annathecrow: screenshot from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. A detail of the racing pod engines. (sw: pods)
annathecrow ([personal profile] annathecrow) wrote in [community profile] dreamwars2025-08-11 09:00 pm

Chat corner 198: The Phantom Menace

Hi!

Is it the time again? We're back in the (chronological) beginning, and our topic for this week is Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

How are we feeling about this one? If you've been here for the previous post, have you changed your mind in any way? Or, you haven't thought about the movie at all?

As I see it, TPM is at its core a movie for children. So, I'm curious: if you wanted to introduce a child to the Star Wars universe (your kid, a cousin, a nibling), which piece would you start with? One of the movies, a show, something different?

verushka70: Kowalski puts his hands to his head (Default)
verushka70 ([personal profile] verushka70) wrote in [community profile] ds_noticeboard2025-08-11 01:59 pm

new dS word search

Hello,

Regina Keim posted a New Word Search on the Due South! Facebook page. Enjoy! (and guess the episode, too)
paranoidangel: Pink Dalek (Pink Dalek)
paranoidangel ([personal profile] paranoidangel) wrote in [community profile] tardis_library2025-08-10 02:10 pm

Rec [fic]: The One Where Hardison Meets The Doctor by seraphina_snape

Title: The One Where Hardison Meets The Doctor
Creator: [archiveofourown.org profile] seraphina_snape
Rating: Teen
Word Count/Length/Size: 1813 words
Creator's Summary: Hardison gets to meet the Doctor for Christmas.
Characters/Pairings: Tenth Doctor, Alec Hardison, Tenth Doctor
Warnings/Notes: None

Reasons for reccing: It's a fun fic, since Hardison is a Doctor Who fan, but the Doctor can explain it away.


Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28381302
snycock: (grinning)
PsychGirl ([personal profile] snycock) wrote in [community profile] ts_bluejungle2025-08-08 10:30 pm

Weekly chat reminder

Please join us for the weekly TS chat on Saturday, August 9th, at 7 pm Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)/19:00 UTC. That could be as early as 12 pm if you’re on the west coast of North America, or 3 pm if you’re on the east coast, or 8 pm in the UK, or early Sunday morning in Australia or New Zealand.

 

We’re in the usual place: http://us25.chatzy.com/81935648447483. There’s nothing to download or install, just choose a name and a color and click on “join chat.”

 

Our topic this week: while watching Flight last week, there was a discussion about how Blair’s spirit animal was theorized to be a lizard, until season 3 and SenToo. What other spirit animals do you think would work for Jim and Blair? And how about Simon and the rest of Major Crimes?

 

Don’t forget, next week we’re going to do a feedback session. You can submit any piece of writing that you want feedback on, 1000 words or less. Upload it here by Thursday, September 14th: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-ByszdikuKEFCJ2VDBZcC0i7Xf_FnloF Drop me a line at snycock@gmail.com if you have any problems.

 

See you there!

 


beatrice_otter: Elrond and a line of Elves, ready for battle (Elven warriors)
beatrice_otter ([personal profile] beatrice_otter) wrote in [community profile] fancake2025-08-08 01:41 pm

Silmarillion: By Other Means by SpaceWall

Fandom: Silmarillion
Pairings/Characters: Luthien/Maedhros
Rating: teen
Length: 66k
Creator Links: [archiveofourown.org profile] SpaceWall 
Theme: marriage of convenience, old fandoms, small fandoms, book fandoms, rare pairings, AU (fork in the road), pretend couple

Summary: Centuries after the arrival of the Noldor and the Teleri in Beleriand, a celebration of Morgoth’s defeat brings the Crown Princess of Doriath and the Crown Prince of the Noldor together. To save this newborn peace from their respective fathers, they’ll do whatever it takes. Including... getting married?

Meanwhile, Lord Fingon of Himring faces the monumental task of healing Morgoth’s ills.

--

They regarded each other with quiet understanding, all the vast majesty of their respective lineages rendered unimportant by the connection between them. Music wound through the trees; harp and flute, surely joyous in context, sounded lonely in their solitude.

Reccer's Notes: Fëanor is a very complex character in the Silmarillion, who both has reasons for what he does and also does some terrible things. Fanon tends to sympathize with him, and also make him a good father to compensate for his other issues. SpaceWall takes the opposite track, leaning into his selfishness, his arrogance, and his suspiciousness. And then asks, if he had survived on Beleriand, what would have happened? If Fëanor, brilliant and terrible, were in command of the Noldor? Some things are better, some things are worse, (and Thingol is still Thingol), and so at a crucial juncture Maedhros and Luthien step forward to try and prevent disaster and war between the Noldor and Sindarin. And, in the process, they both learn a great deal.

Fanwork Links: By Other Means
beatrice_otter: Elizabeth Bennet reads (Reading)
beatrice_otter ([personal profile] beatrice_otter) wrote in [community profile] fancake2025-08-08 11:57 am

Pride and Prejudice: To Bear is to Conquer Our Fate by Shem

Fandom: Pride and Prejudice
Pairings/Characters: Kitty Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy
Rating: 106k
Length: teen
Creator Links: [archiveofourown.org profile] Shem 
Theme: marriage of conveneince, rare pairings, old fandoms, book fandoms, epic works, novel-length, AU, happy endings,

Summary: The day after the Netherfield Ball, a simple walk through the countryside has wide reaching consequences for Mr Darcy and a certain young lady from Longbourn.

Reccer's Notes: This is such an engaging look at a very different pairing and what might have been. It's long, plotty, with lots of good character work and a great slow burn.

Fanwork Links: To Bear is to Conquer Our Fate
sasheneskywalker: (Default)
sashene ([personal profile] sasheneskywalker) wrote in [community profile] fancake2025-08-08 03:42 pm

The Queen's Gambit (TV): you wait and you wonder who'll take on your odds

Fandom: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Pairings/Characters: Beth Harmon/Benny Watts
Rating: Explicit
Length: 138,010 words
Creator Links: [archiveofourown.org profile] paperclipbitch
Theme: marriage of convenience, future fic, slow burn, mutual pining, exes to friends to spouses to lovers, chess

Summary: “Don’t think of it as marriage,” Benny tells her. “Think of it as castling.”

Beth raises an eyebrow. “Am I the king or the rook in this analogy?”

Reccer's Notes: An amazing post-canon fic where Beth, frustrated by the period-typical sexism she keeps facing, marries Benny for convenience and now they’re stuck in a fake relationship full of unresolved tension, mutual pining, and all their messy issues (addiction, gambling, competitiveness). It’s smart, emotional, and so compelling. I loved every moment <3

Fanwork Links: you wait and you wonder who'll take on your odds
pronker: barnabas and angelique vibing (Default)
pronker ([personal profile] pronker) wrote in [community profile] fancake2025-08-07 12:05 pm

Dark Shadows: Angelique (The Devil Need Not Own You) by Laramie Dean

Fandom: Dark Shadows

Pairings/Characters: Angelique Bouchard/Barnabas Collins, Julia Hoffman, Nicholas Blair, other canon characters

Rating: Unrated; my best guess is T for violence

Length: ~11,000

Creator Links: Link to author's blog

Theme: marriage of convenience, backstory

Summary: The witch Angelique married numerous times throughout her long life and liaisoned even more times. Her great beauty ensured attracting anyone she could use and discard.

Reccer's Notes: Angelique owned many family names throughout the 5 year run of the show, and this story encompasses her entire life from childhood on. The convenient marriage is the one to Roger Collins while she is disguised as student of the occult Cassandra Blair. This story rocks because literally each of her identities receives insightful exploration, though the main "Pairing" consists of Angelique/Barnabas, the most well-known of her loves. She loves too well and not wisely at all.

Fanwork Links: Angelique (The Devil Need Not Own You)

A new fandom tag, please?
verushka70: Kowalski puts his hands to his head (Default)
verushka70 ([personal profile] verushka70) wrote in [community profile] ds_noticeboard2025-08-06 06:40 pm

New Paul Gross film

There's a new PG film that just wrapped shooting. More at this Deadline.com article.

From the article:
Georgina Campbell (Barbarian, The Watchers) and Paul Gross (Broadway’s Good Night and Good Luck, Slings and Arrows) are among the stars of indie pic The Fallers, which has wrapped shooting in Canada....Directed by Will Bowes (Hey Lady!, Degrassi: Next Class), the pic is a voyeurism-themed drama that follows Annie, the daughter and sole caregiver of troubled architect Carl. She escapes her past by trespassing into the homes her father designed, but is forced to confront it and her father’s legacy when the watcher becomes the watched.
beatrice_otter: Captain America (Captain America)
beatrice_otter ([personal profile] beatrice_otter) wrote in [community profile] fancake2025-08-06 12:08 pm

Captain America: You Would Be In Clover by ChibiSquirt

Fandom: MCU
Pairings/Characters: Steve/Bucky, Sam/Steve
Rating: explicit
Length: 127k
Creator Links: [archiveofourown.org profile] ChibiSquirt 
Theme: marriage of convenience, pretend couple, happy endings, genderfuck

Summary: Sarah “Gwen” Rogers was nineteen when she married Bucky Barnes, and she knew at the time just how stupid it was: it wasn’t exactly a brilliant move to marry a man who could never love her, even—or especially—when she knew that she was in love with him.

Neither of them could have predicted the war that came, and if they had, then they sure as hell couldn’t have predicted what would happen when Gwen volunteered for Project: Rebirth.

Reccer's Notes: This is one of the more interesting Captain America genderswaps: what would it do to the essential closeness and devotion of Steve and Bucky's relationship if Bucky was 1000% gay, and Steve was a cis woman? But they still cared about each other as much? They decide to get married, to protect Bucky from gossip, and things go from there. This is such an interesting take on their relationship, on how being a cis woman would affect "Sarah" (especially once she wakes up in modern America after being frozen for seventy years), and her relationship with Sam. All while telling the basic events of the movie.

Fanwork Links: You Would Be In Clover
garryowen: (trek kirk + spock heart)
garryowen ([personal profile] garryowen) wrote in [community profile] fancake2025-08-06 10:32 am

Star Trek AOS: Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known by waketosleep

Fandom: Star Trek AOS (Reboot)
Pairings/Characters: Kirk/Spock
Rating: Teen
Length: 4,249 words
Creator Links: [archiveofourown.org profile] waketosleep
Theme: Marriage of convenience

Summary: Kirk nearly turns a simple trade mission into a diplomatic incident. Luckily, Spock will do a lot to cover his captain's ass.

Reccer's Notes: What I love about Kirk and Spock is that there are so many different takes on who they are and how they'd act, and, in the hands of a good writer, every one of those is believable. In this story, Kirk is a totally obnoxious doofus who makes a major diplomatic blunder (as he does) and has to marry Spock to save face and a dilithium trade deal. Spock is tolerant and eye-rolly.

Kirk/Spock is one of my favorite pairings for marriages of convenience because these two are so married already, and they usually have a high degree of love (even if platonic) for one another at the time of the marriage. That quality is on display here.

This is the first story waketosleep wrote in this fandom. It's short and sweet, and worth revisiting even if you read it in 2009 when it was originally posted.

Fanwork Links: Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known
beatrice_otter: Captain America (Captain America)
beatrice_otter ([personal profile] beatrice_otter) wrote in [community profile] fancake2025-08-05 11:55 pm

Captain America: A Better Version of Our Past by crackdkettle

Fandom: Captain America
Pairings/Characters: Bucky/Peggy, Peggy/Steve, Steve/Bucky
Rating: teen
Length: 37k words
Creator Links: [archiveofourown.org profile] crackdkettle 
Theme: marriage of convenience, kidfic (has kids, accidental baby), pretend couple,

Summary: The Commandos find Bucky in a Hydra facility just days after Steve crashes. A few months later, Peggy comes to Bucky for help: she’s pregnant with Steve’s child and she wants him to claim the child as his so the SSR won’t experiment on it to try to crack Erskine’s formula. Over the next several years Bucky slowly learns how to navigate the life that was meant for Steve — as a husband, father, and founding member of SHIELD — while never giving up the search for the man he lost and still loves.

Reccer's Notes: I love the way crackdkettle handles Bucky and Peggy's mutual grief, and the different ways they handle it, and the slow course of their healing.

Fanwork Links: A Better Version of Our Past
beatrice_otter: Me in red--face not shown (Default)
beatrice_otter ([personal profile] beatrice_otter) wrote in [community profile] fancake2025-08-05 10:33 pm

All About Eve: Till I have the possession of everything she touches by AuKestrel

Fandom: All About Eve
Pairings/Characters: Addison DeWitt/Eve Harrington
Rating: Gen
Length: 1634 words
Creator Links: [archiveofourown.org profile] AuKestrel 
Theme: marriage of convenience, future fic, kidfic (has kids), small fandom, old fandom, post canon,

Summary: You see, society and theatre (and aren’t they really the same thing? - someone, please, offer Mrs. Albert Knickerbacker her smelling salts) are built on the sand of lies: lies of omission, lies of commission, old-fashioned deceit, dishonesty, and compounded misunderstandings.

It takes only a rudimentary understanding and a halfway-capable grasp of human nature to begin to sift the truth from the lies.

Reccer's Notes: All About Eve is a classic 1950s drama about a young actress (Eve Harrington) who advances her career by playing a sweet innocent, attaching herself to an aging star (Margot Channing, played by Bette Davis), and stabbing her in the back. At the end of the movie, Eve marries a witty, snobbish, and super-queer-coded theater critic (Addison DeWitt). This is his perspective on their marriage and their daughter. The narrative voice is very strong, it feels like the movie.

Fanwork Links: Till I have the possession of everything she touches

Mods, can I get a fandom tag?