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beatrice_otter on AO3.
Lovely author, here is my theory about letters: how much detail people want in a letter is HIGHLY variable. Some people (such as myself) prefer if their recip gives LOTS of guidance on their wishes. Some prefer as little as possible so they can be free as a bird. Most are somewhere in between. So! Here's everything including the kitchen sink if you find it helpful, but feel free to ignore it if it is not helpful. 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 just not inspired that way."
I'm fairly easy to please; I've been doing ficathons for over a decade and am very rarely disappointed with my gifts. I write long and detailed Dear Author letters because I find such things helpful when I'm writing for other people; if you are like me, here you go! If your style is different and a detailed letter makes you feel hemmed-in, feel free to do what works for you.
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 just 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.
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."
Here are some other things to keep in mind:
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 in the history of the human race, 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. Every Christian group has at least a minimal core theology that members must affirm, but participation in ritual is generally 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 usually 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. So if you are doing worldbuilding for a fantasy or non-Christian religion ... unless it is explicitly a Christian-analogue, it should be different from Christianity.
Specific fandom prompts:
Dirty Computer - Janelle Monae
Jane, Zen, Che
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 repurcussions 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 harkens 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.
Crossover prompts: 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 World War III?
Dirty Computer/Batman Beyond: the dystopian/cyberpunk aspect of the Cleaning fits well with the more dystopian/cyberpunk aspects of Batman Beyond. Is that happening in the America that Terry lives in, and he's just never had to notice because he's white, straight, and a billionaire's protege?
DNW darkfic, incest, rape.
Random Harvest (1942)
Margaret Hanson | Paula Ridgeway, Charles Rainier | Smithy
For me, this story cries out either for AUs or for post-canon stories. What if he hadn't recovered his original memories? What if he'd remembered, but hadn't forgotten Paula? What if the baby lived? What if she'd told him the truth, either right away in the interview for secretary or when he started seeing Kitty or when he asked her to marry him? What if they'd gotten caught leaving town and he'd had to go back to the hospital? And if canon stays the same, what happens now that he knows the truth? Is he upset that she knew and didn't tell him? Is Charles the same personality as Smitty? They've both changed and grown a lot over the course of the movie--how does that affect their relationship? Was she expecting that magically everything would go back to the way it was when they were young and in love? Was he expecting that knowing the truth would magically make him feel more whole?
I love this movie for its melodrama, for the luminous Greer Garson, for the way I spend the last half of the movie crying into my hanky and pleading with Paula to just TELL HIM already. I love how deliciously angsty it is, with such a wonderfully happy ending. (This movie is one of the rare exceptions to my avoidance of plots that hinge on people in love being idiots and not talking about it.) But I would also love a good dose of common sense put in somehow.
Crossover Prompts: Random Harvest/Downton Abbey: Of course the melodrama set just after WWI in England would be in the same world as the other WWI-and-after melodrama set in England. Maybe Charles (rich, influential politician that he is) gets invited to Downton? (Does Mary or Edith make a play for him?)
Random Harvest/Lord Peter Wimsey: Are there some political shenanigans requiring a detective? Does Paula|Margaret hire Lord Peter to find her missing husband? Does she work for The Cattery when she needs to get a job after Smithy disappears?
DNW darkfic, incest, rape.
Hobson's Choice (1954)
Will Mossop, Maggie Hobson
Maggie Hobson Mossop, Will Mossop. 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. 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 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 get top billing, 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?
Crossover Prompts: Hobson's Choice/Enola Holmes: I can't figure out if Maggie Hobson would be on the side of Eudora's group or be too practical and focused on her personal goals to be interested, but either way her intelligence and drive and independence and willingness to step outside the normal social bounds would make her exactly the type of woman they'd try to recruit.
DNW: darkfic, incest, rape
将军在上 | Oh My General (Web Series)
Ye Zhao, Zhao Yujin, Concubine Yang, Xuan'er
This is the queer poly family I didn't know I needed. I couldn't fit Mianning in, but I love her too. 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.
Crossover Prompts: 将军在上 | Oh My General (Web Series)/Xena Warrior Princess: these two shows have, as far as I can tell, about the same amount of historical accuracy, and the same amount of lesbian subtext, and the same amount of Warrior Princesses. And we know Xena went to China! So make her and Ye Zhao meet!
DNW: darkfic, incest, rape, sexual harassment treated as normal/okay
One Day at a Time (TV 2017)
Penelope Alvarez, Elena Alvarez
This show is my happy place. I love them together as a family. I love Penelope being such a good mother even when it's not easy. I love how the show deals with her struggles with mental health. I love how Elena is quirky and goofy and geeky and fierce. I love how the entire family supports one another even when it's hard. I would be equally happy with slice-of-life stuff or fluff or something that tackles some of the deeper issues the show handles.
Crossover Prompts: One Day at a Time/Stargate: what if they have the Ancient gene and the SGC tries to recruit them? Like, if Penelope got a job working at the SGC as a nurse, and had a deal where she'd live in Colorado during the week and they'd beam her back home for the weekend, with Lydia and Schneider in charge of the kids while she was gone, can you imagine the shenanigans as the family tries to figure out what she's doing and Penelope is like "nah, it's too weird, they'd never figure it out, I don't have to worry" and then they DO start figuring it out?
DNW: darkfic, incest, rape
The Martian (2015)
Vincent Kapoor
Vincent is, in a lot of ways, the hinge around which the plot turns. He's the one herding cats at NASA and coordinating everything. In an organization full of really bright people, he's the one who puts things together. I would love just about anything with him.
Backstory: how'd he get interested in NASA and what path did he take to get there? Did he have any interesting projects before getting to work on ARES III? His parents come from two very different religious traditions, so what (if any) of that has he made his own? (Also, in the book his name is Venkat, not Vincent--is Venkat what his family calls him?)
During the mission: What's going on at home while he's giving all his hours to the project? Does he have a family/wife/partner? What are some of the things about the mission and coordinating everything that we *didn't* see? What are his relationships like with his coworkers? What are his relationships like with the Ares III crew? How often does he have to do media stuff and does he like it or hate it?
After the mission: what's next for him? Where does he go from there? Does he get promoted, and if so, to what? Does he work on Ares IV, and is it a nice, quiet, meticulously-planned operation with no major unforseen issues, or is there another problem?
DNW: darkfic, incest, rape
Lovely author, here is my theory about letters: how much detail people want in a letter is HIGHLY variable. Some people (such as myself) prefer if their recip gives LOTS of guidance on their wishes. Some prefer as little as possible so they can be free as a bird. Most are somewhere in between. So! Here's everything including the kitchen sink if you find it helpful, but feel free to ignore it if it is not helpful. 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 just not inspired that way."
I'm fairly easy to please; I've been doing ficathons for over a decade and am very rarely disappointed with my gifts. I write long and detailed Dear Author letters because I find such things helpful when I'm writing for other people; if you are like me, here you go! If your style is different and a detailed letter makes you feel hemmed-in, feel free to do what works for you.
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 just 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.
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."
Here are some other things to keep in mind:
- I like stuff that takes side characters and puts them center-stage, especially when they are characters of color or women. I enjoy seeing them come to life.
- I don't like it when characters of color or women 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 cultural diversity, and to know that culture matters to people, and to see how different cultures interact and where the clashes are.
- I like quirky characters.
- 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, 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 probably 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! 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 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 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 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 in the history of the human race, 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. Every Christian group has at least a minimal core theology that members must affirm, but participation in ritual is generally 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 usually 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. So if you are doing worldbuilding for a fantasy or non-Christian religion ... unless it is explicitly a Christian-analogue, it should be different from Christianity.
I like crossovers, but am picky about them. I have to know both fandoms, and the the two fandoms mesh well in terms of worldbuilding. To use non-Yuletide examples: I can buy the Doctor popping up anywhere, because that's a feature of the show. I can buy Jack O'Neill from SG-1 meeting the Watchers from Buffy, because those two shows could plausibly exist in the same world. I can buy the Battlestar Galactica fleet stumbling into the Federation, because hey, the Colonies were settled by people whom the gods had relocated, and Star Trek has a history of aliens pretending to be "gods" and doing stuff like relocating whole populations. Babylon 5 showing up in the Star Trek universe would have to be extremely well-done for me to like it, because the worldbuilding, technology, history, and everything of the two shows are so different. If you want to know what fandoms I know and read, my AO3 bookmarks and pinboard bookmarks probably aren't a TOTALLY exhaustive list of fandoms I know, but pretty close. Crossover prompts are at my comment on the Two For One Challenge page, but feel free to go with others if you have a brilliant idea for a fandom you think I know.
Formats I'm open to: Traditional prose, narrative poetry, in-universe texts, and I would love art treats.Specific fandom prompts:
Dirty Computer - Janelle Monae
Jane, Zen, Che
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 repurcussions 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 harkens 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.
Crossover prompts: 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 World War III?
Dirty Computer/Batman Beyond: the dystopian/cyberpunk aspect of the Cleaning fits well with the more dystopian/cyberpunk aspects of Batman Beyond. Is that happening in the America that Terry lives in, and he's just never had to notice because he's white, straight, and a billionaire's protege?
DNW darkfic, incest, rape.
Random Harvest (1942)
Margaret Hanson | Paula Ridgeway, Charles Rainier | Smithy
For me, this story cries out either for AUs or for post-canon stories. What if he hadn't recovered his original memories? What if he'd remembered, but hadn't forgotten Paula? What if the baby lived? What if she'd told him the truth, either right away in the interview for secretary or when he started seeing Kitty or when he asked her to marry him? What if they'd gotten caught leaving town and he'd had to go back to the hospital? And if canon stays the same, what happens now that he knows the truth? Is he upset that she knew and didn't tell him? Is Charles the same personality as Smitty? They've both changed and grown a lot over the course of the movie--how does that affect their relationship? Was she expecting that magically everything would go back to the way it was when they were young and in love? Was he expecting that knowing the truth would magically make him feel more whole?
I love this movie for its melodrama, for the luminous Greer Garson, for the way I spend the last half of the movie crying into my hanky and pleading with Paula to just TELL HIM already. I love how deliciously angsty it is, with such a wonderfully happy ending. (This movie is one of the rare exceptions to my avoidance of plots that hinge on people in love being idiots and not talking about it.) But I would also love a good dose of common sense put in somehow.
Crossover Prompts: Random Harvest/Downton Abbey: Of course the melodrama set just after WWI in England would be in the same world as the other WWI-and-after melodrama set in England. Maybe Charles (rich, influential politician that he is) gets invited to Downton? (Does Mary or Edith make a play for him?)
Random Harvest/Lord Peter Wimsey: Are there some political shenanigans requiring a detective? Does Paula|Margaret hire Lord Peter to find her missing husband? Does she work for The Cattery when she needs to get a job after Smithy disappears?
DNW darkfic, incest, rape.
Hobson's Choice (1954)
Will Mossop, Maggie Hobson
Maggie Hobson Mossop, Will Mossop. 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. 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 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 get top billing, 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?
Crossover Prompts: Hobson's Choice/Enola Holmes: I can't figure out if Maggie Hobson would be on the side of Eudora's group or be too practical and focused on her personal goals to be interested, but either way her intelligence and drive and independence and willingness to step outside the normal social bounds would make her exactly the type of woman they'd try to recruit.
DNW: darkfic, incest, rape
将军在上 | Oh My General (Web Series)
Ye Zhao, Zhao Yujin, Concubine Yang, Xuan'er
This is the queer poly family I didn't know I needed. I couldn't fit Mianning in, but I love her too. 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.
Crossover Prompts: 将军在上 | Oh My General (Web Series)/Xena Warrior Princess: these two shows have, as far as I can tell, about the same amount of historical accuracy, and the same amount of lesbian subtext, and the same amount of Warrior Princesses. And we know Xena went to China! So make her and Ye Zhao meet!
DNW: darkfic, incest, rape, sexual harassment treated as normal/okay
One Day at a Time (TV 2017)
Penelope Alvarez, Elena Alvarez
This show is my happy place. I love them together as a family. I love Penelope being such a good mother even when it's not easy. I love how the show deals with her struggles with mental health. I love how Elena is quirky and goofy and geeky and fierce. I love how the entire family supports one another even when it's hard. I would be equally happy with slice-of-life stuff or fluff or something that tackles some of the deeper issues the show handles.
Crossover Prompts: One Day at a Time/Stargate: what if they have the Ancient gene and the SGC tries to recruit them? Like, if Penelope got a job working at the SGC as a nurse, and had a deal where she'd live in Colorado during the week and they'd beam her back home for the weekend, with Lydia and Schneider in charge of the kids while she was gone, can you imagine the shenanigans as the family tries to figure out what she's doing and Penelope is like "nah, it's too weird, they'd never figure it out, I don't have to worry" and then they DO start figuring it out?
DNW: darkfic, incest, rape
The Martian (2015)
Vincent Kapoor
Vincent is, in a lot of ways, the hinge around which the plot turns. He's the one herding cats at NASA and coordinating everything. In an organization full of really bright people, he's the one who puts things together. I would love just about anything with him.
Backstory: how'd he get interested in NASA and what path did he take to get there? Did he have any interesting projects before getting to work on ARES III? His parents come from two very different religious traditions, so what (if any) of that has he made his own? (Also, in the book his name is Venkat, not Vincent--is Venkat what his family calls him?)
During the mission: What's going on at home while he's giving all his hours to the project? Does he have a family/wife/partner? What are some of the things about the mission and coordinating everything that we *didn't* see? What are his relationships like with his coworkers? What are his relationships like with the Ares III crew? How often does he have to do media stuff and does he like it or hate it?
After the mission: what's next for him? Where does he go from there? Does he get promoted, and if so, to what? Does he work on Ares IV, and is it a nice, quiet, meticulously-planned operation with no major unforseen issues, or is there another problem?
DNW: darkfic, incest, rape
no subject
Date: 2020-10-27 08:53 pm (UTC)From: (Anonymous)I'm bringing this up to you because I know you care about representation and accuracy. Saying something like "in some denominations of Christianity, belief is prioritized over deeds" doesn't erase the faith of people like me, while still getting your point across. Thanks for listening.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-27 10:30 pm (UTC)From:The question is, rather, about religious ritual and practice. Here is a question for you: Imagine a person who was quite open in not believing in God, and in thinking that every bit of Scripture was a nice edifying fable but no more. They did not believe a single piece of theology your church teaches and weren't shy in mentioning it. BUT! They came to worship every Sunday and to every special service, sang in the choir, and participated in every religious rite your church hosted. At home, they said grace at every meal and did devotions as a family. They believed none of the spiritualism or theology, but participated in every ritual and observance. Would you call them a Christian? I don't know of any Christian denomination or group who would. And yet, for most religions, that would be perfectly acceptable. You can be an atheist and a Jew in good standing; you can be an atheist and a Hindu in good standing. In the vast majority of religions across the globe, it is possible to be an atheist and a member of the religion and nobody has any problems with it. This is NOT the case with Christianity; you cannot be both an atheist and a Christian, because in Christianity what you believe matters far more than whether or not you perform the rituals correctly.
The converse question is also important: Imagine someone who fervently and deeply believed in Jesus Christ, who affirmed all the teachings and beliefs of your denomination, but who hadn't been to church in years or participated in any Christian ceremonies or rites either publicly or privately. Would you consider them a Christian? Most Christians would. They'd encourage the person to come back to church or find a church home, but they would absolutely still consider them a Christian despite the person having done absolutely no Christian rites or practices in years. But in many religions, this would not be the case. If you never do any of the rites either with your community or by yourself ... then it doesn't matter what you believe; you're not a part of the religion because you are not practicing it.
(If you have any interest in the technical terms for this, the distinction is "orthodox" vs. "orthoprax", literally "right belief" vs. "right practice" and the practice in question is the performance of ritual.)
This is one of many things that sets Christianity apart from other religions, and it is something that people who have been raised in a culturally-Christian area as part of the dominant culture pretty much always get wrong.