damnhardwork asked:

For the ask meme:

P & T?

vermin-disciple answered:

(For this ask meme.)

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas)

Ooh, here’s a weird one I came up with a couple of years ago but will almost certainly never write: 

So, a ST podcast I was listening to made an offhand remark suggesting that Michael Dorn was spun over to DS9 because Brent Spiner said no. I have no idea if this is true or not, but it definitely got me thinking. My first thought was that this was definitely for the best, because I think Worf is a better fit for DS9 and while I like Data, I think there would have been a much greater danger of his dominating DS9′s storylines and stealing screen time from the established cast. 

My second thought was: so does this mean that Jadzia would have married Data instead of Worf??

And you know what, the more I thought about this crack pairing, the more sense it made to me. It’s fairly well-known that they originally wanted Jadzia, not Julian, for the TNG episode Birthright, and a lot of Julian’s interest in and observations about Data would work equally well coming from Jadzia. So this AU starts with that change: Jadzia meets Data on the Enterprise during Birthright, and they hit it off. Data gets spun over to DS9 instead of Worf, and they develop a relationship based in mutual fascination, shared curiosity, and enthusiasm for embracing new experiences. I really think that could have been an interesting and compelling dynamic to explore. 

(And you know that Jadzia Dax would definitely be down to bang an android.) 

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending, about anything at all (gender identity, sexual or romantic orientation, extended family, sexual preferences like top/bottom/switch, relationship with poetry, seriously anything)

The short answer is no, not really. One of the things I love about reading and writing fanfiction is that it’s a magnificent avenue for exploring different interpretations of the characters, including ones that are wildly disparate but equally justifiable extrapolations from the text. (Garak is a fantastic character for this.) I like exploring different backstories, perspectives, readings on canon scenes, etc., in my fanfic. I don’t usually hold my own headcanons as so sacrosanct that I wouldn’t be willing to bend them if an idea struck my fancy, or even just for the challenge of it. 

But, while I tend to be a bit flexible with my own headcanons, I am more inclined at times to hard and fast rejections of other people’s headcanons and interpretations. For instance, I’m often uncomfortable with people labeling characters with canon M/F relationships as gay (or writing them as such in fanfic), rather than bi/pan. I’m bisexual myself so it’s no great mystery why I have this particular kneejerk reaction. (Note that me saying ‘this makes me uncomfortable and I don’t like it’ is not the same as me saying ‘people should stop doing/saying this,’ because I have no desire to be the fucking Thought Police, and this sandbox is big enough for everyone.)

Then there are those ideas that an author would have to work very hard to convince me of in fanfic, e.g. that Julian Bashir would ever outrank Cardassia in Garak’s heart. 

All that said, I will give you one sexuality headcanon of mine: I tend to view Bashir and Garak as being on opposite ends of the bisexuality spectrum, with Bashir as bi-with-a-preference-for-women and Garak as bi-with-a-preference-for-men.