Wherein I do a lot of Conversational Troping

[luciazephyr]

okay okay fine, I'm starting to finish up the megachapter of MoC. But in the meantime, I've been compiling the surprisingly numerous fills I've down for the kinkmeme over here. It's only two so far, but I'll be adding whenever I have a half hour to kill. And I finished that mute!Harry fill mentioned in my last entry if anyone's interested.


So does anyone else get stuck doing dishes and start staging TV shows in their minds? Or is that just me?

I keep wanting to do a show that's basically The Dresden Files with the serial numbers filed off. Except not really because I'd expand it and cut out some of the shit I hate about the books and there would be more gay.

It'd be set in a major city-- not Chicago, too obvious, maybe Seattle, that'd fit the tone more and it's a city I want to research like I do Chicago. If not there, then maybe Vancouver to be meta about things.

The protagonist would be an expy of the Archive-- a wizard who doesn't do much magic on his own but is charged with being an eternal scholar. He's meant to spend his entire life learning and refining magical knowledge and be a source of information for the world community of wizards. He has no innate knowledge like the Archive, but he serves the same purpose. Since the more people who know a ritual, the less it works, powerful magic doesn't get written down a lot. People like him, who I think should just be called Scholars, keep track of magic. He's allowed to use magic in his mental database as he wishes, but is never allowed to share specifics unless called on by [Insert AU!Name for the White Council Here].

I'd like him to be played by a post-SPN Misha Collins. Not just because Misha is a very enjoyable person, but I think he can carry the air I'd want, pensive, analytical, distant, but undoubtedly powerful.

And I wouldn't even make him do The Voice anymore.



Sadly, I can't think of a name for this character. I have this half-baked idea that he's Al, short for Alistair. He works for the magical mortal governing body, but in the same way a librarian works for Congress-- they sign his paychecks and give him basic regulations for doing his job, but Alistair's just as happy to be left alone to continue his research. He's practically a hermit-- not anti-social or misanthropic, but never really seeking out people's company.


Our actual private investigator would be played by Tracie Thoms, because I loved her in Rent and Death Proof and I have a tiny crush on her.



The detective I have yet to think up a name for. She's a Properly Paranoid character who is completely convinced about the existence of magic after being caught up in some kooky circumstances when she was younger. Instead of finishing her medical degree and taking over her family's practice, she dropped out, got her license, and investigates the paranormal and supernatural.

She met Alistair when she was still going to be a doctor. A patient at her family's practice turned out to be a demon that Alistair showed up to get rid of. Ever since, she's dogged him to try to make him more involved in the mortal world he resides in. If Alistair is the Superego, she is the Ego, all about balance and the mediums. She's one of the only people Al could call a "friend" though sometimes it's deliberately unclear if she's using him or genuinely likes him.


And the Id in the equation is the Kincaid-Marcone amalgamation. Mackenzie, bastard son of the Lord of the Hunt and a human, he works as a mercenary. He's introduced early on by saving Alistair's life. By doing so, he has a Scholar in his debt, which is strictly against the not-White Council's rules. But whenever Alistair tries to pay off his debt, Kenzie won't let him.

Kenzie himself is all about grey morality. He's a friendly sniper, a cheerful assassin, and has no problems doing the dirty work for being mortal and immortal alike. In his reasoning, he's just a tool used by genuinely evil people. He's a means, not a start or an end. And for him, that's fine. He has little remorse.



Kenzie makes Alistair his favorite hobby. He helps out, he flirts, he just makes a nuisance of himself. He never gives a straight answer on why he won't let Al return the favor he's owed. He's a hedonist who likes playing with the Scholar. Except maybe he has deeper motives, bum bum baaaaah.


So I have a whole show starting to form in my head. Basically a spin-off of TDF. I love Harry, but you know there's gotta be other interesting people in that 'verse. I could never write it because Butcher could likely sue my ass.

But it's fun to think about.


I have no idea why I decided to share all this. I'm never going to write it. It's just daydreaming to fill empty time doing chores and such.

Excuse me I gotta get back to MoC now.

Comments

[polarisnorth]

Mishaaaaaaa I love this idea. I would read the hell out of this, and it could very easily be an original work not set in the DF 'verse just as easily as it could be a spin off.

This reminds me of how I used to want to write epic things set in the Harry Potter 'verse that didn't mention Hogwarts once.

[luciazephyr]

IDK, maybe for NaNo this year. I wanna talk about Kenzie riding in on a white horsemotorcycle to save Alistair from the Monster of the Week. And the detective's habit of breaking into Al's house to talk to him. And Al just being 8| at humanity, Faerie, demon, and everyone else in the world.

I dunno how to write it without borrowing so many of Butcher's themes tho. Even if I wanted to take an original spin, he's covered pretty much every idea ever.

[polarisnorth]

Yeah, but a lot of the ideas that Butcher has covered are old ones, he's just done something new with them. Tropes like the White Council and the Faerie Courts and the war between sides of Faerie and so on are nothing new; it's just what he did with them that's different. I'm sure you could do the same -- the idea as you've sketched it out here already has plenty of potential to show a world where magic laws operate differently than in DF.

[luciazephyr]

That's a good point. He's kinda the BNF of Urban Fantasy. I just need to do some reading and make a system of my own. It's just sad to have to worry about the similarities.

[polarisnorth]

It's kind of like how the magical school/university genre died for a while after HP came out, though I don't think DF has that level of pull. I'm sure you can do it, though. There's plenty of stories and elements from classic fairy tales/mythology that he didn't pull for the series that you can do something with.

[luciazephyr]

I need to find a good encyclopedia of mythology to pull from. And to, yanno, finish the other big writing project I'm working on first.

Part of me is really responding to bookshop's plea for my LGBT characters. I know Alistair starts of as just completely uninteresting in sex. He pretty much asexual and a giant stoic-type. It takes Kenzie ages to get him to open up, and then it's not like he's not asexual, it's just that this one person is his big exception. I think it'd be fun to write a predominately asexual protagonist. I miiiight be projecting though. Hm. That's something to worry about later.

[sarken]

Tracie Thoms! She is fantastic.

Also: you! In your icon! Speaking of fantastic! \o/

[luciazephyr]

SHE IS SO BEAUTIFUL AND CAPTIVATING I CAN'T EVEN


Oh, erm, thanks? 8D

[samjohnsson]

Wait, that icon is you!?

Um. Wow. Not sure if the hair or the smirk is prettier!

[luciazephyr]

Awww, thank you, that's sweet. Yeah, it's me. I think it's the only pic of myself I've ever put online. I figure icon-sized shots won't hurt much.

[pineapplechild]

As the above mun said, I really think you could do this as original fiction. Butcher's got a distinct take on some really old ideas. And I would read the heck outta that.

[samjohnsson]

To be frank, depending on how hard you file the serial numbers, this could easily work as original modern fantasy. I've read a ton of modern fantasy, and often there's; a PI; a magician researcher; a global hidden council; a merc; tension between multiple lead characters. If you do go OF with this, make up a city (take your favorite bits of, say, Seattle and Chicago and mix til sexy). But honestly, off a glance at my shelves, you are, at some level, "ripping" parts of books by: Neil Gaiman, Simon R. Green, Jim Butcher, Kat Richardson, John Levitt, Rob Thurman, T.A. Pratt, Jes Battis...see where I'm going with this?

The protagonist would be an expy of the Archive-- a wizard who doesn't do much magic on his own but is charged with being an eternal scholar.

'expy'? What were you going for? And when you say 'eternal scholar', does all this magic preserve/extend his life, somehow?

Since the more people who know a ritual, the less it works, powerful magic doesn't get written down a lot.

That TDF canon?

And I'm always a fan of Boston or Montreal, but that's me. Also, I adore your casting (if for nothing else than watching Jeffrey making moves on Misha - let alone anything else - might cause me to spontaneously combust). And Tracie looks properly awesome to balance both boys. Any Tracie-Misha-Jeffrey tension? I might be concerned with Kensie's name, though - it seems closeish to both 'Mac' and 'Kincaid' (and worried about typecasting Jeffrey, too). (Cast needs more blonds, as well.)

(I feel dirty. I want you writing this more than I want another chapter of MoC.)

In sum, if you want any sort of brainstorming on this, I will be there with lightning rods!

[luciazephyr]

Oh god now I have to think about specifics! okay, hm.

Expy's another troper term, I think it's short for "exported (character/item/idea)"? And I know JB hints at it, but if I wrote this, I'd make it explicit that magical mortals are not precisely human and as such live long. Likely they're all descended from Merlin as well... As long as Al doesn't do anything reckless (and he is not the type to act recklessly), he'll live ages.

It is TDF canon, and it just makes sense. I like the idea that when the not!Council wants to depower a particular ritual or spell, the publish it so the magical masses will try it and wear the ritual out. So the genuinely powerful stuff is kept track of by the Scholars.

Montreal would be good. Or Canada in general. If Chicago is the crossroads where everything happens, I'd want to set this is a city that acts like a small town where odd stuff sometimes happens.

Tracie and Jeffrey might have tension because Jeffrey is a not-so-Ethical Slut character type who enjoys sex and Tracie may skew similarly when she's not in a serious relationship. But Tracie-Alistair, not as much. He pegs really hard as asexual until Jeffrey starts chipping away at his stand-offish shell and tries to use his debt to take Al out on a date. Then it's Al who won't fulfill the debt and it become a thing for them.

I'm totally open to using someone else for my half-human merc. He started out in my head as a really obvious Marcone expy, but now they're... not very similar. At all. But he's one of thos naturally charismatic people who looks like he can kick all sorts of ass without much effort. That's what I'm going for. (Ugh, I used to have folders full of actors and actress glamour shots so I could look through and go "okay, that's the character, but I lost it in my computer crash.)


Fuck the next chapter of MoC. You have no idea how much I'm hating it. I just. God, I hate writing big fight scenes. I'm pretty such most of it is terrible and that's what's putting me off from finishing it, even though after this chapter is finished, everything will pick up again because I'll be at a point in the story I REALLY wanna write.

[sockich]

I would so totally read this. ♥_♥

[jothra]

Wait, let me find the right icon.

There.

[luciazephyr]

Hahaha. Sam is trying to get me to write this after I finish MoC. Which might work out pretty well if I use MoC as practice in learning how to write before tackling original fic.

[vanacorien.livejournal.com]

Wow, not only would it be an absolutely epic show but the cast you've picked is so supremely awesome I just really want to see it now. I loved Tracie Thomas in Rent too, sooo awesome.