thrillingdetectivetales | Holly Poly 2021 Exchange Letter (Reply)

Hello, Anonymous Creator!

I'm so glad you're participating in Holly Poly! To help out, I've compiled a couple of general lists of my favorite tropes and my DNW’s for easy perusal, with fandom- and pairing-specific requests underneath.

YES-PLEASES

friends-to-lovers
getting together fic
didn’t know they were dating
fake/pretend relationships
werewolves/shapeshifter AUs
soulmate AUs
person questioning/figuring out their sexuality (whether vanilla “I never thought I wasn’t straight until now” all the way to “turns out I’m really into being sexually submissive in a very kinky way, who knew?”)
building queer communities
experienced characters showing inexperienced characters the ropes (metaphorically, or literally if you want to go the bondage route ;) )
character wrestling with their sexuality/religion
praise kink
d/s dynamics (not TPE)
superpower AUs

DO-NOT-WANTS

major focus on character death
non-canon/unrequested character death in general
graphic depictions of torture/injury
A/B/O
pregnancy/mpreg
non-canon child characters/kidfic
scat/watersports
slave!fic
infidelity
treating female characters as villains/ malicious hindrances to queer male romance
infantilazation (including daddy kink)
pedophilia
explicit non-con/rape*
vore
fat-shaming
degrading dirty talk (i.e.: "You're a filthy little slut" etc.)
somnophilia/paralysis
necrophilia
modern AUs of period media
on-screen gay bashing (mention of past incidents/recovery from is fine)
human furniture
leather/latex kink
breathplay

Most other stuff is fair game. If you have a question about a particular trope/kink/topic, I’m always open to answering questions.

*Dub-con, of the flavor where a character is unsure but willing to go with it, or like, sex-pollen/drunk/etc. variety is fine, so long as there's not explicit focus on someone feeling taken advantage of.

Alright! Now let’s get on the fandom specific requests, shall we? I’m pretty open to whatever at the end of the day, so long as enough legwork/worldbuilding/character development has been done to make me believe that a certain scenario would actually happen. (Spoiler alert: "enough," in this instance, can be pretty simple and hand-wavey, so long as anything totally outlandish is at least addressed in passing.) Feel free to use the below as guidelines more than strict rules, with the caveat being that I really don't like modern AUs for period fandoms. Period AUs that incorporate magic or other tropes are fine.

BONES
Wendell Bray/Jack Hodgins/Angela Montenegro: Okay, I know I'm not the only one who thought the love triangle from the first season would have been better dealt with if they'd just turned it into a throuple. My favorite thing about this particular OT3 is that Wendell and Hodgins are friends separately from Wendell's friendship/eventual romance with Angela. I'm totally okay with Wendell's eventual Ewing's Sarcoma being involved in the story but would rather his dealing with illness not be the main focus. Here are a few generalized plot ideas, if you need them:

after Angela and Wendell break up, and she's back with Hodgins, she mentions that she misses having him around, so they start to hang out all three of them together and it takes them awhile (and maybe a drunken night of passion) to realize that they're all dating
an AU set in Booth's coma dream universe
before he learns that Wendell and Angela are dating, he realizes that he has a crush on Wendell and ends up confessing to Angela about it because she's the person he knows best who has experience with figuring out that they're bisexual, and Angela starts scheming to get all three of them together

CHUCK
Chuck Bartowski/John Casey/Sarah Walker: Yet another instance where a canon love triangle would have been better served as an OT3, at least in my humble opinion. It's so, so obvious to me that Chuck needs both Sarah and Casey in his life. The two of them together act as balancing influences for him in totally different ways. Sarah reminds him that the human parts of him are important and what make him special and Casey pushes him to prove that he's a better asset than he thinks he is in a lot of surprising arenas. Likewise, Chuck is the light in both Sarah and Casey's lives, but they can relate to each other in ways that Chuck just can't precisely because of his general golden retriever nature. Some plot ideas to get you started, if you need:

the government succeeds in overwriting Chuck's brain to get the Intersect back under their control, turning him into a mindless super assassin, and Casey and Sarah have to rescue him, during which they figure out they're all in love
during an altercation with the villain of the week, Casey pulls a hero move and tries to sacrifice himself for Chuck and Sarah, and they realize that he's more important to them than just a buddy should be
Morgan (prior to knowing about the Intersect) or someone deduces that the reason they're all together all the time is because they're all three dating, and to protect the truth of the Intersect, they have to lean in and realize that they actually really like it
Chuck and Sarah like to tease each other about their crushes and it comes to light that they both have a Big One on Casey, so they decide to stealth date him to ease him into the idea of a relationship because they don't think he'll go for it if they come at it straight on

DC'S ARROWVERSE (THE FLASH)
Barry Allen/Eddie Thawne/Iris West: And again, an OT3 > a love triangle. I'm pretty open to anything involving these three, although it would be my preference that Eddie survives and like, has a vasectomy or something rather than shooting himself to prevent future ancestors. Here are some random and very vague plot ideas, if you need them:

after Barry reveals himself as the Flash, Eddie and Iris make it a point to look after him when he's fresh from a fight, and eventually they all realize that they like it when he comes home to them
in an effort to help Barry secure a romantic partner, Eddie and Iris wind up going out on dates with him instead (maybe they're trying to help him practice being chill, or waiting around in a cafe to see how his date goes and when it ends swiftly and poorly they stay and eat with him instead, etc.) and they're surprised by how well it works with the three of them
someone in Eddie's life doesn't like that he and Iris are dating, or maybe makes some comment about how weird it is that Barry's all around, and Eddie, in an uncharacteristic moment of hot-headedness, tells them they're really not going to like it when he tells them that Barry's his and Iris's boyfriend and then they have to fake date because they can't back down for some reason, only it turns out that all three of them dating is kind of awesome, who knew?

DC COMICS
Roy Harper/Koriand'r/Jason Todd: I will take LITERALLY ANYTHING. It's insane that Kori never pushed for all three for all three of them to date during the events of RHatO, considering the vibe of that entire run and also the fact that she's an alien who can't be fucked with the dumb strictures human culture half the time. I'm happy to accept any version of the characters from any run, so long as they're together. Here are a couple of ideas for you, to get started:

as mentioned, a RHatO rewrite where they all three wind up dating instead of just Jason and Kori falling into bed together
post-Heroes in Crisis, Kori hears about Roy passing and returns to help Jason get him back
Under the Red Hood AU where Roy and Jason meet during Jason's Lost Years after the Lazarus Pit and become the kingpin and right hand of a criminal empire that they eventually fold Kori into for some reason? (villains-with-hearts-of-gold-AU is basically what I'm saying)

ELEMENTARY
Marcus Bell/Sherlock Holmes/Joan Watson: I feel like these three are just obvious together, seriously. It would make so much sense! Marcus is the only detective aside from Captain Gregson that Sherlock can be bothered to give the time of day to and it's of course abundantly clear that he loves Joan. For a guy who claims to be as emotionally stunted as Sherlock is, that he would have such deep connections to two people is amazing. A few ideas:

Sherlock recognizes that Joan and Marcus would be an excellent match and endeavors to matchmake them, only they're smart and figure it out and wind up pulling him into all their dates somehow, and along the way they realize that there's a good thing here with all three of them
for plot reasons, Sherlock and Marcus have to go undercover as a couple, and for an entirely different plot reason, Sherlock and Joan have to go undercover as a couple, and when the people they're pretending to be couples to entrap cross paths, the only way to explain it is that they're in a three-way and over the course of pretending to be dating they realize that they like it
casefic where Marcus winds up crashing at 221B more often than not and they're all surprised by how well he fits into their daily routine and even more surprised that they don't want to go back to having that routine without him in it

FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF
Ferris Bueller/Cameron Frye/Sloane Peterson: The OT3 that started it all (for me, anyway). The dynamic here is just so good. I tend to see Sloane as a stabilizing influence for both Ferris and Cameron, who are the kind of best friends where Cam will do anything if Ferris goads him in the right way and Ferris knows exactly how to push Cam's buttons. Sloane just makes sure Ferris does it responsibly and with Cam's actual best interests at heart. The movie is basically an OT3 already, with the three of them playing hooky to go on a big three-way date all around the city, so. Here are a few ideas for you, just as a starting point:

post-canon college AU where Cam is trying to get over his crush on both Sloane and Ferris, only it doesn't exactly work when they're hunting him down all the time and demanding to hang out because they don't want to become those friends who grow apart in college, and eventually there's probably a dramatic rooftop love confession or a round of spin the bottle/suck and blow/other lascivious drinking game gets out of hand and they realize there's chemistry between all three of them
post-canon college AU where Cam starts dating, like really seriously dating, someone and Ferris gets super jealous and realizes that he has a crush on Cam and like, first of all, duh, how did he not realize, but ALSO he doesn't understand why he can't just have them both and he's determined to make them see it too
pre- or post-canon AU where Cam and Sloane have to pretend to be dating for some reason and Ferris thinks it's a hoot and a half and he knows he really should be jealous about all the fake kissing and stuff but mostly he just thinks it's hot and wants to be the filling in the sandwich and oh, shit, he's in love with them both

GRIMM
I have such a soft spot for this dumb series and there are several OT3s and moresomes I would love to see from it. I've listed out a few optional plot ideas for each different configuration I'm interested in, but overall the thing I love most about the idea of an OT3/4 here is that Nick very obviously loves Juliette in canon, and Monroe very obviously loves Rosalee, but they share this bond with each other that's equally undeniable and I think it would be cool to see how that would look in various permutations of them all together.

Nick Burkhardt/Monroe/Juliette Silverton:
Juliette knows there's something weird going on with Nick (prior to learning about his Grimm situation) and she knows that Monroe is somehow involved, so she endeavors that she needs to know him better in the interest of saving her relationship and realizes that he's actually really great? And she knows Nick would never cheat on her but his crush on Monroe is extremely obvious so she suggests that maybe they should all three try something together, or else just starts inviting Monroe places to ease them both into it
after the whole thing where she gets kidnapped by dragon people and taken to a cave in the middle of nowhere and Monroe rescues her, Juliette decides to aggressively befriend him and he accidentally brings her in on the Grimm stuff earlier than in regular canon. she takes to it surprisingly well and their late nights of wesen research eventually turn into sleepovers, and Monroe having breakfast with them, and before they know it someone is accidentally kissing someone on the way out the door and they're forced to deal with the fact that they've fallen into a relationship without noticing

Nick Burkhardt/Rosalee Calvert/Monroe:
Juliette doesn't remember Nick so he lets her move on with her life, and Monroe and Rosalee (who are dating and very happy) hang out with him a lot and do their best to help him not be depressed forever and eventually realize that they're definitely dating him

five times Nick was mistaken for Monroe and/or Rosalee's boyfriend before they realized they were all dating

Monroe loves Rosalee but he also loves Nick, and while Rosalee and Nick don't love each other that way, they're more than happy to do the "this is my boyfriend's girlfriend/boyfriend" thing and bro down in the meantime

Nick Burkhardt/Rosalee Calvert/Monroe/Juliette Silverton:
after Juliette gets brought into the whole Grimm thing (which can and probably should happen way earlier than it actually does in canon), she and Nick wind up going out on a lot of double dates with Monroe and Rosalee and she and Rosalee see how much Nick and Monroe are into each other and decide to do something about it, either to the tune of all four getting together (my preference) or to the tune of Nick and Monroe dating each other while also continuing to date Rosalee and Juliette separately while Rosalee and Juliette are BFFs (also very interesting and good)

general polyamory negotiations

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (2016)
Emma Cullen/Matthew Cullen/Teddy Q: Okay, okay, I know we only even get Matthew in the film for like ten minutes, but come on! It's clear that he's extremely important to Emma and equally clear that Emma (at least, if not Matthew also) is extremely important to Teddy, so why not ditch the boring old love triangle and make it poly! In general, I prefer AUs where Matthew survives, though I wouldn't be opposed to pre-canon exploration, either. Just nothing that focuses on Teddy and Emma after Matthew passes, if you go the canon route. Some ideas for you, to start:

AU where Teddy is the one who gets shot, but he survives, and Matthew and Emma still recruit the seven to reign terror down on Bart Bogue and his men, while also trying to woo Teddy from his recovery bed now that they recognize just how important he is to them
pre-canon AU where Teddy lives on the neighboring farm, and it's obvious that he has a crush on Emma, but then she realizes that he also has a crush on Matthew and is surprised to discover that she'd be kind of into that and decides to make it happen
neighbors help each other out on the frontier, so it's not weird at all that Teddy Q is always over at the Cullen farm or that they like having him there quite so much, right? right?

NEW GIRL
Jessica Day/Nick Miller/Schmidt: I just think it would be better if they dated! Schmidt is obviously extremely gay for Nick (who is repressed like whoa, but we can work with that) and Jessica Day strikes me as the type of girl who understands how to embrace the philosophy of "the more the merrier." Here are some generalized plot ideas for you, if you need them:

Nick and Jess are together, but he and Schmidt have to make out for some reason (True American rule, idk) and he can't stop thinking about it, and he's so confused about why that is but Jess manages to guide him toward self-actualization

Nick and Jess are dating but Schmidt asks her to pretend to be his girlfriend, and it makes Nick super jealous, as it should, only he's not just jealous of Schmidt for getting to kiss Jess, he's jealous of Jess for getting to kiss Schmidt, and he...doesn't know what to do with that

Schmidt wants to cross having a threesome off his bucket list, so he asks Nick and Jess (because they're the only couple he knows well enough, he claims, but really he just has an unrequited college crush on Nick and Jess is pretty hot when she wants to be plus she's one of the first women he's ever actually just been friends with so he likes her a lot) and Nick is convinced because it's not gay if it's in a three-way, except then it just sort of keeps happening

Phew! I think that does it! While I tried to be as thorough as possible, I know this letter isn't exhaustive, so if you have any questions, I'm always happy to answer through mod proxy to preserve anonymity. Likewise, you're welcome to peek at any of the previous letters I've written for this and other exchanges (which will be more of the same you've seen here), you can check out my "letters to nonny" tag.

Happy writing!
-Tec