(no subject)

[doyle]

Nicked from musesfool via jennyo:

We're all familiar with those infamous "things I never want to see in a fanfic story again" lists. Sure, we all have mental lists of things that drive us crazy: bits of fanon that don't jive with our ideas about canon, overused words, improbable scenarios, bad characterizations, etc. But what about the opposite? What are the things you want to see more of? (Even if other people think it's overdone!)

I only get ten? I'll just work 'Holden Webster' in at the outset, then...


1. AUs, either the canon ones - Wishverse, Birthdayverse - or ones that branch off at some point in canon. I'm talking about things that logically progress from what 'really' happened, with cause and effect and chaos theory, bring me to:

2. The weird and wacky world of physics. Science, magic, differences and similarities between the two. Which is a longwinded way of saying "Fred and Ethan on a roadtrip would be great".

3. Road trips. Motels, gas stations, big open stretches of road, uncomfortable tension between the travellers.

4. Post-apocalypse, because I don't care how much of a cliche it is, I will literally never get enough of Oh Noes, We Are The Only Survivors In This Wasteland/Destroyed City/Whatever Full Of Demons.

5. Nature of reality/humanity/metaphysical stuff. You have no idea how fast my Eve dislike became fascination as soon as she mentioned being immortal, created by the Senior Partners. Then there's Dawn, canon afterlives, souls, dreams, the Cheeseman, prophecies, gods, powers that be...

6. Ensemble, especially if it's both casts, with people who didn't meet on the show getting to interact. Episodic comedy gen action-adventure comes under this, I guess.

7. Ordinary people stumbling into this world of demons and vampires - Kate, Nina, Kit, Buffy's class at Sunnydale High. (I've actually just wondered why Holden didn't know Buffy was the Slayer... I thought her graduating class knew? There's that scene in I Was Made To Love You where she asks Warren if he knows who she is and he says he does...)

8. B-movie sci-fi. Killer robots. Man-eating plants. Zombies!

9. High school fic. Not human AUs, but stories set within the high school years and in Sunnydale high, preferably focused on someone other than the Scoobies. Subset: first loves, teen romance, especially between the unconventional combinations of Buffy, Willow, Xander, Oz, Cordelia, Amy, Larry. (By which I mean, Willow/Oz and Xander/Cordelia are both out, much as I like them, since we got that in the show; but Buffy/Oz? Buffy/Cordelia? Amy with Xander or Willow? Xander/Larry? Oh, yes.)

10. Lower decks Angel season 5 stuff, the inner workings of Wolfram and Hart - Harmony, Knox, Files and Records, the secretarial pool, Wesley's prophecy department. I'm still bummed we didn't see the Christmas party, or the company picnic, or diversity training...

Comments

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

Road trips whee! Join us in the Fast and the Furious fandom, won't you?

I'm rotf at your icon.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

I've always meant to rent that movie...

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

Just wear your slash goggles...it cuts the glare of the bad script and occasionally irritating supporting cast, but makes it worth the watch because of Paul Walker and Vin Diesel.

[minim_calibre]

Oooo! Doyle should TOTALLY get into F&F.

And she won't even need strong slash googles. Just the regular strength ones will do...

(I need to rewatch it soon... I mean, I own the thing...)

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

M_C, I didn't know you were into slashing Dom and Brian...do I need to introduce you to a shitload of people?

[minim_calibre]

Other than you and Gwyn? Hmmm... tempting, tempting!

I confess, I bought the movie ages ago JUST for the sake of the pretty, pretty slash.

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

Well yeah, there really isn't much of another reason to buy it...

[herself_nyc]

Great list.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

Thankee!

Ooh, pretty icon.

[herself_nyc]

_jems_ made it, and many like it, just today.

[briargate.livejournal.com]

I first read #8 as Robot-Eating Killer Plant-Zombies. That was a strange moment.

2. The weird and wacky world of physics. Science, magic, differences and similarities between the two.

This is one of the things that made me sad about S4 - The whole Initiative gig would have been a perfect storyline for Willow, and all the Riley/Willow interaction would've been great. *stops before she starts babbling about the whole alternate S4 she has planned out in her head*

A huge "oh god yes!" to all of them, though 1, 4 and 10 especially.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

Riley/Willow would have been excellent. They had lovely chemistry.

Tell me more about this alt-S4...

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that scene in the bookstore with the klutziness... i totally thought the writers were gonna go for a Willow/Riley thing, what with all the talk about Willow being so excited to be around smart people, but no. And given how the season turned out, with the whole Initiative gig and everything, i don't really see it as a relationship/dynamic that would work, but then again Willow could be all hackery and do the upsetting-Maggie's-status-quo that Buffy did, and we could do a good version of the S6 magic!crack arc wherein Willow considers using the vast resources of the Initiative and there are many moral quandries and yeah, shutting up now.

[voleuse.livejournal.com]

omg. You just gave me twenty gajillion plot bunnies.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

*feeds the bunnies*

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

If I ever make it through the ghost ship PotC story, I will go back to my alternate season 5 AtS story, where there is a collision of magic and physics in several ways, not the least of which is Wesley's prophecy division and Fred's Research and Development having like, these company-wide arguments and stuff.

*loves that story a lot*

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

*fangirls you like whoa*

Even in my smallish university department: the astrophysicists, the atomic physicists and the theoretical physicists more or less despise each other. There's rivalry over grants, pettiness over funding, and people generally regress to territorial primary school children. Then they all gang up on the chemists and mathematicians. A science division versus the magicians would be World War III.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

It gets better, 'cause Fred's theory is that magic is just science sufficiently advanced, and Wesley gets *incredibly* snippy about it. And then the whole plot depends on the *actual* collision of science and magic, and um, yeah.

It's geeky and has a bibliography and I have been writing it since the break between season 2 and 3, and updating as things became easier to incorporate. Having the A-team move to W&H was like a godsend in terms of making the plot that much more plausible.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

Bibliographies make me happy.

I drove myself nuts trying to figure out the rules of magic in the Buffyverse, then realized - well, there aren't solid rules, that's the point, it's not a science. Except for where it kind of is (Xander making the book burst into flames in Superstar just by reading the incantation, for example).

This is why I'm not in Harry Potter fandom, because it would kill my brain ("but do you need wands? How exactly does Potions relate to Chemistry and Arithmancy to Maths?" etc, times a million)

[superplin.livejournal.com]

It gets better, 'cause Fred's theory is that magic is just science sufficiently advanced, and Wesley gets *incredibly* snippy about it. And then the whole plot depends on the *actual* collision of science and magic, and um, yeah.

It's geeky and has a bibliography and I have been writing it since the break between season 2 and 3, and updating as things became easier to incorporate. Having the A-team move to W&H was like a godsend in terms of making the plot that much more plausible.

Oh, god, I must read this story! This is like my dream AtS fic, in a nutshell.

Er, do you accept bribes?

[callmesandy.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmmmmmmm, 5. That's such tasty stuff. Add Connor to that list and all those questions (why *is* Willow so powerful compared to other magic practitioners we see? Is there a genetic component to levels of magic proficiency? Would Slayers or Dawn or Connor have more of that because of the mystic thing they already have happening? Wouldn't it make sense if Connor's children would be as strong as he is (unlike slayers) that someone should just harvest his sperm and make an army of super soldiers? Or is that just something I would do?) and it seems like that stuff in fanfic is so much fun.

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

Yes! I've thought that about Connor before, that there's the potential his kids could be super-strong, and that something like the Initiative should be very interested in that.

[callmesandy.livejournal.com]

Raise 'em all up mystically and take over the WORLD! The Initiative, other branches of Wolfram & Hart, random mad scientists/mystics/demons. It's a brilliant plan, mwuhahahahaaaaaaaa!

Oh, right, fictional sperm. Right.

[gloss]

1, 4, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10:
Dude. Get out of my head oeuvre head. Something.

*mwah*

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

*burrows in like a brain-worm*

The brain-worm demands more space to put her stuff, and possibly a pinball machine. I'm sure you don't need *all* these memories...

[gloss]

C'mon in! I've got a Super Mario Bros. pinball machine *already*.

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

Somehow #1 and # 3 combined made me think of the moment in Killer in Me, where Anya, Xander, Dawn and Andrew jumped into a car and went to check whether Giles was touchable. What if they accidentally crossed into parallel universe, and where bound to go and go until they fine their own?

[doyle_sb4.livejournal.com]

Now I'm not sure if I want most to write that or fic based around your icon...

[fourleftxaviers.livejournal.com]

Hee! omg. Somebody so needs to write W&H company picnic fic.

I love your icon.

[sadbhyl.livejournal.com]

Fred and Ethan on a roadtrip would be great

Bitch.

[swmbo.livejournal.com]

Oh man, yes, I love every single ONE of these.

*facepalms*

[firstgold.livejournal.com]

9. High school fic. Not human AUs, but stories set within the high school years and in Sunnydale high, preferably focused on someone other than the Scoobies. Subset: first loves, teen romance, especially between the unconventional combinations of Buffy, Willow, Xander, Oz, Cordelia, Amy, Larry. (By which I mean, Willow/Oz and Xander/Cordelia are both out, much as I like them, since we got that in the show; but Buffy/Oz? Buffy/Cordelia? Amy with Xander or Willow? Xander/Larry? Oh, yes.)

This (http://www.buffybb.net/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi/topic/33/20.html) is a jem of a story taking place in season three.

I heartly agree with your 10. Would I ever love to see #1, 3, 5 or 10!