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that-myllesstrauss-guy · 2 years

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Fandom: The Quarry

Characters: Laura Kearney, Max Brinly, Dylan Lenivy, Ryan Ezahler, Kaitlyn Ka, Abigail Blyg, Nick Furcillo, Jacob Custos, Emma Mountebank, Caleb Hackett, Travis Hackett and Original Characters

Relationships: Ryan Ezahler/Dylan Lenivy, Abigail Blyg/Nick Furcillo, Jacob Custos/Emma Mountebank, Laura Kearney/Max Brinly, Travis Hackett/Kaitlyn Ka and Caleb Hackett/Original female character

Warnings: violence, cursing, suicide thoughts, death of canon characters, gore, sexual content, explict sexual content, torture and humiliation.

Tags: Werewolf AU, everybody is infected, curse, pack dynamics, Travis is the alpha, new life, slow burn, character developing, every ship will get their time, some ships will change with the time, stranger to friends to lovers, Travis being Caleb stubborn and hot headed dad and new treats

Sinopse: The moment when the sun sets, the air gets cold, the cicadas are the symphony that prevails, the horizon turns to nowhere and the full moon spreads in the sky you understand that there is no world when night falls. If the eyes don't see the heart doesn't feel but the darkness never spoke so loudly since the beyond responded behind in its many layers of black. And inside the creature's eyes, two stars of magma were seen, fire of hate, blood of others and such a false truth was told through the Red Suns of the one whose name was unknown.

Red Sun

Chapther 1: Nigth of all Nigths

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Inicial note: Hello everybody, i decided post my werewolf au fic here on Tumblr, the first chapther is already available on the "Achivie for our own" but why not expand my limits. One remaider, none of this ships i ship myself, It's a experimental fic that i'm doing for fun, all of the ships will be treated fairly and with their times to shine but most of all It's a interaction fic, i wanted to make each one of them interact so here we are and here we go.

So was this the end? Everyone in the camp shared an idea of silence in that instant, it was standard but with intimate consent. Unmotivated, tired, the night of a lifetime had just ended, but this is how it all starts. The flames of the fire from the bonfire began to cooldown, the dance ended, meeting the initial cold of the forest in the distance as its remnants flew away to finally disappear from history in that lake long before seen by man and long after being touched by the fable that condemned that midnight.

The only man in front of all those children took a step forward in the dying light that the fire was still trying to sustain, right in front of him he faced one of the young couples, boy and girl holding hands while they were glued to each other, the boy with the wild haircut was letting out a lifeless gaze, he resting his head on top of the beloved's head while she was only held one of his hands with her both smaller hands, they were sitting on that felled piece of log that was shared just for them because the others were sitting in other places in that "circle", and like everyone else there, nothing among them was said.

He sighed heavily that morning air, pure and natural, the frost from the mountains could be felt through the pitiful taste of blood in his mouth, the lungs found themselves filling and being emptied seconds later, he saw the sky for an instant, there were still stars above there, sickening was the sight now, he stared and saw stars rising inside his eyes, the glints of stress only worsened as the words came.

- Nothing has been done, not today, not yesterday and nothing forever now. Do any of you know who you're now? Nothing, below everything and beneath that even, we're now unknown.- The words came out with hatred, quietly cursing all over the ones that were there, kept everyone now in a deadly silence.- No man, no woman, no son of anyone, no daughter of anyone, we're on our own.

No one answered, no one had the courage to do so, however the young woman with blond hair, short stature and tied up in an old-fashioned dress shifted in her seat, administering the words that until now had only been in her mind in disbelief.

- I-I can't understand how, why…. You said that if we killed Sillas the curse would end, you said this!

- Yes I said, I said with all the propriety in the world, sure of nothing but that for over 6 years, only that I understood, only that I became good at understanding. Now I don't fucking understand nothing, black and white, what's the goddamn diffrence now? I don't know, and guess what, I never knew anything my whole life.

- What the hell Travis how, how this is possible, Ryan blew your fucking brother chest, Max went back, I WENT BACK TO NORMAL. Stop fucking lying to us and say what we have to do to end this fucking thing.

- Don't you fuck talk about father like that you bitch.- Caleb had been silent until that moment, just holding back the distaste of the moment until he heard what Laura threw at them, he was staring her down, eyes glowing red.

- Oh yeah, i almost forget about you, guess who hit the lucky stars and didn't end up eating dirt like your fucking family.

The boy walked to advance but was stopped by his uncle's outstretched arm, the boy looked at him, irritated and disgusted with his action until the moment he received a dangerous glare from the eldest.

- Don't you fucking dare lay other step, boy.- The whisper came as a warning and when he saw the wings of the kid being cut short and his eyes who were pure hatred went to genuine fear, the man put the arm down, slowly.

- Both of you stop this right now. For all of you, for each one of us…- He corrected himself, he stoped for a moment, thinking.- We all heard the hag, It's that right?

Everyone except Jacob nodded in agreement with what he said. The boy was a little farther away than everyone else, he was sitting on the ground next to the lake, cross-legged facing the sunrise in the most splendid way that nature could provide. Behind the mountains, dyeing the massive, grass-covered surfaces on its ancient shores, painting the nature of the plants with that new feeling. Colors never seen before, experiences never told until that moment. Between the lake even after all that, the amber and gold on the sides mingles with white and a superficial green by the new sunbeams, and all around the sweetly applied pink with tenderness wrapped around everything in an ever-increasing wave of heat, the sky never lived such magnificent times as the one that was reflected through the irises of the boy. The sound of the forest was unnerving, everything was heard, to a small left hitting the ground to the sound of the water move when a sudden breath of air came, he had all senses above his skin crawling like water over an egg shell, feeling the earth spin on the palm of his hands when he had his hand on the dirty ground.

- It's that right?- The older Hackett repeated himself louder when nothing came out of Jacob's mouth.

- Jacob.

A small whisper came from the one that was next to him, the voice of the asian girl friend of his reached his senses for a short period, he turned his head, slowly, just to see Kaitlyn's expression of care and concern. She saw his eyes, reddish and swollen from the memory of the last night. His mouth formed words but little came out of it, he stuttered for a moment, swallowed the bad bitterness that had formed in his mouth and only with a stutter and words broken one on top of the other he replied.

- yes.- Such a sound couldn't be replied ever again.

No one but Kaitlyn understood his answer, she turned her head to see the sheriff's pleading eyes and nodded a "yes" on behalf of her friend and the sheriff understood and that was the importance of the subject of the moment.

- Eliza Vorez, Sillas mother, she put a spell on us, a goddamn break-this-mirror-and-you-will-be-cursed-for-life type of bullshit that her and her pettines could do it. Blaming us, condemned us just for doing something that she should have done since the moment that monster was born.

- This is so fuck up.- Kaitlyn whispered, placing a hand across her neck and lowering her head through the act.

- How the fuck this is posible.- Ryan contemplated.- How the hell does she have this much power?

- Had.- The officer corrected.- She isn't out there anymore, like earlier she grow stronger, shouting louder, and when we ended the job everything was what it was, she wasn't out there anymore because he wasn't here anymore, but we were.- He caught a break for a last sign of sanity, but nothing came, that was it.

- We were the ones who shared the blood Vorez, she became each one of us. She is here right now, listening to our thoughts, letting our hearts throb with blood only for us to face what she suffered, what Silas suffered. Justice for the righteous.-He stopped the daydream.

Now the shy, dyed-haired girl shifted in her seat making the boy next to her look with concern and awe.

- Abi?- Nick said, worried.

- Have to be a way, Mr.Hackett! Something to do, we can- we can give our DNA for studies! They can figure something out and help us, to cure us!

- Are you hearing yourself Abigail?- Ryan shouted from his place, eyes in anger.- The fucking goverment will open us liks a bunch of fucking rats because that's how they're gonna treat us. This is not an option.

- Yeah Abi, and there's no way in hell that them would cure us, this is not some science bullshit that can go away with some medication like a cold, all of this came out from a fucking fairy tale, we are talking about the Little Red Riding Hood villian which is us for god sake.- For the first time Dylan talked out loud.

- This would be better then live in this fucking monster body! Suffering every full moon just to change to a nightmare, change to kill. I don't want this, I don't wanna be this thing, please Mr.Hackett we have to do something to cure ourselves.

Her begging hit the man's ears like the biggest tsunami ever witnessed. He didn't look either of them in the eye, just stared at the ground with no answers to give, defeated and tired.

- I'm sorry kids.

The young woman finally burst into tears, dropping her head gently on the boy's chest who with frankness and need wrapped her in his arms in a comforting hug, letting her shed silent tears that wet his white shirt, everyone had already assumed their duties, they were ashamed, silent in pure self-contemplation. Laura was tired of being silent, indecision and more indecision, everyone's need for an answer when there was nothing to be done, she knew it was difficult, until now she didn't know what had happened and she was far from consuming the truth, but now something had to be done.

- So that's it, that's fucking it? We have to lay down in the ground and die just because of this?- A laugh came out.- Y'all are fucking pathetic.

Travis stared at her, searching for answers he couldn't speak but was sure she had something in her mind, something they both shared but unlike him, she had the courage and the self-confidence to speak.

- If you wanna kill yourselves just for try to get away with what you are right now go ahead, try it, but make sure you're pretty much dead in the moment that I see my face or Max's among the wanted just for being what we are, assure this to yourself and for me more than anything that anyone who gets involved in this is are almost 7 light years underground, I'm not going to die just because none of you didn't want to assume anything and just ran away like a bunch of cowards, above that I prefer dignity.- She took a breath letting the sudden wave of adrenaline become something that only history could retold.

Everyone seemed to have understood her point, they were summoned to know the truth about her and that didn't bother the girl, she was being more than honest at that moment and gladly relieved she started again.

- I'll stick around, in North Kill I mean, at least until everything settles down and I can finally follow what I have to follow, my college, find a job around, and one day my mental health will finally be patch up, I don't know I'm counting on the lady luck in this point- She tried to let out a smile, nothing came.

- I would be next to others of my kin, It's far from my family, there are certainly plenty of places here to run and disappear among these woods so it's a positive point when the time comes.- Tired she said.- And that's it…. I don't really know what to do next, i-i don't really know what to do now but everything is better than giving up.- A silence came when realization came along, but for a short time.

- What do you want to do, sheriff?

The gap made him a little suspicious of the woman's intentions; he drew his eyebrows together in a uniform combination, trying to figure out what those golden eyes were trying to say. Giving up on trying, he straightens his posture, becomes rigid, shoulders firm and haughty in an attempt at confidence and rigidity, taking a deep breath and letting with a comment.

- I advise you all to follow Miss Kearney's deed. With one or two towns of difference from North Kill but always be around, and when the full moon come we all reunite to go to the guts of the Hacketts woods and disappear for all unlucky eye. The pack.- He cringed.- The pack will need interaction.

- Wait what?- Max was the one that talked. He hadn't thought of speaking for a long time but blurted out his genuine confusion.

- Caleb.

The older Hackett asked calmly for his nephew to come along, the boy who still stressed in the background avoided going forward, Travis kept that feeling of irritation at his nephew's disobedience just to only open his mouth just one more time, on alert.

- Come here.- He turned to the youngest who stared at him for a small time, the eldest wasn't asking, he was demanding.

With a breath of irritation, he pushed himself forward until he was in everyone's sight, swallowing hard and trying to keep control of his emotions he started.

- When Kaylee, I and… my dad were transformed we were imprisoned alone for a time, being social animals that's makes the wolf very anxious, self destructive and highly, highly dangerous, but when with companying, one or even two on It's side he become more malleable, calm and much more controllable, able to even lose interest in hunting when well fed and with company, anger decreases frankly. And when we went out, freedom brought some benefits to our mind, we remembered more of the events, we had a good time somehow and we sometimes would control what we could or could not do. And that was just with three wolves, imagine what could be done with ten.

That's what everyone was hoping to hear, Abigail was stopping crying after hearing every word the younger Hackett said. Travis moved to the front again and cleared the area with Caleb's last reaction of concern.

- But that's y'all choice. I'm asking you for everything and I need you to give me more than that: description, cold heart and caution have never been more necessary than now but it have to be done. I can try to guarantee more than safety, but I can't do it at the same time for everyone. And for thoses who can't live here at all, and I say zero conditions to do this, I hope that you'll be very, very vigilant and careful about your actions.

Some argued, some others already had the idea in mind and would not change in any way, the discussion was interrupted when Nick's voice finally crossed everyone's senses.

- My-my parents want to go back to Australia, I was accepted to Canberra university and…

- Come on Nick you can't be serious.- Abigail said out loud.

- I can't disappoint them, I did so much to be there, them did more, them did so much just to this-this damn thing, this isn't fair, not for them.- His voice was loaded with emotions, anger, sadness, hatred of the whole situation, his eyes started to watery only to let a lone tear fall.

- I promise Mr.Hackett i will behave myself, i'll not let no one know this if-if i do i…

- Are you gonna kill them?- The man's voice was cruel, and he stared at him, making the boy shift from his seat.

- You gonna make them regret to ever crossed an eye on your deformed monster body? It's that you're talking about Mr.Furcillo?

- You said- you said we could go as long as we could maintain the secret.

- You know damn well that this isn't gonna work, making the things worst from across seven fucking seas but you keep trying to convice me, so answer this question for me son: what you would do to keep them safe.

- Everything.- The answer came out quickly.

- Come on, you're not answering you're just talking, say this to yourself and make it louder, what you gonna do to keep them safe?

- everything.- This time the answer came out with another tear, being truthful.

- So you know exactly what to do.- His voice went darker letting the boy have his time.

The girl next to him hugged him tightly making his hurts fall to the ground, he reciprocated with affection. The cop wasn't proud of himself but it was meant to be that way, he sighed deeply and started again.

- Any other questions?

Laura with conviction answered a "no" with her head, the others still looked with doubt in their eyes but they were sure they wouldn't answer for now, caution was the ideal feeling but there was fear there too.

- Good. Go back to the camp, It's almost 7 a.m. Change your clothes, burn them if needed and when hit 9 a.m i will come back with the entire weight of the town on this place, better make your best histories, i'll try to cover the rest.

- Mr.Lenivy.- He call out Dylan who let his ears rise in the air when he heard his name.- How's your head doing?

The young man no had idea but he no longer noticed the feeling of discomfort and the phantom pain, he undid the dying bandage and saw how the hand was and unexpectedly enough it was tiny.

- Fuck this is so mental.- He let out a smile as he moved his baby hand in the air, he tried to touch Ryan's face but when the other boy saw it at the same time he ran from it.

- Let me touch your soul.- He deepened his.

- Fuck off with this, man.- He was disguested.

- Can I see?

Kaitlyn said, excited by the importunity. In the same time he turn his whole body to her and hold his tiny hand arm in an extremely dramatic performance with the little hand trying to catch her.

- Oh no he is trying to escape, run Kaitlyn, he taking over ahhh.

- Jesus this is so freakin weird.- She tried to touch it but regret this thought in the same time.

- I don't think so, I think this make my charm glow brighter.- He ran an open hand across his face, matching it with that other much larger member. He made a vain face, twirling a small curl with those little fingers.

- Yeah if the thoses who were next were blind. Look at this shit.- That was fascinating to her.- Looks like thoses little sour gummy worms that sell everywhere.

- You wounded me miss Ka.- Dramatically he puts that hand on his chest.- How dare you talk to junior like this.

- Don't put names on this thing, will probably grow with conscience and call you mommy everywhere.

- A mommy needs a daddy.- Once again he turned to the boy next to him.- Ryaaaan~

- Dude, no!- He was trying to hold back his laughter.

The three friends smiled genuinely from the joke, taking everything that was going on aside for a moment and everyone in that place silently enjoyed the moment. Kaitlyn was the first to come to her senses letting that loving smile die. For instance, she took the bandage back to the boy's hand and carefully asked.

- Better cover this thing up, no one needs to see your hand passing for It's ABC fase again.- A simpact smile came outta her.

- Yeah i know.- He patch that thing up reappearing as the same as before, without a hand but hiding something much stranger.- And i have to be away from the public eye until my hand came back to normal, isn't it Mr.Hackett?- The boy shouted from his place trying to get his attention.

- You already know.- A brief answer came as always, returning to discuss something with the boy that was next to him.

- Right. See, even Mr.H 2.0 knows I was born with description.

- Don't say that.- Ryan said.- Travis is not like Mr.H… Chris.- His voice went heavier with emotion.

- Yeah I saw that, man is without a doubt the most scary person that I have ever seen in my life, Nick is crying until now.

- Poor little guy.- The tallest boy spoke with empathy.- I don't think I could do the same sacrifice.

- Me neither.- Distant Ryan spoke.

- What do you mean?

- I-I think i will not come back here. So much memories.- He look away to stare the place on a whole.- Is like watching your whole damn life in the nigthmare google, just waiting to end in the same place that everything went to hell, i can't do it.- Behind tears he said.

- Do what you need to do, i don't have the wise words in the back of my head but Ryan just listen.-Dylan said.- If there's someone that can do anything in this world and menage to somehow make that thing work it's you, hell you passed a nigth hunting literally fucking werewolves just to make everything turn out all rigth.

- But nothing happen, we are still like this, we are fucking monsters. Everything that we did was for nothing, Chris died for nothing, Kaylee.- He droped in tears, the pressure on his lungs didn't let the words out.

The young Hackett watched everything, he slowly looked at his uncle who also looked at the situation stoically. The young man eyed the older man's permission to go there, Travis solemnly just nodded and that was more than enough. Caleb took one foot in front of the other until he stopped in front of his old friend who was crying in grief, he crouched down to reach the same level as the boy.

- Thanks for saving me.

The words came out in a sweet way, it made Ryan look up to see the empathy in Caleb's eyes and in a single act the young Hackett hugged his friend tenderly who replied with much more force. Both of them lived only one moment in their lives that changed everything for both of them, but only now could they overcome all this together now.

After a while the hug broke apart, Caleb let out a friendly smile that made Ryan calm down even more, the redhead got up bringing his friend up with him, letting his attention to the other eyes distinct in emotion of the others counselors, he silently thanked his true saviors away from Ryan's notice.

- We have to go, the others are waiting in the cabin.-He said, pushing the friend forward, the other two were already standing up.

- You think that I'm being a selfish asshole now.

- Never crossed my mind.- That brought a smile on Dylan's face.

- I'm being for real Caleb.

- I know and I believe you, for my part you could go anywhere and maintain all of this for life but my uncle, he-he doesn't have the same trust as I do and he is the one that you should worry about.

- Why should I worry about him?

- I thought you already knew.

He reviewed in his mind all the facts he knew about the older Hackett and realized what his friend meant.

- You're right, but you can't talk to him? He might get conficend by you better than i could

Caleb let out a dry laugh, denying what he'd just heard.

- There's no time for jokes right now, mister.

- Come on man.

- I can't help with this bud, he turn out deaf to anything that I say since…

Ryan understood his pause, with a clear throat Caleb came back to reality bringing all attention to what he had to say, nothing was but he saw understanding in his friend's eyes, that's was appreciated by the boy, he recomposes and says.

- So i mean, you have to try out. He is certainly tough, hot headed and probably won't listen to you at all but a chance is a chance.

- Thanks for the support Caleb.- Annoyed said.

- You welcome.

They both smiled and walked towards the camp. They didn't see anyone at the front door other than Travis rummaging through some things in the trunk of the police car. With a supportive look Caleb leaves his friend to his own fate, climbing the stairs and disappearing behind the establishment's entrance. Dylan was the next to move forward, he lifted his ex severed hand and flashed a smile.

- You can do this Tiger!

An annoyed sigh was the last thing Dylan heard after he ran to the entrance and met the others inside. Kaitlyn just went ahead and sat on the step with a weary sigh from her lips, Ryan was unsure why she was here but soon her voice cut through the air.

- You're not the only one that has business to explain to Sheriff Hackett.

- I thought that much. Can i ask what is?

- Well i could say it but it ruin the mystery.

- Suit yourself.

He ended there going to Travis location. The man was organizing the things behind the car, some dents left by Silas were being quickly corrected by the hands of the man who through the dry taps of a hammer were being corrected the way they gave. The delay of Ryan's speak made the man heave a weak sigh and dropped the object into the car.

- This a free state Ryan, don't mind what odds can came after.

And like a slap to reality Ryan wake up after hear the man voice, he was standing tall, he was taller then him that's for certain. The boy clenches his jaw trying to form the correct sentences in his mind until he hears another comment coming from the man.

- You mind?

He saw the cigarette box in one of the man's hands, the boy was surprised but shrugged, wondering why such an action.

- Go crazy.

And so it was done, the cigarette was introduced to the lips and from there it stuck, then the lighter met the tip and in only two attempts to ascend, the fire joined the two for a sufficient period, it made a small house with another free hand for the fire to have more effect in a matter of a second the pack was ready. The first drag was heavy, enough to cover the lungs from top to bottom with the heat of the smoke. When it was all inhaled in a single puff of air a smokescreen formed out of his mouth, letting the remnants of the wind dance with it, taking away all the tension from his muscles. The boy still wasn't confident enough to say anything to the man, Travis knew that. The eldest took the small box to the sight of the young man who had traditionally called his attention.

- I stopped eight months ago.- He declined casually.

- And I ten years ago.- He didn't sound like he was insisting but just pointing out a fact they both knew what they were.

Ryan understood perfectly the message that the sheriff was giving to him. He still held his hand up with that object, tempted him with that malice where only that could give. He knew everything that it would cause, everything was already written in the book that he made himself never to touch that destructive dependence again, but by all the circumstances, from today until maybe the day of his death there was nothing but perspectives, he deserved a victory, at least a small one, and in fact he already had something worse inside him. He took a cigarette and put it in his mouth without much delay, the man put the box in his uniform pocket and took the lighter to the boy who accepted the fire with pleasure. A drag, in and out at the same moment, the young man let out a cough to get out after inhaling too much.

- Outta of practice.- He said, trying to let out a smile.

The man next to him didn't react in an apparent way, he just let the tiredness wash over his face.

- What's your deal here?

- I just wanted to say that I will not come back. i have a scholarship that was not easy to get, my parents are very involved with my life and my sister's life so they would know where i went and why at the worst of times and-

- Why do you even border on creating a whole lie after I saw you cry over my family member's body? One of them you made sure to make his rest being forever, do you remember?- He was staring at the boy with his casual tone.

The boy was intimidated once more, he slumb down his shoulder and stared at the ground in an act of shame. Travis slowly threw the rest of the cigarette on the floor and faced where that was going to end up.

- It was Chris's mistake, you know. My brother wasn't the most bright human being in the world and clearly was the most stubborn that followed the same bad path: he was the man in the wrong place, between the wrong people in the worst time, that's the summary of how everything went to hell.- He gave it a pause.

- I never found a way to convince him otherwise, never seemed to work, he was always so certain of everything and I always doubted him for every single thing that he was doing, talking or when thinking, I never trusted, never once in my life since 6 years ago and he talked and thought a lot about you Ryan.

The boy shrugged even more, unable to answer the older one, Travis spoke everything calmly and patiently about what it took for him to listen for now.

- Why should I trust you?

- I'm not asking to you to trust, I'm just informing you what I'm going to do because i'm not going back to this fucking hell anymore.

He threw the cigarette on the ground and walked away from him as fast as he could, despairing for his view when he entered the cabin and with one loud slam on the door he was out of sight.

- He's gonna do so much shit.- Predicted the man.

- Yeap.- Kaitlyn said from her place catching Travis attention.

- Something to do about it?

- He just learns after the worst happens to him. Go figure.

He let out an graceless smile, asking all sorts of entities for him not to have a headache that was unfortunately already forming.

#the quarry #travis hackett #laura kearney #ryan erzahler #dylan lenivy #kaitlyn ka #jacob custos #nick furcillo #abigail blyg #fanfic #emma mountebank #caleb hackett #the quarry fanfic #saga #werewolf #werewolf au #pack dynamics

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mustlovemustypages · 4 years

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Yuletide 2020 Letter

Dear potential writer,

I truly hope all is well with you and yours. No matter what state you find yourself in, my wish is that Yuletide boosts your spirits and gives you the extra jolt we all could use to usher in the new year.

Thank you for taking the time to read my letter and thank you in advance if you decide to write anything for me!

Below are my desired fandoms and pairings along with story ideas that I would love to see written. Please don’t feel stifled by my prompts; I’ve also listed my general likes and dislikes at the very bottom of this letter if you decide to go a different route.

Little Women (2019):

Characters: Amy March and Theodore “Laurie” Laurence”

The main reason I adore this adaptation is because it made me see why Amy and Laurie ended up together. They had very similar worldviews and fit so well what the other needed. Both deserved to be with someone that valued them for who they are. With Laurie, Amy was not just financially secure but with someone who encouraged her to express herself creatively, politically, or however she chose. With Amy, while she grounded Laurie in reality and challenged him to be the best version of himself, he didn't have to fundamentally change to make her happy.

Story ideas:

These quotes really show how Amy's perspective on life was different than her sister's: "You are your family's hope." (Aunt March) "I’ve always known I would marry rich." (Amy March) That's a lot of pressure on someone so young. We heard some of Laurie's thoughts, mostly that he didn't think Amy should feel ashamed for wanting that. How would some of that pressure continue even after she got married, and what would Laurie say to make her realize they were in life together as a team and she didn’t have to suffer the weight of the world alone?

The conversation between Amy and Laurie in the painting studio showed just how level-headed and intelligent she was. Laurie, while not wholly agreeing, was respectful and didn't discount her thoughts. It would be interesting to see the impact on their story if Vaughn hadn't arrived, and this had played out more. Would the proposal have happened earlier and/or how would later scenes be altered as a result of further conversation?

What did the other characters think of Amy and Laurie's relationship, and how did it change after seeing them interact more as a couple? It would be interesting to read about Meg, Marmee, John, or some of the other characters realizing they were genuinely a good match for each other.

Post-canon, I'd love to get a glimpse of what kinds of conversations they had. Did Amy encourage Laurie to pursue a career and find what he was passionate about (music perhaps as Laurie mentioned writing an opera)? And similarly, did Laurie encourage Amy to pursue her art? Did they continue to have in-depth conversations about societal pressures and expectations of gender in certain economic classes?

Tenet:

Characters: The Protagonist, Kat, and Neil

Tenet is the first movie I've seen in theaters since Star Wars IX. There have been some mixed reviews, but my love for Christopher Nolan sci-fi films combined with the experience of stepping foot in a theater again made it a wonderful experience for me. Sure, the plot could be confusing at times, but it was fun trying to fit certain puzzle pieces together and oh so thrilling when things just clicked into place in the most satisfying ways.

I adored the dynamic between Neil and the Protagonist. The easy friendship, the banter, the suits... everything. I also loved the relationship between the Protagonist and Kat. It started off as each using the other but transformed into one of genuine care on both sides. Ever the romantic, I definitely saw something more than just friendship between the two and was slightly disappointed the movie didn't explore that aspect more.

For pairings, I’m interested in friendships between all of the characters. I’d be interested in seeing a romantic relationship between Kat and the Protagonist if you’re up for that, but not between Neil and Kat, nor Neil and the Protagonist. If you really want to give a romantic partner to Neil, I'd be fine with Laura (or an original female character if she’s not the focus of the story), but please, no slash. While I’d be ecstatic to see all three characters together, if you can only find a way to fit in two, that’s wonderful as well!

Story ideas:

Even though Andrei Sator is gone, there are still other players in the game, some like Priya, who want to eliminate Kat or even abduct her with the delusional idea she can continue her husband's work. The Protagonist (and Neil, if you so choose) ensures no harm comes to her, and he realizes that keeping her at a distance may not have been the best idea.

I personally don't buy into the fan theory that Neil is Kat's son Max; however, I do find the idea intriguing and would be up for reading about how that worked. The Protagonist breaks his rule and sees Kat, helping to raise her son Max/Neil and eventually teaching him about inversion.

The Protagonist doesn't have to wait quite as long as he'd thought to see Neil again. It can be the Neil who had already met him and knows about Tenet or the Neil who knows nothing about inversion.

What conversations did Neil and Kat have while the Protagonist was asleep after almost freezing to death? Maybe Neil explained the finer workings of Tenet and inversion more in-depth. Perhaps they discussed the Protagonist.

Clueless:

Characters: Cher Horowitz and Josh Lucas

This movie set the bar high for teen romantic comedies. How can anyone ever beat 90s Alicia Silverstone and Paul Rudd? Plus, the relationship between their two characters is fantastic. Josh and Cher just bring out the best in each other. Cher shows Josh that he doesn't need to be so serious all of the time and that people are more than their outer appearances. Josh makes Cher want to be a better person, and he believes that she's not just a pretty face. Their banter and playful moments always make me smile.

Story ideas:

Knowing Josh and Cher end up together, this brings a heightened awareness to rewatches. They have so many casual touches and exchanged glances (when did Paul Rudd's eyes get so blue?) that it's hard to miss their natural chemistry. It may take quite some time for Cher's dad to notice anything has changed because they don't act all that different from before. Is there something that makes him finally take notice? How does he react?

Sort of related to the last prompt, there's a moment where Josh decides to go to the dance to keep an eye on Cher and Christian, and you can tell by Mel Horowitz’s smirk he realizes Josh has a crush on Cher. Does he do anything to push it along or play matchmaker just like his daughter?

I've always been curious about whether or not Josh believes Cher's story about being assaulted in the car by Elton and then held at gunpoint. We skip over Josh pulling up to the phone booth and go straight to Cher already being in the car. How did Josh react when she reiterated the story, and does he instantly believe her, or does it take some convincing? I'd like to see if he comforts her and if they both go together to tell Cher's dad what happened.

Cher is obviously very intelligent socially, if not always so much academically. When it comes time to apply for college, what does she major in? And how is Josh a positive influence in Cher's life, encouraging her to be ambitious and not letting negative comments from guidance counselors or teachers dissuade her?

Things I don’t like:

Alternate Universes – For the specific fandoms that I picked, I really like the universes as they are. I’m definitely okay with deviations from canon, but please don’t make Little Women into a supernatural werewolf story or have Tenet take place in a mundane coffee shop setting. (I don’t mind Soulmate AUs or something similar because those can be incorporated into canon with little change to worldbuilding).

Non-Con/Rape/BDSM/Sexual Violence/Graphic Sex – I like my characters to be happy and everything within ships to be 100% consensual, no question about it (mentions of non-con if it occurred in canon is fine). I also prefer plot over porn, especially with one-shots.

OT3s – Two people per romantic relationship, please. Any more than that makes me uncomfortable.

Character Bashing - Unless a character is a bad guy in canon, I don’t want to read hundreds of words about how awful they are, especially if they are one of the characters that I requested. Don’t take it out on the characters. If you hate my pairings, just write gen.

Things I love:

Hurt/Comfort – There is nothing I love more than one character comforting another. The hurt can be physical, psychological, or both.

Happy Endings – I’m all for the realistic endings… but if they could be plausible AND at least happy-ish, that would be amazing.

Expanded Scenes/Contorting Canon – Feel free to expand scenes and change up the canon to your heart’s content as long as it makes logical sense.

Humor/Banter/Snark – I thrive on this stuff.

Bonding/Building Relationships – Whether it be a friendship or a romantic relationship, I adore reading about two people growing closer together. When characters know each other so well that they can have conversations with just their eyes or anticipate the person’s next move (especially if it’s to the surprise/confusion of everyone around them), my shipper heart is thrilled.

Dark to Light – Seeing a character come out of a bad mindset or situation and get better is so satisfying.

Happy writing and I hope you get the Yuletide gift of your dreams!

- Maddy @mustlovemustypages (on Tumblr, Ao3, and FF.net)

#little women #little women 2019 #amy x laurie #theodore laurence #laurie #amy march #tenet #the protagonist #neil #kat #clueless #josh x cher #cher horowitz #josh lucas #yuletide 2020 #yuletide letter #yuletide

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too-many-kpop-hubands · 4 years

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30 Day Fandom Challenge

Here we go again for my fandom challenge. You still with me? @domsberto I'd also like to nominate @jimonsprettyface

This next fandom is one that I have been a part of from the very beginning and it holds a special place in my heart. Hold on tight and for those who haven't seen it, spoilers ahead.

Day 2- Teen Wolf

(TV Show not Movie)

1) Favorite Character: Stiles Stilinski

Reason: I have a thing for adorable dorks apparently. 😂

Ok so I adore Stiles the most because he is the backbone and heartbeat of the group. Sure he's a spazz and a nerd but he also always finds a way to get the group out of sticky situations because of his intelligent and knack for looking at things from every angle (he truly is his father's son....it helps his Father is the Sheriff alot of the time). He is loyal to a fault and though he has a hard time trusting most newcomers, once you are in he will literally follow you to the ends of the earth. He is a hopeless romantic, as shown with how he is with Lydia and even Malia. He loves deeply and thought he tends to be a fuck up at times he always finds a way to make things right. He keeps the others in line and helps everyone that needs his help. As the only human of the group he takes his job very seriously and is damn good at keeping the group together even when he personally feels like falling apart. I adore him to no end.

2) Most Relatable Character: Liam Dunbar

Reason: Liam is an adorable, scared and confused little rage monster. Unlike the others on the show who had a few seasons to get used to the world of the supernatural, Liam was still new to the world and was often left scratching his head wondering what the hell was going on. I can relate to that because even in real life I don't know what the hell is going on most of the time. He is also the most relatable because unlike the others on the show, he actually acts his age for the most part and wasn't forced to grow up as fast as the others. Honestly, for a young Beta wolf he can be the most human of them all at times. He likes to have fun, he likes to hang out with his girlfriend and play lacrosse. He marches to the beat of his own drum, which I do most of the time. Another thing I can relate to is having a short temper. While my temper is not nearly as bad as Liam's (who as Intermittent Explosive Disorder) I still get how hard it is to calm down once that temper is triggered.

3) Most Underrated Character: Isaac Lahey

Reason: Besides Derek, Isaac probably had the most growth of all the characters on the show before his exit from the show. He had to shoulder alot of pain and loss in his life starting with his mom leaving and his brother dying, then suffering from years of abuse at the hands of his father. After being turned by Derek, he felt empowered to help not only himself but others as well and did all that he could to help people in need. He even found it in him to forgive his father for abusing him for so long, which takes strength all on it's own. He went from being a scared and abused little boy to being a badass who did everything he could to help people he cared about and those who were unable to defend themselves. I see you Isaac, I see you and I appreciate you.

4) Most Overrated Character: Derek Hale

Reason: Ok before I start this, let me just says that I love Derek Hale ok? He is all kinds of sexy and has some good qualities but of all the people on the show he is also the most overrated. Ok hear me out here before you come at me. Throughout the series Derek is hyped up as this big bad Alpha dude. Yes, he turned a bunch of teens into wolves and helped them, and Scott, learn the ropes but when it came down to a fight most of the time he either made things worse or just didn't show up when he was needed the most (example when they were fighting the Nogitsune, Dread Doctors, Ghost Riders, Alphas). Most of the time it was Scott and his pack that ended up saving the day. Sure Derek helped gather intel but as far as fighting goes, he didn't really do much for such a "Big Bad Alpha" who threatened to rip people's throats out with his teeth. Hell he didn't even kill the bitch that murdered his ENTIRE family, nor did he kill the Darach...instead he slept with her. Wow Derek, just wow. He ran most of the time, went MIA alot of the time only to make a dramatic entrance and knock a few people around when Scott already had things under control. I love Derek but.....some big bad Alpha he was.

5) Least Favorite Character(s): Tied Kate, Gerard, and Victoria Argent

Reason: First of all, Kate....She got away with murdering an entire family (minus Derek, Laura, Peter and Cora) and then manages to cheat death by turning into a freaky ass werejaguar when Peter ripped her throat out. How?!?!?! No matter how much chaos she starts she still ends up getting away. How is she not dead yet? Jesus! She was a manipulative person and honestly one of the most toxic on the show besides her shady ass who I will talk about next.

Gerard was a piece of work. He brainwashed Allison into trying to kill her friends, he praised Kate for killing the entire Hale family, he tortured and killed innocent supernaturals simply for existing and used Jackson in his kanima form to carry out his shady agenda. He was also a hypocrite. He hates supernaturals yet relied on Scott to help take away his pain when he was sick and dying only to turn around and train a new generation of Anti-Supernatural hunters to do his bidding. He was a piece of shit.

Victoria Argent was the Matriarch of the Argent family and even when her daughter (Allison) and husband (Chris) wanted to actually help the innocent supernaturals she did everything in her power to make sure they felt like shit for wanting to help. She freaking tortured and tried to kill Scott for no other reason than he was a werewolf that was screwing her daughter and then made herself out to be a victim when Derek came to save Scott and he bit her a few times after she attacked him. She refused to turn and killed herself instead of facing the consequences her actions lead to (her turning into the very thing she hated, a werewolf).

6) Favorite Canon Pairing: Stydia (Stiles Stilinski and Lydia Martin)

Reason: From the beginning when you first see Stiles and Lydia interact on screen you start to root for the spastic nerd to win the heart of the most popular girl in school. Stiles always saw the real Lydia that she hid behind her popular facade. He saw how smart she was, how much she actually cared for people despite pretending like she didn't. He had been in love with her since the 3rd grade and even when they dated other people, that love never died. The closer they got as friends the more you wanted them to just end up together. Several seasons later and we finally hear them confess their love for each other and finally FINALLY get together. Praise be to all things Holy! Stiles and Lydia manage to balance each other out and anchor each other. When Stiles has panic attacks, Lydia is there to help calm him down. When Lydia gets overwhelmed by her Banshee powers, Stiles is there to help ground her. Stiles saved Lydia more times than I can count but she saved him too on more than one occasion. Stiles and Lydia have a love that is beautiful and pure. I see them lasting forever and they should even now that the show has been over for a while now. They are beautiful and they are my OTP. I could go on forever but I will just leave it here.

7) Favorite Non-Canon Ship: Scisaac (Scott McCall and Isaac Lahey)

[Close Call Honorable Mention: Sterek (Stiles Stilinski & Derek Hale)]

Reason: Ok first of all this was a close race between my boys Scisaac and my boys Sterek but when I look back at both pairings, I love the purity of Scott and Isaac versus the almost toxic pairing that is Sterek. (I adore Sterek but come on! Looking back now they were hella toxic!) Now for Scott and Isaac they had their moments. They lived together and Scott always managed to find a way to help bring Isaac back to reality when he had moments where he would lapse into PTSD style symptoms and nightmares. They always had each other's backs and they always gave each other looks that went beyond that of just friendship. Hell Isaac even agreed with hearts in his eyes that Scott was the "hot girl". I believe that if these two had of both cut Allison lose and crossed the boundary of friendship into a romantic relationship they would have been just as strong as Stydia. A pure and passionate kind of love born out of genuine care for one another.

8) Least Favorite Pairing: Stalia (Stiles Stilinski and Malia Tate)

Reason: First of all their first hook up was in a freaking insane asylum so that right there is not a good start for any lasting relationship. Throughout their relationship, Malia took Stiles for granted and then had the nerve to get jealous when he paid more attention to Lydia (who he had been in love with forever at that point). Malia had the mindset of a child and was immature most of the time. Don't get me wrong, Stiles could be immature at time too but she brought out the worst in him. I don't dislike Malia. I actually like her as a character but not as Stiles's girlfriend. Plus this biggest reason I dislike this ship? It took longer for Stydia to finally happen. Let's not forget how she practically walked all over him.

9) Favorite Part/Moment: Lydia tells Stiles she loves him too.

Reason: Stiles had been taken by the Ghost Riders and everyone forgot who he was but before he was taken he told Lydia "Remember I love you." But she never got the chance to say it back before he and her memories of him were ripped away. When he finally came back there was a touching scene where Lydia said "I never got to say it back." And the two of them shared their first real kiss (not counting the kiss she gave him to stop a panic attack in a previous season). This was one of those moments that was several years long overdue and for us Stydia fans, we rejoiced when they finally got their shit together and actually became a couple. Praise!

10) Least Favorite Part/Moment: Allison is killed by the Oni

Reason: Allison Argent was a character you could sometimes love and hate at the same time. When they battled the Nogitsune and she sacrificed herself to the Oni to save Isasc, I sobbed like a baby. It was a way for the writers to write off the actress's character but one of the most heartbreaking scenes in the entire series. It is my least favorite because Allison died. It was a beautiful farewell as she died in the arms of her first love (Scott) but I can't even think about it without sobbing.

Thank you for sticking with me. Until tomorrow! ❤

#fandom challenge

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laughingpinecone · 5 years

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Yuletide letter!

I am laughingpineapple on AO3

Likes: worldbuilding, slice of life (doubly so if the event the fic focuses on is made up but canon-specific), missing moments, 5+1 and similar formats, bonding and emotional support/intimacy, physical intimacy, lingering touches, loyalty, casefic, surrealism, magical realism, established relationships, future fic, hurt/comfort or just comfort from the ample canon hurt, throwing characters into non-canon environments, banter, functional relationships between dysfunctional individuals, unexplained mysteries, bittersweet moods, journal/epistolary fic, dreams and memories and identities, outsider POV, UST, exploration of secondary bits of canon, leaning on the uniqueness of the canon setting/mood, found families, characters reuniting after a long and/or harrowing time, friends-to-lovers, road trips, maps, mutual pining, cuddling, wintry moods, the feeling of flannel and other fabrics, ridiculous concepts played straight, sensory details, places being haunted, people being haunted, the mystery of the woods, small hopes in bleak worlds, electricity, places that don’t quite add up, mismatched memories, caves and deep places, distant city lights at night

Any tense, any pov, any rating, plotty, not plotty, IF, canon divergences, non-mundane AUs (space opera! high fantasy! new weird also), deep lore, unrequested characters popping up - please do go wild with the & combos!

Blanket crossover prompt with Untitled Goose Game: set that goose loose anywhere and ruin anyone’s day. Tariq and select Twin Peaks characters who are not Albert (Margaret, Laura...) may hope to tame and befriend the goose; anyone else better get wrecked. Capitalism may also get wrecked while Kentucky Route Zero characters popcorn.gif nearby

DNW: non-canonical rape, non-canonical children, canon retellings, unrequested ships (I listed all the ships I like for each fandom. Outside of those, I’d prefer if other canon characters weren’t shipped, unless they’re like, canon engaged/married)

Dark Souls 1: Solaire of Astora

I’m only familiar with the first game! It’s probably relevant to mention that I think that linking the fire is kind of a dumbass move, Gwyn is a jerk, Kaathe has his own agenda and there’s no winning move in this world, or at least no obvious one. And amidst all this nonsense, Solaire just shines, pure of heart and dumb of ass like the best of ‘em. I love his kindness in this cruelest of worlds and I love the sad edge he’s got even earlier on when he admits to being seen as weird.

I would enjoy a bittersweet ending for him but I realize both of his endings are deeply entrenched in his themes so it’s hard to make him steer clear of either of those. If you can figure out how to make him not link the Flame or survive the ordeal, I’m all ears! I like a sense of purpose being the thing that can stave off hollowing, and I like characters helping other characters finding that sense of purpose within themselves. Focus on scenery always welcome, and if you want to make up a location, that’s great too!

I’d be super happy with a story set during Solaire’s time in Lordran that simply doesn’t mention his endings, anyway. Maybe he’s the one who helps someone else while his own tragedy keeps looming on the horizon. Striking up friendships in the face of a crapsack world! Meeting people through Lordran’s temporal/dimensional fuckery, where it’s possible to cross the path of warriors who have been gone for ages… could Solaire meet either or both Catarina knights (there’s so much great art about sun bro and onion bro but where’s the fic?), or do the grumpy grump&ray of sunshine routine with Logan, or meet Artorias or even Gwyn before he linked the Flame - or himself? What if he met Kaathe?

Ships: none really? Solaire/Chosen Undead but I don’t really like to read about customizable protagonists in fic so I’d rather not get fic featuring the CU. I’m all about the & character combos here.

Ghost Trick: Cabanela, Jowd

I love Cabanela being fierce and dazzling bright and determined and loyal to the very end, dancing to his own rhythm, so sure of himself and of his ideas that he doesn’t even need to prove to anyone that he’s right. Too sure of the wrong idea, once, and everything crashed and burned. And I love Jowd being the immovable object to Cabanela’s unstoppable force, a suicidal trainwreck of guilt with the gallows humor to show for it, and also incredibly smart (both jerks figured out Sissel’s powers better than Sissel did, that’s... something) and athletic and with an unsuspected talent for stealth.

I am very interested in various characters finding about the erased timeline, but not getting their memories back, and having to live with being told about what they did but never remembering it. Touch-starved Jowd in the new timeline is a surefire hit (or maybe Cabanela if he’s the one who came back and kept the memories of the old timeline). Touchy-feely Cabanela as kind of his baseline with the people he likes. All what-ifs welcome:what if they managed an acceptable happy ending but didn’t reset the timeline, what if Alma’s ghost stuck around… I’m also wondering about either of them ending up undead via Temsik shard - how would they take these developments (I’m assuming better than Yomiel did but the bar is admittedly low), did Cabanela do it on purpose for whatever sensible-if-you-are-Cabanela reason, what does it change in their relationship, what are the practical pros and cons of the situation here. UFO adventures with Pigeon Man! Lynne teaming up with either of them against the other! Sissel death-averting action if either/both of them die or just regular cat action! Spy stuff! Daring rescues! My forever prompt of Jowd being the one who gets a chance to prove his loyalty to Cabanela for once. Dancing.

Please no Yomiel. Nothing against the guy I’m just getting an overdose of him through RPing.

Ships: Alma/Cabanela/Jowd and all sides thereof, but when it splits the canon couple I only like it when the missing spouse is dead or otherwise unavailable, hopefully with a reset on the horizon. If you want to go for a Cabanela&Alma or Cabanela/Alma who are strongly motivated by a dead or jailed Jowd, I’m good with him not actively appearing in the fic. Alma/Jowd & Cabanela is excellent in all scenarios. I’m good with explicitly non-romantic takes on Jowd&Cabs but please keep their bond strong, and please no conflicting ship for Cabanela. Lynne/Memry!

Kentucky Route Zero: Any (Lula Chamberlain, Joseph Wheattree, Donald kentuckyroutezero, Weaver Màrquez)

(if enough of us request it, will some Murphy corollary guarantee that Act V will come out between now and reveals just to mess with the Yuletide schedule? If it does, I’ll be playing it immediately and probably add a few thoughts and prompts here for kicks, at the end of this section, after a spoiler warning. Obviously feel free to stick to canon up to Un Pueblo De Nada)

I’m all for exploration of any of the game’s themes and for including any staples from adjacent genres - wanna go full-on American Gothic? Dip into surrealism? Take a leaf from Twin Peaks with tulpa / split narratives to explore the characters’ issues? I can’t think of any specific AUs for the disaster trio + disaster soloist here, but I generally love AUs so if you want to sidestep the inconvenience of an incomplete canon that way, be my guest! Or of course there’s Xanadu at the height of its glory, an infinite what-ifs generator. Was Weaver ever part of it, what was this digital Weaver up to? A Xanadu narrative would be great! A good fit for IF, too? I’d love to hear about any new spot along the Zero or the Echo river, or an expansion of some place that’s only mentioned by Will in HATATE or only gets a few paragraphs of text. Lula getting ideas for a new installation, or an article talking about her work? Donald listening to Static between stations somehow (Donald being constantly high as a kite as per this)? Joseph who went back to the surface finds himself near an entrance to the Zero somewhere? A collection of Weaver-isms? Feel free to bring in anyone else from any part of canon.

Ships: “Flipping through the pages, Conway is able to gather that it's a story about three characters: Joseph, Donald, and Lula. It's something like a tragic love triangle, but much more complex. Some kind of tangled, painfully concave love polygon.” 😬 that one, as a full triad, regrettably since they don’t seem too inclined to get reunited and stay that way. If you can nudge them, good. But I’m very open to non-romantic resolutions as well, going past their messy feelings to find each other as friends after so many years maybe. For Weaver, I’m interested in all her & relationships (seriously. Weaver & Cate. Weaver & EmilyBen&Bob. Weaver & Slow Moe Crow.) but nothing shippy. Conway/Lysette, Junebug/Johnny(/Shannon?).

The Last Remnant: David Nassau, Pagus

I’m very interested in post-game exploration, and getting a clearer feeling of any of the cities and assorted places that populate this fascinating world. I like the whole party with their characterization based on battle quotes, red bubble dialogues, and even their unique stat (‘authority’ is a natural fit for David but ‘romance’ tells me something new about Sibal!) Character interaction. Bit of worldbuilding. What’s another festival they celebrate? Do they erect something else instead of the Valeria Heart? Any fun discoveries down in Siebenbur? Where the hell IS Veyriel, anyway, do they go look for it and if so what do they find out? End of an age. Old bonds.

I ache for David who fought so valiantly as a warrior and as a politician only to be slapped in the face with the unexpected loss Emma first and then Rush, right as they were ready to claim their victory and as he would have to start coming to terms with the idea that maybe without the Gae Bolg he wouldn’t die young. At least his Generals are still with him - out of them, all of whom I adore, I picked Pagus because Qsiti are cool. And Pagus in particular is the coolest (”I know that fine qsiti... That large, reticent mouth, the laugh lines around the eyes...“ he’s FINE it’s CANON!). So I’d like to see how David bounces off Pagus in particular, what their bond is like, what he thinks of whatever aspect of Qsiti culture.

Ships: postcanon David/Rush, possibly with an emphasis on Rush’s nature as a remnant? I am also fond of Pagus/Sibal/Maddox, there are more prompts for them in my #letters tag!

Pyre: Volfred Sandalwood, Tariq The Lone Minstrel

Oh the burning found family feelings, the revolutionary passion, the tension between topside social constraints (moreso for liberated exiles, thrust into heroic roles after the revolution) and the kind of freedom allowed by the Downside! I love all the themes, the solemnity, the heart of this game. I’ve been waiting for a character like Tariq all my life, a minstrel who’s otherworldly soft and just a lil bit eldritch. Volfred as well, he just hits my perfect ratio of “noble intentions” to “scheming to a fault”. Like, the percentages in his planner are pointless for gameplay since the ending just depends on the number of Nightwings sent topside at the end - so it’s just there for his characterization, he’s the sort of person who assigns percentages to people, nbd. ...for a good cause! That said, I would die for anyone in that Blackwagon+Dalbert+Celeste, so if you want to write in someone else as well, please do! (otoh if you maybe want to dunk on Brighton or Manley, I don’t like bashing but canon levels of love-to-hate-them would be fun)

Thoughts about finding oneself at the end of an age, as everything crumbles down to form something new. The titan stars. History nerd Volfred, “aye sir, I was there” Tariq. Conversations with Dalbert. Or with Sandra? Any postcanon very welcome with any combination of endings as long as the revolution was peaceful. Please do lean into the xeno headcanons if you enjoy them! Even for gen, I like to read what it’s like to be something other than human and these two are very much not human in different and intriguing ways. Or, Volfred’s zodiac sign is Cancer and Cancer is ruled by the Moon, so there’s that. I also love how they both hold the other in the highest esteem, especially on Tariq’s part since he’s the immortal Herald of the Scribes and Volfred is, all in all, a history teacher, but listen to him and you’d think the roles were inverted. I love my nonviolent canon but could anything happen to either of them that may require a rescue, and/or some good old-fashioned h/c? What’s something that could make Tariq of all people lose it? How’s life 100 years on?

For a funnier mood, picture Volfred trying to figure out how to flirt with Tariq with percentages, planners and all. He could just ask him but no, it’s convoluted plan or bust. Or, conversely, Tariq’s increasingly direct hints that he’s interested, but they’re still ‘increasingly direct’ for Tariq standards, so, not at all, undetectable even by Volfred who can get pretty damningly indirect himself.

Ships: Volfred/Tariq, Volfred/Oralech, some form of Oralech/Volfred/Tariq (more of a Volfred-centric V but I would like to be convinced of the Oralech/Tariq side of things), Celeste/Jodariel, Hedwyn/Fikani and Pamitha/Bertrude.

Twin Peaks: Albert Rosenfield

Case fic but they don’t find out jack shit, someone disappears, David Bowie was there, it’s complicated. Fragmented, shifted, mirrored identities. New Lodge spaces. The risks of staring into the void for too long. Gentle illusions. Transcendence. The moon. Static buzzing. Any title from the s3 ethereal whooshing compilation used as a prompt, actually. Twin Peaks is all about the mystery to me, the awe of mystery and unknowability and the human drive to look beyond and the risks of getting a peek, and about shared consciousness and trauma taking physical form and about the warmth of human connections in an uncaring world. Go wild with the ethereal whooshing!

I love Albert and he breaks my heart, a pacifist who ends his arc shooting his oldest remaining friend after life sucked all the passion and most of the idealism out of him. Is shooting Diane just to see Cooper come back, get her back and disappear with her again trauma enough to make him split? I’d be interested in reading about it, or any other take on his unwavering loyalty to Gordon which should maybe waver after Gordon’s admission that he’s lied to him for 25 years and the aforementioned unmitigated disaster of an ending. But I’m also very interested in his life apart from the disaster that is Blue Rose and his heartbreaking search for Cooper: did he keep in touch with Harry throughout the years, what did they talk about? Was he ever dragged along for a hike in the woods and did something weird happen there? We know he kept in touch with Diane, what did THEY talk about? Does he go on a journey of his own to find her after the ending? Does Tammy come along, do they see each other as friends other than mentor and protégé? What was Phil like as a co-boss back in the day? Did he get a small victory over Windom at some point (maybe even in the present day, given Kenneth Welsh’s recent wonderful interview where he’s adamant that Windom lives)? Does Laura ever visit him in some ghostly manner? He and Denise look like a great duo for a case and/or office shenanigans. We know from TFD that he’s a big jazz enthusiast, something about that? When does he cave in and just accept some aspects of Coop’s investigative method? Just set him loose on another unsuspecting character and I’ll be happy.

If Coop comes back (and I’d love for Coop to come back), I would like it if he came back on his own thanks to having sorted out his crap. After s3, I am not interested in stories about any other character saving Cooper. Albert’s got his wounds to lick dangit. And he’s got friends who can be by his side! ...I do love his dynamic with Coop so much, though. Sigh. I do miss that bastard. Anyway.

Ships: Albert/Coop/Harry and sides thereof, Tammy/Cynthia, Gordon/Phil, Diane/Constance, Lucy/Andy, Chet/Sam.

Canon-specific DNWs: any singular Dreamer being the ‘source’ of canon, BOB (let alone Judy) being forever defeated in the finale, Judy being an active malevolent presence in the characters’ lives, clear explanations for canonical ambiguities, ‘Odessaverse’ being the reality layer, the Fireman’s House by the Sea being the White Lodge, anything that 4 hours video says is the explanation of Twin Peaks

#letter #yuletide 2019

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crescentmoonrider · 5 years

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Fics I sorta want to write, sorta don’t want to, probably never will (a non-exhaustive list)

A:tla/LoK

Of the inequality of palindromes

What it is : A canon divergence in which Noatak and Tarrlok leave together, build the Equalists much earlier, and the world once more descends into war. Avatar Aang is killed, Equalists occupy most of Earth Kingdom and spread the mercy of the Spirits-sent brothers who will make all equal, and a young Korra is raised behind the walls of the Northern Water Tribe. Also Jet is here, somehow, and would probably be one of the PoV characters, maybe along with Tarrlok ?

Why I want to write it : Lots of potential here for a lot of stuff, I’ve always loved Tarrlok and Noatak’s story, I already made a few sketches after the inciting dream and I kind of like what this all looks like. Lots of situations, lots of characters, lots of trauma. I feel like it could work with a non-chronological storytelling - or at least less chronological than A viper-lizard’s tales - and I’m curious to see how I would go about structuring that.

Why I don’t want to : The Timeline Is Fucked !!! I seriously have no idea what would be going on with the dates and ages of most characters and just trying to figure out and make sense of that stuff is killing me. Also, it would be Long, and Viper-lizard will probably have exhausted me by the time I finish it, so starting another long fic would be. HHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Ace Attorney

I will fill your thermos with Worcester sauce or so help me

What it is : A canon divergence in which bratty prosecutor Miles Edgeworth and Diego “I think I am a good person but I’m barely there” Armando somehow join forces to take down Dahlia. They’re both douchebags who despise each other. It’s a great collaboration. They meet one young and innocent Phoenix Wright at the legal library and it’s all downhill from there.

Why I want to write it : Douchebag duo !! Reluctantly working together !! I want these two to interact and to barely resist kicking each other in the shins like the little brats they are. And well, I’ve already made Content(TM) for this, so I’d say it speaks to how much I like the idea. There is a scenario somewhere in my mind and in the sketches I did.

Why I don’t want to : I’m barely in this fandom anymore (if I ever really was) and I don’t like research. What the fuck is a legalese and do I need to know it to write about lawyers ? Whatever the answer may be, I’ll have to look shit up, and it will take time, and I’ll get distracted, and the fic will never write itself.

Hannibal (NBC)

Ode au pêcheur (long ver.)

What it is : A role-reversal AU, in which Hannibal is not a cannibal but still a psychiatrist, and Will is a teacher and profiler with a, uh, taste for uncommon meats. They still meet during the Shrike case, which is what the current Ode au pêcheur is about, and this would be the following events.

Why I want to write it : For one, I already wrote a short piece for this verse, so jot that down. But also I want to explore the change in dynamics, and also Hannibal being completely fucked up but in a different way. And writing Will as this kind of mysterious and fascinating being through Hannibal’s eyes... yeah, that’d be good.

Why I don’t want to : I spent hours reading the scripts, deciding what I would and would not keep, how to phrase it, for a 878 words standalone. I do Not want to know what I’d do with a long fic.

Six Sibylline Books (oracles willfully blind)

What it is : A Psycho Pass AU, with Will as an Enforcer specializing in profiling, having been declared a Latent Criminal since he was 6, because of his high empathy. He lives in fear of the day his Coefficient will reach 300. Hannibal is, of course, criminally asymptomatic, and working as a therapist for the government.

Why I want to write it : Let’s be honest, these two in the Sibyl System would be a fucking mess, and I for one am here for it. Mostly I want to see Will struggle with his place in this world, and watch what his Becoming would be like. Hannibal as a worse version of Makishima who just does shit for fun is terrible too, I love it. He probably wouldn’t even try to do a revolution and pretend to help people, the asshole.

Why I don’t want to : I Would Die. Two very complicated shows with literary references and philosophy mixed in just about every sentence, and a very well-rounded world as the setting ? Instant death. Or a very slow one, induced by the constant need to reference every little detail.

Kekkai Sensen

Fallen Hellsalem

What it is : A noir AU in which Daniel Law is a hardboiled detective who has been looking for answers regarding the disappearance of his younger twin brother for the past three years. A two-parters (by which I mean, two fics of consequent length, or a Huge fic with two very long main arcs), with the first case introducing the world through Steven A Starphase being accused of murder and needing Daniel’s help to find the real culprit. Turns out he didn’t do This murder but is also a crime lord involved in the disappearance of many other people, reigniting Daniel’s quest for answers. The second case is actually much more focused on the actual investigation surrounding Marcus’ disappearance, with Daniel gaining an apprentice in the person of Leonardo Watch, and learning to let go of the past a little.

Why I want to write it : I made a 5 page comic of the very first scene in 20 days. I just really like the noir aesthetics, and also Daniel. I have something resembling the beginning of an actual plot. I love Daniel. Did I mention I love Daniel ? It would be very interesting to have to actually think things in advance and build a case that makes sense.

Why I don’t want to : It would be so much work !! Two parts ?? Two fics for one story ? Or even just a Mega Fic - I would just fucking die. Also, while having to figure out how to build a case that makes sense is a fine challenge, it’s also a Lot of work, especially when I’m more the type of writer to figure stuff out as it comes, or to plan for Big Emotional moments and then turn the plot around it so that it all works organically. I’m not really a planner of plots, more of scenes. Plots kinda just happen. And that doesn’t fly for detective stories if you want it to be decent.

----------

Psycho Pass

The blind Sibylla (long ver.)

What it is : A canon divergence directly following the events of The blind Sibylla (in which Akane shot Makishima during episode 11). Makishima didn’t die but is injured, still somehow escapes ; meanwhile Akane is kind of scouted by Sibyl because she shot a guy with the intention to kill him and her Crime Coefficient didn’t rise, and she considers the offer. Kogami gets a phone call that leaves him sick to his stomach, and he too has to make a choice.

Why I want to write it : I mean, I already wrote two short chapters on impulse, so it’s more of “why I want to continue it”. Anyway the answer is that I’ve got ideas and I want to see where they go. Also if I can get Kagari and Choe Gu Sung to stay alive that would be swell.

Why I don’t want to : Psycho Pass Is Complicated. The worldbuilding is on point, but that also means fucking it up is incredibly easy. Also the literary references. It would be a lot more work than I am used to putting into my writing and I really don’t feel like memorizing the wiki and constantly rewatching the series just to get everything as accurate as possible.

Reborn

The illusion of love and the reality of hate

What it is : A TYL 186918 story about Hibari and Mukuro navigating their hate-relationship and trying to make it work. Especially after Mukuro was thought to have been killed by Byakuran. Would involve Mukuro asking Ryohei for advice because he is literally the only person in a stable relationship who has any idea what he’s doing, and also he knows what Hibari is like. A contract is drafted. I’m not saying Mukuro and Hibari get hate-married but. They get hate-married. Kind of.

Why I want to write it : I’ve wanted to explore a full-blown, healthy blackrom for a while now, and these two are one of my oldest ships, and also one I’ve written a lot for in the past. Love me a good mix of fucked up shit and humor. And boy would there be fucked up shit between these two.

Why I don’t want to : Two words : Sex Scenes. I can’t imagine this story (or this relationship, for that matter) without sex, as it would be one of the most primal way they have of communicating with each other, along with fighting. But I’ve never written smut in my life. Also I barely remember the TYL arc (better than the later ones, but not by much) so I’d have to look that up again, and probably more (likely re-reading the whole thing), but that’s a minor issue.

Red Raven

Cave Canem

What it is : An early canon divergence in which Ricardo gets lost in the panic of the five days of blood and is believed to be dead, while Walter meets Calogero at Castor Arte and decides to follow him around out of a mutual hatred of the Scaggs. Anyway Ricardo joins the Red Ravens because he believes he was abandoned and can’t trust the mafia anymore, while Walter more or less gets adopted by Calogero and becomes Laura’s right hand.

Why I want to write it : I just. I love this manga so goddamn much,,,,,,, Also Walter and Ricardo are very similar while being pretty different, and the changes in dynamics a switch would make are. Pretty darn interesting. I made sketches. I want to see what would stay the same and what would go differently. I want to send more Red Raven content into this world.

Why I don’t want to : This fandom is comprised of three people and a crow, and I know myself well enough to be certain I’ll have trouble staying motivated in these conditions. Also this would be Long, I can feel it. And I don’t really have a scenario planned, so that’s that.

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle

Snow blossoms

What it is : A canon divergence (?) in which Fai (the dead one, not our Fye) is a dream-walker and meets child Kurogane a few times this way. At one point, Kurogane promises to find Fai and Yui and to help them, no matter what. Later, the then grown Kurogane is eternally confused by Fye’s presence for one more reason.

Why I want to write it : It’s an old headcanon of mine that Fai is a dream-walker, I figured I might as well do something with it. Also I want to write this kid !! Give him some life !! And of course the KuroFye angst might just triple from this. Also, the truth is that I started this one (in January 2018...), and it looks promising. I already have a structure for the first arc, so that’s neat.

Why I don’t want to : For one, it would be Long, and as mentioned earlier in this post, I don’t think I’d have the strength to go through this again. For two, TRC is a cool story that I like a lot, but I hardly think about it anymore most of the time.

W.I.T.C.H.

Whispers under my skin

What it is : A canon divergence in which Cedric (still in his kind librarian skin) seduces Matt as a way to get to Will, and it backfires horribly when he realizes he is loved by this human and Phobos will never love him like that, and he will never get what he really wants. So at the final battle in Meridian, instead of going full Super Saiyan Lizard, he betrays Phobos. He gets badly injured, but he also gains a half-freedom as thanks from Kandrakar, in the way of a human life (plus some minor magic if the girls allow him to) and a duty to help the Guardians in their mission.

Why I want to write it : Like many of my dream-inspired things, it is very weird, and for once I think it’s a very good thing. Yes I had a dream in which Matt and Cedric had A Thing, no don’t ask me how that happened I don’t control my brain. Anyway, I’ve always liked Cedric and I want to explore his character, and the dynamics he could form with the girls in such different circumstances. Also, I’d get to play around with the magic system, which is very cool.

Why I don’t want to : I re-read my w.i.t.c.h. comics maybe once every two years, and while some of them still make me cry (why did you have to die you filthy lizard man), it’s probably not enough of a basis to start a Long Fic. Also it would be Long and I am tired. And ! I don’t have nearly enough references at home and that means I’d have to look shit up, and the wiki is Not Great, from what I’ve seen.

#shut up yumi #fics ill probably never write #you are all free to ask more about any of these. or just to ask me if im alright #i also want to write some cableshipping someday but i have even less of an idea for that so #like ive got headcanons but i dont have a scenario #and like i said this is a non-exhaustive list #and theres a lot of stuff i dont want to write but still want to draw a lot for (like the kazetsuyo AUs or the aa atla AU)#and of course theres the 'i want to write it and i hope i will someday' category which is not this one #but to which the twewy fantasy AU belongs #theres no 'sorta dont want to' for this one i really want to make stuff i just never do #btw most of these title are non-definitive in theory

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getyourgossip0-blog · 6 years

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8 classic female ensemble films to watch before Ocean's 8

New Post has been published on https://getyourgossip.xyz/8-classic-female-ensemble-films-to-watch-before-oceans-8/

8 classic female ensemble films to watch before Ocean's 8

Ocean’s 8 is about to hit theaters and deliver a female ensemble film with a cast that is truly the stuff that dreams are made of – Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Rihanna, Awkwafina, Helena Bonham Carter, and Sarah Paulson all in one movie! But it’s not the first time Hollywood’s mashed up some major star power with well-respected acting talent and up-and-comers to create movie magic.

The female ensemble film has long been a force for stellar storytelling in the Hollywood canon, whether it’s dealing with backstage drama, infidelity, or good old-fashioned revenge. When it’s done right, it’s a tale of sisterhood and teamwork triumphing over bitchery and female stereotypes – even as far back as the 1930s.

Before you go all-in on the Ocean’s 8 jewel heist, here’s eight classic female ensemble films that are worth watching.

Thirteen Women (1932)

Everett Collection

Despite its title, Thirteen Women features only 11 women (two actresses’ scenes did not make the final cut). It’s one of the darker titles here as a psychological thriller based on the hard-boiled crime novel of the same name. Myrna Loy stars as Ursula Georgi, a mixed-race woman who is seeking revenge against her former sorority sisters who bullied her until she left school. Using her sway over a clairvoyant, Ursula sends the women messages portending their doom before arranging their deaths until Laura Stanhope (Irene Dunne) gets wise to the plot and attempts to escape. The titular women in question are those who largely meet their doom, but the film is notable for its ties to Hollywood lore – it’s the only film appearance of Peg Entwistle, the failed actress who famously (and rather poetically) committed suicide by jumping off the Hollywood sign (reportedly due to despondence over her career). Though the women here don’t interact a great deal, Thirteen Women is considered an early female ensemble film because of its large cast.

Available to rent or buy on iTunes

Stage Door (1937)

Everett Collection

Though several of its stars weren’t yet household names when it was made, Stage Door boasts a cavalcade of female talent that includes Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, Ann Miller, Gail Patrick, Lucille Ball, and Eve Arden. The lesser-known Andrea Leeds also gives a stunning Oscar-nominated performance as a despondent actress trying to claw her way back to relevancy. The predominantly female cast star as aspiring actresses residing in a theatrical boarding house in New York City while they eke out a living trying to realize their dreams. Based on the play of the same name, the film was a rare look at the very real struggles women face in the performing arts from the unwanted advances of the casting couch to depression and self-doubt. It deals frankly and movingly with suicide while also allowing time for plenty of humorous banter between Rogers and Hepburn, as well as signature wisecracks from Ball and Arden. The story chronicles everything from the women’s efforts to make it as a dancing double act to their romantic travails to the jealousy that ensues when one of them wins a coveted role. But most of all, it catalogs the interior lives of women – how much our friendships, our rivalries, our hopes and dreams, and our failures can color and effect every inch of our lives. It’s remarkably both of its moment and ahead of its time – a female ensemble film that devotes meaty plot lines to a fair number of its characters.

Available on Google Play, iTunes, and Vudu

The Women (1939)

Everett Collection

There is probably no greater female ensemble film ever made (and more referenced) than this 1939 gem that offered a showcase for everyone from Norma Shearer to Rosalind Russell to Joan Crawford and more (we refuse to acknowledge the existence of the ghastly 2008 remake). Other classic greats including Joan Fontaine, Paulette Goddard, Marjorie Main, and Ruth Hussey also feature. The film brilliantly examines the interconnected lives of a group of women without ever showing a man onscreen (despite them being the frequent subject of conversation). Shearer stars as Mary Haines, a socialite who doesn’t realize her husband is having an affair with shopgirl Crystal Allen (a deliciously bitchy Joan Crawford) until her girlfriends arrange for her to overhear the gossip. Mary meets a bevy of other women when she goes to Reno for a divorce, and they ultimately help her get the revenge and happy ending she deserves. There are more than 130 roles in the film, all of which are played by women. The film is famous for its dizzy mid-film Technicolor fashion show, as well as its crisp, biting dialogue, which includes plenty of one-liners for Crawford and an iconic tribute to “Jungle Red” nail polish. There have been many female ensemble films in the years since The Women, but it still reigns supreme as one of the best of its kind.

Available to stream on FilmStruck

A Letter to Three Wives (1949)

Everett Collection

Three friends portrayed by Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell, and Ann Sothern embark on a school field trip, but not before they receive a letter from neighborhood pal Addie Ross who reveals she’s run away with one of their husbands – without specifying which one. Celeste Holm provides the voice-over for Addie Ross, a fact that was kept secret as a promotional tactic upon the film’s release. Beloved character actress Thelma Ritter appears in one of her earliest roles as a smart-mouth housekeeper, laying the foundation for the types of roles that made her a star. All three of the women fret and run over their past in their minds throughout the course of the day before anxiously arriving home to find out which one of their spouses has run off with another woman. Kirk Douglas also features as the husband of Ann Sothern’s Rita, but the film really hinges on the women and each of their insecurities and love for their husbands. The women also continually support each other and help each other navigate difficult moments in their marriages, making their joint concern and anxiety all the more moving as they struggle to get through the day. The film offers a nice blend of compelling, disparate storylines for each of the titular three wives, while also featuring sweet moments of interaction between them. It earned Joseph L. Mankiewicz an Oscar for best director and best screenplay, a feat he repeated the following year with All About Eve – an accomplishment that has never been replicated since.

Available to rent on Amazon, Vudu, and Google Play

How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)

20th Century Fox/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock

For mid-century filmmaking, it’s hard to imagine a bigger trio of female stars than Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable, and Lauren Bacall. The movie stars feature as three New York models and roommates who concoct a scheme to land rich husbands and end up falling in love (with comedic hijinks) in the process. The project marked 20th Century Fox’s first Cinemascope film used to great effect to showcase its three stars in wide split screen at key moments throughout the film. The Hollywood gossip mills were expecting to dine out for months on stories of on-set backstabbing and catty behavior between the three big-name stars, but the actresses got along swimmingly with Grable and Bacall becoming fast friends and nurturing Monroe’s nervous nature with thoughtful gestures and understanding. By all accounts, the set and project were a happy one – and the result is a sheer comedic delight.

Available to rent on Vudu and iTunes

The Opposite Sex (1956)

Everett Collection

This romantic musical comedy was a remake of 1939’s The Women (also based on a play of the same name by Clare Booth Luce) with significant alterations including musical numbers and the presence of male cast members. June Allyson stars as Kay Hilliard, the socialite who discovers her husband is having an affair originally played by Norma Shearer. In a twist of delicious casting, Joan Collins steps into the role of other woman Crystal Allen originated by Joan Crawford. Ann Sheridan, Ann Miller, Joan Blondell, Alice Pearce, Dolores Grey, and Agnes Moorehead round out the heavily stacked female ensemble, while Leslie Nielsen makes an early career appearance as Steven Hilliard, philandering husband to June Allyson. Reportedly, Allyson and Collins had a spat on set when a miscommunication caused Allyson to actually slap Collins so hard her earrings fly off while filming a scene. Though many consider this remake inferior to The Women, it does present another rich female ensemble packed with some of the biggest studio actresses of the 1950s.

Available only on DVD

9 to 5 (1980)

Everett Collection

9 to 5 remains a perennial favorite for its portrayal of three over-worked women who seek revenge on their misogynist boss (and all of the bigoted men in their lives). The idea for the story of ambitious working women coming into their own came from star Jane Fonda. She also produced the film under the banner of her production company IPC, which she had committed to turning out socially relevant films. The film’s blatant tackling of harassment and gender bias in the workplace still feels incredibly relevant over 30 years later. 9 to 5 marked the film debut of Dolly Parton, who also earned an Oscar nom for the title song, which she said she devised the beat for by clacking her acrylic nails against a table. It also marked the start of a friendship between Lily Tomlin and Fonda, which continues to this day on Netflix’s Grace and Frankie. The film proved so popular it spawned a TV series and a Broadway musical with additional songs penned by Parton.

Available on HBOGo and HBONow

Steel Magnolias (1989)

Zade Rosenthal/Tri-Star/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock

Based on a 1987 play of the same name, Steel Magnolias takes a look at a community of Southern women who rely on their bond to get through life. The absolutely stacked ensemble cast includes Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, Daryl Hannah, Sally Field, Olympia Dukakis, and Julia Roberts. Roberts was still very early in her career and earned an Oscar nomination for her role as Shelby, a spirited young woman whose diabetes threatens her life when she decides she wants a child. Much of the action takes place in Parton’s Truvy’s beauty salon where the women gossip and confront the harsh realities of their lives all while sticking by each other’s sides. Playwright Robert Harling wrote the play as a tribute to his sister Susan who died from complications from diabetes, and the original stage production (much like The Women) did not feature any male characters. The film is notable for its blend of comedy and pathos, which expertly conveys both the steely resolve and fragile delicacy of the metaphorical title.

Available to rent on Amazon or iTunes

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loquaciousquark · 7 years

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Highlights from Talks Machina (Episode 105)

Again, covering for @eponymous-rose while she continues her international vacation! Sorry for missing last week--things got crazy! Tonight’s guests: Darin de Paul, Taliesin sporting a lovely scarlet mohawk, and Travis. Brian starts a story that ends with him forging several signatures, and off we go.

The new campaign guide comes out soon! Taliesin is now worried about messing up the history of a character he invented.

Darin loves D&D as a long-form improv exercise and is happy he was able to get moments with each of the cast members.

Right after college, Darin was an apprentice at the Burt Reynolds Theater in Florida (a year-long program for theater students). One of his co-apprentices was Matt’s mom, and Matt’s grandmother was the director’s assistant. Matt’s father was part of the writing room. During the run of Darin’s last show (Fiddler), a clarinet player said they were going to play D&D and invited Darin. Matt’s mother was also in the group; they were all new to the game, so they rolled on a table for names and played four sessions. Last year, Darin was hired by Blizzard to do various voices, which is where he and Matt became friends. Later, Matt realized his mom had a picture of herself with Darin de Paul, and discussion of that picture led to the conversation of their D&D game. It’s been 37 years since Sprigg’s original campaign.

Matt was worried about fitting Sprigg in until Darin mentioned he was a hermit. The hobgoblin TPK was canon! Sprigg, a chaotic evil illusionist thief, was the only one to survive; the last moment of that campaign had him fleeing on a cart with wolves chasing him, abandoning the rest of the party to their deaths. Travis and Taliesin ask if he really was chaotic evil; “Why do you think he was so interested in redemption, dear boy?”

The first episode Darin saw was the Trials of the Take episode when the carpet was destroyed. He’s wanted to be on the show ever since.

Symmetra’s voice actor, Anjali Bhimani, also plays D&D. My heart skips a few beats.

Vex and Percy eloped over the year break. Laura and Taliesin kept it secret out of pique at first (Taliesin doesn’t remember why they were piqued). He’s not surprised the others are annoyed.

Grog was extremely impressed by Sarenrae and hasn’t thought much about Kord giving him any boons.

Darin has been a fan of the show and watching for some time. Taliesin says he is the most prepared guest they’ve ever had.

Very few people were present at Vex & Percy’s wedding. They did not intend to ever bring it up on their own.

The plane of books is the worst possible plane for Grog. Only the plane of shopping would be worse.

As soon as Darin walked into the studio last Thursday, Travis immediately asked him if he was a god. Travis still thinks he might be.

Percy would rather have a thousand years with Vex than a thousand years with Ioun’s library.

Travis wants a “positive, upbeat resolution to all the drama that is a-hanging in the air.” Me too. Travis does not read the Player’s Handbook to help keep Grog dumb, so he never knows what’s going on.

Travis loves how prepared Darin was. He offered the Deck because he thought Darin was looking for something specific after Sprigg deflected the weaker offerings.

Darin loved the emotion in the room during the plane shift and the strong moment with Marisha in particular. He also likes the movie Gargoyles.

The hardest thing about playing Sprigg after so long was finding him again. Brian gets very sentimental about the long journey that brought Sprigg back to life, including Darin becoming friends and colleagues with Matt so many years later.

Darin will be back on the next episode and is visibly excited about it.

Darin used to read tons of D&D books (mentions Drizzt by name) and used to paint minis as a hobby. He still has some of the figures and wants to donate them to the show.

Darin’s wife was part of Taliesin’s parents’ circle, so he’s known her for a long time. Taliesin and Darin exchange memories of meeting Roddy McDowall, and Darin says part of Sprigg’s concept of memories being the most important came from a conversation he had with Roddy while Roddy was dying of cancer.

Percy’s current distrusting attitude towards the gods came directly from his interaction with the Raven Queen. However, he didn’t know there was a god of knowledge and has been “chewing on it a lot, and what it means to have faith in knowledge.” He sees the library as a testament to faith in humanity and the good works of life and how important memory is and is blown away by it. “Books have always been about finding meaning and this whole library thing has changed him.” Taliesin expected Percy to be much more resistant to Ioun and was surprised at how quickly the books sold him.

Darin felt as the scenes progressed that his role was to “illuminate” CR as to where they were and what they could be. Taliesin and Percy both wondered if he was Scanlan from the future. Darin had the choice of being Scanlan’s dad, but declined.

Percy picked Vesper because her namesake was the last person he’d talked to in real life.

The only place Travis can think of worse for Grog is if the books were replaced with clothing & a For Sale sign. “Grog has a beatnik poet inside him waiting to get out.”

Darin’s advice to Keyleth was total improv. He almost cried when she touched his hand. He loves funny characters that can become sad and/or touching.

Marisha has no idea how to get Keyleth out of her emotional nosedive. Watching Marisha break character from Keyleth at the end of an episode is one of Taliesin’s favorite things because they’re such different people.

Percy would seek out the lifebooks for all his family & ancestry because he’s fascinated with legacy, and Whitestone is full of ghost stories. He had lots of stories he’d planned to give as part of the gnomes’ tour, and tells one about a woman forced into a marriage who slowly poisoned her husband over a number of years.

Sprigg feels he is what Scanlan might become. He did not expect to survive the episode.

If they were really in Ioun’s halls, Travis would love to see the books of his family and of JFK. Darin would like to see his father’s book. Darin also likes wearing suits, which is why he wears suits. He only wears t-shirts at the gym. (At one point Darin’s family also owned 20 horses???). He wishes his parents could see him now because they were so supportive when he was growing up.

Honor! Justice! After Dark, After Dark, After Dark!

If the challenge for Ioun involves any physical activity, Grog will fight Percy for it.

Bucket lists: Travis wants to swim with a great white shark. (Darin’s biggest fear is great white sharks.) Taliesin wants to travel to India. Darin wants to learn to tap dance, and casually drops that he used to dance with Cirque du Soleil.

Darin’s favorite color is black. His favorite season is winter.

There’s a video somewhere of Darin de Paul and Steve Blum pretending to be zombies and running towards the camera.

Travis and Darin do Reinhardt “impressions” by talking in high-pitched baby voices. Taliesin does a pretty decent actual impression! Darin likes that there’s heroes for every playstyle.

Darin hasn’t told Matt’s parents he brought back Sprigg. He also used to have a crush on Matt’s mom.

If Darin could pick any character from VM to play, he would play Scanlan. Brian teases the entire world by saying he would play “the character Pike’s in love with.”

Darin’s twitter flooded after last Thursday and he wishes he could respond to all of the kind messages.

Darin once shared floss with Gilbert Gottfried as part of an old bit.

Darin feels his whole history has led to this moment last Thursday where he had the chance to create a story with people he loved.

Laura read the Game of Thrones books as they came out, well before the show started. Brian just found the copy of the first book she lent him in 2010, which he still hasn’t read.

If Sprigg could fight any D&D monster, it would be a hobgoblin.

#critical role #critical role spoilers #talks machina #vox machina #darin de paul #brian wayne foster #travis willingham #taliesin jaffe #reinhardt has been wasted by the new meta but i love him anyway #i adore darin de paul and don't care who knows it #i'm so sorry this is so long they were great about keeping it moving #long post for ts

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miss-m-calling · 5 years

Text

Fandom 5k letter

Requests:

Adult Wednesday Addams -- Wednesday Addams

American Gods (TV) -- Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney

Cabin Pressure -- Carolyn & Arthur & Martin & Douglas

Moonlighting (TV) -- David Addison/Maddie Hayes

Dear writer,

Hello and thank you for writing for me. I’m very excited to read whatever you come up with.

I do give more or more detailed prompts for some of these canons than for others – that’s not because I want some more than others, but only because for some I get lots of ideas, for others I’m more “waves arms all over the place give me more of XYZ I love in canon!!” I hope whatever I put down sparks your creativity, and feel free to reach out through the mods if you have any questions! My likes and DNWs are all the way on the bottom of the letter.

Without further ado…

Requests:

Adult Wednesday Addams

Wednesday Addams

Genres: Action/adventure, Canon-style plot, Humor, Slice of life, Worldbuilding

I belatedly discovered this webseries, and it resurrected (see what I did there?) my love for Wednesday and how the Addams Family canon runs on the endless possibilities of this loving, happily eccentric family being 100% true to themselves and the world just having to deal with it. The show was everything I never knew I wanted till I watched it, the perfect blend of Addams-macabre and cozy slice of life with bonus Wednesday navigating the world alone, without always knowing her family will back her up, and it made me crave more of adult Wednesday’s mini adventures in LA. For this canon, I’m good with gen or, if you want to write that, more of Wednesday’s adventures in dating guys who really aren’t up to the challenge, and you can absolutely have Wednesday interact with OCs I haven’t listed as part of a pairing. I’m keeping the prompts pretty short, just to (hopefully) pique your creativity, as I expect I will love any way you make these or any similar scenarios play out:

-Wednesday goes to IKEA

-More of Wednesday’s interactions with the nice interns at her receptionist job. Maybe they invite her out to happy hour, or to the beach or a club. Or maybe we get to eavesdrop while they shoot the breeze on their lunch break, possibly over barbecue-chicken pizza from CPK.

-More of Wednesday’s gigs. She already babysits and walks other people’s dogs, what else might she do for extra cash that would be both really common and seemingly ill-suited to Wednesday, except she totally makes it work for her? Cat sitting (especially if the cat belongs to someone incredibly rich whose house is full of secrets – and expensive things for the cat to knock over), driving an Uber/Lyft, becoming an AirBnB host, catering/server, working the late shift in a New Age/occult supply store where none of the woo is real…?

-Or, alternately, Wednesday finds a career that is perfect for her, in which she can have success and respect. What ever could that be and still fit into the non-Addams world?

-Wednesday tries speed dating

-Or, she runs into Brian a.k.a. chains guy (I cackle with glee every time I rewatch the bit when he tries to kiss her at the pet store) a third time – how does it not go quite as he wanted or expected this time?

-Wednesday’s family comes out to sunny, plastic, image-conscious LA to visit her and make sure she’s doing alright. She gives them a tour of the city, and LA will never be the same again.

-Wednesday takes an evening class, or goes back to school part time, or enrolls in an online degree program

-Wednesday takes a road trip, alone or with her apartment mates/colleagues/Brian/strangers she met for carpooling purposes. Bonus points if you work in real roadside attractions, or tourist traps, or famous sites/landscapes.

-It’s Dia de Muertos, and Wednesday goes out to celebrate and soak up the atmosphere. It may or may not live up to her expectations.

-If you wanted to get a bit meta and/or enjoy playing around with different formatting, what does Wednesday’s Tumblr/Twitter/Facebook/Tindr look like? Or, Wednesday gets tasked with updating company social media at her receptionist job, and she does it with her own special flair.

American Gods (TV)

Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney

Genres: Action/adventure, AU - canon divergence, Canon-style plot, Character development, Getting together, Smut, Worldbuilding

Let me preface this by saying how much I appreciate that you are willing to write for an ongoing canon! I love this pairing, and while most of my prompts are basically the same ones I’ve used in exchanges before S2 (which I am watching) started airing, let me assure you that I am 1000% fine with your fic getting jossed, or including a divergence from what we already know or how things happen in canon. You can work with the canon -- or as much of it as we have by the time you’re done writing -- or diverge in a way that works for your story. Really truly honestly it’s all fine since you are writing for an active canon, and I really truly honestly appreciate you wanting to tackle this! Canon divergences and canon-flavored-if-not-entirely-compliant stories are my jam, so please don’t feel anxious as the canon keeps unfolding, nor pressed to keep up with S2 if you can’t or don’t want to watch it right now. (I tried to keep S2 spoilers to a minimum in my prompts, but there are some spoilers.)

So *clears throat*

I ship it. Yes I do. They had me at “gimme-my-coin-dead-wife”-flicks-him-into-wall. The snarky road trip was the best thing I never knew I wanted until it happened, and I adored every second of it. They’re both such assholes and so fascinating, even if they start to mellow toward each other a bit toward the end of S1, and all the gods/magic/resurrection stuff swirling around them begs to be explored further. Also I love love love how their dynamic is about equal parts spikiness, pathos, and humor (they’re funny! and the canon doesn’t shy away from putting them in ludicrous situations), and it weaves seamlessly between those three. Plus she’s half his size yet can and does beat him up with literally one finger, and then there’s the angst of he having killed her, feeling really guilty about it, and then bringing her back.

Please give me either missing scenes from the road trip (if you can work in a divergence, that’s great - for example, I like Salim, but if you want to have him boot Sweeney and Laura to the curb and go off on his own, or Sweeney to boost his taxi before Salim catches them, or whatever else to have those two alone, go for it!), or a S1 divergence (instead of going to Ostara, they go where? to see whom? about getting Laura resurrected) or something about these two post-S1/during-S2:

-Laura discovers (how? you decide!) that Sweeney gave her back the coin after their accident – whatever happens next, some punching may be involved.

-Wednesday’s big war finally comes, and “don’t you dare die on me, you asshole” is a line either Sweeney or Laura (or both) might say to each other.

-Laura asked “What does Wednesday have to lose?” and the answer is…? (Yes, give me that sweet poetic justice. One possibility, though not remotely the only one, but as of S2E3 Laura is technically a god-killer...)

-On a similar note, Wednesday told that luckless cop that Sweeney had been against the big gods’ war from the start, and while Wednesday lies, Sweeney definitely seems to be participating out of a sense of obligation and lingering guilt over the war he ran from long ago, rather than lust for a good fight or even a dominant death wish. What if he decided to hell with Grimnir and his war and his having Sweeney kill random people? I’m guessing Sweeney too drank three glasses of mead so he can’t back out without dire consequence - but he does have a fierce, dead woman in his corner.

-They go to some as-yet-unnamed old god (feel free to bring in whatever mythology you want) in order to bring Laura back to life. Between Sweeney’s mouth and temper, and Laura’s mouth and temper, it doesn’t go well. Now one or both of them are in big magical trouble with a pissed-off deity and have to get themselves/each other out of it.

-Things happen and Laura finds herself in the position to throw Sweeney under the bus but also help/save him, and while he knows it’s only karma, he can still be pissed about it - how do they navigate this?

-Laura gets fully alive again, but traces of her (un)dead state remain – what are they, how does she cope, what price did she/he/they have to pay for her resurrection, and how does their relationship change? I’d especially be curious how it would work if they’re already a sorta-maybe-item and *then* she’s alive again and it’s weird in a new way.

-For reasons I’ll leave up to you, Sweeney and Laura have to stay put in a single place for a while and end up essentially cohabiting, regardless of what their relationship is at that point. Take “cohabiting” as literally or as creatively as you want -- in any case, I’m sure it will be marvelously disastrous and amazing.

-Slight or major AU from the opening of “The Ways of the Dead”: Laura has hitchhiked with Sweeney instead of going off in a huff with Wednesday, or she otherwise gets to New Orleans sooner, and she and Sweeney tear up the town together. Gimme bar fights, carnival shenanigans, backstage craziness with the Christian rock band (Sweeney seems to have a backstage pass on a lanyard around his neck when Laura finds him)… Maybe they even cross the paths of some loa and it doesn’t get all angsty (for what it’s worth, I think the reason the sex magic didn’t bring Laura back to life was because she couldn’t accept the truth(s) revealed during the astral-plain sex – see how she defaults straight to “this is all Wednesday’s evil plan” the morning after – not because the loa fucked them over as Sweeney said). They were actually getting along nicely in those first couple of scenes, only ribbing each other a little while still being their grouchy selves, before they got to Le Coq Noir. I wouldn’t have minded seeing some more of that.

-All the old gods hide their true appearance to an extent. A situation arises in which Laura sees Sweeney’s true, or at least old, self (I’m thinking of his surprise!poignant monologue about when he used to be a king, and the glimpse of him in full Celtic warrior mode in the S2 teaser). Or Wednesday’s war ends in victory, meaning the old gods again get belief, worship, and sacrifices. How does Laura, the ultimate skeptic even when she’s on the other side of the mirror, react? How does this new knowledge and new reality change her opinion of/attitude to Sweeney? Or to flip that around, if Sweeney were again relevant and believed-in, would that actually change his bad attitude and fix his issues (my guess is it would be complicated)?

-The power of names: for all his “dead wifeing,” there comes a time when Sweeney (has to) call her by her actual name, and that’s a tricky moment for them to navigate. Or, Mad Sweeney is almost certainly not his actual name, since true names have great magical power and so must be kept secret; Laura discovers or learns his name, from someone else or from himself; what does she do with that knowledge? Or, Sweeney gets to say “cunt” in a situation (sexual or otherwise) where, not only does Laura not peel his lips from his gums, but she finds that she can’t object, even though she knows that he knows that he’s getting away with it.

-So far in canon, it’s pretty clear that Sweeney has a lot of complicated but sincere feelings for Laura. But Laura is still pretty focused on Shadow (or rather her idealized vision of Shadow and what their relationship might yet be), whom she seems to equate with her own lost-maybe-to-be-regained life, although she’s starting to soften toward Sweeney as she realizes he’s doing things for her that are not all about getting his coin back (and her sparring match with Wednesday in “Muninn” may finally force her to accept that her relationship with Shadow died alongside her and Robbie on that road in Indiana). Tell me the story of how Laura stumbles her way to starting to feel more complex, maybe kinder or softer, really annoying for her blunt-force-trauma-personality things about Sweeney and about the notion that her dynamic with him is different from the way she tended to use men for her convenience without really letting them in in the past. Also I’m pretty sure that even if they felt the same – or sorta in the same ballpark – about each other, their relationship would still run on a lot of conflict, and I would so be here for it.

-On that note: in “Munnin” it also becomes clear that Laura has, without realizing it herself, started to rely on Sweeney. The “I trusted you” line made me think, whoa she’s too mad to catch herself doing it but this is huge for Laura, and the fact that she goes off with Wednesday (!) basically because she’s mad at Sweeney because she thinks he’s prioritizing his debt to Wednesday over her… Yeah, I would like to see that explored some more and/or to see Laura and Sweeney get to a point where they trust each other and rely on each other, and know it and accept it, however difficult the getting there and being there may be for them.

-And since I’m on the subject of Laura, you know how she’s not actually an abrasive bitch all the time to everyone? And when she is, the people on the receiving end of it sometimes richly deserve it, and anyway it’s refreshing to see a female character who doesn’t bother flirting and accommodating others for the sake of social harmony? As much as I enjoy watching her rip into people (ahem, Sweeney), I also love it when she acts differently, like her genuine interest in getting to know Salim and her joy in seeing him again in S2, or her running passive-aggressive battle of wills with Wednesday, or even her general disaffection and numbness in “Git Gone.” Her beginning to feel sympathy for Sweeney and her anger and disappointment when she feels let down by him are a part of that, and I’d love to see all that explored more. Nuance! Give me all the nuance and seeming contradictions in both Laura and Sweeney’s characters!

-My perfect AG spinoff would basically be Sweeney and Laura tooling around America, looking to get her resurrected (whether they succeed or not is up to you), stealing ever more ridiculous vehicles, arguing/fighting and having those pesky moments where vulnerability and genuineness creep in – and fucking. So yessiree I’d be down for porn, including “it’s technically necrophilia/zombiesex” porn.

-All the petty, ridiculous ways in which Sweeney’s bad luck manifests itself make me laugh (can’t help it, won’t even try), and I’m down for more variations on that theme.

-If you wanted to throw in some worldbuilding, maybe something exploring living death. Magical bargains. What kind of favor did Sweeney do for Ostara that would be worth her bringing someone back to life as repayment? What other powers might Sweeney have (he doesn’t seem on a par with someone like Wednesday and Ostara, nor is he really a god, more a mythological being/kinda-deified former-mortal)? How long can a dead wife keep going before she’s “soup”? What other superhuman abilities might dead!Laura have? Can the dead do magic? What even are the rules governing and the limits of different beings’ magical abilities?

My one canon-specific, really strong DNW for this pairing is this: I’m not into Laura being Essie’s reincarnation/descendant or – as fanon suggests and canon hints she may be – some sort of reincarnation of Sweeney’s wife from back when he was a king in old Ireland. Reincarnation/“new love looks like old love”/“lost love found again” plots bore me, and I don’t enjoy ships that hinge on characters being somehow destined to be together. Characters having agency is my jam as much as canon divergences are. Or if your fic really needs to go there, please please please don’t dwell on the Laura-Essie-Sweeney’s-wife-of-old thing, a brief mention would be more than enough. I’m certain Laura would have neither time nor patience for the notion that Destiny Fate and All That Jazz threw her together with ginger minge, and even if it were technically true, she’d still want this relationship to work on her terms – and Sweeney obviously has a problem with Laura’s cheating, her relationship with Shadow, her personality (though he also recognizes they’re alike in many ways), and all that maps onto his anger and sadness over becoming irrelevant over time, so it’s not just about Laura. So yeah, let them be their own (grumpy, spiky, dysfunctional) people, and let Laura’s dynamic with Sweeney not be shaped solely by his past and his issues.

Cabin Pressure

Carolyn Knapp-Shappey & Arthur Shappey & Martin Crieff & Douglas Richardson

Genres: Action/adventure, Canon-style plot, Humor, Slice of life

I just want more canon-y stories with their loopy humor and their weird yet loving family dynamics among the crew. Shenanigans in mid-flight or in the tedium which precedes and the tiredness which follows them. Someone smuggles (knowingly or not) an exotic animal on-board, legal, security, medical and/or slapstick chaos ensues. A mechanical, passenger- or smuggled-goods-caused problem arises and is solved during a journey. More games played on board GERTI. Playing around with a specific destination, like in many episodes, would be a plus. If it helps inspire you, my favorite episodes in terms of tone and content are: Douz, Gdansk, Johannesburg, Limerick, Ottery St. Mary, Uskerty, and Xinzhou.

For this canon, I prefer gen with maybe, if you want to go there, some Douglas/Carolyn on the side. That’s a ship I always thought had potential – they understand each other very well and trust each other... some of the time, but they’re both also snark-masters, tend to look down on anyone not as smart or quick-witted as they (Arthur being the sole – occasional – exception), and are really good about keeping their defenses up against other people. But I requested the gen group, and I definitely want the gen group – please don’t feel pressed to write the ship, that’s just a wild suggestion I threw out there.

Moonlighting (TV)

David Addison/Maddie Hayes

Genres: Action/adventure, AU - canon divergence, Canon-style plot, Established relationship, Getting together, Humor, Mystery/procedural, Slice of life

I osmosed tons about this show over the years but didn’t get around to watching it myself till recently. And then I loved it much more than I thought I would! Yeah, sure, some of it’s dated, and some of it’s ropey in terms of how the characters interact ( all the casual sexism and battle of the sexes stuff are very 80s indeed), but the chemistry! the banter! the funny! the shiptease! Gimme!

I tried to come up with lots of prompts, but ended up with a list of stuff I love about the show – and would love to see in fic – with some prompts mixed in. Hope it helps! Basically, give me as much of the show’s “flavor” as you can, and I’ll be happy.

My two DNW requests for this canon would be: please ignore everything that happens post-S3 (so if you want to write Maddie/David in the aftermath of their resolving their UST, please go ahead with the canon divergence of your dreams, I bet it’ll be a million times better than canon), and please don’t have secondary characters (Agnes and Herbert, or Maddie and David’s relatives and exes) hijack the story. They can be in it, but I really do want a David/Maddie story, despite the canon sometimes sidelining them due to behind-the-scenes shenanigans.

Prompts/likes:

-all the banter, wordplay, innuendo, puns, comic repetition

-arguments – those long, explosive, funny, overlapping, always hilarious fights they have

-breaking the fourth wall – yes, please. In canon, they often seem to know they’re fictional characters but ones that exist in the real world, with studio lots and such. Do they now know they’re characters in a fanfic of fictional characters that also exist in the real world, or something even more mind-screwy?

-David calling Maddie “blondie blond” – it just makes me laugh – and Maddie calling him “Addison” when angry but “David” when worried or when shit hits the fan

-random cultural nods – off the top of my head, canon referenced Spanish poetry, objectivism, American realist drama, Dr. Seuss, Shakespeare, of course all the Hollywood tropes and genres; go high or low culture, go famous or obscure, even if I don’t know the reference, I want it! Ditto if you decide on a plot that parodies and pays homage to a cultural landmark story (The Silence of the Lambs? Much Ado about Nothing? A Hitchcock movie? Something else?), I’d love it!

-speaking of: I love the pun-tastic episode titles referencing everything under the sun

-all the canon-era detail which both takes me back and jars me with how much things have changed: people smoking in public buildings, seeing someone off at the boarding gate, dial and push-button telephones, VHS rentals, no cellphones/internet, all the 80s fashion and permed hair… Throw it in just for kicks or weave it into the plot (e.g., they’re following someone and only have a paper map and their own faulty sense of direction to help them)

-casefic – I love the silly plots (and chases! All the chases!), which often combine really gruesome outcomes or real violence with slapstick. I’d be especially tickled if you wrote a plot that starts out silly and seemingly innocent (e.g., they get “hired” by a kid who lost their homework) but ends up deadly serious, or vice versa

-I also love the flashes of really dark humor, usually provided by David snarking about plot developments, though my favorite example remains the intro to S3E1, with David assuring his sick mother that they’ll sweep the Emmys, and then they lost big time and we see a title card saying that the mom died on Emmy night. What can I say but: ROFL

-Maddie and David are really pretty terrible detectives, but they always manage to solve the mystery – or a solution falls into their laps – and I’m here for it

-Blue Moon almost never seems to take on actual paying clients – what else might David and Maddie do for much-needed cash? Bodyguards, extras on a movie, professional consultants on a movie (probably a really shlocky, C-grade production being filmed in the middle of nowhere), dance marathon, talent contest…

-all the shippiness before the UST becomes RST – in canon they slow-danced in a bar, they slept side by side on a plane, he’s snuck into her house multiple times when he was in trouble, etc. etc. etc. The sky’s the limit!

-maybe they get together in a different way than in canon and/or they have a relationship that departs from canon? Or how about if they resolve the UST as they do in canon, but then find a way to be both partners and lovers, without getting so wrapped up in what they each think the other one should be that they spoil everything? Basically, could they be mature enough to have a relationship that works for them both, or be friends with benefits, or hell even break up but remain each other’s most important person (and maybe still have sex occasionally)?

-tropes – the canon plays with so many tropes, you could too! Some suggestions: there’s only one bed, undercover as lovers/married/client and bodyguard, waking up married, any variation on Lady and the Tramp you can think of (including David having to pretend he’s a class act while Maddie has to play the slob, for a case or because of a situation with their families or…), they get zapped by a mad scientist they’re surveilling and swap bodies, etc.

-road trip! Oh the possibilities...

-playing Twenty Questions or another game during a boring stakeout, and personal revelations come spilling out

-Maddie’s experience as a model proves key to cracking a case, whether you want to make the whole story a riff on the world of fashion (The Devil Wears Prada parody, anyone?) or use that as a surprise plot point

-they get tangled up (again) in international espionage and go on a globe-trotting adventure, either chasing a MacGuffin or being chased – basically, get them out of Los Angeles and their relative comfort zone, and send them Indiana Jones-ing all over the world

-the show often makes 80s-typical mean jokes about Russia and the Cold War – what if a case took Maddie and David to the Soviet Union in its last years? Give me all the culture clashes, David being obnoxious and Maddie trying to be diplomatic, all the vodka, chases down frozen streets and over the frozen Neva River, dodging the KGB, sneaking around behind the scenes at the Bolshoi or Kirov Ballet and winding up on stage…

-when they visit a “rough” dive bar in S1, there’s a whole scene of David teasing Maddie to show tough-girl attitude, and she quips that she can’t wait till he has to accompany her to a high-society event. Um, yes please!

-they attempt to date like a regular couple, and stuff keeps getting in the way – whether they go to the opera/ballet and a fancy restaurant, or a basketball game and out for beers, or they try a quiet dinner and a movie at home (or all of the above!), canon-like complications keep interrupting. But then again, the ridiculous way they work is what brought them together in the first place. Bonus points if the fish-out-of-water partner ends up getting into the other one’s date-activity of choice, while snarking all the way.

-David has been to Maddie’s house multiple times – including to sleep over, both platonically and not – and they’ve both crashed at the office, but what little we see of David’s place, it seems to be a bachelor pad/hovel with a large yet mysteriously unfurnished living room. Maddie visits David/comes to spend the night/hides out with him from villains, and shenanigans ensue.

-canon often resolves the clash between David’s opportunism, happy-go-luckiness, and cockiness, and Maddie’s gentle idealism, worrywartness, and romanticism, by having David “win.” That can be funny, but what if the plot gave Maddie the right a bit more?

-I’m honestly not that into smut for this pairing - a fade to black, something implied, something referenced, innuendo, maybe brief flashes (heh) of what the characters think about/imagine/remember work much better with the canon’s overall tone, I think.

Likes:

I love pre-canon, canon, post-canon, canon-divergent, and missing-scene stories. I love character-driven and plot-driven stories equally, and I love fics which mix humor and angst/serious business when appropriate for the canon.

I love stories about characters at work and play, group dynamics, family dynamics (including constructed families), professional partnerships, friendships, alliances, rivalries, intimate couples (new lovers/first times as well as long-term/established couples), UST-ridden couples who are not just UST-ridden but connected in other ways too, etc.

I love irony, snark, humor as well as angst arising from the characters rather than the plot crowbaring it in, linear, non-linear, and 5+1 stories, hopeful endings, happy endings, bittersweet endings, worldbuilding, spiky characters who keep their jagged edges and spikiness in adversity as well as when their lives are going well, square-peg-in-round-hole characters, characters who are their own worst enemies as well as those who can get over themselves when the occasion calls for it, characters with conflicting values which may or may not be reconciled/resolved, characters who treat each other with respect and as equals even if they hate/annoy/can’t stand/love to dislike each other.

I especially love workplace stories (this can mean anything from an actual workplace/casefic/procedural setting to anything that revolves around the canon world in which the characters live) in which the characters are competent and dedicated to the job, and while they may not be exactly friends and they may well irritate one another, they still manage to rub along to get the job done and maybe even grow to care about one another (much to their surprise and sometimes reluctance/discomfort). Or, if they can’t get along, show me why not and what’s preventing them from finding common ground.

In terms of ship dynamics, I love (where it fits the characters) banter, competitiveness or antagonism shading into attraction (this tension need not be resolved), oh-god-why-did-it-have-to-be-you-what-did-I-do-to-deserve-this, bickering yet loving couples, faithfulness, characters who are serious about their romantic interests, characters who think they are much better at flirtation than they actually are, characters forced to work together only to prove much more compatible than they initially assumed, fics which mix an exploration of characters’ professional and everyday lives with shipping. A dynamic I cannot resist is shipping a couple who are incompatible in some important way (they are ideological enemies, cop and criminal, spies from opposite sides, one betrayed the other or they betrayed each other), and while they love and want each other they’re also not willing to change sides or surrender/compromise their identity for the other’s benefit, and how they might (or not) make their relationship work anyway.

I don’t have any very specific likes for smut, other than smut fitting the characters – show me how their canon dynamics spill over into the bedroom (or other place of congress). I also like sexual scenarios that subvert expectations a little and surprise the characters themselves (e.g., the person who’s usually quiet or more passive taking charge, the more aggressive person goes with it possibly snarking or commenting on it as long as they can). And I like sexual scenarios that contain an element of competition, antagonism, oh-god-this-is-a-bad-idea-but-we’re-going-for-it-hammer-and-tongs, not wanting to admit feelings or show vulnerability except oops it happens anyway, whether the characters acknowledge it or not, or just people getting way more into it or being more affected by it than they thought they would. When it fits the characters and their canon dynamic, you also can’t go wrong with we-both-wanted-this-for-forever-and-now-we-both-know-it-so-here-we-go-diving-in-headfirst. For het and/or slash, oral, vaginal, anal incl. pegging, manual (ifyouknowwhatImean) – it’s all good. You can go as veiled or as explicit as you like, but please avoid excessive medical jargon – I don’t find a lot of mention of “penis” or “clit” sexy.

DNWs:

MPREG, A/B/O, knotting, D/s, kinks, incest, underage, genderswap/genderbent characters, xeno, non-/dub-con, torture and abuse (this and non-/dub-con can be mentioned if the story needs it, but please don’t dwell on it in loving detail or subject any of my requested characters to it), dwelling on bodily fluids (mentions of gore/blood and come are fine), toilet humor, character bashing, issuefic, gender/sexuality/race/ethnicity/religion/ability/identity headcanons, unrequested ships, soulmates and soul marks, major character death (unless it’s canon), serious illness or injury, pregnancy and children, holiday or wedding setting/theme, secondary characters shipping the main pair like it’s their job, reference to RL current events, 1st/2nd person POV, AUs which have nothing to do with canonf

#dear author letter #fandom 5k fic exchange

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adamntiiums · 6 years

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Was that VICTORIA MOROLES? Oh no no, that was just LAURA KINNEY-HOWLETT, a CANON CHARACTER from MARVEL. They are TWENTY years old and ARE aware that they are not actually from Washington DC. Too bad they can’t stray from this city for long.

how long has your character been here?

roughly four and a half months.

what is your character’s job?

laura is a student and works part time at a local diner.

where has your character been pulled from in their fandom

nine years after the events of logan !

has any magic affected your character

nope !

and any other information you might find useful for us and the other members to know!!

laura, otherwise known as x-23, is primarily based on her appearance in logan, but i pull some influences from the comics

laura is a mutant who was artificially created by transigen to be a soldier using dna from logan howlett (wolverine)

she shares his healing factor and retractable bone claws, however, unlike him she only has 2 claws on each hand (while he has 3) and she has a claw on her each foot that were laced with adamantium when she was very young

she was trained in martial arts from a very young age as well

when the x-23 project was scrapped, transigen began killing all of the children

a group of them all were helped to escape by some workers, but laura and the nurse that helped her escape, gabriela, got separated from the others

gabriela wanted to go to north dakota to eden, and tried to get logan to help them

after gabriela was killed, laura ended up in the care and company of logan and charles xavier, on the run

they head north, and are constantly followed and attacked by the reavers and x-24, which ended in charles’ death

the pair head for north dakota following burying charles - laura because she believed in eden and logan to prove that it didn’t exist

when they got there,t hey found a small group of children from transigen

laura finds out logan planned to leave her with them, and laura was hurt despite logan telling her everyone he loves dies

with the other children, laura heads north to cross the border into canada, but were followed by the reavers

laura fought alongside logan, and when x-24 mortally wounded logan, laura shot him with an adamantium bullet to the head; killing him

laura did her best to comfort logan as he died, and his last words to her have stuck with her ever since - “you don’t have to fight anymore” and “don’t be what they made you”

laura and the other children buried logan and continue on their way to canada, but before leaving, laura removes the cross and turns it on its side, creating an x in remembrance of her father

that was 9 years ago. since then, laura has taken up the mantle of wolverine in honor of her father

she’s fluent in spanish and english and from time to time she still struggles socially, due to her being kept in a lab with little to no social interaction for 11 years

she’s got her father’s temper; easily angered and very violent

the claws haven’t come out since she arrived in dc. she’s been trying her best to control herself and her anger because she’s wary of the new place

she’s mostly been pretending she’s normal despite knowing she’s far from that

if people bring in people from the canons with connections in the comics to laura i’m happy to plot them ! i’m not entirely familiar with them so the only real comic influence here is laura becoming wolverine

hmu for plots or threads or anything !

#⌜ ᴅᴏɴ’ᴛ ʙᴇ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ⌟ → ⌜ laura kinney-howlett ⌟#hw: intro

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miss-m-calling · 5 years

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Chocolate Box 2019 letter

Requests (all fic):

Adult Wednesday Addams (web series) -- any (Wednesday/Brian, Wednesday & Warren Agency Interns, Wednesday & OFC, Wednesday & OMC, Wednesday/OMC)

American Gods (TV) -- Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney

Black Sails (TV) -- Miranda Barlow/John Silver

Dear writer,

Hello and thank you for writing for me. I’m very excited to read whatever you come up with. Without further ado…

Requests:

Adult Wednesday Addams

any (Wednesday/Brian, Wednesday & Warren Agency Interns, Wednesday & OFC, Wednesday & OMC, Wednesday/OMC)

I belatedly discovered this webseries, and it resurrected (see what I did there?) my love for Wednesday and how the Addams Family canon runs on the endless possibilities of this loving, happily eccentric family being 100% true to themselves and the world just having to deal with it. The show was everything I never knew I wanted till I watched it, the perfect blend of Addams-macabre and cozy slice of life with bonus Wednesday navigating the world (and not just any ol’ place, but shiny, plastic, image-conscious LA!) alone, without always knowing her family will back her up, and it made me crave more of adult Wednesday’s mini adventures in LA. For this canon, I’m good with gen or, if you want to write that, more of Wednesday’s adventures in dating guys who really aren’t up to the challenge. I’m keeping the prompts pretty short, just to (hopefully) pique your creativity:

-Wednesday goes to IKEA

-Or, alternately, Wednesday finds a career that is perfect for her, in which she can have success and respect. What ever could that be and still fit into the non-Addams world?

-Wednesday tries speed dating

-Wednesday takes an evening class, or goes back to school part time, or enrolls in an online degree program

-It’s Dia de Muertos, and Wednesday goes out to celebrate and soak up the atmosphere. It may or may not live up to her expectations.

American Gods (TV)

Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney

I ship it. Yes I do. They had me at “gimme-my-coin-dead-wife”-flicks-him-into-wall. The snarky road trip was the best thing I never knew I wanted until it happened, and I adored every second of it. They’re both such assholes and so fascinating, even if they mellow toward each other a bit in the last two episodes, and all the gods/magic/resurrection stuff swirling around them begs to be explored further. Plus she’s half his size yet can and does beat him up with literally one finger, and then there’s the angst of he having killed her, feeling really guilty about it, and then bringing her back.

-Laura discovers (how? you decide!) that Sweeney gave her back the coin after their accident – whatever happens next, some punching may be involved.

-Wednesday’s big war finally comes, and “don’t you dare die on me, you asshole” is a line either Sweeney or Laura (or both) might say to each other.

-Laura asked “What does Wednesday have to lose?” and the answer is…? (Yes, give me that sweet poetic justice.)

-Somehow or other, Laura’s croupier skills come in handy when dealing with gods and trying to get alive again.

-The power of names: Sweeney basically stops calling her “dead wife” (or anything else) toward the end of S1 – there comes a time when he (has to) call her by her actual name, and that’s a tricky moment for them to navigate. Or, Mad Sweeney is almost certainly not his actual name, since true names have great magical power and so must be kept secret; Laura discovers or learns his name, from someone else or from himself; what does she do with that knowledge? Or, Sweeney gets to say “cunt” in a situation (sexual or otherwise) where, not only does Laura not peel his lips from his gums, but she finds that she can’t object, even though she knows that he knows that he’s getting away with it.

If it helps your inspiration, you can find some of my meta and lots of tag-burbling about these two here. I have read the book though I remember it only in bits and pieces, and while I prefer the show characters and the fact that they get thrown together, you can use or riff on book material if you want. Also you can, but absolutely don’t have to, use the glimpses of these two in the S2 teaser. With reference to one of my DNWs, for this canon, describing Laura’s physical decay is totally fine. Also, Shadow/Laura don’t interest me except as a part of Laura’s backstory (so if your story wants to include Laura figuring out or having already figured out that pinning all her hopes on Shadow to make everything right is unrealistic, unfair, and not how it works – by all means, go for it!), and Shadow/Sweeney interest me not at all. Also also, I’m not really into Laura being Essie’s reincarnation/descendant, or a lot of emphasis being placed on how Sweeney’s history with Essie may influence his relationship with Laura – I saw Emily Browning playing both parts as more of a fun stylistic choice, maybe a hint that when one lives almost-forever like Sweeney, the people who make an impact and whom one remembers tend to blend together, rather than some big foreshadowing or what have you, so I’d prefer it if you didn’t write about Essie or Essie-Laura.

Black Sails

Miranda Barlow/John Silver

Ah yes, my they-never-really-interact-in canon-at-all ship. I see this as an early seasons ship, not just because Miranda was, you know, alive, but because the early Silver was the ever-scheming trickster with a smile and a smart-allecky comment always up his sleeve, ever ready to lie, cheat, steal, and murder to his best advantage, yet already with glimpses of a capacity to care about people other than himself. What I’m saying is, he was fun to have around in a way the later Silver somewhat lost as the price of his character development.

We know Miranda has an eye for a handsome man. I suspect S1-2 Silver totally would bed the captain’s woman if he thought he could get away with it or it could be a way to manipulate Flint, only Miranda is smart and pragmatic, has a core of pure steel, and can see right through Silver, which I’m convinced she would. Unlike Flint, Miranda has done her grieving and she’s so ready to move on and feel alive again. Not saying that Silver would become another great love of hers, but they could have fun. He’d make her laugh. After years of Flint’s moods, Silver would be so easy to get along with. The sex could be great and not angsty or merely dutiful. He’d inevitably find an angle to play, but then Miranda’s no stranger to maneuvering around and with people, so maybe she’d find that his manipulative ways are half the fun. They might even fall in love for real, though that’s not a requirement, and I definitely don’t think love would be the same as absolute trust in this case. (Also I’d appreciate it if you didn’t make the relationship revolve around their shared fixation on Flint, or focus on Miranda’s angst about Thomas or the legacy of Thomas/Flint. These can be mentioned, but I’d prefer that doesn’t hijack the story.)

Prompts:

-Flint sends Silver to Miranda with a message or on an errand, and thinks nothing more of it (or possibly he wants Miranda’s assessment of how much he can trust the “new cook”). But then Silver and Miranda are intrigued by each other and start finding excuses to see each other again. Bonus points if they orchestrate encounters in a way which allows them both to pretend they don’t actually want to see each other again, it just happened, sometimes things just happen but now that they’re both here they might as well take advantage of this opportunity, etc.

-S2 divergence: James dies at Charles Town, and Miranda lives. Silver may or may not lose a leg. Silver and Miranda have to assume at least temporary leadership of the crew in order to get everyone safely back to Nassau. Do they become pirate co-captains or lady captain and her quartermaster? Do they dissolve the crew and try for a different life? Do they make a play for the Urca gold, after Silver confesses his double-dealing to an angry, grieving Miranda (Jack maybe doesn’t capture the gold, it’s still up for grabs, or if Jack does how does that play out)? I mention lower down I’d prefer no angsty sex for these two, but in this scenario I could see any sex that may happen being, at least at first, angry and angsty, but also conducive to emotional healing.

-Actual witch!Miranda. I mean storybook witch, with a cauldron in which she brews that invulnerability potion for Flint and possibly some broom-flying, rather than a Wiccan or another kind of real witch. Maybe she needs a human participant or human-sourced ingredients for some of her most powerful spells, and since Flint isn’t really comfortable with magic Miranda decides that the new ship’s cook will do, only magic has a way of binding people together more closely than they intended. Or maybe she attempts to bind a familiar, hoping for a cat or a bird, and the magic picks Silver, much to her (and his) initial consternation? Maybe Miranda doesn’t really know what she’s doing, she used to dabble in London but hasn’t tried making a spell in years and has none of her books of magic with her, or she’s heard the crew’s rumors about her and decided to give this whole magic thing a go, and oops it actually works! Either way, there would definitely be snark and “if I give you X for a spell, what’s in it for me?”

-Flint respected and cared about Miranda, but also kept her waiting on the sidelines while he did stuff. Gimme Miranda and Silver at a point where they trust each other, maybe not completely, but enough that they can scheme together, where she is impressed by his quick wits but she’ll also tell him when one of his plans is likely to go wrong in XYZ different ways. Then, obviously, they execute a plan/heist by drawing on their combined skill sets.

-Fucking someone is easy. Sleeping the night through next to that person is hard.

-Speaking of which: sex. With or without plot. In the bed, in the kitchen, in Nassau, on The Walrus when the rest of the crew is on shore-leave, or a stolen moment during the journey to Charles Town. First times, later times. Any position is good, I’ll just mention a couple possibilities: Cunnilingus with a side of mind games. Pegging. Fingering (of either by either). Intense (emotionally and physically) PIV. I could see them both initiating sex and wanting to “direct traffic” at one time or another, both wanting to keep up a front but then being ambushed by actual emotion and vulnerability. Let it be happy and giggly, or passionate, or playful, or unexpectedly tender, or seemingly casual and then very emotional and heartfelt – just please don’t let it be angsty.

-Miranda discovers she likes to get her fingers in Silver’s hair during sex, both gently and not. He likes it too, which is not to say he’ll necessarily admit he likes it.

-Sexual role-play: the demure lady abducted by a wicked pirate, only it turns out the lady’s resistance is symbolic at best. Who gets to play the lady and who the pirate is entirely open. If Miranda’s the lady, I suspect early seasons!Silver’s attempts at being menacing and dominating may make her break character for a giggle – and if Miranda’s the pirate menacing the demure and naïve, er, young gentleman, I’ll just say that I think she should wear Silver’s clothes (after washing them or making him bring a spare set).

Two general points: whatever you end up writing, please don’t kill off Miranda or imply she dies “off-screen.” Let her live to fuck Silver another day. Also, I love Flint/Miranda in all their angsty glory, and I love all the intense, complicated emotion of Flint & Silver and the potential of Flint/Silver. I know I said not to make the fic revolve around Flint’s influence on their lives, but I’m fine with Flint in a walk-on role, if you want to write that. I don’t see him making too big a fuss, Miranda definitely treats her brief affair with the pastor as her business and her business alone – I can see Flint being exasperated that Silver hanging around Miranda is now a thing, or suspicious of Silver’s intentions but also trusting Miranda to handle it.

Likes:

DNWs:

MPREG, A/B/O, knotting, D/s, kinks, incest, underage, genderswap/genderbent characters, poly, xeno, non-/dub-con, torture and abuse (this and non-/dub-con can be mentioned if the story needs it, but please don’t dwell on it in loving detail or subject any of my requested characters to it), unrequested crossovers (please have the mods ask me!), dwelling on bodily fluids (mentions of gore/blood and come are fine), toilet humor, character bashing, issuefic, soulmates and soul marks, major character death (unless it’s canon), serious illness or injury, pregnancy and children, holiday or wedding setting/theme, secondary characters shipping the main pair like it’s their job, reference to RL current events, 1st/2nd person POV, AUs which have nothing to do with canon

#dear author letter #chocolate box fic exchange #chocolate box 2019

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miss-m-calling · 6 years

Text

Trick or Treat 2018 letter

Dear writer,

Hello and thank you for writing for me. I’m very excited to read whatever you come up with.

Regarding tricks and treats: for tricks, a story in the general tone of the canon would be great; if you want to introduce a more clear-cut trick element, spookiness, ambiguity, menace, some darkness, maybe some violence if the story wants to go there, a dark supernatural element (e.g., what may or may not be a haunting) even if the canon’s realistic, rather than extreme grimdark where everyone dies or gets raped and dismembered.

For treats, a story in the general tone of the canon would be great; if you want to introduce a more clear-cut treat element, humor, silliness, crack, a maybe-supernatural element (e.g., this is definitely not a haunting right?), something mildly hopeful, rather than teeth-rotting fluff.

Requests:

American Gods (TV)

Laura Moon, Mad Sweeney

Fic, trick or treat

I ship it. Yes I do. I also love their snarky road trip in and of itself. They’re both such assholes and so fascinating, even if they mellow toward each other a bit in the last two episodes, and all the gods/magic/resurrection stuff swirling around them begs to be explored further. Plus she’s half his size yet can and does beat him up with literally one finger, and then there the angst of he having killed her and then brought her back.

Please give me either missing scenes from the road trip (with or without Salim, whom I like too) or something post-S1. Laura discovers (how? you decide!) that Sweeney gave her back the coin after their accident -- whatever happens next, some punching may be involved. Wednesday’s big war finally comes, and “don’t you dare die on me, you asshole” is a line either Sweeney or Laura (or both) might say to each other. Or something exploring living death. Magical bargains. Meetings – smooth and harmonious, though let’s be real, with these two it’s probably the opposite – with other Old Gods and assorted supernatural beings from various cultures. What kind of favor did Sweeney do for Ostara that would be worth her bringing someone back to life as repayment? What other powers might Sweeney have (he doesn’t seem on a par with someone like Wednesday and Ostara, nor does he consider himself to be entirely like them)? How long can a dead wife keep going before she’s “soup”? What other superhuman abilities might dead!Laura have? Can the dead do magic? Laura asked “What does Wednesday have to lose?” and the answer is...? (Yes, give me that sweet poetic justice.) Sweeney basically stops calling her “dead wife” (or anything else) toward the end of S1 -- there comes a time when he (has to) call her by her actual name, and that’s a tricky moment for them to navigate. Or, Mad Sweeney is not his actual name, since true names have great magical power; Laura discovers or learns his name, from someone else or from himself; what does she do with that knowledge? Also, my perfect AG spinoff would basically be Sweeney and Laura tooling around America, looking to get her resurrected (whether they succeed in this or not is up to you), stealing ever more ridiculous vehicles, arguing/fighting and having those pesky moments where vulnerability and genuineness creep in – and fucking. So I’d be down for porn, but only for these two characters together, not one of them with a third party. If it helps your inspiration, you can find some of my meta and lots of tag-burbling about these two here.

I have read the book, and while I prefer the show characters, you can use or riff on book material if you want. With reference to one of my DNWs, for this canon, describing Laura’s physical decay is totally fine.

Cabin Pressure

Fic, treat

Carolyn Knapp-Shappey, Arthur Shappey, Martin Crieff, Douglas Richardson

I just want more canon-y stories with their loopy humor and their weird yet loving family dynamics among the crew. Shenanigans in mid-flight or in the tedium which precedes and the tiredness which follows them. Someone smuggles (knowingly or not) an exotic animal on-board, legal, security, medical and/or slapstick chaos ensues. A mechanical, passenger- or smuggled-goods-caused problem arises and is solved during a journey. More games played on board GERTI. While I DNW holiday settings or themes, I can see comic potential in Arthur getting overly enthusiastic about Halloween (remember Arthur at Christmas?). Playing around with a specific destination, like in many episodes, would be a plus. If it helps inspire you, my favorite episodes in terms of tone and content are: Douz, Gdansk, Johannesburg, Limerick, Ottery St. Mary, Uskerty, and Xinzhou.

For this canon, I’d prefer either gen or, if you want to go there, Douglas/Carolyn, which is a ship I always thought had potential – they understand each other very well and trust each other most of the time, but they’re both also snark-masters, tend to look down on anyone not as smart or quick-witted as they (Arthur being the sole -- occasional -- exception), and are really good about keeping their defenses up against other people.

Justified

Boyd Crowder, Rachel Brooks

Fic, trick or treat

For Boyd, a moment in canon or post-canon, during his likely-lifelong incarceration, where we get to see him work one of his schemes. For Rachel, case fic or friendship fic, and you can definitely throw in Raylan and/or Tim and/or Art. Model Marshal Rachel gets stuck doing the early morning prisoner transport or handling walk-ins (bonus points for telling me how she earned this punishment from Art). Banter is always a plus.

And if you wanted to tackle Boyd & Rachel or Boyd/Rachel, well. I would love that. Their few brief interactions in canon always left me wanting more. Boyd trying to pull the wool over Rachel’s eyes and her not having it. Having to work together or Rachel needing to use Boyd as a informant, and possibly how the hostility might shade into flirting and how Rachel might feel about that, given Boyd’s past (even if, as Raylan said, Boyd’s too smart to really believe in white supremacy, there’s still his lifelong criminality). The beginnings of a good working relationship or friendship or affection, and how frustrating and difficult that would be, because they are who they are. Or the later stages of a relationship, when somehow they make it work, however tense it gets at times.

Specifically for trick fic, there be somethin’ spooky in them there hills. Maybe it’s just the usual bunch of hillbillies with more firepower than brains, maybe it’s something genuinely eldritch. Marshals and/or local crime lords walk right into it. A Lovecraftian riff would be great, as would an actually-mundane case of crime happening under cover of supernatural goings-on.

DC New Earth

Thessaly

Fic, trick

I nominated this character under The Sandman’s canon tag, but it got moved to the DC New Earth umbrella tag.

Thessaly is my favorite Sandman character and one of my favorite characters in general. I love that she is not always or even often likeable, but she is always compelling, intriguing, hypercompetent, ruthless, fearless, and sometimes foolhardy. Her solitary ways and commitment to her own long-term survival, without the reader ever figuring out what – other than the desire for more life – drives her, fascinate me, as does her humorlessness coupled with everything that’s fantastic and supernatural about her. I’d love to see her do more chilling magic (invent dark, bloody rituals and tell me about them, by all means), go on adventures in the Waking, Dreaming, or still other realms*, get into a jam (maybe the Moon tries to claim her? Or she obtains a magical artifact and its owner isn’t happy?) and get out of it in her own way. Or Thessaly interacting with other Dreaming denizens (say, snarky Matthew, or the three guardians of the entrance to Morpheus’ palace, or the Second Corinthian with all his identity issues). Or give me glimpses of Thessaly’s past, over the many millennia she’s been around. Or, she must have moved from other worlds or planes of reality, possibly at their final destruction, to our own, just as she moves to Barbie’s dreamworld and survives its destruction; what were those worlds like, or where might Thessaly go once this world is gone? Does she outlast or out-trick the Moon in the process?

One thing I would appreciate you not dwelling on is Thessaly/Morpheus – I don’t mean retcon it out of existence, just don’t dwell on the actual relationship, which I always found somewhat improbable. Exploring Thessaly’s hurt and anger after the end of that relationship is fine. I have also read the Thessaly spin-offs, so you can riff on those if you want (what does she do with all the dead crowding her at the end?), but please note that if you describe Thessaly, I prefer her frumpy, self-composed design in Sandman over the Lara Croft-lite of the spinoffs.

*Fusion suggestion: if you wanted to send Thessaly into the world of Jennifer Haley’s play The Nether, I would be there with bells on. If you are unfamiliar with The Nether, it’s a science-fiction play about literally living on the Internet (easily handwaved into a kind of magic or a living dream) and how that influences people’s sense of self – be forewarned that the play’s not explicit but is pretty damn dark.

Likes:

I love pre-canon, canon, post-canon, canon-divergent, and “missing scene from canon” stories. I love character-driven and plot-driven stories equally, and I love fics which mix humor and angst/serious business when appropriate for the canon.

I love character studies, characters at work and play, stories about group dynamics, family dynamics (including constructed families), professional partnerships, friendships, alliances, rivalries, intimate couples, UST-ridden couples who are not just UST-ridden but connected in other ways too, etc.

I love irony, snark, 5+1 stories, bittersweet endings, hopeful endings, happy endings, canon-fitting crack, worldbuilding, characters who are their own worst enemies as well as those who learn to get over themselves, characters with conflicting values which may or may not be reconciled/resolved in a believable and IC way, characters who treat each other with respect and as equals even if they hate/annoy/can’t stand/love to dislike each other.

I especially love workplace stories (this can mean anything from an office/procedural setting to anything that revolves around the canon world in which the characters live) in which the characters are competent and dedicated to the job, and while they may not be exactly friends and they may well irritate one another, they still manage to rub along to get the job done and maybe even grow to care about one another (much to their surprise and sometimes reluctance/discomfort). Or, if they can’t get along, show me why not and what’s preventing them from finding common ground.

In terms of ship dynamics, I love (where it fits the characters) banter, competitiveness or antagonism shading into attraction (this tension need not be resolved), bickering yet loving couples, faithfulness, characters who are serious about their romantic interests, characters who think they are much better at flirtation than they actually are, characters forced to work together only to prove much more compatible than they initially assumed, fics which mix an exploration of characters’ professional and everyday lives with shipping. A dynamic I cannot resist is shipping a couple who are incompatible in some important way (they are ideological enemies, cop/criminal, spies from opposite sides), and while they love and want each other they’re also not willing to change sides or surrender/compromise their identity for the other’s benefit, and how they might (or not) make their relationship work anyway.

I don’t have any very specific likes for smut, other than smut fitting the characters – show me how their canon dynamics spill over into the bedroom (or other place of congress). I also like sexual scenarios that subvert expectations a little and surprise the characters themselves (e.g., the person who’s usually quiet or more passive taking charge, the more aggressive person goes with it possibly snarking or commenting on it as long as they can). And I like sexual scenarios that contain an element of competition, antagonism, oh-god-this-is-a-bad-idea-but-we’re-going-for-it, not wanting to admit feelings or show vulnerability except oops it happens anyway, whether the characters acknowledge it or not, or just people getting way more into it or being more affected by it than they thought they would. Oral, vaginal, anal, manual (ifyouknowwhatImean) – it’s all good. You can go as veiled or as explicit as you like, but please avoid excessive medical jargon – I don’t find a lot of mention of “penis” and “clit” sexy.

DNWs:

Kinks, MPREG, A/B/O, knotting, D/s, incest, underage, genderswap and genderbent characters, non-con, dub-con, torture and abuse (this and non-con/dub-con can be mentioned if the story needs it, but please don’t dwell on it in loving detail or subject any of my requested characters to it), dwelling on bodily fluids (mentions of gore and come are fine where appropriate), toilet humor, character bashing, soulmates and soul marks, major character death (unless it’s canon), pregnancy and children as the lynchpin of the story (unless strictly canon appropriate), characters agonizing over/analyzing/dwelling on their or others’ sexuality as if it’s the sum total of their existence, secondary characters acting like shipping the main pair is their be all and end all, fluff and schmoop, OCs (except in small roles and/or for worldbuilding purposes – I just don’t want a fic in which OCs are the heroes, while my requested characters are cameos), issuefic, explicit or implicit reference to current events or politics in the US, fic written in the first or second person, holiday or wedding setting or theme, AUs which have nothing to do with canon (cop characters working in a coffee shop, high-school janitor characters in space, etc.)

#dear author letter #trick or treat exchange

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