I know we've all got at least one of these - an idea that hovers constantly at the edges of your mind, taunting you with this piece or that piece, but never stepping forward long enough or far enough to latch on to it and put it down on paper or electrons.
So, since I'm bored, I thought it might be interesting to talk to people about them.
First up is the senior plot bunny, a Rurouni Kenshin thing which I know that I've mentioned here before. The setup/AU change is that Kaoru's father was not, in fact, an Imperialist - instead, he was a member of the third squad of the Shinsengumi.
So, times being what they were during the Bakufu, he looked around at all the men he trusted, and then asked the most dangerous one of the lot - who would be most capable of protecting his daughter - if he'd be willing to step in in place of her recently deceased godfather.
His captain grumped about it a bit, then accepted.
Now fast forward eleven years, to when an assassin doing penance and a murderer stalking the streets of Tokyo are about to learn what happens when you combine the idealism of the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu with the pure ruthlessness of a sora aoi wolf.
This one was spawned by the incongruous image of our friendly Tanuki-chan standing ready to deal out a Gatotsu, and by wondering how such a thing might come to be. The really fun thing about it, though, I think, is that for all the 'Aku Soku Zan' stuff, Kaoru really hasn't changed much. After all, as she reasons, true evil, the stuff that really needs killing for the sake of all around it, is actually pretty rare. The rest of the time, what you need to do is understand their motivation - then remove it.
Once the initial few chapters are past, though, I don't really have many ideas for this beyond the intention of presenting Kaoru as one of the Kenshin-gumi's front-line fighters, rather than the support role she was shuffled off into in canon.
The middle child is an Escaflowne piece, which started off as the idea of writing an Escaflowne/Jovian Chronicles crossover. Because I was amused by the idea of comparing a Deliverer to Gaea's melefs.
This one had gone dormant for a long time, though, and now that it's come back to life I've pretty much figured out a way to ditch the JC connection, which is really all to the good in plot terms.
The current incarnation is a 'next generation fic', set maybe ten years from now, where Hitomi and Van's daughter (conceived the night before the end of the series) follows in her mother's footsteps to the Earth's mysterious larger moon. She's out of the 'active tomboy' mold, successful on Earth but frustrated at how easy everything is - a hero looking for a cause, really, sort of like a cross between a (mostly) angst-free version of her father and Utena Tenjou.
So, she gets to Gaea, having grown up on her late mother's stories of the place, and finds out that, far from a paradise, it's really gone back to business as usual - politics, greed, war, etc.
Now, an interesting and important detail is that after they seperated, both Van and Hitomi remained faithful to each other - not because they were too obsessed with pining to move on, but because being in touch with each other mentally was enough to satisfy their interest in the matter. So 'Utena' is an only child.
This is important because it means that, as far as Fanelia's concerned, Van's heir is his eldest cousin. Who, while not terribly strong-willed, is a nice enough woman. Her husband, though, not so much on either count.
A most ambitious man, in fact. Which, when mixed with a resurgence of Zaibach nationalism and Basram's increasing willingness to use gunboat 'diplomacy' in search of better and better trade concessions, makes for... tense times.
His elder son, the heir to the throne, happens to be a fellow with his father's will and his mother's morals, and most assuredly does not approve of his plans. So, being the thoughtful sort, with one exception, he does some research and discovers something he can use to prevent a disaster - once performed by a legitimate member of the line of succession, the Rite of Dragon-slaying trumps the strict order of inheritance.
Since that single exception I mentioned is swordplay, he sets out to put this into practice. Cue 'Utena's' arrival, then desperate combat with not one or two, but an entire nest of dragons.
Past that... beyond noting that Zaibach's technology has spread across most of Gaea, and that Fanelia's share of the new revolution is the mining of metals and energists (which gives it the raw elements for a powerful, if not terribly numerous, military - Fanelia isn't small, but it's mostly mountain, and very sparsely settled), there's... not much. 'Utena' on the throne, likely, and possibly an arc plot having to do with Terran technology finally getting to the point where it can find Gaea and repercussions thereof...
The final and newest of my three primary nemeses is a Full Metal Panic bit, inspired by Tessa and Kaname's conversation about resonance and its repercussions, late in the first series.
See, one of the FMP world's ubiquitous shadowy terrorist organizations has put together a theory that, since so much of the data posessed by any single Whispered is incomplete, they can get big dividends by combining two such assets.
Then the baddies find out that there are going to be two Whispered in the same, relatively insecure place - Theresa Testarossa and Kaname Chidori. Who they promptly kidnap (successfully, due to Wraith's tripping up Sousuke at a critical moment just before things kick off), blowing the whole 'secrecy' thing with many of Kaname's classmates in the bargain.
Then there's a vague actionish sequence where Sosuke and the rest of Urzu are trying to rescue the girls before the baddies can carry out their plan and wipe their minds in the bargain.
So they plow through all opposition, capture some and kill the rest, and eventually Kaname and Tessa wake up in the de Danaan's sickbay.
Only, it turns out Urzu was too late - the 'merge' is complete and permanent. But, rather than wiping each other out, K&T were able to work together and create a gestalt - a new, third person with both of their memories. And two bodies.
Then two intertwined arcs, one of 'Tename' trying to deal with her lives and settle in with her 'parents' friends, complicated somewhat by the fact that she combines Tessa's sense of humor with Kaname's boldness (example question: "Hey, Kyoko, what do you think? If I use both bodies, does it still count as masturbation?"), and another of how leaks from the kidnapping are slowly snowballing and breaking the entire Whispered/Black Technology thing out into the open...
Which leads up to a major action arc as... *waves vaguely* some real army, somewhere, kicks off a major headhunt in response to the new information, and MITHRIL has to stop them before things get out of hand, etc, etc.
Followed by an emotional climax built around 'Tename' having to face up to Tessa and Kaname's parents, and finally resolve the whole unsettled situation she has with Sousuke.
*sigh*
So annoying.
Ja, -n
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
So, since I'm bored, I thought it might be interesting to talk to people about them.
First up is the senior plot bunny, a Rurouni Kenshin thing which I know that I've mentioned here before. The setup/AU change is that Kaoru's father was not, in fact, an Imperialist - instead, he was a member of the third squad of the Shinsengumi.
So, times being what they were during the Bakufu, he looked around at all the men he trusted, and then asked the most dangerous one of the lot - who would be most capable of protecting his daughter - if he'd be willing to step in in place of her recently deceased godfather.
His captain grumped about it a bit, then accepted.
Now fast forward eleven years, to when an assassin doing penance and a murderer stalking the streets of Tokyo are about to learn what happens when you combine the idealism of the Kamiya Kasshin Ryu with the pure ruthlessness of a sora aoi wolf.
This one was spawned by the incongruous image of our friendly Tanuki-chan standing ready to deal out a Gatotsu, and by wondering how such a thing might come to be. The really fun thing about it, though, I think, is that for all the 'Aku Soku Zan' stuff, Kaoru really hasn't changed much. After all, as she reasons, true evil, the stuff that really needs killing for the sake of all around it, is actually pretty rare. The rest of the time, what you need to do is understand their motivation - then remove it.
Once the initial few chapters are past, though, I don't really have many ideas for this beyond the intention of presenting Kaoru as one of the Kenshin-gumi's front-line fighters, rather than the support role she was shuffled off into in canon.
The middle child is an Escaflowne piece, which started off as the idea of writing an Escaflowne/Jovian Chronicles crossover. Because I was amused by the idea of comparing a Deliverer to Gaea's melefs.
This one had gone dormant for a long time, though, and now that it's come back to life I've pretty much figured out a way to ditch the JC connection, which is really all to the good in plot terms.
The current incarnation is a 'next generation fic', set maybe ten years from now, where Hitomi and Van's daughter (conceived the night before the end of the series) follows in her mother's footsteps to the Earth's mysterious larger moon. She's out of the 'active tomboy' mold, successful on Earth but frustrated at how easy everything is - a hero looking for a cause, really, sort of like a cross between a (mostly) angst-free version of her father and Utena Tenjou.
So, she gets to Gaea, having grown up on her late mother's stories of the place, and finds out that, far from a paradise, it's really gone back to business as usual - politics, greed, war, etc.
Now, an interesting and important detail is that after they seperated, both Van and Hitomi remained faithful to each other - not because they were too obsessed with pining to move on, but because being in touch with each other mentally was enough to satisfy their interest in the matter. So 'Utena' is an only child.
This is important because it means that, as far as Fanelia's concerned, Van's heir is his eldest cousin. Who, while not terribly strong-willed, is a nice enough woman. Her husband, though, not so much on either count.
A most ambitious man, in fact. Which, when mixed with a resurgence of Zaibach nationalism and Basram's increasing willingness to use gunboat 'diplomacy' in search of better and better trade concessions, makes for... tense times.
His elder son, the heir to the throne, happens to be a fellow with his father's will and his mother's morals, and most assuredly does not approve of his plans. So, being the thoughtful sort, with one exception, he does some research and discovers something he can use to prevent a disaster - once performed by a legitimate member of the line of succession, the Rite of Dragon-slaying trumps the strict order of inheritance.
Since that single exception I mentioned is swordplay, he sets out to put this into practice. Cue 'Utena's' arrival, then desperate combat with not one or two, but an entire nest of dragons.
Past that... beyond noting that Zaibach's technology has spread across most of Gaea, and that Fanelia's share of the new revolution is the mining of metals and energists (which gives it the raw elements for a powerful, if not terribly numerous, military - Fanelia isn't small, but it's mostly mountain, and very sparsely settled), there's... not much. 'Utena' on the throne, likely, and possibly an arc plot having to do with Terran technology finally getting to the point where it can find Gaea and repercussions thereof...
The final and newest of my three primary nemeses is a Full Metal Panic bit, inspired by Tessa and Kaname's conversation about resonance and its repercussions, late in the first series.
See, one of the FMP world's ubiquitous shadowy terrorist organizations has put together a theory that, since so much of the data posessed by any single Whispered is incomplete, they can get big dividends by combining two such assets.
Then the baddies find out that there are going to be two Whispered in the same, relatively insecure place - Theresa Testarossa and Kaname Chidori. Who they promptly kidnap (successfully, due to Wraith's tripping up Sousuke at a critical moment just before things kick off), blowing the whole 'secrecy' thing with many of Kaname's classmates in the bargain.
Then there's a vague actionish sequence where Sosuke and the rest of Urzu are trying to rescue the girls before the baddies can carry out their plan and wipe their minds in the bargain.
So they plow through all opposition, capture some and kill the rest, and eventually Kaname and Tessa wake up in the de Danaan's sickbay.
Only, it turns out Urzu was too late - the 'merge' is complete and permanent. But, rather than wiping each other out, K&T were able to work together and create a gestalt - a new, third person with both of their memories. And two bodies.
Then two intertwined arcs, one of 'Tename' trying to deal with her lives and settle in with her 'parents' friends, complicated somewhat by the fact that she combines Tessa's sense of humor with Kaname's boldness (example question: "Hey, Kyoko, what do you think? If I use both bodies, does it still count as masturbation?"), and another of how leaks from the kidnapping are slowly snowballing and breaking the entire Whispered/Black Technology thing out into the open...
Which leads up to a major action arc as... *waves vaguely* some real army, somewhere, kicks off a major headhunt in response to the new information, and MITHRIL has to stop them before things get out of hand, etc, etc.
Followed by an emotional climax built around 'Tename' having to face up to Tessa and Kaname's parents, and finally resolve the whole unsettled situation she has with Sousuke.
*sigh*
So annoying.
Ja, -n
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."