AU: Buffy is not a cheerleader-type person. Instead, she's a straight-A nerd who is interested in moldy bookage in its own right, not just as a means to saving lives. She may or may not play on the "dumb blonde" image like in canon with people who aren't her close friends, but her in-group won't take long to realize what a nerd she is.

After the apocalypse, most people are freaking out and running in circles like chickens with their heads cut off. Most Immortals don't freak out, just immediately start doing what they know has to be done. Preferably from the POV of Richie or an OC (Richie might be best...or a rotating POV) for contrast.

Mulan & co. get bored of being ancestors, so they recorporealize in the modern day. (which, of course, takes away all of the fun issues of Mulan)

Would preferably involve a lot of annoying the descendants, both on purpose and on accident.

(Hmm, I guess I could do the last part in the Dinosaur verse...suddenly, Mulan shows up at the house of the descendants of one of her adopted kids/one of her friends' descendants. And proceeds to annoy the shit out of them, who are used to thinking of her as an honored ancestor/honorary ancestor.)

Potions Conference

Severus frowned as he surveyed the crowd at the annual International Potions Masters' Guild Conference. Not that he'd be making any other expression anyway, as he would rather be any other place if the Conference wasn't the best (and nearly only) place to learn about the latest potions research, but he had more of a reason to frown this year than in years past.

The Guild had always been more than a little bit of a boys' club, not only because of tradition. The fact of the matter was that the Guildhall was considered a territory of its own, not subject to the laws of any country including the one it was located in. As a potions guild, there was explicitly no limit to what was allowed to be done with potions in the Hall, and pranking was only the least of it. Even the muggles had figured out how to drug a woman to rape her, and the Guild had a tendency to attract the kind of people who had no compunctions about doing that or worse, at least as long as there would be no punishment for it.

Women were targets within the Hall, and every girl who showed much promise in potions knew it. Some few of them braved the Hall to attend the Conference for the three days required to attain their Mastery, but even at his young age Severus had lost track of the number of women who he had seen give up on their dreams and settled for being no-name brewers despite their talent. It didn't matter that he didn't know the woman or that he wasn't a Gryffindor, he'd seen enough people treated as nobody should be in his life. If a warning could save her that, at least he'd be able to do something this time.

She had a drink in her hand already, apparently failing to notice the wide berth that everybody else was giving the provided food and drinks.  Severus hadn't thought that there was anybody who was stupid enough as to not bring their own nourishment—it would still get potioned, but at least it was potioned less that way. She must not have been warned. In a way, that was good; if she wasn't prepared for the dangers, she'd be easier to convince to leave before she got hurt.

As if she'd heard him thinking, or somehow felt him approaching from halfway across the room in the crowd, the woman turned and looked him in the eye. With black, curly hair framing a pretty face that couldn't be older than eighteen, with wide blue eyes, she was in more danger than he'd thought. It would have been bad enough if she'd been hideous, but as it was Severus doubted there'd be more than three people at this conference who wouldn't be targeting her.

"What exactly," he said scathingly, "possessed you to do something so stupid as to come to this conference?"

She widened her eyes in what could almost be passed off as innocence, but Severus had learned the difference between false innocence and the real thing long before he'd begun his teaching career. "What do you mean? I have to attend this conference and present independent research before I can be certified as a Potions Master."

"You know perfectly well what I mean," Severus almost growled, but was careful to keep from showing anything other than his usual demeanor. Even if he could convince the idiot to leave, he'd have to stay, and the best way to make things bad for himself was to piss off the rest of the Potions Masters.

"I-" Before she could finish, a man 'tripped' and spilled the contents of his goblet on her.

Severus winced internally, waiting for the potion to take effect, but the only effects were on the man who tripped. Severus could have sworn he hadn't gotten any of the potion on himself, but he started acting as if he had. A strong confusion and lust potion, obviously, Severus thought, seeing the man writhe on the floor until some opportunist led him off.

"As I was saying," the woman said calmly, dabbing a potion onto where she'd gotten splashed, "I can take care of myself. JJ Sheppard-McKay; call me JJ."

Severus clasped her outstretched hand; it was early to tell, but it seemed at least possible that she would survive the conference, now. "Snape."

Her face lit up. "Severus Snape? Oh, this is so great! I read your paper on aconite interactions, and it sparked off a couple of ideas in my head."

Severus arched an eyebrow; the Potions journals were restricted, with spells that no few people had unsuccessfully tried to break, to being read by Potions Masters only.

Not realizing (or, possibly, not caring) why Severus had raised his brow, the woman continued.  " I think that I'm about a third of the way to figuring out how to allow werewolves to remain in control at the full moon, thanks to your research."

Severus snapped from vague amusement at the woman to sharp interest in what she was saying. "What did you say?"

"I still have no idea how to actually cure them—and that would bring up certain ethical issues that I really don't want to have to deal with, anyway—but I really do think I'm on the right track. And given your research, I think that we could do it faster if we worked together."

Merlin knew that there had been enough half-cracked werewolf cure ideas already, none of which had panned out, but if there was even half a chance that she was right, the faster it was accomplished the better, in his opinion. Much as he hated to give any of Potter's group any credit, even he had to admit that the wolf wouldn't have tried to attack him if he had still been human in there. "Tell me more," he ordered.

In alternate-history Kansas, all of the fields have hedgerows around them. (because in our world there are trees, and they're there for windblocks, right? So why not hedgerows?)

There's a something which is a huge danger because to trap its prey/victims it creates a perfect representation of a place that feels safe & happy to them, with something to help make them believe it. It works better with people who feel very safe most of the time, but almost everybody has a place where they feel safe or that they can be convinced to feel safe in. Naturally distrustful people and people who have learned to be distrustful can pick up the minor glitches within a few hours, when something pings their memory wrong and they start pulling threads and unravel it. So, if you knew this all, and then you saw somebody get whammied and barely pause for a second...wow, must suck to be them.

House elves invented LOLcats.

Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel were targets for most of their lives because of the Stone; it might make them unaging and immune to nearly everything else, but there were still a few ways they could be killed. So whenever they got sick of it, they did their own little witness protection program and set themselves up as new Hogwarts students. This time around, they chose to be James Potter and Lily Evans (which...needs an explanation for Petunia. Still a relative, maybe, but not a sister.). But somewhere along the way, Dumbledore learned who they were, and either set them up or just capitalized on their deaths to steal the stone.

It's not that Dumbledore sends Harry back to the Dursleys' and modifying memories every time he runs away or gets taken away by social services--it's the wards (which may or may not have been created or altered by Dumbledore in the name of the greater good/Harry's safety from kidnappers). But if the wards are doing it, they're not exactly going to stop when it's time for Harry to go to Hogwarts, are they?

Some form of entertainment, written as if it was by aliens, for aliens from the same culture. So, for instance, if they were writing their version of Stargate SG-1, all of the references to the Simpsons, mythology, etc. would be explained to the exact same degree that they are in canon!SG-1. And maybe idioms would be different, too, depending on how far you want to go with it.

Ronon was really, really young when he first became a Runner--still a child. But every time the Wraith caught him, they took a little sip from his life, and now he's not a child anymore.

It starts out being written like the MC's a latchkey kid: she gets herself up and prepared for school in the mornings, makes her own food (or has it prepared for her, so she just has to reheat it/take it to school), the house always seems to be empty except for her. Maybe there are occasional notes to her. But eventually it becomes apparent that she isn't living with any adult--maybe with a ghost (not, I think, a family member)? While she's on the verge of sleep she could her it then, and give further evidence to the "not squatting in the house" misleading. Not as the main plot, because she knows about her circumstances so it's not a mystery, but as an around-the-edges thing: she goes off every day having her adventure, and comes home to this empty house and loving notes. Maybe it affects how she acts, like she absolutely insists on being home by a certain time, and the reader is very confused about why until she comes home late one day and the walls are bleeding or something.

Hm, might be fun to do it as a coming of age thing, and/or if she gradually realized that their relationship was abusive and successfully managed to get the ghost to change.

While Ronon is a Runner, he goes to a world that he knows is deserted, one that's known as a Runners' World, and is horrified to find a kid there: deaged Xander, who can't or won't speak for whatever reason. Ronon tries to send him to/drop him off at an inhabited world, but he won't go, just follows Ronon around and occasionally kicks wraith ass. And refuses to leave his axe behind even though he can barely lift it.

Somehow, Hermione and Luna meet before Hogwarts. And Luna has all sorts of books with proof that all of her creatures exist, so of course Hermione is convinced...

Supernatural/Pride and Prejudice, although with only P & P characters and OCs (and, I guess some of the longer-lived Supernatural characters, just not any of the humans). Set in/around P & P times. The reflex might be to do it as an AU, but I think I personally prefer it not to be.

Elizabeth Bennett (or Darcy) is a BAMF Hunter, eventually almost a legend, despite...well, everything. Mostly gender. How did she get into Hunting? How did she get to be so good? How do her interactions with other Hunters go? What's her life like?

Crazy alternate universe, where males can only reproduce with males and females can only reproduce with females, but either pairing can produce children of either gender; this pattern extends to any species which does not reproduce asexually. Give careful consideration to social changes--e.g., like IRL each couple would need at least one partner to work to support them, back through history, so gender discrimination is not going to have ever been like it is or was here; also, everybody is gay is the only thing that makes sense here.

Protagonists are a straight couple in the modern day, extremely aware of how lucky they are to be living in a time when it's legal and to some degree accepted for them to be together and hoping that someday soon it will be legal for them to get married.

In TV, books, and movies, it seems like every detective/PI/cop deals with the big crimes--murder, rape, art theft, etc. So what about one that's about cops/detectives who deal with minor crap, or are traffic cops or something? With the focus being a lot more on the people rather than the cases. Stick in a supernatural element, preferably a lot more understated than in other shows: each of them has a supernatural secret and doesn't know their partner's secret (though it doesn't drag out for too long; eventually they find out because otherwise they just look stupid), but most of their cases are normal, mostly boring cases, and their supernatural secrets only occasionally affect their lives. Put a limit on how often they have to draw their guns, and how often the supernatural causes more than minor irritation, and stick to it.

It's the equivalent of the '60s in Urban Fantasy World. The race issues are mainly between werewolves and vampires (and humans?) rather than blacks and whites.

MC is a police detective, but they also secretly run/rule the city's supernatural community. Most of the time it works out, but now they're working hard on an important case, and having to deal with important stuff going on in the supernatural community. Are the two connected? Will she be able to deal with both at the same time? When will she ever be able to get some sleep?

A vampire in some sort of anti-addiction program.

Somebody who has the kind of powers that are basically "you must fix this problem or your life will continue to be disrupted" gets so jaded that he stops doing it because he wants to do good, stops being outraged at horrible things, etc.

Hey, you know what would be a fun crossover? Dexter/Journeyman. Several possibilities: Dexter travels through time (and let's just say he solves problems a bit differently than Dan and Olivia do). Deb travels through time, and finds out about Dexter. Dan has to help Dexter, and may or may not find out about him.

MC develops powers of a type that can't be proven (psychic visions or something, not telekinesis or anything easy to prove) and starts hiding them from everybody. Only later do they learn that their sibling has had the same power for longer, and has been hiding it all along as well.

Several centuries/millenia ago, MC was given the job of ending the world/stopping the end of the world by [date]. But she's like most of us, so she procrastinated. Now there are only days/weeks left to finish her project, and she hasn't even started to make plans.

A defense attorney uses John Amsterdam's "eccentricity" against him while he testifies against somebody he arrested.

Dexter Morgan, not a serial killer.  Nothing out of the ordinary about him.  But then one day, he comes home and finds a dismembered Barbie doll in his freezer, connects it to the Ice Truck Killer, and is all D: about it.

The GCPD amasses a large body of evidence that Bruce Wayne is Batman, enough that there's no doubt in anybody's mind.  But he's really convincing with his denial, enough so that they start to become convinced that he has DID.  Eventually he breaks and admits it all.

Patrick Jane on truth serum (or anything else that destroys his verbal inhibitions): most horrifying thing ever, or what?  Throughout the show we keep getting shown how he has a tendency towards saying things that he shouldn't, hitting where it hurts; I get the impression that he only holds off in regards to the team (as far as that goes, anyway) because a) he likes them and b) he's using them to get to Red John, but that doesn't mean he isn't gathering all sorts of information about them that would come spilling out in that kind of situation.  It would end VERY BADLY.  Or possibly everybody would be used enough to him that they could get over it.

Patrick Jane is actually psychic, but either he doesn't realize it, or the more interesting option: he's managed to convince himself that he isn't (possibly repressing knowledge of his true powers after his wife and daughter were killed because of them).  He's still using the powers, but he doesn't realize that he is, and he always has an answer about how he knows the things he knows (because he does know how to do it powerlessly), until one day...he doesn't, and he's forced to confront that knowledge.

Girl!Jane

Mentalist--I don't think I've seen a girl!Jane AU before, but it could be interesting. Might have to be more changes than usual with genderswap AUs, though, because of the clothes if nothing else.

Ooh, or an AU where the wife was the one who wasn't killed by Red John and is now working with the CBI.