Singing the Body Electric

Comment below and I'll ask you five questions. Answer them in your own journal, offer to give the first five commenters their own sets of questions, and let the cycle continue!

Meme taken from walgesang, who pitched me these wonderful questions:


1. Who would be your ideal OC in OFMD and what are they like?

Ooh. While there are some historical pirate legends I love seeing brought into fic as OCs (particularly Anne Bonny and Mary Read), I'm a simple human with simple desires, and until such time as canon provides, my ideal from-scratch OC would be a love interest for Izzy Hands.

The kind of OC I'd matchmake him with varies by where Izzy's at in his current story and potential arc, but let's say this is the person who could steal Izzy away to a life of (appropriately hard-working) comfort prior to or early on in the series. In the name of opening up the potential for a bigger OC cast in a vibrant enclave where the survival margins aren't quite as narrow as at sea, how about the love interest's a pirate governor or black marketeer. Charismatic, creative, but not chaotic. Not particularly young, but younger than Izzy—someone who's just clawed their way up ruthlessly into their position, wants more experienced advisors to hand, but now finds themselves surrounded by political sycophants and possible betrayal. They're pragmatic, socially apt, and appreciative of stability and contingency plans, but also just eccentric enough to take one look at this barky, resource-guarding, grey-muzzled henchman with separation anxiety in need of a forever boss and say: "That one."


2. What's your favorite owl?

100% the eastern screech owl. It's the combination of them having those feathery ear/eyebrow combos that make them look permanently angry but also being so little. 200 grams of warbly grump. Adorable.


3. What's a fandom you haven't written for but have always wanted to?

I always end up jotting down some ideas, outlines, and a few lines for any fandom that catches my fancy for two seconds, so I'm sitting on an embarrassing number of unrealized hopes in my WiP folder. But if I'm going with the fandom where I've had the most number of unfinished drafts for the longest time and a continuous level of fondness for the canon, it's got to be Treasure Planet. I've posted a Jim/Silver ship manifesto before, but never so much as a drabble in terms of fic.

Okay.

This is happening.

I'm committing.

I've got a short xeno-focused PWP that's been basically finished for years, and by the end of the year I'm at least going to wrangle it into a complete first draft. You've inspired me. :D


4. You have a million dollars. Where do you spend it?

Boring answer: I use it to finance a move out of my current city, tiding me over until I find work in the new location if I can't remotely keep my current job, then buying and furnishing a condo, setting aside a fund for future housing costs, catching up my retirement savings to a semi-useful level based on my new circumstances, then giving away whatever's left.

But if this is a situation where I have to actually spend this money in shops (oh no, what a fate!) I'd go with: a local furniture builder to make some custom storage-savvy furniture for my apartment, a personal shopper and tailor to keep myself in clothes I like that fit just right, all manner of independent bookshops and other media stores to get myself both digital and hard copies of every book, album, TV show and movie I love, whatever entities I'd have to work with to license a full-sized print of Alex Janvier's Lubicon if the artist were open to it, Patreon and Kickstarter to fund other people's projects, and then Etsy and other artist and artisan storefronts for future birthday gifts for people.


5. What's your favorite headcanon for a favorite character?

For the Harry Potter series, it's got to be Argus Filch as a skilled craftsman and a good cook. Obviously he's a school caretaker and we already know that he can restore a painting, but I love the idea that he's not just good at maintaining and repairing all the antiques in the castle but also builds some handsome pieces of his own in terms of frames and furniture, and can make a good homestyle meal for himself when he's on the outs with the house-elves. There's just something about the idea of someone with the skills to literally and figuratively furnish his own life—and who could be successful in the Muggle world with his abilities— becoming the way he is because of where he is.

For Our Flag Means Death, it's that Nathaniel Buttons is straight up a warlock/wizard/D&D style druid. Again, we're most of the way there in canon, but while I appreciate that the show keeps it ambiguous, I'm a firm believer that Buttons understands the birds he talks to perfectly, really did successfully hex Calico Jack, and keeps asking if people are phantoms because he regularly does see ghosts that he has trouble distinguishing from the living. Also, when he moves on to the next life someday long, long into the future, it's going to be by drowning and his last moments in his earthly body will be spent realizing his dream of making love to the sea.