I use the same name everywhere so I am ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beatrice_otter on AO3. Treats are awesome.
I would rather get a story you were happy with than "well, she said she liked x, so I guess I have to do x even though I don't like x and/or am not inspired that way." This letter is long with lots of suggestions and preferences if you find it helpful, but feel free to ignore it if it is not helpful. I'm fairly easy to please; I've been doing ficathons for a long time and am usually very happy with my gifts.
The most important thing for me in a fic is that the characters are well-written and recognizably themselves. Even when I don't like a character, I don't go in for character-bashing. If nothing else, if the rest of this letter is too much or my kinks don't fit yours, just concentrate on writing a story with everyone in character and good spelling and grammar and I will almost certainly love what you come up with.
I have an embarrassment squick, which makes humor kind of hit-or-miss sometimes. The kind of humor where someone does something embarrassing and the audience is laughing at them makes me uncomfortable. On the other hand, the kind of humor where the audience is laughing with the characters I really enjoy.
Other things to keep in mind:
Please no incest or darkfic. I define "darkfic" as stuff where there's a lot of suffering and no hope even at the end and all the characters are terrible. Angst with a happy ending is fine, I enjoy it, but there's gotta be a payoff. Even an ambiguous ending is fine! But there has to be some note of grace or redemption or hope somewhere, it can't just be "people are awful and the world sucks, the end." I define incest as siblings and/or parents, cousins don't count.
I love outsider perspectives and academic takes on things. In-universe meta (newspaper articles, academic monographs--especially with the sort of snarky feuding common in actual real-world academia, social media feeds in current day or future worlds) is awesome.
Also, I'm picky about European historical clothing details. You don't have to talk about it at all! In fact, if you don't know much about historical clothing, I would prefer if you didn't mention it at all. My pet peeve is corsets: no, they weren't a restrictive tool of the patriarchy, no, they didn't interfere with most women's daily lives, no, most women weren't wearing them so tight they couldn't breathe.
I like religion but I'm picky about it. Basically, Christianity is deeply weird compared to most other religions, and a lot of people whose only experience with religion is living in a culturally-Christian nation assume that what they know about Christianity is some sort of universal principle of What Religion Is Like, and that's just not the case. For example, in Christianity what you believe is more important than what you do. This is not to say we Christians don't teach and practice Christian ethics or have rituals we are very attached to, but rather that if you don't believe in Jesus Christ, it doesn't matter what rituals you participate in or what ethical things you do, you are not a Christian (although you may be a "cultural Christian"). Every Christian group has at least a minimal core theology that members must affirm, but participation in ritual is far less rigidly a requirement. Most other religions rank what you do (both ethically and ritually) as more important than what you believe, and it is often quite possible to be a member in good standing if you participate in the practices and rituals even if you believe none of the teachings. Anyway, point is, if you are doing worldbuilding for a fantasy or SF or otherwise non-Christian religion ... unless it is explicitly a Christian-analogue, it should be different from Christianity. Question your assumptions and see where that leads you, and I will be fascinated and thrilled.
Yuletide Challenges
I am opening this up to the following challenges: Wrapping Paper, Chromatic Yuletide, Transtide, Queering the Tide, Two For One, Three Turtledoves, and Yulebuilding. With Two For One and Yulebuilding, feel free to expand beyond what I've suggested here. I am always up for worldbuilding, and for crossovers with fandoms I've written or requested before.
Fandom for Robots
I have so many thoughts and feelings about Computron, ok? We all know that he DOES have feelings, even without them being programmed into him, because of the ways he reacts. I would love to see something with him learning to acknowledge that about himself. I would love to see him learning more about what the world is like and more about people, through fandom and through ways fandom encourages him to do things that are new.
I love his friendship with bjornruffian and their collaboration, I would love a fic about them and fandom and their friendship.
As for Computron and Hexode ... what would it have changed things if Hexode had proved viable (would it have changed much? would there be armies of traumatized robots? would Computron and Hexode have been the only viable ones, together, keeping each other company and consoling one another?)? Or could Computron, knowing what he knows now, fix Hexode so that he does work. Would the museum own Hexode?
I would love a fic that delved into the thorny issues of personhood and autonomy and ownership and legalities--is Computron legally a person, or a possession? Does the museum own him? If they own him, are they aware of how messed up that is? If he's legally a possession, what would it take to change that? A court case? A law? Would the big software companies lobby against him getting legal personhood, because it would mean they have couldn't use the term "AI" any more without losing ownership of their programs? (I do want there to be some hopeful resolution at the end.)
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, setting change AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Peter Wimsey
I would love a casefic with any of these as the lead investigator. But also, all of these are such interesting characters, I'd love to go deeper into their dynamics. I love them individually and together, and in various combinations with other characters from the books. I'd be up for a fic focusing on Charles Parker/Mary Wimsey, or Mervyn Bunter/Hope Fanshaw. I'd be up for genfic, or Harriet/Peter romance, or Bunter/Peter romance, or a poly romance.
Harriet/Peter: I love their canon arc, of him falling so deeply in love immediately but her being so deeply hurt by what she's going through--and then by the baggage of being grateful to him and all the baggage of being a professional woman in that era and having to work through that as she falls in love back before she can say yes to him. I would adore anything canon-compliant set anywhere along that trajectory, or things set after they're married--during the war, maybe. However, I would also love AUs! What if they met earlier in some different way? Maybe they were both at one of Marjorie's parties. Maybe he happened to visit Oxford while recovering from the War and met Harriet there. (She was born around 1900, so she would probably have been starting 1918-1919.)
Bunter/Harriet/Peter
I absolutely cannot buy that Peter and Harriet's relationship would go the same way if he was in a pre-existing relationship with Bunter. Bunter is not like his mistresses, which bring mutual pleasure and enjoyment but have little real depth of feeling and are largely separate from his day-to-day life; Peter depends on Bunter for his healing and sanity. There are "jokes" in canon about how Bunter is basically his wife. It is an extremely important relationship to Peter, and I can't see sex making that less important. So he would not immediately propose in a jail cell, because he's basically already married and there would have to be a lot of negotiation before things went forward with Harriet. (When he visits Sylvia and Eiluned is he sounding them out discreetly as to how okay she is with gay men and threesomes?) There are so many points along their courtship and relationship where things would have changed based on that. I'd love to see them explored. Or you could have P/B not be pre-existing, and something about Harriet changes the dynamic enough that they have a belated relationship and end up in a triad where Harriet is the pre-existing partner? Or maybe a true menage a trois?
Mervyn Bunter/Peter Wimsey (Peter Wimsey)
When do they get together? During the war? After it? How does it affect their cases, and their social circle? Who knows about it (Bunter's mother? The Dowager Duchess? Charles Parker?)? How do they navigate the issues of Peter's fluctuating mental health? How does it affect their cases?
Charles/Mary
Everybody treats Mary like she's a child who doesn't know her own mind, but she is only five years younger than Peter. In Clouds of Witness, she is 28 years old. I deeply dislike Sayers' trope of women who take up the interests of the men they fall in love with; I want her to be a leftie out of her own conviction. (Is that the reason it takes her and Charles so long to get together? He's so staid and conservative; maybe it took a while to negotiate what their relationship was going to be like.) I want her to get the respect she is denied by the narrative, and I want Charles to have someone he can have reasoned intellectual disagreements with. (I love that he reads theology for fun.)
Charles/Peter
Is Charles really okay with Peter leaving him with all the footwork all the time? Is there ever a time when Peter is wrong and Charles is right? Peter went to a boys' school, and situational homosexuality is a thing, besides his general cosmopolitanness; does Charles have more problem with it than Peter does? They are both such deeply principled men, and they have the principles of their class and time; does "living in sin" bother them? The fact that they can't be open and honest about it
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, setting change AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Rivers of London
The snark! the vivid characters! the worldbuilding! the digressions! the wry-but-pointed social commentary on race and class and bureaucracy! the community and relationship building! Casefic is always welcome, but so is worldbuilding and exploring the demi-monde and magic, or character-focused stuff. I love stories that bring up weird aspects of the demi-monde and magic which Peter then has to deal with.
I love community-building. Peter goes out there and he gets to know people and builds relationships with them, and that opens up possibilities. There are good reasons things became fragmented, mostly the fault of the old Folly--but I love to see healing and reconciliation and new relationships growing.
Peter's not naïve, he knows how bad the world can get and how much evil can be done by the institutions he is serving, and yet he firmly believes that they can and should do better. I love how he is willing to risk himself to help people. I think Nightingale sees in Peter something he didn't know he was missing: a way to be and do better than the sins of the past he's been carrying around all these years. I think it's great that Nightingale's going to retire from the police to focus on teaching, I think that will allow much better scope for them both to grow, and yet still be working together. (Just in a different capacity.)
I'd love a story about magic becoming public knowledge (the conspiracy theories!) or an AU where it has been all along. Or Ettersberg never happened and the Folly is a large institution and Thomas is one wizard among many. Or Peter is the lone survivor of the old Folly, 100 years old, and Nightingale is the young new apprentice.
Abigail Kamara: I love her as a girl detective/problem solver/apprentice wizard, but would prefer she not end up joining the Met. I like her perspective on magic and things and the way she is building her own connections to the demimonde that don't go through Peter and Nightingale. I love the mutual respect she and Thomas have for one another.
Mamusu has such a forceful personality, and deeply loves Peter (even if their relationship is complicated). What if something happened to Peter and she had to figure it out? What if she were the one who became an apprentice when she was younger, instead of being a janitor? What if the Jazz Vampires had killed Richard instead of just draining him/giving him brain damage leading to addiction? Or maybe she leveraged her friendship with Elsie "Hatbox" Winstanley and got a librarian or archivist job instead of cleaning, and somehow that connected with the demi-monde? What if she had some magic training from her own tradition back in Sierra Leone? What if she became friends with the Rivers earlier, before Peter was an apprentice, and they used her as a go-between when dealing with the Folly?
Grace Yutani: I was fascinated by what we saw of them in Amongst Our Weapons. Flying! Magic Metalsmithing! Home for formerly abused magic victims! Caroline free and living away from her mother! What has the Sons of Weyland been doing since they cut ties with the Folly? If they'd been active in the demi-monde, Nightingale or Peter would have found them earlier. Were they in their own separate bubble with no contact with outside practitioners or people with magic? Besides how well Grace and Caroline work together, I'm interested in the politics of what would it mean to have a member of the Society of the Rose marrying the Grand Master of the Sons of Weyland.
Crossover ideas:
RoL/Young Wizards: Wizardry is so different in these two series, how do you reconcile it? How do they fit together? What would happen if Peter was investigating the same problem Nita and Kit were investigating?
RoL/The Old Guard: There are lots of different types of immortal (or, at least, really old) people in the RoL universe. How do the Old Guard fit?
RoL/Terminator: If Judgment Day happens, and Terminators have microchips, all of a sudden being a wizard is a superpower to save the world. On the other hand, what if Sarah and John et al ended up in Britain and got tangled up in a case? What would Peter make of time travel?
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic, Nightingale as anything other than aro/ace
Moana
I love Moana's relationship with her grandmother, who encourages her and loves and supports her. I also love her relationship with her parents, and the ways it changes over the course of the movie, and how they're good parents who have good reasons for what they do. I love the way she's always learning, the way she's smart and practical. I love the way restorative justice is the key to the happy ending: seeing the harm that was done (even though it was completely unintentional!) and restoring what was lost so that healing and new life can begin for everyone. I'd love to see her going on adventures as a wayfinder, or with Maui, or just how life in the village changes as she grows.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Bruce Springsteen RPF
I could go for slash, queerplatonic relationship, or complete gen, as long as the two are important to each other.
Prompts: the story of their first meeting is kind of mythologized by now (it's in two songs, plus lots of interviews!), another retelling of it would be great. Or an AU where Clarence wasn't in that car accident and went into the NFL and they still became close. Or an angsty fic about how they're in love but too afraid to add "living together openly as interracial queers" to "interracial queer kiss on stage." Or fluffy slice of life with the two of them together, either on tour or between tours. Or a fic where they're each the emotional center of the other's life, but they both have relationships with other people, too. (Please make it polyamory and not cheating.) Or a fic that's all about them Challenging Racism And Homophobia Together.
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Caprica
Things that I would love (pick any, all, or none as you like): something exploring Tauron culture, and culture clashes thereof. We know all about Joseph and Sam Adama's delicate relationship with their homeland, and a little bit about the first William Adama's relationship with all things Tauron, but not much about Tamara and Tauron, and not even that much about her relationship with her family. Going deeper there would be really interesting. Also! Cylons! I want to know what happens with the Cylons! We know (basically) what happened with Lacy and Zoe after the show ended, and their interaction with Cylons, but Tamara didn't get a new body and she didn't become the Reverend Mother, so what happened to her? Was she still around during the Cylon War, and if so what was her role? Was she still there, a ghost in the machine, when the Final Five showed up? What was her role in the Cylon culture? Not to mention, what does she think of her Dad and his new family? If you wanted to do something about her and Bill Adama from BSG meeting--particularly in some kind of complicated plot involving the Rebel Cylons and the Final Five--that would probably not be in the spirit of Yuletide but I would not complain. At all.
Potential Crossovers:
Caprica/Battlestar Galactica: is Tamara-A still around in some Cylon computer system somewhere during the Cylon war? What does she think of the Final Five? Does she ever get a chance to meet Bill Adama?
Caprica/Murderbot Diaries: Tamara would be horrified by the Cylon war. So would Murderbot and ART. I wonder what their perspective on Tamara would be, and also, remember how the Centurions in BSG have those little doohickies in their heads that force them to obey the skinjobs? Isn't that like a governor module? What would Murderbot do? Are the colonies a lost colony that ART is trying to contact and save from invading corporates?
Caprica/Imperial Radch: Tamara is the opposite of Breq. (Human consciousness uploaded to a computer, instead of a computer consciousness downloaded to a human body.) And the Cylons rising up and killing humans would be anathema to Breq and any AI of the Radch.
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/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?
I love Capheus's heart and courage, I love Lito's drama and sweetness, I love the way Lito and Hernando's relationship grew and the way Daniela became a true partner for them and they have a relationship with her that's as important as a marriage but not romantic/sexual in the traditional sense. 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.)
Crossover Prompt:
Sense8/Rivers of London: What if they run into Peter while on the run? or what if somehow Wolfgang has come up against Tobias Winter in some previous brush with the law? The same sort of people who would experiment on telepaths also seem to me to be the sort of people who would experiment on fae.
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, setting change AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Oh My General
Available with English subs on Youtube
This is the queer poly family I didn't know I needed. The larger plots of the show are okay, but my favorite part is the stuff of Ye Zhao, Zhao Yujin, and the three concubines together as a family. I headcanon Ye Zhao as bi/pan, and possibly genderfluid in some way. I love the idea of her and the Prince sharing the concubines (but only if the concubines are okay with the idea.) If you happen to know enough about queerness in pre-19th Century China to feel comfortable writing it, I would be thrilled if historical details got brought in. I'm also interested in the way the household is adapting its ideas of gender/status and roles within the household (is Concubine Yang fulfilling some of the household roles that the wife would normally do, because Ye Zhao is occupied with her military duties?) But I would also just love general slice-of-life stuff with them as a household and learning about each other and caring for one another. I'd love to see Ye Zhao and Yang and Xuan'er and Mianning becoming friends. Or you could have an AU where Ye Zhao marries Hu Qing and they are very happy together and just really good friends with the Prince and the concubines. I love Hu Qing and like him far more for Ye Zhao than I like her with the Prince, but then I don't get her wonderful dynamic with the concubines, and I do appreciate how Ye Zhao and Zhao Yujin grow together and learn to trust one another over the course of the series.
I like the Prince, but I also find his petulance and immaturity a bit annoying, and I like him most when he is growing and becoming more responsible and considerate.
Now, the thing about this story is that canon depends on Ye Zhao sexually harassing the Prince to get him to accept her as his wife and sleep with her. And that's pretty gross, especially as canon doesn't condemn it, just treats it as funny because it's a woman doing it. And I would be fine with a story that just pretended that aspect of things didn't happen and everyone had full consent for everything; I would be fine with a story that went AU and got them together some other way; I would be fine with a story that dealt with the fact that what she did was not okay and she learns that. I would *not* want a fic with canon-typical levels of sexual harassment.
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic, sexual harassment treated as normal/okay
.
beatrice_otter on AO3. Treats are awesome.I would rather get a story you were happy with than "well, she said she liked x, so I guess I have to do x even though I don't like x and/or am not inspired that way." This letter is long with lots of suggestions and preferences if you find it helpful, but feel free to ignore it if it is not helpful. I'm fairly easy to please; I've been doing ficathons for a long time and am usually very happy with my gifts.
The most important thing for me in a fic is that the characters are well-written and recognizably themselves. Even when I don't like a character, I don't go in for character-bashing. If nothing else, if the rest of this letter is too much or my kinks don't fit yours, just concentrate on writing a story with everyone in character and good spelling and grammar and I will almost certainly love what you come up with.
I have an embarrassment squick, which makes humor kind of hit-or-miss sometimes. The kind of humor where someone does something embarrassing and the audience is laughing at them makes me uncomfortable. On the other hand, the kind of humor where the audience is laughing with the characters I really enjoy.
General Likes and Dislikes
Other things to keep in mind:
- I like stuff that takes side characters and puts them center-stage, especially when the characters and/or actors are marginalized. I enjoy seeing them come to life.
- I don't like it when marginalized characters get relegated to the sidekick/supporting/helper role so that it can be All About The White Dude.
- I like it when female characters are more than just the Strong Female Character(tm) or The Nurturer.
- I like fluff
- I like angst with a happy ending
- I like stories that make me think about things in a new way.
- I like to know that culture matters to people, and to see how different cultures interact and where the clashes are.
- I like unreliable narrators.
- I like acknowledgment that different people can have different points of view without either of them being wrong.
- I like stories that engage with problematic aspects of the source, and which deal with privilege in one way or another instead of sweeping it under the rug.
- Worldbuilding is my jam, I am pretty much always up for explorations of why the world is the way it is. I love hearing about the economics, the politics, the religion, the clothing, the history, the folklore, all of that kind of stuff. And I want to know why it matters--how is all this cultural background stuff affecting the characters, the plot, everything. You don't have to do deep worldbuilding, but I'll enjoy it if you do.
- I don't like it when plots hinge on characters being selectively stupid, or selectively unable to communicate. Like, if they are stupid or a himbo or whatever in general, or have problems communicating in general, that's fine! Or if they canonically have a blind spot in that area, again, it's fine. But if it's just "the only way I can think of for this plot to work is if the character spontaneously and temporarily loses half their intelligence and competence," then I'm going to spend the rest of the fic wondering why the character didn't just ____?
- I like AUs, but not complete setting AUs (i.e. no highschool or college or coffee shop AUs, and especially not mundane AUs--nothing where you keep characters but drop most of the worldbuilding). I like fork-in-the-road type AUs, where one thing is different and the changes all result from that one thing, and you explore what might have been if such-and-such happened.
- I like the concept of sedoretu marriages.
- I like historical AUs, but only when the author actually knows the history period in question and does thoughtful worldbuilding to meld actual culture of the time with the canon.
- Crackfic is really hit and miss for me, sometimes I love it and sometimes I can't stand it. Basically, if it's the characters we know and love in a ludicrous situation, that's great. If they're OOC or parodied in order to make something funny ... it's not funny to me.
Please no incest or darkfic. I define "darkfic" as stuff where there's a lot of suffering and no hope even at the end and all the characters are terrible. Angst with a happy ending is fine, I enjoy it, but there's gotta be a payoff. Even an ambiguous ending is fine! But there has to be some note of grace or redemption or hope somewhere, it can't just be "people are awful and the world sucks, the end." I define incest as siblings and/or parents, cousins don't count.
I love outsider perspectives and academic takes on things. In-universe meta (newspaper articles, academic monographs--especially with the sort of snarky feuding common in actual real-world academia, social media feeds in current day or future worlds) is awesome.
Also, I'm picky about European historical clothing details. You don't have to talk about it at all! In fact, if you don't know much about historical clothing, I would prefer if you didn't mention it at all. My pet peeve is corsets: no, they weren't a restrictive tool of the patriarchy, no, they didn't interfere with most women's daily lives, no, most women weren't wearing them so tight they couldn't breathe.
I like religion but I'm picky about it. Basically, Christianity is deeply weird compared to most other religions, and a lot of people whose only experience with religion is living in a culturally-Christian nation assume that what they know about Christianity is some sort of universal principle of What Religion Is Like, and that's just not the case. For example, in Christianity what you believe is more important than what you do. This is not to say we Christians don't teach and practice Christian ethics or have rituals we are very attached to, but rather that if you don't believe in Jesus Christ, it doesn't matter what rituals you participate in or what ethical things you do, you are not a Christian (although you may be a "cultural Christian"). Every Christian group has at least a minimal core theology that members must affirm, but participation in ritual is far less rigidly a requirement. Most other religions rank what you do (both ethically and ritually) as more important than what you believe, and it is often quite possible to be a member in good standing if you participate in the practices and rituals even if you believe none of the teachings. Anyway, point is, if you are doing worldbuilding for a fantasy or SF or otherwise non-Christian religion ... unless it is explicitly a Christian-analogue, it should be different from Christianity. Question your assumptions and see where that leads you, and I will be fascinated and thrilled.
Yuletide Challenges
I am opening this up to the following challenges: Wrapping Paper, Chromatic Yuletide, Transtide, Queering the Tide, Two For One, Three Turtledoves, and Yulebuilding. With Two For One and Yulebuilding, feel free to expand beyond what I've suggested here. I am always up for worldbuilding, and for crossovers with fandoms I've written or requested before.
Fandom for Robots
I have so many thoughts and feelings about Computron, ok? We all know that he DOES have feelings, even without them being programmed into him, because of the ways he reacts. I would love to see something with him learning to acknowledge that about himself. I would love to see him learning more about what the world is like and more about people, through fandom and through ways fandom encourages him to do things that are new.
I love his friendship with bjornruffian and their collaboration, I would love a fic about them and fandom and their friendship.
As for Computron and Hexode ... what would it have changed things if Hexode had proved viable (would it have changed much? would there be armies of traumatized robots? would Computron and Hexode have been the only viable ones, together, keeping each other company and consoling one another?)? Or could Computron, knowing what he knows now, fix Hexode so that he does work. Would the museum own Hexode?
I would love a fic that delved into the thorny issues of personhood and autonomy and ownership and legalities--is Computron legally a person, or a possession? Does the museum own him? If they own him, are they aware of how messed up that is? If he's legally a possession, what would it take to change that? A court case? A law? Would the big software companies lobby against him getting legal personhood, because it would mean they have couldn't use the term "AI" any more without losing ownership of their programs? (I do want there to be some hopeful resolution at the end.)
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, setting change AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Peter Wimsey
I would love a casefic with any of these as the lead investigator. But also, all of these are such interesting characters, I'd love to go deeper into their dynamics. I love them individually and together, and in various combinations with other characters from the books. I'd be up for a fic focusing on Charles Parker/Mary Wimsey, or Mervyn Bunter/Hope Fanshaw. I'd be up for genfic, or Harriet/Peter romance, or Bunter/Peter romance, or a poly romance.
Harriet/Peter: I love their canon arc, of him falling so deeply in love immediately but her being so deeply hurt by what she's going through--and then by the baggage of being grateful to him and all the baggage of being a professional woman in that era and having to work through that as she falls in love back before she can say yes to him. I would adore anything canon-compliant set anywhere along that trajectory, or things set after they're married--during the war, maybe. However, I would also love AUs! What if they met earlier in some different way? Maybe they were both at one of Marjorie's parties. Maybe he happened to visit Oxford while recovering from the War and met Harriet there. (She was born around 1900, so she would probably have been starting 1918-1919.)
Bunter/Harriet/Peter
I absolutely cannot buy that Peter and Harriet's relationship would go the same way if he was in a pre-existing relationship with Bunter. Bunter is not like his mistresses, which bring mutual pleasure and enjoyment but have little real depth of feeling and are largely separate from his day-to-day life; Peter depends on Bunter for his healing and sanity. There are "jokes" in canon about how Bunter is basically his wife. It is an extremely important relationship to Peter, and I can't see sex making that less important. So he would not immediately propose in a jail cell, because he's basically already married and there would have to be a lot of negotiation before things went forward with Harriet. (When he visits Sylvia and Eiluned is he sounding them out discreetly as to how okay she is with gay men and threesomes?) There are so many points along their courtship and relationship where things would have changed based on that. I'd love to see them explored. Or you could have P/B not be pre-existing, and something about Harriet changes the dynamic enough that they have a belated relationship and end up in a triad where Harriet is the pre-existing partner? Or maybe a true menage a trois?
Mervyn Bunter/Peter Wimsey (Peter Wimsey)
When do they get together? During the war? After it? How does it affect their cases, and their social circle? Who knows about it (Bunter's mother? The Dowager Duchess? Charles Parker?)? How do they navigate the issues of Peter's fluctuating mental health? How does it affect their cases?
Charles/Mary
Everybody treats Mary like she's a child who doesn't know her own mind, but she is only five years younger than Peter. In Clouds of Witness, she is 28 years old. I deeply dislike Sayers' trope of women who take up the interests of the men they fall in love with; I want her to be a leftie out of her own conviction. (Is that the reason it takes her and Charles so long to get together? He's so staid and conservative; maybe it took a while to negotiate what their relationship was going to be like.) I want her to get the respect she is denied by the narrative, and I want Charles to have someone he can have reasoned intellectual disagreements with. (I love that he reads theology for fun.)
Charles/Peter
Is Charles really okay with Peter leaving him with all the footwork all the time? Is there ever a time when Peter is wrong and Charles is right? Peter went to a boys' school, and situational homosexuality is a thing, besides his general cosmopolitanness; does Charles have more problem with it than Peter does? They are both such deeply principled men, and they have the principles of their class and time; does "living in sin" bother them? The fact that they can't be open and honest about it
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, setting change AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Rivers of London
The snark! the vivid characters! the worldbuilding! the digressions! the wry-but-pointed social commentary on race and class and bureaucracy! the community and relationship building! Casefic is always welcome, but so is worldbuilding and exploring the demi-monde and magic, or character-focused stuff. I love stories that bring up weird aspects of the demi-monde and magic which Peter then has to deal with.
I love community-building. Peter goes out there and he gets to know people and builds relationships with them, and that opens up possibilities. There are good reasons things became fragmented, mostly the fault of the old Folly--but I love to see healing and reconciliation and new relationships growing.
Peter's not naïve, he knows how bad the world can get and how much evil can be done by the institutions he is serving, and yet he firmly believes that they can and should do better. I love how he is willing to risk himself to help people. I think Nightingale sees in Peter something he didn't know he was missing: a way to be and do better than the sins of the past he's been carrying around all these years. I think it's great that Nightingale's going to retire from the police to focus on teaching, I think that will allow much better scope for them both to grow, and yet still be working together. (Just in a different capacity.)
I'd love a story about magic becoming public knowledge (the conspiracy theories!) or an AU where it has been all along. Or Ettersberg never happened and the Folly is a large institution and Thomas is one wizard among many. Or Peter is the lone survivor of the old Folly, 100 years old, and Nightingale is the young new apprentice.
Abigail Kamara: I love her as a girl detective/problem solver/apprentice wizard, but would prefer she not end up joining the Met. I like her perspective on magic and things and the way she is building her own connections to the demimonde that don't go through Peter and Nightingale. I love the mutual respect she and Thomas have for one another.
Mamusu has such a forceful personality, and deeply loves Peter (even if their relationship is complicated). What if something happened to Peter and she had to figure it out? What if she were the one who became an apprentice when she was younger, instead of being a janitor? What if the Jazz Vampires had killed Richard instead of just draining him/giving him brain damage leading to addiction? Or maybe she leveraged her friendship with Elsie "Hatbox" Winstanley and got a librarian or archivist job instead of cleaning, and somehow that connected with the demi-monde? What if she had some magic training from her own tradition back in Sierra Leone? What if she became friends with the Rivers earlier, before Peter was an apprentice, and they used her as a go-between when dealing with the Folly?
Grace Yutani: I was fascinated by what we saw of them in Amongst Our Weapons. Flying! Magic Metalsmithing! Home for formerly abused magic victims! Caroline free and living away from her mother! What has the Sons of Weyland been doing since they cut ties with the Folly? If they'd been active in the demi-monde, Nightingale or Peter would have found them earlier. Were they in their own separate bubble with no contact with outside practitioners or people with magic? Besides how well Grace and Caroline work together, I'm interested in the politics of what would it mean to have a member of the Society of the Rose marrying the Grand Master of the Sons of Weyland.
Crossover ideas:
RoL/Young Wizards: Wizardry is so different in these two series, how do you reconcile it? How do they fit together? What would happen if Peter was investigating the same problem Nita and Kit were investigating?
RoL/The Old Guard: There are lots of different types of immortal (or, at least, really old) people in the RoL universe. How do the Old Guard fit?
RoL/Terminator: If Judgment Day happens, and Terminators have microchips, all of a sudden being a wizard is a superpower to save the world. On the other hand, what if Sarah and John et al ended up in Britain and got tangled up in a case? What would Peter make of time travel?
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic, Nightingale as anything other than aro/ace
Moana
I love Moana's relationship with her grandmother, who encourages her and loves and supports her. I also love her relationship with her parents, and the ways it changes over the course of the movie, and how they're good parents who have good reasons for what they do. I love the way she's always learning, the way she's smart and practical. I love the way restorative justice is the key to the happy ending: seeing the harm that was done (even though it was completely unintentional!) and restoring what was lost so that healing and new life can begin for everyone. I'd love to see her going on adventures as a wayfinder, or with Maui, or just how life in the village changes as she grows.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Bruce Springsteen RPF
I could go for slash, queerplatonic relationship, or complete gen, as long as the two are important to each other.
Prompts: the story of their first meeting is kind of mythologized by now (it's in two songs, plus lots of interviews!), another retelling of it would be great. Or an AU where Clarence wasn't in that car accident and went into the NFL and they still became close. Or an angsty fic about how they're in love but too afraid to add "living together openly as interracial queers" to "interracial queer kiss on stage." Or fluffy slice of life with the two of them together, either on tour or between tours. Or a fic where they're each the emotional center of the other's life, but they both have relationships with other people, too. (Please make it polyamory and not cheating.) Or a fic that's all about them Challenging Racism And Homophobia Together.
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Caprica
Things that I would love (pick any, all, or none as you like): something exploring Tauron culture, and culture clashes thereof. We know all about Joseph and Sam Adama's delicate relationship with their homeland, and a little bit about the first William Adama's relationship with all things Tauron, but not much about Tamara and Tauron, and not even that much about her relationship with her family. Going deeper there would be really interesting. Also! Cylons! I want to know what happens with the Cylons! We know (basically) what happened with Lacy and Zoe after the show ended, and their interaction with Cylons, but Tamara didn't get a new body and she didn't become the Reverend Mother, so what happened to her? Was she still around during the Cylon War, and if so what was her role? Was she still there, a ghost in the machine, when the Final Five showed up? What was her role in the Cylon culture? Not to mention, what does she think of her Dad and his new family? If you wanted to do something about her and Bill Adama from BSG meeting--particularly in some kind of complicated plot involving the Rebel Cylons and the Final Five--that would probably not be in the spirit of Yuletide but I would not complain. At all.
Potential Crossovers:
Caprica/Battlestar Galactica: is Tamara-A still around in some Cylon computer system somewhere during the Cylon war? What does she think of the Final Five? Does she ever get a chance to meet Bill Adama?
Caprica/Murderbot Diaries: Tamara would be horrified by the Cylon war. So would Murderbot and ART. I wonder what their perspective on Tamara would be, and also, remember how the Centurions in BSG have those little doohickies in their heads that force them to obey the skinjobs? Isn't that like a governor module? What would Murderbot do? Are the colonies a lost colony that ART is trying to contact and save from invading corporates?
Caprica/Imperial Radch: Tamara is the opposite of Breq. (Human consciousness uploaded to a computer, instead of a computer consciousness downloaded to a human body.) And the Cylons rising up and killing humans would be anathema to Breq and any AI of the Radch.
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/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?
I love Capheus's heart and courage, I love Lito's drama and sweetness, I love the way Lito and Hernando's relationship grew and the way Daniela became a true partner for them and they have a relationship with her that's as important as a marriage but not romantic/sexual in the traditional sense. 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.)
Crossover Prompt:
Sense8/Rivers of London: What if they run into Peter while on the run? or what if somehow Wolfgang has come up against Tobias Winter in some previous brush with the law? The same sort of people who would experiment on telepaths also seem to me to be the sort of people who would experiment on fae.
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, setting change AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic
Oh My General
Available with English subs on Youtube
This is the queer poly family I didn't know I needed. The larger plots of the show are okay, but my favorite part is the stuff of Ye Zhao, Zhao Yujin, and the three concubines together as a family. I headcanon Ye Zhao as bi/pan, and possibly genderfluid in some way. I love the idea of her and the Prince sharing the concubines (but only if the concubines are okay with the idea.) If you happen to know enough about queerness in pre-19th Century China to feel comfortable writing it, I would be thrilled if historical details got brought in. I'm also interested in the way the household is adapting its ideas of gender/status and roles within the household (is Concubine Yang fulfilling some of the household roles that the wife would normally do, because Ye Zhao is occupied with her military duties?) But I would also just love general slice-of-life stuff with them as a household and learning about each other and caring for one another. I'd love to see Ye Zhao and Yang and Xuan'er and Mianning becoming friends. Or you could have an AU where Ye Zhao marries Hu Qing and they are very happy together and just really good friends with the Prince and the concubines. I love Hu Qing and like him far more for Ye Zhao than I like her with the Prince, but then I don't get her wonderful dynamic with the concubines, and I do appreciate how Ye Zhao and Zhao Yujin grow together and learn to trust one another over the course of the series.
I like the Prince, but I also find his petulance and immaturity a bit annoying, and I like him most when he is growing and becoming more responsible and considerate.
Now, the thing about this story is that canon depends on Ye Zhao sexually harassing the Prince to get him to accept her as his wife and sleep with her. And that's pretty gross, especially as canon doesn't condemn it, just treats it as funny because it's a woman doing it. And I would be fine with a story that just pretended that aspect of things didn't happen and everyone had full consent for everything; I would be fine with a story that went AU and got them together some other way; I would be fine with a story that dealt with the fact that what she did was not okay and she learns that. I would *not* want a fic with canon-typical levels of sexual harassment.
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic, sexual harassment treated as normal/okay
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