dear rule 63 author
Jun. 12th, 2020 12:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talkingcuteHi, author! I'm so excited for this exchange. I should note upfront that, so long as whatever you write contains the requested fandoms and pairings, I will probably enjoy it. Please don't feel boxed in by any of these prompts.
For the record, I tend to like: stories that imitate the tone of canon, loyalty, pining, ensembles, banter, unintentionally unreliable narrators, friendship, friendship becoming more, the aftermath of trauma, dramatic irony, unspoken but intense feelings, self-sacrifice, brothers-in-arms type relationships, flirtation, misunderstandings grounded in character, outsider POV, reunions, people taking care of each other, a sense of setting, canon divergence, secret relationships, road trips, horror, folklore, slow burn, character studies, missing scenes, Groundhog Day AUs, competence, emotional incompetence, epistolary fic/fic told through fake primary sources/stylistic experimentation in general, romcom tropes, bittersweetness, people who are not in the relationships that they assume they're in, soulmates and soulbonds, hurt/comfort, unspoken intimacy, and non-mundane AUs.
Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery
M!Anne Shirley & Matthew Cuthbert & Marilla Cuthbert, M!Anne Shirley/Gilbert Blythe
I really enjoy the canon storyline of Matthew and Marilla softening as a result of Anne entering their lives. How would the story change if the child waiting for Matthew at the train station actually did turn out to be the boy they wanted? Marilla’s plans for said boy, as outlined in the early chapters, are not very heartwarming — he’ll work on the farm, sleep in the kitchen, and in general is preferable to hired help because he can’t leave and they won’t have to pay him. (The latter part is implicit but IMO comes through pretty clearly.) Obviously m!Anne will not cause the same amount of shock on arrival that Anne did, but how long will Marilla be able to keep her stern outlook in the face of a bright, chatty, imaginative boy who immediately sets himself to naming every tree or shrub on the property? I’m really interested in how the relationships between these three characters might change or develop differently in this AU. How differently do the others react to m!Anne’s quick temper and “scrapes”, his sweetness and creativity, etc.? Is Matthew, as the only man of the house, expected to take the lead in bringing up a boy?
For m!Anne/Gilbert, I’m curious as to how differently their rivalry in the first book, and Gilbert’s long courtship afterwards, would play out if Anne is a boy. Does his teasing and m!Anne’s temper mean that they end up physically fighting as a result of some perceived insult, or are they friends sooner than they are in the books just because they’re thrown together socially more often? How long does it take for either of them to understand their feelings for each other, without the nudging and winking their relationship provokes in canon? Green Gables-era fic with the characters as kids would be great, but I’d love to see this how this AU would change the sequel books just as much; Redmond-era melodrama would be very fun, for example. It takes Anne in canon a long, long time to accept that she does love Gilbert as more than a friend, he loves her too, and they should be together; how much harder would that realization be for m!Anne? What would the later books look like without the canon Blythe marriage and resulting children? Outsider POV at any point would be very interesting here, I think.
Blossom Culp Series - Richard Peck
F!Alexander Armsworth/Blossom Culp
I loved these books growing up, and these two have such a fun relationship in canon; I love how much they bug each other, in a little-kid way, but at the same time how much they deeply, almost unthinkingly rely on each other. I just think their dynamic would be even more fun if they were both girls. I’d really like something set post-canon, with Blossom and f!Alexander as young adults, or even later. What happens next — more troubled souls to lay to rest? More charlatans to unmask? More brushes with celebrity? How does their relationship change as they get older, and is there, perhaps, pining involved? One of my favorite parts of these books as a kid was the amount of period detail; imagine the two of them in the Roaring Twenties, or getting involved in silent movies! I would be more than fine with a story that gets significantly darker than canon does, either in subject matter or in tone; creepy or outright horror fic would be great, especially if the story otherwise imitates the fast-paced, funny attitude of the books. I’d also love it if f!Alexander kept her canon counterpart’s interest in planes, automobiles, and technology in general, maybe even to the point of becoming a pilot herself.
The Body - Stephen King
F!Chris Chambers/F!Gordie LaChance
These two kill me, basically. I nominated the original novella rather than the movie because I’m mostly interested in post-canon fic, with the characters in high school or college. Getting together fic would be great, as would UST, or practice kissing/plausibly deniable messing around. (I should note that I’m okay with depictions of homophobia, as well as depictions of all the other dark shit that happens in canon.) Fix-it fic is fine, as with fic that sticks with the canon tragedy and resulting grief. I’d also be interested in a fic that took the story in a more traditional Stephen King horror direction, either in a subtle, ambiguous way, like the goocher storyline, or in an all-out horror-based AU. Sticking with f!Gordie’s POV would be great, as would anything else; f!Chris’s perspective would hurt a lot, probably. I’ve always liked the parts in the book where Gordie annotates some of his early writing from a distance, explaining which parts are intensely personal; I think that would be a really interesting format for a love story. AUs are great, but whatever you write, I’d prefer that the story be set in the canon era.
Since there’s a rule that all Rule 63-ing of unrequested characters has to be specifically prompted for, I should note that I’m okay with Vern and Teddy being written as girls, written as boys, or going completely unmentioned.
IT (Movies - Muscietti)
F!Mike Hanlon & Leroy Hanlon, F!Mike Hanlon & Beverly Marsh, F!Mike Hanlon/Beverly Marsh
We don’t see all that much of Leroy in the movies, but it’s striking that he’s seemingly one of the only adults in Derry aware that there’s something bad happening in the town. Mike obviously loves him— see the snapshot of Leroy that he keeps on his police radio— but there’s a lot of leeway you can take WRT interpreting his and Mike’s relationship, based on canon. Even if Leroy is just trying to protect his grandchild, he also creates a really tough, deliberately isolating situation, especially for a sensitive, recently traumatized kid. I’d love anything about: f!Mike growing up, Leroy telling her about the town’s history or training her to protect herself (from monsters, or from people), f!Mike trying to find out anything she can about her parents, creepy IT-related shit, creepy farm shit (folk horror, basically), Leroy interacting with any of the other Losers, f!Mike starting to push boundaries as a teenager, anything about the Black Spot, what life was like for f!Mike in the gap between movies (f!Mike/OFC or f!Mike/OMC are both great), Leroy’s death, excerpts from f!Mike’s journals or interviews, and in general anything from Leroy’s perspective.
Mike and Bev don’t interact all that much in the movies— although I love that Mike’s token is the rock Bev threw at Henry Bowers to rescue him— but I could see them being really close, especially in an AU where Mike is also a girl. I’d love fic about the two of them bonding hard during the summer of ’89; missing scenes in general are great. Or an AU where Bev really did kill her dad at the end of the first movie, and f!Mike (and the other Losers) help her to hide the body. Maybe Bev comes back to Derry for high school, or post-college, and she and f!Mike hang out then. They could investigate Derry’s underside together, or experiment with witchcraft. (I have to think that Satanic panic must have hit Derry hard, just for maximum irony points.) Or maybe they start a band. I’d be interested in an AU that pulls from different horror genres: Blair Witch-style creepy shit in the woods, Lovecraft AU, vampires or werewolves (Bev as a vampire, f!Mike as a conflicted vampire hunter?), post-apocalypse, or anything else you find interesting.
For the record, I tend to like: stories that imitate the tone of canon, loyalty, pining, ensembles, banter, unintentionally unreliable narrators, friendship, friendship becoming more, the aftermath of trauma, dramatic irony, unspoken but intense feelings, self-sacrifice, brothers-in-arms type relationships, flirtation, misunderstandings grounded in character, outsider POV, reunions, people taking care of each other, a sense of setting, canon divergence, secret relationships, road trips, horror, folklore, slow burn, character studies, missing scenes, Groundhog Day AUs, competence, emotional incompetence, epistolary fic/fic told through fake primary sources/stylistic experimentation in general, romcom tropes, bittersweetness, people who are not in the relationships that they assume they're in, soulmates and soulbonds, hurt/comfort, unspoken intimacy, and non-mundane AUs.
Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery
M!Anne Shirley & Matthew Cuthbert & Marilla Cuthbert, M!Anne Shirley/Gilbert Blythe
I really enjoy the canon storyline of Matthew and Marilla softening as a result of Anne entering their lives. How would the story change if the child waiting for Matthew at the train station actually did turn out to be the boy they wanted? Marilla’s plans for said boy, as outlined in the early chapters, are not very heartwarming — he’ll work on the farm, sleep in the kitchen, and in general is preferable to hired help because he can’t leave and they won’t have to pay him. (The latter part is implicit but IMO comes through pretty clearly.) Obviously m!Anne will not cause the same amount of shock on arrival that Anne did, but how long will Marilla be able to keep her stern outlook in the face of a bright, chatty, imaginative boy who immediately sets himself to naming every tree or shrub on the property? I’m really interested in how the relationships between these three characters might change or develop differently in this AU. How differently do the others react to m!Anne’s quick temper and “scrapes”, his sweetness and creativity, etc.? Is Matthew, as the only man of the house, expected to take the lead in bringing up a boy?
For m!Anne/Gilbert, I’m curious as to how differently their rivalry in the first book, and Gilbert’s long courtship afterwards, would play out if Anne is a boy. Does his teasing and m!Anne’s temper mean that they end up physically fighting as a result of some perceived insult, or are they friends sooner than they are in the books just because they’re thrown together socially more often? How long does it take for either of them to understand their feelings for each other, without the nudging and winking their relationship provokes in canon? Green Gables-era fic with the characters as kids would be great, but I’d love to see this how this AU would change the sequel books just as much; Redmond-era melodrama would be very fun, for example. It takes Anne in canon a long, long time to accept that she does love Gilbert as more than a friend, he loves her too, and they should be together; how much harder would that realization be for m!Anne? What would the later books look like without the canon Blythe marriage and resulting children? Outsider POV at any point would be very interesting here, I think.
Blossom Culp Series - Richard Peck
F!Alexander Armsworth/Blossom Culp
I loved these books growing up, and these two have such a fun relationship in canon; I love how much they bug each other, in a little-kid way, but at the same time how much they deeply, almost unthinkingly rely on each other. I just think their dynamic would be even more fun if they were both girls. I’d really like something set post-canon, with Blossom and f!Alexander as young adults, or even later. What happens next — more troubled souls to lay to rest? More charlatans to unmask? More brushes with celebrity? How does their relationship change as they get older, and is there, perhaps, pining involved? One of my favorite parts of these books as a kid was the amount of period detail; imagine the two of them in the Roaring Twenties, or getting involved in silent movies! I would be more than fine with a story that gets significantly darker than canon does, either in subject matter or in tone; creepy or outright horror fic would be great, especially if the story otherwise imitates the fast-paced, funny attitude of the books. I’d also love it if f!Alexander kept her canon counterpart’s interest in planes, automobiles, and technology in general, maybe even to the point of becoming a pilot herself.
The Body - Stephen King
F!Chris Chambers/F!Gordie LaChance
These two kill me, basically. I nominated the original novella rather than the movie because I’m mostly interested in post-canon fic, with the characters in high school or college. Getting together fic would be great, as would UST, or practice kissing/plausibly deniable messing around. (I should note that I’m okay with depictions of homophobia, as well as depictions of all the other dark shit that happens in canon.) Fix-it fic is fine, as with fic that sticks with the canon tragedy and resulting grief. I’d also be interested in a fic that took the story in a more traditional Stephen King horror direction, either in a subtle, ambiguous way, like the goocher storyline, or in an all-out horror-based AU. Sticking with f!Gordie’s POV would be great, as would anything else; f!Chris’s perspective would hurt a lot, probably. I’ve always liked the parts in the book where Gordie annotates some of his early writing from a distance, explaining which parts are intensely personal; I think that would be a really interesting format for a love story. AUs are great, but whatever you write, I’d prefer that the story be set in the canon era.
Since there’s a rule that all Rule 63-ing of unrequested characters has to be specifically prompted for, I should note that I’m okay with Vern and Teddy being written as girls, written as boys, or going completely unmentioned.
IT (Movies - Muscietti)
F!Mike Hanlon & Leroy Hanlon, F!Mike Hanlon & Beverly Marsh, F!Mike Hanlon/Beverly Marsh
We don’t see all that much of Leroy in the movies, but it’s striking that he’s seemingly one of the only adults in Derry aware that there’s something bad happening in the town. Mike obviously loves him— see the snapshot of Leroy that he keeps on his police radio— but there’s a lot of leeway you can take WRT interpreting his and Mike’s relationship, based on canon. Even if Leroy is just trying to protect his grandchild, he also creates a really tough, deliberately isolating situation, especially for a sensitive, recently traumatized kid. I’d love anything about: f!Mike growing up, Leroy telling her about the town’s history or training her to protect herself (from monsters, or from people), f!Mike trying to find out anything she can about her parents, creepy IT-related shit, creepy farm shit (folk horror, basically), Leroy interacting with any of the other Losers, f!Mike starting to push boundaries as a teenager, anything about the Black Spot, what life was like for f!Mike in the gap between movies (f!Mike/OFC or f!Mike/OMC are both great), Leroy’s death, excerpts from f!Mike’s journals or interviews, and in general anything from Leroy’s perspective.
Mike and Bev don’t interact all that much in the movies— although I love that Mike’s token is the rock Bev threw at Henry Bowers to rescue him— but I could see them being really close, especially in an AU where Mike is also a girl. I’d love fic about the two of them bonding hard during the summer of ’89; missing scenes in general are great. Or an AU where Bev really did kill her dad at the end of the first movie, and f!Mike (and the other Losers) help her to hide the body. Maybe Bev comes back to Derry for high school, or post-college, and she and f!Mike hang out then. They could investigate Derry’s underside together, or experiment with witchcraft. (I have to think that Satanic panic must have hit Derry hard, just for maximum irony points.) Or maybe they start a band. I’d be interested in an AU that pulls from different horror genres: Blair Witch-style creepy shit in the woods, Lovecraft AU, vampires or werewolves (Bev as a vampire, f!Mike as a conflicted vampire hunter?), post-apocalypse, or anything else you find interesting.
