And Tinkerbell just will not stop dancing

Dear Author/Artist,

First, thank you so much for signing up for this exchange! I hope that you have a great time in this exchange, as I think that these exchanges are a great way for the fandom community to bond and that the only way that they work is for the participants to have fun, so I hope that you have a good time and that my preferences aren't problematic for you. I assure you, just receiving something written for me is the best part, so don't sweat the optional details. But, if you're looking for specifics to help you get started, here are some preferences!

General Likes: Anything holiday or seasonal themed (Trick-or-treating, handing out candy, apple picking, costume shopping, carving jack-o-lanterns, decorating the house and yard, etc.). Competence, seeing talented characters in action getting to show off their skills and abilities. I love tropes involving found family and casual intimacy (not necessarily physical, but the definition that involves trust), such as unexpected co-parenting/co-habiting, bodyswap/bodysharing or telepathy,

General Dislikes: People showing poor judgement at decision making (For instance, not telling your loved ones important secrets, so that when they find out in the worst way possible, it causes them to feel betrayed and become angry at you [see: the average process used by characters on every CW show]). I'm also very turned off by emotional blackmail/guilt trips and social awkwardness/humiliation/public embarassment.

Harry Potter - Harry Potter, Hermione Granger

Harry and Hermione are the OTP that I will apparently never be over. I realize that not everyone ships them though, and if you don't want to write them in a relationship, I would love gen fic as well, but I would really prefer not seeing them in relationships with other people.
I think that they make amazing partners, both in a romantic sense, as well as a pragmatic adventuring one. They have very complementary skill sets and personalities (Harry is excellent at thinking on his feet and performing in crisis situations while Hermione excels at planning ahead and researching). One of my favorite things about these two is the way that they straddle between both the Muggle and Wizarding worlds, and if you want to write something about them using their muggle knowledge to take over the world (or just confuse all their classmates at Hogwarts), that would be amazing. I love these two crazy kids because they are so synergistic and codependent and are both amazing independently, but put them together and they're unstoppable.
Halloween is a very important date in this series, and seems to always herald some tragedy or crazy adventure. Also, they're wizards and witches. If you are looking for inspiration, clearly, there are no shortage of story ideas. The two of them having an adventure dealing with some monsters, or going trick or treating, or convincing everyone at Hogwarts that sincere pumpkin patches are a legitimate muggle tradition, or crazy hijinks in some Scooby-Doo esque fashion would be amazing.

I don't know what to say about these two that doesn't start with the fact that they are my forever OTP. You may notice some similarities between them and the other characters I have asked for, as I think I clearly have a type: two strong characters, that support each other well when working together, because they have different approaches to problem solving and can cover for each others' weaknesses, and that same synergy also applies to their personal lives as well as their professional. Harry and Hermione are also really interesting because of the way they exist in two different worlds, both Magical and Muggle, and that sort of dichotomy with respect to traditions and lifestyles is really fascinating.

Young Wizards - Dairine Callahan

When I first started to read Young Wizards, I fell in love with the whole setting, and Nita in particular. But then I got to High Wizardry, and Dairine just stole my heart. She went on an intergalactic road trip with her computer and had sex with a sentient planet and became a teenage runaway mother who then became the best mother in all of fiction when she made every single mobile a wizard. She is a very multidimensional character, who can be a bratty kid sister, a wizard in the prime of her power, a queen, the Guarantor of a world not her own, or a teenager desperately mourning her mother and seeking her lost love. Apparently I have a thing for hyper-competence and emotional codependence, because it seems to be a common thread among all my requests.
This is the one fandom where I would probably not prefer tricks, mostly because the setting is already so dark and serious that the only things I can think of that are scary for this universe are just terrifying. For either tricks or treats I would love to see Dairine being amazing in dealing with the problems of the entire universe with her sister/Roshaun/a planet full of sentient robot babies/her computer that only she can talk to which is also the soul of wizardry/all of the above. Wacky alien cultural hijinks, crazy adventures on Earth with aliens during Halloween when they can walk around freely, situational ethics classes, the basis for Halloween myths turning out to be real or anything involving costumes.

I saw Dairine as the annoying little sibling when she first showed up in Young Wizards, but when I got to her crazy intergalactic road trip/Ordeal/teenage runaway incident, I became her biggest fan. Because Dairine is complex, and complicated, and has real depth to her character. And everyone else just seems to see one dimension of her; Nita keeps acting like Dairine is still the bratty little sister, but Dairine has more than proven that the things she deals with on a regular basis are serious. The running joke is that she is the one teaching situational ethics to other species, but she is a queen in her own right, and knows what it means to make difficult decisions. I think she and Roshaun make an amazing pair, since they can both recognize the strenuous lifestyle that the other has, but I don't think they have to wind up together. Dairine being the unknown and unsung heroine of the entire universe, with or without anyone else is awesome.

Kingsman: The Secret Service - Roxy Morton | Lancelot, Gary "Eggsy" Unwin

Roxy was my favorite character in this movie because not only she is capable of keeping up with everyone else throughout all of the training, she also had the ruthless willingness to complete her mission that Eggsy didn't. I was also really struck by the friendship the two of them had, the way they were both something of outsiders to the other candidates, and bonded through that, and worked really well together in the climactic sequence.
For story ideas, there's always another super genius out to take over or destroy the world. The challenges of domestic life when half the time you're saving the world, having a competition to see who can be more passive aggressively snarky but mannered towards bad guys, or some sort of comedy of errors regarding what information is getting revealed to the bad guys. This is also another fandom that works really well with either Halloween (if they have to run an operation in a haunted house or something) or costume based fiction.

I loved this movie, and the way that it completely averted, inverted and subverted all kinds of spy movie tropes, but I was a little disappointed by the way that Roxy got written out of the main action sequence at the end. I would love to see her getting a chance to kick ass and take names. As with Harry and Hermione, and Dairine and Roshaun, I think she and Eggsy make an excellent pair because they work well together and respect and understand each other.

Faking It - Amy Raudenfeld, Karma Ashcroft

Karma and Amy are unbelievably cute together, and I have been shipping them from the pilot. The only part of this show I don't absolutely love is the incessant drama inherent in their relationship. What I love about these two is the dynamic that they have, how deeply they care for each other and how much they are obviously in love with each other to everyone else, even if they don't realize it themselves. This show consistently scares me to watch, since they constantly flirt with making terrible decisions, but they have always come back around.
I'm sure Karma and Amy have some unique Halloween traditions, which would be amazing to see. Haunted houses, trick or treating, or ultra competitive school wide costume contests. Just any sort of domestic fluff woudl be wonderful for a treat, and for tricks there's all kinds of scares they could experience, from just dealing with Lauren to dealing with being in prison to (pregnancy) scares.

Honestly, the least attractive thing about this show is the drama involved in figuring out relationships. I think stories that take place after couples get together are much more fascinating, partly because they are so poorly represented in fiction (stories always end with marriages, they rarely begin with them), but also because the process of living day to day and making things work is so much more complicated and interesting. If you don't want to write about these two in a relationship, I would still much rather see them in established relationships (or established bachelorette-hood) rather than playing the dance of will-they-won't-they.

Hopefully all that information helps you with writing your fic or drawing your art, but I have only provided these details to help you, and if there's anything that you don't feel comfortable with or feel too constrained by, please ignore the details and go with what feels right to you. I hope you have fun with this exchange and I can't wait to see what you produce!

Edit To Add: Apparently, I set this entry to Private instead of Public access by accident. It should be visible now!

Today's post is a rec list of fanfiction for Harry Potter! Most of these are Harry/Hermione centric (it's definitely my OTP for the fandom), but there are a few gen fics in here as well. All the stories have a great plot though, regardless of what they ship and are worthwhile reads even if you don't ship Harry/Hermione. I decided to do things a little differently than most rec lists, and rank them in order of favorites.
First, a couple of honorary mentions. These fics would have made it onto my top ten list, except they are currently incomplete and leave off in terrible cliffhangers. They're excellent stories though, and all are definitely worth the read.

Forging the Sword - Ginny dies in the Chamber of Secrets, and as a result, the Trio gets serious about the fact that they are in a war. Like the other entries on the honorable mention list, it's not on the main list because it's still incomplete, only reaching the middle of fourth year currently, but features the Harry, Hermione and Ron we should have seen in the books, who all still retain their unique personalities but become a lot more competent and committed to their cause.

Applied Cultural Anthropology, or - Hermione becomes a Slytherin. Most stories that feature Slytherin have Harry going there, and a story that puts Harry into Slytherin is usually a sign that he is evil, or "grey", or just plain emo. In this story however, putting Hermione into Slytherin just makes her more ambitious and while she is certainly scarier, it is not because she is evil but because without Harry and Ron to be her friends, and placed into an environment hostile towards muggleborns, she is forced to bring her ruthlessness to the foreground.

Coming Back Late - During the final battle, Harry doesn't return from the Forbidden Forest, and instead disappears into the muggle world to get rid of the Deathly Hallows once and for all, leaving Hermione to become the Witch-Who-Won. A great romantic subplot, an excellent actual plot, and a realistic look at how Magical Britain may look after the fallout from Voldemort's demise, as well as featuring ultra-competent Hermione. Quite possibly the most badass Hermione of any fic, ever; when every member of the cast keeps getting crowning moments of awesome, she still manages to shine (I dare anyone to read this and not break out cackling maniacally at "and yet somehow, you keep doing it"). It's got a very slow burn, but it is absolutely worth the time invested. If this story wasn't incomplete and had been updated anytime recently, it could very well take the top spot in my opinion.

And now for my ten favorite Harry Potter fanfics!

10) Many Thanks - Like a lot of fanfics on this list, this story is based on a trope that a number of other fanfics use (in this case, time travel back to the era of the Marauders), but both does it much better than a lot of similar stories and features a unique twist on the approach. The twist that this particular story takes is that instead of preserving the timeline, Hermione sets out to make the largest changes possible, and manages to redeem a number of characters in unexpected ways. It manages to turn one of the happiest endings possible into an incredibly bittersweet and tragic gut punch of an ending as well, but in the best way possible.

9) Years of Rebellion - It's centered on a slow burning Harry/Hermione romance, but the plot is solid. Set during the summer after the events of OotP, this was one of any number of fanfics that feature Sirius' funeral, but it's certainly one of the most believable and entertaining takes on it that I've read. And the rest of the story manages to keep that same high level of quality. Unfortunately, a large percentage of Harry/Hermione stories out there feature character bashing, usually Ron, Ginny, Molly, the entire Weasley family, or Dumbledore. The only explanation for that that I can think of is that the H/Hr shippers believe that it not only "could have been that way", but SHOULD have, and someone must be to blame if they don't wind up together; since they didn't in canon, and blaming JKR is too meta, it must be some character's fault. However, this fanfic, like the rest of the list, manages to portray a believable Harry/Hermione romance without resorting to assassinating characters to get them together. While Ron isn't portrayed in the best light initially, his actions are explained, and the story takes the opportunity to give him character development instead.

8) With Malice Aforethought - After making this list, I've discovered that I'm apparently a sucker for slow burning romances, because there's a bunch on here. It's a great all around fic, and manages to showcase a number of unique ideas that I haven't seen in other fics. While this story is complete, there's a sequel that's been left unfinished, which is part of the reason this one scores so low.

7) A Black Comedy - This is the second in what I consider the "Alternate Universe Trilogy" - three works that are completely unrelated in plot, but feature the same theme; Harry and friends getting sent from one universe to another - to make it on this list (The first of the three is in the number one slot, and while the third doesn't make it on the list, the author of that one is bobsaqqara, who wrote the next entry). Like in the others, Harry winds up leaving the residents of his new dimension stunned at his abilities, and showcases just how absurd the Harry Potter canon is. While the work is mostly set up as a comedy, with lots of light hearted moments, there is an actual plot that ties the story together and features a pretty impressive reveal at the end that is a lot more fun to read if you don't try to figure it out beforehand. The humor varies from frat comedy to long lead setups, and everything in between; the only comparison I can think of for the whiplash from high brow to low comedy is the show Archer, and this fic pulls the style off brilliantly.

6) The Riddle of Jim Lillian - The titular riddle has a fairly obvious answer that I expect most or all readers would figure out immediately, but the enjoyment is in watching it play out and the various characters try to figure out who Jim Lillian is. There's some character bashing of Ron, but it's a well written enough story and the bashing is a minor enough detail in the plot that it doesn't come across as angry as most stories featuring character bashing do.

5) Will He Be Happy? - This is the Harry Potter fanfiction equivalent of the scene in Veronica Mars where she gets Sheriff Lamb to say "Veronica Mars is smarter than me", but in this story Severus Snape is Veronica Mars, and the entire wizarding world is Sheriff Lamb. Snape executes an incredibly Byzantine revenge scheme to ensure that after the final battle with Voldemort, Harry will live happily ever after. This plot goes about as well as most supervillain plots go, and while a lot of characters are angry about Snape's derisive scorn towards them, and it doesn't have the happiest ending, it does feel like a much more positive and healthy ending because of the fact that all the buried feelings of the characters get brought to light and the air gets cleared.

4) Stupid - This is probably the most annoying fanfic of any fandom to search for, since "stupid harry potter fanfiction" tends to produce rather different results than what you are looking for. It's a brilliant look at post series, and one of the few fully canon compliant, even the epilogue, Harry/Hermione fanfics out there. It's a remarkably slow burn romance though, full of unrequited feelings and unresolved tension, but when it finally manages to takes off, the resolution is just amazing and a delight to read. While others may beat out Stupid for "slowest burning romance" in terms of word count, in terms of chronological time this is hands down the winner, with a relationship that spans decades.

3) Hermione Granger and the Goblet of Fire - A very simple point of departure AU, positing what would have happened if it had been Hermione's name to come out of the Goblet instead of Harry's, and manages to not only come up with a believable explanation as to why, but also features a believable fallout from the change. Lots of great references, intelligent behavior by the characters, a stronger but not superpowered Hermione, and seeing the events of fourth year from Hermione's viewpoint make up for the sheer emotional torture that is the awkward dancing around actual romance that Harry and Hermione perform. A brilliant and triumphant ending caps off the intensity of the rest of the fic.

2) Restoring Hope - The other work of Alchymie, the author of Coming Back Late. This one is actually finished, and again features delightful competence all around, and my favorite (not actually technically a) sex scene of any fanfic ever. A lot of writers use Chekhov's gun badly, but Alchymie is the grandmaster of this trope. He lays out Chekhov's entire armory of weaponry on the mantle in fair view at the start of this story, and walks through the room picking them up one by one and shooting them, and every time it's a revelation.

1) Stages of Hope - This is, without a doubt, my favorite fanfiction of any fandom ever. Harry and the last of his resistance wind up in a magical accident that sends them from the bad future of all bad futures to an alternate universe where James and Lily never got together, and everything happened differently. The title rather brilliantly refers to Harry's emotional reaction to knowing that everything will end badly and suddenly being shown a possible happily ever after. It is heartbreaking, and one of the few works of anything that I have read that is able to get me to reliably cry every time through. The characterization is spot on, with quite possibly the best Hermione I have ever read. The writing is brilliant and elegant in a way that few fanfics achieve, packing every scene with an incredible amount of emotion. Reading it all at once will leave you with a bit of emotional whiplash from the sudden shifts from competence to humor to tragedy and back, but the read is absolutely worth it.