I have two ideas for MGS-spinoff games.

( There are tabletop RPG versions of everything else. )

( I wouldn't put it past Japan to produce something like this. )

I know that writing to create a particular audience reaction is kind of a chancy affair - if the author takes this too personally, it can lead to things like derailing a perfectly interesting set of character dynamics because the fans are liking the wrong people in the wrong ways - but lately I found myself with two original story ideas whose raison d'etre is "mess with the expectations of the audience." I blame tvtropes and Hideo Kojima.

Idea Number One (tropes: Women In Refrigerators, Sissy Villain, Bishonen, Foe Yay) - the androgynous, flamboyant, scenery-chewing evil prettyboy (although how much time can he have to devote to evildoing when he spends so much of it stalking the hero and flirtatiously taunting him) turns out to be the hero's presumed dead semi-girlfriend in disguise. Her reason for doing this probably has something to do with being annoyed with how he's more interested in avenging her "death" than he ever was in her as a person when they were together.

Idea Number Two (Designated Hero, Designated Villain, Perspective Flip, Moral Dissonance, Start of Darkness, Jerk Sue) - epic fantasy with an extra dose of Dark and Gritty. You have the Chosen One, an inexplicably charismatic macho asshole whose main distinguishing feature is his tendency to make multipage speeches about Why He's Right And Everyone Opposing Him Sucks that are treated by his listeners as if he were the second coming of Demosthenes and Oscar Wilde combined (but more manly and heterosexual). He is, needless to say, ridiculously powerful, and shows an unusual lack of regret, or even the most stoic, understated sort of emotional distress, about his many Shoot the Dog incidents. He and his allies consider any enemies not converted by his awesome charisma to be complete monsters, never mind that they're no more ruthless than he can be and some of them have much more character development. Of course, he inevitably triumphs.
Then we get to the next book in the trilogy, and discover that Our Hero has become the new Dark Lord.

I have yet another idea for a stupid yaoi series.

( The characters )

( The premise )

There was a multifandom challenge a while back, to write AU stories where a character was a brain in a jar hooked up to the inner workings of a spaceship (or, in one case, the author went for a retro feel and had the character in question wired into a highly experimental WWII fighter plane), and some of the results were pretty awesome. There's also a mecha anime series out there inspired by "A Little Princess." So I was thinking, "hey, why not do a multifandom ficathon based around the idea that everything's better with giant robots?" It would be an opportunity for all kinds of fun, especially if you didn't decide to do the "AU in the future in space" thing and designed some tech that meshed a bit better with the original setting.

I need to figure out how Eris the dark elf girl actually made a living on the surface before she joined up with the Quirky Band of Misfits. Because as the setting's currently turning out, "beating up bad people and taking their money" is becoming a less viable means of making a living (at least for a Chaotic Good person with no local criminal connections) than it is in the D&D world.

Mostly fits into my steampunk D&D-ish 'verse (with Zipporah and all those people) but different characters, and possibly at a different point in the timeline. Basically, it's au!Glitch and au!River Tam's adventures Walking The Earth. (Those are the basic archetypes, at least.) "He's an amnesiac former court adviser turned wandering martial artist! She's a mentally unstable genius psychic waif child of the aristocracy turned runaway science experiment! Together they form an excellent argument against experimental brain surgery! fight crime! probably spend most of their time attempting to make a living somehow while avoiding the law, but wind up getting mixed up in some effort to save the world." They'd be quirky platonic life partners. It would be cute.

"Bullet time" could make an interesting superpower, if your reactions didn't subjectively slow down when the rest of the universe did. I think it would be particularly suitable for one of those petite young girls with Chinese-acrobat-meets-cheerleading style martial arts, especially if she's also a fan of stylized action movies.

I've been contemplating Never Mind the Zombies AUs. Like the noir detective one, where Kate's a private investigator and Dani's a mysterious blonde heiress (Billie & Zandra are in it too, I just don't quite know what they're up to at this point). Dani's suspected of murdering her wealthy industrialist stepdad for his money, and Kate's trying to clear her name, but the more she investigates, the more she suspects that Dani probably *did* do him in, and good for her. It's all very tangled, but would probably have a happy ending 'cause I'm a wimp that way.
Then there's the 1890s cabaret entertainers one (a la Moulin Rouge), which has me feeling rather sorry from Zandra (mostly because the legal prohibition of offstage crossdressing in late 1800s France could complicate her life in all kinds of unpleasant ways).

I've had the idea for a Hard Core Logo/Saiyuki crossover for a while (four mismatched guys on a road trip meet - four OTHER mismatched guys on a road trip! Gasp! The originality!), but I haven't thought of a way to manage it that doesn't involve Joe getting his ass kicked by Sanzo, and I don't really want that to happen.
Goku and Pipe together could be comedy gold or really deeply disturbing.

It may be a good thing that I apparently lack enough confidence in my creative powers to actually do anything with them, because with my brain I would surely use them for Wrongness.
( What the Hard Core Logo fandom probably doesn't need )
Although, needed or not, I would read this story if someone else decided to write it.

I had this idea for a possible Callum Keith Rennie vehicle in which he'd get to work both ends of his range - the sweethearts that the fangirls want him to play and the ubiquitous villainous creeps that keep him in golf balls and ramen. In it, Callum plays a sweet gay veterinarian in a little town populated entirely by recycled Canadian actors. Hugh Dillon (with hair!) plays his boyfriend, Ellen Page plays his boyfriend's teenage daughter from a previous relationship. They also have a really cute dog. Their friends and neighbors include Molly Parker (Callum's partner in their little veterinary practice) and Paul Gross (a former Jesuit priest turned community theatre director - he's pretty, charismatic, slightly mentally unstable, adorkable and subtly tragic at the same time, and has serious father issues).
It's generally believed by the locals that Callum has a Past, although they tend to mind their own business and don't bring it up. Most of them, if they think of it at all, believe that this consists of drinking too much and getting into pointless fistfights over post-structuralism in his college years before he got sense, sobered up, and sorted himself out. All this happened, but what they don't know is that Callum also spent a few years working as a hitman for some big-name Canadian crimelord (played by Julian Richings). He was good at the work, but his heart wasn't in it (he got into it in the first place for various involved and angsty reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture), so when his boss sent him out on a super-secret mission and then fell into a coma after a hideous accident, Callum decided to take the money he'd saved up, run, and start his life anew doing something constructive.
Unfortunately, Callum's relatively idyllic new life is now under threat because Callum's ex boss has woken up and recovered enough to remember the events leading up to the accident, ask questions, and find out that Callum's last target is, in fact, still alive and that Callum has apparently disappeared into the aether. Ex-boss is not happy and suspects Callum of having been up to even less good than usual. Ex-boss's chief subordinate (played by Don McKellar) encourages these suspicions as a way to distract boss's attention from all the bad stuff that *he's* been up to while he ran things.
It is at this point that things become terribly awkward for all parties concerned, in ways that will probably include a certain amount of gratuitous stylized violence. It may end in all sorts of ways - probably none of them completely happy - but all the cute animals and Ellen Page make it out without permanent damage.

Why has nobody (as far as I know) done "Behind Blue Eyes" as a "Lawrence of Arabia" vid? I think it would be a natural.

I don't have any afternoon classes on Tuesdays, so I made a run down to Film Is Truth and checked out a couple of movies. One of them was "Rise Above," which was mostly for research purposes (one of my original fic projects is about a semi-famous all-woman punk band) but proved interesting and entertaining in its own right. I learned that even people in fairly well-known bands may need day jobs, about meeting girls as a lesbian rock star, and that everyone in Tribe 8, including the guitar player with the long hair and fondness for cleavagey tops, is butcher than Billy Tallent.

I also saw "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," and quite enjoyed it. Shortly after, I decided that a Canadian remake would be the Best Thing Ever. We already know that Paul Gross is willing and able to sing or wear a dress in the service of his art, and he's carried off both well, so he's a fairly obvious choice for the lead. Peter Outerbridge could also be good, since he did a great job as Judy in Better Than Chocolate, but my vote is for Paul Gross because he *needs* to star in a musical and the idea amuses me more. Molly Parker could be Yitzhak.

A re-imagining of "King Kong" set in 1930s Canada, with Kong as a captive Sasquatch and Molly Parker playing Ann Darrow.

Billy Tallent and Victoria Metcalfe need to meet - if nothing else, they would be extremely pretty together. Also, it would be a change from the trend of making Billy's post-movie love interests a. rather less dysfunctional than his old boyfriend and b. male, and fannish diversity is always good. They could kvetch about getting screwed over by their stupid exes' stupid principles and have hot blond/brunette crossover sex and it would all be oddly idyllic until Victoria decides she misses her life of crime and attractively coifed sociopathy and makes her departure, leaving Billy with the new awareness that no, Joe Dick was *not,* in fact, the North American "Hurting the Ones We Love" champion of the 1990s. Or maybe she'd decide not to push her luck after the whole "Victoria's Secret" mess and they'd part on amicable terms, which would lead to all kinds of cognitive dissonance on Billy's part if the subject ever comes up when he meets the due South boys.