Keep Hoping Machine Running (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thefourthvine) wrote2020-10-14 08:22 pm
thefourthvine) wrote2020-10-14 08:22 pm
Entry tags:
Dear Yuletide Writer 2020
Dear Writer,
Hi!
I am, as always, going to provide you with all the details, because that's what I hope to get from my recipient. But if details aren't your thing, please tap out of this letter now. Just know that I really, really cannot handle child or animal harm or death, and I love you for volunteering to write in one of these tiny fandoms. See you on the 25th!
Or, if you want to know more, read on.
About Me
I love so many things! Here is a small sample:
So that's the general stuff. Let's talk fandoms.
The Cardsharps – Caravaggio, Pink Feather Cardsharp, Black Feather Cardsharp, Innocent
Request: I have spent quite some time staring at this painting and have come to the conclusion that this one works as a story any way you slice it. The two cardsharps out fleecing rich young innocents but fucking each other? Yes. One of the cardsharps with the innocent while the other either pines or acts as wingman? Absolutely. The two cardsharps deciding they’d rather take the innocent’s innocence than his money? I am totally here for it. All three teaming up in every way imaginable? Do you even need to ask? Turns out the innocent is not so innocent and turns the tables? InDEED. And if you’ve got another scenario, I mean. Go for it. I am not sure there’s a wrong way to interpret this painting except for straight.
I really do hope for this to be on the lighter, kinder side, including a happily ever after for all, whether that’s the three of them forming a new cardsharping unit or a happy new relationship or everyone going on their customary ways with good memories. But I am definitely here for pining, and yearning, and all manner of want in the time before the happy ending. Also here for all the sex, obviously – you want someone to tie someone up? Some edging? Some voyeurism? Abso-fucking-lutely.
I’d love this to be set in the period and place it was painted (Venice, 1595 or thereabouts), with all the lowlife Venice elements that Caravaggio was capturing at this point. But I’m also entirely here for a fantasy or science fiction setting (and look forward to the explanation of why, exactly, they’re dressed like that in space – I mean, those hats + space stations = amazingness).
Basically, I want to know who these people are as people, how they all come together, and how fantastic it is.
Additional Information: Look at it! Just look at it!
I knew as soon as I beheld this that what I wanted and needed was some or all of the people in it to bang. But in what configuration? I tried putting a poll up to help me decide, but even though OT3 won (and it is indeed one of the five most correct answers), people’s various ideas for pairings were so persuasive I still could not commit. (This is weird for me. I always have an OTP.)
So I guess I’m asking for you to commit for me. Get two or three of these people together and tell me all the details, and I will be so, so pleased and grateful. I just super need to hear about queer Venetians out there playing cards, doing crimes, getting banged. Or, alternately, queer Venetians-in-space where every palace is actually an elaborate space station and the Doge is an AI, or urban fantasy Venetians where the canals run with pure magic and the cards themselves are cursed, or – look, I think it’s clear that on this one, I am far from picky. I just want to hear about who. I want to hear about where. And I want there to be sex.
And I will, trust me, be very happy indeed.
Footloose (1984), Ren McCormack, Willard Hewitt
Request: Can we talk about Ren teaching Willard to dance? They learn the beat together. They do wrestling moves. They slow dance in an empty gym, for god’s sake. THE ENTIRE MONTAGE IS SET TO “LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE BOY,” a song with lyrics that are the exact opposite of platonic. The learning-to-dance montage was the first part of this movie I saw, and I knew, I KNEW, that it had to end with them kissing. It just makes sense! That entire sequence is basically Dirty Dancing except with fewer lifts! But. It was made in 1984, and the characters involved are both guys, and so I guess ... no one noticed that it should end with a kiss?
Please rectify this terrible error. PLEASE MAKE REN AND WILLARD KISS.
If you want to give me days of angsty pining and hopeful lust during the learning-to-dance montage, I am so extremely here for that. If you want to give me Ren and Willard running away from small town life together forever, I will be thrilled to pieces. If you want to write fumbling exploration, yes, yes please. If you want to write them meeting up ten or twenty years later, at a high school reunion or a random hotel bar or whatever, and realizing, no, they both WERE hoping the other one would start something during all those gym slow dances, again: sheer delight.
Ren. Willard. True love forever. It’s all I want from this fandom.
Additional Information: Okay, so like approximately every other popular culture everything, I did not see Footloose in my youth, or indeed until last year, when my wife, the redoubtable Best Beloved, realized I knew nothing about it and showed me THIS as my introduction to the movie:
I mean. I MEAN. I watched that, jaw slowly dropping, and I was like, I may not have seen many movies, but I’ve seen enough to know how THIS ends. But it did not end that way, and I was astonished and distressed, and then Best Beloved reminded me that this was made in an era when mainstream movie makers were apparently like, “Heck yeah, let’s have them strip their shirts off and play dude-on-dude volleyball with many loving slow-mo shots and stare intensely into each other’s eyes and shove each other against things. That’s just how dudes dude!” Or, in this case, “Let’s have them dance with each other for weeks on end, and of course that includes slow dancing, and then finish the montage with a literal ‘come in and give me some loving’ gesture, because, again, that’s just dudes being dudes. Didn’t everybody slow dance in an empty gym with their bro in high school?” (I sincerely hope, by the way, that the answer to that question is “yes.”)
Even at the Big Dance, they dance more with each other than they do with their girlfriends, and I feel like this is potentially a concept that needs exploring, is all.
There are a lot of fun themes you could work in here -- self-discovery, becoming your true self, escaping horrible places for better places, etc. -- so do whatever you want there. I’m just hoping for you to smush them together forever. Any rating is great for me.
If you want to pick this up, it’s available on Amazon Prime and YouTube for rental or purchase.
Men’s Basketball RPF, Earvin Johnson, Larry Bird
Request: I -- genuinely think Magic Johnson and Larry Bird might have soulbonded at the NCAA Championship in 1979. They certainly went from zero to intense, eternal focus pretty damn quickly. So what I want to know is -- what happened? Where did it go from there? How does that work, when you're playing against each other, when one of you doesn't even LIKE the other, when you're such incredibly different human beings?
If you go with the actual soulbond, there are lots of interesting possibilities here: Larry fighting the bond because of course he would, the way it affected them and their game, how it drove them to play. Or you could talk about how they finally accepted the soulbond and what it's like now, being comfortable with it and each other, years after the fighting and the struggle finally ended. Just, anything.
And if you take the non-soulbond route (which is of course entirely welcome; this definitely doesn't have to be a literal soulbond), just what IS going on? They have SOME kind of bond, that much is clear, and I'd love to hear what it's like: forever friendship, repeating reincarnation as people obsessed with each other, multiverse-spanning romance, whatever. I just want more about this intense *thing* they have going.
I'm good with gen, slash, and poly. Just please no straight-up infidelity. There's always gen, or unmarried AUs, or setting the sex before the marriage, or spousal knowledge and consent (my favorite!), or spousal involvement. Or something else you come up with! LET THE MAGIC (hee!) OF BIRD AND JOHNSON GUIDE YOU, basically.
Additional information: Okay, I am a trifle concerned that my request makes me sound like an exceptionally weird tinhat. No! No! I am merely reporting the truth, which is that Magic Johnson and Larry Bird appear to have a real-life soulbond!
...That didn't help my case. But I have solid evidence. The documentary A Courtship of Rivals (YouTube link to full documentary, but you only need to watch the first ten minutes to see the literal discussion of the soulbond) could not be clearer. These guys are bonded in some way. And I just find that fascinating. You could not have two more different people playing the same game. You could not have a more intense rivalry. And yet it's abundantly clear they have a ton of respect for each other, a ton of very genuine love for each other, and they know each other so well -- every appearance I've ever seen them in has just been so great for that. We have Magic, dude who loves people, hugs, and fame, and Larry, dude whose basic approach to life is "go away and leave me alone because I have a lot of very important scowling to do," and they love each other, and that is the greatest thing to me.
Basically, I adore these guys. And I am riveted by their great and weird relationship. Anything you write about them navigating that relationship while being their extremely awesome selves will be wonderful.
And if you're up for pairing fic, I would love that, any rating.
To pick this fandom up, watch that documentary. Marvel at its dedication to pushing the soulbond storyline while somehow still being a real documentary!
Nomads (1986) — Eileen Flax, Veronique Pommier
Request: These women have, by the end of the movie, a relationship that was made for fic, and so I’m hoping for something set after the movie. How do things go when you simultaneously remember someone as your new friend made while surviving a terrible ordeal and your beloved wife? What’s it like when you’re on the run with someone you barely know except she also has the memories of the person you know and love best in the world?
And there’s also the issue of practical matters. How do they live? Eileen’s ability to practice medicine is going to be somewhat limited, at least at first, since being on the run from evil tends to inhibit your ability to obtain a license and a job. Does she become a doctor for people with paranormal maladies, or for supernatural people, or just for other people on the run? And what does Veronique, who came to this country hoping for some peaceful downtime and did not at all get that do after the trauma of the movie?
I would be delighted with relationship fic. I would be delighted with them turning around and taking the battle to the Nomads (though how, I cannot possibly tell you). I would be delighted with them encountering a new kind of evil and becoming a two-woman, three-sets-of-memories supernatural detection team. I just want to know how things go after the movie ends for these two. And please please please give them some kind of happily ever after, or the potential for one.
Additional information:For me, this movie is essentially one long prologue to fic. Like, okay, I’m sorry, but Eileen literally has Veronique’s dead husband’s memories and they literally drive off into the sunset together to make a new life. I just ... feel like that needs exploring, you know? I mean, yay Nomads, yay vaguely creepy paranormal whatever, but what of the relationship?
And these are two fascinating women. Veronique takes in a woman who is apparently insane and ranting and who seems to know her dead husband way too well and is incredibly kind to her, even though Niki’s life is, at that point, SUPER not going well. And Eileen is this analytical, problem-solving person who is going to find out what happened and fix this problem even if it, you know, destroys her life and drives her insane. (Also, her first thought when she wakes up in Veronique’s bed is apparently “Wait, did we have sex?” I am just saying. It was not far from Eileen’s mind. And Veronique clearly knew that. The possibility is there.) They are both willing to burn down lives they loved to stay alive, and I believe that means they can build something new in the ashes. I love them both, and hope they find happiness on the other side of their Nomad-Related Life Implosion.
This is technically a horror movie, but a) it’s so non-horrifying that I, a noted wimp, can watch it even after dark (except the deeply creepy abbey/nun sequence, because I am still a wimp) and b) I’m not really here for the horror aspect. I mean, okay, Pierce Brosnan, vaguely punkish Nomads acting like people in a gang in a movie, memory stealing, fine, that’s all good. But. Well. It’s not actually my main interest. My interest is in how people survive events this weird, how they make new lives after surviving, and how it all affects them.
I will be happy with any rating you care to write on this one. If you’re going to write a pairing, I’m only really interested in Eileen/Veronique HEA here. (But I am VERY interested in that!)
If you want to pick this up — well, it’s definitely available for rental on Amazon. And there’s also this copy, although I cannot vouch for its quality, on YouTube.
Ticket to Ride (Board Game)
Request:What is it like to live in the Ticket to Ride world – one where trains are the primary mode of transport everywhere and yet the only routes you can take are so circuitous as to be ridiculous?
What I’d love to see in this fandom is a look at what the popular fic tropes would be in the Ticket to Ride universe, from “there was only one Pullman berth (on that eight-day trip between Chicago and New York” to “omega goes into heat on the train from Hull to London (that passes through Glasgow and Dublin)” to “they board a train friends and exit it two weeks later lovers.” Any of those! Or something else! Just as long as it is fic as it would be written in the Ticket to Ride universe. (Original characters or characters from other fandoms are equally welcome, m/m or f/f, as you choose.)
Or, alternately, I’d love to see Ticket to Ride in the 80 Days universe. The description of the original game links it to Jules Verne’s novel, saying that it’s set 28 years to the day since Phileas Fogg won his bet, and you (the players) have undertaken a similar bet to see who can visit the most cities in seven days. What if instead it was the 80 Days universe, and you were traveling weird train routes through one of that universe’s continents? (In later expansions and sets, the descriptions talk about track-building and the players turn into track owners whose passengers can mysteriously not transfer to routes owned by different players. If you want to explore that side of it instead, I enthusiastically support that, also!)
Or Ticket to Ride worldbuilding would also be very welcome. What is going on in this universe? Why are people apparently entirely wiling to take trains even when the routes are utterly ridiculous? Is it preferable, somehow, to be on the train a long time? (There are, after all, no extra points for direct or short routes, and in fact the longest route bonus is a thing in many of the sets.) Are there no other means of transport? For the purposes of this – I know some of the games have dates on them, but it’s also fine to assume all the games are modern. Or in the future. Or in an alternate history. Or in a world with our cities and countries, but also magic. I just want to know why these circuitous routes, and what people think about them. Do they hate them? Do they love them? Are they necessary for some in-universe reason?
Feel free to use any expansion, or make one up – I am absolutely here for fic set in Ticket to Ride: The Moon or Ticket to Ride: Magic-Powered Fantasy Trains. (Probably they’d have a better name for that last one.) If you’re doing a pairing, as in the fic trope prompt, I’d prefer m/m or f/f. If you want to write an existing fandom (but in the Ticket to Ride universe), feel free to consider my tags on Dreamwidth for inspiration. Or, if you’ve got a fandom that’s perfect for this prompt, feel free! I don’t need to have consumed the canon or read fic in the fandom to love a story. (Please include a link to a primer or something if you can, though.)
Additional information: I play this game (on the app) a LOT. Like, daily. It is my quick relaxation game, my I-have-five-minutes-to-kill game. (My favorite boards are the UK, Mega US, and Switzerland, but I like pretty much all the expansions except Pennsylvania. Sorry, board – it isn’t me, it’s your weird stock-taking scheme. I came to build train routes, not a portfolio.) And every time I play it, I think to myself, “I sure hope the passengers enjoy traveling from Pittsburgh to Toronto via Dallas!” or “Yup, very reasonable to get from Manchester to London via Glasgow and Dublin” or “sorry you can’t get a direct route, but SOMEONE took that, and you apparently can’t transfer, so enjoy your extraneous tour of Scandinavia!” I am a circuitous continuous route builder and play to get as many tickets as possible, as opposed to, say, taking big routes for points, so my passengers live an especially trying life.
I spend a lot of time wondering why they even bother. I spend a lot of time thinking about the imaginary passengers whose comfort and convenience is never, ever considered. Basically, I have at this point invested very many hours in this universe, and I will love anything you write in it or about it.
I am also absolutely here for any history of trains stuff you want to throw in. I’m not a train historian or anything, but I have happily consumed a lot of non-fiction about trains and the development thereof.
If you decide to write the 80 Days universe prompt, I also played that game obsessively, and you can read my DYW letter from when I requested that fandom for details on what I’ve done and loved in the game. (Almost everything and everything, respectively.)
If you want to pick this one up, the quickest and cheapest way is probably the Ticket to Ride app, available on iOS and Android. You could also try the board game, if you want to – it’s available basically everywhere. (And if you live somewhere where going to stores is possible, your local game store might have a copy available to try in the store for free.)
Hi!
I am, as always, going to provide you with all the details, because that's what I hope to get from my recipient. But if details aren't your thing, please tap out of this letter now. Just know that I really, really cannot handle child or animal harm or death, and I love you for volunteering to write in one of these tiny fandoms. See you on the 25th!
Or, if you want to know more, read on.
About Me
I love so many things! Here is a small sample:
- Happy endings. (Um, I mean of the everyone lives happily ever after kind. Although I am also a big fan of orgasms, not gonna lie.)
- Humor.
- Slow burn romances and slow build sex scenes.
- Action and adventure.
- Snappy dialogue.
- Classic fan fiction tropes, whether played straight or inverted. (Soulbonds! Werewolves! Bodyswap! Arranged marriages! Fake dating! Amnesia! And so on.)
- Families (found, biological, synthetic, hologrammatic, whatever) being good to each other.
- Robots, spaceships, aliens, space opera, military science fiction.
- Urban fantasy, magical politics, dryads in backwards Dodgers caps, parking spells, secret libraries full of Starbucks-sipping, bluetooth-earbuds-wearing magical theory students.
- People who have problems with feelings.
- Pining and denial of the I-am-definitely-not-feeling-anything kind.
- Animal and child harm or death. These are my dealbreakers; I can't handle them at all.
- Embarrassment and humiliation.
- Rape.
- The abuse of women.
- Infidelity.
- Zombies and cannibalism.
- Characters with cancer or other terminal diseases.
- Pairings with big power imbalances -- teacher/student, doctor/patient, etc -- or a male/female power imbalance with the woman on the less powerful end.
- Unhappy endings.
- The spelling cum/cumming.
So that's the general stuff. Let's talk fandoms.
The Cardsharps – Caravaggio, Pink Feather Cardsharp, Black Feather Cardsharp, Innocent
Request: I have spent quite some time staring at this painting and have come to the conclusion that this one works as a story any way you slice it. The two cardsharps out fleecing rich young innocents but fucking each other? Yes. One of the cardsharps with the innocent while the other either pines or acts as wingman? Absolutely. The two cardsharps deciding they’d rather take the innocent’s innocence than his money? I am totally here for it. All three teaming up in every way imaginable? Do you even need to ask? Turns out the innocent is not so innocent and turns the tables? InDEED. And if you’ve got another scenario, I mean. Go for it. I am not sure there’s a wrong way to interpret this painting except for straight.
I really do hope for this to be on the lighter, kinder side, including a happily ever after for all, whether that’s the three of them forming a new cardsharping unit or a happy new relationship or everyone going on their customary ways with good memories. But I am definitely here for pining, and yearning, and all manner of want in the time before the happy ending. Also here for all the sex, obviously – you want someone to tie someone up? Some edging? Some voyeurism? Abso-fucking-lutely.
I’d love this to be set in the period and place it was painted (Venice, 1595 or thereabouts), with all the lowlife Venice elements that Caravaggio was capturing at this point. But I’m also entirely here for a fantasy or science fiction setting (and look forward to the explanation of why, exactly, they’re dressed like that in space – I mean, those hats + space stations = amazingness).
Basically, I want to know who these people are as people, how they all come together, and how fantastic it is.
Additional Information: Look at it! Just look at it!
_-_The_Cardsharps_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg){kind=link}
I knew as soon as I beheld this that what I wanted and needed was some or all of the people in it to bang. But in what configuration? I tried putting a poll up to help me decide, but even though OT3 won (and it is indeed one of the five most correct answers), people’s various ideas for pairings were so persuasive I still could not commit. (This is weird for me. I always have an OTP.)
So I guess I’m asking for you to commit for me. Get two or three of these people together and tell me all the details, and I will be so, so pleased and grateful. I just super need to hear about queer Venetians out there playing cards, doing crimes, getting banged. Or, alternately, queer Venetians-in-space where every palace is actually an elaborate space station and the Doge is an AI, or urban fantasy Venetians where the canals run with pure magic and the cards themselves are cursed, or – look, I think it’s clear that on this one, I am far from picky. I just want to hear about who. I want to hear about where. And I want there to be sex.
And I will, trust me, be very happy indeed.
Footloose (1984), Ren McCormack, Willard Hewitt
Request: Can we talk about Ren teaching Willard to dance? They learn the beat together. They do wrestling moves. They slow dance in an empty gym, for god’s sake. THE ENTIRE MONTAGE IS SET TO “LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE BOY,” a song with lyrics that are the exact opposite of platonic. The learning-to-dance montage was the first part of this movie I saw, and I knew, I KNEW, that it had to end with them kissing. It just makes sense! That entire sequence is basically Dirty Dancing except with fewer lifts! But. It was made in 1984, and the characters involved are both guys, and so I guess ... no one noticed that it should end with a kiss?
Please rectify this terrible error. PLEASE MAKE REN AND WILLARD KISS.
If you want to give me days of angsty pining and hopeful lust during the learning-to-dance montage, I am so extremely here for that. If you want to give me Ren and Willard running away from small town life together forever, I will be thrilled to pieces. If you want to write fumbling exploration, yes, yes please. If you want to write them meeting up ten or twenty years later, at a high school reunion or a random hotel bar or whatever, and realizing, no, they both WERE hoping the other one would start something during all those gym slow dances, again: sheer delight.
Ren. Willard. True love forever. It’s all I want from this fandom.
Additional Information: Okay, so like approximately every other popular culture everything, I did not see Footloose in my youth, or indeed until last year, when my wife, the redoubtable Best Beloved, realized I knew nothing about it and showed me THIS as my introduction to the movie:
I mean. I MEAN. I watched that, jaw slowly dropping, and I was like, I may not have seen many movies, but I’ve seen enough to know how THIS ends. But it did not end that way, and I was astonished and distressed, and then Best Beloved reminded me that this was made in an era when mainstream movie makers were apparently like, “Heck yeah, let’s have them strip their shirts off and play dude-on-dude volleyball with many loving slow-mo shots and stare intensely into each other’s eyes and shove each other against things. That’s just how dudes dude!” Or, in this case, “Let’s have them dance with each other for weeks on end, and of course that includes slow dancing, and then finish the montage with a literal ‘come in and give me some loving’ gesture, because, again, that’s just dudes being dudes. Didn’t everybody slow dance in an empty gym with their bro in high school?” (I sincerely hope, by the way, that the answer to that question is “yes.”)
Even at the Big Dance, they dance more with each other than they do with their girlfriends, and I feel like this is potentially a concept that needs exploring, is all.
There are a lot of fun themes you could work in here -- self-discovery, becoming your true self, escaping horrible places for better places, etc. -- so do whatever you want there. I’m just hoping for you to smush them together forever. Any rating is great for me.
If you want to pick this up, it’s available on Amazon Prime and YouTube for rental or purchase.
Men’s Basketball RPF, Earvin Johnson, Larry Bird
Request: I -- genuinely think Magic Johnson and Larry Bird might have soulbonded at the NCAA Championship in 1979. They certainly went from zero to intense, eternal focus pretty damn quickly. So what I want to know is -- what happened? Where did it go from there? How does that work, when you're playing against each other, when one of you doesn't even LIKE the other, when you're such incredibly different human beings?
If you go with the actual soulbond, there are lots of interesting possibilities here: Larry fighting the bond because of course he would, the way it affected them and their game, how it drove them to play. Or you could talk about how they finally accepted the soulbond and what it's like now, being comfortable with it and each other, years after the fighting and the struggle finally ended. Just, anything.
And if you take the non-soulbond route (which is of course entirely welcome; this definitely doesn't have to be a literal soulbond), just what IS going on? They have SOME kind of bond, that much is clear, and I'd love to hear what it's like: forever friendship, repeating reincarnation as people obsessed with each other, multiverse-spanning romance, whatever. I just want more about this intense *thing* they have going.
I'm good with gen, slash, and poly. Just please no straight-up infidelity. There's always gen, or unmarried AUs, or setting the sex before the marriage, or spousal knowledge and consent (my favorite!), or spousal involvement. Or something else you come up with! LET THE MAGIC (hee!) OF BIRD AND JOHNSON GUIDE YOU, basically.
Additional information: Okay, I am a trifle concerned that my request makes me sound like an exceptionally weird tinhat. No! No! I am merely reporting the truth, which is that Magic Johnson and Larry Bird appear to have a real-life soulbond!
...That didn't help my case. But I have solid evidence. The documentary A Courtship of Rivals (YouTube link to full documentary, but you only need to watch the first ten minutes to see the literal discussion of the soulbond) could not be clearer. These guys are bonded in some way. And I just find that fascinating. You could not have two more different people playing the same game. You could not have a more intense rivalry. And yet it's abundantly clear they have a ton of respect for each other, a ton of very genuine love for each other, and they know each other so well -- every appearance I've ever seen them in has just been so great for that. We have Magic, dude who loves people, hugs, and fame, and Larry, dude whose basic approach to life is "go away and leave me alone because I have a lot of very important scowling to do," and they love each other, and that is the greatest thing to me.
Basically, I adore these guys. And I am riveted by their great and weird relationship. Anything you write about them navigating that relationship while being their extremely awesome selves will be wonderful.
And if you're up for pairing fic, I would love that, any rating.
To pick this fandom up, watch that documentary. Marvel at its dedication to pushing the soulbond storyline while somehow still being a real documentary!
Nomads (1986) — Eileen Flax, Veronique Pommier
Request: These women have, by the end of the movie, a relationship that was made for fic, and so I’m hoping for something set after the movie. How do things go when you simultaneously remember someone as your new friend made while surviving a terrible ordeal and your beloved wife? What’s it like when you’re on the run with someone you barely know except she also has the memories of the person you know and love best in the world?
And there’s also the issue of practical matters. How do they live? Eileen’s ability to practice medicine is going to be somewhat limited, at least at first, since being on the run from evil tends to inhibit your ability to obtain a license and a job. Does she become a doctor for people with paranormal maladies, or for supernatural people, or just for other people on the run? And what does Veronique, who came to this country hoping for some peaceful downtime and did not at all get that do after the trauma of the movie?
I would be delighted with relationship fic. I would be delighted with them turning around and taking the battle to the Nomads (though how, I cannot possibly tell you). I would be delighted with them encountering a new kind of evil and becoming a two-woman, three-sets-of-memories supernatural detection team. I just want to know how things go after the movie ends for these two. And please please please give them some kind of happily ever after, or the potential for one.
Additional information:For me, this movie is essentially one long prologue to fic. Like, okay, I’m sorry, but Eileen literally has Veronique’s dead husband’s memories and they literally drive off into the sunset together to make a new life. I just ... feel like that needs exploring, you know? I mean, yay Nomads, yay vaguely creepy paranormal whatever, but what of the relationship?
And these are two fascinating women. Veronique takes in a woman who is apparently insane and ranting and who seems to know her dead husband way too well and is incredibly kind to her, even though Niki’s life is, at that point, SUPER not going well. And Eileen is this analytical, problem-solving person who is going to find out what happened and fix this problem even if it, you know, destroys her life and drives her insane. (Also, her first thought when she wakes up in Veronique’s bed is apparently “Wait, did we have sex?” I am just saying. It was not far from Eileen’s mind. And Veronique clearly knew that. The possibility is there.) They are both willing to burn down lives they loved to stay alive, and I believe that means they can build something new in the ashes. I love them both, and hope they find happiness on the other side of their Nomad-Related Life Implosion.
This is technically a horror movie, but a) it’s so non-horrifying that I, a noted wimp, can watch it even after dark (except the deeply creepy abbey/nun sequence, because I am still a wimp) and b) I’m not really here for the horror aspect. I mean, okay, Pierce Brosnan, vaguely punkish Nomads acting like people in a gang in a movie, memory stealing, fine, that’s all good. But. Well. It’s not actually my main interest. My interest is in how people survive events this weird, how they make new lives after surviving, and how it all affects them.
I will be happy with any rating you care to write on this one. If you’re going to write a pairing, I’m only really interested in Eileen/Veronique HEA here. (But I am VERY interested in that!)
If you want to pick this up — well, it’s definitely available for rental on Amazon. And there’s also this copy, although I cannot vouch for its quality, on YouTube.
Ticket to Ride (Board Game)
Request:What is it like to live in the Ticket to Ride world – one where trains are the primary mode of transport everywhere and yet the only routes you can take are so circuitous as to be ridiculous?
What I’d love to see in this fandom is a look at what the popular fic tropes would be in the Ticket to Ride universe, from “there was only one Pullman berth (on that eight-day trip between Chicago and New York” to “omega goes into heat on the train from Hull to London (that passes through Glasgow and Dublin)” to “they board a train friends and exit it two weeks later lovers.” Any of those! Or something else! Just as long as it is fic as it would be written in the Ticket to Ride universe. (Original characters or characters from other fandoms are equally welcome, m/m or f/f, as you choose.)
Or, alternately, I’d love to see Ticket to Ride in the 80 Days universe. The description of the original game links it to Jules Verne’s novel, saying that it’s set 28 years to the day since Phileas Fogg won his bet, and you (the players) have undertaken a similar bet to see who can visit the most cities in seven days. What if instead it was the 80 Days universe, and you were traveling weird train routes through one of that universe’s continents? (In later expansions and sets, the descriptions talk about track-building and the players turn into track owners whose passengers can mysteriously not transfer to routes owned by different players. If you want to explore that side of it instead, I enthusiastically support that, also!)
Or Ticket to Ride worldbuilding would also be very welcome. What is going on in this universe? Why are people apparently entirely wiling to take trains even when the routes are utterly ridiculous? Is it preferable, somehow, to be on the train a long time? (There are, after all, no extra points for direct or short routes, and in fact the longest route bonus is a thing in many of the sets.) Are there no other means of transport? For the purposes of this – I know some of the games have dates on them, but it’s also fine to assume all the games are modern. Or in the future. Or in an alternate history. Or in a world with our cities and countries, but also magic. I just want to know why these circuitous routes, and what people think about them. Do they hate them? Do they love them? Are they necessary for some in-universe reason?
Feel free to use any expansion, or make one up – I am absolutely here for fic set in Ticket to Ride: The Moon or Ticket to Ride: Magic-Powered Fantasy Trains. (Probably they’d have a better name for that last one.) If you’re doing a pairing, as in the fic trope prompt, I’d prefer m/m or f/f. If you want to write an existing fandom (but in the Ticket to Ride universe), feel free to consider my tags on Dreamwidth for inspiration. Or, if you’ve got a fandom that’s perfect for this prompt, feel free! I don’t need to have consumed the canon or read fic in the fandom to love a story. (Please include a link to a primer or something if you can, though.)
Additional information: I play this game (on the app) a LOT. Like, daily. It is my quick relaxation game, my I-have-five-minutes-to-kill game. (My favorite boards are the UK, Mega US, and Switzerland, but I like pretty much all the expansions except Pennsylvania. Sorry, board – it isn’t me, it’s your weird stock-taking scheme. I came to build train routes, not a portfolio.) And every time I play it, I think to myself, “I sure hope the passengers enjoy traveling from Pittsburgh to Toronto via Dallas!” or “Yup, very reasonable to get from Manchester to London via Glasgow and Dublin” or “sorry you can’t get a direct route, but SOMEONE took that, and you apparently can’t transfer, so enjoy your extraneous tour of Scandinavia!” I am a circuitous continuous route builder and play to get as many tickets as possible, as opposed to, say, taking big routes for points, so my passengers live an especially trying life.
I spend a lot of time wondering why they even bother. I spend a lot of time thinking about the imaginary passengers whose comfort and convenience is never, ever considered. Basically, I have at this point invested very many hours in this universe, and I will love anything you write in it or about it.
I am also absolutely here for any history of trains stuff you want to throw in. I’m not a train historian or anything, but I have happily consumed a lot of non-fiction about trains and the development thereof.
If you decide to write the 80 Days universe prompt, I also played that game obsessively, and you can read my DYW letter from when I requested that fandom for details on what I’ve done and loved in the game. (Almost everything and everything, respectively.)
If you want to pick this one up, the quickest and cheapest way is probably the Ticket to Ride app, available on iOS and Android. You could also try the board game, if you want to – it’s available basically everywhere. (And if you live somewhere where going to stores is possible, your local game store might have a copy available to try in the store for free.)