#whereas with sleeping dead it was just a bonus aside

[obstinaterixatrix]

anyway there’s also a series being tl’d which is basically ‘guy who wants to be the bullied mc’s yandere boyfriend ❤️ and kills all the bullies’ and I can understand the revenge fantasy aspect combined with the thriller/horror aspect but honestly when unhinged romances involve other characters it loses me because it guts focus from relationship development. well in this case it isn’t about relationship development, I’d consider the relationship basically just the set up for revenge murder spree. and with the other characters that exist to be killed, the purpose is to create characters that are satisfying to kill and characters that ‘deserve’ to die so some part of the retaliation is ‘justified’ (even if the response is disproportionate). well in general revenge fantasies aren’t my type of narrative

[chaoskirin]

The Seven Seas--Chapter Three

Fandom: Queen Genre: Sci-fi/Gen Rating: PG Chapter 3 Word Count: 1720

Freddie spent the next several hours (and hours and hours) pacing the barn and outlining a plan. For the sake of suspense, said plan will not be described here, although, wonderful readers, it might be described as amazing and daring! Filled with intricate precisiveness and wild creativity! Genius! And most importantly, incredibly unlikely to succeed!

Somewhere around the five o'clock mark, Roger ordered a pizza which never arrived due to the rather remote location of the farm. He spent the next excruciating hour complaining about his insatiable hunger, until John raided the chicken coop and fried some eggs.

Brian was torn between being appalled and relieved. After all, the chickens ought to be allowed to keep their eggs... since they made them, after all. Roger asked Brian what he thought cakes were made of, so Brian swore off cakes for at least the next couple days, at least until he could scrub the vision of affronted chickens out of his mind.

John said "at least they aren't being vaporized," which was quite sobering and put everyone directly back on task.

It should be said that the appearance of aliens on earth had a rather profound effect on Brian, who, up until that point, only hoped aliens existed. Ever the pragmatist, though, he never believed earth would make contact with the various other denizens of the universe until far after he was dead and buried. After all, relative physics still reigned supreme as the dominating theory of everything in the universe. And with no way to travel faster than the speed of light, aliens simply couldn't reach it from wherever they made their home.

Except they had. And they'd dropped by like a very undesirable relative during Christmas celebrations--everyone wanted them gone, but they had to be appeased and placated first. Perhaps even force-fed copious alcohol until they passed out in a peaceful stupor, while the kids drew fake marker mustaches under their noses.

"Do you think," Brian said to John after the four of them split into two groups. "Do you think they'd let me question them about the stars? How they got here? Where they're from?"

John blinked slowly.

"It's not a stupid idea to ask!" Brian insisted. "Just because they want to raze the planet doesn't mean I have to stop learning. And if they really think I'll spill all their secrets then they must not want to destroy me very much. I can't tattle if I'm dead. Don't you think?"

"If I say yes, will you get back to work?" John asked, flicking the end of a soldering iron at him.

Brian grunted and went back to poring over the star map Glasses left behind. He vastly preferred absolutes, whereas Freddie's "plan" just happened to be chock full of conjecture and dumb luck and a good measure of stupidity. Absolute stupidity, which Brian supposed counted as an absolute, just not the kind he wanted. That made him nervous, and therefore talkative.

"It's just..." he said as he tried to figure out Denmark's location in relation to an earth star chart. Thankfully, he never left home without one, just in case. "They could have the secrets of the whole universe stowed away on that little ship of theirs."

"And if they did, and you end up dead?" John asked. "What would you do with them?"

"Well, I'd know."

John rolled his eyes. He'd set aside the soldering gun in favor of a welding torch, and so he was able to dramatically flip the black welding mask down over his eyes to signal the end of conversation. The git. Brian looked away as John ignited the flame.

"I don't even know if it's in the right bloody hemisphere," Brian muttered to himself, returning to the star map. He couldn't read the alien language scrawled out across it, plus it appeared the aliens preferred some odd derivation of base-8 math... which meant he couldn't even parse their coordinates. He was sure it made sense to them, but in the moment, it was infuriating.

That meant he had to manually study every sector of the alien map, then line it up to the earth map. If he could figure out the first sector, he might be able to proceed. The problem was parallax. After all, why would the aliens make a map meant to be viewed from earth?

Damn parallax. Why couldn't all the species in the galaxy just decide on a standard map!

Meanwhile, John got to build... Well. Brian wasn't entirely convinced it wasn't just another cat tree for Freddie's cats.  Freddie assured everyone this little bit of the plan was critical, though. And it was up to Brian to find the proper angle of whatever it was so he could--

Ah. Wait a minute.

I'm sure you're all very bored by now, and I wouldn't blame you. After all, this is just filler really, since one can't just go from aliens arriving to aliens being defeated. The point is, all the great writers in history somehow universally decided that a story can't be told without costing its readers vast amounts of time when they should be doing other things. Say, filling their washing machine with lemonade, or ironing their socks, or stacking teacups on a sleeping cat. Or watching egg whites dry as they drip down the siding of your irritating neighbor's house. Not that the author has ever done that.

In order to create suspense and drama, most writers masterfully fill their stories with plot dynamics. However, this plot is fairly cut and dry as far as stories go, and the author is not masterful in any sense of the word, so she's just decided to waste your time with this rather pointless filler text.

However, as you've been reading this, Brian May--brilliant scientist that he is--has been using his time with all the wisdom and efficiency one would expect from a future astrophysicist. As John continued to weld his rather confusing scaffolding, Brian chanced upon the exact miniscule plot detail he could utilize to make sense of the alien map. Thusly did he shout "Eureka!" ending this particular section of the story.

You're welcome.

---

"You can't just write a whole song in one day," Roger said.

"Well, I don't intend to. We have five days," Freddie returned, straightening a bit in his seat and looking down his nose in haughty confidence. Into the phone, he said "No, I won't hold. I'm Freddie-Fucking-Mercury--What do you mean who??"

The line went dead. Not because the other side had hung up on him, but because rats had chewed clean through the phone line again. Bother of all bothers. If only he had his cats here, the damnable rats wouldn't be such an issue!

"Roger, be a dear and chase the rats off again, would you?" Freddie asked. When cats weren't an option, Rogers did just fine, and as a bonus, they didn't leave rodent corpses on your pillow in the morning. At least Freddie hoped they didn't. He probably should have asked.

"Five days or no," Roger said, returning from his chase, "the pressure must be intense. I mean, if it's going to work, it has to be perfect, doesn't it? No room for error. And you have to trust not only yourself to remember the lyrics, but you also have to have absolute faith in your bass player, and your guitar player, and your drummer who's a bit of a flake."

"Just a bit?"

"Last I checked."

Freddie tut-tutted. "It'll work. Look, it's a short story, and the author always writes happy endings. What makes you think it won't work?"

"Well, I have to be disagreeable, don't I?" Roger asked, flopping down on the couch next to Freddie. "Let's see what you've got so far."

Freddie handed over the notepad.

After a dozen quiet minutes of earnest contemplation, Roger said, "All you've written is the title."

"The Seven Seas of Rhye," Freddie declared. "It's a good title! I was thinking a sort of... Bar song, I guess. Maybe a--"

Roger was shaking his head.

"Oh, what. We've been bleeding out all our creativity lately." Freddie stood, hands on his hips. "There's none left, is there? You're right. Five days to put together a song and get people here so they can bear witness to my amazing plan? It's not long enough. We'll just have to cancel! There shouldn't be consequences for that."

"There probably won't be," Roger agreed. "Just the annihilation of humanity, I guess. Nothing major."

Freddie pursed his lips. Yes, that was a problem. He'd have to power through. As always.

"Look," Roger said, pulling a comic book out of his back pocket. He always carried one, just in case. We've got aliens on earth.

"Rhye."

"Whatever. We've got aliens. Make it epic."

Freddie paged through the comic book. Although the cover seemed to hint at an epic space battle far into the future with high-tech space suits and murderous monsters, the inner pages had been replaced by porn. Porn Freddie didn't even particularly like. "Roger," he said, holding up the least scandalous image he could find.

"Well, you weren't supposed to open it." Roger at least had the wherewithal to appear sheepish as he snatched the magazine out of Freddie's grasp. "If it gets boring in the barn, do you think I'm going to want to read comics?"

"I'd hope that you'd be writing like we're supposed to be," Freddie said, curling his nose up as Roger tossed the magazine on the end table. "Not--"

He paused as inspiration struck, and a single phrase popped into his mind.

I Stand Before You Naked to the Eye.

The basis of the song began to form around it. "Listen," Freddie said, handing Roger the phone, which was still not connected to anything. "First, I need you to take over securing the advertising to get us a proper audience. Make some calls. Get the people here. Can you do that?"

Roger nodded. "And?"

"Yes. Second, I need you to never, ever tell anyone that I got the idea for this song after looking at your raunchy porn."

Roger smiled. Narrowed his eyes. "Put I'm In Love With My Car on the B-Side to Bohemian Rhapsody and you've got yourself a deal."

[raywritesthings]

Lauriver for the meme

Who would be the big spoon/little spoon? I think the obvious point point would be Oliver, but I’ve always really loved that shot from the deleted scene in season 1 where Laurel jumps on the bed and kind of sprawls on top of him. I think they’d end up taking turns, really, just based on who needs what at a given moment.

Who would wake up first? That’s tough. Oliver has trained himself to operate on less sleep, but Laurel is canonically a morning person. I think at first he would wake up first but as he got comfortable in the relationship, Laurel would be the one up and out of bed first.

Do they have nicknames for each other? Well, Laurel calls him Ollie so that’s one. I think it would be many many years down the line from where Oliver is in the canon for him to use something like Pretty Bird (and I think some kind of event/situation would have to precipitate it).

How do they apologize after an argument? They tend to need some time to cool down first before one approaches the other with a heartfelt talk. It’s less that the words “I’m sorry” are exchanged, and more that they both let the other explain their position before coming to some kind of decision.

What would they be like as parents? I think they’d be great! Laurel is very attentive to kids and Oliver has a lot of love in his heart that he desperately wants to give someone. They could really balance each other out.

Who is more romantic? Oliver. Laurel is a bit world-weary when we meet her character, and I think she’d need to get sort of coaxed back into the romance of things. Not that her feelings aren’t there, but she’s learned to be guarded.

What sort of gifts do they get for each other? I think Oliver would go for more of the homemade type of stuff. To him, it would mean more than purchased items since growing up surrounded by a family that just throws around money it kind of ends up ringing hollow after a while. 

Who gets jealous easiest? Oliver, hands down. He carries it better in regards to Laurel than in his writing of later seasons, but Laurel by contrast watched him get engaged with a smile on her face. Even if it hurt her deep down, she tries harder to focus on the positive (or is better at hiding the hurt, to put it a different way).

Who gets more excited for events e.g.. Birthdays, Christmas? I think Oliver. He is big on sentiment, while Laurel kind of learned to push those things aside during the five years they all thought he was dead.

Who is the most adventurous? Laurel. I think Oliver does adventurous things because he feels he has to, whereas Laurel takes on adventure because she wants to. To me, it comes down to their different approaches to becoming heroes.

Who is the most protective? I mean, they’re both insanely protective of each other. Oliver will throw himself into harm’s way no matter what season, and Laurel will go against everyone including her own father to keep him out of trouble. I don’t think I can give it to one over the other.

What would they have been like as childhood sweethearts? *shakes fist at sky that we don’t have more flashback scenes* Clearly adorable, from what we do know. I think they were both incredibly smitten with each other for a time before Oliver got the courage to actually try and ask her out. And he probably kicks himself everyday for giving that up...(sorry to descend into angst)

Who uses all the hot water? Hm, well we do know they like showers together, so maybe both? ;)

Who would accidentally set the kitchen on fire whilst cooking? Laurel. bless her. Oliver knows not to let that happen, though.

Who initiates sexy times the most?

Who is more dominant? That’s also tough because they both like to assert themselves in their interactions. I think it really 

What would they do if the other one was hurt? Get the other to help/safety as soon as possible then stay by their side until they know they’re okay.

Who gives nose/forehead kisses? Oliver canonically has done this, so I’d say him.

What their biggest fight was/will be about: They’ve already had their biggest fight in the show, but honestly I think it was the hospital hallway scene in 4x05. After that fight, Laurel could have and did have every right to walk away and never look back, and for once Oliver took steps to genuinely reconcile. I think he finally realized he couldn’t keep going on as he had, and I only wish the writers had come to the same realization.

BONUS #1: Song to sum them up? So song recs are always hard for me because my taste is incredibly old-fashioned. I also had trouble thinking of one that was happy. But basically, I’m going to throw out the song “This Nearly Was Mine” from South Pacific. (Sidenote: I once found a version of Julie Andrews singing it as part of a medley in concert that was truly beautiful.)

BONUS #2: A head canon? I think they were both starting to fall back in love before “Eleven-Fifty-Nine”, and that Oliver has never really stopped loving her since.

BOTTOM LINE: Do I ship it? As crazy and messed up as these two can be sometimes, yes I really do.

Thanks for the ask! Anybody else can feel free to send me a ship and I’ll answer these same questions!