Moderator post: prompts, timeline for kick-off festival, and definitions.

[fiercelydreamed]

 All right, I am thoroughly pleased to announce that the community will open its doors for the posting of queerly gen works on Wednesday September 23rd! By popular request, we'll be kicking things off with a fest of prompt-based works. Here's the timeline:

• Prompts can be left right here, starting right now! 
• Wednesday September 16th: A recs post will go up, where people can comment to recommend queerly gen works of all tasty flavors. (Both recs and reposting of older works will continue to be welcome at the community later on -- this is just a warm-up.)
• Wednesday September 23rd: The kick-off festival of prompt responses goes live. 
• Wednesday September 30th: general posting of all works is welcome (including continued prompt responses). Further festival, challenges, and special events will be figured out as we go -- if you've got ideas, we'd love to hear them.

Prompt parameters: basically, the sky's the limit. You're welcome to suggest any kind of work (fic, art, meta, vid, poetry, podcast, recs lists, meta, picspam ...) and any kind of content that fits the community definitions. Prompters, comment on the post with your ideas. Creators, you're welcome to reply to those comments if you'd like to let people know you're tackling a particular prompt (though more than one creator is welcome to take on a prompt).

Definitions. In the three weeks before the fest goes live, we your moderators will continue getting organized, figuring out policies, and putting up guideline posts. However, we wanted to get the definitions up along with the invitation to leave prompts. These definitions reflect the discussions held earlier on this community, with a few judgment calls made by us mods where needed to resolve things. Prompters, please read these to get an idea of what territory your prompts can cover. 

Sexual minority: someone whose sexual preferences are considered nontraditional, marginalized, or marked in their own cultural context (or in the cultural context of the work's creator). Some examples of sexual minority identities include, but are not limited to, those organized around:

• sexual orientation (homosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, pansexual, asexual)
• sexual practices (kinky, fetishist, BDSM practitioner)
• number of partners (poly)
• someone who is questioning their identification with any sexual minority identity 

Gender minority: someone whose gender identity and/or physically embodied sex do not conform to cultural norms of "maleness" or "femaleness" in their own cultural context (or in the cultural context of the work's creator), or whose gender identities and bodies do not align in ways that conform to those cultural norms. Examples of gender minorities include, but are not limited to, people who identify as:

• transgendered, transsexual, genderqueer, intersexed, androgynous

Gen: a work that does not focus on romantic or sexual relationships, and where the creator considers any such relationships to be secondary within the work. This definition does not exclude:

• Works featuring characters who are in romantic or sexual relationships (whether canonical or non-canonical) -- provided the point of the story is not to bring the characters together or to highlight the romantic/sexual dynamics of their relationship. 
• Explicit sexual content -- however, we ask creators to be aware that such content strains the definition of gen for many viewers at the comm, and to carefully consider the prominence and use of sexual content in works they intend to post here.
• Content that is not appropriate for all ages -- we will provide guidelines for creators to use in labeling content some viewers may not wish to see, so that viewers can make an informed decision.

 

If you have questions or logistical suggestions, please reply at this link (for this post, I'd like to keep comments and questions together, so they don't get jumbled up in what I hope will be a sea of prompts).


Now: prompt away! :)

ETA: Neither I nor my co-mods had talked at all about limiting the prompt format -- the hope is that the works here will run the gamut, and I personally hadn't wanted to constrain what people might do by setting a strict format. But some of you have asked questions that make me think a little structure might be helpful, at least to get people started. So! Ways you can prompt people include, but are not limited to:

• Universe, character(s), content: The West Wing, ensemble, karaoke at a lesbian dive bar; or Saving Face, Wil & Hwei-Lan Gao, Mother's Day. 
• Diving board (linking people to an existing work to use as inspiration): I'd love to see a story about this picture, art for this song, or a vid about this poem. 
• Finish the sentence (where you write the first half of an opening line or premise): The best thing about the hell that was eleventh grade was ... or Three years after the trip with Julio y Ana, Tenoch goes to ...
• Freeform (just ask for what you want!): I always secretly wanted to put together a house of all-queer roommates -- someone want to write that for me? Or Sofia Lopez was the best thing about Season 1 of Nip/Tuck; can someone please tell me more of her story? Or What if someone filibustered the Senate by reading queer lit?

... And just one heads-up: I realize it's automatic at a lot of prompt-fests, but here you may want to stop and think before you leave a request with a pairing in it. I'm not saying you can't, just try to make sure there's a non-pairing-centric work that could go with what you're requesting.

Comments

Questions? Suggestions? Concerns? Leave them here!

[fiercelydreamed]

Please reply here if you'd like to leave a comment that is NOT a prompt, just so we can keep the comments tidy and easy to navigate. Thanks!

Re: Questions? Suggestions? Concerns? Leave them here!

[naraht]

Some sort of format for prompts might help. Or is it really anything goes? Should prompts ideally specify a fandom or ideally *not* specify a fandom?

Brainstorming canonical sexual and gender minority characters ...

[fiercelydreamed]

sage asked if we could start a thread to brainstorm canonically queer characters. As we've said before, sexual and gender minority status is in the eyes of a work's creator for the purposes of this comm; you needn't limit yourself based on what canon says (or doesn't say). Still, I think this is a great idea; the sexual and gender minority characters we do get from canon deserve some love from us, too. So: list away!

[torachan]

Brothers & Sisters: Kevin, Scotty, Jason, and Saul

Ugly Betty: Alexis, Marc, and Justin

Harry Potter: Albus Dumbledore

[executrix]

Homicide Life on the Street: Tim Bayliss
The Wire: Omar, and arguably Snoop
Sleeper Cell: Salim Abdul Haimi (S1), and arguably Tommy Emerson (S1)
ETA: My So-Called Life: Ricky Vasquez

[naraht]

The Wire: Don't forget Kima!

[ilthit]

The Crying Game - Dil on a night out with the girls from the salon.

Monstrous Regiment - the whole of Lofty's story.

The Sandman - Wanda's adventures in the afterworld - perhaps meeting Barbie again? They could team up and fight crime, or save the world. I'm just making this up as I sit here but it could be awesome. I'd just love to see Wanda in action, since the Triple Goddess didn't let her play in A Game of You.

Son of a Witch - I haven't read Lion Among Men yet but I understand it gives no further resolution to Liir's situation. So I'd love to see a resolution. What did he name his baby? How did he make his living? Etc.

Orlando (Sally Potter's movie version in this case) - Orlando finally publishes her book. Cue book tour and career. How does it pan out? What about her daughter - does she age before her mother does? I'd love to see a modern Orlando story explore the antiquated notions he would have picked up in his youth in Tudor England and see what she has retained after all these centuries that's alien to modern thought, and what she's shed and at which point, etc.

The Vorkosigan series - Bel Thorne pre-Dendarii. What led to Bel leaving Beta Colony and what happened between then and Miles' taking over the fleet? Bonus (well, no actual bonus) for shiny spaceships and adventure!

The Vorkosigan series - Dono Vorrutyer to the rescue!

Love and Rockets - Riri - anything gen with Riri, really, preferably about her relationship with the town of Palomar.


Note: Edited for codefail.

[executrix]

The Wire--Omar--a thug ain't a punk.

My So-Called Life--Ricky--circling the "Gay and Lesbian Interest" shelves at the chain bookstore for an hour

Firefly--Gabriel Tam--when his son is arrested in a Blackout Zone, Gabriel assumes he knows the reason why; after all, that's why *he* always went there

The Shield--Julian Lowe--policing the Pride Parade

Mad Men--Sal Romano--Kitty wants to go see that new play, "The Boys in the Band"

ETA: Dirty Sexy Money AU--Carmelita doesn't come back to NYC after the election

[shewhostaples]

The Eyre Affair and the rest of the Thursday Next series - I'd like to see Joffy Next leading a service at the Church of the Global Standard Deity. Not that I'm a huge church geek or anything...

[angelikitten]

Saving Face: Wil - babysitting/looking after her sister

[sqbr]

Done! I may or may not get around to posting it as a proper post here. And yes, I've been mulling over your prompt since August, though I actually finished this a month or so ago but have been waiting to post until CNY for red_packet.

[quinara]

Desperate Romantics on the BBC just recently - Ruskin reacts in some way to Lizzie's death. And/or Charlotte Siddall seeks out with Annie Miller after Lizzie's death (with Charlotte being gay, but more attracted to Effie than Annie if she had to choose).

Final Fantasy IX (since someone mentioned fab Quina upthread!) - There is something extra-special/different about the feast Garnet and Zidane are giving, but only Quina knows why. (Bonus points for getting Vivi there too!)

And since it's what I've been working on - Dollhouse - asexual Claire Saunders hangs out/has a chat with Echo's dominatrix imprint.

[angelikitten]

I've attempted your FFIX prompt! http://angelikittentreats.dreamwidth.org/10532.html

[angelikitten]

D.E.B.S: Amy - art school

[thene]

Freeform: I really want to read some fic about two (or more?) queer female best friends spending a day or an evening together and having some good old friend-time, dramatic escapades and heartfelt conversation optional. :) I'm not fussy about what fandom, or if the characters are queer in canon or not.

[thene]

Diving board: historical RPF, Alan Turing, this quote;

"We are trying to build a machine to do all kinds of different things simply by programming rather than by the addition of extra apparatus."

Yes, I want fic about the mental leap between building a machine and building a program. Don't judge me ;_;

[quinara]

I don't know nearly enough about Alan Turing or early computing, but I love this prompt! (And I can talk about Cambridge and King's College very happily, so the question is whether that makes me want to go with the hubris and research the rest of it...)

[theleaveswant]

Not suggesting fandoms or characters because I think these could turn out different but wonderful with different sets of people

- big queer knitting/crafts circle
- big queer board/card game gathering (with jokes about sheep and wood if Settlers)
- big queer semi-private piercing workshop (bunch of leatherdykes and trans people practicing on chunks of eggplant in the hostess' living room)
- road trip with friends to a (kink/queer/genderqueer/academic/fannish/music/hackers') convention in another city
- big queer birthday party at a clothing-optional beach, with no shaming of trans, fat or non-normative bodies

( . . . I love my life.)

[brewsternorth]

Oh boy, I think the Big Queer Knitting Circle prompt has given me a plotbunny. *wonders if there are any relevant research materials to be found*

[alchemia]

I see 'gender bending' fics in fandom where a character's sex or gender is changed from what it is in the original text (eg: Harry Potter becomes a woman or dresses as a woman...)

What I've not seen is where a character in the original text ALREADY made the change. For example, Snape- who is presented as male was actually born female. Either he just dresses as a man and identifies as such but has a female body, or he actually had some magical kind of sex reassignment surgery.

Go anywhere with this (well, with respect but i would hope thats a given in this comm). Is it just a character study- something from their POV so that we know their sex/gender from their personal thoughts/narrative but no one in the story does? Is the character dating soemone and has coem to a point where they must disclose it to their partner? Is the character (like snape) arrested and outed in jail/azkaban?

This can be for any fandom, but I would most love a harry potter one (snape or snarry is awesome) I am limited in what fandoms i know characters in/about: HP, major batman characters, xena, star trek (OS, NG, DS9)). Defintily if you are inspired to do this for some other fandom, go ahead, i just might not be able to get it or leave a detailed comment.

[thene]

fwiw I've seen this done once, in FF7 fandom - a male-presenting character written as an intersex person. It isn't gen, but there is much more to it than the pairing content. Here.

[naraht]

Any fandom: Shopping for curtains

Mad Men (Paul Kinsey): The Kinsey Report

Mad Men (Paul Kinsey): "And by the way, I left the Tones because I had mono."

RPF (Andrew Loog Oldham): "Only five percent of the people in the music business are in it for the right reason. They should be in it for the money."

RPF (Brian Epstein): Bullfighting made him feel alive.

RPF (Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears): This picture.

RPF (Vicki Wickham): Looking after Dusty was a full-time job.

[isagel]

That picture of Britten and Pears fills me with so much glee! <3

[lady_ganesh]

RPF: Lord Byron, Greek independence

Saiyuki: Nii Jienyi at work in the lab

Are You Being Served?: Mr. Humphries, shopping for a nun's habit

[fizzyblogic]

Lie To Me - Gillian as MtF trans (taking her "I was that [basketball-obsessed] little boy" literally), hanging out with her female work colleagues having fun, perhaps on a night out, perhaps just moments at work.

[softestbullet]

The L Word - Max has good friends who respect him. Either fix-it fic or an AU.

The Office - Oscar backstory!

Leverage - Hardison likes to sit in Orgrimmar and take hacker-y revenge on every homophobe who spouts off in Trade chat.

Fallout 3 - Carol and/or Greta - oh man, anything. The weirdest customer they ever had at the inn. What life was like pre-war for a queer girl. This picture. The Lone Wanderer is a lesbian, and they give her advice.

[isagel]

Leverage - Hardison likes to sit in Orgrimmar and take hacker-y revenge on every homophobe who spouts off in Trade chat.

Possibly best prompt of all time. Hardison, why didn't you play on my server?! (Damn, I wish I possessed the comic genius that prompt deserves.)

[alixtii]

Ludwig Wittgenstein, as a student at Cambridge, frustrated by his inability to get Russell to just understand

[alixtii]

Legally Blonde, Vivian Kensington as the only queer woman at Elle's bachelorette party
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Miranda Sawyer, planning for the future as a young woman uninterested in (straight) marriage
Pygmalion, Clara Eynsford-Hill, navigating proto-sff fandom and the fannish culture so different--and so freer, sexually and otherwise--than the one in which she was raised; bonus points if she writes fanfic
Biblefic: the Virgin Mary as a celibate lesbian in a sexless marriage
Historical RPF, Virgina Woolf fighting vampires and/or zombies

[naraht]

Any fandom: Royalty

[brewsternorth]

Anne McCaffrey's "brainship series": the same-sex/otherwise 'queer' romance (and interstellar adventures) of a Central Worlds brainship and its brawn.

No fandom in particular, but I would like to see: a story featuring how sentient robots evolve a sexual/gender expression, and how their human colleagues bear witness to such an evolution. [I have an idea within my own original 'verse, but I'd like to see who else can pick up and run with it.]

Related: whither the "fucking machine" kink in an era of technological change? (This could either be historical/steampunk, or a look to the future of that particular sexual expression.)

[thingswithwings]

Leverage: little baby Hardison wearing his best suit, going door to door as a Jehovah's Witness with his foster-gran, and finding out that he likes computers and boys.

SGA: interpret widely: Pegasus cultures tend to define queer sex via something other than gender object choice . . . ie, normative and non-normative sex aren't defined by whether you sleep with a female or male identified person, but by some other criteria (author's choice). This comes up somehow in Teyla and/or Ronon's dealings with the Lanteans.

SGA: the second annual Atlantis GLBTQ volleyball tournament (or, substitute sport of your choice).

SGA: I'd love a story about Teyla on Athos before the Lanteans show up, maybe something about her and Charin, or something about the little group of like-minded female-identified friends that she hangs out with.

SGA: Rodney was a precocious child in a lot of ways.

The West Wing: Donna and/or Josh and/or CJ and/or Toby (pick some characters!) get caught up in gay rights movements and other aspects of queer politics. Bonus points if you can plausibly write Toby into a pride parade or a glbtq rights protest without someone having to drag him there.

Sherlock Holmes: I want more more more stories that deal with Victorian sexualities and queer communities! Maybe Holmes (who might be gay, or might be asexual) acts as a buffer between the police and various gentleman's clubs or ladies' social gatherings or molly houses? I'd love to see Holmes and/or Watson quietly keeping his/their kind safe from Lestrade, Hopkins, or other inspectors.

OR, a story about Holmes in boarding school, where he becomes friends with Victor Trevor from "The Gloria Scott," and they slowly recognize each other as fellow queers and bond, but DON'T have sex.

RPF British authors: Lytton Strachey, true story, once proposed to Virginia Stephen (later Woolf). How and why did THAT go down?

RPF British authors: E.M. Forster and Lytton Strachey, hanging out together.

RPF British authors: Virginia Woolf, Leonard Woolf, and Vita Sackville-West: domesticity, calm.

RPF British authors: no one who knows anything about the London stage believes that Aphra Behn is a widow.

Psych: Shawn and Gus have more in common than bad 80s movies and music. Queer BFF fic! There could be awkward hugs.

Psych: Juliet in college.

Torchwood: after Mary's death, Tosh saves the world a lot, quietly.

Twelfth Night: Viola and Sebastian, growing up, wearing each other's clothes.

. . . and, I am too tired to come up with prompts for it right now, but let me say that anyone who writes gen about kinky characters? Has my never ending love and gratitude. Now I will go brainstorm more prompts!

[theleaveswant]

To borrow from fiercelydreamed's examples above but with no restriction to fandom: KARAOKE! In a lesbian dive bar or anywhere you can find it!

[shewhostaples]

The Well of Loneliness: Show me one of Valérie Seymour's salons without all the angst!

[sholio]

SGA - Reading a "Daedalus Variations" tag this morning gave me an open-ended plot bunny: what if, back on AU!Teyla's Atlantis, Torren was being raised by Teyla's girlfriend - Jennifer, Elizabeth or one of the other Lantean women. Lots of gen or gennish story potential for Torren and his stepmom: a day out on the mainland, attending Teyla's empty-casket funeral, reading a bedtime story, navigating cultural conflict between Torren's Athosian relatives and his Earth stepmom, etc.

SGA - John and Rodney. Both gay or bi. Not attracted to each other, though. BFF bonding.

Related to the above, any fandom: Just because characters [x] and [y] are both gay and/or bi doesn't mean they're dating. Sometimes it's tough to convince their friends, though. (The more LGBT BFF fic that comes out of this challenge, the happier I'll be.)

SG1 - Learning the "rules" of her newly adopted culture in the wake of being accepted for SG1, Vala discovers what she's expected to do ... and *not* to do.

SGA - The Satedan military functions similarly to that of ancient Greece. This could come up in a number of ways as Ronon settles in on Atlantis and interacts with his old squadmates.

SGA - What did John and Dave talk about at the end of Outcast? What caused the rift between John and his father?

SG1 - How does gender preference express itself between Tok'ra and host, or Goa'uld and host? I remember enough SG1 canon to recall that the symbiotes seem to reproduce sexually (hence they have biological sexual dimorphism of some sort) and at least some of them seem to prefer hosts of a certain gender - e.g. Apophis looking for a female host for his "queen". What happens to a symbiote in the body of a host whose physical sex or mental wiring feels wrong to it? Are there symbiotes who prefer hosts whose biological sex is opposite their own biological sex? Do Goa'uld have social taboos regarding their host bodies' sexuality?

NCIS - Someone in Gibbs' team turns out to be L/G/B/T. Gibbs knows he isn't in the military (or in a small working-class town) anymore, but emotionally it's hard to let go of the rules you used to live by, especially when you've never thought to question them before. There are rules. You follow them. End of story. But life's a lot more complicated.

NCIS - Abby's never been interested in putting her identity in boxes.

SGA - A few years in the future, Madison Miller is more interested in girls than boys.

Good Omens - For angels and demons, what you look like (including biological sex) isn't fixed. This tends to throw humans off a bit.

SPN - Lillith in a male host body.

SGA - John always thought he was just a late bloomer. But he's just turned 40 and he's still not interested in sex.

[sholio]

Any fandom, any character - Character's porn collection is discovered by their boss/commanding officer/spouse/children/parents/best friend.

Firefly - It's Inara's turn to save the day.

CJ Cherryh's Alliance universe - How do genderqueerness and alternate sexualities manifest among the hani, with their heavily stereotyped gender roles and rules regarding the behavior, occupations and social duties of men and women?

SGA - Jennifer goes home post-Enemy at the Gate, and discovers that her fondly-recalled small hometown feels like a narrow-minded hotbed of homophobia and various other -isms after three years of Atlantis's more cosmopolitan society. It was all there before; she just didn't really notice it.

Torchwood - Jack, having adventures with no sex in them. Shockingly, it sometimes happens.

Torchwood - Jack and Ianto's sister, post-CoE

Watchmen (book or movie) - AU in which The Silhouette wasn't killed back in the '40s; she's still alive when the murders start happening. Where is she now?

[keerawa]

Jack, having adventures with no sex in them. Shockingly, it sometimes happens.
Really? I think we'd better tag them as AU's... *grins*