original 5k letter
Feb. 23rd, 2021 12:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lemniskathnote: if you feel like combining 2 or even 3 ship tags, go for it.
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.
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?
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)
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?)
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?
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.
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.
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.
