Yuletide 2012 Letter
Dec. 23rd, 2012 09:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
argentum_lsDear Yuletide Writer,
Hi! We got matched, so we already have something important in common, right? Everything else is just frosting. I’m very much looking forward to the story you’re going to write and I want to make it as easy for you as possible. So, read on if you wish. And know that I know that ODAO.
Loves
My main love is for plot. Stories without a conflict and resolution are great (and I’ve written more than a few!), but if you ask me the one thing that will truly make me bounce with joy: it’s plot. My tastes in plot are about as wide open as they can be. I love h/c, drama, angst, friendship, family, schmoop, casefic, and humor.
In general, I love character exploration and strong characterization. I love depictions of all kinds of relationships, not just sexual or romantic ones. Two of my favorite relationship dynamics are (pseudo)parent-child and best friend-best friend.
I love crossovers! If that’s up your alley, any live-action show that I’ve written about is fair game for a crossover. I keep a list right on my masterpost, and you can scroll through my tags to get a feel for which characters I like. If you’re game for a crossover and you’re up for a challenge, other shows I’m into (but have not written) include VR.5, Jake 2.0, Big Wolf on Campus, 21 Jump Street (TV), Leverage, and Angel. If a crossover does pique your interest, feel to modify the time setting (e.g. "updating" VR.5 to 2011 to fit with The Listener's timeline) or modify/ignore geographic settings (e.g. have the Jump Street cops infiltrate Briarwood High School as if 21JS were set in not!Toronto like MSI is) of the show you're crossing in to better make the shows fit together. If you’re not a crossover writer, no problem; I’m not expecting one at all.
Since I’m not sure what fandom brought you here, I’ll discuss what I like about all of them generically. The common thread of my fandoms is that at least one of the characters has superpowers (or a superstate) that s/he/they have to keep secret from the world at large. I love secrets. I love seeing them kept (and the cost that keeping secrets invariably has), threatened, discovered, and revealed. So, yeah, I love secrets, but I also love when a decision is made (or circumstances conspire) to bring the secret to light. And I love to watch the fallout.
Each of my favorite shows is also set in someplace that more-or-less is the real world, with the obvious exception of the inclusion of the superstate. I like this juxtaposition of people trying to maintain a real world identity while dealing with things that no one else can understand. Where I lose interest in shows like The Vampire Diaries is when the show begins to focus on the supernatural to the exclusion of the real.
For each of the fandoms listed, I’ve provided some story ideas. Feel free to use them, modify them, or ignore them. I’m one of those people who works best with prompts. Obviously, not everyone is. Write what compels you!
Dislikes
I’m not in a porn mood this year, though romance is perfectly fine. I really dislike character assassination and/or bashing. I’m not a huge fan of horror, and—despite my love of h/c—I don’t like torture-for-the-sake-of-torture (e.g. the Saw movies). I’m weird about AUs in regards to how much is too much, and have no taste for the coffee shop/bakery/mechanic/all!human style AU at all. I dislike stories where someone mis-overhears something, gets wildly upset, and refuses to address the issue. I’d like to think my favorite characters are more mature than that. Please no permanent character maiming or death. Also, I’m not generally into crack!fic.
Fandoms
MY SECRET IDENTITY – You know how so many people had a fandom before they knew what fandom was? This was mine. Andrew Clements and I went through high school together. I collected all the teen magazines the actors or show were featured in, drew fan art, attempted my first fanfic, and wrote an episode guide. When Geocities arrived, MSI was the subject of my webpage. Unfortunately, I never got very far with that first fanfic, and I’ve never been able to write more than a couple lines of another one, despite many attempts. In all the years of searching, I’ve only found one MSI fic, and it was a postapoc!AU. So, any story you write will, by definition, be the best canon-based one out there.
If this is the show that brought you here, you are in very select company! (Also, you’re intrinsically awesome). I’m pretty sure only three people on the planet remember this show, and Jerry O’Connell would say that number is too high.
The characters I nominated were Andrew Clements, Kirk Stevens, Dr. Jeffcoate, and Erin Clements, and the only one I asked for was Andrew. I’m open to any canon character you want to use besides the nommed ones (e.g. Ruth Shellenbach, Stephanie Clements, Cassie-the-reporter, first-season-best-friend!Jeff) or OCs who fit in the world.
One of the things I really liked about MSI was how much Andrew fanboyed his own powers. While Ultraman was only mentioned in the first season, I loved that the character even existed. Andrew delighted in being able to do what he could do, and who could blame him? (Well, Dr. J could and did, but that’s beside the point.) Though Andrew did eventually mature a little and calm down (and what did happen to his comic book collection?), I don’t think he ever truly lost the wonder.
Another thing I really liked was that the show was a real world/real high school setting. Andrew had powers, but there was no reason for the powers: no super villains, no prophecy, no great mission. Andrew so desperately wanted to be a superhero, and all he could really manage to be was an awkward teenager with teenage issues and the ability to float, run really fast, and be strong (which were just as often the problem as they were the solution). The police weren’t clamoring for his help, he didn’t masquerade as a vigilante (nor did it go very well when he tried), and the newspapers and public had no knowledge that a superhero lived among them. There’s a great metaphor in all this about the person we are inside and the person we’re allowed to show to others.
I do ask that the fic be set with Andrew in the 14-20ish age bracket. Him being a teenager/young adult and dealing with the powers is what interests me. If you want to update the year of the setting, that’s fine. I have no particular attachment to 1988-1992. However, I’m not ready for him to grow up and have a family, even if I did.
Note about pairings: Andrew had several dates on the show, at least one hookup, and a longer-term girlfriend. Kirk also was shown having girlfriends. If you’re a pairings person, Andrew/OFC or Kirk/OFC is fine texture for a story. In addition, Dr. J had an established crush on Stephanie, and Stephanie was shown dating on the show, so if you want to play with that, all’s good.
Story Ideas
Sometime between season 1 and season 2, Andrew lost his invulnerability. It was quietly written out of the show, though we can surmise that he lost it when he was hit by the photon beam the second time (“Photon Blues”). When did he find out the power was gone? How did he find out? What was his reaction? Did he have another power funeral like he did when he thought he lost his powers the first time (“It Only Hurts for A Little While”)? Did he quietly grieve? Did he celebrate? Did he go through a really awkward week where he wrapped bubble wrap around his arms and wore his hockey mask to school because he was afraid of getting hurt?
In the season 2 episode “Reluctant Hero,” Andrew confessed his powers to Kirk. Naturally, Kirk didn’t believe him, and through the convenience of a plot-device x-ray machine, Andrew was unable to demonstrate them. However, Kirk’s a shrewd guy. Once the seed was planted, did he let it go? Did he suddenly start to notice all the little ways Andrew utterly failed to hide his powers (especially considering what he may have seen during the season 3 ski trip in “Misfire” and Andrew’s near-public-confession in “The Great Indoors”)? Assuming he eventually put the pieces together, did he confront Andrew over it? How? Or did he arrange a new opening for Andrew to come clean? What was it? This is a pretty major lie to have between them for, one would presume, at least a year (through at least the end of the show with “A Bank, A Holdup, A Robber, and a Hero”), and I can’t see Kirk letting sleeping dogs lie. Also, since the photon beam that gave Andrew his powers still exists, how much pressure did Kirk put on Andrew to hook him up? (Did it work?)
Dr. J seems to have invented something for every government group that can exist, which has also made him a lot of enemies. Far too many of those enemies think that Andrew is the weak link with which to manipulate Dr. J. How long will it take before one of those groups realizes that Andrew is actually his greatest invention, and Dr. J is the weak link with which to manipulate him?
H2O: JUST ADD WATER – I’ve recently rediscovered this show and, in the process, discovered that there was a third season! It turns out that there are big chunks of each season that I somehow skipped. I don't care! Spoilers are not an issue, except that my prompts may not take into account canon that I might have missed.
The character I asked for was Cleo Sertori, though I’m interested in all of the characters (canon pairings only, please, if you go that direction). I do not have a favorite mermaid. I asked for Cleo because she was in all three seasons and I feel that her life was the best developed overall.
I would like a mermaid-centric fic, and I’m all for ensembles. I’m not particular to Emma-Rikki-Cleo or Rikki-Cleo-Bella, though. Hell, if you want to do Emma-Rikki-Cleo-Bella, that would be cool, too. If you don't want to do an ensemble, a story focusing just on Cleo would be great. There's an awful lot of her life to work with.
What I love about this show is the girl-centricness of it. This show was about the mermaids, even if everything in their lives wasn’t mermaid-related. One of my favorite little scenes is when Cleo and Rikki are trying to cheer Bella up and they tell her that there’s always one thing that will make them happy. Bella assumes it’s swimming. Then the camera cuts to them finishing a shopping trip. They’re mermaids, but they’re girls first, and they aren’t ashamed of that. They’re also tough, vulnerable, smart, fallible, self-reliant, and occasionally needy—just like real girls.
I love how the girls are friends in an honest way. They support each other and look out for each other, but they don’t always get along. There’s tension and bad moods and the occasional overly-cutting remark. Rikki and Bella have an interesting big sister-little sister relationship, complete with rebellion and exasperation, and all the girls had their moments where they didn’t especially like their found family. Yet they will always be the first ones there for each other.
I like that the girls had their dating struggles, and I like that they were struggles. Cleo and Lewis had their on-again/off-again thing, Rikki and Zane had their more volatile and often-unhealthy relationship, Emma and Ash looked they had some redefining to do once Ash found out, and Bella and Will had to deal with Will learning to see Bella as a whole person. These stories interest me because they’re so recognizable and because they come naturally from the kind of person each girl is, rather than being roles the girls were forced into to exemplify different kinds of relationships.
Story Ideas
By the end of third season, it looked like Cleo was slowly getting backed into a corner with her family. Kim was calling her on inconsistencies in her story, and her dad and stepmom had both been on the wrong end of the problems that Cleo’s metamorphosis caused. The moment that really stood out to me was when Kim demanded to know why no one ever saw Cleo wash her hands, and it made me realize about how often most people do wash their hands in a given day. (Does Cleo really not wash her hands after using the bathroom? Ugh.) While I’m always a sucker for “and then the secret identity is revealed” stories, in this case, I’d like to know more about the little frictions that are being caused by not revealing. How many times has Cleo thought about spilling the beans? Why hasn’t she? How does she rearrange her life to completely avoid water, considering she’s a dolphin trainer (she never gets splashed at Sea World?), her father’s a fisherman (take your daughter to work day?), they live on the shore (can she avoid swimming in her family’s presence ever again?), and she’s been bribing Kim to do the dishes. How far is the tension going to build before Cleo breaks?
The girls discover a sunken ship off the coast, dating back at least a couple hundred years. Something about it is more intriguing than one would initially think, and they’re drawn to exploring it. Then:
They discover something about themselves/their town/their families/mermaids in the ship’s remains; -or-
Treasure! (but how to explain it?); -or-
On returning to land, the girls/Cleo aren’t able to leave the ship behind. They’ve/she's been changed in some supernatural way, and only solving the mystery of the ship will change them/her back.
THE LISTENER – When this show first premiered, I’d been out of fandom for several years. This one almost brought me back in, except there wasn’t quite enough canon. I really loved season 1 and was counting the months eagerly until season 2. Then it turned out that season 2 was essentially a spin-off of season 1 rather than a continuation. While I like the season 2 characters well enough, I don’t like the style shift that the show took. I also don’t like that the major plotline of season 1 was completely abandoned. I haven’t been able to watch more than the first couple episodes of season 3, and probably won’t correct that given what happens near the end of the season.
If this is the fandom that brought you here, all you need to worry about is season 1, as far as the canon is concerned. AUs that deviate from the end of season 1 are to be expected.
The characters I requested are Toby Logan and Osman Bey. The ones I nommed also included Olivia Fawcett and Charlie Marks. I’m open to any characters being used, even season 2 ones, or OCs.
What I like about season 1 was that Toby was a paramedic first. He wanted to help people, so he became a paramedic instead of a superhero. His telepathy only gives him the means to help people who can’t/won’t go to the proper authorities on their own (my favorite episodes are “Lisa Says” and “Inside the Man”). I like Toby and Oz being best friends and partners first, and “crime-fighters” second. I love how Oz shamelessly uses Toby’s power for his own purposes, yet is a caring and supportive friend who can and does keep a secret. I appreciate how Oz figured out that something was going on with Toby and confronted him; Oz called it with his line “If you can’t trust me, I can’t trust you.” I also love the plot line with Toby’s mother and baby brother, and the contrasts that were presented with Toby’s lack-of-family, Oz’s huge extended family, and Olivia’s sister.
On the women front, I love that Olivia’s a competent and highly-ranked doctor who still struggles with insecurities. The subplot where she had to treat her old teacher really resonated with me. Later, when we meet Olivia’s sister and discover that there’s always been an incredible (one sided?) rivalry between them, I had to wonder if Olivia even wanted to be a doctor, or if that was the path she chose because of its status. When Toby revealed his powers, Olivia was confronted with one person in her life that she couldn’t , and had never been able to, hide her inner self from. How did this make her feel? How did she respond after the immediate crisis was over and she finally got a chance to think about it? Was this the straw that officially ended Toby/Olivia? If so, then what made it OK to be friends?
Likewise, Charlie is a competent and strong cop. She’s a skeptic and analytically minded, yet she does sometimes get too emotionally drawn into cases. She’s headstrong and driven, yet not a workaholic. When she learns about Toby, she doesn’t accept it easily. She’s rightfully suspicious of both him and his motives, yet she’s not afraid to draw on his ability when it’s necessary. If you choose to include her in your story, you can decide her post-season 1 fate. Since it’s left ambiguous until season 2, either choice works for me (though I’m partial to her surviving).
If you want to include pairings, I’m onboard with Toby/Olivia or Toby/Charlie. Oz/any-tall-woman is fun, too. The boys are shown clubbing and picking up women, so Toby/OC or Oz/OC makes sense. As much as I like intense bromances, I can’t see Toby/Oz. (I could, however, be persuaded to Olivia/Charlie).
Story ideas
Carry forward the season 1 plot! Who is after Toby? Where is Maya? Why did her car go off the road? What were the flashes Toby was getting and why didn’t/couldn’t Maya just say what she wanted him to know? What happened to the mystery baby brother? Were there other siblings? What was Maya running from to begin with? Who is Toby’s father? What made Maya send Toby to Ray?
What was it like being a telepath in the foster system? Toby and Oz get sent to a foster family home where something is going on that Toby responds to based on his history rather than his mind-reading.
Oz ropes Toby into observing Ramadan with him. Or, at least, keeping him honest during the observance, since Toby is the one person Oz can’t lie to about whether he’s fulfilling his obligations. In the process, Toby discovers something surprising about Oz.
Final Note
Thank you again for signing up. I hope you have fun writing. Happy Yuletide!
Hi! We got matched, so we already have something important in common, right? Everything else is just frosting. I’m very much looking forward to the story you’re going to write and I want to make it as easy for you as possible. So, read on if you wish. And know that I know that ODAO.
Loves
My main love is for plot. Stories without a conflict and resolution are great (and I’ve written more than a few!), but if you ask me the one thing that will truly make me bounce with joy: it’s plot. My tastes in plot are about as wide open as they can be. I love h/c, drama, angst, friendship, family, schmoop, casefic, and humor.
In general, I love character exploration and strong characterization. I love depictions of all kinds of relationships, not just sexual or romantic ones. Two of my favorite relationship dynamics are (pseudo)parent-child and best friend-best friend.
I love crossovers! If that’s up your alley, any live-action show that I’ve written about is fair game for a crossover. I keep a list right on my masterpost, and you can scroll through my tags to get a feel for which characters I like. If you’re game for a crossover and you’re up for a challenge, other shows I’m into (but have not written) include VR.5, Jake 2.0, Big Wolf on Campus, 21 Jump Street (TV), Leverage, and Angel. If a crossover does pique your interest, feel to modify the time setting (e.g. "updating" VR.5 to 2011 to fit with The Listener's timeline) or modify/ignore geographic settings (e.g. have the Jump Street cops infiltrate Briarwood High School as if 21JS were set in not!Toronto like MSI is) of the show you're crossing in to better make the shows fit together. If you’re not a crossover writer, no problem; I’m not expecting one at all.
Since I’m not sure what fandom brought you here, I’ll discuss what I like about all of them generically. The common thread of my fandoms is that at least one of the characters has superpowers (or a superstate) that s/he/they have to keep secret from the world at large. I love secrets. I love seeing them kept (and the cost that keeping secrets invariably has), threatened, discovered, and revealed. So, yeah, I love secrets, but I also love when a decision is made (or circumstances conspire) to bring the secret to light. And I love to watch the fallout.
Each of my favorite shows is also set in someplace that more-or-less is the real world, with the obvious exception of the inclusion of the superstate. I like this juxtaposition of people trying to maintain a real world identity while dealing with things that no one else can understand. Where I lose interest in shows like The Vampire Diaries is when the show begins to focus on the supernatural to the exclusion of the real.
For each of the fandoms listed, I’ve provided some story ideas. Feel free to use them, modify them, or ignore them. I’m one of those people who works best with prompts. Obviously, not everyone is. Write what compels you!
Dislikes
I’m not in a porn mood this year, though romance is perfectly fine. I really dislike character assassination and/or bashing. I’m not a huge fan of horror, and—despite my love of h/c—I don’t like torture-for-the-sake-of-torture (e.g. the Saw movies). I’m weird about AUs in regards to how much is too much, and have no taste for the coffee shop/bakery/mechanic/all!human style AU at all. I dislike stories where someone mis-overhears something, gets wildly upset, and refuses to address the issue. I’d like to think my favorite characters are more mature than that. Please no permanent character maiming or death. Also, I’m not generally into crack!fic.
Fandoms
MY SECRET IDENTITY – You know how so many people had a fandom before they knew what fandom was? This was mine. Andrew Clements and I went through high school together. I collected all the teen magazines the actors or show were featured in, drew fan art, attempted my first fanfic, and wrote an episode guide. When Geocities arrived, MSI was the subject of my webpage. Unfortunately, I never got very far with that first fanfic, and I’ve never been able to write more than a couple lines of another one, despite many attempts. In all the years of searching, I’ve only found one MSI fic, and it was a postapoc!AU. So, any story you write will, by definition, be the best canon-based one out there.
If this is the show that brought you here, you are in very select company! (Also, you’re intrinsically awesome). I’m pretty sure only three people on the planet remember this show, and Jerry O’Connell would say that number is too high.
The characters I nominated were Andrew Clements, Kirk Stevens, Dr. Jeffcoate, and Erin Clements, and the only one I asked for was Andrew. I’m open to any canon character you want to use besides the nommed ones (e.g. Ruth Shellenbach, Stephanie Clements, Cassie-the-reporter, first-season-best-friend!Jeff) or OCs who fit in the world.
One of the things I really liked about MSI was how much Andrew fanboyed his own powers. While Ultraman was only mentioned in the first season, I loved that the character even existed. Andrew delighted in being able to do what he could do, and who could blame him? (Well, Dr. J could and did, but that’s beside the point.) Though Andrew did eventually mature a little and calm down (and what did happen to his comic book collection?), I don’t think he ever truly lost the wonder.
Another thing I really liked was that the show was a real world/real high school setting. Andrew had powers, but there was no reason for the powers: no super villains, no prophecy, no great mission. Andrew so desperately wanted to be a superhero, and all he could really manage to be was an awkward teenager with teenage issues and the ability to float, run really fast, and be strong (which were just as often the problem as they were the solution). The police weren’t clamoring for his help, he didn’t masquerade as a vigilante (nor did it go very well when he tried), and the newspapers and public had no knowledge that a superhero lived among them. There’s a great metaphor in all this about the person we are inside and the person we’re allowed to show to others.
I do ask that the fic be set with Andrew in the 14-20ish age bracket. Him being a teenager/young adult and dealing with the powers is what interests me. If you want to update the year of the setting, that’s fine. I have no particular attachment to 1988-1992. However, I’m not ready for him to grow up and have a family, even if I did.
Note about pairings: Andrew had several dates on the show, at least one hookup, and a longer-term girlfriend. Kirk also was shown having girlfriends. If you’re a pairings person, Andrew/OFC or Kirk/OFC is fine texture for a story. In addition, Dr. J had an established crush on Stephanie, and Stephanie was shown dating on the show, so if you want to play with that, all’s good.
Story Ideas
Sometime between season 1 and season 2, Andrew lost his invulnerability. It was quietly written out of the show, though we can surmise that he lost it when he was hit by the photon beam the second time (“Photon Blues”). When did he find out the power was gone? How did he find out? What was his reaction? Did he have another power funeral like he did when he thought he lost his powers the first time (“It Only Hurts for A Little While”)? Did he quietly grieve? Did he celebrate? Did he go through a really awkward week where he wrapped bubble wrap around his arms and wore his hockey mask to school because he was afraid of getting hurt?
In the season 2 episode “Reluctant Hero,” Andrew confessed his powers to Kirk. Naturally, Kirk didn’t believe him, and through the convenience of a plot-device x-ray machine, Andrew was unable to demonstrate them. However, Kirk’s a shrewd guy. Once the seed was planted, did he let it go? Did he suddenly start to notice all the little ways Andrew utterly failed to hide his powers (especially considering what he may have seen during the season 3 ski trip in “Misfire” and Andrew’s near-public-confession in “The Great Indoors”)? Assuming he eventually put the pieces together, did he confront Andrew over it? How? Or did he arrange a new opening for Andrew to come clean? What was it? This is a pretty major lie to have between them for, one would presume, at least a year (through at least the end of the show with “A Bank, A Holdup, A Robber, and a Hero”), and I can’t see Kirk letting sleeping dogs lie. Also, since the photon beam that gave Andrew his powers still exists, how much pressure did Kirk put on Andrew to hook him up? (Did it work?)
Dr. J seems to have invented something for every government group that can exist, which has also made him a lot of enemies. Far too many of those enemies think that Andrew is the weak link with which to manipulate Dr. J. How long will it take before one of those groups realizes that Andrew is actually his greatest invention, and Dr. J is the weak link with which to manipulate him?
H2O: JUST ADD WATER – I’ve recently rediscovered this show and, in the process, discovered that there was a third season! It turns out that there are big chunks of each season that I somehow skipped. I don't care! Spoilers are not an issue, except that my prompts may not take into account canon that I might have missed.
The character I asked for was Cleo Sertori, though I’m interested in all of the characters (canon pairings only, please, if you go that direction). I do not have a favorite mermaid. I asked for Cleo because she was in all three seasons and I feel that her life was the best developed overall.
I would like a mermaid-centric fic, and I’m all for ensembles. I’m not particular to Emma-Rikki-Cleo or Rikki-Cleo-Bella, though. Hell, if you want to do Emma-Rikki-Cleo-Bella, that would be cool, too. If you don't want to do an ensemble, a story focusing just on Cleo would be great. There's an awful lot of her life to work with.
What I love about this show is the girl-centricness of it. This show was about the mermaids, even if everything in their lives wasn’t mermaid-related. One of my favorite little scenes is when Cleo and Rikki are trying to cheer Bella up and they tell her that there’s always one thing that will make them happy. Bella assumes it’s swimming. Then the camera cuts to them finishing a shopping trip. They’re mermaids, but they’re girls first, and they aren’t ashamed of that. They’re also tough, vulnerable, smart, fallible, self-reliant, and occasionally needy—just like real girls.
I love how the girls are friends in an honest way. They support each other and look out for each other, but they don’t always get along. There’s tension and bad moods and the occasional overly-cutting remark. Rikki and Bella have an interesting big sister-little sister relationship, complete with rebellion and exasperation, and all the girls had their moments where they didn’t especially like their found family. Yet they will always be the first ones there for each other.
I like that the girls had their dating struggles, and I like that they were struggles. Cleo and Lewis had their on-again/off-again thing, Rikki and Zane had their more volatile and often-unhealthy relationship, Emma and Ash looked they had some redefining to do once Ash found out, and Bella and Will had to deal with Will learning to see Bella as a whole person. These stories interest me because they’re so recognizable and because they come naturally from the kind of person each girl is, rather than being roles the girls were forced into to exemplify different kinds of relationships.
Story Ideas
By the end of third season, it looked like Cleo was slowly getting backed into a corner with her family. Kim was calling her on inconsistencies in her story, and her dad and stepmom had both been on the wrong end of the problems that Cleo’s metamorphosis caused. The moment that really stood out to me was when Kim demanded to know why no one ever saw Cleo wash her hands, and it made me realize about how often most people do wash their hands in a given day. (Does Cleo really not wash her hands after using the bathroom? Ugh.) While I’m always a sucker for “and then the secret identity is revealed” stories, in this case, I’d like to know more about the little frictions that are being caused by not revealing. How many times has Cleo thought about spilling the beans? Why hasn’t she? How does she rearrange her life to completely avoid water, considering she’s a dolphin trainer (she never gets splashed at Sea World?), her father’s a fisherman (take your daughter to work day?), they live on the shore (can she avoid swimming in her family’s presence ever again?), and she’s been bribing Kim to do the dishes. How far is the tension going to build before Cleo breaks?
The girls discover a sunken ship off the coast, dating back at least a couple hundred years. Something about it is more intriguing than one would initially think, and they’re drawn to exploring it. Then:
THE LISTENER – When this show first premiered, I’d been out of fandom for several years. This one almost brought me back in, except there wasn’t quite enough canon. I really loved season 1 and was counting the months eagerly until season 2. Then it turned out that season 2 was essentially a spin-off of season 1 rather than a continuation. While I like the season 2 characters well enough, I don’t like the style shift that the show took. I also don’t like that the major plotline of season 1 was completely abandoned. I haven’t been able to watch more than the first couple episodes of season 3, and probably won’t correct that given what happens near the end of the season.
If this is the fandom that brought you here, all you need to worry about is season 1, as far as the canon is concerned. AUs that deviate from the end of season 1 are to be expected.
The characters I requested are Toby Logan and Osman Bey. The ones I nommed also included Olivia Fawcett and Charlie Marks. I’m open to any characters being used, even season 2 ones, or OCs.
What I like about season 1 was that Toby was a paramedic first. He wanted to help people, so he became a paramedic instead of a superhero. His telepathy only gives him the means to help people who can’t/won’t go to the proper authorities on their own (my favorite episodes are “Lisa Says” and “Inside the Man”). I like Toby and Oz being best friends and partners first, and “crime-fighters” second. I love how Oz shamelessly uses Toby’s power for his own purposes, yet is a caring and supportive friend who can and does keep a secret. I appreciate how Oz figured out that something was going on with Toby and confronted him; Oz called it with his line “If you can’t trust me, I can’t trust you.” I also love the plot line with Toby’s mother and baby brother, and the contrasts that were presented with Toby’s lack-of-family, Oz’s huge extended family, and Olivia’s sister.
On the women front, I love that Olivia’s a competent and highly-ranked doctor who still struggles with insecurities. The subplot where she had to treat her old teacher really resonated with me. Later, when we meet Olivia’s sister and discover that there’s always been an incredible (one sided?) rivalry between them, I had to wonder if Olivia even wanted to be a doctor, or if that was the path she chose because of its status. When Toby revealed his powers, Olivia was confronted with one person in her life that she couldn’t , and had never been able to, hide her inner self from. How did this make her feel? How did she respond after the immediate crisis was over and she finally got a chance to think about it? Was this the straw that officially ended Toby/Olivia? If so, then what made it OK to be friends?
Likewise, Charlie is a competent and strong cop. She’s a skeptic and analytically minded, yet she does sometimes get too emotionally drawn into cases. She’s headstrong and driven, yet not a workaholic. When she learns about Toby, she doesn’t accept it easily. She’s rightfully suspicious of both him and his motives, yet she’s not afraid to draw on his ability when it’s necessary. If you choose to include her in your story, you can decide her post-season 1 fate. Since it’s left ambiguous until season 2, either choice works for me (though I’m partial to her surviving).
If you want to include pairings, I’m onboard with Toby/Olivia or Toby/Charlie. Oz/any-tall-woman is fun, too. The boys are shown clubbing and picking up women, so Toby/OC or Oz/OC makes sense. As much as I like intense bromances, I can’t see Toby/Oz. (I could, however, be persuaded to Olivia/Charlie).
Story ideas
Carry forward the season 1 plot! Who is after Toby? Where is Maya? Why did her car go off the road? What were the flashes Toby was getting and why didn’t/couldn’t Maya just say what she wanted him to know? What happened to the mystery baby brother? Were there other siblings? What was Maya running from to begin with? Who is Toby’s father? What made Maya send Toby to Ray?
What was it like being a telepath in the foster system? Toby and Oz get sent to a foster family home where something is going on that Toby responds to based on his history rather than his mind-reading.
Oz ropes Toby into observing Ramadan with him. Or, at least, keeping him honest during the observance, since Toby is the one person Oz can’t lie to about whether he’s fulfilling his obligations. In the process, Toby discovers something surprising about Oz.
Final Note
Thank you again for signing up. I hope you have fun writing. Happy Yuletide!
