Thursday, December 31, 2009

Faith

Methos had no memory of his first life, beyond vague impressions which were more feelings then memories, but he remembered the Gods, and he remembered that while he had never been the firmest believer in them, neither had he been the most skeptical.

So he sang to the Gods at sunup and sundown, trying to hold on to the few memories of his first lifetime that he remembered. Despite his teacher's assurances that he'd never forget anything again, he couldn't shake the feeling that if he'd lost his memory once it could happen again, if he didn't hold them tight. By his teacher's body language he knew he wasn't a believer, but he never said anything aloud.

"A lot of the Gods were or are Immortals," he told Methos around the fire one night five winters after he'd taken him in as a student. "You combine somebody with powers like ours, or magic, or anything outside of the realm of easy understanding, with people who don't have them, and you get one of two reactions most of the time: fear or awe. And either of those can turn into worship or a mob trying to kill you. We're only human. A lot of us were perfectly willing to be worshipped."

"Lyara? Soldash?" Methos asked. He wasn't sure he wanted to know, but he couldn't keep himself from asking. He clung to his faith as one of the few things remaining from his first life, not because he was convinced of the existence of the Gods, but because it was one of the few familiar things in a world that already seemed unrecognizable from time and travel.

"I don't know every Immortal, or every God," his teacher replied. "Anyway, I figure it's better to believe in Gods that don't exist than to not believe in Gods that do exist. You never know when a God's passing themself off as an Immortal."

"Inar?" slipped past Methos's lips before he could stop it. He felt the strongest connection to Inar of all the Gods. If his teacher picked that one to discredit… Methos held his breath.

"Inar?" his teacher said, a strange expression on his face. "I haven't gone by that in centuries. People are worshipping me?" He sounded disturbed. "I'm not a God."

Methos looked at him and thought. Inar was the God of hunting and knowledge and the kind of luck that kept you alive when you should have died. His teacher wasn't anything like how he'd imagined Inar to be.

He never said a word about it, but from that moment onward he had faith like he'd never felt before.

Monday, December 28, 2009

Harry Potter is John McClane

Harry Potter is beat up and badass after the War, so he glamours himself up and makes a life for himself as John McClane. Later, he ends up in an AR where the war is ongoing (HP dead, Lily and James alive) and settles in teaching at Hogwarts or something else where he's close to the action/the people he used to know and love. And then Matt Farrell ends up in the AR too.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Friday, October 30, 2009

ABM Return

In the ABM-verse, when the Return would have happened the Ancients couldn't kick them out because the fact that Atlantis gave them children meant that they had as much right to be there as the Ancients. So instead they joined the Expedition, and there were fun integration issues between the groups and who was in charge, but they worked something out, and then the replicators came along and there were some deaths but no complete wipe-outage, and the Expedition and Ancients never split up again.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

A person starts doing things to facilitate a stranger's life after briefly meeting at stranger's minimum-wage job and the Samaritan sees something they like- maybe the stranger's trying to make enough money for college (in my dream he was earning money for college and the security guard accused him of stealing even though he didn't)? Never anything big, never outright giving him anything, but just little things to help the stranger along- getting him an interview for a better job, etc. Maybe becoming a mentor?
As an ending, the Samaritan dies and leaves all of their money to the stranger, and s/he has a lot more than you'd expect. But that's the only time s/he's outright given the stranger anything; the rest of the time s/he's only provided opportunities that the stranger had to work for.

All ideas are free for the taking.
Richie Ryan as Amanda's student rather than Duncan's.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Reluctant Watcher

Xander's in some out-of-the-way place when he sees two guys fighting with swords. And then some other guy pulls him down and starts explaining about Immortals and recruiting him as a Watcher, and Xander can't turn him down because the only way to refuse is to say what he's really doing there. And with his preexisting knowledge of dead languages he gets tossed in Research despite his lack of college and runs into Adam Pierson. Possibly he's pre-Immortal.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Immortal Leverage

Some or all of the Leverage crew are Highlander-type Immortals. Possibly all of them except for Nate? Or all of them except for Nate, and then Nate dies his first death?

All ideas are free for the taking.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Saucy Halloween

On Halloween, Xander has to improvise a costume so he goes as an older version of himself which just happens to be Saucy!Xander. The lingering mental effects are greater because it's impossible to distinguish himself from himself in his mind. It's been more than fifty years of personally working to improve the whole snarled mess of demons and witches and slayers, building Saucy up to something great, and then suddenly all of his work is erased and he's back to square one with no real resources.

All ideas are free for the taking.
Pretender/Leverage crossover. Jarod and Leverage go after the same target and get in the way of each other's plans.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Sight

Character with constant low-level Sight. Nothing that can be blocked, stopped, or reduced, nothing flashy that other people would notice since it's just constant background noise and not sudden vision like Cordelia or Johnny Smith, and the character thinks and acts normally around it.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Object History

History of an object, (before?) during and after passing through the hands of a character. Maybe a whole story through the eyes of the object, but not one of those ones where the object actually has a personality. Miscellaneous-use object oft-given as a gift?

All ideas are free for the taking.

Jarod and Methos

Jarod as Methos's student. Not necessarily as an Immortal. Not necessarily in an overt way- Methos being intrigued by Jarod, and teaching Jarod without there being lessons per se, or even with Jarod actually knowing, although considering it's Jarod I'd imagine he'd realize it. Not necessarily deliberately- Jarod getting intrigued by Methos and hanging around him to learn what he can despite Methos not trying to teach anything, although I imagine Methos would notice Jarod hanging around. Or possibly the two of them pretending they have a friendly relationship, but both knowing the truth.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Immortal Healing

Immortals heal faster according to type of injury/death. So, for instance, almost all of them heal really fast from stabbing, slicing, and blunt impact, but it takes most of them longer to heal from poisoning and starvation.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Immortal John Doe

John Doe as an amnesiac Immortal. Immortals, especially old ones, tend to know a lot of languages and know a lot of things, and it's fanon at least that Immortals have photographic memories so that's a reason he'd remember it all even though it's random crap. I'd like to do Methos, but it would be so bad if he actually put himself on TV like John Doe did in canon; well, it would be for any Immortal, but especially for Methos. But an older Immortal, especially Methos, if he did start to recover memories they wouldn't make sense, and I get the sense that Methos is a lot more dedicated to playing characters who are completely different from each other and ignoring his own personal likes and dislikes so they're not ingrained in him- like that one I read about how he doesn't really have a personality anymore, but a series of long-running habits? And if it's Methos Cassandra can track him down, which would be fun, but if he's on TV/in the newspapers Mac will find him unless he's out of contact.

And then he consults on a case with a sword, and he picks it up and it feels so right and his posture changes automatically, and he either gets very confused and excited by the clue to his past (which is totally unhelpful) or he gets his memory back- in which case it might amuse him to stay John Doe for a while.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Young Wizards Methos

Methos is one of the wizards from the Young Wizards series. Not as an AU, or rather as a backstory/background AU, so he's still the oldest Immortal. Given the idealism of YW's wizards in general, and Methos's mixed past and personality, it would be interesting to blend them. And since power is higher when wizards are younger, what does that mean for Methos? If he took the Oath before his first death, he might not know he's a wizard, but then again it doesn't seem likely he knew how to read before his first death so he might have the Manual like the whales do, unless it changes with him.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Godhood

Someone who becomes a god. What does it mean to be a god? What does it do to their lives, especially if they're not power-seeking and don't want glory, and try to keep it a secret and live a normal life? Where is the line drawn between merely powerful and godhood?

All ideas are free for the taking.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Purposes of Immortal Student Period

Give the Student information and abilities:

  • Swordfighting
  • Changing identities
  • The Game

Give the Teacher a connection to the current time period

Help the Student through the break with his old life and newfound Immortality

Pass on personal views of the Game

Teach the norms of Immortal society

Coping skills needed to handle an Immortal life and killing

Protect the Student while he's unable to protect himself


Sword fighting is in many ways the least of the lessons taught to Immortal students, a mere excuse to keep the Student with the Teacher for long enough to pass on the other information, much of which is not taught explicitly. Immortal Teachers often teach by telling stories from their lives, and occasionally other Immortals'. Despite the relative randomness involved in taking on a Student, due to most Teachers taking on Students as soon as they learn they're Immortal, often with no further information – and the resistance of adults to letting others choose their opinions for them - Students often end up with a similar view of the Game as their Teachers. Headhunter Teachers often train headhunter students, if they don't take their Quickenings first, and Teachers with a distaste for the Game rarely have students who go on to become headhunters for long periods of time. Teachers who keep the same or similar names have students who are similarly careless about setting up their new identities. The Teacher serves as a model of what an Immortal "should" be, at least until the Student has lived for long enough to reevaluate based on their broader experience, and the Student often mimics the Teacher to a greater or lesser degree.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

5 Revivals

A 5 (or whatever) things of revivals by an Immortal--not the deaths, just the revivals.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Gods' War

Theological warfare, when the gods are real and gain power from their followers, and conversion is practically a weapon.

And something about being loved by the gods being more like a curse than a blessing, possibly unattached or with the war merely a backdrop.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Immortal Moody

Mad-Eye Moody as an established Immortal is hilarious in a meta way, to me. Because he's so paranoid, to the point of carrying around a flask to drink out of to avoid poisoning, and he's Immortal.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Comforting

When he thought about it, Methos found it a comfort.

No matter how many times you died, there was always that lingering fear that next time it would be permanent, that there was some magic number of temporary deaths to be reached and then, poof! You were dead for good. So really, it was a comfort for him to know that there was somebody around who was so much older than he was, that had died so many more deaths than he had.

It was the same role he played for the younger Immortals: somebody who was always older than them, older than they could hope to survive even with the best of luck. Old enough to make them feel young, even when the mortals around them had the lifespans of mayflies.

Methos in Narnia

For one (or all) of the Narnia books, Methos is there, randomly, not fighting for Narnia or the Telmarines or anything, just...there. Although I don't think it would be possible in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe because of the witch killing off all the humans.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Resisting Torture

SGA futurefic. Includes a scene/segment where Rodney's being tortured and not giving up any information. Remembering/flashbacks to Kolya. Possibly torturing others to make him give information. And then eventually he's rescued, and he's like "I don't even recognize who I am anymore". He's got gun calluses on his hands, he's actually used to hiking miles through the wilderness, and now he's resisted torture, and that's not who he was when he came to Atlantis.

Not sure where that could go. I could see him going back to Earth, trying to get back to normal as a reaction, and not being who anybody there expects him to be, and not satisfied with being merely an academic especially with how much knowledge the rest of the world can't know. He's got to heal both physically and mentally.

"They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm." -Dorothy Parker

All ideas are free for the taking.

Immortal John Sheppard

As a result of the Wraith feeding reversal, John Sheppard becomes Immortal. Could be either Highlanderesque or traditional style immortality.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Ian Edgerton's SGA past

Jeannieverse or ABM, which honestly are kind of the same verse without a set canon.

Set pre-return to Earth. John and Rodney are MIA and Jeannie winds up back on Earth with Dave Sheppard (and family, if he has one). They're totally baffled by Jeannie, but it doesn't matter much because they get kidnapped, with Jeannie as witness. So, since they're in LA and it's a high-profile kidnapping, the FBI takes the case and Jeannie ends up with the Numb3rs team. When she encounters Ian Edgerton, she glomps onto him and he acts friendly and clearly knows her already, acting somewhat contrary to the badass image. He used to be in Atlantis, and one of the people on the rotation of babysitters, not that he would volunteer that information. Somewhere in there, the Numb3rs team finds out about her intelligence, and Larry/Charlie/Amita recognize(s) the name Rodney McKay. The case is solved. Possibly Ian makes a few calls and becomes Jeannie's guardian. In the end, either she stays with Ian or John and Rodney show up, back from being MIA and worse for the wear but not permanently worse. I think I like the staying with Ian, but that would be AU for both of the verses.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Muggleborns as slaves

All muggleborns are kept as slaves by purebloods, their children taken away because the children are purebloods- muggleborns never come in contact with muggles or squibs, so by necessity the fathers must be wizards. The muggle government doesn't know about the slavery- but they sure wouldn't be happy if they found out.

All ideas are free for the taking.
Horcruxes can be destroyed by basilisk venom. Harry was bitten by a basilisk in second year, putting basilisk venom into his blood stream. Therefore, the horcrux in Harry was destroyed then, since the venom-ed blood passed through the scar. Wonderful take-off for giving Harry Voldemort's knowledge, or later making him be killed because the horcrux isn't there.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Vampires and garlic

Normally in fiction the garlic and vampires thing is portrayed as either not true or just a minor annoyance. Do the opposite: garlic is a major issue for vampires, possibly worse than the rest, and it's been passed off as harmless lately because the vampires have been making a concerted effort to make people not go out and buy garlic as soon as they learn vampires are real.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Misc. ABM + Harry Potter ideas

(Some of) the ABM kids go to Hogwarts during Harry's sixth year, with the focal characters being in sixth as well and them being the oldest of the ABM kids, because they go to Salem and for some reason it's closed. I'm thinking something the ABM kids did, but not something that would get them treated like criminals or something.

The Magical States of America have a government that's closer to America under the Articles of Confederation than current America, although there are some compromises. Laws vary fairly widely (and by fairly I mean insanely), especially considering the states are split up the same way and there are only a couple of people in some states. Regional differences are not the same as they are in muggle America, and historically never have been.

All ideas are free for the taking.

ABM ideas

5 jobs held by ex-Lanteans in the ABM-verse. Because even when they hold normal jobs, they're changed enough by Atlantis and the kids for there to be weirdness, and a lot of them don't get normal jobs.

Ex-Lanteans visiting their families for the first time since they left Atlantis...and taking along the kids they couldn't tell about before, and the kids' other parents who they're not dating except in a few cases.

All ideas are free for the taking.

people owned by country

A culture where it's conceptualized as them belonging to the country, as in it owns them, and that's seen as a good thing. Emigres are seen as very, very bad. Slavery but not, because they're not enslaved to a person, and they're happy about it, or as much as Americans are about freedom anyway?

All ideas are free for the taking.

Second Verse: Bank robbery

Lantean non-soldier on Earth, in a bank when a bank robbery happens. They're somewhat used to it, and they're mentally comparing the robbers to the Pegasus bad guys and they don't stack up, and it turns into a hostage situation when things start going badly for the bank robbers- the cops show up, they can't get the safe open, etc. The Lantean is bored out of their mind, everybody else is terrified. All the better if they get used as a human shield and they're not acting like they have a gun pointed to their head.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Halloween skills, Sunnydale syndrome

A background or original character keeps the skills from their Halloween costume, but at the same time they have Sunnydale syndrome and explain it away.

All ideas are free for the taking.

HP culture shock: bowing

Have wizards been shown bowing in Harry Potter canon? If not, possible culture shock to muggleborns who expect men to bow, but wizards curtsy because their robes have skirts too.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Reverse HP alternate reality

Boy-who-lived Neville, defeater of Voldemort, hardened and saddened by war and loss, comes to the canon!verse to live a peaceful life.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Underground magical sporting events

Sporting event of the nastier side of the magical underground- they kidnap people off the street, and the mages playing the sport have to control their team to play the game. Difficulty mounts with the number of people controlled by the competitors, and the tasks their teams have to perform while in opposition to the others' teams. Often ends up with most of the kidnappees dead. Survivors' memories are wiped and they're dumped on the street, or sometimes framed for the others' deaths.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Second Verse, Same as the First

An SGA earthside series, not necessarily permanently earthside but possibly, and possibly with minor characters/OCs starring in most or all.

All those things that happen in the Pegasus galaxy, especially offworld? Like getting thrown into jail and kidnapped and held hostage and being forced to fix things and scientists in firefights. The Lanteans return to Earth, expecting the usual Earth experiences, only somehow they find themselves in the kinds of situations they did in Pegasus.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

To Live For

He'd long since discarded the idea of ever being normal; he was fairly certain that threshold had been reached well before his first death, and the time travel hadn't helped it any. He wasn't even sure if he could act normal; too many things had passed from habit into reflex for him to change his behavior anything other than slowly.

Somehow, he'd held out this hope that once humans were around everything would be all right, that he'd be able to fit in and live a normal life or ten. But that wasn't how it happened. He'd spent so much time pinning his hopes on the first humans he saw that the reality fell far short of his expectations. They were better than the demons, but the world was a rougher place than it had been in his first lifetime, even if the conflicts were smaller in scale.

Even after all this time, he wasn't sure if he even wanted to live to the time of his first life. What did he have there? Friends who were scattered across the globe and still managed to wish him gone, who he'd worked through all his emotions toward until they were as minimal as his emotions toward strangers. What did he have in this time? Not enough to live for, and that was unlikely to change any time soon.

Sometimes, the only thing keeping him sane was his students. Teaching them to the best of his ability was something to live for, and they were young enough to still be enthusiastic about the world, in whatever way they were enthusiastic.

He had a lot of students over the years; he travelled around enough to run into a lot of pre-Immortals and new Immortals, and he taught all of them who were the slightest bit receptive. Some of them were cheerful. Some of them were angry. Some of them were determined. But they were all enthusiastic about something, and that was something he could live for, seeing and fanning the fire in their eyes.

In a Funk

Some days, it was hard to get out of bed, much less muster any enthusiasm about doing the same monotonous thing for centuries if he was lucky, hours if he wasn't…although there were days when he thought the luck of those options was the opposite. Days when there was nothing new, nobody to live for. Nobody to put on a cheerful face for.

It was always worse when he died. No matter how much the others swore they felt normal when they woke up, he was always chilled, a bone-deep chill from his body temperature dropping as he spent time as a corpse and made him want to just stay dead when he came back to life. It never went away quickly, either, always lingering and making him lethargic and disinterested in anything, even trying to act normally as he did under any other circumstances.

He was surprised, every time he broke out of his post-revival funk, that he hadn't been killed for good. It was what every Immortal wanted, an unresisting Immortal at their mercy, right? But then, chaos had always dogged his steps, so maybe he shouldn't be so surprised when the unlikeliest things happened around him.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Services

A business, which goes by something boring like "Services", in some out-of-the-way location, which aims to provide any service asked for- mostly through contractors, but some of the more unusual ones are provided by the staff. No limits on the services provided, although to start out with not many of the unusual ones can be provided. With a sliding scale depending on the service and sometimes on who asks for it. I could see this as HP fanfiction, or original fiction.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Knowledge and Power

Magic is based on knowledge- so, for instance, somebody who knew a lot would be more powerful and more in control of magic than somebody who knew less. Type of knowledge doesn't truly matter, but relevant knowledge matters more than irrelevant knowledge- so, for instance, somebody with an encyclopedic knowledge of football would be more powerful than somebody with only a cursory knowledge, but taking a physics class would provide more power to most spells unless they were football related. This is because knowledge connects one more to magic, and obviously some types of magic are more related to certain knowledge. Theoretically, somebody who knew everything would essentially become magic- they know so much that magic is connected to them so much that it feeds them new knowledge as soon as it comes into existence. Connection to magic is also linked to lifespan, since magic can be used to heal and the more you're connected to magic the better it heals and preemptively heals you.

Back before literacy was anything near common but was an expected skill for mages, a mage was expected to take an apprentice but couldn't be bothered to actually teach all the boring-but-essential stuff, so he essentially bought a kid from somebody with too many mouths to feed and not enough money, and did a ritual to give the kid basic knowledge...only he forgot to put a limit on what was to be learned, so the kid learned everything.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Xander becomes Mad-eye Moody.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Grades and Exam Scores

Before Hogwarts, Harry always got bad grades because the Dursleys prejudiced the teachers against him before the school year, and kept reinforcing it throughout- blaming him for everything, claiming he was a cheater, etc., and Dudley and his friends did it too. When he came to Hogwarts, he started getting good grades but he figured it was just because he was the Boy-Who-Lived, not because of his ability, not that overall grades seem to matter except on OWLs and NEWTs. And then he gets his OWL scores back, and they're all O's except for the interrupted exams. So he thinks he was given the wrong scores, or he wasn't graded impartially, and gets upset.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

DA Through the Veil

Most of the Order is killed, and when the DA steps in, most of their parents (their younger siblings have been sent to stay at Hogwarts/with the DA) are killed by Death Eaters to discourage them from fighting. It probably would have worked on at least some of them, if communication with the outside world hadn't been all but cut off so that they only learned that the first was killed at the same time that they learned about the more recent deaths. With their families dead and no chance to save them, they were all the more resolved to fight, so they do and win. Then the Ministry decides they're criminals and tosses them through the Veil (trial or no? they don't have many relatives to demand a trial, but OTOH i can't imagine them being condemned by a jury for saving everybody and defeating Voldemort and his Death Eaters). So it's lots of teenagers, strong mentally and magically, who don't trust authority and are used to relying on themselves and each other for everything. In another world. Probably with very few possessions.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Coming of Age

Before there was a Hogwarts, wizards and witches occasionally died when they came of age- magical coming of age has consequences ranging from unnoticeable to fatal depending on the magical power of the witch or wizard and how full their reserves are, with death only coming to those with the most power and full reserves. So Hogwarts was founded, with the idea of keeping young witches' and wizards' power reserves low enough that even the most powerful don't even notice their coming-of-age, which coincidentally can strike anywhere between 11 and 17, but mostly does so on or around a birthday. Theoretically, schoolwork and homework keep magical reserves low enough during the year, and end-of-year tests are magically draining enough that it takes all summer for the magic to grow back. It worked well for a thousand years, the knowledge of the coming-of-age fading into myth thanks to so many generations not feeling even a twinge when they came of age, but lately the classes have been less challenging magically, thanks to years of bad professors and a Ministry that keeps piling on restrictions. There haven't been any problems so far, maybe a couple who got a twinge when they came of age but shrugged it off as sore muscles, but at the moment there's more than one witch and wizard who are more powerful than average...

All ideas are free for the taking.

Fake Fake psychic

One of those fake psychics (like in Psych and the Mentalist) is actually psychic. They figure that if you say things you shouldn't know people look at you funny, but if you claim to be a psychic and have a high degree of accuracy they assume that you're lying about the psychicness and got the info another way, but won't tell them how you got the information.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Seeing Other Things

Harry is a seer, but because he was linked to Voldemort until he killed him, all of his visions were of Voldemort. Once Voldemort is killed, Harry starts having visions of other things.

After the War?

All ideas are free for the taking.

Nonhumans and Unicorns

Unicorns are highly regarded by humans, but even higher by nonhumans. Although humans know it's extremely wrong to kill or injure unicorns, some are still willing to. No nonhuman, even the evillest and most amoral, would.

All ideas are free for the taking.

The Wizarding World and Susan Pevensie

When Hermione's parents are killed, as per Ministry protocol a ritual is done to find relatives. It finds her grandmother, Susan Pevensie, who's immortal.

Susan using Narnian lessons to deal with the Wizarding world (protocol, ettiquitte, etc.). Hermione terrified that her 70+ year old muggle grandmother (who she thought was dead?) will get killed too. Susan + magical beings, who she has absolutely no problem with, even the dangerous ones.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Character

A character who tends to have strangers walk up to her and say strange things. She's not famous, the strangers have nothing to do with each other or her, they're not possessed, etc.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Making Friends and Influencing People

Harry runs into a series of people who are important in a behind the scenes kind of way, so he has no idea who any of them are, and while they have their encounters the VIPs have no idea who he is, for various reasons- mostly not deliberate, although there's a certain amount of trying not to be recognized on his part so he doesn't get swarmed. The VIPs are people like the Flamels, and people who are experts in their fields, and competent leaders, no Lockharts or Fudges, and Harry wins them over, even if some of them are startled when they learn who he is.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Squibs and Wizards

Harry's a squib, Dudley's a wizard- all magic blamed on Harry until Dudley's Hogwarts letter arrives.

How do the Dursleys react? How does Dudley react? Is Harry still the one to defeat Voldemort?

All ideas are free for the taking.

Snape's comatose lover

Everybody's curious about the comatose man in the infirmary that Professor Snape keeps visiting. It's a mystery to the school and rumors are flying. (comatose man = Xander, Snape's lover)

Title should be of one of the rumors.

All ideas are free for the taking.

The Other Side of the Veil

Sirius Black pops out of the Hellmouth.

All ideas are free for the taking.

No Rescue

One year, Harry doesn't get "rescued" from the Dursleys, so he has no way to get his supplies before school starts (afterward he can, presumably, owl order them all).

If title kept, tie in with further plots of there being no rescue.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Sorting Hat

Despite its claims to the contrary, the Sorting Hat has always placed students randomly/according to its whim, nothing to do with personality.

All ideas are free for the taking.

DA Summer

Summer after Harry's fifth year, a lot of DA members help each other out on various, random things because they're fellow DA members- even though most of them don't know each other well.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Empathy

Snape acts the way he does because he's an empath- he pushes people away so their emotions will stay away. He had to figure it all out on his own, so there might be better techniques (which are, presumably, not written down, since he's got research skills). And it's got to be hard to live in a school when you're an empath.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Monday, June 8, 2009

Magical abilities

They're magical abilities- it wouldn't be completely impossible for them to be passed on to people not related by blood, but emotionally. The Weasleys (or Prewitts, who are now Weasleys) all have a magical talent/skill (the same one for all of them) that they keep secret. Harry gets it?

All ideas are free for the taking.

Xander = Slytherin

Xander timetravels (+ alternate reality?) and ends up being Salazar Slytherin- infamous views due to religion @ school founding time, fear for school's safety & abuse of muggleborns. Later, Xander in present-day HP-verse?

Why the different name?

All ideas are free for the taking.

Scoobies + Weasleys

Post-Chosen, the Scoobies (or one of them with plenty of help, anyway) get custody of the Weasley kids when Molly and Arthur are killed near the end of the first war.

What are the relative ages of the Weasley kids? Would any of them be in Hogwarts yet?

All ideas are free for the taking.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Elves

Elves live in "the Americas", humans live elsewhere in the world. There was never a land bridge to the Americas, so the only humans ever in the Americas before Europe started colonizing were a few failed Viking colonies. Elves live until they're killed. Thousands of years "ago" the Elves had a huge war over their leadership, which decimated the Elves and laid waste to most of the Americas, and killed both/all of the people who wanted to lead. When it was all over, they deliberately rebuilt their society with values of individualism so strong that not only would they violently object to government, but also to individuals taking power on an informal basis- kind of uber-libertarian. They tend to be very polite, because if another takes offense there's nothing stopping them from killing you- although most of the time deaths actually only happen when somebody tries to take power over another Elf or Elves. The children are also brought up this way, only forced to do anything when they're too young to take care of themselves, which probably wouldn't work so well if it wasn't for their lifespan. After the war, they "rebuilt" the Americas, making them into mostly massive forests of giant trees (which they build most of their buildings in). The Elves have integrated magic into nearly every facet of their lives, so there isn't a lot of need to work together to do anything. Antisocial when compared to humans? Differences between younger Elves and those raised before the War.
The humans are Europeans at the time of the Renaissance. The only difference in them is that there are a very few of them who do magic- everybody has the potential, but a number of factors combine to make it less prevalent. Magic is only taught at University, so only upper class, highly educated men have the knowledge to do more than maybe lighting a fire with it. Human magic is less advanced than Elvish magic due to its limited use and the lifespans of the humans- half their lives are spent just learning it! Since it's the Renaissance, they do the exploration thing and eventually colonize the Americas, neither knowing nor caring that they're already occupied. The Elves take quite a while to notice that they're there.
And then there's a clash of their cultures. When it comes down to fighting, the Elves have most of the advantages- magic, knowing the territory- but technically humans have more technology, and more people if they want to start a war, and they're used to teamwork- they can't even build houses without teamwork. Their cultures are completely incompatible.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Rodney McKay is MacGyver's son.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Immortal Purity Test

Somebody makes an internet purity test based on what they've heard in an Immortal drinking game similar to "I Never" (last one to die of alcohol poisoning wins). It's posted on a forum used by Immortals (the FAQ claims they're "roleplayers" who meet IRL. There are a few members who have no idea that Immortals are real and not just pretend; they're usually easy to spot, but one guy is mortal and nobody else knows it), including Amanda and Methos. They're amused enough by it that they're having fun with it in the bar, and manage to drag Richie and Joe into it (both of them are very pure), and a reluctant Duncan (he's done more, but he's still pretty pure). Amanda isn't as unpure as you'd think, and Methos is down at like 2% plus a decimal because there are just that many items. Duncan says there must not be anybody who's 0% pure, but Methos says he knows somebody.

Sample items:
been burned at the stake
had a slave
been a slave
successfully pretended to be the opposite sex
used the opposite sex as a long-term identity

All ideas are free for the taking.

Idea: Mime Army

The Mime Army. Think about it.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Friday, March 13, 2009

A form of magic which is entirely dependent on tattoos, hidden in the real world.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Bests and Worsts

Every year the Atlantis expedition held a vote for the bests and worsts: best culture encountered, worst alien life form, best Pegasus food. Although there was no requirement to vote for bests and worsts that they'd encountered in that year, most of the winners were encountered in the year they were voted for.

The first year, the Ancient Baby Machine won Worst Technology.

Every subsequent year, it won Best Technology.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

The Best-Laid Plans of Mice and Men

Atlantis had originally been planned so that it could become a colony, if contact wasn't reestablished...technically. But nobody had planned for a massive baby boom only nine months in. Most of the expedition members were from small families and, if they had been married in the past, they were now divorced. None of them had children that they had raised. So, few of them were prepared to have children, especially when they learned about them so late in the term. The expedition contained a few people who had more experience than babysitting as teenagers, but that wasn't enough when literally every member of the expedition was about to become a parent for the first time.

Even with extensive planning sessions- suddenly they had to set up child care that ran 28/6 and accounted for crises and missions and the fact that any one of them could die unexpectedly, the universe being what it was- the first few months were nothing less than chaos as everybody got used to their new children and dealt with the usual crises with a predictable lack of sleep.

Just when things were calming down, they found out that the Wraith were coming to attack Atlantis.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Murphy

Xander didn't allow himself to hope for a better life this time around. Despite the fact that all indications pointed to his parents being good parents (and by that point, he'd dealt with enough parents to know the good ones from the bad), or perhaps because of it, he didn't allow himself the slightest glimmer of hope. Because in his experience, Murphy's Law always applied, and if something went right it was just a setup to make the sucker punch hurt that much worse.

He didn't allow himself to hope. Maybe that's why it hurt so much when the inevitable happened.

Forced Meditations

He doesn't think he's ever experienced something quite so boring as being in the body of an infant. He can't do anything, and for somebody who hadn't voluntarily slowed down since he was in high school that was possibly the worst thing that could happen to him. He'd been unable to move once, a few years before he'd died and been reincarnated, but it hadn't been like this. Then, everybody had known he was still in the shell of his body, for all that it couldn't move, and had made a point to come by and keep him from being too bored, even if he wasn't always precisely entertained. He'd had the papers read to him on a regular basis, public news as well as Saucy news; and books, some of which he wouldn't have read on his own (really, just because Faith was learning Python thanks to the urgings of somebody-or-other in MagiTech didn't mean she had to share). He'd gotten occasional music from his personal music collection, so it wasn't anything horrible. He'd gotten constant updates on the usual crises- because when wasn't there a crisis?

And even though the news and updates-on-crises made Xander realize that he really needed someone competent to be his second in command, ready to take over at a moment's notice, and he was horrified at not being able to do a thing about any of the crises, and certain people took entirely too much pleasure at him being a captive audience, at least they realized he was in there, that he was aware and sane and not used to dealing with boredom. Nobody realized those things about babies.

It was going to be a long, boring time until he was mobile again, and he had nothing to do during it but think.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Lost in Translation

Watchers' Latin was possibly the only language ever spoken that had such an extensive magical vocabulary. It had been the lingua franca of the magical community for centuries at the least; nearly every legitimate magical book was written in Watchers' Latin. And if the people who needed the vocabulary would only be talking about it in that much depth with other people who knew Watchers' Latin, what use would they have for translating calormagia (the feeling of being near magic) or frigusmagia (the feeling of not being near magic) or any of hundreds of words used by magic users when talking shop?

Amateurs and Professionals

Over the course of his first life, Xander had become something of a connoisseur of magic. He'd seen it all; from the first fumbling efforts to float a pencil to the false impressiveness of flashy spells to the true mastery of minimum effort for maximum effect. He'd seen witches study theory for years before they tried their first spell. He'd seen scholars do things that whole covens working together couldn't, because they knew theory well enough to change one minor thing and set off a chain reaction. They'd been called the Philosophers, after Archimedes and his saying "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world."

Compared to them, no person in the wizarding world was more than a rank amateur, skilled enough to dazzle those who hadn't seen anything more impressive than sleight of hand but unimpressive to those who knew what real skill looked like.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

FRC + Psych

Tim and Bernard from the FRC series go to Santa Barbara to promote Bernard's latest book, which he leaned heavily on Tim and Dick to get realistic since it's about a detective. Lassiter heavily fangirls him because it's realistic.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Science, and Other Cults

Atlantis is abandoned/lost/destroyed, and the expedition members return to Earth. Since few of them have strong ties to Earth, or people or places on it, they're mostly at a loss for what to do, and they can't all stay at the SGC. They end up moving to a small town/rural area, where they just buy a large tract of land and build their own buildings on it, built to their specifications for doing the jobs they want to do. And then they clash with the locals, especially the school(s) because they had kids while they were in Atlantis: their kids know it all already, they get in fights with the town kids, the adults send whoever's available to any sort of thing the school needs parents at rather than sending the parents of the relevent kids like they're supposed to. And the military who stayed in the military stop by when they have leave, and occasionally official-looking people come by, and the locals are totally baffled. They think it's a cult for a number of reasons.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Echo of a Silenced Sound

Summary: It doesn't matter so much that you're a clone if the original isn't around.

AU from Fragile Balance. For whatever reason, by the end of the episode mini!Jack exists but original Jack doesn't. Either mini!Jack stays at the SGC, or SG-1 stays in contact with him.

All ideas are free for the taking.

Family

Family on Earth wasn't anything like family on Atlantis. On Atlantis, family was biological family and team family and work family, and those-who-risk-their-lives-for-you family, so she could claim all of Atlantis as family, and the Athosians and those Satedans who were still living as distant family. On Earth, though, family was only biological family, culled to merely blood relations, and those connections thinned until blood was like water in comparison to what family meant on Atlantis.

Friday, February 27, 2009

In Defense of Fanfiction

There are a lot of people out there who dislike fanfiction- for some of them it goes way beyond dislike and into hate, but that's true of anything which is heavily debated. I even understand their reasoning. When characters live in your head, there's always the feel that they're yours, like some part of you that it feels wrong for somebody else to control the actions of- and that includes settings and worlds, because the setting is as much of a character as the actual characters, as any worldbuilder can tell you. In a way, it is stealing to use something which, as many writers will tell you, is like a part of their soul, even if the original character remains where she started out. It's cheating to take these premade characters and world and just use them, without creating them from scratch or basing them off of people and places you know.

But, honestly, if that's how you really feel about it, don't watch any movie sequels, or watch any episodes of TV not written by the original creator, or movies based on books, or read non-independent comics, because what do you think they are? Yes, they're firmly in the "legally allowed" category, but they hit all of the points that are usually made by people who are anti-fanfiction except for the "it takes money away from the creator" argument- which I have never seen evidence of (and in my experience, getting more involved in a fandom- such as by writing and reading fanfiction- makes me more likely to spend money to buy things related to that fandom).

I've occasionally seen people argue that fanfiction is all badly written. This argument holds at least some water- if you go to the wrong places first, your first impression of fanfiction will be awful: mangled grammar, spelling so awful you know it wasn't even run through a spell checker, and a plotline which both proceeds too quickly and makes no sense, while the only familiar thing about the characters is their names (and sometimes not even that, if they're arbitrarily given nicknames or aliases, or spelled differently each time). We've all seen fics like these unless we stick firmly to the rec lists. The thing is, that's to be expected. It's the internet; if you've been on it for any length of time you know that it's full of people who can't make themselves understood in the written word and delude themselves into thinking they can. It happens in real life, too; the only place it isn't expected is in professional media, and that's mostly selection bias. If you write something and want to publish it on the internet, there's nothing stopping you from doing it unless you a) don't have access to a computer or the internet and can't get them, or b) are under 13 years old and refuse to lie about it. There are probably ways to circumvent those conditions, too: mail a letter and have somebody else and have them post it. Have your mom or your over-13 friend post it. Professional media, on the other hand, have to pay significant amounts of money to provide the media to their audience- printing costs, production costs, salaries, advertisement costs…the list goes on. So they don't take a chance on anything they think might be a flop; as it is, most of the books out there are read 'em and forget 'em books, and most movies you watch once and promptly stop caring about without even telling others to watch them.

Most fanfiction is like that, too- middle of the road, enjoyable while you read it but nothing spectacular. It's relatively easy to learn how to write well, to not break the rules or, if you do break them, to break the right ones. However, it doesn't seem to be possible to teach how to write spectacularly: most of the writing advice I've seen is lists of "don't do that"s, but good writing doesn't have anything wrong with it to be pointed out as not working. Writing spectacularly is more doing things right than not doing things wrong, and that can't be taught. And it's not like professional fiction has a greater percentage which has been awesomely written- out of 16 years of reading everything I could get my hands on, ultimately I can count the books I couldn't live without on one hand, with fingers left over. Since September of 2008 (6 months) I've read 1,180 fics and put 11 of them on the "can't live without" list, which is a better percentage than I have with professional fiction.

As a corollary to the "badly written" argument, there's the ever-popular "it's all smut" argument. And, yeah, there is a lot of smut, but where isn't there a lot of smut? There are even romantic subplots in some action movies. There are major romantic plots in Disney movies. If you don't want romantic plots, move to a convent or something, because they're everywhere. Fanfiction has a lot more R and NC-17 stories, or their equivalent in non-MPAA ratings, simply because there's nobody telling the writers that they can't include them. A lot of fanfiction writers and readers start out reading romance novels (the other major section they come from is science fiction/fantasy, which is a strange combination if you don't take into consideration that those two genres are treated much the same way by readers of mainstream fanfiction as is fanfiction), so they want a strong romantic plot which leads to more than a kiss. And in some fandoms it's hard to find any fic which doesn't have any romance or sex in it, but most fandoms strongly favor headers which tell you things like title, fandom, summary, warnings, ratings, and pairing. I have yet to see a book that does you that courtesy; the back cover might read like a gen story about a caribou psychologist or something, and then halfway through turn into a story about him falling in love with the mountie who rescued him from a bear, and if you wanted to keep reading about caribou psychology and can't stand romance you're out of luck. My personal ratio is skewed heavily towards reading gen, even though most of the fandoms I read are fairly slash-heavy.

I like the "stealing characters and settings" argument best of all of them, but a lot of what I read isn't just blindly grabbing the characters and/or settings and running with it. I've seen some amazing worldbuilding done for fanfiction- things that would have had no place in the original media, whether because of an emphasis on minor or unshown characters, or because they're counter to the overall theme of the piece, or because of length limitations. Stargate SG-1 wouldn't have an episode about their librarian doing completely ordinary librarian things. The Chronicles of Narnia couldn't have Edmund being Narnia's spymaster. Highlander couldn't show what will happen in the distant future. If they live for long enough, TV series can show an alternate reality or two, but they can't show what happens after- or before- that for the alternate reality. They can't show what happens to every minor character. They can't have things which break the status quo too much- even in the middle of terrible wars, most of the good guys will stay alive and named characters won't die in groups; the main love interests will rarely get married; when major things happen, it's always in a way that the characters are able to get involved. And people read media differently- not only does it have themes and symbolism the creator might or might not have been thinking about, but two people can read or watch the same thing and see it differently; for any given instance two people can take it in and between them believe three different and mutually exclusive readings of it, but you don't necessarily know what anybody else is thinking about it because everybody thinks differently. Fanfiction sometimes shows those differences in thought, and readings of the material that obviously aren't true, but would be interesting (or heartbreaking, or disturbing) if they were. Occasionally, fanfiction reads as more canon than canon, and you wonder how it can possibly not be.

So really, I can understand why some people don't like fanfiction, but if you're not the creator of either the original or the fanfiction, why rain on everybody else's parade? It doesn't involve you, and most people do respect your wishes to not distribute fanfiction if you are the creator.