#formatting is hell and dialogue rules are fake

[saturdaynightghostclub]

Donnie MacClain, Wizard of Time

Summer in Chicago is a complete beast. A sprawling, sweating, heaving beast that sits on your chest and laughs if you so much as try to breathe. Really, the air is so thick you swear to god you could cut it with a knife. Why does anyone live here?

Such are your thoughts as you trudge home from the grocery store, where you foolishly thought it would be a good idea to walk at the peak of this July afternoon. Okay, so maybe it was less of a “choice” and more of a “completely preventable car malfunction” that led you here, but whatever. Next time you let your gas tank fall below empty, you’ll remember this—the unbearable heat, the humidity—I mean, god, you look like you could give Axl Rose a run for his money. Are there really women whose hair stays perfectly styled in this kind of weather? If there are, you’d like to meet them. To congratulate them or take them down in a fist fight, you haven’t decided.

Your backpack, filled to the brim with cold beer and produce, provides a little relief against your flushed skin as you approach your apartment building. You shudder at the prospect of climbing the five flights of stairs to your place; the landlord has been dragging his feet about fixing the elevator for six months, and while it wasn’t so bad in the spring, the old building’s lack of airflow makes it damn near unbearable any time the temperature outside reaches above 80°. So you sit. Just for a minute, on the bottom step. Just until that feverish misery fades. Donnie will be home by now, singing in the shower after photographing the Cubs’ day game against the Brewers. Probably Breakfast at Tiffany’s, if you had to guess; he heard it on the radio three weeks ago and has proceeded to butcher the lyrics any time the opportunity has presented itself since. You think he does it just to see you scrunch up your nose and pretend to be annoyed. And who are you to deny him that simple pleasure? You stand, too stiff for your twenty-odd years, and begin the steep climb up to the apartment you share.

Approaching your door, you notice that the air is noticeably lacking a certain tone-deaf performance. Maybe you’ve beat him home, you think briefly, turning your key in the lock with what feels like the last of your strength. You really need to be better about putting gas in your car. You stumble over something—a dirty white sneaker, men’s size 11.5–before you’re able to set down your groceries. Donnie’s not exactly a neat freak, but he’s usually kind enough not to leave a trail of destruction in his wake. You look around as you begin putting your dinner ingredients in order; he’s not in the main living space, and you don’t hear the shower running. So what, he was just raptured out of his shoes? You sigh in exasperation, knowing your annoyance will evaporate as soon as he locks those big brown eyes on you.

Six pack in the fridge, ice cream in the freezer (you couldn’t resist), bread on the counter, boyfriend nowhere to be seen. You hum softly to yourself—Breakfast at Tiffany’s, what else?—and begin chopping vegetables for a salad, accompanied only by the geriatric whirr of the box fan Donnie haphazardly installed in your living room window. It’s held to the windowsill with bungee cords, which gives you heart palpitations if you think about it for too long; you can practically hear Donnie placating you, relax, baby, your man’s a pro, and you smile to yourself in spite of the spiking anxiety in your chest. You’ve been threatening to call his father roughly once a week to fix it, but you both know you won’t. Really, the thing could come down any day now.

Lost in thought, you hardly register Donnie’s footsteps behind you. If it wasn’t for that one creaky floorboard—it’s bent up on one end and prone to tripping unsuspecting guests—you might not have heard him at all.

“Did you even untie those shoes before you kicked them into the doorway?” You ask without turning, a smile in your voice. In response, Donnie slides one arm around your waist, his chest rising and falling against your back. His free hand lifts your hair from the back of your neck, exposing your skin for him to press his lips against. You breathe in, reveling in the scent of his skin. Heat, sunscreen, and the aftershave he insists on buying despite the fact that he can’t grow a beard. You let one hand wander behind you, behind him, into his hair as he lowers his forehead onto your shoulder. He exhales, breath shuddering ever so slightly, and pulls you closer against him.

“Hi, angel,” he murmurs into your skin. His voice is exhausted. Disregarding the fact that he didn’t answer your question, you dislodge yourself gently from his arms to turn and face him. Donnie’s smiling, but without his usual energy the effect is more unnerving than anything. You place your hands on his face, raising an eyebrow as if to ask what’s wrong. Like a magnet, the boy has re-attached himself to you, hands sliding from your hips to your back. He shakes his head, his hair brushing your face gently as he lowers his gaze to yours. “I’m alright,” he says, “long day. I missed you.”

“It’s been, like, six hours,” you tease, smiling up at him so that your lips nearly touch.

“Five and a half,” he says, “just complete agony. How in god’s name did we do this before we lived together?”

A light breeze pours through the open window then, and you gasp at the fleeting relief it provides you. “I don’t know,” you reply before kissing him sweetly on the lips, “it must have been harder than I remember.”

“Mhmm,” he hums, pulling you into a bear hug, “you were worth it, though.”

“Cornball.”

“You chose this.”

“You’ve got me there.”

You stand like that for a moment longer, letting the heat of his body envelop you until you can’t take it anymore. When you pull away, you think for a split second that you know exactly what Donnie will look like in forty years, when his smile lines have deepened and his hair has gone gray. You know with absolute certainty that he’ll always hold you like this, this tightly, age and frailty be damned. It makes your heart ache, and you remind yourself that neither of you is even thirty. It’s hard not to resent the job he loves so much, the one that turns him into a little kid again, for keeping him from you for days at a time. But then, there’s that love. You can’t begrudge him that love, not when he bounds through the door after a week away and takes you in his arms so tightly you think you might pass out, not when he slides into your bed in the little hours with whispered apologies and feather-light kisses, and certainly not now, when his exhaustion renders him all but speechless and his soft eyes bore into yours with an expression that makes you seasick.

“Donnie, I love you,” you say suddenly. You say it often, with varying degrees of intensity, but you’ve seldom felt so utterly compelled to make your feelings known as you do now, in your kitchen, over the drone of the box fan.

“I know, baby,” he grins—there it is—“I love you too.”

Good, you think, now he knows. Now I can chop vegetables in peace. You nod toward the kitchen counter, indicating for Donnie to sit at one of your thrifted bar stools while you cook. He shakes his head, still grinning. You think one of your boyfriend’s greatest pleasures in life might be getting in your way when you’re trying to cook. Second only to cooking meals himself, which is somehow an even more chaotic affair. Somehow his chaos brings you comfort, though, so you shrug and say “Suit yourself. Stay away from my knife, though.”

Sometimes you get vertigo when you look at Donnie. It’s hard to believe you’ve only been together two years; he has a way of bending time to his will. Each time he takes your sleeve between his fingers, kisses you goodbye, rests his head on your shoulder, you’re two years younger and lit up with butterflies. Then, in the next moment, he’s pulling you into his chest in the dark and you know instinctively that his soul and yours have been in conversation for a long, long time. Now, standing beside him with your hip pressed against his, you’re exactly as you are: young and dumb and in love.

[darkpurpledawn]

Fanfic recs for the first quarter of 2021!

It’s been a long time since I made a fic rec post, and we’re diving back in with a big list of fics from the first quarter! Even long after the publication of the book and coming up on two years out from the release of the show, this fandom is still a neverending gold mine of fics. Here are some I’ve enjoyed that were completed from January through March 2021!

cafe au vin by @mortifyingideal   Rated G

One Valentine’s Day Fic To Rule Them All...I’m not going to say more because this one is such a delightful surprise to unwrap. Uproariously funny and clever

the devil and the deep blue sea by @waywarder  Rated M

Calling all sea creature nerds, and anyone who has ever taken a date to the aquarium and talked too much about fish for several hours. It’s a delight to see the personalities shine through so clearly in this AU!

The Discord Servers of Hell by @ineffablelawr Rated T

Hell has discord and it turns out exactly how you would think. Really cute Fun With Formats fic!

Faster than a Speeding Bentley by @moondawntreader Rated M

An incredible AU that had me laughing aloud to a degree that frightened the neighbor’s cat. Crowley gets bitten by a mutagenic snake and becomes a superhero, and the care and thought and creativity given to his superhero identity is just magnificent!

The Fine Print by @fremulon Rated T

Read it for the life-giving office job catharsis, read it for the nonstop, top-tier jokes, read it for an amazing example of an AU with similar plot beats to the original GO in a wildly different setting, just read it!

For a Sheep as a Lamb by @brightwanderer Rated T

I feel like this fic takes the T rating as a challenge, and the results are so much fun

A Good Old-Fashioned Cock-up by @brightwanderer Rated M

DIFFICULT not to shriek while reading, Aziraphale’s bit of bastard on full, glorious display

an institute you can’t disparage by @mortifyingideal Rated G

prepare yourself for the post-pandemic weddings of all your acquaintances with this absolute romp

Let’s Build a Vivarium by @waldosakimbo Rated G

WaldosAkimbo is out to make me emotional about demons again and doing a fantastic job. Super funny and touching!

The Magician in the Bushes by @caffeinechic Rated T

A fabulous meet-cute featuring The Amazing Mr. Fell and Caterer Crowley, you can HEAR Sheen and Tennant saying the dialogue in this I swear

One Golden Glance of What Should Be by bulfinch Rated T

A really beautiful through-time collection of vignettes themed around Crowley’s snake eyes, haunting and lovely

The Ordinary World by @antikate Rated E

How do you write about an impossible grief? and how do you come back from it to find an impossible joy? Idk but Anti_Kate has done it and it’s an absolute page turner (Next Chapter clicker?) on top of that

The Private Collection by @entanglednow Rated E

Pure, Grade AAA (or perhaps XXX) absurdity, outrageously funny

Reptiles of the Mind by CiderApples Rated G

a gorgeous, ambiguous slice of post-apocalypse life

rumours (and other things that thrive in the dark) by @forineffablereasons Rated G

this is CANON now, I love this backstory on Crowley’s traffic jacket and the mixture of sweetness, humor, and longing

and truth (and other things that thrive in the light) by @forineffablereasons Rated E

….and there’s a delightful sequel in which the jacket reappears for some Very Good Times

Shiver At Your Touch by @mintly Rated E

Crowley and Aziraphale go wild on one of London’s biggest tourist attractions, and their banter is pitch-perfect and supremely adorable

Sometimes a Snake is Just a Snake by AstroGirl Rated T

I’m a sucker for a fake advertisement, and this fic has truly excellent bickering wherein Crowley bemoans his image being used for commercial purposes

Treasures of Heaven by @heavens-bookshop Rated G

A new favorite outside POV fic, this is so, so charming and makes me pine for the times of coffeeshops past!

two if by sea by @theseedsofdoom Rated G

I am now desperately longing to be wandering around a foggy island off the coast of Maine

Vapour in Your Love by @antikate Rated E

This fic is so funny it makes me want to scream, read this while drinking a beverage at your OWN PERIL

[letterstothemidnightsociety]

THAT’S RIGHT BITCH! It’s October and I am still watching and inexplicably blogging about Supernatural - a dinosaur of a television show that’s been on the air longer than most children I know have been alive. 

I know I’m An Old because I don’t think kids these days understand the struggle it was watching television before streaming. We had to wait for episodes. Hell, I don’t think kids these days even really have to wait for seasons. I mean, Voltron premiered on Netflix in 2016, capped off their seasons at 13 episodes a piece and, oh yeah - aired seasons 5 - 8  all in 2018. Was I mad about that? No of course not. Do I also say phrases like “kids these days? Yes, so who even knows if what I think is relevant anymore. 

Alright, so speaking of seasons, last time I looked at pilots and pilot seasons and how the streaming era is changing everything we know about starting a TV show. But once you’ve got your pilot down, now what? 

Not this kind of pilot. Also, based on the prerequisites for demon possession, we’re all agreed this co-pilot’s like, an alcoholic, right?

There’s a rule in TV (sort of) that the first six episodes (some might argue the first season entirely) should be a kind of rehash of the pilot. The pilot sets up your premise and once you’ve got your pilot down, your job as a TV writer is to re-establish that premise over and over again. You’re building your world, you’re writing it’s rules. You’re setting up a template, a formula for how your episodes are gonna play out. This helps your audience get to know the characters, get familiar with your world, get comfortable spending time with them. Essentially, you’re getting your audience to trust the show that they’re going to be tuning in to for at least the next 20-some-odd episodes. 

I’d also argue that this is important so that later, you can break that format later. I’m not saying you should break the trust your audience puts in you, and that’s probably a real fine line of distinction. But if you break your rules right, it can hit the audience with a big emotional sucker punch. Or, it can stand out as a real breakout, tentpole of an episode - I’m thinking specifically about Ghostfacers! In season 3, or Once More, With Feeling, from Buffy. Those episodes work, really work, because they deviate from the formula, but they only work because we know the formula so well.  And these aren’t big changes to the way episodes are done, they’re just shifted ever so slightly that they felt new again.. 

So what is the premise of the first four episodes Supernatural? What’s the formula they set up for the rest of the series? 

Brothers. I said it in my last post, I’ll say it again, Sam and Dean/Jensen Ackles and Jared Jared Padalecki are what makes this show. Full stop. I think we could have gotten 5 seasons out of a show starring two other dudes. I do not think this show could have gotten 15 seasons with two other dudes. So from the pilot through Phantom Traveler, we learn that Sam and Dean have a sh*tty home life - their mother was killed by some mysterious evil thing and their father raised them to be little demon-hunting child soldiers while they look for the killer. Oh yeah, and Sam’s girlfriend died the exact same way which we will never forget because Sam’s gonna have a dream about it almost every episode from here on out. We set up the tension between the brothers - that Sam got to go to college while Dean stayed with their dad like a good boi. We learn that everybody hates each other probably because they are deeply and unhealthily codependent love each other so damn much. 

Next we get the basic rundown of the season arc: 

Dad’s on a hunting trip and he hasn’t been home in a few days. The Winchester brothers are looking for him and by extension, looking for answers as to what killed their mom/Sam’s girlfriend. We also get the basic rundown of every episode: dad is a mysterious and elusive sonuvuabitch, so every episode they go about, say it with me now:

“The family business.” I would also accept “Killing as many evil sons of bitches as I possibly can,” but why can’t I find a gif for it?!? 

Backtracking on this but you know what else gets hecking established with the Winchesters? Sam is the cute one with the people skills and the puppy dog face, so you’d naturally assume that he’s the soft one. No. Not the case. Dean is the Sofffft Boi. The SOFTest boi. Dean wants Sam to talk about his feelings, Dean wants Sam to not keep things bottled up, Dean is the one who desperately wants to keep a hold of his family and also is just deeply broken and traumatized on the inside and oh no, I told myself I wouldn’t do this but I did it anyway. Sorry not sorry. This watch, I’m really picking up on the fact that Dean is, weirdly, the Mom Friend in this first season. Like, he’s basically a Trailer-Trash-Teen-Pregnancy Mom who’ll give you spaghettios five nights a week and a shot of whiskey so you’ll quit yer bitchin’ and go to sleep faster, but he’s the Mom nonetheless. Later in this season and in other seasons, I think you even see him do his dumb-baby-best filling in as the Mom when John went off the deep end. Anyway, I have a lot of feelings and we don’t have time to unpack all of that so I’ll just move on.

RUDE.

Next we set up our Supernatural Bag of Holding - what’s in it? What are the mystical artifacts they use to kill those evil sons of bitches? First up is The Car. Damn, I am not a cars girl, but that 67 Chevy, it does things to me. 

This car has some weird pavlovian trigger for me, it’s not NATURAL. 

The journal. 

John Winchester, you journal the way I imagine a psycho killer journals and I would just really appreciate it if you could be ANY MORE ORGANIZED THAN THIS.

The Trunk Full of Weapons - I love that in these first few episodes (and possibly the rest of the series???) they give this HELLA conspicuous look every time they open the trunk full of weapons. It’s hilarious EVERY TIME.

No, you’re not being obvious at ALL, guys.

The Fake ID’s - from credit cards to impersonating feds, these boys are not afraid to break the law to save some lives and I feel like that’s...that’s the theme of the show maybe? They’re here to save people and they’ll do what they have to to do that? In a world that clearly establishes a dark vs. light/good vs. evil dichotomy, the Winchester make it their job to live in a world of grey? Basically? 

Next on the checklist for this first season of Supernatural - it’s spoopy. *Spoop mileage may vary.* I said it last time, but I’ll say it again: this first season aired at 9:00pm at night. That means it’s primetime stuff for the 18 - 25 year old crowd, but they don’t want to risk some 13 year old watching it and getting too scared before bed. 9:00pm is X Files time slots, Fringe time slots. 9:00pm says you’re gonna get something a little more gruesome and gory and shocking than at 8pm. 8pm is for Friends. Vampire Diaries aired at 8pm its first season. 9pm is for the real adult content (but not too adult because the audience is still mostly children). 

SPOOP!

But yeah, let’s look at the real horror vibe that you get off of these first four episodes. We talked about La Llorona from the first episode - this is a legit ghost that they fight. The kids at the end that literally drag their mom to hell? Pretty spooky stuff. The Wendigo in episode 2 is a literal monster of the week and so for me personally, it’s not that scary, but it is a cannibal monster that eats human flesh. Dead in the Water has vibes from both Jaws and Friday the 13th. Everything from the lighting to the sound design let’s you know this is a horror show, or as horror as you can get on network television. Listen to the scenes just before somebody dies and you get a nice creepy “Come play with me” whisper coming out of the water. I’m a little spooked just thinking about it now. Yes I know I’m a chicken, and I’m OK WITH THAT. And if we go past my season 1 disc 1 into episode 5, Bloody Mary is STILL terrifying and I STILL watched that episode with half my face covered. That’s where I am these days. It’s 2020 and the world is a nightmare but imagining Bloody Mary creepin’ out in my mirror does not need to be a part of it. 

SHE F*CKIN CLIMBS OUT OF THE MIRROR GUYS! I DIDN’T KNOW SHE COULD DO THAT!!!

Then we get Phantom Traveler and our very first case of black-eyed-demonic possession. Watching this episode now, it’s like watching someone’s home movie of their first steps as a baby. They’ve never even done an exorcism before guys! They have to read the exorcism rite out of the journal! It’s so cute!!! Let’s not think too hard about how they got that full sized bottle of holy water past TSA in a post-9/11 world. And try to ignore how poorly these special effects have aged - the smoke from the demon possession?? OMG! THIS EFFECT! I’m pretty sure I could make that effect with my first ever graphic design software on my, like, 2009 mac book pro. So cute and soooo good! I’m gonna leave that CG plane alone, they’re doing their best. 

SO cute and SOOO good!

You want to know what my favorite established staple of Supernatural season 1 is? The extras. LOOKIT these guys - 

Wendigo you have Cory Monteith who later goes on to star in Glee. 

You have Alden Ehrenreich, Debatable Han Solo, doing a lot of face work with very little dialogue. 

You have Gina Holden who is in SO. MANY. Spooky-type things! My personal favs are Blood Ties and Harper’s Island, but she’s in Fringe, she’s in the SAW franchise, she’s in the Final Destination franchise, she was in some deleted scenes on an episode of Teen Wolf! I LOVE seeing Gina Holden, anywhere she pops up. 

And speaking of Harper’s Island, you’ve also got Callum Keith Rennie who played John Wakefield in Harper’s Island, a show that was A+ Great and I highly recommend if you like Agatha Christie and/or murder mysteries. 

Honestly, Rennie looks like he’s about to murder a bitch in this episode of Supernatural, it is not a stretch to believe he’s a psycho killer.

Dead in the Water you’ve got Amy Acker, a regular in Joss Whedon and Whedon-adjacent type shows.

Good LORD, this wardrobe was SO 2000′s WB and it PAINED me.

And finally in Phantom Traveler, you have Jaime Ray Newman who also shows up in a lot of the shows that I like to watch. She was in Eureka, she was in Midnight Texas, both kind of terrible shows that I love because they are terrible, but she was ALSO in Bates Motel and Veronica Mars, which are generally considered to be more quality, so there’s that. 

This still implies that they actually LIT scenes, which is a SURPRISE TO ME. 

Point is, seeing these actors in Supernatural back in the early 2000’s felt like I was seeing the start of their careers. That may or may not have been the case, but as a viewer it was exciting to see them pop up again in other things.

So what about TV now? Do we still use those first 6 (sometimes more) episodes to re-establish the premise? Well, it certainly hasn’t gone away. Look at any network show that still produces 22 - 24 episodes a season and you’ll still see that the pilot season just keeps re-iterating the premise established in the pilot episode, specifically in anything that’s procedural - that’s you’re monster/problem-of-the-week shows. Think sitcoms like Brooklyn 99 or Superstore or dramedies like Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist. The reason being that these shows play in the traditional model of television - on a network, once a week. They are not releasing episodes all at one time or relying on their audiences to stream a whole season in one sitting. These are shows that still assume that someone out there is going to tune in or stumble across their show one night while they’re surfing channels (lol) and need to be told, no matter what episode they’ve just turned on, what the premise of the show is. They need to be formulaic so that people can pick it up anywhere at any time.

But what about shows that don’t follow this traditional model? I mentioned in my last post that seasons are getting shorter and shorter, so when you’re writing a show that only has (8) episodes instead of 22, how much time do you really want to spend establishing the premise? Because of these short seasons, you’re also dealing with shows that are more serialized and less procedural than their predecessors - meaning, you’re dealing with a show that focuses on a season long story (think Game of Thrones or Stranger Things where each episode is an important chapter that you can’t skip) vs. a procedural (think the shows I mentioned above or any cop drama really) where each episode is it’s own contained story, neatly wrapped up at the end. These are shows where you can skip an episode and still know where you are in the show no matter where you start or stop watching. Supernatural is a little bit of both - procedural with their monsters of the week AND serialized with a season long arc. We’ll talk more on that in a later post. 

Not only are we getting shorter seasons, but we’re also dealing with shows that are not released over long periods of time. A few streaming channels, like Disney+ and HBO Max, make a deliberate point to slow-drip their seasons, but most streaming channels will release entire seasons in one shot. You don’t need to worry about your audience missing an episode because they have 24/7 access to all the episodes all at once. And for the most part, they’re designed to be binged. They start at full speed and they don’t slow down to keep driving you to the finale. 

Do I think the procedural is ever going to go away? No. As much talk as there is about dropping the cop drama from TV all together, I think audiences still love a good mystery series. And you can’t just think of procedurals as cop dramas either - a procedural also covers most if not all sitcoms. New Girl, Letterkenny, Parks and Rec, Superstore - these all have a premise that doesn't change from week to week. They may make tiny shifts away from what they set up in the pilot, but by and large, you know what you’re getting into any time you turn on an episode. I think we as an audience still like that kind of familiarity. We may be seeing a bigger swing towards more serialized content, but that doesn't mean that the procedural is dead and gone. 

So that’s what we’ve got for Supernatural - two dudes, driving around in a car full of spears and hand guns, killing bad guys. Some day, they may even find that father that’s missing. What could possibly go wrong? A lot. Stay tuned. 

[howlingmoonrise]

Dear Yuletide Author

hello and thank you for signing up for yuletide, i hope you have fun during the challenge!

i ramble a lot so my letter is under a readmore (i put everything in one post so you don’t have to juggle links around). obviously you don’t have to follow any of the things i put in here, but hopefully this will help you out!

general things i like

PINING. I’M SUCH A SLUT FOR PINING ALL THE PINING ULTRA PINING SUPER PINING. i have SO MUCH FUN reading about idiots in love who aren’t together yet and i far prefer it to fics with already established relationships. this is also applicable to when they know the other is in love with them but they can’t act on it for some reason.

i’m down for either gen or romantic!! what really does it for me is the developing relationship, platonic or otherwise, and the character dynamics and interactions and all the little moments in between. stuff like developing trust and finding kinship and growing respect for the other and subconsciously learning to lean on the other over anyone else is far more important for me than any kissing will ever be (though kissing is also nice if you wanna go down that route lmao)

i love love LOVE enemies/rivals-?to-friends?-to-lovers and bickering pairs in general, as you can probably tell by my choice in character! it’s so much fun and it gives us so many opportunities for character and relationship developments :D

continuing from the above points, nothing kills me as much as characters that bicker all the time but in the end they rely on the other and go to each other before they go to anyone else, whether they realize it or not

i REALLY like the canon and characters for all the fandoms i picked, so sticking at least to their characterizations and the overall “tone” of canon is a huge plus!! “missing scenes” and “what if” canon-divergent situations are excellent, as are continuations from where canon left us! that being said, i also enjoy more conceptual AUs and i’ve put more details about those a little further below. rule of thumb is that i enjoy AUs where the focus remains more on the relationship itself and how it works on such a setting than on the worldbuilding for it.

fun tropes i enjoy (sorry, these are a bit romance-leaning but if you’re not into that they can probably be adapted somehow): fake dating, accidentally got roped into x and shenanigans of all sorts keep happening, misunderstood confessions, groundhog day au, one or both the characters having stupid levels of denial while technically in a relationship and just not realizing it like What Do You Mean We’re Dating??, that sorta thing.

TROPE SUBVERSION ALL THE WAY!

general things i dislike

kidfics. babyfics. next gen fics. pregnancy fics, or even pregnancy discussed in the fic is a major squick of mine. the one exception i make for kidfics is for petshop of horrors when it comes to chris and the pets, as they already belong in canon, but no babies or children otherwise please.

future fics in general, actually. what i enjoy is the relationship development, so huge time skips make me feel like we missed way too much. one exception to this is post-canon petshop of horrors, for obvious reasons.

i usually don’t like most angst stuff since it feels a bit gratuitous to me when it comes to most fandoms and characters. the one exception for this is psoh (see below if you’re picking this fandom - and wow psoh seems to be the exception to everything huh) or when it’s a more introspective sort of fic. as a result of this, i’d pass on most content with major character death, sexual abuse, self-harm, the like, though of course there are always exceptions to the rule and you’re free to write as you wish!

hard AUs are a bit ugh to me. by this i mean AUs that rely heavily on setting, such as high school AUs, harry potter AUs, that sort of thing. i DO however enjoy stuff like siren AUs and soulmate AUs, depending on the concept and on the fandom. more details in their own sections if you enjoy writing those!

i heavily dislike things involving cheating/infidelity, sickfics, and genderbending of any kind is a bit ehhhh for me, as are concepts such as ABO. hard pass on stuff like dysphoria and deep diving into most mental illnesses, too (with a possible exception for depression when it comes to psoh). 

script-based or roleplay fic is not really my preferred format, i really enjoy prose instead of nearly all dialogue!

if you’re going for nsfw

kinks

moderate sadomasochism, uncommon forms of bondage (plants, stuck with strange substance or in awkward position, the shadows from p&tf as restraints, etc), choking/breathplay, xenophilia and tentacles/alien genitals (shadowplay in p&tf, non-human genitals for the staryk lord, etc), moderate degradation, edging/desperation play, ladies topping and calling the shots, bloodplay/knifeplay, long hair/hair pulling (staryk lord, leon orcot), sharp nails/claws (staryk lord, charlotte la bouff, count d; miryem mandelstam having them is actually preferable to the staryk lord now that i think of it), lowkey cannibalism imagery (count d re:leon orcot)

squicks

scat, vomit, praise kink, daddy or baby kink, vore, forced feminization, pet play, gore, abuse, abo, anything involving pregnancy at all

--

PETSHOP OF HORRORS

i’m usually not very partial to angst but GODS does psoh throw that out of the window, so feel more than free to run with it if you wanna go down that route.  psoh is RIPE for angst. we got two people with abandonment and inadequacy issues: leon who decided to leave his whole life behind to chase someone who gave him life and then left and initially didn’t even bother to do it with any sort of goodbyes, and d who is supremely fucked up by his upbringing and had to push leon off the ark to continue his family’s mission and let drop one (1) single tear that he was not supposed to cry over a human. those fuckers. those idiots. i love them so much.

THAT BEING SAID, i also!!!! love slice of life shit for them!!!!!!!! GODS i love how much they bicker but then they turn around and the other is the person they rely on the most and who they trust implicitly above all others and how they keep roping each other into ridiculous shenanigans. neither of them are particularly communicative with a few rare exceptions, so there’s also a lot of room there for introspection and unspoken affection on both sides, which i LOVE. my son leon in particular is also super underestimated when it comes to his intelligence and tolerance for gay shit both in canon and fandom, and he performs ridiculous leaps of logic and instinct that somehow turn out to be right but that are super ???? for everyone else involved, and that’s always fun to see. hell, just another missing scene where leon brings d some cake and they banter fondly over tea is A++++ to me!!

nsfw???? bring it!!! this is the one fandom where you’re more than free to go super dark and kinky if you wanna, or if you wanna write tender loving reunion sex where d cries a little while leon is loving and disbelieving and so very careful that’s also excellent! i don’t have a particular preference on who tops either, it’s fun either way, but i tend to see leon more as a sub/masochist >u> i can also see it going a bit dark with those two, especially considering d and his kind (implied to eat human flesh and being predators more than once) so bloodplay and cannibalistic thoughts could be fun. re: d’s genitals (as are hotly debated in the fandom), i usually prefer either a dick or triple threat d, though some fun plant-man shenanigans also have their place here.

all in all, psoh is the most excellent genre triangle where i’d be super happy to receive anything on the slice-of-life/angst/smut corners! (also, slash is 3249823% acceptable if you couldn’t tell by my ranting, as is a hint of crack)

if you’re thinking going AU on this one, my suggestions are of slight universe alterations instead of major world AUs. examples could be soulmate AUs (trope subversion would be GREAT here, aka foreign script they didn’t initially recognize, or only Ds having soulmates while humans do not, or the same scenario as the last but leon DOES have it on his skin and just keeps it hidden because Normal Humans Don’t Have Birth Tattoos, or d never expected to have one because his kind is dead and yet when he pushes leon from the ark the soulmate bond is forged, etc), a different first meeting, or even missed connections when they did not know each other yet; something like papa being alive and brady bunch-ing it up with them and chris would also be both excellent and hilarious. epistolary form for those two is also fun! if you wanna go full universe AU, something like a vampire hunter leon could be very interesting >u>

--

SPINNING SILVER

WHERE DO I EVEN START. miryem and the staryk lord were my favourite part of the book; if the book was only their story i would have already been more than satisfied. the rest of the book is also excellent, but those two???? that story was far too great. enemies to allies to lovers is one of my favourite tropes, and this is one of the examples that just keeps proving me right. the slowly growing respect, the wariness when they both know what the other is capable of, the staryk lord getting hit with the hots for his wife when she manages the impossible and then miryem being unable to just let it go when he’s imprisoned and defeated. ACTUALLY lemme just grab that line of thought and bring up that moment when he was sorrowful and resigned when miryem didn’t argue further for the three rooms full of gold and he thought she would not succeed and that she would have to die for it. that, right there? those moments of renewed respect, those moments sudden longing for something they did not know they wanted? those are the things that kill me.

tonally, i love the sort of writing in canon too much to ask for anything different, though you’re by no means obliged to keep to it or to 1st person pov (i have a love-hate relationship with 1st person pov, ngl). missing moments from the novel or moments from the period of time they spent either courting or apart would be GREAT. for those two i actually don’t mind it too much if they’re already established, if it’s early on in the relationship when they’re still learning how to step around one another. the staryk lord flabbergasted or in awe of miryem is always Excellent(TM). bits of worldbuilding and staryk culture would be fun as applied to their relationship (such as the names thing, or courting habits, etc) as are AUs such as soulmates or alternate meetings and the like. if you’re wanting to go full universe AU, keeping some fairytale elements would be great!

if you’re going for nsfw? the name kink, holy shit that would be so goooood. the staryk lord being a bit of a masochist under miryem’s hands would also be great, and inhuman staryk genitals and erogenous zones/acts would be great to play with such as human body heat affecting them in different ways from normal, etc. bringing in his long hair would be a major plus. the build-up for the actual act is the best, so miryem and the staryk lord being super hot for each other while either denying it internally pre-relationship or being unable to go through with it post-relationship due to several factors (busy dealing with their people, no privacy, etc) would be EXCELLENT. so much fun can be had here!

--

PRINCESS AND THE FROG

i am 100% aware this is a weird-ass pairing but gods, the possibilities. it has so much potential. there are few things i like quite as much as a villain and a good person developing a strange sort of kinship with each other. this doesn’t have to mean in a romantic way, obviously! as i said, for me it’s the building understanding and reluctant respect that i really love, far more than the actual romance. 

ideas, ideas, ideas. i’m aware this is a rare relationship to either portray or ask for, so i’m gonna try to give some more concrete-ish ones for you to build up on if you have no clue as to how to approach this. we could have canonverse with charlotte dealing with the shadowman in some other matter while the main plot is occurring, making him feel somewhat guilty about the whole marriage plot with laurence-turned-naveen; cue introspection or an entirely different outcome. or a post-canon sort of hades&persephone plot, with charlotte curious despite herself and tempted to listen to a shadow/dead/whatever!dr facilier when she’s the only one that can hear him, or her being dragged Beneath as well in a freak accident and then charming him into helping her back to the surface/living world (very, veeeeery reluctantly on his part, at least at the start, he might have even be thinking of tricking her but then change his mind when the time comes to do it). i think dr facilier wouldn’t be sure how to deal with charlotte’s particular brand of personality and good humour, and it’d throw him off his rhythm a lot - that sort of thing is always super fun to write. 

soulmate au in canon would work pretty well, but with this pairing? FULL WORLD AU IS YOURS FOR THE TAKING. keeping to the shadowman sort of thing to her normal bougie self would be a major plus; it’s one of her charms. also, charlotte thinking that she wants one thing (her prince, for example) while keeping getting drawn to him time and time again could work on pretty much any era or setting. vice-versa for him, thinking he wants to be rid of her but coming to realize he’d actually miss her if she were to be gone. OR, charlotte deciding she wants this sullen manipulative bastard and manipulating HIM into taking her out and hanging out with her would be hilarious.

if you wanna do nsfw, i have only one major request: charlotte calling the shots/topping. i think this arrangement would be entirely in character for both of them (dr facilier would prob also enjoy having someone else do all the work lol) considering her go-getter attitude, but keeping in mind his manipulative personality i’d be more comfortable if she had some control over what was happening. ASIDE FROM THAT, dyou know what would be fun? a little darkness, and by that i mean consider dr facilier’s shadow joining in on the fun. shadows would also be an interesting sort of constraint. also i know i said charlotte calling the shots, but she can be constrained by the shadows while being amused by it or being used for it to happen (the latter case implying it’s not the first time that they’ve used it in bed play), or charlotte could team up with Shadow to do it to facilier instead. charlotte using her nails and facilier being a bit of a sub/masochist would also be pretty good!

(actually in general it’d be really fun if there was some complicity between charlotte and facilier’s shadow in general, regardless of nsfw or not. the shadow being wrapped around her little finger is an excellent concept, especially if facilier isn’t too fond of her just yet lmfao.) 

thank you for reading all my rambling, and i hope you have fun!

[xerxestexastoast]

ALRIGHT HERE WE GO

Parentheses are very much a no-go in traditional prose for me. They break up the flow far too much and remind me of how I relay my meandering ADHD train of thought in casual conversation. As such, it's completely inseparable from casual conversation for me in literary or dialogue contexts. They're free game in academic contexts, though, so if you're writing diegetic document, especially a docufic science report, go nuts! Add those fake citations!

Em-dashes, on the flip side, are like candy for me. In my dialogue, ellipses (...) denote trailing off, a slow drop in volume and coherence into silence. The em-dash, conversely, is a sharp cutoff. It's great for when characters interrupt each other, interrupt themselves, or are interrupted by outside events. This can also be used in narration, so long as the narration leans into expressing the PoV character's internal monologue.

Italics are my go-to rich text emphasis for all my prose needs. It is the most common form of verbal emphasis I have ever seen in published novels, aside from the extremely rare all-caps. I have never seen anything else used in physical books of literature, and when I do, the book has already gone for wackier format screws such as alternative fonts. It is for this reason that I prioritize it whenever possible when I need to emphasize something. Sometimes I overuse it because I'm writing dialogue like a screenwriter and not a novelist (my fics are Extremely loud and vivid in my mind's eye and ear), so I have to cut it back during editing on occasion.

ALL CAPS DIALOGUE is, in my opinion, to be used as sparingly as possible. It's like seasoning a mild taco with ghost pepper sauce; you gotta be delicate and decisive. Overcapitalizing can make a whole passage, chapter, or even story feel way too shouty. It feels like I'm getting audio sensory overload from the text. I reserve all-caps for singular words and phrases shouted at the top of the lungs. The only time I will ever break the one-phrase rule is for the voices of gods, mighty spirits, sufficiently advanced aliens, and the like, where the sensory overload is part of the flavor. Hello, legendaries of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon!

As I mentioned above, I am ADHD as hell. This means I naturally speak in run-on sentences. Comma splices are, however, grammatically incorrect by default. While breaking language rules to achieve The Vibe is part of the creative writing process, comma splices have an overwhelmingly specific Vibe to me (namely, that of carrying on and on without stopping or having too many feelings that need to get out). Semicolons are the grammatically proper way to splice two sentences together without a conjunction. I generally prefer to limit myself to one semicolon splice per 500 words or thereabouts.

Capitalizing Important Words is a casual internet conversation trope for me. I'll capitalize proper nouns, and sometimes the pronouns of gods if I'm feeling saucy, but Important but Random Nouns getting the capital treatment would usually happen when I get poetic for a surreal dreamlike atmosphere. To be honest, I've never tried it before. I totally should.

Repetitive punctuation is hit or miss for me. It's fun in casual chatspeak, but in my prose it's pretty much limited to one extra word on the end of a sentence. Example: "He slipped on the ice and hit the ground. Hard." It's good for small dramatic pauses like that, but too many and it gets difficult to parse the vibe in a literature context.

In conclusion, you can tell I'm a very feels-based writer when it comes to my grammatical choices and which rules I like to break and follow for what reasons. It's all about the Vibe

hey, writers. reblog this with your opinions on:

(using parentheses)

using em-dashes—more or less liberally

using italics

DIALOGUE IN ALL CAPS TO IMPLY YELLING

the semicolon; or, how to properly use it

capitalizing Important words

using. repetitive. punctuation. for. emphasis.

[howlingmoonrise]

Dear Yuletide Author

thank you for signing up for yuletide, i hope you have fun!

i’ve put all my letters in one place so you don’t have to juggle links around, feel free to send me an anon (is that allowed?) if you’re in doubt as to whether i’d like a certain trope or not! (and so sorry about all the ranting oops)

things i like in general:

pining. TONS of pining. ALL the pining! i have a lot more fun reading about idiots in love that aren’t together yet than if they’re already in an established relationship

i’m good with either gen or romance if you’re not comfortable with shippy stuff! what really works for me is the relationship itself, platonic or not, the development of it, and the interactions/feelings regarding the other. when it comes to the characters i’ve picked, for me it makes sense for them to develop trust and fondness/affection for the other before they get into any sort of relationship so gen is all good!

i’m veeeeeery fond of enemies/rivals-to-friends-to-lovers, and bickering pairs overall (as you can see by all my choices in characters lmfao) since they’re so much fun and provide such an opportunity for character and relationship development :D

continuing from above, nothing kills me as much as characters that bicker all the time but in the end they rely on the other and go to each other before they go to anyone else

conceptual AUs are fine! by this i mean stuff like soulmate AUs, AUs where they met differently from canon, i’m-your-next-door-neighbour-and-i-had-to-break-into-your-flat-to-get-my-cat-back AUs, canon divergence, that kind of thing - AUs like that are super fun!

fun tropes (sorry, these are a bit romance-heavy): fake dating, “accidentally got roped into x thing and shenanigans are happening”, What Do You Mean We’re Not Dating?, “oh no there’s only one bed”, misunderstood confessions, trope subversion in general is also GREAT

i REALLY like the canon and characters for all the fandoms i picked, so sticking at least to their characterisations and the overall “tone” of canon are a huge plus!! “missing scenes” and “what if” canon-divergent situations are excellent but like i said, i also like conceptual AUs so don’t be afraid to mix up the scenario a bit if you enjoy it, because i do too!

things i don’t like a lot in general:

kidfics. unless it’s petshop of horrors - where Chris and the pets are an exception - next gen and stuff are a pass for me

far into the future fics in general, actually - what really does it for me is the development, so if we skip ahead to much later on i feel like we end up missing it all

i usually don’t like most angst stuff since it feels a bit gratuitous to me when it comes to most fandoms and characters. the one exception for this is psoh (see below if you’re picking this fandom) or when it’s introspection fic. as a result of this, i’d pass on most content with major character death, sexual abuse, self-harm, the like, though of course there are always exceptions to the rule and you’re free to write as you wish! 

hard AUs are a bit ehhh to me - by this i mean world-heavy stuff like harry potter AUs, where the focus ends up more on the setting than the characters more often than not. i’d also pass on high school AUs (gsnk being the obvious exception) and ABO. 

i heavily dislike things involving cheating/infidelity, and genderbending is a bit ehhhh for me

script-based or roleplay fic is not really my preferred format, i really enjoy prose instead of nearly all dialogue!

if you’re going for nsfw:

kinks: moderate sadism/masochism, bondage, choking/breathplay, xenophilia and tentacles (which only make sense here for like... 1.5 fandoms lmfao), moderate degradation, edging

squicks: scat, vomit, praise kink, daddy or baby kink, vore, forced feminization, pet play, gore

--

PETSHOP OF HORRORS

i’m usually not partial to angst AT ALL but psoh is the one fandom where i don’t mind it if you wanna go ahead - psoh is RIPE for angst. we got two people with abandonment and inadequacy issues: leon who decided to leave his whole life behind to chase someone who gave him life and left him after thinking that he didn’t care for him at all, and d who is supremely fucked up by his upbringing and had to push leon off the ark to continue his family’s mission and let drop one (1) single tear that he was not supposed to cry over a human.

THAT BEING SAID, i also!!!! love slice of life shit for them!!!!!!!! GODS i love how much they bicker but then they turn around and the other is the person they rely on the most and who they trust above all others and how they keep roping each other into ridiculous shenanigans. neither of them are particularly communicative with a few rare exceptions, so there’s also a lot of room for introspection there on both sides, which i LOVE. my son leon in particular is also super underestimated when it comes to his intelligence and tolerance for gay shit both in canon and fandom, and he performs ridiculous leaps of logic and instinct that somehow turn out to be right but that are super ???? for everyone else involved, and that’s always fun to see. hell, just another missing scene where leon brings d some cake and they banter fondly over tea is A++++ to me!!

nsfw???? bring it!!! this is the fandom amongst these three where you’re free to go super dark and kinky if you wanna, or if you wanna write tender loving reunion sex where d cries a little while leon cherishes every bit of him that’s also excellent! 

psoh is the most excellent genre triangle where i’d be super happy to receive anything on the slice-of-life/angst/smut corners! (also, slash is 3249823% acceptable if you couldn’t tell by my ranting)

--

GEKKAN SHOUJO NOZAKI-KUN

yuzuki seo is my absolute favourite character on the series and i love her and how ridiculous she is! waka is also gr9, and i really love that little sadist streak he has going like when he kept teasing seo with his “confessions”, that was probably one of my favourite chapters! 

for gnsk either canon-verse or a conceptual AU would be excellent - if you’re going AU, i’m very fond of those where seo is a siren/mermaid and possibly man-eating (because those are the best kind amirite??) canon-wise i LOVE their interactions and how waka keeps accidentally getting taken on lowkey dates while resolutely defending they’re not even friends and even more accidentally retributing those with thoughtful gifts and the like haha

another thing i love is when waka is capable of looking past appearances to see seo, like in the chapter where they gave her the “lorelei” makeover and no one recognized her but him. i also love how stupidly happy seo is whenever she sees waka, it’s so cute!!

--

HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE

the thing i like the most in hmc are the characters’ flaws! i love the ghibli movie, don’t get me wrong, but they took away the bits i liked the most - sophie’s stubbornness and nosiness and temper and howl’s cowardice and vanity and his silver-tongue whenever he tries to slither around sophie, and all their banter and arguing. 

there’s nothing quite like their stupid arguments where sophie pretends she didn’t mess around with things she shouldn’t and howl is torn between being amused and exasperated at her expense - even better if he’s trying to do something good sneakily behind her back so he won’t be accused of being a good person before he finds another excuse to justify it. 

for this fandom i’d really prefer it if it were from anywhere from the beginning of the first book to before their marriage (i haven’t read the sequels and prefer non-established relationship anyway), but a conceptual AU would also be pretty nice! hmc in particular is very good for trope subverting, which i’m extremely fond of! for example, take a soulmate AU with the first words written on the skin thing: we could mess it up a bit since calcifer was in possession of howl’s heart and as such his first words would be on sophie instead of howl’s - cue shenanigans while sophie wonders how someone can have a soulmate bond with a sentient fire with no words of his own, howl panics internally about sophie not returning his mark, and so on! 

another thing i love about the book is the writing style and that incredible sense of humour in the writing, so something lighthearted and in the spirit of canon would be great!

[howlingmoonrise]

Dear Yuletide Writer (2021)

Hello, dear writer! I hope this Yuletide gives you a break from the hell year it's been, and that you have fun with your assignment! Below the cut you'll find squicks and kinks, as well as a few prompts and character dynamics ;) Obviously you don't have to follow any of these (though I hope you'll respect my squicks!) but hopefully this letter will help you out!

(sorry about the weird formatting, somehow this added extra spaces everywhere when copy-pasting from dreamwidth. i tried to clean it up some but augh.)

--

general things i like

pining! so much pining!

this is usually the part where i say i prefer non-established to established a hundred times over, but this year two thirds of my fandoms are actually exceptions to the rule??? further details on their sections

either gen or romance is fine, if romance isn't really your thing. what really does it for me is the dynamics between the characters and how they find unprecedented levels of kinship and trust and intimacy and understanding in each other, not necessarily romantic acts

bickering is great! unless you're writing for Morticia/Gomez (which have an entirely different dynamic), the characters can be a little petty and/or banter-y. as a treat.

sticking to the original characterizations and the tone of canon is a definite plus!!!

“missing scenes” and “what if” canon-divergent situations are excellent,  as are continuations from where canon left us depending on the fandom!  more details on the sections for the respective fandoms i GUESS

casual intimacy is super fun, especially when adapted to the character   dynamics. a bickering pair being casually comfortable adds a whole new   depth to it, enemy dynamics makes is hilarious since the other half   would have zero clue as to how to react, a pair that is already comfortable with each other that they do stuff without communicating is so intimate, mix and match however you like!

fun tropes i enjoy (a bit romance-leaning but if you’re not into that  then some of these can probably be adapted): fake dating, accidentally  got roped into x and shenanigans of all sorts keep happening, misunderstood confessions, groundhog day au, one or both the characters having stupid levels of denial while technically in a relationship and just not realizing it like What Do You Mean We’re Dating??, that sorta thing.

TROPE SUBVERSION ALL THE WAY!

-- general things i dislike

kidfics. babyfics. next gen fics. pregnancy fics, or even pregnancy  discussed in the fic is a major squick of mine. the one exception i make  for kidfics is for kids already existent in canon and even then I'd rather not see too much of it, but no babies or children otherwise please.

future fics/time skips in general, actually. what i enjoy is the relationship development, so huge time skips make me feel like we missed way too much

angst is... meh. i don't dislike it but it really depends on how it’s done, usually it  feels like it’s angst for the sake of angst instead of giving the fic  some actual meat. i’d pass at least on most content with major character death, sexual abuse, self-harm, gender/sexuality angst, the like. beyond that, feel free to go ahead! (but at least give the thing a happy ending)

hard AUs are a bit ugh to me. by this i mean AUs that rely heavily on  setting, such as high school AUs, harry potter AUs, that sort of thing. i  DO however enjoy stuff like soulmate AUs and alternate canon AUs,  depending on the concept and on the fandom. more details in their own  sections if you enjoy writing those!

i heavily dislike things involving cheating/infidelity, sickfics, and  genderbending of any kind is a bit ehhhh for me, as are concepts such as  A/B/O. hard pass on stuff like dysphoria and deep diving into mental  illnesses and disorders, too.

script-based or roleplay fic is not really my preferred format, i really enjoy prose instead of nearly all dialogue!

stuff with bigotry in general, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia,  etc as well as discussions of it is a pass in general. it’s not a HUGE  squick but i’d rather not see it if possible

discussions and thoughts on gender/sexuality. if you’re gonna make them  gay/bi/etc, make them gay/bi/etc, no exploration of it added. delving  into the psyche of it is a hard pass.

-- if you're going for nsfw stuff: kinks - moderate sadomasochism, uncommon forms of bondage (plants, stuck in an awkward position, etc), choking/breathplay, edging/desperation play, ladies topping and calling the shots,  bloodplay/knifeplay, long hair dragging over skin, sharp nails, lowkey cannibalism imagery and hunger, biting squicks - scat, vomit, praise kink, daddy/mommy or baby kink, forced  feminization, pet play, wound-fucking, abuse, abo, anything involving  pregnancy at all -- THE ADDAMS FAMILY oh boy. let me just begin by saying that this really isn’t my usual kind of pairing, by sheer virtue of them being perfectly happy and established in canon. HOWEVER, they’re goth and they’re odd and  they’re kinky and they’re delightful to watch interact  and so they’ve managed to creep their way into my blackened little  heart. THAT BEING SAID, my absolute biggest wish for this fandom would probably be pre-relationship. i don’t mind if canon is twisted a bit for this, considering that they presumably met and proposed on the very same day, so it’s definitely a bit hard to work with. perhaps some shenanigans with the funeral itself? or gomez has a date/fiancée already and so there’s some juggling of priorities here while he’s absolutely falling over himself in order to continue looking at that absolute gothic vision of a woman? or an old family feud, or them just being downright useless at knowing how to deal with proper romance (on morticia’s side, i’d imagine she’d only grow more stoic and be at a loss of what to say. on gomez’s side, it’s probably his first time being speechless, or he’s not speechless but he’s flirted so much in his life that he doesn’t know what to do with these actual literal feelings, what the hell is this and how does he show he actually means it this time??),  or morticia has a long string of dead fiancés black widow-style (i think she and debbie would have gotten along great if given the chance okay, bonus points if you add in a morticia&debbie friendship if you don't write pre-relationship), or a soulmate au where they don’t realize it’s each other right away (maybe mixing in some of the concepts above for extra oomph), or morticia amusedly pretends to be dating gomez before they know  each other to get him out of a criminal/legal bind, or they’re somehow roped into someone else’s shenanigans and don’t know how to react to each other (my money is on either ophelia or cousin itt putting them in a bind), the  sky is the limit! if you’re more comfortable writing established, however, casual intimacy  or smut are the best! give me a moment of respite where they are just  comfortable basking in each other’s presence, or when they’re separated  for a moment at an event or something and the longing is burning all the  way across them until they come back together again (y'know, in the good old way of the script). something slice of life would be great, for example "gomez/morticia thinks the other is worrying about something and fusses internally as how to make it better, turns out it was something very simple or they were simply preparing a surprise or something of the sort". for smut, morticia being a mostly stoic dom maybe? (though yes, i know she’s very much into being tied up and tortured, i can't really see her as a normal sub unless it’s something languid and drawn-out - she doesn’t really read as someone who spends a lot of energy normally, all those stoic vibes). they’re both definitely into pain and bondage too; morticia conflating arousal with hunger would also be really interesting to see (think praying mantis or lady spider who is actually very invested on not taking off her partner’s head, but who dreams of it  all the same. gomez is, of course, very much into it). something lowkey  macabre would be amazing. things i'd like to see for this fandom in general are: - morticia being her stoic vampiric goddess of a self - gomez being completely taken by her as usual - burning sultry glares/staring across the room - overly passionate hand-kissing - creepy/gothic atmosphere, or at least pastiche of it you know, like canon. (with non-existent or minimal kid existence, though) references to horror stuff/general creepiness like sudden lightning, casual   poisonings and dealings with death, dracula references, etc, like the movies would be super fun, as campy as possible! half the greatness of the movies come from these imho -- HYOUKA i think this might possibly be the slice-of-life-est pairing i have, ngl. i love the attention to details and the soft nostalgic vibe of the anime (i'm not familiar with the novels, though i know they were also nominated for yuletide) and the growing understanding and kinship between oreki and chitanda. the development! the growth! the dynamic! the oreki putting an effort into things of his own volition for her sake, when not too long ago he'd have simply said no! for reference, my favourite episodes are the ones where they have the most one-on-one time, it's really great to see them interact without outside expectations. whenever satoshi or mayaka are around, you can see oreki checking himself on what he says/how he acts because their reactions to him acting outside of the ordinary are a pain to deal with. i really like how comfortable he grows to be with chitanda that he doesn't do this as much around her (outside of trying not to get dragged into another case, i mean ;)) favourite episodes to base their dynamic on would be pretty much anything from episode 18 onwards (including 18 itself). like i said, slice-of life is great. i love the show dynamic so pre-relationship or understated getting together is definitely a must (no established if you can avoid it). canon characterizations are the best, with lazy oreki who's learning to make an effort for the things that really matter (and who sometimes still doesn't know how to handle himself around chitanda), and chitanda that has those introspective layers beneath the bubbling optimistic enthusiasm, and both of them being occasionaly oblivious when it comes to the other. as to prompts... i'm afraid i'm not going to be much help on this regard, so sorry! i could go for a little something that reads like an episode or a case-fic, or even just some time where the two of them are able to be comfortable together, discussing something about a case or mayaka/satoshi's relationship or the future, where some of the things end up paralelling their own relationship. you don't have to go romantic if you don't want to, obviously (and hyouka is really great at the liminar state between platonic/romantic), but i'd really like that sense of closeness to come through. another idea would be fake-dating, or a timestamp/missing scene fic from one of the episodes i pointed out above, with some extra interactions or layers of meaning about the scene itself. or a small divergence from canon events could work too (for example, what if in the doll's festival episode someone assumed oreki/chitanda were an item? or maybe satoshi comes clear to chitanda about oreki wanting to punch him for her and mayaka on the valentine's episode?). i'd like canonverse the best, but if you like to add twists to things i wouldn't be opposed to a soulmate au, for example, where oreki didn't realise or purposefully didn't tell chitanda from the start that he's connected to her, because that would have been a pain with overly-excitable!chitanda and overly-pained/lazy!oreki from the first episode (or maybe work in some of oreki's self-worth issues on this one). or maybe chitanda's family doesn't do soulmates, same as they don't really do valentine's, and so she never placed a lot of importance on it for one reason or another, and oreki didn't realize until much later on (like the doll's festival episode) that his soulmark was pointing to her. (obviously neither of these soulmark concepts work if it's with the person's name or colours (though aesthetically speaking it'd fit the theme of the first half of the anime i GUESS), i'll leave it to you to figure out which concept you like best) -- WHAT'S YOUR NUMBER in another unprecedented turn of events, this is ANOTHER fandom where i'd actually, entirely out of character in regards to myself, would like to see established relationship. post-movie and messy and banter-y and ridiculous, with all that it includes. bonus points if it keeps some of the running gags like weird shenanigans where they somehow run into donald AGAIN, much to everyone's collective disbelief. i love the weird situations the characters get into in the movie and their weird personality quirks, and how everything works together to make them... that. so yeah, slice of life. i've never asked for so much slice of life in my life, which is so extremely weird i can't even begin to describe it. i'd like something not overly mushy, but where the characters are so obviously comfortable with each other and are allowed to share the parts of themselves other people would judge them for.   prompts could be something like weird shenanigans to get ally's mom to like colin, or them just hanging out doing weird shit, or running into ally's ex julie and it turns out colin slept with him too pre-transition (or even post! bisexual icons), cue hilarity. other possible ideas if you don't want to go established are fake dating. i friggin love fake dating. maybe ally can't find a date on time for the wedding (no jake adams reaching back) and doesn't want to be judged too bad, or when tracking down one of her exes they get into a weird shenanigan-y situation where they spontaneously get roped into it and keep escalating, or even try to use it as an excuse for a quick getaway once and then the person they were faking it for ends up being a lot more involved with their lives and they have to keep the pretense up. if you want to go full AU this could be one of those "hired a fake boyfriend on craigslist to get my mom off my back about my dating habits (by either being absolutely horrid, or by being the best date ever after which i'll be absolutely heartbroken and not ready to date anytime soon, sorry mom)" sort of situation. or in more, more au outside of proper slice of life, maybe groundhog day au or soulmates au with a twist? in any case, banter is appreciated!

if you're going for nsfw for this pairing, i really enjoy subversions of what is socially "expected", plus those two would probably be hella kinky (or at least colin would be, and ally wouldn't have considered so many things or would have denied herself those things for appearance's sake when it came to her exes. probably some hangups to explore there). some minor bondage, a little masochism, discussions of pegging would be nice as well ;) (bonus points for colin being into a little pain e.g. pinching, spanking, could go from a normal casual butt slap slight overreaction into “wait, you’re into this?”, cue smut) or we could add a few romcom stupidity shenanigans and turn them smutty, like one of them getting stuck somewhere dumb and in the process of them trying to get the other out they both end up horny and make the situation even worse.

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thank you so much for staying with me this far! i hope you have a fantastic time this yuletide, and that you end up loving your own requested fic as well!