AO3 Alphabet Meme

Oct. 27th, 2025 04:10 pm
beatrice_otter: This looks like a good day for World Domination (World Domination)
[personal profile] beatrice_otter
All the cool kids are doing it, so I guess I will too:

How many letters of the alphabet have you used for starting a fic title? One fic per line, ‘A’ and 'The’ do not count for 'a’ and ’t’. Post your score out of 26 at the end, along with your total fic count.

A. Anatomy of a Secret--Jadzia Dax in the Reboot universe.
B. the bells are going to chime--My Fair Lady, Eliza/Colonel Pickering post-movie
C. Currency--Star Wars/Babylon 5, Han and Chewie take a job carrying cargo to a place so far out in Wild Space they've never even heard of the Empire. Or the Jedi.
D. The Desert Between--Reboot, Spock/Uhura, and vulcan worldbuilding
E. Essential To Your Own--TNG, Data/Geordi
F. Family Matters (The Things Inside Remix)--BSG, Dee is on Pegasus, finding her place. A Six is on New Caprica, learning what she doesn't know. Lee Adama is a Cylon prisoner, but this is not his story. A New Caprica AU.
G. The Genetics Factory--Criminal Minds/Stargate, In Detroit, homeless addicts are turning up dead. But there's more to the case than meets the eye, and the BAU finds themselves looking for something they don't understand. For Derek, it gets personal.
H. The Heart's Desire--Rivers of London, Abigail has earned her right to become a practitioner of magic. Now, the training begins.
I. Interview with the Robot--Fandom for Robots
J. Just Like Old Times--Stargate SG-1, Teal'c and Daniel, on an adventure.
K. Kitty and Georgy (The Healing Old Hurts Remix)--Pride and Prejudice, Kitty is often ill, but she is determined to live her best life anyway.
L. Little Ship Lost--TNG, On a routine mission, a wormhole opens up near Enterprise, and a ship pops out. It's challenging to rescue people who don't trust you.
M. Matters of Perspective--TNG, Picard and Guinan post Time's Arrow
N. Not Place, But People--Enterprise, The older Enterprise wasn't destroyed after all. When it limps back to Earth, Trip finds Lorian and invites him home to meet the family.
O. The Offer--Vorkosiverse, An AU where Aral didn't survive Mad Yuri's Massacre, but his sister did.
P. Pale Battalions--SG-1, Teal'c goes home after a glorious battle in Apophis' name.
Q. 
R. Revenge of the Zillo Beast--Star Wars, Mace and Anakin have killed the Zillo Beast every way they can think of in different time loops. Maybe killing the Beast won't solve the problem?
S. Schoolwork--DS9, Jake misses his dad, now he's with the Prophets, but he still has his friends, his family, and his career.
T. Third Chance--Star Trek, AU, This isn't the first time Ro has had to start her life over, nor the first time she's had to deal with people who don't like or trust her.
U. Undiscovered Stars--Star Wars/Star Trek, Just how far out in the Unknown Regions was he, Lando wondered, that they didn't use hyperdrives?
V. Vast Beyond Knowing (The Details Remix)--Star Wars. Anakin, Luke, Rey. The desert taught them much. But not everything.
W. Wachet Auf--Rivers of London, In 1940, Nightingale has to catch a Nazi spy armed with a magical device. In 2016, Nightingale and others fall into a magical coma, and Peter Grant must figure out why it happened and how to end it.
X. X is for Xenophobia--SG-1, Little Jake Carter knew all about people who Weren't Like Us.
Y.
Z.

22/26, not bad. Interesting that I have X but not Y; from looking at other peoples' lists, it's usually the other way around. (If I'd done more Stargate Alphabet Soups, I might have filled in the missing letters.) I have, by the way, written 264 fics in approximately 110 fandoms over the course of almost 20 years. (Some fandoms are squishy, and it depends how you count them.)

ride_4ever: (RayK sad)
[personal profile] ride_4ever
[personal profile] obi_ki and her son Alan have been two of my Con*Strict friends. I've just today learned of Alan's death. Too sad for me to write more here but you can read about Alan's life and his family and his friends at Alan's obituary.

Dear Yuletide Author,

Oct. 24th, 2025 04:11 pm
eirenical: (Default)
[personal profile] eirenical
Dear Yuletide Author,

I squeaked my sign-up in last minute, so I haven't had a chance to write my letter yet. My plan is to get it done this weekend (by 10/26). In the meantime, you're welcome to peruse my letter tag, if you like. For canons I've requested before, I will probably request similar things, and for the front matter of the letter, anything through the DNWs will most likely be the same.

Thank you for your patience!
a grateful recip

ETA (10/26, 9:37 AM EDT): Whoops! Since my assignment just showed up in my inbox, I assume yours has, too. I'm hoping to have this done by this evening (EDT) at the latest. Sorry about the delay!

ETA (10/26, 1:05 PM EDT): I have about half the letter written, so I'm going to put it below. I still have three requests to finish, but I'll stick a little "complete" next to each one that is done. Thank you for your patience! ^_^

ETA (10/26, 2:43 PM EDT): OK, I've finished all sections except two, but no one offered either one of those (...except me XD), so I'm going to assume we didn't match on those. I have a couple of errands I need to run, so I will finish those up when I get back, and hopefully the sections you need are in the ones I already finished. *thumbs up* ^_^

ETA: (10/26, 6:40 pm edt): dear writer, I'm sorry, something came up and I'm not going to be able to finish the last two until tomorrow. (And I forgot about bucket offers, so you might have offered one of those last two. 😬) I'll try to get them done ASAP. It just won't be tonight. Thank you so much for your understanding!

ETA (10/27, 5:18 pm EDT): I haven't forgotten you, I promise. I woke up running a fever this morning and slept most of the day. This was not in my plans. OTZ




First and foremost, I'd like to offer up a huge "Thank You!!" to you for writing a story for me. I know how difficult it can be to put any part of your creative process into the hands of another individual, so I will do my best to treat that trust with the care and respect it deserves. ^_^

And for the record, gifting is turned on and treats are welcome. ^_^

AO3: eirenical (chibi1723)
tumblr: eirenical

Notes on rating, kink and general likes and dislikes (DNWs):

Rating and kink )

Likes )

DNWs (do not wants )

Specific Requests:

  1. All Seeing Eye - Rob Thurman -- Jackson Lee Eye, Hector Allgood, Tessa "Tess" Lee, Meleah Guerrera (My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags)
  2. Ephemera Series - Anne Bishop -- Danyal (Ephemera), Lee (Ephemera) (My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags
  3. Great Cities Series - N. K. Jemisin -- Padmini Prakash | The Avatar of Queens (Great Cities - Jemisin), The Avatar of Atlantis (Great Cities - Jemisin), Manny | The Avatar of Manhattan (Great Cities - Jemisin), The Avatar of New York (Great Cities - Jemisin) (My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags; or it may use exceptions I explain in the form)
  4. 沉香如屑 | Immortal Samsara (TV) -- Ying Yuan | Tang Zhou, Yu Mo (Immortal Samsara), Yan Dan (Immortal Samsara) (My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags; or it may use exceptions I explain in the form)
  5. 回到过去拥抱你 | Over Again (2019) -- Gao Silin, Zhang Ziyang, Guo Sijia (My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags
  6. 南风知我意 | South Wind Knows My Mood (TV) -- Fu Yunshen, Ji Silang, Zhu Jiu (South Wind Knows), Fu Xizhou (My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags; or it may use exceptions I explain in the form)
  7. Thermos Flower Series Commercials -- Zhu Yilong's Character (My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags)
You are free to utilize any prompt I toss out there or none of them. If reading what I like about the characters/worlds sparks a fic idea in your head, feel free to ignore the prompts and run with it. ^_^

Also, length of babble in no way indicates my fandom preferences. (i.e., some of these I literally just finished a full re-up of canon before sign-ups so I ended up having a LOT more to say about those canons than some of the others, but it in no way means that I care less about the others. Some are just fresher in my mind.) I promise I'm equally excited about the possibility of all of these requests. ^_^ Some of these are also cribbed from earlier letters, because I just honestly can never get enough of them, so here we are. ^_^

1. All Seeing Eye - Rob Thurman ) -- Contains Yuleporn prompts; COMPLETE

2. Ephemera Series - Anne Bishop  ) -- COMPLETE

3. Great Cities Series - N. K. Jemisin ) -- COMPLETE

4. 沉香如屑 | Immortal Samsara (TV) ) -- Yuleporn and Crueltide Prompts included, COMPLETE

5. 回到过去拥抱你 | Over Again (2019) )

6. 南风知我意 | South Wind Knows My Mood (TV) )

7. Thermos Flower Series Commercials -- Zhu Yilong's Character ) -- COMPLETE

Holy cow, as usual, that's a really long letter. O_O I just tend to get excited. ^_^ Hopefully you found something at least a little bit helpful in there, somewhere. If you didn't, however, they really were just thoughts and suggestions. So, if any of the details I provided don't work for you, feel free to toss them out the window and write what's most comfortable for you. If you are happy and excited about what you're writing, I'm sure I will love it. Passion comes across and I do not in any way want to dampen yours. ^_^ Go with your gut. The fact that you're writing something for me is plenty enough to have me thrilled and excited and bouncing for joy. ^_^

Happy writing! ^_^
A grateful recipient
beatrice_otter: Captain America (Captain America)
[personal profile] beatrice_otter
I was re-reading some old MCU fic, and in the fic Steve says that Bucky was named for President Buchanan. Which Doylistically he was, but ... there's no reason he has to be from an in-universe perspective.

"James" was an incredibly common first name. The Social Security Administration publishes lists of how popular various names have been over the years; in the 1910s, when James and Steve were born, "James" was the third most popular name for boys. 275,000 baby boys were named "James" in that decade, which, given the size of the population, means that there were a lot of James' everywhere. Very common name.

Ah, but what of Buchanan, you say! Surely there could be no reason to give someone the middle name "Buchanan" if it's not naming him after someone famous! ... and no, actually. While people sometimes were named after famous people or political leaders (just like today), there's actually a more common reason to do it. It was a fairly common thing in the 19th Century for people to have a "last" name as a middle name, often their mother's maiden name, and people still do that today sometimes. Steve's middle name is "Grant", for example; "Grant" was a relatively common surname but (at the time) extremely uncommon as a first name. Steve was almost certainly given the middle name "Grant" to honor someone whose last name was Grant; it was probably his mother's maiden name. Buchanan is a relatively common Scottish name; it's not one of the top ten or anything, but the Buchanan clan is one of respectable size and power. In the same way, there is a very good chance that James was given the middle name "Buchanan" to honor someone whose last name was "Buchanan," quite probably his mother. And for a first name they gave him the third most common name for boys, and maybe didn't realize that there was a President by that name. Especially if they were immigrants, or weren't very well educated. (A lot of people in that generation had only a grade school education, or maybe a middle school education; only 10% of all 14-17 year olds attended high school in the US in 1900; there were still states where even elementary school wasn't required until 1918!) James Buchanan is not one of the Presidents that people talk about much outside history classes, and even then, a lot of history classes don't go into a lot of detail on him besides "last President before the Civil War." Yes, he was a bad President and one of the reasons the US Civil War became inevitable, but there were a lot of factors that were a lot more important.

I think "we liked the name James, and we wanted to honor his mother's family by giving him their last name as a middle name" is a far more likely scenario than consciously deciding to name their kid after President James Buchanan.

On a completely different note, if you want to write an AU where Bucky escaped Hydra early and made a new life for himself ... there's a late-20th-Century composer named James Barnes. He wrote concert band music. Here are some of his pieces: Symphonic Overture, Symphony No. 2, Third Symphony ("The Tragic")Fantasy Variations on a Theme by Nicolo PaganiniAlvamar Overture.

it's always DNS and always us-east-1

Oct. 20th, 2025 11:04 pm
jadelennox: Senora Sabasa Garcia, by Goya (Default)
[personal profile] jadelennox

and that's why we had to have pasta for dinner.

Dear Yuletide Author

Oct. 19th, 2025 08:32 pm
beatrice_otter: Me in red--face not shown (Default)
[personal profile] beatrice_otter
I use the same name everywhere so I am [personal profile] 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.
I like plotty, gen stories, and plotty stories in general. I don't care for explicit sex, particularly when it's just thrown in for teh porn. I'm asexual; a lot of the time I don't even bother to read the sex scenes. Romance is awesome (as long as both are in character and the romantic plot doesn't hinge on one or both of them being an idiot). I love it when friendship is held up as important and not secondary to romantic relationships and blood ties.

Please no incest or darkfic. I define "darkfic" as stuff where there's a lot of suffering and no hope even at the end and all the characters are terrible. Angst with a happy ending is fine, I enjoy it, but there's gotta be a payoff. Even an ambiguous ending is fine! But there has to be some note of grace or redemption or hope somewhere, it can't just be "people are awful and the world sucks, the end." I define incest as siblings and/or parents, cousins don't count.

I love outsider perspectives and academic takes on things. In-universe meta (newspaper articles, academic monographs--especially with the sort of snarky feuding common in actual real-world academia, social media feeds in current day or future worlds) is awesome.

Also, I'm picky about European historical clothing details. You don't have to talk about it at all! In fact, if you don't know much about historical clothing, I would prefer if you didn't mention it at all. My pet peeve is corsets: no, they weren't a restrictive tool of the patriarchy, no, they didn't interfere with most women's daily lives, no, most women weren't wearing them so tight they couldn't breathe.

I like religion but I'm picky about it. Basically, Christianity is deeply weird compared to most other religions, and a lot of people whose only experience with religion is living in a culturally-Christian nation assume that what they know about Christianity is some sort of universal principle of What Religion Is Like, and that's just not the case. For example, in Christianity what you believe is more important than what you do. This is not to say we Christians don't teach and practice Christian ethics or have rituals we are very attached to, but rather that if you don't believe in Jesus Christ, it doesn't matter what rituals you participate in or what ethical things you do, you are not a Christian (although you may be a "cultural Christian"). Every Christian group has at least a minimal core theology that members must affirm, but participation in ritual is far less rigidly a requirement. Most other religions rank what you do (both ethically and ritually) as more important than what you believe, and it is often quite possible to be a member in good standing if you participate in the practices and rituals even if you believe none of the teachings. Anyway, point is, if you are doing worldbuilding for a fantasy or SF or otherwise non-Christian religion ... unless it is explicitly a Christian-analogue, it should be different from Christianity. Question your assumptions and see where that leads you, and I will be fascinated and thrilled.


Yuletide Challenges
I am opening this up to the following challenges: Wrapping Paper, Chromatic Yuletide, Transtide, Queering the Tide, Two For One, Three Turtledoves, and Yulebuilding. With Two For One and Yulebuilding, feel free to expand beyond what I've suggested here. I am always up for worldbuilding, and for crossovers with fandoms I've written or requested before.

Fandom for Robots )

Peter Wimsey )

Rivers of London )

Moana )

Bruce Springsteen RPF )

Caprica )

Sense8 )

Oh My General )
.

Yuletide Letter 2025

Oct. 19th, 2025 11:35 pm
dragonbat2006: Canon Error (Default)
[personal profile] dragonbat2006
Read on for details! )
Thanks again! I’m looking forward to reading what you come up with!

 

Dear Yulewriter

Oct. 19th, 2025 04:23 pm
kass: Yuletide dreidls (dreidl)
[personal profile] kass
Dear Yulewriter,

Thank you so much for writing me a story. Write something that makes you happy, and it will make me happy.

In general I am a big fan of chosen family, happy endings, people being good at things, people helping each other be better together than they were apart, theology of all kinds, wit and banter, and kindness. I'm happy with anything (any situation, any rating) that feels right to you given the characters at hand. I'm open to AUs or to going deeper into the worldbuilding of any of these canons.

Please, no betrayal or unquenchable grief or people being awful to each other or despair. There's enough of that in RL (especially these last few years.) On Yuletide morning I want something that makes me smile. Thank you kindly.

Most of this note is my standard Dear Yulewriter letter -- these are the things I've been saying year after year, and I've been doing Yuletide since... 2003 I think? but this year I am really struck by the extent to which I want to see these characters get to experience joy. Maybe because the world has been difficult, in a variety of ways, for the last several years in a row? Anyway: this is just to say, thank you for figuring out how to bring these characters some sweetness.

In closing: yay Yuletide! Yay you! Thank you so much!

There's nothing below the cut that wasn't also in my Yuletide sign-up, but I include my requests here for anyone who's curious or maybe wants to write an extra treat.

Kass

The Naturalist Society by Carrie Vaughn; the Toby Daye series by Seanan McGuire; Murderbot / tv show. )
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