beatrice_otter: WWII soldier holding a mug with the caption "How about a nice cup of RESEARCH?" (Research)
[personal profile] beatrice_otter
... the more often I notice little details that are wrong in movies and books.

Like, most recently, I watched a few minutes of Saving Private Ryan, which included the delivery of the telegram about most of her sons dying to Mrs. Ryan. She is doing dishes in the kitchen when she looks out the window and sees a car driving up. She is wearing an apron. She goes to the door to greet the Official Men who are coming.

Me: ... why isn't she taking off the apron, or replacing it with a clean one, or flipping it around?

I have heard stories from multiple women about their mothers working really hard to always have a perfectly pristine apron whenever unexpected company showed up, the 1930s version of "we can't let anybody know we live here!" So, for example, women who would wear their aprons inside out, so that they could flip it around whenever the doorbell rang, and know the pretty side would be perfectly clean. Or women who would take their aprons off and stuff them in a drawer when they saw a car drive up, and pretend they hadn't been working in the kitchen or scrubbing the floor or whatever. Or run to the kitchen and swap out their everyday apron for the fancy one with the ruffles and embroidery or whatnot. In every case, the idea was for the apron to look like a fashion statement, and not an actual functional garment. 

But the thing is, no piece of fiction is ever going to be 100% perfect in its presentation of the past, no matter how much they try for accuracy; if for no other reason than that lots of the past simply gets forgotten about. Nobody can possibly know every detail about what life was like in an era before they were born, even if they've studied it extensively. (And the further back in time you go, the less stuff it is possible to know.) And even if you could be accurate, the accuracy might not fit with the story you're trying to tell; it might distract from an emotional moment, or it might signal something completely different to modern eyes, or it might just not register to modern people unless you took the time to stop and explain what's going on. All of which interfere with telling the story you're trying to tell.

So for me, it's a lot of "they're not wrong to do it that way, that I find it annoying is totally a ME issue and not an objective problem with the story.


Dear Fic In A Box Author

Aug. 27th, 2025 09:43 pm
beatrice_otter: Me in red--face not shown (Default)
[personal profile] beatrice_otter
I use the same name everywhere so I am [personal profile] beatrice_otter on AO3. Treats are awesome.

I would rather get a story you were happy with than "well, she said she liked x, so I guess I have to do x even though I don't like x and/or am not inspired that way." This letter is long with lots of suggestions and preferences if you find it helpful, but feel free to ignore it if it is not helpful. I'm fairly easy to please; I've been doing ficathons for over a decade and am usually very happy with my gifts.

The most important thing for me in a fic is that the characters are well-written and recognizably themselves. Even when I don't like a character, I don't go in for character-bashing. If nothing else, if the rest of this letter is too much or my kinks don't fit yours, just concentrate on writing a story with everyone in character and good spelling and grammar and I will almost certainly love what you come up with.

I have an embarrassment squick, which makes humor kind of hit-or-miss sometimes. The kind of humor where someone does something embarrassing and the audience is laughing at them makes me uncomfortable. On the other hand, the kind of humor where the audience is laughing with the characters I really enjoy.

General Likes and Dislikes

other things to keeep in mind:
  • I like stuff that takes side characters and puts them center-stage, especially when the characters and/or actors are marginalized. I enjoy seeing them come to life.
  • I don't like it when marginalized characters get relegated to the sidekick/supporting/helper role so that it can be All About The White Dude.
  • I like it when female characters are more than just the Strong Female Character(tm) or The Nurturer.
  • I like fluff
  • I like angst with a happy ending
  • I like stories that make me think about things in a new way.
  • I like to know that culture matters to people, and to see how different cultures interact and where the clashes are.
  • I like unreliable narrators.
  • I like acknowledgment that different people can have different points of view without either of them being wrong.
  • I like stories that engage with problematic aspects of the source, and which deal with privilege in one way or another instead of sweeping it under the rug.
  • Worldbuilding is my jam, I am pretty much always up for explorations of why the world is the way it is. I love hearing about the economics, the politics, the religion, the clothing, the history, the folklore, all of that kind of stuff. And I want to know why it matters--how is all this cultural background stuff affecting the characters, the plot, everything. You don't have to do deep worldbuilding, but I'll enjoy it if you do.
  • I don't like it when plots hinge on characters being selectively stupid, or selectively unable to communicate. Like, if they are stupid or a himbo or whatever in general, or have problems communicating in general, that's fine! Or if they canonically have a blind spot in that area, again, it's fine. But if it's just "the only way I can think of for this plot to work is if the character spontaneously and temporarily loses half their intelligence and competence," then I'm going to spend the rest of the fic wondering why the character didn't just ____?
  • I like AUs, but not complete setting AUs (i.e. no highschool or college or coffee shop AUs, and especially not mundane AUs--nothing where you keep characters but drop most of the worldbuilding). I like fork-in-the-road type AUs, where one thing is different and the changes all result from that one thing, and you explore what might have been if such-and-such happened.
  • I like the concept of sedoretu marriages.
  • I like historical AUs, but only when the author actually knows the history period in question and does thoughtful worldbuilding to meld actual culture of the time with the canon.
  • Crackfic is really hit and miss for me, sometimes I love it and sometimes I can't stand it. Basically, if it's the characters we know and love in a ludicrous situation, that's great. If they're OOC or parodied in order to make something funny ... it's not funny to me.
I like plotty, gen stories, and plotty stories in general. I don't care for explicit sex, particularly when it's just thrown in for teh porn. I'm asexual; a lot of the time I don't even bother to read the sex scenes. Romance is awesome (as long as both are in character and the romantic plot doesn't hinge on one or both of them being an idiot). I love it when friendship is held up as important and not secondary to romantic relationships and blood ties.

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

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

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

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


Fandom For Robots )

Rivers of London )

Goblin Emperor )

DS9 )

Star Wars Legends )

Enola Holmes )

Babylon 5 )

Enterprise )

TNG )

Sense8 )

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