lemniskath

I started doing multifandom exchanges on ao3 back in 2018, and in the years I've been participating, there have been many changes - even as the whole mode of fandom keeps many of its core attributes. I've been chatting on bluesky about it and getting frustrated with the character length restrictions so I'm writing this here so I can get the whole thing written out.

When I started, there were a lot fewer multifandom exchanges, at least known to me and the group of fans I hang out with (and I'm pretty sure there were just many fewer). The biggest one then (and still) is Yuletide, which has existed since before ao3 was made (and from what I gather, is part of what ao3 was made for, even if a small part). The exchange functionality built into ao3 is in the "Collections" part of the site, and under that "Challenges" - all the parts of fandom exchanges (see the ao3 exchange article on fanlore.org for details) usually utilize, which was built for Yuletide originally and also for other exchanges that date from that time, a few of which are still extant, such as Purimgifts and Trick or Treat.

The biggest ones after Yuletide, in 2018 and early 2019, were Chocolate Box (hasn't run the past few years, but a replacement Candy Hearts has shown up that runs just like Chocolate Box used to, revealing gifts on Valentines Day) and Trick or Treat. All these had in common their ties to specific holidays: Yuletide to Christmas, Chocolate Box to Valentines Day, Trick or Treat to Halloween. As far as I know (even though I wasn't around, so this is hearsay) things hadn't changed that much from 2011-2018.

The biggest change in that time frame (from the inception of Yuletide on ao3, to early 2019) that I am aware of is the rise of "freeform exchanges." This is a modality where, along with the fandom, the characters and/or ship, the participants request a particular trope. Freeform exchanges began, I think, because participants were very choosy about what sort of erotica they wanted to request - and matching that required this level of granularity that hadn't previously been needed. So I think the biggest two freeform exchanges initially were "Smut Swap" and "Nonconathon" - the latter is still extant, the former has been replaced by a clone (like how candy hearts replaced chocolate box). There is also Multi-Fandom Tropefest which is fairly old, and Fandom 5k likewise - all four of these started before I joined the exchange scene.

In summer 2019 everything started to change. (I'm not sure how much of this is public nor how much the various people involved want their handles attached, so I'm going to be vague and use initials) A specific fan M. set out to test the Collection/Challenge/Exchange ao3 functionality to its limits, creating exchanges with wild and heretofore never tried rules and moderation/admin practices, not to mention writing and requesting chaos. This showed the community the flexibility of what exchanges could do and could be, and nearly immediately, other fans picked up on doing this. I did, and S. did, and F., as well as other accomplices 😄 Because so many new people jumped into running these easy and short term "flash exchanges" (as they became known), the community of people who had some experience moderating and running an exchange grew.

Also for a while, MVP fan K. had been creating a webapp for Yuletide for a few years. At some point in I think 2020, K. expanded this into a more general webapp that could scrape any exchange request set and make the requests far easier to find for what a given participant wanted to create. K. is still updating and supporting this app, running a brief fundraiser yearly that quickly accumulates enough money to fund its bandwidth usage.

Between these two factors, the number of exchanges and the breadth of types of exchanges blew up.

One of the biggest exchanges I now do, with nearly as much work produced as Yuletide (albeit by only a quarter the number of participants) is Fic in a Box. It was inspired by F.'s participation in one of M.'s offbeat flash exchanges, spinning F.'s love of "tedious details" and spreadsheets into a fanwork exchange where not only fic, but also art, and many other modes of fan creation (there are over a hundred options, like softer world comic strips, logic puzzles, and drink recipes) are created and given without any specific holiday or trope in mind, in any fandom that is desired.

There are so many exchanges now that there are literally no gaps in the calendar in which a new one can be placed that doesn't overlap two or three already existing ones. Every particpant has to pick and choose which ones to sign up for and put their effort into creating for. This means that while the particpiation in Yuletide specifically is shrinking, the overall pool of multifandom exchange participants has been growing. New fandoms tend to pull their members in like waves - for example, a recent wave brought a lot of Minecraft Lets Play fans in, who write fic about the youtube minecraft players' roleplays.

FFFX letter for Gammarad on AO3

General likes are here: General Likes

requesting:

- The Space Between Worlds

Ideas!

Comics ... I'd love a comic showing a flashback to how Caralee reacted to meeting Dell, or a comic about them moving in together or going on a date, or [either/both] of them meeting someone secretly about a thing - you make up the thing - or them interacting with Earth-0 Cara's family? Or for worldbuilding comic, show another Earth, Dell of another Earth, maybe, or alternates of some other characters; or show the other-earth people who are coming to Earth-0 and what they're doing...

Fics ... how about Cara lying (or trying to lie) to Dell about something important, and what that sets off; or a visitor from another Earth and what happens to them (which can include worldbuilding or Cara/Dell); or an expanded version of the comics prompts maybe? Or some kind of mission-fic type of story where Cara goes to another Earth and does a thing? I'd be very happy with any of first, second, or third person narrative, or a mix.

- Drop-Out

I love the Drop-Out comic and these characters. I can't stop thinking about them sometimes for hours on end. Their personalities and expressiveness are so immersive and compelling! I don't really have much in the way of ideas and prompts about them but honestly I would read a comic of them holding hands and talking about things that happened to them or about ideas or books they read or tv shows they watched or what color they want to paint or wallpaper their room or future home? About other people they met and those people's problems to avoid discussing their own?

As for a fic, I think it would need more story, and I am open to a story that is parallel where the two of them are not together for much of it, if that would be interesting. As well as a more conventional one where they're doing things together. Like, what if they are separate, and doing things, and there's parallels between the things Lola is doing and the things Sugar is doing, yet not the same things because they're such different people? There could be a framing bit where they are together, or maybe they meet at one point in the story briefly, but it's fine if they are mostly separate, or if the story is mostly about just one of them and the other just shows up briefly. I'd be very happy with any of first, second, or third person narrative, or a mix.

- Will Trent

So, Josiah is only in one episode but he's amazing in it and instantly became my favorite when he gave the speech about how he's a multi season Shonda Rhimes show, I'd love to see a comic of his life or a fic about one of his cases or his love affairs or both. Use as many (or few) OCs as you want for this!

As for Faith and Will, I really like their growing partnership through the series and would love to read a casefic with them solving something, or trying to, or a friendship fic with a case in the background could also work? Feel free to put any other characters from the show in the fic or comic. Comic ideas for the two of them, maybe walking Betty together, or going to an event at a local school or college, or showing each other photos? Or the comic showing them working on a case together with a wall of case-analysis stuff?

- Leverage

I really loved the new character of Breanna Casey and what she brought to the team, and having three women working together on something gives me joy. A comic about them running a con together? or one of them can be showing the other two how to do something she specializes in?

A story about them helping someone through a con they run together? Or a story about one of them helping the other two in order to get a favor that she then calls in to get help herself?


DNWs: as in request but also one extra I didn't think of at the time: kinking on the destruction of something because of its especial expensiveness or value.

The DNWs from the requests: anything that'd rate the ao3 "underage" warning, intergenerational incest, sibling incest, bulging or inflation kink, age-play, injuries involving exposed bone, any sex that goes against a character's stated-in-the-work sexual orientation (like if they say "I am gay" and then have het sex, even if noncon), characters making threats to children or pet animals to cause emotional distress or to compel action by other characters, serious harm to children or pet animals intended by the inflicter of the harm to cause emotional distress to others, characters reacting to the death of their children or their pet animals

Yuletide Letter

I'm Gammarad on AO3 and I have requested the following:

Almost Nowhere
Empire Star
Patternist series
Provenance

My general likes page

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Almost Nowhere is here on ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8341348

Nominated characters are Azad, Cordelia, Sylvester, and Cat

As long as you include one of those four, anything about this novel would be great. It's been a bit of a companion to me since I started using ao3 and I'm excited to be able to request it in an exchange.

For Azad, a story about translation would be cool, he's especially interesting to me as a translator. Or a ship story with any of his canonical relationships if that's what you're most interested in writing - I really enjoy getting to vicariously enjoy someone else's enthusiasm via reading. Or something that's epistolary as in, a thing notionally written by Azad, either canonically or divergently.

For Cordelia, a story about being a fan, as she is the most fangirlish of the characters, or a story about any of her canonical ships, or about her interactions with the Ells? Or her pursuits after the novel's end. Again, a document supposedly written by her would be very interesting to me, also.

For Sylvester, he is to me the most interesting of the anomaling characters, so I'd love to see his point of view explored. Maybe he has some more to share, information wise or experience, or maybe he splits off and part of him does something different? His take on some of the events of the story where the reader doesn't really get to see how he reacts would also be super intriguing.

For Cat, who is a very minor character, I kind of would like to know Cat's POV and also back story. And a fix-it for Cat where the terrible fate that ends up happening is softened a bit would be sweet, if it's possible. Angst about Cat is also a potential way to go, with Eleven POV maybe, or one of the other Beasts who perhaps was Cat's friend.

DNW: Change of setting AUs and crossovers (canonical setting change *crashes* are fine, though! It can superficially look like a setting change AU / crossover as long as it eventually proves to be in the novel setting really.) Deaging characters to preadolescence. / ships between requested characters and OCs.

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Patternist Series by Octavia Butler - character: Anyanwu


Anyanwu is the main character in Wild Seed and I'd be fine with a story that is based just on Wild Seed, but also happy with one that draws from the other books in the Patternist series (I have read them all, though it was long ago).

DNW: explicit sex of any kind, implied sex with people under 18, unrequested crossovers, depiction or description of injuries that clearly involve exposed bone

Prompts: There are a lot of possibilities for Anyanwu to interact with various people throughout her long life. With her children, with their other parents, with her descendants, with strangers. In all sorts of shapes, or her own. This is really wide open, but what I'd like is to see how Anyanwu is Anyanwu no matter who or what she's "being" at that given moment. Hope that makes sense. I also really love worldbuilding, so anything you can do to show how Doro's project or the rise of psychics changes Anyanwu's world from ours would be great. As long as she's in the story, she doesn't have to be the focus of it if you're doing a worldbuilding kind of story. Also feel free to use any other characters from the series, and any characters from the two crossover option books.

Crossover requests: Who Fears Death - Nnedi Okorafor; Touch - Claire North

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Provenance by Ann Leckie - part of the Imperial Radch series
Characters: Tic Uisine and the Geck Ambassador

It's clear from the events of Provenance that Tic and the Geck Ambassador go way back, but the exact thing that's going on has a lot of room for stories. I'd be happy for any type of story that focuses on either of these two characters and includes both of them. It is fine for it to also include other aspects of the Imperial Radch series and characters that aren't in Provenance, whether or not you'd think of that as a crossover.

I love the whole Imperial Radch series but I'm most interested in Provenance and its characters. If you want to combine these or make additional world-building topics in Provenance parts of the universe, I'm here for it. What I love about Provenance: the characters, the different cultures and how they all interact, the intensity of the strained relationships each of the nominated characters has with their parents and how those tie into the way their world is arranged -- the parental figures have used these characters to advance what they see as the right way of their cultures, and it's cost them all.

some freeforms I've requested in the past that might serve as prompts:

Adopted Sibling RelationshipParent/child relationship - difficult relationshipParent/child relationship - different worldviews
Complicated Relationship with a Parental Figure
Small lie or pretense spirals out of control
Character struggling with carrying a legacy they have been bestowed with
Small moment of happiness before everything falls apart
Rashomon-Style Conflicting Narratives
Character does horrible things on purpose; agrees they're horrible; is very sorry; does them anyway
Finicky Details About What It's Like To Live In A Particular Setting


DNW: Setting change AU, unrequested crossover, explicit sexual content, injuries to humans involving exposed bone

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Empire Star is a space opera fairy tale about oppression, the loss of innocence, and the author's feelings about being a queer black New Yorker crystallized into metaphorical eternity. It is a contender for the most identity porn ever crammed into a single short novel.

I also requested this in writing rainbow white, and the tags there make a perfect constellation of the range of things I would like in a fic for this novel. These are the freeforms:

Sad character earns deserved happy ending
So many delicious setting details and so much atmosphere
outer space is super cool but also completely terrifying
Does It Count As Saving the World If You're the One That Put it in Danger?
Fairy Tale Elements
outsider pov
Past wrongs result in not quite forgiveness and not quite not forgiveness either
Legendarily Bad Taste In People To Be Attracted To
Bonding over bearing the burden of cursed knowledge
Anything you think I might like
Adopting an Alien Pet
Sufficiently Advanced Alien Is Indistinguishable From A Cat

DNWs: explicit underage smut, injuries to humans involving exposed bone, crossovers unless cleared through the moderators

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My worldbuilding likes are pretty much all the types.

I like the long discursive essay about how the sewer system works in the middle of the chase scene through the sewer, and I like the careful insertion of telling detail into the chase scene almost unnoticed until you realize at the end of it that you know exactly why this sewer has bends there and low ceilings here. I also like when the characters stop to argue about why the sewer is like this and get caught.

I think my favorite is when the worldbuilding communicates a strong point of view about the stuff it's showing/telling, and when seemingly separate bits of it turn out to be deeply connected.

May the 4th letter

requested pairings

Cinta Kaz/Vel Sartha

Risha Drayven/Vette

Lana Beniko/Elara Dorne

General likes letter here

Hello

I'm Gammarad on ao3 and this is my Yuletide signup letter.

My general likes are here: General Likes for Exchange Gifts

This letter is going to contain mostly what I like about each requested character & fandom, and possibly some prompts if you want them. Please feel free to ignore my prompts and get your inspiration solely from my list of likes linked above if that's your preference.

DNWs for requests 1-2: underage sex; incest kink; noncon with requested character as victim

DNWs for requests 3-6: explicit sex - noncon with requested character as victim - serious threats or purposeful harming of dependents or loved ones (including pets) of characters to psychologically harm them - underage (not adults in their own culture) characters depicted being involved in sexual relationships - injuries involving exposed bone

Requests:

1. Brand New Cherry Flavor - Lisa Nova

2. Laundry Files - Cassie (either one is fine, no distinction was made in the nomination - so you can write about the original human Cassie or the being who took over the identity of Cassie - or both!)

3. The Culture - Vyr Cossont

4. Teixcalaan - Nine Hibiscus

5. Midst - Saska del Norma

6. Midnight Burger (any - none nominated)



Request 1 - Brand New Cherry Flavor, Lisa Nova

Please feel free to pair her with either Roy or Mary for a / pairing or with either Boro or Code for an & pairing, or write about her solo, or write her with Worldbuilding. The requested character doesn't need to be the focus of the gift, as long as she's substantially present.

What I liked about this story was the style of it, the interpersonal relationships depicted, Lisa's ambitiousness and her willingness to go further than she knew she ought to. I'd enjoy something set before, during, or after the canonical story, as well as divergence.

Request 2 - Laundry files, Cassie

Please feel free to write about the original Cassie or about the being who replaced her for most of the book - I'm equally interested in both, though I definitely know the replacement Cassie better due to her having more page time in Nightmare Stacks. I think that book was my favorite of the entire series, and I like the whole series quite a bit. If my overall list of requests gives you the idea I like things that have a mixture from fantasy/sci fi with horror elements and with a character-driven humor aspect, you might be right.

There's something really compelling to me about the particular tropes this book was working with, and what the author did with them, blending the ordinary sort of workplace-dystopian rom-com set pieces with the horror-sci-fi-fantasy story arc. Also I just liked the character, in both versions, the playful and friendly young woman and the angsty yet calculating monstrous fae. I liked how their combined story worked its way through the overall one. During or post-Nightmare Stacks is probably best for this request, probably? Feel free to diverge the tale from that book or to stick with her canonical continuation in future books.

Request 3 - The Culture, Vyr Cossont

Hydrogen Sonata was so good I didn't want to let go of it, so now I'm returning to it for a request since Vyr was a nominated character. Feel free to set the story about her before, during, or after that book's story, and to bring in any secondary character from that book.

I love her interactions with various other Culture characters as shown in the book, and also her history on Gzilt, what we got of it - something about her younger years there would be good, as well as a canon divergence or canon follow-up set after the ending of Hydrogen Sonata.

Request 4 - Teixcalaan, Nine Hibiscus

Her previous battles, younger years on the way up to her position, her interactions with people back on the capital rather than just on her ship; canon divergence where she goes into a different career could also be interesting.

I really like her personality and way of dealing with things and people. She's so different from the other characters in the series she's from, in terms of aggression and directness especially, yet there's a similarity in a way to some of the others, too. They're all in tune in some way I can't quite pin down - but I suspect has to do with that story-symmetry her culture values so much!

Request 5 - Midst, Saskia del Norma

I love Midst so much for its setting and all the characters. Please feel free to have Saskia interacting with Moc, Sherman, Imelda, or Lark, of the nominated characters. Also I'd love if you wanted to include worldbuilding into the story.

The thing that made me request Saskia in particular is her physical transformation between seasons of the show - I'd love something that explores either, if set before the change, what made her the sort of person that the Fold would do that to; or if set after the change, how she's adapting or struggling with the new self she's been given.

Request 6 - Midnight Burger, any

Midnight Burger is so much fun. The characters stand out for me, and I'd love a story that centers on Gloria the newcomer, Shel the plant person, Ava the physicist, Effie the radio personality, or even the Ex, such a mysterious created being that she is. They're a few of my favorite characters. I'd also love a worldbuilding story set in the Midnight Burger universe about something in the past of the whole thing, if you're more inclined for that.

This year I participated in 28 exchanges (If I didn't miss any - it's possible).

• Birthday Bash - not going to count gifts or works for this one! it was sure fun though


• Bulletproof 20/21 - received 6 gifts and created 5 fics as gifts for others


• X-Ship Flash - received 2 gifts and wrote 1 assignment


• Worldbuilding Ex - received 1 gift and wrote 1 assignment and 1 treat


• Chocolate Box - wrote 1 treat


• Id Pro Quo - wrote 1 pinch hit


• Original 5k - received 1 gift and wrote 1 assignment


• Prisoner Ex - received 1 gift and wrote 1 assignment


• Femdom Ex - wrote 1 pinch hit


• Writing Rainbow Nail Polish - wrote 1 gift fic


• Stork Swap - received 1 gift and wrote 1 assignment


• Words From Hell Ex - wrote 1 pinch hit


• Writing Rainbow Pink - received 1 gift, wrote one assignment and one treat


• Fairy Tale Inspired - wrote 1 pinch hit


• Recursive Exchange - wrote 1 pinch hit


• Battleship - received 5 gifts, wrote 1 gift


• WDLF Time Loop - received 8 gifts, wrote 8 gift fics


• Multifandom Horror - received 1 gift, wrote 1 assignment and 1 pinch hit


• Crossworks - received 1 gift, wrote 1 assignment and 1 treat


• If I Fits I Fics - received 1 gift


• Fandom Growth - received 1 gift, wrote 1 assignment and 1 treat


• Fic in a Box - received 3 gifts, wrote 3 assignments


• Heart Attack - wrote 1 pinch hit


• Multifandom Doodle - received 5 gifts


• Yuletide - received 3 Yuletide gifts and 1 NYR earlier in the year - wrote 1 assignment, 2 pinch hits and 2 treats


• Infidelity Flash - wrote 1 pinch hit


• Two rounds of Multifandom Drabble - received 2 gifts and wrote 2 treats




total gift fics written 2021 not counting Birthday Bash: 47
total pinch hits written: 10

total gift fics written 2020 not counting Birthday Bash: 44
total pinch hits written: 5

Overview: Ledo and Ix

Ledo and Ix is an unfinished animated series about two (maybe the only two) self-aware, thinking characters living in a pixel-art game world.

The two of them go through some emotional and existential adventures, as well as funny ones. The distinction is sometimes lost entirely.

If you like video game humor and also unexpected depth of the pathos of not-quite-solipsistic existence in an arbitrary world - and can handle the fact that it just peters out in the middle of an arc in season 2 with a half-made episode - this is the canon for you.

Screenshots from Episode 2

   

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Characters

Ledo

Ledo is a tough, high level warrior who finds even the scariest-looking random encounter monsters no trouble at all. She's laconic and a bit too ready to consume alcoholic beverages. Very genre-savvy, but frustrated at the lack of flexibility exhibited by most of the inhabitants of her world. Her only real friend is Ix.

   

Ix

Ix is a naturally optimistic easy-going bard type who wants the world to be better than it is. Ledo is the only person he's found who has the same sort of ability to speculate and solve problems that he has, but he keeps hoping they'll find more like themselves.

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Where to Watch Ledo and Ix

You can get the basics from the first stand-alone episode, five minutes on YouTube here: Ledo and Ix

All of Season 1 is in this Playlist: Ledo and Ix Season 1

What exists of Season 2 is in this Playist: Ledo and Ix Season 2 (Never completed)

I'm Gammarad on ao3. I love all my requests equally! Fill any one you want. I'm open to 10k+ single work or two 5k works or comics of either length equivalent.

Fandoms for Five Figure Fanfic Exchange


Fandom anchor links (alphabeticalish):

• Cats of Grand Central


• The City & the City


• Chronicles of Amber


• Much Ado About Nothing


• Original Works


• Piranesi


• Teixcalaan Series


• The Witness for the Dead

Not fandom specific:

If making a comic, feel free to do a scene from a larger story that's implied by the scene in some way, too. I like art that's atmospheric and conveys the emotions of the story, and in comics, more stylized usually works better for me than more realistic, so maybe a limited palette of colors would be good, or drawings that aren't colored.

LIKES:

Character, setting, and theme likes: cats (including cat-like fantasy creatures or spirits), aliens (including cat-like and human-like aliens as well as ones like nothing at all on Earth), friendship, rivalry, enemies, eerie supernatural stuff, unusual settings, ancient history (BCE), science fiction, technology, AI, robots, cyborgs, worldbuilding. Older mature characters.

Gen (& relationship) likes: Loyalty - either one way or mutual, enemies who have a certain understanding, colleagues who rely on each other, colleagues who undermine each other, employee & employer relatioship either with loyalty or with one using the other, parent & child relationships with protectiveness, student & teacher relationships with mutual desire to learn, criminal & victim relationships with complexities, bounty hunter & target relationships where they have to be taken alive (or where the target is just that hard to kill), stranger & potential new friend (but also potential new threat) relationships, allies of convenience. One character noticing things about the other and sharing insights (or not, as their character dictates). Doing something meaningful without being asked. Bickering. Using someone's observed weakness against them. The way only someone close to them can hurt them like that.

Romantic (/ relationship) likes: Pining, previous and/or background ships, cheating or adultery, equal partnerships, casual consensual D/s elements, different sorts of beings (like AI/human or vampire/human or AI/vampire or alien/different kind of alien, you get the idea) in love. Being able to see what makes that person the one they want. Being perfect for each other but not knowing it yet. Characters struggling to figure out how to show their love. Characters who have good reason to think the person they want isn't right for them but can't help it. Obsessive unhealthy love. Complicated relationships with give and take and balance issues. Canon poly.

Plotty likes: intelligent non-humans, learning to get along despite differences, working out misaligned goals. Myth inspired plots or fairy tale retellings, mysteries, ghost stories, adventure stories, coming of age stories, romances, case or mission fic, noir style, pastiche of canon, pastiche of something other than the canon you're actually writing. Happy for now endings, bittersweet endings, knowing what you have won't last forever, getting what they want and realizing it's not what they need, getting what they need even though it wasn't what they thought they wanted, taking what they can get in lieu of what they really need or want.

Smut likes: Older human characters having explicit sex. Saying with physical affection what they can't say out loud. Solving problems in sex (difficulty climaxing, premature ejaculation, injury does not allow for their usual sex, that kind of thing). Sex toys, improvised sex toys, edging, honor bondage, orgasm denial. D/s (with equal amounts of experience or with the submissive person more experienced, I also like couples who switch who is dominant), vampires with sexy blood drinking, aliens with strange genitalia, robots or cyborgs with technological genitalia.

Style likes: I like a whole broad variety of styles. First person, second person, omniscient narrator (like a historian or telepath or seer or deity), same as canon, totally different from canon for reasons, carefully preserved realism, blend of realism vs fantastical elements, fourth wall breaking, epistolary, unreliable narrator, close third person, out-of-order storytelling, time jumps, dream scenes, surreal or stream-of-consciousness interludes, main character viewpoint, outsider viewpoint including POV of AI, cats, ghosts, deities, or other unusual being. For all writing-style options, go with whatever best suits your personal style or your chosen story.

Cats of Grand Central

• Arhu & Siffha'h


• Rhiow


• Urruah


• Original Cat Wizard


• Worldbuilding

Prompts (feel free to use or ignore in favor of going with my likes list from above):
- Portals go haywire in new and interesting ways, cat wizards are the portal specialists and must fix
- rivalry causes big trouble between cat wizards but no one will step in, they have to resolve it themselves
- someone tries to coopt a cat wizard - they partially succeed and then what?
- cat wizards vs aliens - must keep aliens a secret from the non-wizard humans, but maybe other cats can help!
- cat wizards vs well-meaning humans who have entirely the wrong idea about cat wizards in some humorous or touching way
- a rogue wizard (cat or other type) causes problems for the main character(s) yet shows them a (seemingly unrelated) problem they might otherwise never have noticed
- rescuing kittens from trouble (maybe a litter of kittens were born with wings for no apparent reason? maybe the kittens have been trying to reunite with their mother but she's in another dimension? maybe the kittens were stolen because they're valuable and when rescued, there's also a whole lot of exotic animals that need help?)

DNW: gory descriptions of injuries, injuries with exposed bone, any explicit sex between cats, focus on romance between humans, focus on romance between spayed or neutered cats, focus on cats in heat or intact tomcats' obsession with sex

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The City & the City

• Tyador Borlú/Original Character


• Tyador Borlú


• Lizbyet Corwi


• Original Undercover Breach Agent


• Worldbuilding

Prompts (feel free to use or ignore in favor of going with my likes list from above):
- someone from Breach is murdered. Guess who ends up helping solve the case?
- a threat is made against a Beszel official visiting Ul Qoma (or vice versa) - they may need protection. Who made the threat, why, and will they carry it out? Or was it a ruse?
- a formerly completely ordinary, regular Ul Qoman citizen goes rogue, hiding out in Beszel without officially crossing into it, and somehow manages to escape Breach. What's going on?
- secret Breach documents are released by an angry (or drugged, or other reason) Breach agent and Breach has the main character help out
- a mysterious thieves' guild building appears in Beszel one day (or in Ul Qoma), and it's rumored they've always been there - only in Orciny, so neither city ever saw it before
- Tyador can end up in a romantic relationship with a person from any of the above prompts or come up with your own?

DNW: explicit underage sex, noncon incest, bulging or inflation kink, injuries with exposed bone, focus on incest or underage ships

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Chronicles of Amber

• Dalt


• Dara


• Ghostwheel

Prompts (feel free to use or ignore in favor of going with my likes list from above):
- Dalt has a grudge to work out against one of his relatives; another relative becomes an ally
- Dara has to maneuver around her Courts of Chaos relatives to pursue an Amber-related goal
- Ghostwheel takes an unconventional route to getting to know more about his family (either or both sides)
- a cross Shadow war of some kind involves one of the three characters despite their not wanting to be involved in something so trivial. Yet apparently there's something deeper going on (Amberite or Chaos involvement?)
- Dalt + original character or canon character of author's choice have a romance, with political intrigue background
- Dara + original character or canon character of author's choice have a romance, with occult intrigue background
- Ghostwheel somehow has romance - how does that even work? I'd love someone to show me...

DNW: underage sex, permanent death of requested characters, bulging or inflation kink, injuries with exposed bone

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Much Ado About Nothing

• Don John

Prompts (feel free to use or ignore in favor of going with my likes list from above):
- Don John is broken out of detention or escapes. Story could go into the escape plan, or follow the aftermath
- Don John has a romantic liaison with an unrelated character of author's choice, it is complicated
- canon divergence where Don John's plan was more successful - then what?
- canon divergence where Don John's plan still failed but instead of being caught, he's a fugitive. This can be combined with a romance, too, for more fun and subplot shenanigans.

Feel free to have any background ships from the canon included in the story, as long as a good portion of the focus is on the requested character. Canon ships or your choice of ships are all fine, any gender combinations, as long as they don't violate my DNWs.

DNW: incest (between blood-related family members closer than 1st cousins), focus on underage sex, bulging or inflation kink, 'corrective' noncon of any orientation, injuries with exposed bone

---

Original Works

Spy with So Many Secrets and Identities Uncertain What Is Real/Another Spy
Spy with So Many Secrets and Identities Uncertain What Is Real/Handler
Male Combat Cyborg/Female Robotics Engineer From Rival Syndicate
Male Combat Cyborg/Male Robotics Engineer From Rival Syndicate
Mid-Century Librarian/Crash-Landed Alien Posing as Human

Any gender combination is fine if not indicated in the tag: I like all the categories. Also feel free to go with any gender identity details you have in mind for the characters. Unusual sexual equipment is also fine. Go wild however you want to write the sci-fi sex and/or romance, or keep it pretty close to regular human (which also has a pretty wild variety!)

Also I love worldbuilding. Feel free to focus on the ship, or to go wild on the worldbuilding, I will love it either way.

What I like about spies: the tension of wanting to tell things to a person you care about with needing to lie to them for survival or for the mission. Competence, secrecy, the situations that come up when one person knows something and the other doesn't. The way situations change depending on how you look at them, how a disaster can turn into a triumph and vice versa. Having to decide between doing: what's right, what will keep your morality or sanity, what will protect the people you care for, and what the mission demands.

What I like about cyborgs: The gain in power combined with the loss of previous parts of the self; how it changes the person's relationship and identity; cool things cyborgs can do that regular people can't; new sensations from the machinery hooked up to the brain; having to do maintenance on their body instead of it being able to heal itself; how it might be viewed as intimate vs viewed as impersonal when it's tending body parts that are also machines, by different people in the same situation.

What I like about aliens: how they view the world from an outsider perspective; how they have their own culture that is made up and can reflect reality or options that reality hasn't made yet; their ability to find both problems and solutions that humans haven't found yet. The contrast of different bodies and minds and histories raised to an even greater level than between two very different humans.

DNW for this request: any underage sex or romance, violent or threat-based noncon of female characters by male characters (dubious consent due to factors other than threats or violence is fine in m/f ships and all types are fine in other ship categories), "corrective" noncon of any orientation, serious and permanent harm to pets or children (or plausible threat against pets or children used to coerce), bulging or inflation kink, injuries involving exposed bone.

---

Piranesi

• Sarah Raphael


• Original Character & The House

What I am interested in about Piranesi: The characters of Sarah, Piranesi, all the minor characters who show up; the birds and why there are birds in the House at all; the statues; how the memory loss works; what life is like for others who start to live there and how it's similar and different to Piranesi's experience. The magic process that gets a person to the House and all the different ways it could work. The mystic group that Matthew was investigating and each person in it.

Please feel free to use any of these prompts, or ignore them and consult my likes list for more options!

- Back story on Sarah and how she came to be the sort of person who'd go looking for a missing person in the House (and succeed!)
- Future story about Sarah and what her life is like after the discovery. Does she stay long enough to have her memory affected? Does she take anyone else there? What does the House want with her, if anything?
- An original character who enters the House. How do they get there? What leads them there?
- Or alternatively, also for original character, what happens to them in the House? Do they die there? If they die, what happens to their remains? If they don't die, do they ever leave? How and what happens afterward?
- Or alternatively for either Sarah or an original character: What is their relationship like with the House if they visit but never stay long? What does it change for them about their view of the regular world?

DNW for this request: explicit sex, incest, underage characters involved in romance with adults or in nonconsensual sex, injuries with exposed bone, severe harm to pets or focus on threats to pets or children, death of Sarah Raphael (it's okay to kill off original characters or unrequested characters).

---

Teixcalaan series

• Five Agate/Nineteen Adze


• Twenty Cicada

Prompts (feel free to use or ignore in favor of going with my likes list from above):
- Twenty Cicada and the kitten he somewhat-adopted and the progress of their relationship
- Twenty Cicada and the aliens and how he deals with their interactions (and how they deal with him! Alien POV would be cool too) ; you can include alien sex (heats, weird genitals, what the aliens even do for sex, whether solely with each other or experimentally also with Twenty Cicada?) if you want to go there, that could be very interesting, or stick with communication and negotiations and military and all that stuff
- What if Twenty Cicada took the kitten to meet with the aliens? what if that worked out really well?
- Twenty Cicada's job on the ship and how he does it (and makes life easier for his friend the captain, or not)
- Twenty Cicada's relationship with his unusual religion; worldbuilding about his religion and home culture and so on
- Nineteen Adze and Five Agate always had a romantic relationship of a sort, but it used to be back burnered as Nineteen Adze had to focus on the Emperor (and Yksandr? maybe), but now those are both gone
- Nineteen Adze and Five Agate start up a relationshp when Five Agate becomes an ezuazuacat - how does it start? how does it proceed? does Nineteen Adze feel like she's recreating something, or starting something entirely new?
- Empire ruling detail worldbuilding with background Nineteen Adze/Five Agate is also exceptionally welcome

DNWs: sexual or romantic relationships between minors and adults; focus on sex or romance between minors; bulging or inflation kink; death of requested characters; injuries involving exposed bone

---

The Witness for the Dead

• Amiru Chonhadrin & her grandfather Thilmerezh


• Group: Amiru Chonhadrin/Lalo Leverin


• Othoro Vakrezharad

Prompts (feel free to use or ignore in favor of going with my likes list from above):
- how Othoro became an opera singer
- rehearsing the operas, what they're like from Othoro's point of view, her interactions with the other opera singers and staff
- Othoro's personal relationships, family, romantic interests, or something else about her life
- Amiru's family, her hobbies, her everyday life, events at the factory she works in
- Amiru and her grandfather Thilmerezh end up having more in common than they expect and then there's trouble from Amiru's other relatives over that
- Amiru and Lalo meet (maybe Thara introduces them) and get on well enough that a romance starts
- Maybe there's Thara solving murders in the background? but that's not necessary. or maybe someone else from TGE shows up?

DNW: injuries with exposed bone, incest, explicit noncon, focus on sex or romance involving underage character(s).

I'm Gammarad on ao3. I love all my requests equally! Fill any one you want. (Requests at the bottom, copied from the form entries pretty much verbatim.)

LIKES:

Character, setting, and theme likes: cats (including cat-like fantasy creatures or spirits), aliens (including cat-like and human-like aliens as well as ones like nothing at all on Earth), friendship, rivalry, enemies, eerie supernatural stuff, unusual settings, ancient history (BCE), science fiction, technology, AI, robots, cyborgs, worldbuilding. Older mature characters.

Gen (& relationship) likes: Loyalty - either one way or mutual, enemies who have a certain understanding, colleagues who rely on each other, colleagues who undermine each other, employee & employer relatioship either with loyalty or with one using the other, parent & child relationships with protectiveness, student & teacher relationships with mutual desire to learn, criminal & victim relationships with complexities, bounty hunter & target relationships where they have to be taken alive (or where the target is just that hard to kill), stranger & potential new friend (but also potential new threat) relationships, allies of convenience. One character noticing things about the other and sharing insights (or not, as their character dictates). Doing something meaningful without being asked. Bickering. Using someone's observed weakness against them. The way only someone close to them can hurt them like that.

Romantic (/ relationship) likes: Pining, previous and/or background ships, cheating or adultery, equal partnerships, casual consensual D/s elements, different sorts of beings (like AI/human or vampire/human or AI/vampire or alien/different kind of alien, you get the idea) in love. Being able to see what makes that person the one they want. Being perfect for each other but not knowing it yet. Characters struggling to figure out how to show their love. Characters who have good reason to think the person they want isn't right for them but can't help it. Obsessive unhealthy love. Complicated relationships with give and take and balance issues. Canon poly.

Plotty likes: intelligent non-humans, learning to get along despite differences, working out misaligned goals. Myth inspired plots or fairy tale retellings, mysteries, ghost stories, adventure stories, coming of age stories, romances, case or mission fic, noir style, pastiche of canon, pastiche of something other than the canon you're actually writing. Happy for now endings, bittersweet endings, knowing what you have won't last forever, getting what they want and realizing it's not what they need, getting what they need even though it wasn't what they thought they wanted, taking what they can get in lieu of what they really need or want.

Smut likes: Older human characters having explicit sex. Saying with physical affection what they can't say out loud. Solving problems in sex (difficulty climaxing, premature ejaculation, injury does not allow for their usual sex, that kind of thing). Sex toys, improvised sex toys, edging, honor bondage, orgasm denial. D/s (with equal amounts of experience or with the submissive person more experienced, I also like couples who switch who is dominant), vampires with sexy blood drinking, aliens with strange genitalia, robots or cyborgs with technological genitalia.

Style likes: I like a whole broad variety of styles. First person, second person, omniscient narrator (like a historian or telepath or seer or deity), same as canon, totally different from canon for reasons, carefully preserved realism, blend of realism vs fantastical elements, fourth wall breaking, epistolary, unreliable narrator, close third person, out-of-order storytelling, time jumps, dream scenes, surreal or stream-of-consciousness interludes, main character viewpoint, outsider viewpoint including POV of AI, cats, ghosts, deities, or other unusual being. For all writing-style options, go with whatever best suits your personal style or your chosen story.

Dislikes - these are general DNWs that I have that may not apply in all cases - please be aware that request-specific DNWs from signup always trump this list:
-- face claims of real people for original characters (Drawings you made are wonderful and very welcome!)
-- incest (defined as *actual family members* closer than first cousins. Does not apply to 'like a brother' or 'childhood friends' or anything like that). Exception: immortal beings (example: Greek gods), in adult form.
-- explicit underage sex (sometimes exceptions for sex between two teens 16 and over, when requested).
-- noncon of underage victims
-- bulging or inflation kink
-- injury that includes exposed bone
-- serious injury or death of cats or cat-like creatures (exception: ghost cats are fine, and showing how they die and become ghosts is fine; it's also fine when a cat is a requested character and the scenario involves hurt/comfort for the cat)
-- "corrective" noncon of a person of any orientation; victims of noncon or dubcon stating that aggressor is of gender they aren't attracted to
-- feminization of one part of m/m pairing to make it more like het; masculinization of one part of f/f pairing to make it more like het; any discussion of who is "the girl" or "the man" etc in the ship. People who are gender non-conforming, feminine men, masculine women, butch women, etc, are all fine if it doesn't fall into that sort of thing. Exception for it happening canonically.

Prompts:

Time travel to fix something in the past results in visit to other canon
Time travel that forms a static looping - between canons
Rescuing a canon character or multiple canon characters from a non-canon peril
Rescuing a canon character or multiple canon characters from canonical peril
Attempting to rescue canon character and interfering with canonical rescue process
Canon-typical case/mission fic (but with the other canon playing a role)
Slice of life interrupted by sudden dimensional door to/from other canon
Romance between characters from different canons
Merge two canons and explain how they overlap / coexist
Origin story of a canon character as if they originated in another canon
Exploring a strange place that is supernaturally or sci-fi-ishly weird and surreal
Character from one canon goes into business in another canon to complain about employee
A canon character meets up with characters from another canon and they:
- are instantly in conflict per their respective goals/needs/preferences
- experience culture clash in amusing ways
- misunderstand each other but both think the other(s) are great! they're just *wrong*
- can't speak each other's language and try to figure out how to communicate
- instantly know the answer to the other side's thorniest problem - now what?
- ought to kill them immediately but don't for *reasons*
Show one side's idea of what's happening, then tell it from the other side's viewpoint and it's almost totally different
Amnesia, one canon character has forgotten they always knew the other canon existed
Character from one canon stalks character from other canon
Characters from different canon are exes; never thought they'd meet again


Copy of signup below! See per-request prompts, per-request DNWs, and allowed fandom combinations.

Request 1 by Gammarad

House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski,
Jane Unlimited - Kristin Cashore,
Piranesi - Susanna Clarke,
October Daye Series - Seanan McGuire

Fic/Crossover

Strange houses and otherworld passages - And it's all in the state of mind, isn't it?

Genre and style likes: worldbuilding, sci-fi, picaresque, case fic, horror, weird, urban-fantasy, ship fic, comedy, experimental fiction, fourth wall breaking, any POV, slipstream, multiple genres combined in one work.

Character likes: canon characters, original characters created for canon settings, older mature characters, characters of any gender. Cats, aliens, artificial intelligences,

Prompts (if you want them -- feel free to write whatever idea you have!)
- story told from the POV of the genius loci of one of the significant places from one of the canons
- meeting between two individuals each from one of the canons about a way to travel between their worlds

DNWs for this request: noncanonical underage sex; noncanonical incest; noncanonical deliberate animal cruelty; noncanonical cruelty to children by adults



Request 2 by Gammarad

The Broken Earth Series - N. K. Jemisin,
Medium (TV), Russian Doll (TV 2019),
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018),
The Endless (2017), Loki (TV 2021),
Sense8 (TV)

Fic/Crossover
Fic/Fusion

Canons where certain people have magic or psychic powers, or are seeing the past or future or reliving options of what could happen.

Genre and style likes: worldbuilding, sci-fi, picaresque, case fic, horror, weird, urban-fantasy, ship fic, comedy, experimental fiction, fourth wall breaking, any POV, slipstream, multiple genres combined in one work.

Character likes: canon characters, original characters created for canon settings, older mature characters, characters of any gender. Cats, aliens, artificial intelligences,

Prompts (if you want them -- feel free to write whatever idea you have!)
- someone with a canonical problem from one canon goes to a person from another canon for advice on what to do
- someone persecuted in their canon tries to change the past in a way that might work in another canon

DNWs for this request: noncanonical underage sex; noncanonical incest; noncanonical deliberate animal cruelty; noncanonical cruelty to children by adults






Request 3 by Gammarad

Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH - Robert C. O'Brien,
The Rescuers (Movies),
Hamster Princess Series - Ursula Vernon

Fic/Crossover

rodent request!

Genre and style likes: worldbuilding, sci-fi, picaresque, case fic, horror, weird, urban-fantasy, ship fic, comedy, experimental fiction, fourth wall breaking, any POV, slipstream, multiple genres combined in one work.

Character likes: canon characters, original characters created for canon settings, older mature characters, characters of any gender.

Prompts (if you want them -- feel free to write whatever idea you have!)
- rodent shenanigans
- fairy tale-esque situation leads to meeting between characters from different canons

DNWs for this request: any explicit sex; cats as villains; cruelty to cats






Request 4 by Gammarad

The Culture - Iain M. Banks,
Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie,
The Instrumentality of Mankind - Cordwainer Smith,
Solaris - All Media Types,
Steerswoman Series - Rosemary Kirstein,
Dark Matter (TV),
Steven Universe (Cartoon),
On a Sunbeam (Graphic Novel),
Captain Marvel (2019)

Fic/Crossover

science fiction - in space - space opera - spaceships!

Genre and style likes: worldbuilding, sci-fi, picaresque, case fic, horror, weird, urban-fantasy, ship fic, comedy, experimental fiction, fourth wall breaking, any POV, slipstream, multiple genres combined in one work.

Character likes: canon characters, original characters created for canon settings, older mature characters, characters of any gender.

Prompts (if you want them -- feel free to write whatever idea you have!)
- a ship sends a SOS after a weird occurrence disables it in space; another ship responds
- a ship or shuttle crashes or emergency-lands on a planet and meets strangers

DNWs for this request: underage sex, noncanonical deliberate cruelty to animals





Request 5 by Gammarad

Dark City (1998),
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004),
To the Moon Series (Video Games),
SCP Foundation,
The Mentalist

Fic/Crossover

unreliable narrators and memory redaction -- in a variety of media and styles.

Genre and style likes: worldbuilding, sci-fi, picaresque, case fic, horror, weird, urban-fantasy, ship fic, comedy, experimental fiction, fourth wall breaking, any POV, slipstream, multiple genres combined in one work.

Character likes: canon characters, original characters created for canon settings, older mature characters, characters of any gender.

Prompts (if you want them -- feel free to write whatever idea you have!)
- a character needs to forget a piece of knowledge - or recover one that's been forgotten - for life-or-death reason (or so emotionally compelled that it might as well be)
- two characters from different canons meet after forgetting each other - rediscover how they used to be connected

DNWs for this request: underage sex, noncanonical deliberate cruelty to animals






Request 6 by Gammarad
The Queen's Gambit (TV),
Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)

Fic/Crossover

Two very different adaptations of Walter Tevis novels

Genre and style likes: worldbuilding, sci-fi, picaresque, case fic, horror, weird, urban-fantasy, ship fic, comedy, experimental fiction, fourth wall breaking, any POV, slipstream, multiple genres combined in one work.

Character likes: canon characters, original characters created for canon settings, older mature characters, characters of any gender.

Prompts (if you want them -- feel free to write whatever idea you have!)
- Beth finds out one of her parents was an alien from Anthea, what does this mean for her?
- Beth and/or some of her chess buddies rescue Newton from the government agents and save him from his canonical fate

DNWs for this request: underage sex, noncanonical deliberate cruelty to animals

note: if you feel like combining 2 or even 3 ship tags, go for it.

• Cats


• Aliens


• Androids, Robots and AI


• Transmigration


• Vampires


• Mysteries

Global Likes

General likes: cats (including cat-like fantasy creatures or spirits), aliens (including cat-like and human-like aliens as well as ones like nothing at all on Earth), friendship, rivalry, enemies, eerie supernatural stuff, unusual settings, ancient history (BCE), science fiction, technology, AI, robots, cyborgs, worldbuilding. Older mature characters.

& ship likes: Loyalty - either one way or mutual, enemies who have a certain understanding, colleagues who rely on each other, colleagues who undermine each other, employee & employer relatioship either with loyalty or with one using the other, parent & child relationships with protectiveness, student & teacher relationships with mutual desire to learn, criminal & victim relationships with complexities, bounty hunter & target relationships where they have to be taken alive (or where the target is just that hard to kill), stranger & potential new friend (but also potential new threat) relationships, allies of convenience. One character noticing things about the other and sharing insights (or not, as their character dictates). Doing something meaningful without being asked. Bickering. Using someone's observed weakness against them. The way only someone close to them can hurt them like that.

/ ship likes: Pining, previous and/or background ships, cheating or adultery, equal partnerships, casual consensual D/s elements, different sorts of beings (like AI/human or vampire/human or AI/vampire or alien/different kind of alien, you get the idea) in love. Being able to see what makes that person the one they want. Being perfect for each other but not knowing it yet. Characters struggling to figure out how to show their love. Characters who have good reason to think the person they want isn't right for them but can't help it. Obsessive unhealthy love. Complicated relationships with give and take and balance issues. Canon poly.

Plotty likes: intelligent non-humans, learning to get along despite differences, working out misaligned goals. Myth inspired plots or fairy tale retellings, mysteries, ghost stories, adventure stories, coming of age stories, romances, case or mission fic, noir style, pastiche of canon, pastiche of something other than the canon you're actually writing. Happy for now endings, bittersweet endings, knowing what you have won't last forever, getting what they want and realizing it's not what they need, getting what they need even though it wasn't what they thought they wanted, taking what they can get in lieu of what they really need or want.

Smut likes: Older human characters having explicit sex. Saying with physical affection what they can't say out loud. Solving problems in sex (difficulty climaxing, premature ejaculation, injury does not allow for their usual sex, that kind of thing). Sex toys, improvised sex toys, edging, honor bondage, orgasm denial. D/s (with equal amounts of experience or with the submissive person more experienced, I also like couples who switch who is dominant), vampires with sexy blood drinking, aliens with strange genitalia, robots or cyborgs with technological genitalia.

Style likes: I like a whole broad variety of styles. First person, second person, omniscient narrator (like a historian or telepath or seer or deity), same as canon, totally different from canon for reasons, carefully preserved realism, blend of realism vs fantastical elements, fourth wall breaking, epistolary, unreliable narrator, close third person, out-of-order storytelling, time jumps, dream scenes, surreal or stream-of-consciousness interludes, main character viewpoint, outsider viewpoint including POV of AI, cats, ghosts, deities, or other unusual being. Reallly, go with whatever best suits your personal style or your chosen story.

DNWs

"corrective" noncon, bulging or inflation kink, focus on underage sex or romance, cross-generational incest, incest between regular (not alien, not immortal) human characters who are legal or genetic relatives closer than cousins, unrequested gory or permanent-and-serious harm to cats or catlike creatures (exception: harm to cats that appear as ghost cats, and previous death of such ghost cats, is fine; mentioned past injuries that cats have permanently recovered from are also fine).

Aliens

• Alien Bartender On Rogue Colony At The Edge of Known Space/Human Mercenary (M/M)


• Alien Invasion General & Kid Who Spotted Invasion Force Through Telescope (Gen)


• Alien Studying Human Sexuality & Their Human Asexual Subject (Gen)


• Alien Studying Human Sexuality/Their Human Pansexual Subject (Other)


• Alien Who Thinks That Cats Are the Species to Contact When You Visit Earth & Cat (Gen)


• Bartender/His Regular That Is An Alien With Problems (M/M)


• Confused Astronaut/Friendly Alien That Wants To Have His Babies (M/M)


• Cop Mom/Researcher Mom & Fluffy Alien Baby Stowaway who adopts campers as his family


• Female Xenolinguist/Male Humanoid Alien of a Previously Undiscovered Species (F/M)


• Human Farmer on Farming Colony/Ancient Alien In Stasis He Finds In His Field (M/M)


• Human Starship Captain/Alien Official She's Escorting to an Intergalactic Diplomatic Function (F/F)


• Jaded Alien Soldier Stationed To Protect Farming World/Cheerful Human Space Sheep Herder (M/M)


• Male Human Mercenary/His Male Alien Lover & Alien Babies Born From Abandoned Eggs Merc Found


• Male Human/Male Last Member of an Alien Species That Can Get Mpregnant By Any Species (M/M)


• Old human space general/His alien general old friend (M/M)


• Shapeshifting Symbiotic Alien/Demon/Possessed Human Who Doesn't Want Another Passenger (Other)


• Theology Professor with an Archeological Streak/Ancient Alien Goddess she Accidentally Awakens (F/F)

Prompts for alien ships, or maybe it's just free-associating about what might give you a story I'd love (feel free to ignore in favor of a story inspired by the ship tag and my likes instead!):

Misunderstandings between aliens and humans abound. Sometimes they're both right, even though they think they can't possibly both be right, because things seem so different from the human vs alien perspective. If they've just met, they're drawn together by curiosity or a need for affection and seeing something in each other that they realize they need.

Silly problems with baby or young aliens or young humans or gestating hybrids - bringing about a truce or setting off new conflicts. Strange language issues and translation errors that are either funny or fix things unexpectedly or cause disasters that, in solving, work things out better than they could have without the disaster.

History between the alien and human partners that needs to be resolved. Maybe there was a war and they fought on the same side but now things are tense. Or maybe they fought on opposite sides, but now there's peace. Maybe one of them's focused on work (farming, bartending, etc) and the other gets in the way? Needs something that causes issues with the job? And a choice has to be made.

Cats and cute fluffy young aliens and children with telescopes can have sad back stories or just be mischievous; might not have anyone left to take care of them. Trying to return them or fix their lack of support or family? Conflict over official rules about adopting aliens?

Robots, AI, and Androids

• Spaceship AI with Holographic Manifestation/Pilot that Doesn't Know They're AI (Other)


• Vaguely humanoid robot/His human soulmate (M/M)


• Detached Private Investigator/His Repurposed-Sex-Bot Investigative Assistant Android (M/M)


• Hypercompetent Human Male "Android Doctor" & His Android Clients (Gen)


• Mage Healer/Android Healing Doesn't Work On (F/F)


• Mechanic Who Spent 10 Years Repairing an Offline Android/The Android (F/F)


• Snarky Sentient Space Ship/Equally Snarky Android Crew Member Who Prefers Nonhuman Company (Other)


• Unassuming-Looking Android Who Houses A Powerful AI/Space Pirate Hired To Kidnap Him (M/M)


• Avatar of Sentient Space Station/New Resident that Doesn't Know It's Sentient (Other)


• Brilliant Engineer Terrible at Adulting/Sentient Personal Assistant App (Other)


• Hypercompetent Human Female "Spaceship Doctor" & Her Sentient Spaceship Clients (Gen)


• Illegally Sentient Space Ship/The Engineer Who Keeps Their Secret (Other)


• Male Genius Hacker/Female Master Thief & the Sentient Spaceship They Want to Steal


• Space Freighter Pilot/His Ship's AI That Accidentally Became Sentient (M/M)

I'm very stumped for prompts this week, I'm also very open to anything inspired by the ship tags themselves, so I hope the below gives some ideas should you prefer them.

What I like about stories that include AI, robots, androids: I like the perspective on humans from the intelligences we created, so much like us yet aren't us. What is it like to be an AI? What are their experiences and programming that shape their viewpoint and how does that lead to the relationship they have with the humans they meet/know best/love? Can AIs be owned by people and how do they feel about that, is it illegal and if so who pays for their creation and why? When an AI is in a spaceship, the AI can take people places. People live inside the ship and depend on it for their lives. Casefic plots and romance plots equally welcome. What if even an AI doesn't know it's an AI? Or if it's trying to fool people into not knowing it's become self-aware, or (if in a human looking body or projection) not knowing it's not a human? Humans and robots/AIs/androids/spaceships take care of each other or fail to do so in various ways.

In some of these cases, the 'mystery' likes may also be useful. (see below)

Mysteries

with Detectives, Criminals, Writers, Psychics, and some romance maybe too/instead

• Actual Psychic/Skeptical Private Detective/Credulous Bereaved Mutual Client (Other)


• Actual Psychic/Skeptical Sibling Of Murder Victim (Other)


• Fake Psychic/Credulous Sibling Of Murder Victim (Other)


• Absent-minded but Brilliant Detective/Her Long-suffering Assistant (F/M)


• Cosy Mystery Detective/Her Amused New Lover (F/F)


• Cosy Mystery Detective/Her Amused Wife (F/F)


• Private Detective/Phantom Thief She's Supposed to Be Catching (F/F)


• Reclusive Best Selling Author on a rare book tour/Bodyguard who hates reading (M/M)

I'm extraordinarily into procedural type stories where there's some seeming-unrelated thing the pair is investigating that turns out to spark insight into their relationship or personal problems. Also just fun hijinks investigating mysteries. Doesn't even have to be solved if it helps them figure out something else interesting or personally helpful.

Mysteries involving theft of sentimental objects, insurance fraud, cover-ups of corporate wrongdoing, recovery of historically significant artifacts are all good. There can be urban-fantasy or science-fictional elements in these, too, like AU of modern day but with human-equivalent AI so there's robots or androids around, or with some change to the technology (maybe there's teleporters instead of subways, but phones are all still dumb? maybe there's flying cars and cable television still rules and yet due to data protection rules, instead of streaming, netflix et al still mail CDs? maybe there's all sorts of manned spaceflight and people have started colonies on Mars and there's so much fear of global warming that everyone travels on trains?)

Vampires

• Gruff Middle-Aged Vampire Hunter/Sophisticated Young-Looking Vampire With A Crush (F/F)


• Gruff Middle-Aged Vampire Hunter Woman/Sophisticated Young-Looking Male Vampire With A Crush (F/M)


• Space Ship Engineer/Vampire Crewmate (F/F)


• Vampire/Werewolf that bond over being hunted by the same irritating hunter (M/M)


• Chef of a Late-Night Bistro/Former Chef-Turned-Vampire (Other)

Immortality and inability to ever see daylight - vampires are naturally angsty even without the whole requirement to drink human blood to keep from going into a coma-like state. Or any sort of vampire take you want to do, I like a wide variety of vampire myth concepts.

Go with a humor approach or a very serious one, or something in between. Vampires with crushes on humans can range from very entitled (of course their human crush is honored to be the object of such feelings and should immediately be swept away with returning the feelings) or they can be very wary (humans often have tried to kill them, at best been wary, they have to take it super slow or maybe even deny the crush altogether) or anything in between. At least they have something in common that helps cross the species boundary, right?

Cats!

• Alien Who Thinks That Cats Are the Species to Contact When You Visit Earth & Cat (Gen)


• Ghost Cat & Person It Leads to Abandoned Kittens (Gen)


• Hapless Try-Hard Wizard/His Cat “Familiar” Who Is a Cursed Warrior of Olde (M/M)


• Long-suffering Cat Familiar that can Telepathically Communicate & Owner/Owner's Reluctant Soulmate


• Long-suffering Cat Familiar that can Telepathically Communicate with Owner & Owner (Gen)


• Pining Neighbor/Pining Neighbor & cat who they both think is theirs


• Solo: Professional Poker Player Who Has Just Acquired Cat Ears and a Tail


• Witch in Training & Her Exasperated Magic Cat with Much More Experience (Gen)

This poker player, well, those ears and tail are going to make it much tougher to bluff. They might be in a tournament or just trying to deal with the new parts. It can be a weird occurrence or everyone can think it's a costume or it can be a thing that happens in the setting, however works best. Cat familiars on the other hand are likely to have strong opinions about how things should be done. They are often right, but maybe this once the human knows something the cat does not. On the other hand, the cat might be more subtle and try to help the human while making the human think it's their own idea. Sometimes experienced cats know that with both humans and cats, they're likelier to do it if they don't think it's someone else telling them what to do.

As for cats trying to communicate with aliens or humans that don't have the psychic connection or ability to talk, I'd love to see what work arounds they come up with to achieve their goals. Saving kittens is a great goal. Helping their human companions find love is, too. Getting themselves fed is often a vital immediate goal, while the longer term goal may be helping others find peaceful solutions to problems. Sometimes the cat does it on purpose, sometimes it's a happy accident.

Transmigrations

• Actor Transmigrator & Characters From That Movie They Starred In (Gen)


• Actor Transmigrator & Characters From That Television Series They Were Briefly In (Gen)


• Over-40 Transmigrator & Characters From the Fandom They Love to Hate (Gen)


• Over-40 Transmigrator & Characters From Their Favorite Fandom (Gen)


• Writer Transmigrator & Characters From Their Most Famous Series (Gen)


• Writer Transmigrator & Characters From Their Unpublished Work (Gen)

All sorts of alternate worlds can be transmigrated into. Maybe it's something the person wrote or acted in, maybe it's just something they read or watched, either way they know what's supposed to happen and now they're stuck in it in a way they never expected to be. It'd be great if they find a place in this new setting and a way to fix problems they either didn't know about before, or knew about but didn't think needed solving because they made a good story.

A good story isn't the same thing as a good life. Sometimes they're quite opposite.

I'm fine with romantic or sexual interactions between characters from the setting, but not involving the transmigrator. The transmigrator might help the ships along if they want though? if there's something they ship? And one-sided crushes by characters on the transmigrator are also fine.

Solving the mystery of how they transmigrated might be one approach. Or simply accepting it and figuring out how to live in this world they never expected. Maybe they aren't the only one? maybe there's another person in the same situation who's working against their interests? or who could become a reluctant ally.

There can be a 'system' AI character too, if wanted, but that's not part of the premise necessarily.