I would love either Dousy or Howl x Sophie with the prompt mistletoe!! (Also it's totally valid that you don't ship Sabezra. Generally speaking I'm pretty neutral on it, but I have a lot of friends who ship it and that's gotten me more invested!)

(I forgot to ask if people wanted book or movie Howl and Sophie—I’m going with book here, I hope that’s alright.)

Sophie suddenly found herself halted in her rush back to the kitchen by Howl (sporting a bright red-and-green suit that she made a note to “accidentally” cut up to spare herself from a few less tacky fashion choices) leaning on the doorframe, grinning at her expectantly.

“Whatever are you smiling like that about?” she asked. She squinted at him. “Is that a candy cane earring?”

“My dearest, darling Sophie, light of my life,” he began in his most wheedle-some way, casting a deliberate glance upwards, “could you tell me what that is?”

It was then that Sophie noticed the green sprig fastened to the top of the doorframe. It had not been there a few minutes earlier. Giving her husband a suspicious look, she pulled it down and examined it closely. “Is this…mistletoe?”

Scarcely had she gotten a good look at the plant then Howl had plucked it out of her hands and held it above their heads again. “Yes, Sophie—mistletoe,” he said significantly, leaning towards her, eyebrows waggling.

Sophie met his gaze, and for a moment the two stared at each other, eyes locked. Then, blinking as if trying to clear her vision, Sophie pushed past him into the kitchen. “I don’t have time to hear about whatever this newest spell is, Howl, these pies have to go into the oven.”

It was then that the great wizard Howl Jenkins Pendragon, mouth agape, found himself suddenly remembering the existence of two realities—firstly, that he was in Ingary, not Wales, and secondly, Ingary certainly had no holiday traditions associated with obligate hemiparasitic plants.

“You daft, infuriating woman,” he moaned piteously, “you were supposed to kiss me!”

—

When Michael came through the front door twenty minutes later with Martha, bearing a few loaves of her fresh baked bread, he was arrested by the sight of Howl draped in a pathetic attitude across the sofa.

“Um…what are you doing?” he asked, regretting the question as soon as it left his mouth.

“I’m sulking,” he wailed, loudly enough so that everyone in the castle—in particular, someone who might be, say, baking pies in the kitchen—could hear. “Pouting. Wallowing in disappointment. Languishing in despair. Procure for me a thesaurus and I’ll keep going.”

Michael bit his lip and, out of a well-developed sense of self-preservation, continued on into the kitchen, pulling Martha after him, as if he’d heard nothing.

Christmas Drabbles Ask Game!

Best Tv Shows Ever

'Lost' 2004-10

A cosmic mystery trip so complex nobody has ever really figured it all out – a band of castaways trapped on an island following the crash of Oceanic Flight 815, having a smoke monster and also the enigmatic group called the Others, several time lines, the Seventies back-story of the Dharma Initiative, each episode filled with clues to be argued over for years to come. Lost proved there was a broad audience around who needed their Television to be more unpredictable and difficult, not less – and Television would never be the same.

'Star Trek' 196669

The Star-Ship Business took off having a five-year mission: "To discover odd new worlds, to to locate new life and new civilizations," and it succeeded in making the most beloved of sci fi franchises, not just inspiring many spin offs but also codifying fanfiction as an art form. Gene Roddenberry's original sequence stays the basis, with William Shatner's awesomely pulpy Capt. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy's logical Mr. Spock, Bones, Sulu, Uhura and Scotty. They speak to strange and inexplicable lifeforms – Romulans, Gorns, Joan Collins. During its three years, Startrek suffered from low ratings until NBC pulled the plug, but thanks to the most doggedly loyal of TV cults (remember when "Trekkie" was an insult?), Roddenberry's vision lives long and prospers for this day.

'The Daily Show' 1996-Present

The fa-Ke news show that became mo Re credible as opposed to news that is real. Comedy Central started The Daily Present when Jon Stewart took over in 1999, but it hit its stride. The Daily Present got more politically abrasive as the news got progressively worse. Stewart had the rage of a man who had signed on at the finish of the Bill Clinton years, only to finish up with an America significantly more scary and more ugly for, as well as the anger showed. "It is a comic box lined with unhappiness," he informed Rolling Stone in 2006. While the franchise struggles on without him, Everyday alumni John Oliver and Samantha Bee keep that hard-hitting spirit on their own displays.

'Friends' 1994 2004

A team of twenty somethings in New York sit around complaining about their day jobs, their sex lives, their screwed -up households. It's a formula countless sitcoms tried to get right on the years (great try, Herman's Head), but it took the Central Perk crew to get the best mix of personalities, from Lisa Kudrow's flaky folksinger to the schlub-fox romance of David Schwimmer's Ross and Jennifer Aniston's Rachel. Even at the time, it was absurd how luxurious Monica's West Village apartment and large was, and also the storyline where she's banging Tom Selleck just gets more abdomen-turning the Blue Bloods stays that are lengthier on-the-air.

'South Park' 1997-Present

Trey Parker and Matt Stone touched America someplace special and deep, and also you got to respect their authori-teh. Year after year, this cartoon began, Matt Stone informed Rolling Stone, "we'd view success as finally acquiring to the point where we get canceled because no one gets it." So here's to not exactly twenty years of failure – and hopefully 2 more.

'The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson' 196292

Heeeeeeere's Johnny! There's a cause Carson stays the template for each and every late-night host, after ruling The To Night Show for three decades. Like a TV answer to Frank Sinatra, he epitomized Rat Pack cool, and his monologues were a sound track to generations of Americans boozing every night themselves to slumber. Nearly 2-5 years after he signed-off (and more than 10 years after he died), Carson's the ghost king who nevertheless haunts evening. When he abdicated in 1992, Letterman and Jay Leno started battling for his throne and never quit. (In his last display, Letterman cracked, "It looks like I am not planning to get The Tonight Show.")

TV Series Third Watch

'The Sopranos' 1999-2007

The crime saga that slice the the history of Television kicking off a golden age when abruptly something seemed possible. About how much you could get away with on the little screen together with The Sopranos, David Chase smashed all of the rules. And he developed an American antihero in James Gandolfini's New Jersey Mob boss, Tony Soprano, presiding over a crew of gangsters who also double as dads and broken husbands, guys seeking to stay using their murderous strategies and dark recollections. As the late, great Gandolfini told Rolling Stone in 2001, "I noticed David Chase say one time that it's about people who lie to themselves, as we all do. Lying to ourselves on a daily basis and the mess it creates." What an inspiring mess it is. Since it transformed the world, this specific poll was run away with by the Sopranos. Chase confirmed just how story-telling ambition that was much tv could be brought to by you, and it didn't take long for everybody else to rise to his challenge. The breakthroughs of the next few years – The Wire, Mad Guys, Breaking Poor – could not have occurred without The Sopranos kicking the door down. But Chase had a difficult time convincing any network to battle a story of a guilt- gangster who goes to treatment, while his mother plots to kill him. "We'd no idea this show would appeal to folks," he told Rolling Stone. "The display really unexpectedly made this kind of splash that it screwed all of US up." The Sopranos kept heading for the long bomb over six masterful seasons on HBO having a wild mix of blood shed and humor. When FBI agents tell Uncle Junior which mobsters they want him to finger, he says using a shrug, "I want to fuck Angie Dickinson – let's see who gets lucky first." The Sopranos is full of damaged figures who linger on in the long term parking of our national imagination – Edie Falco's Carmela, Dominic Chianese's Junior, Michael Imperioli's Christopher, Tony Sirico's Paulie Walnuts. E Street Band guitarist Steve Van Zandt became Tony's lieutenant Silvio – Chase spotted him on early Bruce Springsteen album addresses. (As Chase told Rolling Stone, "There was something about the E Street Band that looked like a crew.") It might not have been possible without Gandolfini's slow-burning intensity – he was the only actor who could deliver Tony's angst to life. But the writing, directing and acting went locations Television had never reached before. Where Christopher and Paulie Walnuts get lost in the woods, realizing the Russian gangster they tried to whack is nevertheless out there-in the darkness, the Sopranos arguably hit its innovative peak with all the well-known Pine Barrens episode. They shiver in the cold. ("It is the the fuckin' Yukon out there!") They wait. And worry. The Sopranos never solved this mystery – for all we know, the Russian is still atlarge, yet another key these guys can not shake off. On The Sopranos, family loyalties flip, both in the streets and a T home. Beloved characters can get whacked a T any moment. It kept that perception of danger alive proper up to the final seconds. And not quite a decade after it faded to black in a Jersey diner together with the juke-box enjoying "Do Not Stop Believin'," The Sopranos stays the standard all ambitious TV aspires to fulfill.

'30 Rock' 200613

Alec Baldwin said it best: "You are truly the Picasso of loneliness." He's a point. The Liz Lemon of Tina Fey is one gal who spends her evenings working on on her behalf evening cheese playing Monopoly alone or viewing the Life Time movie My Stepson Is My Cyber-Husband. But Fey created her a timeless heroine -space experience at The Girlie Show to the backstage antics, having a crazy- deep bench that included Jack McBrayer, Jane Krakowski and Tracy Morgan. And Baldwin chewed up the role of his life, turning what might have been a generic sitcom boss into the only guy worthy to stand-by Lemon.

'The Office (U.K.)' 2001 03

Ricky Gervais created one of TV's most agonizing comic tyrants in David Brent – a bitter, awkward, pompous ball of vanities terrorizing his workers at a London paper organization. He fidgets, fondles his tie, cracks dreadful jokes, plays guitar ("Free Love Free Way"!), invisible to anyone except the longsuffering office drones who have to put up with him. This mockumentary raised the cringe level of sitcoms every where, spawning the remarkably great U.S. version (also on this checklist) while paving the way for the glories of Parks & Re Creation and Peep-Show.