Fic Detail Meme
Aug. 16th, 2011 12:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedibuttercupAs a reward for saying such lovely things to me yesterday, another meme! This one via ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kerrykhat:
Give me a link to one of my fics or WIPs, and I'll give you details that didn't make it into the fic. Background canon, deleted scenes, or a look into the future. My choice, but if you have a specific question you can ask it in your request.
No promises I'll answer specific questions if you pick a WIP, but: Fic Indexed by Fandom (DW) or Works List (AO3).
kerrykhat:Give me a link to one of my fics or WIPs, and I'll give you details that didn't make it into the fic. Background canon, deleted scenes, or a look into the future. My choice, but if you have a specific question you can ask it in your request.
No promises I'll answer specific questions if you pick a WIP, but: Fic Indexed by Fandom (DW) or Works List (AO3).
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-08-16 08:03 am (UTC)Did the idea of Mal being more of the pursuer in the relationship just come from the prompt, or something deeper? I ask because it's fairly unusual to see the relationship portrayed that way, in all my reading at least.
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Date: 2011-08-16 04:16 pm (UTC)I understand why it ends up in fandom that way a lot; the age difference is pretty significant, and she's been wandering around with an altered state of mind for most of canon, which desexualizes her. So waking up to womanhood in a hurry-- her taking agency of that and celebrating it, it makes exploring relationships with older guys less problematic.
The thing about River, though, is she isn't just a normal albiet telepathic teenage girl now that Miranda's out of her head. She's not like an X-Men character (well, unless you're talking someone like Erik Lensherr.) She's very deeply traumatized. And when I started thinking about why Mal might be the one initiating, all these reasons why she might be reluctant to allow any more invasions of her person of any type, desired or not, popped right into focus.
That may be why I haven't written more of this pairing, despite my love for it: my construction of it in my head has gotten really complicated. Though it was fun to touch on in Strangely Comfortable... and if I ever get Book's Legacy that far, I think there'll be hints of it. I'm enjoying building their interactions there.
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Date: 2011-08-16 10:16 pm (UTC)Your reasons make perfect sense; it's hard for me to articulate why I feel the power balance is even between them despite his technically being her employer (if she's treated as a real member of the crew, at least) and the owner of her home. The only reason I can ever put into words is just, "Mal would never use that against her," and it's obviously true, but it isn't enough exactly. Maybe more of, "River knows Mal would never use that against her." The age difference never really enters into it for me at all, for whatever reason.
River perceiving any kind of intimate relationship as an invasion does make sense, and I can see how it would complicate your view of them and make it hard to write them. The biggest problem in writing River in romantic fic as I see it is balancing her between being not magically healed, but still sane enough for things to work out. It's a balance most writers (and I include myself here, definitely) seem to have a hard time hitting.
editing for linkage
Date: 2011-08-16 09:23 am (UTC)Re: editing for linkage
Date: 2011-08-16 04:57 pm (UTC)Anyway, when I was initially thinking about how magic might work in the Austen era with the landowning set, I just could not picture most of them sending their children away to Hogwarts for various reasons, to do with social and economic strata and family obligations and so on. Much easier to hire a tutor to teach them the bits they'll need, and make sure they meet only the right people and don't get ideas about magical careers, etc., etc. Especially in lines that (as I imply here) don't take magic into account when arranging marriages and thus end up with pretty mixed squib/magical children.
I have to admit when I was thinking about the odds of the girls marrying wizards when they didn't know the other families well enough that 'irregularities' of that sort would be obvoius, I picked Jane as the one in a nonmagical partnership because I thought she'd deal with it better. It seemed like not being able to use magic would be a mild inconvenience but no great hardship to her. They wouldn't have grown up in an all-magical household like the Weasleys, anyway; anyone that had much dealings with society probably wouldn't be able to, so any bobbles in Jane dealing with Bingley's household would probably just initially seem like her learning the differences of scale from her mother's.
Elizabeth, on the other hand... emotional as she is, it seemed like she'd feel her magic to be a much more integral part of her, and it would just increase her issues with romance. I hadn't worked out just where the plot of P&P would differ when I wrote this, but I figured she'd start picking up clues at Rosings-- Darcy would be more likely to relax and show hints there in the company of magical family (definitely Lady Catherine, probably Fitzwilliam, though Anne may be a squib) than at Bingley's.
With the tutor system, the House thing wouldn't really apply, unfortunately. (Which would make a neat way around the really limited number of children schooled at Hogwarts, actually; it's not that there are only that many wizards in the British Isles, or that no one else is powerful or rich enough to go, it's that there's a whole range of people between the "wizard culture only" and "muggleborn; jump in wholesale" categories that have their own ideas of how integral magic should be to their lives. Um. But if he had gone under the Hat.... I'd probably have put Darcy in Ravenclaw. (A Gryff would probably have spoken to Elizabeth sooner, a Slytherin wouldn't have misread her so badly, and Hufflepuff would have taught him better personal interaction skills, plus he's really pretty intelligent; just locked up in his own head). YMMV.
Re: editing for linkage
Date: 2011-08-25 12:36 am (UTC)I can see being leery of Austen fandom and HP fandom. They are, indeed, very opinionated. (But hey, I just recc'd Back Again, Harry to a friend as the best HP fic ever. You know. If it helps!)
Much easier to hire a tutor to teach them the bits they'll need, and make sure they meet only the right people and don't get ideas about magical careers, etc., etc.
Oh, I see! I assumed Hogwarts would be a more gender-neutral wizarding Eton, but I think I'd figured it was more transplanting Austen into HP than the other way around -- if you're looking primarily at the Austen setting, yeah, that would totally make sense. So, younger sons who are also wizards would still go into the aristocratic Muggle careers, right? I'd been sort of wondering if alt!Colonel Fitzwilliam might be an Auror or something like that, but in your version he'd actually be a colonel?
I picked Jane as the one in a nonmagical partnership because I thought she'd deal with it better.
She would, definitely. At first, it didn't even occur to me that they might not have married wizards, but as soon as you mentioned it, it seemed to fit. (And parallels aristocratic Darcy befriending Bingley-of-the-fortune-in-trade anyway.)
Oh, I'd hoped Lady Catherine would be a witch! And that whole conversation about how Anne would be wonderful at x if she'd ever learnt would be... hm, super awkward with Anne as a Squib.
t's that there's a whole range of people between the "wizard culture only" and "muggleborn; jump in wholesale" categories that have their own ideas of how integral magic should be to their lives.
Ohh, that's an interesting idea. Even for just canon! It'd explain a lot, too.
But if he had gone under the Hat.... I'd probably have put Darcy in Ravenclaw.
Awesome! Myself, I can't really see him anywhere else (maybe Slytherin -- he can be scheming and ruthless at times, but he's not sly or ambitious while he is clever and bookish). So no variance here!
no subject
Date: 2011-08-16 10:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-16 05:25 pm (UTC)Eventually, I'll have to project forward far enough to handle some of the big upheavals in Dresden Books #10-13, which would definitely happen differently with Scoobie involvement, whereas earlier changes from Buffy's presence aren't that noticeable. Just, you know, Murphy not getting demoted, Harry having a better income and mental outlook... which I suppose is significant, just not to the larger plot to that point. There's no way Buffy would stay uninvolved once the Denarians crash their way back into town, though! I'm still digesting the implications.
As far as Buffy backstory and how it would differ in the Dresdenverse... whew, there's a lot. The big one, I've already dealt with, and had a few hate reviews for, but largely people seem to accept it makes sense for the fusion: Willow's execution by Wardens. Dark Magic on that scale is not a thing you can just recover from in the Dresdenverse, alas. (Ethan Rayne, along similar lines, was probably axed by Wardens rather than handed over to the Initiative in AU!S4).
The Aurelian vampires have to be translated onto White Court rather than Black Court for Buffy's relationships with them to make any sense... and Malvora, specifically, for Angelus' particularly ominous reputation to translate best. (I just couldn't see creating a special new class of vampire if I was going the fusion rather than crossover route). The curse that altered his behavior could easily be a guilt-causing Death Curse rather than a 'soul', and everything else falls into place from there. The rest of the vampires and demons in Sunnydale, though, largely would have to be Black Court n00bs or Red Court 'blood slaves' or creatures from the NeverNever for Buffy to Slay them with impunity.
Anya/Anyanka would definitely have been a changeling fae. The power center/depowering issue would become more complicated, but her relationship with Xander would be even more interesting as a consequence. (One of these days I'll have to write the Harry-meets-the-gang fic so I can spotlight some of these other characters!) Oz's curse would make most sense as the rampaging family type of lycanthrope from Fool Moon, but he'd have to have had it for a lot longer than "bit by his cousin", which would necessitate some more canon tweaks. Tara would still have been magical, but more on scale of Kim Delaney or the Ordo Lebes witches, not quite White Council levels of power. The Mayor's Ascension would map over onto something like what Harry faced down in Dead Beat rather than straight up "turn into a giant snake". And so on.
... Any really specific things you're curious about? Because I could get lost in the details for awhile. =)
no subject
Date: 2011-08-16 11:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-16 05:43 pm (UTC)The idea was that there would be some leftovers of the Goa'uld reign somewhere buried on Earth (because seriously, if they ruled Earth that long, there should have been more left behind than just the Gate no matter how careful Ra was or how vengeful the rebellion) and that Daniel in reconnecting with the Medjai would find out about it and be able to use it to ... I hadn't got that far. Help the Jaffa? Expose something about the Tok'ra? Face down some lingering Goa'uld threat? Give Earth's technology a boost just in time to face some other enemy? Anyway.
I'm a little hampered, too, by the fact that the Mummy characters would all be dead by this point. I can't port this over to DIOTB-verse because it's too divergent by that point, and I'm reluctant to just paste immortality on them without that kind of backstory, so. I'd have to come up with OC Medjai and that would be another layer of difficulty.
Maybe I'll find a challenge sometime with enough bones to hang this 'verse on, and use that to continue it.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-16 12:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-16 06:31 pm (UTC)These two bits I've been sure of ever since I wrote it, given the convenience of having Truce at Bakura set right after ROTJ: that (a) Luke is deathly sick from the carbonizing of his bones from Palpatine, and Buffy is going to end up being the one most in contact with him as he recovers in the Whedonverse, and (b) Someone Jedi-sensitive needs to deal with the Ssi-Ruuk back home, so Conveniently!Appearing!Obi-Wan is going to have to draft a reluctant Leia away from the diplomatic side of things and get her to step up as a Jedi rather than staying political.
I need to work out the mechanics of the "able to use magic"/"has midichlorians" crossover so it makes sense, but his powers will manifest more as wizardly stuff there, and when they go back (because of course he'll have to go, and I'll need to come up with a really convincing reason for some Scoobies to return with him) the magic scale of things will translate into more standard Force use (for example, Buffy's Slayer skills would translate as channeling Force to her limbs, some sensory enhancements, and prophetic dreams) aligned to the user's prior skills. But whether or not they'd be mentally flexible enough to learn other uses of the Force... haven't decided yet.
I want a Buffy/Luke pairing staying in Starwarsverse at the end, but getting there believably might be a rather tall order.
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Date: 2011-08-16 09:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-16 09:55 pm (UTC)I'd be interested in seeing how the Scoobies respond to not only having his shuttle crash in their backyard-area, but also to Luke being sick from the Emperor's lightning. They don't have bacta, so would magic be involved? I can't remember how they did it in Truce at Bakura. And I wonder how Leia starting to pick up more of her Jedi heritage would affect her reaction to seeing Anakin's Force ghost when they're at Bakura compared to how she reacts in canon.
I seriously can't wait for you to play in this verse again, if you couldn't already tell. :)
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Date: 2011-08-16 03:21 pm (UTC)Or a galaxy where it was magnified a hundred-fold?" A glimpse into the future, please!
no subject
Date: 2011-08-16 06:45 pm (UTC)The "Legacy" book series that's supposed to continue where the finale left off has them flying the city home the long way and crash-landing on a minimally hospitable world on the fringes of Pegasus, IIRC. But... I could easily have them repair that "wormhole drive" that conveniently appeared in the finale and oops! Something goes wrong and they crash on a different minimally hospitable world. Say, Dagobah. *snickering* I'd have to pick a good entry point timeline wise, but that could throw quite the rock in the Star Wars verse pond, since half the city would have sudden out of control Force powers, and the city herself would sing like crazy to all the Jedi (or Sith) already out there.
*blinkblink* Um. Remind me of this next time I run a prompt list, would you? I don't have time to get into this right now with the Buffyverse crossathon going on, but my fingers are starting to itch...
no subject
Date: 2011-08-16 07:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-16 09:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-17 04:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-16 09:58 pm (UTC)The Edge of a Knife (http://jedibuttercup.livejournal.com/375017.html) 'verse. I dearly love every single story in this series and the idea that Illyria loves Wes so much that she took them both back in time to bring about what is canon in The Lord of the Rings just gets me where I live.
"Walk No More in Shadow" (http://jedibuttercup.livejournal.com/369519) and "Slow Thunder" (http://jedibuttercup.livejournal.com/119434.html) Yes, despite the fact that I'm no fan of later seasons Daniel Jackson, I love the idea of Faramir and Éowyn being together again in another life and I firmly believe that Buffy and Daniel are exactly what each other need in this case. There is also that whole 'this is Arda' angle that I love above all else in this particular pair of stories.
"Through the Blue Vault of Varda" (http://jedibuttercup.livejournal.com/407378.html) Honestly? If I ever hit the lottery, I plan on dangling an obscenely humungous donation to your favorite charity as a carrot to get this one finished completely. I love Stargate Atlantis despite the way the show's writer's screwed the pooch at every available opportunity because of the way the actors portrayed the characters and brought them to life. The idea that one of my favorite tv shows can be so successfully crossed with my favorite author's mythology is just too addictive for me to pass up such an opportunity.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-16 11:28 pm (UTC)The problem with Edge of a Knife is that in order to write the next part, I have to figure out exactly how the original Quest went wrong, in order to have Illyria and Wes in position to fix it, LOL. Bit off a lot to chew with that one. Best part about having Lyri there still bound to human shape, though, is that even if people notice she's off they'll just think she's like Gandalf, if they think about it at all! The hard work of living in that time will be good for Wesley, though; get him out of his head some, get him into company with a new tribe of people that know nothing about his past (I must admit to some glee at the image of eventual Ranger!Wes).
... And way, waaaay in the future after everything is fixed, well, they can't stay in Middle-earth forever, and I don't want to kill them, so. I think they'll have a conversation with someone who's had a chat with Someone who knows what's going on, and then a boat ride.
2.
With Walk No More In Shadow, I think I just fell in love with the Faramir!Daniel idea, and the thought that waking that in him and reuniting him with Éowyn!Buffy might wear off some of his war-weariness a la post-recovery in Gondor and also do the same for her. I can picture writing fluffy interludes with them, but plot? I honestly don't know where I'd go next with it.
3.
When I get back to this one, I think it'll have to be Rodney's POV instead of Sheppard's. Because the discovery worldsetting fic had to be done from the POV of the one who'd been in both worlds and thus could make the connections, but the wonder of Elves appearing in the modern world and surprise! filling in gaps in the known history of the Ancients would be kind of lost on Aewil!John. There would at some point be going back to Pegasus and Elladan and Elrohir going with them and probably other members of Tolkien races, and defeating of the Wraith, but that's all very vague in my head at the moment. It will require more thought.
Since you prompted me on the Dawn!fic, though, I suddenly know exactly how the Ancients that lived in the city charged their ZPMs and why no one can ever find the production facility that made them! *dances* So, yeah. I think I may have to connect those two fic soon with a "what happens when Dawn sets foot in Atlantis" story.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-17 01:23 am (UTC)*does the Dance of Happy Fangirl Glee*
Thank you answering all of those, I had intended for you to only answer one; not that I'm complaining, mind you! And may I say that I am right there with you anticipating Ranger!Wes? Actually, that future conversation and boat ride would actually be the perfect capstone to the series, since anyone who gets the crossover knows how things turn out in the past eventually anyway.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-17 02:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-17 04:22 pm (UTC)This is kind of how I envisioned the next bit:
Once the blending's done, the SGC is going to want Buffy back. But after speaking with Carmentis, Buffy will know that's not a good option. She doesn't want to be trapped on-world without her own easy access to all the Slayers, and heck if she's going to explain why she wants right back out to the stars immediately. Only, she's going to react badly to the Tok'ra, too, because they'll be wanting to keep her close and safe and see if Carmentis has any clues to what they should do next (being their Seer).
She'll have to talk Jacob around to springing her. From there ... Lots of possibilities. One day I'll write it.