AU Writing Meme
6 Sep 2017 08:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thisbluespiritSummer's over, so is my BNA subscription, so let's try a meme!
As ever with these things, anything goes from anything I know - character(s)/pairings all fine. (Not any of the characters from last time, though: Dw - Liz Shaw, Nine & Rose, Leela, Six & Evelyn, Jamie & Zoe, River Song & Romana II, The Master; Other - Justin Alastair, Harry Pearce/Ruth Evershed, Adam & Georgie, Miss Annersley & Miss Wilson, Roderick Alleyn.)
Give me a character/pairing and I will write snippets of ten different alternate universes for it. One line, ten lines, a ficlet if you're lucky.
Wild West
Coffee Shop
Shapeshifters
Fantasy/Fairy Tale
. . . In SPACE!!
Apocalypse
Schoolfic
Police/Firefighters/Medical*
Supernatural
Regency
(I tried to mix it up with some slightly different AUs from last time. Whether or not I will regret this soon, only time will tell, but I was getting rather fed up with Born Another Gender last time round.)
* Why should only one of the emergency services be left out?
As ever with these things, anything goes from anything I know - character(s)/pairings all fine. (Not any of the characters from last time, though: Dw - Liz Shaw, Nine & Rose, Leela, Six & Evelyn, Jamie & Zoe, River Song & Romana II, The Master; Other - Justin Alastair, Harry Pearce/Ruth Evershed, Adam & Georgie, Miss Annersley & Miss Wilson, Roderick Alleyn.)
Give me a character/pairing and I will write snippets of ten different alternate universes for it. One line, ten lines, a ficlet if you're lucky.
Wild West
Coffee Shop
Shapeshifters
Fantasy/Fairy Tale
. . . In SPACE!!
Apocalypse
Schoolfic
Police/Firefighters/Medical*
Supernatural
Regency
(I tried to mix it up with some slightly different AUs from last time. Whether or not I will regret this soon, only time will tell, but I was getting rather fed up with Born Another Gender last time round.)
* Why should only one of the emergency services be left out?
no subject
Date: 6 Sep 2017 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 8 Sep 2017 10:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:10 AUs for Liv Chenka
Date: 5 Oct 2017 07:35 pm (UTC)“They’re not shooting again, are they?” said Nurse O’Sullivan, helping the surgeon with the operation.
In answer, a bullet smashed the window and thudded into the wooden wall in the space between them.
“I think we can take that as a yes,” said Surgeon Chenka. “Still, nothing we can do about it, let’s just try and get this patient through the amputation alive. Not that he deserves it…”
Coffee Shop
The small guy with the Scottish accent kept looking at Liv. She mostly glared back, since encouraging customers rarely went well. Eventually, to her dismay, he came over to speak to her.
“Have you ever looked closely at the cappuccino machine?” he asked, in a dark whisper, after a shifty glance about him.
Liv found herself inevitably looking at the cappuccino machine. She could have sworn it was looking right back. “Uh, now that you mention it –”
“Splendid,” he said, doffing his hat. “I’m the Doctor – I’m here to fix it. In a manner of speaking.”
Shapeshifters
“Well, I think it’s fun,” said the Doctor, who was still engaged in investigating his own tail.
“It’s interesting,” said Molly. “That I’ll grant you, but not in the good way, not in my book!”
Liv, even in this form, was contriving to glare. “Doctor, we’re rats. In a lab. In cages. How do you not see the problem here?”
Fantasy/Fairy Tale
“When you’ve had the final battle and conquered the Dark Lord,” said Liv, “I thought that was supposed to be it. Then you could go home in peace, or start clearing up the mess. That was what the prophecy said, wasn’t it?”
The magician shrugged. “Prophecies, prophecies – so unreliable!”
“Instead,” Liv said, “we just get another one to defeat.”
“Ah,” said the magician. “That, I fear, is life.”
. . . In SPACE!!
Liv waited out in the lobby following her job interview. She had a feeling she probably shouldn’t have been rude to Chairholder Uvanov. Well, actually, more than a feeling since she could hear him still shouting about it through the dividing wall.
“Chenka,” said Uvanov, unexpectedly emerging from the other room. “Congratulations, you’ve got the job as Company MedTech.”
She blinked. “I have? I mean, thank you!”
“Well, you may be insolent, your CV has more holes in it than Cotton’s brain, but you’re the only one of the candidates who doesn’t want to kill me and isn’t a robot. You can start first thing tomorrow.”
Apocalypse
“And this is my planet?” said Liv, looking around at the barren world, the black desert, and volcanic mountains. “It’s certainly gone downhill, and I can’t say it was all that impressive to start with. What the hell happened?”
The Doctor paused for a moment and then opened his mouth to launch into one of his usual long explanations and then paused again, and said, “Well, actually, that’s something of a mystery. I think someone let a rather nasty genie out of a bottle.”
“And you put it back, did you?”
He gave her a sheepish smile. “Somebody had to.”
Schoolfic
Liv glanced surreptitiously at her fellow sufferers in detention: Helen Sinclair, and Molly O’Sullivan. A further stretch enabled her to see Helen’s lines: I will not correct the teacher, they read, one hundred times. Molly was in front, and sneaking a peak at her writing was even easier: I will be quiet in class. I will not pull hair. I will not call people names.
Liv sighed and concentrated on writing I will be respectful to my form mistress at all times.
And to think she’d thought boarding school might be fun.
Police/Firefighters/Medical
Dr Chenka shut her locker, only to find Dr Smith at her side. She jumped violently. “Did you want something or are you just trying to kill me?”
“The reverse,” said Dr Smith. He held up the small bottle of tablets. “You let these fall out earlier. When were you going to tell me?”
Liv shrugged. “Not much point, is there? Give them back.”
Dr Smith handed them over. “Well, actually, you know that I’ve been involved with some pioneering new research…”
Supernatural
Dr Smith smoothed out the morning paper over the breakfast table. “I see there’s been another of those mysterious deaths in Wimbledon. Are you sure I can’t enlist you to my investigations, Miss Chenka?”
“Look, if you want to stand around in graveyards all night, that’s your funeral,” she said, eating her toast and carrying on skimming through the newly arrived medical journal. “It’s just that in my experience, where there’s a mysteriously dead body, there’s usually some bloke with a knife or a bottle of arsenic somewhere close by.”
“The unfortunate victim,” he read aloud, giving her a pointed glance, “hovered three feet above the air, before dropping to the ground where she expired, gasping out a warning about the ‘Malevolent White Hand.’”
“Yes? And your point is?”
Regency
“You want to help?” said Victor Frankenstein, after a long pause. “Are you sure?”
Liv nodded. Perhaps it wasn’t very ladylike, but when had she ever achieved that in any case? “Anything that allows me to practice science, doctor!”
“Because,” said Dr Frankenstein, still wary, “it’s usually about now that people start running away. They often come back with a mob.”
“Just me,” Liv said. “I brought my own scalpel.”
Re: 10 AUs for Liv Chenka
From:Re: 10 AUs for Liv Chenka
From:no subject
Date: 6 Sep 2017 08:20 pm (UTC)10x Donna AUs
Date: 24 Oct 2017 08:42 pm (UTC)“That was quite the gun fight, wasn’t it?” said Donna’s neighbour, Doc Smith.
Donna looked blank. “What?”
“The gunfight in the middle of Main Street. You know – yesterday. Got a bit out of hand. Sixteen dead and would have been more if – well, I don’t like to boast, but –”
“I wouldn’t know. I was busy collecting wood.”
“And the bank robbery on Monday?”
“Monday? You know that’s laundry day.”
“Yeah. Silly me. Don’t suppose you noticed when they blew up the jail last week, either?”
“Must have been before I got back from visiting Granddad in the next town.”
Coffee Shop
“Now look what you’ve done!”
The coffee shop was a mess: tables upended, coffee and tea spilt across its olde world floorboards and biscuit crumbs everywhere.
“Yeah,” said the skinny, irritating repair guy, drawing out the word. “Sorry. Really. I’m so sorry.”
Donna handed him a mop. “You better be, matey. Get cleaning!”
“But on the other hand, I couldn’t let anyone drink the coffee, could I?”
“Yeah,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “That’s the other thing: what the hell did you do to the coffee machine in the first place? You on a mission to poison everyone or what?”
The repair guy paused for a long moment. “Or what,” he said, eventually.
Shapeshifters
“Donna,” said the Doctor. “I can take you anywhere in time and space. The whole universe at your command! And yet you prefer to disguise yourself as a soap dispenser in the ladies loo of a TV studio?”
“Hey, I’m getting some quality gossip here,” said the soap dispenser. “Don’t knock it. I could make a mint when you get me home again.”
Fantasy/Fairy Tale
“You know, spells like this are supposed to be broken with a kiss.”
Donna glared. “I told you, Mr Pixie-whatever-it-is-you-are, no funny business! Besides,” she added “slapping you seemed to work just fine. And you can’t say you didn’t deserve it.”
. . . In SPACE!!
“Captain,” said the Second Technician. “We’ve double-checked all the systems. None of us can identify the cause of this malfunction. We may be trapped in this nebula.”
There was a loud coughing from behind them.
The Captain raised an eyebrow. “Who is that and what does she want?”
“She’s Filing Clerk Moa’s temporary replacement. Yes, what is it?”
Donna Noble walked over. “Look, I know I’m not an expert, but that Flight Officer said he was securing the ship before he collapsed. Call me stupid, but have you checked you haven’t left the brakes on?”
There was a long pause.
“Well, now, this is embarrassing,” said the Second Technician. “That does indeed appear to be the case…”
Apocalypse
“I couldn’t stop them,” said the Doctor, gazing out at the vast landscape of ash. “They wouldn’t listen.”
Donna was also upset about watching someone’s world end, but there was only so long you could stand on a planet’s grave, as it were. “I know,” she said, and slipped her arm through his. “But how about we go find somewhere we can save, eh, Doctor?”
Schoolfic
“It’s persecution, that’s what it is,” said Donna. “I mean, look at me, I got injured, I could have been killed –”
“It was a nosebleed!”
“And what did I do to deserve it? I was just standing there, minding my own business –”
“You stole Penny’s mirror!”
“I was borrowing it, was it my fault if she wasn’t there when I wanted it? It wasn’t like I wasn’t going to put it back. And I only chipped it a tiny bit. Don’t know what she was making a fuss about. I thought I was going to bleed to death and I all I get is a detention, no sympathy or anything.”
“Yeah, right. It’s a travesty of justice,” said John. “Can’t think what came over the Head.”
Police/Firefighters/Medical
“So,” said Donna, “that’s three coffees, and one herbal tea for the Super.”
“Thanks, love,” said the DI. “What was your name again?”
Donna managed not to glare as she walked out. Why had she thought being a policewoman would be exciting? This WPC, she decided, was walking out of here. Any day now.
Supernatural
Donna’s friend’s family seemed to have some odd ideas, she decided. She’d been invited over for a sleepover and then put in a room about three miles away from the rest of the family, in a big old four-poster bed, which she’d thought was pretty cool at the time, but then the racket had started up, like a banshee howling.
It turned out it was a banshee howling.
“If you don’t shut up,” Donna bawled at it, “I’ll scream and see how you like it!”
Wisely, the spectre fled.
Regency
“Are you following me?” said Miss Noble, swinging round to face the thin man who’d been lurking in the shadows nearby. “I’ll yell for the constable if you try anything!”
“No, not following as such,” said the stranger. “It’s just that I’ve never seen anyone thrown out of Almack’s like that. Refused entry, yes. Actually thrown out, kicking and screaming, that’s rare.”
“I’ll have you know I had a voucher!” Then she sighed. “Well, all right, so it might have been forged, but still, was that any call to overreact?”
Re: 10x Donna AUs
From:Re: 10x Donna AUs
From:no subject
Date: 6 Sep 2017 08:45 pm (UTC)(oh, and re emergency services: No coastguards?)
no subject
Date: 6 Sep 2017 08:58 pm (UTC)You can add coastguards and mountain rescue if you like, if you do it, however.
I shall attempt some mix of the above, anyway, with or without coastguards. (I don't think I've seen many coastguard AUs...)
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 7 Sep 2017 07:56 am (UTC)10x Five & Tegan & Nyssa AUs
Date: 28 Sep 2017 08:27 pm (UTC)“Wait, I’m in America? What the hell just happened? I was in Brisbane! I thought when you told me I’d wound up a very long way from home you meant we were in Perth or something. Not Arizona!”
“Well,” said Sheriff Smith, clearing his throat, “ah, you see, you had the misfortune to run into the outlaw Masters, who apparently abducted you and kept you in this box via his mesmeric powers until we unpacked you just now.”
“But why?”
The sheriff stopped and looked at Tegan. “Why what?”
“Why the hell would anyone mesmerise me, stick me in a box and send me to this godforsaken place? It doesn’t make any sense!”
“Oh, but it’s quite a nice town really, when you get used to it,” said Nyssa, the sheriff’s deputy. “Not godforsaken at all. Well, aside from the shooting and brawling and lynching and mistreatment of the native population, but Sheriff Smith and I are doing our best to change things.”
“Yes, but what about Masters?”
The Sheriff shifted from one foot to the other. “Well, it’s probably because he likes annoying me. Sorry about that. We’ll see about booking you passage home as soon as we can.”
Coffee Shop
“I don’t know why I signed up for this!” said Tegan. “Yeah, I know, because you made me miss my first day at Heathrow.” She glared at John as she cleaned the counter. “The roof’s leaking, the customers are obnoxious, the cappuccino machine is permanently busted, the wages are crap –”
“I’m working on the roof and the cappuccino machine,” said John. “I don’t think anyone can do anything about the wages. It is a charitable organisation, you know. We’re not here to make a profit.”
“And,” said Nyssa, with a small, wicked smile in Tegan’s direction, as she wiped down the tables, “there are some compensations, aren’t there?”
“Yeah, I suppose,” said Tegan. “The free coffee’s all right.”
Nyssa threw the dish cloth at her.
Shapeshifters
“So, now you’re telling me that we’re going to be stuck like this every full moon, no matter what planet we’re on?”
“It does seem to be the case, yes. I’m not quite sure what they gave us in that laboratory, but the after-effects seem to be permanent.”
“You know, I find it quite fascinating,” said Nyssa, who was already mentally drafting out a thesis on their unexpected transformations, and contemplating further experiments.
“Were-rabbits!” said Tegan, in deepest disgust.
Fantasy/Fairy Tale
“What do you mean, your spell has gone wrong again?” asked the Magician’s apprentice in as stern a tone as she could manage. “You said you had it exactly right this time.”
The Magician looked around the room for inspiration and then said, “I fear it was the Master interfering once more. The results were, er, well, entirely unexpected.”
“I’ll say,” said an unfamiliar and indignant voice from behind him. “I was just about to start work as one of the crew on the Queen’s pleasure ship and bam! Next thing I know I’ve been kidnapped by an incompetent sorcerer! Take me back!”
. . . In SPACE!!
The three of them, now they were out of the life-capsule, watched the fireworks in the purple sky that was their ship breaking up.
“Well, I said the navigation was up the spout again, didn’t I?” said Tegan. “And I said that creepy frog-guy was up to no good. I might be a mere civilian, but I’ve got some sense.”
Science Officer Nyssa directed a look at the Captain, who shuffled about for a while, before eventually he made himself say it.
“Yes, Tegan. It appears… you were right.”
Apocalypse
“It could be anywhere,” said Tegan, finding it hard to believe she was walking among the ruins of the Earth. “I suppose everywhere comes to this at some point, if you’ve got a time machine.”
“True,” the Doctor agreed, with a surprised lift to his voice. “You’re, ah, taking this very well.”
She shot him a glare. “It’s still a terrible idea for a holiday, though. That was what you said, wasn’t it? Somewhere peaceful and quiet. Well, I’ll give you that, but I’m not sure the ashes of the Earth were what Nyssa and I had in mind.”
“No, well, the TARDIS has been a little temperamental of late.”
“And,” added Tegan, with a glance over at her friend, “Nyssa isn’t very fond of dead planets. Can’t say I blame her.”
Schoolfic
“Tegan,” said John, giving her his trademark Disappointed Look. “A head’s report? Again? You’re going to miss all the fun. And you really shouldn’t have punched Adric.”
“I thought he was bullying Nyssa!”
Nyssa patted her arm. “I would have explained if you’d given me a chance.”
“Even so,” said John, “don’t you think breaking his nose is going a bit far?”
Police/Firefighters/Medical
“I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” said Nyssa as Tegan emptied out her locker. “If you call the Chief Superintendent Borusa a superannuated sexist pig, you have to expect to get demoted back to uniform.”
“Yeah, I know. Me and my big mouth! But I know that Dr Smith is innocent and he wouldn’t listen to a word I said. I bet it was the other one who did it – Masters! It’s a frame-up, and the Super’s an idiot.”
“Don’t worry, Tegan,” said DS Traken, giving her a hug. “We shall sort it out somehow, I promise.”
Supernatural
“Now this will spin round at the first sign of spectral activity,” said Professor Smith, demonstrating his peculiar and precarious looking device with some enthusiasm. “And this bit will –”
“Fall off if you touch it?” said Tegan, folding her arms. “It’s funny, because that gadget of yours looks exactly like a lot of cutlery attached to the lamp with string to me. And I still say there’s got to be a rational explanation for all this.”
They both looked across at Nyssa, who was standing there, pale as death, and unseeing; as if one sleepwalking.
“Yes,” said Professor Smith, “completely natural, Miss Jovanka, I’m sure. Nothing to do with possession or evil spirits at all. Now, if you could just help instead of blocking the positive emanations with your scepticism, we might get somewhere in curing your friend!”
Regency
Miss Jovanka’s role as companion to an elderly gentlewoman on her tour of Switzerland had not gone according to plan: the elderly lady had been murdered, and she had been abducted by accident by a physician who claimed to be an expert in matters of the uncanny. She had then helped him rescue a princess from a tiny (and now entirely non-existent) kingdom. She was going to write and complain to that hiring agency – at least, as soon as she and the other two had stopped running for their lives from the horrid and sinister lake monsters that were currently after them.
no subject
Date: 6 Sep 2017 08:53 pm (UTC)Poul/Leela. (Look, I was really charmed.)
no subject
Date: 6 Sep 2017 08:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:10x Poul AUs
Date: 29 Oct 2017 02:46 pm (UTC)Wild West
A death amongst those prospecting for gold wasn’t uncommon, nor even a murder, but this had been deliberate: Chub had been lured to his death, and then poisoned and, in any case, he was not a prospector but a scientist. Poul sighed.
“This isn’t going to be easy,” he said to the prototype clockwork man who was accompanying him. “And why,” he added under his breath, “am I talking to you? It’s not as if you even truly understand anything but the simplest directions. I don’t know why I had to bring you!”
Coffee Shop
“There’s nothing wrong with the espresso machine!” said Uvanov. “Or the cappuccino machine or any other machine around here that makes any sort of liquid refreshment, hot or cold. That’s ridiculous, and I’m firing Borg if he comes out with any more nonsense like that.”
He and Poul looked inevitably at the espresso machine. It made a distinctly worrying grating and growling sound.
“As you say,” murmured Poul. “Ridiculous.”
Shapeshifters
“You changed,” said Leela. “Can all your people do that?”
“The majority,” Poul brushed down his clothes. “Although most of them think it’s a little undignified – scurrying around in the shape of a rodent or a bird. I find it helps, though. It’s an escape of sorts.”
Leela nodded. “I think I can understand that. I should like to fly like a bird – could I learn to do it?”
“I don’t think it could be learned,” said Poul. Then he smiled. “On the other hand, if anyone could, I daresay it would be you.”
Fantasy/Fairy Tale
“I have said all the correct incantations and fought the monster at the door. I believe you should be free now,” said Leela, releasing Poul from his chains. She gave him a stern look. “Next time, you should be more careful.”
Poul let her help him to his feet. “Yes, very true. It was rather an unpleasant spell, however. I don’t think I’m entirely to blame. And I have an alternative solution.”
“Oh?”
He smiled at her. “How about you stay with me and make sure nothing like that happens again?”
. . . In SPACE!!
Liv had been called to the medbay to attend one of the ship’s few passengers, but by the time she got there, he seemed calm enough.
“Sorry,” he said. Liv checked her passenger list for the name – Ander Poul. “There was an incident with – with one of them. I shall be fine now, provided I keep out of their way. It’s good to know there’s a human medtech to hand, though. That makes a change.”
Liv raised an eyebrow. “Oh,” she said. “Okay, but do you think a small vessel like this was really the place for someone with, er, your particular issues?”
He gave her a dark look. “Why do you suppose I’m trying to escape off-world?”
“Right,” said Liv. “Good luck with that, then, sir.”
It took a few hops from ship to ship, although with notably less robots as he went, but eventually Poul found somewhere obscure, on the edge of the next galaxy. The person who had mentioned it hadn’t sounded keen, calling it an uncivilised place full of barbarians and farmers, but certainly they hadn’t mentioned robots, or the Company, or this Federation that everyone was talking about in these parts. Yes, Gauda Prime. It would do.
Apocalypse
They tried to hush up the sandminer’s return, empty of its human crew and full of all-too evidently murderous robots, with visible blood on their metallic hands, but it couldn’t be kept secret, not in a place like Kaldor. The end had come – again.
Schoolfic
“It’s always the same,” said Uvanov to Poul as they waited outside the head’s office. “The Founding Families get away with murder, but we so much as raise our voice in class and it’s detentions all round.”
Poul stared at the ceiling. He was only here because he’d walked in the door at the wrong moment – that was to say, about the point that everyone Uvanov had been sneering at that morning lost their patience with him. “Yes, well, next time perhaps you should think before you pick a fight with half the class at once.”
“You would say that. You’re frightened of the soft drinks dispenser!”
Police/Firefighters/Medical
“What do you think?” said Poul, surveying the battered body on the floor. “Not quite the open and shut case that Landerchild would have us believe.”
“The killer could not have been Kiy Uvanov,” said D84. “Two separate witnesses have placed him in a meeting in the Company Headquarters. And the damage was done by a prototype laser gun, which Kiy Uvanov could not have had access to.”
Poul crouched down by the victim. “No. The Company Chairholder set this up himself in order to dispense with his rival. I don’t suppose he wants to know what we think. Damn him.”
He sighed. The eternal problem of being a Company detective in Kaldor. You could get rich quick, or you could wind up dead. Or both. It wasn’t the place for a human and a robot who preferred to get at the truth, that was for certain.
Supernatural
The arrival of the actual undead did not improve Poul’s state of mind…
Regency
“And what,” asked Leela,” is a Bow Street Runner? Is it a vegetable? I believe the Doctor has mentioned something of the kind. He said I should not like them.”
Poul considered the lady before him: she was wearing a conventional enough outfit, even if it was a few years out of date, but it clearly didn’t come naturally to her. He gave a slight smile, putting his hand to his mouth. “Not a vegetable. But somehow I suspect you would not like them much, no.”
“I like you,” she said, bristling at being told what she should and shouldn’t like.
“I’m the exception.”
no subject
Date: 7 Sep 2017 01:09 am (UTC)10 AUs for Sarah Jane
Date: 10 Oct 2017 01:29 pm (UTC)“Aren’t you going to stop her?” Dr Sullivan said, taken aback to find that the sheriff, Doc Smith, didn’t seem much bothered by the news that one of the meanest outlaws in the West had just challenged Miss Smith to meet him at high noon on Main Street.
“This Dusty Jack fellow clearly hasn’t seen Miss Smith with a shot gun,” said the sheriff. He pulled his hat back over his face and refused to budge. “He’s in for a shock. Thanks for letting me know – it ought to be fun to watch.”
Coffee Shop
Sarah had never thought of herself as being particularly good with children of any age, but now her café seemed to have taken off with some of the teenagers from the local comprehensive, it seemed she must be. Apparently, local agony aunt went with the business of dispensing out fruit juice or tea and cake, and what was more, she was learning to like it.
Shapeshifters
“How do you do it, Miss Smith?” said her editor, and then held up a hand. Ash fell from the cigarette in it. “No, wait, don’t tell me. If it involves anything illegal, best I don’t know.”
Miss Smith smiled, her hands resting in her lap. She looked too demure for words, not like someone who’d just pulled off an exclusive exposé of a corrupt multi-national company. “Nothing like that at all,” she said, thinking of the nights she’d spent up a tree in the shape of a squirrel. “And, honestly, you’d never believe me.”
Fantasy/Fairy Tale
There was nothing else for it, Sarah decided, surveying the ruins of the family farm. She’d have to dress as a boy and set out to seek her fortune.
. . . In SPACE!!
“So,” said Space Commander Servalan once she had dismissed the guard, “what were you doing in the ventilation shaft?”
Sarah raised her chin and said nothing. Somehow she was pretty sure, “trying to blow up the space station and set those rebels free” would not go down well with the other woman.
Apocalypse
Fire rained down from the sky. They saw it from the scanner. Sarah had to avoid looking at the Doctor’s face.
“Doctor,” she said in the end, “you can’t always win. Not if people are so set on their own destruction as that lot were.”
“True,” he said, but he was still in Distant Thunder mode.
Sarah put a cautious hand to his arm. “And, hey, you got me out. I’m grateful, trust me.”
From somewhere, a million miles away, that earned her an almost-smile. “I have grown rather fond of you, it’s true,” he said eventually.
Schoolfic
“An interview?” said the head teacher, Miss Winters.
Sarah nodded. “For the school magazine, miss. I’m editor. And I thought, where better to start than by going to the very top? You can answer some questions for me, can’t you?”
“I’m afraid I’m far too busy,” said Miss Winters, shooing her out.
Sarah stayed outside the doorway. “Well, then, when will be a good time, Miss Winters? I don’t mind staying after school.”
“Yes, but I do,” said the head, and closed the door.
Drat, thought Sarah. And it had seemed like such a fool-proof way to snatch a chance to look at the head’s personal files…
Police/Firefighters/Medical
“DS Smith,” said Chief Inspector Lethbridge-Stewart, looking considerably sterner than usual. “May we have a word about certain rules you seem to have decided to disregard in your pursuance of this case?”
Sarah sighed and followed him into the office. “But I got him, sir, didn’t I? Isn’t that what counts?”
Supernatural
Most travellers avoided the castle. Most travellers were advised by every passing peasant to avoid the castle. Tales of blood and death and ominous spectres did the rounds of all the local taverns.
Miss Sarah Jane Smith, on arriving in the area and hearing these terrible rumours, set off for the castle at once. As far as she was concerned, t sounded like exactly the kind of place where an aspiring journalist could find a good story, besides which, she was far too sensible to believe in ghosts and vampires.
Regency
Sarah left for her walk in such a haste that she forgot to look where she was going and all but fell over the young gentleman heading in the opposite direction. What his excuse was, she didn’t know. He helped her up and picked up her bonnet while they both engaged in exchanging embarrassed apologies.
“Thank you,” said Sarah, fastening it more securely once he’d returned it. “And I am sorry. My aunt is on a last ditch attempt to marry me off, and I had to get away, at least for a while. She’s invited the new doctor round to inspect me and I won’t stand for it. I expect he’s some odious old quack, anyway.”
“I say, that’s a bit harsh,” the young man said, looking unaccountably hurt. “I studied at Edinburgh, you know, although I don’t claim to be a genius.”
Sarah looked at him again. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, dear. You must be Dr Sullivan.”
“Yes,” said Dr Sullivan. “I’m rather afraid I am.”
Re: 10 AUs for Sarah Jane
From:Re: 10 AUs for Sarah Jane
From:no subject
Date: 7 Sep 2017 02:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Sep 2017 07:17 am (UTC)8 Cally AUs
Date: 7 Oct 2017 05:48 pm (UTC)Wild West
One lone rider on a white horse pulled up as she reached the outlaws’ hideout. There was no chance of escape, but she was not looking for one. Her fellows had been murdered by these villains, and now, she thought, drawing her gun and setting her face, she would have companions for her death.
Coffee Shop
(I thought about this for ages, and then thought that it is pointless writing B7 coffee shops when
Shapeshifters
“Where’s Cally?”
Midway through the undignified hunt over the flight deck, Avon came in. “Ah,” he said. “Looking for Cally again? I believe she is currently a vase of begonias in her cabin. She said something about meditating on the fragility of existence. I gather it’s easier in non-sentient forms. If you can call any life-forms around here sentient.”
Sometimes Blake wished Aurons had any other super-human ability other than the ability to shape-change at will.
Fantasy/Fairy Tale
“I don’t think,” said Cally to Avon afterwards, “that the prince is supposed to kiss the princess in order to kill the wicked witch.”
Avon merely shrugged. “Funny how life works out. And I never said I was a prince.”
Apocalypse
The nameless entity that had reached into and taken control of this slight form through Orac smiled to itself. Now it could bring this whole universe into darkness like its own…
Schoolfic
“You’re a prefect, though, I bet you could get me off.” Vila gave her his best pleading look.
Cally glared back. “That would be wrong.”
“Would it? I wouldn’t think so.”
“No, Vila!”
Police/Firefighters/Medical
“I’m worried about Avon and Jenna, sir. They’ve been undercover for too long, don’t you think?”
Blake shrugged. “This is Special Branch. It happens.”
“Well, we don’t want them getting tempted, do we? That information could be worth a lot in the wrong hands.”
He merely smiled. “Come on, Cally – don’t be cynical!”
Supernatural
The medium eventually withdrew from the circle with a sigh, and looked around at them all. “Is there anyone here,” she asked, “who isn’t a sceptic?”
There was a resounding silence. It was, Cally decided, going to be a difficult session.
Regency
Cally dived behind a rocky outcrop as the French rifleman fired, only to discover someone waiting there. She jumped, having been sure she was alone, the remainder of her group of guerrilla fighters having been killed in their last encounter with the French.
“You look as if you could use a hand,” said the man, holding his out as he spoke. “I’m Blake, by the way. And the fellow out there who’s taking care of that inconvenient Frenchman of yours is Avon.”
She stiffened. “You are English? Here with the army?”
“Not precisely,” said Blake. “It’s a little more complicated than that, but let’s say I’m interested in justice and liberty. I’m here to help.”
The other man, Avon, crossed to join them. “He actually is, you know. It’s intensely annoying.”
no subject
Date: 7 Sep 2017 03:27 am (UTC)9x Samuel Vimes AUs
Date: 8 Sep 2017 01:31 pm (UTC)Wild West
Sheriff Vimes woke to the unfamiliar sounds of a scrubbing brush at work somewhere much too nearby. He risked opening an eye and lifting his head up from the pile of Wanted posters on his desk.* He registered his deputy, Carrot, in the cells, busy with a boat, a bar of soap and a scrubbing brush. He could have sworn the iron bars were gleaming, and through the window, he saw Detritus pass by with a bucket in each hand.
“All right, what’s going on? Has there been some incident I don’t want to know about?”
Carrot paused in his task and leapt up to salute, despite Vimes’s instructions not to Darn Well Do That Again. “Cleaning up the town, as ordered, sir!”
*Some of them might not even have been used as a dartboard by Nobby and Fred.
Coffee Shop
“It can’t be that bad,” said Sybil. “I think it’s a splendid idea – gets the police right out into the community in a positive way.”
Vimes remained uncheered. Vetinari, current head of the Town Council, had said something like that when he proposed the members of the local police station help out at the community café.
“It won’t be positive when Nobby finally manages to poison one of the customers, it’ll be a Public Relations nightmare!”
Shapeshifters
“Wizards,” muttered a rather scrawny seagull with a vile-tempered expression, or rather he would have said it had he not had a beak. “How to make the current watch resources stretch further and increase vigilance, Ha, Bloody, Ha.”
The glossy eagle beside him merely took flight over the city.
Fantasy/Fairy Tale
It must have been round about chapter three: Captain Vimes raced into the room, his underpaid guards close behind, ahead of them only one man with a gleaming sword…
. . . In SPACE!!
First Security Officer Vimes pulled himself off the floor and yet again cursed the day he’d signed on with the Ankh-Morpork, the creakiest old rustbucket of a so-called passenger liner left in the service.
It took him a while longer to register that something particular had woken him and that that something was a distressed female, now looming over him.
“Officer,” she said, without seeming to take in his current condition. “One of my pets has been murdered!”
“Your… pet?”
“Yes – poor little fellow – a most intriguing specimen I picked up last planetfall. Perfectly harmless, but –”
Apocalypse
Vimes watched the boiling lava flood the city below from a ledge on one of a range of mountains that hadn’t been there till yesterday.* What they were suddenly doing there was anyone’s guess, since the wizards had sworn on their very hats it wasn’t them, honest. And since ‘anyone’ now amounted to Vimes and his solitary hooded companion, he was buggered if he knew. Typical, really. They’d only just got the Watch House rebuilt again. With a new dartboard and kettle and everything.
“We could be the only ones left,” he said, to his fellow survivor, trying not to look at the view again.
NO, said his companion, turning to face him. I AM AFRAID NOT.
Vimes froze, his brain gradually catching up with his senses, or at least, whatever part of him that was left working through some similar sort of metaphysical process. “Oh. Right. Bugger that, then. At least I didn’t feel anything. The smoke, I suppose, eh?” He hoped it had been the same for the rest of them, and feared not.
*including the sinister smoking one that had not, it turned out, contained any dragons, despite Sybil’s convictions on the subject, but had nevertheless proved Significant.
Schoolfic
The headmaster surveyed Vimes with a dispassionate air. The boy was, it had to be said, not the most prepossessing member of the Sixth Form, but nevertheless Mr Vetinari was certain of his choice.
“Ah, Vimes,” he said, after a pause perfectly judged to cause unease in even the most troublesome of his pupils. “Congratulations. You’re to be St Ankh’s newest head boy. I trust you will do the school proud.”
The boy’s gaping, horrified expression was, even Mr Vetinari felt, somewhat amusing.
Supernatural
The trouble with these academics was that they just weren’t practical enough, faffing about with a lot of wild garlic and rosaries and prayers and what have you. Vimes let the professor get on with it, but he had a back up plan of his own. The bloody vamp was going to get a shock when it showed up tonight and instead of a fetching young lady in a white nighty, he found a bewigged PC Nobbs in the bed, and Carrot and Colon behind the curtain, ready with an over-sized crossbow loaded with a large and exceptionally pointy wooden stake.
And just in case the damn thing got sneaky, Vimes and Cheery would be down here in the basement with the young lady in question and a vat of holy water. Blood-suckers were the worst. It wasn’t anything personal, it was just that a thousand years’ history as a serial killer equalled a hell of a lot of paper work.
Regency
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the last thing a beleaguered night watchman wants on his patch is a genuine Lady looking for a missing mongrel from her Home for Stray Animals, but, nevertheless, that was what life had decided to throw at Captain Vimes…
Re: 9x Samuel Vimes AUs
From:Re: 9x Samuel Vimes AUs
From:Re: 9x Samuel Vimes AUs
From:Re: 9x Samuel Vimes AUs
From:no subject
Date: 7 Sep 2017 11:01 am (UTC)10x Deva AUs
Date: 18 Sep 2017 08:43 pm (UTC)Deva pulled off his hat and noted the bullet hole. He directed reproachful glance at Blake, which Blake, typically, didn’t see. “That,” Deva said, “was a dangerous game to play, bounty hunter. One of these days you’ll get us both killed.”
Coffee Shop
Deva had enjoyed working at the coffee shop. It had been nice, peaceful work for a change, and he was glad to see Blake settling down to something positive. He had been sure Blake’s therapist would be delighted too, and now, of course, it all turned out it was a complicated cover in order to flush out a band of gun-runners. Deva wasn’t entirely sure how the two were connected, but then, he was only here to do the accounts and fix the espresso machine.
Shapeshifters
There were many days when Deva preferred being a mouse. It was easy to get information, and store it in hiding places only he could return to – most of the rest of the base’s shifter-forms were significantly larger – and he could keep out of the way of any trouble for hours. If it weren’t for the massively reduced life-span and all the predators, he’d consider adopting it permanently.
Fantasy/Fairy Tale
“If you want someone to save the kingdom, why make them first court such danger?”
The outlaw Blake gave his clerk a smile. “We need to be sure who is true of heart, don’t we?”
“Yes, but it’s not much use having learned that when they’re dead.”
. . . In SPACE!!
“My engineer has finally identified the anomaly causing this – we have a way for you to return to your universe at last.”
Deva and Klyn exchanged regretful glances.
“I, er, don’t suppose there’s any chance of staying, is there?” asked Deva.
Apocalypse
Earth burned. It wasn’t the only planet, although they didn’t all burn: some of them were poisoned, some became encased in ice, others imploded. So many of them, however, had died. It hadn’t been Blake’s intention, of course – Deva knew that – but nevertheless, it was how it had happened in the end.
“Congratulations,” said Deva, when Blake made it back to the flight deck. “I think we can safely say the Federation is well and truly finished, don’t you?”
Schoolfic
“You know, Vila,” said Deva, “I notice that in this line-writing business of ours, I seem to be the one doing all the work.”
“Hey, I have to negotiate fees – and have you seen the sort of kids round here who get all the lines? That’s why I have to take 60% - it’s danger money. D’you want to see my bruises?”
“It takes time and effort to forge people’s handwriting, you know. I’m not sure I want to spend this much time on it, even at the prices we’re charging.”
“Yeah,” said Vila, “about that. Have you got enough practice in yet? Because I was thinking we could have even more fun with, say, the head’s signature…”
Deva gave him a look. “No, Vila. Whatever it is you’ve got in mind – no.”
Police/Firefighters/Medical
Inspector Blake handed Deva the suspect profiles in his latest murder case. “What do you make of these?”
Deva glanced over them before feeding them into the computer: Servalan, Carnell, Captain Travis, Kerr Avon. He looked up again, his eyebrows raised. “Was there anyone at this house party who didn’t already have a criminal record?”
Supernatural
Deva stepped into the ruined and darkened castle, holding up his lamp to illuminate his surroundings. There were dust and cobwebs everywhere. Deva moved on, trying not to think too hard about the tales they told about this place, or the accounts he’d read of its former occupant.
He followed a clear trail of broken furniture until he found Blake, lying at the foot of the back staircase.
“Next time,” he said, setting down the lamp, as he knelt down at the paranormal investigator’s side, “I’m going to leave you to get bitten.”
Regency
“We are determined to put a stop to Napoleon’s agents in this country,” Deva explained to the Earl of Avon. “He has eyes and ears everywhere.”
“Doe he now? How uncomfortable that sounds. And what does it have to do with me?”
“Mr Blake thought you might be willing to help us uncover such traitors among the upper echelons of society. He seems to have a great deal of respect for your intelligence and, ah, other skills.”
“Did he? Well, now, that depends.”
Deva collected up a sheaf of papers. “Oh, don’t worry, your lordship – we’ll pay you well, I assure you!”
Re: 10x Deva AUs
From:Re: 10x Deva AUs
From:no subject
Date: 7 Sep 2017 01:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Sep 2017 09:10 pm (UTC)10 Miss Marple AUs
From:no subject
Date: 7 Sep 2017 03:11 pm (UTC)10x Emma Peel AUs
Date: 28 Oct 2017 09:06 pm (UTC)Wild West
“I keep a very well run town, you know,” said Sheriff Peel. “Quiet, clean, tidy – no brawls.”
“And very impressive it is, too.”
“So, how come is that every time you turn up, it takes about five minutes and twenty seconds for all hell to break loose?”
Steed looked injured. “I’ve been here for five minutes already and nothing has –”
Outside, the bank exploded.
“Right on cue,” said Sheriff Peel, putting away her pocket watch. She threw a look at him. “I suppose we’d better go and sort it out.”
Coffee Shop
“But I didn’t order any coffee,” said the man who opened the door.
“Ours is a very special coffee delivery service,” said Steed. “You tell him, Mrs Peel.”
“We feed in all known variables to my computer, calculating who in the city has the greatest need for caffeine and, voila, there we are, ready with coffee for the needy soul.”
As the door shut in their faces – again – they exchanged a glance.
“And it seemed like such a good idea on paper,” said Emma.
“I told you we should have tried champagne delivery instead.”
Shapeshifters
The wolf howled at the door.
Emma stuck her head out of the window. “Patience, Steed – just give me a moment to change!”
Fantasy/Fairy Tale
Sir John helped the Lady Emma down the last few inches of rope stretching from the tower she’d been locked in.
“At last,” she said, with a smile. “I’d begun to think something had happened to you.”
“I got waylaid.”
She pulled a sympathetic face as she touched the cut on his cheer. “Poor Sir John. Still, it gave my time to deal with the witch. Now, what?”
“I think we’ll finally have to put a stop to that dragon.”
They both stared down from the hill, across the forest below to where smoke was belching out of the mountains.
“Much smoke, tiny flame?” said Lady Emma hopefully.
Sir John shook his head and held out his arms as wide as they would go. “But I hear tell there will be a banquet for the victors.”
“Oh, well,” said Lady Emma, “in that case, lead on. I’m starving. They only feed you gruel in these towers.”
. . . In SPACE!!
Emma had almost finished cataloguing a unique collection of alien flora and fauna picked up during an exploratory voyage. She had had a marvellous time, although there had been one thing lacking, she’d found. She merely hoped now that she would complete the cataloguing before –
She picked up her mobile info-device only to find that a familiar message had appeared on its screen. She lifted her head, biting down on a smile. “Steed. I suppose it’s too much to hope that you’ve come to take me out on a celebratory dinner in honour of my successful research?”
“That too,” said Steed, approaching her. “But there is the little matter of the murder of the Home Secretary to attend to first.”
She held out her hand. “I might have known. And yet –”
He raised an enquiring eyebrow.
“I’ve missed you,” she said.
“Ah, the nights are long on Saturn, are they?”
She gave him her hand. “Something like that.”
Apocalypse
“So,” said Steed, after a long period of silence in the cellar, where the two agents were currently tied back to back. “It’s been a while. He can’t have gone through with it, can he? He can’t have ended the world. We’d have heard something.”
“Not with a bang, but with a whimper,” murmured Emma. “The logic is inescapable: he had the means, we know he was ready to do it, and we were the only people who could stop him. And we’re a bit tied up. I’m afraid this must be it.”
Steel glanced around the cellar. “Ah. He did say he’d had the place altered to double as a bunker. I suppose now we just linger on here until we run out of supplies. An ignominious fate.”
“Could be worse,” said Emma.
“Mrs Peel, it’s the end of the world!”
“And we’re locked together in a wine cellar. It could be worse.”
Schoolfic
Emma caught John’s paper aeroplane before it flew onto the teacher’s desk. Surreptitiously, she unfolded it.
“Emma,” it said, “we’re needed. Behind the bike sheds, after school.”
Police/Firefighters/Medical
“Scalpel,” said Mrs Peel, about to begin the operation – a delicate technique she was pioneering and her patient’s last hope.
Her assistant passed her a rose.
“A nice gesture, Steed,” she said, hiding her smile. “And I’m sure the patient will appreciate it after I’m done with him. But for now, the scalpel, please.”
Supernatural
“Mrs Peel, I’m in desperate need of your help,” said the gentleman at the door. “That is - you are Emma Peel, the renowned specialist in psychic activity?”
Emma allowed herself to preen a little at the flattery. “I like to think so. Come in. What seems to be the problem?”
“It’s my flat,” he said, removing his bowler hat. “It appears to be haunted.”
“Hmm. And has anyone died there, particularly in late years?”
The man hunted around in his pockets. “Wait, now, where did I put the list?”
Regency
“Good afternoon, Mrs Peel,” said a stranger, having the nerve to accost her in the park.
Emma gave him a frosty look, but he persisted.
“You will forgive me introducing myself, I trust,” he said, “but you have been pointed out to me as a lady with a unique set of skills. My name is Steed – John, Steed – and it’s my business to put to flight the enemies of the Crown – Bonapartist agents, over-enthusiastic steam enthusiasts, Revolutionaries, murderous Methodists and the like. We’re badly needed – the department is sorely overstretched.”
“Well, then,” said Emma, who found herself considerably intrigued. “Never let it be said that I was not willing to serve my country. Where do we start?”
Re: 10x Emma Peel AUs
From:Re: 10x Emma Peel AUs
From:no subject
Date: 8 Sep 2017 11:24 pm (UTC)Susan Pevensie?
no subject
Date: 9 Sep 2017 07:15 am (UTC)I'm sorry, I don't think I could do Susan - anybody else?
(no subject)
From:Bea & Evie AUs
From:Re: Bea & Evie AUs
From:Re: Bea & Evie AUs
From:no subject
Date: 14 Sep 2017 05:52 pm (UTC)10x AUs for William & Sacharissa
Date: 25 Oct 2017 08:32 pm (UTC)A bullet shot through the window, smashing the pane.
“Not again,” said William without looking up from scribbling his latest lead article.
Sacharissa pulled herself out from under the desk and reached for the latest edition of The Times, surveying the list of outlaws on the front page. “Hmm, I wonder which one it was this time?”
Coffee Shop
“This,” said the young lady who’d just burst into the local branch of Astraquids, “is an abomination!” She seemed to feel quite strongly about it, glaring at him.
William took a step backwards. “I’m fairly sure it’s just a coffee shop.”
“Just a coffee shop?” she said. “Oh, yes – ‘just’ a coffee shop that is currently putting my father’s tea shop out of business!”
Shapeshifters
Shapeshifting was a useful way to hide from irate readers – and Mr Wintler – but it had its downsides. Sacharissa brushed ash off her jacket. “Next time, remind me – anything but the ash tray.”
William was having worse troubles. “Well, I can’t say I recommend being a wastepaper basket, either.”
“Where’s Otto?”
They both stared around and then, simultaneously, looked to the ash on the floor.
“Oh, dear, not again,” said Sacharissa.
Fantasy/Fairy Tale
It wasn’t that the princess had wanted to remain in her slumber for another century, of course. Naturally, she was pleased to have been awoken and by the requisite eligible young nobleman, no less. It was just that there seemed to Sacharissa to be something vital lacking in the proceedings.
“Now,” said the young man, ready with a pencil and notebook, “perhaps you could tell our readers how it feels to be a century out of time?”
Sacharissa glared. “Strangely irritable, now that you ask!”
. . . In SPACE!!
Sacharissa was busy dictating her account of the annual Star Captain’s ball into the central computer, when a message flashed up on the screen.
++Fancy a drink later?
Sacharissa turned to William, busy editing the text of another article beside her. “You could have just asked, you know.”
Apocalypse
“Do you remember,” said Boddony, “back when we started and the Patrician asked us about whether or not we’d built the Press on the site of something eldritch?”
William nodded.
“Turns out we should have checked that out a bit harder…”
Schoolfic
“Gosh,” said Sacharissa, as she and William pressed themselves up against the side of the bike shed, both out of breath. “I didn’t realise running the school magazine would be so exciting.”
“Perhaps we shouldn’t have tried to expose the Head in the first edition?”
“Or done that article about bullying at school?”
But, after all, it had been the truth.
Police/Firefighters/Medical
“Are you sure we should be doing this?” asked Otto. “DCI de Worde said –”
DS Cripslock breathed in and out heavily. “I know what the Chief Inspector said. Nothing suspicious about that nice Mr Smith, ha! We should leave the investigation alone and stop pestering innocent citizens. Well, even if he’s fooled, I’m not. Now, photograph those footprints and then we’ll break into his study. That’ll show him!”
“Smith?”
“No, Chief Inspector de Worde!”
Supernatural
“Sacharissa,” said William, gently taking the bloodied stake from her hand. “I think the Professor meant well and you should probably stop hitting him with this now.”
She subsided, but she was still shaking with anger. “Yes, but just look what he tried to do to poor Otto, the –ing scoundrel!”
Regency
“I understand that you would like to become a journalist, but the Morning Post already has a full complement –”
Sacharissa raised her chin. “What you mean, Mr de Worde, is that a newspaper is no place for a genteel young lady, I believe?”
“Well, now that you say it, no, it isn’t.”
“And have you considered the means by which an genteel young lady may make a living?”
William did. He blushed and then coughed. “Um. A governess?”
“Currently,” said Sacharissa, “if you don’t oblige me by letting me write a society column, I’m considering applying myself to something involving a very sharp needle.”
William took her point.