Fic Concept Roundup 2024
When I have a fic idea, I’ll usually scribble it down in the back of my diary. It’s time to switch diaries again, so it’s time for the annual fic concept roundup!
This post lists all the fic ideas at the back of my 2023-24 diary. If I’ve written the fic, I’ll include a link to it. If I’ve started the fic, I’ll share a snippet. If I haven’t started it, I’ll write at least a hundred words on the spot.
First of all, here are the fics I’ve written in full. Fandoms: The Quarry, Death Note, Severance, Final Fantasy VII Remake. There may be spoilers for these canons below the cut.
The Quarry: Laura lets her guilt for killing the Hacketts catch up to her; only Silas had to die that night. Possibly Travis has to contend with his own guilt; if he hadn’t told her how to cure it-
This became Prisoner’s Dilemma, the first fic in my surprisingly intense period of writing fanfiction about Laura and Travis.
The Quarry: Something set in the ending where Travis locks Laura in a cage?
I ended up writing a lot of fics about Travis locking Laura up post-canon! Prisoner’s Dilemma, Security and Burning all deal with the theme in different ways.
Death Note: Light is haunted by L. You wrote this concept in a previous diary, but it seems a good time to remind yourself!
I’m glad I reminded myself of this concept, because I actually did get it written: Shades.
Severance: Mark’s implant starts to break down, and it enables the two halves of himself to talk to each other.
I love all of Severance’s potential for playing around with memory and identity. This became Through the Looking Glass.
Final Fantasy VII Remake: Cloud/Aerith/Tifa/Barret. Could include Barret and Aerith getting to know each other for the first time, in the Shinra building while Cloud is unconscious, or maybe that could be a separate fic.
I’m still amazed there’s so little out there for this OT4; they have such good chemistry! But at least I’ve now done my part to rectify the lack: Divisions.
Next, let’s look at the works in progress (or at least the works that were started; I’m not sure they’re actively progressing). Fandoms: Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (2023 game), Severance, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy XV, Uncharted. There may be spoilers for these canons below the cut.
Master Detective Archives: Rain Code: Yuma stays in the final Mystery Labyrinth with Shinigami and possibly also Makoto.
I wrote almost none of this - the snippet below is all that exists - but I did technically start it. I thought it was outrageous for the game to dangle the possibility of characters being trapped together and then whisk it away; it’s one of my favourite themes!
“Your Master Detective friends are alive, you know,” Makoto says.
Yuma lets out a slow breath, a knot loosening in his chest. It’s what he suspected. The blood on their clothes was pink, and there was no reason for them to be homunculi. But it’s still an intense relief to have it confirmed.
“Not that you’ll ever see them again, of course,” Makoto says, “if you insist on sticking with this plan.”
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (2023): Peter and MJ inviting Harry into their relationship.
This game really made me ship Peter/Harry/MJ! It’s a shame I never got further with this fic concept.
“You don’t know how good it is to have you back.” MJ kisses Harry on-
On the cheek. It was close enough to Harry’s mouth for Peter to get confused about what he was seeing, just for an instant; it was kind of a jolt. But it’s just a normal, acceptable kiss on the cheek.
[...]
He’s been thinking about that instant he thought MJ was actually kissing Harry, turning it over and over in his mind. It’s hard to place how he felt about it in the moment.
Which is weird, right? He knows how you’re meant to feel when your girlfriend kisses another guy. He had a reaction, definitely, but he doesn’t know if ‘jealousy’ is the right word to pin on it.
Severance: Macrodata Refinement polycule.
I kept attempting and failing this when I was writing for Severance!
“Does it... feel right, when you have waffle parties?”
“It feels awesome,” Dylan says. “What do you mean, does it feel right?”
“I saw some of the personnel files,” Mark admits. “Apparently you have both male and female Tempers.”
“What, you don’t? I assumed we all got the same people.”
Mark hesitates. “My outie says I’m straight, apparently.”
Dylan nods, solemnly. “And you’re asking me about this ’cause you think he’s wrong.”
“I don’t know,” Mark says. “He’s probably right. It’s not like there’s any real point in knowing.”
“Hey,” Dylan says. “It is totally normal to feel this way.” He sweeps a hand down his chest to indicate himself. “You don’t spend this long working with the tastiest egg on the bar and come away thinking you’re exclusively into the ladies.”
Final Fantasy VIII: Squall and past Laguna work out a way to communicate.
The challenge here is how little Squall wants to communicate with anyone.
“Hey, I have an idea,” Laguna says. “You cast all that magic and summon GFs and whatever through us, right? How about...” Ifrit for yes and Shiva for no seems like overkill. “How about Fire for yes, Thunder for no?”
He waits. Nothing happens.
And then his arm rises up. His hand moves in a quick semicircular motion he recognises instantly, he feels the magic rising to his fingers, he feels excitement building in his chest - it’s working, they can communicate-
His hand drops to his side again, the magic vanishing.
“Uh,” Laguna says. “It seemed like you were about to say yes, and then you just... didn’t. So... does that mean not yes? No?”
Whatever the faeries say always just sounds like buzzing to him. But he knows what a sigh sounds like; he’s heard plenty of them. And the short, quiet buzz in his mind feels a lot like a sigh.
His hand rises again and makes the sign for casting Thunder: fingers together, palm flat and vertical. But, again, he doesn’t actually cast the spell.
“No, it doesn’t not mean yes?” Laguna asks. This is already making his head hurt.
“Maybe they don’t want to risk setting this place on fire just because you asked a yes or no question,” Kiros suggests.
Laguna’s hand makes the semicircular gesture for Fire again. Which... means yes, he guesses?
Holy crap. They’re actually communicating with the faeries.
Final Fantasy XV: Something for Final Fantasy XV. I don’t have any idea; I just miss it!
Extremely vague! But I actually have written a scrap of Final Fantasy XV fanfiction this year.
“Do you recall the green soup curry from that restaurant in Lestallum?” Ignis asks. “The one you were so taken with?”
Does he remember it? He dreams about it every night. “Uh, yeah; it was incredible.”
Ignis nods. “I thought I might try to recreate it.”
“Seriously?” Prompto asks, almost bouncing on his feet. “I think that might actually make you, like, the best person alive.” Wait. “Doesn’t it have a lot of vegetables?”
“Indeed,” Ignis says. “We’ll see if the flavours mask them to His Highness’s satisfaction.” He gestures to his worktop. “Would you like to assist me in preparation?”
Prompto hesitates.
“There’s no obligation, of course,” Ignis says. “I only thought you might like to learn to make it yourself.”
“That does sound pretty good,” Prompto admits. “It’s just, uh. I don’t want to screw up everyone’s supper. That’s kind of a lot of pressure.”
“What if you simply entertained me as I worked?” Ignis suggests.
“As in just... talking?” Prompto asks. “Or, like, juggling?”
Ignis smiles a little. “A conversation will do.”
Yeah, he can probably manage that. If there’s one thing he can do, it’s talk. And... honestly, it’s kind of incredible that someone as smart and put-together as Ignis would actually want to hear what he has to say.
Uncharted: Nate in an Edge of Tomorrow situation.
This concept was inspired by my friends making fun of me while I continually fell to my death in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.
“I think I might be in some kind of, uh. Time loop?”
“Shit,” Elena mutters. “Again? Was it guns or gravity that killed you?”
What?
“Excuse me,” Nate says, “do you have experience with time loops?”
Elena’s eyes widen. “Wait, is this the first time you’re telling me?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You have experience with time loops,” Elena says. “You must’ve gotten stuck in one... God, I don’t know. Twenty times? That’s just the times I’ve been around for it.”
“What?” Nate asks. “No. No, this is definitely new.”
“It’s like you never remember it afterwards,” Elena says. “But I absolutely swear to you, Nate, you’ve told me you’re in a time loop before. It loops when you die, right?”
Finally, it’s time for the fic ideas I haven’t touched and now have to write something for. Let’s see if I can do this.
Fandoms: The Quarry, Persona 4/Spider-Man (?), Kingdom Hearts/Silent Hill 2 (??), Final Fantasy XIII-2, In Stars and Time, Death Note. There may be spoilers for these canons below the cut.
The Quarry: Max’s attack on Laura is more severe, forcing Travis to save her life.
Some further thoughts I wrote about this idea on Discord: ‘I'd be interested to see an AU where werewolf Max's attack on Laura through the bars is more severe, and Travis promptly loses his mind trying to save her life. Maybe Travis is somehow delayed in setting out for the hunt, so he's there when Max turns. (Or he returns to the station to find Laura unconscious and dangerously low on blood, but I don't know how likely it is that she'd survive the whole night in that case.)’ Later, in response to someone suggesting he might have a surveillance system set up: ‘This is an excellent solution! It also raises the possibility he'll realise Laura needs help right when he's the closest to pinning Silas down he's ever been, and he has to make A Choice.’ I ended up going with the ‘returning to the station in the morning’ concept for this snippet, though.
Maybe the reason I never actually attempted to write this was that it’d probably only work from Travis’s point of view, and I find the idea of writing from Travis’s perspective incredibly intimidating.
Shit.
There’s blood on the floor. Blood on the walls. He was expecting blood in the cells, after the transformation, but there’s no reason it should be out in the corridors.
What happened here last night? Did the werewolf get free?
If it did, what did it do to the girl?
He checks the cells first. Max is still secure. He's human again, of course, pressed against the bars and craning to see who’s just come in.
“What the fuck did you do to her?” Max demands, high and strangled.
Blood, blood, blood. Looks like two points of origin: the cell, obviously, where Max transformed, and the chair where he handcuffed Laura.
She’s not here.
Shit.
Persona 4/Spider-Man: Yosuke gets bitten by a radioactive spider and is deeply unhappy about it.
This is entirely based on the fact that Yosuke and Peter Parker (from the Insomniac Spider-Man games) have the same voice actor.
Okay. Okay! He can handle this. This is probably normal, somehow. Some kind of rare medical condition that makes you stick to walls.
Holy crap, he’s got a medical condition that makes you stick to walls and it’s probably going to be fatal.
The doorbell rings, and he just about jumps out of his skin. The doorbell can’t be ringing. It feels like the whole world should go on hold while he tries to figure out what the hell’s happening to him. People can’t just ring the doorbell like it’s a normal day and he has space in his head to deal with them.
He yanks the door open. It’s Yu.
“Hey!” Yosuke exclaims, definitely not at the octave he was aiming for. “Hey.” He clears his throat. “Um. Hey.”
Kingdom Hearts/Silent Hill 2: Sora tries to befriend James Sunderland.
I... I think Tem told me to write this.
“I’m looking for my wife. Have you seen her?”
The lady in the photograph doesn’t look familiar, which isn’t a surprise; James is the first person he’s met in this world. Sora shakes his head. “Sorry, no. I could help you look for her, though! When did you guys get split up?”
“Oh,” James says. “She... died. Three years ago.”
“Oh,” Sora says. “Uh. I’m really sorry.” He hesitates. “But... you’re looking for her?”
“She sent me a letter,” James says. “She said she’d be here.”
There’s a moment’s silence.
“Okay.” Sora nods, firmly. “Let’s go look.”
“You believe me?” James asks.
Sora shrugs. “If... uh, if something like that happened to my friends, I’d go looking for them too.”
Final Fantasy XIII-2: Something about how weird it is for Noel to be in a world with people in it, making a new friend in Serah? She’s so alive and so new, and he doesn’t know anything about meeting new people, didn’t think it was something he’d ever end up doing; he was the last child to be born in a small and dwindling community. How does he understand and process these emotions?
I’m fond of Noel, but I wish the game had explored his weird situation more deeply!
“Are you okay?” Serah asks. “Not feeling well?”
“I’m fine,” Noel says. “It’s just...” He gestures, vaguely, at the city around them. “There are a lot of people.”
“Ah, right.” Serah gives him a smile. “I’m not really a big city person either.”
“It’s not bad, exactly. It’s just not what I’m used to.” He pauses. “I thought I was never going to meet anyone new. And now I’m here, and I look at Academia, and there are so many different people. I don’t know any of them. I used to know everyone in the world.”
Serah nods, thoughtfully. “I guess meeting me must have been strange for you.”
He laughs a little. “You have no idea.”
In Stars and Time: Siffrin tries to adjust to life after looping.
In Stars and Time gives you such a strong sense of how powerfully the protagonist is fucked up by the time loop! I’d be really interested to see the ways the impact lingers.
Interesting to consider how to write a character with multiple sets of pronouns! Maybe I’ll alternate ‘they’ and ‘he’ between scenes if I actually end up writing this.
He grabs his dagger and-
“Siffrin!”
That terrified chorus of his name is something he’s heard and ignored before, obviously. But this time something about it blends with the sudden sense that wait, I shouldn’t be doing this, and he freezes with the dagger against his throat.
He looks around at their wide, horrified eyes, and it hits him: he’s not in the castle. He’s not in the loop. If he dies now, here, it’s real.
It’s real. They’ll just carry on with their lives. And he’ll have cut his own throat open in front of them. And they’ll never know why.
In Stars and Time: Siffrin will do or say anything to keep his friends happy, regardless of his actual thoughts or feelings. What does this mean for his relationship with Isabeau?
In Stars and Time ends with Siffrin explicitly uncertain about whether they return Isabeau’s feelings, which I find interesting and a little haunting. Siffrin comes across to me as someone who could easily end up lying that they’re in love for someone else’s sake. After Isabeau’s confession, Siffrin says ‘I love you too’ and only admits to any uncertainty after Isabeau outright asks ‘do you mean it in the way I mean it?’ - if Isabeau hadn’t asked that question, would they have entered into a relationship Siffrin wasn’t sure about wanting?
“But do you love me the same way I love you, though?”
Siffrin doesn’t know. There’s been kind of a lot happening; it’s hard to piece together how they feel about anything right now. But-
They couldn’t not say it. Not after everything. They couldn’t let Isa down like that. The loop is ending, hopefully; there are consequences now.
“Well,” Siffrin says, “if I didn’t, it would have been really stupid of me to say I loved you too, right?”
[...]
“I was thinking,” Isa says. He’s smiling a little, kind of sheepish. “Maybe we could book two rooms tonight? One just for us? You know, if that sounds good to you.”
Siffrin stares at him.
Say yes, a part of their mind is whispering. Isa wants you to say yes. If you say no, he’ll be disappointed, maybe he’ll even feel bad for bringing it up. Say yes.
“Only if that’s what you want, obviously,” Isa says. “I, uh, I don’t want to rush you or anything.”
No, Siffrin thinks. I don’t want that. I don’t want that. I don’t want that. Not with anyone, not even with you, if it turns out I do love you the way you love me.
But they don’t, do they? They can’t love Isabeau the way he loves them, not completely. Because Isabeau wants this, and Siffrin can’t. Just another way they’re betraying Isa.
Siffrin feels sick.
“Maybe another time,” they say. Because they can’t say never, not when it’s what Isa wants.
Death Note: Amnesiac Light manages to deduce/find evidence that he’s Kira.
I’m a little sad that we didn’t get this in canon. It would have been great to watch Light freak out about it.
He wouldn’t do something like that. He knows himself, he knows he’s a good person. He’s not someone who could kill thousands of people.
Or...
Maybe he’s the kind of person who could. If he had the right tools, he could kill them, he could get away with it; it’s not beyond him. But he’s not someone who would do that.
Naomi Misora is still bothering him. He must have met her just before she disappeared; he’s looked up her record, and he thinks their conversation was actually after her last known sighting. He hadn’t liked her, although he can’t remember exactly what he found so offputting about her.
He’d lied to her; he’d said he could make her part of the investigation team. He can’t understand why he would have done that, or why he never told anyone her theories about Kira.
But he hadn’t killed her. He distinctly remembers watching her walk away, perfectly safe.
He glances over at L. A part of him is convinced that L can hear his thoughts, that they’re travelling down the chain of the handcuffs somehow.
As ever, I have no idea whether any of these will end up becoming full fics, but I’m glad to have written at least a little for each concept!
This post lists all the fic ideas at the back of my 2023-24 diary. If I’ve written the fic, I’ll include a link to it. If I’ve started the fic, I’ll share a snippet. If I haven’t started it, I’ll write at least a hundred words on the spot.
First of all, here are the fics I’ve written in full. Fandoms: The Quarry, Death Note, Severance, Final Fantasy VII Remake. There may be spoilers for these canons below the cut.
The Quarry: Laura lets her guilt for killing the Hacketts catch up to her; only Silas had to die that night. Possibly Travis has to contend with his own guilt; if he hadn’t told her how to cure it-
This became Prisoner’s Dilemma, the first fic in my surprisingly intense period of writing fanfiction about Laura and Travis.
The Quarry: Something set in the ending where Travis locks Laura in a cage?
I ended up writing a lot of fics about Travis locking Laura up post-canon! Prisoner’s Dilemma, Security and Burning all deal with the theme in different ways.
Death Note: Light is haunted by L. You wrote this concept in a previous diary, but it seems a good time to remind yourself!
I’m glad I reminded myself of this concept, because I actually did get it written: Shades.
Severance: Mark’s implant starts to break down, and it enables the two halves of himself to talk to each other.
I love all of Severance’s potential for playing around with memory and identity. This became Through the Looking Glass.
Final Fantasy VII Remake: Cloud/Aerith/Tifa/Barret. Could include Barret and Aerith getting to know each other for the first time, in the Shinra building while Cloud is unconscious, or maybe that could be a separate fic.
I’m still amazed there’s so little out there for this OT4; they have such good chemistry! But at least I’ve now done my part to rectify the lack: Divisions.
Next, let’s look at the works in progress (or at least the works that were started; I’m not sure they’re actively progressing). Fandoms: Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (2023 game), Severance, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy XV, Uncharted. There may be spoilers for these canons below the cut.
Master Detective Archives: Rain Code: Yuma stays in the final Mystery Labyrinth with Shinigami and possibly also Makoto.
I wrote almost none of this - the snippet below is all that exists - but I did technically start it. I thought it was outrageous for the game to dangle the possibility of characters being trapped together and then whisk it away; it’s one of my favourite themes!
“Your Master Detective friends are alive, you know,” Makoto says.
Yuma lets out a slow breath, a knot loosening in his chest. It’s what he suspected. The blood on their clothes was pink, and there was no reason for them to be homunculi. But it’s still an intense relief to have it confirmed.
“Not that you’ll ever see them again, of course,” Makoto says, “if you insist on sticking with this plan.”
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (2023): Peter and MJ inviting Harry into their relationship.
This game really made me ship Peter/Harry/MJ! It’s a shame I never got further with this fic concept.
“You don’t know how good it is to have you back.” MJ kisses Harry on-
On the cheek. It was close enough to Harry’s mouth for Peter to get confused about what he was seeing, just for an instant; it was kind of a jolt. But it’s just a normal, acceptable kiss on the cheek.
[...]
He’s been thinking about that instant he thought MJ was actually kissing Harry, turning it over and over in his mind. It’s hard to place how he felt about it in the moment.
Which is weird, right? He knows how you’re meant to feel when your girlfriend kisses another guy. He had a reaction, definitely, but he doesn’t know if ‘jealousy’ is the right word to pin on it.
Severance: Macrodata Refinement polycule.
I kept attempting and failing this when I was writing for Severance!
“Does it... feel right, when you have waffle parties?”
“It feels awesome,” Dylan says. “What do you mean, does it feel right?”
“I saw some of the personnel files,” Mark admits. “Apparently you have both male and female Tempers.”
“What, you don’t? I assumed we all got the same people.”
Mark hesitates. “My outie says I’m straight, apparently.”
Dylan nods, solemnly. “And you’re asking me about this ’cause you think he’s wrong.”
“I don’t know,” Mark says. “He’s probably right. It’s not like there’s any real point in knowing.”
“Hey,” Dylan says. “It is totally normal to feel this way.” He sweeps a hand down his chest to indicate himself. “You don’t spend this long working with the tastiest egg on the bar and come away thinking you’re exclusively into the ladies.”
Final Fantasy VIII: Squall and past Laguna work out a way to communicate.
The challenge here is how little Squall wants to communicate with anyone.
“Hey, I have an idea,” Laguna says. “You cast all that magic and summon GFs and whatever through us, right? How about...” Ifrit for yes and Shiva for no seems like overkill. “How about Fire for yes, Thunder for no?”
He waits. Nothing happens.
And then his arm rises up. His hand moves in a quick semicircular motion he recognises instantly, he feels the magic rising to his fingers, he feels excitement building in his chest - it’s working, they can communicate-
His hand drops to his side again, the magic vanishing.
“Uh,” Laguna says. “It seemed like you were about to say yes, and then you just... didn’t. So... does that mean not yes? No?”
Whatever the faeries say always just sounds like buzzing to him. But he knows what a sigh sounds like; he’s heard plenty of them. And the short, quiet buzz in his mind feels a lot like a sigh.
His hand rises again and makes the sign for casting Thunder: fingers together, palm flat and vertical. But, again, he doesn’t actually cast the spell.
“No, it doesn’t not mean yes?” Laguna asks. This is already making his head hurt.
“Maybe they don’t want to risk setting this place on fire just because you asked a yes or no question,” Kiros suggests.
Laguna’s hand makes the semicircular gesture for Fire again. Which... means yes, he guesses?
Holy crap. They’re actually communicating with the faeries.
Final Fantasy XV: Something for Final Fantasy XV. I don’t have any idea; I just miss it!
Extremely vague! But I actually have written a scrap of Final Fantasy XV fanfiction this year.
“Do you recall the green soup curry from that restaurant in Lestallum?” Ignis asks. “The one you were so taken with?”
Does he remember it? He dreams about it every night. “Uh, yeah; it was incredible.”
Ignis nods. “I thought I might try to recreate it.”
“Seriously?” Prompto asks, almost bouncing on his feet. “I think that might actually make you, like, the best person alive.” Wait. “Doesn’t it have a lot of vegetables?”
“Indeed,” Ignis says. “We’ll see if the flavours mask them to His Highness’s satisfaction.” He gestures to his worktop. “Would you like to assist me in preparation?”
Prompto hesitates.
“There’s no obligation, of course,” Ignis says. “I only thought you might like to learn to make it yourself.”
“That does sound pretty good,” Prompto admits. “It’s just, uh. I don’t want to screw up everyone’s supper. That’s kind of a lot of pressure.”
“What if you simply entertained me as I worked?” Ignis suggests.
“As in just... talking?” Prompto asks. “Or, like, juggling?”
Ignis smiles a little. “A conversation will do.”
Yeah, he can probably manage that. If there’s one thing he can do, it’s talk. And... honestly, it’s kind of incredible that someone as smart and put-together as Ignis would actually want to hear what he has to say.
Uncharted: Nate in an Edge of Tomorrow situation.
This concept was inspired by my friends making fun of me while I continually fell to my death in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.
“I think I might be in some kind of, uh. Time loop?”
“Shit,” Elena mutters. “Again? Was it guns or gravity that killed you?”
What?
“Excuse me,” Nate says, “do you have experience with time loops?”
Elena’s eyes widen. “Wait, is this the first time you’re telling me?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You have experience with time loops,” Elena says. “You must’ve gotten stuck in one... God, I don’t know. Twenty times? That’s just the times I’ve been around for it.”
“What?” Nate asks. “No. No, this is definitely new.”
“It’s like you never remember it afterwards,” Elena says. “But I absolutely swear to you, Nate, you’ve told me you’re in a time loop before. It loops when you die, right?”
Finally, it’s time for the fic ideas I haven’t touched and now have to write something for. Let’s see if I can do this.
Fandoms: The Quarry, Persona 4/Spider-Man (?), Kingdom Hearts/Silent Hill 2 (??), Final Fantasy XIII-2, In Stars and Time, Death Note. There may be spoilers for these canons below the cut.
The Quarry: Max’s attack on Laura is more severe, forcing Travis to save her life.
Some further thoughts I wrote about this idea on Discord: ‘I'd be interested to see an AU where werewolf Max's attack on Laura through the bars is more severe, and Travis promptly loses his mind trying to save her life. Maybe Travis is somehow delayed in setting out for the hunt, so he's there when Max turns. (Or he returns to the station to find Laura unconscious and dangerously low on blood, but I don't know how likely it is that she'd survive the whole night in that case.)’ Later, in response to someone suggesting he might have a surveillance system set up: ‘This is an excellent solution! It also raises the possibility he'll realise Laura needs help right when he's the closest to pinning Silas down he's ever been, and he has to make A Choice.’ I ended up going with the ‘returning to the station in the morning’ concept for this snippet, though.
Maybe the reason I never actually attempted to write this was that it’d probably only work from Travis’s point of view, and I find the idea of writing from Travis’s perspective incredibly intimidating.
Shit.
There’s blood on the floor. Blood on the walls. He was expecting blood in the cells, after the transformation, but there’s no reason it should be out in the corridors.
What happened here last night? Did the werewolf get free?
If it did, what did it do to the girl?
He checks the cells first. Max is still secure. He's human again, of course, pressed against the bars and craning to see who’s just come in.
“What the fuck did you do to her?” Max demands, high and strangled.
Blood, blood, blood. Looks like two points of origin: the cell, obviously, where Max transformed, and the chair where he handcuffed Laura.
She’s not here.
Shit.
Persona 4/Spider-Man: Yosuke gets bitten by a radioactive spider and is deeply unhappy about it.
This is entirely based on the fact that Yosuke and Peter Parker (from the Insomniac Spider-Man games) have the same voice actor.
Okay. Okay! He can handle this. This is probably normal, somehow. Some kind of rare medical condition that makes you stick to walls.
Holy crap, he’s got a medical condition that makes you stick to walls and it’s probably going to be fatal.
The doorbell rings, and he just about jumps out of his skin. The doorbell can’t be ringing. It feels like the whole world should go on hold while he tries to figure out what the hell’s happening to him. People can’t just ring the doorbell like it’s a normal day and he has space in his head to deal with them.
He yanks the door open. It’s Yu.
“Hey!” Yosuke exclaims, definitely not at the octave he was aiming for. “Hey.” He clears his throat. “Um. Hey.”
Kingdom Hearts/Silent Hill 2: Sora tries to befriend James Sunderland.
I... I think Tem told me to write this.
“I’m looking for my wife. Have you seen her?”
The lady in the photograph doesn’t look familiar, which isn’t a surprise; James is the first person he’s met in this world. Sora shakes his head. “Sorry, no. I could help you look for her, though! When did you guys get split up?”
“Oh,” James says. “She... died. Three years ago.”
“Oh,” Sora says. “Uh. I’m really sorry.” He hesitates. “But... you’re looking for her?”
“She sent me a letter,” James says. “She said she’d be here.”
There’s a moment’s silence.
“Okay.” Sora nods, firmly. “Let’s go look.”
“You believe me?” James asks.
Sora shrugs. “If... uh, if something like that happened to my friends, I’d go looking for them too.”
Final Fantasy XIII-2: Something about how weird it is for Noel to be in a world with people in it, making a new friend in Serah? She’s so alive and so new, and he doesn’t know anything about meeting new people, didn’t think it was something he’d ever end up doing; he was the last child to be born in a small and dwindling community. How does he understand and process these emotions?
I’m fond of Noel, but I wish the game had explored his weird situation more deeply!
“Are you okay?” Serah asks. “Not feeling well?”
“I’m fine,” Noel says. “It’s just...” He gestures, vaguely, at the city around them. “There are a lot of people.”
“Ah, right.” Serah gives him a smile. “I’m not really a big city person either.”
“It’s not bad, exactly. It’s just not what I’m used to.” He pauses. “I thought I was never going to meet anyone new. And now I’m here, and I look at Academia, and there are so many different people. I don’t know any of them. I used to know everyone in the world.”
Serah nods, thoughtfully. “I guess meeting me must have been strange for you.”
He laughs a little. “You have no idea.”
In Stars and Time: Siffrin tries to adjust to life after looping.
In Stars and Time gives you such a strong sense of how powerfully the protagonist is fucked up by the time loop! I’d be really interested to see the ways the impact lingers.
Interesting to consider how to write a character with multiple sets of pronouns! Maybe I’ll alternate ‘they’ and ‘he’ between scenes if I actually end up writing this.
He grabs his dagger and-
“Siffrin!”
That terrified chorus of his name is something he’s heard and ignored before, obviously. But this time something about it blends with the sudden sense that wait, I shouldn’t be doing this, and he freezes with the dagger against his throat.
He looks around at their wide, horrified eyes, and it hits him: he’s not in the castle. He’s not in the loop. If he dies now, here, it’s real.
It’s real. They’ll just carry on with their lives. And he’ll have cut his own throat open in front of them. And they’ll never know why.
In Stars and Time: Siffrin will do or say anything to keep his friends happy, regardless of his actual thoughts or feelings. What does this mean for his relationship with Isabeau?
In Stars and Time ends with Siffrin explicitly uncertain about whether they return Isabeau’s feelings, which I find interesting and a little haunting. Siffrin comes across to me as someone who could easily end up lying that they’re in love for someone else’s sake. After Isabeau’s confession, Siffrin says ‘I love you too’ and only admits to any uncertainty after Isabeau outright asks ‘do you mean it in the way I mean it?’ - if Isabeau hadn’t asked that question, would they have entered into a relationship Siffrin wasn’t sure about wanting?
“But do you love me the same way I love you, though?”
Siffrin doesn’t know. There’s been kind of a lot happening; it’s hard to piece together how they feel about anything right now. But-
They couldn’t not say it. Not after everything. They couldn’t let Isa down like that. The loop is ending, hopefully; there are consequences now.
“Well,” Siffrin says, “if I didn’t, it would have been really stupid of me to say I loved you too, right?”
[...]
“I was thinking,” Isa says. He’s smiling a little, kind of sheepish. “Maybe we could book two rooms tonight? One just for us? You know, if that sounds good to you.”
Siffrin stares at him.
Say yes, a part of their mind is whispering. Isa wants you to say yes. If you say no, he’ll be disappointed, maybe he’ll even feel bad for bringing it up. Say yes.
“Only if that’s what you want, obviously,” Isa says. “I, uh, I don’t want to rush you or anything.”
No, Siffrin thinks. I don’t want that. I don’t want that. I don’t want that. Not with anyone, not even with you, if it turns out I do love you the way you love me.
But they don’t, do they? They can’t love Isabeau the way he loves them, not completely. Because Isabeau wants this, and Siffrin can’t. Just another way they’re betraying Isa.
Siffrin feels sick.
“Maybe another time,” they say. Because they can’t say never, not when it’s what Isa wants.
Death Note: Amnesiac Light manages to deduce/find evidence that he’s Kira.
I’m a little sad that we didn’t get this in canon. It would have been great to watch Light freak out about it.
He wouldn’t do something like that. He knows himself, he knows he’s a good person. He’s not someone who could kill thousands of people.
Or...
Maybe he’s the kind of person who could. If he had the right tools, he could kill them, he could get away with it; it’s not beyond him. But he’s not someone who would do that.
Naomi Misora is still bothering him. He must have met her just before she disappeared; he’s looked up her record, and he thinks their conversation was actually after her last known sighting. He hadn’t liked her, although he can’t remember exactly what he found so offputting about her.
He’d lied to her; he’d said he could make her part of the investigation team. He can’t understand why he would have done that, or why he never told anyone her theories about Kira.
But he hadn’t killed her. He distinctly remembers watching her walk away, perfectly safe.
He glances over at L. A part of him is convinced that L can hear his thoughts, that they’re travelling down the chain of the handcuffs somehow.
As ever, I have no idea whether any of these will end up becoming full fics, but I’m glad to have written at least a little for each concept!