#emotionally unavailable simon does it for me time and time again

[outlanderpromptexchange]

OUTLANDER PROMPT EXCHANGE: ONE-SHOTS

Welcome to the Outlander Prompt Exchange: One-Shot Challenge, a fandom event designed to be quick, simple and something new(ish) to help get us through another month of Droughtlander. The rules are simple: be kind and patient with both yourself and others... and get creative! ♥

1 - 7 SEPTEMBER 2020: PROMPT EXCHANGE

SUBMIT A CLAIM: From the 1st of September readers and writers alike are invited to submit a prompt via the blog’s inbox. This month’s theme, one-shots, is quite broad and it only follows that prompts can be too! This means any character, relationship, scenario, location, quote, etc. are eligible so long as they are (or can be) Outlander-related. Submit a prompt now! 

CLAIM A PROMPT: Prompts are available to be claimed from the Prompt Masterlist below at any time. Simply send a message via the blog’s inbox with the prompt # and it’s yours! Note: each prompt can only be claimed once and will be allocated on a ‘first in first served’ basis. Claim a prompt now!

8 - 30 SEPTEMBER 2020: PUBLICATION

PUBLISH A ONE-SHOT: From the 8th of September through to the end of the month writers can publish their work at any time and in any space. Please remember to use #OutlanderPromptExchange where possible, tag @outlanderpromptexchange​ and/or send through a link so that we may also share your work.  

Do you still have questions? FAQ available here!

PROMPT MASTERLIST

1.  Jamie and Claire are hippies who met at Woodstock.

2.  Student Exchange - High school student Claire comes to stay with the Fraser family for 6 weeks while Jenny goes to stay with the Beauchamp family in Oxford.

3. Fake Relationship AU: Jamie Fraser wants to formally adopt his foster son Fergus but his application isn’t likely to get approved... unless he’s married and/or in a committed relationship. Enter one Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp (Randall?).  claimed by @underthewingsofthblackeagle​

4. The first time Fergus and Marsali meet

5. I’m Concerned for her brother’s welfare Jenny pushes Jamie to leave Lallybroch\Scotland after Culloden. Where does Jamie (and Fergus?) go? What do they do?

6. Imagine Claire only promised to return to the 20th century and to see their baby safe. What if Claire refused to promise to go back to Frank? What if Claire successfully argued that she couldn’t promise to return to Frank because she has no way of knowing Frank’s circumstance after 3 years or if he will even take her back. Will Claire make different choices as a result?

7. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

8. To the victor the spoils.

9. Haste ye back claimed by @jamiemackenziefraser​

10. Cruel is the snow that sweeps Glencoe.

11. Adso to the rescue!

12. Jemmy copies his Granda.

13. Ghost 👻

14. Physician, heal thyself.

15. Tall tale.

16. Karma’s a bitch.

17. Imagine BJR does not travel to Paris. There is no duel. There is no pardon.

18. What if Simon MacKimmie had survived prison?

19. Brianna Ellen Beauchamp 

20. In A. Malcolm, Jamie was surprised to find out he had a daughter named Brianna... imagine if Claire had actually given birth to twins.

21. Upon returning to the 20th century and searching frantically for evidence that Jamie survived, what if Claire begged Mrs Graham to read her palm/tea leaves again. What does Mrs Graham see?

22. A pickpocket named Claudel. Imagine Fergus writes a book of his adventures.

23. In 1x01 Jamie’s ghost is looking up at Claire through the window. What was Jamie thinking as he stood there?

24. ‘We thought you were dead until we received your chest from castle Leoch’ -- Lallybroch, Season One. Imagine Jenny’s reaction to discovering her brother is still alive.

25. Kid Fic! Claire goes through the stones as a young child (or teenager).

26. More of Jamie POV pre, during and/or post wedding.

27. Coffee, tea or me?

28. Courage under fire.

29. Whilst in Paris Claire tells Jamie, Fergus and Murtagh the story of The Three Musketeers.

30. Murtagh hates the thought of Jocasta marrying anyone but him. A sudden proposal leads to Jamie and Claire witnessing a secret and romantic handfasting. 💕

31. Imagine an AU where Frank only tolerates Brianna. He’s not cruel just indifferent and emotionally unavailable. Will Claire stay? Go? Overcompensate?

32. Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening....

33. Penance

34. Sixth sense: Brianna has ‘the sight’ and knows much more than Claire and Frank realise. What if Brianna is asked to give Claire a message? What is the message and who sends it?

#outlander #outlanderpromptexchange #outlander prompt exchange #fandom event #fan fiction #fanfic #challenge #challenge: one shots

[minimoonstar]

Midsommar

I read a post the other day that said the least stressful way to handle “to-do list debt” was LIFO. So I’m writing up the most recent film I saw in the theatre while the thoughts are still fresh.

I liked Midsommar better than Hereditary, in the sense that I’ll never watch Hereditary a second time (it’s burnt onto my retinas so I can reference it at will!), but I can see myself rewatching Midsommar. Perhaps to introduce it to a friend, although every horror fan knows by this point whether Ari Aster is a waste of time as far as they’re concerned, and I wouldn’t spring him on the unprepared. For my part, I didn’t find it overlong, or unsympathetic, or unintentionally predictable (much of the humour in the movie comes from trope-savviness -- not just horror tropes -- and an armoury of Chekhov’s guns are deployed as visual gags). 

The thing I keep coming back to, is Hannibal’s equally divisive Italy arc. there’s one solid murder tableau remix homage, not to mention the flower crowns and mushroom tea, but the similarity is in the shape of the thing, a dreamy, droll, dread-laden slide into alterity with its own symbolic language; a land where inexpressible emotional truths are externalized as metaphor, gory or not. Put another way, Midsommar provides the caustic pleasure of an r/relationships ratio, except it literally **** the emotionally unavailable **** ** ****, not just as a figure of speech by the outraged commentariat.

Also, I suspect some aspects of the story are more elided in the finished film than in the script, which seems to be floating around (again, similarly to Hannibal, where the writers worked out how A gets to B gets to C so that all such mechanics could be confidently excised from the running time). Thoughts on these, with major ending spoilers:

Aside from the A-plot (Dani’s grief and the Dani/Christian breakup), there’s a B-plot (Josh’s anthropological research) and a C-plot (Pelle and Ingmar’s mission) that seem to me fully thought out in their implications. First of all, putting Chidi-from-The-Good-Place in as the stock anthropologist who gets offed for disrespecting the natives is an actually good “reverse the racist trope” joke, because care is taken to make the psychology sound: if any POC is going to not only ignore, but seemingly not notice the Get Out 2: Aryan Homeland Boogaloo situation they’ve found themselves in, it’s a postgrad who is big mad that their passion thesis topic has just been stolen by the second most mediocre white guy in their program. Isn’t that what academia is about these days -- trying to publish while ignoring red flags for one’s own health and sanity?

Secondly, the only ending reveal is what had been up with Pelle and Ingmar, though it’s glossed over because the movie is fully in Dani’s headspace. Pretty much any closed eugenicist community that doesn’t practice traditional marriage (1-to-1 mating assortment) will end up with young men who are genetically redundant unless they bring in "new blood.” Of course, the Hårga don’t just make an excuse to kick them out like polygamous Mormons might, so for Pelle and Ingmar, this is a mate-or-die variation where the best case is bringing a woman to join the community (be one’s mate), the neutral case is bringing a man who gets selected as a genetic donor, and the worst case is the sacrificial pyre. Ingmar, it seemed, wanted Connie, enough that he ignored whether she was psychologically amenable -- notably, the fact that she’d already chosen Simon over him, and Simon might not be easily induced to cheat. Pelle was a lot more canny, not just about Dani, but about who would be a prime target for sperm harvesting (and yes, I think the generically handsome horndogs of few scruple being white was intentional, both in and out of story. Scandinavia has an embarrassing history of eugenics, and Aster has done his research). 

I saw a theory that Pelle engineered the deaths of Dani’s family, which I don’t think the movie supports, but I would have to watch it again to see whether he caused the topic of the trip to come up at the party (once Christian proved too feckless to proactively speak to Dani about it). He does seem to me a practical romantic: he was prepared to return without a lady in tow, rather than select someone likely to join but that he wasn’t attracted to, or vice versa. Luckily, it had been apparent for ages that Christian didn’t deserve his girlfriend!

#Midsommar #Ari Aster #Hannibal #movies