#writer!avii makes an appearance

[tallboyben]

no sir i’m not saying i’m inspired by this and that i want to write an angsty turn fic about a gal who enlists with her husband and then he dies and then she falls in love with someone else but that’s exactly what i’m saying

[absolutebl]

You're in filmmaking and working on your big dream BL production, your writer is one of the best, you got decent budget, interested sponsors, a great director, a professional crew. Now, you gotta cast your actors, the mains and maybe a sidedish. Who would you chose and why? Which criteria would you apply for example age, appearance, acting style, experience, ability to create chemistry, on-screen charisma, name recognizability? Which actors would you pair and why? Make it country specific.

MY ULTIMATE FANTASY CAST + BL MASTERPIECE!

If I could have any BL in the world. What would I pick? 

I kinda already did this here: 

TOP 10 BL PAIRS + What They Should Play Next - I chose SamYu for the gay Descendants of the Sun, but you threw the door wide open on this one so I am pushing it. (I also did Crazy BL Actor Pairing I'd Love to See ) 

I hold by those picks but I’ll reboot the game a little. 

Now, you gotta cast your actors, the mains and maybe a sidedish. Who would you chose and why?

(SamYu - We Best Love) in a Taiwanese production of Hospital Playlist. 

So Hospital Playlist is a true ensemble piece with 5 leads, but the anchor relationship would be these two. In case you were in any possible doubt as to my ultimate bias.

(L-R: prudish pediatrician, arrogant heart surgeon, comedic general surgeon, neurotic OBGYN, warm & brilliant neurosurgeon) 

Hospital Playlist is not just one of my favorite Kdramas, it’s one of my favorite dramas of all time. I love a medical drama, it has multiple solid romances all ending happily, it’s about older characters, there are complex stories and GREAT side characters, food is vitally important, and it’s ultimately extremely comforting. It’s sadly het, tho. 

So I want Taiwan to do the queer version. And I want it to get the proper treatment the way Taiwan sometimes does with their het stuff, like full on 20-30 episodes. 

Hospital Playlist only it’s 5 queer surgeons, paired as follows: 

Sam plays the funny single dad general surgeon (his husband left him alone with their adopted son, yadda yadda) 

Yu is the kind hearted brilliant neuroscientist. I’d like to see him play a warm nerdy character for a change. 

(Spoiler, these two characters are already besties who once moot-pined and eventually end up together.) 

Lin Yu (OuWen from Love is Science) plays is the arrogant heart surgeon. Of COURSE HE DOES. Slayed by the military boy in the end, of course. Honestly we can pair him with Anderson Cheng again as Sam’s younger brother, but I’m not married to that pairing. 

The OBGYN has to be our neurotic chaos bi character (that comedy writes itself) and I would cast Bruce He in the role. Because, he has dimples and I love him in everything and I am shallow af. He can have all the crazy exes up the wazoo. That’d be fun. I don not care who he ends up with. 

I’d turn the rich prude pediatrician character into a lesbian who I want played by Aviis Zhong, because she hasn’t played enough lesbians yet. Never enough lesbians. 

I want her slow pining desperate younger love interest (AGE GAP!) to be played by Tannie Huang (DNA Says Love You bestie). I think they would kill it. 

I want the older administrator of the hospital adopted lesbian mom of the group to be Tammy Darshana Lai (Encore Martha). And I want her to be having her own life, quandaries and relationships. 

Which criteria would you apply for example age:

I’d like it to be older characters in general. I love a high school drama but I’d like something more relatable to me, and more meaty for the actors to sink into, where being queer is there, and important, but there’s other life shit going on (ex spouses, children, career hiccoughs, side interests and hobbies). 

Clearly I’m picking all over the place on actual actor ages, but the main characters would all be in their late 30s at least. The support cast of residents and students and patients so forth would be many other ages. 

I’d like the Love is Science? team to direct (Tsai Mi Chieh & Chang Chin Jung). 

Appearance, acting style, experience, ability to create chemistry, on-screen charisma, name recognizability? 

I want mostly pretty because, as already mentioned, I shallow af. But I also want broad queer rep and diversity. So trans characters, butch, femme, various creeds and colors, all of them - in complex, capable professional doctor roles and positions of power. I want it to look like the Philippines vomited queer rep on this hospital. 

It’s my fantasy medical drama, I’ll queer it up if I wanna. 

I think Taiwan in general has a realistic, highly physical, slightly comedic acting style that would suit Hospital Playlist very well. (Probubly better than Korea’s style did, quite frankly.)

All the actors I chose (but Yu) are experienced and established. I think Avis and Bruce are big enough names for major draw. And SamYu as a pair are a big enough deal to pull the BL audience in spades. A show like this could take off international well and easily. Authentic queer rep is one of Taiwan’s strengths and this kind of show could showcase that for truly broad appeal, like Asia’s version of Queer as Folk, only a million times BETTER. 

Did I sell you on it?

(source) 

[tallboyben]

fray

word count: 1.0k a/n: i didn’t think i had it in me to write a turn fic but...here we are. this was written for halemadge week 2020. today’s theme is classics. no warnings except for mentions of death and lots of angst. summary: washington is intent on taking new york, caleb is gone, and ben is no longer head of intelligence. he didn’t think it would end this way. (in the show timeline, this is in between 4x08 and 4x09, after ben confronts washington about his obsession about new york and subsequently loses his position as head of intelligence.)

It didn’t end the way it was supposed to.

Yale, Ben remembered in brief flashes, but even his own life had disintegrated into some odd amalgamation of memory and perception. He could recall the brick dormitory ― New College ― standing against a pale dawn, the bite of cold air during winter, the understanding that Nathan was a permanent fixture in his life. Back then, uncertainty had been about where he would go to teach and if he would find someone to marry; if he would get caught for breaking windows and if his father would be angry if he found out.

Uncertainty had never been whether he would see Nathan or Setauket or his family again. Uncertainty had never been whether his life would end at the tip of a bayonet or with a musket ball lodged in his chest. Whether they would retake New York or die trying.

Vanity, Ben had said to Washington, and he had meant it. He could be court-martialed for insubordination. But it didn’t matter, because he didn’t regret it ― not even if it meant handing over his post as head of intelligence, not even if it meant tearing through whatever trust had grown between him and Washington. He hadn’t joined the army to let his men march into an impossible battle.

Even if they were facing death in New York. At least he had tried.

Ben sighed and turned to the loose pieces of parchment on his desk, reaching for a quill. He’d call himself weary, though he was beginning to realize exhaustion was to be his default state until the end of the war. Or his death ― whichever came first. The latter was beginning to seem a lot more likely. Ben tried not to think about New York.

He set down the quill, thoughts still drifting far away with some odd mix of regret and resignation. The parchment was blank, and though Ben intended to at least write to his father before they marched on New York, words escaped him. They always did, and always at the times in which he needed them most. Again, he thought of years past, and this he remembered in snatches: still nights broken only by the scratching of his quill against paper; candles flickering low, burning out with a faint wisp of smoke; the nib of his quill tracing a name that had become as familiar as his own― 

Before he knew what he was doing, Ben stood from his seat, crossed the distance to the edge of his tent, and threw the flap open, already intent on walking the short length of road to find Caleb. He faltered a moment after stepping out of the tent.

Caleb, too, was gone.

Perhaps he was in Virginia already. It didn’t really matter where he was. He wasn’t here to tell Ben that Washington was insane. He’d probably come up with a more creative qualifier than insane, even if it was Ben who went to Yale and studied English literature. Maybe Caleb would offer him a drink, even if he would refuse. But it didn’t really matter what Caleb would do. He was gone.

Ben stood at the mouth of his tent in blank uncertainty. A few soldiers walked past, conversing quietly. From the other side of the row of tents, there was the vague clipping of hooves against road. Trees rustled in the distance, and a gust of wind bit at his face.

He wondered if they would lose the war when Washington marched their men into New York.

But then again, they had already lost a man in New York, hanged from a tree, his last words invented instead of recorded, his body lost instead of recovered. That soldier had been led to his death because of Ben. Perhaps it would be fitting for him to die trying to reclaim the place where he had betrayed his best friend.

Pythias, he had called Nathan, and Damon, he had signed at the end of his letters, and yet despite all of it, when it came to life and death, he had failed.

The story said that Pythias was accused of treason and sentenced to death. It said that Damon volunteered to be held captive while Pythias returned home to give farewell to his family. There was more to the legend, but it didn’t matter because Ben had already failed and Nathan was already dead and the tale ended there, cut short, abrupt, nothing like the myth of Damon and Pythias.

It didn’t end the way it was supposed to. But nothing ever did.

Perhaps, for all their dreams and lofty ideas and inked pamphlets that spoke of liberty ― perhaps, for all of that, the war would end in blood-soaked bayonets and lost loves. Perhaps history would recount their rebellion as insubordination ― vanity, hadn’t he said? ― and perhaps stories like Damon and Pythias were just myths, after all.

Perhaps. Ben was no longer sure of a lot of things. Once, he had been sure that Nathan would always be within reach. Once, he had been sure that he would fit a noose around his own neck if it meant sparing Nathan.

Reality was far too different. It was not Damon and Pythias and debating the rights of women and writing letters by candlelight to a friend with whom he shared heart and soul. Reality was New York and marching into the city in which Ben’s greatest friend had died alone.

Ben retreated back into his tent, standing for a moment in the stillness of an empty space, unsure what was left for him in this reality of wasted sacrifice and hopeless struggle.

No, he thought, taking a seat at his desk again, reaching for a quill to write one last letter to his father. No, it didn’t end the way it was supposed to.

Nothing ever did.

tags: @classof73 @teaturnedcold

[tallboyben]

hi friends i need your help :>

some of you may know i’m currently writing a fic (not for TURN, just so you know). i’m conflicted over the title, so i was wondering if you guys could help me choose!

with no context, considering only the appeal, which would you prefer?

canary or trial and ruin

you can reply to this post, dm me, or let me know through this link bc i’m extra. i’m just really torn but would appreciate help deciding. thanks! :-)

[tallboyben]

someone slap me because i need to write

[tallboyben]

i wrote something for today for halemadge week but it needs to be finished and edited and i’m currently watching an ep of ken burns’s the vietnam war so. keep an eye out but i promise it’s coming soon :)

[tallboyben]

today i passed 180k words on my wip. finished the last chapter. i still have to go back and write another chapter in the middle, as well as the epilogue, but soon my wip won’t be a wip anymore. anyway this is not even vaguely turn related but i just needed to tell someone and not feel like i’m screaming into a void :)

[tallboyben]

a small collection of updates:

i finished my fic in august (1-2 weeks ago), reread it, and decided it’s in serious need of a second draft. apologies if you actually wanted to read it because it looks like it’s going to take a lot longer folks (it’s not a turn fic just so i’m not catfishing aha)

school started this week and i don’t necessarily mind but i’m definitely more busy which is why i was MIA for like a week or so!

peaky blinders uh. did that. i’m kinda obsessed but what else is there to do

lowkey feel like writing a vaguely angsty slow burn turn fic but i’m also occupied with my previous project and more busy so don’t count on anything

[tallboyben]

idk why but treason is such a nice angsty topic to write about like i pounded out a few good scenes of a couple who snuck into the continental army and the husband committed treason for noble reasons but it’s still treason and he’s hanged and the emotions oh my they’re the greatest thing to write and w h y am i like this

[tallboyben]

this blog has been painfully inactive and i’m sorry but i promise i’m still alive i’ve just been writing 2k words every day for camp nano and i’m almost to 120k on my wip and everything is bonkers and i have no time to watch anything but i promise i’m still alive i swear

[tallboyben]

hey idk if anyone cares but if you want to read some of my writing i just posted the first chapter of a fic here. if you like star wars and obi-wan you might enjoy it :)

[tallboyben]

reblog if you have a fanfic for a fandom you’re in that’s half-started and and not half-bad but you’re not even half-dedicated enough to get it half-done

[tallboyben]

Will you be posting the link to your star wars fic?

yes!

it will be complete in a week at the most, two days at the least. it’ll take a few more weeks to edit, but i’m hoping to start posting by the end of august by the latest.

this blog is dedicated to turn, so i’m not going to do a huge amount of promotion/talking about it. but i will still announce when i begin posting for anyone interested. you can also check out my writing blog, @papercinders (there’s not much on there yet, though).

thanks for the interest!

[tallboyben]

i wrote a chapter of the middle of a possible turn fic that has been stewing in my imagination for some time and i’m hoping to write a full blown fic but ya girl is busy so we’ll see