#''famous'' and ''good'' are both up to interpretation ofc
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
agnesandhilda · 13 days ago
Text
11 notes · View notes
28whitepeonies · 2 years ago
Note
i think what this fandom is lacking right now (besides basic common decency and empathy towards closeted people and being respectful when they have to perform their closets sometimes) is perspective and expectation management. like for example, i’m seeing a lot of people saying that this stunt “feels like 2013”, and that no other girlfriend has been on tour as much as olivia and harry hasn’t had to “endure” anything like this before and ofc the whole hastag freeharry thing. but what people fail to understand is, this stunt looks different from anything we’ve seen before because harry is in a place he’s never been before in his career. he’s never been more famous, more relevant and, consequently, more visible. so it’s obvious that a pr/bearding relationship isn’t gonna go about the same way as it would’ve back in, let’s say, 2017. now, if you’ve had different expectations as to what harry’s life would look like right now, that’s on you. he’s under no obligation to meet those. and it’s really fucking entitled of fans to think they know what’s best for him than he himself does. there's just such a severe lack of nuance when it comes to this fandom and interpreting what goes on. and you shouldn’t be supporting harry because you need him to be your walking gay parade every day or if you’re just waiting around for him to come out because he doesn’t own you that. no queer person does. queer people don’t have to just survive, we’re allowed to live whichever way we want. also, i think i’d be much simpler if people simply just owned up to their feelings instead of fruitlessly attempting to come up with seemingly “ethical” reasons why a certain thing bothers them. like whenever there’s a new beard in the picture, it’s always like “oh this person specifically is BAD she’s the PROBLEM if it was ANY other person i’d be fine with it!” like c’mon now love we all know that’s not true. like just say that it bothers you when closeted people have to perform their closets then maybe try to redirect your anger and frustration at systemic homophobia as a whole and not individuals. (sorry for the rant, i’m a little worked up)
Good morning anon
Thanks for your thoughts. There's quite a lot in this, and surprisingly to precisely no one I have thoughts, so I'm probably just going to focus on the main points.
I do think that when an artist grows in popularity in the way that Harry has over the past few years that fans who have been around for a long time or who run fan blogs, and therefore often have high level of engagement with everything they do, have a lot of difficulty adjusting. Part of that likely comes down to how fans interpret different types of engagement. I don't think this is unusual and I don't think that it's inherently an issue if folk are able to recognise but that recognition doesn’t seem to be happening here.
I am not a fan of large gig venues, I'm always going to prefer venues of less than 2,500 people - the smaller the better personally. That means that if I want to see Harry (and I suspect after this tour, Louis) again I either go anyway or I don't right and whichever of those I chose is fine and if I go, and I don't have a good time I think it is important for fans to be have space to say 'I didn't enjoy this as much as x' or 'I don't think I'd go and see Harry again because y'. Where the issue arises for me, is when you start to make that a problem that Harry should solve. Ultimately I choose what I engage with and Harry chooses what he does.
Now let's apply that to beards - I think fans having space to say things like 'I don't like the way this relationship is being so heavily focused on because x' or I don't want to engage with media on Harry or Louis' relationships any more' is really important.
I also think it's really important that if you're having a negative reaction to something to think about why and then you can draw some boundaries. But a lot of the discourse around both Harry and Louis (but I am going to focus on Harry here) shows a real lack of interest in how the world works, the reality of being closeted, and a downright denial to acknowledge that they have agency here.
The position Harry has managed to create for himself continues to fascinate me, and while I think it's likely this relationship with Olivia was borne out of more traditional movie PR tactics (which are very fucking common people) it is useful to look at what Harry is also working on (ie My Policeman) and think about why such an act of heterosexuality might be required if he is to retain the ability to perform that he has at the moment.
Now in all of this my concern over how Olivia is treated by fans is actually far less to do with Olivia herself and far more to do with the implications of the level of misogyny that's being directed at her and what that tells us about the level of hatred being directed at a woman for her existence. I am pretty confident Olivia is capable of looking after herself, she's been in that industry long enough that I have no doubt she has encountered a whole range of misogynistic assholes, and if she's not what then I am saying in my little corner of the internet will not do anything to help. Equally, my concerns about the demands placed on Harry are ultimately less about Harry and are more about demands on artists and on queer people, in terms of how they should be representing themselves and at what point you might consider them to be queer enough.
And while I do occasionally spam post my thoughts on things I’m less interested in what individual people are doing (although as @jlf23tumble puts it I do care about blogs who have ‘hive minds’) I am far more interested in what is happening on a mass level because it’s when people act collectivelyvthat real change can happen, but equally (whether deliberately or not) where the real harm can be caused. 
8 notes · View notes
faakeid · 4 years ago
Note
fab nygmobblepot moments that remind you of kd uwu
OMGGGG AHDAHDUIADHAD
I want to use this moment to be sorry to everyone that follows me but keeps seeing my blog full of Nygmobs/Smaylor instead of kaisoo. I usually don’t get attached to otps like this and it happened in an unexpected way for me. But it’s here and I need to compensate for all the years I didn’t watch Gotham and had no idea about Nygmobs spamming everyone and making my heart warm.
But in general, nygmobblepot isn’t a vision of ideal relationship. Both Edward and Oswald (their surnames Cobblepot and Nygma were the ones who originated this name) are stupid and do stupid shit to each other during most of the series. So, a lot of moments related with the actors counterpart (Robin is the actor who plays Oswald and Cory who plays Ed) reminds me of kaisoo more. But a warning here! Although they have a HUGE chemistry on and off screen, they’re mostly friends. Robin is married for almost ten years so it doesn’t mean their closeness is romantic or sexual. But still, some details remind me of kd.
Similarities with nygmobs:
Height difference: it applies to Smaylor as well because it’s their height but it’s really visible in the series. Cory is a bit taller than JI I think and Robin is like 1.65 but KS is not that taller (I can’t believe he’s 1.73 at all, sorry). But, again, this factor is evident during the series and in some moments and it’s cute.
Tumblr media
(the way he moves his feet to reach Ed’s head ;_;)
Tumblr media
(when they hug, Oswald barely reaches his shoulders [their hugs are the equivalent to kisses in Gotham])
Tumblr media
the closest gif I could find where we can see kd’s height difference without me stealing other people’s gifs.
Penguin reference? That’s pretty obvious. Of course I didn’t start shipping nygmobs because one of them is small and has the Penguin nickname but it made so much easier for me to read some of their fics with kd as characters because they fit the profile so much! And also, I believe KD would totally fit the “murder husbands” couple if someone did a fanfic where they just kill everyone. The closest I remember of a fanfic with this criteria is Juice Pouche where Kyungsoo is a vampire and he protects Jongin and Jongin is kind of badass as well. But the kd fandom needs more fics like this. There’s also “(Before the night is over) come see me” where KS is also a vampire and JI a young werewolf but it focuses more on their relationship than a murder husbands idea Gotham shows so well. 
How they met: Gotham’s history has a lot of differences if you compare with other universes, so keep that in mind. In Gotham, Ed works with GCPD but doesn’t feel like himself with the good side. Oswald is the character that spices things up and is a rage of death and destruction and manipulation. But Oswald is infatuated with Jim Gordon (so isn’t the first time it’s implied Penguin is gay) but he goes to the police department to see him. Ed sees him and wants to talk to him no matter the cost. And he does that... And things don’t end that friendly for him because Oswald thinks he’s a weirdo and asks him to fuck off, basically. It reminded me of kd’s first meeting where KS was the one admiring JI all along but JI get frightned. But, during their second meeting, they bond and become friends. For Nygmobs it takes more time for their second meeting but they end up developing and being in good terms :’)
Their personas, sort of: Ed is the tall one, younger and logic. Oswald is the oldest, smaller and that thinks with his heart. I love how JI could show the more logic side of himself during the last few years and, again, while reading Nygmobs fics using kd names, it was easy to fit the profile for me (that was during the time I wasn’t too deep into nygmobs and I didn’t knok them that well. KS looks cold and deatached and that’s why many people got impressed when he said, during Knowing Bros that he would choose love over friendship. He doesn’t play the part but, considering all the context, it fits him pretty well and reading this description of Oswald made me so familiar because it fits KD well. Ofc I don’t know their private lives and whatever but it’s just the impression I had as a viewer and random person;
Drama issue: when I say drama here, it’s related with how people percieve the two OTPs and how different people visualize LGBT relationship in media. Nygmobblepot had a lot of drama involved because they’re the fucking Riddler and Penguin, two of the most famous Batman villains. People saw them in different sorts of media before and others idolize those characters because of videogames and comics. So, when Oswald mentioned expressedly that he was in love with Edward, it caused an uproar in the fandom. People accused the producers and Robin of messing with the comic canon because the fucking Penguin became gay??? Robin was outspoken about the homophobia behind those statements since he’s a gay man himself but yeah, the drama existed. Part of the people invovled with the series rooted for Nygmobblepot, including some writers and the actors (Cory was the one with ambiguous messages about the nature of their relationship but it’s not even close what happened with other series like Supergirl, Supernatural and Sherlock). But it was aired by FOX, a right wing channel and, as you may imagine, they didn’t become canon per se. Actually, after Oswald said he was in love with Ed and planned on confessing to him, the writers presented a clone of Ed’s ex girlfriend with no explanation and purpose, only to separate them for most part of the series future. After that, some people seemed to have FORGOTTEN Oswald was once in love with Edward, rationalizing many things that are hard to explain with a “bro explanation”, they had a scene where the characters would have evolved even more but it was CUTTED and CHANGED and execs added the sentence “we’re brothers” to make EXPLICIT that Nygmobblepot’s relationship wouldn’t be interpreted as a romance at the end of the series (but, honestly, the actors went for the romance path anyway, the deleted scenes and the final episode can’t convince me otherwise).
What’s related with KD, may you ask? I think you’re familiar with all the drama KD faced since 2016 and how many stuff exploded during that time. How many parts are involved into creating a certain image and shifting it to be appealing and “friendly” is similar with what happens with idols. It’s no secret now about many scandals of bullying and other issues that are considered problematic and how they need to be pushed under the rug for companies so idols can make money and be profitable. Especially for male idols, it’s important that they are viewed as desirable and an object of the fans affections. That’s why he needs to be handsome and kind and look like a person that doesn’t exist. If an idol is openly gay, this person isn’t viewed by the major public with the same interest because they can’t fit the fantasy. That’s why scandals involving idols being gay need to be forgotten and deleted from people’s minds, otherwise that celebrity is ostracized. Although we tend to see the Ocident as “progressive”, there’s similar things happening in that industry. If a celebrity is openly LGBT, they don’t receive certain roles or opportunities because of it. There’s still a huge stigma that needs to be broken and we, as a society, are so far way from it. But recognizing those differences exist it’s a step forward.
Similarities with Smaylor
For me, one of the reasons Nygmobblepot works so well is because of the actors. They portrait a good chemistry because of their friendship off screen and some non verbal signs they display around each other are amazing. Those are things that remind me more of KD as we see them in a lot of moments. So, I wanted space to show those comparisons below:
Mutual admiration: it’s something both Smaylor and KD display a LOT and is extrememly outspoken. I really love watching their old interviews because the affection and admiration is so genuine it makes me drawn to them despite not being romantically involved.
Tumblr media
(full gifset)
(there are more moments than these but I don’t want to steal gifs and there’s not much on the gif research and that sucks. Same with KD’s).
Tumblr media
Stares and touches: Robin was the responsible for the deep stares and Cory for the random touches. There’s so many gifs of it that is hilarious. It’s like JI divided himself in two cells because we know he’s more known for both >.<
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
(Cory was touching Robin all the way during this interview rip)
Tumblr media
(the gifset!!!)
You’re pretty moment: Robin, like KS, is the one that mentions about Cory/JI’s physical attributes. They have a moment pretty similar and, for KD its famous among shippers:
Tumblr media
(gif link)
Tumblr media
(actually, Robin called Cory dashingly handsome but its okay)
Tumblr media
Cory lost it
There’s another series of gifsets with Robin calling Cory handsome LMAOO
Tumblr media Tumblr media
:))))
Synchronization: for specialists in body language, it’s a factor that shows two people are close. That’s because of the mirror neurons we have that makes us copy movements, actions or words that someone we have empathy/we are close with do or say. Both kd and smaylor do this and it’s really soft.
Tumblr media
(one of the classics)
Tumblr media
(classic 2)
Tumblr media Tumblr media
whole gifset (i love this interview so much)
Tumblr media
(gif)
Tumblr media
The fact the actors came up with their OTP names: people tend to forget that KD’s real otp name (according with Jongin) is dika. Cory also came up with Nygmobblepot name and Smaylor too <3
So, meanwhile Nygmobs has thropies that work a lot with KD AUs, Smaylor has healthy dynamics seen in public appearances KD made. Like I said above, there’s a huge polemic about shipping Smaylor romantically because Robin is married. On social media, is visible he loves his husband and it’s pretty cute to see. Cory himself mentioned that their relationship was sort of a platonic friendship (whatever that means) but it’s really genuine in terms of affections and display of admiration, something KD has as well.
Probably someone will question that it may changed the way I see KD or if now I ship them as bros. Nothing about that changed. With KD, although there are some similar details, there are internal AND external factors that made me support them in a romantic perspective in the first place. And it didn’t change. 
But both of them (Nygmobs too) make me feel that I’m testimoning something genuine, which is really hard in both kpop and media universes. In one side, we have a LOT of fanservice. And, in the other, it’s mostly a work interaction with lots of queerbating. Yes, Gotham has queerbating aspects in it but it’s not full of queerbating, if it makes sense. The message the actors and some writers wanted to convey are there and really display a romantic direction with character evolution and growth. And, considering the way media is nowadays, it’s nice to see.
31 notes · View notes
kettle-on · 4 years ago
Text
(Oh woops, this is a lot longer than it was supposed to be, but I got carried away. Still not super happy with it, but I figured I'd post it sooner than later, before I changed my mind completely!)
Monty Python and the Barbados Fic
Eric x Michael x OFC
Chapter 4
attn: @jessm78 @coincidence-ithinknots-blog
Evenings at Heron Bay were lively, silly, rowdy, and populous. The Pythons had decided they would have guests to dinner every night, and surprisingly this proved not too difficult. Apparently Barbados was hopping with friendly famous faces at this time of year.
Mick Jagger continued his regular visits with Jerry on his arm, and one or two pairs of glamorous mystery Misters and Misses. It was revealed through many rounds of Charades that the Rolling Stone had an extraordinary talent for both miming and deciphering interpretive dance. His rendition of “the eruption of Mt Vesuvius” was met with roaring applause, and his “Sex Pistols” brought the evening to an un-toppable peak.
Things would take a turn, however, when an entirely sober Graham introduced a favourite game of his called “Poor Pussy” in which the chosen “pussy” approaches guests and, through meowing and distinctly feline behaviour, must make the guest laugh whilst they attempt to pet pussy’s head and say with a straight face three times: “poor pussy.” When one does laugh, they become the new “pussy.” This last rule changed quickly when it arose that multiple “pussies” had taken over the room, and hardly a word could be spoken from the guests through their laughter.
Perhaps the most uncommon news, however, came from casual chat. A visiting Keith Moon explained his plans for a new house in Malibu, anxious for acres of privacy and leaving behind his celebrity neighbours. Jagger the Charades king told of all-night New York City parties, to which Graham countered: “At least in London, one has the good sense to wrap up before sitting down to breakfast.”
Y/N was sure that, had she been keeping a list, she’d have been privy to the business of every star in modern comedy and rock and roll.
The next morning came too early once again, but Y/N was this time drawn to the bedroom window. From here she could see the team of gardeners hired to keep Heron Bay looking lush and groomed. She couldn’t help but feel that with each day that passed she was floating further and further away from what she remembered normal life to be like.
Not wanting to disturb a sleeping Eric, she made her way to the morning room that looked out to the curved courtyard. At one end of the room was a large painted screen of columns in some beautiful ancient scene. Each table surface in this room was topped with a floral arrangement, antique candlesticks, and photographs of visitors and houseguests. Decades of beautiful faces and elegant dresses, men in uniform, and posed portraits looked back at her from their frames.
What was this world? she had long wondered. Painted screens, stone pediments, beaches, house staff, tennis courts, and private ponds. Marriages, affairs, and cover-ups. Churchill, the Duke of Edinburgh, Lord and Lady Something of Somewhere Unpronounceable, and movie stars and rock n roll gods. And who was she in all of this?
From the near distance, she heard puffs of exertion and approaching steps. Michael had committed himself to continuing his disciplined daily morning jog and here he was returning.
“Ah,” he panted, “Morning.”
“Good morning. Nice run?”
“Well,” puff, “it’s not Holloway, but it’ll do.”
When he caught his breath, he noticed her uneasiness. With a smiling face and a tone he’d learned from his mother, he suggested:
“Tea?” --
It was much later that night that Y/N found herself again wandering the corridors alone. The afternoon had passed with a visit from Eric’s friend Ricky Fataar with whom he’d made The Rutles the previous year, and his wife, Heron Bay’s proprietress Penelope Tree. The couple had dropped in for what they called a “business luncheon,” and extended an invitation to the Python household out for a “business dinner.” The two Terrys and Eric accepted, (the Terrys hoping they might throw in a bit of “money talk” regarding their upcoming film budget) and by the time the day’s activities had come to a close, the outward dinner guests had yet to return.
In the rare quiet of the late-night, Y/N knocked on the door to the room where Michael was staying, and a friendly hum invited her into the room. A single lamp lit up the walls and floor, and a Michael in repose who was making edits to his well-kept journal.
“Do I recall correctly you said you’d brought a small library with you?” asked Y/N from the door.
“I did, indeed!” he responded, setting his journal on one of the nightstands next to the bed. “What’s the matter – can’t sleep?”
Y/N shook her head with an apologetic smirk.
“I see, and what sort of thing are you after?”
“Something, uh... gentle, I suppose. Something to escape.”
“Escape? From here? A tropical island and you’d like to escape – now that’s puzzling.” He drew back the thin blanket that covered his lower half, and swung his mostly bare legs over the side of the mattress.
“No, no,” she started, “Just something to, y’know, get out of my head for a bit.”
“Mm, is there something troubling you?” Michael eyed the three stacks of books casually adorning a side table, and inspected the choices of titles.
“Just feeling a little…” Y/N searched for a believable excuse, “homesick.”
He was not convinced. Putting his book task on pause he raised his eyebrows, requesting her further explanation. Y/N both appreciated and hated this look. Michael, though the gentlest and kindest of the troupe, would not let anything go unexplained or hidden for long, and his generosity and patience invited her to open up.
“I’m not really sure what I’m doing here,” she confessed. “I feel like I’m just getting in the way, y’know? You’re all working hard on what I’m certain will be a brilliant film, and what am I here for?”
“You’re on holiday,” he declared with what he hoped was an assuring smile.
“A holiday from what? What do I even do?” She felt the agitation rising in her voice. “It’s like I just exist day in and day out with no purpose or point. No goals and no…”
Michael’s stare was intense and he waited for her to continue.
“…future.” Her voice dropped to almost a whisper when she noticed she’d drawn his undivided attention. A quiet Michael was a rare thing, and the silence stilled the air between them.
“So, I thought... maybe a… a book might help,” she attempted, but Michael was already smoothing down the bedspread, offering a space beside him which she gratefully filled.
“Is this what it’s like being famous?” she asked heavily, taking a seat. “Always surrounded by extremely talented, important people, and constantly comparing your own worth and accomplishments?”
“I suppose it is, yes. Sometimes.” Michael was usually very good at telling the truth in a palatable way.
Nevertheless, this acknowledgement only supported her anxiety. Her face fell and she closed her eyes, sensing exhaustion was on its way. She silently prayed for one of Michael’s rambling speeches, and he intuitively delivered.
“But it doesn’t have to be,” he began. “None of this comes with the expectation that you’ve earned your right to enjoy things. You don’t need to have won a Nobel Prize or sold a million records to deserve fine cutlery. But when you’re well-known, everybody wants to know you and bring you lovely things, whether or not you think you deserve them. When that happens, I think what helps is to recognize what’s there for you, and appreciate that there are all these things you can access if you’d like to. What’s important to remember is that you have options, and lots of good ones, too.
“And as far as goals and a future, well… I can’t tell you that. All I can tell you is that you’re already building a future just by living. And learning, and asking questions, and thinking, and wondering, and loving, and caring.”
Y/N had stayed quiet. The past few weeks of indulgence, creativity, and celebrity drama had left her feeling in a way excluded, and far away from herself. It wasn’t something she found she could explain to Eric without seeming ungrateful.
Michael continued:
“So right now, you’re on holiday somewhere you’ve never been, and learning how the other half lives. And what am I doing? Well at the moment I’m enjoying a few weeks on a beautiful island, with marvelous weather, with my wonderful friends. Together, we’re finishing up a script for a film which, if all goes well, we’ll be making later this year. That’s my job, and it keeps me working, but I’ve got the rest of my hours and days, too, and that’s when I’m living. That’s when life happens, you see, in the in-between time.
Y/N had secured a point of focus on the floor, and found it fitting that Michael’s was one of the few rooms in the building with wooden floorboards instead of the palatial stone. In this room she could be almost anywhere in the world, and at this moment she was happy to be somewhere closer to home.
“There’s no rush,” Michael added, noting her half-daze. “Life is short, but... there’s so much of it. You can stop and start and chop and change as many times as you like. It’s all life,” he slowed his pace, carefully observing her softened expression, “and it’s all yours.”
Y/N leaned back onto her elbows and contemplated her bare knees.
“I don’t think I’ve heard that one before,” she mused. “Hm. I’ve got a lot of time to fill, haven’t I?”
Michael gave a warm hum of agreement and joined her sideways, propping his head on an elbow, attentive as ever.
“And what are you going to fill it with first?” he asked.
This prospect was suddenly overwhelming, and it showed in her eyes. She took a breath and decided to choose levity for a change.
“I could work on this tan, I guess,” she playfully suggested, kicking a leg up and indicating her knees, “What do you think?”
“Very nice,” he approved. In fact, he had long admired her knees, and was grateful to the January Barbados weather for getting them out of trousers and wool tights. The previous summer at many a pub garden evening, he’d envied Eric’s long fingers resting atop Y/N’s knees, giving an occasional squeeze, and more than once catching sight of a slow glide up a thigh, disappearing under a skirt hem.
“Looks like you’re off to a good start there,” he said, allowing himself an extra-long, fully permissible eyeing up of her legs.
“And you?” she asked, “What’s next in the in-between time?”
“Well, I thought I might see what life by the ocean is like. I don’t see it very often. They’ve got waterskiing down at the bay - I might give that a go. I doubt I’ll be any good, but at least then I can say I’ve done it. Obviously a very valuable skill in London. I can see it: there I am, shooting across the lakes of Hampstead Heath. Or better still, an aquatic commute! I could start off from Blackfriars in the morning, and be in Molesey by tea-time, how’s that?”
Y/N laughed, tired from the day but grateful for Michael’s silliness. She liked this. Why couldn’t Mike be around more often? Or could she have a mini-Mike to keep in her purse and take out for impromptu pep-talks and compliments, please?
“I wonder,” he said carefully when her laughter died down. “Rather than in the way, do you think perhaps you might be feeling a bit overlooked?”
This caught her off guard. Overlooked? She never felt ignored or unappreciated. On the contrary, Eric’s attention and gestures of love came in spades. But what was it for? What really did she have to offer? She hardly expected to stand out next to her accomplished and celebrated partner and his career, nor did she wish to dull his accomplishments or stifle him. Stability would be very nice, but so too would making a name for herself be. So what did she want – life or recognition?
“Maybe,” she finally said in a small voice, too tired now to analyze any further.
How fragile she now seemed to Michael. She had opened her heart to him, and the sense of duty and the care with which he held it felt so natural. He wished he could hold it for a little longer.
Stroking kind fingers down her forearm, he took her hand, willing her out of her trance. With a closed-eyed focus on her hand, he drew her knuckles to his lips.
“So I’ve got options,” Y/N re-stated.
“Mhmm,” sounded Michael, whose lips were still appreciating her fingers.
“And I’m building a life every day,” she continued.
"Every day,” he repeated, his thumb now taking over addressing her knuckles.
“And mine is no less important than anyone else’s?”
She knew the answer, but the question brought their eyes to meet, and he held her gaze with tenderness.
“I think anyone who meets you feels lucky that they did. I know I do.”
Y/N felt whatever was left of her distress dissolve with a heavy breath. She had been heard, and she knew with certainty that her cares were safe with him.
Slowly, she wrapped her arms around his torso, and he enveloped her shoulders with a tight grip. His voice was low in her ear:
“You know, if it was a book you were after, I rather thought you’d have asked Terry.”
Y/N wasn’t going to bother mustering the energy to protest or to come up with a nonsense reason why she’d chosen to see Michael. She was here now, and she was perfectly content with it.
“I’m very glad you didn’t,” he confessed, and having exhausted all words, he began a slow exploration of her neck, starting with nuzzling the delicate space beneath her ear. Sensing no resistance, and hearing her approving sigh, he continued down to her shoulder, leaving soft, open-mouthed kisses as he went.
He was kind and patient and open, Y/N remembered as she felt herself giving over to the moment’s tenderness, her curiosity duelling with her fatigue.
With restrained eagerness, he moved along the underside of her jaw before,
“Stop stop,” she hushed.
She was fighting with her enjoyment, but this was not a good time to discover feelings. All she wanted now was comfort and sleep. She looked at her kindred Michael half-apologetically, and he shifted aside, making a space for her to lie down and sleep. He reached over to switch off the bedside lamp, and gently pulled the sheet up to cover their spooning bodies.
Out on the patio under the moonlight, Eric lay on a lounge chair, gazing into the sky and contemplating several things: Ricky and Penelope’s marriage, Mick and Jerry’s affair, and the concept of unfaithfulness. And the very nature of frivolity, and luxury, and everything he learned from the swinging sixties of liberation and self-indulgence. And, unexpectedly, Michael.
He wriggled in his spot, unable to relax. I need to write this, he thought. He worked most things out through writing, and now he would turn to his typewriter, get his musings out on paper, and try to make some sort of sense of his brain soup.
17 notes · View notes
willowistic22 · 4 years ago
Text
Band!Newsies Headcanons
An au i’ve been creating in my head after getting back to my one direction phase (i’m beginning to think it’s more of a lifestyle at this point akjsfhjkalsfh) 
Anyways : modern band newsies  Most of our beloved newsies works in the music industry (in a band or just works as the behind the scenes like being the manager or music producer) Some newsies aren’t mentioned here and that’s bcs in this au they don’t have anything to do in band stuff but they still exist and everyone is still friends. Pls differentiate this au with my previous famous!newsies au bcs it’s different (just read it and you’ll understand what i mean lol) also this is a pretty long (not as long as my other headcanon list but still long) and clunky list so uhh grab some popcorn for this one akjlhflkjahf
Anyways onto the au!! 
(also don’t come at me if i got some stuff wrong when it comes to the music knowledge, it’s not my strong suit kajfhkjasfh)
So we have albert, race, specs, mike, and ike in one pop rock band together (think one direction and five seconds of summer yknow) 
Race on the drums. I feel like he’s good at keeping up with a beat 
Albert on the guitar (acoustic tho) 
Specs on the guitar (electric) idk man i see specs as this really cool dude and all so i think this fits perfectly 
Mike on the guitar (electric) this child is chaotic what did you expect? 
Ike on the bass guitar 
I’ve mostly been basing their songs with one direction songs akjsfhakjfksafafg
So if you wanna imagine their music just play a one direction song 
But make it gay???? I wouldn’t know how to interpret that akjhfjkafk but if that’s the case then:
‘Everybody wants to steal my boyyyy’ afjadhfkjalsfhjlkahf yeah race wrote that song 
Concerts are usually huge and energetic but sometimes they perform in small venues 
Blink as their honorary sixth member since he’s their go to music producer 
No one wanted to volunteer to be their manager bcs they are chaotic and then Denton came along like lmao what up bros 
Their band is still nameless in my head yall are gonna have to help me out on that 
Moving on to the next band : we have Finch, Romeo, Crutchie, Jojo, and Elmer in one alt rock band (think the wallows, COIN, and PUBLIC) 
Well maybe a bit of indie pop 
Finch on the guitar (acoustic/electric he switches depending on the song) 
Crutchie on the bass guitar 
Romeo on the drums 
Elmer on the piano/keyboards 
Jojo on the guitar (acoustic/electric) i think this is a pretty in character 
I sorta based their songs with the wallows and COIN songs and maybe a little bit of B��rns and Cona Gray (yeah idk how that would work but it works in my head at least stfu) 
They’re a pretty chill band 
Their fame is mostly lowkey unless when it comes to some of their very famous singles 
Their concerts are mostly small and simple so it’s mostly chill but the energy radiating their concert is euphoric(??? Idk if that’s the word i’m looking for but something like that at least) 
They are literally the definition of alt kids akjsdfhjkasfhkja 
They nominated Hannah to be their manager hehehehe 
Their band is still nameless too fuck- 
The next band : we have Sarah, Sniper, and Smalls in one pop girl group (think little mix and a little bit of ariana grande)
They’re all singers but Smalls will sometimes play the guitar (acoustic/electric) 
Anyways their genre is technically a pop-dance and pop yknow 
So i based their songs after little mix songs 
The iconic scene of watching the trio performing woman like me or touch with killer choreography gives me serotonin yall don’t understand- 
Also them singing secret love song???? Amazing (give it a listen if yall haven’t. Very emotional, especially the secret love song pt.2) 
Their concerts are big. Stadiums with smoke and flashy screens. Dozens of backup dancers and an ass load of confetti 
Their concert kinda radiates taylor swift’s reputation stadium tour energy omg 
But mostly little mix concerts ofc bcs i based their vibe off of little mix 
Ok but for some reason i’m thinking that Tommy Boy as their go to music producer??? Idk lol 
Omg and Mush as their manager! 
Yall really think i have named this band? Nope lol 
Last band i’ve created : Spot and Hotshot in a rock band together 
Yeah this is sort of the brooklyn newsies band but i don’t have enough info on the other broksies so uhh it’s just the dynamic brooklyn duo together hehe 
But hey the dynamic duo works just fine as a band together in my head so here take it or leave it
They both play the guitar bcs why tf not (electric btw) 
So uhh think All Time Low but make it Spot and Hotshot ajdhfljakhf
Concerts are big and energetic (but the brooklyn newsies kind of energy if you know what i mean) 
Davey is their manager bcs he’s the only one with braincells ajhfajhf 
Name for a band?? Lmao idk her? (okay all the bands are nameless so what?) 
Yeah that’s basically it for this band lol
31 notes · View notes
gayregis · 5 years ago
Text
blood and wine rewrite au basic layout
i already posted something like this before but i cant find the post so im just rewriting all of this from the top of my head
everyone’s repurposed roles:
geralt - he’s still a witcher. he’s geralt of rivia. obviously. i don’t have time or interest to think about how to rewrite the entire witcher 3 game to be lore-friendly, but i assume there would be less triss and more dandelion involved in it. for this let’s just take him as geralt having done everything in tw3 but with the personality of geralt from the books because geralt from the games doesn’t have much of a strong personality good for writing or thinking about.
regis - a bitch. nah jk. he’s same regis but just what he was like 100 years ago when he got his head cut off. he’s less spiralling-into-doom than he was then, and is less desperate and hopeless overall, but is slowly getting there once again. he doesn’t remember anything about learning from his mistakes and becoming a good person, because this regis didn’t get any of that. to this regis, it’s like no time has passed at all since he died, and he’s ready to start partying again without any thought of the consequences. he’s moved to toussaint because everyone’s already tipsy there and the north is plagued by war so it’s not a really great source to be drinking from (like if there was a sewage leak near the vineyard you sourced your wine from). he doesn’t remember anything about maturing up or about becoming a surgeon or about the hansa, so that sucks.
dettlaff - not a fucking maniac. actually a character geralt will likely spend a good amount of time talking to. total character overhaul because he does not have a personality in the actual DLC. he arrived in toussaint because he had heard that regis had returned and wanted to fix things wih him, he had previously left him.
syanna - not a fucking dumbass, yet still naive in her own way due to being blinded with the promise of power. in this, she is planning to stage a coup on the duchy (because she is the older sister, so it IS her right by law) and she supports regis’ slow dive again into uncontrollable insanity because it helps her prop up rumors that her sister’s reign is ineffective against real threats and is cursed. but this alliance does not go as she planned...
orianna -  in this, she is the owner of a gladiatorial school (instead of an orphanage), and is still like in canon a wealthy and influential individual of beauclair, yet reclusive from human society. she is regis’ best friend and goads him on, because she never fixed her own issues with alcoholism and now is elated to have him back and forgetting that they had disagreements which drove them apart in the first place. they’re best friends (NO romance) and it’s just good to see how insanely different orianna and geralt are because they’ve both been regis’ close friends at different points in time.
the purpose of this:
fix regis’ relationships with the vampires. he slowly drove all of his good friends away by going off the deep end and many are likely wondering whatever happened to him. but books regis would never consider partying like that again, so we bring the party regis back and then slowly de-escalate him into normal books regis again, and we finally get closure with him and his old friends.
cool dramatic stereotypical vampire shit. i’m talking about a final battle or conversation in a giant dark castle with large open windows and billowing drapery.
regis’s hairstyle
give syanna actual agency as a character and give her motivations that extend beyond pure revenge (although they are related to revenge) and make her more unique so she is not just a ripoff of renfri. 
demonstrate anna henrietta and geralt’s relationship as it was in the books. he was genuinely intimidated by her and i interpret him as being jealous of her relationship with dandelion, so he in practice was quite withdrawn around her as she was her overemotional and embellished self
give dettlaff an actual character, holy shit. i hate how sorely underdeveloped he is in the game. i understand why because it’s not meant to be writing, it’s meant to be a video game, but come on. i hate having the vampire with the cool character design be the ultimate villain of the whole narrative. in this, he’s someone geralt can talk to and sees himself in. he’s emotionally mature and doesn’t mix with the other vampires. since we already know what regis is like, we don’t have to sit through dettlaff making excuses for him and trying to describe what his character is like. we also get a better view of regis’ past through dettlaff’s lense. 
give orianna an actual character, holy shit. i hate how they didn’t even try with her and just used her as a “surprise, she is quite evil!” gimmick. have her actually have a larder for blood that is lore-friendly yet still jumps out at the audience as morally wrong.  give her more personality and development.
examine regis’ backstory without actually getting into every single year of those 4 centuries. we can examine how it started good, turned bad, went worse... there’s a lot of loss involved and i think this would be nice to process it.
roughly what happens (under cut because if i ever do write this fic out, this is spoilers, literally the synopsis of the whole thing):
anna henrietta sends envoys to geralt. they establish that the duchess has no conflict with geralt and that her conflict was with dandelion, only. she has requested his help because he effectively dealt with many monsters while he was in beauclair and established a trustworthy reputation (also, he’s famous, and toussaintoirs are superficial). instead of the beast of beauclair killing particular victims, it’s the countryside which has been plagued by vicious attacks of the devil knows what.
geralt arrives and examines the scenes of the attacks. the sincere majority of the victims are alive, so he speaks to them. they remember nothing, but woke up with their village fucking absolutely trashed and with vomit everywhere. they all have wounds on their necks. geralt thinks he knows what’s up, but is reluctant to deal with it because of his memories of regis, who he misses
damien de la tour is assigned to geralt as a sort of backup. they argue and geralt manages to get him to stay put in beauclair while he rides to a village they believe will be attacked next. it’s not even a full moon so the vampires don’t even come out in their bat form (disappointing) but instead just mesmerize their way in in humanoid form. dettlaff sneaks up on geralt who is (ahem) staking out the situation, and is like hey dont kill regis hes not evil hes just misguided!! and geralt is like REGIS? EMIEL REGIS? THTS WHO’S LEADING THEM? i ..... i know him.... and dettlaff’s like what the fuck how... then they get caught and regis is like oh hey dettlaff who’s this guy and geralt feels very left out :( and also sad bc regis doesnt remember shit and geralt even lists the hansa members by name and regis is still like O_O ok yeah im just going to hypnotize you to get lost ok goodbye! but dettlaff prevents him from doing this and they both get thrown out of the party.
after the party geralt is a mess and is like wtf so hes back and what... how... huh... and dettlaff doesnt know how he returned or why he returned either but they compare geralt’s knowledge of how regis died with dettlaff’s knowledge of how regeneration works and they figure out that regis just regenerated from his past body and that’s why he doesn’t have any of his memories from when he turned good.
then they eavesdrop a little more and find out that syanna has been talking to regis and making deals with him (its... not really like she thinks, regis really hasnt been doing anything he doesnt want to. shes just like “hey can you attack this village here” and regis is like yeah i was gonna host a party there tomorrow night ...) so they are like who the fuck is this woman and track her down to her base of operations, and then they find out that THEY got followed by damien de la tour, who identifies her as sylvia anna. geralt is a little miffed on behalf of dandelion that damien seems to be so close to anna henrietta but i digress.
geralt reports his findings to the duchess but does NOT mention regis because the duchess knows who regis is. then we get the same vampire talk from canon b&w where the duchess and damien are sorely misinformed on every single thing ever.
geralt is defeated and has no idea on how to fix this and hes looking hard into a mirror by candlelight and then decides to go to bed so he turns around and regis is right behind him like hey. cue ‘holy shit what the fuck’ moment and freaking out. regis explains himself and says that he doesnt remember him but the fact that he gave so many specifics weirded him out and he kind of wants to know more out of curiosity. also he wants to talk to dettlaff but feels too bad about how he argued with him like 3 centuries ago that he cant just ask him directly.
so they talk and geralt is all :(( and regis is like ok well. i kinda want to get these memories back because they sound pretty significant and also im pretty miserable. but also im not going to stop partying bc its the only thing that makes me feel alive rn. so long!
geralt and dettlaff talk to orianna and she dislikes them both but still talks to them and then regis materializes and also begins bothering them and its quite civil but this scene just serves to demonstrate how annoying they are as friends lol
there’s scenes where you can either save damien / syanna from being unalived by the vampires’ / regis’ hand, only if you let syanna die will the duchess be mad and accuse you of being heartless like dandelion is and then geralt and the duchess actually get into an argument bc of that comment but geralt ofc loses bc hes scared of her lol
no matter what you get regis his memories back but your decisions to either continue helping him or not is what makes him change or not. even after he gets his memories back (or because he gets his memories back?) he decides to raze beauclair bc hes just so fucking miserable and geralt has to talk him down, if you are harsh and not understanding and shame him etc then he doesnt change, if you condemn his actions but still offer your support then he does.
if you offer your support > geralt talks about the hansa like For Ever and regis then adds in everything and yay regis is back to normal. theres like a wholesome montage of geralt being like “just TRY to sew up a wound i promise you you will be good at it” and regis does and hes splendid at it. regis and dettlaff finally make up and are bros once again. we help orianna with her issues and she realizes stuff but is still going to have a drink once in a while. if syanna is alive she doesnt hate on any of this but just decides to make up with the duchess and then become captain of the guard (damien gets fired for being a dumbass).
if you do not offer your support > regis goes to cry in a delapidated creepy old castle and you have an epic fight (geralt is backed up by dettlaff) and he turns into a bat and geralt almost dies, they manage to decapitate regis again and put him in the ground and set a timer for 50 years
if you redeem regis then there’s an ending scene where the duchess is like “oh regis i didnt know you were in town” and hes just like <:) ahaha... yeah...
cue crying about milva/cahir/angouleme For Ever. maybe link this with the fic where geralt and regis bring them all back as ghosts/real ppl and then they have to deal with those consequences
26 notes · View notes
sasskarian · 4 years ago
Note
I know you're not exactly a DA blog anymore... But... I just finished DA2 for the very first time and, and. I got myself Inquisition with all DLCs. I need to know what happens. I want the poor baby Cullen to be happy :(
Nonnie, I am still at my heart very much a DA blog (and Mass Effect; I just tend to smear new obsessions everywhere. Like finger painting). I curate my experience as much as I can due to the fandom being shit, but my love for DA is strong and steady. 
The best thing I can say is, play through the game and DLCs. (Tho suggested order is Jaws > Descent > Trespasser) I promise you, Cullen has the option of being happy. I wouldn’t write about it if I didn’t see those paths, and at least some of them are canon. 
I know what you mean, tho. Cullen is, to some of my friends’ dismay, near and dear to my heart. He’s my canon quiz’s romance, for many reasons. The truth is, I struggle with the fandoms’ interpretations of him and was just talking about this with my DA/FO/ME bestie @asaara-writes the other day. I think a lot of Cullen’s trauma is easily missed or overlooked in favor of louder plots (like Fenris’s, who doesn’t get hated on nearly so much for his hatred and distrust of mages, or Anders who hates Templars and is lauded for it. If I see another ANDERS WAS RIGHT banner, I’m gonna overclock somebody’s capacitors)
(Pardon me, I’ll throw this under a cut because wall of text, but I have some got-damn Opinions on Cullen and how the fandom treats him)
But for me, I’m neither in the “Cullen is poor bab who never did anything wrong uwu” or the “Cullen is a horrible bastard and should be set afire” camp. I walk a more moderate line, and here’s why:
I have a Cullen. 
My fiance, he’s... so much like Cullen that it breaks my heart. Military vet, disillusioned with his desire to do good in the world and the realities of corruption and power abuse. Substance abuse issues, and recovery from addiction. Said some bad things/had bad opinions when he was younger due to abuse by certain groups of people, and has since reformed and is trying to continue changing. Abuse survivor. Blood on his hands from his career. Trying his best to find his way in a world that he doesn’t understand. So I see the similarities, and I live with the reality of what that kind of history and life is like. 
Cullen was a fresh-faced 18 year old in the Kinloch Circle (however old his in-game image looks, he was canon 18-20). Which, by canon, was one of the less problematic, more lenient Circles (though you have to have Mage origin to find that stuff out). I don’t think he’d been a Templar long at that point. And he joined the Templars out of a desire to do good in the world. His examples of Templar behavior were those stationed in a small village, who had more leniency and less lawkeeping duties. Honnleath was tiny, and quiet. I’m going on assumption here, on my own history of small towns vs larger cities, that there wasn’t much evidence of power hunger and abuse an eight year old would notice.
Note that he remains kind and even remorseful at some of his duties (for instance, having to attend Harrowings) even under a hateful man like Greagoir.
When Uldred takes over the Circle and kills everyone, Cullen is the last left. He watches possessed mages and demons run wild in his home, killing and torturing his friends. If you’re a mage origin, he talks about how the demons used his feelings and affection for you, inappropriate though they were, to torment him. It’s implied through dialogue that at least some of those demons sexually abused him. 
Yes, in his panic and fresh trauma, he begs the Warden to kill any mages found left in the Circle. I wonder why. Tumblr at large acts like the only way for PTSD and trauma to be exhibited is through cowering and nightmares, but it’s well known among people who have PTSD (including myself) that outrage, hair trigger tempers, and anger issues are as common as crying jags and insomnia. 
After the resolution of Broken Circle, Cullen is reassigned to Kirkwall. Arguably, this is the worst possible Circle he could have been sent to in the entirety of the goddamn world. Not only is Kirkwall famous for increased blood mage activity (both due to history and also due to Templar behavior), which is one of his trauma-groups, but Meredith hates mages, and rules over them with an iron fist. She is fucking crazy, and whether her past makes her a sympathetic villain or not (ymmv), she downright encouraged the abuse of mages and as she loses her mind, we see her start accusing everyone of blood magic. 
Canon states that there are Templars in Kirkwall who sexually abuse mages, who torture them, and who kill them at will, and these are never dealt with. Meredith has no desire to change the way the Gallows is run, and it’s said or implied that before her reign as the overseer, the Gallows-- while still not great-- was not this bad. 
So, freshly traumatized and young Templar is sent to the worst possible place in Thedas, under the command of a crazed mage hater, surrounded by the very thing that will trigger him nigh constantly. I see a lot of the fandom say “well why didn’t he quit/leave?” And I wonder if those fans understand what indoctrination can do. Specifically, military indoctrination. You’re told that the ranks are your home, your family, the only ones who can or will ever understand you. You’re told this for so long that it becomes a life raft. It becomes your world truth. That’s the nature of emotional abuse that fosters codependency: it literally reshapes your world. 
Added to that, Templars are controlled by the Chantry through lyrium, an addictive drug that quitting is difficult and surviving the withdrawal of is often fatal. (that’s another rant entirely that can be summed up as tl;dr fuck the fucking Chantry)
The Templars were the only thing he knew. After that kind of soul-shaking trauma, do you leave behind everything you ever knew? (Remember, he was 13 when he joined into this kind of brainwashing.) No. You cleave to what you can, to what keeps you getting through the day. 
Cullen spent a further ten years in Kirkwall, watching the city fall apart under Qunari, blood magic, and Meredith’s increasing insanity. There was no reprieve for his PTSD: everywhere he turned, there was Something. And yet, we hear in Inquisition (depending on player choices, ofc) Samson say that Cullen tried to continue to be kind. He didn’t abuse mages, he tried to protect them where and how he could. 
[Samson: He arrived after the trouble at the ferelden circle. Cullen jumped at his shadow in those days, always on the watch for abominations and demons. Did right by the mages, though, never played rough with them. Not like Meredith.]
Was it limited? Yes. Was it hampered by circumstance? Yes. Should he have tried harder? Yes. 
But he still tried. 
Does he say regrettable things? Yes. Does he regret those things later? Yes. 
I had a friend, who I am no longer friends with for various reasons, tell me that “If Cullen was a good person, he wouldn’t need a redemption arc.” And... no, No, that’s not how redemption arcs work. Everyone does problematic things. Everyone who grows up brainwashed has to unlearn shit, and atone for shit. 
Cullen still struggles with mages. He still has a deep fear of them. Partly this is the Templar in him talking, partly this is trauma. And, here’s where we break from canon and go deep into psychology land: I think partly because he’s projecting. Cullen cannot imagine forgiveness for what he’s done. I wonder if part of him fears mages because he expects-- perhaps even some part of him desires-- retribution from them for his actions and past. 
And there’s things that have been retconned or that were misleading in previous games. For example, the rumor that Cullen escaped after Broken Circle and went on a mage murdering spree. That was nothing but a rumor, but the fandom levies it against him as if it happened.
But if Cullen “hated” mages, you wouldn’t be able to romance him as a mage. And honestly, that mage romance in DAI? Is one of the sweetest, most tender things I’ve seen in DA. As a mage, you can choose to help him past his fears, help him with his lyrium addiction. Help him grow as a person, and watch as he becomes a better person. As he learns that mages are more than their magic, and that Templars are so often wrong and awful in their treatment of them. 
I find Cullen to be well written. And believable as hell. The portrayal of him-- from the mood swings, to the trauma, to the shaky but steadying growth-- feels real, and I can back that up with my fiance’s own similar path. 
So. To wrap up because hoooooo, Opinions, play through the game. There’s a lot of gems there. <3 
13 notes · View notes
jira-chii · 6 years ago
Text
AF Alice Rank
Tumblr media
In the AF Alice rank, Sakura (who plays Alice) tries to revive her theatre group using a magic key.
This post also includes an unnecessarily long analysis of the theatre group series in general.
Shichirin (I really hope I am pronouncing this right), was a famous theatre group, renowned for doing plays of popular fairy tales, whose members all turned into tamashii when Lost happened. Sakura seeks out Chihiro, hoping she will lend her an artefact (AF) that will help her find the missing members.
As it so happens, the Magic Key was recently completed. This powerful AF has the ability to transport its user anywhere they can visualise, by bending the space around them and creating a “door” which is basically a teleportation portal. However it requires a tremendous amount of willpower to control, and, as a tamashii has never used an AF until now, Chihiro has justifiable concerns.
But a Magic Key sounds perfect for a girl who plays Alice, and Sakura assures her she will be able to control it.
Ofc she doesn't, as Takuya and Yuki find out when they are asked to investigate a tamashii that has gone berserk.
Throughout the quest, we see various flashbacks of Alice with the rest of Shichirin, emphasizing how much she loves being in the group, and everyone in it. First, Kanzou (who plays Captain Hook), remarks that she will probably be good enough to replace him as the face of the theatre group soon. Then, Sakura stays back after normal hours to practise more after receiving some advice she got from Kuroe (who plays Tinkerbell). Her enthusiasm cause the other members to also stay back: Yoshiki (Playing Card) and Chizu (Queen of Hearts).
It's very obvious Alice loves the group and that's why she wants to revive them. But just the act of wanting isn't enough. As Chihiro explains when she catches up to us, Sakura’s image of where she wants to go is not strong enough; to make the key obey, Sakura needs to think about not just the act of reviving the group, but also what she wants to do afterward (seems very similar to the predicament of another character in main story). Essentially, the key needs her to have a clear vision of the future in order to behave.
Chihiro also informs us Sakura was close to another actress named Kaede, and apparently they made a promise just before Lost happened. It’s likely to be a clue to making the key behave, but it looks like Sakura has forgotten about the promise after the shock of turning into a tamashii.
We actually did see Kaede in one of the flashbacks. Kanzou didn't want Sakura practising when she should have been taking a break like the others, but he also wanted to acknowledge the work she was putting into her role. So he gives her tickets to see a different production of Alice in Wonderland, by a theatre group called Futaba.
Kaede is the actress of this other Alice. She sees Sakura practising late at night and decides to join her. Sakura praises her for her performance, but Kaede has doubts about her acting, something Sakura can relate to. They decide to practice together.
One day Kaede asks Sakura what she would do if her group hypothetically dissolves. Unlike Shichirin, Futaba is a small theatre group and so such a possibility is always looming over them. After some thinking, Alice replies with “I’ll revive them”, and Kaede agrees she would have given a similar answer. To both Alices, their theatre groups are like family: warm, fun and full of the people they love.
Tumblr media
Kaede remarks that every time Sakura talks about Shichirin her eyes light up.
Kaede then says she’d like to see Sakura’s ultimate performance of Alice some day. Sakura makes a promise then and there that she will show Kaede her best Alice performance, as well as her beloved theatre family.
Sakura remembers the promise after some prompting from Yuki.
Tumblr media
"That’s right, I made a promise! I can’t stop here!"
Tumblr media
She gets the key to work, and awakens it by using it on us. Then she heads off to revive Shichirin.
Tumblr media
"After I revive Shichirin, you guys should come watch our performance too!"
In the epilogue Chihiro apologises to Kirihiko. She had no idea the key would go crazy like that, although Kirihiko says Sakura’s will was actually quite powerful and she was able to contain the chaos very well.
Also, we get a hint that Kirihiko might know something more about the Shichirin tamashii?
Tumblr media
"So, it’s the Shichirin theatre group. As expected of a member of the workshop I scouted out myself, you’ve selected a great tamashii."
Much Thinking about Nothing
On the topic of this quest, I’d like to take this chance to talk a bit (sorry I actually mean, a lot) about the theatre group in general, which is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while now. Because I feel these series of quests subtly shows just how clever the writers of this game are.
The theatre group Shichirin, comprised of a bunch of actors and actresses in costume, is one of the more distinguishable set of characters in Shoumetsu Toshi. They were a famous group, reknowned for their engaging plays. But they were bought out by the circus group Anglermain (sorry if I spelt that wrong)  and were involved in Lost shortly after that.
Prior to this rank, the only way you would know anything about them is through their advents (a rotating set of quests that are available to almost all players. There are two types: ones that give evolution materials, and ones that give you the tamashii. Shichirin advents are the latter).
Overall the main gist of the series is: Yuki and Takuya are investigating the theatre members to figure out what their last performance was going to be on before Lost. Was it Peter Pan? Or was it Alice in Wonderland? (who really cares tbh. Also they never find out.)
The Shichirin advents have a unique structure:
Sakura has a weird conversation with one of the NPC characters (like Geek or Researcher). She is actually just reciting her lines as Alice but they think she is actually talking to them for real.
Gameplay bit. Takuya and Yuki search for one of the members of Shichirin, and then fight them.
After defeating them, we see a flashback of them talking to Sakura off-stage. It hints at internal politics but as it’s “adult’s business” they tend to leave Sakura out of it.
I’m gonna give my thoughts on each of these, and then relate what we know back to the ranking.
1. Sakura’s convos as Alice are meta af
As mentioned, Shichirin advents begin with NPCs like Geek and Headhunter mistaking Sakura reciting her lines as Alice for actual conversation. The surreal miscommunication can insult, intrigue, confuse and bring new perspectives to them, highlighting the bizarre meta nature of storytelling, dialogue and words in general. Are Alice’s lines just gibberish? Or do they contain a more profound hidden meaning?
The interaction is multilayered, and can be viewed in many ways. First is the interaction between a “child” and an “adult”. For example, Scientist/Eiji dismisses her as a child for who a great scientist like him has no time for. But then she poses the question (or rather, recites her line): How is a dog and table similar? Scientist has something like an epiphany: “Wow I had never considered a perspective like that.” Then ironically when Sakura leaves he wants to chase after her to spend more time probing deeper into her mind.
The other example I like is Headhunter interpreting her words as accusing him of being greedy, which is really more a reflection about how he thinks of himself than anything else. Here we see a parallel between the “innocent” child who knows nothing of the real world, and the jaded adult who knows he is flawed, but also knows there is nothing he can do about it. In fact, Sakura’s innocence is also a key theme in the story of the theatre group, but I’ll come back to that.
Sakura is just an actress, so her lines actually don’t mean anything. But to her audience, they can get many different interpretations depending on their own personal context. It’s very similar to the nature of theatre and storytelling in general. Anyway, it’s all incredibly meta which is why I love it so much (for those who care, my favourite Shakespeare play is Hamlet for the same reason).
The other little thing I appreciate about this beginning section of each of quest is how Sakura’s lines suggest a nickname for everyone. E.g. Geek is Humpty Dumpty and Researcher/Yumiko is Caterpillar (for which she takes huuuge offense). There is probably a deeper meaning to these too, but again, different people will have different interpretations. That’s just the beauty of theatre.
Speaking of different nicknames, let’s talk about the actual tamashii themselves.
2. Every cast member has two names
Shichirin tamashii take on the name of their role (e.g. Tinkerbell, Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook. This also applies to Sakura/Alice, who isn’t even an advent tamashii). The first time we meet them in the advents, they are in costume and behaving just like the character they are acting as. It really is just like interacting with the actual character from the fairytale. It is also a good indication of how passionate they are toward acting, to have their tamashii show forms like that.
So it feels like a very abrupt change when, in the flashbacks at the end of the quest, we see them using their real names (which, until now, we've never seen used anywhere else). Sometimes their personality completely changes too (just like real actors). Thus, there is a clear distinction between what happens “on-stage”, and “off-stage”.
This ranking quest capitalises on that by almost exclusively using everyone’s real names. And this really highlights that these are actual people with authentic interactions. Maybe it is because they behave so differently from when they are on-stage, that their relationships seem so genuine. It gives the feeling of watching a “behind-the-scenes” of a movie or something. And by only seeing things through Sakura’s viewpoint, we get the sense that this is a very close-knit family, without even seeing any of their faces.
3. Something foul is at play within Shichirin
Sakura’s feelings for her fellow cast members, her family, are definitely genuine. However there is a lot she doesn’t know about the happenings off-stage, hinted at in the advents. The overly positive way she announces she will “revive Shichirin” at the end of the ranking also does not bode well.
In the advents, Sakura is treated like an innocent child who knows nothing about the true world of adults. Which I guess by proxy means we don’t really know what’s going on either. There’s something about “taking sides” (Alice in Wonderland vs Peter Pan?), the possible dissolution of the group, and, by far the most interesting, the eventual sale of the group to the circus group (and front for the organisation) Anglermain.
Kirihiko’s words at the end of rank seem to be foreshadowing that we may learn more about Shichirin in the future.
Lastly, can I just say I’m really glad they finally explained Kaede, because having two tamashii called Alice had me confused for so long.
5 notes · View notes
kxlance · 7 years ago
Text
here are my thoughts on the bullshit under the cut cuz it's gonna get long probs i assure you it’s a reassuring post:
ok so the interview itself wasn't bad to me honestly. jeremy did not deny the bi!lance hint, which was the most important thing to know. the fact that he said "that much i can say" implies that there's something left to know that he can't say because nda.
i'm gonna list a positive thing and a negative thing here: the negative one is that on one hand, it pisses me off that lgbt characters are treated as such a big spoilery deal when it should just....feel so natural to have them in a show. also thinking back that dreamworks tagged certain videos as klance just for views...well it's kind of a coward move if they don't at least end the show with lgbt rep. on the other, i really don't see the point with going all "no comment" about it if it weren't to happen?? that would be very assholey, and i know that the writers are not to be trusted, but the mere fact that they lie so much over things than then ended up being canon (e.g: galra keith, paladin allura, pidge being a girl etc) can't help but make me think they are pretty much hiding the endgame couple on purpose. you could argue they could be hinting at allurance which i'm not excluding bc some of the things could be honestly interpreted that way and also they never mention them ever as a couple except i remember like kimberly saying that allura isn't interested in lance (but she could be lying obviously) and jeremy here stating that lance has still a crush on her which is pretty evident and there's nothing new. (we also learned, according to him, that lance basically can dish it out but he can't take it which frankly...i can see pretty well as canon)
on that spectrum, pls note that this happening (or lance ending up with a girl for the matter) doesn't absolutely excludes bi!lance like at all. he can still be confirmed as bi and end up with a girl and that itself would still be very important! one thing doesn't exclude the other honestly so i say very confidently that lance being bi will be confirmed. like 100% convinced that it will. (do not forget lauren's drawing where lance is holding the lgbt sign, there's a specific reason he's the one holding that)
also does anybody think that....this stress over lance liking ladies and stuff is kinda....suspicious?? like jeremy himself was used to say "lol he flirts with anybody on two legs ahha" and now today all of a sudden he's putting a lot of stress on the ""woman"" part. which kind of threw me off? i might be reaching obviously, but mmm you know? and all of this comes after joaquim said "what he's looking for is getting to a place that might be different than when he started in the series" and “what he wants might not be what he needs” and if math isn't an opinion, he started the series always wanting allura so if what he wants is now changing..........................
it is also true that lauren used female pronouns in that interview and while that could be an indicator that lance will end up with a girl, it's also not set in stone bc.... they used to hide pidge's pronouns the same way and if lauren had said "him" you know that keith would have suddenly come to mind bc??? he's legit the only person lance has been paired up so much with. they've been sort of a duo ever since the beginning. and they've had most of the couple tropes out of all the possible pairings??? in the show??? allow me to list some. I'm too lazy to back this up with pics but like you know the scenes i'm talking about (and i also say this because when i ship something i ALWAYS look at canon interactions. and they have a lot):
the bonding moment (or the we are a good team scene if you will), which is not only visually very romantic (the purple lightning aka their two primary colors mixed together) but its sort of the turning point of their relationship and it's something that's very much used with couples especially with couples with their dynamic because oh lord!!!!!! do you know how many heterosexual couples exist with a dynamic like theirs? broody boy meets friendly girl and they're total opposites but ops they fall in love?? bitch literally every goddamn YA novel is like this. anyways, you know that scene would be considered romantic if it was between a boy and a girl, and indeed, allurance sort of paralleled that scene in s4 so if you consider that as romantic but not this one....well....buddy,,,,,,,they're basically in the same lions keith and lance were aka the fire and ice dynamic and if you can see that as romantic with a/l you should be able to see it the same way with....k/l but i digress).
as i was saying, the bonding moment is the turning point of keith and lance's relationship. after that we get:
1) an episode where keith is super anxious to have lance out of a pod and gets jealous when he sees lance flirting with allura, reminds him of their "bonding moment" and gets offended that lance doesnt remember (and an entire discussion could be open as to why he was so offended and the vlog kinda sets that up), overall the flirty banter that we're used to (not to mention this is the famous infamous bi flag planet)
2) a solo mission where they're shown to be working extremely well with each other (like classic battle couple duo scenes)
onto other tropes:
the subtle jealousy that can be interpreted both ways
THE ELEVATOR SCENE which is such a common trope for main couples!! they usually get stuck and have a moment of clarification or something like that. keith and lance's was a lot more comedic but it did lead them to collaborate in battle 2 seconds after so.... it did have an impact like those scenes usually do. (also that scene wasn’t necessary for the plot at all and yet...)
Lance making that fond face while talking about Keith that, may I remember you, was animated purposely to be that way. and overall there's a lot of subtle things like lance being constantly worried over keith in season 2 even though they didn't have much dynamic development??
the hey man scene? the fact that everybody was looking at lance EXPECTING HIM TO DO SOMETHING. and he could have easily looked back at them like "why me???" BUT NOPE, he was ready to go to comfort him!!!!!!!!
i get so worked up over the fact that so many of their scenes can be paralleled with other scenes as the story goes bc LETS BE FUCKING REAL FOR A GODDAM SECOND: they're the only pairing who started a way and are ending up in another. because they've had the most coherent development as a pairing in the seasons and we're fucking halfway through the show and when you also remember that it's pretty clear that lance wants to falls in love and that it's a ""slow burn""" kind of deal,,,,how in the fuck,,,,can it be other than klance??? literally nO OTHER PAIRING had a development since the goddamn start i’m not even saying this with my biased ass i’m saying this objectively speaking!!!!
all of season 3 could be a huge romantic trope honestly but like 2 scenes in particular strike as very romantic:
the leave the math to pidge scene obviously (the way it is framed is very tropey lmfao) and the way we see keith through lance's eyes.......pretty gay if you ask me
and the i got you buddy scene which someone made notice that AN EXACT SAME SCENE happens in the wonder woman movie but with a boy/girl pairing ofc. BUT IT'S THE SAME FUCKING SCENE THAT'S LIKE ROMANTIC TROPE 101 I AINT PLAYING
add on the fact that keith might have left team voltron to make sure lance had a place and boom. pretty romantic to me.
even if jeremy sees them as brothers....which is like...super fucking odd to me bc....he never mentioned this before almost like he's backtracking lololol, his opinion isn't...you know...canon. (and like lbr they never acted like brothers in the show??? and the creators never addressed them as such unlike...you know what) i like jeremy jokes and meme as much as the next guy but i'm a realist and i know that he doesn't really ship klance or anything he just knows how to spoiler the good stuff lolz but also he didn't say anything wrong like it's just how he sees it but the creators never said so (lauren montgomery called lance keith's stability don't forget that) and overall there are wayyyy too many hints to not believe that's its gonna be canon. like......it even makes sense with the overall story better than any other pairing?? because it's pretty plausible that lance had a crush on keith at the garrison that tried to mask with the rivalry. the way he acts and the way he tries to always get his attention furtherly proves that. it's a common thing to do when you have a crush lmao.
LIKE THOSE TWO ARE ALWAYS PAIRED UP EVEN IN THE FUCKING SEASON 2 POSTER?? LIKE THEY COULD HAVE GONE WITH KEITH IN THE MARMORA OUTFIT SINCE IT WAS A BIG PART OF THE SEASON BUT NO??? THEY PUT HIM IN THE SWIM TRUNKS WITH LANCE FOR THOSE 2 MINUTES OF SCENE THEY HAD TOGETHER?????
ok that's it keep on hoping and remember that klance not happening doesn't mean that also bi lance won't because those two things aren’t mutually exclusive ok? but also don't lose hope on klance itself especially if it's something that makes you happy because fandom is meant to be a distraction and klance is an healthy lgbt ship that deserves all the attention it gets and it’s groundbreaking from so many aspects and it being canon would be amazing. bye
ALSO PLEASE STOP COMMENTING SHIT ON JEREMY’S PERSONAL PICS ON INSTAGRAM HE DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG THIS IS EMBARASSING
bonus
114 notes · View notes
ketchupp0 · 2 years ago
Text
Ok so, I need to talk about this because I can’t sleep(so sorry if I make mistakes I hope it’s still understandable) but I want to clear some things about christianity. First of all there are numerous ways to interpret the scriptures so ofc my explanation will be on how I was raised (catholic). Keep in mind that I don’t really believe and I don’t really have a good relationship with church in general(so my justification are really unbiased)
Firstly, Homosexuality as a sin is considered one of the least bad ones. This conviction was present from the middle ages, when writers and scholars started to imagine how hell and heaven was composed.
One of the most famous interpretation on how hell should be is Dante’s inferno, where homosexuality falls into lust as a sin. Keep in mind that every act of sex that isn’t done between two married people is considered lust. So yeah if christians are going to call out homosexuality they should call out every person who divorce or doesn’t marry their partner(but this is just another discourse on how christians don’t even know their own religious and that hating is a worse sin than the actual sin they’re supposed to be hating). Keep in mind that Dante’s inferno isn’t 100% correct (he put in hell’s limbo people who weren’t baptized and people who lived before christ but this isn’t accurate because the doctrine always said that all people could go to heaven, just the faith could help them do good).
So why the devil isn’t homosexual. Well for two main factors: first he’s an angel, so technically he’s agender and asexual at most. second he’s is supposed to be the most evil creature in the universe, so a sin like homosexuality doesn’t really live up to his renown. His only sin was to consider himself equal to god, which is considered the most “bad” sin.
As I said before this type of thought was done from the middle ages, so of course the christian doctrine evolved from that and now the actual idea of the devil isn’t really something that exists anymore(ofc many christians still believes in the literal interpretation of the bible so no hate to them). God created bad and good and so he’s the head of both heaven and hell and the devil should be just considered as a concept(like a bad thought that makes you act bad) rather than an actual figure.
I’m sorry for this long post but I just wanted to share something I knew. Hope it was interesting, have a good day!
Christians be getting so mad when you say the devil obviously a homosexual and it's like
Babygirl, you already think gay people go to hell, why would they go there if not to be with their king??
20 notes · View notes
wanna-17 · 7 years ago
Text
lee daehwi first meeting! AU
summary: in which you are somi’s best friend and you find out that she has a hidden twin brother who you are a fan of 
length: 1.3k
a/n: HIHI so i decided to start a new series which is gonna be a sweet and short one called first meeting! AU with the wanna one members. since it’s really only going to cover your first meeting with the particular member, it’s up to you whether you want to interpret it as romantically or platonic friendship, maybe if the context suits and i get enough requests i could do a part 2 for some in the future? we’ll see but i will be prioritising getting each member done first. but anyways i hope you guys enjoy this first one of my precious baby lee daehwi and look forward to the rest of the members :) 
Tumblr media
so you’re in high school 
and ever since high school started you became best friends with a girl called somi 
you guys had different personalities, you were more on the shy side and she was more outgoing 
but somehow you guys clicked and found that you guys had a lot of things to talk about and common interests 
also during this time produce 101 is airing and you’re absolutely addicted to the show 
and lee daehwi, the first centre literally swooped you off your feet 
he was no doubt your bias and you’d been voting for him like crazy everyday 
and ofc since somi was your best friend you’d always rant about how cute and talented lee daehwi was and somi would just sigh and roll her eyes sometimes 
well one day at school your class is given a project to be completed in pairs and obviously you and somi are a pair 
usually you two would complete your work at the library but since the weather was really horrible 
you guys decided to head to your place over the weekend 
and you guys do that except you dont get the work done 
so you guys decide to go to somi’s place sometime after school next week to finish it 
and tbh you’ve been very curious about where somi lives
even though you guys are best friends you guys always met either in public or at your place
you were just super curious as to what her house was like and why she was lowkey secretive about where she lived
hMMMMMM
so the day before going to somi’s place
you guys are having lunch at school and somi is suddenly like: “oh y/n when you come tomorrow, my twin brother will most likely be home visiting” 
and u r like
“WAIT HANG ON A SECNOD U HAVE A TWIN BROTHER?? SINCE WHEN???” you semi yell when you stand up from your seat 
you are surprised and shocked bc ur friend has a twin brother and she never told you 
“ssHHHHH be quiet” says somi gesturing you to sit back down 
and so you do and say
“how come you didnt tell me somi?” while pouting 
“well…i guess you never asked whether i had siblings or not” replies somi nervously 
“hmm yeah fair enough, well what its like having a twin brother? what’s he like” you ask excitedly
you’d  never met anyone that had a twin before and u suddenly find out that your best friend in fact has a twin brother which makes you feel kinda weird and excited 
“it’s alright, we’re just like any other sibling pair, he can be slightly annoying sometimes but he’s a good brother overall. i miss him” replies somi looking down 
“ohhhhh where is he? does he go to high school here?” you asked wondering if somi’s twin was actually at your school and completely hidden from u 
“no he doesn’t”
“where does he go then? and what’s his name? what does he look like?” you asked bombarding somi with questions as you were super curious now
since somi was one of the prettiest girls in the school you were lowkey thinking maybe somi’s twin is really hot HAHA
“i actually can’t say his name but he’s really ugly” says somi laughing
“why not????” you ask somi, “is he a spy or something?? with a hidden identity???” 
somi shook her head laughing at you as you continued to pester her about her twin 
“you’ll see tomorrow when you come over” says somi “i think things might change when you see who it is” as she sighs
now you were C U R I O U S as to why somi kept it so secret 
and for some odd reason, who somi’s twin brother was was all you thought about for the rest of the day 
your thoughts went wild as you thought, what if he’s actually a spy? or illegal? a criminal? someone dangerous? what if he’s the youngest ceo in our country?
and for some seriously odd reason you were excited to meet somi’s twin brother 
the next day you head to somi’s house with the address typed in google maps 
you rang the doorbell and somi opened the door
as you stepped in you saw how the house wasn’t too big nor was it too small it was quite spacious and clean and very cozy 
you saw some baby pictures placed up on a shelf of somi and her twin; you recognised somi easily and the twin brother was really cute too 
you guys take a seat on the big couch and start working on the project when suddenly you hear footsteps come down the stairs 
you were super focused on your work tbh so you didn’t look up 
until a voice says 
“hey sis is this your friend that always talks about me?” 
and the voice is SO FAMILIAR 
and you’re suddenly afraid to look up 
you do recognise that voice but no way it just couldn’t be 
silence 
“yep it is” says somi, “look at the state she is in now” 
your entire body was frozen and wouldn’t react and you were looking at the ground
“she’s so cute like that” says the voice
you feel your cheeks go bright red and your heart suddenly beating extraordinarily fast 
you close your eyes and tell yourself you are dreaming 
you take a deep breath and look up 
and you are met with a pair of the most gorgeous eyes you have ever seen; one eye was monolid and the other was double lidded but honestly that was what was attractive about him 
it was truly lee daehwi lmao sorry i made it so so dramatic haha
he was smiling down at your with the sweetest and cutest smile 
“hello y/n! it’s nice to finally meet you!” says daehwi cheerfully 
“u-h-h hello– daehwi-ssi” you stutter nervously as you die internally 
daehwi laughed and his laughter was like a beautiful melody
“no need to be formal y/n, we’re the same age! you don’t look great right now, i’ll grab a glass of water for you” says daehwi as he heads to the kitchen 
when he’s gone you turn to somi straight away 
“DUDE WHY DIDNT U TELL ME DAEHWI WAS UR BROTHER?? i wouldn’t have fangirled over him to you and its sooooo embarrassing” 
“chill y/n it was actually pretty funny, you totally have a crush on my twin, look at ur face” says somi laughing 
“sTOP omg this is all ur fault im so embarrassed, i embarrassed myself in front of my bias” you say as your bury your face in your hands
“seriously y/n this is your chance to talk to him and i don’t usually say this about that idiot but he’s actually a very nice guy, so don’t be nervous anymore” 
you take deep breaths and try to collect yourself before daehwi comes back 
when he does you’re much calmer even though you still feel like you are living in a dream 
“here’s your water” says daehwi as he hands over the glass of water
both your finger trips lightly made contact and you felt your heart racing again 
“thanks daehwi” you say giving him a shy smile 
he asks what the project is about and starts helping you guys and in no time you guys are done 
and daehwi is super friendly and outgoing so in no time you get really comfortable around him
and realise that HES JUST A REALLY NICE AND KIND HUMAN like any human and not some “far unreachable star that’s like a god” 
you find out he has cute habits and loves cleaning and fashion and wants to make people happier through his music
you guys talk for the next two hours getting to know each other and you tell him that you’ll continue to support him on produce 101 and he’s super thankful 
at this rate somi had literally fallen asleep and is taking a nap on the sofa 
he opens up about how it’s hard to meet people’s expectations and that he doesn’t want to disappoint others and you guys have really deep conversations 
and in no time it’s already dark outside 
and daehwi even offers to walk you to the bus stop 
and he puts on a black hoodie with the hood up just in case ppl recognise him anyone watching school 2017 bc i love x’s outfit hehe
you guys reach the bus stop
“y/n it was nice meeting you and i was able to get my mind off things thanks to you” 
“no worries daehwi, i’m so glad to have met you and you’re just as wonderful and kind as i’d imagined you to be” you reply cringing at your own cheesiness
daehwi laughs again as he ruffles your hair “you’re so kind too” 
“anyways y/n will you do me a favour and not tell anyone that i am somi’s twin? i dont want things to get hard for her if people know about our sibling relationship” 
you swoon, he was even so nice to his sister 
you nod “of course”
the bus comes and you guys wave goodbye 
you couldn’t believe that you met daehwi and got so close to him 
he was so nice and down to earth 
you lowkey wondered if you’d ever be able to see him again since he was already famous and busy with filming 
you convinced yourself that he was probably this nice to everyone and you were really lucky because you were his sister’s best friend 
suddenly your phone buzzed and you received a message from an unknown number 
“hello y/n, it’s daehwi - i got your number from somi. that’s okay right? next week i’ll be back in town again, so do you wanna hang out? just the two of us this time ;)”
efgqkejfhfjhjf i hope you guys liked this?? i have no idea what the response is gonna be like and lmao i made somi and daehwi twins bc they could totally be siblings :) i realised i probably rant too much lmaooo so let me know what you guys think as i’m always open to feedback and thoughts about my work :) please also look forward to my next one in this series! 
152 notes · View notes
miss-m-calling · 5 years ago
Text
Chocolate Box 2020 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
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV) – Lenny Bruce/Midge Maisel/Susie Myerson, Lenny Bruce & Midge Maisel & Susie Myerson, Lenny Bruce/Midge Maisel & Midge Maisel/Susie Myerson
Starred Up (2013 movie) -- Oliver Baumer/Eric Love 
Dear writer,
Hello and thank you for writing for me. I’m very excited to read whatever you come up with. I hope my burbling and prompts spark 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/Brian
Wednesday & Warren Agency Interns
Wednesday & OFC
Wednesday & OMC
Wednesday/OMC
I belatedly discovered this webseries (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYQE9dh6f78), 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 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.
  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, not to mention the upped shippiness in S2. They’re both such assholes and so fascinating, even if they start to mellow toward each other a bit, 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. And the way that their New Orleans adventure makes clear they have feelings for each other (S1 was more one-sided SweeneyàLaura) but neither wants to admit it. And and and… yeah, I just love them.
My prompts are a combo of prompts I had after I binged S1 and others I added throughout S2. Even if some of this is addressed or hinted at in canon, feel free to diverge – canon divergences and canon-adjacent stories are my jam!
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 divergence from either season (instead of going to Ostara, they go where? to see whom? about getting Laura resurrected. Or things go down differently in New Orleans, or Cairo, or anywhere else) or something about these two post-canon.
-Laura discovers (how? you decide!) that Sweeney gave her back the coin after their accident – whatever happens next, some punching may be involved. (If nothing else, Mama-Ji mentions that the coin is now in Laura’s heart, and we saw Sweeney place it on her ribcage after the accident, whereas it was originally in her gut like she’d swallowed it. Laura might ask herself how the hell it moved.)
-Wednesday’s big war finally comes, and “don’t you dare die on me [again], 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...) Or later when she straight-up says she’s going to kill Wednesday, but is warned to bring power with her when she does, how does that work? How else might she damage Wednesday or ruin his plans, just in case she can’t actually kill him?
-At the end of S2, Laura hoists Sweeney’s dead body over her shoulders and strides off, seemingly leaving Cairo, Shadow, and all of it behind. Tell me what happens then – does she use Baron Samedi’s potion to bring him back, and whose is the blood filled with love she uses (does she still bleed? You could get creative here, worldbuilding is also my jam)? Does her/his coin play a part – and how come the coin still “powers” Laura despite Sweeney’s death? Does she bring him back another way, maybe figuring out how to keep herself around and be able to give Sweeney back his coin? Does he come back like she did, more undead than alive, or does his godhead, however depleted, help with that? That still leaves Laura to be fully resurrected too… Or does something completely out of left field happen – surprise me!
-Possible divergences from “Treasure of the Sun”: Sweeney manages to kill Wednesday, and then Laura rolls up, and then…? Or Laura rolls up and makes like Mama-Ji told her – destroys some motherfuckers? Or Sweeney gets killed temporarily but Laura brings him back, or brings herself back, or does something else with the Baron’s potion, and is Sweeney’s blood the one filled with love, or can we interpret voodoo spells in a non-literal way? Or what happens with Gungnir hidden in Sweeney’s hoard? And definitely how do they deal with each other once they meet up in Cairo, given how they parted in New Orleans (I don’t know what hurt more to watch: Laura deflecting at the diner, or Sweeney rambling drunkenly about her when Shadow finds him, or later on telling Shadow with such desperate sincerity to keep her away from Wednesday)?
-Or how about a wild divergence from the last several episodes? Sweeney and Laura manage to settle their differences (ahem, more fucking, on this plane of reality, might help) and don’t part ways before leaving NOLA. Or they roll up in Cairo separately but at the same time, and confront Wednesday together, and neither of them die (or die more, in her case). Or they’re there together when the police nearly raid the house. Or they have Wednesday (the ultimate cause of Laura’s death) and Ibis (a death deity) and Bilquis (a love/death/life deity) on hand, surely they can concoct some kind of resurrection thingamajig for Laura, and if they have to twist some divine arms then so be it. Or or or…?
-Wednesday told that luckless cop that Sweeney had been against the big gods’ war from the start, and while Wednesday lies, what if Sweeney decided much sooner to say 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.
-Speaking of other deities, I really enjoyed their brief canon interactions with Ostara, Anansi, and Mama-Ji, and I’d like to see more of that, especially Ostara’s polite yet over-it attitude, Anansi very obvious over-it attitude and his dramatic flair, or Mama-Ji being one of the few capable of giving Laura pause.
-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.
-Sweeney and Laura fighting together, like they did on Mr. Town’s train of torture. Whether it’s a bar fight of their own making, or the big gods’ war they find themselves embroiled in, or something else entirely.
-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 did kill her way back when), he can still be pissed off about it – how do they navigate this?
-Related to that, the Baron said: “In death is her true love, but she betrays him also.” If that meant Sweeney, or can mean Sweeney in the future (I don’t like destiny-wills-it stories, and they’re definitely not there yet, but they could maybe get there at some future point, and even then It Would Be Complicated), was the betrayal Laura rejecting him after the loa ‘fuck them,’ or is it something that hasn’t happened yet, and if so, what?
-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. If the place they have to stay happens to be NOLA, all the better, I find everything about that city fascinating. Or, if you wanted to use book canon, Laura and Sweeney (rather than Shadow) are the ones who have to spend time living in Lakeside and deal with its creepy Norman Rockwell-ness and with Hinzelmann.
-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, all the food and drink porn, 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-plane sex and just ask Sweeney to prick his finger for the potion – instead she defaults straight to “this is all Wednesday’s evil plan” the morning after – not because the loa fucked them over). They were actually getting along nicely in those first couple of scenes in NOLA, 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.
-AU from the end of “The Ways of the Dead”: they still have their big fight (which was amazing as well as painful) or some variation thereof, but they don’t split up. (Maybe the reason is as mundane as Sweeney refusing to get left behind or they have a shared ride out of town, or maybe the more time passes the less Sweeney can afford to be far from his coin – or maybe the coin needs him close by to work at full capacity.) And then what?
-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 him in full Celtic warrior mode in the S2 flashbacks). 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)? On that note, Sweeney’s decline from Lugh to king to leprechaun was more sketched in than really explored in canon, ditto I didn’t really get why he couldn’t seem to remember his own history except in snatches (the curse that made him a bird/madman of the woods?) – I’d love to see more about it and his (not) dealing with it, or with a reversal of that decline. Eorann told him long ago to adapt and change with the times – but what does that mean after humpteen centuries in a rut and becoming used to always feeling angry and unappreciated?
-The power of names, since they never use each other’s in canon: 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 not his actual name, and 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. 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 that’s starting to change at the end of S2. For one thing, 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” as well as Shadow refusing to be called puppy anymore in “Moon Shadow” may finally force her to accept that her relationship with Shadow died alongside her and Robbie on that road in Indiana). Not to mention the shared truth revealed in “The Ways of the Dead” (bullshit was that just Laura’s truth!) and how Laura flips out rather than deal with it and Sweeney can’t spit out that it mattered to him either, or how obviously cut up she is about Sweeney’s death despite refusing to admit it. Tell me the story of how Laura stumbles her way to feeling – and acknowledging that she feels – 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 can admit they feel 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 furious 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.
-Sweeney has this intense need to see himself as a brave person and someone worthy of the world’s respect – but his past and his long experience as just a leprechaun have chipped away at that. Add the guilt of having been the instrument of Laura’s death and then all the pesky feelings he develops for her, and it’s a lot. Obviously his final actions in S2 are his trying to reclaim that courage and nobility of old (also to spite Wednesday, who’s messed both him and Laura up), but I would love to read about his character development under different circumstances, where Laura is there all the way, as opposed to them parting ways and meeting up again multiple times like in canon.
-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, or very occasionally they push back (ILU, Mama-Ji!), and anyway it’s refreshing to see a female character who defaults to confrontational and 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. 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!
-Sweeney and Laura get drunk and wake up married. Or some sex and/or blood resurrection spell results in basically an unbreakable marriage bond, whether it also secures resurrection or not. Or marrying the dead keeps them (sorta) alive. Or being married makes it possible for them to share magical/supernatural abilities. They’re both pissed about it, but secretly having to make it work may not be the worst thing that’s ever happened...
-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, including a canon-divergent first time, or their second time, or all the later times after they had their first time in NOLA in canon.
-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 – or have left from when he was Lugh? 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? For example, why can’t Sweeney just take his coin back, or why does Laura gain super-strength as part of her undead package deal? Is the hoard in the same space as the behind-the-scenes accessed through the merry-go-round, or it’s a different place? Why does the coin seem to start to “run down” the longer Laura has it? Why did Wednesday need Laura to kill Argus when he killed Vulcan himself just fine? What happens with Gungnir now it’s in the hoard – can only Sweeney get to it, has it been transformed somehow (it’s now the treasure of the sun), etc.?
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, though I’d prefer a story that isn’t just a retread of the book. 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.
Canon-specific DNWs: Sweeney dying/staying dead (at least not permanently), Laura being treated as just a part of Sweeney’s story, and Laura being Essie’s reincarnation/descendant/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. Anyway I’m certain that 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.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV)
Lenny Bruce/Miriam “Midge” Maisel/Susie Myerson
Lenny Bruce & Miriam “Midge” Maisel & Susie Myerson
Lenny Bruce/Miriam “Midge” Maisel & Miriam “Midge” Maisel/Susie Myerson
I’m here for Midge’s adventures in the intoxicating, foul-mouthed, and often-frustrating world of comedy, so her dynamic with Susie and Lenny is where it’s at. Shippy or platonic, I just love the interactions between these three, and between every pair combination among them: Midge and Susie bantering and swearing and tits-upping even when they irritate each other, Midge and Lenny bringing the pathos as well as the humor, and Lenny and Susie both being hardened old pros with still a little glimmer of starry eyes. I am good with L/M/S or L&M&S or L/M & M/S – so, if you go the shippy route, either a V-shaped triad or hey, Susie (whom I absolutely read as gay) might find a way to be good with a full-on triangle… If you want to keep it platonic, True Companions all the way, always there for each other, even when they want to strangle each other. And as much as I like the comedy inherent in the characters, I also love that they’re all three, each in their own way, messed up people and dysfunctional to various degrees. So yeah, I just want Midge to hand the kids over to her parents, ditch Joel once and for all, marry (interpret that as literally or as loosely as you want) both Susie and Lenny, and for the three of them to ride off into the sunset to make comedy history.
Most of these prompts are from before S3 dropped – feel free to work with canon or diverge however you see fit:
-Does Susie manage them both? Does Midge open for Lenny on tour? Does he open for her??? Or they become equal stars on the comedy circuit?
-Maybe Lenny joins Shy Baldwin’s tour, or they run into him while touring Europe or the US, or after Shy fires Midge, Midge and Susie cobble together a Miriam-only tour of America and keep crossing Lenny’s own touring path, and they all tool around, and yes I would love as much period detail and geography porn as you can throw at me. And while Lenny and Midge have seen the world, Susie hasn’t – her reaction to different foods, languages, customs, landscapes would be spectacular to witness. Especially if “different” is someplace as close to New York as Jersey or Connecticut, or someplace as far away and different as, say, Japan.
-If they do go to Europe, somehow or other they also tour the Soviet Bloc. Cue culture clashes, getting followed (or thinking they’re being followed) by the secret police, getting hammered on vodka and herring and pickles, and then when they get back to the States, the Feds grill them. It’s all dead serious, and Midge and Lenny refuse to take it as seriously as they should, while Susie is trying but the whole thing is really pissing her off…
-Lenny’s burned out, and Midge is just getting started. This dissonance may or may not find some sort of resolution. One thing’s for sure: Susie has limited patience for both Lenny’s depression and Midge’s need to make everything pretty.
-Instead of going to Joel for a no-way-is-that-closure fling after the Steve Allen Show taping, Midge goes to have a drink or seven with the two people who have, in their own ways, always been there for her and never let her down.
-Midge goes on TV again, this time as the star: longer set, prime time slot, dressing room, the works. She’s dying of nerves. Lenny and Susie coach her through it.
-More radio work to make ends meet in between gigs: hilaribad period ads, hilaribad radio drama, running all over town to be on time, getting paid in all kinds of dubious merch…
-Midge and Susie head out west to make it big and stay with Lenny once they’re in Los Angeles, and it’s marvelous (ha ha) and disastrous in equal measure.
-More of Susie being the hypercompetent manager we saw especially in S3! (And please don’t dwell on her gambling problem, I was not a fan.)
-They all three get drunk, maybe with a hint of sadness if it’s the holidays (you can ignore my DNW about holidays, but please let that be just the background, not the lynchpin of the story) or someone’s birthday, and there’s a bar fight, running from the cops, eating greasy food at ass o’clock, and possibly kissing, not necessarily in that order.
-One or two or all three of them get arrested/have court appearances all over America and have to bail each other out, or find someone to bail them all out, or secure legal counsel – you get the drift. Or all three of them are trying to explain to a single lawyer what happened, talking over each other, the two pros not being able to resist landing zingers and Susie not being far behind, and the lawyer just getting more and more confused.
-They get in trouble some other way – offended patrons, surly management, shitty hotels, tour bus breaks down in the middle of Wyoming – and have to have each other’s backs because no one else will.
-Three-person road trip or tour, and only Susie knows how to drive. So Midge decides to learn, right then and there. And Lenny… Lenny may or may not be too lazy/hungover/lying about not knowing how. There’s supposed to be a rotation so everyone gets to stretch out on the back seat for equal lengths of time, but you know the system doesn’t work too well in practice. Also, they play games in the car to while away the time, and they do it their own way of course: I spy, cows on my side, never have I ever, 20 questions, or riffing on whatever’s playing on the radio…
-They sit down to watch the moon landing (you can move it up a bit so it’s not happening a whole decade after S2) – by which I mean, Midge is all gung-ho about the moon landing, and Lenny and Susie are like whatever – and things don’t quite go to plan, but a good time is eventually had by all.
-It’s Yom Kippur again, and Midge wants to do the whole production: synagogue, breaking fast, the lot. Lenny and Susie would rather eat glass. Midge gets her way, of course. Does she decide to bring Susie and Lenny home to meet – or meet properly – her parents??? I bet Abe and Rose’s reactions would be something to see. (This too is an exception to my DNW about holiday settings – I just want stuff to get as crazy as it did the two times we saw Yom Kippur celebrated on the show, and for everything to still somehow turn out relatively OK.)
-Midge and Lenny have cheered each other up when the going got extra rough. I want for Susie to be especially down in the dumps – maybe her boozehound of a mother died and Susie took it worse than she does in canon, maybe some asshole told her she’s a shit manager and got her right in her insecurities – and Midge to rope Lenny into trying to cheer her up. And for Susie to fight them every step of the way but still be glad they care enough to try.
-Inspired by Susie’s brother looking just like her, by which I mean she and he and their sister look nothing alike, and by Lenny’s “she’s my mother” quip about Midge at the TV studio and then his “let me introduce my wife or maybe my sister” in Miami – Midge, Susie, and Lenny pretend to all be blood relatives, or mafiosi, or spies, or something else they’re not, while out in public, say in a restaurant. Just to be assholes and see how long they can keep it going before they break character or people figure them out, or call the cops, or something. There’s totally a bet on who corpses and breaks character first. Or, nice hotels ca. 1960 weren’t very big on letting unmarried couples, let alone threesomes stay in rooms together – pretending to be family might make that easier; forgetting what they’re meant to be to each other, or mixing up their backstories might make it harder. This could also work platonically, if they’re trying to save money by only getting one room, there only being one free room in the hotel, or for any other screwball reason you can invent.
-Lenny and Midge do a (comeback) tour of the Borscht Belt, and all the Steiner Mountain Resort guests (especially the gossipy old hens from the beauty salon) and staff go to see them – and heckle.
-Stuff happens and they end up performing at some hole in the wall place where no one knows who they are (or no one believes it’s really those people they’ve seen on TV) – tough crowd, but a good workout for the two comics, and if Susie gets to threaten to rip off someone’s head, all the better.
-Lenny and Midge honing their routines – and maybe developing a double act – and Susie being all “oh my fucking god, what the fuck!!! … They’re actually good. I’m so proud.”
-Sharing a bed with two other people is an ongoing project: who sleeps (or refuses to sleep) in the middle? Who gets up during the night and why? Who starfishes across most of the bed? Who snores, and how does this get handled? If alcohol or pot have happened, how does that affect the sleeping arrangements? Also, Susie and Lenny witness and react to Midge’s beauty routine, ‘nuff said. Or, for various reasons one person after another ends up decamping to another room/bed/couch, but it doesn’t help them get much sleep or even stay there very long (this is inspired by my love of Shirley Jackson and her short story/humorous essay “The Night We All Had Grippe”). If you prefer to keep it platonic, most of this would work if they’re just sharing a double bedroom on tour (I leave the reason for why Lenny is bunking with the women up to you).
Canon-specific DNWs: explicit sex and pairing any two as a / couple with the third as a & hanger-on. I’m here for equality in this three-way dynamic and the banter and the surprise!feels and the companionship. And of course all the comedy, situational or stand-up. Oh, and Lenny can still be his RL messed-up, drugged-up self – albeit the gentler version the show gives us – but it would be good if he didn’t kick the bucket a handful of years down the line.
  Starred Up
Oliver Baumer/Eric Love
Yes I do ship it, I do, I do!
Ahem. Don’t get me wrong, I liked what the movie did with the father-son relationship and its influence on both men’s character development – but I really wish they hadn’t got Oliver out of the action before the story’s climax (not like that!). The final denouement with Love father and Love son was great, as was the hint at the end that Eric learned something in anger-management group and has a support network that will help him a lot. But. I would have wanted to see more of the intriguing dynamic between Eric the intelligent, semi-feral, yet not-incorrigible, young thug and Oliver the educated, dedicated, kind yet aware of his own potential for violence (what was he on about with “I need to be here”?), slightly older counselor. They had me at Oliver’s “I want him” and Eric later telling his father that Oliver’s a better man than Love Sr. Also the not-flirting and the push-pull in the scene when Oliver picks up Eric from his cell - yowza!
Prompts:
-I would love to see Oliver return to holding his group in prison, so the two of them can interact more, either in the movie’s immediate aftermath or years down the line, as it’s implied that Eric will be serving a long sentence. Give me more scenes from anger management or the ribald, honest, free-flowing conversations in group, either with the other men present (I liked Hassan and Tyrone especially, among the group members) or a one-on-one session.
-An oblique or open-but-undramatic admission/declaration that they both know there’s something there, even if they don’t know what to do with it. Or, one or both of them knows exactly what to do with it, and the push-pull that would result from that.
-Dirty talk: used for arousal, as a defense mechanism, as a form of flirtation. Eric using slurs to assert dominance, and Oliver not letting him hide behind profanity, when he can use colorful language to express emotion and/or sexual interest. There could definitely be some verbal taunting/flirting about who wants/is eager to do what or is good at doing something. There may be some sniping comments about logistics and (lack of) condoms and barebacking and what men get up to in prison. There probably wouldn’t be deep discussions about sexual identity.
-An emergency in the prison requires a lock-down, so Oliver gets temporarily stuck in Eric’s cell or another room with only Eric for company. Things get porny and/or emotional.
-Eric is eventually released (you can handwave this so it happens soon after the movie or have it happen years later) and crashes with Oliver while he adjusts to the outside world. You guessed it: things get porny and/or emotional.
-How do they get to the point where both can cross that line from friends/whatever the hell they are and become, to lovers? (There’s Eric’s personal history and general discomfort with vulnerability, plus all the ways prison sex can be or make things complicated, and if it helps, I headcanon Oliver as either gay or bi and at least somewhat closeted, at work especially.) Who initiates and “directs traffic”? How does their always-contentious dynamic shift during and after sex? Is the sex an isolated (series of) occasion(s), or a progression/escalation over multiple encounters (how would I love especially an escalating series of encounters, let me count the ways)? Eric might seem like the logical initiator and/or dominant partner as well as using the possibility of sex to manipulate and exert control, but then Oliver might (or might not!) surprise him and is definitely the one more in touch with himself as well as aware of his custodial duty toward the men in the group.
-At some point in their intimate relationship (probably not right at the start, and probably not in prison, though if you can make it happen in prison, more power to you!), Oliver decides he’s going to take his sweet time and make Eric fall absolutely apart with pleasure, while using dirty talk to both arouse and empower Eric to own his desires – by that point, Eric is in a place where he can let that happen and enjoy it, even if he still talks tough.
-Role reversal: Oliver as the con (jittery, shut off, sticking out like a sore thumb in prison with all his fancy learning, yet no pushover) and Eric as the newbie counselor (kid from the wrong side of the tracks made good? Youthful hoodlum turned around his life, now trying to help others via tough love and lots of swearing and maybe a bit of manipulation when called for?)
  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, 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 (the exception is Laura Moon in American Gods dying so she can become undead), 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, unrequested crossovers or fusions, AUs which have nothing to do with canon
0 notes
gunsfrhands · 8 years ago
Text
here are things about me that nobody wanted to know, but i wanted to answer
1. What is your name? ELLEN 2. How old are you? 20 3. Are you sure? ??? /?? ? ? ? ?? 4. What is your earliest memory? something that is pink 5. What is your favorite alcoholic drink? i don’t drink, gurl!!!!!!!!!!!!!
6. What is your favorite vegetable? the humble potato 7. Do you remember your first day at school? ya 8. What is the worst exam result you remember ever getting? 50% for both year 12 maths methods exams lolol 9. How tall are you? 5'5  10. Can you swim? splish splash! yep! 11. Who is your favorite movie actress? i really don’t care 12. Who is your favorite movie actor? ibid.  13. Who is your favorite comedian? bo burnham ? idk
14. Who is your favorite politician? hmm i disagree a lot with this q. i agree with a lot of politicians and i think some are cool and interesting people, but having a “favourite politician” would be putting them on a pedestal?? and like when u do that it makes it harder to disagree with them when they have a BAD opinion on some issues. i don’t think that’s good. i think we need to always be critical of politicians no matter how groovy some seem. 
15. Who is your favorite historical figure (been dead for at least 100 years)? Louis XVI ! :O :O Tsar Nicholas II (even tho he’s only been dead for 99 years), Charlotte Corday!, Woodrow Wilson (BTW by “favourite” i’ve interpreted that as mOST inTeresting, i don’t necessarily think these historical figures were good people loL especially wilson ahhhh i just think his contribution in beginning wwii was super interesting, especially how wilsonian principles like self-determination influenced different nations, i think he wasnt a super great dude tho lol) hmmm, some more probs but i cannot recall at this time. 
16. Who is your favorite super-heroine?jessica jones ?? idk & idc 17. Who is your favorite super-hero? idc at all lol 18. Can you name a female scientist other than Madame Curie? yes lol omg ?????? jane goodall, marie pasteur, rosalind franklin ?? (even tho marie curie is my fav tho <3 ) i feel like if people don’t know about female scientists they NEED to do independent research bc they really don’t teach much at school !!!!!!! and the contributions of women throughout history are so important obvs. 19. Who is your favorite mythological god or goddess? ooooooo tricky tricky !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! athena is cool but idk if fave ??? i just like mythology itself and not specific gods in particular reallyyyyy
i deleted questions 20- 30 bc they were so weird lol 
31. What is the worst movie you have ever seen? omg last night i watched spy kids 4 , and it’s so bad that it’s past the point of being so bad that it’s funny (such as the room and birdemic, u feel?) this was just bad bad.  32. What is the worst TV show you have ever seen? i do not watch tv shows that are bad lolol 33. What is the worst book you have ever read? idk New moon mayB 34. What is the worst song you have ever heard? idc 35. What is the worst sport you know of? what do u mean by worst tho lol idk i dont have interest in many sports so idc enough for this q 36. Who is the worst movie "star" ever? i really don’t care about celebrity culture 37. Who is the worst comedian ever? idk, u feel ? it’s like... i have never witnessed ever comedian EveR so idk who is the worst, i feel like i would need to do extensive research to answer this.  38. Who is the worst author ever? there are plenty of bAD authors. i feel like i wanna say zoella lol. but ultimately, see above Q.  39. Who is the worst musical act ever? IDC 40. Who is the worst sports "star" you have ever seen? i dont understand so GOodbYE 41. If you could go back in time to witness an historical event in person, what event would you want to see? signing of treaty of versailles ??!?!?! i would say russian rev but that could be dANGERous ://////// 42. If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would you go? my bed, goodnight! 43. If you could meet anyone in the world, who would you meet? idc bc i feel like i could say a few different bands but ultimately, they don’t know who i am and they don’t care. meeting them would make me feel like OMG for a few mins, and then that would be it. i would think it was fun, they would forget me after 1 day and again, this weird kind of idolisation... i don’t think it’s healthy. people are just people. sO if i could meet anyone in the world, i would want to meet someone who is nice and who would ultimately become a nice and close friend for me! 44. If you could become famous for one thing, what would that thing be? bEING IN A BAND PLz 45. If you could buy anything regardless of cost, what would you buy? like how with genies you use ur last wish for infinite wishes, so like i would buy infinite money and i would get trapped in some kind of capitalist money loop where i am spending infinite money to buy infinite money. i think that would be cool  46. If you could change any one thing about your country, what would it be? ONE thing ?????? i live in australia, i would remove politicians like pauline hanson, dutton, joyce, morrison, abbott, frydenberg lol they would all just disappear from the public eye forEvER. OR even better i would LET REFUGEES SETTLE HERE , if u dont know , australia is literally THE WORST pls read up and learn about how inhumanely refugees who try to come to australia are treated. it’s awful http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-14/manus-island-why-are-asylum-seekers-suing-the-commonwealth/8610482
47. If you could change any one thing about international politics, what would it be? really. REALLY. I feel like this is so obvious that im not even going to say anything. thanks ok 48. If you could meet any famous person who is dead, who would it be? idc  49. If you could become dictator of the world, would you? a benevolent dictator sURE but UMMMMMM as much as i think i am cool and right about everything, i would for sure become corrupt, so no thanks.  50. If you could eat an entire cow at one sitting, would you? no thanks! 51. Have you ever illegally downloaded music/TV shows/movies from the net? I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT LIMEWIRE IS I SWEAR 52. Have you ever used illegal narcotics? no 53. Have you ever gotten any points on your driving license? i’ve only done 8 houRS on my L plates lol so NO 54. Have you ever stolen anything from a shop? nop 55. Have you ever bought alcohol or cigarettes while underage? nop 56. Have you ever bought alcohol or cigarettes for another person who was underage? nop
57. Have you ever tried to cheat the taxman/social security/other government agency? i don’t have any money lol idek how to pay taxes hehe
58. Have you ever ridden on a train or bus without paying? perhaps 59. Have you ever been arrested? nooono 60. Have you ever been charged with a crime ... ? nononoo 61. What's the furthest you've ever been from home? euROPE but idk which country in europe that i visited would be geographically furthest from australia... UK probs?? 62. Where have you visited that you would like to go back to? EVERYwhere in europeeee 63. Where would you like to visit that you haven't yet? stonehenge!  64. Where is your favorite place in the world? my bed, goodnight! 65. Where have you visited that you hope never to go to again? greece, i went in summer summer and air was hard to breathe and hot idk museums were cool but not again soz greece xoxo 66. Where would you definitely never go to? idk a bunch of places lol 67. Where is your least favorite place in the world? how would i know! hMM! 68. What is your favorite way to travel  ? my own two feet i really don’t like any other kinds of transport bc i am scared of trusting other people to transport me 69. What is your least favorite way to travel? boat maybe lollol 70. deleted bc idgi 71. What was the last movie you saw? spy kids 4 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!L O L 72. Was it any good? i answered this above ahhhehhhaehehaeo 73. What was the last book you read? a storm of swords 74. Was it any good? ya i guess 75. What was the last song you listened to? HUMDRUM BLUES BY THE GROWLERS 76. Was it any good? YESYESYSES! 77. What was the last computer game you played? Dolphin Olympics!!!!!! 78. Did you do well? Yes 79. What was the last meal you ate? gnocchi 80. Was it any good? nah
81. Do you believe in God/Goddess/Gods/Goddesses? nah 82. Do you agree with the war in Iraq? nah 83. Do you believe in aliens? liKE.... does it really matter what i think???? what ever i think doesn’t change the reality. but YA 84. Do you agree with the theory of evolution? OfC
85. Do you believe in reincarnation? ?? nA h ??? 86. Do you agree with the idea of the UN? United Nations (UN)? ya i guese ? ??  87. Do you believe in karma? meh 88. Do you agree with the theories of man-induced global warming? IT AIN”T JUST THEORIES GURL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAs
89. Do you believe in democracy above all other systems of government? hmmm ya  90. Do you agree with Freddie Mercury when he sings "Fat-bottomed girls you make the rockin' world go round"?  w hh at a 91. What is your favorite movie?  SCHOOL OF ROCK. SCHOOL OF ROCK. SCHOOL OF ROCK. SCHOOL OF ROCK. 92. What is your favorite book? Animal Farm (ik im a cliche shh) 93. What is your favorite song? difficult question bc having favourite things is a bit weird imOP! buTTtttttt i will say rn it is proBS Tell it how it is, by the growlers, but that is just my fav like for this week, it will change soon lolol 94. What is your favorite city?  where i live ? lol idk 95. What is your favorite sport? NETBALL 96. What is your favorite place in the world? IDK and IDC!!!!!!!!!! 97. Are you glad these questions are almost over? I LOVE ANSWERING QS but all of these ones were pretty weak so yes 98. What are you going to do next? sleep 99. Do you anticipate this activity being fun? yesyeysyeyses 100. Give us a quote to end on...”i’ll kidnap a thousand children before i let this company die” - Mr Waternoose. 
0 notes
miss-m-calling · 5 years ago
Text
Shipoween 2019 letter
Requests:
Adult Wednesday Addams -- Wednesday/Brian, Wednesday & Addams family, Wednesday & Warren Agency interns, Wednesday & OFC, Wednesday & OMC, Wednesday/OMC
American Gods (TV) -- Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel -- Lenny/Midge/Susie, Lenny & Midge & Susie, Lenny/Midge & Midge/Susie
Starred Up (2013 movie) -- Oliver Baumer/Eric Love
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
Wednesday/Brian, Wednesday & Addams Family, Wednesday & Warren Agency Interns, Wednesday & OFC, Wednesday & OMC, Wednesday/OMC
Spooky, No theme
I belatedly discovered this webseries (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYQE9dh6f78), 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.
-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
Spooky, No theme
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, not to mention the upped shippiness in S2. They’re both such assholes and so fascinating, even if they start to mellow toward each other a bit, 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. And the way that their New Orleans adventure makes clear they have feelings for each other (S1 was more one-sided SweeneyàLaura) but neither wants to admit it. And and and… yeah, I just love them.
My prompts are a combo of prompts I had after I binged S1 and others I added throughout S2. Even if some of this is addressed or hinted at in canon, feel free to diverge – canon divergences and canon-adjacent stories are my jam!
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 divergence from either season (instead of going to Ostara, they go where? to see whom? about getting Laura resurrected. Or things go down differently in New Orleans, or Cairo, or anywhere else) or something about these two post-canon.
-Laura discovers (how? you decide!) that Sweeney gave her back the coin after their accident – whatever happens next, some punching may be involved. (If nothing else, Mama-Ji mentions that the coin is now in Laura’s heart, and we saw Sweeney place it on her ribcage after the accident, whereas it was originally in her gut like she’d swallowed it. Laura might ask herself how the hell it moved.)
-Wednesday’s big war finally comes, and “don’t you dare die on me [again], 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...) Or later when she straight-up says she’s going to kill Wednesday, but is warned to bring power with her when she does, how does that work? How else might she damage Wednesday or ruin his plans, just in case she can’t actually kill him?
-At the end of S2, Laura hoists Sweeney’s dead body over her shoulders and strides off, seemingly leaving Cairo, Shadow, and all of it behind. Tell me what happens then – does she use Baron Samedi’s potion to bring him back, and whose is the blood filled with love she uses (does she still bleed? You could get creative here, worldbuilding is also my jam)? Does her/his coin play a part – and how come the coin still “powers” Laura despite Sweeney’s death? Does she bring him back another way, maybe figuring out how to keep herself around and be able to give Sweeney back his coin? Does he come back like she did, more undead than alive, or does his godhead, however depleted, help with that? That still leaves Laura to be fully resurrected too… Or does something completely out of left field happen – surprise me!
-Possible divergences from “Treasure of the Sun”: Sweeney manages to kill Wednesday, and then Laura rolls up, and then…? Or Laura rolls up and makes like Mama-Ji told her – destroys some motherfuckers? Or Sweeney gets killed temporarily but Laura brings him back, or brings herself back, or does something else with the Baron’s potion, and is Sweeney’s blood the one filled with love, or can we interpret voodoo spells in a non-literal way? Or what happens with Gungnir hidden in Sweeney’s hoard? And definitely how do they deal with each other once they meet up in Cairo, given how they parted in New Orleans (I don’t know what hurt more to watch: Laura deflecting at the diner, or Sweeney rambling drunkenly about her when Shadow finds him, or later on telling Shadow with such desperate sincerity to keep her away from Wednesday)?
-Or how about a wild divergence from the last several episodes? Sweeney and Laura manage to settle their differences (ahem, more fucking, on this plane of reality, might help) and don’t part ways before leaving NOLA. Or they roll up in Cairo separately but at the same time, and confront Wednesday together, and neither of them die (or die more, in her case). Or they’re there together when the police nearly raid the house. Or they have Wednesday (the ultimate cause of Laura’s death) and Ibis (a death deity) and Bilquis (a love/death/life deity) on hand, surely they can concoct some kind of resurrection thingamajig for Laura, and if they have to twist some divine arms then so be it. Or or or…?
-Wednesday told that luckless cop that Sweeney had been against the big gods’ war from the start, and while Wednesday lies, what if Sweeney decided much sooner to say 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.
-Speaking of other deities, I really enjoyed their brief canon interactions with Ostara, Anansi, and Mama-Ji, and I’d like to see more of that, especially Ostara’s polite yet over-it attitude, Anansi very obvious over-it attitude and his dramatic flair, or Mama-Ji being one of the few capable of giving Laura pause.
-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.
-Sweeney and Laura fighting together, like they did on Mr. Town’s train of torture. Whether it’s a bar fight of their own making, or the big gods’ war they find themselves embroiled in, or something else entirely.
-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 did kill her way back when), he can still be pissed off about it – how do they navigate this?
-Related to that, the Baron said: “In death is her true love, but she betrays him also.” If that meant Sweeney, or can mean Sweeney in the future (I don’t like destiny-wills-it stories, and they’re definitely not there yet, but they could maybe get there at some future point, and even then It Would Be Complicated), was the betrayal Laura rejecting him after the loa ‘fuck them,’ or is it something that hasn’t happened yet, and if so, what?
-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. If the place they have to stay happens to be NOLA, all the better, I find everything about that city fascinating.
-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, all the food and drink porn, 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-plane sex and just ask Sweeney to prick his finger for the potion – instead she defaults straight to “this is all Wednesday’s evil plan” the morning after – not because the loa fucked them over). They were actually getting along nicely in those first couple of scenes in NOLA, 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.
-AU from the end of “The Ways of the Dead”: they still have their big fight (which was amazing as well as painful) or some variation thereof, but they don’t split up. (Maybe the reason is as mundane as Sweeney refusing to get left behind or they have a shared ride out of town, or maybe the more time passes the less Sweeney can afford to be far from his coin – or maybe the coin needs him close by to work at full capacity.) And then what?
-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 him in full Celtic warrior mode in the S2 flashbacks). 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)? On that note, Sweeney’s decline from Lugh to king to leprechaun was more sketched in than really explored in canon, ditto I didn’t really get why he couldn’t seem to remember his own history except in snatches (the curse that made him a bird/madman of the woods?) – I’d love to see more about it and his (not) dealing with it, or with a reversal of that decline. Eorann told him long ago to adapt and change with the times – but what does that mean after humpteen centuries in a rut and becoming used to always feeling angry and unappreciated?
-The power of names, since they never use each other’s in canon: 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 not his actual name, and 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. 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 that’s starting to change at the end of S2. For one thing, 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” as well as Shadow refusing to be called puppy anymore in “Moon Shadow” may finally force her to accept that her relationship with Shadow died alongside her and Robbie on that road in Indiana). Not to mention the shared truth revealed in “The Ways of the Dead” (bullshit was that just Laura’s truth!) and how Laura flips out rather than deal with it and Sweeney can’t spit out that it mattered to him either, or how obviously cut up she is about Sweeney’s death despite refusing to admit it. Tell me the story of how Laura stumbles her way to feeling – and acknowledging that she feels – 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 can admit they feel 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 furious 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.
-Sweeney has this intense need to see himself as a brave person and someone worthy of the world’s respect – but his past and his long experience as just a leprechaun have chipped away at that. Add the guilt of having been the instrument of Laura’s death and then all the pesky feelings he develops for her, and it’s a lot. Obviously his final actions in S2 are his trying to reclaim that courage and nobility of old (also to spite Wednesday, who’s messed both him and Laura up), but I would love to read about his character development under different circumstances, where Laura is there all the way, as opposed to them parting ways and meeting up again multiple times like in canon.
-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, or very occasionally they push back (ILU, Mama-Ji!), and anyway it’s refreshing to see a female character who defaults to confrontational and 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. 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!
-Sweeney and Laura get drunk and wake up married. Or some sex and/or blood resurrection spell results in basically an unbreakable marriage bond, whether it also secures resurrection or not. Or marrying the dead keeps them (sorta) alive. Or being married makes it possible for them to share magical/supernatural abilities. They’re both pissed about it, but secretly having to make it work may not be the worst thing that’s ever happened...
-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, including a canon-divergent first time, or their second time, or all the later times after they had their first time in NOLA in canon.
-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 – or have left from when he was Lugh? 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? For example, why can’t Sweeney just take his coin back, or why does Laura gain super-strength as part of her undead package deal? Is the hoard in the same space as the behind-the-scenes accessed through the merry-go-round, or it’s a different place? Why does the coin seem to start to “run down” the longer Laura has it? Why did Wednesday need Laura to kill Argus when he killed Vulcan himself just fine? What happens with Gungnir now it’s in the hoard – can only Sweeney get to it, has it been transformed somehow (it’s now the treasure of the sun), etc.?
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, though I’d prefer a story that isn’t just a retread of the book. 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.
Canon-specific DNWs: Sweeney dying/staying dead (at least not permanently), Laura being treated as just a part of Sweeney’s story, and Laura being Essie’s reincarnation/descendant/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. Anyway I’m certain that 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.
  The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV)
Lenny Bruce/Miriam “Midge” Maisel/Susie Myerson
Lenny Bruce & Miriam “Midge” Maisel & Susie Myerson
Lenny Bruce/Miriam “Midge” Maisel & Miriam “Midge” Maisel/Susie Myerson
No theme
I’m here for Midge’s adventures in the intoxicating, foul-mouthed, and often-frustrating world of comedy, so her dynamic with Susie and Lenny is where it’s at. Shippy or platonic, I just love the interactions between these three, and between every pair combination among them: Midge and Susie bantering and swearing and tits-upping even when they irritate each other, Midge and Lenny bringing the pathos as well as the humor, and Lenny and Susie both being hardened old pros with still a little glimmer of starry eyes. I am good with L/M/S or L&M&S or L/M & M/S – so, if you go the shippy route, either a V-shaped triad or hey, Susie (whom I absolutely read as gay) might find a way to be good with a full-on triangle… If you want to keep it platonic, True Companions all the way, always there for each other, even when they want to strangle each other. And as much as I like the comedy inherent in the characters, I also love that they’re all three, each in their own way, messed up people and dysfunctional to various degrees. So yeah, I just want Midge to hand the kids over to her parents, ditch Joel once and for all, marry (interpret that as literally or as loosely as you want) both Susie and Lenny, and for the three of them to ride off into the sunset to make comedy history.
-Does Susie manage them both? Does Midge open for Lenny on tour? Does he open for her??? Or they become equal stars on the comedy circuit?
-Maybe Lenny joins Shy Baldwin’s six-month tour, or they run into him while touring Europe or the US, and they all tool around, and yes I would love as much period detail and geography porn as you can throw at me. And while Lenny and Midge have seen the world, Susie hasn’t – her reaction to different foods, languages, customs, landscapes would be spectacular to witness. Especially if “different” is someplace as close to New York as Jersey or Connecticut, or someplace as far away and different as, say, Japan.
-If they do go to Europe, somehow or other they also tour the Soviet Bloc. Cue culture clashes, getting followed (or thinking they’re being followed) by the secret police, getting hammered on vodka and herring and pickles, and then when they get back to the States, the Feds grill them. It’s all dead serious, and Midge and Lenny refuse to take it as seriously as they should, while Susie is trying but the whole thing is really pissing her off…
-Lenny’s burned out, and Midge is just getting started. This dissonance may or may not find some sort of resolution. One thing’s for sure: Susie has limited patience for both Lenny’s depression and Midge’s need to make everything pretty.
-Instead of going to Joel for a no-way-is-that-closure fling after the Steve Allen Show taping, Midge goes to have a drink or seven with the two people who have, in their own ways, always been there for her and never let her down.
-Midge goes on TV again, this time as the star: longer set, prime time slot, dressing room, the works. She’s dying of nerves. Lenny and Susie coach her through it.
-Midge and Susie head out west to make it big and stay with Lenny once they’re in Los Angeles, and it’s marvelous (ha ha) and disastrous in equal measure.
-They all three get drunk, maybe with a hint of sadness if it’s the holidays (you can ignore my DNW about holidays, but please let that be just the background, not the lynchpin of the story) or someone’s birthday, and there’s a bar fight, running from the cops, eating greasy food at ass o’clock, and possibly kissing, not necessarily in that order.
-One or two or all three of them get arrested/have court appearances all over America and have to bail each other out, or find someone to bail them all out, or secure legal counsel – you get the drift. Or all three of them are trying to explain to a single lawyer what happened, talking over each other, the two pros not being able to resist landing zingers and Susie not being far behind, and the lawyer just getting more and more confused.
-They get in trouble some other way – offended patrons, surly management, shitty hotels, tour bus breaks down in the middle of Wyoming – and have to have each other’s backs because no one else will.
-Three-person road trip or tour, and only Susie knows how to drive. So Midge decides to learn, right then and there. And Lenny… Lenny may or may not be too lazy/hungover/lying about not knowing how. There’s supposed to be a rotation so everyone gets to stretch out on the back seat for equal lengths of time, but you know the system doesn’t work too well in practice. Also, they play games in the car to while away the time, and they do it their own way of course: I spy, cows on my side, yellow car, never have I ever, 20 questions, or riffing on whatever’s playing on the radio…
-They sit down to watch the moon landing (you can move it up a bit so it’s not happening a whole decade after S2) – by which I mean, Midge is all gung-ho about the moon landing, and Lenny and Susie are like whatever – and things don’t quite go to plan, but a good time is eventually had by all.
-It’s Yom Kippur again, and Midge wants to do the whole production: synagogue, breaking fast, the lot. Lenny and Susie would rather eat glass. Midge gets her way, of course. Does she decide to bring Susie and Lenny home to meet – or meet properly – her parents??? I bet Abe and Rose’s reactions would be something to see. (This too is an exception to my DNW about holiday settings – I just want stuff to get as crazy as it did the two times we saw Yom Kippur celebrated on the show, and for everything to still somehow turn out relatively OK.)
-Midge and Lenny have cheered each other up when the going got extra rough. I want for Susie to be especially down in the dumps – maybe her boozehound of a mother died, maybe some asshole told her she’s a shit manager and got her right in her insecurities – and Midge to rope Lenny into trying to cheer her up. And for Susie to fight them every step of the way but still be glad they care enough to try.
-Inspired by Susie’s brother looking just like her, by which I mean she and he and their sister look nothing alike, and by Lenny’s “she’s my mother” quip about Midge at the TV studio – Midge, Susie, and Lenny pretend to all be blood relatives, or mafiosi, or spies, or something else they’re not, while out in public, say in a restaurant. Just to be assholes and see how long they can keep it going before they break character or people figure them out, or call the cops, or something. There’s totally a bet on who corpses and breaks character first.
-Lenny and Midge do a (comeback) tour of the Borscht Belt, and all the Steiner Mountain Resort guests (especially the gossipy old hens from the beauty salon) and staff go to see them – and heckle.
-Stuff happens and they end up performing at some hole in the wall place where no one knows who they are (or no one believes it’s really those people they’ve seen on TV) – tough crowd, but a good workout for the two comics, and if Susie gets to threaten to rip off someone’s head, all the better.
-Lenny and Midge honing their routines – and maybe developing a double act – and Susie being all “oh my fucking god, what the fuck!!! … They’re actually good. I’m so proud.”
-Sharing a bed with two other people is an ongoing project: who sleeps (or refuses to sleep) in the middle? Who gets up during the night and why? Who starfishes across most of the bed? Who snores, and how does this get handled? If alcohol or pot have happened, how does that affect the sleeping arrangements? Also, Susie and Lenny witness and react to Midge’s beauty routine, ‘nuff said. Or, for various reasons one person after another ends up decamping to another room/bed/couch, but it doesn’t help them get much sleep or even stay there very long (this is inspired by my love of Shirley Jackson and her short story/humorous essay “The Night We All Had Grippe”). If you prefer to keep it platonic, most of this would work if they’re just sharing a double bedroom on tour (I leave the reason for why Lenny is bunking with the women up to you).
Canon-specific DNWs: explicit sex and pairing any two as a / couple with the third as a & hanger-on. I’m here for equality in this three-way dynamic and the banter and the surprise!feels and the companionship. And of course all the comedy, situational or stand-up. Oh, and Lenny can still be his RL messed-up, drugged-up self – albeit the gentler version the show gives us – but it would be good if he didn’t kick the bucket a handful of years down the line.
  Starred Up
Oliver Baumer/Eric Love
No theme
Yes I do ship it, I do, I do!
Ahem. Don’t get me wrong, I liked what the movie did with the father-son relationship and its influence on both men’s character development – but I really wish they hadn’t got Oliver out of the action before the story’s climax (not like that!). The final denouement with Love father and Love son was great, as was the hint at the end that Eric learned something in anger-management group and has a support network that will help him a lot. But. I would have wanted to see more of the intriguing dynamic between Eric the intelligent, semi-feral, yet not-incorrigible, young thug and Oliver the educated, dedicated, kind yet aware of his own potential for violence (what was he on about with “I need to be here”?), slightly older counselor. They had me at Oliver’s “I want him” and Eric later telling his father that Oliver’s a better man than Love Sr. Also the not-flirting and the push-pull in the scene when Oliver picks up Eric from his cell - yowza!
Prompts:
-I would love to see Oliver return to holding his group in prison, so the two of them can interact more, either in the movie’s immediate aftermath or years down the line, as it’s implied that Eric will be serving a long sentence. Give me more scenes from anger management or the ribald, honest, free-flowing conversations in group, either with the other men present (I liked Hassan and Tyrone especially, among the group members) or a one-on-one session.
-An oblique or open-but-undramatic admission/declaration that they both know there’s something there, even if they don’t know what to do with it. Or, one or both of them knows exactly what to do with it, and the push-pull that would result from that.
-Dirty talk: used for arousal, as a defense mechanism, as a form of flirtation. Eric using slurs to assert dominance, and Oliver not letting him hide behind profanity, when he can use colorful language to express emotion and/or sexual interest. There could definitely be some verbal taunting/flirting about who wants/is eager to do what or is good at doing something. There may be some sniping comments about logistics and (lack of) condoms and barebacking and what men get up to in prison. There probably wouldn’t be deep discussions about sexual identity.
-An emergency in the prison requires a lock-down, so Oliver gets temporarily stuck in Eric’s cell or another room with only Eric for company. Things get porny and/or emotional.
-Eric is eventually released (you can handwave this so it happens soon after the movie or have it happen years later) and crashes with Oliver while he adjusts to the outside world. You guessed it: things get porny and/or emotional.
-How do they get to the point where both can cross that line from friends/whatever the hell they are and become, to lovers? (There’s Eric’s personal history and general discomfort with vulnerability, plus all the ways prison sex can be or make things complicated, and if it helps, I headcanon Oliver as either gay or bi and at least somewhat closeted, at work especially.) Who initiates and “directs traffic”? How does their always-contentious dynamic shift during and after sex? Is the sex an isolated (series of) occasion(s), or a progression/escalation over multiple encounters (how would I love especially an escalating series of encounters, let me count the ways)? Eric might seem like the logical initiator and/or dominant partner as well as using the possibility of sex to manipulate and exert control, but then Oliver might (or might not!) surprise him and is definitely the one more in touch with himself as well as aware of his custodial duty toward the men in the group.
-At some point in their intimate relationship (probably not right at the start, and probably not in prison, though if you can make it happen in prison, more power to you!), Oliver decides he’s going to take his sweet time and make Eric fall absolutely apart with pleasure, while using dirty talk to both arouse and empower Eric to own his desires – by that point, Eric is in a place where he can let that happen and enjoy it, even if he still talks tough.
-Role reversal: Oliver as the con (jittery, shut off, sticking out like a sore thumb in prison with all his fancy learning, yet no pushover) and Eric as the newbie counselor (kid from the wrong side of the tracks made good? Youthful hoodlum turned around his life, now trying to help others via tough love and lots of swearing and maybe a bit of manipulation when called for?)
  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, 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 (the exception is Laura Moon in American Gods dying so she can become undead), 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, unrequested crossovers or fusions, AUs which have nothing to do with canon
0 notes