AU Exchange Dear Creator Letter
Jul. 12th, 2017 04:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
First of all, thanks for creating for me! I'm very excited about this exchange.
General likes:
DNWs:
The vast majority of these don't seem to me to be necessarily things my request lean towards, but better safe than sorry:
Star Trek - Original Timeline
I've split this into two sets of requests, but as noted above feel free to mix and match.
Borg-centric
Borg Queen, Q, Female Changeling, TNG Enterprise Crew, Relationship: William Riker/Deanna Troi, Voyager Crew
AU: Borg attempts to assimilate Female Changeling, AU: Borg attempts to assimilate Q, AU: Borg Win
For the first two, feel free to have the attempts fail or succeed as you see fit. For the "Borg Win" one, any way you want to make that happen is fine with me: something branching from Best of Both Worlds where they don't manage to turn Locutus back into Picard? Or some sort of rabbit hole of timelines from First Contact where the Borg-occupied Earth in the 24th Century is expecting the Enterprise-E and stops it going back in time, but only because they were pre-warned by the fact that they had gone back in another timeline? Or any one of a number of times when Voyager's encounters with the Borg could have ended badly?
I'd be equally happy with things from the Borg side (weird POV stuff to do with the collective a bonus), anyone they're directly up against, or that of people caught up in the consequences (hence the TNG and VOY crew tags -- I threw Riker/Troi in there because I ship it but other combinations of characters very welcome too).
Dax-centric
Mirror Ezri Dax, Relationship: Jadzia Dax/Ezri, Relationship: Jadzia Dax/Seven of Nine, Voyager crew
AU: Ezri Dax meets Jadzia Dax via temporal shenanigans, AU: Jadzia was on Voyager, AU: mirror Ezri doesn't return to mirror universe
Dax is one of my all-time favourite characters. I am particularly fascinated with the old-young thing she's got going on. All the different versions of Dax seem to have a lot of joie de vivre and openness to new experiences (even Curzon late in his life, from the way they talk about him), in contrast to many common takes on what it would be like to live for a long time. In addition to the ideas in the tags, if you want to play around with stuff like zhian'taras, orb experiences (tbh that could easily come under "temporal shenanigans", and the like, then by all means go for it.
Ezri and Jadzia meet: Absolutely anything for this would be awesome, but I'm particularly interested in the fact that Ezri's joining wasn't something she sought.
Jadzia on Voyager (with or without the Jadzia/Seven ship): Voyager with a proper Science Officer, how would that go? Do they have contingency plans for what if something happens to Jadzia and Dax needs a new host, when the nearest Trill is 70,000 light years away?
Mirror Ezri stays: What happens next, basically? Does she assimilate to life in the main trekverse or does she start conning everyone left, right and centre by pretending to be our Ezri? Feel free to AU this further by having Mirror Ezri come over from the Mirrorverse earlier than we encountered her in canon, so that she can interact with Jadzia.
Star Wars - Canon
Three sets of related tags this time; again, mix and match if you want. (Please don't read anything into the number of tags in each category, I'd be equally interested in any of these.)
Leia is a badass in a different way to the way she is in canon
Leia Organa (Star Wars - Canon)
Maz Kanata (Star Wars - Canon)
Relationship: Han Solo/Leia Organa (Star Wars - Canon)
Relationship: Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker (Star Wars - Canon)
Rey (Star Wars - Canon)
AU: Jedi Leia (Star Wars - Canon)
AU: Leia did become a Jedi and goes after the New Order herself (Star Wars - Canon)
AU: Leia Trains As A Jedi Post Episode VI (Star Wars - Canon)
AU: Leia Was Raised On Tatooine and Luke Was Raised On Alderaan (Star Wars - Canon)
Leia training as a Jedi (depending on which tag we're going with, either with Luke, or Obi-Wan and Yoda, or maybe Maz), Leia training Rey, Leia using a lightsaber, Leia discovering creative new ways to use the Force ... How do these things affect her relationships with Han and Luke? (Especially for the last one*: Luke as Space Prince would be awesome.)
*On that last one: I realise that it doesn't absolutely require them to swap plot roles but I can't quite see Tatooine!Leia ending up as a leader of the Rebellion. Feel free to go in whatever direction the inspiration takes you, though.
Slavery
Relationship: Qui-Gon Jinn & Obi-Wan Kenobi (Star Wars - Canon)
AU: The Jedi oppose slavery (Star Wars - Canon)
I've gone with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan for this because there is this huge unanswered question in TPM about why the Jedi don't liberate all the slaves, etc. So feel free to interpret it in a narrow sense of seeing what happens from that point on if they do do more than just get Anakin out of there. (Presumably that in and of itself has big effects thanks to Shmi.) But a galaxy where that was official Jedi policy would be very different, so feel free to play around with it on a much larger scale if you want.
Droids
Relationship: C-3PO & R2-D2
AU: C-3PO's Memory Is Not Wiped in Episode III
I can several different ways this AU could go (and if you've got your own ideas that don't fit into these, feel free, obviously):
West Wing
Just two different AU tags here, and the characters who seem most relevant to them, but I love the whole ensemble on this show so feel free to go wider.
Post-S4
Abbey Bartlet, Glen Allen Walken
AU: They Never Get Zoey Back
Darker version of S5 onwards, basically. (Your choice whether it's "they never know for sure what happened to her" or she does get unambiguously killed.) Does Jed eventually decide that he's going to come back, and if so how does that work politically? Or does he walk away, leaving a very uneasy transition of power to the Walken administration? (Really, feel free to bring in anyone and everyone for this sort of stuff.) What does losing Zoey do to the Bartlet family?
Leaks
C. J. Cregg, Toby Ziegler
AU: Toby Was Covering For CJ With The Leaks
What are the long-term consequences for either/both of them? Who visits Toby in prison?
Does CJ ever confess the truth, and if so when? (And I know he's not in the tag set and is a very minor character, but I'm intrigued by the idea of Greg Brock in this AU -- he knows who really leaked, so he also knows that Toby is covering. Exactly how far does his commitment to protecting sources go?)
General likes:
- First of all, all the canons I'm requesting are ones where I love all the characters, and the ships, canon or otherwise, between them (the only exception being that I have an incest squick). Please feel free to include characters/relationships who weren't in the tag set, especially if it's in the cause of exploring an AU where people might not have ended up in the same places they did in the canon version of events. For my prompts, I've grouped characters/ships with AU tags that they seem to me to go well with, but feel free to go in other directions entirely if you feel inspired.
- 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.
- In terms of types of fic, I am honestly very easy to please; I genuinely like pretty much everything, 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.)
- For AUs in particular:
- Moments that "rhyme" with things that happened in canon, but in ways that twist it round from how it originally happened.
- Canon-divergent AUs that poke at the worldbuilding until it breaks, and then build something awesome with the pieces.
- Crapsack timelines where everything's much worse than canon but everyone still struggles on. I'm one of those people who likes to see their faves suffering sometimes. (Please note: I usually DNW major character death but given the nature of this exchange, some of the specific AUs I've requested, and the fact that I'm putting this in as a like, I've deliberately left it out this time. Give me an apocalypse where rocks fall and everyone dies if you want.)
- Parallel-universe-crossing/time-travel shenanigans (not required at all, a straight-up canon-divergent AU would be great, but if you want to go wild and include this sort of thing feel free)
- Moments that "rhyme" with things that happened in canon, but in ways that twist it round from how it originally happened.
DNWs:
The vast majority of these don't seem to me to be necessarily things my request lean towards, but better safe than sorry:
- pregnancy/kidfic (I don't mind occasional appearances by canonical children, but please don't focus on them to the exclusion of all else)
- violent non-con (I'm fine with sf/fantasy type noncon like mind control for pairings it would suit, or dubcon of various stripes)
- if you are inclined to write porn, I am generally fine with most stuff; the only things I'd ask you to avoid are breathplay, watersports, bloodplay, vore, scat, and emetophilia.
- incest and under-16s having sex (none of these pairings are anywhere near fitting the bill for either of these, but please no background incest pairings or revealing characters to have been related all along or anything like that)
Star Trek - Original Timeline
I've split this into two sets of requests, but as noted above feel free to mix and match.
Borg-centric
Borg Queen, Q, Female Changeling, TNG Enterprise Crew, Relationship: William Riker/Deanna Troi, Voyager Crew
AU: Borg attempts to assimilate Female Changeling, AU: Borg attempts to assimilate Q, AU: Borg Win
For the first two, feel free to have the attempts fail or succeed as you see fit. For the "Borg Win" one, any way you want to make that happen is fine with me: something branching from Best of Both Worlds where they don't manage to turn Locutus back into Picard? Or some sort of rabbit hole of timelines from First Contact where the Borg-occupied Earth in the 24th Century is expecting the Enterprise-E and stops it going back in time, but only because they were pre-warned by the fact that they had gone back in another timeline? Or any one of a number of times when Voyager's encounters with the Borg could have ended badly?
I'd be equally happy with things from the Borg side (weird POV stuff to do with the collective a bonus), anyone they're directly up against, or that of people caught up in the consequences (hence the TNG and VOY crew tags -- I threw Riker/Troi in there because I ship it but other combinations of characters very welcome too).
Dax-centric
Mirror Ezri Dax, Relationship: Jadzia Dax/Ezri, Relationship: Jadzia Dax/Seven of Nine, Voyager crew
AU: Ezri Dax meets Jadzia Dax via temporal shenanigans, AU: Jadzia was on Voyager, AU: mirror Ezri doesn't return to mirror universe
Dax is one of my all-time favourite characters. I am particularly fascinated with the old-young thing she's got going on. All the different versions of Dax seem to have a lot of joie de vivre and openness to new experiences (even Curzon late in his life, from the way they talk about him), in contrast to many common takes on what it would be like to live for a long time. In addition to the ideas in the tags, if you want to play around with stuff like zhian'taras, orb experiences (tbh that could easily come under "temporal shenanigans", and the like, then by all means go for it.
Ezri and Jadzia meet: Absolutely anything for this would be awesome, but I'm particularly interested in the fact that Ezri's joining wasn't something she sought.
Jadzia on Voyager (with or without the Jadzia/Seven ship): Voyager with a proper Science Officer, how would that go? Do they have contingency plans for what if something happens to Jadzia and Dax needs a new host, when the nearest Trill is 70,000 light years away?
Mirror Ezri stays: What happens next, basically? Does she assimilate to life in the main trekverse or does she start conning everyone left, right and centre by pretending to be our Ezri? Feel free to AU this further by having Mirror Ezri come over from the Mirrorverse earlier than we encountered her in canon, so that she can interact with Jadzia.
Star Wars - Canon
Three sets of related tags this time; again, mix and match if you want. (Please don't read anything into the number of tags in each category, I'd be equally interested in any of these.)
Leia is a badass in a different way to the way she is in canon
Leia Organa (Star Wars - Canon)
Maz Kanata (Star Wars - Canon)
Relationship: Han Solo/Leia Organa (Star Wars - Canon)
Relationship: Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker (Star Wars - Canon)
Rey (Star Wars - Canon)
AU: Jedi Leia (Star Wars - Canon)
AU: Leia did become a Jedi and goes after the New Order herself (Star Wars - Canon)
AU: Leia Trains As A Jedi Post Episode VI (Star Wars - Canon)
AU: Leia Was Raised On Tatooine and Luke Was Raised On Alderaan (Star Wars - Canon)
Leia training as a Jedi (depending on which tag we're going with, either with Luke, or Obi-Wan and Yoda, or maybe Maz), Leia training Rey, Leia using a lightsaber, Leia discovering creative new ways to use the Force ... How do these things affect her relationships with Han and Luke? (Especially for the last one*: Luke as Space Prince would be awesome.)
*On that last one: I realise that it doesn't absolutely require them to swap plot roles but I can't quite see Tatooine!Leia ending up as a leader of the Rebellion. Feel free to go in whatever direction the inspiration takes you, though.
Slavery
Relationship: Qui-Gon Jinn & Obi-Wan Kenobi (Star Wars - Canon)
AU: The Jedi oppose slavery (Star Wars - Canon)
I've gone with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan for this because there is this huge unanswered question in TPM about why the Jedi don't liberate all the slaves, etc. So feel free to interpret it in a narrow sense of seeing what happens from that point on if they do do more than just get Anakin out of there. (Presumably that in and of itself has big effects thanks to Shmi.) But a galaxy where that was official Jedi policy would be very different, so feel free to play around with it on a much larger scale if you want.
Droids
Relationship: C-3PO & R2-D2
AU: C-3PO's Memory Is Not Wiped in Episode III
I can several different ways this AU could go (and if you've got your own ideas that don't fit into these, feel free, obviously):
- Threepio knowing what's going on basically short-circuits the entire plot of the OT, so what happens instead?
- I am very much here for the idea that Artoo spends the whole time not telling anyone things for whatever reasons he might have; does he conscript Threepio too? Does Threepio do it badly, or actually really, really well?
- Awful tragedy where it turns out that droids really do have problems if they don't get their memories wiped regularly.
West Wing
Just two different AU tags here, and the characters who seem most relevant to them, but I love the whole ensemble on this show so feel free to go wider.
Post-S4
Abbey Bartlet, Glen Allen Walken
AU: They Never Get Zoey Back
Darker version of S5 onwards, basically. (Your choice whether it's "they never know for sure what happened to her" or she does get unambiguously killed.) Does Jed eventually decide that he's going to come back, and if so how does that work politically? Or does he walk away, leaving a very uneasy transition of power to the Walken administration? (Really, feel free to bring in anyone and everyone for this sort of stuff.) What does losing Zoey do to the Bartlet family?
Leaks
C. J. Cregg, Toby Ziegler
AU: Toby Was Covering For CJ With The Leaks
What are the long-term consequences for either/both of them? Who visits Toby in prison?
Does CJ ever confess the truth, and if so when? (And I know he's not in the tag set and is a very minor character, but I'm intrigued by the idea of Greg Brock in this AU -- he knows who really leaked, so he also knows that Toby is covering. Exactly how far does his commitment to protecting sources go?)