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."
General Likes and Dislikes
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 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. Anyway, point is, if you are doing worldbuilding for a fantasy or SF or otherwise non-Christian religion ... unless it is explicitly a Christian-analogue, it should be different from Christianity.
Star Wars OT
Note: my "ideal perfect Star Wars Canon" includes the PT, the OT, the Zahn trilogy (especially Mara Jade) and the X-Wing books, the Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett, 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, and I am perfectly fine with completely ignoring the ST.
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.
With Luke and Owen and Beru, either stuff when Luke was younger or an AU where they survived would be great. I am interested in both Owen and Beru's perspectives on the wider galaxy, and also worldbuilding for what life is like on Tatooine.
With Luke, Leia, and Obi-Wan, I am always up for Skywalker Shenanigans. I love the Jedi, and I truly believe Obi-Wan and the Jedi did their best, but man do he and they have their flaws and their blind spots, and I don't know that even by the OT Obi-Wan actually understands what the actual problems were. Something that deals with that would be interesting. Or something in which, I don't know, Palpatine got eaten by the Zillo Beast and there was no Order 66, and everything is happy. (Or they're fellow Jedi out on a mission still dealing with the repercussions of how fucked up the Republic is and how awful the Clone Wars was.)
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs darkfic
Rivers of London
I love this series for many reasons (the snark! the vivid characters! the worldbuilding! the digressions! the wry-but-pointed social commentary on race and class and bureaucracy!). If you can make up scientific explanations for anything, I will LOVE YOU FOREVER. I would love a deeper look into things like "how genii locorum work".
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.
Mamusu & Elsie: two ideas. Tell me about the adventure back in Freetown that Elsie implies they had together back before Mamusu came to London! Or, have Elsie giving Mamusu the support she needs to get a better job in London--Mamusu the librarian, maybe?
Abigail Kamara: I love her as a girl detective/problem solver, but would prefer she not end up joining the Met. I like her perspective on magic and things, I'm interested in her friendship with Nicky (how much of it is just hanging out with Peter leads to hanging out with his girlfriend's family, how much of it is building contacts in the demimonde, how much of it is genuine friendship?). I love the mutual respect she and Thomas have for one another.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Star Trek AOS
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).
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. 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.
With Gaila/Uhura, I'd prefer less "Orion Slave Girl" and more of, well, anything else really. I love it when aliens are alien and not just humans in makeup. (There was this one fic years ago where Gaila was a plant that molted, it was incredible.) And I'd be equally happy with Nyota being specially able to handle alien differences because she's a communications specialist, or alternatively she thinks she's able to handle alien differences because she's a communications specialist and actually isn't.
With Uhura/Kirk, I think she was right to reject him in the original reboot movie. "Kirk as frat bro douchebag" was my least favorite thing about the AOS, and I appreciated how he matured by the third movie.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Star Trek TOS
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.
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 the women's poker game! Tell me about the transition from Pike's command of Enterprise to Kirk's, and how it affected everyone on board!
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.
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. 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.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Falcon & Winter Soldier
Even when I didn't like the movies, I loved their character dynamic. Not necessarily the fanon dynamic, where Bucky is woobified and Sam is the caring/nurturing support character in his own story, but the dynamic shown on screen, where there's respect, but also conflict and rubbing each other the wrong way and they're both competitive men who genuinely are good men but can also be jerks sometimes. And where they're equals, with neither there to be the other's support.
I would be happy with just about anything. Time on the boat! Time in New York! Missions together! The actual logistics of the snap aftermath and what the heck that would do to the world! I would love something that deals with issues that the MCU doesn't or glosses over, like the fact that violence may stop the immediate problem but it never solves the underlying issue (and often makes it worse). But I'd also be quite happy with fluffy day-in-the-life stuff.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers 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, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Star Trek DS9
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).
Consequences! That was one of my favorite things about DS9, it dealt with consequences. If you want to take a canon event that you think didn't get enough exploration, that would be awesome.
Sisko's position as Emmisary is endlessly fascinating to me, and how it shaped his relationship with Kira, and how he came to be more comfortable with it as the show went on. The second thing that fascinates me about Sisko and Kira is the huge difference in their training. Starfleet is highly academic in its training; Kira was basically apprenticed to a terrorist cell and learned everything about tactics and strategy and leadership the hard way, and may not know much else because when would she have had time? So you could do something about what qualifications she needed to pass to serve as his first officer, or what qualifications she needed to pass to get a commission in Starfleet later, or a time when one or both of their approaches/skillsets was really wrong for the situation.
I love Dax's relationship with Sisko, that lasted three hosts. When Sisko comes back from the wormhole (if he ever does) will Dax still be Ezri or will enough time have passed that the relationship stretches to four hosts?
I haven't read the novels, but if you want to take the idea that after the show ended Kira eventually became a Vedek and later Kai and explore her faith and relationship with the Prophets, I wouldn't mind.
I generally find worldbuilding that assumes an alien religion is like (Evangelical/Fundamentalist Protestant) Christianity either boring or cringeworthy. I want it to be ALIEN. Especially with Bajor, where we've MET their gods and they have such a fundamentally different perspective on EVERYTHING than us linear creatures, I don't want it to feel like another screed on What Is Wrong With Christianity In America.
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. 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.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
TNG
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).
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. I would love anything that dove into her 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.
I think Geordi was another one who didn't get much character development, but he was a great guy. Professional even in the face of all the wackiness Star Trek could throw at him, very smart, very compassionate. Geordi rarely got a chance to shine, but I always liked him, and aside from that one episode with the genetically engineered society, they didn't do much with his blindness besides "disabilities give you superpowers" with his visor. What are the downsides to it? What, if any, tradeoffs did he have to make, and was it his choice or something his parents decided for him? Does he ever get grief from fellow officers about "what happens if your visor gets knocked off, you'll be blind!" as if not being able to see would make him incompetent.
I absolutely LOVE Ro Laren, she's such a contrast to the rest of them. I love how much exploration of her backstory she got, partly because it was such a contrast with the perfect/paradise that the Federation is supposed to be.
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.
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, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
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 and similar goals). 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.
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. OTOH, if you want to go for romance and/or sex ... she's very casual about touching his hands, and he's fine with it. Whether it's just for Pon Farr or something deeper and longer lasting, I'm here for 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. 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.
Prompts: Day in the life stuff about dealing with the challenges of being so far from home and the top-ranking loyal Starfleet officers. 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.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Enterprise
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 and similar goals). 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.
Prompts: Pon Farr and its ramifications: if T'Pol has to go through Pon Farr with a shipmate how does that affect her relationship with them, both working and personal? Is it a one-time thing or something longer? What about T'Pol's relationships with her family and friends back on Vulcan? What about T'Pol's neurological damage, how does that affect things? What if Elizabeth had lived? Or! I was fascinated by the episode with the Enterprise crew who were descendants of our crew, especially Lorian. You could explore that. What if that Enterprise had survived? Or what was it like for the crew to be thrown back in time in the timeline that created them?
A note on worldbuilding: so much of the things we're told about Vulcans in Enterprise makes NO SENSE when compared with ... anything in any other Star Trek show ever. For example, how do you outlaw melds and telepathic contact when YOU NEED TELEPATHIC BONDS TO MATE EVERY SEVEN YEARS?!?!?!?!? You can either ignore the contradictions or lean into them and find explanations for them.
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. 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.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers 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."
General Likes and Dislikes
Here are some other things to keep in mind:
- I like stuff that takes side characters and puts them center-stage, especially when 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 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. Anyway, point is, if you are doing worldbuilding for a fantasy or SF or otherwise non-Christian religion ... unless it is explicitly a Christian-analogue, it should be different from Christianity.
Star Wars OT
Note: my "ideal perfect Star Wars Canon" includes the PT, the OT, the Zahn trilogy (especially Mara Jade) and the X-Wing books, the Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett, 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, and I am perfectly fine with completely ignoring the ST.
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.
With Luke and Owen and Beru, either stuff when Luke was younger or an AU where they survived would be great. I am interested in both Owen and Beru's perspectives on the wider galaxy, and also worldbuilding for what life is like on Tatooine.
With Luke, Leia, and Obi-Wan, I am always up for Skywalker Shenanigans. I love the Jedi, and I truly believe Obi-Wan and the Jedi did their best, but man do he and they have their flaws and their blind spots, and I don't know that even by the OT Obi-Wan actually understands what the actual problems were. Something that deals with that would be interesting. Or something in which, I don't know, Palpatine got eaten by the Zillo Beast and there was no Order 66, and everything is happy. (Or they're fellow Jedi out on a mission still dealing with the repercussions of how fucked up the Republic is and how awful the Clone Wars was.)
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs darkfic
Rivers of London
I love this series for many reasons (the snark! the vivid characters! the worldbuilding! the digressions! the wry-but-pointed social commentary on race and class and bureaucracy!). If you can make up scientific explanations for anything, I will LOVE YOU FOREVER. I would love a deeper look into things like "how genii locorum work".
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.
Mamusu & Elsie: two ideas. Tell me about the adventure back in Freetown that Elsie implies they had together back before Mamusu came to London! Or, have Elsie giving Mamusu the support she needs to get a better job in London--Mamusu the librarian, maybe?
Abigail Kamara: I love her as a girl detective/problem solver, but would prefer she not end up joining the Met. I like her perspective on magic and things, I'm interested in her friendship with Nicky (how much of it is just hanging out with Peter leads to hanging out with his girlfriend's family, how much of it is building contacts in the demimonde, how much of it is genuine friendship?). I love the mutual respect she and Thomas have for one another.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Star Trek AOS
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).
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. 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.
With Gaila/Uhura, I'd prefer less "Orion Slave Girl" and more of, well, anything else really. I love it when aliens are alien and not just humans in makeup. (There was this one fic years ago where Gaila was a plant that molted, it was incredible.) And I'd be equally happy with Nyota being specially able to handle alien differences because she's a communications specialist, or alternatively she thinks she's able to handle alien differences because she's a communications specialist and actually isn't.
With Uhura/Kirk, I think she was right to reject him in the original reboot movie. "Kirk as frat bro douchebag" was my least favorite thing about the AOS, and I appreciated how he matured by the third movie.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Star Trek TOS
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.
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 the women's poker game! Tell me about the transition from Pike's command of Enterprise to Kirk's, and how it affected everyone on board!
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.
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. 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.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Falcon & Winter Soldier
Even when I didn't like the movies, I loved their character dynamic. Not necessarily the fanon dynamic, where Bucky is woobified and Sam is the caring/nurturing support character in his own story, but the dynamic shown on screen, where there's respect, but also conflict and rubbing each other the wrong way and they're both competitive men who genuinely are good men but can also be jerks sometimes. And where they're equals, with neither there to be the other's support.
I would be happy with just about anything. Time on the boat! Time in New York! Missions together! The actual logistics of the snap aftermath and what the heck that would do to the world! I would love something that deals with issues that the MCU doesn't or glosses over, like the fact that violence may stop the immediate problem but it never solves the underlying issue (and often makes it worse). But I'd also be quite happy with fluffy day-in-the-life stuff.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers 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, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Star Trek DS9
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).
Consequences! That was one of my favorite things about DS9, it dealt with consequences. If you want to take a canon event that you think didn't get enough exploration, that would be awesome.
Sisko's position as Emmisary is endlessly fascinating to me, and how it shaped his relationship with Kira, and how he came to be more comfortable with it as the show went on. The second thing that fascinates me about Sisko and Kira is the huge difference in their training. Starfleet is highly academic in its training; Kira was basically apprenticed to a terrorist cell and learned everything about tactics and strategy and leadership the hard way, and may not know much else because when would she have had time? So you could do something about what qualifications she needed to pass to serve as his first officer, or what qualifications she needed to pass to get a commission in Starfleet later, or a time when one or both of their approaches/skillsets was really wrong for the situation.
I love Dax's relationship with Sisko, that lasted three hosts. When Sisko comes back from the wormhole (if he ever does) will Dax still be Ezri or will enough time have passed that the relationship stretches to four hosts?
I haven't read the novels, but if you want to take the idea that after the show ended Kira eventually became a Vedek and later Kai and explore her faith and relationship with the Prophets, I wouldn't mind.
I generally find worldbuilding that assumes an alien religion is like (Evangelical/Fundamentalist Protestant) Christianity either boring or cringeworthy. I want it to be ALIEN. Especially with Bajor, where we've MET their gods and they have such a fundamentally different perspective on EVERYTHING than us linear creatures, I don't want it to feel like another screed on What Is Wrong With Christianity In America.
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. 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.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
TNG
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).
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. I would love anything that dove into her 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.
I think Geordi was another one who didn't get much character development, but he was a great guy. Professional even in the face of all the wackiness Star Trek could throw at him, very smart, very compassionate. Geordi rarely got a chance to shine, but I always liked him, and aside from that one episode with the genetically engineered society, they didn't do much with his blindness besides "disabilities give you superpowers" with his visor. What are the downsides to it? What, if any, tradeoffs did he have to make, and was it his choice or something his parents decided for him? Does he ever get grief from fellow officers about "what happens if your visor gets knocked off, you'll be blind!" as if not being able to see would make him incompetent.
I absolutely LOVE Ro Laren, she's such a contrast to the rest of them. I love how much exploration of her backstory she got, partly because it was such a contrast with the perfect/paradise that the Federation is supposed to be.
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.
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, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
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 and similar goals). 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.
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. OTOH, if you want to go for romance and/or sex ... she's very casual about touching his hands, and he's fine with it. Whether it's just for Pon Farr or something deeper and longer lasting, I'm here for 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. 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.
Prompts: Day in the life stuff about dealing with the challenges of being so far from home and the top-ranking loyal Starfleet officers. 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.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Enterprise
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 and similar goals). 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.
Prompts: Pon Farr and its ramifications: if T'Pol has to go through Pon Farr with a shipmate how does that affect her relationship with them, both working and personal? Is it a one-time thing or something longer? What about T'Pol's relationships with her family and friends back on Vulcan? What about T'Pol's neurological damage, how does that affect things? What if Elizabeth had lived? Or! I was fascinated by the episode with the Enterprise crew who were descendants of our crew, especially Lorian. You could explore that. What if that Enterprise had survived? Or what was it like for the crew to be thrown back in time in the timeline that created them?
A note on worldbuilding: so much of the things we're told about Vulcans in Enterprise makes NO SENSE when compared with ... anything in any other Star Trek show ever. For example, how do you outlaw melds and telepathic contact when YOU NEED TELEPATHIC BONDS TO MATE EVERY SEVEN YEARS?!?!?!?!? You can either ignore the contradictions or lean into them and find explanations for them.
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. 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.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
