SpecRecs Letter 2021
Feel free to combine any of the pairings I’ve asked for, to create friendship groups or poly relationships.
Any time I’ve offered or asked for female versions of Shepard or Ryder, I’m happy with male or NB versions instead - I’m only specifying a gender because the site makes me.
If I’ve asked for romance, I’d also like a platonic version of the same relationship.
Likes:
Focus on friendship and mutual support.
Ensemble casts (background pairings are fine).
Humour.
Angst without hopelessness.
Action scenes.
Alien biology and culture.
Interesting, non-anime-elf quarian designs.
Genders other than 21st-century Western male and female (SF or real-world).
Consideration of the setting’s politics and economics.
Player characters being OCs with their own personality (I’m not fussed about what they look like, but I want a personality).
Human characters with cultural backgrounds. (Any cultural background. Sure, representation never hurts, but “I’m an Anglo-American from New York so my Shepard is an Anglo-American from New York” is a perfectly good background.)
Religious characters.
Coping with disability.
Fic that repairs canon plotholes.
Destroy Ending AUs with EDI and the geth surviving. (Shepard surviving in one piece is good, Shepard winding up disabled and having to get a new job is good, Shepard dying nobly is also good.)
Canon divergence AUs.
Stories about rebuilding after the Reaper War.
No Reapers AUs.
Porn likes:
Treatment of sex as a fun collaborative thing, and not taking it too seriously.
Necks as an erogenous zone. Also ears, if the character has external ear flaps.
Cuddling and massage.
Admiring partner’s body (regardless of whether they’re conventionally attractive).
Non-idealised sex, and things going wrong without ruining the sex.
Safe sex (whatever that means in context… contraception, avoiding fluid-bonding for disease prevention or due to allergies, being careful about using your fangs on soft squishy aliens, being careful when using your electricity powers on any kind of alien, being careful when tying up your partner to make sure they don’t sprain something, quarian issues…)
Light BDSM (particularly wrestling, spanking or biting). Focussed on fun for everyone involved, and nothing too hardcore.
Weird alien genitalia. Let’s get creative!
-particularly interested in knotting, tentacles, or cisgendered male characters who have some sort of sensitive sperm-producing orifice instead of a penis.
Quarian porn where they keep their suits on, and nerve-stim programs in general.
I like the idea of mating cycles, but only if everyone keeps all their mental faculties, everything stays 100% consensual, and the biology makes sense.
Dislikes:
Excessive/inappropriate romantic jealousy from characters who are supposed to be sympathetic.
Infidelity. (I’m fine with Shepard re-partnering after Horizon – I’ll count Horizon as a breakup.)
AUs in a totally different setting, particularly modern or Regency AUs.
Suicide, unless the context is someone sacrificing themselves for a good cause or as a final defiance.
“My true love died - this means I will spend the rest of my life mourning them, and can never love again!” Or any other variation on “you can only have one true love, ever.” Especially if it’s played as alien psychology!
Anything soulmate-related.
Batarians being innately and inevitably evil.
Turian society being male-dominated.
“Most salarians actually do have sex drives - they just pretend they don’t because their society is so repressive and anti-sex.” (I’m happy with individual salarians having sex drives, as long as it’s an odd individual quirk.)
Generic-feeling, “non OC” Shepards or Ryders. (The default names and character designs are fine, I just want a personality.)
Interspecies reproduction, unless it’s the canonical asari variety.
The sort of kidfic that acts like children are rewards for getting married/the inevitable next step after marriage, rather than their own people.
I’m OK with Shepard having a sexual assault backstory, addiction issues, or infertility angst - but only if they’re coping fairly well with it and it’s not the focus of the fic.
Porn dislikes:
Humiliation/degradation type kinks.
Taboo roleplaying – eg doctor/patient, police officer/criminal or teacher/student (especially if actual doctors or police are involved).
Dubcon or noncon, unless you’re deliberately going for “this is messed up and horrible”. Rape roleplay is OK, as long as it’s clearly roleplay in-universe.
Porn that feels like an X-rated parody of canon.
A/B/O or seme/uke stereotypes, in either slash or het.
Turian romance dislikes:
Female humans being objectively better in bed than female turians, or male turians as objectively better than male humans. (I’m fine with characters who prefer aliens – just make sure it’s played as “this character has a weird kink,” not “the aliens are objectively better”).
Implications that they “mate for life” in a way humans don’t.
Implications that they’re innately violent during sex or that they don’t understand cuddling.
Anything portraying them as mentally/emotionally savage and animalistic, or implying it’s OK for them to lose control and do things their partner didn’t agree to.
I’m generally pro-biting, but can we please treat it under BDSM rules (eg, only if your partner wants to be bitten)? And if there’s blood or permanent scarring, then unless it was an accident and the next paragraph involves first aid and a lot of apologies, that’s too hardcore for me.
