Space Swap Dear Creator Letter
Feb. 11th, 2019 08:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
weakinteractionHi, and thanks for creating for me/at least briefly looking at my letter for some other reason. My AO3 username is weakinteraction -- same as this dreamwidth. Disclaimer: please don't read anything into differing lengths of different sections (or indeed the fact that I'm repeating requests for which I've received awesome gifts in the past; I'm just greedy and want more). I'm requesting fic or art for all of the fandoms below.
General likes
I am up for a wide range of types of fanworks, and equally happy with ratings anywhere on the scale.
I genuinely do equally like all of gen, slash, het and femslash. On the shipping side of things, I don't really have NOTPs in any of these fandoms, so any combination of characters that you're interested in is absolutely fine with me if we matched on a single character or a worldbuilding tag, or as a background pairing in a work for a relationship tag we matched on. (In general, I am more than happy to handwave that Everyone Is Bi And Poly for the purposes of fanworks.)
Tropes-wise, I am particularly fond of time travel, canon-divergent AUs, people with issues relating to identity (in the sense of things like secret identities and amnesia) and telepathy. In terms of relationship dynamics, I like all sorts of things but particularly: friends-to-lovers, friends-with-benefits, enemies-to-lovers, lovers-to-enemies(-who-are-maybe-occasionally-still-lovers-against-their-better-judgement), loyalty kink, and you-and-me-against-the-universe sorts of situations. Many (but not quite all) of my favourite characters share traits of being competent and getting on with their jobs/vocations/whatever, particularly in the sense of Doing The Right Thing over their strong personal preferences to do the opposite and/or against a general angsty background.
Fic likes: Overall, I am honestly very easy to please; I genuinely like pretty much all types of fic, from humorous vignettes, to angsty introspection, to twisty plotty adventure stories, casefic, slice of life, or digging into the canon's worldbuilding, and all points in between. I do want to make a positive point of the fact that fic-wise I'm always up for non-standard formats, anything from epistolatory or verse through to stories presented through documentary evidence, 1st/2nd person, present/future tense, IF, etc. etc. Again, if it works for what you want to do, I'll lap it up. (This is not to say that I don't enjoy reading third person, past tense, because I definitely do! I just don't want you to be put off doing other things if your inspiration takes you in that direction.)
Art likes: I do like use of light and shade in a picture, and interesting Easter-egg-y type stuff going on in the background (if there is one). An action scene that's a snapshot from an adventure, the characters in the middle of kicking ass. Goofy hijinks when the characters are off-duty. Portrayals of canon-divergent AU versions of the characters very, very welcome if the inspiration strikes you. For shippier stuff, little moments of intimacy: stolen kisses, hurt/comfort type stuff (but please not too much on the hurt front), that sort of thing. (I have no problem receiving NSFW art, fwiw.) I am also definitely up for things like diagrams, maps, etc. In the same Easter-egg-y vein mentioned earlier, things like that presented with in-universe trappings (e.g. something for TNG having an LCARS interface around it) would be lovely. I've provided some specific art prompts where I can think of them, but in cases where I haven't I hope at least some of my more general prompts lend themselves to being illustrated.
DNWs
Machineries of Empire Series - Yoon Ha Lee
Requesting: Shuos Jedao & Ajewen Cheris
I love these two, especially Jedao's woobie tendencies combined with his willingness to play into the very worst of his reputation if it'll do the job, and Cheris's square-peg-in-a-round-hole thing of being an original thinker who is also (at least initially) a loyal Kel. I really love what we see in Ninefox Gambit of their working together; I would love anything based during that time, or something exploring either/both of their POVs on the events of Raven Stratagem, Revenant Gun (or especially the huge gap between the two).
Babylon 5
Requesting: Delenn, Susan Ivanova, Susan Ivanova & Delenn
(I have no objection to shipping either of these with whoever you want to in the background, but I do very much love Susan/Talia, for whatever it's worth.)
Delenn
This is possibly going to sound unbearably pretentious, but what I love about Delenn is how she is all about transitions: most obviously her transformation at the end of S1, but also the whole Grey Council "stand between the candle and the star" thing, and the way that she tends to represent a third way, not so much between seemingly implacably opposed views as stepping round them entirely, in both Minbari internal politics and wider galactic diplomacy. (I definitely see Sheridan's whole "Vorlons or Shadows? How about neither?" thing as being down to her influence.)
Prompts: Minbari politics, or anything else Minbari-related. (Minbari worldbuilding stuff a definite bonus.) Pre-series backstory. Post-series (either side of Sleeping in Light is fine). What does Delenn do to relax? How does she feel about [canon event of your choice]? etc.
Susan Ivanova
I love Susan's willingness to do things that are outside of her comfort zone when necessary, but also how great she is when she's slap bang in the middle of said comfort zone.
Prompts: Backstory - either early life, or what was Ivanova like when she was lower in the ranks? (A pain in the ass to her superiors, I kind of imagine.) Anything to do with the break from Earth/civil war in S3/4 - how does she feel about it? Why did she leave (feel free to invoke parallels with the RL situation if you want, or ignore it entirely), and what did she do next?
Susan Ivanova & Delenn
I don't feel as though canon really gave them as much opportunity to interact as they could have had, but they do seem to have a good working relationship and a foundation of mutual respect, and I would love any sort of exploration of them together.
Prompts: Downtime/relaxation? On some sort of mission together? Delenn helps Susan with a diplomatic situation? Badass-speech-off?
Star Trek: Discovery
Requesting: Michael Burnham/Syliva Tilly
In the first half of the season, they're roommates and working together most of the time. I can totally see Sylvia arguing Michael into it just being logical that they get together, but there's also the possibility of tensions between them from being in such close quarters all the time leading to an unexpected outpouring of emotion. And then of course they get catapulted into the Mirror Universe where they have to pretend to be their Evil Captain selves for prolonged periods of time. (I definitely headcanon that Mirror Georgiou has everyone competing for her attention in various different ways.) And now in Season 2 ... they're still roommates! I love that.
Something in the future with Prime Captain Tilly (and Michael doing whatever she would end up doing - I sort of imagine she wouldn't end up progressing in the typical way after everything that's happened) would be great too.
For the action/adventure and mystery/procedural side of things, anything with them being their Starfleet selves being Starfleet-y would be amazing.
Although I definitely take the tag we matched on as indicating their prime versions, if you want to involve their Mirror versions, either Mirror/Mirror, Mirror/Prime or Prime/Prime where they're roleplaying Mirror, that's absolutely fine (and I am in general fine with Mirror universe people being their terrible selves, when it comes to stuff that might otherwise skirt DNWs).
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Requesting: Beverly Crusher/Jean-Luc Picard, William Riker/Deanna Troi, Deanna Troi/Worf, Worldbuilding: Betazoids and Betazed
Beverly Crusher/Jean-Luc Picard
I was shipping P/C long, long before I knew what shipping was; there are times when I love them for all the angsty backstory about Jack and so on, and then there are other times when I'm much more in it for the UST, and then there are times when it's all about the "she's the only person who can relieve him of command" aspect. Anything exploring any aspect of their relationship would be great, in any medium. In addition to the things already mentioned here and for Beverly above, I do particularly like holodeck shenanigans.
William Riker/Deanna Troi
I actually really like these two as a portrayal of people being fine with having broken up, but I also really like the fact that they did eventually got back together. I'm fine with backstory stuff set while they were together back on Betazed, or stuff set during/after TNG. Some more specific prompts: Betazoid vs human cultural differences (either between the two of them, or Deanna as the child of two different heritages), doing snarky crew evaluations on each other, Will helping Deanna deal with the after-effects of one or another of the hundreds of times she gets possessed
Deanna Troi/Worf
I love the idea of these two as well (and don't see any problem with the two ships coexisting) -- although canon never went there completely, they were definitely playing with it throughout the later seasons (most obviously in Parallels, and if you want to explore either one or other AU from that episode, or the after-effects for the two of them, then that would be great).
Worldbuilding: Betazoids and Betazed
The more I rewatch TNG (and Lwaxana's DS9 episodes), the more I feel that there's a huge amount of unexplored potential in Betazed. A matriarchal society with no nudity taboo and everyone being able to read each other's thoughts strikes me as ... not really tracking what we saw on screen particularly strongly. Anything digging into that sort of thing would be very welcome. (Feel free to use the Trois as viewpoint characters, or other Betazoids we see in canon, or OCs, or just go for full-on No Characters worldbuilding -- this happens to be the only worldbuilding tag I've requested in this exchange, but I'm definitely keen on what Worldbuilding Exchange calls "in-universe meta".)
Betazed-the-planet worldbuilding welcome too - we hear about a number of locations, usually beautiful/relaxing/both and what we see of it in Menage ... seems very temperate and nice, but is it pretty uniform across the surface/seasons?
Star Wars New EU - All Media Types (but specifically: Doctor Aphra)
Requesting: Chelli Lona Aphra/Magna Tolvan, Chelli Lona Aphra/Sana Starros, Chelli Lona Aphra/Sana Starros/Magna Tolvan
Aphra rapidly became my new Star Wars fave when I belatedly started reading the Darth Vader comics. I love how spiky she is, her hidden depths, her ability to bullshit her way through pretty much any situation, and her reluctant moments of something approaching morality.
Aphra/Tolvan
The canon enemies-to-lovers trajectory of this ship has been extremely pleasing to me, so anything that builds on that would be fantastic. My fave things about Tolvan are how ambiguous she seems to feel about almost everything (the Empire, Aphra, her cybernetics) and the fact that she's quietly a tactical genius. My love for this ship has been kicked into overdrive now by the maximum angsty mindwipe situation, but if you prefer to stick to earlier times/AUs that's fine too.
Some prompts: Re-encountering one another post-mindwipe; how does Aphra deal, how much does Tolvan remember? Reluctant-to-not-so-reluctant team-up. One or other of them getting the upper hand (Tolvan blackmailing and/or capturing Aphra seems like a fairly obvious option, but I think Aphra's work with Vader must have given her some sort of insight into how to mess around with the Imperial hierarchy). Ending up on the run together. How they both adjust after RotJ. Some sort of exploration of Tolvan's backstory would be great too (especially why she has all those cybernetics, and I also love that she's a tactical genius; any sort of situation where she's using those skills would be fun).
Aphra/Sana
Give me them at each other's throats (in any sense). Give me them forced to work together and hating every minute of it. Give me backstory: their good times that were never really that good (or were they?). Give me bitterness and resentment and angst and betrayal and unhealthiness and obsession and all that good stuff.
Prompts: Aphra trying to puzzle out why Sana seems to have thrown her lot in with the Rebels. Sana realising that her feelings are more complicated than she wants to admit. Aphra trying to keep Sana secret from Vader (and maybe failing). Wagers and forfeits. Or if you're going into their backstory, any sort of smuggling/archaeological hijinks. (Aphra going playing in Legends worldbuilding is A-OK with me.) Were they always so hardbitten and cynical?
Aphra/Sana/Tolvan
The emotional muddles they would get themselves into while all being badasses would be very satisfying, I think ...
Anything taking inspiration from the prompts for the two ships above would obviously be great, but more specifically for the OT3: Aphra needs both of their help, and cajoles them into working together, but not without difficulty. Some sort of situation where the local Rebellion and Empire forces have to uneasily work together for a limited time. Post-RotJ about how ex-Imperials reintegrate into the New Republic. Tolvan already knows Sana from tracking down smugglers in the past. Sana encounters mindwiped Tolvan and figures things out.
General likes
I am up for a wide range of types of fanworks, and equally happy with ratings anywhere on the scale.
I genuinely do equally like all of gen, slash, het and femslash. On the shipping side of things, I don't really have NOTPs in any of these fandoms, so any combination of characters that you're interested in is absolutely fine with me if we matched on a single character or a worldbuilding tag, or as a background pairing in a work for a relationship tag we matched on. (In general, I am more than happy to handwave that Everyone Is Bi And Poly for the purposes of fanworks.)
Tropes-wise, I am particularly fond of time travel, canon-divergent AUs, people with issues relating to identity (in the sense of things like secret identities and amnesia) and telepathy. In terms of relationship dynamics, I like all sorts of things but particularly: friends-to-lovers, friends-with-benefits, enemies-to-lovers, lovers-to-enemies(-who-are-maybe-occasionally-still-lovers-against-their-better-judgement), loyalty kink, and you-and-me-against-the-universe sorts of situations. Many (but not quite all) of my favourite characters share traits of being competent and getting on with their jobs/vocations/whatever, particularly in the sense of Doing The Right Thing over their strong personal preferences to do the opposite and/or against a general angsty background.
Fic likes: Overall, I am honestly very easy to please; I genuinely like pretty much all types of fic, from humorous vignettes, to angsty introspection, to twisty plotty adventure stories, casefic, slice of life, or digging into the canon's worldbuilding, and all points in between. I do want to make a positive point of the fact that fic-wise I'm always up for non-standard formats, anything from epistolatory or verse through to stories presented through documentary evidence, 1st/2nd person, present/future tense, IF, etc. etc. Again, if it works for what you want to do, I'll lap it up. (This is not to say that I don't enjoy reading third person, past tense, because I definitely do! I just don't want you to be put off doing other things if your inspiration takes you in that direction.)
Art likes: I do like use of light and shade in a picture, and interesting Easter-egg-y type stuff going on in the background (if there is one). An action scene that's a snapshot from an adventure, the characters in the middle of kicking ass. Goofy hijinks when the characters are off-duty. Portrayals of canon-divergent AU versions of the characters very, very welcome if the inspiration strikes you. For shippier stuff, little moments of intimacy: stolen kisses, hurt/comfort type stuff (but please not too much on the hurt front), that sort of thing. (I have no problem receiving NSFW art, fwiw.) I am also definitely up for things like diagrams, maps, etc. In the same Easter-egg-y vein mentioned earlier, things like that presented with in-universe trappings (e.g. something for TNG having an LCARS interface around it) would be lovely. I've provided some specific art prompts where I can think of them, but in cases where I haven't I hope at least some of my more general prompts lend themselves to being illustrated.
DNWs
- character or ship bashing (in particular, where there are conflicting canon ships for these characters, quietly ignoring them/AU-ing them away/handwaving everyone as being happily poly are all far preferable to me to devoting large chunks of the fic to demonstrating that the canon love interest is The Worst and breaking them up; OTOH, angst where everybody feels bad about it can work just fine)
- non-canon-divergent AUs like coffee shops, A/B/O, etc. (canon-divergent ones, on the other hand, are a big yes as mentioned above)
- pregnancy/kidfic
- watersports
- scat
- emetophilia
- bloodplay
- breathplay
- vore
- violent non-con (coercion/mind control/etc. are fine)
- incest
- underage (which I define as people under 16 having sex)
Machineries of Empire Series - Yoon Ha Lee
Requesting: Shuos Jedao & Ajewen Cheris
I love these two, especially Jedao's woobie tendencies combined with his willingness to play into the very worst of his reputation if it'll do the job, and Cheris's square-peg-in-a-round-hole thing of being an original thinker who is also (at least initially) a loyal Kel. I really love what we see in Ninefox Gambit of their working together; I would love anything based during that time, or something exploring either/both of their POVs on the events of Raven Stratagem, Revenant Gun (or especially the huge gap between the two).
Babylon 5
Requesting: Delenn, Susan Ivanova, Susan Ivanova & Delenn
(I have no objection to shipping either of these with whoever you want to in the background, but I do very much love Susan/Talia, for whatever it's worth.)
Delenn
This is possibly going to sound unbearably pretentious, but what I love about Delenn is how she is all about transitions: most obviously her transformation at the end of S1, but also the whole Grey Council "stand between the candle and the star" thing, and the way that she tends to represent a third way, not so much between seemingly implacably opposed views as stepping round them entirely, in both Minbari internal politics and wider galactic diplomacy. (I definitely see Sheridan's whole "Vorlons or Shadows? How about neither?" thing as being down to her influence.)
Prompts: Minbari politics, or anything else Minbari-related. (Minbari worldbuilding stuff a definite bonus.) Pre-series backstory. Post-series (either side of Sleeping in Light is fine). What does Delenn do to relax? How does she feel about [canon event of your choice]? etc.
Susan Ivanova
I love Susan's willingness to do things that are outside of her comfort zone when necessary, but also how great she is when she's slap bang in the middle of said comfort zone.
Prompts: Backstory - either early life, or what was Ivanova like when she was lower in the ranks? (A pain in the ass to her superiors, I kind of imagine.) Anything to do with the break from Earth/civil war in S3/4 - how does she feel about it? Why did she leave (feel free to invoke parallels with the RL situation if you want, or ignore it entirely), and what did she do next?
Susan Ivanova & Delenn
I don't feel as though canon really gave them as much opportunity to interact as they could have had, but they do seem to have a good working relationship and a foundation of mutual respect, and I would love any sort of exploration of them together.
Prompts: Downtime/relaxation? On some sort of mission together? Delenn helps Susan with a diplomatic situation? Badass-speech-off?
Star Trek: Discovery
Requesting: Michael Burnham/Syliva Tilly
In the first half of the season, they're roommates and working together most of the time. I can totally see Sylvia arguing Michael into it just being logical that they get together, but there's also the possibility of tensions between them from being in such close quarters all the time leading to an unexpected outpouring of emotion. And then of course they get catapulted into the Mirror Universe where they have to pretend to be their Evil Captain selves for prolonged periods of time. (I definitely headcanon that Mirror Georgiou has everyone competing for her attention in various different ways.) And now in Season 2 ... they're still roommates! I love that.
Something in the future with Prime Captain Tilly (and Michael doing whatever she would end up doing - I sort of imagine she wouldn't end up progressing in the typical way after everything that's happened) would be great too.
For the action/adventure and mystery/procedural side of things, anything with them being their Starfleet selves being Starfleet-y would be amazing.
Although I definitely take the tag we matched on as indicating their prime versions, if you want to involve their Mirror versions, either Mirror/Mirror, Mirror/Prime or Prime/Prime where they're roleplaying Mirror, that's absolutely fine (and I am in general fine with Mirror universe people being their terrible selves, when it comes to stuff that might otherwise skirt DNWs).
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Requesting: Beverly Crusher/Jean-Luc Picard, William Riker/Deanna Troi, Deanna Troi/Worf, Worldbuilding: Betazoids and Betazed
Beverly Crusher/Jean-Luc Picard
I was shipping P/C long, long before I knew what shipping was; there are times when I love them for all the angsty backstory about Jack and so on, and then there are other times when I'm much more in it for the UST, and then there are times when it's all about the "she's the only person who can relieve him of command" aspect. Anything exploring any aspect of their relationship would be great, in any medium. In addition to the things already mentioned here and for Beverly above, I do particularly like holodeck shenanigans.
William Riker/Deanna Troi
I actually really like these two as a portrayal of people being fine with having broken up, but I also really like the fact that they did eventually got back together. I'm fine with backstory stuff set while they were together back on Betazed, or stuff set during/after TNG. Some more specific prompts: Betazoid vs human cultural differences (either between the two of them, or Deanna as the child of two different heritages), doing snarky crew evaluations on each other, Will helping Deanna deal with the after-effects of one or another of the hundreds of times she gets possessed
Deanna Troi/Worf
I love the idea of these two as well (and don't see any problem with the two ships coexisting) -- although canon never went there completely, they were definitely playing with it throughout the later seasons (most obviously in Parallels, and if you want to explore either one or other AU from that episode, or the after-effects for the two of them, then that would be great).
Worldbuilding: Betazoids and Betazed
The more I rewatch TNG (and Lwaxana's DS9 episodes), the more I feel that there's a huge amount of unexplored potential in Betazed. A matriarchal society with no nudity taboo and everyone being able to read each other's thoughts strikes me as ... not really tracking what we saw on screen particularly strongly. Anything digging into that sort of thing would be very welcome. (Feel free to use the Trois as viewpoint characters, or other Betazoids we see in canon, or OCs, or just go for full-on No Characters worldbuilding -- this happens to be the only worldbuilding tag I've requested in this exchange, but I'm definitely keen on what Worldbuilding Exchange calls "in-universe meta".)
Betazed-the-planet worldbuilding welcome too - we hear about a number of locations, usually beautiful/relaxing/both and what we see of it in Menage ... seems very temperate and nice, but is it pretty uniform across the surface/seasons?
Star Wars New EU - All Media Types (but specifically: Doctor Aphra)
Requesting: Chelli Lona Aphra/Magna Tolvan, Chelli Lona Aphra/Sana Starros, Chelli Lona Aphra/Sana Starros/Magna Tolvan
Aphra rapidly became my new Star Wars fave when I belatedly started reading the Darth Vader comics. I love how spiky she is, her hidden depths, her ability to bullshit her way through pretty much any situation, and her reluctant moments of something approaching morality.
Aphra/Tolvan
The canon enemies-to-lovers trajectory of this ship has been extremely pleasing to me, so anything that builds on that would be fantastic. My fave things about Tolvan are how ambiguous she seems to feel about almost everything (the Empire, Aphra, her cybernetics) and the fact that she's quietly a tactical genius. My love for this ship has been kicked into overdrive now by the maximum angsty mindwipe situation, but if you prefer to stick to earlier times/AUs that's fine too.
Some prompts: Re-encountering one another post-mindwipe; how does Aphra deal, how much does Tolvan remember? Reluctant-to-not-so-reluctant team-up. One or other of them getting the upper hand (Tolvan blackmailing and/or capturing Aphra seems like a fairly obvious option, but I think Aphra's work with Vader must have given her some sort of insight into how to mess around with the Imperial hierarchy). Ending up on the run together. How they both adjust after RotJ. Some sort of exploration of Tolvan's backstory would be great too (especially why she has all those cybernetics, and I also love that she's a tactical genius; any sort of situation where she's using those skills would be fun).
Aphra/Sana
Give me them at each other's throats (in any sense). Give me them forced to work together and hating every minute of it. Give me backstory: their good times that were never really that good (or were they?). Give me bitterness and resentment and angst and betrayal and unhealthiness and obsession and all that good stuff.
Prompts: Aphra trying to puzzle out why Sana seems to have thrown her lot in with the Rebels. Sana realising that her feelings are more complicated than she wants to admit. Aphra trying to keep Sana secret from Vader (and maybe failing). Wagers and forfeits. Or if you're going into their backstory, any sort of smuggling/archaeological hijinks. (Aphra going playing in Legends worldbuilding is A-OK with me.) Were they always so hardbitten and cynical?
Aphra/Sana/Tolvan
The emotional muddles they would get themselves into while all being badasses would be very satisfying, I think ...
Anything taking inspiration from the prompts for the two ships above would obviously be great, but more specifically for the OT3: Aphra needs both of their help, and cajoles them into working together, but not without difficulty. Some sort of situation where the local Rebellion and Empire forces have to uneasily work together for a limited time. Post-RotJ about how ex-Imperials reintegrate into the New Republic. Tolvan already knows Sana from tracking down smugglers in the past. Sana encounters mindwiped Tolvan and figures things out.
