21 Assorted Observations and Oddments Regarding Lindsey, Enchanted Mannequin of The Hat Trick
House moving hassles are getting me down, kittens. I want to write some ficletty things as an upper.
The 20 Facts meme went around Harry Potter fandom a couple of years back, but I like 21 Facts better. So, pick a character from any of my fics or universes, including WIPs or abandoned works or commentfic 'verses if you know them, and I'll give you 21 facts about that character! You have to specify the 'verse as well as the character, even if it's non-AU.
Here's one I did for frankkincense's 21st a while back. It belongs to a shared universe that never made it out of comments and emails, about Lindsey the mannequin in Gerard's hat shop, where Ryan is his assistant and Brendon is in love with Ryan, and about Lindsey's eventual salvation through Gerard's comic.
Twenty-One Assorted Observations and Oddments Regarding Lindsey, Enchanted Mannequin of The Hat Trick
1. Lindsey's favourite hat is a scarlet thing with a sweeping brim that dips low and dangerous over her eyes.
2. Lindsey can see her own reflection in the window for most of the day, if the light is right. She has a lot of opinions about hats.
3. Sometimes Lindsey thinks she could move, just a finger, just a smile, just a gasp, if she only found the trick.
4. Sometimes she does.
5. Her favourite time of day is dusk, when quiet falls over the shop as the light seeps away, leaving fascinators and displays made strange and fearsome.
6. That's when she feels the magic most strongly, in her cold fingertips.
7. But the deep reaches of the night, lit only with a circle of candlelight at the far window, light catching on a messy bent head: that's when she hurts most.
8. Worse are the nights when Gerard isn't there at all.
9. Lindsey doesn't think about her past very often. Time has changed her, even more than the spell. She doesn't rage at things the way she did then.
10. She hardly ever remembers running, or dancing, or twirling with arms that knocked people over, obnoxious in youth and energy.
11. She sometimes remembers the look in the sorcerer's eyes.
12. (But he's long dead.)
13. Brendon and Ryan both tell her things: secrets and low-voiced observations on customers and things about each other. Things that make a grin tug at her immobile mouth.
14. Gerard tells her things too, but those she hugs to her chest in the dark nights.
15. Once somebody tried to buy her: a dealer in curiosities who touched her pale face and said it was the saddest she'd ever seen.
16. Ryan could never see that. Lindsey's eyes were always laughing when he changed her hat.
17. In any case, it didn't matter. Gerard reacted to the offer as though someone had proposed he sell his soul.
18. (Ryan thought the dealer was a little offended.)
19. In the mornings Lindsey catches the sunshine as it creeps through the shopfront window. It warms and deepens the halo of her hair and, if Ryan has positioned her a certain way, it collects in the crook of her palm, as though she holds sunshine in her hand.
20. The first time Lindsey sees a picture of the Lyn-Z of Gerard's comic, she feels a jolt deep in her chest.
21. It's nothing to the feel of her heart taking its first beat; to the floor beneath her feet when she steps off the pedestal into the morning.
The 20 Facts meme went around Harry Potter fandom a couple of years back, but I like 21 Facts better. So, pick a character from any of my fics or universes, including WIPs or abandoned works or commentfic 'verses if you know them, and I'll give you 21 facts about that character! You have to specify the 'verse as well as the character, even if it's non-AU.
Here's one I did for frankkincense's 21st a while back. It belongs to a shared universe that never made it out of comments and emails, about Lindsey the mannequin in Gerard's hat shop, where Ryan is his assistant and Brendon is in love with Ryan, and about Lindsey's eventual salvation through Gerard's comic.
Twenty-One Assorted Observations and Oddments Regarding Lindsey, Enchanted Mannequin of The Hat Trick
1. Lindsey's favourite hat is a scarlet thing with a sweeping brim that dips low and dangerous over her eyes.
2. Lindsey can see her own reflection in the window for most of the day, if the light is right. She has a lot of opinions about hats.
3. Sometimes Lindsey thinks she could move, just a finger, just a smile, just a gasp, if she only found the trick.
4. Sometimes she does.
5. Her favourite time of day is dusk, when quiet falls over the shop as the light seeps away, leaving fascinators and displays made strange and fearsome.
6. That's when she feels the magic most strongly, in her cold fingertips.
7. But the deep reaches of the night, lit only with a circle of candlelight at the far window, light catching on a messy bent head: that's when she hurts most.
8. Worse are the nights when Gerard isn't there at all.
9. Lindsey doesn't think about her past very often. Time has changed her, even more than the spell. She doesn't rage at things the way she did then.
10. She hardly ever remembers running, or dancing, or twirling with arms that knocked people over, obnoxious in youth and energy.
11. She sometimes remembers the look in the sorcerer's eyes.
12. (But he's long dead.)
13. Brendon and Ryan both tell her things: secrets and low-voiced observations on customers and things about each other. Things that make a grin tug at her immobile mouth.
14. Gerard tells her things too, but those she hugs to her chest in the dark nights.
15. Once somebody tried to buy her: a dealer in curiosities who touched her pale face and said it was the saddest she'd ever seen.
16. Ryan could never see that. Lindsey's eyes were always laughing when he changed her hat.
17. In any case, it didn't matter. Gerard reacted to the offer as though someone had proposed he sell his soul.
18. (Ryan thought the dealer was a little offended.)
19. In the mornings Lindsey catches the sunshine as it creeps through the shopfront window. It warms and deepens the halo of her hair and, if Ryan has positioned her a certain way, it collects in the crook of her palm, as though she holds sunshine in her hand.
20. The first time Lindsey sees a picture of the Lyn-Z of Gerard's comic, she feels a jolt deep in her chest.
21. It's nothing to the feel of her heart taking its first beat; to the floor beneath her feet when she steps off the pedestal into the morning.