Little Black Dress 2020

[seinmit]

Table of Contents

• General Preferences


• Captain America - James "Bucky" Barnes


• Black Panther - Erik Killmonger


• Philosophy RPF

General Preferences

seinmit on ao3.

General Likes

• Dramatic, action-heavy plots full of badasses
• Angst and heightened drama
• H/C and whump


• Emotional growth and self-actualization


• Recovery from trauma
  
• Revealing dark secrets


• Struggling with duty and Terrible Purpose


• Philosophical complexity and big ideas; fic with a strong conceptual theme
  
• A deep sense of place, whether that be from world-building or historical research


• Grappling with political quandaries without a conclusion and full of complexity; coming away from a fic with the sense there are no perfect answers.


• Formal experiments: different tenses, documentation styles, nonlinear storytelling, drabble series.


• Fannish "magical realism" tropes/universes, especially when played straight, with world building: A/B/O, D/s verses, soul bonds, soul-marks, body swap, time loops, etc

Shippy Likes

• Us-against-the-world dynamics and co-dependency; Characters being the most important people in each other’s emotional life, whether from love or hate; Characters tearing the world apart for the sake of their lover; unhealthy levels of possessiveness


• Mpreg and pregnancy, done either for angst or fluff; mpreg in a universe without normal mpreg; mpreg played as body horror; surprise pregnancies greeted with joy; awe at pregnant partner; Male omega parents being referred to as mothers and female alpha parents being referred to as fathers.


• Coming out with a socially unacceptable relationship, facing social consequences and stigma; the ostracization is worth it because of love


• Outsider POV; the slow realization that couple is a couple and what that changes about the perceived dynamic.


• Rescuing one’s lover from danger.


• Quiet intimacy—knowing one’s lover better than anyone else in the world does; domestic comfort and creating a life for each other; close-contact revealing conflicts that previously hadn’t come up; discovering new things about the person you know best


• lovers solving problems together; badasses doing badass things together; comrades in arms and comrades in bed


• hate-ships and enemy-mine; Sex not solving problems; sex creating problems; unsolvable personality and politics conflicts; bad behavior as a form of flirting

Smut Likes

• porn with feelings; praise kink; kink discovery


• rough sex; hair pulling; insufficient lube/prep; quickies; marathon sex until it hurts


• dirty talk, especially demeaning or condescending (even if it is done with affection). "fuck hole" (and any variant of hole). Vaguely feminizing dirty talk, even if that's the only feminization involved. "Cunt." Accusations of sluttiness, laughter about how easily they're giving it up.


• D/s; restraints; characters getting off on their own submission; humiliation, loving or otherwise; objectification; feminization


• breeding and impregnation kink (with or without possible actual pregnancy


• comeplay; felching and playing with a comed-in hole; letting come dry on the body; rubbing it in; animalistic scent marking


• penetration; being so full it hurts but loving it; DP; object insertion; gaping


• knotting, heat sex, overwhelming desperation


• xeno/non-human sex; tentacles; being chemically aroused by an alien. Full-shift werewolf sex.


• bestiality, consensual or non. Especially with canids. (Mammals generally are good, non-mammals are less my thing.)


• mental manipulation; arousal that cannot be controlled or contained; sex-addiction


• 24/7 D/s, TPE, free use. Especially when enthusiastically wanted by the sub.


• ritualistic sex; religious ritual sex; sex-magic


• public sex; semi-public sex; unremarked upon public sex; secret public sex.

Pregnancy Likes

• Male characters being secure in their gender identity but finding joy and comfort in specifically being “mom”/being in the “feminine” role.


• Complicated feelings about unplanned pregnancy, including discussion of abortion. Self-destructive behavior specifically because of the pregnancy. Punishing self/fetus for whatever fucked-up internal reasons apply


• Fertility issues, miscarriages, angst about wanting to be pregnant. This is particularly good when the character is in some sense ambivalent about their ability to get pregnant (e.g, if they got the requisite parts through noncon medical experimentation.)


• Mpreg as abnormal, only possible because of non-con medical experimentation, magic, etc. In an A/B/O universe, I especially like when there has been some sort of forced designation change in for the purposes of pregnancy.


• Being “bred” for one’s genes/superpowers. Coopting that ability for self-determination, even if the bad guys were the reason.


• Bodies changing, softening, spreading, getting sensitive, tingling, hurting—basically any specific body changes. I love unpleasant pregnancy symptoms, too.


• Over-investing in pregnancy/baby as the hope for the future...and that going badly, because even if you’re pregnant, you’re still you.


• Body worship by partner that is framed in terms of seeing what is happening to the partner because of the baby, regardless of whether or not the baby was their’s. Fetishizing the ability to get pregnant and impregnating them. Getting off on fertility/virility.


• This is a weird one to phrase, but bodily fluids as Powerful—this applies to both lactation and come, both of them are liquids that Do Things (feed baby and make baby respectively) and leaning into that is hot.


• Painful or drawn out births. Medical emergencies. Really, really badly timed births. Getting hurt while pregnant. Anal births.

Darkfic/Horror-y Likes

• kidnapping, torture, one’s fate being outside of your control
  
• unspeakable power, eldritch or godly or similar
  
• self-sacrifice for partner; watching your partner sacrificing themselves for you.
  
• existential horror; mindbreak; being totally broken down and accepting one’s status as an object; grooming, manipulation, gaslighting
  
• sinister authority figures taking advantage of power
  
• bad ends, bittersweet ends, hopeful ends, as long as there is some sort of arc to the fic.
  
• horror that occurs after some sort of reveal--someone wasn't who they seemed or something was radically distorted.


• ghost stories and urban legends; spooky forests and abandoned ruins; murderous creatures and haunted houses. Creepy rural locations and places a little "outside" the normal sphere. Smelling something wrong in the psychosphere.
  
• the dangers of ambition, finding out that there are things more important than knowledge and power


• madness, self-mutiliation, orgiastic rituals, canibalism.

DNWs

DNW

• scat


• formalized ageplay, especially non-sexual—"littles."
  
• all the way through
  
• children being called "pups"
  
• the phrase "big black cock" and pornified race-play
  
• first-person POV, unless in epistolary, journals, or other written document.
  
• asexual characters in relationships with sexual characters, past or present or even mentioned.


• things going into urethras


• setting-change AUs, unless otherwise specified.

Opt-Ins

Basically anything that is not a DNW I am willing and happy to receive, but I wanted to make a specific point to opt-in to the following things. This list should not, in any way, be taken as a "please write me this" list, but if you find yourself writing a fic that includes elements of any of the following, you can soothe your mind with this. The only thing I ask is that you warn/tag liberally.

• In-narrative racism/homophobia/sexism/biphobia/classism/ableism etc. You shouldn't feel the need to go out of your way to put it in, but if it makes sense for the story or the character, feel free to include it. That includes slurs, upsetting imagery, and anything of that nature.


• Gore, non-con, generally upsetting things about consent and agency, and torture.
  
• Incest and underage, as appropriate for the request


• Cannibalism, necrophilia, bestiality as appropriate for the fic, character, and request
  
• Character death, physical and mental illnesses, and permanent disability.
  
• Body image issues, eating disorders, self-harm, suicide and suicide attempts.


• Any and all "magical realism" tropes, whether or not they fit the canon: time travel, soul bonds, soul mates.
  
• Past relationships and unrequested canon and non-canon ships.
  
• Infidelity, breakup fic, poly among requested characters (unless otherwise specified.

Captain America - James "Bucky" Barnes

Bucky is a great Little Black Dress because he has so many different moments in his life and different possible dynamics in his moments. I'm fascinated by every moment of his life and I'd love to see what you come up with. I like stories where we use Bucky's outrageous life to explore more concrete things about what it means to be human, to recover from trauma, and to care about each other. I like when he gets good things, and I like when he gets bad things.

Pre-War, I'm fascinated by a bunch of different takes on his life and what that means. We don't at present have a lot of info about him in canon, so I'd be delighted to see a bunch of takes on it. You could ship him with Steve, of course, but also any OC that you think would draw out something about his character. Maybe he's involved with the Brooklyn Queer community. Maybe he has a romance with someone he has to keep from Steve. The thing I like about Pre-War fic for him is the extra-textual context weighing coloring everything we read—the knowledge that it is going too come crashing down. I also like melodramatic backstory about him struggling to buy medicine, so if you want him to suck cocks for money and keep it from Steve, I'm so there.

During the war, I love that his body is changing and he's dealing with trauma, but he also has a mission that he's doing his best to succeed in. He's probably hiding what he's dealing with from many of the people around him, but maybe someone figures it out. Maybe one of the Howlies reaches out or maybe he develops a connection with another soldier. Maybe he, Peggy, and Steve end up in bed together, all of them trying very hard to reach out and not revealing everything about their thoughts.

I'm also interested in exploring stuff when he's in captivity and I love it if things go dark.
For the Winter Soldier era, I'm really interested in the ways that he maintains some amount of agency in the worst circumstances, even though he's utterly dehumanized. I like "ships" like Bucky/Peirce and Bucky/Rumlow, even though I don't like them as happy or romantic I'd also be interested in Bucky finding ways to use his sexual appeal to try to gain favors or to gain space for himself to be a person. Maybe he has a strange romance with a mark on a mission and it causes him to go rogue. I love the idea of canon characters running into him in this time. Does he have run ins with Fury when Fury doesn't know about him? Or anything with Natasha or Erik. In all of those cases, it's this strange dynamic where he is both enemy and ally, and they don't know the first thing about him. Or anything about him and the other Winter Soldiers!

Post TWS, I love Bucky trying to find a life for himself. I'd be interested in stuff set during his time on the run, before Civil War--maybe he's struggling with memories of what, at the time, felt like affection between him and someone at HYDRA. Or if you want to go AU, maybe he runs into a canon character and their romance helps him become a person again.

One of my favorite eras of Bucky is in Wakanda. I love the glimpses of the life he's made for himself there and the affection of his relationship with Shuri. He also evidentally has a great deal of respect for T'Challa and the other Wakandans. I'd love for anything with anyone Wakandan. Maybe he goes on Wakandan tinder and meets a canon character and falls in love. Maybe he sleeps his way through the country. Maybe he gets pregnant, I love pregnant!Bucky.

I'd love stuff set in the soul stone, with other people that were snapped, or things post End Game. What does he do? Is he retired? Does he help Sam be Captain America? Does he go to space? I love it all and I'm interested in any character dynamic you come up with. I love Bucky as someone in a relationship with give and take, where he helps himself and also helps them.

I'm generally interested in any canon-divergent AU or things like A/B/O, soul bonds, anything that doesn't meaningfully change the basic beats of the MCU story. Soul mates seem like a great way to get whacky pairings off the ground.

Opt-Ins:
I'm opting into crossovers with anyone in an MCU movie! I also opt-in to original characters, provided that they are HYDRA agents, pre-Winter Soldier characters who are not cis women, non-human, or Wakandan. I'm not interested in non-Wakandan modern human OCs or pre-War cis women original ships. In both cases, I'm not DNWing any mention of of OCs in those roles, but I'd prefer it not to be the main ship.

I'm opting into crossovers with Inglourious Basterds. I'm opting into self-cest. I'm opting into shipping him with comics versions of himself or Steve. I'm opting into monster or nonhuman versions of canon characters. I'm opting into rule!63 versions of him and canon characters.

For treating purposes—should that be a thing you want to do—I opt in to Bucky/any of your faves in any canon, even if I don't know them.

Character DNWs:
Bucky/Mantis
Bucky/Darcy
Bucky/Clint
Relationships between Bucky and evil people (especially HYDRA) being portrayed as healthy and happy. I love these ships and I'm not DNWing them at all—I am DNWing it being fluffy (unless it's fluffy in a fucked up way.)

Return to Table of Contents

Black Panther - Erik Killmonger

I love Erik as a Little Black Dress because his point of view is so specific and strongly drawn in the movie. I think he would be a fascinating dynamic with just about every character he could possibly meet and I would be eager to see how his intensity draws out new facets of other characters. He has such strong opinions and such a clear sense of purpose, but in the movie we see how that leads him to run over people around him. I'm interested in all the ways that could play out--characters who he's trying to destroy, characters who he destroys in the course of his mission, and if he happens to meet an immovable object as an unstoppable force.

I'm interested in every era of his life. One of the reasons why I'm specifically opting into Black OCs is that I'm fascinated by the Erik that grew up in Oakland and managed to make it out--graduating from college at 19 and starting a career in the military. I'm sure his determination was something to behold and I'm especially interested in the ways he revealed his core of rage and pain to those around him.

Erik has to be a master of code-switching and we see some of it in the movie, especially in the museum scene. And if he was able to be so successful in the American military and black ops worlds, he had to be able to conceal his heart from those around him. What did the people in his life think of him? How much of himself did he show to lovers? Did anyone know what he was thinking? Did he have allies and fellow travelers? Did he show one side to his colleagues and another to activists he worked with on the side, or was even that too risky? What's the story between him and his girlfriend? What about someone like Nick Fury, did their paths ever cross?

And then he goes rogue: what is that like? What prompts the decision? How does he know when it is time to make his move and break, and does he leave someone in the process? I'm interested in him on the run and the work he does before he makes the final play for Wakanda. Is there any human connection there, or does he see people around him as instrumental?

I'd also love anything with people in Wakanda, too--either going AU or somewhere in the movie. What if T'Challa ignores his wishes and saves his life? Who tries to rehabilitate Erik? It's interesting, because I imagine his rage and resentment are overwhelming, but there's a type of intimacy in that. He must have gone most of his life up until that point concealing his rage, but now in shackles in Wakanda, he's spitting mad. Who is the person he butts heads with the most? Who's able to get through to him? What is the give and take of challenge like? I like fic with no easy answers and that doesn't come down as either "Erik is totally right" or "the Wakandans are totally right." You could also bring in the larger MCU--maybe Erik escapes and then kidnaps Tony to make a point, for instance. Maybe they send him to space and he has to deal with people who, unique in his experience, have no preconceptions about what it means to be Black.

There's also a lot of opportunity to incorporate other MCU characters during Black Panther with fairly small divergences. Maybe Steve/Natasha/Sam show up, or Erik finds Bucky and tries to wake him up out of cryo to use him.

I'm generally interested in any canon-divergent AU or things like A/B/O, soul bonds, anything that doesn't meaningfully change the basic beats of the MCU story. Soul mates seem like a great way to get whacky pairings off the ground.

Opt-Ins:
I'm opting into crossovers with anyone in an MCU movie! I also opt-in to original characters, provided that they are bad guys, non-human, Black, or Wakandan.

I'm opting into crossovers with the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda comic. I'm opting into self-cest. I'm opting into monster or nonhuman versions of canon characters. I'm opting into rule!63 versions of him and canon characters. I'm opting into crossovers with any version of Magneto. I'm opting into crossovers with him and real-life Black political figures.

For treating purposes—should that be a thing you want to do—I opt-in to Erik/any of your faves in any canon, even if I don't know them.

Character DNWs:
Erik/Mantis
Erik/Darcy
Erik nonconning anyone. Dubcon is fine.

Return to Table of Contents

Philosophy RPF - Socrates

Socrates is my Little Black Dress of Philosophy RPF because he is both a crucially important figure and also, a giant character. His portrayal in Plato's dialogues shows him to be kind of an asshole in a very entertaining way--he's so certain of his own correctness, but he conceals that certainty through this artifice of humility. He knows he knows nothing, but he's even more sure that *you* know nothing. I love that. I love the idea of him going on time-traveling adventures and popping up in any number of contexts, asking annoying questions.

What if he shows up to heckle Derrida's dissertation on Plato and then things get wild? Derrida clearly knew how to party and I bet Socrates would also like cocaine. Or if he visits John Rawls and starts arguments about who had the better fantasy view about how politics works. Or he shows up to ask annoying questions about Heidegger joining the Nazi party, or to help Hannah Arendt and Walter Benjamin try to escape. Maybe he's with Benjamin when Benjamin makes the hard decision that anything is better than the potential of ending up in Nazi hands, since he himself is familiar with similar hard decisions.

What if he shows up to interact with Confucius or Avicenna? It doesn't just have to be Western philosophers. With Confucius, their lives just barely overlapped, even though they (obviously) didn't have a chance to meet each other. I'd love a story where you fudged the timeline a little bit and figured out a way to have them meet without magic.

I'm also excited about detailed stuff about his ancient Greek context. The story of him being tried and then drinking hemlock is so dramatic and there are a lot of story opportunities there. Is there backstory between him and Crito? Or with his students! Clearly the story between him and Alcibiades is pretty dang juicy.

One thing--as might be clear from even the nomination--is that I'm really excited about the idea of playing with inter- and meta-textual understandings of Socrates. I've nominated him like he's a member of Philosophy RPF, but we know him best as a character in Plato's dialogues. Things exploring that, or the way that philosophy has developed since him and referencing him would be grand.

As a general note, I'm clearly not familiar with everyone who is a philosopher throughout all of history, but I will make myself familiar to the extent necessary to enjoy your fic and I will do that with joy. If it matters to you, I'm mostly familiar with people in the Western Continental tradition.

Aside about naming: I have no aversion to Sokrates if you prefer that.

Character DNWs:
Nobody!

Opt-Ins:
I opt-in to anyone in his time period in history. I don't opt-in to original characters in that time period--I'd prefer if they'd be named or referenced figures in the texts. You can mention original characters, definitely, but I want the ship to be someone I can google. And this is inherent in the name of the canon, but I really do opt-in to anyone you can argue is a philosopher, in any time and space. I opt-in to original modern academic philosopher characters--but if you go historical, I want someone real.

I opt-in to crossovers between Socrates and "characters" in philosophical or Greek texts. For instance, if you want to do Socrates/anybody in the Republic, I'm game. I clearly haven't read every philosophical or Greek text, but if I can google it, I will read it so fast to read your fic you have no idea.

For treating purposes—should that be a thing you want to do—I opt-in to Socrates/any of your faves in any canon, even if I don't know them.

Return to Table of Contents