write like you need it to survive

Dear Yulewriter!

As it turns out, I find I have very little to say other than that I am DELIGHTED that you love one of these things I love, and please by all means remember optional details are optional and write what makes you happy! As a general rule I adore cuddles and hurt/comfort that is heavy on the comfort. I adore little mundane moments--for any of my requests I would love to see them doing laundry or washing dishes or buying groceries or trying to find two matching socks when they're not quite awake yet. And if you need other tips on things I enjoy, feel free to hit up iulia (iuliamentis on twitter and tumblr) for advice; she knows what I like and is scarily good at keeping secrets from me.

Also, I apologize if I have totally scarred your for life with my Sound of Music request, I AM JUST SAYING THOUGH. THAT RIDING CROP.

Ahem.

Also this turned out to be a lot of canon het relationships, I don't know how that happened.

( What Maisie Knew, Sound of Music, The Secret Garden, The Cutting Edge, North and South )

Whatever you're writing, thank you for it! I am excited to read what you come up with, and I'm delighted to know that you love something I love. Happy Yuletiding!

Pack Up, Don't Stray (2006 words) by Dira Sudis
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: What Maisie Knew (2012)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Lincoln/Margo
Characters: Maisie Beale, Lincoln (What Maisie Knew), Margo (What Maisie Knew)
Additional Tags: Post-Movie(s), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Sad Kid, Family
Summary:

Margo and Lincoln didn't fight like Mommy and Daddy had fought, with a lot of yelling and banging on things.

Many thanks to iulia for beta and to riverlight for letting me drag her into this!

Also if you haven't seen this movie and you can bear to watch a sad kid being sad for an hour or so in the knowledge that things will turn out totally okay for her in the end YOU SHOULD REALLY SEE THIS MOVIE. It is out on DVD now! It has ASkars being adooooorable with a tiny child! :D

Ahem. Anyway. This is for the "fighting" square on my hc_bingo card.

So I may have posted one time--or more than one time if you follow me on Tumblr--about this movie that Alexander Skarsgard made that has not been released yet, but which is already dear to my heart, called What Maisie Knew.

So--this trailer and a couple of other YouTube vids from production comprising an actual fandom for me for a while there--I went to the library and checked out the actual Victorian novel What Maisie Knew to see whether I could guess any important features of the movie plot from it (or to back up my conclusion, derived from reading a Wikipedia summary and watching the trailer a couple dozen times, that there really wouldn't be a lot of correlation).

So I think that this bit, featuring a probably nine- or ten-year-old Maisie and her frumpy-but-reliable governess Mrs. Wix discussing Sir Claude (the analog to ASkars' stepdad character in the movie, who is named Lincoln instead)... I think this bit will probably not translate very directly:

It brought them face to face with the idea of the inconvenience suffered by any lady who marries a gentleman producing on other ladies the charming effect of Sir Claude. That such ladies wouldn't be able to help falling in love with him was a reflexion naturally irritating to his wife. One day when some accident, some crash of a banged door or some scurry of a scared maid, had rendered this truth particularly vivid, Maisie, receptive and profound, suddenly said to her companion: "And you, my dear, are you in love with him too?"


Even her profundity had left a margin for a laugh; so she was a trifle startled by the solemn promptitude with which Mrs. Wix plumped out: "Over head and ears. I've never, since you ask me, been so far gone."

This boldness had none the less no effect of deterrence for her when, a few days later—it was because several had elapsed without a visit from Sir Claude—her governess turned the tables. "May I ask you, miss, if you are?" Mrs. Wix brought it out, she could see, with hesitation, but clearly intending a joke. "Why rather!" the child made answer, as if in surprise at not having long ago seemed sufficiently to commit herself; on which her friend gave a sigh of apparent satisfaction. It might in fact have expressed positive relief. Everything was as it should be.

...Not least because movie!Maisie probably stays six the whole time and I don't think the governess character exists as such. But maybe also because it would be a tiiiiiny bit weird for her to be proclaiming herself in love with her stepfather.

Although, now that I think of it, there is that bit in the trailer where Maisie's mother says something dismissive to Lincoln about how he doesn't need to make Maisie fall in love with him, so I guess it's there in a way.

Okay, so maybe it winds up in the movie in a way--but really the thing that struck me about that bit was the delightful (if, you know, a bit weird when addressed to one's stepfather or employer) fangirlishness of Mrs. Wix and Maisie's relationships with Sir Claude--in an earlier scene they have this little spat over who gets to keep a photograph of him, which is happily settled when they're once again in the same household and can keep it on the mantelpiece in the schoolroom where they can both admire it. ♥