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.
General Likes and Dislikes
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.
Notorious (1946)
I have a couple ideas for fic: one, surely there was more to investigating Sebastian and his crowd than just setting up Alicia and asking her what she saw. The other thing is, so Alicia gets rescued and she and Devlin ride off into the sunset ... Dev is still a US agent. Do they get another case? (Hopefully one where Alicia doesn't have to be a honeypot.) Are there other Nazis out there doing nefarious things? Maybe Devlin gets into trouble and Alicia is the one who has to rescue him. Or maybe Sebastian runs and they have to track him down.
I find their relationship compelling but a bit unhealthy; they both have issues, and she's a borderline alcoholic, and he's prone to verbal cruelty when he gets jealous. I'm fine with either canon-typical problems between them or them working through things as they work through whatever case they have.
Assassination attempts/death threats, Blackmail, Conspiracy thrillers, Decoding maps and clues, Hostage situations, Locked room mysteries/whodunnits, Missing persons, Missions, Organised crime, Presumed dead, Sabotage, Smuggling
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers/mundane AUs, darkfic
Enola Holmes Movies
I love Edith; she's such a fascinating character, and I love all the things she's got going: her shop, the classes she teaches, her work with Eudoria and the feminist revolutionaries. I'd love to see some of their adventures. And also, I loved that she didn't take any shit from Sherlock, and when she called him on the ways his privilege was blinding him, he listened and respected her. I'd love to see them work a case together or deal with some issue from the feminist group spiraling out of control, or just the two of them both being mentors for Enola in different ways.
Then there's all the ... whatever Edith and Eudoria are up to. What things do they agree on? What things do they disagree on? What's the rest of their group like? What are their goals?
Assassination attempts/death threats, Blackmail, Bomb threats, Catching a cat burglar, Conspiracy thrillers, Criminals plotting, Cults and rituals, Decoding maps and clues, Family issues, such as inheritance, will drama, Forgeries, Heists, Hostage situations, Identity theft/impersonation, Locked room mysteries/whodunnits, Missing persons, Missions, including rescue missions, Murder mysteries, Organised crime, Police procedural / government corruption, Poison, Presumed dead, Prison escape, Riddles and rhyming clues, Sabotage, Smuggling, Stalkers, Treasure hunts
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers/mundane AUs, darkfic
Elementary (TV)
I love all the characters in Elementary. I love that they are all so different, but there is deep well of compassion and intelligence in each of them. I love the way Sherlock is a kind and caring man, and though he's difficult he's not an asshole--and he's not allowed to get away with bad behavior just because he's a genius. I would love to see any sort of canon-typical case worked by any combination of these people.
Assassination attempts/death threats, Blackmail, Bomb threats, Catching a cat burglar, Conspiracy thrillers, Criminals plotting criminal activity, Decoding maps and clues, Family issues, such as inheritance, will drama, Forgeries, Identity theft/impersonation, Locked room mysteries/whodunnits, Missing persons, Murder mysteries, Organised crime, Police procedural / government corruption, Poison, Presumed dead, Prison escape, Riddles and rhyming clues, Serial killers, Smuggling, Stalkers, Treasure hunts
Treats Welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers/mundane AUs, darkfic
Terminator: tSCC
I love the timey-wimey goodness of this show, and the brain-breaking nature of it. I love the complexity of the characters, and the meditations on good and evil and fate and free will. I love the way the show weaves the present and future together. I love the way people are from different timelines but may not realize that. I love how people can have their own agendas. I love Sarah trying to be a good mom while knowing she has to raise him as a child soldier. I love Derek's protectiveness of his family and loved ones. I love how screwed up and traumatized they all are, and how they still keep trying to change things. I have a lot of sympathy for Jesse, even though she did something really terrible.
Prompts: Investigation about a suspected Skynet target. What happened after the series end, both for John in the future and Sarah and Ellison et al in the past? What is Catherine Weaver trying to do, and in what ways does Ellison both help and foil her? Do she and John Connor ever come back, and if they don't, what changes? What if you go AU from an earlier point in the series so they don't travel to the future? What if Jesse had a different plan, or changed her plan? What is she up to, because I assume she does something with herself after fleeing. What's Savannah's perception of the whole thing, and if "Catherine" had stayed (or came back) what would that relationship have been as she grew? (What did Catherine think of Savannah?) Did Ellison take over ZeiraCorp after Weaver jumped in time? Regardless, I'd love to see something of him using his FBI training and/or contacts in the fight against Skynet. Maybe they go find Danny Dyson! What happened to him, is he OK? Did he get recruited by somebody on either side? Does Terissa have some other part to play in preventing the apocalypse? Or maybe an AU where things go differently with Jesse and Riley. And I'd love either John Connor in the future with a Derek and Kyle who don't know him, or Kyle from another timeline comes back.
Go nuts. Write what happens after the last episode! Write about another time jump! Write a missing episode! Write an AU jumping off from some point in canon! Write about what's going on in the future/some characters' pasts! Write about anything that takes advantage of the central premise of canon!
Treats Welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers/mundane AUs, darkfic
Goblin Emperor
I would be equally happy with any of the Thara pairings; I actually think it's really interesting if Thara and Iäna are just as close as in canon but it's not about sex or romance.
I think it's really fascinating how Thara's powers work and don't work, and how little that has to do with his ability to solve most of the cases he's Witnessing for. I'd love to see him instructing Tomasaran on a case, or him investigating something in Amalo with Iäna or Azanharad. I'd love it if he and Hanu came back to Amalo for a visit and got embroiled in another case, or a follow up to the case in Tomb of Dragons. I'd love to see them solve problems in various towns for the Archprelate, becoming his big hitting trouble-shooters. I'd love to see Thara go up against yet another mythical/mystical creature or force.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers/mundane AUs, darkfic
Peter Wimsey
I would love a casefic with any of these as the lead investigator. I love them individually and together, and in various combinations with other characters from the books. Types of cases I think would work well with this canon: Assassination attempts/death threats, Blackmail, Bomb threats, Catching a cat burglar, Decoding maps and clues, Family issues, such as inheritance, will drama, Forgeries, Identity theft/impersonation, Locked room mysteries/whodunnits, Murder mysteries, Organised crime, Police procedural / government corruption, Poison, Presumed dead, Prison escape, Riddles and rhyming clues, Smuggling, Treasure hunts
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.
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?
Bunter: what does Bunter think about his role in the investigations? About being sent out to romance maids and housekeepers and cooks? Are there times when he's right and Peter is wrong, and how does he handle it?
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers/mundane AUs, darkfic
Crossovers
What does the BAU think of the supervillains of Gotham? What do they think of the vigilantes? (Can they accurately figure out what's weird about Bruce Wayne or the Batfam members of your choice?) Does their investigation help or hinder a parallel Batfam investigation?
Does the BAU know about Torchwood and/or aliens, and if not, what do they think about Harkness and company if they show up in the US to handle some sort of alien incursion or mystery?
What does Benoit Blanc think about Bruce Wayne? Is he trying to help someone who got screwed over by another member of Gotham's elite, and crosses paths with Bruce/Batman as Bruce also tries to make things right?
What adventures does Benoit get up to with the Doctor and Bill? Is solving crime on an alien world easier or harder? Does the Doctor get tied up into a mystery is investigating? Does Bill have a problem that she calls Benoit to solve?
Star Trek crossovers: I love canon-typical adventures and cases and puzzles. There's so much breadth of possible stories, from real stuff to stuff on the Holodeck, from small-scale problems to things that affect the whole galaxy.
Data and Spock were interesting enough, I'd like to see Data and Tuvok working together on some project. You could do something before Voyager, with Data and Tuvok working together on a mystery or solving a problem; you could do something with them both having different ends of a problem while Voyager is in the Delta Quadrant but after contact is made with Starfleet. Or you could do something after they come back. I haven't watched any of the new Star Trek series, so feel free to either use them or ignore them as you see fit.
With Hoshi and Nyota, surely they'd be investigating some sort of linguistic puzzle? Possibly Hoshi was Nyota's mentor at the Academy, or something? Or possibly there's a time travel thing and they have to solve the mystery to get whichever one is displaced in time back to her own ship! Again, canon-typical adventures would be lovely.
I absolutely adore Guinan, especially when she's written as a complex woman with trauma of her own, and not just as the Wise Mystic Advisor. I would love to see her and Jadzia working together. Maybe they've met before, in their long lives, and something from the past starts causing problems again and they have to fix it? Maybe there's some problem on DS9 or on Bajor that needs an El-Aurian for some reason--Bajor was a great center of learning and culture before the Cardassian occupation, after all, I bet there were El-Aurians there at least occasionally. Maybe Guinan had been there before the occupation, and had a crucial piece of knowledge that had been forgotten.
Jadzia/Nyota: time travel! again! Lots of room for shenanigans and problem solving, whether or not Nyota learns that time travel is involved. (Maybe she and Jadzia have some sort of side quest going on during Trials and Tribble-ations.)
I think Murderbot and Data would each find the other deeply troublesome, and I think Murderbot's perspective on Enterprise and her crew--and canon-typical shenanigans--would be really interesting.
Treats Welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers/mundane 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.)
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.
Tobias Winter and Vanessa Sommer: I love that story, and how different magic bureaucracy in Germany is from magic bureaucracy (or lack thereof) in the UK. I would love to see Peter working his community-building skills in a case that takes him to Germany (or Tobias and/or Vanessa to London).
Blackmail, Bomb threats, Catching a cat burglar, Criminals plotting criminal activity, rituals, Cursed objects, Decoding maps and clues, Forgeries, Ghost stories, haunted locations, cosmic horror, monsters, Heists, Hostage situations, Identity theft/impersonation, Locked room mysteries/whodunnits, Missing persons, Missions, including rescue missions, Murder mysteries, Organised crime, Paranormal events, Police procedural / government corruption, Prison escape, Riddles and rhyming clues, Smuggling
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers/mundane AUs, darkfic
DS9
I love alien culture worldbuilding, boldly going, exploring, wacky science hijinks, time travel, AU shenanigans. I love the hope that we can become better than we are. I love cross-cultural romance (especially when it deals realistically with having to figure out compromises--love is not all you need, you also need a lot of hard work and communication).
As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious, go for it. If you want to lean into wacky tropes, that's great too. As long as everyone is in character, feel free to go as cracktastic as you want. 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'd love something that dove into Bajoran religion, and the more ALIEN it is the better. We've MET the prophet 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.
I'd love to have an investigation into something the Cardassians did while they controlled Bajor, or a scavenger hunt given by the Prophets, or an alien-of-the-week coming through the wormhole, or any canon-typical adventure.
Sisko's position as Emmisary is fascinating, and how it shaped his relationship with Kira, and how he came to be more comfortable with it as the show went on. What was that like for Bajorans? He's an outsider! He doesn't believe in the Prophets! Especially after years of occupation and the Cardassians stealing the Orbs to experiment on, there's got to be more complexity to it than we saw on the show. What was it like for the Bajorans who served on DS9, for whom he was both commanding officer and religious figure. The Federation/Starfleet perspective on that had to be interesting.
I haven't read the novels, but I'm interested in the idea that after the show ended Kira eventually became a Vedek and later Kai.
I love Dax's relationship with Sisko, that lasted three hosts. What about when Sisko and Jadzia were still getting to know each other? They went from one power dynamic (Ambassador with lots of political power mentors callow youth) to a very different one (Sisko is all grown up, and Dax's superior officer, and with more life experience than Dax's current host). Negotiating that change must have been interesting, particularly if you throw in marriage to one of the hosts.
I love to hate Dukat. You can use him as a villain, but don't ever forget that he's a manipulative weasel who most often actively chooses to do the worst thing possible. Even if he's doing something good in the moment, the moment is temporary.
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, setting change AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic, Dukat as a good guy
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.
Notorious (1946)
I have a couple ideas for fic: one, surely there was more to investigating Sebastian and his crowd than just setting up Alicia and asking her what she saw. The other thing is, so Alicia gets rescued and she and Devlin ride off into the sunset ... Dev is still a US agent. Do they get another case? (Hopefully one where Alicia doesn't have to be a honeypot.) Are there other Nazis out there doing nefarious things? Maybe Devlin gets into trouble and Alicia is the one who has to rescue him. Or maybe Sebastian runs and they have to track him down.
I find their relationship compelling but a bit unhealthy; they both have issues, and she's a borderline alcoholic, and he's prone to verbal cruelty when he gets jealous. I'm fine with either canon-typical problems between them or them working through things as they work through whatever case they have.
Assassination attempts/death threats, Blackmail, Conspiracy thrillers, Decoding maps and clues, Hostage situations, Locked room mysteries/whodunnits, Missing persons, Missions, Organised crime, Presumed dead, Sabotage, Smuggling
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers/mundane AUs, darkfic
Enola Holmes Movies
I love Edith; she's such a fascinating character, and I love all the things she's got going: her shop, the classes she teaches, her work with Eudoria and the feminist revolutionaries. I'd love to see some of their adventures. And also, I loved that she didn't take any shit from Sherlock, and when she called him on the ways his privilege was blinding him, he listened and respected her. I'd love to see them work a case together or deal with some issue from the feminist group spiraling out of control, or just the two of them both being mentors for Enola in different ways.
Then there's all the ... whatever Edith and Eudoria are up to. What things do they agree on? What things do they disagree on? What's the rest of their group like? What are their goals?
Assassination attempts/death threats, Blackmail, Bomb threats, Catching a cat burglar, Conspiracy thrillers, Criminals plotting, Cults and rituals, Decoding maps and clues, Family issues, such as inheritance, will drama, Forgeries, Heists, Hostage situations, Identity theft/impersonation, Locked room mysteries/whodunnits, Missing persons, Missions, including rescue missions, Murder mysteries, Organised crime, Police procedural / government corruption, Poison, Presumed dead, Prison escape, Riddles and rhyming clues, Sabotage, Smuggling, Stalkers, Treasure hunts
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers/mundane AUs, darkfic
Elementary (TV)
I love all the characters in Elementary. I love that they are all so different, but there is deep well of compassion and intelligence in each of them. I love the way Sherlock is a kind and caring man, and though he's difficult he's not an asshole--and he's not allowed to get away with bad behavior just because he's a genius. I would love to see any sort of canon-typical case worked by any combination of these people.
Assassination attempts/death threats, Blackmail, Bomb threats, Catching a cat burglar, Conspiracy thrillers, Criminals plotting criminal activity, Decoding maps and clues, Family issues, such as inheritance, will drama, Forgeries, Identity theft/impersonation, Locked room mysteries/whodunnits, Missing persons, Murder mysteries, Organised crime, Police procedural / government corruption, Poison, Presumed dead, Prison escape, Riddles and rhyming clues, Serial killers, Smuggling, Stalkers, Treasure hunts
Treats Welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers/mundane AUs, darkfic
Terminator: tSCC
I love the timey-wimey goodness of this show, and the brain-breaking nature of it. I love the complexity of the characters, and the meditations on good and evil and fate and free will. I love the way the show weaves the present and future together. I love the way people are from different timelines but may not realize that. I love how people can have their own agendas. I love Sarah trying to be a good mom while knowing she has to raise him as a child soldier. I love Derek's protectiveness of his family and loved ones. I love how screwed up and traumatized they all are, and how they still keep trying to change things. I have a lot of sympathy for Jesse, even though she did something really terrible.
Prompts: Investigation about a suspected Skynet target. What happened after the series end, both for John in the future and Sarah and Ellison et al in the past? What is Catherine Weaver trying to do, and in what ways does Ellison both help and foil her? Do she and John Connor ever come back, and if they don't, what changes? What if you go AU from an earlier point in the series so they don't travel to the future? What if Jesse had a different plan, or changed her plan? What is she up to, because I assume she does something with herself after fleeing. What's Savannah's perception of the whole thing, and if "Catherine" had stayed (or came back) what would that relationship have been as she grew? (What did Catherine think of Savannah?) Did Ellison take over ZeiraCorp after Weaver jumped in time? Regardless, I'd love to see something of him using his FBI training and/or contacts in the fight against Skynet. Maybe they go find Danny Dyson! What happened to him, is he OK? Did he get recruited by somebody on either side? Does Terissa have some other part to play in preventing the apocalypse? Or maybe an AU where things go differently with Jesse and Riley. And I'd love either John Connor in the future with a Derek and Kyle who don't know him, or Kyle from another timeline comes back.
Go nuts. Write what happens after the last episode! Write about another time jump! Write a missing episode! Write an AU jumping off from some point in canon! Write about what's going on in the future/some characters' pasts! Write about anything that takes advantage of the central premise of canon!
Treats Welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers/mundane AUs, darkfic
Goblin Emperor
I would be equally happy with any of the Thara pairings; I actually think it's really interesting if Thara and Iäna are just as close as in canon but it's not about sex or romance.
I think it's really fascinating how Thara's powers work and don't work, and how little that has to do with his ability to solve most of the cases he's Witnessing for. I'd love to see him instructing Tomasaran on a case, or him investigating something in Amalo with Iäna or Azanharad. I'd love it if he and Hanu came back to Amalo for a visit and got embroiled in another case, or a follow up to the case in Tomb of Dragons. I'd love to see them solve problems in various towns for the Archprelate, becoming his big hitting trouble-shooters. I'd love to see Thara go up against yet another mythical/mystical creature or force.
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers/mundane AUs, darkfic
Peter Wimsey
I would love a casefic with any of these as the lead investigator. I love them individually and together, and in various combinations with other characters from the books. Types of cases I think would work well with this canon: Assassination attempts/death threats, Blackmail, Bomb threats, Catching a cat burglar, Decoding maps and clues, Family issues, such as inheritance, will drama, Forgeries, Identity theft/impersonation, Locked room mysteries/whodunnits, Murder mysteries, Organised crime, Police procedural / government corruption, Poison, Presumed dead, Prison escape, Riddles and rhyming clues, Smuggling, Treasure hunts
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.
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?
Bunter: what does Bunter think about his role in the investigations? About being sent out to romance maids and housekeepers and cooks? Are there times when he's right and Peter is wrong, and how does he handle it?
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers/mundane AUs, darkfic
Crossovers
What does the BAU think of the supervillains of Gotham? What do they think of the vigilantes? (Can they accurately figure out what's weird about Bruce Wayne or the Batfam members of your choice?) Does their investigation help or hinder a parallel Batfam investigation?
Does the BAU know about Torchwood and/or aliens, and if not, what do they think about Harkness and company if they show up in the US to handle some sort of alien incursion or mystery?
What does Benoit Blanc think about Bruce Wayne? Is he trying to help someone who got screwed over by another member of Gotham's elite, and crosses paths with Bruce/Batman as Bruce also tries to make things right?
What adventures does Benoit get up to with the Doctor and Bill? Is solving crime on an alien world easier or harder? Does the Doctor get tied up into a mystery is investigating? Does Bill have a problem that she calls Benoit to solve?
Star Trek crossovers: I love canon-typical adventures and cases and puzzles. There's so much breadth of possible stories, from real stuff to stuff on the Holodeck, from small-scale problems to things that affect the whole galaxy.
Data and Spock were interesting enough, I'd like to see Data and Tuvok working together on some project. You could do something before Voyager, with Data and Tuvok working together on a mystery or solving a problem; you could do something with them both having different ends of a problem while Voyager is in the Delta Quadrant but after contact is made with Starfleet. Or you could do something after they come back. I haven't watched any of the new Star Trek series, so feel free to either use them or ignore them as you see fit.
With Hoshi and Nyota, surely they'd be investigating some sort of linguistic puzzle? Possibly Hoshi was Nyota's mentor at the Academy, or something? Or possibly there's a time travel thing and they have to solve the mystery to get whichever one is displaced in time back to her own ship! Again, canon-typical adventures would be lovely.
I absolutely adore Guinan, especially when she's written as a complex woman with trauma of her own, and not just as the Wise Mystic Advisor. I would love to see her and Jadzia working together. Maybe they've met before, in their long lives, and something from the past starts causing problems again and they have to fix it? Maybe there's some problem on DS9 or on Bajor that needs an El-Aurian for some reason--Bajor was a great center of learning and culture before the Cardassian occupation, after all, I bet there were El-Aurians there at least occasionally. Maybe Guinan had been there before the occupation, and had a crucial piece of knowledge that had been forgotten.
Jadzia/Nyota: time travel! again! Lots of room for shenanigans and problem solving, whether or not Nyota learns that time travel is involved. (Maybe she and Jadzia have some sort of side quest going on during Trials and Tribble-ations.)
I think Murderbot and Data would each find the other deeply troublesome, and I think Murderbot's perspective on Enterprise and her crew--and canon-typical shenanigans--would be really interesting.
Treats Welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers/mundane 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.)
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.
Tobias Winter and Vanessa Sommer: I love that story, and how different magic bureaucracy in Germany is from magic bureaucracy (or lack thereof) in the UK. I would love to see Peter working his community-building skills in a case that takes him to Germany (or Tobias and/or Vanessa to London).
Blackmail, Bomb threats, Catching a cat burglar, Criminals plotting criminal activity, rituals, Cursed objects, Decoding maps and clues, Forgeries, Ghost stories, haunted locations, cosmic horror, monsters, Heists, Hostage situations, Identity theft/impersonation, Locked room mysteries/whodunnits, Missing persons, Missions, including rescue missions, Murder mysteries, Organised crime, Paranormal events, Police procedural / government corruption, Prison escape, Riddles and rhyming clues, Smuggling
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, modern AUs, human/no powers/mundane AUs, darkfic
DS9
I love alien culture worldbuilding, boldly going, exploring, wacky science hijinks, time travel, AU shenanigans. I love the hope that we can become better than we are. I love cross-cultural romance (especially when it deals realistically with having to figure out compromises--love is not all you need, you also need a lot of hard work and communication).
As for plot ... it's Star Trek. If you want to play it serious, go for it. If you want to lean into wacky tropes, that's great too. As long as everyone is in character, feel free to go as cracktastic as you want. 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'd love something that dove into Bajoran religion, and the more ALIEN it is the better. We've MET the prophet 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.
I'd love to have an investigation into something the Cardassians did while they controlled Bajor, or a scavenger hunt given by the Prophets, or an alien-of-the-week coming through the wormhole, or any canon-typical adventure.
Sisko's position as Emmisary is fascinating, and how it shaped his relationship with Kira, and how he came to be more comfortable with it as the show went on. What was that like for Bajorans? He's an outsider! He doesn't believe in the Prophets! Especially after years of occupation and the Cardassians stealing the Orbs to experiment on, there's got to be more complexity to it than we saw on the show. What was it like for the Bajorans who served on DS9, for whom he was both commanding officer and religious figure. The Federation/Starfleet perspective on that had to be interesting.
I haven't read the novels, but I'm interested in the idea that after the show ended Kira eventually became a Vedek and later Kai.
I love Dax's relationship with Sisko, that lasted three hosts. What about when Sisko and Jadzia were still getting to know each other? They went from one power dynamic (Ambassador with lots of political power mentors callow youth) to a very different one (Sisko is all grown up, and Dax's superior officer, and with more life experience than Dax's current host). Negotiating that change must have been interesting, particularly if you throw in marriage to one of the hosts.
I love to hate Dukat. You can use him as a villain, but don't ever forget that he's a manipulative weasel who most often actively chooses to do the worst thing possible. Even if he's doing something good in the moment, the moment is temporary.
Treats welcome
DNW: bashing, incest, explicit sex, rape/noncon, major embarrassment/humiliation, setting change AUs, human/no powers AUs, darkfic, Dukat as a good guy
