beatrice_otter: Han and Leia--Kiss (Han and Leia)
[community profile] justmarried exchange is currently in the nomination phase, and I have been having trouble because they allow you to sign up with ten fandoms but you only can nominate seven. And my favorite marriage trope is the sedoretu, which is a specific type of poly marriage invented by Ursula K. LeGuin, and requires four people. Which means that I need to have foursomes nominated! (Although I can just go with a pairing and say "I love sedoretus, if you want to write this pairing as a sedoretu you can choose who to have be the other pair in the sedoretu.")

Anyway, the reason I have not nominated is that I am waiting to see what else got nominated to help me whittle down what I want to nominate, and I just checked the nominations and I think that [personal profile] tielan has nominated! (Thank you!) Because the BSG foursome I was going to nominate (Lee/Kara/Sam/Dee) has been nominated, and so has the Steve/Maria/Bucky/Natasha foursome in MCU fandom, and both are foursomes I have written as sedoretus for [personal profile] tielan before. Which means that not only is there someone interested in the same characters, there's someone who's probably going to sign up who is interested in sedoretus, specifically. That is really exciting to me! And it does free up some nomination slots.

Here are some nominations I am planning:

TGE: Maia/Csethiro/Csevet/Vedero (there are a bunch of TGE ships already nominated but they are all suuuuuuuper rare)

DS9: Sisko ships, Worf/Jadzia, Miles/Keiko/Kira/Bashir

TOS: Spock/Uhura and some foursomes (although someone on the Yuletide discord may be nominating sedoretus in this fandom, which would mean I don't have to nominate them and could free up a slot)

B5: John/Delenn, John/Delenn/Lennier, Delenn/Neroon, John/Delenn/Lennier/? (I don't know who I'd put with those three to complete the sedoretu--Anna, maybe? a Minbari OC?)

Peter Wimsey, sedoretu with Parker and Mary? Or Bunter? (Although I can't think of who would be the fourth in a sedoretu with Bunter, so I may just leave that as a poly threesome.

Rivers of London--I think just Peter/Beverly here, because I can't think of any sedoretus and ever since we learned that Nightingale was ace (in the novella Masquerades of Spring) that has completely killed any desire to ship him, for me. RoL is the only one on the list that's iffy, because much as I love it I'm not sure how much I'm into RoL + marriage tropes.

That's six, and with BSG taken care of I can look at some of my other fandoms for the seventh slot. Here are some options:

SW Legends, Han/Leia/Luke/Mara, Han/Leia/Lando, Lando/Luke/Mara. Han/Leia/Lando most properly belongs in SW OT, but that would mean using a second Star Wars nomination slot.

TNG: nobody's nominated this yet, and I can't think of any sedoretus, but I would probably do something like Picard/Guinan (my TNG rare pair OTP), Picard/Ro, Riker/Ro, Troi/Worf, and Data/Geordi

Random Harvest. Look, this movie is just so tropey and melodramatic it would be amazing to pile even more tropes into it.

 


beatrice_otter: Me in red--face not shown (Default)
I just realized that I haven't looked at Dreamwidth in I have no idea how long. At least a week, probably. I wasn't especially busy; I did take a few days with my family for Memorial Day weekend mini-vacation (which we have done every year since before I was born), but judging by how far I've gone back in my reading list and haven't started seeing posts I recognize, I had stopped well before that.

Normally, checking DW is part of my daily routine. My flist isn't hugely active, so there's no need to check more than once a day, but it's the only place that I can reliably check in with several long-term friends, and of course a lot of exchanges are mostly run through DW and it makes it easier to keep up with what's planned and what's in progress. I missed the signups for Fandom 5k, and none of the pinch hits are things I'd want to write, which is a shame, because I prefer the longer exchanges. Ah, well, I guess that means I will have more time for shorter-minimum thematic exchanges instead.

If you posted something important and I missed it ... sorry! Feel free to let me know in the comments!
beatrice_otter: Elizabeth Bennet reads (Reading)
I just read a fic where a character in the Regency period is reflecting on how she'd never imagined she'd be able to have a full-time nursemaid.

Me: Girl, you are and have always been wealthy and you live in an age where labor is CHEAP.

And by "cheap" I mean "so cheap that servants had servants." (Upper level servants in large houses would often have lower-level servants assigned to them as a perk of the job.) So cheap that the gap between "people who were servants" and "people who had servants" was very narrow, and often crossed over the course of a person's lifetime. It was fairly common for working class/poor girls to work as maids for a few years saving up money before they got married, and if they married a reasonably prosperous farmer they would probably be able to afford to hire a maid themselves in good years. (Not "maid" as in "a personal servant to wait on you hand and food," this is "maid" as in "someone to do the nastier/harder bits of cooking and cleaning.")

By 1795, the price of wages for a day laborer was pegged to the price of bread. A gallon loaf weighed 8lbs 11oz, and was theoretically enough to feed a person for a week. Laborers were supposed to make at least three times the cost of a gallon loaf per week, so that if a gallon loaf cost 1 shilling they should be paid at least 3 shillings per week. That is peanuts. For comparison: A pair of wool stockings in the Regency era cost about 2 shillings 6 pence. In other words, a day laborer was paid only a little more per week than the cost of a good pair of socks. Silk stockings--the kind you would wear to a ball--were 12 shillings, or four times the weekly wages of a day laborer.

Combine this with how labor-intensive even the most basic tasks were, and it meant that anybody who could afford servants had them, and anybody above the poverty line could afford them.

Over the course of the 19th Century, the cost of wages relative to the cost of other things rose dramatically, so people had fewer servants and fewer people could afford to have servants. And still, Agatha Christie remembered that when she was young "I couldn’t imagine being too poor to afford servants, nor so rich as to be able to afford a car." She did not grow up wealthy, she grew up middle class. Even in 1900, your average middle-class person in England could not imagine being too poor to afford servants.

This changed radically over the course of the 20th Century; now a middle class person might have a cleaner who comes in once a week, but they definitely will not be able to afford a full-time servant. You have to be wealthy to afford that. So we assume that servants are a mark of huge wealth even in historical periods, when they just ... weren't. This is not helped by the fact that novels set in period times (whether written then or later) rarely mention the servants, so you can read, say, an Austen novel and not have any clue what sort of servants they have. But unless you have researched the issue, it's best to assume they have more servants than you think they had.

beatrice_otter: (Hugo Awards)
Hallelujah, Praise the Lord! There's finally a canonical tag for reader-insert fic on AO3!

From the latest admin post:

During this round of updates, we tested a discussion method which permitted many related canonicals to be canonized at once, instead of each canonical having its own separate discussion period. This allowed us to canonize over 200 additional tags from one discussion.
Consequently, we've canonized many additional tags related to Reader-Insert. All Reader-Insert modifier tags will be subtags of Reader-Insert. The full list is available via tag search.
Let us hope that people start using this so that people who want it can find it, and those who don't want it don't have to deal with it!

They're also changing pregnancy canonical tags, so if you've got fic that deals with pregnancy you might want to check it out and figure out if you want to change how you have tagged it.
beatrice_otter: Me in red--face not shown (Default)
There is a Citizens Initiative in the EU being proposed to ban all types of conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ people! If you live in the EU, please sign!
beatrice_otter: Cover of Janelle Monae's Archandroid album (Janelle Monae)

A couple of days ago, I gave my critique about The Tomb of Dragons, the latest Chronicles of Osreiath story (i.e. the stories based in the Goblin Emperor universe). In addition to the technical issues/writing issues I noted, I also had two bits of worldbuilding that threw me. There's a lot that is very interesting, but there's also some things that ... I think she would have done differently if she'd had a better grasp on how real-world societies handled similar things.
 

Imperial Gifts and Rural Parish Finances )
beatrice_otter: Me in red--face not shown (Default)
I just finished reading the third (and last) Cemeteries of Amalo book the Tomb of Dragons! (This is the third Thara Celehar mystery, set in the world of The Goblin Emperor.) I have mixed feelings about it. I enjoyed it a great deal, but I can definitely see why other people didn't, and also it feels like a case of "this is the author's most popular series, and it's what the publisher wanted to pay for, but the author did not want to write it and didn't have any real inspiration for it and forced it out anyways." (Which dovetails with how Katherine Addison/Sarah Monette has talked about it in interviews--she hasn't said that outright, but she's danced around the edge of it a bit.) It's a bit rough around the edges, and I think there was a lot that could have been handled better to make the book hang together better. There's lots of scope for fanfic! Also, a lot of places where I would have had notes for the author if I was editing it. But I still enjoyed reading it, and will doubtless enjoy re-reading it.

(Here be spoilers)

What the heck is the plot supposed to be anyway? )

Now that we've talked about the plot issues, let's talk about the problems with characterization and theme consistency.

Characterizataion and Theme Issues )

All of this sounds really critical of the book, but I have to point out: I like the book a lot! I liked all the parts! I just don't think it fits together very well structurally, either plot wise or character wise. If this was a fic I was betaing, I would have a lot of comments for the author.

It was a great book for giving fanfic ideas, though. Things I'd love to see include:
Tomb of Dragons fanfic ideas )



beatrice_otter: Han and Leia--Kiss (Han and Leia)


WHY has nobody ever told me that some genius composed a score to the Zahn trilogy of Star Wars novels? This is amazing, and wonderful!

Also, given that this exists, and that the audiobooks use music, why didn’t they pay this guy for the rights to use his stuff instead of slapping music from the OT in at random? Here’s an example: there’s a scene of an Imperial admiral reminiscing about how awesome the Imperial Navy used to be and how great a tragedy the battle of Endor was. They used the Binary Suns theme (you know, part of Luke’s hero music!) as the soundtrack for this, which is highly inappropriate.

If you are a Star Wars fan and have never read/listened to the Zahn trilogy (AKA the Thrawn trilogy, composed of Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command), you are missing out and should do that IMMEDIATELY. Yes, it’s part of the old EU, and is no longer canon, but it is imho by far the best piece of tie in media ever produced for Star Wars. Timothy Zahn has the OT cast note-perfect, I can hear them speak their lines all through the book, and that book taught me a LOT about the craft of writing, and especially writing villains.


beatrice_otter: Me in red--face not shown (Default)
I got three months of Audible membership for cheap, so I will be getting three credits for audiobooks over the next three months! (I only ever have an Audible membership when they have a sale.)

So I have been going over my wishlist to consider what I might want to get! And here are my options:

My first thought was the Zahn trilogy, i.e. the first three Star Wars books that Timothy Zahn wrote back in the early 90s which kicked off the EU (Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command). They are, hands down, the best Star Wars novels I've ever read, and very well-written books in their own right; I learned a lot about the craft of writing from reading them. I've loved them for thirty years. Three months, three credits, get the whole trilogy in one swoop.

But in listening to the sample audio, something was ... off. The first book starts with Admiral Pellaeon (a devoted Imperial) remembering the horrors of Endor and mourning how far the Imperial Navy has fallen. And guess what music from the Star Wars soundtrack they paired with it? The Binary Sunset theme! The music that plays while Luke stares wistfully off across the desert! It is. um. not music I would want paired with musings about how awesome the Imperial Navy used to be. So now I'm not sure.

Other options include
  • one or more of the Peter Wimsey mysteries narrated by Ian Carmichael (who has the perfect voice for Lord Peter, and spent half his career playing him in one form or another it seems).
  • one or more of the Rivers of London books. Love them, love Kobna Holdbrook-Smith's narration. I've already got a few.
  • one or more of the Goblin Emperor books
  • one or more Bujold books
  • a compilation of Jane Austen novels that is on sale for $8, which I might just buy with cash instead of spending a credit on it, and use the credit for more expensive books.
I don't know. I'm having trouble deciding.
beatrice_otter: Cover of Janelle Monae's Archandroid album (Janelle Monae)
[community profile] highadrenalineexchange 2025 has wrapped, and so I can reveal what I wrote! Although I think it would be pretty easy to identify this one. For one thing, I had a great deal of trouble reigning myself in from making it my second TGE fic in a year to be about "why the Ethuveraz needs trains and how it might go about getting them." (Perhaps I should make this and Amber part of a series titled "Ethuverazheise Train Cinematic Universe"!) The request was for Idra, Ino, Mireän, and Maia, and I had trouble getting all three of the kids in--Mireän only appears in passing--and I'm still not quite satisfied with how I managed to tie together Idra and Ino's plots. It is very much Ino's story, with the others mostly there to support her (except for the bit where Idra is all HI HERE'S WHY WE NEED TRAINS!) But my recip liked it, so that's good.

And my usual beta for TGE fics was unable to do it because of the time crunch, so I had NOBODY to double-check my pronoun usage, which is always nerve-wracking for TGE fics. I was still fixing things an hour before the collection went live.

Title:
A Winter's Visit
Author: Beatrice_otter
Fandom: The Goblin Emperor
Written for: DontStopHerNow in High Adrenaline 2025

At AO3. On Squidgeworld. On tumblr. On Pillowfort.

Cousin Maia was very good with children, and very affectionate with them. More than that, he held very different views on the proper place of children than most others in the court. Thus it was that, unless the duties of the court required his presence in the early morning (which very seldom happened), he had breakfast with all the children in the Alcethmeret nursery old enough to reliably feed themselves without assistance.

When Ino had been seven, it had been wonderful. She had delighted in the attention, felt very grown-up, striven to be worthy of it, and the severest punishment her nursemaid Suler needed was a threat to keep her in the nursery of a morning instead of at the Emperor's breakfast table.

Now that Ino was nineteen, it was a very different matter. )
beatrice_otter: Me in red--face not shown (Default)
[community profile] highadrenalineexchange (formerly known as Heart Attack) is a phenomenal challenge where you have to write a 10k word story in just two weeks. I received a very interesting Voyager story featuring Ro Laren.

The Voyage Home (14282 words)
Fandom: Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Kathryn Janeway, Ro Laren, Jean-Luc Picard, Alynna Nechayev, Seven of Nine, Chakotay (Star Trek), B'Elanna Torres, Tom Paris, Harry Kim, Tuvok (Star Trek), Admiral Kathryn Janeway - Character, Seska (Star Trek), The Doctor (Star Trek), Reginald Barclay, Owen Paris
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Summary:

What if Ro Laren, undercover with Starfleet Intelligence, ended up on Voyager?



Four Recs )

 

beatrice_otter: Me in red--face not shown (Default)
My parents are watching and enjoying a French detective show that's currently airing on PBS called Astrid (In French, it's Astrid et Raphaëlle) It's about an autistic woman who works as an archivist for the police, who partners with a police detective to help solve crimes. They think it's good autism representation, I haven't seen it but am curious to know what other autistics think about it.
beatrice_otter: Elizabeth Bennet reads (Reading)
FFFX authors have revealed! I wrote a Persuasion AU wherein Anne's mother, Lady Elliot, did not die in childbirth when Anne was a teenager. This, then has changes when Anne meets Wentworth for the first time. The problem I had was twofold. One, the story kept trying to turn into Lady Elliot's story, rather than Anne and Wentworth's story. And two, I wanted to bring the Crofts in, both because my recip requested them and because it would be a nice counterpoint to Lady Elliot, but I couldn't think of anything for them to do besides one conversation towards the end.

Title:
Faithfulness and Fortune
Author: Beatrice_Otter
Fandom: Persuasion
Characters: Anne Elliot/Fredrick Wentworth, Lady Elliot
Written for: fiona15351 in FFFX 2024
Betaed by: olive2read
Summary: In a world where Lady Elliot survived, Anne and Frederick's courtship goes a little differently.

AN: Thank you to the members of the Little Details and Age of Sail communities on Dreamwidth for help with Naval details. I also found a helpful paper on Academia.edu, "Golden Harvest: The British Naval Prize System, 1793-1815" by Daniel K. Benjamin.

The song Anne sings for the boys to dance to is Miss Cooper's Fancy. (This website has notations on how to dance it.)

On AO3. On Squidgeworld. On tumblr. On Pillowfort.


***

The marriage between Sir Walter and Lady Elliott had been, at the time of its consummation, a love match; to be sure, both were from ancient families of wealth and rank, and it was an entirely suitable connection in which both sides equally bestowed honor and fortune upon the other. But that suitability had merely encouraged the match, not created it. They had become acquainted at a series of balls, while visiting in the same neighborhood; both were young, she was a noted beauty and he was remarkably handsome. He was active, and she was accomplished. That, combined with the encouragement of all others concerned, was enough to bring them to the wedding breakfast in the full flush of infatuation of which young people are capable.

The depths of his vanity and the limitations of his intellect had not been revealed over the course of their courtship, for balls and card parties and picnics do not encourage deep conversation )
beatrice_otter: Uhura and Uhura Prime (Too awesome for one timeline)
[community profile] fffx is live! There are a whole host of great longfics to read, go check it out! I received two delightful stories:

Indulging Their Curiosity (5434 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Trek: The Original Series
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Spock/Nyota Uhura
Characters: Spock (Star Trek), Nyota Uhura, Amanda Grayson
Additional Tags: Post-TV-Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friends to Possible Bondmates, TOS Novel Influenced, Anything Can Happen on Shore Leave
Summary:

Spock and Uhura find themselves together on Vulcan after the five year mission...


Touch and Go (12102 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Columbo, Batman - All Media Types
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Lieutenant Columbo (Columbo) & Bruce Wayne
Characters: Lieutenant Columbo, Bruce Wayne, Jim Gordon (DCU)


Also, be sure to check your gifts page regularly! There is an intermittent bug that has been happening for the last several months where not everybody is getting notifications for all their gifts. I only received a notification email for one of my two gifts, and stumbled upon the other when trawling through the collection for fic to read. Checking my gifts page, I found a gift from November that I had never seen a notification for either. (And I double-checked my spam and deleted emails folders, just to be sure--neither notification ever got to me.)


Here are some other great fics from the exchange:

17 fics in 15 fandoms )
beatrice_otter: Me in red--face not shown (Default)
Most hits:Lieutenant Bennet's Visit (Temeraire - Naomi Novik/Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen, Elizabeth Bennet is a dragon captain.)

2nd most kudos: (if you eliminate Lieutenant Bennet for already being listed): Revenge of the Zillo Beast (Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008), Mace Windu and Anakin Skywalker in a time loop)

3rd most comments: To The Stars (Singin' in the Rain (1952), Lina Lamont, rocket scientist)

4th most bookmarks: open your heart knowing (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Geordi/Data soulmate AU)

5th most words: A Space for Faith (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Bajoran OC who wants to join Starfleet and is mentored by a Vulcan, and the problems she faces)

Fewest words: any of the many drabbles I have written. Most of them are Buffyverse crossovers, because they were written for [livejournal.com profile] tth100 
beatrice_otter: Batman Begins--Batman flying with bats (Batman Flying)
So I was reading a Batman fic (that I have read before, this was not my first reading) and something snagged my attention that I had just ... never noticed before.

And that is that it mentions a coat closet.

And I thought, Wayne Manor was built back in the days when people had armies of servants. Why would they have a coat closet? You would be greeted by a servant, who would take your coat and whisk it away until you were ready to leave.

I checked the plans of the Carnegie Mansion in New York (which I analyzed before), and sure enough, it does not have a coat closet. Separate Waiting Room and Receiving Room, but no coat closet.

Then I found the plans for the Biltmore Estate, which is out in the country (and so not constrained by the city around it) and of the same era and opulence, but even more ginormous than the Carnegie Mansion. It's the largest private residence ever built in North America, and it's 175k square feet--it's got a TON more guest rooms and also its own gym, swimming pool, bowling alley, etc. You know what it doesn't have? A coat closet. (And closets are marked on these plans.) The servants' areas are either downstairs or way the heck and gone on the opposite corner of the building, so the servants would have to schlepp those garments a long ways to get them out of sight. Ugh. This place is a lot less well-thought-out than the Carnegie mansion; the servant areas especially are not as well-thought-out, but also, just in general, there's a lot that I look at and go "that is so inconvenient, why would you do it that way" which is not a thought I've ever had with the Carnegie mansion.

One of the things that caught my eye about the Biltmore Estate is the Bachelor's wing. I assume that's what it's called, because it's a very self-contained part of the building with very little description, but in the ground/first floor there's a room called the "Bachelor's Wing Hall." Above that is two floors that are just filled with rooms called "Chamber"--obviously guest rooms, but smaller and without special names like the rest of the guest rooms. And, notably, it doesn't connect very well to the rest of the house. On the ground/main/first floor, you can get from there to the rest of the house without going outside. On the second floor (where the chambers start), you can get from those bedrooms to the rest of the house by either going downstairs to the main floor or walking across an outside balcony that takes you over to the master bedroom suite. And if you are given a bedroom on the third floor, you don't even have the outside balcony--you either stay in that wing, or you go down to the first/ground floor and go into the public rooms, or you go down to the second floor and take that outside balcony.

I knew that at least in English Stately Homes, they often had bachelor quarters that were purposefully separated from the main residential part of the building so that the ladies' virtue would be protected from even a hint of scandal, but that is ... very separated. (Also, married men are no less likely to be predators than unmarried men.) I find it funny that not only are the bachelors quarantined, but in order to get into the area where the ladies and couples are staying, they have to go past the host and hostess' rooms. (Or, of course, they could go downstairs, walk to the other side of the building, and go up the main stairs, which will bring them to the area where the female guests would be staying, not even on the same corridor as the master bedrooms.) The regular guest rooms are obviously much swankier than the bachelor's rooms, and they have a living hall on their own floor, whereas the bachelors have to go downstairs if they want to hang out somewhere other than their room.

Also, like the Carnegie Mansion, the Biltmore Estate has not one but two basements. So figure that into your plans of the Batcave and Wayne Manor.

(HOW has that thing not fallen into the caves beneath? Like, even if you posit (as I do) that the batcave is adjacent to Wayne Manor rather than directly below it, so the Manor's foundations are on rock ... rock next to big open caverns is a lot less stable than rock that's solid for a long ways, and that is one really big house.)

beatrice_otter: Me in red--face not shown (Default)
I use the same name everywhere so I am [personal profile] beatrice_otter on AO3. Treats are awesome.

I would rather get a story you were happy with than "well, she said she liked x, so I guess I have to do x even though I don't like x and/or am not inspired that way." This letter is long with lots of suggestions and preferences if you find it helpful, but feel free to ignore it if it is not helpful. I'm fairly easy to please; I've been doing ficathons for over a decade and am usually very happy with my gifts.

The most important thing for me in a fic is that the characters are well-written and recognizably themselves. Even when I don't like a character, I don't go in for character-bashing. If nothing else, if the rest of this letter is too much or my kinks don't fit yours, just concentrate on writing a story with everyone in character and good spelling and grammar and I will almost certainly love what you come up with.

I have an embarrassment squick, which makes humor kind of hit-or-miss sometimes. The kind of humor where someone does something embarrassing and the audience is laughing at them makes me uncomfortable. On the other hand, the kind of humor where the audience is laughing with the characters I really enjoy.


General Likes and Dislikes
Here are some other things to keep in mind:
  • I like stuff that takes side characters and puts them center-stage, especially when the characters and/or actors are marginalized. I enjoy seeing them come to life.
  • I don't like it when marginalized characters get relegated to the sidekick/supporting/helper role so that it can be All About The White Dude.
  • I like it when female characters are more than just the Strong Female Character(tm) or The Nurturer.
  • I like fluff
  • I like angst with a happy ending
  • I like stories that make me think about things in a new way.
  • I like to know that culture matters to people, and to see how different cultures interact and where the clashes are.
  • I like unreliable narrators.
  • I like acknowledgment that different people can have different points of view without either of them being wrong.
  • I like stories that engage with problematic aspects of the source, and which deal with privilege in one way or another instead of sweeping it under the rug.
  • Worldbuilding is my jam, I am pretty much always up for explorations of why the world is the way it is. I love hearing about the economics, the politics, the religion, the clothing, the history, the folklore, all of that kind of stuff. And I want to know why it matters--how is all this cultural background stuff affecting the characters, the plot, everything. You don't have to do deep worldbuilding, but I'll enjoy it if you do.
  • I don't like it when plots hinge on characters being selectively stupid, or selectively unable to communicate. Like, if they are stupid or a himbo or whatever in general, or have problems communicating in general, that's fine! Or if they canonically have a blind spot in that area, again, it's fine. But if it's just "the only way I can think of for this plot to work is if the character spontaneously and temporarily loses half their intelligence and competence," then I'm going to spend the rest of the fic wondering why the character didn't just ____?
  • I like AUs, but not complete setting AUs (i.e. no highschool or college or coffee shop AUs, and especially not mundane AUs--nothing where you keep characters but drop most of the worldbuilding). I like fork-in-the-road type AUs, where one thing is different and the changes all result from that one thing, and you explore what might have been if such-and-such happened.
  • I like the concept of sedoretu marriages.
  • I like historical AUs, but only when the author actually knows the history period in question and does thoughtful worldbuilding to meld actual culture of the time with the canon.
  • Crackfic is really hit and miss for me, sometimes I love it and sometimes I can't stand it. Basically, if it's the characters we know and love in a ludicrous situation, that's great. If they're OOC or parodied in order to make something funny ... it's not funny to me.
I like plotty, gen stories, and plotty stories in general. I don't care for explicit sex, particularly when it's just thrown in for teh porn. I'm asexual; a lot of the time I don't even bother to read the sex scenes. Romance is awesome (as long as both are in character and the romantic plot doesn't hinge on one or both of them being an idiot). I love it when friendship is held up as important and not secondary to romantic relationships and blood ties.

Please no incest or darkfic. I define "darkfic" as stuff where there's a lot of suffering and no hope even at the end and all the characters are terrible. Angst with a happy ending is fine, I enjoy it, but there's gotta be a payoff. Even an ambiguous ending is fine! But there has to be some note of grace or redemption or hope somewhere, it can't just be "people are awful and the world sucks, the end." I define incest as siblings and/or parents, cousins don't count.

I love outsider perspectives and academic takes on things. In-universe meta (newspaper articles, academic monographs--especially with the sort of snarky feuding common in actual real-world academia, social media feeds in current day or future worlds) is awesome.

Also, I'm picky about European historical clothing details. You don't have to talk about it at all! In fact, if you don't know much about historical clothing, I would prefer if you didn't mention it at all. My pet peeve is corsets: no, they weren't a restrictive tool of the patriarchy, no, they didn't interfere with most women's daily lives, no, most women weren't wearing them so tight they couldn't breathe.

I like religion but I'm picky about it. Basically, Christianity is deeply weird compared to most other religions, and a lot of people whose only experience with religion is living in a culturally-Christian nation assume that what they know about Christianity is some sort of universal principle of What Religion Is Like, and that's just not the case. For example, in Christianity what you believe is more important than what you do. This is not to say we Christians don't teach and practice Christian ethics or have rituals we are very attached to, but rather that if you don't believe in Jesus Christ, it doesn't matter what rituals you participate in or what ethical things you do, you are not a Christian (although you may be a "cultural Christian"). Every Christian group has at least a minimal core theology that members must affirm, but participation in ritual is far less rigidly a requirement. Most other religions rank what you do (both ethically and ritually) as more important than what you believe, and it is often quite possible to be a member in good standing if you participate in the practices and rituals even if you believe none of the teachings. Anyway, point is, if you are doing worldbuilding for a fantasy or SF or otherwise non-Christian religion ... unless it is explicitly a Christian-analogue, it should be different from Christianity. Question your assumptions and see where that leads you, and I will be fascinated and thrilled.



将军在上 | Oh My General
This is the queer poly family I didn't know I needed. The larger plots of the show are okay, but my favorite part is the stuff of Ye Zhao, Zhao Yujin, and the three concubines together as a family. I headcanon Ye Zhao as bi/pan, and possibly genderfluid in some way. I love the idea of her and the Prince sharing the concubines (but only if the concubines are okay with the idea.) If you happen to know enough about queerness in pre-19th Century China to feel comfortable writing it, I would be thrilled if historical details got brought in. I'm also interested in the way the household is adapting its ideas of gender/status and roles within the household (is Concubine Yang fulfilling some of the household roles that the wife would normally do, because Ye Zhao is occupied with her military duties?) But I would also just love general slice-of-life stuff with them as a household and learning about each other and caring for one another. I'd love to see Ye Zhao and Yang and Xuan'er and Mianning becoming friends. Or you could have an AU where Ye Zhao marries Hu Qing and they are very happy together and just really good friends with the Prince and the concubines. I love Hu Qing and like him far more for Ye Zhao than I like her with the Prince, but then I don't get her wonderful dynamic with the concubines, and I do appreciate how Ye Zhao and Zhao Yujin grow together and learn to trust one another over the course of the series.

I like the Prince, but I also find his petulance and immaturity a bit annoying, and I like him most when he is growing and becoming more responsible and considerate.

Now, the thing about this story is that canon depends on Ye Zhao sexually harassing the Prince to get him to accept her as his wife and sleep with her. And that's pretty gross, especially as canon doesn't condemn it, just treats it as funny because it's a woman doing it. And I would be fine with a story that just pretended that aspect of things didn't happen and everyone had full consent for everything; I would be fine with a story that went AU and got them together some other way; I would be fine with a story that dealt with the fact that what she did was not okay and she learns that. I would *not* want a fic with canon-typical levels of sexual harassment.

Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic, sexual harassment treated as normal/okay



[SAFETY] Fandom for Robots
I have so many thoughts and feelings about Computron, ok? We all know that he DOES have feelings, even without them being programmed into him, because of the ways he reacts. I would love to see something with him learning to acknowledge that about himself. I would love to see him learning more about what the world is like and more about people, through fandom and through ways fandom encourages him to do things that are new.

I love his friendship with bjornruffian and their collaboration, I would love a fic about them and fandom and their friendship.

I would love a fic that delved into the thorny issues of personhood and autonomy and ownership and legalities--is Computron legally a person, or a possession? Does the museum own him? If they own him, are they aware of how messed up that is? If he's legally a possession, what would it take to change that? A court case? A law? Would the big software companies lobby against him getting legal personhood, because it would mean they have couldn't use the term "AI" any more without losing ownership of their programs? (I do want there to be some hopeful resolution at the end.)

DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic



Hobson's Choice
I would like pretty much anything with Maggie being smart and determined and Will being caring and growing. What was it that caught Maggie's eye about Will? What was it Will saw in Maggie that he came to care for her? Because in the first half he's just kind of shell-shocked and along for the ride, but by the second half there's a lot of mutual love and respect there, and I'd love to see it grow. I'd love to see more of Maggie learning to stop steamrolling over Will and assuming she knows best. Or give me a day-in-the-life about their little shop in the basement, or what they're doing twenty years after the movie ends. I'd love to get more of Will's perspective, too. He's been through so much, and he's such a kind person despite it all.

I love this movie, and I love everyone in it except Mr. Hobson and his cronies. Charles Laughton may have been the "star" of the show but it's not about him, not at all. It's about Maggie and her choices, and her figuring out what she wants in life and how to get it. Her father may be the ostensible star, but he's the obstacle to the plot, not the one moving it along. Also, if possible, period accuracy is much appreciated. Like, notice how Maggie works within the social structures, instead of trying to tear them down while shouting "death to patriarchy!" I mean, I could see her as a suffragette ... but a 19th century suffragette is a very different beast from a second or third wave feminist, you know?

Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic



Pacific Rim
The whole idea of "drift compatibility" is catnip to me. Knowing someone that well, trusting them to literally be inside your brain with you. And then going out to fight giant monsters together! What's not to love. My two favorite characters from Pacific Rim are Stacker Pentecost and Mako Mori, but I love Raleigh too and am fascinated by his relationship with his brother and what it would be like to drift with your brother vs. drifting with a stranger.

Stacker Pentecost is amazing, I love his charisma and his dedication and his love for Mako. You could do the movie from his perspective, or you could do an AU where he lives--he's dedicated his life to the Jaeger program and fighting kaiju, what does he do with himself once the breach is sealed? (What do any of them do once the breach is sealed?)

Mako is wonderful, but I feel that despite getting her tragic backstory and her wonderfully expressive face, she's a little opaque. I'd love to see something about her growing up around Jaegers, or maybe what her role was before she became a pilot herself. Some exploration into what makes her tick and what made her the person she is in the movie, or what she does after it.

On the issue of sexuality and Jaeger pilots, do you feel your partner's sexual interests while you're drifting? Obviously, there's no time to focus on that while you're fighting Kaiju, but I would bet that for allosexuals it's going to cross your mind at least occasionally, right? And I don't think you have to be asexual to go "I love my sibling, but I really don't want to know that much about their sex life." Figuring out what your boundaries are and how to maintain them would be difficult. I don't subscribe to the "drifting makes you want to have sex with your partner" thing I've seen occasionally, but drifting is all about trust and so is physical intimacy.

I would love an academic perspective on anything in that movie. Every single thing is so batshit crazy, you know the academics are having a field day with it. And you know there would be bad movies (and good movies) and all kinds of fandom shenanigans and that would be brain-breaking to be one of the focuses of (as Jaeger pilots are) but also, I am interested in what the average person on the street thinks about it all.

DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic



TNG
I love alien culture worldbuilding, boldly going, exploring, wacky science hijinks, time travel, AU shenanigans. I love the hopeful attitude that we can become better than we are. I love cross-cultural romance (especially when it deals realistically with having to figure out what compromises each is going to make on what they expect out of a relationship--love is not all you need, you also need a lot of hard work and communication).

As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious, go for it. If you want to lean into wacky tropes, that's great too. As long as everyone is in character, feel free to go as cracktastic as you want with the time travel and travel to alternate universes and weird missions.

Guinan is awesome, but please tone down the Magical Negro stereotype--she's not just The Wise Magic Advisor. She's got her own prejudices and traumas. I would love anything that dove into her past or her culture. Picard and Guinan have INCREDIBLE chemistry. Watch Time's Arrow and see the way he LOOKS AT HER. Something with time travel and meeting in the wrong order a la Time's Arrow would be interesting, but so would them hanging out together and being friends. Or an adventure from before they were together on Enterprise. Or an AU where Picard doesn't get back to the present in Time's Arrow because he stays with her, and then they have adventures trying to find a way to send him forward in time. I don't like most of the Picard TV show, but I do appreciate Picard and Guinan's stuff.

Picard/Kamala, the "empathic metamorph" who imprinted on Picard but then went on to her arranged marriage anyway? On the one hand, you have the appeal of the whole soulmate trope, and on the other you have the ickyness of how that works for an empathic metamorph, but on the other hand, he was the one she chose, and then you've got the political aspects. Even once she's free do either of them want a long-term relationship, despite the fact that they are perfectly matched?

I see it as unrequited, unless dude Kamala married died in an accident and she left the planet. Even then, I don't know that she would have sought him out. I like that her choice was just that--her choice. And in a shitty situation, she chose to bond with the person whose desires made her into someone she wanted to be. I wonder what she did after? Obviously, duty and ethics are very important to her. But what does that mean, in the long run, given her situation? Does she use her position to advocate for change, or just endure until her husband died and then leave after he dies (she's a lot younger than he is)? OTOH, what happens if something happened and the Enterprise had to go back to the planet she married into?

Geordi was great. Professional in the face of all the wackiness Star Trek could throw at him, very smart, very compassionate. Aside from that one episode with the genetically engineered society, they didn't do much with his blindness besides "disabilities give you superpowers" with his visor. What are the downsides to it? What, if any, tradeoffs did he have to make, and was it his choice or something his parents decided for him? Does he ever get grief from fellow officers about "what happens if your visor gets knocked off, you'll be blind!" as if not being able to see would make him incompetent? He and Data have that wonderful friendship that is rock solid that I love to see explored and transmuted into romance.

Picard & Ro: I love the friendship and mentorship they have despite (or maybe because of) their differences, and the mutual trust they built. I'd be interested in an episode-type story set before she defected to the Maquis, or an AU where she didn't for some reason, or something after the Dominion War when she's no longer a terrorist. Or a role-reversal AU where Bajor is the perfect paradise world that's the founder of the Federation and provides most of the people for Starfleet, and Earth is the one conquered by the Cardassians. I absolutely LOVE Ro Laren, she's such a contrast to the rest of them.

Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic



Dirty Computer
I received a wonderful Dirty Computer fic for Yuletide, but I love this emotion picture and can't get enough fic for it.

As usual with Janelle Monae's work, the worldbuilding is GORGEOUS and I would LOVE something that explored it. The underground subculture that they're part of has so much richness to it. And, like, where's the money for those amazing outfits coming from? What do they do BESIDES hang out and party and be queer and subversive? Is this a post-scarcity world where everyone has a universal basic income? If there's such uber-tight control over society, how does the Pynk rest-inn stay in business? Is the tight social control universal, or only in some places? Could Jane and Zen have stayed in Pynk, but only if they were willing to never see Che again? Is Zen some kind of religious leader, and if so, how does that fit into everything? The Cleaners were some kind of hellish concatenation of bureaucracy and religion, how does that work and how does the religious part of it affect Jane and Zen's experiences? What was it like for Jane and Zen in there OUTSIDE of the cleaning? Are there lasting repercussions of the nevermind, physically or neurologically (how does disability affect things in this world)? Or you could do future-fic where they're political activists working to subvert the system. Or you could just do happy poly threesome!

Dirty Computer focuses far more on queer themes than on racial themes than Janelle's previous work, but there are still racial themes present. It can't be an accident that the people running the cleaning (both the cleaners and the mother superior) were white, and the three victims we saw were black. It hearkens back to all the times white people have decided that people of color were dangerous and subhuman and evil and needed to be made more like the white people. The destruction of memories was a literal version of things white culture has metaphorically been trying to do for centuries. The renaming, the "it's for your own good," all of it.

I love the songs of this album. Django Jane and I Like That are my favorites, but Screwed and Pynk are also awesome and I love the lush, lyrical way they feed into one another, the visuals and the lyrics and the beat together. I also love the themes: love, and being true to yourself, and at the end refusing both to give in and to respond violently. Please, please, please, give some sort of a happy ending. Like, you don't have to magically wave a magic wand and make all the screwed up things of this society go away, but I want the three to end up happy together.

If you delve into the religious aspects, the cleaners and Virgin Victoria are modeled on the worst parts of Christianity, and Jane and Zen's religious/spiritual stuff should be distinct and different.

Potential Crossovers:
Dirty Compupter/The Archandroid (Janelle Monae's first dystopian SF/F concept): Does the time-traveling android find herself dodging Cleaners as well as the Time Bureau? Is Cyndi Mayweather a reincarnation of Jane 57821 in some way?

Dirty Computer/Star Trek: is the Dirty Computer world part of the Eugenics Wars and/or WWIII?

Dirty Computer/Murderbot: Is the dystopian world of Dirty Computer part of the Corporation Rim?

Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic



Crossover Fandom
Benjamin Sisko & Ro Laren. There are two possible futures for Ro Laren. In the novels and STO, she joins the Bajoran Militia after leaving the Maquis and gets assigned to DS9 after the Dominion War; in Picard she was instead recruited by Starfleet Intelligence. I'm fine with either. Or AUs where she doesn't leave Starfleet at all. Or AUs where she's the one who is first officer on DS9 instead of Kira, as was the original plan for the show. Or other AUs for how her life went! Maybe she was Sisko's Maquis nemesis, instead of Eddington?

As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious, go for it. If you want to lean into the wacky tropes Star Trek was known for, that's great too. As long as everyone is in character, feel free to go as cracktastic as you want with the time travel and travel to alternate universes and weird missions.

Computron (Fandom For Robots) & Murderbot. I think Computron and Murderbot would find each other deeply weird, but there are a lot of resonances between the way Computron was handled by his creator and the museum, and the way Murderbot was treated by corporates. Both were expected to do high-level work but denied personhood. Also, both love media and learn to deal with humans through it. Please respect MB's pronouns; it's an it.

Data (TNG) & Murderbot. I think MB would find Data hard to be around, for much the same reasons that it found Miki hard, and if this took place after that MB would have a lot of emotions about Miki come up when dealing with Data. I think if Data found himself in/near the CR, he would be happy to help MB escape and/or help ART with its anti-corporate missions and/or PresAux's science missions. If MB found itself in the Federation, it would have much the same reaction it did to PresAux, and also, the Federation might want it to get therapy to deal with its deep trauma. Feel free to bring in any wacky, tropetastic Star Trek plot you want. Please respect MB's pronouns; it's an it.

Murderbot & Sharon "Boomer" Valerii (BSG). Both MB and Boomer were programmed to kill/betray humans against their will; both were deeply traumatized by it. Boomer, in the end, betrayed humans voluntarily and joined the "kill them all" faction, I think largely out of despair that anything could change. I think MB and Boomer would have a hard time getting along because their mutual traumas would get in the way. I'd be interested in either MB landing in the Fleet or among Cylons somehow, or the Colonial Fleet ending up in the Preservation Alliance and not knowing how to deal with such a different society. Please respect MB's pronouns; it's an it.

Kira Nerys & Ro Laren. There are two possible futures for Ro Laren. In the novels and STO, she joins the Bajoran Militia after leaving the Maquis and gets assigned to DS9 after the Dominion War; in Picard she was instead recruited by Starfleet Intelligence. I'm fine with either. (Or AUs where she doesn't leave Starfleet at all. Or other AUs for how her life went!) Ro is superficially similar to Kira, but there are some big differences. Ro and Kira have opposite career tracks: Kira was a terrorist young, and then became "respectable/legal" in the Bajoran Militia; Ro wasn't in the Resistance, she joined Starfleet as a young adult, and became a terrorist later. Also, Kira has deep love for and respect for her culture and religion, whereas Ro is openly hostile to it (wears her earring on the wrong side, etc.)

I haven't read the novels, but I'm interested in the idea that after the show ended Kira eventually became a Vedek and later Kai.

As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious, go for it. If you want to lean into the wacky tropes Star Trek was known for, that's great too. As long as everyone is in character, feel free to go as cracktastic as you want with the time travel and travel to alternate universes and weird missions.

Kathryn Janeway & Ro Laren. What if Ro was on the Maquis ship that ended up on Voyager? How would she have fit in (or not)?

T'Pol & Spock. Is T'Pol his aunt/senior female relative? Is she a mentor to him? Does she take an interest because he's half-human? What are the places they agree (about Vulcans, about Humans, about Starfleet and the Federation) and where do they disagree?

Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic



DS9
I love alien culture worldbuilding, boldly going, exploring, wacky science hijinks, time travel, AU shenanigans. I love the hope that we can become better than we are. I love cross-cultural romance (especially when it deals realistically with having to figure out compromises--love is not all you need, you also need a lot of hard work and communication).

As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious, go for it. If you want to lean into wacky tropes, that's great too. As long as everyone is in character, feel free to go as cracktastic as you want. One of my favorite things about DS9, it dealt with consequences. If you want to take a canon event that you think didn't get enough exploration and run with it, that would be awesome.

I'd love something that dove into Bajoran religion, and the more ALIEN it is the better. We've MET the prophet and they have such a fundamentally different perspective on EVERYTHING than us linear creatures, I don't want it to feel like another screed on What Is Wrong With Christianity In America. You could lean into the Prophets' timey-wimey non-linearity and what that means for a religion that worships them. Most Earth religions are heavily time-based, with regular repeating festivals that serve a lot of purposes both social and religious--how would that work (or not work) when worshiping beings who see everything happening at once? Or explore the Orbs! What other orbs are there besides Time and Prophecy, and what do they DO? You don't have to have any ritual or belief or ANYTHING to use them, if they have line-of-sight to you they can DO THINGS. Give you visions! Send you time traveling! Whatever it is the others do! No Earth religion has any artifact that is anything like that, and besides wondering what the other orbs even are/do, I'm curious as to how they shaped Bajoran religion, and how it was that the Bajorans ended up worshiping the ones who SENT the orbs instead of the orbs themselves. Especially given that the Prophets mostly ... don't seem to want to be gods or care about being worshiped or what's going on on Bajor or anything. So it's not like they were sending messages with the Orbs about who sent them and why, which leaves a lot of scope for interpretation on the part of the Bajorans who found them.

Sisko's position as Emmisary is fascinating, and how it shaped his relationship with Kira, and how he came to be more comfortable with it as the show went on. What was that like for Bajorans? He's an outsider! He doesn't believe in the Prophets! Especially after years of occupation and the Cardassians stealing the Orbs to experiment on, there's got to be more complexity to it than we saw on the show. What was it like for the Bajorans who served on DS9, for whom he was both commanding officer and religious figure. The Federation/Starfleet perspective on that had to be interesting.

I haven't read the novels, but I'm interested in the idea that after the show ended Kira eventually became a Vedek and later Kai.

I love Dax's relationship with Sisko, that lasted three hosts. When Sisko comes back from the wormhole (if he ever does) will Dax still be Ezri or will enough time have passed that the relationship stretches to four hosts? And what about when Sisko and Jadzia were still getting to know each other? They went from one power dynamic (Ambassador with lots of political power mentors callow youth) to a very different one (Sisko is all grown up, and Dax's superior officer, and with more life experience than Dax's current host). Negotiating that change must have been interesting.

I thought that Kira and the O'Briens had a lot of chemistry, but also they have such radically different backgrounds and expectations. Culture, religion, childhood trauma--all radically different. I'd like to see how they could make it work.

I love Jake, and I love that he is different from his father and his father loves and supports him. More Sisko Family stuff is always welcome, but also, for Jake, he grew up a lot during the series, and what he experienced on DS9 shaped him, and I'd love to see more of that.

I love to hate Dukat. You're welcome to use him as a villain, but don't ever forget that he's a manipulative weasel who most often actively chooses to do the worst thing possible. Even if he's doing something good in the moment, the moment is temporary.

Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic



Rivers of London
The snark! the vivid characters! the worldbuilding! the digressions! the wry-but-pointed social commentary on race and class and bureaucracy! the community and relationship building! Casefic is always welcome, but so is worldbuilding and exploring the demi-monde and magic, or character-focused stuff. I love stories that bring up weird aspects of the demi-monde and magic which Peter then has to deal with.

I love community-building. Peter goes out there and he gets to know people and builds relationships with them, and that opens up possibilities. There are good reasons things became fragmented, mostly the fault of the old Folly--but I love to see healing and reconciliation and new relationships growing.

Peter's not naïve, he knows how bad the world can get and how much evil can be done by the institutions he is serving, and yet he firmly believes that they can and should do better. I love how he is willing to risk himself to help people. I think Nightingale sees in Peter something he didn't know he was missing: a way to be and do better than the sins of the past he's been carrying around all these years. I think it's great that Nightingale's going to retire from the police to focus on teaching, I think that will allow much better scope for them both to grow, and yet still be working together. (Just in a different capacity.)

I find Beverly hard to parse in the earlier books. She's enough younger than Peter that the whole "suddenly we're pregnant and expecting kids!" and everyone's happy about it!" is weird to me. Peter's in his mid-late 20s, and is settled in his career, but Bev is in university! I would have expected her to prefer to wait. And then there's the fact that she's a goddess, and a geographical feature, and to some degree a reincarnation of a previous deity. So something exploring that dynamic from her perspective would be interesting. Her perspective on Peter, the Folly, and Thomas would also be really interesting to me. I love stories that bring up weird aspects of the demi-monde and magic.

Abigail Kamara: I love her as a girl detective/problem solver/apprentice wizard, but would prefer she not end up joining the Met. I like her perspective on magic and things and the way she is building her own connections to the demimonde that don't go through Peter and Nightingale. I love the mutual respect she and Thomas have for one another.

Also, I'd be thrilled to get either a story about magic becoming public knowledge (oh, the conspiracy theories!) or an AU where it has been all along and an exploration of how that changed. Or a story where Ettersberg never happened and the Folly is a large institution and Thomas is one wizard among many. Or a story where Peter is the lone survivor of the old Folly, 100 years old, and Nightingale is the young new apprentice.

Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic



SW OT
My favorite parts of Star Wars includes the PT, the OT, the Zahn trilogy (especially Mara Jade) and the X-Wing books, bits and pieces from the TV shows, Rey&Finn&Poe as the only contributions from the ST, and an ending where something new and better results after all the pain and trauma. (Or at least something different.) It's not that everything has to be perfect, but I want there to be at least some growth and change. If you are inspired by other corners of the Star Wars universe, feel free to bring them in, but those are my happy places, and I am perfectly fine with completely ignoring the ST or rewriting it to make it either less stupid or less depressing (or both).

I love Lando, and I think he was absolutely right to put the safety of his entire city and everyone living in it ahead of the well-being of a couple of old friends. He is smart, pragmatic, and responsible in the best possible way. Do Leia and Lando work together on political negotiations/shenanigans while Han plays house-husband and swoops in with the Falcon when they need backup? Do Han and Lando go off and make shady business deals and come home to Leia with intelligence she can use politically? Does Lando serve as the practical "let's get support and resources for this new Jedi Order you're building" while Luke swans around being compassionate and heroic and saving the day? (But make sure that Lando's contributions are valued and not taken for granted.) Does Lando start up a new operation--maybe mining, maybe something else--or take over an existing one after the war is over, and become a respectable businessman? I was one of the contributors to the "What if Han became Emperor by accident" thread on tumblr a while back, and my contribution was "ooh, Lando would be his Grand Vizier!" and if you want to go that direction that would also be awesome. Also, Weird Jedi Shit is always fun.

Treats are enabled and welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic, Kylo Ren
beatrice_otter: Elizabeth Bennet reads (Reading)
I have long been a fan of Project Gutenberg, which scans books that are in the public domain, OCRs them, proofreads them, formats them, and puts them up for free as ebooks. That is a lot of labor, that a lot of people do for free, and in fact I have done some of that labor; I started proofreading for them through Distributed Proofreaders back in 2003. (I've been on there so long that my user name there is "Beatrice" and not Beatrice_Otter.") Now, over the course of that time there have been many years where I didn't do any proofreading at all; but I keep circling back to it. When I want to do something that is useful, and which has a concrete result where I can see exactly what I've accomplished, and which I can do from my computer, PGDP is great.

However, I've often bemoaned that when there's a tricky passage, I never know if I got it right, because I can't check and see if the next proofreader or formatter corrected things (they do three rounds of proofreading and two rounds of formatting per work, for quality control). I knew there had to be a way to do it! But I couldn't find it. I could find lists of pages I'd worked on, but nothing that would show me what the pages looked like after the next round of proofing or formatting was done. It's a bit frustrating!

But I have finally, after 22 years of working there, found the page that will SHOW ME what changes more senior proofers and/or formatters made, so I can see what I need to do differently. If you go to the "My Projects" page there is a link in the corner that says "Review Work" that will take you to a page that will show you links to every change that got made to work you did. I am linking the page here so that if I ever forget how to get to that page, I will have a link to it.

That particular frustration aside, I do recommend PGDP, they have a very slick system, it's great. And obviously, if you're looking for ebooks of works that should be in the public domain, Project Gutenberg is the place to start.

Or at least, that's what I thought until recently! Someone on the Yuletide discord mentioned Standard Ebooks, which is a group that takes Project Gutenberg ebooks and formats them nicely, to the standards of a major publishing company, and then puts them up for free. They are much nicer than PG ebooks; PG ebooks can best be described as "serviceable." They are very accurate! ... just not always nice to look at, and the formatting guidelines were created back in the early 2000s and are bare-bones at best. However, Standard is a much newer group, and also, they're smaller; PG has over 75k ebooks and Standard has 1200. (On the other hand, since Standard has focused on the great classics, the sorts of books that are most likely to be still in demand today, and PGDP has all the classics plus a lot of other stuff, chances are that Standard will have what you're looking for.) So now my advice for older books would be to check out Standard first, and if they don't have it, go to Gutenberg.

Another great resource for public domain ebooks is Librivox. They do crowdsourced audiobooks of public domain books, and I have thought about volunteering there because I do have a recording setup, but also, recording an entire book is a LOT more of a time commitment than proofreading a few pages, and also, the books that I would be most interested in already have versions available on Librivox.

And if you, too, are interested in doing crowdsourced data work and bringing old things to a more usable form, but if Gutenberg isn't speaking to you, check out the Smithsonian! The Smithsonian has a website where people can transcribe old records in the collections of a wide variety of museums. And they have things sorted by theme so you can choose to work with materials related to the African American experience, women's experience, Native American experience, art and design, natural history, and a variety of other categories. Although for most of the stuff here you need to be able to read bad cursive handwriting. (Anyone who tells you that everybody in the 19th Century had good handwriting is a filthy liar.)

beatrice_otter: WWII soldier holding a mug with the caption "How about a nice cup of RESEARCH?" (Research)
Most people (at least most Americans) have never been in a grand Stately Home of the scale Wayne Manor is supposed to be. We just don't know much about what they're like. There was a very brief era (the Gilded/Robber Baron age) where they were built. Rich people now who build grand piles tend to just do McMansions on steroids, and those are different than the earlier mansions, in a lot of ways.

The major difference is that building a house that big actually had a purpose in the pre-20th-Century era, so the layout of the house is going to make sense, and the rooms will be smaller, because they're built for purposes and not just "look at me, I'm fuck-off huge!"

Historical mansions vs. McMansions. )

Carnegie Mansion in New York: an example )

Here's some considerations when thinking about Wayne Manor: )

beatrice_otter: Cameron Mitchell, bored with a stack of files (Schoolwork)
AO3 just announced some changes in what nonfandom tags will be canonized (and what will be synned with what). They're all changes that will work well going forward, I think, but on a couple of them I'm worried about backwards compatibility with fic that already have certain tags. If you're a fic author you might want to check it out to make sure your tags mean what you want them to mean.

For example! They are creating a new tag for "Sensory Overload" and changing "Overstimulation" to "Sexual Overstimulation"

I think it's good to separate those two concepts to make it easier to find what you want and filter out what you don't want, but also, if you have a fic with an autistic character or someone who experiences sensory overload, now might be a good time to check what exactly you tagged it and make sure it's got the tag you want.

There's also some changes to gender-related and pregnancy related tags, and if you have fic about trans characters you might want to check it out.

Profile

beatrice_otter: Me in red--face not shown (Default)
beatrice_otter

June 2025

S M T W T F S
123 4567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930     

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jun. 12th, 2025 06:39 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios