Never Have I Ever Written ....

[jedibuttercup]

So here are the results from April's plotting practice meme-- the descriptions of several stories I have not written based on titles and fandoms supplied by my flist. :)

1. "And Give Me a Month to Get Ready" for graycardinal (Castle/SG-1, involving Martha Rodgers)

(Because it's you; and because the plotline continues to bother me, too).

After "Jackson Hunt", the guy who claims to be Castle's father, shows up for the second time and actually meets Martha, something bothers her about him; he's different than she remembers. She doesn't want to cause any more trouble for him, if what he claims about his current occupation is true; but he'd let a few things drop the first time they'd met, a few unusual words and phrases that she'd never looked into so as not to spoil the magical romance of those memories, and they nag at her now. She waits a few weeks, then gets one of her (or her son's) contacts to quietly start a search to look into things ... and inadvertently trips the SGC's radar.

Because it turns out there was actually a Tok'ra on Earth in that time period, inhabiting a human sneaky spy type to get some intel on the movements of stay-behind Goa'uld like Seth? A Tok'ra who happened to have survived the show's events and is temporarily back on Earth? And they're trying to come up with something to shut down Martha's inquiries without making waves. But then she meets the current host. And being Martha, just knows.

Fill in the blanks (including who the current host might be) from there. Possible later inclusion of Castle meeting the guy too and liking him better than his other "half dad", whether or not he ever gets the full story. *snickering*

2. "Can't Remember to Forget You" for kerrykhat (B:tVS/crossover of your choice)

So. Snooping your journal: you're keeping up with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.... hmmm.

Let's say, post-Sunnydale, Buffy tries various iterations of being normal, hanging on the fringes of Dawn's life while she goes to college, being admin staff of the new Slayers organization (no comics canon), and so on; but bored, bored, bored. So odd things and/or injustices going on in her vicinity start catching her attention, and she starts meddling. Which Stark-like eventually puts her on Fury's radar. And gets her eventually drafted onto one of these pocket SHIELD teams (not necessarily Coulson's, though she'd probably be charmed by FitzSimmons when she ran into them at HQ and schedule regular sparring grudgematches with May) sort of the same way Skye did rather than via a training course (independent-minded, but working with a team and earning a SHIELD badge).

Fast forward to the events of Cap 2 and afterward, and all these potentially malevolent artefacts and prisoners escaping the Fridge. Buffy (just her luck, right?) has just discovered her current boyfriend is actually HYDRA, when she intercepts a message from his evil former SO congratulating him on sabotaging the retreival of one of those artefacts. Of course he swears he loves her, he'll turn his back on HYDRA for her, the whole sabotage thing is actually all about trying to protect her; but she's heard that tune before, and is having none of it. In the course of the argument, the artefact gets activated, and wipes all of their personal memories. All of them.

There's no cure. They have to rediscover themselves, who they were, who they are, who they are to each other, and survive what both their organizations do trying to get them back (because of course realizing they're in the basement of some off-the-books government base, Buffy instinctively panics and escapes, which puts her in SHIELD's crosshairs). So they end up ... not breaking up. For the better. And are eventually brought back in by Coulson, and along the way cripple the boyfriend's old SO's organization. Possibly using the same artefact!

3. "And If You Close Your Eyes" for hiddencait (any fandom)

So I snooped your Not Prime Time letter. And oh, Hercules Hansen, my heart.

So. Post-"Pacific Rim", a story about Hercules Hansen, picking himself up after the deaths of his son and best friend; Mako Mori, mourning her adoptive father and dealing with finally having achieved vengeance for the deaths of her birth parents; and Raleigh Beckett, past the first flush of new partnership, adjusting to the fact that Mako has essentially taken up all the ragged edges of his soul where Yancy used to be and knit herself in his brother's place... finally letting go of Yancy's ghost. (Possibly there may be issues of my own getting showcased here).

Remembering how things used to be. Adjusting to loss. Trying to find enough optimism to keep on.

It would probably involve press junkets and touring old Shatterdomes that haven't already been repurposed for other uses and repairing more Jaegers long consigned to Oblivion Bay and keeping the Jaeger program going via humanitarian missions and stuff as the forefront of the plot, but between events, Mako and Raleigh helping/socializing with/sharing quiet with/etc. Herc both separately and together. And eventually ends in-- if not quite a happily ever after, a hopefully ever after trioship, with bonus Science Bros still happily bickering in the background.

4. "The Things I've Left Unsaid" for maevebran (Captain America/MCU)

You always ask me for the sappiest things, outside my comfort zone! Luckily, I don't actually have to write the story, here.

So. Obviously, this would be a Steve and Natasha story. Probably post-Cap 2, probably framed by a patchwork of missions stitched together from HYDRA stuff aimed in the general direction of tracking where Bucky's been and hopefully finding where he's going. Building off those wonderful characterization moments in the movie where Natasha wanted to know what Steve wanted her to be, and him just wanting her to be her, and to be a friend.... figuring out who that person is, and how she relates to Steve. But the dramatic weight isn't all on her: Steve figuring out who he is too in a post-SHIELD world where his best friend became the Winter Soldier.

... Never quite saying the words to each other but hearing them anyway.

Bonus appearances by Sam and Clint and background mention of other Avengers, probably including an encounter with Bucky who isn't quite willing to be caught yet but leaves them with hope that he one day will, in some kind of metaphorically themed scene giving them hope that they can make it, too.

5. "Barbecue of the Vanities" for ffutures (Castle/The Punisher)

I'm not actually familiar with "Bonfire of the Vanities". Or "The Punisher". But going off the descriptions on Wikipedia... um. The obvious place to go with that prompt is a lot darker than I'm comfortable with writing. Even if you're doing a straight crossover and not a fusion.

Well, I guess that would qualify as as story I've never written and won't ever write, so here's an attempt: something involving Castle screwing up (probably set early in the show as I can't see a Vanities-type plotline working with Beckett; probably out with his fluffy-brained ex on one of her post-marital one night stand flybys) and getting caught at it, and his friends at the Station turning their backs on him, and something happening to Martha and Alexis as a result. Followed by Castle losing the plot, emptying his accounts, disappearing into the system, and becoming a one-man vengeance machine on his own. Starting off with the other people in his social circle who vilified him while getting away with worse themselves, and metaphorically roasting marshmallows over their demise. It would be a very ugly, gritty, deconstruction-of-Castle-as-character story.

But if you're looking for a plot that would be a little more my style, that I'd probably just never get to: Castle and Beckett investigating a case similar to the one in Bonfire of the Vanities, with all the evidence issues and racial politics going on, and nobody happy about it. Potentially a cold case, or reevaluating an old conviction, if you want to preserve the temporosocial setting. And in a twist similar to all the nonsense with the ongoing Beckett's mom's death issue (which, I haven't seen tonight's episode yet, and am already dreading it from the commercials) their investigation trips them over an unexpected political landmine. Consequences send them on the lam... and across the path of The Punisher, who's hunting the same prey. I can't really figure where it would go from there; Beckett isn't usually down with killing, but in the right circumstances... Anyway, the story ends on a still not happy but poetically satisfactory note, and probably some black humor on Castle's part; the guilt finally assigned to the right bad guys at some level; and Beckett and Castle restored at the 12th.

6. "Would You Like to Swing On a Star" for wildecate (SG-1, Sam/Jack)

So not my ship, as presented in canon! But I can squint and see it, in certain circumstances. :)

One possibility, for your reading pleasure: after X number of years in charge of Homeworld Command, holding out until he can hand the chair to someone he trusts, Jack is well and thoroughly sick of his job. But the program is his life, and he's made connections there it'll hurt like fire to leave behind....

The person he's finally passing the chair to isn't Sam; because she was willing to go from ship command to helm the SGC, but has seen what the big chair did to Jack over the years while they were quietly conducting a behind the scenes romance, and doesn't want that for several reasons: for her own sake, because it would still fall on him by proxy, and because the snake's nest of politics involved in appointing her would probably end up gutting the authority of the role (pick your reason; because she's a woman, because it's easy enough to find out she's Jack's lover no matter how careful they've been, because she's picked a lot of fights with the NID over the years, and so on). So he's busy prepping some other military character (probably one of the various shows' Colonels; pick your favorite) to take the role, and wondering WTH to do next, and trying and failing not to pressure Sam to find out what she wants him to do.

Enter the Tok'ra with an offer. They still want her after all this time, as much for her connections with Selmak through her father and with Martouf/Lantash as her experience with Jolinar; they lost so much of their leadership and living memory in the fallout of the struggle with the Goa'uld, and hope she'll help them rebuild. She's sorely tempted; some part of her has always wanted that, and its seems like she's no longer professionally needed on Earth as she ages out of her position. She could get a lot more functional years out there in the galaxy as a Tok'ra. But what about Jack? She doesn't want to go without him; but his antipathy for them is well known.

He's come to terms with that better than she thinks, though; it doesn't take much "would you rather..." conversation for him to admit it's his turn to make that leap for her, and off they go, one last time through the gate, making the galaxy a better place. Probably several cameos by old friends, and/or the children of old friends.

7. "99 Problems, but a Slayer Ain't One" for avamclean (B:tVS ....?)

I'm trying to remember what your feelings are on Buffy/Spike, because from a canon perspective, reading those lyrics and the common interpretation of them, I'm getting really strong Spike obsessing about Buffy vibes. Probably as a side effect of taking up NLB again, and rereading that Dawn/Mini!Daniel WIP I have going that's sort of a B/S fixit in the background.

(It could probably work for a Faith/Buffy story as well; or any number of crossovers with other deeply passionate characters as potential romantic partners.)

.... Wait, wait wait. Yes, this could easily be a futurefic in the "See For Yourself" universe. But telling several stories in parallel: still background shipping of Dawn and Mini!Daniel, and of Buffy and Spike, but foregrounding Mini!Jack with all his scarred layers and fresh young face meeting Faith. Probably around the time Jon finishes high school and training again but is getting a little restless with the embracing of the Watcher lifestyle that Nick's taken to so well. The Dawn/Nick plot is the happy one, where they've fit their issues together in complementary ways; the Buffy/Spike plot the middle course, where they're carefully coming back after walking a rough road; and the Jon/Faith the one where their broken ends grate against each other but they're drawn together despite that.

... Plot, right. Jon ends up getting involved in an SGC on-world adventure again while he's deciding what to do with himself and Faith's in the right place at the right time to get involved in it, too; the others as background support. There are any number of possible endings, but I probably wouldn't end it with them together. But it would close in a way that, their experiences ended up confirming them in their own future paths; no regrets.

8. "With Our Backs to the Wall" for morgynleri_fic (any fandom)

Because I keep getting dragged into all your tasty fragmentary Hobbit and Lord of the Rings stuff .....

So I've noticed that there's this 17 year time difference in the Jackson MU as opposed to the Tolkien bookverse. Specifically, the fact that those seventeen years between Bilbo's eleventy-first (and Frodo's thirty-third) birthday and the actual Quest seem to have been erased. So I would take this as license to muck with the Tolkien timeline with a wide brush, call it a movieverse AU, and subtract that much from Bilbo's age as well.

To what end you ask? Well, according to Bookverse, Balin comes to visit Bilbo in the Shire after the quest! Let's say he mentioned his disquiet with remaining in Erebor under the rule of someone other than Thorin, not that he dislikes Dain exactly but Dain's just never really been his King; and his intent to go to Moria. And a Bilbo who's not already over ninety and is still feeling pretty spry thanks to the Ring and is kind of fed up with his solitary Shire existence (as this would be before Drogo's and Primula's deaths) asks Balin if maaaaybe he could use an invisible burglar on his new Quest as well?

Which brings us to: Life in Moria, starring BALIN, ORI, ÓIN, and BILBO, as the drums begin to sound.

Obviously there's no Frodo -> Rivendell -> Council and so on in this universe, though Gollum probably still stirs up trouble. So perhaps the original members of the Quest might still end up making it there anyhow ... Frodo questing for his lost cousin, perhaps, supported by other cousins, to draw trouble away from home? Various folks responding to prophecies or rumors or war under the mountains or calls for help or what have you? I don't know if the whole "what the bleep, the Ring's been under our noses here all this time" plot would actually make it in to the story or not (I suspect the actual story would be mostly a snapshot of Bilbo, in Moria, living under siege and doing his hobbity best to keep friends old and new from getting killed trying to stave off the goblin horde) but I just have this image of Gimli at the Hollin gate with Legolas and Frodo, and stretched!thin!Bilbo greeting them and sneaking everyone off to the remnant of the Dwarvish redoubt ....

9. "Allergy Season" for pronker (Star Wars, Obi-Wan-centric)

I mostly read Star Wars rather than write it, because I find the depth of canon kind of intimidating. I'm one of those fans who was just old enough to see Return of the Jedi in theaters and so imprinted on Jedi Edition Luke rather than Scoundrel Edition Han Solo, read the EU mostly in its heydey in the early nineties but not much since, and hasn't seen any Clone Wars. *embarrassed shrug*

But if I were to write the story of Obi-Wan and the Hoi Broth Allergy Incident: obviously he was allergic to one of the spices in the broth, not the broth itself, and thus his reaction was more along the lines of a bizarre drug side effect than an immune system sensitivity. To wit: hallucinations, accompanied by a sort of berzerk giddiness. A take-no-prisoners Obi-Wan on crack! He took the toast for politeness' sake due to some kind of food/gift refusal taboo in their culture, and then when the symptoms started coming on was convinced he could just lock it down, control himself, and continue until the hallucinations started getting especially obtrusive and convincing....

I'm sort of torn on how ridiculous as opposed to just violent the ensuing reaction would be, but there should be all kinds of madcap action and lightsabers and offended natives and yet somehow still solving the diplomatic issue as Anakin attempts to keep his Master on track. And when he finally comes down from the reaction, exhausted and feeling like he just got slapped in the face with a wet fish and Anakin flying them out just ahead of their hosts' bristling laser banks, the understated "I suppose it's time to update my medical files", "Yeah, I'd say so," conversation.

...Bonus bit perhaps at the end of Anakin trying to present it all "Funny story..." to Padme and she not finding it funny at all and insisting that they pamper his Master a little?

10. And last but not least, "Guided By A Beating Heart" for sparrowsverse (any)

Skimming your journal, we don't have many recent fandom posts in common! But I see that you are-- or were-- watching Once Upon a Time....

So, obviously, this is a Belle-centric story! I've been touched by her devotion to Rumplestiltskin and yet creeped out by the power differential of the pairing the entire run of the show so far; so perhaps a tale about what's going on with Belle during the time Zelena's keeping him prisoner. Running the shop without him, trying to carry the faith, picking up all these relics of identity from the Enchanted Forest and thinking about how many other lives he's touched, coming to terms with who he is apart from her True Love and who she is apart from that as well. Making the choice to trust him deliberately rather than blindly. In short, giving her some actual textural kickass depth.

I'd love, in fact, to even use it to AU the show a bit where she's the one responsible for stepping in for some "Pure Magic True Love Blah Blah" moment during the latter half of the season, as it would make sense for her to do so to save her beloved rather than ... *cough* Well, if you're all caught up on your viewing, you'll have an idea what I mean.

And end by breaking the cycle: an actually happy ever after, instead of RUMPLE ONCE AGAIN BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERY BAD THING THAT HAPPENS EVER. *cough cough*

Comments

[hiddencait.livejournal.com]

" And oh, Hercules Hansen, my heart." I swear that was like my whole caption for that movie, I swear LOL

I would love them trio'd up hopefullly ever after for sure. Thanks for this dear!

[graycardinal]

Much good stuff here, a good bit of it in 'verses in which I am not well versed. That said:

# And Give Me A Month To Get Ready: [nodnodnod] I kind of thought this might generate a Castle's-father plot, but -- as usual -- I did not see that particular twist coming. And yet it's definitely the sort of thing that would have been right up the Tok'ra wheelhouse. If my Castle prompt for NPT doesn't get tapped, I may have to consider stealing, um, borrowing this idea.

# Can't Remember to Forget You: Wow. This would definitely have been an epic (one possible reason you haven't actually written it - heh). OTOH, if you had written it, it would certainly have been awesome.

# Barbecue of the Vanities: Ouch. I also have not read Bonfire... and am only minimally familiar with the Punisher. Thus, not surprisingly, I like the second of those ideas better than the first (not least because a universe in which Bad Things happen to Martha and Alexis is not one that appeals to me at all). OTOH (again), a universe in which Castle goes all off-the-rails-Batman in a serious way could be kind of weirdly fascinating.

[beatrice_otter]

See, the thing about Star Wars fic is that unless you are specifically writing EU canon (say, about Wraith Squadron), your need for actual EU knowledge is limited and can be mostly fulfilled by Wookiepedia. Particularly if you say so up front.

I love all of these ... and would love to see them actually written, but that's another story.

[maevebran.livejournal.com]

I'm only trying to make sure to challenge you to grow by stretching your comfort zone. ;) You always complain about the sap but deliver so beautifully. This would be no exception. Steve and Natasha finding themselves by going on missions (and that of course Sam, Clint, and the other Avengers would show up to help) and then finding Bucky who hasn't yet found himself would be the exact way anything between them would happen.=)

[pronker]

Star Wars EU is about to get rebooted, in a good way, I think. I did not read anything past New Jedi Order, which was enjoyable and emotionally affecting. The other post-ROTJ series after that, with Han and Leia and Luke getting more and more depressing in their elder years, could not reach me enough to read them; it was bad enough to hear about them. The standalones were entertaining, though. So thanks for this bit of story ...

Color me happy! Anakin flying them out just ahead of their hosts' bristling laser banks, the understated "I suppose it's time to update my medical files", "Yeah, I'd say so," conversation.
It's the control thing, he will avoid intrusive medicos at *almost* all cost, but the cost to the mission is great in terms of suspense and the eventual cost to his dignity greater. I could picture him at some bistro or something, with Padmé and Anakin taking him out for some r/r after his sick spell.

[wildecate.livejournal.com]

Thank you! !

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Sorry my idea was outside your comfort zone, I'd be interested in either option you suggested, though I'd also prefer not to harm Martha and Alexis. Like all the others too except Once Upon A Time, where I don't know the fandom well enough to comment.

One thing re Star Wars - they've just said all of the EU stuff is no longer canon, so you can safely ignore it.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Forgot to say that I initially read the last sentence of your post as

And end by breaking the cycle: an actually happy ever after, instead of RUMPOLE ONCE AGAIN BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERY BAD THING THAT HAPPENS EVER. *cough cough*

She Who Must Be Obeyed would probably agree with that!

[morgynleri]

*grins broadly* Eventually my Hobbit and Lord of the Rings 'verses will have something resembling cohesion for each of them. Maybe. I hope.

And that sounds like an awesome story, and if it ever were written, I'd read it. Knowing my muses, I may end up with them poking me about the idea, but right now, they're at least all distracted by the collection of AUs I already have. :)

[kerrykhat.livejournal.com]

I'm more than a little in love with most of these, but especially the one you came up with for my prompt. ^_^

Thank you!

[avamclean.livejournal.com]

Lots of fascinating ideas going on in these prompts. :)

I'm not overly fond of Buffy/Spike (or Buffy/Angel for that matter), but I'm certain you could write in such a way that I'd still enjoy it.