Dear Unsent Letters Author

[bustedxflush]

Hi, I’m great_whatsit at AO3! First and foremost: THANK YOU! I am so lucky to be getting a gift from you, and I’m immensely grateful for the time and energy you're putting into this. Taking the time to do something like this is a huge deal.

In terms of narrative I’m pretty easy to please, and any rating and/or combination of gender identities and bodies is cool with me. That said, I do have a few DNWs: extreme or explicit violence and torture, noncon or dubcon (unless specified for the fandom), horror, and A/B/O.

Things I love (but in no way require) in fic: found family, sex that is urgent, angry, awkward, or familiar and full of laughter (or all of the above), complicated or fucked up power dynamics (please never think anything in this department will be Too Much), quiet devotion, humor, bittersweet endings, day in the life snapshots, tragically stoic characters who only one other person understands, and damaged people who are trying, whether it's just to do as little harm as possible, or to heal themselves, even a little (😭😭😭😭😭😭).

All of that said: everything that follows is mere suggestion, nothing more. I am already over the moon that anyone else shares any of these interests, and is willing to write something about one of them for me. Anything you come up with will be incredible.

Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb (1971): Available here for free (ok.ru link), and rentable on Amazon and Apple TV in the US.

So, Margaret Fuchs is a young woman in the present who, golly gee, looks exactly like this ancient goddess/mummy chick named Tera. (Margaret's archaeologist dad, uh, sorta stole Tera's coffin and has it and her still-flawless body in the basement. It's a whole thing.) Margaret was born the moment Tera was killed and there's this ~mysterious link~ between them. In the movie, there's space to doubt whether Tara has sort of possessed Margaret and is forcing her to prepare for Tera's return, or if Margaret recognizes that people thinking she is Tera gives her space to exercise power and is milking that shit for all it is worth. (Me, I prefer that interpretation, but you do you!)

ANYWAY. The movie's third act basically left me daydreaming of Tera and Margaret ruling the universe (or London, or ancient Egypt, or Margaret's neighborhood, or anything!) together and being badass chicks who think men are cute for thinking women need them for anything. I love the idea of them as a hot lesbian couple with amazing tits, but am also totally fine with them just being hot, powerful chick allies, that may or may not be supernatural/impossible to kill.

Two different diaries? Communication through a single diary? Letters left for one another, during the years when Maragret wasn't allowed into her dad's basement lair and theoretically didn't know either about Tera, or that she was there? I would also be down with some sort of faux scholarly text about the two of them, or maybe one or both of them writing letters in response to some dumbass dude's clueless academic essay on them?

Honestly, anything you want to do would be amazing, as long as it involves Tera and Magaret and some sort of badassery.

The Pursuit of Happiness (1971): Available here for free (ok.ru link), and to rent on Amazon and Apple TV in the US.

 

Ok, this request is a total moonshot but I figured, why the hell not? I honestly think this movie mostly sucks. It's one of those very shitty late 1960s/early 1970s movies about "pity the poor rich white kid who society mistreats," featuring a whiny, shitty lead character. BUT! The shitty guy's dad, John Popper, is a total silver lining. He's single and lives alone in New Hampshire, far away from his rich, pushy mom and the whole NYC scene. What does he do? Why, he paints! And he gardens! Plus, he seems genuinely open to his son's lack of focus and appears to enjoy watching the kid (annoying though he is) trying to work out who he'll be as an adult. IDK, I just love him with my whole heart?

 

If you are willing to take this on, bless you, and rest assured I will probably weep with joy no matter what you produce. I was thinking a diary would be easy, but the movie ends with his stupid son fleeing the country (he escaped from prison because, you know, life is hard for rich white kids), so letters would work, too! I would prefer to hear just from John, answering his son's stuff, but I will trust you if you take this approach and think hearing from the kid is also necessary. Oooooh, or letters b/n Popper and his ex-wife? For real, John Popper in any form would thrill me.

The Manchurian Candidate (1962): Available for free here (ok.ru link) and on Kanopy, and to rent at a bunch of places, including Amazon and Apple TV in the US.

 

I have a decided weakness for self-aware, fictional men who are either trying not to fall apart, or know they're disasters and hate themselves for it. I love Marco and Raymond b/c they're sort of going in opposite directions on the trajectory: Marco is, slowly, with help, putting himself back together, while Raymond, who thought he was ok, is discovering all of the cracks in his identity and control. I love them together, too, because helping Raymond gives Marco something to care about, which is so so so central to his journey to being a real human again.

 

ANYWAY. Any AU in which Raymond is still around and they're together (as friends or as a couple, or first one then the other, anything is cool) and being fragile (or maybe not so fragile eventually) would be amazing, but so would missing scenes. Their time in Korea, for example — how did they interact there? Was there anything more than brusqueness? What happens if more starts to come through about the brainwashing for one or both of them? How do they deal with it? Or missing scenes from the movie's modern day — letters or notes they exchange, or Marco's typed notes or reports on Raymond!

 

I don't know that social media would really work for these two, if only b/c they'd both be catastrophically bad at it, but any other format would be amazing.
 

Moonfleet (1955): Available here for free (ok.ru link).

 

I was fairly meh on this movie, but I was extremely NOT meh on the relationship between Lord and Lady Ashwood. We initially think that Lady Ashwood is secretly banging James Fox, the main character, but it turns out that her husband (who is played by George Sanders, which should help you understand exactly how delightfully shady he is) was fully aware of their affair, and may even have encouraged it. Later, when the three of them are in a carriage together, Lord Ashwood is the most chill gentleman while he watches his wife and Fox seriously make out (there is a threatening law enforcement guy there — you know 'reasons'). SO! Let me see their kinky life! Or their shared joy in being fundamentally shitty, manipulatively people. Letters! Journals! Newspaper blind items, if those were even a thing back in the day? Other people write letters about how untrustworthy they are, and gasp have you heard about what they do in bed? Give me all/any of it! Please!

 

The Irony of Fate (1975): Available for free on a couple of different official YT channels, both (all?) with English subs. A quick search should bring up some options. NB: There are two parts, it's kinda long.

 

Yeah yeah, it's a love story between Zhenya and Nadya. Whatever. I am here for Ippolit and Ippolit alone! In the movie, Nadya basically dumps him for Zhenya and one could see him as kind of a buffon, but he is also exactly right when he drunkenly talks about the relationship between Zhenya and Nadya, and there's a great moment when Nadya mother asks her why she would hurt "such a good man." Because YES! He is a fundamentally good man, one who is awkward and unsure but just wants to be happy like everyone else. So, give me a fic in which he is either happy, or working toward it. I would love just an Ippolit character study — he seems like the type to keep a ridiculous journal, full of both self-loathing (sniffle) and attempts at self-encouragement. Or get him back together with Nadya! I know she treats him badly, but I would be willing to give them another chance — if being with her would genuinely make him happy, then hell yeah. Maybe letters they write back and forth? Or move it forward in time and make it emails/texts? Honestly, I just want Ippolit to feel good about himself.