"Don't you think nineteen's too young?" -Taylor Swift (Dear John)
^ Look! Lookie right there! Do you know what that is? It's a TayTay :D You like those. I'm so doggone excited about (most...some…) of these ships. Actually, I'm so doggone excited to write LydiaxBeetlejuice. But like, wow, what a great crop of ships here, especially in comparison to the how-are-these-in-your-top-anything ships of last year :P I hope you enjoy these as much as I think I'll enjoy writing them!
Le challenge rules:
I shall put my music library on shuffle and pair her top 10 ships with the first 10 songs. Each ship gets a story related to the song with decreasing times: ship #1 gets 10 min., ship #2 gets 9 min., ship #3 gets 8 min., etc. So ship #10 is a hot mess 1 min. panic attack.
And you don't HAVE to listen to the song first...but you might want to. And author's notes are bolded.
1. LydiaxBeetlejuice (Beetlejuice) – "Dustin Hoffman's Children Don't Enter the Bathroom" by of Montreal - 10 min. timer
I was laughing so hard at just the song title. What. What the literal actual what. But then I listened to it, and it starts with the line, "How can we get married when we already are?" and, OH, SNAP, this thing is gonna write itself. Also, this is somehow my FIRST EVER LydiaxBeetlejuice fic, despite having shipped them since I was six. I'm excited.
"BEETLEJUICE!" Her scream echoed in the small bathroom, bouncing off the slick tiles and steamy mirror where she could just see the striped suit hiding.
"Heh, two more times, Babes."
"Nope, nope, and...nope!" She clutched her towel tighter around herself and pouted. "No fair appearing in my bathroom mirror."
He very intentionally ignored her comment and instead attempted futilely to wipe steam away from the inside of the mirror.
"What are you doing anyway?" he asked, a hitch in his voice giving away his suspicion as he surveyed the makeup strewn next to the sink. "You got somewhere to be?"
"Nope."
"'Nope'?"
Lydia resisted the urge to roll her eyes at his strange, unnecessary jealousy and instead proceeded, arguably unwisely, to edge it on.
"Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you. I've got a hot date tonight at the soda fountain with the Prom King quarterback."
The low growl from the recesses of the mirror sent a little, not-unpleasant shiver down her wet back.
"He'll be dead before he ever reaches his door."
Now she did roll her eyes.
"Great, well, he doesn't exist, so good luck with that."
It wasn't quite spoken between them. Their...arrangement. Agreement. Inevitable and impending.
She was his bride, but she had been too young. And he, as crude and vulgar as he was, had taken an absolute fascination with her and would let her wait and mature at her own pace, allowing her to decide for herself when the time was right. He had consequently matured along with her - if unintentionally - learning gentleness and compassion for her sake. Content with being her "best friend".
So it couldn't be mentioned, not really, because it had to come from her.
That they were married.
Still married, completely married, had been for years, always would be.
They celebrated their anniversaries as if it was a joke, a small reminder of what they couldn't say.
"You're mine, you know."
Until today, when the image of her dripping hair falling on her bare shoulders was too much for him.
"Hmm." She paused, contemplating. "We could almost be twins, you know. You're always feeling what I'm feeling."
This time a laugh morphed with his growl, and she jumped.
"If you're really feeling what I'm feeling right now, you'll say my name two more times."
I don't care what else I end up writing, this one is my favorite, holy smokes, if ever any ship deserved a full-fledged story, it's these two. Ugh, I love this. (I don't even know if you've seen the cartoon? Okay, quick backstory, there was this cartoon that came after the movie where they're best friends, and he's like in her mirror (question mark?), and she has to say his name three times to get him to come out. I'm not sure why he's in her mirror, now that I'm thinking about it, lol, that's not in the movie at all. Also, I didn't mean to ride so hard on the bathroom theme, but then that's just what happened, I couldn't get the hilarity of the song title out of my head. Anyway, they would unironically celebrate their "anniversaries" in the cartoon, so my headcanon is...basically what I described here, they're totally absolutely married, that's permanent, they can't get around that, but he grows so fond/obsessed with her that he's willing to wait around for her before they consummate said marriage. In the meantime, they'll just be best friends. I'm sure the movie sequel will be a big stinky pile of poo (I read somewhere that Tim Burton's current girlfriend play's "Beetlejuice's wife") that destroys this, but, screw you, sequel movie, I'll see you just to hate you, don't mess with my headcanon, my headcanon is beautiful)Also, Jason and Noel were like doing ballet in my peripheral vision trying to distract me as this song was playing on repeat, so it's a wonder I wrote anything at all.
2. EnolaxTewkesbury (Enola Holmes) – "The Lonely Goatherd" from The Sound of Music – 9 min. timer
How about instead, I just write more LydiaxBeetlejuice forever, okay? Okay.
"I don't want to go," Enola said exasperatedly. "I have a case that I'm so close to cracking and three that I'm nowhere near cracking, and-"
"And this is precisely why you need a break." Lord Tewkesbury took her hand and pulled her, still complaining, from her office.
"I don't even feel well-"
"Well, a lovely musical performance shall raise your spirits. As will sitting next to your favorite person."
She sputtered defiantly but allowed herself to be lead away.
Halfway through the lovely musical performance with the lovely, singing mother and her multitude of lovely, singing children, she was in tears, and he had to lead her away again.
"What is it, Enola," he asked, not really expecting an answer, as she sobbed into his chest in the lobby.
"I'm expecting."
"Expecting what?"
She lifted her tear-stained face incredulously.
"A child, what else?!"
"Oh, Enola! This is wonderf-"
"HORRIBLE!"
"'Horrible'?!"
"How am I supposed to solve my cases and journey all over London to solve them and-and-"
"You don't. You stop. Don't be ridiculous."
She blanched.
"But, my career-"
"Enola, you are the wife of a lord, soon to be the mother of his child. You will do nothing but be the mother of his child because that is the most important thing you could possible be doing."
She cried harder.
"And I know exactly why you are crying. It's because your own mother, whom you've said gave you a perfect childhood and was your best friend, abandoned you selfishly and ludicrously to pursue her own abnormal agenda. You feel compelled to please her, but, in reality, it doesn't come even remotely naturally to you. Because what does come naturally to you is the kind, lovely bond between a mother and child."
And she stopped crying.
"I don't want to be alone anymore."
Lol, I had fun with Tewkesbury's rant. This story was because the wiki page that I read since I can't remember them at all, despite having seen both movies, informed me that "they embody the 'girlboss/malewife' trope", and, first of all, gross, why is this a trope, but, second of all, I had to fix it. Because Enola still keeping her freakin job after becoming Mrs. Lord Tewkesbury is the equivalent of a certain relative we know determined to peddle her wares while her bazillionaire husband hides his head in embarrassment. But then I was thinking, why would she even WANT to do something so ridiculous, and my psychoanalyzing of her decided that it was because of her stupid blankety blank mother who tricked her into thinking they were bffs and then abandoned her because feminism. So Tewkesbury (strong, masculine, definitely not a malewife) has to put some sense into her and deprogram her and remind her that HEY, THE BEST TIME OF YOUR LIFE WAS YOUR IDYLLIC CHILDHOOD WITH YOUR MOM, why don't you DO THAT AGAIN BUT WITH YOUR OWN CHILD, THIS TIME WITHOUT THE ABANDONMENT. There, I fixed it.
3. AnnexGilbert (Anne of Green Gables) – "Suicide Squad Parody" by The Hillywood Show - 8 min. timer
So this is an excellent Harley QuinnxJoker [now THERE'S a fun couple, one of us ought to do them] parody video that WE'RE GOING TO WATCH NOW! READY? LET'S GOOOO! ...now figure out how to relate it to Anne and Gilbert.
"You must have fallen in a huge vat of hair dye to get your hair that color, Carrots."
The first time had been the absolute last thing in the world that she could ever have endured.
She. Could. Not. Stand. This horrible, inane, insufferable, evil boy who didn't deserve to be part of the human race.
She had hit him over the head with her slate the first time. It had broken.
This time, she hit him with a wooden mallet.
It was Matthew's, though Matthew was getting too feeble to lift it. Anne should have been weak also, waif that she was, but her fury gave her a strength that was beyond realism.
Now Gilbert was unconscious in the field.
She figured that she would get in some sort of horrible trouble if anyone found out.
For half a moment, she was worried, and then some loose strands of her screaming, fiery, blood, tomato, radish, CARROT red hair fell in front of her eyes, and she couldn't care less if they sent her to prison for what she had done.
Still though. Maybe she wouldn't need to be punished. She could get a bottle of liquor and put it in his hand, spill some around his mouth, make him think he had done this to himself when he came to.
But later, when she unclenched his hand to put the bottle in his grasp, she found a note clutched in his fingers.
Carrots,
Forgive me. Only your beautiful hair could provoke me to use such a name.
My love for you in almost lunacy.
Please, bring me back to sanity, or else join me in my madness.
-Gil
This was soooo cathartic. I probably already told you this, but when I read Anne of Green Gables when I was in fifth grade, I HATED Gilbert. Like, I was SO onboard with Anne and her hatred of him, like, yeah, you smash that slate over his head, you obsessively hate him for years, ugh, what a stupid bully, how dare he call you Carrots! And I knew she was going to end up married to him because of the covers on the rest of the series, and I was FURIOUS at her and couldn't understand how the heck that could have happened. Now that I just reread it to Noel, I'm like...lolol, that was adorable, he only called her Carrots because he was into her, aww, that went wayyyy over Dumb Little Me's head. But still...it was very cathartic to just bash him over the head with Harley Quinn's hammer, hahaha.
4. ElizabethxJack (Pirates of the Caribbean) – "Basket Case" by Green Day – 7 min. timer
YESSSS, SPARRABETHHHHHH.
"Am I just paranoid, or am I just drunk?" Jack asked her, swinging a bottle of rum very drunkenly in her direction.
"Drunk," she said pointedly, without looking up.
"You know why I drink, love?"
Resigning with a sigh that this conversation was going to happen, she gave him a shrug.
"I asked my most trusted health advisor, Mr. Gibbs-"
"-absolutely who I would get my health advice from-"
"-and he informed me that it was a lack of physical intimacy that prompted me to my...neurosis, if you will."
Elizabeth was forced to do a double take at that.
"Jack, you have probably a dozen...paid women...at every port."
"Not since I met you."
Her jaw must have hit the floor because he flat out laughed at her reaction.
"They can't compare! Honestly, Lizzie, I know there isn't a mirror on my ship, but have you truly forgotten what you look like?"
She continued to be stunned into silence.
"Of course...if you wanted to help me alleviate my medical dilemma...well...you could just say that the doctor ordered it!"
And that was enough to jolt her mind back to functioning.
She grabbed the bottle out of his hand and chugged the remaining half with ease.
"What if instead I join you in your neuroticism?"
"Whatever suits your fancy, Mrs. Turner."
"Hmm."
An hour later, he was wondering how much of his time he was going to waste listening to her whine.
I was going to write "Miss Swann", but then my brain was like, "NO. MRS. TURNER." Because what does that MEAN, when does this take PLACE, what is HAPPENING, whoa, the SCANDAL.
5. SeverusxLily (Harry Potter) – "Scissorhands (The Last Snow)" by Motionless in White - 6 min. timer
Ahh, you lucky duck, you, you're about to listen to the ONLY scremo song in my music library because it has SUCH AMAZING LYRICS and SUCH A WONDERFUL CHORUS.
"She should have stayed with him," Lily declared lazily, kicking her other sock off. "What an idiot."
Severus looked at the sock, then her foot, then the credits rolling on her screen.
"A greasy, long, dark haired, pale faced weirdo?"
"Yes! My gosh, Sev, did you not just watch the same movie I did? Greasy, long, dark haired, pale faced weirdos need love too."
"Well," he said, running a hand through the greasy, long, dark hair that had fallen on his pale face, "she must have ended up with someone else because she has a granddaughter in the end."
Lily picked up her sock and threw it at him.
"Just because someone has a kid with someone doesn't mean their soulmates. She was clearly meant to be with Edward. Honestly, you don't have a romantic bone in your body."
"So...who's your 'soulmate', Lily?" he asked, hope struggling to not stifle his nonchalant tone. "Since you apparently believe in such insipid things."
"Oh, I'm sure someday I'll find my own greasy, long, dark haired, pale faced weirdo."
"And I'll find a beautiful redhead who ends up with the wrong guy? And maybe he'll die because of me?"
Lily blinked.
"Geez, Sev. Way to make it depressing."
The iiiiirony, it ooooozes eeeeeeverywhere. Also, do Harry Potter people have TVs? Like...can any of them just watch a movie? Lol.
6. LorelaixLuke (Gilmore Girls) – "Belle" from Beauty and the Beast - 5 min. timer
I hope you're enjoying your HarleyxJoker, KimxEdward, BellexBeast stories, bahaha.
Lorelai sighed, finally turning the page to her favorite part of her favorite book.
"What are you reading, Lorelai?" Christopher asked, picking the book up from a corner. He read the title then tossed it on the ground. "Never heard of it."
"You...you haven't heard of it?" she asked in shock. "It's an absolute classic! How is that possible?"
"Pfft. I don't read."
She lowered her eyes. Apparently not.
"And neither should you! Because instead you should...come back to my place…"
"But – tonight is Rory's dance recital! You said you'd be there!"
"Oh, come on, there will be other gymnastic meets-"
"Dance recitals!"
"Something going on, Lorelai?" Luke asked, stepping onto the sidewalk.
Lorelai burst into tears, and Luke wasn't sure what was happening but figured it was a great time to punch Christopher in the face.
"I can't wait for Rory's dance recital tonight," he said, handing Lorelai her book back. "Hey, Beauty and the Beast! What a classic!"
The degree that I know nothing about these characters can't be understated. But I know Luke punches Christopher (I definitely just wrote "Gaston" every time I said his name because I had to look up the name afterwards lol).
7. ElevenxMike (Stranger Things) – "Come Follow Me" by Aaron Carter - 4 min. timer
This song is in the Hey Arnold! The Movie trailer, lol, that's why I have it.
"Um...so do you...would you like to maybe gotothemovieswithme?" Mike held his breath, and El looked up from her waffle.
"What?"
"A...a movie, do you want to go with, to me, with one?"
"Movie?"
"Oh, um-" A movie, a movie… "-like on a...a screen? Like TV? But REALLY BIG!" He spread his arms out, and she jumped. "And, and people do things on the screen, you know, like action or like they sing songs or sometimes like kiss or something, or whatever, I don't know."
"I don't know." She took another bite of waffle.
"Um…"
Well, the movie part wasn't necessarily important.
"I mean, would you like to go on a date? With me?"
"Date?"
"You know what, just...come follow me."
Bahahaha, you know what my favorite part of Stranger Things was, when Eleven didn't know anything and just lived in his basement and ate waffles, that was fun (and is the time period of this, in case you couldn't figure that out, lol). Hey, did I ever show you the Bad Lip Readings of Stranger Things? Noel and I have watched them a...strange, lolz...number of times. I'm just gonna take you on a field trip over there now, if you haven't seen them, lalala.
8. NancyxJonathan (Stranger Things) – "What a Dreadful Town!..." from Love Never Dies - 3 min. timer
I apologize in advance, this song made me do this. Just kidding, I don't apologize, NancyxVecna is a beautiful crack ship, my subconscious told me so, you can't doubt my subconscious.
"I can't believe you dragged me to this dreadful town," Jonathan snapped, taking a drag from his joint.
"Please, dear, don't do that anymore."
"Don't patronize me!"
"Alright. Only...only could you maybe spend time with Will again? Ever since you started smoking that, it's all you ever want to do. That's why things haven't been right, dear."
"Why doesn't it surprise me that I get the blame here?"
"Dear-"
"Your voice hurts my head."
He rolled over and fell asleep. Nancy crushed the joint before it caught the sheets on fire.
Little did Nancy know that she had no need to fret, for soon she would be caught in a breathtaking romance with a deformed gentleman who lived in solitude.
I really love how this ship exists exclusively in my head. It's such a good ship, I want the internet to get on board, where's the fanart, where's the fanfics.
9. MarciaxGreg (The Brady Bunch) – "After Ever After" by Paint - 2 min. timer
I hope you've seen this, is such a fun song, I sing it in the shower all the time, lol. Another Youtube field trip, awayyyy!
"Marcia!" Greg cried. "What are you doing dressed as Cinderella?"
"What are you doing dressed as her prince?" she spat back.
"My girlfriend and I are doing a couple's costume! Now it looks weird."
"Well...well we aren't going together. To the party. I mean, except to walk over."
Five minutes later, Greg came back from a call.
"She's sick. She can't come. I guess youwillhave to be my Cinderella."
I realized as I listened to this song (because I was going to make them do Beauty and the Beast) that none of the movies in the song existed yet for the Bradys, hahaha. So I just improvised and used Cinderella because I figured of Snow White/Cinderella/Sleeping Beauty, she had the most recognizable prince. I really love this concept, Greg and Marcia going to a Halloween party accidentally in a clear couple's costume, and everyone being like...what...and them like being awkward and kind of mad about it, but they call each other "Cinderella" and "Prince Charming" all night and end up dancing...this is a good beginning of a story, I'm a fan.
10. ChihiroxHaku (Spirited Away) – "Him" by Elvis Presley – 1 min. timer
Um, okay, so there's this album of Every Single Elvis Gospel Thing Ever that I have. But some of them aren't real songs, they're like rehearsals and jam sessions and whatever. So this "song"...I listened to it twice trying so hard to understand what they're saying...I've got nothing, not a clue, and it's not like I can look up the nonexistent lyrics.
She tried so hard to hear him, to understand - the garbled whispers, frantic and insistent, but hushed, as though underwater.
It was him.
He was talking to her.
He was wanting her.
He couldn't be deciphered, and she cried tears into the river and dreamed.
You know, for the nothing I had, I'm kind of proud for just incorporating how much I couldn't decipher the song into this story, lol. Also HE because the song is called HIM, yeah, okay.
MAN, I LOVE THESE STORIES. Which I've said to you. Too much. I've set the bar too high. So maybe you've hated them. I guess I know by now. WHAT DID YOU THINK?! :O WHICH WAS YOUR FAVORITE?! IS THERE A SINGLE QUOTE IN THE WORLD THAT HAS THE WORD "TWENTY" IN IT SINCE I'LL START WRITING THE NEXT BATCH NEXT MONTH? Like, probably, it's gotta be easier to find a twenty than it is to find a thirty-four hahaha, good luck. Oh, lol, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY :DDD I forgot to say that, I hope your birthday is as fun as it was to write these stories :D
