Just for you, dear, I'll do my favorite TSC ship which is of course, Malec, my beloveds.
Thunderstormy nights in the Lightwood-Bane household are always Events. Rafe, when he first joins the family gets really scared, while Max loves them, and the best way Magnus and Alec find to comfort/entertain the both of them is by creating truly, truly epic pillow forts. Magic is used, cocoa is made.
They all cuddle underneath the canopy they made, and then Magnus will magic a mini-storm with his magic - no rain, but clouds, and flashes of different-colored lightning - small and cutesy. Once Rafe is all smiley and giggly Magnus turns to him and says, "See? Not so scary now?"
Rafe gets over his fear fairly quickly, but then the boys both insist on a fort and a show anytime there is a storm.
Mimsy dear friend, my fic writing hero, I know you don't know much about GG but ty for giving me a chance to ramble about a niche character who appears for 3 episodes and then is never seen again!
Alison Humphrey as a character is complicated, in the brief time we know her there's a whole world of interesting questions that open up.
Okay, so for context: the big narrative catalyst for the pilot of GG is the main character, Serena, returning to the UES of Manhattan after a year's absence, no one knows why she left, no one knows where she went, you can imagine. But the OTHER catalyst, less pronounced and less mired in salaciousness, is that of Alison Humphrey, who went away upstate "for the summer" to work on her art, leaving her husband, Rufus, and her two kids, Dan & Jenny, at home in Brooklyn.
and Serena's return sparks a connection between her and Dan, which causes Rufus & Serena's mother (who had a torrid love affair 20ish years ago) to reconnect and rekindle, by the middle of the first season, Alison has reappeared, retried her marriage, only for her and Rufus to decide that it just isn't working (bc she cheated with a guy upstate, and he's in love with his ex) WHEW. complicated. okay.
AND I should note: the ages of the parents, plus the narrow gap of time between Rufus and Lily (the ex)'s break-up and the ages of their kids, Rufus and Alison (and Lily) were very young parents, around 22 or 23 years old at the most. (this math comes from the fact that Dan & Serena share a half-sibling that is maximum 3 years older than they are, born when Lily was 19. gotta love those teen soap plot twists).
Dan makes no secret of his perfectly justifiable anger at his mother, so storywise, when she's only mentioned for what happens and what's said off-screen, it makes sense that they drift apart, and lots of fanon (very good fanon content, no shade intended), writes Alison off in a similar way - which is fair, because she fucked up and if Dan feels like he doesn't want to repair that damage, that is understandable, and I love reading work that digs into that too!
but me, I'm sort of an Alison Humphrey apologist, mainly for this very compelling speech she gives in the first episode she appears in, back in Brooklyn trying to reconcile with her husband. she says that when h was deep into his music career, touring and working all the time, she put her art and her work on hold to support him and raise their kids (we get the impression from the advice she gives and how she treats Dan & Jenny when they're all on-screen together that she was a very good mom, right until the moment she wasn't and left), and she says "my entire adult life has been about you." which FASCINATES me.
it's that compelling question that I think lots of women who were young adults in the 80s & 90s grapple with a decade and a half later, she had given all of herself over to marriage and motherhood, with no piece of herself left for herself, and when you're in it, in the business of raising kids, maybe you don't notice what's missing until their almost adults, with their own lives and personalities and dreams, and you're encouraging them but you're also thinking, "I didn't do this, or have this, fuck." admittedly, her method of handling it, running away, was not a good solution, but I think, ultimately, I get it.
this fic-verse, in which Dan keeps the baby his ex-fling has when they're 19, is not the first I've written in a Dan & Alison reconciliation chapter, but the added element of Dan being a young parent adds another dimension.
Alison was a good parent until she wasn't, and I think if one of her kids were in a real, genuine crisis, she would help in any way she can. She even does on the show in a sense, when Jenny decides that it's not healthy for her to live in NYC anymore, and chooses to finish out high school upstate living with her mom.
and, in the brief canon Milo arc, Rufus' initial reaction is...reticent, to say the least, so I think it would be interesting to have Alison react in contrast to that (we never hear on the show what she thinks of Milo's existence), of her digging in and deciding "if my kid is going to be a young parent too, then I have to help him not do the same fuckups I did." and it's a headcanon of mine that, being such a young parent, Alison dropped out of school and came back to it, so when Dan does the same, she would back him up in his choice. (while Rufus, who during Dan's pregnancy scares on the show - yes, plural - is adamant that Dan finish school and stay on track for his future. he also doubles down on Jenny finishing school too, so the hc is not that much off base).
I think it's Alison stepping up to help him when he's most desperate that - at the very least - starts the process of Dan trusting his mother again. And as time goes on, and his journey into parenthood continues, he would be more comfortable admitting certain vulnerabilities to Alison, the mother he's reconciled with, than Rufus, the perfect parent who Dan's not sure he can measure up to, which is why in let your heart be your guide, I put in this line:
It’s easier with his mom: to admit weakness, maybe because they both knew she’d already fucked up, Dan didn’t have to worry about how he came off with her. Dan knows his dad is supportive, and helps out as much as anybody else does, maybe more even, but with Rufus—it feels like if he blinks or flinches, he’s leaving himself open for an I told you so, rooted in how Rufus reacted when he first found out about Dan being a father, and choosing to stay one.
and I think them having a relationship is good for Dan, who forgets to prioritize himself wehn he's lost in the parenting bubble that exists when you have a child younger than 6 years in your care. his mom is one of the many people in this fic that insists that Dan make space for himself as a person outside of his identity of "Dad," and her experience makes him heed her when she speaks, as I put here:
“It is a good thing you’re doing,” Alison says, “going back to school, having Milo see you work towards a goal like that. Just as it’s good for you to have things for yourself. You still have your librarian yoga, right?”
Dan rolls his eyes playfully at the moniker, given because he’d started while he was still working at the NYPL, “Mondays and Thursdays. But with school being the way it is,” he shrugs, “I may drop it.”
“Don’t,” his mother pleads, leaning towards him over the table, “you may not think you need it, but you do.”
He looks at her then, really looks at her, and thinks that maybe he gets it, that his mom had completely given herself over for a decade and a half, with no corner of her life left over for herself, that maybe that’s why she freaked out on them eight years ago.
In a show rife with things that beg for Fix-It attention, Alison is one of those that I'm tempted to tackle in every big au. She's just one of Those Characters for me, and even those she only appears in one vignette of this au (for now...), a lot of thought went in to how she would appear, and what her relationship with Dan & Milo would look like. Milo calls her Nana. She loves it.
(I’m sorry you’re feeling sick and I hope you feel better soon ❤️)
thank you friend ❤️❤️❤️
for you, something with a supernatural element (by that I mean the adjective, not the television show)
so since I read Discovery of Witches I've been like...."getting a lot of Dair vibes from this" which is how I consume lots of media these days but that's neither here nor there the thing is, I could see the shape of an au.
Dan Humphrey would be the heroine, Diana Bishop, a History of Science Professor who is just trying to finish a presentation for an upcoming conference, but whoops he's also actually the most specialest witch in the world.
Blair would be Matthew, the centuries old vampire who's gone to Oxford a dozen times and has the doctorates to prove it. She falls ass over head in love with this witch and everybody is just gonna have to DEAL.
I mean, the novel and the following novels dig into the nitty gritty of time travel and evolutionary biology so I don't think you could take the Gossip Girl AU that far....but the character dynamic between the two mains, the doffed way they look out for each other and the slow burn of their feeling and their protectiveness over the other's wellbeing and loving each other even with all their baggage....yeah...
like, there's a scene towards the middle of the book where the witch hosts the vampire for dinner, and they flirt over mythology and discussions of their academic specialties and that is SO dair-coded.
and there's this sequence in the latter half of the book where the creatures-enforcement-squad kidnaps the witch and tortures her because, you know, inter-supernatural species love is verboten because of course it is, and it serves all that delicious, character A's beloved is in danger and they lose their mind plus the hurt/comfort that follows....ahhhhhhh it would be so awesome.
and there's this thing in our dair circle where we talk about dan falling more under the traditional heroine archetype and blair being the prince charming archetype in their relationship, so plugging the spin they already have on a conventional romantic story with all the stuff going on between Diana and Matthew in Discovery of Witches would rock.
other character parallels I've considered for this AU:
Lousia = Serena, Blair's vampire sister who dies mysteriously in the 17th century
Ysabeau = Lily, Blair's glamorous, blonde and very well-put together vampire mom
Blanca = Louis, Blair's first husband, who died before she turned.
Marcus = Henry, Blair's vampire son
Emily & Sarah = Jenny, Dan's lesbian witch sister
Michele = Georgina, vampire and Blair's nemesis
Miriam = Vanessa, vampire and Blair's colleague and longtime friend and sufferer of her nonsense
Hamish = Nate, a daemon and Blair's gay best friend who is richer than god
Baldwin = Carter, Blair's vamp brother who is Trouble but comes through in a crisis
😈 Has there been a point in a story where you did something just to be playfully mean to your readers?
Oh haven’t we all? I guess where I let myself get really playfully mean is cliffhangers. Like I’ll get to a moment and be like “yes, this is the perfect spot to end the chapter!” I did that a lot with the p&p au, which was fun since I was working with a pre-set formula, readers who were familiar with the original would know what was happening next, so setting up those big watershed moments and then backing away was great fun!
🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.
Fun fact of the 4 asks I’ve got for this game so far, EVERYONE has sent this one, bc you’re all a bunch of media literacy geniuses and I love that about this online community in which I’ve surrounded myself. That being said, I am gonna try to give a different answer on each one.
I think with my ships, when I’m writing the romance, it always comes back to this idea of home. Beginning days in the same space, going home to each other at the end of the day, finding rest in another person. It’s not so much about creating a place inside of somebody, not making a home within them, but finding home with them. There’s a quote in the dair fandom that we love “Our relationship is not about choosing one world or another. Our relationship is our world.” to me there’s just something so romantic about creating a space to simply exist with another person, and I think that comes through a lot in my fic—whether I’m writing about dair or not.
🎶 Do you listen to music while you write? What song have you been playing on loop lately?
I don’t listen to music while I’m literally technically writing, because that’s too much happening for me. I’m a lyrics person, so listening to music when I’m doing anything about writing or proofing is too many words in my brain—kind of like when you’re driving, and you have to turn the volume down on the radio to see better? It feels like that for me. BUT. that being said, I am constantly using music as inspiration when I’m brainstorming and plotting things out in my head. When I’m doing chores, or running errands, or going on walks, or my commute. And, the duties of my job can be pretty kinesthetic, so they’re active but don’t take up lots of headspace, so I listen to music and daydream a lot. So even though I don’t listen to music while Writing, my writing is very music led. My latest work I made a whole playlist that I drew from a lot, but this new idea that crept up on me this past week has got me listening to some other stuff. The general song vibes have been: “Rainy Girl” by Jack’s Mannequin; “There, there, Katie” also by JM; “Sweet Love of Mine” by Joy Williams; and “Kathy’s Song” by Simon & Garfunkel.
ooof well in terms of absolutely bonkers, hogwild, ships that should have never happened, I think Gossip Girl beats out TSC
(I gave up on the show Shadowhunters after the Big Damn Kiss for Malec...but I'm pretty sure Jace x Maia was a thing? and I remember thinking, with only my knowledge of the books, going: HUH?!)
GG has some pretty egregious age differences, imbalances of power, and toes the line of consent in ways that make me go 😬 😬 😬 😬 🙅♀️🙅♀️🙅♀️🙅♀️ allow me to direct you to my GG ship opinions answer
