i may be ace

DEAR YULETIDE WRITER of 2020 ♥

2020-10-25T21:54:03Z

I would like to believe this letter is intelligible, funny, charming. I suppose we'll have to settle for it being written in English.

LIKES

• Dialogue! Banter! Character dynamics, especially of the friendship variety. (I cannot ever have enough of characters taking the time to hang out with their friends in the middle of the A-plot.)
• Plot. It doesn’t have to be the world’s most involved plot, but I vastly prefer a plot-driven story to a pure character study.
• Subverted tropes. I would forsake oxygen for it.
• Humour. Something light and snarky in tone, regardless of whether the subject-matter is the consistency of soufflé or banana cake.
• AUs. Go totally wild.
• Happy endings.

DISLIKES

• Character bashing. If there’s a character you don’t like, I am totally on board with acting as if they don’t exist. No need to even mention their name.
• Egregious clichés (secondary characters being dumb or intellectual cannon fodder, secondary characters of any gender becoming a Draco In Leather Pants, oblivious mutual pining to an absurd degree).
• There Was Only One Bed. Because I think we should normalise consenting adults being able to share a bed without everything being about sex.
• Eurocentric fantasy.
• PWP or a whole lot of graphic sex. (Sex can totally happen! Lots of it! But fifty-percent offscreen, please.)
• Excessive angst, character death, unmoderated fluff.

FANDOM SPECIFIC THINGS

ALL ABOUT EVE (1950) • tumblr tag

What I Like About It:

• It’s about the triumph and amazingness of older women. Older women being petty, egoistic, in love, schemey.
• The dialogue is so sharp and smart and incisive.
• The little non-judging breakfast club of Margo, Karen, Bill and Lloyd (who turns out to be pretty useless, but I still love him).
• Addison as their Big Bad. (Very proto-Gossip Girl.)

What I’d Like to Read About (optional):

• Margo and Karen (and their respective love interests, if you’re not opposed to it) working together on a play. The things that go wrong, the things that go right, the things that get sabotaged.
• Margo and Karen growing old together. One is already obsessed with age and the other is devoted to the first one, so I’d love to know what they get upto when they’re dowagers for real.
• Addison DeWitt versus the Talkies. (Bonus if Margo is involved in some way.)
• Eve and her little protégée (Phoebe iirc) take on Addison. (I love him to kingdom come, but does he honestly stand a chance?)

BULBBUL (2020) • tumblr tag
Undead or post-movie Bulbbul only, please, if you write me something for this fandom.

What I Like About It:

• This is the movie that made me believe that mind-reading is real because how else would someone create absolutely everything I want to see in a movie?
• I love present day Bulbbul. Present day Bulbbul is my perfect villain, especially the shots of her being the coolly supercilious lady of the house.
• Her friendship with Dr. Sudip is perfect as it is, for me. I don’t ever need to see them go any further. I bask in how he makes her so happy just as her friend.
• Binodini… damn.
• On the same note, I am very fond of Satya as a character, so I would absolutely not mind if you threw him in as well.

What I’d Like to Read About (optional):

• Post-movie Bulbbul and Dr. Sudip team up to hunt monster men.
• Film noir AU. YES.
• Bulbbul’s writing aspirations. (Bonus if the book is well and truly ridiculous and/or terrible).

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS (2011) • tumblr tag

What I Like About It:

• Horror movies are not my thing. I find them difficult to watch because (a) they seem plotless (b) even jump scares terrify me, let alone the eldritch evil in the climax okay.
• As you can imagine, this is the sole and only horror movie that I love until the last third when they start killing off all the great characters.
• The bureaucracy humour is excellent. Also grown men screaming incoherently at little girls who defeat a ghost with the power of friendship.
• The five-man band being sensible and normal and genuinely good friends with each other? Sign me tf up. Possibly my favourite moment with the group was when even the out-of-it stoner Marty sticks up for Jules against the gas station kook. • They’re friends, you guys. It’s actually shown how close they all are.

What I’d Like to Read About (optional):

• I have no prompts to offer, except that I was gutted by how the movie ended and hoped the first half could continue forever.
Please write something in the vein of the first half so that it continues forever.
• Pre-movie is also good! The actual movie runs on so many references and traditions and conventions that it’ll be interesting to see how it all began. (And just how many tries it took to get it right.)
• SITTERSON. And the whole scientist gang, if you can. If not, doesn’t matter. I AM HAPPY WITH JUST MORE SITTERSON.

THE GODFATHER (1972, 1974, 1990) • tumblr tag

What I Like About It:

• This is where I confess I’m a fake fan and that I’ve only seen the first movie. The other two got too depressing to watch.
• On the other hand, I’m a superfan of the book. It may be written like the OG airport paperback, but I want to marry that version of Sonny.
• My friend Meg once said, “Do you think Sonny makes Sandra wear men’s shirts during sex and calls her ‘Tom’?” and I think about that a lot.
• I think about them in their purely platonic capacity, too. So much that the ‘Tom finds out’ scene in the book has wrecked me.

What I’d Like to Read About (optional):

• This another of the movies where I just want to bask in the happy fun times together.
• Such as Michael, Sonny and Tom being brothers. Evil brothers who casually plot murder together, and I have no idea why they exclude Connie because she’d fit right in in the room.
• Sonny and Tom’s relationship from the movie. Because somehow, it’s even better than in the book. I will gladly give up my firstborn in exchange for more scenes of Sonny getting impatient with Tom, the conversation escalating into a screaming match, and Sonny always being the one who simmers down first and awkwardly tries to make peace. (The time he yelled at Tom for not being a wartime consigliore and then inviting him to lunch was my favourite.)
• You guessed it: more of Connie and Sonny. Their relationship is the bedrock of this movie, to me. So much happens (and so much is lost) because Connie married a guy Sonny brought home, and how much Sonny loves his sister. Which makes it sound like Connie has no agency, but I am told she casually becomes a black widow in the later sequels.
• As you can see, I have absolutely no concrete or useful prompts to offer.
• I would like to know what happens when the Corleone family tries to buy a newspaper.

JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE • tumblr tag

What I Like About It:

• How this movie has managed to gloss over how several parts of it are really, REALLY racist. Kevin Hart’s character is the designated punchline of every single joke, and Danny Glover is a non-talking horse. Who also flies away at the end. Very nice.
• In light of the above, it is unfair how some parts of the movies are really, really good.
• I would like to focus on only those parts at the moment, please.

What I’d Like to Read About (optional):

• Bethany and Alex Vreeke after the first movie. That plotline was resolved in exactly the most realistic fashion, and I wish they could pay Colin Hanks to appear for more than two scenes per instalment because I was DYING to find out more about them in the sequel.
• I realise there is literally no way to write anything about Bethany and Alex without a bucketload of angst, but I would love it if it stayed in heartwarming to bittersweet territory.
• Something something they end up in the game together again, but this time it’s fun and games for Jefferson and Shelly Oberon with baggage!
• Really, more of Shelly Oberon because I think it’s an excellently written comic relief character, and Bethany’s fondness for this avatar is the best.
• Also something something Alex is in the PTA of Bethany’s school (despite having no schoolgoing children) or an adult chaperone/volunteer for a bake sale.
• Future fic with older Bethany and Alex. Especially because they’re the two people (besides Fridge) who don’t have the most positive experiences with Jumanji. It’s not escapism for them like it is for the others, and Bethany and Alex return to the game even less voluntarily than everyone else in the sequel.
• Future fic romance with older Bethany and Alex.

SUCCESSION (TV 2018) • tumblr tag

What I Like About It:

• See above. See tumblr tag. I have no coherent commentary to offer. I genuinely believe this is the best show on television right now, and it is my favourite piece of fiction of all time.

What I’d Like to Read About (optional):
Preferably not Greg/Tom or Gerri/Roman as ships.

• Connor: For someone who’s so disconnected from reality, Connor manages to be one of the slimiest characters on the show. I’m in awe of it. I’d love to see more of his doomed presidential campaign, or maybe he gets called away from his ranch to arbitrate a spectacularly petty (or horrific) family dispute among Kendall, Roman and Shiv.
• Gerri: Gerri would fit right into All About Eve, prove me wrong. The way she pulls everyone’s strings, the fact that she’s both cowed by and capable of managing Logan Roy, the fuckall way she treats every member of that family… Truly my role model. More of Gerri in her capacity as General Counsel, please. Her work relationship with Karolina fascinates me (mostly because Karolina fascinates me), as well as how she pushes around the rest of the team. More Gerri versus office politics!
• Jess: I love how this girl always goes where Kendall goes. (He takes her along to his sister’s wedding where he’s plotting to torpedo his whole family.) Maybe something epistolary? The Much Onslaughted Inbox of Jess Jordan. Jess and the other Waystar employees, and how they manage work crises and have pretty exciting lives outside the Roys. (I, for one, fully believe that Eva had the right attitude about Shiv.)
• Kendall: If you write me literally anything about Kendall, I will scream incoherently and promptly die. (Bonus: if Rava is involved in any capacity.)
• Shiv: For a show that has exactly five women, it writes all 5 of them so well. Shiv’s competence rapidly unravelling the more she gets embroiled with her family? Peak comedy. Shiv’s word choice + delivery when she tells Nate, “I tried playing with you. You broke.” Bone-chilling. I have no real suggestion to offer about a Shiv fic except that I love her characterisation, and anything that brings out her cold-blooded side. Or her nice side, when she schemes with Roman. Or her swinging-for-the-big-leagues side when she tries to take on Marcia. Any of her multifaceted sides, really.
• Stewy: Literally I don’t understand how Kendall repeatedly sets himself up to get front-stabbed by Stewy. Stewy has never been anything but open about his flexible loyalties, which is honestly an A+ way to manipulate someone like Kendall. Evil Stewy aside, though, I would love love love more of the Buckley Years or the Harvard Years or the Post-Season Years. In short, either when they have it all, or when Stewy is coolly on top of the world and Kendall is trying very hard to be king of the yard.
• Tom: I have nothing Tom-specific to say, except that I love his relationship with every member of the Roy family. I love his dialogue. I love the painfully awkward and poisonous side of his personality, and how scorpion-and-the-toad he tries to be wherever he goes. Tom struggling to keep up with his in-laws is my favourite Tom, second only to Tom at ATN.
• Willa: Willa deserves more screentime. That is all.
• Anything pre-series. Especially, if it involves the Roy siblings being a group of dysfunctional adults.
• Anything involving the secondary characters. From Colin always quietly cleaning up after the Roys, to characters like Cyd and Eva and Marcia snarking about the others, to more episode-style shenanigans.
• The familial or familial-adjacent relationships: Roman and Shiv being so close, Kendall and Roman sticking up for each other, Frank being Kendall’s godfather, Gerri supposedly being Shiv’s godmother, et al.

PLEASE REMEMBER

You never have to include all of my requested characters or follow my prompts to the letter.
And when in doubt, know that I would live and die for genfic.

DEAR YULETIDE WRITER of 2016 ♥

2016-09-28T02:36:59Z

ABOUT ME

-AO3
-Tumblr
-Fandom tags: Eastern Promises • iZombie • Kings • Kitchen Confidential

LIKES
-Fresh, lively conversation. Banter, casual danger dialogue, dialogue that sub-consciously reveals things about the characters, suspense-ratcheting, etc. (Anything that doesn’t exemplify that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.)
-Protagonists of a story making time to be friends with their best friends. Scenes of this interspersed with the main romance, action/adventure antics, zombie apocalypse, etc. really makes my day.
-Plot-driven stories, rather than pure character studies.
-Here are the results from my Ultimate Fanfic Tropes Showdown (which I find weirdly telling).

DISLIKES
-Clichés (mooks being simple-minded or easy to defeat, Draco in Leather Pants*, overdone romance tropes, Villain Ball).
-Excess of either angst or fluff; character death. (I cry every time a fairy falls down dead because people didn’t clap hard enough).
-PWP. But I do love UST and the delectable build-up to the deed, and sex scenes where characters talk and curse and banter, and just have fun.

* My motto in life is the immortal words of Jake Peralta, Best Detective Ever: "Cool motive. Still murder."

FANDOM SPECIFIC THINGS

Of the nominated characters for each of these fandoms, I love the whole lot of them to bits. Some characters I like more than others (and I’ve mentioned accordingly below), but you don’t have to include all the mentioned characters in your story. As long as any or two of them is there, that’s absolutely fine.

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE - NORTHENDGIRLS
*internally screaming because I still can't believe this is a thing and thank you so, so much to the person(s) who nominated this!* Biggest thank you of all to anyone who writes this.

Characters: Arsenal, Chelsea, Juventus, Liverpool
Gen or shipfic: Either! Both!
Small degree of background: here

What I would like to see:

The most epic fantasy your glorious heart desires.

Not even kidding, go wild. An alternate history of Europe? Brand new fantasy kingdom? Sentient characters in a game? Steampunk space opera with royalty? (It definitely doesn't have to be tech-exclusionary fantasy or magic-exclusionary sci-fi.)

One request: please bring on the medieval POC but not so much of the medieval white people tropes. Dragons, prized virgins, castles, dreadful winters and Gregor Clegane type armour is old hat. Give me the merchant ships, gunpowder lovers,, deserts, temples, dancing troupes, and polytheists and ladies in really sharp suits and gorgeous crowns.

It would be a lovely bonus if you included the other clubs from the Player Select piece. (You definitely don't have to incorporate football culture, of course, let alone anthromorphised clubs. I'm just really excited about seeing stories about these characters as people populating their own amazing world.)

Prompts (optional):

Arsenal and Chelsea as members of a political machine by day and rival assassins by night. Or rivals, period, who use lethal weapons to get the job done.

Juventus + this post.

Liverpool as the Crown Princess who is a falconer and champion fighter who brings together a band of knights to go on a diplomatic mission (which is just the cover to retrieve a royal heirloom from a rival kingdom.)

Royals who are also space captains (Madrid, Monaco, hopefully City). Magicians who use illusions as a cover for murder (Barcelona). Star athletes and stately healers (Atletico and Leverkusen). Blue collar workers in war times (Shakhtar Donetsk and Schalke). The nominated characters in any role that you see them in. Whatever floats your boat!

Steampunk or clockpunk story set in Asia and/or any era but Victorian London.

EASTERN PROMISES (2007)

Characters: Kirill, Nikolai Luzhin
Gen or shipfic: Either! (Not only do I ship these two with the power of a thousand burning suns, I really love the crazy mind-melting tension between them never fructifying, just intensifying into the most fucked-up emotionally dependent bromance of all time.)

What I would like to see:

Loyalty! Support! Classism! Power struggle! Bro-hood!

More scenes like the basement incident or the ending, where the story of Kirill’s ambitions ends with him being absolutely dependent on Nikolai.

Creepy and violent slice of life among vor y zakone.

Kirill dealing with the fact that his former driver, longtime bro and living emotional crutch, is more powerful and a bigger threat than he’d ever imagined.

Them being unapologetically terrible human beings, but with sympathy. Them doing appallingly terrible, morally questionable things. (Come on, who steals a baby?)

Prompts (optional):

How Nikolai got to where he is when we see him in the movie. How does a complete outsider become Seymon’s red right hand? Tell me everything about who he screwed over (especially on his own side!) to win the consummate trust of the bad guys.

Something to do with the restaurant. The deceptively sweet domesticity we see in that place always gets to me. Maybe another restaurant opens up down the street and creates competition, and everyone overreacts a little in trying to ~~eliminate the competition~~ win their patrons back.

Adventures in the bath house. Not necessarily sexcapades, but how the bath house has been used as a conference room by mobsters before, what alliances have been cemented and vendetta satisfied amid ceramic tiles and half-naked old men.

Kirill’s post-movie rise to power. With him not being the sharpest tool in the box, this ought to be good.

James Bond AU. But with more love from Russia.

iZOMBIE (TV)

Characters: Liv Moore, Lowell Tracey, Ravi Chakrabarti
Gen or shipfic: Either! (Ships I love: Liv x Lowell, Liv x Ravi, Major x Ravi, Ravi x being the sexiest nerd of all time)

What I would like to see:

Hashtag Lowell Lives. Regular fic set post-Patriot Brains where Lowell is alive for no apparent reason. For example, I have a burning desire to see him being around during Liv's frat boy phase. (Liv x Lowell is my OTP of OTPs, but if that’s not your thing, my second OTP is def. Lowell x being alive.)

Liv having a social conscience about wanting to kill the guy who’s abducting and murdering at-risk children, but you know, independent of the fact that said guy just killed her boyfriend.

The morgue! There is nothing I don’t like about morgues and forensic science, so bring on the shenanigans among the dead.

Major and Ravi being bros. Liv and Peyton being soulmates. (Although I haven’t requested Major or Peyton, them being around and being awesome people and even better best friends to each other and to Ravi and Liv would be a lovely bonus.)

How Ravi deals with the entire cast mispronouncing his name.

Prompts (optional):

Liv and Lowell being young zombies in love and subverting romance tropes. (I especially like how Lowell swings between being incredibly smooth, like the time he made Liv that chilli cocktail, and being adorkable, which the rest of his absurdly short life.) Maybe they get roped into some couple’s retreat in a picture-perfect B&B, but since neither of them can enjoy any of the food nor socialise too well, they snark a lot and have a good time anyway.

Casefic. A diplomat dies under mysterious circumstances, and the cast has to navigate paranoia, spy shenanigans and state secrets to catch the killer.

Or not even casefic; just the excuse for Liv to eat odd brains. E.g. a ghostbuster or a bank robber or say it with me: the most epic Dungeon Master of all time (either that makes Major or Ravi’s dreams come true, or else they’re really snobby about tabletop gaming; either way, SHENANIGANS FOR LIFE.)

Ravi being even a little bit desi. Just because he’s brown doesn’t mean his whole life revolves around the fact, but just the occasional reminder of his culture and how that fits with his Anglo-American life in a basement with a dead girl would be awesome.

Noir PI AU.

KINGS (TV 2009)

Characters: David Shepherd, Jack Benjamin, Michelle Benjamin, Rose Benjamin
Gen or shipfic: Gen (I like David x Jack best when the one is not so nice to the other.)

What I would like to see:

POLITICS. Out-and-out down-and-dirty unabashed scheming and manoeuvring. To me, this is the backbone of the show and why I’m so hooked on it. The political intrigues give me LIFE, how a plot starts out as one tiny throwaway comment, snowballs throughout the episode and/or lurks in the background, and then BAM! comes the outrageous payoff/reveal at the very end.

Humour. The show has a very grim, dark tone, but the way it infuses levity (Silas in the kitchen, Rose being snarky, both of them and their parenting quips, Jack being insouciant) is perfect. Give me more of the faux-domesticity, the family banter and the deadpan delivery.

JACK BENJAMIN. When I said that I live and breathe for the dirty politics, I meant Jack. I love how he said he’s always trying to wipe out David because he’s “fighting for his right to exist”. His methods are so remorseless and borderline sociopathic, and the motivation itself is so petty, asdfghjkl. (Jack is my favourite and I wanted so badly for him to succeed every time he gets smashed down, but I’m also perfectly okay with him never being redeemed.) BONUS: Stu. Jack and Stu is my oxygen.

Rose being queen. This is a holdover from bad YA fantasy lit, but I just need more queens being actual queens: ruling through diplomacy and side channels, realising the importance of china patterns and how to manipulate the press. (None of that Dresses Are Bad and Tomboyishness Is the Only Way to Be Respected attitude.)

Anything set before life really goes to hell in a handbasket, i.e. anything set between the pilot to mid-series. Pre-canon is not my most favourite thing, nor the last few episodes. (I just really, really love the Cross family + allies, you guys.)

Prompts (optional):

The royal family actually being a family. Not in a whitewashed way, but in the way they’re shown on the show. Rose and Silas are the unstoppable mutually manipulative duo, Silas doting on Michelle and Rose moving heaven and earth for Jack without ever really accepting all of him, Jack never really being on Michelle’s side but being there for her all the times it doesn’t properly count. Give me Slice of Life with them being themselves together. E.g. there's a bomb scare and the Service shuttles them out of the palace and to a remote cabin in the woods where the TV is only seventy inches. (Bonus: Thomasina being the Dragon to Silas.)

Slightly alternate canon where Jack witnesses the butterflies landing on David and goes all-out to eliminate the competition, without knowing that Silas has to crown David or die. Along the way, he finds out that he’s written his father’s death warrant, but dear old dad is only too happy to die in the arms of someone who’s not Jack’s mother. Jack does an about-turn and makes the painful decision to have David crowned after all. (After all, accidents can always be arranged.) Give me more of their constant tug-of-war of power: David adoring Jack (and believing he is cared for in return) and Jack using and abusing that, even while he genuinely sees David as someone good and loyal.

Jack and Rose (heh) going forth and being awesome together. (Bonus if Crossgen is also involved.) Maybe the two of them inaugurate an art museum or a veteran’s hospital, or just have a really productive Sunday pulling off a scheme together. I can’t get enough of how deeply and completely Rose loves him, and yet Jack always knows he’s been patronised and dismissed by her in spite of everything she does for him. I would love fic of them being on the same side, with this hanging between them throughout.

Good versus Evil AU. Superhero, high fantasy archetypes, however you want to take it.

KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL

Characters: Jack Bourdain, Steven Daedalus, Teddy Wong
Gen or shipfic: Gen (but also if Jack x Steven or Jack x Teddy floats your boat, go for it!)

What I would like to see:

The cast being un-PC and just downright terrible. The whole no-holds-barred sense of humour.

Jack and Steven being Jack and Steven. The unstoppable, inseparable, unflappable dream team. Steven doing shady things to keep Jack at the top of the food chain, and Jack going nowhere without him. In short, the whole "I can't be me without you" dyanmic.

Although I haven't requested other characters, I love the whole cast A LOT, so def. include them if you like. Teddy and Seth’s rollicking friendship. Everything to do with Mimi as the world’s funniest and most adorable antagonist. PINO! Ramon!

Prompts (optional):

The One Time Jack Went Too Far About Something and Steven (Against His Better Nature) Went Along With It Even Though Everyone Else Was Violently Opposed… and How It Ultimately Blew Up In their Faces.

The trials and tribulations of being a poissonnier in a country of red meat-eaters. Teddy being Korean. (E.g. How many of his favourite dishes has he had to bastardise to suit the American palate?)

The micro-aggravations of working in a kitchen. Diners who stroll in just before the kitchen closes, picky eaters who aren’t happy with the menu, food critics who don elaborate disguises to hide their identity, people who come in with their children. Any or all of the above.

Heist AU.

AU not even required; just an excuse to have caper-like shenanigans, e.g. infiltrate a restaurant to get a secret recipe or break into a supermarket to get high-quality truffles when their budget is tight (because they can’t be seen grocery shopping at Walgreen’s.)

PLEASE REMEMBER

If the fandoms we got matched are incompatible with your writing muse (or you're just having some insurmountable writer's block or a failure of inspiration), please note that I have a five-minute fandom (it's honestly just gorgeous art) that I love as much as anything else.

Take each requested fandom and go where your heart desires because I love all of them and their respective characters so much that no matter what you do with them, I'll be blown away by it ♥

DEAR FELLOW SHIP SWAPPER ♥

2016-02-09T19:01:19Z

HELLO, AND PLEASE KNOW THAT I AM CURRENTLY FLAILING. Thank you for reading this for whatever nefarious purpose or reason that has brought to you to this page.

THINGS ABOUT ME

-AO3
-Tumblr
-Fandom tags: Brooklyn Nine-Nine • Community • ~~Dollhouse~~ • Gossip Girl [Carter • Georgina • Jack • Nate • Serena] • Skins (UK)

LIKES:
-Banter! Dialogue! Fresh, lively conversation (rather than ones that prove “Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.”) I love ‘snarky and competitive’ just as much as ‘lazy catching up’ and ‘excited news-sharing’ and ‘droll contemplation of life’.
-Good relationships with (best) friends other than the love interest. The main character’s life outside the romance is hugely interesting to me, even if it isn’t the focus of the fic.
-Necessary roughness. hate!sex, wall!sex, bumping into surfaces and talking and cursing and bantering in the middle of sexy times. In short, sex being not just torturously sensual, but also fun.

-Plot-driven stories, rather than pure character studies. It doesn’t have to be the most intricate plot since Inception; just a simple or plotty (or anything in between) storyline connecting the beginning and the end.

DISLIKES:
-Clichés. Forced to share a bed, anything involving alcohol, locked in confined spaces together, faking dating, etc. I like my romance straightforward and focused on how their personalities complement and conflict on their own.
-Hurt/comfort. Or, at least, when it’s sweet. Give me people exploiting the other person at their weakest (for good or for evil) any day.
-Nicknames. This is a weird, irrational pet peeve, and I apologise for it. I do love, love canonical nicknames (e.g. “Cowboy” and “Peril” in The Man From U.N.C.L.E or Carter calling Serena “Beautiful” in Gossip Girl or “CREAMPUFF” and other delicious miscellany from Carmilla) if they’re not overused.
-PWP. Explicit sex scenes do nothing for me, but I do love UST and the build-up to it.

-Excessive angst or character death. Pure fluff.

FANDOM SPECIFIC THINGS

All prompts below are completely optional.

BROOKLYN NINE-NINE

Amy Santiago and Rosa Diaz
-Something involving their jobs. I love that line of Diaz’s where she says that their line of work is tough and male-dominated enough without the two of them pitting themselves against each other. So, bring on these two being hilarious buddy cops: interrogating some atrociously obtuse or annoying perp, going undercover with embarrassing identities, straight-up police procedural, anything.
-Action! Chase scenes, fights, Diaz and Santiago casually curb-stomping people while engaging in Casual Danger Dialogue.
-Santiago snowballing/overcomplicating everything and Diaz being absolutely deadpan about the same.
-Diaz getting dragged into some competition that Santiago would normally have with Peralta (best holiday present, most pizza joint-related arrests, most Eyebrow Twitch of Approval from Holt etc.).

Sharon Jeffords and Terry Jeffords
-While I love the Jeffords family dynamic (look! Wholesome! Functional! Communicative! Family), I’d like something that doesn’t rehash the show’s favourite themes: Sharon not wanting him to take too many risks, Terry wanting to come home every night, doing ridiculously adorbs things for his daughters. Maybe something that elaborates on their personalities and mishaps that flow from their jobs, hobbies, random day in the life of the Jeffords.
-UNDERCOVER AS MARRIED. Except they’re actually married, but the terminology has to be preserved. Terry has to go undercover with a ring on his finger because reasons, and he refuses to be fake-married to anyone but Sharon. To whom he’s really married.
-Kevin and Sharon bond over something urbane, obscure and vaguely pretentious, while their spouses, who are forced to participate, look on in despair. Terry’s performance (read: enthusiasm and other such lies) is being compared unfavourably against Holt’s—OR WORSE: Holt is told he should be more like Terry.
-Something involving Cagney and Lacey in school. E.g. the Jeffordses get embroiled in stiff competition with the other parents about grades/extra-curricular/bake sale etc., while all the kids are having a good time. Sharon and Terry getting suspicious of their daughters’ boyfriends, Gina meeting the girls somehow, etc.

COMMUNITY
Britta Perry and Jeff Winger
-This show is the master of putting the cast as they are in bizarre situations that are Not Quite AU. I’d really love more of that (regular day at Greenfield but spoofing a specific genre) or else a straight-up AU.
-Something inspired by noir or something ‘hardboiled’. Old-timey PI agency, investigation of some supposedly “great injustice,” or any excuse really for trench coats and Britta walking into Jeff’s line of sight while showing off legs that go on forever.
-Britta’s activism coming into conflict with Jeff’s cynicism. E.g. he gets forced to go to some rally with her and ends up giving a rousing speech that kills everyone’s spirit, etc.
-Anything that emphasises how much the like each other, how they are alike, how they work as friends, and meaningless emotion-laden sex is a great benefit.

DOLLHOUSE

Adelle DeWitt and Laurence Dominic
-Until the betrayal reveal, there was nothing that Dominic wouldn’t do on Adelle’s command. I’d love something that deals with the power imbalance, differing attitudes to morality, the MATCHING STIFF UPPER LIPS, but hopefully with humour, and not an angst overdose.
-Suits! Him in suits and carrying assault rifles! Her in skirt-suits and nearly literally crushing balls in her fist! Them being extremely well-dressed badasses. I don’t care if they do nothing but lounge about in her office, smirk and scheme and gloat about how well the business is, as long as they’re wearing said suits.
-Dominic is the security detail at Adelle’s house while she’s off being Miss Lonely Hearts, or some other terribly awkward way for him to discover the secret.
-SUPER-DUPER-BONUS: Topher in some capacity. The way he drives both Adelle and Dominic up the wall is beautiful.

Claire Saunders and Topher Brink
-Something set before the Big Reveal about Claire. What impresses me the most is when I rewatch their initial interactions, knowing The Reveal, and see how totally… blasé Topher was about it. A Slice of Life/regular episode story where he’s coordinating with snarky, huffy Dr. Saunders over an engagement, but coloured with the fact that the writer, the reader, and all the characters except Claire KNOW.
-On Topher’s birthday, Whiskey, not Sierra, is imprinted (or proposed to be) as his best friend.
-The aftermath of Dr. Saunders’ death; how Topher deals with Whiskey becoming ‘Claire’. Does he try to hide his true feelings? Is he overflowing with self-congratulations? Does he remain oblivious while other people point out the spectacular amorality of the situation?
-EXTRA BINGO BONUS: BOYD. Topher’s dynamic with his ‘man-friend’ is the best thing ever, and I would love more of it, please.

GOSSIP GIRL

Carter Baizen and Serena van der Woodsen
-“WHO THE HELL IS HE NOT TO WANT YOU?” I was sold, hook, line and sinker, for this ship the second he said that. Give me moar. Carter being Serena’s biggest fan, fiercely protective of her, self-sacrificing (for the first time in his sad, miserable, seriously shady life). But I would prefer it not set in Santorini and/or during the time they were in search of her father. Something fresh that throws them in new settings with new challenges.
-Their being languid, directionless, spoilt rich kids in love post-season three. How Carter deals with being disinherited and penniless around perpetual heiress Serena, one of the few people who genuinely doesn’t care about money.
-Carter being shady. Before Season 3, this guy was seriously sketchy, and all that was suddenly wiped out to make him a viable love interest. Admittedly, I love new!Carter the best, but please don’t think you have to shy away from his past. Bring on the secret societies, corruption of juniors, gambling problems, and lifelong rivalry with Chuck! How does he reconcile his epic love for Serena with his creeptastic lifestyle?
-Bonus inclusion: Blair and Serena’s friendship. Where there’s Serena, I hope there’s Blair and the rest of the NJBC to back her up and glare (righteously and rightfully) at Carter.

Georgina Sparks and Jack Bass
-Something whacky and evil, as befitting the characters of these two. Georgina’s been accurately described as an “adolescent Cruella,” so something that highlights how hilarious and schemey they can be. They’re antagonists who are always self-satisfied and genuinely having fun.
-More about Jack’s corporate ruthlessness and Georgina’s Machiavellian mind. Her talents seem so… wasted on high schoolers and college kids. I can really see them teaming up to ruin lives and tumble empires, and generally being business partners. (Like Jack Donaghy and evil Jack Donaghy).
-Supervillain AU. I kid you not. Capes, masks, secret identities, all up to you.
-Bring back Sergei and his BAMF wife who threatened to kick Georgina’s ass. Or Phil. I always thought there was something sketchy about Milo’s parental figures. Jack knows them or works with them, etc., and that’s how he ends up in the same room with Georgina.

Nate Archibald and Serena van der Woodsen
-Alternate canon of some sort for the last season. Nate and Serena forming the unofficial club for People Who Have Been Burned By Dan Humphrey. Maybe how they turn the tables on hi. But no character bashing, please. (The steady decline in Dan’s characterisation from the deliberately flawed twat he was in the first season, is irrelevant).
-The two of them going seamlessly from codependent best friends to lovers. I love how effortless their relationship is on the show, how they just click in every way from summers in the Hamptons to the sex to falling in step beside each other.
-More alternate canon where Serena is less of an absentee best friend. When the Archibalds are having terrible family upheaval in Season 2, how do the NJBC rally to help him?
-BONUS CHERRY ON THE PERFECTLY LOVELY CAKE WITH LOADS OF FROSTING: Chuck and Nate’s flawless BFFery. Chuck and Nate living together and judging Dan.

SKINS (UK)

Effy Stonem and Tony Stonem
-What I really, really like about them is the fact it’s quasi-canon. It’s always almost there. There’s this explosive protectiveness and willingness to do anything for each other that keeps smacking into an invisible barrier between ‘understood’ and ‘explicit’. This might sound dumb (and not especially shippy) but I feel like they’d lose something if they even edged out of ‘understood’ territory into ‘explicit’.
-Something set in Series 1 or pre-series. Things get so horribly difficult for them afterwards (and then he goes off to university!), and ow, my heart. Anything that focuses on their twisted delight in conning the world, their us-together-against-all-else mentality, their perfect synchronicity, and how much they get done without talking.
-Effy aggressively disapproving of girls who like Tony and/or putting them through the ringer.
-Ridiculous things Tony has done for Effy (and knowing her, they’d probably not be simple or nice).

Michelle Richardson and Tony Stonem
-ANYTHING THAT YOUR PRECIOUS HEART DESIRES. Seriously, nothing that involves Michelle and Tony in a twisted, complicated, unhealthy, character-developing relationship would make me sad.
-Normally, angsty fic makes me curl up and die inside, but a humourous tone (and definitely not fluff) is the right tone for these two. Go forth and jab at all the uncomfortable truths in their interactions with a long, sharp pin.
-BONUS THAT I WOULD REALLY, REALLY APPRECIATE: Jal and Michelle’s beautiful BFFery (and Jal’s contemptuous affection of Tony!)
-Completely optional extra: Effy scowling daggers at Michelle.

PLEASE REMEMBER

I love all of these ships, so if you write me anything about any of them (whether as a romantic or platonic couple), you will send me to the moon with joy. Literally ANYTHING about any of the above makes my day so overwhelmingly much, so thank you so much for this ♥

DEAR YULETIDE WRITER ♥

2015-10-25T07:31:29Z

This is my first year, and I’m blown away by the thought that you’re reading this to write me something. Because I’m a little bit psychic, I just know I’m going to love my present. This letter is my Yuletide request + general extra things (if that helps!)

THINGS ABOUT ME

-AO3
-Tumblr
-Fandom tags: 2 Broke Girls • Archer • ~~Bride & Prejudice~~ • Brooklyn Nine-Nine • ~~Emma Frost~~ • ~~Galaxy Quest~~

LIKES:
-AU.* Put the ‘alternate’ in AU: unusual occupations (ballet company, croupier, realistic spy, shoemaker, IDK) and crazy scenarios (a gulag, the ISS, a deadly tournament, space opera, etc.)
-Dialogue. Witty banter, casual danger dialogue, unintentional reveals about the characters, suspense-ratcheting, etc.
-Happy endings.
-Plot-driven stories, rather than pure character studies. It doesn’t have to be the most intricate plot since Inception; just a simple or plotty (or anything in between) storyline connecting the beginning and the end.

*This is only if you want to. I love the canon of the requested fandoms as much as I love AUs, so I would be genuinely happy with either.

DISLIKES:
-Clichés (mooks being simple-minded or easy to defeat, overdone romance tropes, Villain Ball).
-Excessive angst or character death. Pure fluff.
-Medieval Europe fantasy. If you want to go fantasy, or add fantasy fiction elements, that are not Eurocentric, I’m all for it!
-PWP. I’m ambivalent to explicit sex scenes in general. Bring on the UST and the build-up and then… fade to black, give me the general idea of what happens next, leave them hanging, whatever you want.

FANDOM SPECIFIC THINGS

My requests have “Any” in the character field because I don’t want to force you to write a character or combination you’re not comfortable with. But since “Any” is also extremely vague, here are things I like. You can always mix and match prompts, or bypass them in favour of something cooler!

2 BROKE GIRLS
What I would like to see:
-Some of the terrible, awful, non-PC humour of the show.
-Caroline and Max having a larger than adventure.
-Secondary characters, e.g. the usual diner staff, past friends, love interests, nemeses, Reefer, Sophie, etc. I’m especially partial to Candy Andy, but he’s not necessary.

Prompts (optional):
-Something set from the time they had their own cupcake shop. Their misadventures in getting funded, maybe involving an old Wharton classmate.
-Earl, his forgery skills, Caroline and Max run some illegal-ish side business out of the diner.
-Caroline’s dad gets parole? Dies and returns as a ghost? Max now has a third roommate.
-They enter Chestnut in a horse show, and get very competitive with the owners of the other better-groomed thoroughbreds.
-Noir AU where they run the worst PI agency ever.

ARCHER (Cartoon)
What I would like to see:
-HOLD BACK NOTHING. Go as OTT or ridiculous with the scenarios and schemes as your heart desires.
-Archer being good at his job. Archer being a decent guy deep, deep, deep down.
-Series villains popping up to create conflict. Brand-new OC villains are cool too.
-My favourites are Archer, Cheryl, Lana, and Ray. I ship Archer and Lana like a boss, but a romance fic is not necessary.

Prompts (optional):
-Intrigues in a remote, deceptively harmless English countryhouse. (May or may not be haunted.)
-Mission set in an incongruously idyllic foreign city (Bruges, Firenze, Postdam) with canon-typical Anachronism Stew Cold War politics in the background. Someone pockets a priceless relic as a ‘souvenir’?
-Cheryl or Lana undercover as a reporter on some ridic news show (think Sit Up, Britain! from Bridget Jones’s Diary).
-World War (either) AU involving real world spy shenanigans. Bordellos. Cryptography. Double agents. War being fought outside Europe.
-Space opera AU. (Return of cyborg!Barry if you like.)

BRIDE & PREJUDICE (2004)
What I would like to see:
-Kiran’s relationship with her family and genuine friendship with Darcy.
-Lakhi’s relationship with her madcap mother.
-The hotel life, the hotel business, the tourism industry (totally optional).
-Just more of the film’s jokey attitude to family pressures, conformity, and the beautiful disaster that is the Bakshi household.
-Culture! Real culture, and not the Incredible India infomercial that Lalita’s speeches tended to become.

Prompts (optional):
-Kiran at Oxford. Punting, disdain of the old libraries, cobblestone streets, pubs, faculty gardens, hot boys, the overabundance of chapels. Optional bonus for incorporating Balraj and Darcy!
-Somebody known to the whole extended family is getting divorced, and the fallout. (The couple could be one who got together in the film, side characters, OCs, whatever you like.)
-Lakhi gets her first job. Is she happy with it or utterly bored? Did her dad needle her into it? Does her mother approve or find unrespectable? Instead of a job, it could be her chosen college course.
-Things we never got to know about Georgie. The film gave us so little, so an unusual skill or hobby of hers? How does she pursue it? Who does it bring her in contact with? What is she aiming to accomplish with it?
-More on the Pride & Prejudice aspect of Lalita hanging out with a married Chandra; how does Mr. Kohli affect their (hopefully epic) friendship?

BROOKLYN NINE-NINE (TV)
What I would like to see:
-Ensemble-oriented or following the misadventures of a combination of characters.
-Casefic. Precinct shenanigans. Rivalries. Wagers.
-Amy and Rosa being epic buddy cops together. Jake and Rosa’s epic Academy-era friendship.
-My favourites are ~~OH MY GOD EVERYTHING~~ Gina, Jake, Kevin, Rosa and Terry. I love Sophia and her relationship with Jake, but that’s really not necessary to include.

Prompts (optional):
-The Case of the Week is something whacky and unexpected (chandelier thefts, modern piracy, villain’s calling card is an éclair that melts and get sticky by the time the crime scene is discovered, etc).
-More on Rosa’s rivalry with the DA from Season One’s ‘Old School’, or Rosa generally generating bad blood with people she has to see again in the course of her job.
-Someone joins the gym (for whatever reason) and drags an equally unenthusiastic exercise buddy with them. Finds the place bursting with cops who take their physical fitness very, very seriously.
-The 99 getting sued for the collateral damage they cause (could or could not be frivolous litigation). How do they make the charges go away?
-Superhero AU.

EMMA FROST (Comic)
What I would like to see:
-Dysfunctional sibling dynamic that somehow works. Them being briefly loyal to each other to suit their own ends.
-Anything set during the Higher Learning arc or before i.e. before things really go south for the family, or set post-series.
-Everything about Adrienne. Psychometry. Being the worst ever big sister. How she meets Steven post-series. Being ruthless in getting to the top.
-The relationship of the two oldest (she seemed genuinely shaken by the fallout of the Dante Incident). Adrienne and Cordelia dealing with living at home with an ill mother.
-Idyllic rich people things: horse-riding, pianos, that massive sprawling estate, having reporters in their back pocket, badminton, etc.

Prompts (optional):
-Adrienne blackmailing Christian into helping her with work, but a surprising (short-lived) truce evolving from it.
-Christian having a Cole Porter discography and memorabilia collection. How far he goes to maintain it, bidding on rare pieces at auctions, etc.
-Cordelia ruining her older siblings’ dates or being nosy about their lives.
-The trials and tribulations of Adrienne taking over Frost Enterprises. Or something about her embezzlement schemes while she was working there.
-AU or canon story about the characters being in Venice during Carnival. Something that makes use of masks, deception and the grandiosity of it all.

GALAXY QUEST (1999)
What I would like to see:
-The interpersonal dynamic of the cast being in the foreground. Romance is great, but I'd prefer it if all ships happened in the background.
-More of their lives as celebrities (think America’s Sweethearts and the gumshoe aspects of fame: appeasing the press, weird merchandise, terrible talk shows, bad interviews, booking their next job, their entourages).
-The (hilarious) frustrations of being overlooked and/or still being friends with Jason Nesmith.
-Hard science fantasy. Go wild with the technobabble, pseudo-science, fantastical alien races, space ship engineering. (Totally optional because I know this isn’t every writer’s cup of tea, and the film is the gentlest parody of this concept).
-My favourites are EVERY ONE OF THEM, but I would love it if you threw in some of Alexander’s friendship with Gwen and/or Jason, and Tommy being wonderful.

Prompts (optional):
-The Galaxy Quest cast and crew is forced to go on a team-bonding exercise in some remote or ridiculous location (the woods, a Hollywood ‘ashram’, the basement of the Paramount studio, IDK). Hijinks ensue.
-Sir Alexander starring in a play he’s rather proud of, and his friends showing up to watch his performance. He doesn’t want them there. At all.
-Alien tech that goes awry and causes them to switch bodies. What happens to the person who switches with Laliari, who isn’t humanoid by any stretch of the imagination?
-Fred starts experimenting at home, and adds hi-fi alien additions to household gadgets. Cue disaster, especially when handled by someone who doesn’t know what he’s done.
-Sgt. Bilko AU where an army camp is run by a well-meaning commander, but is falling apart nonetheless. Jason’s unit mostly runs gambling rackets, pulls the wool over their CO’s eyes, and helps further his relationship with the smart blonde who won’t put up with his nonsense. Tommy as the hyper-competent new recruit, Alexander as the long-suffering objector, Fred as the one who obliviously goes along with everything, etc.

PLEASE REMEMBER

The prompts are TO BE TREATED AS OPTIONAL. If none of them seem feasible to you, that’s fine! I requested these fandoms specifically because I’d be thrilled with literally whatever you write (whether or not it’s based on this letter).

This Yuletide gift is a two-way street, and I hope it’s as awesome for you as I know it will be for me ♥

& with no colours in our skin until we let the spectrum in

2014-07-21T06:34:56Z

[01-04] House of Flying Daggers, Skins (UK)

[05-08] Gossip Girl, Amelie

[09-12] Merlin (BBC), Aladdin

[13-16] Alice in Wonderland, Emperor's New Groove
[17-20] Atlantis, Princess and the Frog
[21-25] Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, Cinderella

For Round 31 (A Rainbow of Fandoms) @ 20inspirations. "Rainbow" goes both ways, not just in terms of colours but also diversity (in terms of subjects and cultures.)

[01-04]
[05-08]
[09-12]
[13-16]
[17-20]

Inspiration

[01-04] forest // icon by blueymcphluey // texture by danseur_lion // friendship

[05-08] icon by naive_astronaut // icon by margerydaw_s2 // sunset // close-up

[09-12] edge // texture by spartapuss // favourite character // icon by neatmonster

[13-16] icon by feel_the_fire // icon by raiindust // vibrant // shocking

[17-20] love // icon by adiaaida // fake background // hands

[21-25]

hipokras @ 2014-07-13T19:28:00

2014-07-13T13:55:43Z

movieslims
Sign up for the new round

And the first challenge is Maleficent, so go do this ♥

fic masterlist

2014-07-01T17:12:50Z

F I C M A S T E R L I S T

To be noted that these are the only ones that didn't make me want to cry and re-question all my life choices. The irredeemable ones have been deleted (or are languishing elsewhere in cyberspace).
Comment fics have not yet been included.
UNDER CONSTRUCTION: Links (and alternate links) are being added. Posts are being re-formatted.

BIG BANG THEORY

Sex is a Texas Drought [On AO3]
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2k
Characters: Penny, Howard, Leonard, Raj, Sheldon, Puck (from Glee)
Relationships: Penny x Puck
Summary: Puck moves to California to get a job cleaning pools. More specifically, that of Tyra Banks. And that's how he meets a pair of nerds pretending to be cablemen— and their hot blond actress-slash-waitress friend.
Additional Information: For curve. Crossover with Glee.

COMMUNITY

You Are the Silence in Between What I Thought and What I Said
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 3k
Characters: Annie, the study group, Dean Pelton, Puck (from Glee)
Relationships: Annie x Puck, Britta x Jeff (background)
Summary: Noah Puckerman moves to Colorado, takes an Anthropology class, and forgets to give Annie Adderall a pretty important memo.
Additional Information: For curve. Crossover with Glee.

DEXTER

The Kissing Whore of Miami
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 3.7k~
Characters: Debra, Dexter, Quinn, Anton
Relationships: Debra x Quinn, Anton x Debra (past)
Summary: Twelve hours in the life of Debra Morgan: being stood up by dates, clubbing with a police informant she refuses to believe she's in love with, and ending up at the office again with the man she's supposed to betray. It's enough to make a girl want to take up scrapbooking.

FOOTBALL RPF

How Per Convinced Poldi to Come to Arsenal (The Answer: FIFA)
Club: German NT
Rating: R
Word count: 4k~
Characters: Lukas Podolski, Per Mertesacker, Arne Friedrich, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Ulrike Stange
Summary: Per injures his foot and goes home to Hanover, and is forced to confront his lack of technological skills. Which means he sucks at playing the FIFA video game. He goes to the best tutor there is: the face of the game since 2006, Lukas Podolski.
Additional Information: For cornerflag. GEN. Forever gen. Except for mild references to Per and Ulrike.

I'm No Superman
Club: Arsenal
Rating: PG
Word count: 2k~
Characters: Andre Arshavin, Robin van Persie, RvP's cat
Summary: Five conversations Arshavin has, where he's convinced that Robin's cat may be smarter than it lets on.
Additional Information: For cornerflag. Quotes from "Ask Andre" on his website (lovingly compiled by Dirty Tackle). GEN. Forever gen.

GLEE

Being Mike (Or At Least Who Sue Sylvester Thinks He Should Be)
Rating: PG
Word count: 1.2k~
Characters: Mike, Sue, Tina
Summary: Mike is homeless, and Sue Sylvester has abandoned the anti-minorities angle of her election campaign. Somewhere in between, the twain shall meet. Featuring NPH, quixotic dreams of being a K-pop star, and the burning question of how Mike is the only Glee clubber who hasn't been slushied yet.
Additional Information: For gleeverse. Episode tag for The First Time. Gen, with background Mike x Tina. Includes actual stereotypes that Glee should have had for Asian and Other Asian.

Can't Buy Me a Time Machine (Replace You With a Million Rings)
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 1.3k~
Characters: Puck, Quinn, Judy Fabray
Relationships: Puck x Quinn.
Summary: Quinn enjoys shoving at Puck's boundaries; Puck enjoys getting her back for it. It's their way of being friends.
Additional Information: For gleeversegleeverse. Episode Tag for Blame it On the Alcohol.

How Mike Went to Asian Camp and Came Back With a Vampire
Rating: PG
Word count: 2.3k~
Characters: Mike, Tina, Artie, Matt
Relationships: Mike x Tina, Artie x Tina (initially)
Summary: Mike hasn't really talked to Tina much. They have a more fundamental, wordless, soul-connection thing going. (Not to mention completely imaginary.) (He doesn't mention this.)
Additional Information: For gleeverse. Minor fudging of Season 2 canon where Tina doesn't kiss Mike at camp in front of technology-obsessed children.

I'd rather put out a campfire with my face [Fic link coming soon]
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 31k~
Characters: Kurt, Quinn, Burt, Finn, Mercedes, Puck, Rachel, Santana, Will
Relationships: Puck x Quinn (past), Finn x Rachel, Finn x Kurt (unrequited), Kurt x Puck (pre-relationship)
Warnings: Character death (premise of the fic)
Summary: When Quinn Fabray dies of an accidental overdose, Kurt Hummel, notorious cynic and bottom rung of the McKinley social hierarchy, is the only one who can... well, communicate with her. Everyone else just sees a tall blonde cheerleader named Tiffany, and Santana's best friend. But Quinn is determined to get her life back: come hell or high water. Kurt is the only one who can help her... once she successfully blackmails him into doing so, that is.
Additional Information: Written for kurtbigbang. Art and mix by inferiarecoming. AU (Canon divergence). Season One retold from this perspective.

Life Lessons Not Learnt From Juno
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2.5k~
Characters: Jesse, Rachel, April, Shelby, Vocal Adrenaline
Relationships: Jesse x Rachel
Warnings: Underage pregnancy
Summary: "Shelby. I knocked up your daughter. Very sorry about that. Best wishes from UCLA." The untold story of Rachel's two-week pregnancy. April teaches shoplifting as a two-part course, and Jesse is her best student.
Additional Information: AU (Canon Divergence) for Season One.

Our Flaws Praise Us Best of All
Rating: PG
Word count: 1.3k~
Characters: Finn, Quinn
Relationships: Finn x Quinn
Summary: Finn discovers his inner gentleman is only a variation of his inner douchebag, and the funny thing is how neither part of him ever stopped being in love with Quinn.
Additional Information: For joinmymisery at finnquinn Valentine's Day Exchange

Sex is a Texas Drought
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2k
Characters: Penny, Howard, Leonard, Raj, Sheldon, Puck (from Glee)
Relationships: Penny x Puck
Summary: Puck moves to California to get a job cleaning pools. More specifically, that of Tyra Banks. And that's how he meets a pair of nerds pretending to be cablemen— and their hot blond actress-slash-waitress friend.
Additional Information: For curve. Crossover with Glee.

She Had Only Two Friends On Facebook
Rating: PG
Word count: 2.8k~
Characters: Brittany, Kurt, Tina, Puck
Relationships: Brittany x Tina
Summary: Just how Kurt Hummel, Glee clubber and rumoured gay kid, got a cheerleader and Goth to dance to Single Ladies with him.
Additional Information: For dapplefur at glee_rare_pairs. Episode tag for Preggers. Savagely attacks the fanon characterisation of Brittany and Tina's characterisation in early Season 4.

Shotgun Blues
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 3k~
Characters: Jesse St. James, Sandy Ryerson, Sugar Motta, OMC (rather an actual never-seen canon character)
Warnings: Mentions of underage drug addiction. Sandy being creepy.
Summary:
Additional Information: Written for gleek_land. Based off Chuck's throwaway comment about his dealer, "Jesse's in St. Bart's for the weekend." Written (unobtrusively and detailed) as a screenplay. Minor crossover with Gossip Girl, featuring PJ Buckley and locations from that show.

Six Dime Bags' Worth a Birthday
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2.4k~
Characters: Finn, Kurt, Puck, Quinn
Relationships: Finn x Quinn (background), Puck x Quinn
Summary: Puck wants to do something illegal for Finn's sixteenth birthday, Kurt is not sure how this is going to keep him from being Dumpster-ed, and Quinn swears she's only in it to keep an eye on Finn.
Additional Information: For gleeverse.

Take Your Powder, Take Your Candle
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 3.1k~
Characters: Blaine, Kurt, Quinn, Santana
Relationships: Blaine x Kurt, Quinn x Rachel (past)
Summary: It's hard for people to come into your life when you're constantly trying to lock them out. Lucky (or not) for Kurt, Blaine is more than normally persistent.
Additional Information: For gleeverse. RENT AU.

The Fight For You Is All I've Ever Known
Rating: R (non-explicit nudity)
Word count: 2.5k~
Characters: Jesse, Rachel, Puck
Relationships: Puck x Rachel, Jesse x Rachel
Summary: Resident dapper nerd Puck is math tutor to Rachel Berry, Goth extraordinaire and the love of his life. Is love really in the air, or is it just lust and pheromones? Relentless Lothario Jesse St. James and his Range Rover is certainly not helping matters any.
Additional Information: For slushieverse. AU (Props verse).

To Save a Life in E Flat
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 3.5k~
Characters: Jesse, Rachel, Vocal Adrenaline, Finn, Shelby
Relationships: Jesse x Rachel
Summary: Jesse St. James goes deep into enemy territory for a girl who may just be the biggest drama queen in Ohio since Jesse himself. A what if story. Familiarly arrogant, and randomly crack.
Additional Information: Season One AU (Canon divergence).

You Are the Silence in Between What I Thought and What I Said
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 3k
Characters: Annie, the study group, Dean Pelton, Puck (from Glee)
Relationships: Annie x Puck, Britta x Jeff (background)
Summary: Noah Puckerman moves to Colorado, takes an Anthropology class, and forgets to give Annie Adderall a pretty important memo.
Additional Information: For curve. Crossover with Glee.

HARRY POTTER

A Game of Thrones
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 16k~
Characters: Draco, Ginny, Blaise, Cho, Fred, George, Harry, Hermione, Neville, Pansy, Ron
Relationships: Draco x Ginny, Blaise x Pansy, Hannah x Neville (background), Hermione x Ron (background), Luna x Rolf Scamander
Summary: When Fred and George decide it's a good idea to organise a medieval-themed tournament, chaos and mayhem ensues. There's cider instead of Firewhisky, the most deceptively innocent Daily Prophet reporter recording their progress, and a Thestral that just won't what it's told.
Additional Information: Written for Rae at dgficexchange. Runner-Up for Best Fic Overall, nominated for Funniest Fic Overall, Best Supporting Character (Pansy), Best Interpretation of the Prompt, Snarkiest Conversation and Best Kiss. Written like a reality show (with loads of magic). Easter egg references to A Song of Ice and Fire/A Game of Thrones.

As I Was On My Way Home From Diagon Alley [On AO3]
Rating: R (to be safe)
Word count: 7k~
Characters: Draco, Ginny, Astoria Greengrass, Blaise Zabini
Relationships: Draco x Ginny, Astoria x Draco, Astoria x Blaise
Summary: He's arrogant and poor, a bad combination; she's short-tempered and owes him a favour, a worse combination. He's intrigued; she's keeping secrets. He drives the most dangerous Daimler London has ever seen; she can do magic. Is one little Galleon enough to hold them together, when there's more than just a brick wall to keep them apart?
Additional Information: For signifies at dgficexchange. Nominated for Best Angst (but comes with other flavours!)

In This World, We're Just Beginning
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 4.6k~
Characters: Astoria, Blaise, Cho, Draco, Harry, Luna, Millicent, Narcissa, Ron, Susan, Zacharias
Relationships: Astoria x Draco (pre-relationship), Blaise x Cho, Harry x Ginny (background), Hermione x Ron (background)
Summary: In which Harry and Draco are friends. Which inspires Luna to turn the tides of Zacharias Smith's popularity. And all of this has a strong bearing on how the Epilogue happened Eighteen and a Half Years Later.
Additional Information: For interhouse_fest.

Lucky To Be In Love With My Best Friend
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 4.5k~
Characters: Lily Luna, Rose, Scorpius, Albus Severus, Dominique, Lysander
Relationships: Lily Luna x Scorpius, Rose x Scorpius, Dominique x Lysander (background)
Summary: Everyone's convinced the 'signs' are there that Scorpius Malfoy is secretly in love with Rose. After all, they're best friends, and it's the cliché... isn't it?
Additional Information: For interhouse_fest.

Yesterday Threw Everything At Me [AO3]
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 3.6k
Characters: Draco, Ginny, Bill, Fred, Harry
Relationships: Draco x Ginny, Bill x Fleur (background), Alicia x George (background), Harry x Luna (background)
Summary: The rivalry between the twins and Percy began with mashed potato. Nine years later, Ginny uses a Time Turner to change the past, but the future isn't exactly what she expected.
Additional Information: For rags_and_riches. AU (Alternate Canon). Not strictly AU, but a canon fic with an AU outcome brought about by a Time Turner. Slightly meta.

LES MISERABLÉS

Rumour (A Disaster In Progress) [AO3]
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 3.4k~
Characters: Enjolras, Éponine, Grantaire, Marius, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Jehan
Relationships: Enjolras x Grantaire (pre-relationship), Les Amis de l'ABC having shenanigans
Summary: "Enjolras is the six-hundred-year-old virgin, remember? He's married to his country, and cheats on her with his work." The last part came out more bitter than Grantaire probably intended, and Éponine just watched him viciously kick a few pixellated zombies to the curb.

"Um, Grantaire? Why is your game avatar a blonde in a leather jacket?"

There was silence, except the howl of dying zombies. "I was alone when I picked it, okay? It's not like I play this game when company's around."

Additional Information: Beta by scarletxfields. AU (College/University). Actually set in Paris and not Americanised. First in the Tutoring Mlle. Cosette series..

Spotted: Chaos at Odd Hours [AO3]
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 5.7k~
Characters: Cosette, Courfeyrac, Enjolras, Grantaire, Jehan, Marius, Bahorel, Combeferre, Éponine
Relationships: Cosette x Marius (pre-relationship), Courfeyrac x Jehan, Enjolras x Grantaire (pre-relationship), Les Amis de l'ABC having shenanigans
Summary: Marius was going spare trying to make their flat look as if it was inhabited by nuns, instead of two red-blooded post-adolescent male students.

"She's not going to run screaming out the door if she steps into a cheesy box of leftover pizza, you know," Grantaire pointed out unhelpfully.

Marius shook his head. "Pizza boxes are the least of my concerns. What if she finds our Lance Hardwood, Sex Architect DVD? I know it's been missing for at least two months, but—"

"Murphy's Law dictates that your Cosette will find it for sure?"

Additional Information: Beta by scarletxfields. AU (College/University). Actually set in Paris and not Americanised. Second in the Tutoring Mlle. Cosette series.

Kiss (Best Served Over Tequila) [AO3]
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 3.6k~
Characters: Cosette, Courfeyrac, Enjolras, Grantaire, Jehan, Marius, Bahorel, Combeferre, Éponine, Rich (from Community)
Relationships: Cosette x Marius (pre-relationship), Courfeyrac x Jehan, Enjolras x Grantaire (pre-relationship), Les Amis de l'ABC having shenanigans
Summary: "Any glare I wear is purely because Marius is pissing me off," said Courfeyrac. "No man should be born with a face like a woobie, and not use it to his advantage. That's just wrong."

"Marius left thirty minutes ago, and you're still glaring," Enjolras pointed out calmly.

"I'm fine," said Courfeyrac, consciously trying to rearrange his face. It nearly worked, but then he caught sight of Jehan leaning over the bar, passing a tall Cuba Libre to a muscular blond man, who grinned appreciatively. "I'm fine."

Additional Information: Beta by scarletxfields. AU (College/University). Actually set in Paris and not Americanised. Community character included as a throwaway joke. Jehan's canon characterisation painstakingly adhered to. Third in the Tutoring Mlle. Cosette series.

You Burn With Us (WIP 3/?) [AO3]
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 5k~
Characters: Combeferre, Enjolras, Éponine, Grantaire, Javert, Marius, Cosette, Courfeyrac, Jehan, Mme Hucheloupe, Valjean,
Relationships: Combeferre x Éponine (plot point), Cosette x Marius, Enjolras x Grantaire
Summary: How Éponine Thénardier became the face of a revolution that changed France forever. In which: Enjolras attempts to overthrow the government from inside a coal mine, Combeferre is in love with Éponine on national television, Marius mentors Cosette even as he sends her into the arena, and Grantaire tries to stay sober and not watch them all die.
Additional Information: Beta by scarletxfields. AU (Hunger Games). Actually set in dystopian France and not Americanised. Each Les Mis character corresponds to a Hunger Games one.

LIZZIE BENNET DIARIES

I Thought You Were Chinese [AO3]
Rating: PG
Word count: 1.5k~
Characters: Darcy, Lizzie, Caroline, Gigi, Jane
Relationships: Lizzie/Will
Summary: William Darcy between Chicago and Lizzie Bennet. During which time he fails at being the messiah of Pemberly Digital, hallucinates from drinking too much wine, and daydreams about Lizzie… Bennet's voicemail.
Additional Information: Episode tag for Episode 98.

MERLIN

Machinery of the Stars
Rating: PG
Word count: 6k~
Characters: Arthur, Lancelot, Gwen, Merlin, Morgana, Friar Tuck (of Robin Hood lore)
Relationships: Arthur x Gwen, Gwen x Lancelot (unrequited)
Summary: Lancelot prefers to take the high road, but Arthur likes kicking him where it hurts. If only these two unlikely allies would learn to get along better, what with they being the only heroes and Gwen's life being at stake… Geckoes, friars, and being dead are the only easy things about their quest.
Additional Information: For merlinreversebb. Art by nickygabriel. Beta by dreaminghour. Minor and historically inaccurate intersection with Robin Hood.

SUPERNATURAL

Angels With Benefits
Rating: R
Word count: 3k~
Characters: Castiel, Dean, Balthazar, Sam
Relationships: Castiel x Dean
Warnings: Spoilers for late Season 6.
Summary: Dean and Castiel aren't lovers. They're just two people who enjoy each other's company... a bit too much. And it's just physical, anyway. Until Castiel loses his powers in Oregon, and Dean is forced to revaluate everything he knows about their relationship.
Additional Information: Recommended at crack_impala. Episode tag for late Season 6. My first SPN fic ♥

I'm Not As Think As You Drunk I Am
Rating: R
Word count: 4k~
Characters: Castiel, Dean, Gabriel, Sam
Relationships: Castiel x Dean
Summary: Dean challenges Castiel to a drinking match. Considering how angels don't really get drunk, this probably isn't going to end well. Definitely not when Dean is over the moon and body shots are involved.

Our Hearts Drown the Distant Drums
Rating: R (to be safe)
Word count: 10k~
Characters: Castiel, Dean, Sam, Anna, Balthazar, Gabriel
Relationships: Castiel x Dean
Summary: You meet the love of your life in the unlikeliest of places, in the unlikeliest of ways. For Castiel, it was while chasing down the thief who stole his sister's parasol. Dean has secrets, Castiel is conflicted by duty, and did we mention he's already destined to die in 1789?
Additional Information: For spn_reversebang. Art by dearthursday. AU and with time travel.

Scared That You Won't Be Waiting On the Other Side [AO3]
Rating: R
Word count: 5.5k~
Characters: Castiel, Dean, Sam, Crowley, Kali, Arsene Wenger (Arsenal's real-life manager)
Relationships: Castiel x Dean
Summary: Castiel is the Arsenal defender who's being courted by New York Red Bulls agent Sam Wincher for a transfer. This is twenty-four hours in Dean's life, during which he tries to be assistant coach to a bunch of crazy footballers, and tries to brother's grand plan to steal his club's star player. Which he does by sleeping with said player. Stellar plan.
Additional Information: For worldwide_spn. AU (EPL football). References to Arsenal and New York Bulls, and poorly concealed allegory for real club events. Pre-dominantly just plain good old SPN fanfic.

Something Ever After (co-written with scarletxfields.)
Rating: PG
Word count: 28k~
Characters: Castiel, Dean, Anna, Becky, Chuck, Gabriel, Jess, John, Lucifer, Ruby, Sam
Relationships: Castiel x Dean, Jess x Sam (background but plot-significant)
Summary: What if the princess was in love with the wrong prince? What if the fairy godmother had a vested interest in making sure Cinderella never goes to the ball and marries Prince Charming? Magic, misunderstandings and pie are just part and parcel of a day on the road to Prince Dean Winchester's happily ever after.
Additional Information: For cwbigbang. Cinderella AU.

Zipper-suited Sun God
Rating: PG
Word count: 9k~
Characters: Castiel, Crowley, Dean, Gabriel, Balthazar, Kali, Ruby, Sam
Summary: Against the backdrop of civil war in a distant country, a mercenary pilot and a mechanic hatch an audacious madcap scheme for desertion. Dean thinks this is the worst lead-up to Christmas Day yet, Gabriel is criminally cheerful, Castiel is unwillingly aiding and abetting, and Crowley thinks he's the only sane man left— and it's up to him to pull the plug on everyone else's fun before it's all shot to hell and a war is lost.
Additional Information: For spn_reversebang. Art by lonewined. Air Force AU and largely gen fic. Cas x Dean and Ruby x Sam, if you squint.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK

Never Been More Vanilla
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 14k~
Characters: Cameron, Divya, Tyler, KC
Relationships: Cameron x Divya
Summary: Cameron goes through women like tissues, and Tyler is the gay one in the family. Divya has a hard time telling them apart. His life is a bad Bollywood movie right now.
Additional Information: Based on a prompt tsn_kinkmeme.

Shut Up Or My Brother Will Shoot
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2k~
Characters: Cameron, Divya, Tyler
Relationships: Cameron x Divya (background), Winklevoss twins being brothers
Summary: Cameron gives up maintaining his GPA in favour of having a meltdown. Tyler would prefer to concentrate on his Playstation instead.
Additional Information: Based on a prompt tsn_kinkmeme. Companion piece/sequel: You Can't Get More Attractive Than This.

You Can't Get More Attractive Than This
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 3.6k~
Characters: Cameron, Divya, Tyler, KC
Relationships: Cameron x Divya (background), Winklevoss twins being brothers
Summary: Remember that scene on Valentine's Day, when Cameron is checking messages from Mark on his phone, and Tyler comes in, sopping wet, flinging off a sock? Here's how it all began...
Additional Information: Based on a prompt tsn_kinkmeme. Companion piece to Shut Up Or My Brother Will Shoot.

The ReadMe of this journal

2014-06-30T19:17:27Z

You can use this post as my P.O. box to notify me about anything or just say hi.

This journal is partially friends only. All personal posts will be f-locked (and if they aren't already, they will be). Graphics, fic, memes, etc. will always remain public.

If you're here because of the fic or icons, you don't need to add me or anything. Simply use the settings to get notified every time a post containing your interest is published. You can track the relevant tags [full tag list] by going here:

(It's visible at the top of every post.)

N A V I G A T E

about me
why scott summers is the king of my heart

• AO3 • FF.net • FP.com • Fire & Ice Archive • DeviantArt • Tumblr •

• Fic • Icons • All tags • Masterlist of my fandoms • paintedwhores (fic journal with scarletxfields)

• Communities I participate(d) in •
30_kisses cornerflag cwbigbang dgficexchange glee_rare_pairs hogwarts_hols i_reversebang interhouse_fest kurtbigbang spn_reversebang teenshows20in20 trope_overdosed twi20in20 twi_stillness worldwide_spn

angie_challenge character20n20 cmlims dianna_stills disney2020disney_hush elizabethstills friendsicontest glee20in20 hp20in20 hpotter_lims jrock_stillness liv_stillness model20in20 movie20in20 movie_stillness ncis_lims

gleeverse gleek_land slushieverse theiconquest tvholics tvrealm

gv_rpg owememafia smalleroutside

I am the love child of Blair Walodorf and Sterling Archer, and want to grow up to be like Tony Stonem. If that is not a dealbreaker, then I already love you.

Masterlist of my fandoms for no actual, legitimate reason

2014-06-30T18:12:59Z

Banner to be updated.

This means current and active interest. This is pure obsession (run for the hills.)

F A N D O M S

ANIME

.hack// series. Area 88. Bakuman. Cardcaptor Sakura. Code Geass. Cyborg 009. Death Note. Detective School Q. Fantastic Children. Full Metal Alchemist. Fuushigi Yugi. Ghost in the Shell. Get Backers. Hellsing. Hungry Heart. Jigoku Shoujo. Kyou Kara Maou. Paradise Kiss. Ranman 1/2. Rurouni Kenshin. Saber Marionette J. Saiyuki. Silent Mobius. Trinity Blood. Witch Hunter Robin. Wolf's Rain. Yakitate!! Japan.

+ more

BOOKS

A Song of Ice and Fire. Agatha Christie. Bartimaeus series. Enid Blyton. Cate Tiernan. Circuit of Heaven. Cressida Cowell (How to Train Your Dragon). Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Dexter. John Fowles. Gossip Girl. Harry Potter. His Dark Materials. John Le Carre. Lawrence Block (Bernie Rhodenbarr series/The Burglar Who…). Pretty Little Liars. Rick Riordan. Robin Cook. Suzanne Collins. (Hunger Games, Underland Chronicles). Terry Pratchett. The Apothecary's House. The Emperor's Bones. The Help. The It Girl. The Princess Bride. Tom Holt. Twilight Saga. Wilbur Smith.

FILMS (ANIMATED)

Aladdin. Beauty and the Beast. Frozen. Shrek. Sleeping Beauty. The Emperor's New Groove. Tangled. The Pirate Fairy.

+ more

FILMS (LIVE-ACTION)

A Single Man. About a Boy. An Awfully Big Adventure. All About Eve. American Hustle. Birdsong. Breakfast at Tiffany's. Cabaret. Carnage. Centre Stage. Cruel Intentions. Date and Switch. Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Die Hard. Eastern Promises. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. House of Flying Daggers. Inception. Inglourious Basterds. Hansel and Gretel: Giant Slayers. Indiana Jones and everything but the Crystal Skull. James Bond series. Kick Ass. Kill Bill. Lara Croft. Les Misérables. Marvel Cinematic Universe (minus X-Men). Mr. and Mrs. Smith. My Best Friend's Wedding. Ocean's series. Pacific Rim. Pirates of the Caribbean (trilogy only). Sky High. Star Wars. Sucker Punch. Sunset Boulevard. The Abduction Club. The Chronicles of Narnia. The Help. The Long Riders. The Princess Bride. The Social Network. Two Weeks' Notice. Warm Bodies.

+ Anything with Christoph Waltz, Gaspard Ulliel, Nicholas Hoult or animation.

MUSIC

30 Seconds to Mars. Abingdon Boys School. Aerosmith. Adele. Arcade Fire. Breaking Benjamin. Florence + The Machine. GazettE. Globus. Guns 'n' Roses. Iron Maiden. Jason Mraz. Karen O. Lana Del Rey. Nightwish. Opeth. Owl City. Poets of the Fall. Rammstein. Red Hot Chili Peppers. Regina Spektor. White Stripes. Versailles.

+ OSTs like nobody's business (Aida, Assassins, Chess, Jekyll and Hyde, Jesus Christ Superstar, Spring Awakening and The Last Five Years atm).

TELEVISION

2 Broke Girls. A-Team. Ally McBeal. Archer. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Boston Legal. Brooklyn-Nine-Nine. Californication. Castle. Community. Cougar Town. Coupling. Dollhouse. Dexter. Doctor Who. Elementary. Entourage. Episodes. Faking It. Franklin & Bash. Friends. Game of Thrones. Glee. Gossip Girl. Greek. House MD. How I Met Your Mother. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Kings. Kitchen Confidential. Merlin. NCIS. Once Upon a Time. Revenge. Rizzoli & Isles. Skins. Suits. Supernatural. Teen Wolf. The Big Bang Theory. The Office. The Mindy Project. The Vampire Diaries. Two and Half Men. Ugly Betty. Weeds. Workaholics.

VIDEO GAMES

Arkham series. BioShock: Infinite. FIFA. Titanic: Adventure Out of Time.

WEB ORIGINAL

Carmilla. Emma Approved. Marble Hornets. March Family Letters. The Joker Blogs. The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.

WESTERN ANIMATION

As Told By Ginger. Batman: The Animated Series. Code-name: Kids Next Door. Fish Police. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Swat Kats. Top Cat. Undergrads. X-Men: Evolution.

+ more

MISC. INTERESTS

Comic books (X-Men, Batman, Spiderman; Chuck Dixon, Greg Pak, Jen van Meter, Joss Whedon, Paul Dini). Fashion (Elise Crombez, Sasha Pivovarova; David Sims, Tim Walker). RP (on Tumblr primarily). Vidding.

S H I P S

(Ships: if they're not happy, I'm not happy. Otps*: the ships where I can't ship either person involved with the same level of intensity as this ship.)

[A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones] Bronn and Tyrion brotp.* Cersei and Jaime.* Dany and Jorah. (TV-verse only.) Ellaria and Oberon. Jaime and Tyrion being "__less and __less, the Lannister boys."* Sandor and happiness.
[Ally McBeal] Billy and Georgia. Richard and Whipper.*
[Archer] Archer and Lana.
[Boston Legal] Alan and Tara.*
[Code Geass] Lelouch and Suzaku.
[Community] Britta and Jeff.*
[Doctor Who] Rose and Ten.
[Dollhouse] Boyd and Topher. Sierra and Victor.*
[Entourage] Ari and Melissa.*** Eric and Vince.*
[Franklin & Bash] Damien and Hanna. Damien and Rachel. Jared and Peter being BFFs.*
[Friends] Chandler and Monica. Monica and Richard.* The cast being amazing friends irl.*
[Full Metal Alchemist] Hughes and Mustang brotp.*
[Glee] Jesse and Rachel.* Jesse and Quinn. Puck and Quinn. Quinn and Santana. Kurt and Rachel going from enemies to perfect friends.* Tina and characterisation.
[Gossip Girl] Blair and Chuck.* Carter and Serena.* Nate and Serena. Georgina and schemes.
[Greek] Evan and Frannie.* Evan and Rebecca.
[Harry Potter] Angelina and George. Bill and Fleur. Draco and Ginny. James and Sirius.*** Teddy and Victoire. Fred and being alive. Sirius and happiness.
[Hunger Games] Gale and Katniss.* Finnick and the Capitol.
[Kings] David and Jack. Jack and happiness.*
[Lara Croft] Alex and Lara.* (The only reason I keep rewatching this movie).
[Les Misérables] Enjolras and Marius. Marius and canon characterisation.
[NCIS] Kate and Tony.*
[Ocean's series] Danny and Rusty.
[Pacific Rim] Aleksis and Sasha. Mako and Raleigh. Raleigh and Yancy being epic brothers.*** Hansen family feels.*
[Paradise Kiss] George and Isabella.* George and Seiji.
[Skins] Michelle and Tony. Effy and Tony being in the same frame together.*
[Supernatural] Castiel and Dean.* Crowley and Lucifer and being in existence.
[Suits] Donna and Harvey.* Harvey and Louis and Mike brotp in whatever permutation. Edith Ross and snark.
[Teen Wolf] Chris and Victoria.* Danny and Jackson being best friends or otherwise.* Jackson and Lydia.
[The Big Bang Theory] Leonard and Penny.*
[The It Girl] Benny and Lon. Brandon and Heath. Brett and Sebastian.* Heath and Tinsley.
[The Social Network] Cameron and Tyler and Divya brotp.*
[The Vampire Diaries] Damon and Elena.
[Twilight saga] Alice and Jasper. Bella and Jacob.* Emmett and Rosalie. Jacob and Leah.
[DC] Barbara and Dick. Bruce and Talia. Bruce and Selina. Harley and Ivy. Liana and Scandal. Nick and Stephanie. Alfred and Bruce being a family.* Batman and Gordon friendship.* Batman and Superman being superbros.* Bruce being a dad.*** Zinda and beer.
[Marvel] Bucky and Natasha.* Bucky and Steve. (MCU only). Clint and Natasha.* (MCU only). Felicia and Peter. Jean and Scott.* Peter and Johnny being bros. Hikari and the universe.

NOTPs
(Ships I abhor for a thousand legitimate reasons that have little do with "Omg they're not my otp).

[Friends] Rachel and Ross.
[Glee] Blaine and Kurt. Brittany and Santana. Finn and Rachel.
[Gossip Girl] Blair, Chuck and creepy bad writing. Blair and Dan in Season Five. (I don't ship them at all, but uptil Season Four, I wasn't rabidly opposed to its absolute existence). Dan and Serena post-Season One.
[Harry Potter] Cho bashing because she cried. Remus and Sirius (but only if you try to tell me their epic love story is hidden in plain sight in canon). Remus and Tonks.
[Teen Wolf] Derek and Stiles.
[The Hunger Games] Katniss and Peeta.
[X-Men] Charles and Erik. (MCU only. All that white privilege makes the angels cry.) Emma and Scott. (When written by Grant Morrison, you cannot convince me that what happened was okay.) Jean and Logan. (Unapologetic Creator's Pet Homewreckers are my Beserk Button).

And then, there are all those ships I just plain don't like. Annie and Jeff (Community) straddles this line in between.

& got false lights for the sun

2014-06-27T17:31:16Z

[01-04] Skins (UK)
[05-15] Les Misérables
[16-20] Disney (Snow White, Enchanted, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Frozen, Alice in Wonderland
[21-25] Frozen, A Single Man, Avengers, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
[26-30] Elementary, Game of Thrones, House of Flying Daggers
[31-35] Merlin, Skins (UK)
[36-40] Sucker Punch, Teen Wolf, The Borgias
Reposted from around LJ & New stuff (from the past two days)

(RGB! YAY)

So, I'm not dead. I'm not exactly back 100% either, but this will be me making a legitimate effort to not drop off the face of the planet either. These last two months have been especially insane with exams I thought I'd flunk (miraculously not), internships, my mum getting sick and the possibility of cancer floating around for longer than necessary (she's absolutely fine now), my grandfather getting hospitalised (also on the road to recovery), going on the last date I'm ever going to have (and it sucking), and my reaching the final year of law school and still not having a job offer. Worse yet, my laptop crashed, taking with it at least eight years' worth of research, fic, manuscripts, graphics, movies and tv show, and a hundred other things that are literally irreplaceable. I'm not over the crapshoot, but it's getting better. My family's doing good, I have my health, my IQ, and I'm going to stop pulling an Ally McBeal.

Among the many things I'm slowly easing back into, making graphics is one of those. This post is as massively disorganised as it gets because it's so erratically multifandom. Some are from this Les Misérables icon battle and this Skins battle at theiconquest (I will re-order ASAP) and the first five animated ones were all made for various disney_hush challenges. The rest is me messing around in Photoshop and trying new things for the past two days (no, I swear I have a life that doesn't involve going to the office and back.)

~~Changes to my LJ will ensue, including omfg a new header and banner because the current ones are T_T But soon. Right now, I just want to watch Friends endlessly~~.

, 01-05
06-10
11-15
16-20

21-25
26-30
31-35
36-40

& no girls allowed beyond this point

2013-04-07T19:13:14Z

for the My Realm challenge at tvrealm.
I actually had laughably high hopes for this particular challenge entry, but now I just don't have the time, so I'm just copy-pasting code I wrote up weeks earlier.

NO GIRLS ALLOWED BEYOND THIS POINT

There's a secret afoot in Hanover, New Hampshire, and it's gentlemen only.

Skull and bones look even better when they're real, and not the jewel-encrusted props in a Bulgari store window. That cryptic e-mail blitz wasn't from a spammer trying to get you to invest in silicone implants. And that boy shivering the cold wearing nothing but Donald-Duck-print boxers? He's going to be the next kingmaker of this country, and he hasn't been stood up by a mean girl tonight: he's dressed like that on purpose.

Welcome to the inner sanctum of the Dragon. Faint-hearts and ladies need not apply.

I D E N
I A N S O M E R H A L D E R

Geraldine hates her brother, and that's how the games begin. She's tired of his patronising, big-brother-knows-best, ladies-you're-lucky-to-have-my-attention attitude. She hates that she's ended up following him to Dartmouth, where she will forever be in the shadow of an older sibling who's already done everything she's doing, and he's done it better.

On paper, Iden is the perfect Dartmouth student: fencing team, regatta ribbons, academic genius, and lovable but incorrigible ladies' man. But if there's one thing that he actually wants more than anything else, but hasn't been able to get? Entry into Dartmouth's über-exclusive, all-male, secret society: the Dragon. He'd crossed every hurdle, passed all the secret tests, and come out on top only to be denied membership. But, damnit, why? Maybe because he spent all summer in a passionate, lust-filled daze of a fling with Geraldine, whom he unceremoniously dumped once the semester started? And Geraldine's brother, Arne, is actually a senior member of the Dragon.

No news travels faster than secret news. It's not like Geraldine especially cares about Iden, but it's a whole other thing to let her brother run her life. And this definitely crosses some kind of line. But don't get mad, get even.

G E R A L D I N E
D I A N N A A G RON

"Charming," says Helen, rolling her eyes when she hears about it. As president's of the women's union, Helen has a whole lot of opinions on the subject of the Dragon, but she tamps them all down and pours more Kaluha into Geraldine and her glasses. "What are you going to do about it?"

"Get really pissed," replies Geraldine firmly, taking a swig so long that the lining of her throat burns off on impact. That's what dorm rooms and room-mates are for: getting really pissed. In both senses of the word.

"You could reverse-Zuckerberg them?" suggests Helen, drinking slightly more cautiously. "Write a scathing blog post and insult their ancestry a bit. A few 'your mom' jokes wouldn't be amiss."

Geraldine drains the vodka from the glass, and squints at her best friend. "Are you sure you're a feminist? Because 'your mom' jokes…"

"I support women's rights. Gloria Steinem can go to hell."

"To hell!" cheers Geraldine, and they drink to that, and pour more into their glasses.

"You should send him there," says Helen belligerently after a bit. "Whassisface. Mr. Darcy."

"My brother would kill me."

"Because you damned Mr. Darcy?"

"Yeah."

Helen considers this, brow furrowing in deep thought. "Eh," she says at last. "Fuckit. You want to kill your brother, your brother wants to kill you. It cancels out. I say hell and damnation for the Dragon!"

This is a new concept for Geraldine, and she slowly wraps her head out it. Given how dangerously close to being senselessly drunk she is, this is a difficult task. She'd have thought dragons would like hell. Hell has fire in it. Fire is breathed by dragons. Dragons will like hell.

"I have an idea," she says slowly, and Helen sat up expectantly. "Dragons will like hell," says Geraldine.

Helen blinks. "Um. That's brilliant," she lies, because she is not quite as far gone as her best friend, and knows that you should always keep drunk people's self-esteem at an all-new high. Geraldine beams so much she's brighter than the sun.

"I'm going to write that down, then."

"… Excellent."

Geraldine wakes up to the sound of Helen moaning unintelligibly about abstinence and going back in time and punching the first Russian who brewed vodka in the throat. The hangover is pressing down between Geraldine's eyes, drilling right through the bridge of her nose as if it were made of cement. And then the pain spreads across the rest of her body, like a wildfire setting off a chain reaction until everything is up in flames and everything hurts.

She realises belatedly that there happens to be a Post-It stuck on her face:

Dragons like Hell. So give them a taste of their own medicine. GIVE THEM HELL.

Geraldine has a plan, born in a flash of pure drunken genius: the Dragon society is tapping the undergraduate class for new members, and she has the perfect candidate in mind. By which we mean literally the perfect candidate. The Gary Stu to end all Gary Stus. The perfect male specimen.

She's going to create a fake student with credentials that the Dragon can't resist, and plant him in the Dartmouth rolls. She's going to bring him to the society's attention, make sure they know who is, and ensure that they find him irresistible. And she's going to send them on a wild goose chase to tap a virtual ghost. And then she's going to drop the bomb and pull the rug out from under their feet.

H E L E N
H A N N A H S I M O N E

Helen wears sunglasses all day, even indoors and all through her classes. She just grimaces and mimes ~~choking~~ ~~bulimia~~ ~~puking~~ being hungover whenever someone tries to ask if she's actually a vampire.

"Go stake yourself," she grumbles the fifteenth time she hears that joke, and Geraldine, who was walking by, raises her eyebrows in polite inquiry. "Whatever," says Helen, because unoriginal quips don't really deserve a decent comeback.

"Remember my brilliant plan?" asks Geraldine, grinning, and Helen has faint memories of wanting to die of embarrassment on her friend's behalf when she first heard of said plan.

"Oh sure. Yeah. I remember it really was brilliant."

"It is," Geraldine assures her. Clearly, this girl has never heard of expectations management and the dangers of the hype. She lowers her voice, and grabs Helen's arm, steering her down the corridor towards the mess hall. "I'm going to send the Dragon on a wild goose chase."

"Whoa."

"Uh-huh." Geraldine launches into an excited recapitulation of scheme, going over the finer details and constantly looking at her friend for signs of approval and/or encouragement. Helen's face carefully blank. "So," she says, when she finishes, "what do you think?"

"I missed the memo," says Helen uncertainly. "Did you want revenge or a prank war?" Geraldine's face falls, and Helen feels like a total bitch. She hastens to clarify. "Just… what will this whole thing even prove? That they fell for a really elaborate hoax? Sure, that's always interesting, but what does it have anything to do with the fact that we don't like their no-girls policy?"

Geraldine purses her lips, and they walk in silence. Helen quietly suffers her raging hangover, and Geraldine tries to work out the kinks in her plan. Neither girl really notices the pair of boys walking in their direction until they narrowly avoid a crash.

"Mr. Darcy, Mr. Collins," greets Helen curtly, hand pressed up against the side of her head as if to psychically quell the migraine.

"Afternoon, ladies," says Elliot (a.k.a. Mr. Darcy), nodding politely. Arne just rolls his eyes, scrutinising his sister in his typical obnoxious-overprotective-older brother way. Geraldine just gives him a venomous smile. Neither pair stops to make small talk, not that Elliott were capable of it in the first place. The "Mr. Darcy" is surprisingly apt, given that he's got some sort of an English accent that could melt panties off unsuspecting undergrads, and he usually has only two facial expressions (superior and bored.)

"I've got it," announces Geraldine when they turn the corner and are out of earshot. Helen looks at her, leftover frown on her face behind the hangover sunglasses. "I've figured out what'll turn my plan from a memorable prank into unforgettable just desserts."

Helen's lips quirk appreciatively. "Oh yeah?"

"What if the fake student— what if it was me?"

Rue is your friendly neighbourhood hacker, who volunteers in the university's Admin office and likes to mind her own business. She has no patience for stupidity, and even less patience for high-maintenance rich bitch problems. Mostly, she just has very little patience for Geraldine.

Geraldine takes a deep breath, and looks Rue straight in the eyes. They're hiding in a supply closet of the Admin office, and she'd rather that they be mistaken for lesbian lovers than someone overhear their conversation.

"I know you don't like me," she begins in a placatory tone, "and that's okay. Because I don't like you either." She looks straight at Rue's multiple piercings when she says that. "But I need your help."

"With these fake student shenanigans," says Rue, deeply sceptical. "What the actual fuck is wrong with you. What if I blabbed about your secret plans and got you in trouble with the Disciplinary Board?"

Geraldine peers up at Rue from underneath her long lashes. "Oh, I trust you implicitly. I know you'd never do that. Because then I'd just have to tell the Board about the time you turned Moira McKinnon's straight As into a row of Bs. Or how Patrick Hollander went down on you in the photocopy room, and his GPA went up by two decimal points. Really, Rue, you're the last person I'd take for a snitch."

There's a moment of strangled silence, and then Rue huffs a laugh, blowing her bangs out of her eyes. "Okay. Shoot. What do you need?"

Her tune changes pretty fast when she looks at the fake bio Geraldine's written up. "What the actual fuck?" she repeats disbelievingly like a catch phrase. Snowboarding champion, national-level fencing team, concert-playing violinist, semi-professional artist, co-authored paper on dyslexia in primates in freshman year, released an app on the iTunes store, and speaks six languages (including Afrikaans.)

"I'm not putting this in the system," she says, staring at Geraldine. "This looks like it was written by a wish-fulfilling twelve-year-old trying too hard."

Geraldine's eyebrows disappear into her hairline. "Oi! Everything on that file is perfectly true. Everything on that file is me."

The silence that followed the revelation of Rue's criminal activity had nothing on the level of awkwardness generated by this current silence. Rue just takes a deep breath, and tries to remember how to speak.

"Oh. Wow. Just. Oh. Did you even have any friends growing up?"

R U E
R O O N E Y M A R A

Eventually, they whittle down the fake biodata considerably, until Rue can agree that such a person could even be real, while making the fictional "Nathan" impressive enough to interest the Dragon. It's difficult, but Rue also happens to be brilliant, so within a few days, Nathan is apparently enrolled in Dartmouth's class of 2015.

And if you're wondering if she's the kind of sweetheart who goes around doing wonderful favours like this for free, rest assured she certainly is not. Her services don't come cheap, and they always leave you feeling slightly overcharged.

Few people on campus don't know Elliot, and those are the ones who live under a rock. He's British, and he's rumoured to be an English lord. He may not actually be the second coming of Mr. Darcy, but he's damn near close. Reticent, quiet, and radiating enigmatic charisma, he's permanently surrounded by a private circle of his elitist frat brother-types, and he doesn't melt into a puddle of gelatine when in proximity to Geraldine's Chanel perfume and her smile. It's not that he's uninterested, but it's because Dartmouth offers him a wealth of other pleasures: parties, power, and presidency of the Dragon, the all-male secret society.

What does spark Elliot's interest is a crudely-made but effective online game called Dragonquest, that's gone viral on campus. It's not hard to see why. The game player must navigate an ancient labyrinthine castle, performing various tasks and getting points, until they reach to the final obstacle: battling and defeating a cloaked dagger-carrying skeleton with a stereotypical English accent. Not only are parts of the game misogynistic with its useless chambermaids and damsels in distress, it also clearly parodies the Dragon Society— and Elliott.

But even when his best friends are addicted to Dragonquest and it's all that his dates can talk about sometimes, Elliot isn't dumb enough to be insulted. Rather, he's impressed. Any student with game development skills like that is someone he wants to meet. He soon discovers that an "Admin" character plays quite frequently, and seems to be doing so from the Dartmouth campus using its Wi-Fi. Elliott tries to track down the player, but finds an abandoned second-hand beat-up laptop, a Dartmouth hoodie, and a note that says:

"I'll be back for my computer. Nathan."

L I L L I A N
L E I G H T O N M E E S T E R

"He can pry it from my cold dead hands," snorts Elliott, tossing the elusive Nathan's bundled-up possessions on the library table. Lillian carefully bookmarks her place in the library copy of The Book Thief, and gives him a strained smile.

"Isn't it a bit too early to start on the intimidating death threats?" she ventures. "And you got that pronoun wrong." She frowns, and takes her reading glasses off. "I sincerely hope you aren't insinuating that I look anything less than extremely feminine right now."

Elliott drops into the chair next to her, and tries to smile back. "I didn't mean you. You look lovely." He reaches forward, smoothing her hair off her forehead with the back of his hand. "Very lovely. Just not enough to make me forget about someone who's trying to play cat and mouse with me."

"Poor baby," says Lillian, the corner of her mouth turning down. "Still no excuse to not be wowed into silence by my very presence, and incomparable beauty."

"Will it help if I need your help with that very problem?"

Lillian smirks. "That particular sentence will make anything better."

Elliott tells her about his plan to keep a look-out for Nathan's online activity. She's the only superior techie he knows whom he also trusts. It's at times like these that he wishes he could change the Dragon society's rules, the very ones that will never let him tap her.

In all, there are seven people named Nathan currently enrolled at the university, including variations like "Nate" and "Nathaniel," and two of them live off-campus. It doesn't take long for the real one to get in touch. And he cuts to the chase by IMing the Dragon's vice-president: Arne.

NathanDQAdmin: I want my laptop back.
Arne: Oh, hey there. Hello.
Arne: Glad to see pleasantries are the first thing we exchange.

NathanDQAdmin is typing

Arne: Nifty game btw.
Arne: Been reading the Evil Overlord List?
Arne: Nice touch with old-timey Darth.
Arne: Elliot snorted his tea.
Arne: It was a mess.
NathanDQAdmin: I'll be there to collect my laptop from the Starbucks from which you usually order your caramel macchiato.

NathanDQAdmin has logged off

Arne stares at his screen in frustration, slamming closed the lid of his laptop. He picks up his phone, and hits speed dial. "Tell me you got a lock on his location."

He can hear Lillian's grimace over the line. "He took us both by surprise. He went offline too fast for me to triangulate his position. Sorry."

A R N E
A R M I E H A M M E R

While Arne is mildly disturbed by the knowledge that Nathan might stalks him, Elliott refuses to be led around by the nose by some nobody playing Covert Affairs. He doesn't even go to the drop-off point; rather, he launches a counter-offensive. A notice appears in the university paper:

"Dell laptop found in quad along with a dirty school sweatshirt. Owner can collect from Arne. Provided that you catch him while he still has them."

While it's a good attempt to win the first round, Geraldine is determined to beat them.

It's not even hard. She "accidentally" sends Arne a text supposedly meant for Iden (we still meeting up fri? Room 401, yeah?) and her brother flips his lid at the thought of her visiting that snake of an ex-boyfriend. Geraldine just manages to say hi to Iden when Arne barges into the dorm, and chaos ensues. No one even notices her leave.

Later, the Dell laptop is gone, and in its place is another note:

"Thanks for taking such good care of my property. Nathan."

Arne shrugs, crumpling the note in his fist. "I'll say it again, it's a nifty trick." The ball of paper flies through the air, landing cleanly beyond the rim of the waste paper bin in Elliott's room. Elliott glares.

"The only thing nifty about that tosser is that is that he knows where the tosspot's at," he snarls, "and I'll concede that's impressive only because his head seems to be shoved too far up his arse to see what's around him." High colour suffuses Elliott's cheeks, and Arne looks up, surprised. "The Dragonquest game was one thing, hell, he made me look like Sauron, and I like that. But this? This is thievery. This is breaking and entering. This isn't in the gentleman's code of conduct, unless it's a code about how to be a thief—"

"It's just a laptop," Arne tries to remind him, but Elliot makes a choked feral animalistic sound in reply.

"No, it's not just a laptop, it's a bloody great mockery of the way things are done. Tossers never prosper, and I am going to make sure that's branded across his arse in a way he never forgets."

Arne bites the inside of his cheek. "Wait. Elliott. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Of course I am. Aren't we always?"

"Perfect. So we should—"

"Dunk him in mozzarella and make him the new tar baby. Cheese baby."

Arne looked like he's been slapped in the face by a glove. "What. I was going to say we should tap him. For the Dragon."

"Oh."

"If he's just a student," Arne goes on, wondering why Elliott hasn't cottoned on to this line of thought yet, "then that 'tosser' is an excellent game developer, and not hard-pressed to think on his feet. Those are qualities that we want before someone else gets to them."

"Er, yes. Of course. Yeah. I was just about to suggest that, actually. Right after the cheese part."

E L L I O T T
E D D I E R E D M A Y N E

& by a freeway i confess i was lost in the pages

2013-03-23T12:08:19Z

FREE FOR ALL
FOR ROUND 35 @ glee20in20

10 THEMES

Athletic	Color Drop	Female	Guest Star	Male


Mmm, yum!	Reflection	Sweethearts	Water	Winter

5 CATEGORY - TV Tropes

Alpha Bitch	Bi the Way	Circling Monologue	Duet Bonding	Expy

5 ARTIST'S CHOICE

Mercedes	Quinn	Rachel	Santana	Tina

ALTERNATES

*i thought you were chinese

2013-03-22T18:09:17Z

i thought you were chinese

lizzie bennet diaries
will x lizzie

pg
1,684 words

"I thought you were Chinese."
"I can understand the confusion."
~Lizzie and Will, Episode 98.

William Darcy between Chicago and Lizzie Bennet. During which time he fails at being the messiah of Pemberley Digital, hallucinates from drinking too much wine, and daydreams about Lizzie… Bennet's voicemail.

Immediately before Episode 98.

HERE.

Also have some tasteful, understated, perfect ~~suit!porn~~ tie!porn?

& happiness hit her like a train on a track

2013-01-18T10:03:17Z

4 Skins icons.
4 Supernatural drabbles.
1 crossover picspam of Community and Once Upon a Time.
1 ficlet (crossover of Batman, Big Bang Theory, Community, and Once Upon a Time.)

For two challenges at tvrealm.
Entirely the product of four hours' work. And, for a change, I'm damn proud of it :3

FOUR ELEMENTS

Skins;

Cassie. Air. Floaty, breezy, light, hurricane.
Effy. Water. Moves easily, still waters run deep, when cold becomes ice.
Jal. Fire. Magnitude always changing from small ember to roaring flames and vice versa.
Tony. Earth. Hard, impenetrable, so rigid it cracks entirely, turns to slush when it meets water ;)

Deliberately done to underline that no one character is only one of these elements, just predominantly so. E.g. Cassie is all sunshine and campfires, Jal is fluid, cool, Effy is smoking, Tony is capable of exhibiting his inner firecracker or the fact that he can be colder than ice.

Supernatural;
warning: mildly adult themes.

Air. 155.

Castiel was born in a breath. His first memory lingers on his skin, the feel of a new world enveloping him. The fumes of Hell had rattled through his chest, going in and expelling the way he supposed humans breathed. The Winchester had not been breathing, hanging limply from Castiel's grip. The angel's effort is seared into Dean Winchester's skin, reminding him of a rescue he doesn't remember as well as the torture of the pit. Breath is the first thing that routs through Dean's lungs, the first realisation that he is surrounded by the old world. He's buried in the folds of it, but the heave and fall of his chest contradicts the insistent, hammering notion in his head that something is somehow wrong. Castiel has done his task, and so he doesn't wait to see what becomes of the sacrifice he saved. He is gone, lighter than the whisper of Dean's first words.

Earth. 160.

Dean's split lip matches the blood on Castiel's knuckles. It doesn't faze him, he was made a soldier first. Dean's fury pouring off him in waves, running right through an angelic lightning rod, because grim purpose grounds Castiel. It leeches off excess power that could return Dean Winchester to dust, it reminds him to be righteous, not angry. Dean has no such qualms, not even now, hours later. The dirt is mixed with the scraped knuckles of Castiel's bony hand, and Dean has to thrust it under gushing hot water. It's a habit he picked up with a much younger Sam, a habit he never applied to himself. Habit is very feebly scrabbling at the back of his mind, as under his gaze, blood resurfaces on the cut across Castiel's water-warmed hands. Neither had known angels could bleed so quietly, but it's salty and metallic, unpleasant and familiar on Dean's tongue when he presses the hurt fist to his mouth.

Fire. 165.

Castiel burns from the holy oil, which never touches him. The knowing sticks to his skin like smeared ash. Dean and his brother are gone in the same gust of wind that smashes open the door. He is not apologetic. He has willingly given up his world for these human trappings, because his family has mattered less to Dean than Dean's own. He does not pity himself because he has always known the decision will remain unrequited. He had drawn his lines in the sand, but then grass grew in the desert. The lines remained, snaking through the ground, and the fire followed the lines, igniting the brush and licking the sky. Fires are lit not to bring the trees to the ground; fires are better than swords, to trap, to hold, and ensure the boundary is never crossed, never forgotten. Castiel can extinguish Dean Winchester with a press of a finger against his lips, but he lets Dean Winchester punish him with holy oil.

Water. 150.

Dean's body thrills like a violin string when touched; those green eyes are wary even now, watching transfixed at how the brand on his arm disappears under Castiel's splayed fingers. His cupid's bow mouth disappears under Castiel's lips. He had not thought an ice sculpture of an angel would do anything but freeze skin to ice, but the heat of the invisible heart rises through the layers. Dean forgets how to kick his legs, struggle to the surface, and lets the layers melt into waves and crash over him. He can't swim against the tide, and when he falls, he pulls Castiel down with him. It's absurd how fast the trench coat melts off those shoulders, the white shirt snapping open, slipping off of its own accord when Dean's teeth can make that back arch. Castiel's breath in his ear is a moan as Dean's fingers graze lower. Castiel drowns.

LOVE CHILD

notes;

-The whole casting began with that cap of Abed in a Batman costume on the balcony, which I immediately wanted to use. It was pure luck that the first cap I found of a person looking upwards was Regina. The other caps pretty much fell into place of their own accord after that. And the best part is that their expressions match ♥

-The 'love child' was more difficult, but there's always my favourite Leonard quote about Sheldon: "The guy's one lab accident away from becoming a super-villain," which ties in perfectly with evil!Abed, and et voila. Ostensibly cracky, but with undertones of heartbreak and drama. Which is even more cracky, by definition.

-If Abed was going to be Batman, then Regina needed to be Selina, Talia, or Zatanna. I went with Talia al Ghul, because of out of all of Bruce's long-term love interests, she was the only one who would have ended up on a Fortune 300 list, and while Zatanna deeply loved her late father, Talia was the only one controlled by a parent. Regina as Talia has the unexpected benefit of automatically making Sheldon Damian Wayne, and I can't imagine which other Robin would suit him more: precocious, super-skilled, loyal, extremely obnoxious, and makes you want to throttle him.

-Extending the DCU casting to the rest of the cast works almost perfectly: Jeff is Oliver Queen/Green Archer like a bullet, Britta is Dinah Drake/Black Canary right down to the outfit, Troy is Lucius Fox, and Pierce could be a mean Alfred or a slightly less megalomaniacal Ra's al Ghul. Idk about Annie and Shirley; I thought Annie age-wise would be perfect to be Babs, but she didn't have Annie's petty streak.

Warning: this fic propagates the Batman AU part more than Big Bang Theory, Community, or Once Upon a Time.

"Who is Batman?" Poison Ivy's voice is calm, level, and dangerous. Her fumes insidiously wrap around the trapped Regina Mills, rising into her brain and forcing her to tell the truth.

"Bruce Wayne," is the reply.

Regina twists the ring off her finger, and it crackles with blue lightning. It's the last magic thing she has, and she can see the likeness of the only other man she has loved in it. She has always known that knowing the man beneath Batman's mask means she's offered herself up as a target. A bargaining chip. She suppresses the smirk. Let them try.

She stares at his likeness, so small and feeble in her palm, and concentrates all her fading love and growing power on it.

"Bruce Wayne." She doesn't even struggle, doesn't attempt to stop herself. Poison Ivy quirks a sceptical eyebrow, and quietly increases the potency of the fumes. Regina isn't done yet. "Jim Gordon. Harvey Dent, before the accident. Slam Bradley. Abed Nadir."

It's all Poison Ivy can do to not snap her vines around Regina's neck. "Tell me the truth," she says, despite knowing the inherent oxymoron. "How the hell can they be—" Certainly not Slam Bradley, she thinks. All he does is act like a noir film detective, solving cases for beautiful distressed damsels, and still goes home at the end of the day with his very male sidekick. Overcompensation if there ever was one. Maybe that was why the "Dark Knight" operated alone… maybe that's why Boy Wonder wore those shorts…

"Don't you see?" says Regina, raising her head to look Poison Ivy in the eye. The triumphant curl of her lip is sneering. "Batman isn't a name. It's a cowl. A mantle. One that good, brave men take up when there's a need for it."

"And what would you know of good, brave men?" Posion Ivy snorts. "Poisoning children with apple crumble and holding onto grudge matches against brainwashed tomboys for centuries doesn't sound like things that would endear you to… good men." The paleness of Regina's face means the barb hit home.

"It was apple turnover, actually, and I love brave and honest men. They're so easily manipulated."

"Who is Batman now?" demands Poison Ivy, over her rapidly fraying patience.

"I gave up on Batman years ago. He was too easy to manipulate, he was a victim of what he thought was love, and he didn't fight back. He bored me." She looks into Poison Ivy's murky green eyes, and says clearly: "I don't know."

The vines lashing her to her cushy office chair crumble to dust. She'll get someone to vacuum that off the carpet tomorrow.

She takes the ring off, tossing it into the bedside drawer. She's taken to carrying it with her ever since she enchanted it. Regina isn't sentimental; she would happily throw the ring down a well if it would bring her what she wanted even more than the man who put it on her finger. She doesn't have Abed, but she can very use him to protect herself. It's what he would have wanted. He was very practical that way.

The ring lies locked in a drawer in the dark. It's old, but the simple gold remains polished. It's certainly in better shape than the single other object in the drawer. The blue has faded, the threads are straggling out. The blue hat looks like the kind men who drive little trains wear, and yet it's too big for a child.

finis

-The Poison Ivy scene is transplanted directly from a confrontation between Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn versus Catwoman in Gotham City Sirens (issue 02 Girls Talk) where Ivy uses her toxin to force the truth of Batman's identity out of Catwoman. Years before, anticipating this move, Talia al-Ghul had taught her a mind trick which would prevent certain truths to be so buried she could never reveal them. Regina's listing of names is identical to what Catwoman had said.

-The hat is, of course, this hat. It's also an oblique reference to the time Sheldon says that there's an infinite number of parallel universes in which there are an infinite number of parallel Sheldons.

~hold on to what you believe

2012-12-06T11:28:23Z

for the Houston-Leavitt challenge at tvholics, to make a soundtrack for a show. Which is totally what I should be doing because I hate my life because my arbitration paper is coming up soon.

Revenge

Amanda grows up with the terrible knowledge that she's been shrifted by the system because her beloved father, David Clark, engineered a terrorist attack, until a visit from a dotcom multi-billionaire tells her that it's a lie. It's a lie that has sunken its hooks into the rich and powerful friends of her father, men and women who conspired and deceived and betrayed him to save themselves, and now Amanda has a new sheep's clothing identity, and simple murder is too easy and painless a form of revenge.

This is sort of pre-season one, the Revenge prequel, the missing years when Amanda Clark became Emily Thorne, when Jack pined for Amanda while growing up with her old dog, and when Victoria Grayson went through the motions, hating Conrad for what he had done to the man she said she loved.

But hold on to what you believe in the light,

When the darkness has robbed you of all your sight.

it's time | imagine dragons

Jack Porter

It's time to begin, isn't it?

I get a little bit bigger, but then I'll admit

I'm just the same as I was

down by the water | the drums*

David Clark

Everybody's gotta love someone

But, I just wanna love you, dear

Everybody's gotta feel something

I just wanna be with you, my dear

I know it's hard, I know it's hard

I know it's hard to be in this position

If they stop loving, I won't stop loving you

If they stop needing you, I'll still need you, my dear

03
hold on to what you believe | mumford & sons
Victoria Grayson

I ran away

I could not take the burden of both me and you

It was too fast

Casting love on me as if it were a spell I could not break

When it was a promise I could not make

But what if I was wrong?

02
coming down | dum dum girls
Conrad Grayson

You abuse the ones who love you

You abuse the ones who won't

If you ever had a real heart

I don't think you'd know where to start

01
seven devils | florence + the machine
Emily Thorne

Holy water cannot help you now

See I've come to burn your kingdom down

And no rivers and no lakes can put the fire out

I'm gonna raise the stakes, I'm gonna smoke you out

They can keep me out

'Til I tear the walls

'Til I save your heart

And to take your soul

For what has been done

Cannot be undone

*unsure if that was the soundtrack for an episode of Revenge. Or maybe it's from Gossip Girl.

*zipper-suited sun god (two)

2012-11-27T16:03:15Z

SUPERNATURAL FANFIC; DEAN, CASTIEL, GABRIEL, CROWLEY; for the spn_reversebang. Pinchit for wonderful art by lonewined: airplanes in the sky.

zipper-suited sun god
two

Gabriel was finally allowed visitors after three days in confinement because he had proved himself capable of stringing together coherent sentences again. The infirmary staff also preferred to have him inflict his existence on other people, now that he was conscious. It wasn't as though Ruby bothered to pass this information on, but Dean discovered it by the happy accident of badgering her every living minute. The glare she gave him suggested that she thought he would make a matched set with her least favourite patient.

"I heard about last night's… adventure," greeted Gabriel, gesturing for Dean to sit if he liked. Dean chose not to, leaning his hip against the wrought-iron bedframe, examining the cold and empty ward. It was lonely and bare, and conspicuously lacking flowers or any sentimentality. "And what an adventure it was," Gabriel went on breezily, either oblivious to Dean's scrutiny or ignoring it. "With Cassie as the sidekick and a somewhat solo flight as the protagonist. What gives? When did you become competent at this trick?"

"You should know by now that I can pull more than just rabbits out of my hat."

"Oh, that's right. Cassie did say something about your… magic touch. When it comes to mastering vehicles, you need just one test drive. I remember your F-15 B-course lasted what, one hour?"

"You say that like it's not useful to you."

"On the contrary, it's going to save my life."

The thin-lipped smile Dean shot him was bordering on unfriendly. The smugness in Gabriel's voice didn't sound like it was coming from an indebted person either. So much as looking at him made it easier for Dean to swallow down the memory of staring down into Gabriel's near-unconscious, sand-smeared, delirious face.

"You have your shortcuts of going back to the people you love, or at least the lifestyle you love so much, and I have mine."

"I'm glad we understand each other."

"Dean Winchester."

The man in question had been on the verge of swallowing the mouthful of beer, and the sudden voice behind him made him start. "Jesus Christ," he yelped, half-choking, fingers tightening around the neck of the chilled bottle in the scorching day. "Where did you come from?"

Castiel nodded over his shoulder at the barracks, puzzled. "From over there. I saw you from the window. You looked… troubled."

"The only reason I might be is because I'm wondering how the hell I'm going to fix this Eagle if Balthazar can't get me the parts I need." Dean waved a free hand in the direction of the hangars he was prudently standing outside, despite the desert heat. "She blew the whole lower chassis, and now I've discovered one wing won't balance right. I've got major problems, man, and they're piling up on my plate."

"Are you sure you wouldn't like to talk?" suggested Castiel softly, like he had a long couch and a therapist's clipboard ready and waiting somewhere.

"Nah. We don't… speak the same language. You wouldn't get any of my mumbo-jumbo."

"I used to be a pilot, Dean. You used to be able to tell me what was wrong with my plane."

"Used to, yeah?" Dean surprised himself with the amount of bitterness that lay dormant in his voice. He didn't remember that being there, not for a while. "And then you got knocked out and then that promotion happened, and well, good for you. You're going to be here around this place a lot longer than me."

"If we don't get caught, then I hope to be." Castiel said it simply, like it was a fact. "I am a soldier first and foremost, Dean, a servant to my country."

"And I'm a servant to family. Guess that makes me a traitor by your standards, huh?"

Bright blue eyes blinked without judgment. "This is not your war, Dean. It is mine. And Gabriel's. And Anna's, and Balthazar's, and Crowley's and Kali's. You are American, you wonder how you ended up here, and you're always plotting to make it back. The rifts in our monarchy and the rebel insurgencies are problems you've never had to face back at home. You wouldn't understand, and we wouldn't expect you to."

"My brother tried to get drafted when he was fourteen, faked his age and tried to get by on his height, and now he's lawyering for them. Worst mistake of his life, according to everyone but us. If it hadn't been JAG, it'd be the people they argue for."

"Help Gabriel, then, and in return, let him help you."

Dean pressed his lips together, trying to hold on to his annoyance and pent-up rage. "That doesn't mean I have to like the guy, you know. Or you. With all your sneaking up from behind people and all that silent crap."

Castiel ducked his head, probably to conceal a smile. "Of course, Dean."

"Nice day outside, isn't it."

The corners of Gabriel's mouth turned down sourly as his unexpected visitor strolled into the ward. "I'm pretty sure it got worse. Where's my hot nurse? You're definitely not what the doctor ordered."

Crowley's smile only widened. He reached for a chair, drawing it next to the bed, and sinking lazily down into it. "We've dispensed with the pleasantries, so now I'm sure we can get down to business." With an almost dizzying change of tone, he said in clipped, cold tones, "You haven't turned your report about the night you were shot down. I'll excuse you for not having the… time until now, but I'm sure I can do a good impression of a Dictaphone."

"Did you just say hi to the Flintstones on your way here? Who the hell uses a Dictaphone anymore?"

"Gabriel. Your goddamn report. Considering that you might be holding on to information that could save people's lives, you can be a hell of a lot more accommodating about it."

Crowley had always had a violent temper, but he tended to keep it on a very long leash. Gabriel could see that his fuse had burned down nearly to the quick, until the spark was very, very near the dynamite core. He wondered what was putting so much pressure on Crowley: was it Kali, the high casualty rate at the base cutting into the available personnel, or was it that 'defeat or surrender' was looming closer than anyone had anticipated? Either way, Gabriel looked forward to not being around when the whole powder keg exploded.

"Yeah, so Jo'd been asking, bless her soul, if you want to come down here for Christmas." Dean fished around his pocket for loose change, weighing in his hand the quarters he had found. While he hoarded the letters, he was also lousy at maintaining regular two-way communication with Sam. Thankfully, he was well-equipped to keep this current pay phone conversation going for a long time. "Even for I know it's not some ideal tropical vacation, but hey, it's Christmas, and there's a fifty-percent chance of survival on the base — which, all things considered, isn't actually so bad—"

"Dean, what are you—? Dean."

"What. I'm listening."

"Are you? Because I'm going to ask if you're out of your mind. Haven't you read the papers recently? Or, I don't know, talked to anyone? There's no coming in or getting out of Ruritania anymore. Remember there's an embargo? There are certain Pr— political leaders who're more than thrilled about it, you know."

"Gee, Sam, now how the hell would I forget about the blockade? After all, it's only going to be a question of no flights and no food. Going to be the worst Christmas ever." It wasn't even so long ago that the possibility of sharing being there with him was a real, solid possibility.

"You said this Jo's American too. How's her family even—"

"Her mom moved here years ago. She's not coming here— from outside."

"Well, hang tight, Dean. You gotta." Was it just perception, or was the static breaking up Sam's voice? "The rumour mill is working overtime that this war's going to end soon, that the royal family doesn't have a chance." Sam was talking faster, lower, urgently. "If it's not the French Revolution all over again, it'll be something like the Bolshevik one at least. The war's going to be over soon, and even if you can't buy out your contract yet, it's going to expire really soon."

"Yeah, sure. Hanging tight."

"Dean. You sound weird, man. You're plotting something, aren't you?"

"Who, me—? What even. Don't be stupid, you can't afford to lose any more brain cells. And, hey, I'm almost out of change, I gotta hang up now, Sammy, bye."

Ruby was as delighted to see Dean appear in the infirmary as she always was. "Why doesn't your perfectly delightful presence work on him like some kind of magic elixir?" she said cheerfully in greeting. "Then the two of you can vamoose from my line of sight. Preferably forever."

Dean had to bite his tongue to refrain from pointing out how close she was to having that wish come true. "So does this mean I can see him?"

She simply jerked her chin in the direction of the corridor, and turned back to her work. He sometimes wondered if she didn't hate her job enough to poison her patients. That would not only explain the mortality rate on the base, but it would also help to reconcile her personality with her uniform.

Her least favourite patient, unsurprisingly, seemed to share her sunny disposition that day. Walking into the ward, the first thing he heard was: "Dean-o. What an unexpected — and yet marvellous — surprise."

"Can it, Gabriel, I don't think anyone can hear us."

Gabriel smiled unconcernedly, and waved a hand, ushering Dean to a seat. The latter opted to stand instead.

"Have you heard?" Dean demanded, getting straight to his point. It had been weighing heavily on him all day, but he didn't know why he thought talking to Gabriel of all people might help. "Specifically, the stories that the government's in so much trouble that these rebels are on the verge of winning this civil war?"

"I may have. Being cooped up in here doesn't mean I don't get CNN."

"What about the plan?" Dean lowered his voice as he said it. Despite his earlier words, he was aware that the walls always had ears, but his meaning was clear: are you still sure you want to escape, break your contract, and desert?

Gabriel's eyebrows knitted together in faux-confusion. "I think you've officially lost me this time. I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You know exactly what I'm talking about. You call yourself a hired gun, but are you sure you want to be a deserter too? Your plan isn't exactly ironclad anymore, because every way out of the country is now gone. It's kind of the side-effect of having a vested interest in toppling the monarchy that was planning to nuke Moscow."

"Bomb, actually. If we could nuke Moscow, we would have won already."

Dean glared at him in the most 'You see?' way he could silently convey. "And your grand plan is to turn your back and bail as it all goes up in flames."

"Pretty much, yeah. Family loyalty used to count for a lot of things, but not anymore. Michael and Lucifer have crossed every line there is, you can't even read the print on the page considering the amount of strikethroughs there are right now."

The unconscious familiarity with which Gabriel named the princes made Dean's breath stutter. There were rumours and there was talking, but Dean had never been able to care less, and now the penny dropped, destroying any possibility of dismissing that thought as just hearsay. Oh, fuck.

"You," he snarled, "just turned out to be a bigger bastard than I could have given you credit for."

Gabriel didn't blink. He tilted his chin up, putting on his best mockery of an coy, innocent expression. "Does this mean you won't help me, Winchester?"

"Fuck that. I care for my family a little more than you do yours."

"But it's just you don't care who you have to step on get back to home sweet home?"

The muscles in Dean's jaw clenched.

"In future," said Gabriel, his smile not wavering but his voice icy and furious, "try not to tell me about selflessness. You're only in this because this is your one and only chance to get out of here. You know that when you help me, you can take advantage of the chaos and fighting to slip through the cracks. If you don't seize this chance, you're never going to get home for another ten years, not even after your contract expires because there's just going to be murder and chaos in this country. You're using me to get what you want, which is to squash your homesickness, so don't try to tell me you're any better than I am."

Dean stared at the black sheep of the Ruritanian royal family, the mercenary on the base, and wondered how the hell he had come to this point. To be honest, he still didn't know. He looked at Gabriel, but he saw no trace of the unconscious man they had picked out of the sand.

The deep-seated feeling of unease settled heavily over the office that Castiel shared with Crowley, and there was good reason to be unsettled. Gabriel was going to make a bid for freedom that night, grabbing the best opportunity that he would ever be presented with, and everything depended on a mechanic being able to stay in the air for more than a minute without getting shot down. It depended on no one noticing that a pilot disguised as a mechanic was trying to sneak off the base amid all the madness and chaos. It was worsened only by the fact that the base was nearly empty that night. They'd been monitoring the encrypted lines for months, nearly a year. The royal family was losing the war everywhere else, but in their corner of the desert, they'd succeeded in constantly pushing the rebels further and further back up the desert. The real danger was that the rebels would retreat strategically, skirt the parched, rocky land and make for the line of the gorge. In between the needle's eye scarps, they could hide for weeks and hold their position until backup came. The gorge was too narrow for most planes to fly through, and infantry was too far away to reach in time. The best bet was to pick off the rebels before they moved between the cliffs, and the enemy was already starting to move their armaments in the night. Kali had dispatched most of her pilots to deal with it.

"Are you worried?"

The way Crowley's dark gaze was fixed unblinkingly on the horizon outside his office window was a good indication, rendering Castiel's question redundant.

"Why would I be worried? There's no point having a mental breakdown about the inevitable."

"Nothing is inevitable. We don't have enough information. This might just be paranoia." And yet the fact that he had asked in the first place meant that it wasn't paranoia: Castiel privately agreed. The base was so poorly defended that an attack really was inevitable.

"Let me pour you a drink and we can… commiserate about how our job has turned us into paranoid wrecks."

Crowley's voice sounded like it was coming from very far away, and Castiel barely registered the rattle of the drawer as Crowley withdrew the very well-concealed Glen Fiddich from the interior of his desk. His fingers closed mechanically around the cut-glass tumbler Crowley pushed into his hand, ("Came from the Highlands, it's not just Jeremiah Weed,") and the drink only served to dull his nerve endings before they briefly flared to life.

"You're preoccupied tonight."

His mind was a thousand miles away, running desperately through the wilderness, trying to make sense of his scattered feelings. He would need his sense and rationality to be tight-knit, or else he'd make a mess out of tampering with the papers documenting Gabriel's imminent desertion. He shook his head for Crowley's benefit, trying to look as though everything was fine.

"I'm not preoccupied, only distracted."

"Sure." Then, with sympathy that surprised Castiel: "Don't break your brain thinking too much about worst case scenarios. That's not in your job description, and it's only going to give you hell."

Castiel knocked back the rest of the scotch in one swallow in silent assent.

Ruby interrupted Gabriel while his was surreptitiously signing off his own discharge papers. "You're leaving already?" she demanded, eyebrows knitting in instant suspicion. She seemed to have forgotten her very vocal insistence that Gabriel "GTFO ASAP" because now she leaned against the front desk and pulled Gabriel's discharge to read. "Hmm, this seems to be in order, but it's still recommended that you stay for a day or two more. This isn't Hollywood, where two episodes after a major accident — one that you were lucky to survive — you're back on your feet as usual."

"Why, Ruby, I thought you'd be glad to be rid of me."

"I would be, if I didn't think something wasn't up."

Gabriel was laughing to himself all the way on the way out.

He found Dean in the barracks, sitting on Gabriel's bed. "Who did you get the keys from?" asked Gabriel coldly, partially certain that he knew anyway.

"Cas."

"My idiot brother. How perfect."

Dean looked Gabriel straight in the eye. "I'm assuming you got out of that hospital bed of reasons unrelated to it being Christmas Eve?"

"Got it one." Gabriel was already shrugging out of his clothes, yanking off the heavy bomber jacket he had taken to wearing in winter. He tossed it at Dean, who caught it easily, and said, "Come on, swap with me. We do this tonight, and the sooner the better."

The shrill insistent ringing of the telephone sliced through Crowley's ear and straight through into his brain. He snatched up the phone, cutting it off mid-ring, and snarled. "What do you want?" He resisted the temptation to down more Glen Fiddich, not because of how rare it had suddenly become, but because he was aware having more than just a quick nip to bolster his nerves would be a fatal idea. This was his private line: the super-secured one that people were instructed to use only in cases of absolute emergencies.

"Crowley," heaved the muffled voice on the other line, probably disguising the real sound. "Gabriel's deserting, he's going to try it tonight."

"And where'd you hear that, Deepthroat—?"

But the person on the other line had already clicked off and hung up.

"What was that?" asked Castiel, looking up from his desk.

"Deepthroat apparently."

"Who?"

"Mark Felt, if I had to bet on it. It's not important." Grimly, he relayed the truncated conversation to Castiel. He had the brief pleasure of watching those blue eyes widen in shock, the unflappable feathers ruffled for the first time. Castiel had turned white, sinking back against his desk.

"Gabriel's supposed to be in the infirmary," Crowley went on, in no mood to offer tea and comfort. "I'm going to go check on him (or even if he's still there.) You watch things in here. The chances of there being an attack tonight just tripled itself."

He was cursing to himself as he tore out of the office, running down the stairs and into the night air. The traitor prince had planned this perfectly.

"What the hell do you mean he's gone?" The leash on Crowley's temper had snapped harder than an elastic band stretched down to a thread. "I have this to show he's supposed to be under medical supervision for two more days." He flung Gabriel's records at Ruby, unable to comprehend how she'd let this happen. "This is not supervision. Where the hell is he?"

"Learn to read," snapped Ruby, but Crowley had the satisfaction of seeing through her bravado. She pushed the recently-filled papers at Crowley. "It recommends that Gabriel stay in bed, but the discharge is perfectly valid."

"I asked you a question, you stupid bitch," he snarled, fist curling around the discharge papers so tight he nearly ripped it from the clipboard. "Where. Is. Gabriel?"

"How would I know?"

"If I find out you're lying—"

"Then it'll be a cold day in hell."

He shoved past her and out of the hospital, minutes racking up along with his desperation to find Gabriel. The next place he automatically checked was the barracks, boots thundering down the corridor only to find the lights off in Gabriel's room. He knew he should inform Kali straightaway, but not if it meant wasting time. He hoped Castiel would have had the brains to do so by now, anyway.

Anna was buying a six-pack of chewing gum from Balthazar, huddled into her jacket from the cold. "Have either of you seen Gabriel?" he demanded, gaze shifting from the one he knew had no reason to lie to the one who swindled the base for a living.

"Of course I have," started Balthazar laconically, but Crowley headed him off at the pass.

"If you don't know where he is, shut up. I don't have the time for your bad jokes. Anna?"

"Me neither," she grinned around a stick of spearmint, "but I saw him a while back at the mess, guzzling soup."

"How long ago?"

"Don't know— fifteen minutes?"

With any luck, Gabriel would still be there, or someone would have seen him leave, and where he had gone. "Thanks, you've been wonderfully helpful," he told her distractedly, power walk breaking into a sprint as he made his way to the mess hall.

It was then that the klaxons started blaring. It was a sound that paralysed him from within and made adrenaline burn through his veins, reminding him that he was trapped on the ground while the shells dropped from the sky.

Fuck Gabriel. Kali needed to know, and then he had bigger things to worry about. Crowley started to run.

"Miss me, little brother?"

Castiel whirled around, nearly dropping the contents of Crowley's drawer in shock. It would have been very bad indeed to be caught red-handed going through his superior's desk, but the sight of Gabriel in oil-stained coveralls standing in the doorway was no less horrifying.

"What are you doing here?" Castiel hissed, slamming Crowley's drawer closed and advancing on the pilot currently in a mechanic's coveralls. "You don't have time to waste. Dean can impersonate you only so long before he's caught—"

"I came to say goodbye."

Castiel stopped short. "That — won't be necessary," he said stiffly. "I wish you luck and hope you survive this and can have a good life. It's what you've always wanted."

"Whereas you've always wanted to die for your country."

The klaxons were nigh-screaming, but not enough to drown their long-winded thunder of planes taking off from the ground. The lights from the runway illuminated Castiel's office, nearly blinding them both.

"You'll forgive me, won't you, if I don't stick around to see my family finish each other off?"

"What about Anna? Have you told her?"

"She'll never understand. She has you, I'm sure you can pick up the pieces when it's all over."

"Gabriel— I don't understand either."

But Gabriel didn't pause to elaborate. He shook his head, impatiently almost, and for a brief second it looked like he would clinch the distance between them and crush Castiel in his arms for the last time. It didn't happen.

"Someone 'scoming," he muttered, ears pricked as always, and Castiel didn't have a chance to end things on his own terms before Gabriel vanished from the doorway.

"We're fucked," was the first thing Crowley said when he appeared. His eyes gleamed with savage desperation, and he didn't even seem to hear the cacophony erupting all around them. Castiel, still reeling from the sudden disappearance of Gabriel, tried to register the re-appearance of Crowley. Who was flanked by Kali, who looked tired and drawn and more determined than he remembered ever seeing.

"Do you think you can get into a Crusader again without nose-diving into the tarmac?" she asked.

Castiel looked slowly from one to the other. He could barely hear over the blood roaring in his ears. "When he said 'fucked', I assumed the conversation was more… literal."

"Hornet, this is Castiel. Gabriel, respond."

No response, only the buzz of static on the radio. Castiel understood. Somewhere down below, his brother was taking advantage of the pandemonium to escape with his life between his teeth, and that was Dean, barely experienced and probably completely terrified, in that pilot's seat. He was glad that the former mechanic had enough sense to not give himself away by speaking.

If only he too could overcome the crippling torpor of having been behind a desk, long enough to survive this dogfight. The altimeter kept spinning, and he tried to line up the madly zig-zagging Mig-83 he was chasing down.

"Splash one," crackled the voice over the radio, and Castiel nearly lost his grip. He saw the missile fizz through the air, the distant muted sound of wings exploding and weapons impact. "Splash one," said the voice again, crowing in something like triumph.

"Don't get cocky, Gabriel," admonished Anna, unperturbed. "There's four of us and ten of them."

"Splash two. Make that nine. Balls to the wall, guys, let's gut these fuckers."

"Are you Dean?" The woman behind the wheel of the Land Rover had a shotgun cradled against her chest. She cocked it to see the man approach, uncertain still of his identity. The muzzle lined up over his heart, and it didn't waver as he came closer and closer. "You're Dean Winchester, aren't you?"

"That depends," replied Dean, ripping off the oilcloth that had served as a makeshift mask. "Are you Ellen Harvelle?"

"I am. Now let's get you home, boy."

finis

one | two

author's note: ♥♥♥ to lonewined, who by happy coincidence not only made pilot!AU art, but also loves some of my favourite characters in Supernatural fandom. I hope this fic turned out even a little something like what you wanted it to be.

-Title is the derogatory reference to high-flying fighter pilots.

-Mostly inspired by a combination of Wilbur Smith's Shout at the Devil (a naval war novel) and the Area 88 anime, with which this fic shares a sort of similar premise in reverse (the uniqueness of being Japanese aka foreigner; mercenary air base; the base commander being a member of the royal family, which is currently waging internal war brother versus brother.)

-Ruritania is the setting of Anthony Hope's Prisoner of Zenda and Rupert of Hentzau, and in its original context, is an Eastern European monarchy. Obviously does not apply here, because there are no rock deserts in Europe. Given the plane references, it may even be a neighbour of Iran in this context.

-Timeline is deliberately vague, but obviously post-70s. There is a Tomcat, Hornet, and Eagle co-existing simultaneously, so make what you will of the year. The only reason a Navy plane like the Tomcat exists in an air force is because this is not fic about the U.S. Air Force.

-De-Hollywoodifying of the fighter pilot myth has been attempted as much as possible, but unfortunately, didn't have enough time to be as genuinely authentic as I have wanted. On the flip side, I have wanted to write this kind of fic since I was fourteen. It's like fourteen-year-old me broke in, grabbed my laptop, and wrote this.

*zipper-suited sun god (one)

2012-11-27T08:37:05Z

SUPERNATURAL FANFIC; DEAN, CASTIEL, GABRIEL, CROWLEY; for the spn_reversebang. Pinchit for wonderful art by lonewined: airplanes in the sky.

zipper-suited sun god

one

"What the hell, Cas? How do you suggest we 'hold off' a whole squadron headed for us? We've got no ammo, not that it'd be of any help even if we did."

"I don't understand, Dean. This is what the last few months have been all about: you're an excellent flier, and that's all that we need. Fence in, this may get… complicated."
Against the backdrop of civil war in a distant country, a mercenary pilot and a mechanic hatch an audacious madcap scheme for desertion. Dean thinks is the worst lead-up to Christmas Day yet, Gabriel is criminally cheerful, Castiel is unwillingly aiding and abetting, and Crowley thinks he's the only sane man left — and it's upto him to pull the plug on everyone else's fun before it's all shot to hell and a war is lost.

"Gabriel's been found."

Crowley parted the closed blinds with a finger, watching it the rescue chopper come back with Gabriel, after two days in the desert and the base commander's cold prediction that he wouldn't be found alive. The stir it was causing didn't reach the base commander's office, because Kali's attention was already diverted. There was new information that the rebels were going to smuggle their tactician commander out of Ruritania within the week, so her only reaction was: "How many years and how much?"

Resuming his seat, Crowley didn't need to reach for the personnel file to know. "Twenty-six months, and he's in debt to the tune of a couple of thousand. Maintenance is expensive if you're going to keep bringing back Hornets with wings practically falling off. As you can imagine, his OPR is a thrilling read."

"How many is 'a couple of thousand'?"

"Four. That number keeps shrinking, considering the kind of big moving targets he goes for. He might buy his way out sooner than you think."

Kali pressed her knuckles against the paper of the map, which covered a segment of her office wall; it was pierced with coloured dots, noting the constantly-moving positions of the rebels and their allies. She looked away from it long enough to pin Crowley with the most withering look in her arsenal. "You think he's going to go from insolvent to four million sooner than I think? While wrecking planes every week and destroying his liver, not to mention how Balthazar matches the prices of his supplies with inflation? Remind me who you had to blow to get your job in Intelligence."

The slow whir-creak of the low-hanging ceiling fan was the only sound in the office. Crowley propped up both his booted feet on the edge of her desk, and smiled. Kali's glare hardened in loathing. "My job is to make forecasts, not to always be right. The latter just happens to be an occupational perk."

Kali merely sneered and walked forward, kicking the leg of the chair, and sending his feet crashing back to the ground.

One man and two officers watched Gabriel be carried away on a stretcher, standing in the shade of the wing of Anna's Eagle. A team had gone out to salvage Gabriel's crashed Hornet from the sand, mostly because Balthazar thought he could use the parts and Kali wanted what was left of the wreck to be burned so that the Ruritanian rebels couldn't arm themselves with the unspent ammunition. She had great faith in the powers of a crash to send aircraft up in flames, but she was also a firm believer in not handing out candy to trick-or-treaters just like that.

"He's going to be okay," said Anna aloud, with some degree of confidence that wasn't reflected on the others' faces. "If there was an award for having destroyed more planes than special edition porn DVD boxes, we'd be giving it to Gabriel."

Balthazar raised an eyebrow. "Really now. The crazy tosser landed in the desert. I don't believe he was carrying a bottle of Perrier with him at the time."

Castiel glanced sideways at him, but tried not to comment. "It's a Christmas miracle."

"Old Dean must not like that," Balthazar chuckled, clearly pleased at the prospect. "Probably interferes with his atheism."

"Dean? As in your old Dean, Castiel? Why would he even care?"

"Live under a rock much, sweetheart? Who do you think flew our dear Gabe back?"

Castiel pressed his lips tightly together in a thin line, and the look in his stark blue eyes might just have set the corner of Balthazar's shirt on fire. ("Flew?" repeated Anna, eyebrows knitting in suspicion.) It wasn't lost on Balthazar, who just laughed again. "Oh, whoops. Just meant that he was in the flying copter at the time too, of course. Can't be spoiling the movie before it even begins, can we, Cas?"

"Can I just see him already? I hear he's talking, so why isn't he also allowed visitors?"

There was a long pause before the head nurse even looked up from the paperwork she was filling out, and the visitor considered repeating himself. Eventually, she treated Dean, who was hanging in the open doorway of her office, to a deeply venomous look. "I'm a little busy, Winchester, so if you don't actually specify what you want within the next five seconds, I'll yank your entrails out through your throat and strangle you with them."

"Gabriel, Ruby. I want to see him."

Her lip curled at the name. "Gabriel. Oh yes. Our special… celebrity."

So much for professionalism and the Hypocritical Oath or whatever, he thought dryly. At least he was clear on Ruby's stand on mercenaries now. To be fair, it was unsurprising, because whispers, cold shoulders, and dark, sceptical looks tended to follow Gabriel wherever he went.

"Look, nurse, can I see him? He may be a FAG, but he's my FAG." He wasn't being disparaging, he was just referring to the Fighter Attack… Guy… who happened to fly a Hornet… alright, so he was being contemptuous, but he and Gabriel had reached a place where he could be.

Ruby's sour look lifted faintly. "Not yet. He has been severely dehydrated, concussed, and is lucky he didn't die of sunstroke. Which he managed to avoid by crawling into a long metal tube, which eventually also exploded. Smart moves on both counts. You're going to need to give us more than twelve hours to pull a Lazarus on him, alright?" The faux-honeyed smile that accompanied her words made Dean blanch. He could nearly see the fangs protruding past her lips. She antagonised him, and she enjoyed it.

He fought down his reflex to fight, and muttered, "Just, uh, tell him I came by, will you?"

"Sure. I'll just jot it down next to all the other messages I'm taking, since I'm the official secretary to the patients and all. Oh look, my pen's all out of ink, mind letting me use your blood?"

He got the hint. Clearly, this one just wasn't a fan of his company. "Just, y'know, one last question."

Ruby's scowl deepened to see that he had still not fled for his life and out of her hair. Dean was sorry to inform her that he wasn't that easy. "What."

"You used to take the presents out of your younger brother's Christmas stocking, and fill it with coal, didn't you?"

"I didn't have a brother. But if I had a stocking full of coal, I would have used to whack any guy who tried to crawl down my chimney over the head."

"For fuck's sake, you're back here already? Didn't I kick you out a while ago?"

"Yesterday, actually, Rubes, and have a heart. Cut a guy some slack. How's Gabriel doing? Has he stopped trying to grab your ass each time you turn your back on him— I mean, has he been restored to his fantastic, er, sunny disposition?"

"He's still out, and never call me that again, Winchester. And if you don't leave five minutes ago, I'll put you on my list."

"Ooh, scary. What are you going to do, practice your bondage gear on me?"

"No, but I will tell your brother about some of your particular… preferences that I learnt about from Anna, so good luck ever facing him again. If you managed to go home during the holidays."

Dean really did leave at that, snarling "manky bitch" under his voice loud enough for her to hear. Her answering smile was brighter than even Gabriel's if the latter had woken up in the lap of a busty angel. "At least I have a home to go to during the holidays," he said, even louder, but her answering grimace was of little satisfaction.

"I have a message for you, Dean. It's from Ruby."

The low gravelly voice enunciated clearly over the usual noise and din of the mess hall, and Dean dropped his fork with a loud clatter. He twisted around in his seat to see Castiel standing behind him, holding aloft a dinner tray. The Ruritanian armed forces were already limping by on the elevated version of a shoestring budget, and there was no officers' mess. Dean had no illusions about that tray in Castiel's hands being set down at his table, since officers usually tended to dine only with other officers. The spook was nice, as Dean had learnt over the years, but some things were unspoken.

"What did she say? Was it some kind of summons? Is it about— Gabriel?"

"No, she said a letter had come. Two letters in one envelope addressed to her."

The tiny bit of disappointment sank like a rock straight through Dean's insides, but a second later, he mentally kicked himself. It was obviously letter from Sam. Sam, who meant a whole lot more than a pilot. "Sure. Of course. Thanks, man. For letting me know. I'll go take it from her later."

"Actually, she gave it to me. For safe keeping."

"Uh, okay. Hand it over, then."

Castiel's face clouded with an exasperation Dean found inexplicable.

"Everything okay?" he asked tentatively, sandpapering down the brusqueness in his tone so that it sounded marginally more polite. "You were saying… about my letter?"

"Yes, Dean, everything is fine. And your letter is my careful possession. Please come and take it from me— later."

The queer, significant emphasis that Castiel was putting on made Dean's eyebrows rise in dawning comprehension. So that's what this was about. Subtlety, Castiel had it in spades, and it rubbed off on whomever he spoke. "Sure, no problem. I'll see you 'later' then." Nodding to indicate he understood the end of this conversation, Dean turned back to his food. He realised belatedly that Castiel was still standing over his shoulder, piercing blue eyes cutting a laser-guided hole through his back. "Er, can I help you?"

"Actually, Dean Winchester—"

"I have been looking for you everywhere, guess what I just found out."

Jo had appeared out of nowhere, plonking her dinner tray down opposite Dean, and sliding into her seat. Her sleeves were rolled back, and her hands were reddened with a vigorously-scrubbed look, like she'd been trying to get the grease off after a long day at the motor pool. She gave Castiel the most cursory of indifferent once-overs, but proceeded to ignore him. Dean gave her a distracted 'hey', but he was waiting for the other guy to finish. Or even start on whatever ominous-sounding thing he was going to say.

"We shall finish this conversation later," was what Castiel said, and he was gone. Very weird.

Jo stabbed the mockery of mashed potatoes on her plate and stared at Dean curiously. "What was all that about?"

Dean shrugged, keeping his mask carefully expressionless. "Nothing really, Anna needs me to look at her F-15. What's up with you, what's this big thing you heard?"

"Why would Anna send him with a message like that?" asked Jo, persisting. "I thought she was talking to you again. Or is it still awkward between you two—?"

"After we had that fling and I realised she was using me for thank-god-we're-still-alive sex and I was using her for I'm-bored-let's-make-the-bed-rock times?"

"You know, you'd think a no-strings-attached situation like that couldn't be awkward, but you never fail to amaze me." Jo grinned. "But let's face it: knowing you, it could be much worse than having her use another guy to courier messages to you."

Dean grimaced, shaking his head. "Let's not even go into that." He really needed to steer away any suspicion before it could form. Jo was nice, more than competent at her job, but not someone to whom he was especially close. Of course, he could count on one hand the number of people on this base with whom he was close.

To clarify, close for the sake of it, not out of necessity. Dean had no intention of getting too pally with these weirdo foreigners.

"So. What were you saying again, about suspension of disbelief and all that?"

(Well, define 'close'. Maybe he wouldn't need hands after all.)

"Oh, nothing much, in retrospect." Despite the indifference of her demeanour, Jo seemed puzzled over Castiel's presence at the table. "Hey, listen — that guy in the blue tie — isn't he, you know—" Dean just looked at her, and she frowned, lowering her voice, trying to convey her point. "You know, like a royal?"

"You really believe that? Some people will make up anything about other people."

"Oh yeah? Well, the stuff they say about Gabriel—"

Dean said nothing. Pilots were rarely wrong pinpointing someone's loyalties. "So, hey, you were saying, remember? Things that I wouldn't believe?"

It worked. The dark cloud cleared off Jo's brow, and she smiled, bolstered by what seemed like good news. "Mom wired about coming down to visit. Well, not here per se, duh, but she's flying down to the capital for Christmas, and maybe… you'd want to spend the day with us? Obviously, you should tell your brother to come too. Christmas is a time for family."

Sam was a JAG lawyer back home, and Dean was unsure about his holiday plans. "Sure," he told Jo nonetheless, thinking of sock-clad versus bare feet propped side-by-side in front of a toasty fire, beer bottles clinking together in a silent toast. I can't speak for Sam — yet — but I'll be there with bells on."

"Great," she beamed. "I'll tell Mom. I swear that woman may secretly love you more than she does me."

"Innit the truth."

Jo laughed, kicking him under the table. "Jerk."

Dean waited an appropriately correct amount of time after dinner, before picking his way out of the mess and toward the hangars. The gigantic lights were on outside, a strip of the runway distantly illuminated like a football field. He yanked on his collar in a subconscious effort to stay warmer as he crossed the supplies store, aware of how much he needed to be reacquainted with Jack Daniels, but at Balthazar's current prices, couldn't afford to.

"Winchester," called out a male voice from what sounded like the interior of the store, now lit by a single bulb. "You're late."

Think of the devil. Dean squinted, but could see no one. "And you're a gentleman. How the hell can I be late for something I wasn't told about?"

Balthazar stepped out of the shadows, eyebrows arched. "Are you sure?"

Dean's patience was being strung out like it was on the rack, and he was just not equipped to handle Balthazar's brand of accented smarminess tonight. He had a… prior engagement, and he didn't enjoy talking to this guy on any terms, anyway, so he was about to walk away, when it slowly dawned on him that they weren't alone.

"Castiel," he greeted dryly. It was as if the dude had silently teleported into existence. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Surprised?" Castiel blinked, cocking his head in that birdlike manner that had Dean gnashing his teeth. "Should you be?"

"Do you, er, have my letter?" Unsure of the full extent of Balthazar's involvement, Dean was committed to maintaining their cover story. Imagine his surprise then when Castiel pulled an envelope out of his pocket and handed it over.

Had the 'ruse' been real after all?

"It's alright, Dean, Balthazar knows."

"…That my idiot brother writes letters?"

Balthazar glanced blankly at Castiel. "I'm sorry, but I thought you told me he was evolved from the monkey. How does he fly anything if he's still figuring out how to use his opposable thumb?"

"Lucky for you I know how to use my opposable thumb to make a fist to smash your face in with—"

"Balthazar. Stop antagonising him. If nothing else, this is only proof of how committed Dean is to helping us."

"Really." Balthazar pursed his lips and surveyed Dean with more scepticism than what the latter found fair.

"Yeah, really, so now you done yapping and dancing around the point, or can we get down to business?"

"Business," Castiel answered quickly, cutting off anything Balthazar might have had to say. He produced a ring of keys out of the pocket of his trenchcoat, holding them up for Dean. "They're Gabriel's. He would want you to have full access: to his room, to his safe box, to his plane, everything. He obviously won't need these once this is over."

"Yeah, about that…"

"What, you're backing out already?" demanded Balthazar, voice laced with instant distrust. "Some commitment."

"Let him finish—"

"Gabriel could have died before we found him, Cas. It's some kind of miracle that he's still around. How the hell is he going to pull this off if he keeps going at his current rate?"

Castiel pressed his lips together, and examined the toecaps of his shoes. "Would you rather that we sit back and do nothing? Because I do not think I could let him endanger himself, without at least attempting to help."

A few weeks ago— hell, even a few days ago, Dean would have readily disagreed. No one could write him a check big enough to make him care about Gabriel or this overly audacious stunt he was trying to pull. Castiel was obviously quick to misinterpret the silence between them.

"I see that you can't either," he said softly, but Dean jerked away from Castiel's touch.

"Gabriel's plane is headed for the scrap heap," he said aloud instead, nodding in Balthazar's direction. "What the hell do we go for a trial run in?"

Castiel glanced at inquiringly at Balthazar, who smiled secretively. Dean rolled his eyes. "I have a feeling I'm going to hate you guys for this later."

"I hate you," growled Dean, ignoring the sight of Castiel serenely gazing back at him in the mirror. "You thought it was a good idea to go up in an unarmed plane and I can't even—"

"Please, Dean. You can consider this practice. This is a new experience for me," he added musingly, referring to the fact that he used to be the one carrying people in the backseat and not the other way around. "I'm not used to being a sandbag."

"Have I mentioned lately that I consider you insane?"

The reason for Dean's vitriol blinking on the long-range radar: little blips indicating bogeys approaching the horizon from what looked like over the distant dunes, where the Ruritanian rebels were lodged. They were up in Castiel's old F-14 Tomcat, a Navy plane that had Balthazar had procured under dubious circumstances years ago. Kali had pulled Castiel out of active duty after the third time he'd ejected himself out of a plane, and the Tomcat had gone to someone else. It was useful for their purposes because it was a two-seater, but the controls were alien in Dean's hands. The Tomcat might have been the father of Gabriel's Hornet, which Dean was more used to, but the older plane was already less easy to manoeuvre. This was especially worrying considering the evidence on the radar.

"You have, Dean," said Castiel placidly, but sounding a little hurt all the same, "and it is unnecessary. We time and room to turn around and no one shall know any better."

The radio crackled to life.

"Angelman, this is Ground Control."

"Oh fucking hell."

"Don't be redundant, Dean."

"Redundant? How the fuck are we going to explain what I'm doing in a cockpit?"

"I'll handle it. Ground control, this is Angelman. Castiel speaking."

"Castiel, this is Crowley, wondering why your desk is empty."

"I was wondering how you remembered that name."

"That's also irrelevant at the moment. Seven bogeys, inbound. Headed your way."

"I am aware of that. Shelf your overflowing concern, I'm headed back to base."

There was a burst of static that could have been anything from interference to an incredulous snort. "Stay where you are. Anna and backup is on the way, but right now, you need to stall. Hold the fort, but do not engage. Do not — I repeat, do not let these guys follow you back to the base. Do not let them get within bombing reach. Hold them off, mislead them, take them down if you still remember how to do that. Which is likely, considering that you remember how to fly that—"

"Understood," came Castiel's clipped voice, and he flicked the radio off.

"What the fuck, Cas? How do you suggest we 'hold off' a whole squadron headed for us? We've got no ammo, not that it'd be of any help even if we did."

"I don't understand, Dean. This is what the last few months have been all about: you're an excellent flier, and that's all that we need. Fence in, this may get… complicated."

Dean didn't reply; his hands felt like they had turned to ice.

"Incoming. Ten thousand. Visual in five seconds. Use your fear, Dean," said Castiel like he could see it etched into the mechanic's face.

They heard it then, the missile dropping. "Drop the chaff!" The missile burned right through. The light stayed on, stuck on the radar screen. "Still locked. Doppler-guided. Here it comes!" He didn't know if he was still breathing, he couldn't even feel his fingertips. It was spinning, that was all he could see. He flicked the switch on the joystick, the Tomcat banked into a steep climb. The missile was closer. The radio burst in his ears. He pushed, he felt the world move even though he was hanging in nothingness. The missile rocketed past under them, and they drove right into the stars over its snub-nosed always-seeking head.

There were days when Castiel hated his job, and there were days when he simply bypassed those levels of resentment and hated Kali. He hadn't been reassigned to Intelligence because she found him especially well-suited for the job, or even because she couldn't afford to retire someone like him once he had been deemed unfit for flying ever again. She put him in a cramped room with Fergus McLeod day in and day out because she needed someone to keep an eye on Crowley, and she probably hoped that mutual mistrust would help Castiel cancel him out.

Every day as he tramped up the stairs with the feeling of rising up a long, thin funnel, the visceral memories of smoke, flames, and breaking metal pressed on Castiel. It reminded him of the very last time he had slammed the ejection button in sheer desperation, aware that there was no hope of dragging his machine (a poor substitute for the Tomcat, which was in repairs) back to the base. The only alternative pressing against the cracked glass was death. By the time he had woken up, surrounding by sterile hospital walls, the next thing he saw was Kali's grimly smiling face gazing down at him. The third ejection of his career had effectively ended it.

On the other hand, she had been waiting for this opportunity for years.

Castiel walked into his shared office the next morning with some measure of dread, perfectly aware that Crowley would have questions that he wasn't sure how to answer. Last night had ended too late and with too many unwelcome memories for him to piece his excuses together. He set a ceramic mug filled to the brim with steaming latté on his superior's desk, hoping to cut off all questions at the pass. It didn't work. Crowley took a long gulp of the coffee, looking like he was swallowing with some difficulty.

"What is this slop? Toilet bleach diluted generously with drain water? I don't have to remind you I prefer a frappe, if you're going to bring me my morning drink."

"Balthazar says he's down to packets of powdered milk, and coffee is still being rationed. I'm told toilet bleach is also scarce, so it will only get downhill—"

"Alright, alright," said Crowley hastily, "no need to regale me with alternatives. Ignorance is bliss and all that." He watched, narrow-eyed, as Castiel shrugged off his trenchcoat, and flipped through the stack of urgent messages left on the edge of his desk. "Care to explain what you were doing in the air?"

Castiel didn't even blink. "Indulging nostalgia."

"Please, Cas. Between the two of us, you can cut the bullshit. That plane you took up was fresh off the repair line; in fact, it was just barely Code 2, and it was a two-seater. In fact, it bore an uncanny resemblance to your old Tomcat, and your old mechanic was seen walking away from it. I suggest you dispense with the tissue of lies you're using to wipe my face."

"It was Balthazar. We… he wanted— it was his idea."

"Uh-huh. Castiel, really, you've got to come up with a better story than that."

"Reality is unrealistic, Crowley. Balthazar thought, er, that particular Tomcat was so old that if it ever needed another repair job, it would have been a joke, so he wanted to confirm for himself… whether or not he should slice it down for parts. He asked me to fly it for the obvious, and also because he didn't exactly want to advertise that decision."

"Oh… right." Crowley tilted his chair back on two legs, enough so that he could pour the contents of his mug into the nearest potted plant. "And I would cross-check this story with Balthazar, except that I have no doubt he would confirm it to the letter. Whatever faults he has, no one's ever accused him of being an honest bastard."

"I'll tell him you said that," said Castiel with a carefully constructed air of distraction. "Now if this pointless conversation is over—"

"Yes, yes. Go."

Castiel picked up the first thing he found (his so-far-unfinished report on the events of last night) and sank down into his chair. He was exceedingly glad that Crowley was mentally two steps ahead; otherwise, a simple "What was Castiel doing in that Tomcat?" to Balthazar would have produced a wildly different cover-story, destroying the credibility of them both. Now to fabricate something in the report that would sound something like the truth…

one | two

& hello Tuscany!

2012-11-25T15:54:51Z

GOSSIP GIRL FANFIC; CHUCK x BLAIR. Chuck goes to Tuscany with Blair, and everything breaks down because he did. Prolonged what-if meta analysis. Spoilers for seasons one to four.

for the Abed Nadir challenge at tvholics: to change one tiny action in canon, and analyse the consequences. This one is about all the consequences that flow from one single action, spanning Gossip Girl from seasons one to five. Partially fic, and partially meta analysis because I broke down and ran out time. Four more hours of international law applicable during armed conflict await!

GOSSIP GIRL

CANON

1.18 much "I do" about nothing.

Chuck and Blair are in love and about to go to Tuscany after his father's wedding, but wise words from his father makes Chuck think that being a relationship will spell the end of his hedonistic bachelor days. In response, he effectively abandons Blair, who goes to Tuscany nonetheless, but when he still doesn't appear, finds herself a new boy toy. When she comes back, Chuck is jealous, but unable to admit that he loves her, and loses her for it. Eventually, he realises in mid-Season Two that he and Blair are deeply in love with each other, but he's not ready for a relationship.

3.13 inglorious bassterds.

After a year's conflict, Chuck finally tells Blair he loves her, and they date. It's dashed to pieces when he loses his late father's legacy to his evil Uncle Jack. In Inglorious Bassterds, Blair finds out that if she sleeps with Jack, he'll sign the Hotel Empire back to Chuck. She does go to him behind Chuck's back, and Jack gives the deed to the hotel in exchange. He also reveals that the whole plan was Chuck's to begin with, and that Jack had bet that Blair wouldn't come, that he would give Chuck the hotel if she did. He wins, because his only goal had been to destroy what his nephew loved the most.

WHAT IF CHUCK HAD GONE TO TUSCANY WITH BLAIR?

I. breakfast with Tiffany's boring cousin Paul

"Claimed the jumpseat already, have you?"

Blair started at the low male voice from behind her, dangerously close to her ear, and she whirled around in shock and anger— only to see Chuck. Her response devolved into a roll of her eyes. "There you are. I thought you weren't coming, and had left some underling of your dad to take my place."

His gaze raked over the underling in question she'd been talking to (slick, well-groomed, vaguely reptilian, possibly to compensate for a lack of good looks) and didn't even dignify that with a response. As if said underling could. He thrust the roses he was carrying at Blair, a little awkwardly (he had never done this wooing with bouquets and chocolate before) and kissed her full on the mouth, not caring who on the helipad saw. He was Chuck Bass, and he had a girlfriend he was going with to Tuscany. And he was a man in love.

"This is nothing like the movie," complained Blair, with the air of someone who has run out of things to complain about and is grabbing at straws. She sipped lazily at her decked-up Cosmo, stretched out on the terrace of their hotel in a sundress. The view overlooked the wide expanse of the countryside, and the quiet of the morning was rare.

Chuck watched her from under the rim of his straw boater, a smile flickering, unaware, on his lips.

"But I'm glad you brought me," she went on, angling her head ever so slightly to look at him. "Remind me to thank Bart for getting married. If you hadn't made that best man's toast…"

"I'll tell Dad you said that." Thank Bart indeed. But his father had been wrong when he said they were going to come back from this trip with him a changed man. No more partying, no more drinking… not a chance. He was Chuck Bass, and he wasn't going to let that happen. "Hey… want to do something fun tonight?"

She half-sat up, her eyebrows dancing wickedly. "Always, Bass."

"How was your trip, B? How's Mr. B, your new boyfriend… ugh, okay, no, it's still icky to say that." Serena shook her head, as if to throw off Chuck cooties. Blair thought that motion was rendered futile by where Serena was currently reclining: Blair's bed.

"Boyfriend, schmoyfriend, I may be reconsidering this whole thing. Whoever heard of taming a Bass?"

"Uh, my mom—?" laughed Serena. "You know, who is currently married to a Bass…"

Blair pretended like she hadn't heard. "Maybe I'm overrating him, S. That speech he gave at the wedding about true love and forgiveness was great, and so was the birthday necklace, but this is… Chuck. The most meaningful conversation we've had has been about plotting to take down Georgina Sparks." Serena's smile slipped at the name, and Blair pounded on her theme bravely nonetheless. "Tuscany was… fun. Lots of fun. But I guess I thought it'd be… you know, more."

"You thought it'd be like a new relationship?"

"Kinda! Yes."

"But it wasn't?"

She flopped down on the bed, making it bounce. "Not for lack of trying. If we weren't indoors with the Do Not Disturb sign nailed to the front door, it was party after party. Which was definitely fun, but if that's his idea of a relationship…" She trailed off meaningfully.

"Oh come on, B, what you're saying is that you miss the drama?"

"No, of course I'm not."

Serena raised an eyebrow sceptically. Blair crossed her arms defensively.

"I'm saying it was some cheap Rock Hudson-Doris Day matinee… he's no George Peppard, and it wasn't worth Audrey Hepburn."

II. "not enough!" is better than too fucking much

The door to his room was locked. From the inside. Blair's stomach twisted to imagine what it must have taken for him to get like that, but she didn't knock. She poured the scotch and she left it on the table next to a DVD of Breakfast at Tiffany's, which was ostensibly the selfish choice, but it had subtext that she knew Chuck could use. He was obviously going too soft on his Uncle Jack. This was his father's legacy hanging by less than a thread, but she knew he had it in him to nail Jack to the wall. She knew there were reserves of merciless darkness in him, and he only had to use it once.

Just this once.

It was necessary.

She slipped off her shoes, and slid her feet up on the couch, stretching her legs. She settled back against the cushions to wait for Chuck to come out. Maybe they could talk. Maybe he'd found a way out. Maybe there was hope. Or maybe everything was lost, but she could be there for him.

"He's a bastard."

"Tell me why."

"Blair— I can't."

"Yes, you can. You always can. This is me."

"Not this one. This one, god, my father would find some twisted bitter pleasure in knowing he was right about me."

"Chuck. Remember what I will always tell you. The darkest thought you'll ever have, I'll be there for you."

"I. Fucked. Up. Blair. I was angry, I was furious, I knew what he wants — he wants to take away anything that makes me happy, I know he does — he wants to rip you from me, he knows you are the one thing more important to me than my father's legacy — I was angry, Blair. That's the only thing I have to say. I said something I shouldn't have, and I've lost the Empire, but it's just a hotel now. And I'm going to lose you, too."

"Chuck. Please. Tell me. What happened? What did Jack do?"

"Jack doesn't need to do anything. He's shown me I'm perfectly capable of losing you by just being me."

"You haven't lost me. I'm here. I'm right here. Your hand, my hand. I am right here, and I'm not leaving you."

"I told him — I told him I — the title deed for — oh god, Blair. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I so sorry."

"For what, Chuck? For what? What did you tell him?"

"I — for you."

"No."

"I was angry. I was blind, I couldn't imagine losing everything my father had worked so hard for, and I said it. But I didn't mean it. I swear I didn't. And the second I said it out loud, I didn't even know where it had come from. I didn't mean it, and I don't. You. You matter more to me than the Empire, even if I lose you. Jack can go to hell, and he can have the hell. Forgive me, Blair. Not your love, I need your forgiveness more."

The Blackberry on the glass-topped table flashed silently with a new text.

Jack. She scooped it up before he could. I'll consider it, nephew dearest, but only if she comes, but doesn't know.

He snatched it out of her hands, reading it for himself, face turning white. "I'm telling him it's out of the question, and I'll get my things. I am truly, truly sorry."

The doors to the elevator slid open, and Blair stepped through, resplendent. Jack glanced up from the billiards table, eyebrows arched in pleasant surprise.

"Signature first."

He shrugged.

"Chuck will never need to know."

He smiled.

You think you're saving him by coming here, but you've just made the first crack, and one day your love for him is going to grow so much that the crack becomes a rift that breaks you both.

&. more

What if Chuck had gone with Blair to Tuscany? They would have gone on a fun, breezy trip; she wouldn't have pushed him to say "I love you" and he wouldn't have realised that although he felt it too, he wasn't ready for a relationship. Three outcomes are possible:

-Their romance fizzles out after the summer.

-Their romance lasts the summer, but he resents her for killing his playboy lifestyle and "burdening" him with a relationship.

-She falls in love with him, and his ego wouldn't have gotten in the way of him saying it back. This sets up an inequality, because while she's emotionally mature enough for a relationship, he clearly isn't at this point.

What happens in canon after Blair comes back from Tuscany with her boy toy? Inglorious Bassterds as described above. The effect is that Chuck realises that all his life, he has prioritised his father over the girl he loves; a heartbroken Blair realises that it is possible to love someone too much.

Skip some details, and fast forward a year. Blair hates Chuck, and eventually reconciles with him, but realises after a series of incidents that he's still an immature boy in many ways. But several more things happen, and Blair is in a position where she has to choose between her new man, Louis Grimaldi, and the fact that she's clearly not over Chuck. In fact, she says herself that she and Chuck share a "great love" and the "mere happiness" that she feels with Louis can't compare to a great love. She's prepared to leave Louis for Chuck, but the latter stops her, prioritising "happiness" over the "great love." Cue Blair in a fairytale romance with Louis, and Chuck Bass, single, actually turning over several new leaves and going into therapy to deal with his severe issues of abandonment and leftover feelings of rejection from his father.

This brings me back to my original point. If Chuck had gone with Blair to Tuscany, and if they had lasted the summer, he would have not realised how emotionally crippled he obviously is. Similarly, Blair would have never realised that loving someone else is amazing, but she loves someone else to the point that she would prioritise him over herself, when he wouldn't do the same for her. Chuck would not have understood that someone did love him unconditionally and unlimitedly, and realise his own inadequacy. He would have not disappeared from New York, leaving Bass Industries in a precarious position, and come back to find it in financial ruin. He wouldn't have had to find an emergency backer, and he wouldn't have reconciled with his Uncle Jack, the only family he had left. He wouldn't have eventually been able to throw his own feelings for Blair under the bus so that she could go on to be happy— without him. He wouldn't have learned to become a genuinely good person, and step out of his father's shadow as well.

-He realises that he has given up his old hedonism but he's happy with her. She would want more from the relationship, but his level of emotional maturity would not have changed. He will have no idea what it feels like to lose Blair, and the need to become a better person who might one day deserve her.

This is because he won't be placed in a situation where he has to either confront his true feelings or lose her. He wouldn't understand that she was capable of loving him no matter how dark he became, and he wouldn't understand that if he really loved her, he had to let her go if someone else could make her happy when he couldn't. It also has a bearing on their individual character development: Blair realises that she needs to be established in her own right and not be defined by a boyfriend or his choices, and that it's important to preserve her self-worth; Chuck eventually learns that his father loved him very much but held the wrong values nonetheless, and that he can keep Blair only by stepping out of his father's shadow, and that is not at all the wrong life decision to make.

& with the word all my love came rushing out

2012-11-13T08:11:36Z

[30] misc. tv and movies
[6] Once Upon a Time [3] Gossip Girl [3] The Vampire Diaries [2] Game of Thrones [2] Merlin
[5] Misc tv {Doctor Who, How I Met Your Mother, Nikita, Pretty Little Liars, Supernatural}
[4] Superhero movies {Avengers, Batman: The Dark Knight, X-Men: First Class}
[4] Misc movies {Breakfast at Tiffany's, Cruel Intentions, James Bond: Skyfall, Matrix}

for the epic grand finale challenge at trope_overdosed
spoilers abound underneath the cut

made in what seems like record speed and super-late, and god I wish I had procrastinated less each time this comm had a challenge (even for this one, so I could've made more.) Any place whatsover that celebrates the genius of TvTropes pwns my soul forever ♥

[01-05]

[06-10]

[11-15]
[16-20]
[21-25]
[26-30]

alternates

1. Action Girl - Nikita
2. Smoking is Cool - Breakfast at Tiffany's*
3. Sharp-dressed Man - Once Upon a Time
4. Heterosexual Life Partners - Gossip Girl
5. Awesome is Volatile - Avengers
6. Femme Fatale - Cruel Intentions
7. Gorgeous Period Dress - Once Upon a Time
8. Sliding Scale of Shiny Versus Gritty - Merlin
9. Camera Screw - The Vampire Diaries
10. Tastes Like Diabetes - Vampire Diaries
11. Gaussian Girl - Pretty Little Liars
12. Real Is Brown - Game Of Thrones
13. Plot-Sensitive Items - The Vampire Diaries
14. Yellow Lighting, Blue Lighting - Game of Thrones
15. Iris Out - Supernatural
16. You Can't Go Home Again - Once Upon a Time
17. Bittersweet Ending - X-Men (First Class)
18. All Just a Dream - Matrix
19. Action Survivor - The Vampire Diaries
20. Earn Your Happy Ending - Gossip Girl
21. Put On a Bus - Once Upon a Time
22. Back For the Finale - Once Upon a Time
23. Your Princess Is In Another Castle - Batman (The Dark Knight)**
24. The Future Is Noir - Once Upon a Time
25. Rebuilt Set (strangled by the red thread) - Merlin
26. Paint It Black - Doctor Who
27. Pan Up to the Sky Ending - James Bond (Skyfall)
28. Riding Into the Sunset - How I Met Your Mother
29. Above the Ruins - Gossip Girl
30. Epilogue Text - X-Men (First Class)

*fantastic rare inversion in Holly Golightly ~~stealth subversion in that she's a prostitute?~~

**traditionally, this trope applies to a surprise twist near the end, or else the plot has mostly been resolved, before the characters are hit with a cliffhanger *coughOUATSeasonOnefinalecough* but I thought that The Dark Knight also qualifies, not just for its ending, but also for the scene that the cap is from. It's mostly at the halfway point of the movie: the Joker is arrested, Gordon is alive, Gotham seems to be safe, ~~Bruce is mourning Rachel~~, and Harvey is hospitalised. Several critics have pointed out just how easily the movie could have ended here, no harm done, enjoyable experience had, but Nolan goes one step forward and brings out the big guns ~~of Two-Face and the Joker~~. Hello, Sir Knight, come to rescue the damsel? Sorry, wrong castle.

& lessons not learnt from the (first) apocalypse

2012-11-09T13:44:18Z

here's something I've barely ever done before... been an artist, and especially in a big bang, let alone a reversebang. And haaaaave you met tikistitch?

collab for the spn_reversebang

lessons not learnt from the (first) Apocalypse for the spn_reversebang
In a world where the archangel Gabriel kills Azazel, Sam and Dean never become hunters. Sam does become a prosecutor, whose newest client, Nick, is accused of murdering his family. Dean follows his father's footsteps (sort of) to become a Ghostfacer, and discovers his team-mate Castiel is actually an angel. But even in this reality, the Apocalypse can't be avoided, and Castiel is unwilling to step up and fight his own brother - not even to save the life of Dean's.

which paved the way for...

by tikistitch

“Cas, so what's this crap about being an angel?” Dean asked around a mouth full of flakey pastry.
“You do not believe me, Dean?” asked Cas, his eyes pools of sadness.

“There is no such thing as angels, Cas. I don't care what Roma Fucking Downey says.”

Castiel stared. He was rather good at staring. “Dean, I fail to understand,” he said. “You and I have encountered ghosts, demons, vampires, werewolves, and other such creatures. Why can you not believe that angels too exist?”

“Aw, come on, Cas! Besides, if you think you're an angel, where are your little fluffy wings?” Dean made little flapping gestures with his hands.

“My wings are broad and powerful as one of your 747 jets,” said Cas, who sounded mildly offended.
javascript:void(0);
“Wouldn't fit into the booth?” grinned Dean.

“They exist on another spiritual plane!”

“Cas, are you listening to yourself? Dude, I thought you were the one reasonable GhostFacer.”

“All right,” said Cas. He scowled and leaned forward, placing two fingers on Dean's forehead.

It's fast and funny and perfectly on-point and in-character at all times, and rewrites Supernatural canon exactly how the show would have done it itself. Seriously: it reads like an episode, courtesy of the Trickster, or even Balthazar himself. And nearly every character in the show's history makes at least one cameo, the angels are badass, the villains are persistent, Zacahriah is not very nice, but Lucifer reminds you that stalking is love, Dean is potentially the worst housemate to live with, Sam is mystified at the stupidity of some people, and Cas and Bobby have inside jokes. And Gabriel will mock everyone on his quest to excel as an... "adult entertainment professional."

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

All my ♥♥♥ and more words than I have to Pam for being incredible, talented, brilliant, a fan of Sonia Sotomayor, and also an incredible writer ;D

& a song for your heart

2012-11-05T15:59:03Z

For the Sam Marquez challenge at tvholics, with a tropes-inspired bingo card.

1. Mr. Fanservice | Community Jeff Winger and Annie Edison
2. Deadpan Snarker | Gossip Girl Blair Waldorf and Georgina Sparks
3. Spiritual Successor | Glee Rachel Berry and Marley Rose
4. Always Second Best | Merlin Arthur Pendragon and Lancelot
5. World War II | Once Upon a Time [Best Served Cold, It's Personal, Supervillain Lair, and Wham Line] The Evil Queen/Regina Mills
6. What an Idiot | Once Upon a Time The Evil Queen and the Genie
7. The Atoner | Doctor Who The Tenth Doctor and River Song8. It Makes Sense in Context | New Girl Cece and Schmidt
9. Enigmatic Minion | Supernatural Ruby

Hello and say hi to my favourite challenge yet because it involves spending an inordinate amount of time on my favourite place in the world. I know I ran out of time on this one, and so it definitely shows the sliding scale of effort, er… but one day these will make valiant reprisals as finished graphics instead of the bare bones versions. Um.

Explanations and trope descriptions are below.

This is my favourite part: where I talk. A lot. The tropes above are all in order, and this is to clarify what each represents or illustrates.

1. Mr. Fanservice {Community}
Specifically from 2.08 cooperative calligraphy, where the entire cast strips down to their underwear in order to find out who stole Annie's missing pen (I've heard of strip search, but this is ridiculous.) Jeff also spends a whole episode (ostensibly about gym class) playing pool in the buff. It is glorious.

2. Deadpan Snarker {Gossip Girl}
This show has plenty of worst offenders for straight-faced bitchslaps, but Blair Waldorf really takes the cake when she discovers that her new room-mate (ugh) at NYU (ugh) is her hated enemy Georgina Sparks (ugh) whom she last saw off at Bible camp. That didn't worked out, apparently.

3. Spiritual Successor {Glee}
Normally, media is a spiritual successor to other media: like Degrassi and Skins, or So You Think You Can Dance and whatever other dance show there is out there. Glee demonstrates an in-universe example where Rachel Berry graduates, and her former show choir scrambles around trying to find "the new Rachel," the spiritual successor of the original. They find this successor in the poorly disguised Expy, Marley Rose, whose presence is rife with Unfortunate Implications.

4. Always Second Best {Merlin}
Know that feeling, don't you, when you're standing in the cashier line at the supermarket in your baggiest clothes on a lazy Sunday and Heidi Klum pushes her shopping cart next to you? Well, imagine how Heidi must feel if 'you' were Adriana Lima. Arthur, Crown-Prince of Camelot, and Lancelot, greatest knight of Camelot, are paragons of humanity in their own right, but feel hopeless when they stand next to each other, both in love with the same Guinevere.

5. World War II {Once Upon a Time}
There are several and many tropes associated with the Second World War, and I strongly recommend the tropes page: it's chock-full of information you probably didn't know, splendidly well-researched, and offers pithy commentary on things horrific and awesome without taking sides. There are several tropes associated with the war, and they've all been taken out of their original context, and applied to Once Upon a Time. These four chosen tropes specifically illustrate the long-standing war between Regina, the Queen, and her stepdaughter Snow White.

Best Served Cold. Snow White is made an unwitting pawn in the murder of a young Regina's true love. Regina finds out, and proceeds to plot, plan, and get gather enough power throughout her adult life to annihilate Snow White's happy ending.

It's Personal. Regina is surprisingly not shallow for someone who dresses really nice, and talks to her mirror. Her whole life is a revenge-driven mission, and even when she's forced to leave the world of the fairytale for ours, she brings with her, her sort-of engagement ring (to a murdered man, at that, for dramatic emphasis.)

Supervillain Lair. The Evil Queen has a pretty cool one, in which she plots how to bring down a terrible curse on Snow White and Prince ~~James~~ Charming.

Wham Line. In the modern world, Regina (the Evil Queen) has successfully framed Mary Margaret (Snow White) for murder.
Mary Margaret: Regina, you have to believe me, I didn't do it.
Mayor Regina Mills: *smirk* I know.

6. What an Idiot {Once Upon a Time}
The Genie himself warns his new master that wishes have a tendency of going horribly wrong. However, once he's freed from the lamp (with two wishes remaining) and betrayed by his love, he makes a wish. If this isn't bad enough, he words it in the most romantic but ambiguous way possible: "to look at the face of the woman I love forever." Of course he gets turned into a magic mirror. The Evil Queen is positively thrilled at this turn of events.

7. The Atoner {Doctor Who}
Shades of this in River Song, and implicitly in the Tenth Doctor, who led to the genocide of time lords and Daleks in the Time War.

8. It Makes Sense In Context {New Girl}
The chain of events that led to Schmidt being hospitalised for his fractured manhood (no, that is not metaphorical) and Cece not being allowed to be near him without a hijab. Because that boy gets turned on far too easily by his new (and very hot) girlfriend.

9. Enigmatic Minion {Supernatural}
Whose side the hell is Ruby the demon on? Not even Hell (~~near literally~~) knows.

*the fight for you is all I've ever known

2012-11-02T16:41:20Z

GLEE FANFIC; PUCK x RACHEL, JESSE x RACHEL; written for the Typecast challenge at slushieverse, which is exactly what it sounds like and about beating the stereotype. This was both a horror and a challenge to write, accompanied by the mortal fear of going OoC. I've tried to stick as closely as possibly to their original canon personalities, and I hope it worked.

the fight for you is all I've ever known

"It'd be nice to hang out with you outside of… studying." It took all the willpower he had to not put 'studying' in dubious air quotes, or to add because you're just as lonely as I am.

Set in the world of 'Props', resident dapper nerd is math tutor to Rachel Berry, Goth extraordinaire and the love of his life. Is love really in the air, or is it just lust and pheromones? Relentless Lothario Jesse St. James and his Range Rover is certainly not helping matters any.

[Puck x Rachel, Jesse x Rachel.]

graphic originally made for curve for the gift exchange at gv_rpg

"Rachel?"

"Mm."

"That's not— that's not how you solve for 'x'. The answer's not Adam Levine in the buff."

Rachel smirked, ripping the sheet neatly out of her notebook and shoving it in between a pair of textbooks to keep it out of sight, and pushed the whole pile off the edge of her bed. Puck's fingers twitched in a valiant attempt to save them, but he refrained. "How else is anyone going to… appreciate all those tattoos?"

"Even Maroon 5 graduated high school, Rach. Why don't we just… focus for now?"

She pursed her lips contemplatively, making Puck suddenly nervous. He scooted inches away, even though they were already on opposite sides (him sitting ramrod straight at attention, and her languishing over the very lilac eiderdown.) He knew had lost her attention entirely: math tutoring was definitely over.

"Look," he said heavily, getting to his feet. "I should get going. Got stuff to do." He picked up the calculator and gave Rachel a semi-apologetic look for cutting their study session short. Even though it had mentally ended a long time ago, and it was only his hopeless (secret and somewhat embarrassing) crush on Rachel that kept him going. Sure, his mom wished he'd bring home a nice Jewish girl one day, but that description probably didn't involve blue highlights and a bad attitude.

"You can't leave yet," she protested, pouting up at him. Puck swallowed. He knew she was doing this on purpose, sprawled back on the bed, apparently carelessly, but he knew she was watching him like a hawk.

"No, I really do have to go. I'll see you next Friday. Or in school. Whichever."

"Noah. Wait."

He froze. His line of sight slowly travelled downward, his whole arm tingling with shock: her fingers were wrapped around his wrist, and her starkly naked gaze felt like she was reading his mind. He shook his head, tearing his eyes away. He wasn't going to do this. Rachel Berry wasn't just bad news, he had no idea what she was.

"Noah. Do you like me?"

What the hell, did she read minds after all? Or was his stupid (and insignificant) crush written all over his face? He didn't remember being that transparent.

"Rachel. I really gotta get going—"

"Do you?" Her voice came out small and uncertain, like he'd never heard it before. She tugged at his hand, and he sank bonelessly down next to her on the bed. "Almost no one does," she said quietly, and Puck tried very not to listen. "I know they think I'm abrasive and cold. But I'm not. I don't want to be." Her fingers tightened with imperceptible desperation. "Do you think of me like that?"

"'Course not," said Puck, lying through his teeth. Then, "I know you're better than that," more truthfully.

"I'm glad." The smile she gave him was soft, tentative, and so unlike her that he wished she was wearing less make-up. This was the Rachel he could fall in love with. Maybe he already had.

"You're gorgeous," he blurted, hating himself. "You'd be even prettier if you had less eyeliner on." Her hand curled around his much larger one, intertwining their fingers and squeezing. "You'd be the prettiest girl I've ever seen." Her free hand rose to cup his cheek, and she kissed him. It was his first.

"Rachel. Hey."

"What is it Puckerman?"

Leaning against her locker, he held up the grape-flavoured slushie like a peace offering. The tissue paper wrapped around it, obscuring the Big Quench logo, was the only thing that kept his hand from falling off from frostbite. "It's for you."

"For me." Rachel's eyebrows knitted in suspicion, and she glanced furtively over her shoulder, as if to check if anyone was watching her sign away her reputation. She gingerly accepted the Styrofoam cup like it was a grenade, and said flatly in afterthought, "Thanks. I wonder what I owe this pleasure to."

"Nothing," said Puck, a little too quickly. "Nothing at all. Just something… between friends."

Her eyebrows shot up at the use of that word, but she said nothing so he understood it was only her ego keeping her from acknowledging that maybe she was friends with someone who wore sweaters and bow-ties to school.

"Listen, Rach. I was wondering if — you're free later — if you want to come over for a movie. I have the Evil Dead trilogy, and it'd be nice to hang out with you outside of… studying." It took all the willpower he had to not put 'studying' in dubious air quotes, or to add because you're just as lonely as I am.

"Bruce Campbell," she mused aloud, and he was heartened to see her even considering it. "The first guy to defeat Spiderman, and the only one to do it in all three movies." She cocked her head, eyeing Puck steadily. "Make it Zombieland, and I'm in."

"I — I don't have that one." Or anyone to borrow it from.

Rachel's lips twisted in distaste. "Don't worry. I'll bring the entertainment, and you handle the popcorn. But no cheese since I'm vegan, but caramel's very nice."

"Rachel! You're early."

It was seven on the dot, and she was standing in his basement, staring down at him in amusement. Puck bolted off the couch, nearly spilling popcorn all over in the process. "Wait," he said, glancing in confusion down at her empty hands. "What about the movie?"

She raised a sceptical eyebrow. "Don't pretend like we were going watch that anyway," she said, simply pushing him back down on the couch, and straddling him as she did. "But you tape this if you want." Her long hair was ticklish against his skin as she leaned in to kiss him, her carefully-positioned knees effectively pinning him in place.

"Rachel, of course. I should have guessed." Kurt rolled his eyes heavenward, and tugged the catcher's mitt off his hand. Puck tried to look apologetic, but couldn't keep his eyes off the road as he pulled into the first empty space in the school parking lot. (First rule of driver's ed.) "Straight guys have an affliction, you know," Kurt went on nonetheless, "and it's called niceboyseeksbadgirlitis."

Puck opened his mouth to argue how the phenomenon wasn't just limited to straight guys, if Blaine's haircut was anything to judge by. Then it occurred to him that Kurt tended to play fast and loose with the description "nice," and said nothing.

"Exactly," said Kurt smugly as if those thoughts had been telegraphed right across Puck's face. They swerved to avoid bumping into the crush of people trying to reach their first class, but the knowing glint in his eye remained. "And sure, CS can happen another time. You go ahead and enjoy your friends with benefits status with Rachel Berry while you still can."

"Thanks, man… I think?"

"You're welcome. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a nice boy to find."

Puck wasn't under any illusions. Rachel Berry was not his girlfriend, and she never would be. She also had pride that was hugely disproportionate to her size. But for better or for worse, he couldn't deny he had fallen for her and hard, and for longer than he could remember. And she was worth whatever little they currently had.

Still thinking of Rachel, he narrowly avoided stepped into the couple making out on the stairwell, oblivious to the first bell signalling class. Rolling his eyes in disgust, he skirted around the pair who looked like they were going at it for America; they would have won gold at the Olympics for all their… loud enthusiasm, and he thought he recognised the fawn-coloured velour of Finn Hudson's jacket. The most effeminate guy in McKinley, possibly Ohio, had landed himself a girlfriend. Who knew.

It wasn't until he was in Calculus that he realised why the stairwell couple's moaning had made him so uncomfortable. He knew that voice. He recognised that voice. He recognised Rachel.

"What the hell, Noah. What's with the sudden cold shoulder? I thought you and I had a date with a six-pack of wine coolers."

He looked at the pissed-off girl leaning against his truck, and he was surprised by how cold it made him feel inside. Even in person, she sounded no different than she had on his voicemail, after one missed call twelve hours earlier. She didn't sound stood-up, just annoyed, like she had missed a very convenient hairdresser's appointment. And that, thought Puck, summarised their whole situation perfectly.

"We're not hanging out anymore, Rachel," he said, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his trousers to hide how tightly his fists were clenched. "We're done."

She shot him a scornful look. "Fine, then. When you can talk instead of sulking, we'll talk. Until then, whatever."

"Talk?" he repeated, angry with himself for taking the bait. "Are you kidding me? I saw you with Hudson. And it's fine."

Shutters dropped over her eyes. "That's not even your business, Puckerman. I don't belong to you."

"No, you don't. And again, it's fine. I get the hint. Feelings, for you, are like a sucker punch probably. You'll always be too scared and too immature to face up to anything that might be real."

"Berry. To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"Is your uncle home?"

"No," Jesse drawled, leaning against the doorway and slowly raking his gaze over her. "And I'm guessing that's exactly what you want to hear?"

She shrugged, flashing him an indifferent smirk. "Maybe," she said, and he wasn't shy about how glad that made him, sliding an arm around her waist and pulling her to him. She responded in kind, slipping her hands up underneath the well-fitted tee, her fingernails drawing lightly across his stomach.

"Maybe we should take this out of my doorway," he suggested quietly, fingers searching for where her top ended and her skirt began. "You know, somewhere where we're not saving the neighbours a trip to the cabaret, hmm?"

She tilted her head back, the challenge clear in her eyes. "I thought you liked 'dramatic' as much as I did."

"I do," he admitted, nodding cheerfully, ducking down briefly to kiss her neck. "But I also like having you to myself."

"Never going to happen."

"Wouldn't stop me from trying," he grinning, backing her into the house and kicking the front door shut.

"Spare me the double standard. I didn't come here for misogyny."

"There wouldn't be a double standard if you were my girlfriend."

Rachel flinched, shoving him off. She stumbled back, holding up a hand in angry warning. "We can't do this, not if you're going to bring that up. You like a challenge, and I like the fact that there are no strings attached, and that you have a certain degree of technique that sets you apart. But we are not going any further than that, and I'll clear all doubts and have you know right now that it's because you're a bastard."

"Ouch, Berry, that one's really harsh." Despite the insouciance of his tone, the frustration burned clear in his eyes and in the way he ran his hands through his hair.

"Don't give me that," she snapped, cutting him off at the pass. "Sophomore year. You used me to get to Tina (I mean, come on, Tina), and I'm past caring about anything you have to say on the subject. You're just lucky that the sex is good."

"Berry, it wasn't about using you. That's not what it was about. Tina meant—"

"Very little, just like any other girl. You're preaching to the choir, specifically a choir that's over that and over much else you have to say." She wavered, crossing her arms again as she always did when in belligerent doubt. "Now. Are we doing this or what?"

"Define 'slut', Miss Berry," said Jesse, smirking, and she shook her head in an unmistakable oh no you don't way.

"Look in the mirror, Mr. St. James."

She was interrupted by his lips capturing hers, and he tugged at the edge of her skirt. She caught his hand, guiding it to her hair, and his fingers tightened, as she wrapped one leg around his waist, and then the other. He hefted her easily, kissing her deeper, and she held on, certain that she wouldn't fall.

"Leaving already, Berry?" murmured Jesse, loath to get up from the tangled bed sheets that were still warm from where she had lain in them. He lazily watched her hook her bra in the dimly-lit room, and made no effort to help.

"Well, it's not like you're ever keen on my staying," retorted Rachel, fishing her skirt out from the untidy pile of his jeans and her shoes. She struggled to slide it up her thighs, hopping, irritated, on leg as she tried to get it to button up.

"Your mascara's smudged," he pointed out quietly. "C'mere."

She let out an impatient huff and padded barefoot to the bed. Jesse sat up, sheets falling away, but he was entirely unself-conscious. "Close your eyes," he told her and she did; he felt her tense anyway as he put a hand on her hip for balance, and pressed the pad of his thumb on her closed eyelids, carefully wiping off the ruined make-up. When she opened her eyes again, he was startled by how transformed she seemed. "Wow," he found himself saying involuntarily aloud.

"Don't turn this into a chick flick moment, St. James," she snapped. "I don't look that different."

"No, but you do look less angry without all the special effects."

"Where's my shirt?"

"I like you better without it."

"I like me better with it on."

"I like you."

"My face is up here," she sighed automatically, tired of playing this same game. She stopped short, however, when she realised that's where he was looking too. "Shirt. Please."

He silently reached back, plucking it off where it was half-draped over the headboard and bundled it into her hands. Rachel leaned forward, kissing his forehead, and climbed off him to finish dressing.

"Will you drive me? I walked all the way here. Actually. My potential ride may have broken up with me."

"Yeah. Of course."

"Jesse. Thank you."

"Want me to take you home?"

"No. Anywhere but. I want to drive off into the sunset, be someone I don't know, have an adventure."

"As you wish."

He floored the gas of the Range Rover, and they were gone.

finis

& drugs do odd things to me at the moment

2012-10-20T18:24:11Z

I haven't participated in a 20in20 comm forever, which sucks, because I used to be crazy about those and narniacmrand I used to compare notes and ~~squee~~ shock over the characters/number of characters we were doing a month.

Also, I'm usually OCD enough to super-categorise everything by comm, and by purpose, but I'm making an exception this time for this because this whole post (made over the month) shows a dramatic shift in my icon-making style, with the dramatic colours and the textures and (holy shit, I still can't believe it) some text. Which, I guess, is the whole point of theiconquest: get out of your comfort zone and improve.

[21] Glee
[19] Skins (UK)

MENTORS

Four icon-makers who inspire me, specifically for their use of text, and the different ways they use it. ofthesea for large, bold pale text, and 'spiky' handwriting fonts; afeastforme for blending on icons and variations in and gradients over the text itself; mancalahour for these few particular "Courier-inspired" fonts and emotional/inspirational scenes; tinebrella for the use of textures, creative, different fonts, and emotionally-charged scenes again.

This post is most gigantically telling of how much I love the Tony & Effy dynamic, espeically in season two (where she turns all his clothes pink) and the fact that while I damn-near literally ship Tony with everything that moves, (or says 'wow' or dances like a god), Michelle will always have OTP space in my heart, she's unbudgeable.

ofthesea | afeastforme | mancalahour | tinebrella

     01-05
     06-10
     11-15
     16-20

B | B | B | B | B

TINA COHEN-CHANG
for Round 30 at glee20in20

I'm tired of seeing Tina get flak in both fandom and on the show. Firstly, it's incredibly racist to pair off the only two Asian characters and give them stereotype-driven dialogue. I'm not a fan of Artina, because I was happy when Artie was able to rise above the handicapable stereotype and date the super-popular cheerleader, but I liked Artina for the sole reason that he wasn't a Pollyanna, and despite his chauvinistic edge, they had a nice relationship that realistically worked. Tike was ♥, but as an Asian, I found it offensive that the writers couldn't acknowledge that the character is an Asian-American, not Asian, period. As a woman, I find it offensive that Tina is known only by the fact that she cries or she's "sweet" because throughout the first two seasons, she was built up as a snarky Goth, who didn't take crap from anyone, not even Rachel. I felt that Props undid that tremendously.

On a related note, I find it insulting that the writers' progressiveness goes only so far as to give Mercedes some much-deserved spotlight - and then drop her just as the going got really good - but apparently since African-Americans have a stronger political lobby than Asian-Americans, Tina doesn't get the same attention? Fuck that, Glee writers, these people are all Americans, and they're all maligned minorities, so I don't see how you justify any of this to yourself. Also, please do yourself a favour and don't try to tell me that race has nothing to do with Mercedes getting better characterisation. Amber Riley is a fantastic singer, and a really talented actress, but it took her three seasons to break the mould of "sassy black girl" and get a boyfriend. Conversely, Jenna Ushkowtiz, being equally talented, still has no really noticeable friends or a relationship that isn't cookie cutter.

Most importantly, season four really took the cake. We all know that of the 'junior class' cast, Tina is the only one capable of being the New Rachel, because she has the most diverse vocal range and some seriously powerful singing skills that the show has remembered to under-utilise. More importantly, she was basically competing with Artie for "new leader of the Glee club" position, but the writers brought in Melissa Benoist as the lead. She also becomes the New Rachel. This tells me two things: the writers did not think Jenna Ushkowitz was capable of retaining their audience if she took centre-stage at McKinley (even though the show gives 50% screen-time to "graduated" Lea Michele, their biggest money-maker.) Secondly, it tells me that they wouldn't let a member of one of the original founding members of that club become the captain of it because she's not white. Again, please spare yourself the embarrassment of telling me that even among racial minorities, there isn't a hierarchy. What offends me the most is that none of us created this hierarchy because even spending one day as a 'coloured' person in a white country you realise that racism never really dided, but it's you who created this pecking order. It's you who reinforces this pecking order by making the choices you make in the shows you like watching.

Glee is both misogynistic (you realise this) and racist (you might not see this), but that doesn't mean it's all bad and not worth watching. It's a good show, twenty-five percent of the time, because it's message is selective (the long history of prioritising gay relationships over lesbian ones, still wtf-ing over here). But just because I like this show does not mean that you or I are justified in condoning its bullshit.

To that end, why Tina Cohen-Chang is awesome. Also, if you read the above, and if you agree with the above even though you are probably white and/or American, I knew we are friends for a reason.

10 THEMES

Center Crop	Cute	Friendship	Hair	Monotone


No Eyes	Opposite	Quote-Text Only	School Spirit	Singing

5 CATEGORY - Guess Who

Category #1	Category #2	Category #3	Category #4	Category #5

5 ARTIST'S CHOICE

Artist's Choice #1	Artist's Choice #2	Artist's Choice #3	Artist's Choice #4	Artist's Choice #5

& hope you guess my name

2012-10-09T16:44:59Z

For the Rory Flanagan challenge at tvholics to create an OC for an existing show.

A genderqueer mutant who causes havoc each time he swears, and a femme fatale who reminds you a little too much of the Joker. And… wasn't that high school principal once a gay angel?

Tasia Valenza | Batman: the Animated Series
Nicholas Hoult and Hannah Murray | X-Men: Evolution
Misha Collins | Glee {+1}

Beware: massive and horrible spoilers for every single thing referenced under the cut.

BIANCA STEEPLECHASE
voiced by Tasia Valenza.

credit (disclaimer)
-The incredibly gorgeous artwork is obviously not mine, but Dan Brereton in Thrillkiller. Seriously, the whole comic is just that lavishly rendered. It sets off Howard Chaykin's storytelling skills superbly. -Bianca is a character from an Elseworlds book, which is basically a series of AU one-shots telling stories about the standard DC Comics characters.

The New Batman Adventures (Batman: the Animated Series)
S01E21 The White Queen

Behind every successful ex-con, there is a more ruthless woman who's stayed out of Blackgate Prison herself. When Oswald Cobblepot falls off the going-legit wagon, taking up the Penguin's umbrella once again, his Iceberg Lounge, the classiest establishment in Gotham is in danger of falling apart. However, the manager of the Lounge steps up and takes centre-stage to save it from ruin. Bianca Steeplechase, have you been introduced?

Elegant, refined, bilingual, Bianca is equal parts charming and an excellent businesswoman. Not only does she have most of Gotham's finest on the take, she also doubles her profits by using the Iceberg Lounge to launder money. What money, you ask? Why, the money she makes as a gun-runner for the super-villains of the city, of course.

However, when the Dark Knight botches up one of her weapons deals by crashing in uninvited, a heavily disguised Bianca manages to escape only by swiping Batman across the face. Her fingernails are lacquered with a deadly toxin, and Batman immediately suspects Poison Ivy. He soon realises that he's dealing with someone as cunning and sultry as Poison Ivy, but without the morals or ideals, motivated by nothing but blood and avarice.

"You know the only difference between us? You do this for the glory, while I do this for the love."
121-2.

This is Tasia.
Hear Tasia speak

continuity:
-This 'episode' is set after Girls Night Out, where the combined effects of Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and Livewire (from Superman: the Animated Series) trash Penguin's Iceberg Lounge. He gets his own back by enlisting Batgirl and Supergirl, but knowing the Penguin, it's likely that he exacted his own revenge himself. Maybe in the process, that's how he fell off the legit wagon?

-In Thrillkiller, Bianca is depicted as a lounge singer in the Penguin Club.

-She poisons Robin when she scratches his face, and later, kills him with a kiss. The latter is especially suggestive of Poison Ivy.

-Bianca is obviously the Joker in the Thrillkiller canon, as opposed to being his female counterpart. The story otherwise has a 'Hayley' who becomes Harley Quinn, and receives a commitment ring from Bianca (a more pleasant version of the Joker and Harley's romance.) Other notable subversions of known villains include an Edward Nygma (Riddler) who is a psychiatrist and a disfigured Harvey Dent (Two-Face) as a corrupt cop. -In my context, Bianca is neither a female Joker nor his counterpart. Her identity is entirely separate from him. Her motivation, as indicated in Thrillkiller, is nothing like the Joker's.

-Tasia Valenza is Poison Ivy in the Arkham Asylum and Arkham City games.

why:
-Tasia has the ultimate femme fatale voice: low, sultry, and certainly certainly. Other candidates were Gina Gerson, Kelly Huston, and Eliza Dushku (all notably good voices behind Catwoman in the DCAU.)

-Why Bianca? One word: Thrillkiller. It's very close to my heart because it's the first Elseworlds comic I ever read: it was in the middle of my supervillain-loving kick, so I wasn't prepared to love a story that focused on Batgirl and Robin so much. I think I ~~was~~ am still recovering from the Batman and Robin movie. This marks the time I fell in love with Barbara per se, for her own merits, and the romance subplot never fails to tug at my heartstrings. I do think a lot of my new-found Barbara love has to do with Brereton's art, because the animated series' portrayal of her is still the best imo.

WESLEY WINSTON
voiced by Nicholas Hoult and Hannah Murray.

X-Men: Evolution
S03-05

Growing pains are tough on everyone, but nineteen-year-old Wesley thinks he's really hit the freak jackpot this time. He's fresh off the boat from England and his accent couldn't make it harder for him to fit in. He's always been unhappy with the man in the mirror, wishing he could see someone else instead. He's told he has gender-identity disorder, which he hears is psychobabble bogus to deal with criticism of gender roles. But America somehow turns out to be even more conservative than London, so he's not sure how to talk to anyone about his feelings of gender dysphoria. Hell, it's not like he even has a friend to confide in, in the first place.

And the girl in the mirror, Antonia? He's born with the X-gene, but she happens to manifest it. What if his old shrink was right, that resolving his dysphoria will make him a mutant, and by ignoring Antonia, he has a hope of relatively regular life? Nick Fury thinks, in Winston, he's found someone as fractured and destructive as the Scarlet Witch, whereas Charles Xavier is reminded of so many directionless adolescents he's had the privilege to guide. Wesley thinks of himself as neither: he just wants to find a way to fit in, because being homogeneous probably beats being miserable and confused every minute of his life. Being able to start fires every time he says "Fuck it" has never been more problematic…

"You're only interested in me because of some accident of birth. But I'm not your charity case. I'm not your problem. Fuck you, I'm not a problem. Oh, shit."

"It's quite all right, Mr. Winston, the fire extinguisher is right over there."

continuity:
-The series ended in Season Four, but began to focus really on the New Mutants (i.e. not the most popularised line-up that most people know) in Season Three. It makes sense for Wesley to be a new mutant, or else risk upsetting the gigantic apple cart of X-Men continuity (even if we limit it to just animated canon.)

-It mentions a hypothetical Season Five because the series finale shows the Brotherhood (including the Scarlet Witch) going to work for SHIELD under Nick Fury. My idea retcons Wesley into Season Three, and therefore places him in the "future lives of the characters" as seen in the series finale.

-Nicholas Hoult is Hank McCoy (the Beast) in X-Men: First Class.

why:
-Wesley is specifically a New Mutant because the original line-up of these characters (in the comic books) is Karma, reasonably notable for many reasons, including the fact that she's lesbian. Of course, she never appears in X-Men: Evolution, which I thought was a conservative shame. (In contrast, Batman: the Animated Series creator and writer Paul Dini confirmed that Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn were in a relationship, even though they haven't been labelled as such anywhere. The evidence is pretty explicit, though: in the cartoon itself, the whole time Harley's living in Pam's house, neither woman is wearing pants, and Harley is wearing what looks like an oversized man's shirt, a huge throwback to typical post-coital scenes where the girl is walking around in her boyfriend's clothes.)

-He's relevant to Evolution, not the Fox animated series because the former is a better portrayal of issues that normal teenagers face, issues that don't stem from being a mutant or someone else trying to steal their girlfriend (or mind-steal their boyfriend.)

-Why Nicholas Hoult and Hannah Murray? They've shown off their exceptional acting chops in depicting confused, neglected, emotionally destroyed teenagers; notably Nicholas has done so many times over.

-You pwn my heart if catch all three (rather obvious) Skins references.

PRINCIPAL LEVIATHAN
guest-starring Misha Collins.

This is not for points because I'm basically repeating a character I wrote for the spin-off challenge at gleeverse. Leviathan will always be right next to my heart because he's my answer to every author's darling OC ever created, heroic or antagonistic even. He's got Sue Sylvester's priorities tempered with Shannon's sympathy (because love makes you want to be a better man) and I wrote him before Cooter Menkin arrived because I wanted Shannon to have a love interest worthy of her, but now that I've seen all of Cooter, I still want Shannon to meet my guy.

Also, his character description is just one big game of spot the references ;P

Glee
S04

Call me Lev, please.

Ohio's Board of Education has finally come to its senses, ever since the terror that was Sue Sylvester. When Figgins retired to start a full-time pepper farm, they replaced him with a man known for getting results. So meet the new boss. He's mean, he's cranky, and he's got an awful sense of humour. He's also putting the focus on improving academic scores, and strengthening sports (because Shannon may not want him yet, but nothing says "I love you" like a restraining order.) What must go? The glee club. When not investing his energies in making things as difficult as possible for singing misfits to sing, Principal Leviathan also enjoys Wagner, Cabernet, and spending the evening giving Shannon a mani-pedi, if she'll let him.

hipokras @ 2012-09-15T22:59:00

2012-09-15T17:29:55Z

for the Manifesto challenge at slushieverse. I promise to come back, edit this post, and make the formatting somehow less abysmal.

The ultimate irony of my being a fan of Glee is to be seen in my list of favourite characters: Jesse St. James, Tina Cohen-Chang, Terri Delmonico, and Wes Warbler lead the list. Aside from the alliteration, overuse of the letter 't' and the villain factor, the irony (in a non-hipster way) is that they've either been whittled down from centre-stage characters to backstage, or they're forgotten and abused, or both. I am the ultimate sucker for the underdog in a show about underdogs. And you know who is the champion underdog?

Vocal Adrenaline.

why you should join Vocal Adrenaline

I love this group for the friendships (Andrea and Shoshandra in Acafellas) and their power-struggles (everyone's reaction to Jesse's ultimate showface in Hell-O). They're individually supremely talented dancers, and probably have egos to match, deal with faculty that push them and belittle them, and yet, despite that, they come together as a machine.

source | watch (I recommend that you do)

New Directions has the same problems: a powerhouse of voices, ego clashes, and… questionable faculty, and yet you wouldn't call them a well-rounded group. You can handpick the best singers (Blaine, Kurt, Rachel, Santana, and sometimes Tina and Artie if they ever get the spotlight again) and the best dancers (Brittany, Mike, and Santana), but you can't call them perfectly synchronised and you can't call all of them exceptional. In Vocal Adrenaline, everyone's a star. And I don't say that to be 'encouraging'. I meant it damn near literally.

source | watch

watch

source | watch

And that doesn't limit them. They're perfectly flawed: they're competitive, they can be childish, they're driven to be ambitious to the point that it's virtually a character fault.

They also work impossibly hard, they're dedicated, and they're there for each other. Why else would Shoshandra be holding back Andrea's hair? (With the talented lead singer out, that's the one less from the in-house competition). Why would they bother performing in some dinky Lima auditorium, when just TP'ing the place would do? (After all, their centrepiece left them to be with Rachel, it was his choice and they owe him nothing anymore).

source | watch

But that's not what Vocal Adrenaline's about. Everything you want to know about them is in each perfectly executed dance number: they're just soulless automatons.

source | watch (again, I recommend you do, for the flawless acting if nothing else)

And they begin and they end on that stage.

source | watch

In short:

source

brought to you by:

source

source

Rose (complexplane) already did a phenomenal dissection of Jesse's character arc, to which I have nothing new to add, except my heartfelt suggestion that you click on that link.

source