Dear Prime Time Player

[calliatra]

Hi! It’s so nice to (virtually) meet you! Thank you so much for taking the time to create something for me. I hope you have fun with it!

To give you an idea of what I like and don’t like, I’m going to write a bit here about my general tastes, as well as my thoughts on each fandom. I know it’s a lot, so please don’t feel like you have to include all, or even half of it! My interests are fairly broad, and I’m hoping to give you at least a few different options of directions you could take your fic.

Now, you may notice that I have more to say about some fandoms or characters than others, but that doesn’t mean I love them more. All the fandoms and characters I requested are ones that I would absolutely love see in a fic! Some of them I’m just better at babbling about. 

I’ve written some fandom-specific prompts for each of my requests, but please don’t feel constricted by them. They’re just there to offer you some inspiration, in case you need or want it. Feel free to ignore them if they don’t work for you. :)

Some general things that didn’t quite fit into the Likes/DNWs dichotomy:

• I like first person POV. Not necessarily more than I like third person POV, but in case you like to write in first person and were hesitant because some people don’t enjoy that: Don’t worry, I do!
• I like AUs, too. So if that’s where your muse wants to go, you have my official permission to take the fic there. (Just no A/B/O ‘verse, please, and no fusions with other fandoms, unless you’re absolutely sure I’m familiar with them.)
• I generally tend to prefer friendship among characters to hostility, but I don’t object to hostility categorically, especially if there’s a good reason and/or a canon background for it.

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Do Not Want

These things really aren’t my kind of thing, and I’d rather they didn’t appear in any fic I’m reading. (Though that doesn’t mean I object to them on principle. I really don’t, with most of them.)

• character death
• unhappy endings (I don’t need perfect fairy tale endings or anything, but I do like them to be at least hopeful.)
• excessive angst
• gore/graphic violence
• humiliation or serious embarrassment (seriously, I have such an embarrassment squick, please spare me)
• an imbalance of power in romantic relationships (anything from teacher/student to D/s)
• cheating (on a romantic partner)
• the concept of “one true love”
• PWP
• non-canon ships (unless you know definitely that I ship or at least don’t mind them)
• too much introspection or navel-gazing
• crude/vulgar jokes (unless it’s super in-character for the characters in question)
• pregnancy and kidfic
• crack!fic
• quite a lot of kinks (I know that’s very unspecific, but I’m easily squicked, so you’re best off not including any kinks at all.)
• bashing any characters
• racism, sexism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, fatphobia, ableism (unless the narrative makes it clear that that’s not cool)

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Likes

• interactions between characters and closer looks at the dynamics of their relationship(s). Can be gen or shippy, I adore it either way, especially between characters who are at least to some degree fond of each other.


• subtlety. I love it when I have to read a fic twice to really understand everything that was going on and everything that was implied.


• atmosphere! Set up one that envelops me and transports me to the world and feel of the fic, and I’ll love you forever.


• humor, especially wordplay and language-based humor. It’s not that I want only comedy; I very much enjoy serious stories as well, but my favorite ones tend to have at least a dash of humor here and there.


• mysteries. Not just the traditional crime-related ones, but really any kind at all. I always find it intriguing when I don’t know at first what’s going on, trying to figure it out, and then being delightfully surprised and/or satisfied when everything falls into place.


• Getting Together/“First Time” fics. Possibly my favorite thing in the world. I just really love that moment when all that tension finally gets resolved, and all the various ways that can happen.


• friends-to-lovers/slow burn relationships. I tend to ship what I ship because the characters like each other a lot already, and I like the way they like each other. And want more of it. (As a result, I’m not a big fan of AUs where the characters skip from first meeting to romance almost immediately – erasing their original relationship pretty much takes away the thing I loved about them in the first place.)


• explorations of queer themes. I really love seeing queerness from the POV of different characters, in different times throughout history, and/or in other universes. (Though I have to say, I prefer these kinds of stories to be written by people who are queer themselves, so if you’re not, maybe go with something else.)


• a deliberate use of language. I have a definite weakness for a somewhat poetic style of writing (if it suits the theme and the characters of a story), but I also love the clear prose of more plotty, or subject-oriented fic. I just… language. <3

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Fandom: MASH (TV)

Characters: Hawkeye Pierce, Trapper John McIntyre, Margaret Houlihan

NOTE: You don’t need to use all three characters in your fic. If you write just Hawkeye & Trapper, or Hawkeye & Margaret, I’ll already be incredibly delighted!

Hawkeye:

I love Hawkeye. I love his sense of humor, his practicality, his sass, his ambiguous (performance of) sexuality (my headcanon is that he’s bisexual, but feel free to use your own interpretation), his campness, his sarcasm, his morality, his angst, and his perseverance. I love his willingness to admit to feelings and make himself vulnerable in complete disregard of the macho ideal of his time, and his willingness to care about others. And so much more.

He’s obviously not without his flaws – he can be righteous, selfish, and even cruel, he loses perspective of things, and he often lacks respect for women – but I think some of his best moments come from them, and when he’s made to realize or confront them.

Trapper:

With Trapper, I love the way he’s more grounded, less likely to lose touch with reality completely, and generally less introspective. He complements Hawkeye that way. And while Trapper’s not unselfish, he is very driven to take care people (like the way he runs a kind of unofficial clinic for the locals in his free time) – seeing that side of him explored is one of my favorite things. He also conforms a bit more to social expectations (especially in performing masculinity and heterosexuality) than Hawkeye does, which is all kinds of intriguing (and also a good source of potential conflict between the two of them).

The two of them are good together, and they need each other, that much is canon. As for the rest… I ship them (you can have a look at my shipswap letter if that’s something you’re interested in), but I don’t insist on their relationship being read that way. Gen friendship is more than fine with me!

Margaret:

Now Margaret, I love her so much more than I can say. I love her competence, her resilience, the way she demands the respect she deserves without backing down, her unapologetic army-ness, her compassion and her control of it. I love her fierce strength, but also her vulnerabilities: her panic in situations where there’s nothing she can do, her insecurities about not being feminine the way society expects of her, and the way she loves and wants to be loved so deeply that she leaves herself so very open to pain. And so much more.

Obviously she has flaws, most notably intolerance, but also unnecessary harshness, a (voluntary?) blindness towards the flaws in the people and systems she’s decided to devote herself to, a volatile temper, an attraction to power (over character or substance), and a lack of openness towards unconventional approaches. They’re part of what make her so compelling and so real to me.

I adore her most when she won’t take any crap from anyone, and when she’s the strong one in the group. But also, and possibly more, when she’s being so fiercely compassionate, and when she sees and concedes the value of different or original opinions or approaches. And also any time she lets someone in close enough to see her vulnerabilities. 

…I adore her most of the time, really. (And just wish the writers had given her more of a fair shake, especially in the early seasons.)

Also, her friendship with Hawkeye is something I really enjoy seeing play out. I love the way they clash so much, personality-wise, but when Hawkeye shows Margaret some basic respect, and she shows him some basic tolerance, suddenly they suddenly fit together well and complement each other. And watching them slowly figure that out and work with it is just wonderful. I don’t ship them, and I can’t see them working out as a romantic couple at all, but the growth of their friendship is probably my absolute favorite development on the show.

Some General Notes:

• I honestly can’t stand the way the show played sexism and especially sexual assault (including forced kisses) for laughs. Please don’t do that.


• All the other canon characters are more than welcome!  I basically love everyone (at least as a character, if not for their personality *cough*Frank*cough*), and I really enjoy their fun and fascinating (and on occasion moving) interactions.


• I have to say, I’m really not comfortable with the way Trapper treats Margaret a lot of the time. The early seasons were pretty terrible in their treatment of her, and all women, in general, but Trapper in particular seriously gave me the creeps at times. Especially in 3x15 (“Bombed”), where Margaret practically has to beg him not to sexually assault her! >.< So if you want to write them interacting, I’m not against that, but tread carefully?

Totally Optional Prompts:

• “Well, that’s something.”


• “Was that really necessary?”

(If you’d like more/different prompts for Margaret, you can also take a look at my RarelyWritten letter.) 

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Fandom: MASH (TV)

Characters: Ginger Bayliss

Write my anything at all about Ginger and I’ll be over the moon! I really liked what little we got to see of her (especially in 2x09 (“Dear Dad… Three”)), and kept waiting for her to be showcased more strongly when I watched those seasons the first time. And instead she just vanished. :(

So show me what her life is like at the 4077, who she’s friends with, how she does her job. Show her to me taking charge of a situation, or avoiding confrontation gracefully, or letting it all get to her and trying to cope. Have her interacting with the rest of the characters, or just doing her own thing. Tell me about who she was before the war, if you like, or who she becomes after it. Seriously, anything at all. ♥

Some General Notes:

• I honestly can’t stand the way the show played sexism and especially sexual assault (including forced kisses) for laughs. Please don’t do that.


• All the other canon characters are more than welcome!  I basically love everyone (at least as a character, if not for their personality *cough*Frank*cough*), and I really enjoy their fun and fascinating (and on occasion moving) interactions.

Totally Optional Prompts:

• “I can and I will.”


• “Hey, beautiful!”

(If you’d like more/different prompts, you can also take a look at my RarelyWritten letter.)

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Fandom: Community

Characters: Any

The Dean:

The Dean is really fascinating to me, in large part probably because he’s intended and used as a joke so many times that, if you take all that seriously on an in-story level, you end up with an enormous variety of facets and layers on a real, complicated person. (I like seeing the Dean as a real person.)

I’m very interested in his queer identity and his attitude towards it – the parts we got to see on the show as well as the parts we didn’t. If you want to explore that, I’d love it.

On a related note, I love the fake phone number thing from 6x03 (“Basic Crisis Room Decorum”) because, if we assume that’s been going on for a while, that takes so much of the creepiness out of the Dean’s behavior towards Jeff. (I really didn’t like the show’s only canonically queer character’s sexuality presented mainly as a Dalmatian fetish and obsessive sexual harassment of a straight guy.)

I’d love to see the Dean developing a real friendship with Jeff – or, hell, any kind of genuine close relationship with anyone. It doesn’t even need to be a canon character; you can go for an OC if that’s where your inspiration lies.

Alternatively (or possibly in combination with the above?), show me the Dean doing his job. What’s involved in running Greendale? Absurdity and hilarity, presumably. But also, quite possibly, more than a fair share of darkness. Who and what does he have to deal with, and how does he do it?

Or just celebrate his creativity and/or love of costumes – I always find those fun!

Frankie:

Frankie is so great, seriously, I’ve loved her since almost the first time we saw her. I adore how she’s basically a real/non-sitcom person dumped suddenly into a sitcom – but then there’s those moments, like her interview in 6x01 (“Ladders”) that show that yeah, she actually does belong there, and those are fantastic, too. She’s new to everything at Greendale, and seeing her basically outsider-POV is so much fun! I’d love to see more of it, just her perspective on and reactions to the people, the system, the shenanigans.

In terms of her character, I particularly love her compassion, like in the way she immediately offered to help Britta in 6x02 (“Lawnmower Maintenance and Postnatal Care”), and can’t help but comfort the Dean in 6x07 (“Advanced Safely Features”). I’d like to see more of that side of her, though not necessarily exclusively.

Her efficiency is another thing I’m really taken with, and I would really enjoy seeing it in action, up against Greendale being Greendale.

Lastly, I take her comments in 6x04 (“Queer Studies and Advanced Waxing”) as irrefutable evidence that she’s queer. You don’t need to focus on that, or even mention it at all, but just please don’t try to assert that she’s straight.

Britta:

Britta is such a wonderful character – or, at least, she has the potential to be, though that isn’t always used well.

I love her passion for justice and her compassion for others, and I like explorations of her dedication, her (often petty) pride, her inner conflicts and self-worth issues.

I’m not a fan of the way she was dumbed down in later seasons, or how she’s the worst at everything. So maybe show me something she’s good at – like bartending, according to 6x07 (“Advanced Safety Features”), or, hell, even flower arranging, if you can make that work in a story. Or show her and someone else (or several someone elses) from the group being friends, and actually enjoying each other’s company.

On the other hand, if you want to take a darker route, I’d be intrigued by a view of how Greendale changed her, how she went from a grounded, experienced activist to an ignorant, useless annoyance. (And how, just maybe, she’s slowing coming back a bit?)

The main this is, though, whatever you write, just please treat her as character, not a caricature.

Annie:

With Annie, I really like her ambitious, rule-following, model-student side, and how that interacts and clashes with the general Greendale environment. But I also love seeing her driven to break rules, following her ambition in a darker direction, and what it is that can drive her to it.

Another thing I enjoy, and I wish we’d gotten to see more of on the show, is her sharing an apartment with Troy and Abed. Whether it’s big drama, high hijinks, or quiet moments in between, I’d love a look at the adventures they had and the balance they found with each other. Much the same goes for Annie’s friendship with Britta. There aren’t all that of just the two of them doing things together as friends, instead of as rivals. It would be really nice to see some of that!

Alternatively, I think it would be a lot of fun to see her meticulously organizing something less-than-above-ground. 

Troy:

Troy’s development as a character is one of my favorites of all time. I love the way he started out as a jock desperate for the approval of others, but then befriended Abed, discovered and embraced geekdom, and now just is himself without regard for anyone else’s judgment.

I adore his friendship with Abed, the way they complement each other so beautifully, but also the way they sometimes want different things, and have to learn to deal with that. And then the sometimes-silly-but-always-deeply-sincere and honest ways they find to work out conflicts.

I loved the One True Repairman storyline, and would love to see more on how that continued to play out! It was such a huge thing, and then it just dropped out of existence (because, well, Gas Leak Year), and that just made me sad.

Also, I miss Troy loads and can’t wait for him to come back to Community, in whatever form, so how about a future-ish fic where he returns from his trip? He’ll definitely have changed/matured some, and so has the group in his absence, so how they’d have to re-adjust to each other would be pretty fascinating. (Or, if you’re interested in going with the The Search for Spock idea Dan Harmon mentioned, that’d be awesomely amazing, too.)

Abed:

Abed. I love him, I’m fascinated by him, and I’m worried by him. There’s a lot of darkness there with him, and I don’t (just) mean the obvious things when he’s clearly messed up (like trying to cut off Jeff’s arm), but the callous things he does out of selfishness, despite knowing they will hurt his friends. Like, for example, catfishing Annie so he’d get pancakes.

I’d enjoy a story about that, maybe either showing those things from his perspective, or having someone talk to him about how those are really not okay. (I liked his confrontation with Hickey in 5x07 (“Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality”), but I feel like it would work very differently and possibly better if the person talking to Abed was someone he actually cared about deeply.) On the one hand, I’d love to see Abed “see the error of his ways,” because I can’t quite love him as much as I want to while he’s intentionally hurting his friends. On the other hand, I’d also be intrigued by seeing him pushed further in that direction, and the truly dark places that could lead.  

Alternatively, taking a completely different track, I also really like his view of the world through the lens of film/TV tropes and references. And his simulations of his friends in the dreamatorium! (Or just adventures in the dreamatorium in general, possibly involving not-quite-willing participants.) Both have been explored quite a bit on the show, but I just can’t get enough of them. I’d be particularly interested, I think, in his view of Troy, contrasted with his view of the others, since he arguably knows Troy and lot better and might have a harder time taking an outsider POV there.

Or, thinking of more recent seasons, it’s been to watch him grow and change some now that Troy isn’t around anymore. I can’t quite tell where it’s going yet, but I really like it (especially 6x08 (“Intro to Recycled Cinema”)), and I’d love to see more of it. Especially if it involves him getting closer to the other members of the group.

Some General Notes:

• I love this show in large part because of the relationships between the characters, so the more of them you have interacting with each other, the better! (Though if you want to focus on just one character, that could be fascinating, too, so don’t let me stop you! I enjoy being surprised.)


• You’re very welcome to include any and all non-nominated canon characters!


• I love the world of Greendale, with all its shenanigans, oddities, and disconcerting darkness. So if you feel like worldbuilding, I’d absolutely adore that!


• In a similar vein, I also really like it when the whole campus commits to something so completely, be it The Floor Is Lava, MeowMeowBeenz, or paintball. More of that is always welcome.


• Speaking of which, I keep wishing Community would do a Star Trek episode…


• Anyway.


• All these characters have fairly dark dark sides to them that they’ve shown on more than one occasion. (Is there anyone left who hasn’t come close to killing someone?) I find that incredibly intriguing, so if that’s something you’d like to explore, go for it!  


• On the lighter side, I’d love to see some crazy Greendale classes we haven’t seen before, and how the characters would approach them!


• I ship Troy and Abed, but not strongly enough to have a problem seeing them with other people. I don’t have any other ships in this show, and I love reading gen, but I don’t have any NOTPs I can think of, either. So if you want to include a different ship, go ahead, I’m curious! Just preferably don’t make it the sole focus of the fic.


• Finally, I’m fascinated by the idea of the Gas Leak Year. I didn’t really like any of the episodes (except for 4x11 (“Basic Human Anatomy”)), but the concept that everyone was in an altered state of mind that whole year intrigues me. I’d love to see how that can be used to make season four make sense. Or give one of the episodes a backstory that makes it non-cringey to watch?


• Or, taking it in a darker direction again, I can see it being really cool tracking everyone’s slowly altering state of mind as we move from the end of season three into season four?


• Right, I think that’s enough now.

Totally Optional Prompts: 

• “Do we really want to do this?”


• “We really should have seen this coming.”

(If you’d like more/different prompts for Britta (or some of the other women who weren’t nominated), you can also take a look at my RarelyWritten letter.)

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Fandom: Cabin Pressure

Characters: Any

I love everything about everyone! This show is just too perfect. Guh. ♥

Some General Notes:

• I’m here for the humor, the character interactions, the glorious adventures, and the found family. But I love these characters so much that I’ll follow them pretty much wherever you want to take them. That being said…


• I prefer it when our main characters are nice to each other. Friendly teasing is fine (and so often great fun!), but I don’t like it when it crosses the line into mean-spirited.


• I don’t ship anyone in this show, so I’d prefer a gen fic. Having Martin and Theresa and/or Carolyn and Herc be a couple is more than fine, but I’d rather not have romance be the fic’s main focus.  


• I’m not that into hurt/comfort, so if you use that, use it sparingly? And also, I’d really rather the fic weren’t about depression or suicide.


• In general, I really like the tone and setting of the show, but if you want to take it in a different direction or into an AU, I’m happily open to being surprised!


• I’m happy to have the fic set anywhere in MJN’s timeline, though my favorite dynamics are probably those of series four, where our core four have gotten really close, and are mostly united against outside forces.


• Or you could set it post-series! I’m extremely curious about OJS and how the character dynamics have changed with the addition of Herc. And also, of course, how Martin is doing with Swiss Air.


• I enjoy both script format and normal story format, and I’m happy to read experimental things, too!


• Lastly, in a slightly more specific thought: I’ve stumbled across the idea of Herc and Douglas having dated in the long-past pre-MJN days, and while it’s not my personal headcanon or ship, I have to say, I find the idea intriguing, and I’m curious as to how that might have played out. So if you’re interested in running with that, that would be an exception to my “no ships, please” thing, I guess. 

Totally Optional Prompts:

• “Well, this has certainly taken an interesting turn.”


• “Does that mean what I think it means?”

(If you’d like more/different prompts for Carolyn, you can also take a look at my RarelyWritten letter.)