ptahrrific | Alternate Universe Meme

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Alternate Universe Meme

Give me a character or pairing and I will write snippets of ten different alternate universes for it. One line, ten lines, a ficlet if you're lucky.

01. Wild West
02. Cyberpunk
03. Shapeshifters
04. Pirates
05. …In SPACE!!
06. Born Another Gender
07. Schoolfic
08. Police/Firefighters
09. Urban Fantasy
10. Harem

Fandoms I'm up for writing: fake news, Hellsing, Doctor Who, Madoka Magica, Sailor Moon, But I'm A Cat Person, Read or Die, Tek Jansen. (Feel free to suggest an alternate for "IN SPACE" if you ask for a character who's canonically there!)

FILLS

Doctor Who
+Ten Doctors, Ten AUs (Teaspoon | AO3) (Jack, One through Ten, Ace, Romana, Rose | PG)
+What This AU Needs Is More Nitro-9 (Teaspoon | AO3) (Ace, Seven | G)

Fake News
+Ten Wyatt&Jessica AUs (Wyatt, Jessica | PG)
+It's What Lincoln Would Have AU'd (Jon, "Stephen", the Wørd, Charlene, Neil, Kilborn, Oprah | through R)
+Ten Olivia/Kristen AUs (Olivia/Kristen, Jon, "Stephen", correspondents | through PG-13)
Note: all three fakenews harem AUs are part of the same continuity.

Read Or Die
+AUs From Beyond The Ceiling (AO3) (Nenene/Yomiko, Maggie, Michelle, Anita, Junior, Nancy | through PG)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Doctor Who: The Doctor and Jack, and how about in the most boring, ordinary earth setting for #5?

Since you didn't specify a Doctor, I'm running through them in order...

(01) Wild West

Having dispatched with the bandits, delivered a load of sugar and salt and more vegetables than anyone in town had ever seen, and healed Ma Cottle's fever, the two swatted their horses and rode away at a gallop before anyone could try to push some coin on them as thanks.

On the top of a sandstone ridge, the town below appearing as small and inconsequential as any of the scrub nearer to their mounts' hooves, the Man With No Name pulled up and turned around.

"One day, I shall come back," he said, with a thoughtful distance in his voice. "Yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no--"

"Dammit, Doc," said the Man Who Had A Name But Odds Were Good It Wasn't Really His, "do you have to do that with every town we leave?"

(02) Cyberpunk

The neofascist Network Administrators had locked the prisoners in a cell blocked off from all neuronet access, with no exposed wiring and absolutely no keypads. Oh, and they had taken the sonic screwdriver.

Jack paced the length of the cell. The Doctor sat on the bed and played his recorder.

After three measures, the entrance hatch whirred and the mechanical panels slid open.

"Imitation of the encoded harmonic frequencies!" exclaimed Jack, bounding to the exit. "That was brilliant, Doctor!"

"What?" said the Doctor. "Oh, yes! I meant to do that."

(03) Shapeshifters

The curly-furred chocolate-colored puppy trotted across the workshop, tail held high. At the bench, the Doctor tinkered with his latest gadget. The puppy sat back on its haunches and gave an engaging yip.

"In a minute," said the Doctor. "Hand me the 2B micro-wrench, there's a good fellow."

The puppy whined.

"What?" The Doctor looked up. "Oh, I see, you're being a puppy today. Yes, very cute. You know the TARDIS translates dog, right? Well, run along, if you're not going to help. This neutron flow won't reverse its own polarity, you know."

(04) Pirates

Captain Jack Harkness used to be the most feared salty buccaneer on the seven seas.

Ever since he took up with the Doctor, he's been a lot less terrifying. Hasn't been relieving people of much property lately. (Except their vessel, and from the way the good ship TARDIS handles, you'd think it wanted to be stolen.) In fact, when he adds up the numbers, over the past six months they've given more than they've taken...granted, it's mostly in jelly babies, but still.

Jack finds he's kind of starting to like it.

(05) Most Boring Earth Setting

Jack tore off his hairnet, massaged his throbbing temples, and dragged the Doctor into the break room.

"We had another customer storm out vowing never to try any place other than Starbucks again! Why can't you just make their orders the way they ask, huh? Why do you have to keep trying to 'surprise' them with your 'secret ingredient'?"

The Doctor looked at him with a wide-eyed lost-puppy expression. "How can these people not like celery?"

(06) Born Another Gender

"You mean," said Jack, trying his very hardest not to drool, "you had female sexual organs in all your previous regenerations?" Unspoken went: and you never told me?

"Oh, don't be such an idiot," snapped the Doctor. "I said I was female. Kept trying to get a body to match; thought that was the way to do it. Didn't expect to regenerate with the same bits and my head screwed on differently, but it works just as well, I suppose. Do wipe your mouth, it's very undignified. Before you ask, no, you may not see them, and if I find you sneaking around while I'm in the shower I'll have the TARDIS chuck you out an airlock."

(07) Schoolfic

"He likes you," said Jack firmly.

"What, the Professor? Don't be an idiot," said Ace, chucking a tightly wrapped plastic bag in her locker. (The guy had a name, of course, but Ace had dubbed him The Professor for being constantly top of the class, and it stuck.)

"Bet he is," said her classmate. "What kind of chemistry teacher sneaks that kind of...perfectly safe substance...into the hands of a random student?"

Ace snorted. "What kind of person with half a brain would try to impress a girl by giving her...legal and entirely non-explosive substances...instead of, oh, flowers?"

"Depends." Jack grinned, flashing white teeth. "What kind of girl would be impressed by them?"

(08) Police/Firefighters

Time to meet this new guy Chief Trelundor's assigning. Jack hoped he would be competent. And at least moderately intelligent. And able to fall in line with Jack's particular brand of Good Cop, Sexy Cop...

"You're Harkness? Good to meet you. I'm the Doctor."

...and that he would let Jack run his hands through those pretty auburn curls. Just once. Yowza.

(09) Urban Fantasy

High-end club The Wolf & The Rose turns out to be a meeting place for the Unseelie Mafia. Jack didn't know, honest. He was just looking for a drink.

The golden-eyed Donna Rosita takes a fancy to him, and offers him a pint of her best.

"And you took it?" demands the Doctor after he's gotten Jack safely to the underground station. "Stupid ape! There's no knowin' what that potion will do to you!"

"I'll ask when I go back," says Jack. The Doctor stares. "What? I didn't get her number."

(10) Harem

The Doctor is surprisingly cool about the outfit. Bangles and all.

"I don't mind because the company makes up for it," points out Jack. "But you seem like you're actually enjoying this. And you haven't even gotten any of the sex yet!"

The Doctor shrugs. "It's all relative. Some of the best times of my life involved wearing celery."

Those were fantastic! I love them all!
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to search for some Doctor Who AUs... I have a sudden craving. XD

These were all quite awesome :)

Fake News! Jon/Stephen, d'oh. Also' OHAI. :D

Real!Stephen, or one of the AU "Stephens"? (Or "Stephen" Original Flavor, but someone else requested that downthread too, so I'll be writing it either way.)

Hi yourself :3

Real!Stephen for me, please! Or if you don't want to do double Jon/Stephen, I'd be thrilled with some Wyatt/Jessica... ;3

Ooh, I like the idea of Wyatt/Jessica. Most of these came out friendshippy, but can be read as pre-het too :D

(And now I'm wishing I had changed some of the AU options, because seriously, there's only so much interesting content I can think of about cops/firefighters...)

01. Wild West

She rides into town on a boxcar from Dallas, with the clothes on her back, four dollars to her name, and presumably one hell of a tale that she ain't no ways about to share.

Wyatt doesn't have much more, to tell the truth. But he does have a spare bit of floor, and folks like them got to stick together.

02. Cyberpunk

"But you can call me msjwilly."

"The msjwilly? Who cracked the Newsnet d-base?"

"Yeah, that was me. What about it?"

"I just thought...you were a guy," says Wyatt, in what must be the least smooth move in the history of motion.

Jessica rolls her eyes. "This keeps happening! I don't understand why! Does the 'Ms.' not tip people off?"

"Uh, I don't know about anyone else, but I think I was focusing on the 'willy'."

03. Shapeshifters

When Wyatt confesses to still being kind of bummed that he and Jon can no longer be beard brothers, Jessica reworks her jaw structure and walks around with a full Garibaldi for a week.

04. Pirates

They're curled up on Jessica's couch, her laptop open across her knees, BitTorrent humming merrily away.

"You know," says Wyatt, "when you said 'piracy', I was at least expecting to get a fancy hat."

05. ...In SPACE!!

When the Federation starship Daily loses track of Wyatt among an unexplored civilization that hasn't made first contact, Jessica insists on leading the search party. If the local culture turns out to be hostile, she wants to get in a few punches personally.

They find Wyatt on a throne.

It's not a hostile culture. It is, however, a culture where one's prominence and prestige are entirely determined by the magnificence of one's beard. And all the aliens have way straight hair.

"Fine, I'll go," says Wyatt, when at last Jessica convinces him to turn down the offer of high kingship. "But next time you get wasted in an alien cantina and throw half our platinum reserves at some polka-dotted stripper, I'm not bailing you out."

06. Born Another Gender

He's used to having to put in a lot of effort. It helps that he's tall, but he's got curves that take hiding, and Mom would be horrified if he cut his hair. Has to remember to slouch just right, and not to swing his hips, and there's some fancy stuff he wouldn't mind wearing but has to resist in order to avoid tipping people off, and...

...and yet somehow, walking down the halls of the studio, all he has to do is tape on a lopsided fake mustache to have Wyatt greet him as "Hey, dude, what's up?"

J could get used to this.

07. Schoolfic

Stupid Mom. Stupid Jessica's mom. Making Wyatt walk home with stupid Jessica, when he could be hanging out with his friends instead of having a stupid seven-year-old stupid skipping across the crosswalk with him.

"...and we used paint and we mixed up different colors and I painted this and Mom's gonna love it and..."

Wyatt kicked a half-crushed can across the sidewalk, trying to ignore stupid Jessica's babbling about her stupid painting.

"...and see, see? I painted everyone!"

In spite of himself, Wyatt looked at the unrolled sheet of paper. A bunch of smudgy brown stick figures, with approximately the relative heights of her family, as far as he knew them. Also, someone blue and sparkly. "Uh, who's the...?"

Jessica's ponytail flopped in front of her face as she looked over the top of the painting, getting an upside-down view of the figure Wyatt was pointing at. "That's Siri! She's the magical fairy who lives in Mommy's phone!"

"Oh." Stupid kids and their stupid failure to grasp technology.

Moving her fingers around to point at one of the normal figures, Jessica added, "And that's you!"

That got Wyatt's attention. Sure enough, the stick figure had a big fluffy black scribble-Afro.

"Um, wow," said Wyatt to maybe-not-so-stupid-, damn-now-he-felt-all-guilty-Jessica. "Thanks."

08. Police/Firefighters

Wyatt's having a hard time getting over the fear that he's turning into The Man. Jessica keeps having to distract him with how awesome she looks in the uniform.

09. Urban Fantasy

Jessica stomped into the building shivering, dripping wet, and purple in the face. Literally.

"I know," she snapped, as Wyatt opened his mouth. "I get it. You warned me. Never forget the tribute to the subway fae. Easiest way to identify an out-of-towner. I'm an idiot. Not a word!"

Wyatt held up his hands. "Not where I was gonna go, I swear."

"Then what?" Jessica clapped her hands to her head, wide-eyed, feeling through her hair. "I don't have horns, do I? Fur? A tail? Oh my god, it's a tail, isn't it."

"All I wanted to say is, if you need some pixie dust to fix it up, there's an emergency bottle in the petty cash drawer."

Jessica stopped frantically clawing through her hair. "You are my new favorite person."

10. Harem

When he ducked down to the pantry for another bowl of grapes, he ran smack into a new face. A young woman, really young by the look of her. But sure enough, she was wearing the big poofy pants, which meant she was a legit harem member and not an unusually dirt-free street urchin trying to sneak off with some of their wine.

"Hey," said Wyatt. "I'm Wyatt. And just so you know, Jon totally encourages fraternization among co-workers."

"Uh, thanks." She shook his hand. "Jessica. Does he not get jealous or whatever?"

Wyatt shrugged. "Even if he did, you're way young for his tastes. We're basically only here to keep his prestige up. You want some help with that wine?"

"Sure, I could use that."

She still looked pretty skeptical, so Wyatt added, "You can still hit on him if you want, but I'm telling you...if you really want to get into his good graces, make the guy laugh."

zomg. In the words of Jessica, YOU ARE MY NEW FAVORITE PERSON. \o/ (Though technically you're not, since you've always been my favorite person. :D) Apologies for vanishing off the grid for a while there. Real life + fanfic = Does Not Compute, apparently. rawr.

(Friendshippy is always more than fine btw, just so long as it involves a Jessica, lol. THERE IS NOT NEARLY ENOUGH OF IT OUT THERE. And she's been on the show, what, more than half a year now?)

*saves link to rec forever*

I aim to please :D

And I feel your pain re: RL.

With Jessica I think we're all coming up against the wall of "b-but she's 22!" She's, what, six or seven years older than Stephen's daughter? And it's not like she's had a couple years of career time to buffer her against Weird Things Fandom Does.

But evidently that isn't a total mental block to me writing friendly fluff about her, and hopefully more people in the fandom will ease into that over time :3

...holy crapola, you're right, SHE'S YOUNGER THAN ME. Thx for making us feel insignificant and midlife-crisis-y, Jess. :/ *really should get around to writing up that Wyatt/Jessica plot bunny some time*

Doctor Who: Ace. Alternate 5: Hollywood Golden Age.

Kept this one short and sweet :3

01. Wild West
Ace did not blow up that saloon, she has a very good alibi, and you can't prove anything.

02. Cyberpunk
Ace did not blow up that Sense/Net headquarters, she has a very good alibi, and you can't prove anything.

03. Shapeshifters
Ace did not blow up that store, although she doesn't have an alibi because the moon was full that night, but still, you can't prove anything.

04. Pirates
Ace totally did blow up that port, and if you don't give her all your money she'll do it again.

05. Hollywood Golden Age
Ace did not blow up that set, she has a very good alibi, and you can't prove anything.

06. Born Another Gender
Ace did not blow up that train station, he has a very good alibi, and you can't prove anything.

07. Schoolfic
Ace did not blow up that art room, her favorite professor will vouch for her, and you can't prove anything.

08. Police/Firefighters
Ace did not blow up that high-rise, come on, people, can't you see she's trying to put it out?

09. Urban Fantasy
Ace did not blow up that vampire club, but she'd like to thank whoever did.

10. Harem
Ace did not blow up that royal carriage, she has a very good...wait, entitled to the spoils including how many concubines?

This is perfection.

Jon/"Stephen"!

01. Wild West

"Stephen, this is ridiculous. They may look a little different, they may have weird customs, but they're still people. Why shouldn't we help them out?"

"Why? Jon, haven't you been listening to a word I've said? These illegal immigrants are taking American land and sucking all the buffalo out of the system without giving anything back! And have you seen the kind of violence they bring with them? We need to close our borders, and do whatever we can to make these people go back where they came from!"

"How can you be so heartless? There are kids out there! Kids who are potentially dying of thirst, and could be saved if we would just show them how to take full advantage of a cactus."

"I'll show them what to do with a cactus, all right."

"That's enough, Stephen. You've said your piece. It's time for us to vote."

"Fine. But anyone who votes down my proposal is going to be sorry fifty years from now when we're all speaking English."

02. Cyberpunk

"Right again! You're always so intelligent, Stephen."

"I know I am," said Stephen smugly. "But it never hurts to hear you say it."

"Intelligent. Witty. Moral. Steadfast. Handsome. Devastatingly handsome."

"Why, Jon, if I didn't hear that from everyone who passes me on the street, I'd say you were flirting with me."

Raised eyebrows; a half-smirk overflowing with roguish charm. "And what if I am?"

"Well, in that case...run sex scenario #82."

The simulacrum kisses him, slow and gentle, a composite sensation randomly generated from details in Stephen's initial memory-dump. This VR program is the best on the market: even with only a handful of memories, it can record enough data to extrapolate nearly ten to the power of some-large-number-Stephen-didn't-bother-remembering variations.

That figure is for physical experiences only, of course. Without a scan of Jon's brain, it has no hope of even approaching the man's wit.

But as the imitation Jon pushes Stephen up against the wall in uncharacteristic silence, Stephen reminds himself that it doesn't matter. After all the mean things Jon said at the end there, he doesn't want to be reminded of what Jon's authentic voice sounds like. The VR version will skip all the nonsense and get straight to banging him, which is all Stephen really wants anyway.

Isn't it?

03. Shapeshifters

Jon keeps his abilities rigidly buttoned-down in public, whenever he's able. Employees get used to the fact that sometimes, when his temper or some other strong emotion gets the better of him, he locks himself in his office and they have to settle for being directed by phone.

There's no way he can keep it under control in bed.

Stephen gets used to running his hands across any part of Jon's body and finding the fur thicker than usual. He tries not to pout when he goes for a kiss and Jon refuses, afraid of mauling his lips and tongue with temporarily knife-sharp teeth. He accepts the apology promptly after Jon's claws punch through the surface of the mattress inches from his head, leaving puffs of stuffing dribbling out from fabric wounds.

It's a flaw, a handicap, a freakish problem. It's supposed to be the kind of thing you tolerate, out of generosity of spirit (of which Stephen has plenty, thank you very much).

There's no way a fine upstanding pillar of the community is supposed to enjoy it.

So Stephen pretends. When his heart beats faster at even a glimpse of Jon's irises swelling green-gold, he firmly stamps it down. When Jon apologizes for not being able to top him, Stephen insists that he wouldn't care for it anyway, even without the danger to soft internal tissues. When a photo of a younger Jon with full fuzzy ears on display makes the rounds of the news services, temptingly adorable, he does the unthinkable and turns off FOX for the duration.

But there's always going to be some trapped corner of him that yearns to taste blood in his mouth, and won't be sated until he has Jon inside him, barbs and all.

04. Pirates

Cold blankness sweeps over Jon as he watches Kilborn's gutted rig take water. He's not sure how many people are still on it. Judging by the small size of the group huddled with him (stripped of their weapons and kept in place with bayonets), far too many.

A dark-haired pirate with a red-beaked blue parrot on his shoulder and, incongruously, fine wire-rimmed glasses struts over to them. He'd been giving a speech to the crew; Jon wasn't listening to the details, but it made them clap a lot, and at one point start into a rhythmic chant which broke off with a hush when he made a simple gesture. Now he stares the captives up and down, with a particular focus on Jon — whose cuffs are torn and buttons are half missing, but whose outfit is still in better shape than most — before grabbing the end of the rope around his neck. "I'll take this one."

Jon has to trot across the deck to keep from being strangled by the pirate captain's brisk gait. "It's probably too small for you," he says — babbling like he's at the tailor's, because apparently the more crisis-oriented parts of his mind have decided to pack it in and go fishing. "You'll have to let it out. And replace the buttons. These are a custom-made set, and a bunch of them are gone, and the odds of you getting them back are...."

"Blah, blah, blah," interrupts the pirate. "You're lucky I like a man that can talk about fashion."

A wooden door slams behind them. Jon sees lamps with red glass panels, a sword and striped shield hanging on the wall, a shelf with more artifacts than books, including a sepia-toned globe with MINE scrawled in heavy black strokes across the Atlantic.

"You can keep the coat," the pirate informs him, with an air of great generosity. "I'll even have my people fix it up for you. Now shut up and strip."

Jon's stomach turns. Desperate for time, he stammers, "Don't I get to know your name first?"

"What?" demands the pirate. "Are you telling me you haven't heard of the Dread Pirate Colbert?"

"Uh...it sounds vaguely familiar...is that you?"

The bird on Colbert's shoulder flutters its feathers and squawks, "Legend in his own mind! Legend in his own mind!"

"You shut up," Colbert orders it. To Jon he adds, "This is The Word, so-called because she knows too many of them for her own good. And I'm the feared and revered Stephen Colbert, and if that name doesn't strike terror into your tiny little heart, then hold off on the stripping for a minute and come over to the bookshelf. I've got spoils to show you."

05. ...In SPACE!!

Jon is a little short for a stormtrooper, and wishes everyone would quit thinking they're the first one to point it out.

Charlene disappears for six months and comes back all about lightsabers. Jon's privately impressed, although he doen't let Stephen know that; Stephen is Very Serious about blasters, to the point that he reads a bedtime story to his every night before putting it away.

Darth Factor turns out to be Stephen's father. Also Charlene's, which in retrospect makes that kiss seriously awkward, even if Stephen did only do it to make Jon jealous in the first place.

It's kind of scary how quickly Stephen raises a rebel army. Jon's not used to being part of anything taken this seriously.

They're the only three who know the whole story; Stephen deserved to know, of course, and they both wanted Jon to hear it. Charlene got Darth Factor to switch sides at the last minute, and he's the one who killed Darth Murdoch, only to expire himself moments later; the battle re-opened old wounds. Before he died, Charlene told him she forgave him.

"I don't," says Stephen flatly.

This time, as the presumptive future king-by-marriage of a recently formed diaspora, Jon privately agrees with Stephen.

06. Born Another Gender

"Sixty-ninth."

"I heard."

"Hotter than all but sixty-eight women on the planet. The planet, Jon."

"It's very impressive, I agree."

"Which means I have boyfriend dibs on all but a maximum of sixty-eight of the world's men."

"Uh, Steph—"

"And you are, at worst, the sixty-ninth luckiest man on Earth."

"Setting aside all the other logical flaws in that statement, couldn't some of the hotter woman be polyamorous?"

"Don't get smart with me, Stewart. You might jeopardize your access to the human race's sixty-ninth most desirable vagina."

"All right, ma'am."

"What I'm trying to say is, I expect worship tonight. And I think the voting readership of Maxim will agree that I deserve it."

"Uh-huh. Hey, Stephanie, have I ever told you that I routinely consider myself the first luckiest man on Earth?"

"That's a good start."

07. Schoolfic

Stephen has loudly questioned the value of every teacher and every subject, even the ones he's never taken, but throws himself into Mr. Tyson's seventh grade science fair assignment with gusto. He comes out with a full scale model of the Milky Way and its adjacent galactic clouds, bristling with scraps of paper containing over two hundred star-related facts, some of which even their astrophiliac professor hadn't been aware of.

In spite of the A+ in-class grade, it gets disqualified from the science fair for not being in "experimental format." Jon writes a scathingly funny letter to the editor of the school paper (one B. Williams) explaining why this is BS.

Stephen normally dismisses the paper too, but Mr. Tyson makes sure he sees this page. And, after finding out that he doesn't actually know the letter's author, decides to make a point of introducing them.

08. Police/Firefighters

"Come on, Colbert, you know I hate to do this."

"Then don't! You know the claims are baseless!"

"I hope they are! But you know the department can't just ignore accusations of racial harassment. Especially when they fall against a cop who writes up a group of young Hispanic men for, and I quote, 'acting suspicious'."

"How was I supposed to know they were Hispanic? I don't see race! All I saw is that they were acting suspicious! And...and un-American!"

"Unless you can give me some concrete activity they were engaged in...."

"Well...they were standing in front of a bookstore, looking at the window display...."

"And? Reading's going out of fashion, but it's not un-American yet."

"And...and they were making fun of Bill O'Reilly's new book."

"...I don't think we have a sensitivity training seminar for that."

09. Urban Fantasy

The fame lich sneaks through the studio window one afternoon and tries to suck all The Daily Show's vitality for itself. Craig puts a crossbow through its chest, then, after it recovers, offers it a job.

It's been very good ever since. Rehabilitated, you might say. Having multiple Peabodys and Emmys is a halfway decent salve for the gnawing ever-present hunger. Not a perfect one, though. Oprah had it on, once; it admitted that its existence was a constant challenge, then cried a little, and she hugged it and praised it as an inspiration to dark things everywhere.

By now Jon Stewart looks approximately twenty years past his actual age. Nobody's ever made the connection.

10. Harem
(Same 'verse as the Wyatt&Jessica one. Warning for sex+consent issues.)

Jon has to be seen taking someone to bed every night. In the early days, before he starts picking people for intelligence and trustworthiness more than status, he has to sleep with them all too. Can't give them any reason to get the gossip rolling.

Stephen's his favorite in these days because Stephen is gullible. Jon can tie him to the four-poster, eyes and ears covered, and then go read a book for an hour; Stephen will be no less than half-hard the entire time, and when Jon finally puts the volume down and unties the knots fasting his ankles to the bedposts, he'll assume Jon's been the same way.

That's how it goes for years on end. At some point Jon finds out he can bring in other people, and as long as the blindfold stays on and the rug is thick enough to swallow the tread of unfamilar footsteps, Stephen's story won't change.

This leads to the stretch of almost four months when Jon has almost no sex at all. He doesn't get much reading done, either. Internal conflict and self-loathing take up the bulk of his time. When he finally decides to change things, and damn the risk, the first step is to sit down with Stephen fully clothed and admits the deception.

Stephen looks at him for a long moment, then says, "Does that mean I can stop pretending it was you now?"

That brings Jon up short. "You knew?"

"Well, obviously," says Stephen, rolling his eyes. "Different penises feel different, Jon. At first I freaked out because I thought you didn't want me any more, but then I figured you must have a good reason that I just wasn't meant to know." And, when Jon asks if he isn't angry, "Why would I be? You wouldn't have let any of them hurt me."

(Jon is aware that this doesn't make him less of a horrible person. It just makes him a very, very lucky one.)

These days Jon is surrounded by a comfortable, clever group of people who just happen to look stunning with bare midriffs and poufy pants. They invite themselves into his bedroom, if and when they feel like it. On those nights nobody else volunteers, Stephen comes with him: for sex if they're both interested, cuddling if they're not.

Jon gets a lot of reading done with Stephen's dark head in his lap. He even gets someone to talk about the books with, and Stephen's commentary is earnest and funny, even when (especially when?) he's missed the point by a furlong.

Needless to say, Stephen is still his favorite.

A harem owner with a low libido is hilarious.

That's how it goes for years on end. At some point Jon finds out he can bring in other people, and as long as the blindfold stays on and the rug is thick enough to swallow the tread of unfamilar footsteps, Stephen's story won't change.

:-(

So, wait, he did the "leave Stephen waiting"-trick for years? That's a long time.

And the "ghosting", ick. At least Stephen knew, which makes it slightly more consensual from his end.

Stephen's story won't change.

Interesting. Stephen never told the others he knew, which meant that what Jon heard through the grapevine stayed the same.

And, when Jon asks if he isn't angry, "Why would I be? You wouldn't have let any of them hurt me."

<3 ;_;

Awww, Stephen, so unshakable in his trust in Jon.

He even gets someone to talk about the books with, and Stephen's commentary is earnest and funny, even when (especially when?) he's missed the point by a furlong.

Such a sweet ending. I'm sure "Stephen" is completely, utterly entertaining when he gets into a discussion.

It's both touching and a bit sad that Stephen is Jon's de facto back-up for sex.

Thank you for writing such delicious fic!

The timeline in my head is pretty vague, but yeah, it was a long time. (Not that Jon had Stephen every night -- other correspondents have come and gone, and of course he has travels and events and things.)

I tried to make Stephen as untraumatized as realistically possible by Jon's various abuses. He still has a deeply messed-up mindset, and would get shredded by any other owner. But he wasn't pushed beyond his limits in the past, and since we know through the Power of Authorial Fiat that Jon is really changing his ways, we know he'll get actual respect going forward.

Sad in the sense that Jon doesn't have a healthier relationship to go to instead? I can see that. At this point, though, his bond with Stephen is a more solid thing; it's not that Stephen is the backup sex option so much that spending time with Stephen (with or without sex) is what both of them want most, and what they get to do whenever Jon doesn't have another obligation.

Thank you for the thorough feedback! That's the best kind of reward :D

Deeply-messed up, or exactly the right kind of mindset to survive being a concubine. But he would have objected if Jon had let him get hurt.

Well, yes, and that Stephen has to wait for the other people to have a go first. But I can definitely see that they're building a really sweet relationship. <3

That too XD

If there's a night on which Stephen urgently wants Jon, I'm sure he has no problem calling dibs.

Olivia(/Kristen, if you like [though I suspect you didn't need my go-ahead for that anyway ;)])

No need for encouragement at all! Now if only I were interested enough in historical research to write a whole extended story about Li-hua and do it justice ^_^;

01. Wild West
(Warning for 1870's racism.)

Olivia makes honest money, but that doesn't mean every store will take it. Folks talk free white labor and got to discourage the coolies, and pretend not to notice her when she bangs on their counters.

Kristen buys things on her behalf sometimes. She's tempted to throw in a little extra, but if Olivia ever caught wind of the price difference it'd hurt her pride something fierce.

02. Cyberpunk

The OLIVIA unit (Operational Lifeform Intended for Violence and Immediate Assassination, one of the scary ones) lies sprawled on the floor of the studio a meter and a half away from Jon's desk, where Kristen tasered it into quiescence seconds before it took the host's head off with one swift kick.

Jon is safely behind the yellow police tape, wrapped in a shock blanket and talking with some officers, while two other hackers stand over Kristen and watch her rearrange the wires under the OLIVIA's back panel. Officially they're there to supervise on behalf of the digital authorities; in practice they're there to stand back and hope they learn something from this.

It's a matter of minutes to change the unit's wireless frequencies, after which she can rewrite the code using her smartphone. By now even thumb-typing doesn't slow her down. The firewalls are hacked; the data copied in bulk to be examined for evidence later; the murderous personality templates wiped. There's a whole swath of free hard drive real estate waiting to be filled with anything she can torrent.

"Hey, Jon!" calls Kristen across the set. (The inspector talking to him looks annoyed, but tolerates the interruption.) "You want to start rectifying your lack of female correspondents?"

"Are you suggesting I hire the android that tried to kill me?"

"War on women!" yells Kristen.

"It doesn't even have a gender! It's a robot!"

"War on artificial lifeforms!"

"Fine!" cries Jon. "Give it a funny personality and I'll give it an interview! But if it doesn't make me laugh, it doesn't get hired!"

Kristen grins and fires up her web browser. This is going to be epic.

03. Shapeshifters

"Oh. My. God."

This is it. The pack warned her it would probably happen, but she, like an idiot, decided to go and take the chance. And now Olivia's freaking out. Well, of COURSE she's freaking out! Who wouldn't?

"You. Are. Adorable."

Wait. What?

Olivia scoots closer until they're almost nose-to-muzzle, searching Kristen's eyes. "Yep, totally still blue! The rumors are true! Can I rub your ears? Or is that, like, offensive? I'm sorry, they're just so cute."

"You can rub whatever you want," says Kristen, and then realizes maybe that didn't come out right.

If Olivia notices, she saves the teasing for later. For now she squeals like an eight-year-old with a pony and buries her hands in the fur of Kristen's head and neck.

In spite of herself, Kristen's tail starts bobbing.

04. Pirates
(Olivia here is inspired by Ching Shih. Attempted non-con, death, gory stuff.)

Katrien has always had some trouble with petticoats, but when one of the pirates shoves her into a different compartment of the twenty-gun junk from the rest of the people and items hauled off her doomed ship, she doesn't mind having a couple dozen extra layers of clothing. The man is ranting in Chinese, of which she knows maybe fifty words, but she has a hunch this can be roughly translated as "what stupid Dutch fashion designer decided to give people all these skirts?"

She kicks and flails (which would be more effective if her shoes hadn't already gone missing) and yells at him ("war on women" probably doesn't translate, but "stop" and a plethora of expletives have got to be making it across the language barrier), which seems to be temporarily working until his fist catches her in the temple and everything goes swimmy.

She's on her back on what feel like sacks of rice, rough burlap over grain...there are hands on her thighs, only one layer of cloth separating them from her bare skin, and then the cloth separating under the touch of a blade...

...and the blade goes wild, slicing shallowly through flesh before getting muffled in her skirts, as the guy is yanked back.

Her vision must be worse off than she thought. His head seems to be going in a different direction from his body.

A sharp Chinese command is snapped out in a higher voice, and shadowy figures begin to drag the body away. Their commander resolves into a slim figure, face painted and hair tied tightly back, in an outfit that seems oddly feminine (granted, most of her people's clothes read that way to Katrien, but still).

And sure enough, in the hand not holding a curved blade, she's carrying the would-be rapist's severed head by its tight plait of hair. His face has gone slack; there's blood dripping from the neck.

"Ugh," says Katrien eloquently. "Thanks. I hope."

The woman (another pirate?) snaps something at her now, in flat tones that grate on her still-ringing ears. She tries to remember how to say 'sorry, don't speak it' in Chinese, but all that's coming up is numbers and the names of various rice dishes.

And then the woman switches to what sounds like badly accented French.

"Huh?" says Katrien. Her leg stings like burning; a trickle of blood runs down it. "No..non, parlez pas français...you speak Dutch?" The woman stares, blank; no surprise there. She tries again. "English?"

"English!" echoes the stranger. "You speak?" When Katrien nods, the woman sheathes her sword and holds up her hand. "How many fingers?"

"Three." She repeats it in Chinese, for good measure.

The woman grins and offers the hand to Katrien. "Good! Very good. You come now."

She's about to take it when something wet plops out of the still-dripping neck and lands on the floorboards next to the woman's boots. Katrien flinches away.

"You no afraid," the woman orders her. "Him fool. No good on ship of soongleehwah."

"Ship of...what?"

She taps her chest. "Sun Li-hua. Captain. Me."

Oh. Well.

"Katrien Schaal," sais Katrien to the woman, pirate, commander of a fleet, and takes her hand.

05. ...In SPACE!!

When Kristen gets behind the controls of a Viper, she wraps her hand around the firing mechanism, opens her eyes until the whites show all around, and cackles like a genocidal madowman.

Up on the bridge, Olivia shivers and hopes nobody notices how much it turns her on.

kay so I know there are like four other drabbles here

but

FUCK

YOU WROTE OLIVIA AS CHING SHIH

DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I LOVE OLIVIA

DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I LOVE CHING SHIH

I CAN'T EVEN

I CAN'T EVEN

*falls off the bed*

*falls out the window*

*falls off the surface of the earth*

*falls into the sun*

I had not even heard of Ching Shih until I started looking up stuff about Chinese pirates for this fic! But yes, she's amazing and it's a tragedy there is not a trilogy of blockbuster movies about her. (Possibly starring Olivia? Idea!)

06. Born Another Gender

Kristen doesn't laugh, or disbelieve, or break out any of the creepy radfem sentiments he had spent a couple of anxiety attacks being convinced she would reveal.

She just purses her full lips and says, "So do you want us to start calling you Oliver now? Because that could get pretty confusing around here, but I'm sure we could try."

07. Schoolfic

Olivia spends weeks resisting. She'd just as soon go in a T-shirt and jeans. It'll be awkward if she does something wrong, if she stands out more than they will already. Something something oppressive patriarchal standards of beauty something. (Words like that usually get Kristen's agreement; the order doesn't always matter.)

Finally Kristen says, "Look, I'm going to wear a stupidly fancy dress, first because I want to, and second as a giant screw-you to all the people who think I don't look good enough to rock a stupidly fancy dress. And if I were you, I would wear whatever says the giantest screw-you to the people who deserve it, whether that's a princess-type ball gown or an Iron Man T-shirt."

When they stroll into prom, Olivia's wearing a gathered royal-blue gown worthy of Disney, with flawless makeup and jewelry that sets off her eyes. Kristen's in emerald-green with black gloves and a gaudy feather-strewn handheld eye mask.

Granted, most of the stares are probably because they're holding hands, but somehow Olivia spends the whole night believing that she looks good.

08. Police/Firefighters

The purse-snatcher is about five steps from the entrance to the subway station when Kristen lands in front of him.

"I don't think you want to do that," says Olivia cheerfully. "In fact, I'm thinking you can't wait to give that back. Normally I'm not a great psychic, but I have a good feeling about this one."

Kristen just grins. Her lips slowly unfurl back over dagger teeth.

The guy's eyes roll back in his head, and he keels over onto the cobblestones.

"I'll get the purse, you haul this guy to the station?" says Olivia. As she slides down off her partner's neck, Kristen nods.

Keeping crime down is a lot easier when you have a were-dragon on the force.

09. Urban Fantasy

Okay, Kristen's got this one. It's textbook. Deals and wishes lead to unthinkable awful fates, and conversation is the only thing known to lead to deals and wishes, so when it comes to the Fae, you don't talk. At all.

Of course, that leaves her standing awkwardly in the lobby of her building while the woman with glowing skin battles the mailbox next to hers.

The glow is pretty subtle. You wouldn't notice if you weren't paying attention, although that could be totally innocent, obviously, since Kristen's a Hunter and trained to be super-observant and all; it's not like you'd have to be checking her out. Anyway, the faerie also has blue-black hair that's lifting slightly, like she's not bound by the same laws of gravity, or maybe just has really fantastic volumizing shampoo. And she probably knows half a dozen different unlocking spells, but since you're not allowed to use magic in the building outside your own rooms, she just keeps stabbing the key at different parts of the mailbox panel like she thinks it has a hidden catch somewhere.

Finally Kristen's inherent niceness gets the better of her common sense. "Here," she says, stepping around the faerie's shopping bags (junk food and designer clothes, respectively), "let me help you with that."

"Hm?" says the faerie. She has freckles (also glowing), and eyes that are practically golden (but otherwise normal).

"You just push the key in here." Kristen guides the metal up over the nameplate (Olivia Munn, also normal, surprisingly so) and eases it into the keyhole. "Gently now. Then twist until it clicks, and pull."

The front of the mailbox pops open, revealing a bill, a credit card offer, two adverts, and an issue of SkyMall.

Olivia lights up. "Thanks!" she exclaims, flashing white teeth as she scoops up the papers. "Can't get the hang of this mortal stuff, it's so embarrassing. I owe you one."

Great. That's it. Kristen has just sealed her own doom.

It's probably the fae-glamour talking, but she's not entirely convinced it wasn't worth it.

10. Harem
(Again with the 'verse explored above.)

In a marbled chamber with pillow-strewn floors, Jon and his concubines sit in a circle of velvety-red oversized beanbag chairs. Stephen, as usual when too many others are in Jon's vicinity, is draped possessively across the man's lap, while the others are loosely grouped in a way that would dissolve under a casual gaze: Wyatt and Jessica, Sam and Jason, Kristen and Olivia, John, Aasif.

"So here's the problem," says Jon, passing around the bowl of grapes. "O'Reilly is visiting tomorrow. And O'Reilly has heard...Rumors."

The capital letter rustles around the room. Olivia slips her hand into Kristen's and squeezes.

"Nothing definite, and I can probably brush off anything he says at the Council as grudgebaiting." He ruffles Stephen's hair. "But it would be nice if we had battle plans. Just in case."

+++

"So these are your people?" says O'Reilly, looking around from his plush seat at the gauze-clad bodies enjoying the cushions around him. Stephen is kneeling by his side with the fruit-and-cheese platter and the wine ready for pouring; Olivia by Jon's, with an identical setup. Everyone else is out in the sprawl. "Nice bunch."

"You flatter me, sir." Jon rests a hand on the crown of Olivia's head, ostensibly to be possessive and dickish, in reality to remind her not to throttle the man. (Or Jon, for that matter. She trusts him — heck, even Sam trusts him, and she's been here since before Jon made his turnaround — but that doesn't mean it doesn't grate.)

"No, I mean it! I mean," and O'Reilly pats Stephen's head, "this one's seen better days, but your cupbearer there, she's, she's a real cute one. You keeping 'em all busy?"

It's a perfect opening, and Kristen takes it. "Not at all," she declares, popping up from behind Jon's couch and leaning forward. With exaggerated gestures she rubs Jon's shoulders; her breasts squish into high circles against the back of his head. "He is so neglectful sometimes, aren't you? In a harem this size, two or three times a night is just not enough to go around!"

"Well, uh, I, um...." Jon isn't entirely faking. "...Sorry?"

Kristen pinches his cheeks. "Not good enough!" She releases him, to everyone's relief except possibly O'Reilly's, and strolls over to where Olivia's still kneeling in wait. "It's gotten so bad, we've had no choice but to turn to...each other."

She pulls Olivia's head against her, and lets the expositing die away in favor of heavy breathing.

Olivia closes her eyes and lets her mouth fall open as she nuzzles between Kristen's legs. Her bottom lip drags across the satiny fabric; she can smell Kristen through the perfume, can just feel the contours of the warmer folds underneath. "Yeah, it's awful," she mumbles. "Absolutely awful. Unf."

Kristen waits a long and delicious moment before hauling her upward — Olivia gets her face dragged right through Kristen's cleavage and manages to get in a good lick before their mouths are on a level. Kristen's hands caress her bare arms; Olivia wraps them around Kristen's ample waist and kisses her deeply. There's a string of bangles slung around Kristen's hips, and when Olivia grinds their pelvises together she learns that one of them is placed just right....

"Ladies!" exclaims Jon. "If I promise to take both of you to my room tonight, will you quit interrupting our meeting?"

"No, please," puts in O'Reilly, trying to sound professionally detached and failing. "Don't stop on my account."

+++

"Well, I think it's clear who stole the show today...."

"Me, right?" says Stephen hopefully.

Jon squeezes his hand. "You were good too, babe."

Olivia and Kristen get a round of applause. Jessica hugs them both. Jason goes for the same, a sly leer on his face; Sam gently yanks him back.

"And I wasn't kidding about you getting my room tonight," Jon adds. When the joy in the room vanishes behind wary shields, he hastens to add, "Not with me in it! No, of course not. I'll be in one of the guest rooms. With, uh, I don't know if anyone wants to call tonight, but I was hoping...."

"I've got an idea," interrupts Olivia. Her arm is around Kristen's shoulders and vice versa, like they've been welded there. "How about you and Stephen cuddle in one of the spare bedrooms in our wing?"

Jon shuffles from foot to foot. "You do realize, that if that story gets out, I will be in even bigger trouble than I was before the not-sexing-the-concubines-enough rumor got squashed...."

Kristen shrugs, lightly jostling Olivia's arm but not losing it. Never losing it. "Then I guess you better keep us all happy enough not to spread it around, huh?"

Jon's gaze skips around the circle, face to face to face. Then he rubs the back of his neck. "I guess I better."

Yay, you finally wrote a Jon-has-a-harem story! And not a contemporary consensual polyamourus while at work situation, but a real harem, where they live with him (and are presumably contracted?)

The entire team draped with gauze? Over their naked skin?

I would pay to see that. ;D

And the image of a Olivia - dressed like that - kneeling at Jon's feet, pretending to be subservient = very sexy.

She trusts him — heck, even Sam trusts him, and she's been here since before Jon made his turnaround — but that doesn't mean it doesn't grate.

Oooh! So much delicious backstory here. Was Olivia forced to go into service? When did Jon stop coercing his concubines into sex? Why did Sam begin to trust him? So much angst!

Kristen's hands caress her bare arms; Olivia wraps them around Kristen's ample waist and kisses her deeply.

This whole scene was HOT! Kristen sure can put on a show.

Olivia and Kristen get a round of applause. Jessica hugs them both. Jason goes for the same, a sly leer on his face; Sam gently yanks him back.

"And I wasn't kidding about you getting my room tonight," Jon adds. When the joy in the room vanishes behind wary shields, he hastens to add, "Not with me in it! No, of course not. I'll be in one of the guest rooms. With, uh, I don't know if anyone wants to call tonight, but I was hoping...."

The dynamics here are interesting. Sam and Jason are obviously a couple and have some degree of monogamy. Everyone, including Jon, takes for granted that he has no right to sleep with Kristin and Olivia, and he's passively waiting for someone to step up and claim him for the night.

I don't get why Olivia wants him to sleep in the Concubine wing? And why she assumes he and Stephen will only cuddle? :)

"Then I guess you better keep us all happy enough not to spread it around, huh?"

Jon's gaze skips around the circle, face to face to face. Then he rubs the back of his neck. "I guess I better."

This shifting of power is interesting. Outside of the home, Jon has the upper-hand, legally and socially, but his concubines hold increasing power over him behind closed doors.

Uhm, write more? If nothing else, I hope some delicious fanart comes out of this universe! :D

I'm thinking it's a sex-slave harem rather than a contractee harem, because the angst potential is more delicious that way. There may not be any legal way to free a slave [yet], and Jon would certainly be in open disgrace if he tried it.

There's more to the outfits than just gauze! Gauze is an integral part of the design, that's all :3

I'm not sure what caused Jon's turnaround -- if there was any particular event involved, or if his own self-loathing at going along with the system reached a point where he couldn't live with himself if he didn't at least try to change things, no matter what the risk.

Sam and Stephen are the only two concubines remaining from before the change, and Stephen's trust in Jon is only loosely fact-based, so Olivia doesn't consider it a reliable source XD

I'm assuming Sam's view changed after Jon took some substantial risk to protect some of the harem members.

Even after giving up his bedroom, it wouldn't be much of a sacrifice for Jon to sleep in one of the equally cushy guest rooms. Sleeping in the same kind of rooms as the concubines shows more of a willingness to treat himself no differently from them. (Even if only for the night, it's still a good symbolic gesture.)

Olivia assumes they will definitely cuddle. That doesn't preclude them doing anything else :3

If RL calms down any time soon, there just might be some fanart coming out of this AU. Prompts -- for art as well as fic -- are also welcome!

I'm thinking it's a sex-slave harem rather than a contractee harem, because the angst potential is more delicious that way. There may not be any legal way to free a slave [yet], and Jon would certainly be in open disgrace if he tried it.

Yes, the angst and h/c potential both. Can you truely trust, like, love someone who owns you, even if it's only on paper?

Plus it would have a lot of real world implications. Sam and Jason wouldn't be able to have children, neither of the concubines could marry, or travel without Jon.

Good idea about Sam.

Sleeping in the same kind of rooms as the concubines shows more of a willingness to treat himself no differently from them.

Ah, I see. That's very clever! :) The concubine rooms are fairly comfortable, I hope.

If RL calms down any time soon, there just might be some fanart coming out of this AU. Prompts -- for art as well as fic -- are also welcome!

I hope RL calms down for you soon. You could draw a group portrait of all the correspondents in their harem outfits. Maybe you could be the painter who gets contracted to paint their portrait every year. ;)

Hmm, fic. Id!ficcy:

Sam, as the head concubine is in charge of punishing the others if they break the rules. Olivia does, is punished in a creative way, and Kristin comforts her.

Jon and Stephen start dating for real: moonlight strolls, dancing, little gifts. All is well until Jon's guilt over owning his boyfriend affects his performance in the bed room.

Actual exposition:

Jessica spends a lot of her first month trying to get to know her fellow concubines. She uses bribes, alcohol, and plain old gossiping to get the goods on each person in the household, including Jon, and gains great insight into how the harem functions. Plus some good stories and new friends.

Okay, I shall mull this over and if I come up with any more interesting, I'll get back to you.

I'm reaching back to my RoD days to go with Nenene :)

And the whole crowd seems to have come with her XD (The title is a play on one of her novels.)

01. Wild West

"It just doesn't make any sense," said Yomiko, book in hand.

"Sensei?" said Nenene.

"Why does the author keep returning to this setting? It's the middle of an invasion and attempted cultural genocide; there are only so many stories you can tell without confronting that."

"Sensei...."

"Granted, there's a literary tradition of stories set in a fantasized version of the era, but the author doesn't seem conversant with those tropes at all..."

"Sensei!"

"...and even when reduced to their essential archetypes, the characters she's working with don't seem like a natural fit for the—"

At that moment, Yomiko's spur-heeled boots carried her directly into the front post of the saloon.

"I keep telling you, sensei, not to get preoccupied with a book and careless about where you're walking," said Nenene, picking up Yomiko's ten-gallon hat from where it had fallen and brushing off the dust of the road. "And as for the story, beats me. Maybe the author just got locked into a contract."

02. Cyberpunk

There is no such person as Yomiko Readman.

That's what every search engine and every database tells her. Even the bugs sent out to crawl the Deep 'Net, or the government servers under eight layers of security crafted by the world's best programmers to the tune of several billion yen each. Nobody should be able to wipe the records so completely; there ought to be a digital fingerprint left somewhere, at the passport office or on the voter rolls or in the goddamn library. She's been through it all, and there's zip.

But Nenene's not giving up.

Because she remembers the way the code would sing when Yomiko's neural implants touched down. It wasn't just data where she was concerned; it wasn't even poetry or art. It was a living, breathing thing, and it loved her. A human being couldn't delete their existence from every global record, but if that human simply asked, and the records themselves decided to do her a favor...anything is possible.

If ever Nenene gets discouraged by the long and fruitless search, all she has to do is open her locket. Not a LocKet app, a script at the whim of corruptible codecs. A physical locket, containing a scrap of analog film.

There was such a person as Yomiko Readman for long enough to be photographed. That's all Nenene needs to know.

03. Shapeshifters

Relying on paper parachutes is a great idea until it rains.

Yomiko drops through the clouds, hands still clinging to her bag out of a lifetime of habit, though it flops empty in the rushing wind and its contents are falling in sodden clumps all around her...

...until a brown-speckled bird the size of a helicopter soars out of the fog and arcs under her, sticking its neck right through the bag's handle.

"Geez, sensei," squawks the bird, as Yomiko slips and slides over its dappled back feathers. "You made me save you again."

04. Pirates

"Let me get this straight."

The trio of scurvy swabbers cringed away from their Captain's stony glare.

"I sent you out for gold, wine, armor, meat and cheese, fine silks and rich spices...you know, loot and plunder?"

Off to the side of the deck, the cabin girl rolled her eyes at her shipmates. The cabin boy, who wasn't nearly so blasé about conflict among friends, sank through the floor.

"And not only did you get none of it...not even something we can roast for dinner tonight...what you did get was SO MANY BOOKS that MY SHIP IS SINKING UNDER THE WEIGHT?"

"Technically," said Michelle, "it's not the weight that affects an object's buoyancy, it's the mass—"

"I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT!" shouted Cap'n Sumiregawa. "At least half of them need to be off my ship in the next hour. You can get them safely back onshore where they belong, or I can start throwing them off! Is that understood?"

05. ...In SPACE!!

The aliens have hijacked the cruiser. Security are presumably up on deck fighting, but Nenene can't be sure. Like the rest of the civilian passengers, she's stuck in the cargo bay, where all the various noises of massed human panic and despair are underlaid by an ominous whistling sound rom the cracked airlock.

Nenene finds a free crate to sit on, whips out her pocket notebook, and starts jotting things down.

If she doesn't die within the next couple of hours, this is going to become an amazing disaster novel.

*LOL*

I would be that kind of pirate.

I would be a terrible pirate.

By which you mean you would be the best kind of pirate.

:3

06. Born Another Gender

Sumiregawa Natsuo is no fool. He knows there's money to be made in this yaoi stuff, if you can just get the fujoshi market to take notice. He also knows full well that you don't actually have to know anything about real-life boys' love or gay sex to pull it off; all that matters is that you play to the fangirl mind.

Still, even as a young writer, Natsuo knows better than to slack off at his craft just because he can.

So when Yoshio Readman, that new teacher and a huge otaku fanboy in his own right, shows up in the library with a stack of books that he presumably wants signed (seriously, huge fanboy), Natsuo grabs him by the lapels and locks their lips together.

He's a perfectionist that way.

07. Schoolfic

Every year, some teacher or another tries to get her to change. And every year, when they approach her carefully sequestered corner of the playground, Nenene pulls her knees up closer to her chest and focuses more intently on the notebook propped there.

She doesn't need another grown-up telling her she should go play on the slide, or run around with her little friends. All she needs to do is write.

08. Police/Firefighters

Nenene's used to getting tokens of thanks. Flowers after she saves someone's home. Free samples after quelling a blaze in an office building. Tearful embraces and promises to repay her with any service she desires when there's a friend or family member involved, or even, sometimes, a beloved pet.

She's not used to saying "don't worry, ma'am, the bookshelf wasn't damaged" and having the ma'am in question pounce on her and kiss her within an inch of her life.

(Although she could definitely get used to it.)

09. Urban Fantasy

"Gomenasai!" exclaimed the vampire [wearing glasses for some reason, but definitely a vampire], clapping her hands together and bowing. "And itidakimasu!"

Nenene tried to use the opportunity to bolt down the alley. In a single step the vampire whisked across the distance she'd put between them and grabbed her, pulling back the collar of her school uniform to sink needle-sharp fangs into her veins.

"Ahsuh," said the vampire, letting blood trickle down Nenene's neck as it tried to speak and drink simultaneously, "uh juhst wahn yuh tuh know that uh weawy wuhv yuhr buhks."

10. Harem

The package deal was tempting. And Nenene did need to bulk up the size of her harem, even if Yomiko and Nancy were the most brilliant, most skillful, and, yes, sexiest concubines a woman could ask for.

Still..."I'm not into kids," she said flatly, looking down at the shortest member of the gauzily clad trio. "Why do I have to pay extra for the shrimp?"

"Oh, you don't have to have sex with her!" exclaimed the blonde, causing both her tall and miniature sisters to flush bright red. "Anita has lots of other skills! Do you need a mascot? She would be an excellent mascot. Here, let us show you what she looks like in her froggy hat...."

"I'm not wearing the stupid froggy hat!"

While the other two sisters wrestled over something green and horrendous, the tall dark-haired woman took Nenene's hand. She had to practically get down on one knee to be on an eye level with the would-be buyer, but once she got there, her expression was so soft it made the rest of the world around her go slightly out of focus.

"Please," she said softly, "don't separate our precious sisterhood."

What could Nenene say? She had always been a softie at heart.

(DOUBLE) *LOL*

I loved all of these, but harem made me go "awwwww."

Gotta keep that sisterhood together. Anita would have worn the froggy hat eventually if that was what it took =)

Jon/real!Stephen! :)

I hate to default on something, even a random meme, but I honestly have no ideas for this one. Sorry :|

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Re: Ten Wyatt&Jessica AUs

Re: Ten Wyatt&Jessica AUs

no subject

What This AU Needs Is More Nitro-9

Re: What This AU Needs Is More Nitro-9

no subject

It's What Lincoln Would Have AU'd (1-4)

It's What Lincoln Would Have AU'd (5-10)

#10, again.

Re: #10, again.

Re: #10, again.

Re: #10, again.

no subject

Ten Olivia/Kristen AUs (1-5)

Re: Ten Olivia/Kristen AUs (1-5)

Re: Ten Olivia/Kristen AUs (1-5)

Ten Olivia/Kristen AUs (6-10)

Re: Ten Olivia/Kristen AUs (6-10)

Re: Ten Olivia/Kristen AUs (6-10)

Re: Ten Olivia/Kristen AUs (6-10)

no subject

AUs From Beyond The Ceiling (1-5)

Re: AUs From Beyond The Ceiling (1-5)

Re: AUs From Beyond The Ceiling (1-5)

Re: AUs From Beyond The Ceiling (1-5)

AUs From Beyond The Ceiling (6-10)

Re: AUs From Beyond The Ceiling (6-10)

Re: AUs From Beyond The Ceiling (6-10)

Re: AUs From Beyond The Ceiling (6-10)

no subject

no subject