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.
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?
I love Sun's contradictions and complexity, I love Capheus's heart and courage, I love Lito's drama and sweetness, I love Nita and Nomi's trust and mutual devotion (and Amanita's quick thinking), I love the way all of the cluster interacts and how together they are so much more than the sum of their parts, and I love watching all of them grow and become more truly themselves as they become entiwned in one another. (And I wonder what it would be like for clusters that weren't so well-suited, if that might be part of where Whispers came from.)
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!). The cases are usually great, and I'd be thrilled to get a casefic, but my absolute deepest favorite thing is to watch Peter building community and relationships between groups.
I love Peter because of the way he's not naïve, he knows how bad the world can get and how much evil can be done by the institutions he is serving, and yet he firmly believes that they can do better and they should do better. I love how he is always building community and bringing people together. I love how he is willing to risk himself to help people. And I think that's what Nightingale sees in him, too. I think Nightingale sees in Peter something he didn't know he was missing all that time: a way to be and do better than the sins of the past he's been carrying around all these years. I think it's great that Nightingale's going to retire from the police to focus on teaching, I think that will allow much better scope for them both to grow, and yet still be working together. (Just in a different capacity.) I'm fine with a poly threesome with Bev. (But I don't really want a focus on Nightingale's backstory, because that's much less interesting to me than what he and Peter are doing now and going forward.)
I also love the secondary characters: the Rivers, Mamusu and Elsie (and I'd love to know how they met), Caroline Linden-Limmer and the Society of the Rose, Grace Yutani and the Sons (Daughters?) of Weyland, the list goes on. Something that explored Peter's relationship-building with them and their communities would be great. Or a meetup between Peter and Tobias Winter from Germany!
Also, I'd be thrilled to get either a story about magic becoming public knowledge (oh, the conspiracy theories!) or an AU where it has been all along and an exploration of how that changed.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Star Trek Deep Space Nine
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 and run with it, that would be awesome.
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'd love more about Jadzia, Worf, Alexander, and Martok. Worf and Jadzia go to Qo'nos! Or Jadzia Lives, now what! But just in general, I love that Worf got to be more 3-dimensional on DS9 than on TNG and stuff exploring his relationships, romantic and familial, would be great. Klingon worldbuilding always appreciated.
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 would find that interesting.
I thought that Kira and the O'Brien's had a lot of chemistry, but also they have such radically different backgrounds and expectations. Culture, religion, childhood trauma--all radically different. I'd like to see how they could make it work.
I'd love something that dove into what it meant for Sisko to be the Emissary. 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. You could lean into the Prophets' timey-wimey non-linearity and what that means for a religion that worships them. Most Earth religions are heavily time-based, with regular repeating festivals that serve a lot of purposes both social and religious--how would that work (or not work) when worshiping beings who see everything happening at once? Or explore the Orbs! What other orbs are there besides Time and Prophecy, and what do they DO? You don't have to have any ritual or belief or ANYTHING to use them, if they have line-of-sight to you they can DO THINGS. Give you visions! Send you time traveling! Whatever it is the others do! No Earth religion has any artifact that is anything like that, and besides wondering what the other orbs even are/do, I'm curious as to how they shaped Bajoran religion, and how it was that the Bajorans ended up worshiping the ones who SENT the orbs instead of the orbs themselves. Especially given that the Prophets mostly ... don't seem to want to be gods or care about being worshiped or what's going on on Bajor or anything. So it's not like they were sending messages with the Orbs about who sent them and why, which leaves a lot of scope for interpretation on the part of the Bajorans who found them.
Sisko's position as Emmisary is 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. I love Winn as an antagonist. She's unpleasant and manipulative, but she always had reasons for what she did and why she was that way. (Not always good reasons, but generally not Muahahaha Evil ones, either.)
More Sisko Family stuff is always welcome; what if Joseph visited the station? (What does he think of his son being a figure in an alien religion?) Both Sisko men are such great dads, and I love that about them. And were the Prophets truly hands-off on Benjamin's life between when they released Sarah and when he came to Bajor? I could go either way, and a story exploring that would be FASCINATING.
As for the Trill, I am really fascinated by the possibilities for how some (the few lucky elite) get symbiotes and practical immortality through them and how that shapes the Trill and their culture and government.
As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious, go for it. If you want to lean into the wacky tropes Star Trek was known for, that's great too. As long as everyone is in character, feel free to go as cracktastic as you want with the time travel and travel to alternate universes and weird missions.
I do not like Dukat. I hate, loathe, and despise him. I am fine with him showing up as an antagonist, and it's fine if he is complex and nuanced (because he is in canon!). But if he shows up, don't ever forget that he's a manipulative weasel who, despite having soft spots for specific people such as Ziyal, most often actively chooses to do the worst thing possible. Even if he's doing something good in the moment, you can't ever forget that the moment is temporary.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers 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.
My headcanon on Vulcans was shaped by 80s Trek novels but I also enjoy trying to fit the Star Trek: 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.
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. I would love anything that dove into Guinan's past or her culture. I haven't (yet) seen Picard Season 2, but feel free to bring in stuff from that. Picard and Guinan have INCREDIBLE chemistry in TNG. Go watch Time's Arrow and just watch the way he LOOKS AT HER when he meets her as a young woman in San Francisco.
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.
As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious, 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
Star Wars: All Media Types
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. (Or at least something different.) It's not that everything has to be perfect, but I want there to be at least some growth and change. If you are inspired by other corners of the Star Wars universe, feel free to bring them in, but those are my happy places, and I am perfectly fine with completely ignoring the ST or rewriting it to make it either less stupid or less depressing (or both).
I think the Jedi in the PT were doing the best they could to be faithful to the Force and the Republic and the galaxy. I think most of them were deeply good people. I think many of them possessed a great deal of wisdom. And I also think they were deeply messed up on a lot of levels and didn't know how to handle trauma or healthy relationships. One of my favorite things about Legends was watching Luke take what fragments were left and build something better with them.
Time travel fixits are always good, but I'm also fine with situations where the overall course of galactic history doesn't change, but the people involved learn and grow. I would love it if more Jedi had survived, and Luke worked with them to build a new Jedi Order that didn't just repeat the mistakes of the old one. I would love Star Wars style adventures with the fate of the galaxy in the balance, but I would also really appreciate smaller and quieter fics about stuff like rebuilding the Jedi and figuring out what a healthier version of the Jedi doctrine on attachments would be, and what would a community based on that look like. Or a fic about the politics of putting together the New Republic after the fall of the Empire. There's been decades of civil war, and despite Mon Mothma and Bail calling it the "Alliance to Restore the Republic" a lot of the Rebels were separatists trying to escape from the Republic, because the Republic had some serious problems. So putting together a functional galactic government would be a challenge--how would they do it?
I would love to see more of Shmi than just "sainted dead mother." I think, of all the Jedi we see in the PT, Mace Windu is probably the most likely to be able to figure out where the Jedi Order went wrong on a theological and community level, not just specific tactical mistakes like "not realizing the Chancellor was a Sith Lord." I think Finn should be Force-sensitive (and I think a time travel fic that plays around with how little Finn knows about the fall of the Republic can be very funny and charming).
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs darkfic, twincest, the "Lando and Mara were never really together, it was all a con/undercover thing!" retcon
Star Wars: Original Trilogy
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. (Or at least something different.) It's not that everything has to be perfect, but I want there to be at least some growth and change. If you are inspired by other corners of the Star Wars universe, feel free to bring them in, but those are my happy places, and I am perfectly fine with completely ignoring the ST or rewriting it to make it either less stupid or less depressing (or both).
I think the Jedi in the PT were doing the best they could to be faithful to the Force and the Republic and the galaxy. I think most of them were deeply good people. I think many of them possessed a great deal of wisdom. And I also think they were deeply messed up on a lot of levels and didn't know how to handle trauma or healthy relationships. One of my favorite things about Legends was watching Luke take what fragments were left and build something better with them.
I love Star Wars style adventures with the fate of the galaxy in the balance, but I also really appreciate smaller and quieter fics about stuff like rebuilding the Jedi and figuring out what a healthier version of the Jedi doctrine on attachments would be, and what would a community based on that look like. Or a fic about the politics of putting together the New Republic after the fall of the Empire. There's been decades of civil war, and despite Mon Mothma and Bail calling it the "Alliance to Restore the Republic" a lot of the Rebels were separatists trying to escape from the Republic, because the Republic had some serious problems. So putting together a functional galactic government would be a challenge--how would they do it?
I love Bail Organa's daring and quick-wittedness, his compassion and his deep sense of justice, and I think Leia got a lot of her character from him. I love how devoted Bail and Breha are to each other and to Leia and to doing the right thing. I love that they worked so hard for Alderaan and the galaxy, yet still had time for joy and hope even in very dark times. I'd be thrilled for an AU where Alderaan wasn't destroyed, or at least Bail and/or Breha survived, and we could see what that changed both for Leia and for the course of the Rebellion and the greater 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.) I was one of the contributors to the "What if Han became Emperor by accident" thread on tumblr a while back, and my contribution was "ooh, Lando would be his Grand Vizier!" and if you want to go that direction that would also be awesome. Also, Weird Jedi Shit is always fun.
With 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 and what their lives were like together against the world. I like how pragmatic they are, and how much they love Luke, and how much they care about family.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs darkfic, twincest, Kylo Ren
Spider-Man
I love this version of Spider-Man. I think Miles is awesome so cute and baby, but you can tell he's growing up to be a good man. I love his dynamics with his parents, where nobody's perfect but they're all genuinely doing their best to care for and support each other. I loved all the Spider-people and their interactions.
Plot bunnies: An AU where Peter Parker doesn't die (but Miles still gets bit) and so Miles has more time to grow into his powers. Or some kind of multiverse event drops Miles into one of the other universes, and he has an adventure there with the other spiderpeople. Or just exploring what some of the other universes were like, they all sound interesting.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Babylon 5
Ah, the fandom of my youth! This was my first fandom that was mine, and not just something the family watched together. I love the layering of the themes, and how you can watch it on multiple levels (action/adventure, character arcs, political allegory, deeper themes about truth and freedom and who are you and what do you want and why are you here). The characters and their story arcs were all so compelling. I loved the worldbuilding, especially the Minbari culture. As a kid, I loved John and Delenn as star-crossed lovers (although as an adult I think she is WAAAAAAAAY out of his league). I love the playfulness of Marcus and Susan together, although I headcanon Marcus as a romantic ace. (Also, I try to ignore the existence of JMS' post-canon short story about what happened to Marcus and Susan because it is CREEEEEEEEPY.) One of the things I love about Babylon 5 is that there were so many characters where the fact that they were antagonists didn't mean they were stupid or bad people, just people with a different perspective honestly trying to do what is right. Stephen Franklin was a terribly underused character, and my two favorite people to see him with are Susan and Marcus.
I especially love Minbari culture. If you do worldbuilding for Minbari culture, past, present, or future, I will love you forever. I consider "To Dream in the City of Sorrows" canon and firmly believe that when Sinclair went into the past and became Valen, he found Catherine again after she was lost in time. And Sheridan doesn't deserve Delenn, but he knows it and she loves him anyway.
Is there a problem on Babylon 5 that needs to get solved? Another mystery about Jeff/Valen and the Minbari, something having to do with prophecy, time travel and/or messages from Sinclair/Valen in the past? Some Minbari cultural rite or political intrigue, Earthforce political intrigue, the PsiCorps making trouble, something post-series about peace-building, something about Sinclair in the past as Valen! Feel free to change Marcus' fate. Also, what would have happened if Lyta had taken G'Kar up on his offer to have telepathic Narn babies with him?!? And what if Neroon survived somehow and had to learn to be religious caste?
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Star Wars Legends
The original Zahn trilogy and the X-Wing books are my favorite parts of the old Legends universe, but I like everything EXCEPT the Courtship of Princess Leia and the New Jedi Order stuff. (Teneniel Djo is awesome! Han kidnapping Leia is really really REALLY not. And I hated pretty much everything about the Vong.) I really like it when Luke is building a new Jedi community and rebuilding old traditions. YYou can bring in details from the PT and newer canon, if they don't contradict major parts of the Zahn trilogy.
Mara has such a complex past. I think she has trauma from her time with Palpatine that she can't admit even to herself--he was so good at grooming young people, so very manipulative, and even when you know your abuser did evil things to you, it's still hard to internalize. I think she has a unique perspective on the Force, and the Jedi, and galactic politics, that doesn't fit easily or neatly with the others but nevertheless is important to include if they don't want to re-make the mistakes of the past. It's about how do we remember the past while working to create a new future? How do we avoid making old mistakes? How do we heal? How do we build something better?
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. 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.) Is there some Force bullshit at work somewhere?
I think Lando and Mara would do very well together; both okay with shady stuff, but both with deep principles they will not compromise. My primary ship is Luke/Mara but I was livid when they retconned Lando/Mara out with "oh, no, they were never really together, it was just an undercover thing!" Even as a very sheltered middle class white teen, I could tell that was racist bullshit, and also smacked of that patriarchal extreme-monagamist trope where "if you love each other, your previous relationships can't have meant anything!" which always hits harder for women than men. No. People can decide a relationship isn't working and end it and start new ones without devaluing and denying the previous relationship. I would love Lando/Mara. I would love Luke/Mara where either she was never with Lando at all even for undercover purposes, or where Lando/Mara used to be together and broke up amicably. I would love Luke/Lando/Mara. I would be livid at "but Lando/Mara was never a real relationship!"
Plot bunnies: Courtship of Princess Leia never happened, Teneniel got introduced to the wider galaxy (and Mara, and possibly Isolder) some other way.
Standard Star Wars shenanigans where the fate of the galaxy is at stake and Our Heroes save the day. Is there a new superweapon? Is one of the other Hands (or an Inquisitor, or some other evil Force user) making trouble for the underworld and/or Hapes and/or the New Republic? Is the Empire threatening Lando's newest business venture (again)?
Worldbuilding and Organizational Details--rebuilding the Jedi Order, building the New Republic, internal Hapan politics, smuggling, dealing with the all the problems that can't be solved with lightsabers and blasters.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic, twincest, the "Lando and Mara were never really together, it was all a con/undercover thing!" retcon
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.
If you wanted to vid this one, I would be delighted. Feel free in this case to draw from every Trek media. In particular, for YEARS I have dreamed that someone would do a Spock and/or general Vulcan vid to The Logical Song by Supertramp. And there are so many Vulcan bits in the shows and movies where the visuals are just so evocative, if you get the right song it should be possible to do something really interesting.
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.
Saavik & Spock. Feel free to bring in canon from The Pandora Principle or ignore it as it strikes your fancy. You could do stuff from her time in the Academy, stuff that draws on her half-Romulan nature, them rebuilding their relationship after Genesis (in whatever way you see their relationship), What If She Got Pregnant On Genesis, established relationship future-fic where she's an admiral and he's an ambassador and together They Save The Federation, whatever you want.
Sarek/Amanda. I don't want them to be dysfunctional or horrid people, but also, from what we can see Sarek in particular was not a very good father. I would love something from their courtship or later with them as an established relationship. I'd be interested in a diplomatic mission, or them navigating bi-cultural relationships on Earth and Vulcan.
Also, Uhura and Chapel got some nice moments together, as did Uhura and Sulu and Chekov. For a show that was so hyper-focused on the Big Three, we got some great character moments for the other characters, and I would love to see those fleshed out. I love the idea of them being besties and hanging out and having adventures of their own and keeping the ship together when the Big Three have gotten themselves tied up by the Adversary Of The Week.
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 to know that culture matters to people, and to see how different cultures interact and where the clashes are.
- I like unreliable narrators.
- I like acknowledgment that different people can have different points of view without either of them being wrong.
- I like stories that engage with problematic aspects of the source, and which deal with privilege in one way or another instead of sweeping it under the rug.
- Worldbuilding is my jam, I am pretty much always up for explorations of why the world is the way it is. I love hearing about the economics, the politics, the religion, the clothing, the history, the folklore, all of that kind of stuff. And I want to know why it matters--how is all this cultural background stuff affecting the characters, the plot, everything. You don't have to do deep worldbuilding, but I'll enjoy it if you do.
- I don't like it when plots hinge on characters being selectively stupid, or selectively unable to communicate. Like, if they are stupid or a himbo or whatever in general, or have problems communicating in general, that's fine! 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.
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?
I love Sun's contradictions and complexity, I love Capheus's heart and courage, I love Lito's drama and sweetness, I love Nita and Nomi's trust and mutual devotion (and Amanita's quick thinking), I love the way all of the cluster interacts and how together they are so much more than the sum of their parts, and I love watching all of them grow and become more truly themselves as they become entiwned in one another. (And I wonder what it would be like for clusters that weren't so well-suited, if that might be part of where Whispers came from.)
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!). The cases are usually great, and I'd be thrilled to get a casefic, but my absolute deepest favorite thing is to watch Peter building community and relationships between groups.
I love Peter because of the way he's not naïve, he knows how bad the world can get and how much evil can be done by the institutions he is serving, and yet he firmly believes that they can do better and they should do better. I love how he is always building community and bringing people together. I love how he is willing to risk himself to help people. And I think that's what Nightingale sees in him, too. I think Nightingale sees in Peter something he didn't know he was missing all that time: a way to be and do better than the sins of the past he's been carrying around all these years. I think it's great that Nightingale's going to retire from the police to focus on teaching, I think that will allow much better scope for them both to grow, and yet still be working together. (Just in a different capacity.) I'm fine with a poly threesome with Bev. (But I don't really want a focus on Nightingale's backstory, because that's much less interesting to me than what he and Peter are doing now and going forward.)
I also love the secondary characters: the Rivers, Mamusu and Elsie (and I'd love to know how they met), Caroline Linden-Limmer and the Society of the Rose, Grace Yutani and the Sons (Daughters?) of Weyland, the list goes on. Something that explored Peter's relationship-building with them and their communities would be great. Or a meetup between Peter and Tobias Winter from Germany!
Also, I'd be thrilled to get either a story about magic becoming public knowledge (oh, the conspiracy theories!) or an AU where it has been all along and an exploration of how that changed.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Star Trek Deep Space Nine
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 and run with it, that would be awesome.
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'd love more about Jadzia, Worf, Alexander, and Martok. Worf and Jadzia go to Qo'nos! Or Jadzia Lives, now what! But just in general, I love that Worf got to be more 3-dimensional on DS9 than on TNG and stuff exploring his relationships, romantic and familial, would be great. Klingon worldbuilding always appreciated.
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 would find that interesting.
I thought that Kira and the O'Brien's had a lot of chemistry, but also they have such radically different backgrounds and expectations. Culture, religion, childhood trauma--all radically different. I'd like to see how they could make it work.
I'd love something that dove into what it meant for Sisko to be the Emissary. 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. You could lean into the Prophets' timey-wimey non-linearity and what that means for a religion that worships them. Most Earth religions are heavily time-based, with regular repeating festivals that serve a lot of purposes both social and religious--how would that work (or not work) when worshiping beings who see everything happening at once? Or explore the Orbs! What other orbs are there besides Time and Prophecy, and what do they DO? You don't have to have any ritual or belief or ANYTHING to use them, if they have line-of-sight to you they can DO THINGS. Give you visions! Send you time traveling! Whatever it is the others do! No Earth religion has any artifact that is anything like that, and besides wondering what the other orbs even are/do, I'm curious as to how they shaped Bajoran religion, and how it was that the Bajorans ended up worshiping the ones who SENT the orbs instead of the orbs themselves. Especially given that the Prophets mostly ... don't seem to want to be gods or care about being worshiped or what's going on on Bajor or anything. So it's not like they were sending messages with the Orbs about who sent them and why, which leaves a lot of scope for interpretation on the part of the Bajorans who found them.
Sisko's position as Emmisary is 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. I love Winn as an antagonist. She's unpleasant and manipulative, but she always had reasons for what she did and why she was that way. (Not always good reasons, but generally not Muahahaha Evil ones, either.)
More Sisko Family stuff is always welcome; what if Joseph visited the station? (What does he think of his son being a figure in an alien religion?) Both Sisko men are such great dads, and I love that about them. And were the Prophets truly hands-off on Benjamin's life between when they released Sarah and when he came to Bajor? I could go either way, and a story exploring that would be FASCINATING.
As for the Trill, I am really fascinated by the possibilities for how some (the few lucky elite) get symbiotes and practical immortality through them and how that shapes the Trill and their culture and government.
As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious, go for it. If you want to lean into the wacky tropes Star Trek was known for, that's great too. As long as everyone is in character, feel free to go as cracktastic as you want with the time travel and travel to alternate universes and weird missions.
I do not like Dukat. I hate, loathe, and despise him. I am fine with him showing up as an antagonist, and it's fine if he is complex and nuanced (because he is in canon!). But if he shows up, don't ever forget that he's a manipulative weasel who, despite having soft spots for specific people such as Ziyal, most often actively chooses to do the worst thing possible. Even if he's doing something good in the moment, you can't ever forget that the moment is temporary.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers 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.
My headcanon on Vulcans was shaped by 80s Trek novels but I also enjoy trying to fit the Star Trek: 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.
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. I would love anything that dove into Guinan's past or her culture. I haven't (yet) seen Picard Season 2, but feel free to bring in stuff from that. Picard and Guinan have INCREDIBLE chemistry in TNG. Go watch Time's Arrow and just watch the way he LOOKS AT HER when he meets her as a young woman in San Francisco.
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.
As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious, 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
Star Wars: All Media Types
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. (Or at least something different.) It's not that everything has to be perfect, but I want there to be at least some growth and change. If you are inspired by other corners of the Star Wars universe, feel free to bring them in, but those are my happy places, and I am perfectly fine with completely ignoring the ST or rewriting it to make it either less stupid or less depressing (or both).
I think the Jedi in the PT were doing the best they could to be faithful to the Force and the Republic and the galaxy. I think most of them were deeply good people. I think many of them possessed a great deal of wisdom. And I also think they were deeply messed up on a lot of levels and didn't know how to handle trauma or healthy relationships. One of my favorite things about Legends was watching Luke take what fragments were left and build something better with them.
Time travel fixits are always good, but I'm also fine with situations where the overall course of galactic history doesn't change, but the people involved learn and grow. I would love it if more Jedi had survived, and Luke worked with them to build a new Jedi Order that didn't just repeat the mistakes of the old one. I would love Star Wars style adventures with the fate of the galaxy in the balance, but I would also really appreciate smaller and quieter fics about stuff like rebuilding the Jedi and figuring out what a healthier version of the Jedi doctrine on attachments would be, and what would a community based on that look like. Or a fic about the politics of putting together the New Republic after the fall of the Empire. There's been decades of civil war, and despite Mon Mothma and Bail calling it the "Alliance to Restore the Republic" a lot of the Rebels were separatists trying to escape from the Republic, because the Republic had some serious problems. So putting together a functional galactic government would be a challenge--how would they do it?
I would love to see more of Shmi than just "sainted dead mother." I think, of all the Jedi we see in the PT, Mace Windu is probably the most likely to be able to figure out where the Jedi Order went wrong on a theological and community level, not just specific tactical mistakes like "not realizing the Chancellor was a Sith Lord." I think Finn should be Force-sensitive (and I think a time travel fic that plays around with how little Finn knows about the fall of the Republic can be very funny and charming).
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs darkfic, twincest, the "Lando and Mara were never really together, it was all a con/undercover thing!" retcon
Star Wars: Original Trilogy
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. (Or at least something different.) It's not that everything has to be perfect, but I want there to be at least some growth and change. If you are inspired by other corners of the Star Wars universe, feel free to bring them in, but those are my happy places, and I am perfectly fine with completely ignoring the ST or rewriting it to make it either less stupid or less depressing (or both).
I think the Jedi in the PT were doing the best they could to be faithful to the Force and the Republic and the galaxy. I think most of them were deeply good people. I think many of them possessed a great deal of wisdom. And I also think they were deeply messed up on a lot of levels and didn't know how to handle trauma or healthy relationships. One of my favorite things about Legends was watching Luke take what fragments were left and build something better with them.
I love Star Wars style adventures with the fate of the galaxy in the balance, but I also really appreciate smaller and quieter fics about stuff like rebuilding the Jedi and figuring out what a healthier version of the Jedi doctrine on attachments would be, and what would a community based on that look like. Or a fic about the politics of putting together the New Republic after the fall of the Empire. There's been decades of civil war, and despite Mon Mothma and Bail calling it the "Alliance to Restore the Republic" a lot of the Rebels were separatists trying to escape from the Republic, because the Republic had some serious problems. So putting together a functional galactic government would be a challenge--how would they do it?
I love Bail Organa's daring and quick-wittedness, his compassion and his deep sense of justice, and I think Leia got a lot of her character from him. I love how devoted Bail and Breha are to each other and to Leia and to doing the right thing. I love that they worked so hard for Alderaan and the galaxy, yet still had time for joy and hope even in very dark times. I'd be thrilled for an AU where Alderaan wasn't destroyed, or at least Bail and/or Breha survived, and we could see what that changed both for Leia and for the course of the Rebellion and the greater 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.) I was one of the contributors to the "What if Han became Emperor by accident" thread on tumblr a while back, and my contribution was "ooh, Lando would be his Grand Vizier!" and if you want to go that direction that would also be awesome. Also, Weird Jedi Shit is always fun.
With 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 and what their lives were like together against the world. I like how pragmatic they are, and how much they love Luke, and how much they care about family.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs darkfic, twincest, Kylo Ren
Spider-Man
I love this version of Spider-Man. I think Miles is awesome so cute and baby, but you can tell he's growing up to be a good man. I love his dynamics with his parents, where nobody's perfect but they're all genuinely doing their best to care for and support each other. I loved all the Spider-people and their interactions.
Plot bunnies: An AU where Peter Parker doesn't die (but Miles still gets bit) and so Miles has more time to grow into his powers. Or some kind of multiverse event drops Miles into one of the other universes, and he has an adventure there with the other spiderpeople. Or just exploring what some of the other universes were like, they all sound interesting.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Babylon 5
Ah, the fandom of my youth! This was my first fandom that was mine, and not just something the family watched together. I love the layering of the themes, and how you can watch it on multiple levels (action/adventure, character arcs, political allegory, deeper themes about truth and freedom and who are you and what do you want and why are you here). The characters and their story arcs were all so compelling. I loved the worldbuilding, especially the Minbari culture. As a kid, I loved John and Delenn as star-crossed lovers (although as an adult I think she is WAAAAAAAAY out of his league). I love the playfulness of Marcus and Susan together, although I headcanon Marcus as a romantic ace. (Also, I try to ignore the existence of JMS' post-canon short story about what happened to Marcus and Susan because it is CREEEEEEEEPY.) One of the things I love about Babylon 5 is that there were so many characters where the fact that they were antagonists didn't mean they were stupid or bad people, just people with a different perspective honestly trying to do what is right. Stephen Franklin was a terribly underused character, and my two favorite people to see him with are Susan and Marcus.
I especially love Minbari culture. If you do worldbuilding for Minbari culture, past, present, or future, I will love you forever. I consider "To Dream in the City of Sorrows" canon and firmly believe that when Sinclair went into the past and became Valen, he found Catherine again after she was lost in time. And Sheridan doesn't deserve Delenn, but he knows it and she loves him anyway.
Is there a problem on Babylon 5 that needs to get solved? Another mystery about Jeff/Valen and the Minbari, something having to do with prophecy, time travel and/or messages from Sinclair/Valen in the past? Some Minbari cultural rite or political intrigue, Earthforce political intrigue, the PsiCorps making trouble, something post-series about peace-building, something about Sinclair in the past as Valen! Feel free to change Marcus' fate. Also, what would have happened if Lyta had taken G'Kar up on his offer to have telepathic Narn babies with him?!? And what if Neroon survived somehow and had to learn to be religious caste?
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Star Wars Legends
The original Zahn trilogy and the X-Wing books are my favorite parts of the old Legends universe, but I like everything EXCEPT the Courtship of Princess Leia and the New Jedi Order stuff. (Teneniel Djo is awesome! Han kidnapping Leia is really really REALLY not. And I hated pretty much everything about the Vong.) I really like it when Luke is building a new Jedi community and rebuilding old traditions. YYou can bring in details from the PT and newer canon, if they don't contradict major parts of the Zahn trilogy.
Mara has such a complex past. I think she has trauma from her time with Palpatine that she can't admit even to herself--he was so good at grooming young people, so very manipulative, and even when you know your abuser did evil things to you, it's still hard to internalize. I think she has a unique perspective on the Force, and the Jedi, and galactic politics, that doesn't fit easily or neatly with the others but nevertheless is important to include if they don't want to re-make the mistakes of the past. It's about how do we remember the past while working to create a new future? How do we avoid making old mistakes? How do we heal? How do we build something better?
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. 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.) Is there some Force bullshit at work somewhere?
I think Lando and Mara would do very well together; both okay with shady stuff, but both with deep principles they will not compromise. My primary ship is Luke/Mara but I was livid when they retconned Lando/Mara out with "oh, no, they were never really together, it was just an undercover thing!" Even as a very sheltered middle class white teen, I could tell that was racist bullshit, and also smacked of that patriarchal extreme-monagamist trope where "if you love each other, your previous relationships can't have meant anything!" which always hits harder for women than men. No. People can decide a relationship isn't working and end it and start new ones without devaluing and denying the previous relationship. I would love Lando/Mara. I would love Luke/Mara where either she was never with Lando at all even for undercover purposes, or where Lando/Mara used to be together and broke up amicably. I would love Luke/Lando/Mara. I would be livid at "but Lando/Mara was never a real relationship!"
Plot bunnies: Courtship of Princess Leia never happened, Teneniel got introduced to the wider galaxy (and Mara, and possibly Isolder) some other way.
Standard Star Wars shenanigans where the fate of the galaxy is at stake and Our Heroes save the day. Is there a new superweapon? Is one of the other Hands (or an Inquisitor, or some other evil Force user) making trouble for the underworld and/or Hapes and/or the New Republic? Is the Empire threatening Lando's newest business venture (again)?
Worldbuilding and Organizational Details--rebuilding the Jedi Order, building the New Republic, internal Hapan politics, smuggling, dealing with the all the problems that can't be solved with lightsabers and blasters.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrasment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic, twincest, the "Lando and Mara were never really together, it was all a con/undercover thing!" retcon
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.
If you wanted to vid this one, I would be delighted. Feel free in this case to draw from every Trek media. In particular, for YEARS I have dreamed that someone would do a Spock and/or general Vulcan vid to The Logical Song by Supertramp. And there are so many Vulcan bits in the shows and movies where the visuals are just so evocative, if you get the right song it should be possible to do something really interesting.
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.
Saavik & Spock. Feel free to bring in canon from The Pandora Principle or ignore it as it strikes your fancy. You could do stuff from her time in the Academy, stuff that draws on her half-Romulan nature, them rebuilding their relationship after Genesis (in whatever way you see their relationship), What If She Got Pregnant On Genesis, established relationship future-fic where she's an admiral and he's an ambassador and together They Save The Federation, whatever you want.
Sarek/Amanda. I don't want them to be dysfunctional or horrid people, but also, from what we can see Sarek in particular was not a very good father. I would love something from their courtship or later with them as an established relationship. I'd be interested in a diplomatic mission, or them navigating bi-cultural relationships on Earth and Vulcan.
Also, Uhura and Chapel got some nice moments together, as did Uhura and Sulu and Chekov. For a show that was so hyper-focused on the Big Three, we got some great character moments for the other characters, and I would love to see those fleshed out. I love the idea of them being besties and hanging out and having adventures of their own and keeping the ship together when the Big Three have gotten themselves tied up by the Adversary Of The Week.
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
