the wrong end of the telescope

Because my WIPs are either full of brooding mutants or dramatic musicians.

Stolen from torakowalski. ♥

Below are some fandom cliches taken from the tropes meme that went around a while ago. Pick one and give me a pairing (and some details if you want) and we'll see what I can come up with.

Preferred fandoms are: X-Men: First Class, Bandom (you lot know what I write), BTVS, DCU and Veronica Mars but I'm open to others as well. AU and genderfuck prompts are always more than welcome.

Each trope can only be picked once; pairings and fandoms can be re-used.

1. genderswap
2. bodyswap
3. drunk!fic
4. huddling for warmth
5. pretending to be married
6. secretly a virgin
7. amnesia
8. cross-dressing
9. forced to share a bed
10. truth or dare
11. historical AU
12. accidental-baby-acquisition
13. apocalypse fic
14. telepathy
15. High School / College AU

ETA: 3 left! Genderswap, historical AU, and HS/college AU.

Title: Try Imagining A Place
Author: harborshore
Recipient: marginalia
Fandom: Buffyverse
Pairing: Tara/Dawn preslash
Rating: PG-13 (barely)
Word count: 1400
Disclaimer: I am not Joss Whedon, I promise. I intend no copyright infringement, merely an exploration of alternate possibilities.
Warnings: References to Tara's canonical shooting, a magical coma, and hospitals.
Summary: AU. Tara doesn't die, but as it turns out, surviving a gunshot is the easy part.
A/N: Thanks so much to torakowalski and anoneknewmoose for looking over this for me; you are both amazing. The title is from Bob Dylan's "Shelter from the Storm." Written for femslash10.


( Try Imagining A Place )

Three things!

1. I got my ass kicked by my supervisor today, in all the best of ways. It was two hours of completely tearing apart a section in my thesis, and in the process of doing so, she showed me what was wrong with the analysis and how to take a position as a researcher. Which she thinks I should do, because my thesis is "worthwhile" and "fits in the field" and "eventually publishable." I LOVE HER YOU GUYS. Remember the woman from last year? NIGHT AND DAY.

2. I'm rewatching Buffy. Who here loves that show? Is it not the best? I'm in the middle of season 2, and I just, ugh. Giles! Willow! Joyce! Cordelia--I LOVE HER AND HER BITCHY SELF SO! OZ! The vamps--here is where I liked Spike the most, when he was with his crazy lady, and I do like Angel here too. Even Xander has his moments--he's a spot-on teenage boy a lot, so sometimes I want to throttle him, but sometimes he is wonderful. Buffy herself, oh man, I love that girl so fucking much. She's a teenager and she's brave and she hurts and she puts herself back together again and--I just love her, I really really do. *fails at coherency* Come talk to me! Favorite quotes! Moments! Whatever. ♥

3. I signed up for h/c bingo, I'm sure you're all astonished. Because, right, try and think of a single story I've posted that has none, okay? Can you? Comment ficlets don't count. Yeah, I know.

Anyway! I would love ideas! I might rework them into something that is a shade of a remnant of a sliver of the original idea, but still. *beams encouragingly* I will write: The Like, Bob, Brian, Mikeyway, assorted members of FOB and Ashlee Simpson, PATD, TYV, BTVS (especially right now), Veronica Mars, the Bats...

( here is my card! )

*peers out from under her thesis-shaped rock* So I hear there's a volcano? In Iceland? Doing things? This is nuts, you guys. It doesn't seem like anyone has died, and I hope I haven't gotten that wrong. All planes are canceled in Stockholm and the air space is closed, because apparently it's incredibly dangerous to fly through volcanic ash. Here's hoping it stops soon, because danger and chaos and the ashes being potentially lethal for people who are seriously ill and they're coming right at us, guys, they're already over Sweden. CRAZY. Also, I'm supposed to leave for the US in a month and I want to see my little sister graduate. It's an extremely minor concern in the grand scheme of things, but I love my sister a lot and I want to be there. And compared to the Haiti earthquake and the Chile one, this is decidedly minor. Obviously. Still, a little nuts.

So. I would like to offer ficlets, because I want to think about other things. I'm going to do the first five prompts I like, which may or may not be the first five that appear, because what I can write right now is a little limited.

Theme: post- or pre-apocalyptic scenarios WITH HOPE. Interpret that as you will. Pairings or gen are fine. Bands/fandoms I can write: Mikey, FOB, Bob and Brian (they're a subset of fandom, right?), The Like, Panic/The Young Veins (even if my Jon voice is nonexistent), MSI, others possibly. I can also do Veronica Mars, DCU or BTVS, though the last two feel like cheating since it's not like they've never done the apocalypse thing before.

Prompt away!

ETA: I am done! Five, er, seven ficlets.

I'm done! At last, at last. I kind of had a little too much fun with these, let's just put it that way, and therefore they are All Over The Place. We have superheroes, a weird sort of fairy tale, a ball (complete with stupid shoes), steampunk, a crossover with ATS, Bunny!pov (yup, I wrote a story in the pov of Mikey's cat, feel free to laugh) and a lot of other strange little universes. No warnings, I don't think, apart from very vaguely implied off-screen violence in the girl!Gee/Amanda ficlet and past original character death in the Bob/Gerard/Lyn-Z one. Oh, and Alicia is dead in the one where she is a ghost. Obviously.

Also, in terms of pairings, we have, in no particular order: girl!Gerard/Amanda, Lyn-Z/Alicia, Lyn-Z/Alicia/Jamia, Alicia/Mikey/Pete, girl!Bob/Gerard, Cash/Ian, Kitty/Lyn-Z, Bob/Gerard/Lyn-Z, and Frank/Mikey/Pete.



Title: Kick Your Shoes Off
Pairing: Lyn-Z/Alicia
Word Count: 1242
Summary: Lyn-Z hates balls. And dresses. And the shoes she's wearing. Luckily, she meets someone who can distract her.

Notes: For airgiodslv. Prompt: costume party or masquerade ball and LESBIAN GHOST PORN.


(  Lyn-Z worries at her sleeve again. )


Title: Got To Get To Her Somehow
Pairing: Alicia/Lyn-Z/Jamia
Word Count: 381
Summary: AU. A member of their team is kidnapped, so Jamia and Alicia are putting together a rescue effort.

Notes: For fleurdeliser. The prompt was trick or treat, so of course I wrote about superheroes.


( Alicia hates Halloween. )


Title: Takes One To Know One
Pairing: Alicia/Mikey/Pete
Word Count: 376
Summary: Alicia dares Mikey to dress up for Halloween.

Notes: For iamsupernova. The prompt was Alicia dares Mikey to dress up with her and go to some club on Halloween and they see Pete there and HOT DANCEFLOOR SEDUCTION HAPPENS.


( Mikey isn't sure about this wearing a dress thing. )


Title: Ghosts In The Machinery
Pairing: Gerard/Lindsey, implied eventual Bob/Gerard/Lindsey
Word Count: 853
Summary: AU. Gerard and Lindsey bought a boat to live on and do their art, but they keep finding odd things.

Notes: For mahoni. The prompt was Bob/Gerard/Lindsey, in which there are GHOSTS of some sort.

Disclaimer: I know nothing about boats bigger than a three-person sailing boat.


( Gerard snaps awake and hits his head on the bunk. )


Title: Some Day I'll Make It Mine
Pairing: girl!Gerard/Amanda
Word Count: 681
Summary: Gee can't find her brother, and the forest is too fucking deep.

Notes: For softlyforgotten. The prompt was this video, which is Heads Will Roll by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.


( It's been three days since Gee last saw Mikey. )


Title: The Wind Began To Howl
Pairing: Cash/Ian
Word Count: 440
Summary: Cash has a new bass. It's haunted.

Notes: For colouredmango. The prompt was Shingai Shoniwa!!!! Haunts some one!! Anyone!!! Bonus points if it is Cash/Ian. Shingai Shoniwa is the super-talented and seriously hot lead singer/bassist in The Noisettes, which, if you haven't listened to them yet, what are you doing?


( Poke. Poke. Poke. )


Title: Take Me Disappearing
Pairing: Gerard/Oz
Word Count: 366
Summary: I'm just going to use the prompt: Gerard fills in as lead singer for "Dingoes Ate My Baby" (Devon injured himself in a bizarre apple-bobbing incident?) at a Halloween night gig at The Bronze.

Notes: For morebliss.


( Gerard's nervous. No, scratch that, Gerard is really fucking nervous. )


Title: The Loneseome Organ Grinder Cries
Pairing: Lyn-Z/Kitty
Word Count: 460
Summary: Lyn-Z isn't sure about this.

Notes: For yan_tan_tether. Prompt: Lyn-Z and Kitty on a ghost train! The other installment in this verse is over here


( Investigating a ghost train may not have been the brightest of ideas. )


Title: His Pointy Shoes And His Tail
Pairing: Implied Frank/Mikey/Pete
Word Count: 607
Summary: Bunny wants revenge.

Notes: For turps33. Prompt: buying costumes for all the pets, because they so would! Um, this turned out quite differently from what I intended.


( Bunny scratches irritably at her left ear. )


Title: Look Out Tonight
Pairing: girl!Bob/Gerard
Word Count: 592
Summary: Bob is really over this tall dark and brooding thing. If he wanted to be impressive, he shouldn't have named himself Angel. Also, Gerard is being a pain.

Notes: For turloughishere. Prompt: getting attacked by demons in LA somehow leads to getting involved with Angel and his gang.


(  Bob stares at Gerard mulishly, pointedly not taking the towel he's holding out. )

And I'm almost done with my technical translation, even though there were a lot of prompts and a lot of difficult technical terms. I also finished my website editing, realized I have half of the project plan due in two weeks written already and the rest outlined, wrote an abstract draft and did a teeny-tiny translation. Those were some productive four days.

I also managed to make time go to dinner with a friend yesterday, where I got embarrassingly tipsy on one glass of wine (these days, I am what they call a Cheap Date), but the funniest part came before the eating/drinking: we got carded. In Sweden. Where you can drink alcohol at 18. *dies laughing*

But the commentfics! There are a lot of stories about soup, a few about leaves, one about tea, one about a blanket fort, one about a lobster, and one about a tough day at work. I wrote, in order:

Gerard and Mikey gen for giddy_london. Mikey wakes Gerard up before noon. Gerard is not happy.

Bandom/BTVS, Bob/Willow for crowgirl13. The Hellmouth is a lousy place to live but sometimes it works out okay.

Bandom/Criminal Minds, Alicia/Mikey/Reid for iamsupernova and absenteye. Mikey meets someone at Starbucks and takes him home.

Bandom/Veronica Mars, Veronica and Gerard gen for strange_bt_true. Veronica receives some unexpected help.

Bandom/BTVS, Brian/Gerard for brilligspoons. Gerard thinks the Slayer is awesome and Brian is jealous.

Bob/Frank, Halloween for anoneknewmoose. Frank has decided that Bob and him are going as Dr Frankenstein and Frankenstein's monster for Halloween. Bob is not a fan of this plan.

Bandom/DCU, Bob/Bruce Wayne for mahoni. Bruce is roasting pumpkins and Bob is amused. This one has a whole backstory of Batman rescuing Bob from things and Bob figuring out his identity, etc etc.

Bandom/Veronica Mars, Lyn-Z/Mac for antihysteric. Mac is nervous and Lyn-Z builds a blanket fort. This one might be my new favorite pairing.

Bob/Patrick, raking leaves for morebliss. Bob and Patrick get conned into dealing with the leaves in Patrick's parents' yard and I almost write porn.

Amanda Palmer and Gerard gen for enhendi. Set in my big bang verse where they're all revolutionaries, and sometimes Gerard can't sleep.

Cash/Ian, vegetable lasagnas for colouredmango. Wherein Ian likes to watch Cash when he cooks.

Original fic, Kit/Aria/Rick for unlurkster and softlyforgotten. On why soup can be magical, even when life is awful. Or part of a modern fairytale, if you will.

Gerard and a lobster gen for blindmouse. Gerard talks to a lobster.