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deathpixieSo, there's this meme going around where you talk about your works in progress. Since it's been a while since I wrote anything more than a short story that wasn't RPG, it's more of an 'Abandoned Stories" meme for me. But it's an interesting exercise in where my fanfic brain was a couple of years ago... Now with added excerpts!
Set at the time Betsy locked the Shadow King on the astral plane and killed telepathy and Siryn had her throat torn out by Feral, thus losing her voice and her powers. Basically looking at two people who have lost their usual means of communication (Chamber his telepathy, Siryn her voice) and how that might connect the two of them. I got as far as Paige coming to talk to a rather bitter Terry.
It had started with a phone call, Sean reflected as he watched the solitary figure hunched on the bench in the bright sunlight. The sort of late-night phone call that fills every parent’s heart with dread, be they human or mutant, superhero or “just plain folks”. The sound of James Proudstar’s tear-choked voice on the end of a crackly long-distance line had almost taken twenty years off his life. The twenty years that belonged to his daughter, to be exact.
A "After Oz Left Sunnydale" story conceived on during Walkabout when we were in the Canadian Rockies. Oz flees from people altogether after the whole Veruca (and is it me or was that the dumbest name ever for a girl?) business and finds himself in the Canadian Rockies in winter. Which is fine for when he's all wolfy - it's the awakening as a human that's going to kill him.
The snow got steadily thicker as he gained altitude, crawling up and north into mountains he couldn't see. Fat, fluffy flakes - he amused himself for a while by saying it out loud fast a few times, the radio long since dead - drifting down like God was having a celestial pillow fight. When he began picturing God and His Host in shortie pyjamas with their hair in curlers, flailing at each other with pillows, he decided that perhaps he'd been on his own just a little too much, and stopped in a tiny mountain town two hours later for gas and lunch.
Oh man, the one Johnny wants me to finish one day. Set during Season 4 when Giles was having his mid-life crisis of uselessness. Scenario's easy to guess - Constantine turns up, chaos ensues. At one point I was going to have it as a prelude to a Dark Willow/Constantine story, but [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] is doing it first and better with "Fall On Your Knees", so I decided to keep it in Season 4. Basically the plan was Giles, Constantine and Spike go on an adventure after a mystic gem. Kudos to [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] for coming up with the image of Spike saying wistfully, as they're talking about the gem, "I had a magic gem once. Was all nice and shiny. Only that bitch Buffy went and took it and gave it to the great raving poofta in LA."
“So, what can a get you fellas?” he asked, approaching the pair with the kind of caution people usually reserve for ticking parcels marked ‘ACME Bomb-Making Kit’. A space had rapidly cleared around them, although it meant everyone was bunched up together at each end of the bar. It would have been more dramatic if Giles hadn’t promptly fallen off the stool. His friend helped him back up, propping him up on the stool again and grabbing the back of his tweed jacket to keep him steady.
“A couple of pints of yer finest, mate,” he said, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke into Willie’s face. Willie had been taught the Queen’s English – and the variations thereof – in several painful sessions by Spike. He drew two beers without asking.
“Are you sure? The Wat- er, your pal there looks like he’s had more than enough.”
“Nah, he hasn’t started spewing yet.” Constantine looked around the bar, taking in the clientele, and then looked at Willie. “Here, am I going daft or is this place full of demons?”
“We prefer to think of them as ‘spiritually challenged’,” Willie corrected. At Constantine’s look, he quickly added. “That’s Sunnydale for you. You know, Hellmouth, Slayer, forces of good and evil doing eternal battle… Even the undead need a place they can kick back and relax in.”
“Hellmouth? Here?” Willie nodded.
“Centre of all evil, portal into Hell itself, the whole enchilada.”
“And you mentioned a Slayer?”
“Unto every generation shall be born a Chosen One, who shall stand against the demons and the vampires, yadda, yadda, yadda. Blonde chick, handy with a stake. Nasty right hook.” Willie rubbed his jaw in pained memory. “You’ll meet her soon enough, considering your pal’s her Watcher.”
Giles snorted and started snoring happily, his face cushioned by an ashtray full of cigarette butts. Constantine looked down at him, expression inscrutable. “Watcher, eh? My, my, my Ripper, what have you been mucking about with now?”
This one was inspired in an IHOP over brunch with [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] and [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]. I'd been mainlining Sally's Powers books and she bemoaned the lack of fanfic. The Plot Demon sat up and took notice. An origin fic, it follows Deena Pilgrim back when she was working for Vice and was going to explain just why she transferred to Homicide to work with Walker. Alas, very little got written - there's about one paragraph more past the quoted section.
“Hey Deena, how was the weekend?”
“The usual – kiddie porn and some college kids dealing smack to put themselves through school. You?”
“Some wanna-be player decided to start messing up the street whores down by the river.” Billie pulled a face and grinned over at the small blonde woman hanging her coat over the back of her chair. “We need a life, girlfriend.”
“A life? Hey, I heard about those once. They happen to other people, right?” Deena dead-panned. Billie McMahon – friend, co-worker and the only other female officer in Vice – gave her well-known throaty chuckle.
“The squad is Mother…”
“…the squad is Father.”
It's Gaiman-licious! Was going to deal with the dangling plot hook left by Neverwhere: Door's sister, who the Angel Islington mentions as being alive and his captive a couple of times and which was never dealt with. Coupled with the fact Tim Hunter was called an Opener on more than one occasion, there was plenty of room to insert the plot crowbar. This one's been worked on more recently than some of the others, after I had some inspiration in the laundromat last year. There was going to be a sub-plot of London Below political intrigue, in the wake of Door trying to continue her father's work and unite the clans.
It wasn't hard to find the Angels Over England exhibit - there were signs pointing to the room everywhere, with "Last Days!" tacked onto them. The room itself was almost empty, save for a couple of middle-aged women cooing over some cutesy porcelain angel-cherubs on one of the shelves. Tim paused in the doorway, taken aback by the sheer… angel-ness of the exhibition.
The room was _full_ of angels. Angels of every description, from small and delicate china and glass angels, to large and massive stone and wood angels. Old angels, new angels, angels that looked like they'd come from the bargain store, angels that cost the budget of a small African nation. And across the room, on a slightly raised podium, drawing him towards it, was a massive door, big enough for a small car to go through. And on the door was an Angel.
"Wow," Tim said quietly, not wanting to disturb the hush around him, drinking in the marvel of wood and paint and gold leaf. The blank enamelled eyes - a deep cerulean blue - caught his, and for a moment he caught a flash - 'fire and fleet and candlelight', he found himself thinking - of candles and darkness and a face beautiful beyond description. "What's your secret, then?" he whispered, stepping up onto the podium, ignoring the red velvet ropes that were meant to keep him out. He raised his hand to stroke the smooth painted face, and something clicked. The door swung open… and the two women stared, their mouths agape, as the thin, bespectacled boy was enveloped in light, a light so clear and pure, one of them said to the other later, it must have come straight from Heaven. Then boy and light were gone, as if they had never been.
Hob's last night in England, he's on the Tube going home and he reflects on his extremely long life here. Prompted by a quote from [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] in a pub in London - "I see dead people. I just wish they'd fuck off." - which became a fanfic challenge. Not finished because strangely for me it had no plot and therefore didn't have an ending to work towards. There's some good lines in it, tho'.
Tonight is my last night in London, in England, for that matter. The old place holds no secrets from me, no new horizons, and so I’m off to the country that worships all things new, where they think that thirty years is a long time. The States don’t occupy themselves with ghosts of times long past, they’re too busy living in the now, eyes fixed firmly on the future. I’ve lived there before, true, got myself involved in some trading of both scrupulous and dubious wares, but there’s _space_ there, places I’ve never seen, even after twelve lifetimes. People who I can look at and not see the tracery of long-dead colleagues in their bone structures, buildings whose doors I’ve never darkened. Streets that have never known my feet, gutters that haven’t been my bed.
AU fic starting between seasons five and six and focussing on Tara. One night after having nightmares about Glory she goes down to the kitchen and ends up talking to Giles about old traumas and the Scoobies. Thus begins a friendship that leads to Tara leaving with Giles to go back to England after "Tabula Rasa" and a very different conclusion to the Dark Willow storyline. There's more to this than I have on the computer, I remember scribbling a lot more in one of my notebooks.
Tara tried hard to provide Dawn with normality, the reassurance of everyday life: routines; small chores; making sure she did her homework and ate regular meals; movies and popcorn and silly little games and gossip. It seemed to be helping - a month on and the bruised circles were disappearing from beneath Dawn's eyes, the colour was returning to her pale skin. And tonight she needed no reassurance, didn't need Tara's arms around her and a wordless murmured lullaby of comfort.
Just memories and the faint echo of Glory's giggles to keep her company tonight then.
And this isn't even counting the envelope of pages torn from various notebooks in my room. Lots of different bits and pieces there...
Set at the time Betsy locked the Shadow King on the astral plane and killed telepathy and Siryn had her throat torn out by Feral, thus losing her voice and her powers. Basically looking at two people who have lost their usual means of communication (Chamber his telepathy, Siryn her voice) and how that might connect the two of them. I got as far as Paige coming to talk to a rather bitter Terry.
It had started with a phone call, Sean reflected as he watched the solitary figure hunched on the bench in the bright sunlight. The sort of late-night phone call that fills every parent’s heart with dread, be they human or mutant, superhero or “just plain folks”. The sound of James Proudstar’s tear-choked voice on the end of a crackly long-distance line had almost taken twenty years off his life. The twenty years that belonged to his daughter, to be exact.
A "After Oz Left Sunnydale" story conceived on during Walkabout when we were in the Canadian Rockies. Oz flees from people altogether after the whole Veruca (and is it me or was that the dumbest name ever for a girl?) business and finds himself in the Canadian Rockies in winter. Which is fine for when he's all wolfy - it's the awakening as a human that's going to kill him.
The snow got steadily thicker as he gained altitude, crawling up and north into mountains he couldn't see. Fat, fluffy flakes - he amused himself for a while by saying it out loud fast a few times, the radio long since dead - drifting down like God was having a celestial pillow fight. When he began picturing God and His Host in shortie pyjamas with their hair in curlers, flailing at each other with pillows, he decided that perhaps he'd been on his own just a little too much, and stopped in a tiny mountain town two hours later for gas and lunch.
Oh man, the one Johnny wants me to finish one day. Set during Season 4 when Giles was having his mid-life crisis of uselessness. Scenario's easy to guess - Constantine turns up, chaos ensues. At one point I was going to have it as a prelude to a Dark Willow/Constantine story, but [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] is doing it first and better with "Fall On Your Knees", so I decided to keep it in Season 4. Basically the plan was Giles, Constantine and Spike go on an adventure after a mystic gem. Kudos to [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] for coming up with the image of Spike saying wistfully, as they're talking about the gem, "I had a magic gem once. Was all nice and shiny. Only that bitch Buffy went and took it and gave it to the great raving poofta in LA."
“So, what can a get you fellas?” he asked, approaching the pair with the kind of caution people usually reserve for ticking parcels marked ‘ACME Bomb-Making Kit’. A space had rapidly cleared around them, although it meant everyone was bunched up together at each end of the bar. It would have been more dramatic if Giles hadn’t promptly fallen off the stool. His friend helped him back up, propping him up on the stool again and grabbing the back of his tweed jacket to keep him steady.
“A couple of pints of yer finest, mate,” he said, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke into Willie’s face. Willie had been taught the Queen’s English – and the variations thereof – in several painful sessions by Spike. He drew two beers without asking.
“Are you sure? The Wat- er, your pal there looks like he’s had more than enough.”
“Nah, he hasn’t started spewing yet.” Constantine looked around the bar, taking in the clientele, and then looked at Willie. “Here, am I going daft or is this place full of demons?”
“We prefer to think of them as ‘spiritually challenged’,” Willie corrected. At Constantine’s look, he quickly added. “That’s Sunnydale for you. You know, Hellmouth, Slayer, forces of good and evil doing eternal battle… Even the undead need a place they can kick back and relax in.”
“Hellmouth? Here?” Willie nodded.
“Centre of all evil, portal into Hell itself, the whole enchilada.”
“And you mentioned a Slayer?”
“Unto every generation shall be born a Chosen One, who shall stand against the demons and the vampires, yadda, yadda, yadda. Blonde chick, handy with a stake. Nasty right hook.” Willie rubbed his jaw in pained memory. “You’ll meet her soon enough, considering your pal’s her Watcher.”
Giles snorted and started snoring happily, his face cushioned by an ashtray full of cigarette butts. Constantine looked down at him, expression inscrutable. “Watcher, eh? My, my, my Ripper, what have you been mucking about with now?”
This one was inspired in an IHOP over brunch with [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] and [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com]. I'd been mainlining Sally's Powers books and she bemoaned the lack of fanfic. The Plot Demon sat up and took notice. An origin fic, it follows Deena Pilgrim back when she was working for Vice and was going to explain just why she transferred to Homicide to work with Walker. Alas, very little got written - there's about one paragraph more past the quoted section.
“Hey Deena, how was the weekend?”
“The usual – kiddie porn and some college kids dealing smack to put themselves through school. You?”
“Some wanna-be player decided to start messing up the street whores down by the river.” Billie pulled a face and grinned over at the small blonde woman hanging her coat over the back of her chair. “We need a life, girlfriend.”
“A life? Hey, I heard about those once. They happen to other people, right?” Deena dead-panned. Billie McMahon – friend, co-worker and the only other female officer in Vice – gave her well-known throaty chuckle.
“The squad is Mother…”
“…the squad is Father.”
It's Gaiman-licious! Was going to deal with the dangling plot hook left by Neverwhere: Door's sister, who the Angel Islington mentions as being alive and his captive a couple of times and which was never dealt with. Coupled with the fact Tim Hunter was called an Opener on more than one occasion, there was plenty of room to insert the plot crowbar. This one's been worked on more recently than some of the others, after I had some inspiration in the laundromat last year. There was going to be a sub-plot of London Below political intrigue, in the wake of Door trying to continue her father's work and unite the clans.
It wasn't hard to find the Angels Over England exhibit - there were signs pointing to the room everywhere, with "Last Days!" tacked onto them. The room itself was almost empty, save for a couple of middle-aged women cooing over some cutesy porcelain angel-cherubs on one of the shelves. Tim paused in the doorway, taken aback by the sheer… angel-ness of the exhibition.
The room was _full_ of angels. Angels of every description, from small and delicate china and glass angels, to large and massive stone and wood angels. Old angels, new angels, angels that looked like they'd come from the bargain store, angels that cost the budget of a small African nation. And across the room, on a slightly raised podium, drawing him towards it, was a massive door, big enough for a small car to go through. And on the door was an Angel.
"Wow," Tim said quietly, not wanting to disturb the hush around him, drinking in the marvel of wood and paint and gold leaf. The blank enamelled eyes - a deep cerulean blue - caught his, and for a moment he caught a flash - 'fire and fleet and candlelight', he found himself thinking - of candles and darkness and a face beautiful beyond description. "What's your secret, then?" he whispered, stepping up onto the podium, ignoring the red velvet ropes that were meant to keep him out. He raised his hand to stroke the smooth painted face, and something clicked. The door swung open… and the two women stared, their mouths agape, as the thin, bespectacled boy was enveloped in light, a light so clear and pure, one of them said to the other later, it must have come straight from Heaven. Then boy and light were gone, as if they had never been.
Hob's last night in England, he's on the Tube going home and he reflects on his extremely long life here. Prompted by a quote from [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] in a pub in London - "I see dead people. I just wish they'd fuck off." - which became a fanfic challenge. Not finished because strangely for me it had no plot and therefore didn't have an ending to work towards. There's some good lines in it, tho'.
Tonight is my last night in London, in England, for that matter. The old place holds no secrets from me, no new horizons, and so I’m off to the country that worships all things new, where they think that thirty years is a long time. The States don’t occupy themselves with ghosts of times long past, they’re too busy living in the now, eyes fixed firmly on the future. I’ve lived there before, true, got myself involved in some trading of both scrupulous and dubious wares, but there’s _space_ there, places I’ve never seen, even after twelve lifetimes. People who I can look at and not see the tracery of long-dead colleagues in their bone structures, buildings whose doors I’ve never darkened. Streets that have never known my feet, gutters that haven’t been my bed.
AU fic starting between seasons five and six and focussing on Tara. One night after having nightmares about Glory she goes down to the kitchen and ends up talking to Giles about old traumas and the Scoobies. Thus begins a friendship that leads to Tara leaving with Giles to go back to England after "Tabula Rasa" and a very different conclusion to the Dark Willow storyline. There's more to this than I have on the computer, I remember scribbling a lot more in one of my notebooks.
Tara tried hard to provide Dawn with normality, the reassurance of everyday life: routines; small chores; making sure she did her homework and ate regular meals; movies and popcorn and silly little games and gossip. It seemed to be helping - a month on and the bruised circles were disappearing from beneath Dawn's eyes, the colour was returning to her pale skin. And tonight she needed no reassurance, didn't need Tara's arms around her and a wordless murmured lullaby of comfort.
Just memories and the faint echo of Glory's giggles to keep her company tonight then.
And this isn't even counting the envelope of pages torn from various notebooks in my room. Lots of different bits and pieces there...
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-24 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-24 02:52 am (UTC)And I'll have to catch up with Powers before we can have that talk. *grins* I left off around the time Walker quit. After... Supergroup?
no subject
Date: 2006-03-24 03:02 am (UTC)