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miss-m-calling · 3 years

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Fandom Growth Exchange 2021

Fandoms:

The Marianne trilogy - Sheri S. Tepper

Jutro će promeniti sve | Morning Changes Everything (TV)

Senke nad Balkanom | Shadows over the Balkans a.k.a. Black Sun (TV)

Бeсa ǀ Besa (TV)

Oficir s ružom | The Officer with a Rose (1987)

Dear author,

Hello and thank you for writing for me, and extra special thanks that you’re tackling one of these tiny canons of my heart. :-)

I’m Miss_M on AO3. For all requests, I am asking for fic.

General likes:

-pre-canon, canon, post-canon, canon-divergent, and missing-scene stories

-character-driven as well as plot-driven stories

-fics which mix humor and angst/serious business (when this fits the canon)

-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

-irony, snark, humor, angst – all arising from the characters rather than the plot crowbaring it in

-linear, non-linear, and 5+1 stories

-hopeful endings, happy endings, bittersweet endings, “everything is awful but you’re here and maybe I don’t entirely hate that” 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, tough characters with (maybe not so well) hidden vulnerabilities, characters who are their own worst enemies, characters who manage to 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, characters who may not be exactly friends and may well irritate one another but manage to rub along to get the job done and maybe even grow to care about one another (much to their surprise/reluctance/discomfort), characters who just cannot get along with each other or find common ground

-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 get to be competent

Shippy and smutty likes:

-(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“

-”come here and say it to my face/do that again/kiss me, you motherfucker”

-bickering yet loving couples

-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

-characters who are incompatible in some important way (they are ideological enemies, cop and criminal, spies from opposite sides, or there has been betrayal!!!), and while they love and/or want each other, they’re not willing to change sides or abandon/compromise their identity/beliefs for the other’s benefit

-I don’t know how better to phrase this than: smut which fits the characters; how does their canon dynamics spill over into hubba hubba stuff?

-sexual scenarios that subvert expectations a little and surprise the characters themselves

-sexual scenarios that contain an element of competition or antagonism

-“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

-characters getting way more into the sex or being more affected by it than they thought they would

-quick and intense sex, slow and intense sex, rough yet willing sex (when it fits the characters), unexpectedly emotional and/or tender sex

-masturbation while thinking of the other half of the ship (or not wanting to think about them only oops there they are in the fantasy!)

-first time sex

-established relationship, we-know-each-other-so-well sex

-”we’ve both wanted this and now we both know it so here we go diving in headfirst” sex

-for het and/or slash, oral, vaginal, anal incl. pegging, manual (ifyouknowwhatImean) – all is 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.

Ship/smut DNWs:

MPREG, A/B/O, knotting D/s, formalized BDSM, painful sex, hard kinks (holding someone down playfully, hair pulling and such like, the odd spank are a-OK) scat, watersports knife/gun/blood play incest deaging/infantilization, mommy/daddy kink under-16yos in sexual situations humiliation body distortion/horror (feeding/weight kink, come inflation, vore, etc.) unrequested ships/pairings soulmates and soul marks pregnancy and children (can be mentioned if canon, just don’t make the whole fic about them) wedding setting/theme secondary characters shipping the main pair like it’s their job xeno, tentacles, bestiality noncon/dubcon

Other DNWs:

torture and abuse (this and noncon/dubcon can be mentioned, but please don’t dwell on it in loving detail or subject any of my requested characters to it) descriptions of vomit, shit, and piss (”He pissed up against a tree” and the like is fine), toilet humor lots of gore/blood (mention it, yes; lovingly describe it, no), cannibalism, serious illness or injury character bashing genderswap/genderbent characters, characters as kids/young teens issuefic, gender/sexuality/race/ethnicity/religion/ability/identity headcanons death of requested characters hopeless, unrelenting gloom/angst/horror RL holiday setting/theme, RL religions as a major theme (invented fictional holidays and rituals are fine) reference to RL current events 1st and 2nd person POV unrequested crossovers or fusions AUs which have nothing to do with canon fic written in lapslock

Requests:

The Marianne Trilogy - Sheri S. Tepper

Marianne Zahmani, Makr Avehl Zahmani, Aghrehond, Therat, various combos thereof

What is this canon: Low fantasy, feminist trilogy about Marianne, a student at an American university who comes from the tiny, fictional country of Alphenlicht, wedged in between Turkey and Iran, with a native religion that vaguely resembles Zoroastrianism, a long tradition of both light and dark magic, and civil conflict with echoes of the Cold War (one part of the country seceded with Soviet help). Marianne is financially dependent on her abusive older brother Harvey, but trying to assert her independence. Then she meets Makr Avehl, a cousin and de facto president of Alphenlicht, who’s both a mage and a charmer. And then Marianne gets targeted by dark magic and has to become self-assertive and figure out how to save herself, even as Makr Avehl also tries to save her (and sweep her off her feet), often with more complicated results than he intended. Every book introduces a different set of magical challenges, most of which transport Marianne to a different constructed/magical realm, with disturbing parallels to the cruelties of the real world and some interesting meta commentary on gender relations. Also in the mix are Aghrehond, Makr Avehl’s loyal retainer, chauffeur, and all-around kind soul, and Therat, an intense young mage in training.

The books came out in the late 1980s and were reprinted in a one-volume omnibus edition. They’re long out of print now, but you might find them at your library or used copies for sale online.

While I have a like-get-annoyed relationship with most of Tepper’s work I’ve read, I adore this trilogy unreservedly. I love the mixture of dark fantasy, sly humor, creepiness, complex magical systems and surreal constructed/parallel/hidden worlds described in just enough detail while remaining, for lack of a better word, magical, the intersection of old and new and invented worlds… I adore Marianne, whose lives (it makes sense in context) have made her many things: the traumatized yet defiant survivor, the semi-skillful player of the game of life and magic, the lover and wife and mover-and-shaker in her own right. Her relationship with the other characters – romantic, sometimes overbearing, arrogant, yet loving and lovable Makr Avehl; intense and dedicated Therat; loyal, warm, kind, humorous Aghrehond – are so rich and wonderful. I love all the playing with and inverting and deconstruction of tropes and cliches, the aforementioned magical/constructed/parallel worlds of whimsy and creepiness that riff on ordinary aspects of the real world while also running on their own internal logic…

Canon-specific DNWs: Harvey or Madame Delubovoska appearing in the fic (you may mention them); focusing on Marianne’s pregnancy or on her and Makr Avehl’s daughter; anything over M rating for sex

Some prompts:

Any/all of these characters visit the Cave of Light and then try to solve a problem or complete a quest (however grand, mundane or cracky) according to its message.

Road trips with Aghrehond – exploring Alphenlicht and/or magical realms.

Marianne said at the end of the last book that Therat may be surprised – I’d love to see what might surprise Therat, in addition to Marianne and Makr Avehl’s firstborn sharing her name. Or give me Makr Avehl having to work closely with Therat due to some magical/mystical/political issue, given that he’s always dropping unsubtle hints about her scary eyes. Or Aghrehond being deferential yet unintimidated by Therat – and maybe even making Therat laugh.

Any/all of these characters end up visiting fields on the board-game from book 3 which the book didn’t describe – what kind of a place do they encounter? What (probably dangerous, troubling, and/or creepy) adventures do they have?

Marianne promised to meet Queen Buttercup for a meal at Frab Junction’s Marveling Galosh – magical promises are serious things, so what happens when Marianne has to make the date and the others come to save her and possibly get in each other’s way more than they help?

I loved how canon gently sent up Makr Avehl’s image of himself as Marianne’s protector/lover/white knight in the first and third books’ magical worlds. Actually, Makr Avehl as the Freudian chimera in book 1 and as the hapless hero in book 3 are my favorite things about this canon, beside the general worldbuilding and Marianne’s character development. So I’d love to see more variations on that theme - Makr Avehl as Marianne’s hero, both swoony and ridiculous, gentle yet lecherous, intense and funny with it - either in the real world or in some new (and sinister) magical realm (you can tell that I would love worldbuilding for this canon).

As a general note, I do ship Marianne/Makr Avehl, but I would prefer any shippiness to remain at the books’ level, so nothing too explicit and nothing that overwhelms the non-shippy plot, please. I’m more into this canon for the worldbuilding and the inventive magic, and I like how the books mix the shippiness with adventure, magical horror, and often-meta humor. Oh, and I would prefer not to have Harvey Zahmani or Madame Delubovoska appear in the story – they can be mentioned, just no walk-on parts for them please. Walk-on parts for Marianne’s parents or aunt, or for Makr Avehl’s sister are fine.

Jutro će promeniti sve | Morning Changes Everything (TV)

Anđela Knežević, Aleksandra “Saša” Tomić, Ivona Spasić

What is this canon: one-off Serbian TV show, 39 episodes in total. A slice-of-life drama that follows one year (even though it was all filmed in spring and summer, and it shows) in the lives of four thirtysomethings in contemporary Belgrade, dealing with life issues common to that generation but also specific to being a still-young, educated, professionally and existentially frustrated person living in Serbia today. The main characters are: Filip, a programmer who’s lived in the US for several years and kicks off the show by coming home for what’s supposed to be a vacation but turns out to be a permanent stay; his sister Anđela, who’s finishing her PhD, expects to get a permanent teaching position at the University of Belgrade, and has a nice, steady boyfriend she’s bored of, not least because she eventually figures out she’s not straight; Anđela’s roommate Saša, who starts the show running a bar and running through men like Kleenex, and gradually reveals her issues and vulnerabilities; and their friend Ljuba, who’s from a small town, works in a gym, and pinballs between several girlfriends in part because he’s homeless and needs a place to crash. A major supporting character is Ivona, Ljuba’s on-again, off-again girlfriend whom none of Ljuba’s friends like due to her severe personality.

You can watch the whole show here (free account needed).

Listen, this is my show. I feel it in my bones. I rewatch it at least once a year, and I always get so immersed and then wish there were more, even though I respect the showrunners’ decision to let it end with a kind of low-key “and the adventure (their lives) continues…” vibe. So I would be delighted with pretty much anything you choose to write! I am only asking for the female characters because I find them especially rich and interesting, and their dilemmas and problems especially poignant. Feel free to write something funny (that specific city humor!), something with a sad or melancholy or happy or totally open ending, something with or without a plot, a character vignette, a slice of life… All of those would fit the show’s mood and narrative arc. Also, as much local color and detail as you want to work in, I would love love love, especially if it’s from the proverbial krug “dvojke” – and if you want to write the fic in Belgrade Serbian (all the slang! all the cultural references that people born in the 1980s would know!), or include some phrases/words/lines of dialogue in it, I would probably dance a literal jig of joy and celebration.

Canon-specific DNWs: explicit smut (M rating and/or fade to black is fine); Saša/Filip-centric fic; fic centering only on Ivona’s pregnancy and/or baby; soapboxing about Balkan history/conflicts/ethnic relations

Anđela:

-Anđela in Iceland. Dealing with culture shock, especially when she least expects it. Making friends with her African roommate – two people’s experiences of culture shock clashing and/or meshing. Trying to date or hook up with girls in a society that’s a lot less homophobic but also less familiar in every way than Serbia. The emigrant’s inescapable sense that something’s missing: adjusting to her new life and homesickness, knowing why she left but wishing things could be different anyway. Or, it’s the end of Anđela’s postdoc year and she has to decide (again): now what?

-After her year in Iceland, Anđela moves in with Saša again. How has their relationship changed and how has it stayed the same? If she decides to make a go of staying in Serbia, what are Anđela’s career prospects? Anđela’s canon arc is all about figuring out what to do when your life and what you want out of it turn out very differently than you always assumed they would, so it would be cool to see her forge a career path that uses her education and professional skills in unexpected ways.

-She runs again into some of the people who shaped her decision to leave in the first place: Darija, Marta, Miroslav, the two lecturers who squeezed her out of the Psychology Department… Those encounters are not easy or even pleasant, but they give Anđela something important nevertheless: closure or…?

-Of all the main characters, Anđela has the most intense connection to places, like when she rides her rental bike around the city before she leaves for Iceland, or how she’s often framed as being alone in spaces even when there are other people present (the moving-in party, many of her scenes at the university and in Studentski park). Give me more of Anđela just taking in and experiencing a place, whether that’s Belgrade or Iceland or wherever she goes after Iceland.

Saša:

-AU where Saša is the one that goes abroad at the end of the show. What drove her to it? Where does she go and why (or at least, what’s her excuse for visa purposes)? How does it go – does she stay abroad permanently, or does she come back after a while?

-Saša’s half-sister moves to Belgrade to attend FLU (the art academy) and moves in with Saša after Anđela goes abroad. They learn to be friends and sisters and roommates. They grieve the loss of their father in their own as well as in shared ways. There’s a generation gap, despite Saša’s cool-girl persona – how do they navigate it?

-More of Saša and Ljuba running their restaurant. I’d love either something dramatic (someone’s trying to force them to pay protection money or force them out of their rented space, a kitchen incident happens and there are hungry people waiting…), or a totally mundane, cozy vignette (putting together the menu for next week, chef Ljuba absolutely must have this one ingredient and he wants it from Bajlonijeva pijaca because they may charge 350 dinars but quality matters – and Saša really doesn’t see why they can’t just go to Tempo…) It would also be cool to see more of Dina, the high-strung but pretty cool manager at the restaurant where Saša and Ljuba worked before they opened their own place.

-Saša and her mom Svetlana have the hardest time being kind to each other, and it’s not for lack of love. Sometimes people just can’t get along easily. How do they get along not-easily after the ways in which canon changed them both?

-I’m not really interested in Saša/Filip, but you can include that canon ship in whatever you’re writing. Just please don’t make the whole fic be just about the ship.

Ivona:

-I may be the only person who’s watched this show who actually likes Ivona. I love her self-possession, how she is absolutely herself and doesn’t bother to pretend otherwise even if it annoys or makes others uneasy, and she’s arranged her life in a way that works for her. I also love her brief flashes of vulnerability and even relaxation. Maybe a day in her life as a career woman and single mom, either with or without her nice boyfriend and/or Ljuba being around? Re: my blanket DNW for fic revolving around babies and pregnancy – you can include Ivona’s pregnancy and motherhood in the fic, just please don’t make the whole fic be just about that.

-Ivona takes her dog Marlena to a dog show. She has to be very cool and serious, and is like that by nature, but it’s exciting when her dog wins something!

-Ivona interacts more with Anđela and/or Saša. They were once very incompatible roommates, maybe that’s how Ljuba met Ivona in the first place? They happen to just hang out one time, and they won’t ever be friends but maybe they can find some common ground? Saša especially dislikes Ivona and judges Ljuba’s involvement with her, and Ivona’s aloofness and humorlessness can make her seem harsher than she perhaps is – it would be interesting if those two could maybe learn not to dislike each other quite so much.

Senke nad Balkanom | Shadows over the Balkans a.k.a. Black Sun (TV)

Andra “Tane” Tanasijević & Stanko Pletikosić

What is this canon: Serbian historical crime drama set in the interwar era. Loads of characters, the city of Belgrade and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia itself being almost characters in their own right, plot twists all over the place, people’s allegiances changing on a dime, murder mysteries, the drug trade, and the illicit pursuits of both rich and poor influencing the RL course of some major events. For comparison, think Babylon Berlin but, like, super Balkan. Two seasons so far, 10 episodes each, set in 1928 and 1934, respectively, with a third season currently in production, set to tackle the early days of World War II. The two leads are a fun variation on the old cop-young cop trop. Old cop is Andra Tanasijević (Tane), veteran homicide investigator, also veteran of World War I, (semi-)alcoholic, cynical, terminally unimpressed by everything and everyone (himself included), but still with a white knight streak he can’t seem to suppress even when it gets him in trouble. Young cop is Stanko Pletikosić, war orphan, trained abroad in forensic science, earnest, sometimes snarky, wet behind the ears but by mid-S1 he starts to get more streetwise without losing all of his idealism. Together They Fight Crime! Also get tangled up with all sorts of criminals, spies, government operatives, and shady dames, while they try to set the world and history straight.

The second season is available here, and the first one can be found, ahem, torrenting around.

All I want in fic for this canon is MORE. More canon-style shenanigans, more of that rich atmosphere, more historical detail, just MORE. Play with the canon however you like! Plot out a case fic! Embroil the two detectives in more historical goings-on, either before WWII, during it, or even after it! The show tends to reassert ontological inertia so historical events always fall into place as they did IRL – you can work with that, or go ahead and change the course of history (rather, have Tane and Stanko do it)! Have them interact and likely get in trouble with some of the other characters! (I am fond of the entire cast, especially Pršo, Stanko’s grandfather, all the Jatagan Mala folks, everyone who works at Glavnjača, the entire Macedonian mafia, all the historical characters – yes, all of them, even the really nasty pieces of work benefit from their actors’ commitment to the role. I would especially love for some of the supporting female characters – Mara, Mina, Violeta, Jana, Sonja – to get a chance to shine, or kick ass, or get their own revenge/heart’s desire, or even just fuck shit up and get in other characters’ way.) Or you could just have Tane and Stanko drown their troubles and shoot the shit in a tavern long past last call!

I would be happy for their dynamic to be what it was when they first met, all rubbing each other the wrong way and reading each other wrong (and sometimes right), or what it becomes later, when they’re a crack team even if they sometimes get on each other’s nerves big time. If you’re writing a case fic, feel free also to bring in Božidar Zečević, Stanko’s S2 partner, at least while he was along for the ride as a fellow investigator, before his role in the plot is revealed. I was very amused by his and Tane’s mutual animosity, very “the missus and the ex” over who gets to call Stanko his partner. (Also Zečević was totally in love with Stanko, come on!)

If you wanted to include some dialogue or phrases or hey write the whole fic in any dialect of what used to be called Serbo-Croatian, I’m here for that with bells on!

Canon-specific DNWs: Tane/Stanko; focus only on smut or ships (you can include the characters’ canon or invent non-canon ships, I just don’t want a fic only about those); anything above M rating for sex; soapboxing about Balkan history/conflicts/ethnic relations (the characters can clash about this, use stereotypes, etc. – I just don’t want the fic to be an excuse for the writer’s hot takes, ‘kay?)

Бeсa ǀ Besa (TV)

Petrit Koci

What is this canon: crime drama, one 12-episode season so far, produced in Serbia with dialogues in Serbian, Albanian, and English, and created by Tony Jordan of “Hustle” fame. Set in (and with a cast including actors from) several ex-Yugoslav states, the story follows three main characters: a Serbian family man and regular joe who accidentally kills the daughter of a major Kosovar Albanian crime boss in a car accident; said Albanian crime boss, who coerces his daughter’s unwitting killer to start working for him as an assassin; and a half-Albanian, half-Serbian Interpol agent who’s after the crime boss but starts investigating the regular joe turned assassin as well.

You can find it on Dailymotion if you search for “BeEp.0[episode number]”

The show has a twisty plot (with one plot hole I would love to get fix-it fic for, see below), gritty and handsome visuals, excellent performances, IMO is really good at depicting the various ethnicities and the complicated history behind the present-day events, and has a great through-line of deconstructing Balkan machismo and patriarchal culture. All three of the main characters have an image of themselves as MEN who Provide and/or Take Care of Business and Put Family First, each in their own way, and all three end up compromising on all their principles by season’s end. The women in the show’s ‘verse sometimes become collateral damage but also assert themselves in unexpected ways, which is great. The title refers to the Albanian (but more broadly, Balkan) cultural concept that one’s promise/vow/word of honor has to be kept and carried out no matter what, at peril of losing face, dishonoring both oneself and one’s family, even death. This gets deconstructed five ways from Sunday too, and it is awesome.

I’m requesting the Interpol agent because I find him to be the most fascinating. He is so committed to being the “good sheriff” and carrying out his professional duty regardless of whom he has to piss off along the way, but is also often quite ineffectual because the local police forces with which he has to cooperate tend to resent both his attitude and his ethnic background – not to mention that when everyone’s corrupt and compromised, the man who refuses to play the game makes lots of enemies. He’s also a real hard-ass who made a conscious choice long ago to have nothing in his life but his work, is a bit of a bastard, has a huge blind spot about gender which comes back to bite him, and ultimately is driven by a desire for personal vendetta more than an abstract commitment to justice (I love a character who is super focused on their goal and presents themselves as invulnerable, yet whose insecurities and traumas are always just beneath the surface of what drives them). And yes, by the end of the season he’s presented with a Faustian bargain and gets a huge target on his back. There’s a lot to unpack there!

I will eat up any local color you want to throw in. Ditto, the canon is super intense, but if you find a way to bring in some vintage Balkan pitch-black humor, I’m here for it. If you wanted to include some dialogue or phrases or hey write the whole fic in any dialect of what used to be called Serbo-Croatian, I’m here for that with bells on! Alas, I do not read Albanian, but if you want to include dialogue/phrases in it, go for it, so long as you tell me (in parentheses, in footnotes, whatever works) what’s going on.

Canon-specific DNW: soapboxing about Balkan history/conflicts/ethnic relations (the characters can clash about this, use stereotypes, etc. – I just don’t want the fic to be an excuse for the writer’s hot takes, ‘kay?)

Prompts:

-Any kind of casefic, either a divergence from S1, something pre- or post-canon, or a side investigation spinning off from the canon’s central plot. Anything that requires Koci to again traipse all over former Yugoslavia, butt heads with everyone, interrogate people, and do that soft-spoken “you don’t want to give me what I want but you’ll do it anyway” thing he does along the way. Maybe he gets a case that seems to have nothing to do with his pursuit of the Berisha clan, is annoyed by this (how dare his bosses expect him to work a case in which he’s not personally invested), but then surprise! There’s a connection between the cases.

-Something that requires Koci to use his knowledge of Albanian language and culture even more than in canon. I love how the canon depicts the existential discomfort of never fully fitting into – or being accepted by – either of the cultures/communities to which one has a connection, and how a person can become antagonistic and volatile as a result. Leaning into that would be wonderful.

-The Petrit Koci we meet at the start of the show has a solid façade of having no one, needing no one, wanting no one in his life. But what we learn about his background along the way (his police-chief father’s murder by the Berisha clan when he was a kid, the ex-fiancée whose family found him “a little too Albanian” for their taste) suggests that there was a lot of repeat heartbreak along the way, like he had to build his hard-ass persona one unpleasant life experience at a time. I would love something that explores his background in more depth – maybe a 5+1 fic, five times Koci let something get to him and one time he refused to care?

-Related to that: we learn a little about Koci’s father (whose murder when Koci was a child is his primary motivator), but we learn nothing about Koci’s mother other than that she’s ethnically Serbian. Is she still alive? What is/was their relationship like once they were alone and relocated from Prishtinë/Priština to Belgrade (in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, oh my)?

-Koci has devoted his whole life to bringing down the Berisha clan. He finally gets his wish. Now what the fuck does he do (with himself)?

-I was really struck by the one scene of Koci talking to Skënder Berisha – everything about the past history between the Koci and Berisha families, but especially Koci’s line that his late father didn’t believe in blood vendettas, but he (Koci) does. The end of the season implies he might go totally rogue, because if he can’t bring down the Berishas through the law, there are other ways. Tell me how this goes. In general, tell me your version of S2, there’s other stuff (ahem, spoilers) at the very end of S1 that suggests more trouble is coming down the pike.

-The one glaring plot hole which made me want to throw stuff is when Koci repeatedly dismisses one suspicious development as “oh that guy was lying because he’s cheating on his wife, nothing to see here.” I hate it when smart characters act dumb because the plot needs to keep going for however many more episodes. This does come back to bite Koci by season’s end, but I’d love to see it go a different way.

-Ship fic? Yes to ship fic! I would love either gen or ship fic for Koci paired with any of the following characters. Maybe the other character has to turn to Interpol for help/becomes a material witness/gets arrested/enters witness protection, or otherwise has to do teeth-clenched teamwork with Koci. If any of those dynamics turn porny, the antagonism and complicated dynamics and maybe a reluctant recognition that they’re not so different would perpetuate themselves in the porn too, and I’m here for it. (For this canon, I’m waiving my dubcon blanket DNW, but for M/F ships I want both to be motivated by anger/revenge/general existential bleakness instead of or as well as lust – so no M/f dubcon, please):

Uroš Perić – the regular joe turned assassin, who gets multiple chances in the course of the show to seek Koci’s help and doesn’t because he gets in deep and wants to be the guy that protects his family and takes care of everything himself. I keep thinking back to their very first scene, when Koci gives Perić his calling card and tells him to get in touch, and Perić could have done that before he committed his first murder but… didn’t. And then at the end, there’s that huge spoiler setting up S2. Despite becoming a murderer several times over, Perić is a much softer character than Koci, but he doesn’t like getting pushed around either. How would they work together, how would they clash?

Marija Perić – Uroš’s Croatian wife, who has the thankless role of being married to the guy who’s keeping her in the dark about major plot developments, but makes up for it with how she reacts to the hints she gets of Uroš’s continuing troubles as well as getting on Koci’s radar. She’s scared and out of her depth, but she’s also angry and antagonistic when she thinks Interpol is harassing her for no reason. I love the scene where Koci interrogates her and she won’t give him an inch even when he blindsides her with evidence of her husband’s activities – more of that kind of thing, please!

Dardan Berisha – the grieving crime boss and main target of Koci’s obsession (even though it was actually Dardan’s old uncle who had Koci’s father killed decades earlier). They’re both such hard, intense men, in part because they’ve had to be, and the narrative sets them up as mirror images of each other (while Uroš Perić is more a study in how someone becomes hard when circumstances push them to it). Yet while their conflict underpins the whole show, they rarely share a scene. Put them together more; let them fight or y’know *waggles eyebrows*.

Teuta Berisha – Dardan’s wife, who first loses her daughter, and by the end of the season her family is totally blown to smithereens, in part because of how she chooses to assert her agency within the super-patriarchal context in which she lives. She was ambivalent about her marriage before we meet her, and I love how canon events bring out her anger, grief, and quiet steeliness. Also, that moment at her daughter’s funeral when Koci gives her his condolences really hit me – they know they are enemies, but there’s that moment of standoffish respect between them. What if somehow they had to work together? A divergence from the end or any part of S1 would be very welcome.

Divna Dukić – Koci’s Interpol colleague and maybe the only character that likes him. Their dynamic is both very professionally respectful and yet… “flirtatious” may be too strong a word. They obviously have a little thing for each other but choose not to act on it for a whole mess of reasons (he’s an emotional disaster area, she has enough on her plate as a single mom with a shitty ex, they work together). Also, I have a theory that Divna, while seeming loyal, may take her marching orders from one of the criminal elements or maybe from the more corrupt parts of Interpol or the Serbian police. I would love any or all of that to get explored more.

While I do not want them shipped, the conversation at the hospital between Koci and Skënder Berisha is one of my favorite scenes, so if you want to throw those two together more as gen antagonists – yessssss, give it to me!

Oficir s ružom | The Officer with a Rose (1987)

Petar Horvat/Matilda Ivančić/Ljiljana Matić

What is this canon: Yugoslav movie set in Zagreb in 1945, right after the Partisan (communist resistance movement) victory in World War II. Matilda is a young widow whose husband was a little too close to the Croatian fascists and the Nazis, and she herself is too much of a rich bourgeois lady for the new regime’s liking. She runs afoul of Petar, a Partisan officer who threatens her with jail time and having her lavish apartment turned into communal housing – but in the end, Petar only moves his girlfriend Ljiljana into Matilda’s apartment and then starts hanging around more and more himself. Ljiljana is very young, naïve, and unworldly while also being a hardened soldier and true believer in the better future that communism would build, and she adores Petar and develops a very obvious girl-crush (or maybe just a crush) on Matilda, who is both bemused and reluctantly fond of Ljiljana. Matilda and Petar initially treat each other with anger and a kind of amused contempt, then they start to fall for each other. Uh oh – on both the personal and the political level.

You can find the movie floating around various sites with ex-Yu movies, it was/is on Dailymotion too.

I love how this movie is quite gentle with its characters while they deal with violent and horrific world events, how the narrative lets each of them fully embody their class, gender, and ideological self, plays up the conflicts and the barbed humor and the reluctantly-nascent commonalities between them for emotional payoff, and even when they’re happy (or think they are), the times in which they live just don’t allow for anything like a simple HEA. How to improve on canon? Clearly the movie should’ve gone the threesome route! I would love something set either in those early days, when Petar foisted Ljiljana on Matilda as a tenant and basically moved in himself, or a divergence so Ljiljana never leaves Zagreb and the ending isn’t such a complete bummer.

For early-days scenarios, gimme more of the merry war between Petar and Matilda, with Ljiljana’s crush on both of them stirring things up even more. Teasing and fighting and not wanting to admit they actually do get along, while enjoying breakfast for three. People walking in on each other in the shower. More of how, in the movie, Matilda’s apartment is an oasis from the massive changes happening outside, but the world keeps encroaching on the trio’s intimacy anyway. Maybe Petar and Ljiljana discover other elements of bourgeois living they start to enjoy, or they know they shouldn’t care when Matilda has to give some of her creature comforts away or trades them on the black market, but they mind anyway. Or, by painful fits and starts, Matilda adjusts to the new reality; maybe for some reason Matilda has to accompany the other two to the working-class neighborhood where Petar grew up or to Ljiljana’s village, or they bring her along/she gets sentenced to work on a public reconstruction project (radna akcija), and she hates it, but she has people on her side whether she’s ready to see it or not. If you want to write smut, I’m here for three-way sex, or for one of them to egg the other two on or spy on them so they can watch (oops they don’t end up just watching!), and/or for one or two of them to teach the other(s) something they haven’t done before or consider to be beneath them, and everyone enjoys it greatly. There’s great potential here for emotional manipulation and mind games, and I’m here for it.

For a canon divergence from the end, I don’t need a HEA – just don’t let people be dead and/or alone and inconsolable. The historical era was what it was, these characters are who they are (for one thing, Petar is strongly implied to participate in executions of political prisoners). I am good with as much historical detail as you want to throw in, and I’m good with an open-ended or bittersweet or even ominous ending, just so long as it’s not all unrelenting gloom and there is acknowledgment of the attachment between the trio.

If you wanted to include some dialogue or phrases or hey write the whole fic in any dialect of what used to be called Serbo-Croatian, I’m here for that with bells on!

Canon-specific DNW: Ljiljana’s canon pregnancy featuring in the fic; breaking up the threesome into just a series of twosomes in a smut scenario (I’m good with twosomes leading to some kind of three-way scenario, but not twosomes alone); soapboxing about Balkan history/conflicts/ethnic relations (the characters can clash about this, use stereotypes, etc. – I just don’t want the fic to be an excuse for the writer’s hot takes, ‘kay?)

#dear author letter #fandom growth exchange

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angstylittlecatboy · 5 years

Text

memories of my sprite comic nobody read

I'm not sure if I believe in the whole angel numbers thing anymore but I think they want me to reintroduce my sprite comic (saw 111 while thinking about it.) I just feel like talking about it, idk. I know nobody cares.

Barring a few standout strips I don't think Purrnout the Edgy Cat (covering my bases here, but the comic predates me meeting FP by two years, “edgy” refers to how stuff like Linkin Park and Shadow the Hedgehog is referred to as edgy) was a good comic, most of it's gags fall flat, the backgrounds and walking sprites were mostly ugly (if my more detail-oriented brother was downstairs he'd insist I do better,) and I could never get a story arc off the ground, but I only made it to kill the bore (in the description it said "updates whenever boredom strikes") and I had fun making it.

The idea was to be a sprite comic (believe me, I’d draw the comic if I were any good at drawing, but I learned my lesson from having DeviantArt) that was something of an affectionate parody of early 2000s sprite comics while avoiding a lot of the common complaints about them, also throwing in some punk/goth/emo culture. Specifically, all of it's characters were original, only one was a recolor (and his name was Recolor the Hedgehog, he was the deuteragonist and straight man, I planned to make him the only character who can't do cool superpower stuff for irony,) I didn't use backgrounds from Google Images, it didn't directly take place in the universe of something else (my idea was that it took place in a nonsense universe where every work of fiction is somehow canon, though I wanted to be pretty strict about seeing concepts and objects but never characters from other works, but other than showing Recolor losing rings, nothing ever came of it,) I tried not to mainly use reference or shock humor, and I tried to use a consistent sprite style for the characters and backgrounds (I confess to ripping effects.) I don't think it ever achieved parody of 00s sprite comics, I wanted to eventually make some stuff like DBZ-style sprite battles and teen melodrama, but I ended up making a gag-a-day strip mostly utilizing cringe comedy. At least, all the good or least bad strips are cringe comedy. I tried teen melodrama but it was mostly big lipped aligator moments that went nowhere, especially both aborted story arcs (though the latter was going to be less teen melodrama and more band melodrama.) If I reupload the comic, the arc comics won’t be reuploaded with the rest as I consider them non-canon since neither got past two strips and the first attempt would have honestly ruined the comic if it finished. I guess there were two continuous strips where Purrnout commited tax fraud (I think this predated the Yoshi meme) but I don’t see that as a story arc. Actually the first three comics were sorta a story arc but they mostly just introduced the main two, explained why Purrnout is living in an apartment (I think I needed to explain this as I intended it as a Chekrov’s Gun for a later story arc,) and made some obscure Green Day references. Maybe the arc comics could get re-added at a different place on the timeline if I felt like completing the arcs. A huge problem is that I didn’t make an outline for them tbh.

The style I settled on for the backgrounds and sprites was that of the Neo Geo Pocket Color. The panels were in either that system’s resolution or one close to it (they were tiny.) I ignored palette limitations, but so did most sprite comics.

I must admit that the title character is a self-insert fantasy to some extent, he was admittedly, like 16-year-old me but cooler. Well, not really cooler since the comic revolves around him being a loser, but he was an emancipated minor and a good punk/alt rock guitarist, both tying into my fantasies at the time, and he was a lonely emo teenager trying to not be mainstream. If I brought the comic back, I’d continue to write Purrnout as 16YO me and not as 18YO me. I’m still a loser, but my spiritual beliefs, dedication to kindness, and inconsistent attitudes towards life WOULD NOT mesh with the character. Purrnout cannot have reverence to things that control the world or talk about peace and love, he needs to be angry at the world and be a bit of a deliberately insensitive asshole to the people he doesn’t like. Sort of a much less extreme version of an incel (I identified as such at the time.) Wouldn’t call him a Mary Sue, though it’s not really my call to make since I’m the author and this is the only creative work of mine that can kinda be considered “completed” that I’m still fond of in a way. Maybe I’ll cringe someday, but not today.

There’s not much to say about Recolor the Hedgehog, he’s very much a pretty normal guy other than having nerdy interests and Purrnout as a best friend. He more or less exists to be a straight man. He was a composite of my brother and an ex-friend.

I might as well mention the comic’s other non-antagonist character since I’ve already talked about both Purrnout and Recolor. Love the Golden Retriever, a rich, smart, pretty normie girl with a Pollyanna viewpoint, a wish to heal people like Purrnout, and a crush on Recolor. She was based on a variety of girls who tried to become my friend out of pity and were nice enough but we didn’t connect. Purrnout finds her annoying, while she considers Purrnout a friend. I also introduced another one, but she was part of the first aborted attempt at an arc.

A third main character was planned as well, but she was supposed to be introduced in a story arc that I planned but never even tried to start. She wouldn’t make it into the comic if I start it up again, at least not without heavy modification, as I eventually met someone who was very similar to the character I had in mind. So similar that adding them now would look creepy.

The comic’s most common antagonist was a cat named Muffin. He was basically Chad Thundercock, probably the most shallow character in a comic that wasn’t long enough to get deep. I also introduced another character intended as an antagonist in an admittedly-hamfisted way named Felicity the Once-Golden Retriever, Love’s best friend who used to be a highly optimistic normie with a promising modelling career before Muffin cheated on her, and then became an angsty anti-society rebel who thinks cutting her hair and dying her fur darker makes her ugly. She hated Purrnout because she felt that Purrnout hadn’t suffered like she had and is moping for no reason, which annoys her. I think I was trying to do a straw feminist character minus the actual feminism, but don’t quote me on that. I had a third antagonist that I wanted to introduce, my favorite antagonist made for the comic actually, and he already cameoed, but I never ended up writing him. Maybe if I had my PC through Summer/Fall 2018 I would’ve made more (the last one was Spring 2018.)

But anyway, it doesn’t really matter. My brother was the only person who really read Purrnout, but I do remember him getting a chuckle out of it. I posted it on Tumblr (now deleted) and I got one follower, who was likely a bot. I never posted a link to it on my main Tumblr, partially because I wanted to see it gain an organic audience first (it didn’t lol) and partially because I was scared of it being seen as cringe. You may have come across it if you browsed the “sprite comic” tag on here. I know Tumblr is a bad place to host webcomics (at least if it’s the only place you’re hosting the webcomic) but it’s free, I was familiar with it, and I wasn’t making any plans to profit off of or take the comic seriously (it ran Summer 2016 - Spring 2018 and only had twenty strips.)

I’m still hesitant to bring back the comic because I honestly want to use the universe (most of it, obviously modifications would need to be made) for a video game idea I have, though that would be 10+ years in the future if I ever have credibility as a game developer since I couldn’t see myself doing that one without a team (”3D hack n’ slash platformer” is a lot harder than “2D JRPG.”) Hell, I originally made the sprite for a Zelda II clone I wanted to make with Purrnout using side mounted guns (because Shadow the Edgehog,) but for some reason, be it laziness (not wanting to re-learn Game Maker) or wanting to use the character for something more character driven, I ended up making a sprite comic instead. Another route I could do is redesigning and renaming Recolor, and removing all sprites ripped from other games, but I’m extremely hesitant to mess with Recolor’s design since his worried face is a running gag and if I did continue I’d still want to eventually make jokes that don’t work without him being a Sonic recolor.

Also, it wasn’t a furry webcomic, at least not entirely. “pet sized” (cats, dogs, wolves, foxes, etc.) characters would stand on fours while characters of much smaller or much larger stature (cows, hedgehogs,) than that would be anthropomorphic.

#journal #sprite comic #memories #purrnout

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