Archive of Our Own ^beta

In these worlds Zeno/Echo - the pairing made canon to sell a wedding dress - doesn't exist, but any other M/F pairing for Zeno does because we want to celebrate strong female characters.

What is the issue with Zeno/Echo? Regarding what's wrong with Zeno and Echo's relationship, I suggest reading my one-shot Disjuncture to get a general idea, but in case you don't want to - it has to do with how Echo treats Zeno in the canon material and the fact the way she treats him isn't okay. More specifically, the narrative wants us to believe Zeno is lazy and doesn't care about doing his work, only for the narrative which wants us to believe this to be the case to be forced in that direction.

In fact, if you actually pay attention, what's really going on is Zeno is getting flack from Echo when someone else takes over the job he - if you payed attention to his character arc - loves doing while she's doing a job nobody asked her to do that nobody needs her to do just so she can butt into Zeno's business and effectively stalk him, which definitely isn't the narrative they were going for.

What if I disagree? You're allowed to disagree, but if you don't there's no getting around the fact this isn't the collection for you. Disagreeing also doesn't give you the right to go flaming anything in this collection which is a major "don't" in fandom.

Does this mean Zeno/Echo isn't allowed? That honestly depends on what you're doing in your story, because I honestly don't want to ban stories that explore why the ship doesn't work or even involve breaking the couple up. And one-sided crushing on Echo's part is of course allowed. Just no stories where Zeno reciprocates those feelings without feeling pressured into doing so, or he'd gotten into the relationship on a sporadic whim that he later regrets.

Am I allowed to character bash Echo? Absolutely not!

Of course, I've found certain people think character bashing is any story which portrays a character in a negative light regardless of whether the way the character is portrayed can be justified with the canon material, when in reality that isn't what character bashing is. Character bashing is when the character is portrayed in a negative light that is supported by the canon material or the alternative universe in question.

There's no getting around the fact it is in character for Echo to become jealous of anyone else getting with Zeno. There's no getting around the fact it is in character for Echo to be possessive of Zeno even if she's not in a relationship with him. There's no getting around the fact Echo treats Zeno like crap because he doesn't follow the rules as she thinks he should.

For the sake of this collection, character death is what I'm going to consider character bashing, though having a story take place in New Genesis where Zeno exists and Echo doesn't - that doesn't break the rules.

Why isn't m/m allowed? The concept behind this collection is that any female character other than Echo is a better option for Zeno, so m/m really defeats the purpose of the collection, doesn't it. Still, feel free to write m/m if you want - just not for this collection.

Can I change one of the male characters to female? Sure, why not. You can even make Echo male if you make Zeno female.

In that case, can I write f/f? Sure! Go ahead and change Zeno or both into a female character.

What if I actually think a certain female character is worse or not much better than Echo Then don't write it for this collection, though to be honest, the only reason you'd be doing that is if you disagree with me and are attempting to troll, right?

Is gen and fix-it stories allowed? Yes, but the rule regarding no Zeno/Echo still applies. By this I mean you can't write a fix-it story where Echo gets a personality change, but a satire piece delving into why the ship doesn't work is fair game.

Do I have to reply to a prompt in the prompt meme? Nope! The Prompt Meme is there for others to toss ideas out, but there is no limit to how many people can reply to a prompt.

Is there anything else not allowed? See the main collections information for what else is not allowed particularly if you decide to do a crossover. And yes, crossover pairings are allowed for this collection.

1. No Explicit or Unrated stories
2. This is not a kink meme, so do not add kink or smut-focused stories for this collection.
3. No Race Lift trope.
4. Any trans character must be trans within the canon material they are from or an OC.
5. OCs are allowed but shouldn't be a Replacement Scrappy for a canon character.
6. Nothing containing ships listed under the FAQs please.
7. If the character isn't a major character for the story, don't tag them.
8. Crossovers are allowed.