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snicketstrange · 5 years

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The Great Unknown 2.0 - I was partly wrong

On May 24, I was eating an octopus at a themed seafood restaurant. All the waiters were wearing clothes by character, and I felt surrounded by an atmosphere of ASOUE. That's when I paid attention to the octopus suction cups on my plate. Then I had a revelation about the Great Unknown. Because of this revelation, I had to read again some texts, I had to consult a marine biologist, a mechanical engineer, and Laerte. Laerte is an English expert, who knew nothing about ASOUE, so his opinion was completely neutral. And after these considerations I came to the conclusion that I was wrong about the Great Unknown, at least in part.

To begin with: Lemony refers to the interrogation format seen in Queequeg's sonar with being an 'underwater craft' (TGG p 85).

Lemony wrote about the first appearance of the question mark:

"There was a third shape of glowing green light, this one the biggest of all, a huge curved tube with a small circle at the end of it, slithering toward the center of the screen like a snake. But this third underwater craft didn't look like a snake."

So ... There's a big difference between believing The Great Unknown is a submarine in 2007 and continuing to believe The Great Unknown is a submarine in 2019. The difference is the ATWQ series of books. ATWQ explains that there is a gigantic marine animal in the form of a question mark, which moves at high speeds, and is able to be controlled by sounds. So a person who continues to believe in 2019 that The Great Unknown is a submarine is consequently a person who believes there is this gigantic animal in the form of questioning, AND ALSO there is a submarine that was built in the form of a gigantic question mark. That is, whoever believes that the Great Unknowing is a submarine, do not fail to believe that there is also a gigantic question-mark animal in the oceans of the universe of ASOUE. And when I thought better of it, I realized that I have no real reason to disagree with it. In fact, it was I who created the theory called "Daniel Handler duplicates events to confuse you". So, from my lunch at the seafood restaurant, I came to believe that Daniel Handler doubled the Great Unknown to confuse us. And this is not just a non-canonical hypothesis. In fact, the Carmelita submarine explains everything.

The first correct question is: Who built the Carmelita submarine?

The second right question is: Why does the Carmelita submarine have no torpedoes?

The third right question is: Why the submarine Carmelita has the shape of a giant octopus?

The fourth correct question is: What did the sailors of the universe of ASOUE look at in the oceans in the shape of a question mark?

But before answering these questions, I need to confirm to explain what I have found about sonars and echolocation systems used by some animals. I believed that when Olaf spoke about the sonar that the huge question-mark entity possessed, he might be talking about a biosonar. But I was wrong. The functioning mechanism of the echolocation of some animals consists of the following: the animal emits a sound, the sound is reflected by the objects, then the animal hears the reflected sound. Even if the object in question does not emit any sound, it will be detected, for what the animal hears is the echo of the sound that it produced. On the other hand, there are artificial sonars of two types. One of them works using the same operating principle as the echolocation system. The other type works by listening for the sound produced by the objects that are detected.

The wikipedia explains thus:

"Two types of technology share the name" sonar ": passive sonar is essentially listening for the sound made by vessels, active sonar is emitting pulses of sounds and listening for echoes."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonar

Fiona explained which of the two types was the Sonar used at the time in the universe of ASOUE:

"We can tell if any other undersea craft are approaching us by detecting the sounds they make." TGG, chapter 4.

Olaf also did the favor of explaining the kind of sonar that he believed existed in the giant question mark format thing:

"I guess you'd better come with me," the count said wearily. "But no tap-dancing! We don't want to show up on their sonar!" (TGG capítulo 13)

Thus, Olaf certainly believed that the sound produced by the tap dance could cause the Queequeg or the Carmelita to be detected in their sonar. This means that Olaf was talking about a submarine with passive sonar, not a biosonar.

So who could have built that submarine in the form of a giant question mark? Certainly it was the same organization that built the sub in the form of giant octopus. In fact, when you come to that conclusion everything starts to make sense. There is an evil organization that is an enemy of both the firefighting side of the Schism and the incendiary side of Schism.

This evil organization has the habit of building submarines in the form of marine beasts. But the most interesting thing is to understand why this organization had this custom.

And to understand this you just have to understand why the Carmelita did not have torpedoes.

And the answer to that question is so cool ... I do not know if I was the first to realize it ... And if I went, I feel really proud of myself.

The answer is that there are no more firearms in the universe of ASOUE, or at least there are no more firearms in the region where the main story takes place.

But the firearms already existed, and were known. In the play "La Fuerza Del Destino" was portrayed a firearm. But at no time during the ASOUE events or during ATWQ, is a firearm portrayed, not even by villains. I'd rather believe that at some point VFD, by fighting against fire, managed to eliminate the technology of building firearms. So the villainous organization that built submarines of war, needed other mechanisms to destroy other submarines and ships, and even airplanes. Olaf explained how the Carmelita worked in this respect:

"This submarine is one of the greatest things I've ever stolen," he bragged. "It has everything I'll need to defeat V.F.D. once and for all. It has a sonar system, so I can rid the seas of V.F.D. submarines. It has an enormous flyswatter, so I can rid the skies of V.F.D. planes. It has a lifetime supply of matches, so I can rid the world of V.F.D. headquarters. It has several cases of wine that I plan to drink up myself, and a closet full of very stylish outfits for my girlfriend. And best of all, it has plenty of opportunities for children to do hard labor!” – TGG chapter 9.

The way the Carmelita attacked the Queequeg, using the tentacles, shows that the submarine was octopus shaped for functional reasons: in addition to allowing navigation, the tantacles were designed to be used as weapons.

But note the detail: Olaf had to steal the Carmelita. Did he steal from VFD? I think not. One reason is this excerpt from Chapter 9:

. "I'm going to lock all of you in the brig, which is the official seafaring term for Jail." "We know what the brig is," Klaus said. "Then you know it's not a very pleasant place," the villain said. "The previous owner used it to hold traitors captive, and I see no reason to break with tradition."

The idea I have about this dialogue is that the owner already owned a place intended for traitors ... As if that was already part of the submarine's design. It is unlikely that you will create a submarine already thinking there will be several uprisings in the crew, and already create a place to arrest those who revolt if the organization that you are part of is formed by volunteers. However, if your crew is made up of slave laborers, this is more likely. If you stop to think about the means of Carmelita propulsion, you will realize that it was designed to be moved to human labor. In fact, the whole scenario of children being rowing to move the submarine, is very reminiscent of a type of real vessel, called Galley. The wiki explains:

"A galley is a type of ship that is propelled mainly by rowing. The galley is characterized by its long, slender hull, shallow draft and low freeboard (clearance between sea and railing). Virtually all types of galleys had sails that could be used in favorable winds, but human strength was always the primary method of propulsion. Galleys were the warships used by the early Mediterranean naval powers, including the Greeks, Phoenicians and Romans.... It was only in the early 16th century that the modern idea of the galley slave became commonplace. Galley fleets as well as the size of individual vessels increase in size, which required more rowers. ... All major Mediterranean powers sentenced criminals to galley service, but initially only in time of war."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galley

If you've already watched Ben Hur you must remember his scene in a Galley. Well then, the Carmelita was built like a Galley. VFD would not do that. Queequeg's propulsion does not require a large crew, only one captain and two crew members. Did the Carmelita come from the incendiary side of Schism? No. Olaf would not need to steal the Carmelita from the incendiary side. The Netiflix Series left those details aside. They showed that the Carmelita came from members of the incendiary side of Schism, but for this they needed to change the original story. In the books, the Carmelita was stolen by Olaf. He can only have stolen from another organization.

And then things get more interesting.

We come to realize that there is a relationship of cause and effect: Why was an entity in the form of a gigantic question mark chasing after the Carmelita? And why was Olaf so afraid of this entity? And why was Windershins so afraid? The answer is as follows: Olaf stole the Carmelita from a maligian organization, which builds war submachines and uses slave laborers. This organization sent an even larger submarine than the Carmelita, to be able to capture the Carmelita back. This even larger submarine had been built in the shape of a legendary monster: Bombinating Beast.

This explains this passage from Chapter 4 of TGG:

"What was that third shape?" Violet asked. The captain shook his head again. "Something very bad," he said. "Even worse than Olaf, probably. I told you Baudelaires that there is evil you can not even imagine."

The organization that controlled that submarine was a common enemy of Olaf and VFD.

And now is the time for me to refer to another movie. The Bugs Life, 1998. (In the Bugs Life, you should remember that the ants have built a mechanical device to simulate a bird. The mechanical passer should cut down the locusts. This bird had used several ant-children as a means of propulsion and control. In a way, this is very reminiscent of the Carmelite. But in The Bugs Life, the real bird arrives and kills the villain at the end. It was something that would happen at the hotel.

I still believe that within the sugar bowl there is a whistle capable of controlling the true beast. I still believe that Beatrice summoned the real beast shortly after picking up the sugar bowl, and who came to control it.

This explains why Windershins first feared the entity in the form of interrogation. He said it was probably worse than Olaf. The word "probably" indicates that he had doubts, whether it was the real beast, or whether it was the evil organization's submarine. If it was the submarine, it would really be worse than Olaf. But the beast was just an animal. Although it was mortal, the animal was not worse than Olaf. After the destruction of the Queequeg, Windershins bet that the question mark was the animal being controlled, and therefore went to meet the animal. And one of Quaqumire said the name "Violet", showing that they were right: Someone like Violet was in the beast's mouth. But if it was the submarine, they would be dead. The certainty of Windershins came from the fact that he had already been taken by the woman who owned the sugar bowl. She invoked the Great Unknown. And by the way, Lemony called this animal that way, because it came across him in his teens. The sailors had seen from time to time the gigantic question mark, because it was actually a submarine created to resemble a legendary monster. Hector went to investigate one of these submarine appearances in the ocean using his balloon. Ah, another interesting detail: by creating submarines in the form of animals, the evil organization made sailors not even suspect the existence of submarines. They thought they were giant animals.

But the right question is: has the animal known as Bombinating Beast been around for a long time, or was it a hangfire creation? Because the statuette that imitates the sound of the Bombinating Beast has been around for a long time, we can conclude that it had existed for a long time. However, Hangfire picked up a rare animal that already existed, and made experiments so that it would get much bigger and much more frightening. The original animal was supposed to be the size of a manatee, so many of Moxie's ancestors did not believe that their ancestor had actually captured a monster, just a manatee. In the same way that legends of giant octopuses arose, there were legends of the giant Bombinating Beast. These legends inspired the evil organization to create its submarines, and inspired Hangfire to come up with a scientific method to increase the size and ferocity of the true Bombinating Beast.

So that's all.

#asoue theory #asoue theories #the great unknown #beatrice baudelaire #windershins #tgg #atwq #bombinating beast

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reallyawesomecostumes · 5 years

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Dean Winchester in his Coffin

A comparison between Queequeg’s coffin in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick and Dean’s coffin in Supernatural

(screencap from Home of the Nutty)

In Supernatural 14x11 ‘Damaged Goods’, Dean Winchester builds his own coffin.

It’s not really a coffin, it just looks like one. The box is a ma’lak box designed by Death herself to secure Dean and AU-Michael at the bottom of the Pacific for all eternity*. We as viewers of a long-running episodic television show are pretty sure the Winchester boys will find a way out of this mess in the next couple episodes, but Dean built it, so we have to talk about it.

There are closet metaphors inherent in this coffin-building (I recommend @drsilverfish here); there are show-internal parallels to Amara being locked away, Adam’s current fate in The Cage, the wall in Sam’s mind in season 6; the list goes on. I wanted to talk instead about how Dean’s coffin-building compares to some coffin-building in classic American literature: the story of Queequeg’s coffin in Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick; or, The Whale.”

Moby-Dick, published 1851, is a book that many of us were forced to read in high school or college. I escaped this fate but had to read “The Scarlet Letter” and “Bartleby the Scrivener” instead. I did watch the Patrick Stewart TV miniseries version as a teenager, of course. For some dumb reason** I became a Moby-Dick reader because I was a Queequeg/Ishmael shipper, so know that I have a fairly biased perspective on the book as a whole.

In Moby-Dick, our narrator Ishmael (a depressed unemployed Yankee) meets Queequeg, a cannibal

(Queequeg as a character is a jumble of noble savage tropes, the author’s own knowledge of Pacific Islanders met during his whaling experience, and ideas pulled from other contemporary books both fiction and non-fiction), when they become accidental bedfellows at Peter Coffin’s inn (Coffin is a prominent name among the whalers of Nantucket, in real life and in the world of the story). Ishmael wants to go whaling, and Queequeg’s a guy who is very good at whaling. They have similar life goals, if not similar life experiences . They’re textually married***.

Queequeg catches a chill crawling around belowdecks on the Pequod moving barrels to find a leak (the hold is described as an ice-box). While he’s dying Queequeg says he doesn’t want his body to be wrapped up in his hammock before being thrown overboard like an ordinary sailor, but put in a canoe-style coffin like the harpooneers from Nantucket use. He convinces the ship’s carpenter to make one for him. Queequeg kits the coffin out with food and water and his (most precious possessions) harpoon and paddle, and puts earth from the hold at the foot of it . He lays in it, and Pip the cabin boy sings nonsense briefly (a la the Fool in King Lear). Ishmael sort-of suggests that watching this guy die would make him start a religion. But then Queequeg decides not to die. He throws off the fever with his own will, and recovers (for plot reasons, but also so Melville could add more Noble Savage tropes). He uses the coffin as a clothes-chest. He starts carving the lid with the pattern of the tattoos on his body (these tattoos are religious in nature, but are unknown and unknowable, ‘a complete theory of the heavens and the earth’), making it into a sort-of body double for him.

Some time passes. A guy falls from the rigging, and the stern life-buoy is thrown to him, and both the man and the old, rotting cask that serves as a buoy sink and drown. It is suggested that the nice new well-built no longer needed coffin can be made into a new life-buoy. This re-purposing is lampshaded in text:

“Here now’s the very dreaded symbol of grim death, by a mere hap, made the expressive sign of the help and hope of most endangered life. A life-buoy of a coffin! Does it go further? Can it be that in some spiritual sense the coffin is, after all, but an immortality-preserver! I’ll think of that.”

-Captain Ahab, in a theatrical aside, Chapter 127: The Deck.

After the whale drags Captain Ahab down and sinks the Pequod, the very well-made coffin/life-buoy shoots to the surface, and the only surviving crewmember (Ishmael, our narrator) clings to it until another ship picks him up.

While Queequeg’s coffin is intended for mundane use (to preserve his body from sharks after death) and is eventually used for mundane purpose (Ishmael’s life preserver), Dean’s pseudo-coffin-building serves a more esoteric purpose - to lock himself and his angel double away from the world said angel wants to destroy (“for all angel is not’ing more dan de shark well goberned” - Fleece the cook, Moby-Dick). The ma’lak box is Dean and Michael’s “immortality-preserver”. We have two pairs of characters, and two death-coded vessels that serve to preserve them.

Remember that time Ishmael and Queequeg got married? Some authors have characterized this wedding as "the first portrait of same-sex marriage in American literature". That it causes some readers 'uneasiness'. The line 'our heart's honeymoon', describing the time post-marriage, was censored in the original publication. Other readers have taken the marriage esoterically, relating Ishmael and Queequeg's earthly marriage to the internal marriage of the self to the Jungian shadow-self.

Shadows**** follow the two protagonists of Moby-Dick, Ishmael and Ahab. Ishmael accepts and marries his shadow, Queequeg the cannibal, and learns the customs of the whaling-ship from him. He admires the unknowableness of the ocean and sky as well as Queequeg's unknowable tattoos. He frees himself from his initial depression, and is literally saved at the novel's conclusion by Queequeg's pseudo-body. Ahab, conversely, pushes away Pip the cabin boy (who serves as Lear's fool through the story, and speaks unknowably) and turns towards Fedallah the Parsee (described as Ahab's shadow in the book) who speaks concrete but awful truths. Ahab rejects reality and stays on a path of revenge even though warned multiple times that he will fail. He eventually dies, and brings most of his crew down with him. His lack of acceptance of his good shadow and of his true place in the world brings about destruction. Self-actualization results in being saved.

The (current) protagonists of Supernatural have shadow selves as well. Again @drsilverfish has an excellent post about this. Castiel's shadow is The Shadow/The Empty, which has appeared in his own form, and wishes only for sleep and nothingness. Dean's shadow, AU!Michael, only wants to destroy the world that Dean keeps sacrificing himself to protect. Sam's shadow, Nick, went through the same dark experiences Sam did, but unlike Sam wound up horribly twisted and murderous. We haven't seen Jack's shadow-self yet, but I suspect current sweet and kind graceless!Jack will have a foil in future uncaring soulless!Jack. The idea of marrying oneself to one's shadow, in Supernatural, is nearly unthinkable: they are destructive, inhuman entities. However, in 14x11 Sam managed to accept the reality of his shadow self and release himself from responsibility for Nick.

At this point Dean's plan is to death-wed himself to Michael for eternity, sharing one body and one coffin-bed at the bottom of the Pacific. We know from Jung and from Melville that the only way to survive the confrontation with the shadow is to accept it - to 'Know Thyself', without misconceptions about your place in the world. 'Gain[ing] the perspective on [your] soul and the universe that will make balance possible.' The coffin will become a life-buoy.

I suspect the ma'lak box will be used to trap something other than Dean or Michael (soulless!Jack, probably) at the end of this season. Even if it's current purpose is untenable, it is a tool that can be used in the future.

Comparison between Moby-Dick and Supernatural can occur on a number of different levels. Ishmael and Dean (and Castiel whose human vessel, Jimmy Novak, is of the line of Biblical Ishmael) are the heroes of the bildungsroman part of the story and are hangers on to Ahab/John/Sam's Shakespearean revenge quest. Each story is a very American depiction of a masculine world. Each mirror the world in a smaller vessel, a ship and a car. Jung's concept of the shadow self, however, holds as the key to this season through all of these eleven episodes, and the shadow self is one of many keys that promote understanding of Melville's Moby-Dick. Self-actualization saves the day.

* Note that geologists cry whenever people suggest indestructible things sent to the bottom of the ocean will stay there for all eternity.

** It was Yuletide, and I’d just binge-read the entire Aubrey-Maturin series.

*** I wrote about this last year when Yockey dropped Led Zeppelin’s Moby Dick into the story. Moby Dick, song, has nothing to do with Moby-Dick, book, except their mutual length, but Supernatural and Moby-Dick share quite a few themes.

**** yes, Melville does make the shadows of his white protagonists literally dark-skinned

References:

@drsilverfish, “A Fridge-Locker, An Enochian Puzzle Box, a Ma’lak Box… and the Closet (14x11 Damaged Goods)”, http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/182296360214/a-fridge-locker-an-enochian-puzzle-box-a-malak

@drsilverfish, “The Shadow (14x08)”, http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/180906003584/the-shadow-14x08

Brashers, H.C., 1962, "Ishmael's Tattoos": The Sewanee Review, v.70, n.1, p.137-154, http://wwww.jstor.org/stable/27540756

Halverson, John, 1963, "The Shadow in Moby-Dick": American Quarterly, v.15, n.3, p.436-446, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2711373

Horton, Margy Thomas, 2012, "Melville's Unfolding Selves: Identity Formation in Mardi, Moby-Dick, and Pierre": doctoral dissertation, Baylor University

Melville, Herman, “Moby-Dick; or, The Whale”, project Gutenberg ebook, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2701/2701-h/2701-h.htm

#spn 14x11 #spn meta #spn spoilers #my meta #moby dick #yep i actually wrote it #themes are for eighth grade book reports #and also for relating personal experiences to fictional experiences #as well as higher concepts #spn #supernatural

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reconditarmonia · 3 years

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Dear Rule 63 Author

Hi! Thank you for writing for me! I’m reconditarmonia here and on AO3. I have anon messaging off, but, er, I can answer any questions you might have about my requests in my mod capacity if you contact the exchange email ;).

Fullmetal Alchemist | Machineries of Empire | Moby Dick | Spinning Silver | Wolf 359

General likes:

– Relationships that aren’t built on romance or attraction. They can be romantic or sexual as well, but my favorite ships are all ones where it would still be interesting or compelling if the romantic component never materialized.

– Loyalty kink! Trust, affectionate or loving use of titles, gestures of loyalty, replacing one’s situational or ethical judgment with someone else’s, risking oneself (physically or otherwise) for someone else, not doing so on their orders. Can be commander-subordinate or comrades-in-arms.

– Heists, or other stories where there’s a lot of planning and then we see how the plan goes.

– Femslash, complicated or intense relationships between women, and female-centric gen. Women doing “male” stuff (possibly while crossdressing).

– Stories whose emotional climax or resolution isn’t the sex scene, if there is one.

– Uniforms/costumes/clothing.

– Stories, history, and performance. What gets told and how, what doesn’t get told or written down, behavior in a society where everyone’s consuming media and aware of its tropes, how people create their personas and script their own lines.

Smut Likes: clothing, uniforms, sexual tension, breasts, manual sex, cunnilingus, grinding, informal d/s elements, intensity.

General DNW: rape/dubcon, torture, other creative gore; unrequested AUs, including “same setting, different rules” AUs such as soulmates/soulbonds; PWP; food sex; embarrassment; focus on pregnancy; Christmas/Christian themes; infidelity; unrequested polyamory; focus on unrequested canon or non-canon ships; unrequested trans versions of characters; swapping female characters to male; unequal levels of investment in the relationship (including concerns about same that turn out to be unwarranted), or the idea of a character accepting something they're unhappy with as the most they're going to get.

A note: if we matched on an / ship, I generally don't require you to include a kiss, sex, or overt romantic language if you feel that you'd have to shoehorn it in. I'll trust that you wrote it with shippy intent.

About Rule 63 Exchange specifically: I have no strong preference for character names, with a slight preference for sticking with their canon names; it’s up to you whether you want to justify any resulting names that would be unusual for women or just gloss over it. As far as characters’ personalities and gender expression are concerned, I tend to want to see them as similar to their canon selves, just female. I’m probably fine with unrequested characters also being swapped to female, but feel free to check if you’re not sure. I don't expect, nor particularly want, a big deal made over characters' strong gender identity qua identity as female or whatnot.

It's a little confusing to tell with the AO3 interface, but I've requested General Audiences on everything, and additionally Explicit on FMA, Machineries, and Wolf 359.

—

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist

Ship(s): F!Roy Mustang/Riza Hawkeye

I love Roy and Riza's loyalty kink in canon so very much, so...what if they were lesbians

There are definitely some worldbuilding-y places this could go - the Amestrian military obviously has female soldiers in it, but not as many as male, especially at the higher echelons, apparently, and we don't see any female State Alchemists; does Roy's status as a powerful alchemist also vault her into a position of command and influence that most women, barring Olivier, don't get to? With regard specifically to how their relationship is different worldbuilding-wise, some kind of document or documents (newspaper, history book) or other outsider perspective on President Mustang and her decades-long professional relationship with Riza Hawkeye, so close they even live together/travel together/entertain guests together, neither of them ever married, that sort of thing? Is Roy's obfuscating public image in this AU still about going with a lot of women, or are they men? (butch or otherwise known lesbian Roy is great, but also not necessary)

But I'd be equally happy to see a fic that didn't deal with that, and that was just canon dynamics but more so and with lesbians. I love their trust and competence and stoically hidden but very very intense feelings, the willingness to risk oneself or the other person, or to stake a lot on the other person’s competence (and willingness to hurt or sacrifice the other person because their shared cause says it’s right, too, all the times that comes up), the fighting together in tandem. Is there a dangerous mission (or intelligence-collecting situation) where their deep familiarity/trust/awareness of each other’s presence and fighting style and communication come into play (god, that bit in canon where Hawkeye shoots two guys right over Mustang’s shoulder), or where they worry about each other’s safety? I love the "protect my back" exchange so, so much (I'm particularly interested in fics set during a time when that is already part of their relationship history, rather than fics set in Ishval or shortly after, and I am not really interested in fics set when they were children or young adults at all) and the way that, eventually, ends up playing out with regard to Envy. I love the intimacy of their work relationship and personal history, on levels from casual to very intense, and would love it with sexual tension in how they notice and appreciate each other’s physicality and presence and competence (hands??? muscles?) Pining up to 11, or resolved sexual tension? (I would prefer Riza as dom if you write a d/s take on this.)

Fandom-Specific DNW: framing of the Ishvalan genocide as a bad situation that happened to the Amestrian characters; canon-typical loss of body parts.

—

Fandom: Machineries of Empire

Ship(s): F!Shuos Jedao/Ajewen Cheris; F!Shuos Jedao & Ajewen Cheris

I know sound like a broken record throughout this signup, but I love Cheris and Jedao’s friendship and loyalty kink (“Now and forever, I’m your gun” and the kneeling! aaahhh!) and, you know, what if that, but also Jedao were a hot woman.

I don’t have a lot of specific plot prompts - just a general interest in intense feelings, “codependency” as understood by fandom, loyalty and trust holding up under strain, deferring to someone’s competence or sense of ethics even though you don’t know how it will turn out, making difficult choices, verbal or nonverbal displays of loyalty like the kneeling and swearing and the WHOLE KEL GLOVE THING. I’d be excited to read something set during the Ninefox timeframe when Jedao is in Cheris’s head, but I think I would be most interested in something set post-Glass Cannon when oh my god, they were roommates telepathically bonded, after all the plot events that create that strong Jedao->Cheris loyalty. Jedao’s canonical kinks are *thumbs up* (I’ve requested general audiences fic as well as explicit, so it’s also fine if they don’t come up or if they’re referred to but not, er, acted out onscreen).

Fandom-Specific DNW: I’m aware that there’s a lot of torture and dubcon in canon. I don’t mind if you mention that they exist but I’d like to reiterate that I absolutely do not want any onscreen, or any details of torture even mentioned. DNW (explicitly) male Kujen or Ruo in this AU; if you don’t feel like swapping them to women I would rather they not be mentioned.

—

Fandom: Moby Dick

Ship(s): F!Captain Ahab & None; F!Captain Ahab & F!Pequod Crew; F!Ishmael/F!Queequeg

I'd love to know more about these female sailor(s) and what drives them. A female Ishmael might still decide to sign on to a ship whenever she gets the blues, but it'd be socially fairly different, mightn't it? (Worldbuilding-wise, I'd be more interested in a world where sailing and whaling are still typically male things as in our world, even if you make them a little less exclusively male, than an egalitarian or matriarchal world; something that women might do, without necessarily disguising themselves as men, but a GNC thing to do.) Would her already diverging from the "expected" female path in this regard affect her reception of Queequeg as someone who's an outsider to Nantucket society, and the intimacy she offers? What does she still find outlandish? As for Queequeg herself, is her life a typical female life for her home culture, or not?

As for Ahab - just imagine this fanatic, tragic, vengeful character as a woman - with the willpower not only to do all the things canonical male Ahab does but also in a society where women aren't really supposed to sail or kill or lead! Is she the odd one out in an otherwise male crew, or are there more women in the crew by the time she's captain? Was she already a whaler when she lost the leg or, in this AU, did this drive her to become one?

—

Fandom: Spinning Silver

Ship(s): Miryem Mandelstam/F!Staryk Lord

I love Miryem, and I’m so interested in the ways that making the Staryk Lord a woman would change Miryem’s entry into the Staryk world and the romance that eventually develops between them. Maybe same-sex marriage is common among the Staryk, and that’s one of the customs that are new and unfamiliar to Miryem in this new world. Would this be a Miryem who had never imagined being attracted to a woman before but comes to fall for the Staryk Lady, or one who simply couldn’t have imagined being able to marry one and have that be a normal life? (For values of “normal” that include ice lands and gold magic!) How does the fact of the marriage being same-sex affect Miryem’s initial understanding of it as a business arrangement, or for that matter, affect her understanding of the offer of queenship as a marriage at all? What makes them fall for each other?

Canon Miryem wonders what her role as queen is, thinking that she’d know about managing a household and having children and sewing if she were married to a human lord - is it the same if she has a fairy wife instead of a fairy husband, more so because there’s not even the hope of a gendered complementarian aspect to fall back on, less so because the Staryk Lady is there as an example of what a female monarch in the Staryk lands does? Does Miryem try to be more like her, or to find her own accounting-powers-and-personal-bonds niche?

It’s so important to canon Miryem to have a Jewish wedding with the Staryk Lord - what would that look like here? What happens when she comes back to the human world not only the queen of a magic country, but married to a woman (and in love with her, depending on when you set it)?

—

Fandom: Wolf 359

Ship(s): F!Daniel Jacobi/F!Warren Kepler, F!Daniel Jacobi/F!Warren Kepler/Alana Maxwell

My new fandom this year! The SI-5 trio are my favorites, and I'm absolutely wild about the way they openly value and prioritize and trust each other over everyone else who's nominally on the same side. So much of the Kepler/Jacobi dynamic goes directly to my id almost from their first introduction (of Jacobi as Kepler's "good right hand"!) to Jacobi trusting Kepler with his life and following whatever orders Kepler gives and getting angry about Kepler treating him like one of them, not to mention the weird d/s vibes. But I also love their dynamic with Maxwell, not only Jacobi's devoted friendship for her but also the trust and respect Kepler has for her and vice versa (I love the conversation they have about fixing Hera, and the whole episode where Kepler has Jacobi blow up the door to save Maxwell, at the risk of the whole ship because Maxwell is that valuable and Jacobi is that good, and "maybe you were my friend but the Colonel and Daniel were family"). So...f/f? I'd love to see them on some sort of mission or in the aftermath of some sort of mission where that mutual loyalty, even as fucked-up as it can get, comes into play, with Jacobi, Kepler, and Maxwell deferring to one another's judgment and/or orders, protecting each other or deciding when they can risk each other for the sake of the mission, sorting themselves out after... Or just some d/s-y sex, possessiveness etc. Anything really about how they're the only people to each other.

I suppose I envision Jacobi and Kepler fairly similar to their canon versions presentation-wise, which would make them somewhat gender non-conforming as women - there's possibly something interesting there with whatever flavor of performative masculinity canon Kepler has going on - but honestly I haven't particularly given much thought to how they might be different as women, other than that I would find it hot and enjoy a three-way relationship with Maxwell (if that is what we matched on/what you're interested in - I'd be just as happy with Kepler/Jacobi and Maxwell just a friend) more than I would with their canon versions.

Fandom-Specific DNW: role reversal or "subbing to let go/relax" Kepler

—

#dear author letters

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reconditarmonia · 4 years

Text

Dear Trick or Treater

Hi! Thank you for writing for me! I’m reconditarmonia here and on AO3. I have anon messaging off, but mods can contact me with any questions.

General likes:

– Heists, or other stories where there’s a lot of planning and then we see how the plan goes.

– Femslash, complicated or intense relationships between women, and female-centric gen. Women doing “male” stuff (possibly while crossdressing).

– Stories whose emotional climax or resolution isn’t the sex scene, if there is one.

– Uniforms/costumes/clothing.

Smut Likes: clothing, uniforms, sexual tension, breasts, manual sex, cunnilingus, grinding, informal d/s elements, intensity; stories whose resolution isn’t the sex scene. DNW "pussy."

I am requesting exclusively fic, but open to art treats!

—

Fandom: Alternate Universe Works (Treat or Trick)

Character(s): Female Li Shang (Mulan 1998), Female Ishmael (Moby Dick), Female Captain Ahab (Moby Dick), Pokémon Trainer Harrowhark Nonagesimus

Female Shang - I would...just love it so much if you Monstrous Regiment-ed this canon up. Shang also being a woman would give her even more reasons to be a hardass (is she in disguise, and thinks that her regiment failing would invite suspicion on her? is she openly female and needs to prove that she’s as good as her father and the country need her to be? is she paranoid about other women in the army, or does she want to have a female regiment?) If you want to write F!Shang/Mulan, I’d also love to know how falling in love with a woman plays into Mulan’s whole arc - it’s certainly not what her family was preparing her for, but neither was being a soldier and saving China. What does seeing another woman dressed as a man (whether Shang is openly female or not, I imagine she’d wear men’s clothes), or a group of women dressed as men, make her think? What are Yao, Chien Po, and Ling like in an AU where they’re also female, if that’s what you choose to write?

I’d be happy for just about anything in this vein - Shang character study, Mulan/Shang romance/sex (this is a canon that is a Lot about bodies and clothes), gen shenanigans with the rest of the squad, both? During canon or post? I love loyalty kink and butch characters a lot.

Female Ishmael, Female Ahab - I’d love to know more about these female sailor(s) and what drives them. A female Ishmael might still decide to sign on to a ship whenever she gets the blues, but it’d be socially fairly different, mightn’t it? (Worldbuilding-wise, I’d be more interested in a world where sailing and whaling are still typically male things as in our world, even if you make them a little less exclusively male, than an egalitarian or matriarchal world; something that women might do, without necessarily disguising themselves as men, but a GNC thing to do.) Would her already diverging from the “expected” female path in this regard affect her reception of Queequeg as someone who’s an outsider to Nantucket society? And, if Queequeg is also female, the the intimacy she offers? What does she still find outlandish? (If you also write f!Queequeg, is her life a typical female life for her home culture, or not?)

As for Ahab - just imagine this fanatic, tragic, vengeful character as a woman - with the willpower not only to do all the things canonical male Ahab does but also in a society where women aren’t really supposed to sail or kill or lead! Is she the odd one out in an otherwise male crew, or are there more women in the crew by the time she’s captain?

Pokémon Trainer Harrow - It's a great idea!! I think she'd have a Duskull, but I'm very open to any choices you make in Pokemon-ing this universe up. Do different houses tend towards different types or no? What are their different cultures around Pokémon raising, training, and fighting? What is Harrow's relationship with her Pokémon like, singular or plural? (I don't need you to think through the implications of what Lyctorhood entails in this setting if you'd rather just write slice of life, and, you know, I was writing this and realized that that might make Harrow's Pokémon Gideon. Thanks, brain, I hate it. DNW Gideon as a Pokémon.)

—

Fandom: Assassin's Creed (Treat only)

Character(s): Aveline de Grandpré

I'm close to finishing AC Liberation and I love Aveline a lot! I really like how she basically makes New Orleans into her own little fiefdom and does what she feels like doing. Not in a #girlpower way, but in the sense where she considers herself to be the best person to judge and decide in any situation and to deal with happenings on any level in her various personas, and where becoming a business magnate is actually a part of her character and plot in a way that it wasn't so much for earlier Assassins? I imagine Assassins from other places talking about New Orleans and going "oh yeah, Aveline de Grandpré runs that whole city from the shadows," and then you go there to talk to her and she pulls a Lexa (as in The 100) where she uses her slave disguise to eavesdrop on you while you wait to meet with this Assassin lady merchant.

I like her friendships with other characters too - Gérald being there as the loyal support guy, Élise and Roussillon being the people she can be at ease with (she seems so happy to see them - "Bonjour, smugglers!"). I'd be happy to see something set in New Orleans as she takes it over or after she takes it over, in the Bayou as she lives there in a very different way (where and how does she sleep when she's there?), or in Chichen Itza if you want to expand on her discovery of all the weird shit. [Edit: I've finished the game now and I also like the aspect of her mission with Connor that's about how sometimes Assassin "brother"s from other locations will show up where you, another Assassin, are because there's something they need to find or do, and you'll work together? I guess that's also the premise of AC Rev, but.]

I do ship her with Élise and would love to read that if you do too! Fighting together, whether in the Bayou or on a mission further afield that's just them; Élise visiting Aveline in New Orleans for some reason (what if they go to a fancy party together with Élise dressed as a man?); downtime fluff?

Fandom-Specific DNW: Aveline/men, even mentioned or out-of-focus.

—

Fandom: Far From the Madding Crowd (Treat or Trick)

Character(s): Bathsheba Everdene

One thing that always sticks in my mind about this novel is the way Hardy calls Bathsheba “the young farmer” just as he refers to the men as farmers - which, just saying, is more than most people writing about this story can do - and so, that being the case, what I’m most interested in is something about Bathsheba as farmer. One day in the life or four seasons in the life or five plantings/harvests in the life, or pseudo-academic fic about a case study of a woman farmer in the Victorian era, or a conflict between the farm and nature that Bathsheba has to decide how to solve.

Feel free to bring in other characters if it suits what you’re trying to do, but what I’m really looking for is a focus on Bathsheba’s work, determination, and process of learning. (I like how Bathsheba’s relationship with Gabriel ends up playing out in canon, but I don’t want shipfic.) Other ideas: something like a merchant ship AU (as the first alternate setting that came to mind where it would be not exactly the done thing for her to captain her inherited ship and make commercial decisions herself - although I do have to point out that contrary to popular belief, there were a lot of women on shipboard in the age of sail, may this be useful - but also where nature and luck/fate are as influential as they are in the original setting), or something in which the land, superstition, and ritual are more overtly magical. I LOVE English folk magic and ritual shit.

I’ve requested both tricks and treats for this fandom, but would prefer that the outlook of the fic, including if you decide to incorporate non-canon magical/spooky/occult elements, be ultimately positive rather than the doom and gloom that canon leans toward at times. A seasonal treat would be right up the alley of this request.

—

Fandom: Fidler Afn Dakh (Treat or Trick)

Character(s): The Fiddler

I would love to read about the Fiddler from the recent Yiddish production of Fiddler on the Roof, understanding him/her/them as a real person with a backstory, present and future rather than a symbol. They seem to be female (and their actor describes them as female) but wear men's clothes and are on the men's side at the wedding, and everyone seems cool with that? I'm 100% on board with any gender identity you decide you'd like to write them with. How did he/she/they come to be who they are, and what are their interpersonal relationships (platonic, familial, romantic, any gender) like? What might an encounter between them and the supernatural be or have been like? Have they always lived in Anatevka or do they wander from village to village?

Fandom-Specific DNW: antisemitism as the focus of the story. I've requested both tricks and treats, and I acknowledge that it'd be unreasonable to pretend that antisemitism doesn't exist in the world of the story, but I would prefer for any dark/scary elements to come from supernatural horror (I grew up with Singer and other Jewish folklore horror, give me as many dybbuks and demons and witches as you like) rather than the human capacity for racist violence.

—

Fandom: Simoun (Treat only)

Character(s): Neviril

I've just completed a rewatch of this show, and it has reaffirmed for me that I love Neviril. She's a leader in both a military and a religious sense, respected by her squad and by the populace, but figuring out what that means to her is such a personal journey. I still love her scene in the hearing where she speaks aloud what no one has wanted to admit or talk about - that they're soldiers now, this is war, can they still call themselves priestessses? - but I was also struck on this rewatch by how Chor Tempest increasingly becomes a player in itself in the politicking (the bit in Episode 21 where the whole lot of them fly out against orders, because it's what they, with Neviril leading and giving voice to the group, think is what their role is about), and by the scenes of her blessing the people (when iirc she is needed elsewhere by the military governor for flight purposes) and Paraietta (after what Paraietta did to her).

I love the military aspects of this canon in general (and the associated tropes of loyalty and trust and bravery and positive/negative relationship to authority) and that definitely ties in to Neviril figuring out what her role is as the squad leader, but I'm also just here for that very process of figuring it out and defining it for herself.

So...what happens to her post-canon? What is the "new world" and her travel in it like? If she makes it back to the main world when war is brewing again, but her old cohort can't fly anymore, what does she see her role as being - a leader for peace, for war, something else? How do she and Aer interact with Paraietta, Rodoreamon, Floef, and/or Vyuraf?

Ship-wise, Aer/Neviril grew on me a lot! I appreciated Aer more as the determined bit-of-a-loose-cannon type than as the manic pixie this time, and noted Neviril's comments about how she was drawn to Aer's determination. But I'd also be up for a poly situation where she's involved with both Aer and Paraietta, who are friends, or, I guess, one where it's a three-way relationship, although I don't personally know what the Aer/Paraietta side would be like! (I do like how they work together in battle even when they're shown as having personal issues.)

—

Fandom: Sleep No More (Treat or Trick)

Character(s): Bald Witch, Sexy Witch

One of my favorite things about Sleep No More was the idea of this world of darkness and magic that’s underlying or intertwined with the social world, rather than in a separate space - I loved seeing the Witches at the ball and, holy shit, Bald Witch pulling off her wig after the ball in her solo ritual thing! (I hadn’t realized it was a wig until that moment.) So -

how do either of these witches interact with the normal world (Paisley/the hotel/etc.) or deliberately carve out other spaces (like the apothecary shop)? For that matter, I love the apothecary shop and Bald Witch's scene in it A LOT, so more about that would be awesome.

How did the Witches find each other - was it before or after they were witches?

Are they immortal, and if so, what’s that like for either or both of them?

How much do they have a day-to-day life vs. witching all the time?

Their card game is super cool and I'd love to know more about the Witches and cards.

I was very struck on my last visit by Sexy Witch's dance for Hecate after the rave. The fan material seems to describe it as her having trouble coming down, but it felt to me like pleading with Hecate for more power, more magic.

If you want to ship them together, and/or with Hecate (or both) I’m very up for that as well. Some sexy prompts if you go in that direction -

ritual sex magic to make something happen or share power?

If they have non-witch personas and sleep together while they’re being normal people, is there still magic?

Sex in one of the play locations - the apothecary, the ballroom, the bar that’s the empty shell of the real bar?

Slow dancing nude, or another inverted version of something in the normal world?

Fandom-Specific DNW: f/m ships with requested characters

#dear author letters #sleep no more #simoun #gideon the ninth #assassin's creed #mulan #fiddler on the roof #far from the madding crowd #moby-dick

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reconditarmonia · 4 years

Text

Dear Rule 63 Author

Fullmetal Alchemist | Machineries of Empire | Moby Dick | Mulan | Robin Hood

General likes:

– Heists, or other stories where there’s a lot of planning and then we see how the plan goes.

– Femslash, complicated or intense relationships between women, and female-centric gen. Women doing “male” stuff (possibly while crossdressing).

– Stories whose emotional climax or resolution isn’t the sex scene, if there is one.

– Uniforms/costumes/clothing.

Smut Likes: clothing, uniforms, sexual tension, breasts, manual sex, cunnilingus, grinding, informal d/s elements, intensity; stories whose resolution isn’t the sex scene. DNW "pussy."

—

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist

Ship(s): F!Roy Mustang/Riza Hawkeye

I love Roy and Riza's loyalty kink in canon so very much, so...what if they were lesbians

Fandom-Specific DNW: framing of the Ishvalan genocide as a bad situation that happened to the Amestrian characters

—

Fandom: Machineries of Empire

Ship(s): F!Shuos Jedao/Ajewen Cheris; F!Shuos Jedao & Ajewen Cheris

I know sound like a broken record throughout this letter/signup, but I love Cheris and Jedao's friendship and loyalty kink ("Now and forever, I'm your gun" and the kneeling! aaahhh!) and, you know, what if that, but also Jedao were a hot woman.

I don't have a lot of specific plot prompts - just a general interest in intense feelings, "codependency" as understood by fandom, loyalty and trust holding up under strain, deferring to someone’s competence or sense of ethics even though you don’t know how it will turn out, making difficult choices, verbal or nonverbal displays of loyalty like the kneeling and swearing and the WHOLE KEL GLOVE THING. I'd be excited to read something set during the Ninefox timeframe when Jedao is in Cheris's head, but I think I would be most interested in something set post-Glass Cannon when oh my god, they were roommates telepathically bonded, after all the plot events that create that strong Jedao->Cheris loyalty. Jedao's canonical kinks are *thumbs up* (I've requested general audiences fic as well as explicit, so it's also fine if they don't come up or if they're referred to but not, er, acted out onscreen).

Fandom-Specific DNW: I’m aware that there’s a lot of torture and dubcon in canon. I don’t mind if you mention that they exist but I’d like to reiterate that I absolutely do not want any onscreen, or any details of torture even mentioned. DNW male Kujen or Ruo in this AU; if you don't feel like swapping them to women I would rather they not be mentioned.

—

Fandom: Moby Dick

Ship(s): F!Captain Ahab & None; F!Captain Ahab & F!Pequod Crew; F!Ishmael/F!Queequeg

—

Fandom: Mulan

Ship(s): Fa Mulan/F!Li Shang; Fa Mulan & F!Li Shang & F!Yao &F!Chien Po & F!Ling

I would...just love it so much if you Monstrous Regiment-ed this canon up. Shang also being a woman would give her even more reasons to be a hardass (is she in disguise, and thinks that her regiment failing would invite suspicion on her? is she openly female and needs to prove that she's as good as her father and the country need her to be? is she paranoid about other women in the army, or does she want to have a female regiment?) I'd also love to know how falling in love with a woman plays into Mulan's whole arc - it's certainly not what her family was preparing her for, but neither was being a soldier and saving China. What does seeing another woman dressed as a man (whether Shang is openly female or not, I imagine she'd wear men's clothes), or a group of women dressed as men, make her think? What are Yao, Chien Po, and Ling like in an AU where they're also female, if that's what you choose to write?

I'd be happy for just about anything in this vein - Mulan/Shang romance/sex (this is a canon that is a Lot about bodies and clothes), gen shenanigans with the rest of the squad, both? During canon or post? I love loyalty kink and butch characters a lot.

—

Fandom: Robin Hood

Ship(s): F!Robin Hood/F!Little John, F!Robin Hood & F!Merry Men, F!Robin Hood & F!Little John, F!Robin Hood & Merry Men, F!Robin Hood & Little John

Tell me about these people! A female outlaw commanding the loyalty of a mixed or male group – or an all- (or mostly-)female group of outlaws, how they live, what might have led them to choose that life. I’m also here for Robin Hood’s relationship with her right-hand man/woman specifically, because I love loyalty kink – people willing to go into danger for one another, the leader knowing how best to use her right hand’s skills and strengths, what elements of formality might appear in, well, a very ad-hoc group. (And f!Little John would probably be hot.) If you’re writing the Little John pairings, feel free to make the Merry Men either their canon versions or female versions.

I’d totally be into any of the f!characters crossdressing as men vis-à-vis the world at large, although if you go this route I’d rather have them not be in disguise to each other/to their own allies (so no Merry Men thinking they’re being led by another man when it’s crossdressing Robin, for instance - preferring masculine clothing/appearance even among friends is fine, though).

#dear author letters

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