#if this turns out to be true ill even forgive the writers for giving troy such boring reasons for wanting revenge

[noemitenshi]

Ok so, this may be influenced by what I really really want to see this last half-season but I now believe that we *will* get a Madison-Troy team-up/reconciliation. It's all that talk about second chances that has me going 👀👀 That has *got* to be significant, that needs to be endgame. Why else start this arc with exactly that? Second chances and tries at redemption...

Please don't let this just be about Victor and Madison (or, whoever else has grievances with one another, I haven't been watching the last several seasons...) but also about the Troy-Madison relationship.

To miss this chance, to bring him back just as a villain would be such a fucking waste 😭

[ninety6tears]

Dear Yuletide Writer 2017

ninety6tears | Thanks for checking out my thoughts and prompts! I have a tendency to go on and on in my letters but if you’re excited to be writing any of my requests, please take as much or as little from my ideas that you need.

Basics: The whole spectrum from G-rated gen to explicit PWP is fine. I've got no preference over POV/tense/narrative style, just use whatever comes to you! I love pastiche for lit fandoms but something that feels more off the beaten path of the original style can also be fun.

I love: Angst, pining, subtle UST, first times, or established relationships with some level of conflict to be resolved. Intense friendship stories. Protectiveness in close relationships as well as in those that wouldn't obviously appear to be protective at first. A character or characters experiencing a type of attraction that isn't the status quo for them. Relationships that broke up/had a falling-out, maybe a long time ago, and neither of them ever really got over it. Any kind of amusing/surprising interactions between characters that don't usually get one-on-one time in canon. Characterization that focuses on the nature & nurture of who people have grown to be and the unique ways they take care of or need other characters. Insecurity/hangups over worthiness.  AUs*, whether they interact with our expectations from the original story or tell it in a thoughtfully different way, as a fork-in-the-road or a completely different genre/setting that strikes you as something that would bring some good stuff out of the characters/relationship(s). You are welcome to poke around my AO3 bookmarks or my tumblr or even my goodreads to see what fandoms I'm familiar with if the idea of doing a crossover or fusion* appeals to you (crossovers can get controversial but I say as long as big fandom characters don't take center stage, anything is fair game).            [*I would always love to see fusions etc. with: The Bone Clocks, Harry Potter, It Follows, Old Kingdom, Pacific Rim (though I'm not as into PR as its own fandom, so more of a fusion than a crossover or less focus on its characters would be preferred). I'm rarely picky about AUs, but I'd always like to see college/high school - or the more rare school faculty AU, sci-fi, slavery as a non-kinky theme, sex work as a non-kinky theme (though i wouldn't be offended by shippy hookerfic), historical settings, and good old fork-in-the-road ideas that bring a whole different set of conflicts and emotional moments.]

I can handle: Underage, dubcon, noncon, torture and incest. Character death. Love triangles. Infidelity.

I don't want: Canon divergent fix-it scenarios unless prompted (AUs where the original conflict never happened doesn’t fall into that; I just don’t want “X didn’t die or make that big mistake” as a main premise). Soulbonding/magical soulmate tropes. A/B/O, mpreg, or any body fluid kinks. Highly described sex toys. More than a mention of Alzheimer’s/dementia.

You might look at this meme for a more thorough list of kinks/tropes I'm into, but only bother if you're curious! Dublin Murder Squad Series - Tana French Mick “Scorcher” Kennedy, Richie Curran . I love these two as a ship, as a partnership, and/or as a brief but intense friendship. Scorcher is a bit of a pill especially as he's portrayed in Faithful Place, but part of what I love about this series is Tana’s ability to complicate characters in different lights, and the warmth between these two in Broken Harbour as well as the tragically missed opportunities for Mick to open up to Richie were part of what finally endeared me to the character. I think the first moment in BH when I started to actively like him was when he got protective for Richie’s reputation after he couldn't handle the autopsy.

I'm not sure whether or not Mick and Richie could ever make up especially as they won't be running into each other professionally, but if you're open to the slashy interpretation I could kind of see some angsty reunion where they run into each other and Scorcher is still so bitter but also so isolated and touch-starved that they end up fucking anyway. Or maybe there could be a missing scene with something of a near-kiss or touch, some time while they were working together. I'd also love to get a glimpse into what Richie was thinking about Scorcher just before or throughout BH, since it's hard to imagine him being extremely fond of Scorcher from the very beginning. Any moment from Richie’s perspective throughout BH would be lovely, though, as long as you don't dwell on his encounter with Dina more than its aftermath. I don't have any specific AU prompts, but I always like twists on the detective genre, especially with shippable partners, so if their quick and unexpected friendship is there, or even if it's awkward yet caring, that's what I'd love to get in an AU. Maybe Richie could handle some sf/f equivalent of investigative work a little better, or maybe it would be heartbreaking for him all over again. I’ve requested this series every year in numerous ways, and wouldn't say no to an appearance of Frank, maybe involving Olivia (Liv knows Kennedy well enough to seemingly dislike him, or dislike who Frank is with him, and I’ve always wondered about that). if in doubt about whether I might enjoy anything a bit (or a lot) off the grid of my requests, I'd probably love it. I won't spam you with potentially irrelevant prompts but any character or pairing I talked about in previous years is something I'd still be happy to see. Far From the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy Bathsheba Everdene, Gabriel Oak . I really love these two as a kind of friends-to-lovers trope in a setting where men and women rarely had opportunities to be 100% friends. Some interpretations reduce Gabriel to the guy that's just pining on the sidelines waiting for her to return his feelings, but I like how the professional relationship forms into a true companionship between confidants aside from his resignation on the possibility. I like that it's never a sweeping passion for Bathsheba but she comes to hold his opinions and his regard for her as singularly important while taking forever to directly reconsider her feelings (even while absently imagining what it would be like to be married to him and considering him her first sweetheart), and that in turn Gabriel doesn't put her on a simplistic pedestal or sugarcoat things for her even as his affection doesn't waver. I like that she's treated as arrogant as a matter of forgivable fact, and that her being loved by him in vain is something she wants selfishly until it's not actually in vain. I love that she's authoritative in order to keep him at a distance but then pines for him to remain significant in her life. Any moment from their working relationship that shows that Gabriel starts to fall even more in love with the real her, despite all reasons against it, would be great; or some moment from Bathsheba’s viewpoint that shows her neighborliness actually becoming a deeper trust...I don't really approach this as a super-steamy ship but feel free to try to convince me there was some UST on a level that Hardy didn't indulge in, or give me something in bed from the honeymoon period if that's your thing (would she have been pleasantly surprised by him, if Troy was not the most considerate partner?). One AU scenario I wondered about: When Bathsheba has that talk with Gabriel (in chapter 51) about whether she should commit herself to Boldwood, and admits to herself after that she’d wanted him to give some indication he'd still be willing to marry her, I wonder how things would have gone around then if their mutual wanting had just slipped out somehow...because wouldn't it be more of a forbidden or at least ill-timed desire, considering Gabriel’s logic of a more dutiful commitment not being a disrespect to her missing husband, and the risk of the two of them driving Boldwood off the deep end? Or what might have happened if Gabriel had overheard the way Boldwood pretty much scared her into promising herself to him at the party? (Hardy handles his ~madness~ with some degree of sympathy, but feel free to treat Boldwood as just a jealous creep if that's your angle, especially since I can't imagine Gabriel being very sympathetic to him at that point.) My one annoyingly lectury fandom-specific do-not-want: Please, please do not imply that Gabriel only reconsiders leaving at the end because of the marriage possibility. In the novel he clearly thinks twice about it just because of how much it upsets Bathsheba, but multiple adaptations screw this up.

It - Stephen King Ben Hanscom, Beverly Marsh

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You don't have to write both characters or feature them as a pairing (though I do ship them and love to imagine how they might go on together as adults)--I partly picked them because I'm curious about the things that happened to them between the childhood we’re shown and the eighties, from the big events to the smaller moments.

They're obviously both one of the less happier people when they come to being reunited, Beverly just escaping Tom and Ben, for vague reasons, still being quite solitary despite his success. I'm intrigued by Ben as the character who probably changes the most over that time, seemingly becoming this more cynical and self-deprecating man we meet in that intense bar scene but always retaining a kindness towards others, having survived not just the monster he doesn't remember but the severe bullying he continued to endure. I love the determination he's capable of and the fact he decides to lose weight as a “fuck you” to his asshole gym teacher, but I wonder if his self-image remained shaky for a while after and if he had a sense of imposter syndrome as he came of age, probably being treated in a way he wasn’t used to because of his looks and later his talent. That bartender observes that he never seems to pick up any dates, but maybe he tried and it just never felt right because he just wasn't good at feeling close to people, or for some other reason…?

I feel like the description of Bev finally abandoning her father is only briefly referenced, and I'm always curious about that--was there an inciting event that meant her father would know exactly why she left, if there was ever any doubt about that? Was it the sudden decision of a runaway who didn't have an easy place to hole up? I'm also intrigued by Bev apparently being this high-class designer who still lives the better parts of her life in a simple and relatable way: as someone who never got the hang of being popular but has that one true friend in Kay. I like to imagine that with Ben she would still have a glamorous but quiet life, with precious few people who bring out the real her. I’d also like to get to know her as a teenager...In general I love Bev’s combined softness and feistiness and would love to see some of that, maybe her rediscovering it in a way after she’s lost touch with her childhood.

If you want to bring in other characters, I have to say the recent movie was enjoyable but didn't show the talents of the Losers club or their teamwork as well as I'd have liked, so I would adore an AU that brings them into a different conflict as a team. I love them all together as adults (keep in Stan if you want!) in pretty much any AU you can think of (an Inception fusion? members of a school faculty? mundane college friends à la St. Elmo’s Fire or The Big Chill?), but I also love school settings and all the kids together.

You could even give me bits of what's going on with all the Losers over the years following childhood, or in those first months/years they begin drifting apart, with a vague haunted connection between them. I just like being in the company of these characters and their strengths and flaws and loneliness, with the knowledge that that loneliness won't be forever, with maybe a shadow of the past that's both horrifying and hopeful hanging over them, or some vague memories surfacing in times of intense emotions.

There isn’t any pairing among the main seven that I wouldn’t like as long as it doesn’t heavily contradict Ben/Bev as endgame (though Eddie/Richie is super popular and I don’t feel like I’m short on them, but a hint of that would be fine).

The Long Walk - Richard Bachman Peter McVries, Ray Garraty . Oh, this disastrous OTP of mine...I always felt that Ray's cold reaction to Pete popping the handjob question came from being hurt that Pete was basically making light of how close they were by offering what was either a total joke or something that would feel desperate and impersonal (he didn't want him to do it in that way). It's a very paradoxical ship in my mind, because it takes the intensity of the situation for this ruthless love to form between them, but because of their inability to express any of it in this vacuum the only sincere thing is the acknowledgment that any future involving both of them is impossible. If you're only interested in focusing on them as a friendship I would still be very happy, and I'm hardly demanding anything sexual; even though strange things do happen on the walk I would prefer nothing to get physical between them unless it happens outside of that situation. But in my mind Ray absolutely has some self-destructive anxiety about his masculinity/sexuality, and I'd like to see that at least not contradicted if it's not a theme you're going for. Since we're never in Pete's head, it would be great to get anything detailing how his initial distance from Ray quickly erodes into the protectiveness he obviously can't help over him, if there's a spark of empathy there even before the first time Ray saves him, or what he's really thinking or trying to say at some of his more cynical and cryptic moments. I wonder what it was that Parker said to him to imply he thought he and Ray were "queer for each other" and how this apparently was covered without McVries feeling the need to deny it? I'd love an AU in which some revolt or rescue does manage to at least stave off danger for a time - some situation where there's no real hope they won't be found and killed but gives them time to interact outside of the rules, even if much of that amounts to passing out while huddled together, would be a nice bittersweet twist - but if you wanted to write a successful coup actually saving their lives and ending the walk, I would love to see how their relationship remains in the aftermath; maybe Ray ends up staying with his girlfriend and they only meet up every once in a while because they share this traumatizing thing, and they have an essential but troubled friendship (and maybe they end up fucking a couple times but don't really talk about it). In the realm of more absolute alternate universes, I'm eager if it's keeping intact the angst and the masculine insecurity and the very teenage conversations and McVries being such a defeated self-punishing sourpuss that his sweetness towards Ray feels like a small miracle. A bigoted boarding school atmosphere, an aggressive correctional camp, anything where a compulsive make-out might happen in the bunks or the showers and then be stiffly denied later on sounds like a backdrop I'd love for these boys if you want to do something bleak-but-not-as-mortally-bleak. I prefer to think of McVries as having complicated depression that doesn’t just stem from girlfriend probems; I'd prefer you mention the incident with Priscilla as little as possible, but any focus on Pete’s scar is totally fine.