States - Fever Altered States - Delirium • Character A sings Character B to Sleep • Washing hurt character's hair • Character A falls asleep on B's shoulder • Clashing worldviews • Magical Exhaustion • Magical healing of injuries • Magically induced pain • Comfort after a mission gone sideways • Normally Intimidating A Is Surprisingly Gentle When Taking Care Of Hurt B • Cleaning/treating wounds • Helping hurt character to dress/undress • Comforter strokes sick/hurt character's hair
Fandom-specific DNW(s) and clarifications: per my pregnancy DNW, canon-typical references to Morrigan's pregnancy, or my requested scenarios, are fine. Please don't mention the ritual except in passing, however, although mentions of the wider circumstances are fine.
The Locked Tomb
Harrowhark/The Body | Alecto | The Girl in the Tomb (hurt Harrowhark)
I love the wistful devotion and absence that characterises Harrow’s relationship to The Body and the mysterious but somehow permissive grace to The Body’s presence, the way she shows up in some of Harrow's darkest and loneliest moments as a beacon of gentleness, the intimate reverence with which Harrow refers to her as 'beloved'. Feel free to explore the Body comforting Harrow within echoing hallways and in-between moments on the Mithraeum. I imagine Harrow might be the one actively approaching her, but I'd welcome a Body of ambiguous or malevolent temperament, who might possess her own designs and direct Harrow to merciful -- or dubious ends.
Yes to dubcon forms of comfort, involving sexual fantasies or outright weird sex (with the Body steering Harrow, perhaps?). But I'd also love tender premises, like: the Body carrying Harrow to bed after she's passed out, Harrow praying to the Body in moments of distress and her appearing, or a history of the guises in which the Body has come to comfort Harrow since childhood (over her parents, Gideon, etc). But feel free to write anything at all -- this ship has much untapped potential, and I'd welcome any additions to the fic about them.
Relevant freeforms:
Body Horror • Aftermath of Body Horror • Sharing a bed for comfort • Sharing a Bed – Normally independent character can’t sleep without sharing a bed after hurt/trauma • Blood Loss • Comfort Sex • Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms • Character struggles to forgive themselves • Collapsing from exhaustion • Committing a moral wrong for the sake of other character • Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms • Loneliness • Comforting character who is dealing with grief and loss and has shut themselves off from everyone • Emotional distress from losing something important • Carrying a sick/injured/unconscious character to safety
Harrowhark Nonagesimus/Ianthe Tridentarius (either hurt, both hurt)
I’d be overjoyed to read a wide swathe of hurt/comfort interactions for this ship, from depraved to surprisingly sweet, if you want to write it. Harrow and Ianthe embody the deliciousness of the hovering tension between resentment and unexpected tenderness to me, and their dynamic allows for many hurt/comfort possibilities; beyond the wonderful lesbian psychological torture in canon, they have their capacities for prickly -- but genuine! -- kindness with each other, and I'd welcome moments exploring those slippery threads of care and distance, neither tender nor cruel; the revelation that they're perhaps sometimes just two [Mercymorn voice] children fumbling in the dark of a hostile situation together.
More directly, and probably helpfully, feel free to set up the most outrageous situations to let one of them comfort -- or deny comfort to -- the other person. Your thought process need not go further than "HEY, wouldn't it be great if..." The Locked Tomb is a pretty batshit canon, after all. I've some prompts below, but don't limit yourself to them!
Relevant freeforms:
Body Horror • Aftermath of Body Horror • Sharing a bed for comfort • Sharing a Bed – Normally independent character can’t sleep without sharing a bed after hurt/trauma • Character Accepts Bad Comfort as Better Than None • Cooking food to comfort but it doesn’t go well • Character Suffers Alone • Comforted By An Enemy • Character manages to injure arch-foe and realizes they don't actually want to hurt them • Characters know exactly how to hurt each other emotionally • Hurting someone emotionally in the guise of being supportive • Blood Loss • Neither comforter or comfortee will directly acknowledge that comforting is taking place • Comforter started out trying to manipulate comfortee but now they're not so sure • Character A being their usual awful self is actually strangely comforting to hurt Character B • Comfort Sex • Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms • Committing a moral wrong for the sake of other character
Other prompts/ideas:
• Situations where Harrow experiences dissociative episodes or other forms of hurt from reminders of Gideon, and Ianthe is left to pick up the comfort (or deny it to her!).
• "If Ianthe Tridentarius knelt beside you then, [...] you would press your diminished bloody terror into her. You would crawl like a worm to whatever clinging scrap of solace she would give you.”
• Bed-sharing moments on the Mithraeum, in response to Harrow’s fear over Ortus’s attacks, or other forms of trauma/hurt.
• Harrow and Ianthe trapped in a room together while the Mithraeum is under attack.
• Harrow's notes state that Ianthe cries herself to sleep every night. I'd love to read about Harrow discovering this, in a hurt with dubious comfort or hurt no comfort scenario.
• Necromancy used for romantic, sexual, or comforting purposes, such as: breathplay via squeezing on the veins or aorta, slowing each other's heartbeats, etc.
• An AU where Ianthe still experiences issues adapting to her bone arm (pain, soreness, loss of control) after the
• A far-future AU where both are matured lyctors, Harrow never remembers Gideon, and they've settled more into their roles, where they might have unique hurt/comfort rituals after battles or difficult planet missions. (Sorry, for the record, I do love Gideon! Feel free to slip in hints that she's still hanging around, somehow.)
• Harrow and Ianthe comforting each other through homesickness (planet-sickness?): giving each other House artefacts/mementos, or recounting childhood memories and stories to each other. Or: kinking on House titles during comfort sex.
Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Hitch/Annie (hurt Annie)
I bought a one-way ticket to ShipVille for these two in chapters 125-126, when Hitch and Annie rode away from the Military Police basement and seemingly slept together (literally), and again in Lost Girls, when they were roommates (oh my god, they were roommates!). I find the unexpected trust and confidence they place in each other, despite and after everything, to be incredibly compelling. I agree that there might be unrequited pining on Hitch’s part that she hasn’t (or consciously refuses to) admit, and I love their whole deal with missed chances.
Mostly, I love how unafraid Hitch is of Annie, as a fellow (seeming) asshole with a cracked and jaded but existent heart of gold/idealism. They’re both self-aware, hypocritical idealists! Who are clued into the banal evils of their world, but still troubled by the thought of them. I’d adore any hurt/comfort scenarios set before the timeskip, in the trainee or MP era, or during the Rumbling itself (hello, spent-the-night-together missing scene potentials!), or even post-canon when things might have calmed down enough for them to stoke the beginnings of a relationship.
Relevant freeforms:
A takes care of an injured B who is displeased/reluctant about it • Hurt character is reluctant to accept help • Character A discovers things about Character B that change their negative opinion of them • Hand Injuries • Sharing a bed for comfort • Sharing a bed to keep a close eye on hurt character's well-being & needs • Staying Up Together after a Nightmare • trying to help a stoic character without hurting their pride • Cleaning/treating wounds • Platonic bed sharing due to exhaustion
Pieck/Annie (hurt Annie)
Pieck/Annie is the rarepair of my heart -- I'd honestly die for any hurt/comfort interactions between them. Please feel free to kick canon timelines to the curb and set up canon-divergence AUs where Annie never went to Paradis or returned instead of taking a crystal sabbatical, however tenuous. Some specific prompts:
• They're both titan shifters; what about Pieck helping Annie with any side effects of being a shifter? Pieck suffers from numbness, but I imagine Annie could have problems with neck soreness, nape sensitivities, her regeneration taking a huge hit (from sudden, severe injuries), constant hand injuries, or exhaustion from overexerting her limits/not being as skilled at endurance as Pieck is.
• Anything involving the physical, psychological, or emotional tribulations of being a Warrior or titan shifter! Shifter regeneration as a metaphor for chronic pain, if you want to explore that, with the constant cycles of regeneration and injury involved. (Chronic pain can usually only be alleviated, not fully cured, which might dovetail as a good metaphor for their situation as Warriors.) Or this could be a "the main hurt is too massive and unapproachable; comforter addresses smaller hurt" situation.
• What if Pieck was the one who helped Annie learn crystallisation, or at least taught her the craft of enduring in crystalis? I'd welcome any fics focusing on Annie's pains incurred during training, and Pieck helping her through it. (Sidenote: one aspect I love about Annie is that she's... incredibly competent at her chosen areas of combat, but not because of any inborn or natural talent; she worked hard to become good at those things, and I'd love to see that sort of effortful competence and grit reflected in fics for this premise.)
• Emotional hurt/comfort over Annie's estranged relationship with her father.
• Hurt/comfort set in the transition period after Annie inherits her titan.
• Nightmares, insomnia, unspoken midnight comfort. I like the idea of them sharing beds without ever talking about it (whether because they have bigger problems to contend with, or another reason). I like it a lot.
• The 104th trainees had winter training exercises. What if Marley had something similar, and someone got hypothermia and had to huddle for warmth?
• Post-canon, Pieck helping Annie with post-crystal recovery, numbness, and other frustrations.
• Post-canon catch-ups, painful secrets revealed through late night talks, drinking sessions. Annie isn't always emotionally communicative, but she is in control of her emotions, imo; I'd welcome scenes where the emotional vulnerability is restrained, but still there, and where the comfort from Pieck is also correspondingly moderate and thoughtful.
• In an AU where Annie returns to Marley from Paradis, I'd be interested in the overhanging issue of her 13-year term. Do shifters experience any side effects as they near the end of their 13-year timeline? Does Annie allow Pieck to help her with hers, or try to hide them? I don't mind major character death, if you want to include it!
Pieck/Yelena (hurt Pieck)
I enjoy ships with a sense of history and lingering, unaddressed feelings, so these two are my kryptonite. I love the subtext that there was something more to them, beneath the relentless sniping and weirdly flirtatious mocking, as well as the reluctant longing and bitterness that characterises them, at least on Pieck's part. My entirely self-indulgent take is that they were confidantes before the three-year time skip, bonding over anti-Marley sentiments and harbouring a strange, unnameable attraction to each other (that they kept secret from everyone else).
Their differences in temperament and trajectory also fascinate me. I suspect they both dream(ed) of tackling the root of Eldian suffering, but eventually went about it in startlingly different directions that they ended up on opposing sides of a conflict. Yelena becomes a forceful extremist determined to not so much steer as manhandle history, who commits any means necessary to achieve her ends. Pieck in contrast wields more official power than Yelena as a Warrior, but it's clearly a precarious position, such that she's always pragmatic by necessity and much more constrained in her vision and goals (leaving out the entire 13-year borowed lifespan aspect!). There's just so much to speculate on about their dynamic before it soured, and I'd love any hurt/comfort moments that explore little details/moments of closeness between them, or the various push-pull tensions animating their relationship. More directly, feel free to rough Pieck up in any way/degree you wish, and have Yelena deal with the aftermath.
Relevant freeforms:
Estranged Characters - Injured A shows Up on B's doorstep Saying "I didn't know where else to go" • Collapsing from exhaustion • Sharing a bed for comfort • Sick/hurt character falls asleep on comforter • Character A drops the lighthearted facade when Character B is in danger • Neither comforter or comfortee will directly acknowledge that comforting is taking place • Characters know exactly how to hurt each other emotionally • Character with high pain tolerance is in too much pain to hide it • Helping hurt character to dress/undress • Crying • Clashing worldviews • trapped in an isolated place together • Cleaning/treating wounds • Both Captured - Forced to Work Together to Escape • Having to rely on injured/ill character's ability or expertise to stay alive in dangerous situation • Blood loss • coughing up blood
Additional prompts/details:
• Estranged Characters - Injured A shows Up on B's doorstep Saying "I didn't know where else to go": it says estranged, but I don't mind this happening at any point in their relationship. Anything with Pieck getting grievously injured enough for her shifter regeneration to temporarily fail is guaranteed to get me wild. Some ideas: a battle gone wrong, the aftermath of an anti-titan strike; maybe she intentionally suppresses her regeneration to prove a point to Yelena about what Warriors endure? Are there concrete reasons it's a bad idea to look for Yelena, like the secrecy of their relationship, or Yelena lacking medical expertise? Is Pieck actually severely injured, or is it a pretext to be close to Yelena?
• Character with high pain tolerance is in too much pain to hide it: yes to this, especially if you couple this with details about how being a titan shifter impacts Pieck's relationship to pain.
• Sick/hurt character falls asleep on comforter: after a long day, a trying event (a difficult battle; trouble over Porco inheriting his titan; absence of news on Annie’s fate), or a near-death experience. I'd be interested in Yelena's response: does she grudgingly relent? I see this as one possible example of Yelena's fickle but genuine fondness for Pieck.
• Crying: not openly, but I imagine Pieck's veneer of calmness cracking in response to: the death of someone in the Panzer squad; reminiscence over Paradis; medical experimentation/abuse; her role in Marley's military missions.
• Spy AU where they're undercover and Pieck takes a bullet or other injury for Yelena, leading to some mad rush for Yelena to treat her before she bleeds out. Feel free to work in analogues to shifting abilities for this.
• The Locked Tomb AU, if you feel up for it, with Pieck as the cav to Yelena’s necro, and Pieck’s obligations of loyalty to Yelena being used to hurt her, etc.
• Pieck and Yelena end up assigned to the same mission together, and get trapped in something similar to those titan containment spaces at the Liberio festival while Pieck is injured -- how do they get out? Alternatively, feel free to write Yelena rescuing Pieck.
Pieck/Hange (hurt Pieck)
I find Hange’s breathless curiosity over Pieck’s shifter biology adorable, but I also love their unlikely similarities and points of convergence, the fact that these two were willing to set aside personal grievances to work together for the sake of the bigger picture. I would love to see them interacting more closely than they did in canon through a hurt/comfort scenario, and especially ones where they manage to connect across enemy-ally boundaries when Pieck is hurt or injured. Beneath the comedy in the Rumbling chapters, I think they orbit similar valencies of seriousness and thoughtfulness about the world, as people highly dedicated to their comrades, and I’d also welcome any scenarios where that or their mutual competence(s) shine through.
Quick sidenote: I personally headcanon Hange as non-binary (they/them). But I’m not fussy about the issue, and fine with she/her or they/them pronouns for Hange. Feel free to write what works for you.
Relevant freeforms:
Collapsing from exhaustion • Sick/hurt character falls asleep on comforter • Character with high pain tolerance is in too much pain to hide it • Helping hurt character to dress/undress • Having to rely on injured/ill character's ability or expertise to stay alive in dangerous situation • Sick/hurt character can't walk on their own • Jumping in Front of a Bullet • Cleaning/treating wounds • Caring for someone who should be your enemy • Usually competent character is so dazed they can only comply with trusted companion • Blood Loss • coughing up blood • Enemies calling a temporary ceasefire while one of them is injured/ill • Hurt in the wilderness • stranded in a hostile environment with an injury
Other prompts:
• An AU where Hange comes across an injured Pieck in the woods/wilderness on Paradis, and decides to bring her back to base to treat her. Bonus things: Hange's unique knowledge of titan biology coming in useful somehow, or Hange struggling with the dilemma of helping an enemy.
• Any situation where Pieck is too exhausted to fight, and Hange has to support her by the shoulders while fighting for them.
• Mid-Rumbling hurt/comfort set in the moments after the alliance makes it up the ship, with Hange attending to the bite wound Falco gave Pieck.
• Tentative demonstrations of trust within the comfort: Hange draping their jacket around Pieck, Hange going out of their way to use their medical knowledge to patch Pieck up, Pieck directing Hange in a battle against other titans or enemies (because she’s too hurt to fight herself).
• Difficult conversations about their allies and prickly history, while Hange is treating Pieck's wounds.
• Post-canon or mid-Rumbling, Hange trying to comfort a grieving Pieck about her commander.
Fandom-specific DNW(s):
- Levi/Hange. Levi & Hange is fine.
- Unrequested M/F pairings, such as Zeke/Yelena, Zeke/Pieck, or Pieck/Porco. (Platonic M&F is fine; I'm also not averse to fics touching on influential M&F relationships in canon, such as Annie's mentor-mentee relationship with Eren, or Pieck and Yelena's links to Zeke.)
Squid Game
Jiyeong/Saebyeok (either hurt, both hurt)
Oh boy, I love Jiyeong and Saebyeok's contrasting personalities, but ultimately I love their knife-twisting complexities, revealed in such deft and devastating fashion during their game of marbles. Jiyeong comes off cocky/boisterous next to the more subdued and distrustful Saebyeok, but her devil-may-care facade hides someone who's been so thoroughly failed by the system, just like Saebyeok. (I also can't get over the way Jiyeong is fatalistic but still invests time and energy in bonding with Saebyeok, and trying to convince her the world isn't always cruel or hostile. At her heart, I think Jiyeong wants to live a happy life -- she just doesn't know how to get there.) I'd love any hurt/comfort interactions for these two!
For instance: any scenarios where Saebyeok gets injured (e.g., from a brawl, tussle, or other sticky situation), and then has to be tended to by Jiyeong (at home, or elsewhere), especially if it involves hand injuries. Saebyeok is driven by the deep fear of vulnerability or becoming indebted to others -- a completely justified survival mechanism in response to her circumstances -- but I'd love fics exploring how she grapples with this when injured. Does she try to mask or downplay her injury? Does Jiyeong perhaps also try to communicate (through the comfort) that vulnerability isn’t a flaw and won’t lead to her being taken advantage of? Feel free to make it as light-hearted as you want; indeed, it might be cathartic to let these two work out their issues, in a lighter and safer (i.e., non-life or death) situation.
More broadly, Jiyeong and Saebyeok are the definition of "earn your happy ending", so I'd be down for fics exploring hurt/comfort moments in their post-canon road to recovery. (See prompts below for ideas!) I'd also welcome realistic acknowledgements that, yes, the wider issues that brought them to the games (economic precarity, deprivation, etc.) still exist at large -- but that doesn't mean their small moments of recovery don't matter. (Or maybe not: you can write the opposite happening if you want. Grim realism fits well with this canon.)
Relevant freeforms:
Sharing a bed for comfort • Hand Injuries • A talks B down from suicidal ideation • Dubcon - sex becomes uncomfortable for hurt character due to trauma • Character A falls asleep on B's shoulder • Hurt character believes rescue/help has a price tag; surprised when there isn't one • Cleaning/treating wounds • Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms • comfort after a nightmare • Dubcon - sex becomes uncomfortable for hurt character due to past sexual abuse • Sick/hurt character doesn't often show vulnerability (so it's a big deal when they do) • A comforts B by getting them drunk • Character isn't used to being loved and shown tenderness/affection • Comfort focusing on little hurt because the big hurt is massive and unapproachable • Character who's been forced to be independent is finally taken care of • Character Planned to Die but Didn’t • Character A hurting from loss/abandonment by family; Character B provides found family • Hurt character is reluctant to accept help • Nearly losing someone reveals deeper feelings • Sick/injured character holding comforter's arm for support
Other prompts:
• Post-canon, Jiyeong or Saebyeok dealing with nightmares and the lingering effects of the games, and comforting each other in the night or otherwise.
• Dealing with 'off-screen' issues, like Saebyeok's entanglement with Deoksu's thugs or Jiyeong's religious discomfort.
• Survivor's guilt over the games (who expresses it? how?)
• Difficult conversations, with fumbling comfort: Saebyeok confronting Jiyeong about her suicidality. Saebyeok trying to convince Jiyeong, in her own dysfunctional way, that her presence is wanted.
• For a lighter, more fluffy scenario: comfort via cooking for each other; hurt stemming from Jiyeong's complex issues with family or being alone, versus her (maybe!) now having a found family of sorts. Nobody came for Jiyeong when she left prison, which I imagine might be a big deal (especially because it's a South Korean tradition for family members to bring tofu to someone leaving prison -- more details here) -- might Saebyeok make some halting but searnest attempt to reassure her about that?
• Completely an id-driven request, but I’d love an AU where both survive the games but Sangwoo still attempts (unsuccessfully) to strangle/slit Saebyeok’s throat, which then leaves her with lingering distress — that she then attempts to work through with kink. Specifically choking!
• Re: the dubcon freeforms -- I'd welcome them if you want to go there. I imagine intimacy and physical touch might be fraught boundaries for both of them, and I’d be interested in how they negotiate that. Does one try to comfort the uncomfortable party? Does Jiyeong laugh it off, then find the moment blindsiding her? Do they simply repress the discomfort, because that's easier? Feel free to make it messy, or end it happily instead. I also don't need the sex to actually happen if you'd rather not -- I'm more interested in their responses. I’m content to leave the rating to your comfort level but I’d prefer that this scenario not be written in the style of porn without plot, i.e., purely for titillation.
• If you'd rather write something set during the games themselves: tense, late night introspective conversations! Secrets revealed to each other in the fold of darkness, after any of the rounds. Jiyeong patching up her injuries (somehow!), after her near-brush with death during Deoksu’s attacks. Or an AU where the marbles game was averted but the overall Squid Game continued, where Jiyeong finds Saebyeok after the round in the toilets and they have impulsive, charged "we almost died" makeouts? Or something!
• My scenarios have focused on these two in a shipping context so far, but feel very free to involve minor characters like Ali or Cheol, or write genfic. Nine times out of ten, I will love side characters being given greater focus through fic.
I'd slightly prefer fics set in the show’s canon but AUs are fine as long as they’re not 'shop' AUs or high school/college AUs. Fix-its/canon divergences are welcome. No need to justify in-fic how Saebyeok and Jiyeong manage to survive, which contestants survive/die, and so on if you'd rather not! I’d be grateful if fics were set in South Korea rather than North Americanised.
Fandom-specific DNW(s)/clarifications:
- North Americanised settings.
- "Gay only for you" or "I've never been with another woman" plotlines: I'd prefer any uncertainty they feel about a relationship stem from factors other than sexuality.
- Canon-typical references to Jiyeong's past sexual abuse are fine (particularly for the dubcon prompts). However, I'd be grateful if you avoid dwelling on the specific details, and focus more on the aftermath.
