Dear Past Imperfect Writer 2019,

[chronicbookworm]

Thanks for writing me a story! Should you so want, I can be found at both Tumblr and AO3 also as ChronicBookworm, for any stalking purposes.

In general, I like most things! I’m a multishipper, and I read slash, het, femslash, and gen. I also like most genres: fluff, angst, adventure, case fic, humour, get-together, established relationship, character study, slice of life/domestic, you name it – or a mix of them all! I’m very fond of long, plotty fic, but don’t feel pressure: I’ll be just as happy with something short and sweet. If I prompt for a romantic ship, I will also be very happy to read the gen counterpart.  

 

When it comes to time travel, I really like when people travel within their own timelines. I don’t mind if it’s on purpose or accidental, or if the time travel is bodily or if they replace/possess their younger/older selves. I really can’t get enough of is reading about characters trying to balance changing enough to ensure a better outcome with preserving enough that their future knowledge isn’t completely useless. I also really enjoy when some characters(s) and the reader know more than others, and the tension that comes from watching them try to keep the secret and wondering if and how the others are going to figure it out – I enjoy this regardless of whether the other character(s) figure it out for themselves, are told by those who have the secret, or if they never figure it out at all. If you have an idea that works along either these lines, but doesn't match to any of my freeforms, knock yourself out! These two things are the main reason I adore time-travel stories.

 

Things that I particularly enjoy are

·       found families

·       loyalty

·       ride or die friendships

·       co-dependency

·       “us against the world”

·       friends to lovers

·       arranged marriages (that can either lead to love or strong friendship)

·       marriages of convenience (that can either lead to love or strong friendship),

·       pining

·       hurt/comfort

·       characters with low self-worth being loved and accepted

·       characters expecting or used to being belittled/bullied/abused being shown warmth and kindness

·       characters uniting forces against a common enemy

·       complicated relationships (not necessarily romantic)

·       characters keeping secrets or secrets being revealed

·       characters working with limited knowledge

·       competent characters

·       characters being recognised for their competence

·       women supporting other women

·       canon divergence

·       outsider POV

·       case fic/mission fic (however that applies to the canon in question)

·       longfic

 

DNWs:

·       smut (fade to black or references to sex are fine)

·       incest, teacher/student, mpreg, a/b/o

·       adultery, infidelity or jealousy (real or imagined)

·       massive age gaps in ships (the rule of “half the older character’s age plus seven” as a limit usually works quite well, although for teenagers a max of 2-year age-gap works better)

·       sex involving characters under 15

·       conflicts between characters entirely due to misunderstandings, miscommunication or a failure to communicate (conflicts due to genuine differences in opinions, wants, and needs are fine and fun!)

·       public embarrassment, humiliation

·       character bashing

·       hopeless endings, grimdark tone

·       modern/mundane AUs of historical/fantasy/sci-fi canons

 

This all being said, I’m not that picky and will enjoy most things, if none of my prompts below grab your imagination – they’re there to help, not hinder. If I have multiple characters in a group, I don’t necessarily want them all to be time travellers, but rather that I think it would be interesting to see them interact, especially if one or more of them were a time traveller.

Sometimes I don’t have very specific prompts beyond the tags or vague thoughts about what kind I might like to read for a particular tag, but feel free to ask via the mods if you want more details or specific prompts! The lengths of the sections or number or specificity of prompts have nothing to do with how much I want the request, but rather how many different ideas or questions I have for each request – I want to read them all very badly, so I’m sure I’ll love whatever you write!

 

Fandom specifics:

 

ASOIAF/Game of Thrones

Characters/Groups: Sansa Stark, Sansa Stark & Arya Stark, Arya Stark & Ned Stark

Freeforms: Physical time travel, The Long Way Back

Details: I’m bunching these together because I’ve requested the same characters and freeforms in both, and I really don’t mind whether you use show or book canon!

Most time travel stories in this fandom uses mental Peggy Sue style time travel – characters get a chance to re-live their lives and do things differently. These are great” But for this fandom, I’d actually like physical time travel – I think there would be interesting possibilities and challenges when they don’t replace themselves. I’d love to see a story with either Sansa and/or Arya somehow being put back at the beginning or before the start of the books/series, when their family was still alive, and they were very different people.

How do the Starks react to these older, hardened versions of Sansa and Arya who are older than Jon and Robb? Sansa who used to be the most Southern of their children turned into an adamant Northern separatist and a canny political actor? Arya who used to be so open and friendly, turned cold and hard and talks of killing as easily as breathing? It might be interesting to see how young Sansa and/or Arya react to their older selves and who they’ve become!

The nobility of Westeros is so insulated and focused on lineage it would be difficult to explain their presence (how would they deal with that? Some possibilities: distant relations, bastard children, or random people who just happen to look very much like the daughters of Ned Stark – although for Arya this might be less of a concern, given her canon abilities from the House of Black and White), and a lot of their possibilities to act would be constrained in interesting ways since whatever their cover story is, they’d have less power to act (but also fewer eyes on them) than they would as daughters of the Lord Paramount of the North. The question always remains – how much do they tell their past selves and their family?

 

 

Critical Role

Characters/Groups: Cassandra de Rolo, Percival "Percy" Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III, Vax'ildan, Vex'ahlia, Vex'ahlia & Vax'ildan, Vox Machina

Freeforms: Accidental Time Travel To The Past, Time Travel Fix-It - Altering Canon or Backstory, Character’s Suspicious Actions Get Them In Trouble With The One(s) They’re Trying To Help

Details: It’s been done, and it’s been done in great ways, but I just can’t get enough of stories with Vox Machina or some members of Vox Machina saving the de Rolos!

Maybe the Vax is sent to the past on a mission by the Raven Queen, to stop the Briarwoods before they can derail Whitestone? Or maybe Vox Machina return to Whitestone from the Feywild – but end up in the wrong time? Or maybe it’s even deliberate, a chance for Percy and/or Cassandra to undo their greatest regret? For Vax and/or Vex to save their friend/lover from the pain and suffering they know is coming?

How does Percy or Cassandra react to seeing their dead family members again? How do the de Rolos react to the person Percy or Cassandra has become? Do they think they're impostors? How do they react to these powerful adventurers who claim to be friends of their son? Do they trust them, or do they think that maybe Vex and/or Vax and/or Vox Machina are the villains?

 

 

Crossover fandom

Characters/Groups: Anakin Skywalker (Star Wars)/Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Hermione Granger (HP)/Peter Pevensie (Narnia), Hermione Granger (HP)/Susan Pevensie (Narnia), Hermione Granger (HP)/Edmund Pevensie (Narnia), Hermione Granger (HP)/Lucy Pevensie (Narnia)

Freeforms: Adjusting to a Different Era, Fish out of Temporal Water, Time Period Culture Shock

Details: These are slightly different to the single-fandom requests, since they’re all for time travel within someone’s own timeline, and these are time travel to another era/universe. I don’t mind the mechanics used to get the characters to the same time and place, as long as they do! I’d like to see whichever character(s) does the travelling to have to make the adjustment to a new world with different rules, with the help of the local character(s). If they have some skills to help the local character(s) with a problem they happen to have, so much the better! In any fandom, feel free to include other characters than the ones we matched on as well (both local to the universe and cross-universe characters)!

For Buffy/Anakin, I’d prefer a prequels trilogy setting, before he turns Dark. I’d prefer the setting to be the GFFA, rather than Sunnydale. Buffy’s never had much love for authority, so I’d really like it if she questioned the Jedi (although I prefer the Jedi to be portrayed as deeply flawed but fundamentally good, rather than actually evil). She’d probably go ballistic at the Clone army, especially the not having a choice part, since her own arc is so much about grappling with agency and wrestling control for herself.

For the Harry Potter/Narnia crossovers, I don’t mind whether it’s set in Narnia, England during/just after WW2, Hogwarts, or wherever Hermione ends up after the Battle for Hogwarts. Maybe a quiet moment recovering after their respective wars, or maybe something tense or action-filled during either war or in Narnia (either during war or peace). I feel there are a lot of parallels between the Pevensies and Hermione. I’d love to see them bond over being too young for the responsibility placed on them, living though a war, feeling out of place both in the magical fantasyland they were invited to and in the mundane world.

 

 

Stargate Atlantis

Characters/Groups: Evan Lorne, Aiden Ford

Freeforms: Time Loop - Looping Character Keeps Dying, Time Loop - Looping character trying to save another character's life, Time Loop - Breaking the loop requires a heavy sacrifice, Time Loop/Groundhog Day - Groundhog Peggy Sue

Details: I haven’t prompted for time loops in any other request, but a lot of what I like about time travel also applies to time loops, but I also really like watching the character try different things to try to break the loop, and seeing how that changes the environment and the reactions of people around them. I like my time loops with a hint of despair – wondering if they’re ever going to find a way that works, how long it will take, what will they have to give up, etc. How many times do they have to watch their loved ones die/die themselves?

Lorne is my favourite character on SGA: I really like his air of calm competence, his dry sense of humour and his compassion and good sense. He could be in a loop to prevent a non-canonical disaster on Atlantis, or be accidentally trapped by some Ancient technology, or maybe even looping as far back as the mining operation on P3X-403 in SG-1. Or maybe he relives his adventures with/against Aiden Ford, and can only escape when he saves him?

Speaking of, I also love Aiden! I really liked his enthusiasm, bravery and how he was just a little bit in over his head, but kept going anyway. I’d love it if he got a chance to rescue himself, change his own destiny, and either get to go back to or stay in Atlantis, depending on when you choose the loops to start – however many loops it would take.

I love the world-building of the show, so anything that builds off that would be great – the idea of a floating/flying city, the way they never seem to have enough resources, the way they can lose contact with Earth at any given moment and are so reliant on the Stargates, the way different societies react differently to the Wraith threat, and the place of the Atlanteans in the Pegasus galaxy, etc, so feel free to explore those aspects!

 

 

Stranger Things

Characters/Groups: Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley & Nancy Wheeler, Robin Buckley/Nancy Wheeler, Steve Harrington & The Party, Jonathan Byers & Will Byers, Jonathan Byers & Eleven, Steve Harrington & Eleven, Mike Wheeler & Nancy Wheeler

Freeforms: Mental Time Travel to Past - Replacing Past Self, Outsider POV Of Time Traveler(s), Peggy Sue,

Details: I'd love to see one or more of these characters end up in the past, maybe season 1, season 2, or even before the series - knowing what's about to happen and trying to change it - the forces they're up against are quite powerful, and even if they do know what's coming, some things will still be very difficult to prevent and solve, so it would be very interesting to see what they can and can't change!

It would also be really interesting to see them interact with others around them who haven't time travelled - the characters have grown to know a lot about each other and grown quite close (shared trauma) over the course of the show, so the discrepancy between where the characters stand with each other in the early and later seasons would make for some very interesting dynamics! (As the character tags might suggest, I have a particular fondness for the teenagers except Billy, so I’d like it if the story focused on one or more of them, either on their own or interacting with the younger characters).