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deep_dark_watersHello! I'm Deepdarkwaters on Ao3 and Tumblr and ambrotypes on Twitter for any recip-stalking needs.
Short version: I'm easy to please and happy to be completely surprised, as long as you don't include the couple of DNWs mentioned below. If you've got something in mind already then do it your way! These are just suggestions - I will honestly love anything about these people. Any rating, any gender pairing if you want to do romance/smut (and if you do, my yes list from the Smut Swap tagset is here if that's helpful). Also some of these fandom sections are longer than the others but it's not an indication of wanting anything more than the rest, there's just sometimes more to say because there are more characters or whatever.
General fic loves: (probably not applicable to every fandom requested, but I include this in all letters as an overview of some of the things I enjoy reading in whatever combination) worldbuilding/exploration of the canon world; dialogue; description; competence; petty arguments; unreliable narrators; misunderstandings; found families; really old comfy friendships; really old comfy friendships that accidentally/unexpectedly become more; clumsy inappropriate humour; backstories; melancholy; loonngg dragged out UST that feels like it'll never end and then ENDS GLORIOUSLY; awkward imperfect sex where everyone's still having the best time ever; intense physical fight scenes; huge scale destruction; ridiculous things played completely straight for comedy purposes; kissing; when dick-in-hole sex isn't always the end goal or the only type considered 'real' sex; ghosts; age gap relationships; anything to do with playing/stroking/pulling/grooming/washing/whatever someone's hair.
Please no: noncon, physical torture, hanging of any kind (choking/breathplay is fine - it's the rope and drop thing I have the trouble with), or hair cutting. If you're writing smut please don't include any kinks not on this list. There are a few fandom-specific DNWs below too.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid, Etta Place
I love this film with my entire soul and have received a ton of amazing gifts for it in previous exchanges, but I'm endlessly greedy for more. I ship these characters in every combination possible so take your pick if that's your thing, but equally as happy to read something gen about their travel and adventures and scams as long as there's still a sense of how vital their friendship is.
Possible ideas for gen or shipfic:
What if Etta never left when she did? Or what if she and the guys went somewhere other than Bolivia? What if the two of them escaped the shootout and found her again? Or backstory: how did they all meet? How many times have they saved each others lives, or almost got each other killed? When were they happiest?
Ship/smut specific:
Butch/Sundance: Romantic friendship, friends with benefits, lonely in the middle of nowhere, tropey bed-sharing, omg we're alive sex, stop being a crybaby while I patch you up sex, whatever, I love these faces so much and just want to see them smashed together in any way you desire. (And many millions of bonus points if it's all a bit grimy and stubble burny and they don't really know what they're doing but are still so into it.)
Sundance/Etta: How many mainstream PG-rated films show canonical dubcon sex roleplay? ONE. THIS FILM. Please show me more if that's your thing! Gun kink, undressing, following orders, everything. I love their slightly weary established relationship in the film - is the playing something they started doing to liven things up a bit, or has it been like that for them from the start? Would love to see how they met, their first time, and/or the first time one of them suggested it or tried it. Or more of the established stuff - the way she goes along with it immediately implies it's something they've done a lot, but do they ever switch it up, Etta with a gun and bossing Sundance around? Would he go for that?
Butch/Etta: I'm obsessed with how tender these two are together. They seem so young and sweet and slightly awkward somehow, like first crush teenagers. What's the deal? Have they always been like that? Is the attraction a new development?
Butch/Sundance/Etta: This is the OT3 of my whole life, they're just so messy and beautiful and complicated and there's so much nuance to play about with in the way they all act together. Etta and Sundance are this odd mix of tired and intense, but Etta with Butch is completely different, they're so sweet and sincere. What I really love about this OT3 is the idea of Etta getting different things from the guys, like Etta/Sundance is smoking hot with the roleplay stuff but then there's all that comfortable lovely laughter and cuddles between her and Butch. That contrast is super attractive to me. V or triangle, I'm not fussy, I just love to see people's take on these three as lovers and what makes it all work.
General DNWs for all fandoms: noncon, physical torture, hanging, hair cutting. Specific DNW for this fandom: please nothing that takes place after the end of the film unless it's a fix-it, I don't want any of these characters to die (but don't care if anyone else is killed).
Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy - Elton John (Album)
Captain Fantastic, Brown Dirt Cowboy
I've never even considered fic for this but I saw it in the tagset and couldn't resist my favourite Elton John album even though I have absolutely no idea what to request?! I'll say what I love so much about the album instead and hope it's helpful:
I love the Bosch-ish weirdness of the Alridge artwork on the cover and the imagery/metaphor of Elton/Captain Fantastic rocketing out of his dingy town on his piano while Bernie/the Brown Dirt Cowboy stays happily in his dreamy little pastoral bubble. Obviously I love the songs, and the sense of autobiography being blurred with fantasy and somehow feeling all the more ~real for it, like a bit of distance and embellishment can help to understand things you're too close to. We All Fall in Love Sometimes going straight into Curtains is about the most flawless ending I've ever heard on an album. I love the pinpoint precision of Bernie's obervations and scene setting in Better Off Dead. I love disguising weary pessimistic lyrics in upbeat sounding music like Tower of Babel. I love the image of a princess perched in her electric chair. I love everything (and I love The Captain & the Kid as well so include anything from that if you like) and really am just so intrigued to see what could come out of this. Sorry I'm not giving any useful prompts! I think I'm not really after Elton/Bernie or Elton&Bernie as themselves, not interested in RPF about them writing and recording the album, but please write absolutely anything you're inspired to write about the semi-fantasy characters and world in the songs or on the cover. I have no idea what to expect from this but I know I'll love it.
The album is on Spotify here.
General DNWs for all fandoms: noncon, physical torture, hanging, hair cutting.
Cottingley Fairies Hoax RPF
Elsie Wright, Frances Griffiths
I've loved the Cottingley Fairies story my entire life. I would love to see anything at all about Elsie and Frances learning about photography, their games, what made them pretend it was all real, how they felt when it all took off and ran away with itself - were they scared about being found out? Just elated that they had such a wonderful secret? Lots of things all at once? Early photography and film is a HUGE passion of mine and I feel a bit silly and reverant about it all, I don't like the tendency to get a bit ha-ha about people being taken in by something that seems so sweetly ridiculous now (even though yes there's absolutely something glorious about a couple of little girls fooling some of the best minds of the era for so long). I'm fascinated by this weird liminal time of people still figuring out this relatively new technology and what to feel about it all. I'm sure I would have been taken in as well. I WANT TO BELIEVE. Anyway - fairy hoax, children's games, young girls fooling smart old men, this sense of inexplicable magic coming to life on glass plates, secrets, I am here for any of it. I didn't nominate Arthur Conan Doyle because I'm mostly interested in the girls' stories, but absolutely do include him if you like, or anybody else who was around at the time - although the (admittedly fairly solid) theory that Elsie's father was behind it all is a buzzkill and I'm not really interested in that.
Another angle - what if the pictures actually weren't a hoax? Elsie and Frances find real live fairies at the bottom of their garden and take their pictures... what then? Are they nice Disney type fairies who just want to play? Or are they the kind of fairies who demand payment for anything you take from them? Fairy stories always scared the hell out of me way more than ghosts and monsters so it would be great to read some kind of fairytale-horror take on all of this, especially because the pictures are so incredibly lovely. Turn the whole thing upside down.
General DNWs for all fandoms: noncon, physical torture, hanging, hair cutting. Specific DNW for this fandom: please no romantic/sexual relationship between Elsie and Frances, and if you pair them with anybody else then please don't have it be when they're any younger than 16.
Empress Elisabeth of Austria with Flowing Hair - Franz Xaver Winterhalter (Painting 1864)
The first painting is the one I actually nominated, but including the second as well for extra inspiration because, like the first one, it's 10000 of my aesthetic loves in one. Tons more painting and photos and a pretty comprehensive biography on her wiki page.
Sisi had an eventful life involving things like her son killing his teenage mistress and then himself (this inspired the ballet Mayerling, which is how I first learned of her and I've been a bit obsessed ever since) and her death by assassination in a way that sounds like something from a wild spy film, but I nominated the painting and not RPF because I'm extremely shallow and just really really really want fic about her famously incredible hair. Not saying I wouldn't welcome something about her life because I totally would, as long as it involves a bit of hair porn and maybe some clothing porn (with or without actual porn, whatever you prefer - I'm interested in hair focus without sex but not at all interested in sex without hair worship. She wasn't particularly interested in her husband either, but they did have four children and also she supposedly had a long affair with Count Gyula Andrássy).
From the 'Beauty' section on her wiki page:
"Daily care of her abundant and extremely long hair, which in time turned from the dark blonde of her youth to chestnut brunette, took at least three hours. Her hair was so long and heavy that she often complained that the weight of the elaborate double braids and pins gave her headaches. Her hairdresser, Franziska Feifalik, was originally a stage hairdresser at the Wiener Burgtheater. Responsible for all of Elisabeth's ornate hairstyles, she generally accompanied her on her wanderings. Feifalik was forbidden to wear rings and required to wear white gloves; after hours of dressing, braiding, and pinning up the Empress' tresses, the hairs that fell out had to be presented in a silver bowl to her reproachful empress for inspection. When her hair was washed with a combination of eggs and cognac once every two weeks, all activities and obligations were cancelled for that day."
I'm desperately craving anything at all to do with beautiful long hair being played with, brushed, braided, pulled, washed, flung about dramatically, trailed over someone's bare skin, hair bondage. And/or anything to do with kinking on clothing - decadent fabric on bare skin, dressing, undressing, makeovers, tightlacing, impatiently ripping expensive fabric to get to the body below it, only undressing the parts you need, quality clothes as a confidence booster, coming in or on clothes, etc. Or maybe something to do with the process of having portraits painted - Winterhalter painted her several times, both in these intimate private portraits intended only for her husband and in official public portraits. What was their relationship like?
General DNWs for all fandoms: noncon, physical torture, hanging, hair cutting. Specific DNW for this fandom: Sisi seems to have been very unhappy through long stretches of her life with lots of obsessive focus on her weight and the size of her waist, and health problems due to constant fasting and over-exercise and stress. Mentions are fine, but please don't focus so much on that side of things. She must have been happy sometimes.
Rocketman
Doug Weston, Ray Williams
I was hopelessly charmed by every single thing about this film and came away from it hungry for a Doug Weston Cinematic Universe generally and specifically more Doug&Ray or Doug/Ray. No real prompts here, I just want to read whatever you're inspired to write: how did they meet? Have they always got on so well? What do they have in common other than this deep intense overwhelming love for music? I don't know a huge deal about either of them in real life (except that Ray is clearly a man of excellent taste because he named his daughter Amoreena after one of my favourite ever songs) so all of this is based on the few scenes they had together in the film - it was all super brief but the chemistry and the characters were so warm and likeable and I really really want more of that. Friendship or more, whatever works for you. And please include Elton and Bernie if you want! I didn't request them because I don't want more focus on them than Doug or Ray, but include anyone extra you like
General DNWs for all fandoms: noncon, physical torture, hanging, hair cutting.
The War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells
I was ready to retire this perennial request because I've had several really fantastic gifts for it, then the trailer was released for the BBC adaptation and I'm enthused all over again. My all time favourite book. It's terrifying. I don't think there's ever been an adaptation into any other medium that's done it justice (yet - I have high hopes for the new one), because everyone seems obsessed with updating it when actually the thing that gives it such incredible clout in the first place is its idyllic countryside setting and seeing all the chaos and devastation in contrast with the prim Victorian way of life shown before everything kicks off. It's not the same having modern soldiers with belts full of grenades like every other action film ever. VICTORIAN SCI FI. How do you run for your life when you're wearing a corset and can't breathe and have never seen any Spielberg films? When you're sitting there crushed under a stampede of strangers in your top hat and watch chain you probably die too quickly to wonder whether imperial Britain being invaded and wrecked by strangers from far away is a sort of poetic justice.
I'll love fic about any canon character(s) you like, or about OCs or characters from other stories if you prefer. I don't have any solid prompts in mind, but anything about how the world goes on after the attacks would be especially awesome - does the Martian war screw us up for good? Or does it bring about a huge change in people's feelings about colonisation etc? In the book we only hear about England, but what's happening in the rest of the world during the attack? Are they even aware there's something truly awful going on? Do the Martians ever come back, stronger?
Or - and I'm not sure exactly how this would work but maybe you've got an idea - maybe you could tell something from the Martians' point of view? I've always kind of been interested in how the Martians might interact and behave on their own planet, but my brain isn't letting me pin anything down. I have no idea what kind of form a Mars-set story would take so this is really open - if you've got any thoughts at all I would LOVE to see what you come up with, because I can't quite fit my mind around it but there's so much potential for exploring that world and people. They're clearly a technologically advanced society to have been able to reach Earth and then devastate everything they touched. What's home like for them? Why did they want Earth? Do the ones left on Mars have plans to try again after the first invasion fails? Anything!
I have something bordering on a weird kink for mass destruction aesthetics in fiction, which fits this story SO WELL. Big bonus points for any details along the lines of wrecked cities, smashed buildings, collapsed Martian tripods lying in rubble, bodies floating in the Thames, etc. I would be more than happy just to receive 1000 words of lingering description about a tripod falling over or something like that. SWOON.
eta 24/11/19: Just a note to say I'm really loving the BBC miniseries (episode 2 of 3 was on tonight) so if there's any stuff you want to include from that then go for it! Or stick with the original canon, whatever you prefer.
General DNWs for all fandoms: noncon, physical torture, hanging, hair cutting. Specific DNW for this fandom: please don't "fix" the wobbly science with modern knowledge. Old sci-fi is so fascinating to me because yes they're some great stories but also because they're so firmly of their time, they're like glorious little time capsules of every stage of recent scientific discovery and imagination. I'd love to see something in keeping with Wells' era of more limited knowledge but limitless possibility.
Short version: I'm easy to please and happy to be completely surprised, as long as you don't include the couple of DNWs mentioned below. If you've got something in mind already then do it your way! These are just suggestions - I will honestly love anything about these people. Any rating, any gender pairing if you want to do romance/smut (and if you do, my yes list from the Smut Swap tagset is here if that's helpful). Also some of these fandom sections are longer than the others but it's not an indication of wanting anything more than the rest, there's just sometimes more to say because there are more characters or whatever.
General fic loves: (probably not applicable to every fandom requested, but I include this in all letters as an overview of some of the things I enjoy reading in whatever combination) worldbuilding/exploration of the canon world; dialogue; description; competence; petty arguments; unreliable narrators; misunderstandings; found families; really old comfy friendships; really old comfy friendships that accidentally/unexpectedly become more; clumsy inappropriate humour; backstories; melancholy; loonngg dragged out UST that feels like it'll never end and then ENDS GLORIOUSLY; awkward imperfect sex where everyone's still having the best time ever; intense physical fight scenes; huge scale destruction; ridiculous things played completely straight for comedy purposes; kissing; when dick-in-hole sex isn't always the end goal or the only type considered 'real' sex; ghosts; age gap relationships; anything to do with playing/stroking/pulling/grooming/washing/whatever someone's hair.
Please no: noncon, physical torture, hanging of any kind (choking/breathplay is fine - it's the rope and drop thing I have the trouble with), or hair cutting. If you're writing smut please don't include any kinks not on this list. There are a few fandom-specific DNWs below too.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid, Etta Place
I love this film with my entire soul and have received a ton of amazing gifts for it in previous exchanges, but I'm endlessly greedy for more. I ship these characters in every combination possible so take your pick if that's your thing, but equally as happy to read something gen about their travel and adventures and scams as long as there's still a sense of how vital their friendship is.
Possible ideas for gen or shipfic:
What if Etta never left when she did? Or what if she and the guys went somewhere other than Bolivia? What if the two of them escaped the shootout and found her again? Or backstory: how did they all meet? How many times have they saved each others lives, or almost got each other killed? When were they happiest?
Ship/smut specific:
Butch/Sundance: Romantic friendship, friends with benefits, lonely in the middle of nowhere, tropey bed-sharing, omg we're alive sex, stop being a crybaby while I patch you up sex, whatever, I love these faces so much and just want to see them smashed together in any way you desire. (And many millions of bonus points if it's all a bit grimy and stubble burny and they don't really know what they're doing but are still so into it.)
Sundance/Etta: How many mainstream PG-rated films show canonical dubcon sex roleplay? ONE. THIS FILM. Please show me more if that's your thing! Gun kink, undressing, following orders, everything. I love their slightly weary established relationship in the film - is the playing something they started doing to liven things up a bit, or has it been like that for them from the start? Would love to see how they met, their first time, and/or the first time one of them suggested it or tried it. Or more of the established stuff - the way she goes along with it immediately implies it's something they've done a lot, but do they ever switch it up, Etta with a gun and bossing Sundance around? Would he go for that?
Butch/Etta: I'm obsessed with how tender these two are together. They seem so young and sweet and slightly awkward somehow, like first crush teenagers. What's the deal? Have they always been like that? Is the attraction a new development?
Butch/Sundance/Etta: This is the OT3 of my whole life, they're just so messy and beautiful and complicated and there's so much nuance to play about with in the way they all act together. Etta and Sundance are this odd mix of tired and intense, but Etta with Butch is completely different, they're so sweet and sincere. What I really love about this OT3 is the idea of Etta getting different things from the guys, like Etta/Sundance is smoking hot with the roleplay stuff but then there's all that comfortable lovely laughter and cuddles between her and Butch. That contrast is super attractive to me. V or triangle, I'm not fussy, I just love to see people's take on these three as lovers and what makes it all work.
General DNWs for all fandoms: noncon, physical torture, hanging, hair cutting. Specific DNW for this fandom: please nothing that takes place after the end of the film unless it's a fix-it, I don't want any of these characters to die (but don't care if anyone else is killed).
Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy - Elton John (Album)
Captain Fantastic, Brown Dirt Cowboy
I've never even considered fic for this but I saw it in the tagset and couldn't resist my favourite Elton John album even though I have absolutely no idea what to request?! I'll say what I love so much about the album instead and hope it's helpful:
I love the Bosch-ish weirdness of the Alridge artwork on the cover and the imagery/metaphor of Elton/Captain Fantastic rocketing out of his dingy town on his piano while Bernie/the Brown Dirt Cowboy stays happily in his dreamy little pastoral bubble. Obviously I love the songs, and the sense of autobiography being blurred with fantasy and somehow feeling all the more ~real for it, like a bit of distance and embellishment can help to understand things you're too close to. We All Fall in Love Sometimes going straight into Curtains is about the most flawless ending I've ever heard on an album. I love the pinpoint precision of Bernie's obervations and scene setting in Better Off Dead. I love disguising weary pessimistic lyrics in upbeat sounding music like Tower of Babel. I love the image of a princess perched in her electric chair. I love everything (and I love The Captain & the Kid as well so include anything from that if you like) and really am just so intrigued to see what could come out of this. Sorry I'm not giving any useful prompts! I think I'm not really after Elton/Bernie or Elton&Bernie as themselves, not interested in RPF about them writing and recording the album, but please write absolutely anything you're inspired to write about the semi-fantasy characters and world in the songs or on the cover. I have no idea what to expect from this but I know I'll love it.
The album is on Spotify here.
General DNWs for all fandoms: noncon, physical torture, hanging, hair cutting.
Cottingley Fairies Hoax RPF
Elsie Wright, Frances Griffiths
I've loved the Cottingley Fairies story my entire life. I would love to see anything at all about Elsie and Frances learning about photography, their games, what made them pretend it was all real, how they felt when it all took off and ran away with itself - were they scared about being found out? Just elated that they had such a wonderful secret? Lots of things all at once? Early photography and film is a HUGE passion of mine and I feel a bit silly and reverant about it all, I don't like the tendency to get a bit ha-ha about people being taken in by something that seems so sweetly ridiculous now (even though yes there's absolutely something glorious about a couple of little girls fooling some of the best minds of the era for so long). I'm fascinated by this weird liminal time of people still figuring out this relatively new technology and what to feel about it all. I'm sure I would have been taken in as well. I WANT TO BELIEVE. Anyway - fairy hoax, children's games, young girls fooling smart old men, this sense of inexplicable magic coming to life on glass plates, secrets, I am here for any of it. I didn't nominate Arthur Conan Doyle because I'm mostly interested in the girls' stories, but absolutely do include him if you like, or anybody else who was around at the time - although the (admittedly fairly solid) theory that Elsie's father was behind it all is a buzzkill and I'm not really interested in that.
Another angle - what if the pictures actually weren't a hoax? Elsie and Frances find real live fairies at the bottom of their garden and take their pictures... what then? Are they nice Disney type fairies who just want to play? Or are they the kind of fairies who demand payment for anything you take from them? Fairy stories always scared the hell out of me way more than ghosts and monsters so it would be great to read some kind of fairytale-horror take on all of this, especially because the pictures are so incredibly lovely. Turn the whole thing upside down.
General DNWs for all fandoms: noncon, physical torture, hanging, hair cutting. Specific DNW for this fandom: please no romantic/sexual relationship between Elsie and Frances, and if you pair them with anybody else then please don't have it be when they're any younger than 16.
Empress Elisabeth of Austria with Flowing Hair - Franz Xaver Winterhalter (Painting 1864)
The first painting is the one I actually nominated, but including the second as well for extra inspiration because, like the first one, it's 10000 of my aesthetic loves in one. Tons more painting and photos and a pretty comprehensive biography on her wiki page.
Sisi had an eventful life involving things like her son killing his teenage mistress and then himself (this inspired the ballet Mayerling, which is how I first learned of her and I've been a bit obsessed ever since) and her death by assassination in a way that sounds like something from a wild spy film, but I nominated the painting and not RPF because I'm extremely shallow and just really really really want fic about her famously incredible hair. Not saying I wouldn't welcome something about her life because I totally would, as long as it involves a bit of hair porn and maybe some clothing porn (with or without actual porn, whatever you prefer - I'm interested in hair focus without sex but not at all interested in sex without hair worship. She wasn't particularly interested in her husband either, but they did have four children and also she supposedly had a long affair with Count Gyula Andrássy).
From the 'Beauty' section on her wiki page:
"Daily care of her abundant and extremely long hair, which in time turned from the dark blonde of her youth to chestnut brunette, took at least three hours. Her hair was so long and heavy that she often complained that the weight of the elaborate double braids and pins gave her headaches. Her hairdresser, Franziska Feifalik, was originally a stage hairdresser at the Wiener Burgtheater. Responsible for all of Elisabeth's ornate hairstyles, she generally accompanied her on her wanderings. Feifalik was forbidden to wear rings and required to wear white gloves; after hours of dressing, braiding, and pinning up the Empress' tresses, the hairs that fell out had to be presented in a silver bowl to her reproachful empress for inspection. When her hair was washed with a combination of eggs and cognac once every two weeks, all activities and obligations were cancelled for that day."
I'm desperately craving anything at all to do with beautiful long hair being played with, brushed, braided, pulled, washed, flung about dramatically, trailed over someone's bare skin, hair bondage. And/or anything to do with kinking on clothing - decadent fabric on bare skin, dressing, undressing, makeovers, tightlacing, impatiently ripping expensive fabric to get to the body below it, only undressing the parts you need, quality clothes as a confidence booster, coming in or on clothes, etc. Or maybe something to do with the process of having portraits painted - Winterhalter painted her several times, both in these intimate private portraits intended only for her husband and in official public portraits. What was their relationship like?
General DNWs for all fandoms: noncon, physical torture, hanging, hair cutting. Specific DNW for this fandom: Sisi seems to have been very unhappy through long stretches of her life with lots of obsessive focus on her weight and the size of her waist, and health problems due to constant fasting and over-exercise and stress. Mentions are fine, but please don't focus so much on that side of things. She must have been happy sometimes.
Rocketman
Doug Weston, Ray Williams
I was hopelessly charmed by every single thing about this film and came away from it hungry for a Doug Weston Cinematic Universe generally and specifically more Doug&Ray or Doug/Ray. No real prompts here, I just want to read whatever you're inspired to write: how did they meet? Have they always got on so well? What do they have in common other than this deep intense overwhelming love for music? I don't know a huge deal about either of them in real life (except that Ray is clearly a man of excellent taste because he named his daughter Amoreena after one of my favourite ever songs) so all of this is based on the few scenes they had together in the film - it was all super brief but the chemistry and the characters were so warm and likeable and I really really want more of that. Friendship or more, whatever works for you. And please include Elton and Bernie if you want! I didn't request them because I don't want more focus on them than Doug or Ray, but include anyone extra you like
General DNWs for all fandoms: noncon, physical torture, hanging, hair cutting.
The War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells
I was ready to retire this perennial request because I've had several really fantastic gifts for it, then the trailer was released for the BBC adaptation and I'm enthused all over again. My all time favourite book. It's terrifying. I don't think there's ever been an adaptation into any other medium that's done it justice (yet - I have high hopes for the new one), because everyone seems obsessed with updating it when actually the thing that gives it such incredible clout in the first place is its idyllic countryside setting and seeing all the chaos and devastation in contrast with the prim Victorian way of life shown before everything kicks off. It's not the same having modern soldiers with belts full of grenades like every other action film ever. VICTORIAN SCI FI. How do you run for your life when you're wearing a corset and can't breathe and have never seen any Spielberg films? When you're sitting there crushed under a stampede of strangers in your top hat and watch chain you probably die too quickly to wonder whether imperial Britain being invaded and wrecked by strangers from far away is a sort of poetic justice.
I'll love fic about any canon character(s) you like, or about OCs or characters from other stories if you prefer. I don't have any solid prompts in mind, but anything about how the world goes on after the attacks would be especially awesome - does the Martian war screw us up for good? Or does it bring about a huge change in people's feelings about colonisation etc? In the book we only hear about England, but what's happening in the rest of the world during the attack? Are they even aware there's something truly awful going on? Do the Martians ever come back, stronger?
Or - and I'm not sure exactly how this would work but maybe you've got an idea - maybe you could tell something from the Martians' point of view? I've always kind of been interested in how the Martians might interact and behave on their own planet, but my brain isn't letting me pin anything down. I have no idea what kind of form a Mars-set story would take so this is really open - if you've got any thoughts at all I would LOVE to see what you come up with, because I can't quite fit my mind around it but there's so much potential for exploring that world and people. They're clearly a technologically advanced society to have been able to reach Earth and then devastate everything they touched. What's home like for them? Why did they want Earth? Do the ones left on Mars have plans to try again after the first invasion fails? Anything!
I have something bordering on a weird kink for mass destruction aesthetics in fiction, which fits this story SO WELL. Big bonus points for any details along the lines of wrecked cities, smashed buildings, collapsed Martian tripods lying in rubble, bodies floating in the Thames, etc. I would be more than happy just to receive 1000 words of lingering description about a tripod falling over or something like that. SWOON.
eta 24/11/19: Just a note to say I'm really loving the BBC miniseries (episode 2 of 3 was on tonight) so if there's any stuff you want to include from that then go for it! Or stick with the original canon, whatever you prefer.
General DNWs for all fandoms: noncon, physical torture, hanging, hair cutting. Specific DNW for this fandom: please don't "fix" the wobbly science with modern knowledge. Old sci-fi is so fascinating to me because yes they're some great stories but also because they're so firmly of their time, they're like glorious little time capsules of every stage of recent scientific discovery and imagination. I'd love to see something in keeping with Wells' era of more limited knowledge but limitless possibility.
