av8rmike

Copying my rant here for when the hellsite eventually goes down.

So. I ran across a post on this here hellsite that claimed that Amita’s character is apparently ‘weak’ and ‘has no character development’. I’m not going to link that post, but I am going to talk about how that person is so wrong it is physically painful.

Now. Are there legitimate criticisms of the way Amita’s character is depicted? Absolutely. Can a lot of those issues be explained/contexualized by the fact that Numb3rs ran from 2005-2010, and culture has changed A WHOLE DAMN LOT in the intervening years? Also yes.

However. One thing. Amita Ramanujan is not is weak. Nor does her character have zero development, especially when you consider that N3 went off the air over fifteen years ago.

I’m going to deal with the two (imho) valid criticisms - the student/teacher thing and the Desi rep thing - first, then move on to the accusations of a lack of character development.

So the thing all y’all newbies have to understand. Numb3rs is a (relatively) old show. It started in 2005, when Les Moonves was still in charge at CBS, before #MeToo, before DADT was repealed, before Obama was elected to the White House, before we got even anywhere near the amount of representation we have today.

That is the environment in which Numb3rs decided to make Charlie’s student, the only other actress in the main cast, a Brown woman. Now, at the time, I don’t think they’d settled on whose love interest she was supposed to be, Don’s or Charlie’s.

But after s1? The Powers That Be at CBS wanted Charlie made more butch, more obviously straight, given the small but vocal contingent of Eppescest shippers. N3 didn’t have the money for another actress, and Diane Farr had already claimed Megan for Larry. Excellent decision on her part, but it left the show with a quandary: either pair Charlie up with his student, or fire Navi Rawat and write in a new love interest character.

They chose to keep Navi Rawat. They chose to keep the Brown woman, and make the geeky Brown girl the main character’s love interest. That didn’t happen back then.

Looking back from a 2026 lens, yeah, problematic as fuck. But Numb3rs, for all its fundamental kindness, for all its efforts to be as un-copaganda-like as it could, was still a network show in the late 2000s.

And in that context? A geeky brown girl love interest was revolutionary.

Now let’s move on to the second valid criticism: the Desi rep, and the fact that it’s complete and utter crap. Which is what happens when you hire a very Westernized Pakistani-German actress who was very divorced from her culture growing up to play a second generation Tamil Brahmin character who grew up in a city with one of the largest Little Indias in America, and nobody can be bothered to do any research, because all Indians speak Hindi and love naan and butter chicken, right?

How do I know the rep was bad? I’m literally from the same sub-community as Amita, with second-gen immigrant friends and cousins all over the US. If anyone wants, I’ll write up a detailed explanation of all the ways the show gets Tamil Brahmin American rep wrong. In the meantime, here are some fics with an actually accurate Amita.

That said. The worst of the bad rep happened in s4, which was also the season of the writer’s strike. A hugely important and unfortunately necessary thing, but it did mean that the shows that season had less than stellar writing sometimes. Which does go some way to explain how goatfucking stupid the Desi rep was in s4.

Those major and valid criticisms aside, Numb3rs got a LOT right about Amita, including making her a strong, well-rounded (for the time) character with depth. Under the cut, for spoiler reasons.

( Read more... )

I’m not sure where the original poster got the idea that Amita is weak or doesn’t have character development. Just because you don’t like a character, babe, doesn’t mean they’re badly written.

wychwood

I've had a nice quiet week and a nice quiet weekend and I still don't want to go to work tomorrow. Alas. However, I have caught up with the ironing (my nemesis) and changed the bed and washed the bedding and done as much other laundry as I could fit onto the racks, done some start-of-month admin chores, visited my mother with flowers for her birthday tomorrow (the family celebration is going to be a joint birthday / Mothers' Day affair next weekend, but I felt I ought to!), and eaten some good garlic bread, so it's going OK. Also, my new clothes all fit, and I have thrown out various ratty items which are now replaced, which is nice! And I'm wearing the new hoodie, which is very cosy.

I had a very strange dog encounter this week. I was coming back from my asthma check-up when I noticed that someone was walking a dog on the other side of the road that was staring at me super-intensely. There were parked cars on that side, and every time it got to the gap between two cars it would turn and STARE. Then I crossed over, and it turned around to stare at me some more. The walker was trying to pull it along, so it started turning around and then lying down so it could keep staring at me. Eventually I passed them, and it just lay there and STARED as I went past. They overtook me again going up to the footbridge, but I could hear him saying "stop turning around!" to the dog after they got out of sight, and when I came down the other side it spotted me and turned around and lay down to stare again. It was honestly hilarious - it wasn't barking or anything like that, so I didn't feel intimidated; I couldn't tell how it felt about me, but it was fixated. Genuinely no idea what was going on in that dog's brain.

Our retired conductor S was back for the rehearsal last week, and it was nice to see him, but also really weird after spending the last couple of months auditioning new people! I felt much more aware than usual of his habits and quirks, instead of them just being the baseline that everyone else is compared to. It's going to be a relatively informal concert, with some fun tunes (I'm a sucker for Rutter's The Lord Bless You And Keep You and I don't mind admitting it). But this week we're starting the Brahms German Requiem, which is epic but awesome, so I'm looking forward to that.

oursin

Last week's bread held out, unto there being (just) enough for frittata (onion &thyme) for Friday night supper.

On Friday evening I made some Famous Aubergine Dip (had wild pomegranate vinegar, yay) to take to book group (happening this evening), but have not made foccaccia due to other attendees' gluten issues. Will take carrot sticks instead.

Saturday morning breakfast rolls: basic buttermilk, 3:1 strong white/dark rye flour.

Today's lunch (a bit early because of having to set off to book group): partridge breasts rubbed with crushed white peppercorns, thyme, rosemary and salt, panfried in butter and olive oil, deglazed with madeira; served with kasha (have now discovered the correct proportions, and this sort does not go mushy, either), purple tenderstem broccoli, for which I sauteed chopped ginger and fennel seeds in olive oil and then added the broccoli and stirred around for a bit, then added a few tablespoons of water and steamed for half an hour, and gingery-grilled baby courgettes.

daringfireball_feed

Posted by John Gruber

https://sentry.io/resources/ios-workshop-jan-2026/?utm_source=daringfireball&utm_medium=paid-display&utm_campaign=general-fy27q1-evergreen&utm_content=static-ad-mobilerss-trysentry

My thanks to Sentry for sponsoring last week at DF. Sentry is running a hands-on workshop: “Crash Reporting, Tracing, and Logs for iOS in Sentry”. You can watch it on demand. You’ll learn how to connect the dots between slowdowns, crashes, and the user experience in your iOS app. It’ll show you how to:

Set up Sentry to surface high-priority mobile issues without alert fatigue.
Use Logs and Breadcrumbs to reconstruct what happened with a crash.
Find what’s behind a performance bottleneck using Tracing.
Monitor and reduce the size of your iOS app using Size Analysis.

I know so many developers using Sentry. It’s a terrific product. If you’re a developer and haven’t checked them out, you should.

★

https://sentry.io/resources/ios-workshop-jan-2026/?utm_source=daringfireball&utm_medium=paid-display&utm_campaign=general-fy27q1-evergreen&utm_content=static-ad-mobilerss-trysentry

daringfireball_feed

Posted by John Gruber

https://daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/2026/02/28/ep-442

Jason Snell returns to the show to discuss the 2025 Six Colors Apple Report Card, MacOS 26 Tahoe, Apple Creator Studio, along with what we expect/hope for in next week’s Apple product announcements.

Sponsored by:

Notion: The AI workspace where teams and AI agents get more done together.
Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code talkshow.
Sentry: A real-time error monitoring and tracing platform. Use code TALKSHOW for $80 in free credits.

★

https://daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/2026/02/28/ep-442

oursin

Happy birthday,

polydad!

oglaf_comic_feed

https://www.oglaf.com/pamphlets/

kalloway posting in

dw_community_promo

small_fandoms has finished up its annual Drabblethon, with more than 140 drabbles posted.

The community is open all year for any sort of creations for small, tiny, and dead fandoms. Post your stories, art, icons, meta, and everything else.

silveradept

I feel like we need to start with this, because I'm runnning into situations where people have clearly not internalized one of the most important things to remember about stochastic parrots that they are calling Avian Intelligence. It's all based on vector maths and probabilities. It does not know what is true, nor what is accurate, when it is constructing what word to select next. That it manages to get things correct is by accident, and by the providence of having training data that contains the correct information in it. When it constructs sentences and so on, it does so based only on what the training data and the vector math, with some fuzz factor built in, says the next word is, regardless of whether that's the right word or not. (Admittedly, being able to do the vector math is helpful, because it allows for a certain amount of synonym substitution and can make a search engine more robust at finding relevant answers if you don't hit the exact keywords. There's an aside here about how many engines are transforming your queries so that you search for things that will serve you ads or that will steer the results to prioritize those who have paid for top search engine ranking, such that even things that are good that come from machine learning are then transformed to evil purposes by capital and their priorities.)

Also up top, Dreamwidth is recruiting volunteers who would be willing to file documents in United States courts talking about the chilling effects on your speech and online activity that various state laws trying to curb social site use by teens would have, and especially from parents who would be willing to detail the way those laws would interfere with your parenting decisions. Comments screened, signing up is not committing to writing such declarations. Also, risks involve things like having to use your wallet name, and possibly having your wallet name and your Dreamwidth identity linked in publicly-available court materials or at least materials available to the state and the court.

(Because South Carolina is the latest entity to join the circus, South Carolina users are especially helpful right now, but all kinds of states have legislation that's looking to join the circus. Why South Carolina? Well, they're charging people with "contributing to the delinquency of a minor" by being an identified adult in a teen-focused anti-ICE school walkout planning chat and expressing support for the walkout. Among other things they're trying to do to supposedly protect teens from the corrupting influence of adults.)

The worry about the presence of new media is perennial and perpetual, but it's not the new medium, or the new screen, that is the issue, it's the way that content is designed and presented that's trying to fragment attention and deep thinking. Accessibility and multimodality are awesome things, but there's a lot of design work that's been put into keeping us scrolling and viewing ads rather than using our tools to think and engage deeply.

Dr. Gladys West, whose precise measurements of the planet made it possible for the Global Positioning System network to come into existence, and therefore commercial (and military) satellite navigation, has died at 95 years of age. Another contribution of painstaking measurment and mathematics that undergirds so very much of the technological world today.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson, civil rights activist and occasional punchline of a joke, has finished his ministry at 84 years of age.

( What Have the Fools, Grifters, and Bigots Been Up To This Time? )

Last for tonight, twenty-five years of a very popular early-Internet meme, matching visuals to the "Invasion of the Gabber Robots" by the Laziest Men on Mars, who would also give us the Pusher and Shover robots in a different viral video.

(Materials via

adrian_turtle,

azurelunatic,

boxofdelights,

cmcmck,

conuly,

cosmolinguist,

elf,

finch,

firecat,

jadelennox,

jenett,

jjhunter,

kaberett,

lilysea,

oursin,

rydra_wong,

snowynight,

sonia,

the_future_modernes,

thewayne,

umadoshi,

vass, the

meta_warehouse community,

little_details, and anyone else I've neglected to mention or who I suspect would rather not be on the list. If you want to know where I get the neat stuff, my reading list has most of it.)

Current Mood: gloomy
Current Music: Darren Korb, featuring Louis Cole - The End of Time, Part II

scaramouche

I got the chance to muck around with a D+ account for a bit and although I struggled with the UI, I can't tell if it's because I'm so used to Netflix and youtube, or if it really is as finnicky as it seems to be. That aside, some actual disappointments about the service for me:

I put on the 1989 The Little Mermaid movie because I wanted to see which version they had up, because there's been multiple restorations over the years. Good news: the picture is clean, with none of those uneven lines and truncated transitions, so I assume it's from the latest Blu-Ray release about... six years ago? Definitely not the one before that. Bad news: the audio mix is terrible!

This is a movie I know SO well, so I could tell pretty quick there's something very strange going on with the audio balance between dialogue, music and sounds effects (eg. water sounds, background noises). Some noises are too loud, some are too soft, and the worst is when the music is not on the same level as the singing. It's almost a Christopher Nolan movie here! I wanted to double-check that it's not my device or speakers, so I put on my personal DVD of the movie, and that sounds perfectly fine on my PC speakers. I poked around a bit online and it's not really clear what the problem is. One possibility is that the version on D+ is optimized for TV with surround sound, so it sounds weird on a PC. I can't double-check this, though.

Then I checked out the Little Mermaid TV series and, oh boy. Some episodes are in the wrong order, despite the platform listing each episode's original release date right there. The video has been cropped from the original 4:3 to 16:9, losing that extra detail (and making it feel squished, as this is also media I know very well). Best yet, the pilot episode is missing entirely, and the only thing I could find about it is some speculation that it's too scary for children, as it does open with a group of whalers attacking an orca pod. (Which is totally something they would do, considering the edits that D+ has done to other movies like A Parent Trap and Splash.)

I guess all of this just serves to remind that streaming is not owning, and to keep your own copies before they become lost media. :/

Current Mood: aggravated
Current Music: Madonna - Waiting

torachan

It was hot today, so we decided to go down for dinner instead of earlier in the day and that was the right choice. By the time we got down there around five, it was really quite pleasant and it wasn't long until the sun started going down.

( Read more... )

apod_feed

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260228.html

Lunar Occultation of Mercury

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260228.html

torachan

1. We walked up to the bagel place this morning for breakfast and, in addition to my bagel, I got their passionfruit matcha latte again. It's really good!

2. I got a new corner shelving unit for the garage and put it together today. I meant for it to go in the corner between two of Carla's CD shelves, since something needs to go in that space, but it turned out to be too large. The shelves can be moved out a little from where they are now to allow something larger between them, but if they're moved enough to make space for this, it'll block an outlet on one side and either go further behind the couch on the other side than I'd prefer or we'd have to move the couch further down (which could be done but idk I like it where it is). But there is another corner that also needs something and it looks perfect there. That's the corner where we had the Christmas tree, but there's still plenty of room to put the tree there again even with the shelf in place.

3. It was very warm today so we decided to go to Disneyland for dinner rather than breakfast or lunch, and it was the right choice. It was actually very pleasant in the evening.

4. Yet another cat enjoying the new lounger.

tally posting in

dw_community_promo

youtuberecs is a simple, casual community for posting Youtube recommendations! It's meant to be easy peasy—you can leave reviews or commentary about your recs or just drop the embed and go!

We also now also have a nice backlog of video recs to browse, all organized within our tag system. ♥

Current Mood: working

lightreads

Chilling Effect

3/5. Adventure scifi featuring a Latina space captain trying to go straight with her ragtag crew, until the space mob kidnaps her sister.

I enjoyed the first half of this – repetitive but in a rompy way, messy family dynamics, great crew of women and aliens, unapologetic about the Spanish sprinkled in and not spoon-feeding translations of everything, did I mention Latina space captain. But it overstayed its welcome by a good 40,000 words and the last third is a hot mess. For real, if you find yourself as an author doing a “character is secretly a [redacted!]” okay, fine, but then if you do the exact same plot twist with literally the exact same redacted on a different character 30 pages later, you’ve just got to stop yourself and cool it, you know?

Points for cute interspecies romance (though I’m me, so I have questions about how the fade-to-black sex worked, exactly).

Content notes: Violence.

oursin

We Were Here: The Untold History of Black Africans in Renaissance Europe:

In his groundbreaking documentary, We Were Here, Kuwornu shares the diverse African presence in Renaissance Europe that he found: princes, ambassadors, saints, artists, scholars, and knights—all revealed through art from the period.

***

This is an older piece but I don't think I've posted it before: Taking Photos of the First Women’s Liberation Conference

***

Q&A: Bidding farewell to the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust:

The Shropshire site, which comprises 10 museums and 35 listed heritage buildings, is transferring to the custodianship of the National Trust on 2 March after a challenging period that saw it grapple with severe flooding and falling visitor numbers.
Supported by a £9m government investment, it is hoped the takeover will secure the site’s long-term future and enable it to benefit from the National Trust’s high profile and visitor expertise.

***

Ultraprocessed food: whaddya know, It's All More Complicated.... People want to avoid ultra-processed foods. But experts struggle to define them - not all are junk foods.

***

Sixty years on, a Star Trek writer is still creating strange new worlds: Diane Duane’s early days writing fan fiction have led to a remarkable career as a novelist, comic writer and screen writer.

daringfireball_feed

Posted by John Gruber

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/02/trumps-iran-regime-change-attack-gamble/686190/?gift=aQyUJR7AIw1mJWdQ6Ed6yOWB4bfod1kQqCyz2RXbHaY

Tom Nichols, writing for The Atlantic:

When the 2003 war with Iraq ended, U.S. Ambassador Barbara Bodine said that when American diplomats embarked on reconstruction, they ruefully joked that “there were 500 ways to do it wrong and two or three ways to do it right. And what we didn’t understand is that we were going to go through all 500.”

★

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/02/trumps-iran-regime-change-attack-gamble/686190/?gift=aQyUJR7AIw1mJWdQ6Ed6yOWB4bfod1kQqCyz2RXbHaY

swingandswirl

Hello, wonderful FFFX creator!

First off, thank you so much for agreeing to create something for me! I hope you have fun doing so. :)

Second, I know that different people like different levels of detail in their creator letter, and that for some people, TOO much detail can feel stifling. So I’ve divided this post into two parts - a short roundup of things you absolutely NEED to know, and then, under cuts, a crapton of babbling and prompts.

The more detailed notes aren’t meant to be demanding or scare you away; it's just that, given the expected wordcount, I thought you might like more than a list of likes/dnws. If they inspire you, great! If not, feel free to ignore - I would much rather a fic about X that YOU are excited by rather than you seeing Y in my letter and struggling through it because you think it’ll make me happy (as long as my DNWs are respected, of course). Please also note that the fandoms are in alphabetical order, and that length isn't really indicative of how much I want a particular one; some canons just lend themselves more easily to prompts :) If you want even more ideas, please feel free to look at my dear author letters tag.

Treats are welcome and squeezed and hugged and called George :)

So, on to the absolute basics!

General DNWs:

AI generated content | dystopias | universes darker than canon | darkfic | stories where characters react to the books/movies/TV shows they are featured in | stories that have the same plotlines/characterizations/deaths as canon despite being AU, especially genderbends | female-to-male genderbends unless specifically requested | kidfic (fic with child characters as well as de-aging) with the exception of Daisy from the Kingsman movies | change of setting AUs unless requested (chars making different choices in the canonical setting is fine) | bigotry (homophobia/racism/sexism) or issue fic | character/ship bashing | unhappy/open/bittersweet endings | unrequited feelings between main ship or one of them still being into someone else/"settling" with other half of main ship | fake relationship or marriage of convenience stories without pining/(eventually resolved) UST/romantic feelings between the characters | someone under 18 with someone over 21, or more than a 20-year age gap if they're both adults | love triangles (perceived is fine- like a thinks b is into c) | first or second person POVs | Reader inserts | omegaverse | mpreg | stalking/stalker stories | explicit violence/torture or body horror (dealing with the aftermath is fine) | cheating/adultery | Bad/awkward sex | sexual assault/rape or domestic abuse/violence between requested pairings (recovery from assault by someone else is fine) | bodily waste, vomit, watersports, scat, graphic descriptions of injury | major power differences (eg: student/teacher or boss/secretary, unless in roleplay) | villain AUs/good guys are the bad guys (or vice versa) | Hero/villain pairings - eg: Order Members/Death Eaters in Harry Potter (Draco or Narcissa is fine), Avengers/Hydra members in MCU | Mentions of COVID or a fictionalized version of same | betrayal by canonical friends/family (exception for a specific Numb3rs plotline) | Brexit having happened | Trump as President (please either use a Democrat or a fictional Republican)

General Likes:

Smut Likes:

Now, on to the canon-specific info! My apologies for not doing individual cuts for each fandom – DW does something really weird when I try.

( Read more... )

My favourite thing about this series is how positive and filled with queer joy it is, especially given the current /waves hands at everything/. I love how much Bitty and Jack try to support each other, how great their friends are, how much of an emphasis there is on found family.

As much as I love their canon relationship, I am an absolute sucker for different meeting or canon divergence AUs.

Some prompts:

- Post-rehab Jack stumbling on a certain made-of-sunshine baker's vlog and the two of them striking up a friendship (feel free to have Jack go to the NHL early or keep him at Samwell, up to you). Bonus for Jack discovering a love of cooking!

- Falcs social media manager Eric is tasked with making their leading scorer slightly less of a hockey robot on camera.

- Team nutritionist Eric and his quest to get Jack Zimmermann to eat things other than chicken tenders.

- This amazing Reverse Skating AU: https://whoacanada.tumblr.com/post/165536014067/reverse-figure-skating-au

- After the Closet Incident, Coach Bittle decides it's time to get out of the South. And Samwell just happens to need a football coach.

- The Heated Rivalry AU. You know I had to ask for it. (Please not a fusion; I haven't read the books/watched the show yet, although passing mentions that don't need me to know canon are okay.)

Closer-to-canon prompts:

- I would love fic where Jack and Bitty get together earlier than in canon. Maybe Jack gets a clue sooner, maybe they start out as FWB then Emotions happen, maybe they have to pretend to be dating For Reasons and then they realize the emotions are real.

- We know Jack is wealthy, but we don't really see much of it in canon, the oven aside. I'd love fic where Jack spoils Bitty, or if you want to take a slightly more serious note, Bitty navigating what toxic masculinity tells men about being providers, and how a lot of important labour is dismissed because it's 'women's work'. (Please keep the fic generally fluffy, though.)

Fandom-specific DNWs: Kent Parson as a major character | Jack not being in the NHL (that one specific prompt aside) | RL hockey players expressing terrible opinions (please either use only fictional ones or change their opinions) |

DCU (Comics)

Superbat was one of my first OTPs, and I still adore them. I grew up with the comics as well as the Timm/Dini animated series (BTAS, STAS, JL/JLU) so incorporating things from cartoon canon or vice versa is fine by me, although I'm not a fan of the movies. My favourite characterization of Bruce leans more towards the toon version, but I don’t mind Brucie being a loveable himbo so long as the second-hand embarrassment isn’t too bad. I definitely want Gotham absolutely loving their dumbass well-intentioned playboy son who pours so much money into their beloved city, even if it is in sometimes very (outwardly) dumb ways.

I love these two so much. I love that they're two such different men who come to trust, respect, and admire each other. I love their bone-deep friendship and their certainty that together they can do anything.

I would love fic set early in their careers, set before Bruce acquired his passel of orphans. If you choose to go later, please keep the focus on the boys.

I would also love an exploration of Kryptonian culture. There’s several comics runs where the Fortress of Solitude is equipped to teach Clark about his planet and culture, and I would love a fic that acknowledged that he’s Kal-el of Krypton as well of Clark Kent of Smallville and Superman.

For genderbends, feel free to make Clark female but please keep Bruce his cis dude self.

Prompts:

- a fic set in this AU. Lifelong besties FTW!

- Casefic, ideally with Clark's investigative talents used too. I really hate the characterization of him as dumb or naïve just because he’s a small town farmboy.

- Confessions when they think they're about to die but oops they survive

- Hurt/comfort, with the other fussing over the hurt one

- shameless smut

- Fake dating while pining for each other. Bonus if all their superhero friends sigh at their obliviousness.

- Bruce is pleasantly surprised by the dirty mind behind Clark's farmboy facade

- Kryptonian culture, especially anything to do with courting rituals

- Fic where Gotham and Metropolis have distinct personalities, and bonus if the people of Gotham have to defend Brucie or Batman somehow until Clark can get there

- Allies to friends to lovers

- Battle couple; completely in sync, kicking ass and taking names

- Outsider POV: what does their relationship look like to the public? A gossip columnist who doesn’t know the secret would be fun for this, I think, or two random civilians arguing about ships in some online forum (you know Bruce Wayne/Batman is popular in Gotham)

Canon-specific DNWs:

Bruce or Clark being bad fathers | a focus on the Batkids (background is fine, but please keep the story about Bruce and Clark) | Clark portrayed as a naive virgin ingenue | Red Hood (please set the story before Jason's death or have him come back as Jason) | Oracle going back to being Batgirl/no longer needing her wheelchair | Lois, Diana, or Selina bashing | Clark and Lex being childhood friends | evil/colonizer Jor-el and Lara

Electra McDonnell

I read this series last year and fell utterly in love with it. I am such a sucker for the buttoned-up military man with a secretly passionate side, and of course Electra herself is a darling. My one complaint about the series is that we don't get Ramsey's POV, lol.

Prompts:

- Ramsey POV of any of the events of the series, especially times when Electra was in danger.

- AUs where they got together earlier.

- AU where she told him what was going on with her mother vs keeping a secret that blew up in both their faces.

Canon-specific DNWs:

Pregnancy and kidfic

Harry Potter

Ah, HP. Even with all of JKR’s Nonsense, the first four books are still gold to me. I love the magic and whimsy of them, love the boarding school setting and all the fun ways it can be played with. HP is where my id comes to play.

Solo Harry Potter:

- Harry finding out about an inheritance that's been kept from him, especially if it involves a title/estate. This can include secret wills, blood tests to determine inheritance, wizarding politics... any kind of inheritance-related shenanigans, basically.

- Shopping sprees and finding out that magical London is more than just the Alley, and magical Britain is more than just what the books tell us (come on, Hogwarts is not a breeding population! Regardless of what Remus says in DH.)

- Harry realising that the magical world is more complex than he first thought, and that there are things about pureblood culture that are not tied to blood supremacist bullshit and are worth keeping. Bonus points for purebloods working to make their culture more inclusive and less bigoted.

- Dumbledore being a manipulative bastard who's happy to sacrifice Harry for the Greater Good (this can include spelling Harry and/or other people to keep things DD doesn't want them knowing to come to light)

- EWE where Harry gets the fuck out of England after the final battle and explores what it's like to not be the Boy Who Lived

- Rule 63 Harry: What would the Girl-Who-Lived's life have been like? Especially since canon tells us the wizarding world is in many ways LESS sexist than our own?

- Harry making friends not Hermione and Ron. (Let him remain friends with them, though!) Bonus points if he and Neville bond, or he makes friends with people from Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw.

- Harry doing something other than being a wizard cop, ditto Ron.

- Harry discovering magic we don't see in canon - ritual magic, non-Latinate magic, stereotypically 'feminine' magic like fibrecraft

- Some kind of Peggy Sue time travel fix-it fic where Harry takes shameless advantage of his foreknowledge

Worldbuilding:

One of the things I love most about HP, at least the first four books, is the potential for worldbuilding. There’s so much scope for fun and whimsy and I would love a fic that leans into that.

- I’ve mentioned it in my DNWs, but the ‘robes’ in the movies that have since infected book!fic drive me absolutely crazy. In the books, wix wear floor-length robes that bear some similarity to nightgowns. I think a fic that shows Harry (male or female) adjusting to magical fashion would be very interesting. (You can find what the books say about the robes here and a sketch from JKR here.)

- Speaking of! The WW separated before Beau Brummell and the pervasive homophobia of the Victorian era made men’s fashion hideously boring. Given that, the WW probably isn’t afraid of colour or embellishment on their men – what does that look like? Especially since Apparition, Floo, and Portkeys exist and so influences from Africa and Asia should be easier to obtain. (Also colonialism, but I am of the firm belief that magic is as much of an equalizer there as canon says it is for gender, so. Please don’t focus on that very much if at all)

- Magic used in fun ways - robes with moving designs, magic-powered automatons, color-changing hair dyes, whatever. Go wild!

- I am a sucker for a good Diagon Alley scene, as mentioned above. A genderbent Harry would be even more fun, just because I don’t think the original cared about fashion, lol.

- For queerness in the wizarding world, I would love a vibrant queer scene that is much more progressive than the Muggle world, given that magic exists. Please make your magical world trans inclusive, because fuck JKR’s nonsense.

- One of my great sorrows with the last two books is that we never got more of the DA. I’d love fic that has Harry (or others) actually fighting! Bonus for unconventional uses of magic - can’t you see Molly Weasley being absolutely deadly with household spells, or the Quidditch teams figuring out how to use their brooms in combat?

- Re: communication in the WW. Presumably most parents of muggleborns and halfbloods love their kids and want to stay in touch, and owls are… noticeable. How is communication between them managed? Is there some kind of mail forwarding service? Did some enterprising halfblood see a need and set up a business facilitating communications between the two worlds?

- For food in the WW, it always bothered me that although we got some really fun sweets/junk food, all the meals were depressingly British Muggle. Given that the WW separated in 1692, when food was actually quite different than it is now, not to mention that magic probably makes travel to Europe and North Africa much easier, I’d love to see a different magical cuisine. (Maybe all the food mentioned is Muggle because that’s all Harry recognizes?) I’d also love to see uniquely magical crops, dishes made from transfigured foods, and how Hogwarts deals with students with different dietary needs.

Harry/Bill:

I have no idea how I fell in love with Harry/Bill, but it's absolutely one of my favorite HP ships. I love the idea that after some time away from the WW post the final battle, Harry finds himself a sexy cursebreaker.

Prompts: (feel free to genderbend Harry, but please keep Bill cis male)

- post-war, EWE: Bill runs into Harry a few years after the war and realises his little brother's best friend has grown up very well indeed. Bonus if Harry's spent the past few years travelling the world and/or their meeting is outside of England.

- post-war, EWE: Harry and Bill fall in love while restoring Number Twelve together. Bonus points if you include magical worldbuilding lore.

- post-war, EWE: Harry and Bill bond over scars, visible and invisible.

- shameless smut would also be great. Harry deserves to be thoroughly railed, lol.

- for any BDSM fic, I would love Dom!Bill taking care of sub!Harry. The poor boy could use it.

Hermione Granger/Viktor Krum

Man, I have loved this pairing for over twenty-five years now. Geek girl and jock boy is SUCH a classic, and add to that that he saw her as a girl when nobody else did… yeah, Tam!bait. My characterization of Viktor is very heavily drawn from the works of Miss Yetigoosecreature, which you can find here.

Prompts:

- Tell me more about their romance at Hogwarts! How did he ask her out? What did they do for dates? Were there any funny misunderstandings thanks to the various language/culture differences? (While I don’t mind some awkwardness, I have a bad second-hand embarrassment squick, so I ask that you keep the general awkwardness level low.)

- Hermione decides she needs a break from Britain after the final battle and visits Viktor in Bulgaria. (The kiss with Ron never happens or they break up amicably.)

- Give me a fic with the Taylor and Travis dynamic: Hyper-succesful woman has had string of relationships with intellectual art bro types who want her to make herself smaller for them; finds love with actually smart sportsball type who loves and supports her being her awesome self.

- Viktor travels with Hermione to Australia to retrieve her parents.

- Hermione and Viktor unexpectedly run into each other years after the final battle. They're both single and the sparks are as hot as they ever were. (Please no fic where either of them are parents.)

- Fake dating for whatever reason. Bring on the pining!

- Hermione and Viktor have to work on a project together and decide to give their relationship another shot.

Harry Potter/Viktor Krum:

I've always thought that it was such a missed opportunity for Harry and Viktor not to better friends in GoF. Well, good thing we have fic, lol.

Prompts:

- Viktor is intrigued by the person crazy enough to fly against a dragon and makes it his mission to get to know Harry better.

- Harry rescues Viktor from the Viktorias and a friendship (and more) forms.

- In an AU where Winky got Hermione's wand and Harry knows more spells than Expelliarmus, he gets separated from his friends... and winds up helping Viktor rescue Muggles from Death Eaters. Hey, there are odder meet-cutes.

- Harry is travelling after the war and runs into Viktor. Sparks fly.

Bill/Fleur

I love Fleur, and I hate how badly done by she is in canon.

Prompts:

- Bill and Fleur meeting in the Gringotts Archives and Bill impressing her by not assuming the (very complicated) book in her hands is for someone else.

- As two young, beautiful, charismatic people, Bill and Fleur are tasked by Dumbledore to drum up support for Harry in wizarding high society. Which they don't mind doing... except the food is crap, so they wind up falling in love over late-night dinners of street food instead.

- Thank-god-we're-alive sex after a dangerous mission and a close shave.

- Fleur showing Bill he's still desirable to her post Greyback.

- Bill and Fleur caring for each others' hair.

- Competence porn from Fleur. She wasn't made Champion just because of her looks, after all. Let Bill be impressed by her brains and skill.

- Bill charming Fleur by managing to react utterly normally to her looks. Bonus points if he's such a gentleman that SHE has to ask him out.

Canon-specific DNWs:

Snape as good guy or major character | Magic in North America/only 11 schools worldwide/FB movies/Pottermore as canon (please feel free to worldbuild more diversely) | AUs with the same deaths as canon | Accents written out phonetically for Fleur or Viktor | Wizard Cop Harry or Ron | the magical world being less progressive gender- and race-wise than the Muggle world; relatedly, Hermione or other Muggleborns 'civilising' the benighted backwards magicals | gender specific magic that is not trans inclusive | knotting | movie canon (specifically the actors' physical appearances, Ron's characterization, Mudblood being carved into Hermione's arm, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang as single-sex schools, pureblood wix wearing Muggle clothes/robes being basically bathrobes over Muggle clothes) being privileged over the books | the Statute of Secrecy falling | Fleur doing translation from French to English (English to French is fine) | Fleur actually having taken the Gringotts job for Bill | Remus/Tonks being a thing or Teddy existing | Pregnancy or kidfic | fic set during the Horcrux hunt

Numb3rs

Ah, Numb3rs, the show of my heart. My favourite thing about this show is that nobody was an asshole. (Well, except Ian, occasionally, but we forgive him.) I love that the agents get to be smart, too, that everyone is kind, and they're all clearly family.

Colby is my fave character. Really, I'm easy for anything Colby-related, especially fics that show us the layers he has. I would also love h/c, either from a canonical event like in Primacy or new shenanigans.

- Rule 63! I feel like a female Colby would see a legacy of five generations of duty and honour very differently. And a female math genius would be such fun (and probably have sharper edges than her canonical counterpart. Bonus: she and Amita would be amazing friends). (If you're doing Ian/Colby for this, please only genderbend Colby - f/f as a main pairing does not work with my brain, alas.)

- Speaking of that five generations legacy. I would love to see fic where Colby grapples with the toll it took on him, especially if he's thinking about fatherhood. (He doesn't have to decide on children; I would ADORE more childfree rep.) Colby/Ian and Colby/Charlie would both work for this.

- Casefic! Especially with Ian involved. I love a good old-fashioned casefic. Bonus if one of the requested pair is in danger and has to be rescued.

Ian/Colby:

I adore Ian/Colby. They have such a fun dynamic, even the show sees the chemistry. Prompts:

- I would love Ian standing up for his man. Give me all the fic where Ian delivers a set-down to people who think Colby isn't good enough.

- For genderbends, I think a female Colby dealing with the bastard son of Clint Eastwood and Yoda would be delightful. She wouldn't give him the time of day.

- Relatedly, Colby only plays the dumb jock - write me fic where Ian is charmed, and turned on, by his brain rather than that admittedly delectable ass.

- Ian/Colby: I would love to see the effect of a certain event in S3 on Ian’s opinion of Colby. (Please do not have Ian not believe him; I would love a fic where Ian is emphatically on Colby's side.) I would also love to see Ian helping Colby deal with how that must have fucked him up both mentally and physically.

- If you're a younger fan, it's hard to understand just what a big deal DADT being repealed was. I would love a fic that dealt with its impact on Colby and Ian, or the repeal being an impetus for one to come out to the other.

- For smut, give me all the sub!Colby, please. He just looks like he would be so much fun to play with.

Charlie/Colby:

The geek and the jock! Especially when the heart-eyes are practically canon, lol. Prompts:

- I’d love fic set during/post Rampage and Colby helping Charlie deal with the trauma of the ep.

- Fic that explores why Charlie believed Colby over the math would be awesome. Ditto post-freighter fic.

- Teaching someone to shoot is practically an LEO fic cliche at this point. I’d also love a fic that explores the aftermath of Charlie having to kill someone.

- For genderbends, I’d love a female Charlee Eppes falling for a surprisingly smart Army jock who drinks his respect women juice.

Canon-specific DNWs:

Charmita even as a background pairing | 6.08 Ultimatum as canon | Fic focused on Colby and David's friendship (I adore them but I'm in a mood for shipfic)

Pride and Prejudice:

THIS IS A SAFETY FANDOM

While I love Elizabeth and Darcy, in fic I prefer exploring other pairs.

Jane Bennet/Colonel Fitzwilliam

Jane and Bingley are well and good, but I've always had a soft spot for Jane and the good Colonel.

I would love a fic where they meet and fall in love - maybe an AU where Jane has enough money that she can marry the Colonel? (Bingley leaves Jane a well-left widow, perhaps, or the Bennet parents actually step up?) Or he decides that straightened circumstances are worth it for such a wife. Either way, I would love it if Colonel F falls in love with Jane for something other than her beauty. Extra bonus points if it's her brains.

Fitzwilliam Darcy/Elizabeth Bennet/Colonel Fitzwilliam

- I would love a fic where Elizabeth and Darcy bring the Colonel into their relationship - maybe he's recovering at Pemberly after being injured in the war? Bonus points for there being a pre-existing more-than-cousinly affection between Darcy and the Colonel. Please no love triangles.

- Context for this prompt: There is plenty of mention of male homosexuality in ancient Greek texts, some of which Darcy and the Colonel would undoubtedly have come across at school. And Elizabeth's father did teach her both Latin and Greek. After perusing certain sections of her husband's personal library, Elizabeth has questions for him and the Colonel. Darcy, for his part, can only laugh and say this is what comes from having a clever wife. Bonus points for someone saying, roughly, "If they did not want men having sex with each other, they should not have taught us Greek." (In a more period-appropriate way, of course.)

Canon-specific DNWs:

Thank you for reading! Please feel free to reach out to me via the mods if you have any questions.