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Merc, could I get "enchanting" for either Marjorie Gordon/Gale Cleven, or Joan Warren/Gale Cleven? Thanks!
Kat, I am really math-ladying memeing over the thought of Joan and Gale being an Item, but Gale and Marj (my Marj, sorry actual Marge) is catnip.
So here it is. Assume, for the purposes of debate, that Marj and Joan and everyone else decided joining the Air Force was more exciting than joining the Airborne
He wished she could be outside.
The weather was fine, for December - one of those bright, cold blue days where there was clear visibility for miles and every single pilot in the camp was itching to get his hands back into the yoke of his plane. The camp was almost bearable, on those days where you wouldn't want to be up in the soup - but on days like this? Being ground-bound was agony.
Gale glanced back up at the sky, half-wishing for a wisp of cloud - or the glimpse of a plane. Not that he'd ever get one - at the first sound of engine noise the guards would give the order to have everyone out of the yards and back inside the barracks, fearful that whatever they saw overhead would give away more news of the war.
But for some, even the scant pleasures of the winter sunlight were far away.
Gale ducked back inside the room he shared with the others, making his way carefully around the table with his hands in his coat pockets so he could pull up a chair next to one of the bunks, and the woman lying there reading a book.
She looked up at the scrape of his boots in the door. "Hey you. What happened to enjoying the sunshine?"
"Was coming to see my best girl," Gale said with a brief smile, lowering himself down onto the nearest crate. "How's the leg?"
Marj shifted a little in the narrow bunk, her breathing hitching a little. The bunks here weren't made for tall men or women, and Bucky and Marj both found it challenging to keep themselves where they were allotted - especially with Marj's leg still in its cast. She'd broken it on her jump, and letting it sit and fester for nearly a week certainly hadn't helped matters. She'd arrived at Stalug Luft III on a stretcher and in the throes of a fever that should have killed her, and the doctor had only just recently let her out of the infirmary and back into the general compound. "Still hurts. They tell me it's set fine, and now it's just a matter of letting it heal." She tried to smile. "You'll have to tell Bucky I don't think I'm gonna be able to pitch the next game."
"He'll understand."
"Or you'll make him?" Marj suggested with a wry smile. "I know how you work, Gale Cleven."
She knows me too well, he thought to himself. "If anyone catches him complaining about it, John'll have me to answer to," Gale promised. "You're too important to lose, Marj Gordon." Too important to me, he almost said, words to put paid to the thing they didn't say aloud, the thing that had no name. What kind of man lets a woman do his fighting? All the papers at home were filled with talk like that. The kind who trusts her to win just as well as he can, he always wanted to say. But it was one thing to win, and another to take on a green co-pilot because good pilots were spread thin, and lose your fort in a flak field, and bail out over Germany, and break your leg, and end up in a camp. He should have fought harder to keep her in his plane. Maybe if he'd done that she wouldn't have -
He sniffled, trying to hide whatever blush might have come out in his cheek and pulled something out of his pocket. "Here, brought you something," he said, holding out the can of Spam. "Traded some spare socks for it."
Marj set her book aside and took the can with reverent hands. Food was gold here, and it was a holy day indeed when you had a whole can of something to call your own. She looked up at him with conflicted eyes, the both of them knowing full well the can hadn't been traded for a single spare pair of socks. "Buck."
"Not going have that leg heal right on soup," he replied, refusing to rise to the accusation in her voice. "And we ought to find you a - a pair of crutches or something. Need to get you out, moving around again."
"You're not gonna offer me your arm?" Marj asked with only slight provocation.
Gale steeled himself, hating how much he loved the idea. Marjorie Gordon, if I do that they'll know I'm in love with you, he thought silently to himself. And I can't let them have that.
if they were canon ask game: what the cast relationship would be like and what was their audition scene for Joan Warren and Marj Gordon?
I think the chemistry read between the two of them is the scene that I always come back to when I think about them as characters, from Chapter 15:
Sobel you could leave, but Dick Winters was something to look at, standing in his PT shorts with his ruddy red hair catching the late afternoon sun. The sergeant allowed herself a smile. Well, that’s not new news. At least she’s consistent. “You, ah, catching your breath or admiring the view there, lieutenant?” she asked quietly, making Joan jump a little.
“That’s not funny, Marj.” She dropped her gaze and turned away, pointedly focusing on her friend. “Did you want something?”
“Just to give you permission,” Marjorie said with a smile, dropping her voice so there wasn’t the slightest fear anyone else would hear. “You're allowed to say he's cute. I'll even say it for you. You can imagine Eileen saying it if it will make it easier to hear. Lieutenant Richard Winters is very attractive, and you should ask him on a date ."
I'd love to put Gale and John into Band of Brothers. Of the MOTA cast, I think they've got what it takes to be paratroopers. I think they'd both enjoy the challenges involved and being part of an elite group. But John would definitely be giving Winters headaches - I think their relationship would be like the one between Winters and Compton.
So I *love* this. (As an Egan girlie and a Winters girlie, I love this.)
yes i know i said one gale and john are a set you can't separate them okay???
Because they do have what it takes, and they would be really good at it because they both like challenges, and Egan would be the bane of Dick's existence, because Dick takes everything seriously and Egan hasn't taken a thing seriously in his life. (Harry and Nix think he's a riot, but they're party people - what can we say?) The one thing they agree on is that Sobel's an idiot, but that only gets them so far, as far as rapport goes.
(It probably doesn't help that if this is the TDS universe, it is a fact of life that Egan will flirt with Joan, which Dick will not like for reasons he can't quite articulate.)
Gale doesn't say much, and that suits everyone just fine. I suspect they'll be moving him to battalion intelligence soon.
Egan is legitimately a good leader for the ground war - he leads from the front. I can just see him hopping around foxholes in Bastogne trying to find Toye some boots and Gene some scissors. (He can keep the silly looking coat for this one. It's warm.)
If you could take ONE character from MOTA and put them in a different HBOWW2 show, who would it be and why?
Are there any fics from others you reread all the time?
@basilone's spark the embers is 🔥🔥🔥 and I reread it more often than she's going to want me admit out loud becuase it's just that good.
@junojelli's Morning PT was on constant re-read for the first couple of months of the pandemic and is 100% responsible for any chemistry Dick and Joan have in TDS. (And, ahem, a certain AU that will not be named…)
Do you have a playlist for your current WIP(s)? Share it!
…this should probably be updated. Send suggestions via return of post.
If you could see one of your fics adapted into a visual medium, such as comic or film, which fan fic would you pick?
WHERE IS MY TDS MINISERIES, MISTER HANKS? WHERE IS IT?
After that I'd also love to see The Cross, The Crescent, and The Star as a Discovery of Witches spinoff.
What’s something you’ve learned about while doing research for a fic?
Friend, you may regret asking this - there are previously unexplored caverns of random things I've learned in the course of writing fic.
We often think of the Western monastic tradition as having this very strong division between male and female spaces for monks and nuns. While I was researching for Where I Arise, a short-lived Vikings fanfic, I learned that there was actually a special class of divided houses, where monks and nuns lived in the same community.
I also learned a lot for that fic about ancient Anglo-Saxon law, which has a lot of extremely specific and interesting provisions around weregild, money paid as a fine/punishment for personal injury. A lot of times this was manslaughter, but there's also a section for rape, too.
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Merc, since you like AUs so much, how would a Dick & Joan fake dating one work?
ohh i love this question.
There's already some elements of fake dating/fake married in the main story - Joan lies about dating Lewis, Lew refers to Joan as his work wife, Joan heavily implies they're dating in Paris to make certain elements move away from Dick. These come from a defensive posture - something to make something else go away.
(There's also been some fake dating in the 1920s AU and the Single Parent AU.)
But let's say we stick to the main timeline - let's imagine Joan with a…boyfriend at home who won't take a hint (hi Kurt) and Dick with the same problem, or a related one - getting teased about no girlfriend at all.
They decide (in England, I think) on the mutually beneficial route of being a pair. Joan gets to write one hell of a Dear John letter about how she's fallen for this guy who's actually near her and the story moves forward. (They have not, at this point, fallen. This is a business arrangement, after all.) They go on dates. They hold hands. They are commented on. (Dick gets hatemail and fanmail in equal volume. He doesn't tell Joan about the hatemail - she finds some by accident and they have a terrible argument about it. Dick realizes there is some small seed inside Joan that cares very deeply about him and his wellbeing. But just as a friend, of course. Joan realizes Dick really does care about protecting her from things, even if they're only nasty letters.)
There's not much need for fake dates in a war zone - but there's still space to hold hands, to comfort, to share a cup of coffee and the heat of a fire. "You're cold, take this." "You're hungry, eat this." "You need some rest, use me as a pillow." The togetherness, the sense of unity, is already there. Joan gets shot and Dick realizes just how bound together they really are, how much a lie isn't really a lie any more.
(In this timeline there's only one bed somewhere much earlier - maybe Holland? There's been only one mug and only one washbasin and only one seat on the truck for so long that only one bed feels new, but natural.)
And how is Mrs Winters, Lewis asks, one night, as a joke. It's one of the only times Dick gets angry at Lew. "She has a rank, Nix. Don't you dare demote her." There's a bigger reason, too - they don't let married women stay in the army. If people think they're married, she'll be sent home.
"I wish you'd just say it." Joan complains, one day, by the lake. The war is over and the sun is shining and she's reading a book and he's nearly napping. "Say what?" Dick asks. "Say what you're thinking about getting married." She's not wrong - he has been thinking it. "Well, it would help with your mother," he suggests, almost sly. Joan looks ready to either kiss him or kill him. "And half of Washington can't make it if we do it here."
She decides to keep him. They get married in their dress uniforms and Stars and Stripes sends a photographer, and they saber open a bottle of champagne. (Dick gets just a little drunk - photos from the event show a man smiling far more openly at his wife.)
Joan was a horsegirl for a hot minute - or I should say, rather, that Joan can ride quite well. (She's also a passable polo player, though I don't think she'd offer that readily.) A big feature of her childhood in Wyoming, and her time at boarding school, was riding.
👻: fear
Joan's greatest fear, forever and always, is being inadequate. Her mother's always had high expectations, and following in her uncle's footsteps, or her grandfather's, to do something that makes them proud, has always been her dream.
👗: fashion
Joan's style is straightforward and elegant - she likes clean lines, structured shapes, and dark, jewel tones that show off her skin. She enjoys dressing well, even if she doesn't always enjoy the role that goes along with it.
💕: love
Joan loves...people who show up even when she doesn't ask them. Joan loves being surprised by that, by the people who know darn well she could do it herself, but come because she shouldn't have to.
⛄️: seasonal
I'm having a vision, after the war, of that big house out in Wyoming, and summer vacations, and a little lake nearby where Joan remembers going swimming as a kid. It's not Austria by a long chalk, Dick thinks, but it sure is pretty.
What inspired you to start writing Darkening Skies? How long did it live in your head before you started writing it?
I wish I had some big, cool story for how this starts. I don't.
It was the early pandemic, May 2020, and I said "You know what I haven't done in a while? Watched Band of Brothers all the way through. And I've never read the book, either. Why don't I do that?"
So I went to my local used media store, sat in the parking lot, (because stores were still closed, remember?) and bought a DVD box set of BoB and a copy of the book by phone. And then, like I was making a drug deal, they left them in a bag outside the door, and I picked them up and went home. And I watched it. And I said, "…I'll bet there's fanfic."
Now, the last time I watched BoB all the way through was in college, when I was typesetting a project for my bookarts class, and I wasn't paying very much attention, but I do remember that I thought Nixon was very attractive, and Winters was very attractive, and I also have a very strong memory of saying "Now, Merc, these are real people, you can't write fic about them."
In the ten years since that viewing, I've written and read a lot of fic and made a lot of questionable life choices about who that fic is about, and in the year of our lord 2020, I said "You know what? It's the middle of a pandemic, and I've just decided that I no longer care."
So I went to go find some fic. Turns out there were a lot of people with the same idea. Which makes sense, because what is OFC fanfic if not a power fantasy? I couldn't go anywhere and I couldn't see anyone and neither could anyone else, and how better to feel like you're in control of an incontrollable situation than writing? Anyway, most of what I was reading was your classic single female character story, and I thought "This is lonely. If I were trying to take on the entire establishment, gender norms and all, I'd want a friend."
(There is also part of the backstory of where Joan came from, specifically, here.)
So I came up with a couple characters, asked my similarly bored friends if they wanted in on the fun, and it…snowballed from there. How long did it live in my head? A week, maybe? It’s been kind of fly by the seat of my pants since then.
