FFFX 2022 Letter

[seal_nonnie]

Dear FFFX creator,
I'm excited to have you creating for me! I have treats enabled, and I've requested "Fanart: 1 x 10-Page Comic OR 2 x 5-Page Comics at Artist's Discretion" and "Fanfic: 1 x 10000-Word Fic OR 2 x 5000-Word Fics at Author's Discretion" for all fandoms.

DNW: porn without plot, gore, animal cruelty, unhappy endings (angst is great, I'd just like a happy or bittersweet end to it), change of setting aus (e.g., High School AU - canon divergence is great)

Likes:

Hurt/Comfort

Humor, crack treated seriously

Hijinks and misadventures

Mystery

Character study - how did [X] get to be this way?

Worldbuilding - how does [thing] work? Why does it work like that? How has that changed over the years? What are the logistics involved?

Canon Divergence, especially of the "butterfly flaps its wings" sort

Outsider POV - I love when canon/the reader takes a bunch of things for granted because the protagonist knows them, but if you take a step sideways everyone not in the know is going "what"

Complicated, intense relationships

Characters being competent in their area of expertise

Playing with tropes or implications of canon

All sorts of "weird" stylistic choices - flowery prose, first or second person POV, non-past tense, etc.

Crossover Fandom

 

Jessica Fletcher (Murder She Wrote) & David Rossi (Criminal Minds)

Jessica is a mystery writer and citizen sleuth; Rossi is a true-crime (iirc) writer and (ex-)FBI agent. I'd love to see them interact from either half of that equation.

For the writing, do they have arguments over whose genre is best? Do they have opinions on each other's work? Are said opinions positive or negative?

For the crime, I'd love to see Jessica stumble into a BAU case (either during Criminal Minds or before it, during Rossi's first tenure at the BAU). Does she help or hurt the investigaton? Does Rossi end up wondering if she was the real serial killer after all? It could also be interesting to have Jess on as a consultant when their unsub of the week decides to riff on mystery tropes/her work specifically.

Or maybe combine the two! Writer's retreat/conference/dinner by their mutual publisher gets snowed in, lights go out, bodies hit the floor, and now they must work together to solve the case.

Count Olaf (ASOUE TV)/Ledroptha Curtain (MBS TV)

These two would be terrible together. (For the general world, and potentially for each other, given Olaf's dropped another previous partner of his off a bridge.) Have they always known each other, or did they meet on some orphan-hating forum? What do they have in common, other than villainy? How do their plots and schemes mesh together; do they work together or get in each other's way? 

For a take on MBS where VFD exists, I think there could be some interesting takes on Curtain being a member as well, on either side of the schism. The Emergency is causing panic in the moment, but the end goal is a quiet world (under Curtain's thumb), and I could see that as a justification to himself for doing so. (And, like, child abduction isn't exactly against VFD policy.) The Institute could be some sort of training academy/recruiting ground, and it could be fun trying to extricate Curtain's schemes from the rest of that. If Curtain is VFD, how did he become a volunteer, and does Mr. Benedict know? Are any of the other adults, either staff on the island like Dr. Pernalian or Number Two/Rhonda/Milligan/Miss Perumal, familiar? (A funny side-plot to this would be Milligan being a presumed-dead member of VFD, either one who faked his death or is canonically dead.) 

I could just as easily see the Institute and Curtain's schemes as totally divorced from VFD and Count Olaf's, kind of a shiny, sterile take on the Awful Academy. Perhaps Olaf seduces Curtain to gain access to the Island, or Curtain invites his old buddy back when he sees his current targets are on site? Or Curtain outsources the abduction of Benedict and Number Two in The Perilous Journey to Olaf's troupe. Or VFD totally doesn't exist, and Olaf and Curtain are two bros, being evil in a hot tub, less than five feet apart, lol.

Tony Hale plays Jerome Squalor in ASOUE, so there could be some fun gags about that. I'm reminded of the Denouement triplets - one good, one evil, and (in this case) one clueless about the rest of the chaos. (Did they end up in the orphanage because their house mysteriously burned down as children?)

Klaus Baudelaire (ASOUE TV) & Sticky Washington (MBS TV)

I'd love to see them bond over their shared passion for research and love of reading! Do they have any topics they both find particularly interesting? Sticky has the better memory of the two, but I'm not sure if he's read as much fiction as Klaus has, as likely during his quiz bowl days he'd been focusing on nonfiction (that would be the topics of questions).

I could see this coming together in several ways. Maybe they knew each other before that fateful day on Briny Beach and were childhood friends. Does Sticky ever wonder what happened to Klaus after the fire/assorted unfortunate events? Does anything Klaus learned from Sticky ever come in handy during the Baudelaire's many perils?

I could also see them meeting after canon, when they've both gone to college/the Boatwright Academy and are trying to put the past behind them. How good are they at it? Do they get vibes off each other ("this person is like me but not quite but more than the rest of the people here who haven't gone through the trauma I have?"). When the facade of normalcy comes tumbling down, whose set of villains and/or friends is to blame and how do they deal with the revelation? Does Kate casually send a message with Madge, or does the Incredibly Deadly Viper show up with a note from Sunny? Or maybe Curtain and Olaf/Mr. Poe/The Woman With Hair But No Beard and The Man With a Beard But No Hair team up, and they have to work together to stop them!

I'd also love to see them crossing paths in the middle of their quest - perhaps the Washingtons/Wetheralls/Mr. Benedict/The Institute is one more home for the Baudelaires, or maybe they decide they, too, are exceptional children in search of opportunities. (Or they get brainswept and end up on the island that way!) Or maybe the Society end up as VFD recruits and meet the Baudelaires through that angle. Having Curtain's and Olaf's schemes happening simultaneously would cause so much chaos, and I think it could be great fun to see said schemes collide.

Oth: Worldbuilding (Leverage & Heist Society)

Two thief canons for the price of one! I love all the characters in both of these, and it would be great to see any set of them interact with the others. Both series follow honorable thieves; it could be interesting to see how those similar sets of morals end up clashing (or not) up close, especially if both teams have slightly different goals.

Maybe Sterling has to work with Amelia Bennett on the Bishop family's latest exploit (or Kat has to work with him/Interpol to repatriate some stolen art). Maybe Archie is friends with Uncle Eddie, or related to him. Maybe IYS gets called in to deal with Hale Industries. Maybe the Leverage team run across Kat's crew whilst on a job, and the groups end up teaming up to tackle mutual enemies, or maybe, in addition to Kat, Marcus calls on Leverage Consulting in Perfect Scoundrels. Or maybe you've got a completely different idea as to how this could go, in which case I am very excited to see it!

 

Leverage

 

Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer (Leverage)

This OT3 is so shippy, and I'd love to see more from them! I love how well they work as a team for the cons and how dedicated they are to each other.

I'd love to see the work they did in the interim between the original show and Leverage: Redemption, learning to function as a crew without Nate and Sophie to help. Did they end up calling anyone else in, like in The Last Dam Job, or calling Tara for help, like when Sophie was on leave? How did their romantic relationship affect how they worked as a con team?

I'd also love to see them working together in the original show (dealing with the season 3 finale could be a fun source of angst), or acting outside of a con altogether. I really loved Hardison and Eliot's dynamic wrt the brewpup, and that could be fun to see more of.

Char: Alec Hardison (Leverage)

I love a good hacker character, and Hardison is one of the best. He's confident and competent, and I like how the show showed his hacks taking time/resources rather than being instantaneous or tied to typing speed. The hacks into wired systems, and difficulties thereof, were also excellent and made for a nice change of pace from/contrast with the wireless hacks.

 I'd love to see more of his skills, either how he learned them (and some exploits pre-team) or the sheer amount of work that must go into some of the identities/schemes he creates on the show. Some times when the hack didn't go quite to plan would also be great, whether it's the wrong system, wrong equipment, or something else unexpected. (Honestly, I think they should've run into the "can't hack a hick" problem a lot more, particularly how often they manufactured some form of celebrity.)

I also love all the different people he plays in cons! It could be fun to gain his perspective on playing some/any of them, either the first time around or for a new con. (A personal fave of mine is him impersonating an FBI agent, and I'd love to see him and Parker go in costume to an FBI office with only McSweeten noticing anything is up.)

I'd also love to see some of his talents in other areas; his sense of brewing in the last season was interesting, and I loved him playing MMOs. (And using it to bond with someone at the workplace he was conning!) What talents did he gain over the course of the show? What skills doesn't he use on cons?

Sophie Devereaux & Nathan Ford & Alec Hardison & Parker & Eliot Spencer (Leverage)

The whole crew! I love how they work as a team, and I really enjoy the way the cons are structured so that all their parts mesh together, any one deviation potentially sending everything toppling down (only for it to be revealed that the deviation was, in fact, part of the plan). I'd love to see them on a job (either one of the ones in the episodes, one of the ones during the original show that's not shown like the one they were coming off of in The Cross My Heart Job, or one last job, for realsies this time.) I also really liked how their paths intersected in The Rashomon Job, and I'd love to see if that happened elsewhere. (Maybe they all go after a thing at different times? Or they're all trying to pull off different jobs at the same party.)

I also really love their relationship outside of jobs, and it would be fun to see more of that. Maybe everyone gets roped into helping a theater production of Sophie's, or they're in a couple different slice of life plots (that perhaps swerve into jobs) that end up colliding together.

 

Murdle - G. T. Karber

 

Char: Deductive Logico (Murdle)

The bushy-eyebrowed catcher of murdlers! I love his dedication to the art of logic puzzles, and it could be fun to see how that's developed over the years. Is the technique a Logico family tradition or something he picked up elsewhere along the way? How has his system been refined over the years? How does he solve cases that don't easily reduce to a grid format?

Given the efficacy of Irratino's method, what drew Logico to rationality in a world where the occult is presumably real? Have there been any cases he solved that other means couldn't have?

Logico is in a secret society, which sporadically passes him messages. How did he join such an organization? Who else is a member?

Char: Inspector Irratino (Murdle)

The man, the mystery, the dramatic himself! I love his sense of the occult, and I'd love to see how he came to it. Is it a genuine gift or merely a shortcut for intuition? Does the Marot work at a crime scene scene?

Of course, there is no way to discuss Irratino without his weekly tendency to drop dead. How did that start? What does he get out of it? How does he fake his death; does he connive with the M.E., is it a very convoluted coincidence, or does only Logico get the message that he's currently dead? Why is Irratino at the rich people's prison in the first place; is he interviewing a prisoner, does he have a deal with someone, or is it something else?

I would also be more than open to a take where Irratino's not faking his death but is getting magically resurrected or is in a time loop (possibly one that can only be broken by confessing to Logico). I think it could be fun to contrast his powerlessness over whatever's keeping him alive and his power over other aspects of the occult. (It could also be fun to see Logico in a loop, as he tries to rationalize this clearly irrational thing.) Was it something he invoked? Does he figure out how to break it, and if so, how does he do so? If he tells Logico, I'd love for Logico to just go "...right" - not necessarily believing him, but believing that it is something Irratino believes in as strongly as anything else, which is good enough for the moment.

Inspector Irratino/Deductive Logico (Murdle)

These two are so great. Always firm in the belief that their method of crime-solving is superior (and smug to one-up the other) but also respecting the other as a rival, antagonist, and friend (with benefits).

I'd love an exploration of how their relationship has evolved over the years and how they've influenced each other. (E.g., the marot cards - Irratino uses them to divine info, but they're also Logico's suspect/weapon/place cards, but they've got star sign info on them, which seems very much against Logico's nature and thus a result of Irratino's influence.)

And the dates! I love their various dates, and would love to see a new one (or one of those we already know). Do they ever talk about Irratino's tendency to play possum? Do they ever pull a cozy plot and have a body mysteriously appear on stage when they are at that experimental one act?

Oth: Worldbuilding (Murdle) 

I'd love a look at how forensics works in this universe; how can you tell the star sign of a suspect from the scene? Do the moon/rising signs also matter, or is it purely sun-sign-based? What happens if there is more than one suspect per location, or more suspects than weapons/locations? What happens when the guilty tell the truth and the innocent lie, knowing Logico's tactics? I would love to see the complicated boondoggle that happens when Murdle logic gets applied outside a logic grid.

Is the occult real/respected in this world, or is Irratino simply Logico's equal and opposite weirdo? What kinds of questions can ghosts answer? Is the spirit writing really from the other side, and if not, what is Irratino's alternate source?

How do some of the murder weapons work? (For example, the lawyer.) How does Irratino not actually be dead affect the legal implications of the Sunday murdle? Basically, take the details of this world seriously, to an absurd degree.

I'd also love to see more backstory (or exploration of their love isodecahedron) for any of the murdlers, or more detail on Logico's secret society?

The Mysterious Benedict Society (TV)

 

Martina Crowe/Kate Wetherall (TMBS TV)

These two! I love the intensity of their feelings, how they go from "ew, her" to "you're the only person I can ask to help me evade capture"/"I'm going to drag you around the woods and plant your bows so you evade capture" in like, three days. Martina calling Kate her only real friend! Her betrayal when she finds the tetherball charm! The reconciliation/role reversal when Martina rescues Kate at the tower! All very good.

I'd love to see more of their relationship on the island - maybe a tetherball strategy session turns into something more - but I'd also love to see what happens when the Institute closes. How do they remain in touch? What's Martina's situation off the island like; does she come live with them at the farm? Do they continue to play tetherball together? How do they adjust to a normal school environment, and what chaos do they wreak there?

I'd love to see Martina come along on a Society adventure, but her and Kate having hijinks of their own separate from everyone else would be great. Maybe they visit Kate's carnival, or go to a tetherball match together, or Kate surprises her after a debate tournament. (One of my fave small details in canon is a debate certificate on Martina's wall o' trophies, because she is such a debate kid.) Maybe their date gets interrupted by Ten Men, and they have to work together to escape.

Other Exceptional Children (MBS TV)

This could be the two in the show (Krista and Dewey, according to the Wikipedia) or an OC; I don't particularly care which. Mostly I'm interested in an outsider POV on the tests/the series. You're the biggest fish in a pond you have yet to realize is of dubious size, and then are met with challenges designed to find a bunch of the best of the best of very smart orphans/runaways. They're like nothing you've ever taken, relying on a mixture of unorthodox thinking, independence, and strength under pressure. I'd love to see how that feels from the perspective of one of the "might've beens". Did they also face the tests within the tests the eventual society did?

Did they know/have opinions on any members of the Society? How did they realize the tricks in the tests/figure out something was up? Six months down the line, did Krista or Dewey read the newspaper and go "...wait"?

In the books, one of the things the tests are selecting for is independence/lack of guardians, but Dewey mentions (living) parents. How did he get through, and did anyone else not get counted out in a similar way?

Also in the books, this is the latest of several attempts to assemble a team, with Number Two and Rhonda having been previous passing applicants (who didn't have anyone else pass with them). The latter appears not to be true in the show, but is this still not the first attempt at assembling the team? What are some notable incidents from previous rounds?

When Krista and Dewey were first introduced, I thought one of them would later show up as a Recruited student at L.I.V.E. (which is an element of the books the show dropped, though the tech for it exists, and I'd love to see how the practice would work in the show). Have any other exceptional students done so over the years? (If you want to reimagine one of the canon characters as fitting this, feel free.) What happened when they regained their memory post-season one? How was their time on the island? (I think the mental fugue from brainsweeping, even the lunacular amnesia kind, could cause issues with testing, so if there's not some kind of correction for that in the elimination algorithm - or even if there was - I could see there being a cycle where smart yet isolated kids get Recruited but then shortly thereafter wash out and get barged.)

Reynie Muldoon & S.Q. Pedalian (TMBS TV)

They have a really interesting friendship in the show, complicated by the fact that Reynie is trying to use S.Q. to spy on Curtain, and I'd love to see that explored. What does S.Q. feel about the whole mess, either while it's happening or after his escape from the island? How does Reynie feel about it, either before or after reuniting with S.Q.?

I'd love to see them reconcile, either in a version of The Perilous Journey plot or in a divergence of your own. Maybe Curtain doesn't take S.Q. with him, so the two are left to hash it out at Mr. Benedict's. (In which case, how does S.Q. deal with having an uncle/Benedict deal with having a nephew?) Or maybe he betrays Dr. Curtain, either in the moment or as a deliberate series of premeditated acts (like calling in tips).

S.Q. is pretty isolated pre-encounter, and I assume he would also be so after season 1's finale; Reynie also has experience with being socially cut off from his peer group (though they were physically present), and I think it could be nice for them (and the rest of the Society) to bond over that afterwards.

Rhonda Kazembe & Number Two (TMBS TV)

I love the graffiti scene and the follow-up where Number Two gives Rhonda the paint; they have very clashing personalities and understandings of how to accomplish their shared goal, but they respect each other nonetheless. 

It's interesting to see the differences between their dynamic in the books and show; how did that come to be? How long have they known each other? How did they meet each other and Mr. Benedict? Is the fight over graffiti the first argument of its kind they've had or is it the latest in a long series of fights?

I'd love to see backstory for them, obviously, but I'm equally interested in how their relationship works after the end of season one. Do they go hunting the Ten Men together? Does some of the strain on the adults lift once the Emergency does? How does Rhonda deal with losing both Mr. Benedict and Number Two in The Perilous Journey?