I use the same name everywhere so I am ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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.
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, 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.
Fandom Specific Likes and Prompts
Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
My theory on canon for Star Wars is that the first six movies are canon, and anything else you take the interesting bits and feel free to leave the rest. It's not that I dislike the newer stuff, it's that I don't feel constrained by it. Sometimes the new stuff is better than the old Legends, sometimes Legends was better, sometimes I don't like either, sometimes I like both.
I love a good time-travel fixit! Go wild! Extra bonus points for coming up with something that's not a common plot for SW time travel AUs, or doing it with a character fandom doesn't normally send back in time! Even more extra bonus points for having a fic where, say, killing Palpatine or saving Anakin doesn't magically fix all the things that are screwed up about the Repbulic and/or the Jedi.
Feel free to go with Fialleril's Tattooine Slave Culture. Mortis confuses the fuck out of me, when you compare it to EVERYTHING ELSE WE SEE OR HEAR ABOUT THE FORCE EVER, it just doesn't fit. I would like to know more.
I love what we see of Bail Organa: a deeply principled man, devoted to democracy, who doesn't see the Republic's fall soon enough but dedicates himself to overthrowing the Empire immediately and takes action when everyone else is hesitating. I wish we saw more of Queen Breha, because I imagine she must be a remarkable woman to match Bail and to raise Leia with him so that she turns out to be the incredible person we know and love. I want to see Bail and Breha as a power couple, working together. They can be in love or just really good friends, as long as they're working together to protect Alderaan and save the galaxy. And adding in Padmé or Obi-Wan to that dynamic
I find Jango's history fascinating, in how he was enslaved himself and then ended up being a major figure in creating a whole ARMY of slaves, all of which were his children. Which, for a Mandalorian, is quite an issue. I think he and Anakin both get through life as extremely traumatized people who paper over the cracks and deal with shit by not dealing with it and not thinking about it.The two of them together could be either disaster trash fire or a catalyst for both of them figuring out their shit and dealing with all the stuff they don't think about, and I would be interested in either.
I loved Shmi's quiet dignity, and hate that she got fridged. She deserves happiness! And freedom! And to punch Palpatine in the face for what he did to her sweet boy.
I think Mace gets a bum rap from fandom a lot of the time. Yes, he is very stern; yes, he is a good fighter, but we also see in many places how gentle and compassionate he can be. This is one of those cases where I think to make it work you're going to have to really deal with Anakin being an unreliable narrator, and his perception of the people around him being often woefully wrong, partly because of his own issues and partly because Palpatine. Plot bunnies: Mace and Anakin end up on the front lines together, isolated from the rest of the army (and Palpatine!), for long enough that Anakin can't just fall back on reflexive dislike, and they get closer than either would have imagined. (Mace is good with kids, I bet his treatment of Ahsoka wins him lots of points in Anakin's eyes.) Or an AU where Anakin didn't follow the Council to take out Palpatine, and Mace succeeded in killing him, and now Anakin and Mace have to deal with Anakin on the council in reality ... and he can't just step down because half the Council just died, so they have to actually work together.
I think that if Padmé had survived and ended up being home-based out of Tattooine, she would have been a real fish out of water, but I think she would have adapted. I think it would be good for her to be the odd one out, the one who doesn't understand what's going on, who makes mistakes out of arrogance and has to deal with the consequences. I also think that spending time on Tattooine, in the shadow of the Hutts and slavery, would give her a lot of insight into Anakin and what all went wrong there, and I think she would need support through that journey, which Owen and Beru would be willing to provide (though not coddling her).
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, darkfic
Star Wars Original Trilogy
Note: my "ideal perfect Star Wars Canon" includes the PT, the OT, the Zahn trilogy and the X-Wing books, the Mandalorian, the Clone Wars, Rey&Finn&Poe as the only contributions from the ST, and HAPPY ENDINGS where something new and better results after all the pain and trauma. If you are inspired by other stuff, feel free to bring them in, but those are my happy places.
I love what we see of Bail Organa: a deeply principled man, who by the time of the OT is an accomplished spy and leader of the Rebellion, maintaining a perfect cover as a loyal Imperial while also being a major player in the Rebellion who isn't afraid of action. I wish we saw more of Queen Breha, because I imagine she must be a remarkable woman to match Bail and to raise Leia with him so that she turns out to be the incredible person we know and love. I want to see Bail and Breha as a power couple, working together. They can be in love or just really good friends, as long as they're working together to protect Alderaan and save the galaxy.
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.) Do Lando and Boba get up to a little something while in Jabba's palace, because they're the only half-decent people in a hive of scum and villainy? (Does Lando seduce him to get information about Han?) 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 write that, that would also be awesome.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, darkfic
Star Trek Reboot
I love alien culture worldbuilding. I love boldly going and exploring and wacky science hijinks and time travel and alternate universe shenanigans. I love the hopeful attitude that we can become better than we are. All my feelings about Star Trek in general can be summed up with this vid. 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). My headcanon on Vulcans was shaped by 80s Trek novels but I also enjoy trying to fit the Enterprise Vulcans with ... everything else we know about Vulcans. One thing I will point out, though, is that while there are a lot of things about Vulcan culture that seem/are sexist, the most powerful Vulcans we see throughout the series are elderly women. I love Pon Farr, but mostly dealing with the implications of it (both before and after) and not the sex part. (I'm a Spock/Uhura shipper, not a Kirk/Spock shipper--even in TOS, Spock and Uhura had great chemistry.)
But much as I love Vulcans, they are not the only things I love about Star Trek! Tell me about linguistics and what Uhura's job is all about besides "hailing frequencies open!" Tell me about Gaila, and what Orions are all about besides "piracy and sex slavery"!
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, darkfic
Star Trek: The Next Generation
I love alien culture worldbuilding. I love boldly going and exploring and wacky science hijinks and time travel and alternate universe shenanigans. I love the hopeful attitude that we can become better than we are. All my feelings about Star Trek in general can be summed up with this vid. 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). I love Klingons, and PARTICULARLY when they are not written as one-dimensional fighters. Like, yes, the warrior ethos shapes their entire culture, but it's not the only thing about them.
Deanna Troi/Worf: Talk about culture clash, but I'd love to see their relationship explored and given more time and not just used as shock material. And I'd love it to be a relationship built on mutual respect. Feel free to bring in the perspective Martok and the others had on mental illness when they were trapped in that Dominion prison camp, that mental illness is an enemy to fight and it takes a lot of strength to fight an enemy in your own head. From that perspective, Deanna is a weapons trainer for the mind.
Guinan is awesome and I love her, but please tone down the Magical Negro stereotype--she's a person, not just The Wise Magic Therapist/Advisor. She's got her own prejudices and traumas, and I think it would be interesting to explore that in comparison/contrast to either Tasha Yar or Ro Laren. I would love anything that dove into Guinan's past or her culture. Also, Picard and Guinan have INCREDIBLE chemistry. Go watch Time's Arrow and just watch the way he LOOKS AT HER. And with Guinan and Deanna, they're both "sensitives" in different ways, something that explored the similarities and differences in how they perceive the world and other people would be really interesting. For Ro and Guinan, they're both survivors of conquest, but they have very different perspectives on it. I'd love something that explores that.
Picard/Ro: oh, the possibilities! Either a relationship while she's on board the Enterprise, or maybe an AU where Earth was the one conquered by the Cardassians and Bajor is the perfect paradise world that's the founder of the Federation and provides most of the people for Starfleet. How would Starfleet be different? How would Ro be different? How would PICARD be different if he was from a conquered people and had a background in terrorism before joining Starfleet?
For Worf/K'Ehleyr, an AU where she didn't die, and how do you make that relationship long-term when she's going off all the time doing her job as a diplomat and Worf is on Enterprise. How do they share custody of Alexander? Do they have other kids together? What would things have been like if she'd come to Worf when she was pregnant?
As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious and show them falling in love in between missions, go for it. But 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 and science hijinks.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, darkfic
Star Trek: Voyager
I love alien culture worldbuilding. I love boldly going and exploring and wacky science hijinks and time travel and alternate universe shenanigans. I love the hopeful attitude that we can become better than we are. All my feelings about Star Trek in general can be summed up with this vid. 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). My headcanon on Vulcans was shaped by 80s Trek novels (especially Spock's World and the Rihannsu books by Diane Duane, but also the Vulcan Academy Murders and the IDIC Epidemic by Jean Lorrah). If you know those books, great; if not, don't worry about it.
As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious and show them falling in love in between missions, go for it. But 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 and science hijinks.
I think Kate Mulgrew did an excellent job of playing Janeway despite the poor/inconsistent writing she was given, and I love the way Tuvok was definitely a Vulcan but also a very different Vulcan than Spock. And I think their friendship was a foundation for both of them, having someone they'd known and trusted for years while so far from home. Also, I'm curious about T'Pel.
Prompts: Day in the life stuff about dealing with the challenges of being so far from home and the top-ranking loyal Starfleet officers. (Chakotay was great, but he'd been Maquis, which especially in the beginning made a difference.) Maybe something set early on dealing with Tuvok's suspicion of the Maquis (and their suspicion of him) and Janeway trying to bring the crew together would be interesting. Pre-series stuff about how they came to be close. Post-series stuff--I mean, it's great, they're both glad to be home, but they've changed and the Federation has changed. (Has Tuvok's wife moved on/remarried?) If you wanted to handle Pon Farr and/or them becoming a couple, I would enjoy that too. Or something dealing with the aftermath of the episode Blood Fever, which I would imagine made Pon Farr and/or Vulcans a really public topic of discussion on the ship. (It's not something that could have been easily hushed up!) Another idea: some Vulcan festival is coming up, and the Vulcans are going to have a hard time celebrating it so far from home, so Tuvok and Janeway have to get creative to figure out how to handle it.
T'Pel/Tuvok: I would be happy with ANYTHING, there is NO fic for this pairing. What's their marriage like, with him gone all the time? What was she doing while he was off being a rebellious teenager? What was she doing while he was on Voyager, and what was it like when he came home?
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, darkfic
Star Trek: The Original Series
I love alien culture worldbuilding. I love boldly going and exploring and wacky science hijinks and time travel and alternate universe shenanigans. I love the hopeful attitude that we can become better than we are. All my feelings about Star Trek in general can be summed up with this vid. 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). My headcanon on Vulcans was shaped by 80s Trek novels (especially Spock's World and the Rihannsu books by Diane Duane, but also the Vulcan Academy Murders and the IDIC Epidemic by Jean Lorrah). If you know those books, great; if not, don't worry about it.
As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious and show them falling in love in between missions, go for it. But 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 and science hijinks.
M'Benga we know so little of that he's almost an OC, but I bet his life has been FASCINATING from what we know of it, and I'd love to see more of him and what his dreams/hopes/goals are.
I love Spock/Uhura, they had such great chemistry in TOS (better, actually, than in the AOS). There's such mutual respect and such playfulness, it's wonderful.
T'Pring ... is fascinating, I'd love to explore her and how she got where she is and what exactly her choices were and what mistakes/miscalculations (if any) she might have made that got her into that scenario. If she had objected to marrying Spock earlier, would she have had other options to divorce him? Is there a difference between "what her legal options were" and "what her family/clan would have accepted"? What factors could have made a difference? What would have happened if she hadn't challenged, but just went along with things--would she have ended up on the Enterprise? Could she have divorced Spock later? Would she have stayed on Vulcan with Stonn as her lover?
I enjoy Scotty and Uhura's playful dynamic in Star Trek V, it's one of the few good things about that movie.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, darkfic
Sense8
I love the worldbuilding and the characters, and what I most want is what happens NEXT. And I'm curious for both the immediate lives of the cluster (I love them all), but also for the larger world of sensate clusters. Do they start building their own culture, now that it's safer? What scars have been left by the corporate exploitation and murder? What continuing steps are needed to get rid of the lingering influence of BPO? Does the larger world ever learn about sensates, and what happens to the cluster then?
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, darkfic
Rivers of London
Some of these pairings break up canon pairings. Please don't bash canon partners, it's perfectly fine if they broke up or died or were never together in the first place, you don't have to go into detail if you don't want to.
Mamusu Grant: she has had a hard life, and her husband hasn't made it easier. I would love either an exploration of why she made the choices she did, or something about the good things in her life (of which Thomas comes to be one). Here's one AU idea I've had: what if the Jazz Vampires had killed Richard instead of just draining him/giving him brain damage leading to addiction, AND what if the Nightingale had been investigating? And Mamusu (either with bb!Peter or without, if she hadn't had him yet) becomes his apprentice so she can become a witch finder? Or Thomas felt guilty over not catching the jazz vampires sooner, and she needs a place to stay, so he offers her one of the many empty rooms in the Folly while she's getting her feet back under her, and things progress from there. Or maybe everything happened as it did in canon except that Richard died somewhere along the line, and then her boy becomes a witch finder and she gets to know his boss, who is not a jazz man but is very handsome and courteous and, well, why not? Or maybe she leveraged her friendship with Elsie "Hatbox" Winstanley and got a librarian or archivist job instead of cleaning, and somehow that connected with a case of Nightingales?
Caroline Linden-Limmer. Really, anything with Caroline is great. Further adventures with Peter! Knowledge exchanges between practitioners of her mum's type and the Folly that lead to closer relations of a different kind! Her connections with the demi-monde! Flying! Her perspective on British society, as an African transwoman adopted by English nobility, if you want to go a more serious route. (Lady Helena strikes me as one of those "of course I can't be racist, I'm a Good Liberal White Person Here To Uplift People." See, for example, the way she has more sympathy for the tiger than the local (African) children killed in that one story she tells about Growing Up In Africa.) I think Peter would be very supportive of her, and I think it would be interesting to see more of the two of them together.
Beverly Brook. I find her character hard to parse in the earlier books, and also, 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. Like, 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. 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 which Peter then has to deal with.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, darkfic
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.
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, 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! 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, 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. 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.
Vid Likes: I like old-school vids where the song lyrics and editing tell the story more than the modern ones that feel like gifsets set to music.I like vids where the vid is a commentary on the source material in some way, bringing out or intensifying a theme or aspect of the source material. I generally dislike dialogue from the source being included as audio clips. I like sequences where either the clips themselves switch to the beat of the music or lyrics, or action within a clip is timed to the beat. Just about any style of music is fine with me, as long as the lyrics and/or melody has something to say about or add to the aspect of the source that the vid is focusing on. Here are a few of my favorite vids: All the Rowboats (Michael Corleone wants out but is trapped by his circumstances and choices), Battle Cry (all the love and struggle and community in Luke Cage), Binary Orbit (all the ways Londo and G'Kar circle around each other as enemies, as allies, as friends), Hey Ho (military-industrial-medical complex in the MCU), In the 99 (Katniss, Effie, the Capitol, and the Districts), You Told The Drunks I Knew Karate (Rey, Finn, Poe), The Grand Experiment (Star Wars, the death star and civilization and what we choose to build and destroy).Fandom Specific Likes and Prompts
Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
My theory on canon for Star Wars is that the first six movies are canon, and anything else you take the interesting bits and feel free to leave the rest. It's not that I dislike the newer stuff, it's that I don't feel constrained by it. Sometimes the new stuff is better than the old Legends, sometimes Legends was better, sometimes I don't like either, sometimes I like both.
I love a good time-travel fixit! Go wild! Extra bonus points for coming up with something that's not a common plot for SW time travel AUs, or doing it with a character fandom doesn't normally send back in time! Even more extra bonus points for having a fic where, say, killing Palpatine or saving Anakin doesn't magically fix all the things that are screwed up about the Repbulic and/or the Jedi.
Feel free to go with Fialleril's Tattooine Slave Culture. Mortis confuses the fuck out of me, when you compare it to EVERYTHING ELSE WE SEE OR HEAR ABOUT THE FORCE EVER, it just doesn't fit. I would like to know more.
I love what we see of Bail Organa: a deeply principled man, devoted to democracy, who doesn't see the Republic's fall soon enough but dedicates himself to overthrowing the Empire immediately and takes action when everyone else is hesitating. I wish we saw more of Queen Breha, because I imagine she must be a remarkable woman to match Bail and to raise Leia with him so that she turns out to be the incredible person we know and love. I want to see Bail and Breha as a power couple, working together. They can be in love or just really good friends, as long as they're working together to protect Alderaan and save the galaxy. And adding in Padmé or Obi-Wan to that dynamic
I find Jango's history fascinating, in how he was enslaved himself and then ended up being a major figure in creating a whole ARMY of slaves, all of which were his children. Which, for a Mandalorian, is quite an issue. I think he and Anakin both get through life as extremely traumatized people who paper over the cracks and deal with shit by not dealing with it and not thinking about it.The two of them together could be either disaster trash fire or a catalyst for both of them figuring out their shit and dealing with all the stuff they don't think about, and I would be interested in either.
I loved Shmi's quiet dignity, and hate that she got fridged. She deserves happiness! And freedom! And to punch Palpatine in the face for what he did to her sweet boy.
I think Mace gets a bum rap from fandom a lot of the time. Yes, he is very stern; yes, he is a good fighter, but we also see in many places how gentle and compassionate he can be. This is one of those cases where I think to make it work you're going to have to really deal with Anakin being an unreliable narrator, and his perception of the people around him being often woefully wrong, partly because of his own issues and partly because Palpatine. Plot bunnies: Mace and Anakin end up on the front lines together, isolated from the rest of the army (and Palpatine!), for long enough that Anakin can't just fall back on reflexive dislike, and they get closer than either would have imagined. (Mace is good with kids, I bet his treatment of Ahsoka wins him lots of points in Anakin's eyes.) Or an AU where Anakin didn't follow the Council to take out Palpatine, and Mace succeeded in killing him, and now Anakin and Mace have to deal with Anakin on the council in reality ... and he can't just step down because half the Council just died, so they have to actually work together.
I think that if Padmé had survived and ended up being home-based out of Tattooine, she would have been a real fish out of water, but I think she would have adapted. I think it would be good for her to be the odd one out, the one who doesn't understand what's going on, who makes mistakes out of arrogance and has to deal with the consequences. I also think that spending time on Tattooine, in the shadow of the Hutts and slavery, would give her a lot of insight into Anakin and what all went wrong there, and I think she would need support through that journey, which Owen and Beru would be willing to provide (though not coddling her).
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, darkfic
Star Wars Original Trilogy
Note: my "ideal perfect Star Wars Canon" includes the PT, the OT, the Zahn trilogy and the X-Wing books, the Mandalorian, the Clone Wars, Rey&Finn&Poe as the only contributions from the ST, and HAPPY ENDINGS where something new and better results after all the pain and trauma. If you are inspired by other stuff, feel free to bring them in, but those are my happy places.
I love what we see of Bail Organa: a deeply principled man, who by the time of the OT is an accomplished spy and leader of the Rebellion, maintaining a perfect cover as a loyal Imperial while also being a major player in the Rebellion who isn't afraid of action. I wish we saw more of Queen Breha, because I imagine she must be a remarkable woman to match Bail and to raise Leia with him so that she turns out to be the incredible person we know and love. I want to see Bail and Breha as a power couple, working together. They can be in love or just really good friends, as long as they're working together to protect Alderaan and save the galaxy.
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.) Do Lando and Boba get up to a little something while in Jabba's palace, because they're the only half-decent people in a hive of scum and villainy? (Does Lando seduce him to get information about Han?) 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 write that, that would also be awesome.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, darkfic
Star Trek Reboot
I love alien culture worldbuilding. I love boldly going and exploring and wacky science hijinks and time travel and alternate universe shenanigans. I love the hopeful attitude that we can become better than we are. All my feelings about Star Trek in general can be summed up with this vid. 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). My headcanon on Vulcans was shaped by 80s Trek novels but I also enjoy trying to fit the Enterprise Vulcans with ... everything else we know about Vulcans. One thing I will point out, though, is that while there are a lot of things about Vulcan culture that seem/are sexist, the most powerful Vulcans we see throughout the series are elderly women. I love Pon Farr, but mostly dealing with the implications of it (both before and after) and not the sex part. (I'm a Spock/Uhura shipper, not a Kirk/Spock shipper--even in TOS, Spock and Uhura had great chemistry.)
But much as I love Vulcans, they are not the only things I love about Star Trek! Tell me about linguistics and what Uhura's job is all about besides "hailing frequencies open!" Tell me about Gaila, and what Orions are all about besides "piracy and sex slavery"!
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, darkfic
Star Trek: The Next Generation
I love alien culture worldbuilding. I love boldly going and exploring and wacky science hijinks and time travel and alternate universe shenanigans. I love the hopeful attitude that we can become better than we are. All my feelings about Star Trek in general can be summed up with this vid. 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). I love Klingons, and PARTICULARLY when they are not written as one-dimensional fighters. Like, yes, the warrior ethos shapes their entire culture, but it's not the only thing about them.
Deanna Troi/Worf: Talk about culture clash, but I'd love to see their relationship explored and given more time and not just used as shock material. And I'd love it to be a relationship built on mutual respect. Feel free to bring in the perspective Martok and the others had on mental illness when they were trapped in that Dominion prison camp, that mental illness is an enemy to fight and it takes a lot of strength to fight an enemy in your own head. From that perspective, Deanna is a weapons trainer for the mind.
Guinan is awesome and I love her, but please tone down the Magical Negro stereotype--she's a person, not just The Wise Magic Therapist/Advisor. She's got her own prejudices and traumas, and I think it would be interesting to explore that in comparison/contrast to either Tasha Yar or Ro Laren. I would love anything that dove into Guinan's past or her culture. Also, Picard and Guinan have INCREDIBLE chemistry. Go watch Time's Arrow and just watch the way he LOOKS AT HER. And with Guinan and Deanna, they're both "sensitives" in different ways, something that explored the similarities and differences in how they perceive the world and other people would be really interesting. For Ro and Guinan, they're both survivors of conquest, but they have very different perspectives on it. I'd love something that explores that.
Picard/Ro: oh, the possibilities! Either a relationship while she's on board the Enterprise, or maybe an AU where Earth was the one conquered by the Cardassians and Bajor is the perfect paradise world that's the founder of the Federation and provides most of the people for Starfleet. How would Starfleet be different? How would Ro be different? How would PICARD be different if he was from a conquered people and had a background in terrorism before joining Starfleet?
For Worf/K'Ehleyr, an AU where she didn't die, and how do you make that relationship long-term when she's going off all the time doing her job as a diplomat and Worf is on Enterprise. How do they share custody of Alexander? Do they have other kids together? What would things have been like if she'd come to Worf when she was pregnant?
As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious and show them falling in love in between missions, go for it. But 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 and science hijinks.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, darkfic
Star Trek: Voyager
I love alien culture worldbuilding. I love boldly going and exploring and wacky science hijinks and time travel and alternate universe shenanigans. I love the hopeful attitude that we can become better than we are. All my feelings about Star Trek in general can be summed up with this vid. 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). My headcanon on Vulcans was shaped by 80s Trek novels (especially Spock's World and the Rihannsu books by Diane Duane, but also the Vulcan Academy Murders and the IDIC Epidemic by Jean Lorrah). If you know those books, great; if not, don't worry about it.
As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious and show them falling in love in between missions, go for it. But 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 and science hijinks.
I think Kate Mulgrew did an excellent job of playing Janeway despite the poor/inconsistent writing she was given, and I love the way Tuvok was definitely a Vulcan but also a very different Vulcan than Spock. And I think their friendship was a foundation for both of them, having someone they'd known and trusted for years while so far from home. Also, I'm curious about T'Pel.
Prompts: Day in the life stuff about dealing with the challenges of being so far from home and the top-ranking loyal Starfleet officers. (Chakotay was great, but he'd been Maquis, which especially in the beginning made a difference.) Maybe something set early on dealing with Tuvok's suspicion of the Maquis (and their suspicion of him) and Janeway trying to bring the crew together would be interesting. Pre-series stuff about how they came to be close. Post-series stuff--I mean, it's great, they're both glad to be home, but they've changed and the Federation has changed. (Has Tuvok's wife moved on/remarried?) If you wanted to handle Pon Farr and/or them becoming a couple, I would enjoy that too. Or something dealing with the aftermath of the episode Blood Fever, which I would imagine made Pon Farr and/or Vulcans a really public topic of discussion on the ship. (It's not something that could have been easily hushed up!) Another idea: some Vulcan festival is coming up, and the Vulcans are going to have a hard time celebrating it so far from home, so Tuvok and Janeway have to get creative to figure out how to handle it.
T'Pel/Tuvok: I would be happy with ANYTHING, there is NO fic for this pairing. What's their marriage like, with him gone all the time? What was she doing while he was off being a rebellious teenager? What was she doing while he was on Voyager, and what was it like when he came home?
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, darkfic
Star Trek: The Original Series
I love alien culture worldbuilding. I love boldly going and exploring and wacky science hijinks and time travel and alternate universe shenanigans. I love the hopeful attitude that we can become better than we are. All my feelings about Star Trek in general can be summed up with this vid. 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). My headcanon on Vulcans was shaped by 80s Trek novels (especially Spock's World and the Rihannsu books by Diane Duane, but also the Vulcan Academy Murders and the IDIC Epidemic by Jean Lorrah). If you know those books, great; if not, don't worry about it.
As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious and show them falling in love in between missions, go for it. But 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 and science hijinks.
M'Benga we know so little of that he's almost an OC, but I bet his life has been FASCINATING from what we know of it, and I'd love to see more of him and what his dreams/hopes/goals are.
I love Spock/Uhura, they had such great chemistry in TOS (better, actually, than in the AOS). There's such mutual respect and such playfulness, it's wonderful.
T'Pring ... is fascinating, I'd love to explore her and how she got where she is and what exactly her choices were and what mistakes/miscalculations (if any) she might have made that got her into that scenario. If she had objected to marrying Spock earlier, would she have had other options to divorce him? Is there a difference between "what her legal options were" and "what her family/clan would have accepted"? What factors could have made a difference? What would have happened if she hadn't challenged, but just went along with things--would she have ended up on the Enterprise? Could she have divorced Spock later? Would she have stayed on Vulcan with Stonn as her lover?
I enjoy Scotty and Uhura's playful dynamic in Star Trek V, it's one of the few good things about that movie.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, darkfic
Sense8
I love the worldbuilding and the characters, and what I most want is what happens NEXT. And I'm curious for both the immediate lives of the cluster (I love them all), but also for the larger world of sensate clusters. Do they start building their own culture, now that it's safer? What scars have been left by the corporate exploitation and murder? What continuing steps are needed to get rid of the lingering influence of BPO? Does the larger world ever learn about sensates, and what happens to the cluster then?
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, darkfic
Rivers of London
Some of these pairings break up canon pairings. Please don't bash canon partners, it's perfectly fine if they broke up or died or were never together in the first place, you don't have to go into detail if you don't want to.
Mamusu Grant: she has had a hard life, and her husband hasn't made it easier. I would love either an exploration of why she made the choices she did, or something about the good things in her life (of which Thomas comes to be one). Here's one AU idea I've had: what if the Jazz Vampires had killed Richard instead of just draining him/giving him brain damage leading to addiction, AND what if the Nightingale had been investigating? And Mamusu (either with bb!Peter or without, if she hadn't had him yet) becomes his apprentice so she can become a witch finder? Or Thomas felt guilty over not catching the jazz vampires sooner, and she needs a place to stay, so he offers her one of the many empty rooms in the Folly while she's getting her feet back under her, and things progress from there. Or maybe everything happened as it did in canon except that Richard died somewhere along the line, and then her boy becomes a witch finder and she gets to know his boss, who is not a jazz man but is very handsome and courteous and, well, why not? Or maybe she leveraged her friendship with Elsie "Hatbox" Winstanley and got a librarian or archivist job instead of cleaning, and somehow that connected with a case of Nightingales?
Caroline Linden-Limmer. Really, anything with Caroline is great. Further adventures with Peter! Knowledge exchanges between practitioners of her mum's type and the Folly that lead to closer relations of a different kind! Her connections with the demi-monde! Flying! Her perspective on British society, as an African transwoman adopted by English nobility, if you want to go a more serious route. (Lady Helena strikes me as one of those "of course I can't be racist, I'm a Good Liberal White Person Here To Uplift People." See, for example, the way she has more sympathy for the tiger than the local (African) children killed in that one story she tells about Growing Up In Africa.) I think Peter would be very supportive of her, and I think it would be interesting to see more of the two of them together.
Beverly Brook. I find her character hard to parse in the earlier books, and also, 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. Like, 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. 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 which Peter then has to deal with.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, darkfic
