Fusion possibilities
Oct. 28th, 2014 01:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI'm having a second try at reading a Buffy/Avengers fusion AU where Clint is the Slayer.
I bounced off it on the first try at the obvious wrongness of the casting. Natasha is the Slayer. (Also River and Echo. Joss Whedon has a Thing, and it is aaaaaalllll about Black Widow.)
On second try I just keep... Giles glasses cleaning at the way the casting just won't stay still. It's not consistent. People get lines from a bunch of characters all mixed together.
Which demonstrates a tone deaf lack of awareness for character voice that would be jarring even if I didn't have Buffy near memorised.
Plus there's the tiny problem where some of the lines are new and then a whole bunch will be dropped straight in quoted. And again, character voice goes out the window.
And Phil, Coulson, is cast as Angel.
He is clearly and obviously the Watcher, but noooooo, they wanted to write Clint/Coulson and somehow got stuck on the whole Buffy/Angel vibe for their idea.
But so far he's only said Angel's lines. Plus Clint, a high school student, describes him as a few years older than him, but with receding hair. So I can't hear Coulson, and I don't know how I'm supposed to be seeing him.
It's making me want to fic just so I can pull it apart and do it right.
Also, so I can put the women back in the story. I don't think there's been a single woman with a speaking part in this entire fic.
Steve has been playing both Willow and Xander. Tony is Cordelia, sort of, which should fit in a hilarious way but isn't being followed through. Bruce is a gimme for Oz, only with the origin stories flipped so he's the science experiment and the decoy is the wolf, but he's turned up already in the first episode background. Ms Calendar is played by Miss Carter, with Fury as Giles, which doesn't work at all. Fury as a Watcher of very different sort, sure, why not, but Fury as a librarian? His whole approach would be different.
I'd want to give him Marcus!Fury's background, which make him second gen, and put him in for Robin Wood, son of the Slayer. Which makes him principal, boss man of both worlds. And, yes, I swap the black guy for the black guy, but I don't think that's my logic... probably. Maybe? Okay, so my brain might be being racist, but Giles just can't swap for mysterious big boss of the pirate coat, too much changes.
If you're going to do a ground up reimagining, changing it up that much works fine, but librarian Fury just... isn't. Giles spent the whole first season getting the balls to go try be a hero, that's never Fury's arc. Maybe something about not being in the field any more, adjusting, being the one who isn't Chosen, that could be interesting. Goes with the eyepatch. But Fury as seen in the Avengers movies kicks too much arse for the first season scoobies.
... there was another black guy at the school, the guidance counsellor. I'm now imagining Fury in that role and it's hilarious. He could rock that. And yeah, that character got killed off, but so goes every black guy in the Whedonverse, at least briefly.
To get the whole Winter Soldier vibe going, the Hydra is in SHIELD bit, when the HYDRA equivalent are vampires? You'd need some good guy vampires. Angel equivalents, only lots of them. They think they're managing the good behaviour of vampires, so the 21st century vampire actually doesn't suck... without signed consent forms. Only they're also disappearing people so vampires stay under the radar. And they're dealing with the other sorts of supernatural, to keep the food stocks safe or assert their dominance, whichever.
So then the Pierce equivalent would be a vampire with a dream of peace. Oh, that has mileage.
And the Winter Soldier is a soulless vampire in a world where re-ensoulment is routine?
Coulson starts human but gets vamped against his express wishes after Avengers. He has to cope with the idea he's become a monster. Maybe finding out the soul thing is shakier than he thought, maybe finding it's a creepy ritual, something like that.
See the key bit of Buffy was the idea of personal demons made manifest. You don't get the same demons if you start with different issues. But the process, start with the issue and give it teeth, that's adaptable.
Oh, Steve as Riley, he was the super-soldier of the bunch. Which makes for Steve/Natasha.
Which was his friend that got demon-cyborg upgraded? Forrest? Another black character. I don't want to swap him out for a white guy. I'd have to swap a white guy for a black guy elsewhere. But that borg bit, that's the Winter Soldier setup perfect.
Well that sets SHIELD as the Initiative, which works too smooth, matches simple.
It's 0130 and I'm all plot bunnies for a fusion 'verse I almost certainly won't write.
That's useful.
:eyeroll:
and I still haven't finished reading the fic that sparked all these ideas.
It's part one of a trilogy and it's... not drawing me in.
I should go sleep.
I bounced off it on the first try at the obvious wrongness of the casting. Natasha is the Slayer. (Also River and Echo. Joss Whedon has a Thing, and it is aaaaaalllll about Black Widow.)
On second try I just keep... Giles glasses cleaning at the way the casting just won't stay still. It's not consistent. People get lines from a bunch of characters all mixed together.
Which demonstrates a tone deaf lack of awareness for character voice that would be jarring even if I didn't have Buffy near memorised.
Plus there's the tiny problem where some of the lines are new and then a whole bunch will be dropped straight in quoted. And again, character voice goes out the window.
And Phil, Coulson, is cast as Angel.
He is clearly and obviously the Watcher, but noooooo, they wanted to write Clint/Coulson and somehow got stuck on the whole Buffy/Angel vibe for their idea.
But so far he's only said Angel's lines. Plus Clint, a high school student, describes him as a few years older than him, but with receding hair. So I can't hear Coulson, and I don't know how I'm supposed to be seeing him.
It's making me want to fic just so I can pull it apart and do it right.
Also, so I can put the women back in the story. I don't think there's been a single woman with a speaking part in this entire fic.
Steve has been playing both Willow and Xander. Tony is Cordelia, sort of, which should fit in a hilarious way but isn't being followed through. Bruce is a gimme for Oz, only with the origin stories flipped so he's the science experiment and the decoy is the wolf, but he's turned up already in the first episode background. Ms Calendar is played by Miss Carter, with Fury as Giles, which doesn't work at all. Fury as a Watcher of very different sort, sure, why not, but Fury as a librarian? His whole approach would be different.
I'd want to give him Marcus!Fury's background, which make him second gen, and put him in for Robin Wood, son of the Slayer. Which makes him principal, boss man of both worlds. And, yes, I swap the black guy for the black guy, but I don't think that's my logic... probably. Maybe? Okay, so my brain might be being racist, but Giles just can't swap for mysterious big boss of the pirate coat, too much changes.
If you're going to do a ground up reimagining, changing it up that much works fine, but librarian Fury just... isn't. Giles spent the whole first season getting the balls to go try be a hero, that's never Fury's arc. Maybe something about not being in the field any more, adjusting, being the one who isn't Chosen, that could be interesting. Goes with the eyepatch. But Fury as seen in the Avengers movies kicks too much arse for the first season scoobies.
... there was another black guy at the school, the guidance counsellor. I'm now imagining Fury in that role and it's hilarious. He could rock that. And yeah, that character got killed off, but so goes every black guy in the Whedonverse, at least briefly.
To get the whole Winter Soldier vibe going, the Hydra is in SHIELD bit, when the HYDRA equivalent are vampires? You'd need some good guy vampires. Angel equivalents, only lots of them. They think they're managing the good behaviour of vampires, so the 21st century vampire actually doesn't suck... without signed consent forms. Only they're also disappearing people so vampires stay under the radar. And they're dealing with the other sorts of supernatural, to keep the food stocks safe or assert their dominance, whichever.
So then the Pierce equivalent would be a vampire with a dream of peace. Oh, that has mileage.
And the Winter Soldier is a soulless vampire in a world where re-ensoulment is routine?
Coulson starts human but gets vamped against his express wishes after Avengers. He has to cope with the idea he's become a monster. Maybe finding out the soul thing is shakier than he thought, maybe finding it's a creepy ritual, something like that.
See the key bit of Buffy was the idea of personal demons made manifest. You don't get the same demons if you start with different issues. But the process, start with the issue and give it teeth, that's adaptable.
Oh, Steve as Riley, he was the super-soldier of the bunch. Which makes for Steve/Natasha.
Which was his friend that got demon-cyborg upgraded? Forrest? Another black character. I don't want to swap him out for a white guy. I'd have to swap a white guy for a black guy elsewhere. But that borg bit, that's the Winter Soldier setup perfect.
Well that sets SHIELD as the Initiative, which works too smooth, matches simple.
It's 0130 and I'm all plot bunnies for a fusion 'verse I almost certainly won't write.
That's useful.
:eyeroll:
and I still haven't finished reading the fic that sparked all these ideas.
It's part one of a trilogy and it's... not drawing me in.
I should go sleep.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-28 01:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-28 11:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-28 11:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-28 07:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-28 11:43 am (UTC)Dollhouse digression
Date: 2014-10-31 05:56 am (UTC)Sierra, or Priya rather, is kind of like Tara. I think both Topher and Tony are Wesley, somehow? Maybe both with some Riley salted in? Adelle is a Watcher, or the Watcher's council, but not a very good one; or she's the Wicca leadership?
Boyd is part Giles, and largely a victim of arc plot. Or maybe Boyd is Angel and Paul Ballard is Spike?
Foxtrot is Jonathan. ;p
Re: Dollhouse digression
Date: 2014-10-31 09:09 pm (UTC)Re: Dollhouse digression
Date: 2014-10-31 10:15 pm (UTC)And no, fortunately, the Dollhouse cast doesn't line up with any of Joss's other works. That's for the best; the fusions would be disturbing.