Thursday: reading & writing

[tigriswolf]

I’m still tigriswolf and today's theme is reading and writing. Prompts can be anything to do with either.

Just a few rules:
No more than five prompts in a row.
No more than three prompts in the same fandom.
Use the character's full names and fandom's full name for ease adding to the Lonely Prompts spreadsheet.
No spoilers in prompts for a month after airing, or use the spoiler cut option found here.
If your fill contains spoilers, warn and leave plenty of space, or use the spoiler cut.
If there are possible triggers in your story, please warn for them in the subject line!

Prompts should be formatted as follows: [Use the character's full names and fandom's full name]
Fandom, Character +/ Character, Prompt

Some examples to get the ball rolling...
+ RPF, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, the first songs they wrote each other


We use AO3 to bookmark filled prompts. If you fill a prompt and post it to AO3 please add it to the Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2016 collection. See further notes on this new option here.

Not feeling any of today’s prompts? Check out Lonely Prompts Spreadsheet 1 (not very current), Lonely Prompts Spreadsheet 2, or the Calendar Archives, or for more recent prompts, you can use LJ's advanced search options to find prompts to request and/or fill.

While the Lonely Prompts Spreadsheets and LJ's advanced search options are available, bookmarking the links of prompts you like might work better for searching for in the future.


tag=reading&writing

Comments

[tigriswolf]

RPF, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, the first songs they wrote each other

[enmuse.livejournal.com]

Avengers Academy, James Bucky Barnes +or/ any, Ballads

[nagi-schwarz.livejournal.com]

Stargate Atlantis, John Sheppard, what he reads when he finishes War and Peace.

[metamorphagi.livejournal.com]

A Song of Ice and Fire, Stannis Baratheon + Shireen Baratheon, His own father taught him how to read and write, and he does the same for Shireen.

[nagi-schwarz.livejournal.com]

Supernatural, any, when reading a book could kill you.

[nagi-schwarz.livejournal.com]

Stargate, Sha'uri, learning to read and write.

[tigriswolf]

author's choice, author's choice, the stories we read to our children

Howl's Moving Castle, Howl+Sophie + Morgan

[vesca-viridian.livejournal.com]

Howl as a child had found himself escaping his reality in any book he could get his hands on. His parents had a large bookshelf in the study full of literary classics and poetry, and one big book of mythology that he and Megan used to covet until Megan declared herself too old for fantasies and turned toward other interests. He’d always found fantasy the most appealing though, huddling up with Tolkien’s works and abusing his parents’ library card to take out books on Merlin and King Arthur. Back then he hadn’t known it for real, but the possibilities the books sparked had had him seeking out fairy rings and hunting down arcane-sounding ingredients in would-be attempts at spells.

A much younger Howl, still Howell then, had determined to become a wizard at least as great as Merlin. And Howl fancied he’d succeeded in that more or less.

The seeds of it all had been planted by that first tome of myths from his parents’ study though, first by begging for it to be read to him, and later reading on his own, burning through batteries as he read well past his appointed bedtime.

Sophie had also grown up on myths and stories, soaking up what Howl would call fairy tales and fables with the voracious appetite of a girl with much imagination and not much worldly experience. But the stories she grew up with weren’t fantastical; witches and wizards were fact. Life often fell into preordained roles, and fateful encounters and the power of favors were never something to take lightly. It had shaped her worldview for a long while, for nothing much ever happened for the eldest of three. The eldest was the most likely to fail, or to have a safe, predictable route in life. She’d always been a bit miffed by it as a child, for why should the youngest of three be the most likely to fall on the road of adventure and success?

As an adult, she looked back on the stories she grew up on as so much rubbish for the most part. Yes, she was the eldest of three and her life had more than enough adventure between her proclivity toward nosiness and being married to the King’s wizard. Granted none of the books had had an eldest of three who was a witch in her own right, but Sophie supposed that was why those were books and this was reality; she was too much herself these days to fall meekly into some role.

And so when it came to raising Morgan, when they compared notes their childhood stories were quite similar despite coming from different worlds. There were certain differences—“Everyone knows vampires aren’t real, Howl.” “Yes, Sophie, but they must be real somewhere.” Or “Why on earth would any self-respecting witch make a house of gingerbread just to cannibalize children?” “Witches are always evil in stories from my world, Sophie.” “Well clearly they haven’t met very many witches then, now have they?”—but similar enough that they should have been able to agree to something for Morgan. But Sophie didn’t want Morgan having the same problems she had with pre-cast roles—“Is there even a role for the son of a powerful, handsome wizard?” “Shush, you.”—and Howl didn’t like most of the stories Sophie did—“Nothing happens in this story at all. You might as well tell him stories of working in the hat shop.” “Considering working in the hat shop led me to meeting you, maybe I should just tell him stories of both our lives.” “Oh, please don’t. We both know you’ll ruin our characters terribly.” “I’ll ruin them? If you told the story, you’d make yourself out to be some sort of hero.” “I was quite dashing in the end there.”—so in the end they were left with turning to stories neither of them had grown up with more often than not.

“I suppose,” Howl said as he paged through a recent purchase from Wales, “that he won’t need fairytales if he’s growing up in one.”

“But talking trains?” Sophie asked, wrinkling her nose over a book with a watercolor train with a human face. It was quite alarming looking. Many of the mechanical things from Howl’s world were strange and ominous, but something about this was even more so.

“And yet you have no problem with Seuss.”

[tigriswolf]

Highlander, Methos, writing since writing began

[tigriswolf]

author's choice, author's choice, "There's more to literacy than just reading a book, you know."

[tigriswolf]

author's choice, author's choice, falling into a book

[brumeier.livejournal.com]

Stargate Multiverse, Evan Lorne, being approached to illustrate a book

Fill 1/2: Artist AU

[nagi-schwarz.livejournal.com]

Evan had missed team night with his men. Coughlin, Reed, and Parrish were good guys. Coughlin and Reed had been reassigned to gate teams straight away, since there was room for them, what with the terribly high casualty rates at Stargate Command. Parrish had been assigned to base botany for now, but he’d admitted there was some talk of him being assigned to a gate team as well.

“What about you?” Parrish asked. “Scuttlebutt has it that Landry’s thinking of giving you a gate team of your own.”

“Not sure I want one,” Evan admitted.

“Because it’s not us?” Coughlin batted his eyelashes. “Aw, Major, you’re too sweet.”

Evan swatted him on the shoulder. “You’re not that cute, Sergeant.”

Coughlin made a kissy face, and Reed shoved him good-naturedly.

“What would they have you do, if you weren’t on a gate team?” Parrish asked.

“They might put me in charge of my own mining operation,” Evan said. “Of course, as XO I handled an awful lot of logistics, and it wouldn’t hurt to have an additional logistics officer on base. Not to mention I think the current logistics officer has about hit his twenty.”

“But if we did get back together as a team?” Parrish worried his bottom lip.

Evan smiled and patted his shoulder gently. “Then you know I’d be there for you.”


“What if we got to go back to Atlantis?” Reed asked. “Would you come?”


“I honestly don’t know,” Evan began, and unholy glee lit in Coughlin’s eyes.

“Holy shit! Major’s got a girl here on Earth! Who is she, sir?”

“There’s no girl,” Evan said, rolling his eyes.

Coughlin nudged Reed. “There totally is.”


“There’s a reason I came on the second wave and not on the first,” Evan pointed out. “I have family here, ties here.”

“But Atlantis is home,” Reed said quietly, and Evan nodded.

Parrish’s expression was unreadable for a moment, but then he said, “I can’t imagine there’s a girl on this planet good enough for our Saint Evan.”

Coughlin raised his bottle of beer. “Saint Evan!”

They called him Saint Evan after he dealt with particularly sticky issues, usually involving McKay’s temper.

“Well,” Parrish said, “if you’re not going to be flinging yourself through the gate on a regular basis like an eternal Red Shirt, would you help me with a project?”


“What kind of project?” Evan ignored Reed and Coughlin’s protests at being called Red Shirts. “I’m more geophysics, less botany.”


“I want to make a book,” Parrish said. “About all the plants we’ve found in Pegasus.”

“A book?” Reed echoed. “Wouldn’t that be really...big?”

“Obviously the Botany department kept logs, wrote papers and reports, and it’s all accessible digitally,” Parrish said, warming to the subject, and Evan was pleased to see him looking happy and animated. He’d been even quieter than usual tonight. “But I’m a little old-school, and I thought an actual book would be nice.”

“I’m not much of a writer,” Evan said. He could write succinct AARs and had developed a knack for useful euphemisms (‘thrown in jail for the hundredth time’ was ‘encountered local resistance’), but he was definitely no technical writer.

“But you’re an artist,” Parrish pointed out. “I was hoping you’d illustrate the book for me.”

“You’re a talented artist yourself, though. I mean, I’ve seen your diagrams of your plant findings. I’m flattered you think I could do better,” Evan said. “But I don’t know that I can, especially since I don’t have your scientific skill.”


“Please, you’re much better at drawing than I am.” Parrish flapped a dismissive hand. “And like I said, I’m old-school, and I’d want you to illuminate the book, too.”

Coughlin’s eyes lit up. “Ooh, like the Voynich manuscript?”

“Except, you know, not garbled and not meaningless,” Parrish said.

“Has anyone looked at the Voynich manuscript? To see if it has something we can read, or, you know, that’s from Pegasus,” Coughlin said.

[brumeier.livejournal.com]

Any, Any, "That wasn't in the manual!"

Fill 1/2: OC Stargate future!verse

[nagi-schwarz.livejournal.com]

The entire base shook. Sharene let out an impressive string of curses in a dozen languages. Her dating a girl in the Jackson Corps was definitely paying off.

“That wasn’t in the manual,” Evander snapped, glaring at Ryuichi.

Ryuichi, who was sitting on the ground in lotus position and looking unfairly serene, opened one eye. “Do you think that means it worked?”

“We don’t know, Lieutenant Kusanagi, this plan was yours,” Harrisselle said as calmly as possible.

Sharene, who was peering through the bars of the cell, narrowed her eyes. “Well, the guards are panicking, so something worked.”

“No one’s ever done anything like this before.” Ryuichi closed his eye and straightened his posture, took a deep breath.

“You mean deliberately,” Evander said.

The base shook again. Harrisselle’s head spun, like she’d been whipped around in an old 302 without inertial dampeners.

“If this entire base flies apart with us in it, your plan officially has not worked,” Sharene said.

“Our plan,” Ryuichi said. “And I’m pretty sure it’ll work. I read the reports and journals very closely.”

“Journals?” Evander echoed. “Evan Lorne didn’t keep journals, not like Daniel Jackson.”

“Kate Heightmeyer, Radek Zelenka, and Samantha Carter all kept detailed journals, scientists that they were.” Ryuichi made a humming noise. “You’re not helping me concentrate.”

Evander went to stand beside Sharene and peer through the cell bars. “Anything, Lieutenant Cadman?” He finally understood why formality was drilled into soldiers. Procedures and policies were - comforting. Automatic in times of panic, like right now.

“Nothing yet, Captain McShep.”

“Lieutenant Kusanagi?”

“Not helping! Sir.”

Evander cast a look at Harrisselle. “Lieutenant Markham?”

“Trying to help Lieutenant Kusanagi, sir.” She was humming, just like she’d seen in old recordings of buddhist monks. They sound they made while they meditated was supposed to be soothing.

The alarm blaring through the Rogue Oranian base was the antithesis of soothing.

“If we could just get out of this cell,” Sharene said. They’d stopped trying to reach through the bars, which zapped them every time.

“Working on it,” Ryuichi hissed.

Harrisselle had closed her eyes to create some illusion of serenity to help with the humming. She had to pause, clear her throat, and restart her humming. She opened her eyes for a second - and her world turned inside out.

The last coherent thing she understood was Ryuichi’s shout of, “It’s working!”

What followed she couldn’t describe, because there were no words to explain something humans were not made to comprehend - hearing colors, smelling sounds, seeing beyond the fourth dimension, feeling time run its fingertips through her hair, seeing the universe open and an army of not-quite-angels descend.

They swarmed Evander, who yelped, startled, but then he faded in the confusion of light and color and sound and time and energy and madness.

Harrisselle came back to herself in the infirmary on the Galaran Base. She was sitting on one of the beds, swaddled in a hospital gown, with Kellers bustling all around her. As soon as one of them noticed she was awake, the others - some of them cadets - gathered close.

“How are you feeling, Lieutenant?” The one asking was Lam. Jacinth Lam. She and Harrisselle had graduated from the Academy together.

“Um. Fuzzy. Tired. Confused.”

“You scared the hell out of the gate guards,” Jacinth said. “You and the rest of GR-14.”

“McShep? Kusanagi? Cadman? Are they okay?” Harrisselle pushed herself up straighter, winced when her head spun.

“All of you made it just fine,” Jacinth said. “Just waiting for the others to wake up. Can you tell us what happened?”

Harrisselle pressed a hand to her head. “Can I get some water?”

Jacinth lifted her chin, and immediately one of the cadets was handing Harrisselle a cup of water.

She drank deeply, then took a breath. “An Oranian attack ship caught us right out the gate. We took fire -”

[brumeier.livejournal.com]

Stargate Atlantis, John Sheppard +/ Rodney McKay, he could write a book about _____

Fill: McShep (have some tissues handy)

[nagi-schwarz.livejournal.com]

John could write a book about the blue of Rodney's eyes. He'd get into Lorne's colored pencils and find all the shades that were closest, and list them off, reel them and spin them across a page. He could write a book about Rodney's hands, their strength, their dexterity, their unexpected grace on piano keys. How those hands had saved his life more than once. He could write a book about Rodney's mouth - his smile, the soft warmth of his lips, the way he tasted for morning kisses, like coffee and passion. He could write a book about Rodney's body, the breadth of his shoulders, the power in his chest and biceps, the surprising flexibility of his legs, the way he was helplessly ticklish on the soles of his feet.

He could write a book about Rodney's brilliant mind, the way he made intuitive leaps at the last minute that were life-saving and universe-changing. He could write a book about Rodney's anger, his fury, his ability to go from completely calm to completely outraged in an instant, the way other people's stupidity maddened him to the point of incoherence, to insults and curses in French. He could write a book about the way Rodney loved, with his entire mind, body, and soul, the way he forgot anniversaries but would stay up all night hand-crafting a miniature steel trebuchet that would lob bullets.

But John wasn't tasked with writing a whole book. All he had to do was write a single letter.

He stared at the blinking cursor on the blank page, took a deep breath.

Then he began to type.

Dear Mrs. Miller, I regret to inform you that your brother, Meredith Rodney McKay, was killed in action on August 11...

[brumeier.livejournal.com]

Marvel Cinematic Universe, Bucky Barnes, reading back through his notebooks of disjointed memories

[creepy_shetan]

author's choice, any, "Let me just finish this chapter..."

Fill, The 100, Marcus Kane/Abigail Griffin

[entireoranges.livejournal.com]

"Marcus..."

"Hold up let me finish this chapter." Abby was conflicted. On the one hand he was relaxing and by the small upturn of his lips enjoying the book in his hand. He needed to relax. She feared for his health from the stress he was under. On the other hand she didn't want it being a book to provide him relaxation.

"Marcus..." She called out his name again. He still not looking up from the pages. Unaware her shirt was being pulled off and over head. Nor did he have knowledge of the bra being unclasped and removed as well. She aimed perfectly and tossed the shirt at him landing and covering the source of his distraction.

"Abby what the..." He protested tossing the shirt away and stopped in midsentence as he looked up. She smirked as he could only gasp at her,

"Oh now I have your attention?' Marcus nodded. 'Unless you want to get back to your bo..." His eyes narrowed as he threw the book at the wall, practically leaped from the chair, crossed the room to where she stood, and pressed his lips to hers.

"I've read it before." He mumbled moving to her neck.

[creepy_shetan]

author's choice, any, using (or having posters of) comics from The Oatmeal to explain grammar

[creepy_shetan]

author's choice, any, spelling help, such as...
"How do you spell 'sacrilegious'?"
"Don't you mean 'sanctimonious'?"

[withasmile87.livejournal.com]

RPF, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Reading gossip on the internet.

[withasmile87.livejournal.com]

Once Upon A Time, Rumple/Belle, "I bought you a book....erm well more than one."

[withasmile87.livejournal.com]

The Walking Dead, Daryl Dixon/Beth Greene, Daryl finds a diary entry that Beth wrote about him.

[withasmile87.livejournal.com]

The Walking Dead, any, Reading a newspaper during the time the virus first started.

Fill: Amy, Andrea - More to it

[killing-kurare.livejournal.com]

Andrea was sipping her coffee and read the newspaper half-heartedly.
“There were more attacks …” she mumbled and took a closer look at an article about corpses still assaulting people.
“Same shit, different day,” Amy answered and shrugged while taking a bite of her bagel. “No big deal, I’m sure they’ll handle it. Wouldn’t be the first epidemic.”
But Andrea wasn’t as unworried as her sister. “You think they’ll find a cure soon?”
“Of course. You’ll see, next week nobody won’t even bother talking about this anymore.”
Andrea nodded, but her gaze was stuck on the pictures that showed one of the infected biting a person and other people panicking. She sighed heavily.
“Come on, don’t let this spoil your mood!” Amy exclaimed and snatched the newspaper out of Andrea’s hand. “I’m more interested in what’s on TV tonight. I really feel like ‘ice-cream-pizza-chick-flick night’,” Amy laughed and winked at her big sister who finally returned the smile.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Andrea tried to calm herself and ignored the bad feeling in her gut telling her that there was more to it …

[withasmile87.livejournal.com]

authors choice, authors choice, writing a song for your child.

not a fill (yet)

[tigriswolf]

Oh, gosh, something heartbreaking just popped into my head. Did you want happy or sad?

[drabblewriter.livejournal.com]

Any, any, NaNoWriMo

Wizards Writing Words, Cedric Diggory + Harry Potter + Oliver Wood (Harry Potter)

[creepy_shetan]

(This is kinda sorta linked to another drabble that I wrote years ago.)


"How did you two talk me into this?" Oliver groaned.

"Peer pressure," Harry said around a sugar quill, laying out a fresh piece of parchment, "and bribes."

"You're nearly there," Cedric added distractedly over the steady scratching of his quill. "Goal in sight."

"Bad metaphor, Diggory. I keep others from the goal."

"Better not," Harry warned. "He's got a rival."

"Who? Granger?"

"No, Hermione's been done with her novel for ages."

"She's midway through a sequel."

Harry and Oliver stared at Cedric, then respectively sighed and cursed.

"But Percy will be mine."

"That... sounds..."

Oliver shook his head. "G'luck, mate."

[drabblewriter.livejournal.com]

Any, any, writing their autobiography

[3am-moonlight.livejournal.com]

Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, books were her passion, where she had sought sanctuary for years and later on where she had found what she needed to literally survive.