Thanks for your response! I've actually already read (and absolutely loved) The Secret of Distance - verry happy to know that you're planning on finishing it at some point :) And if until then you have other post season 3 recommendations, I'll be forever grateful!
Ahh I see. Well thank you for enjoying it! 💛Here are some from my bookmarks! Hopefully these recs can satisfy!
The Language of Flowers by rainbowshirbert
The Dare by aceofsparrows
your words are better than poetry, my love by faithtriestowritestuff for huffleavonlea
The Puff of Life by Blackbirdy
Gilbert Blythe's One Man Book Club by rainbowshirbert
so for context, i'm a stagehand, i've worked for events as well as in community theater, so this is mostly based off of that. doing my part to add dps to the dps tag, and this was what i could come up with
ok they're all involved in a small community theater production of the tempest over the summer
neil is an actor, he's playing ariel, this is one of the first roles he's landed. he'd done theater in school as puck, which didn't go so well, but it's been a while since then. he's graduated college recently after studying medicine and is finally somehow at a point where his father has less control over him. despite this, he's somewhat unsure what he wants to do now, if he wants to continue with medicine cause it's what he knows, or try to make it in theater.
todd is the assistant stage manager, he was really unsure about taking the job, but the stage manager, cameron, who he was pretty good friends with, and who he'd worked on a crew with before, specifically wanted him. despite this, he's worried that he's too anxious and not assertive enough to do it
cameron is the stage manager, and a bit of a hardass, which means the crew loves him and a decent chunk of the actors hate him. he's good at his job, he's very organized and really good at getting shit done and people together, but he'll also chew you out if you fuck up
meeks and pitts are lights and sound respectively, they've worked on a ton of shows together before and are pretty close. every show they work together, they bring a bag of snacks with them for the crew to eat during performances
charlie is the prop master, and a stagehand. he has a knack for finding weirdly useful shit in random places, and is brilliant at constructing props. despite this cameron is constantly having to bug him to get his stuff finished on time. he and cameron have a sort of love/hate relationship, they clash really bad at times but they both understand that the show would not be as good if either of them weren't there
keating is the director! he works really well with newer actors, i'd imagine he's pretty similar to peter weir in a lot of ways. he can take a little too long to reach deadlines, as getting the show perfect is a lot more important to him, which annoys cameron a bit
knox is also an actor, he's playing ferdinand and is convinced that he and chris, who plays miranda, are destined to be together or something. chris doesn't see him like that though
chris is miranda, she was originally interested in the tech/design aspect of theater, but a while back they needed more actors, and she ended up volunteering. she started as crew when ginny first started acting, because ginny was nervous to do it alone
ginny is iris, she has more free time this show since her role is smaller, but is always at rehearsal whenever chris is there, so she ends up sitting around and watching a lot. she quickly becomes friends with neil, who is similarly always around todd
anytime he's not busy, neil is hanging around todd. he's started doing parts of todds job for him, getting batteries, taping doors, sweeping the stage, doing other miscellaneous errands. he spends so much time with todd that he somehow ends up as crew in the program in addition to ariel. he starts getting to the theater early when the crew shows up just to spend more time with todd. cameron has started treating him as an extra stagehand
wait hold on. arranged marriage anderperry au where neil is arranged to be married to a “princess” from another kingdom, but he finds out he’s actually marrying a very cute trans todd.
Two identical infants lay in the cradle. “One you bore, the other is a Changeling. Choose wisely,” the Fae’s voice echoed from the shadows. “I’m taking both my children,” the mother said defiantly.
i reckon playing a genderbent max jagerman would be sooo fun. it also adds so much more complexity to grace chasity, who is ALREADY a complex character. k bye.
•Neil is very physically affectionate and todd is really touch starved. Like really. He dies everytime someone accidently touches him while passing an object or smth. And neil is borderline clingy.
• Todd definitely took some time to get used to it and not in a bad way. His stomach still flutters most of the time, but at least he doesn't jump anymore. It took neil time too to understand that Todd doesn't hate his touches.
• Neil perfected sleeping on people as a hobby. Especially during the practice for the play when he had to stay up really late most nights. He just flops on the nearest person who is usually Todd and either puts his head on his lap or on his shoulder while curling up to him and falling asleep almost immediately. Todd learned to just stroke his hair or shoulder in response . He still barely breathes to not wake Neil up even though he knows that even Charlie playing a saxophone in his ear will not disturb him (from experience)
•Todd really likes playing with Neil's hands. It calms him down and makes him feel safe. He also just liked to play with Neil's buttons and loose threads etc.
• Neil really likes laying in Todd's lap or on his shoulder. He also really likes when Todd lies or even sits on him- he finds the pressure calming. Todd only agrees to do this when Neil is feeling down. Neil also liked playing with Todd's hair- ruffling it and trying to comb it, separating it to sections etc
• Todd loves just sitting shoulder to shoulder or back to back with Neil. It's actually how he got used to Neil touching him as he found it less overwhelming than other kinds of touches. Neil understood that without Todd ever saying anything.
•Neil has the tendency to grow sleepy everytime Todd is being particularly affectionate . He fell asleep in Todd's arms as he hugged him for comfort and he feels guilty about it. Todd doesn't mind . Todd uses this power just for the fun in it.
•Neil absolutely adores back scratches. He will literally do anything to get one. On their first few weeks Neil's back got itchy once, and he asked Todd to scratch it for him. Todd did just that, and Neil literally leaned back onto him . Todd does it unprovoked now but does ask him to repay the favor.
•Todd cuddles up to neil randomly during poet meetings . He absolutely adores sharing a blanket with neil because he is like a furnace.
i made a character sheet. free to use as you wish, feel free to change whatever you want XD open source ass thing. spent all of ~maybe an hour on it.
Credit: the text in the insert-image box comes from this video, and the text for the top three lines (intense, complex, fruity) comes from this post. The actual image was made with the free NBOS character sheet creator, which is a sort of dated but free and solid text-layout sheet maker intended for ttrpg style character sheet creation.
showing my sister nerdy prudes and told her a lot of people ship richie and max including me. she said i’m delusional and insane because max killed him (tried to explain it’s technically not max doing the killing to no avail). her main ship she’s reading and writing for right now is jegulus. at least my characters interacted bffr