#these aus have been kicking around in my brain for so long they're rattling the bars aaaaahhh

[johaerys-writes]

I'm already so happy with all the limitless possibilities of those AUs you've posted for vote! Hot ranchhand or a pleasure slave Patroclus???!?!? Now this is gonna be SCRUMPTIOUS😈😈😈😈😈 thank you for letting me vote, and have a nice day!

My one and only purpose in life is to put the blorbo in SituationsTM, and Patroclus is blorbo supreme so he gets all the treats 😌

[youaretoosmart]

Can yu write a strangers au where one of them sleep on each other's shoulders and they're too polite to do something about it so they just roll with it

birthday prompts 3/7

I… forgot the strangers AU part omg I’m so dumb. I went with post 3x06 instead!! Sorry!!

The bus bumps gently along the road, one turn at a time, in a way that is vaguely nauseating. Stiles can finally understand Jared a little better: the endless repetitive circles down the mountain are enough to make him want to puke, just for something to do.

Or maybe it’s not the bus—maybe it’s the fact that their lives are, once again, interwoven with the supernatural; dangerous, deadly supernatural. Because, yeah, Stiles may be a pessimist but he’s also often right, and someone is going to die if they don’t find a way out of this situation, this tug of war between two unstoppable powers. A few months ago, he would have wondered why that was always the case: can’t they be an active cause in whatever’s going down in Beacon Hills, for once, instead of the helpless rag doll tugged this way and that by the two enemies? The rag doll is always the one who pays the most in the end, in Stiles’ opinion: it’s simply physics.

Okay, so it’s definitely not the bus.

He tries looking out of the window, but the endless desert landscape doesn’t help: all he sees is that they’re heading back towards Beacon Hills, towards fighting and death and sacrifices. Towards war, if Lydia is right—and of course she’s right.

He tries to glance subtly above his shoulders, to check up on Scott, as he’s done about, oh, thirty thousands time since the previous evening, which, really, was just more proof that he may be a pessimist but at least he has reasons to be. For once, he hates being right.

Scott still smells of gasoline, even after changing his clothes and quickly washing up in the bathroom while Stiles gathered their bags. He used to like the smell: it reminded him of his crappy Jeep and the long afternoons spent fixing it up with his father, before they gave it up as a bad job and just brought it to the shop. Now he feels like he might suffocate if he doesn’t stop breathing it.

It’s worse for Scott himself, but he’s characteristically stoic in the seat behind Stiles. Although—it’s been a while since Stiles felt him move and accidentally knee the back of his seat.

He tries to turn around subtly when a hand on his arm stops him.

“They’re sleeping,” Lydia whispers, handing him a small compact. With the mirror open like that, it’s easy to spy on the seats behind them and to see Allison and Scott, soundly asleep. Their bodies are angled differently, away from each other, but even an outside eye can see the secret yearning in their poses, silently reaching for each other.

It’s infuriating.

“I swear to God,” Stiles mutters under his breath, barely aware that he’s spoken.

“I know.” Lydia rolls her eyes and smiles when he looks at her in surprise. “I want to shake them or lock them in a closet until they work things out.”

“That’s why Seven Minutes in Heaven was invented, I think.”

“Oh definitely—resolve sexual tension, not create it where it didn’t exist before.”

“Don’t forget the crushing humiliation two-thirds of the assembly will feel.”

“How could I?”

Stiles lets out a small laugh, almost a breath.

“I hate this game.” Then he remembers: “Uh, sorry.”

“Mmmm.” Lydia inspects her hair, brushing it between her fingers. It’s a mess, so unlike usual, but Stiles hasn’t been able to get the image out of his head all morning. “That’s how Jackson and I got together.”

“Yeah I know—That’s why—Forget it.”

“I hate this stupid game too.”

Stiles wants to smile, but the victory doesn’t feel as sweet when the casualties are Lydia Martin and her happiness.

Silence falls on them for a while.

“How long to Beacon Hills? I left my book in Allison’s car, I can’t believe it.”

“About six hours,” Stiles says, faux enthusiastic. “You’re going to have a very deep appreciation for bus seats and imitation leather.”

“I’m sweating through my dress,” Lydia deadpans. “And I already spent one night too many on them. That seems unlikely.”

“Good thing you’re not any teams.”

Lydia pretends to count on her fingers.

“I hate sports. The debate team is a bunch of entitled pricks who think their masculinity has to be sacrificed when they’re proven wrong and value their dicks too much for that.”

Stiles waits a beat.

“I thought you were gonna keep going,” he says. “Your tone was very confusing.”

“No, that’s it.”

“Colleges will fight to have you anyway,” he says.

It’s just a throwaway compliment: truth presented in a nice way to give to Lydia when she feels down, a skill Stiles has practiced and perfectioned since middle school. He doesn’t mean anything to come of it other than a small smile on Lydia’s face, the way she stands straighter for a second and lifts her head just so, accepting the praise without saying it. Lydia, Stiles noticed in his never-ending quest to understand her, has two ways of dealing with applause: blunt acceptance of the obvious, a flip of her hair and contempt for the worthless praise; or, when it matters, silent thankfulness that cuts Stiles deeper than blades.

Stiles has long been the butt of the former; he’s recently started to get glimpses of the latter, and he thinks he can never stop wanting more.

Lydia bites her lips instead, and looks down.

“I’ve already received word from Stanford,” she says.

“Lydia, that’s amaz—” Stiles begins automatically. “Wait, what?”

“I followed a two-week course over the summer, yes?” Stiles nods. He remembers the long interruption into what had become their routine, meeting and discussing things they didn’t—still don’t—grasp fully, looking for answers that weren’t there. “I’ll have enough credits to graduate at the end of the year,” she says. “They said they were interested in having me after that.”

Stiles remembers to close his mouth after a while.

“That’s incredible,” he says. “Are you—are you going to take it?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I haven’t said anything. It’s still early, and who knows how I’ll feel at the end of the year?”

“You might get better offers then,” Stiles says. “Not that I’m telling you not to do it! But, uh, that’s not an easy decision.”

Lydia hums. “I want out of this town,” she says.

“I know.”

“That’s the way to do it.”

Stiles does know; he knows it desperately, distantly: he can run to the other side of the country, but as long as his father and the McCalls live here, he won’t be getting out, not really. Lydia, however—if anyone can leave this town behind and spread her wings over the world, it’s her.

Selfishly, he wishes she won’t take the offer. Is it wrong to deprive the world of Lydia Martin to keep her closer to him, where he matters?

“What did your mother say?” he asks instead.

“Nothing. She doesn’t know.” Surprise is fleeting, then Lydia leans closer to him and says: “No one knows and I intend to keep it that way.”

“Are you going to kill me now that you’ve told me?” Stiles jokes weakly, to hide the overwhelming feeling of being Lydia’s confidant.

“There’s enough people dead in this town as it is,” Lydia mutters. She digs her palms in her eyes and rubs, leaving intact the dark circles under her eyes. “Just—please don’t tell anyone.”

“I can keep a secret,” Stiles offers.

“I know.”

She smiles then, and Stiles likes her so helplessly that he returns the gesture, absurd as it is.

“You should sleep,” he says when she doesn’t manage to hide a yawn. “We’ve efficiently ruined the weekend.”

Lydia nods and doesn’t say anything for a long time. Stiles turns back the window, watching her fall asleep through the washed-out reflection on the glass. It feels like spying, or maybe protection. He can’t discern the two, but he knows that after yesterday, the least he can do is watch his friends when they sleep. He’s done it last night too, when they were all spread out on the crackly seats and he couldn’t calm his heart or his nerves. He thinks he might never fully stop doing it.

He doesn’t realize he’s spaced out until he feels a weight on his shoulder. He almost jumps out of his skin when hair tickles his neck; for once, though, his body doesn’t betray him, and he can blink at the curve of Lydia’s cheek with outward calm. She’s slumped all over him, her head fitting right on top of his shoulder, her hair fanning out on his chest. The little breaths she lets out are hot against his neck.

Stiles actually has to bite his fist not to shout or move. He feels a grin stretching around it, but he hides it with his hand, throwing as many glances at Lydia’s sleeping form as at the scenery unfolding by his window.

It’s not perfect: Lydia slumps a bit more on his arm after almost thirty minutes—that’s when his limbs go numb, and his brain kicks in overdrive. Not moving is torture, his arm is cramping, and he’s so thirsty that his head is pounding; unfortunately, the bottle is in his bag at his feet, and he can’t bend down enough to retrieve it.

In the end, he dozes out against the window, the rattling from the road turning his brain to mush. The next pit stop awakens Lydia, and Stiles can feel her sitting up quickly when she realizes how she’s fallen asleep. He wants to turn and tell her he doesn’t mind, that she’s welcome to sleep on his shoulder anytime—really—, wants to ask her if she slept well and enough, wants to turn around and crow with Scott about this one step forward in their friendship.

He pretends to wake up when Scott calls his name, instead, and ignore the knowing look he sends his way.

Now is not the time, he tells himself sternly as he stretches out his legs with relief. Lydia is right: there are too many deaths in Beacon Hills; next to a vengeful Darach and a pack of ruthless alphas, what does Lydia’s head on Stiles’ shoulder mean? It won’t happen again, anyway, and Stiles should just cherish it; so he does, and he pretends he’s not disappointed when Scott drags him to sit next to him when they board again.

Four hours later, they’re back in the familiar parking lot of Beacon Hills high school.

[joiedecombat]

100 Days of Writing: the List

Since it seems there is some interest, why not? List of works (nominally) in progress, old unfinished fics, and Stuff I Want To Write below the cut. Feel free to ask about any of these.

Works (nominally) In Progress

Fanfic

"Reason or Rhyme" (Time Princess - Gotham Memoirs). The Vittorio expansion/fix-fic, because I will be forever disgruntled at how little romance content was actually included in the Mafia romance route.

Galactic Date Night Shenanigans aka "The one where everything is Balkar's fault." (SWTOR - Theron Shan/Jedi Knight). Theron "disaster spy" Shan is goaded into trying to take his wife out for a nice date for once, and it goes like every other plan these two have ever had anything to do with.

#3: [I] trusted [you] (SWTOR - Theron Shan / Jedi Knight). A post-Nathema prompt fic I swear I will finish one of these days.

Original

super secret short story/novella project - Okay it's not that super secret, but it is something I'm mostly keeping under my hat for now as I work on it because of reasons, and is actually (inconveniently, for 100 Days of Writing purposes) the main thing I've been working on lately. I expect to be able to say more about it later. Maybe even within the 100 days! We'll see.

southern gothic urban fantasy procedural romance - Faerie Animal Control Warden meets FBI Elf during investigation of a suspicious death out in the kudzu. A little bit of Bright, a bit Mushi-Shi, a drop of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Stuff I Want to Write

Distinct from works in progress in that I have not actually gotten past the planning stage on any of these - if that. A few of these have been rattling around in concept for long enough to have gone through several distinct evolutions without ever getting any writing done on them. Still, hope springs eternal and ideas are never wasted.

Fanfic

the rival bands AU / the rock opera playlist fic (Sailor Moon - Makoto Kino/Nephrite). Currently exists entirely as an incomplete playlist.

space opera Pride and Prejudice retelling - exactly what it sounds like on the tin. Do y'all know I have yet to encounter a futuristic/space AU? Surely there's one out there somewhere, but I have yet to see it. If you know of one, for the love of God don't tell me.

"Ten of Swords" - (Archer EMIYA/Minako Arisato). fate/stay night + Persona 3 Portable crossover what's even wrong with my brain.

Original

the Regency fae story - a Regency-era fantasy in which a lot of the needlessly complicated and restrictive social rules followed by the upper classes are actually an attempt at defending against the Fair Folk. Sort of Pride and Prejudice vs Changeling: the Lost vs Labyrinth. Could turn into a whole Pride and Prejudice retelling, I guess?

drinking games - fantasy imperial court intrigues involving a romance between a court poison taster and a master spy/assassin.

untitled - East/southeast Asian-inspired Beauty and the Beast retelling in which the Beast is a mountain god whose appearance is based on a tiger. I'm probably too white to write this.

untitled - Private investigator hired to investigate local bad-boy-made-good for insurance fraud, turns out it was actually an ill-advised teenage deal with the devil coming due. Might fit in with that other southern gothic urban fantasy idea, I am not sure.

the ciphered letter - This one started off as a combination of a Mage: the Awakening campaign and a really, really weird spam email I got one time. Orphan gets mysterious ciphered letter, meets snarky Welsh mage, awakens to magic and maybe almost gets made a human sacrifice to an eldritch abomination.

Forfeit - Regency/Victorian-esque fantasy involving reincarnation, a race of immortals, and a half-immortal teaming up with a mortal who sacrificed his future reincarnations for pseudo-immortality to uncover and stop the sinister secrets that power a colonizing empire. It makes more sense in my head... probably?

untitled - Slow burn enemies to lovers between the world-conquering emperor and the rebel leader who's opposing him, over the course of a time loop. AKA Lord of Heroes Kartis/Monarch with the serials filed off. Or I guess I could just write Lord of Heroes fanfic?

low fantasy Magnificent Seven Samurai - Farming village scrapes together a group of starving mercs to protect them from marauders, drama ensues. That's it, that's the whole idea.

Unfinished Fics

Distinct from works in progress in that these are all old enough I can no longer claim I intend to finish them. Some of them I may come back to, especially the few that had substantial progress made before they fell by the wayside. Most will probably be left abandoned, either because I have lost interest in continuing to work on them or I have just plain forgotten what I was planning to do with them.

dreameater - A very old, loosely Forgotten Realms-inspired concept involving an aging half-elf, his fully elven partner, and a mysterious magical threat that's devouring people's dreams.

"Fortune Favors the Brave" (Baccano! - Luck Gandor/Eve Genoard). The Luck/Eve shipping fic.

"Intermezzo" (Blood+ City of Nightwalkers). Follow-up fic to an obscure manga prequel/side story for the vampire anime Blood+, involving Hagi and the Hong Kong cop who semi-adopted him that one time.

"The Art of Losing Everything" (Dragon Age: Origins - Alistair Theirin/f!Cousland). An Alistair/f!Warden fic with themes of loss, duty, and sacrifice.

"In Pieces" (Dragon Age II - Fenris/f!Hawke). A terrible horrible no good very bad AU where Hawke actually turned Fenris over to Danarius and then came back to try to fix her mistake, which I can never finish because I can't make that initial decision make internal sense no matter how hard I try.

"Pas de Deux" (Final Fantasy VIII - Squall Leonhart/Rinoa Heartilly). Exploration of how Squall and Rinoa's relationship could develop after the events of the game.

"With Good Intentions" (Final Fantasy VIII - Squall Leonhart/Rinoa Heartilly). An AU in which Rinoa discovers that technically you can change the past, it's just that if Squall has an actual decent childhood the world ends. Way too ambitious for me to ever actually finish, probably, but I can't quite give up on the idea.

"I've Loved These Days" (Gundam SEED - Mu la Flaga/Murrue Ramius). One of several partly-written Gundam SEED fics kicking around in my files.

"The Last Night of the World" (Gundam SEED - Mu la Flaga/Murrue Ramius). Another Gundam SEED fic, one that began as a prompt in ye olde LiveJournal days. "I've Loved These Days" might have been a prototype, though they don't appear to have any text in common. Could in theory still get finished, maybe.

Valentine's ghosts (Gundam SEED Destiny - Andrew Waltfeld/Murrue Ramius). I'm just saying, Andy/Murrue would have been so much more interesting than the whole Neo thing in Destiny.

"Lion Passant" (Kingdom Hearts). Something something Leon as a failed Keyblade Bearer. The Kingdom Hearts franchise has rewritten its own lore at least three times since I originally had the idea, I can't imagine I'll ever continue it now.

"Vigil" (KotOR - Carth Onasi/f!Revan). Carth/Revan retrospective somewhere around the tomb of Naga Sadow on Korriban.

"Semper Fidelis" (KotOR/KotOR II - Carth Onasi/f!Revan). Post-Sith Lords Carth/Revan resolution fic.

"Clarity" (KotOR II). Atton Rand backstory study from the POV of that one nameless Jedi.

"A Simple Game of Cards" (KotOR II - Atton Rand/Jedi Exile). Spoilers: it is never a simple game of cards. Turns out someone already did it with more or less the same twist I had in mind.

the besieged base fic (Mass Effect - f!Shepard/Kaidan Alenko). A fic rendition of the "Besieged Base" mission from the first Mass Effect.

"Get Up, Jonah" (Mass Effect). I woke up thinking about Turkish drummers. Didn't take long; I don't know much about Turkish drummers. Virmire, before the other shoe drops.

"Long Night" (Mass Effect). Ashley on Virmire.

"My Heart Dances" (Mass Effect - f!Shepard/Kaidan Alenko). Liara POV of Shepard/Kaidan.

"No Way Out" (Mass Effect - f!Shepard/Kaidan Alenko). Heading up the Citadel during the ME1 endgame.

"Right Here, Right Now" (Mass Effect - f!Shepard/Kaidan Alenko). An ME1 epilogue / pre-ME2 sort of fic.

"While the Night is Still Young" (Mass Effect - f!Shepard/Kaidan Alenko). Shepard/Kaidan en route to Ilos.

Apparently I had approximately a million little Mass Effect shortfic ideas I never finished and in some cases never started. Apparently they're all for the first game. (I think there was a Thane idea or two for ME2 that I just never started on at all. RIP.)

"To Absent Friends" (Tiger and Bunny). Sad, sad futurefic of an elderly Pao-Lin reflecting on the deaths of all the other heroes over the years.