limmenel, this is ALL YOUR FAULT.

[bedlamsbard]

I now have a full-fledged plot for the Bardverse AU -- off a slightly different Bloody Sunday -- where Danny takes Val up on his offer. No, I'm serious, a FULL-FLEDGED PLOT. See, it'd be called "The Man Who Wasn't There", and it takes place maybe five years after Bloody Sunday. Danny's made Mafia, as well as legally Val's heir -- and married, to the very pragmatic Frankie West, sister to the Boston don's second-in-command, who, the Boston Mob not being as snobby as the New York Commission, isn't Italian.

I think, were I to go back and re-write Bloody Sunday, I'd dropped the IAB subplot/Lindsay and Hawkes subplot, and not introduce Lindsay. The Man Who Wasn't There (and for the life of me, I can't remember where this title is from, even though I know I'm stealing it) depends on Lindsay not joining the Crime Lab until after Bloody Sunday.

A skeleton's found somewhere in New York, thus making it the Crime Lab's jurisdiction, and it's eventually identified as being FBI Special Agent John Hudson, who vanished thirty years ago shortly after Luciano Constantine was tried and sentenced to prison. Lindsay and Angell picked up the case originally, but it's a full lab case now. Because Val Constantine's out of town, they pay a visit to his boy Danny, who naturally doesn't recognize either of them, since they weren't at the lab when he was there.

A couple days later, on Sunday, Danny's in church, and Flack comes in through the back. He and Danny talk.

It wouldn't end with Danny rejoining the Crime Lab or becoming a cop again, or even he and Flack getting back together (because Danny loves his wife, and I never thought I'd write those words), but it would end with Danny being a detective again for a little while. A mystery-solver. He and Flack and the rest of the Crime Lab (well, except maybe Mac) reconciling after what's obviously a big rupture in their relationship. You know, this time, Bardverse without the supernatural.

Comments

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I think if they want to pull it, they're going to have to bring in the Mafia a little more than they have so far. Just a little bit. A little, teeny-tiny bit. Then they'll be perfectly set.

It's the Irish Mob in Boston! It's undercover cops and rats on two sides of the blue line! I went through it going, "Oh my God, it's the Mob, wow, my Val is really civilized."

...beg away. I need to see if I can get into the mood to play around in the sandbox some more -- it's definitely a different mood than what I have been writing, and I haven't written serious Bardverse for, like, two years, a year and a half now. And I won't promise anything.

God, if I was writing the Bardverse now, start from finish, I'd do it completely differently.

Oh yeah. Danny is so totally playing Lindsay and Angell, but then again, they're the easy ones -- they're the strangers. It's harder to play his friends. I'm thinking a fun scene where Flack makes the decision to bring him in, and the reactions thereof.

[limmenel.livejournal.com]

Well, they've hinted that Danny's father was Mafia, or connected, on the website, and Danny mentioned his mother in a recent episode, so I think they could bring Danny's family into it as the connection, unless they just want to throw a Mafia-related case out there.

It's about the Boston Mob? Huh, I didn't know that. I just knew it was a great movie, but I didn't get to see it when it came out. I'm excited, though, I'll try to rent it for next weekend.

Really? You're giving me carte blanche to beg for Bardverse? Without the threat of DEATH hanging over my head (or, at least, the internet equivilant of excommunication)? Wow.

I think everyone says that about their work... there are fics and novels that I wish I had the time and energy and desire to go back and re-write, because I've changed so much over the years, and my view on my writing has changed with that.

I'm thinking a fun scene where Flack makes the decision to bring him in, and the reactions thereof.

So, if I'm allowed to beg, and you're bored at any point in the future, I think this is one of the scenes that I'd like to beg for. Because man, I can totally see Lindsay and Angell realizing that they'd been played, and not being happy with it, and Danny trying and failing to do the same with his co-workers, whether he wants to or not.

Okay, that might not have made sense. It's almost 3 AM, and I'm reading really dense stuff about papal bulls and the Black Death. Bleh.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Eh, I think they could build it up a little more before dropping it on us. Right now it's more circumstantial than anything; let us see something more concrete, something incontrovertible. Seriously, I think a great way to do it would be for the OCD to pull Danny out mysteriously, and build an arc around that. I don't even know if the NYPD has an Organized Crime Division/Department, although I'd assume so.

Yes! It's about the Irish mob in Boston, and it's got gangasters and violence and traitors and cops going undercover. It's really, really good.

You can beg all you want, that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to get anything.

*sigh* I've jossed my own work, seriously, I have the internal consistency of a mutant duck. And I'd build up more of an arc than exists already, that sort of thing, you know?

Yes, but I don't really have any idea what goes down in that scene besides the team walking into the conference room and seeing Danny sitting there with Flack. And Mac being really, really pissed off. And Angell and Lindsay somehing along the same lines.

Papal bulls?

[limmenel.livejournal.com]

I have a feeling that the writers of CSI: NY aren't going to go for the idea of pulling Danny out as an undercover agent... it's not something they've done yet in fifteen seasons of shows all combined, and it seems like something that's out of their comfort zone... I mean, instead of doing something awesome with Grissom when the actor took a hiatus, they decided that he would be "teaching". Boring! But your idea would totally be kickass.

Okay, okay, I'm DEFINITELY going to rent it this coming weekend. It's a four-day weekend because of Easter, and it's the last weekend before our final exams start, so I'll totally do it.

I'll beg until I'm dead, in the vain hope of getting something more. I'm like a crack addict.

It's a sign of improvement, though, that you've moved beyond what you wrote in 2005-or-so and have realized that you're capable of doing something different, better, whatever.

I'd think Mac would have his moment of shock, and kinda-horror, and "oh, you have GOT to be kidding me", which would all pass very quickly into the whole "really really pissed off" thing. And Stella would probably Not Be Pleased, either, given her hatred of the Mafia. Actually, come to think of it, Stella is just as black-and-white as Mac is, sometimes.

Yeah. Ugh. I have a term paper due this Wednesday. The topic is "How did popular beliefs among Christians (especially regarding Jews and possibly Muslims) affect views of the Plague in different areas of Europe?". Well, okay, it's a lot more complicated than that, but I'm trying to find copies of the Papal Bulls that were sent out about how Thou Shalt Not Burn The Jews On The Stake Please and all that.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

*sigh* I know. They could so totally do it, though, and I bet they could pull it off really damn well. Man, if I have to write this...

...oh, shit.

You get days off for Easter? You suck. My next day off is Memorial Day, and that's the week before school gets out. I have a straight shot from here to the end of the year.

I'm still not guaranteeing anything. It's just...a lot of writing. And I've moved away from that, I want to work on my originals, get back to my basis in writing in the first place. *sigh*

Of course, this is five years later, Flack is bitter and a lot more independent than he is in canon. He's made some spectacular collars, and he'll pull anything he wants, even if that's bringing a mobster ex-cop into an open investigation. And at this point in time, he really doesn't have much respect for Mac.

What are papal bulls?

[limmenel.livejournal.com]

Man, if I have to write this...

...oh, shit.

Oh shit? *blink*

You know, they'll probably never do it. They don't invest enough into their characters, and this is way too much of a deviation from their normal episode structure. They could do it fantastically, but they most likely never will.

Yeah, we get Good Friday and Great Monday the following Monday off. We also have our last day of class on April 11. Ah, yes, Canadian school system, I love thee. Exams are spread out over THREE WEEKS, which means lots of sleeping in, and then I'm done for good before May hits. Good times.

Yeah, it's definitely a lot of writing, I know that. I've been poking at my own novel-length for a few weeks (and it's not going anywhere, arg plot hates me... I have scribbles ALL OVER my bathroom mirror with a special pen that I bought, because I tend to start writing this fic when I'm brushing my teeth... yeah, I'm a freak).

Is Flack's bitterness in part (even if he won't admit it) because he lost Danny, someone he was close to (and maybe loved just a bit, though I don't know about that?), and that sorta forced him to harden himself? Also, I bet he'd get a bit of sadistic glee out of dragging Danny into an uncomfortable spot like that, Just Because He Can.

Papal bulls are... well, they're the official letters that the pope sends out, and they're kinda like LAW. Really famous ones are like the Friday the 13th one in 1307 that ordered all of the Knights Templar to be executed (I think I'm writing a short paper on this one due next week), and this one about the Plague of 1348. Wikipedia is God (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_Bull).

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Well, I want to write it, but I don't want to write it. The only way I was able to do novel-lengths was to sit myself down every evening and force myself to pound out two thousand words. And that was freshman year; I don't have the mental capacity to do it now. Not until after the AP tests, at least.

*dramatic sigh* It makes me very sad. I can totally see how they'd set it up, and how to play it. One big mob ep, during the beginning the season, Mac takes down someone powerful in the Mafia. End of either the same ep or the next one, Danny gets a phone call; beginning of the next one, Lindsay asks where he is and Mac announces he's taking a leave of absence. Span of several eps in between, then something goes down and Flack meets Danny for drinks or something, Danny looking badly, badly shaken. There's a slow build up of mob stuff -- Mac getting threatened, etc. We don't yet know that Danny's an undercover cop. Near the end of one of the mob buildups, we see Danny doing Something Sleazy and get very suspicious. This time, Flack goes to see Danny in some bar, and Danny yells at him, tells him off -- tells him he hasn't been on a "leave of absence" because Mac fired him. He's back with his own people now. Then he and Flack get into a fistfight and get pulled apart by Danny's mob friends. (Except for the fistfight, this role could also be played by Lindsay.) I'm thinking a two-parter finale, with a set-up of a big mob murder that the crime lab picks up -- while interrogating suspects, they find out Danny's on the inside. And it goes down bad. Very end of the finale ep, when Danny's either in a hospital bed or leaning against a wall with blood on his hands and on his shirt, holding a gun and shaking as police officers swarm around them, we find out that Danny's been undercover this whole time, and that he's connected.

*cough* That's not how I'd play it in a story; that is how I'd play it if I was doing a plot arc over a season of show.

GOD. My school district schedule sucks; I know some schools on the west side have a mid-winter break and a Easter break, but do we? NO.

Like, the closest thing I'm coming to a novel-length right now is the SAAB story, and I think it's only going to be novella-length (oh please God, says she). I don't want to put something else on my plate.

Mmm, yeah. I'd also have to figure out exactly what went down in this Bloody Sunday, too. And then I'd assume there's been a lot of stuff building up between him and Mac, too, as well as with the rest of the crime lab -- hey, look at the distance between them now.

Oh, okay, I know what you mean. I was just thinking, what, cows?

[limmenel.livejournal.com]

You put a lot more effort into your fics than I do, it seems. During NaNoWriMo, I put out 5k a night, but totally not with fics, because there's no deadline. Which is probably one of the problems that I have, and why I'll never finish this novel-length, but whatever. You are FAR more dedicated than me.

And yeah, HOLY CRAP you should totally write that, because there's no way the writers will ever realize that genius. Though, man, it totally is genius. Ngh. And I think it's a totally plausible concept, except the writers wouldn't want to lose Danny for that long, and they'd have to tie other characters in more deeply to the thing, and wtf, they have no imagination outside of their case load, because there's never any of these arcs, you know? Every so often, there are plots that span two or three eps, but never an entire season... CSI is a week-by-week show, unlike a lot of other shows out there that rely on plots from the premiere to be answered in the finale. And I don't think Lindsay could do the scene with Flack, because they've really established her as the love interest, though I guess she could be there at the time, and cry or something (because that's all she's good for... okay, I'm bitter, sorry). But then, of course, there would have to be a DAMNED good reason for Danny to agree to do all of that, because he left Tanglewood behind and I don't think he'd go back willingly.

Our school is sorta crappy for breaks, overall... we have two three-day weekends in October (a school-related day, and the Canadian Thanksgiving), and then nothing until the two weeks over Christmas, and then a week in February, four day weekend for Easter, and that's it. But the lack of break means we're out so much earlier.

How do you define novella? Like, that's 20-50k for me, while novel is anything over 50, for the most part, although that's technically not right in the publishing world, I don't think.

Don't stress over it. I'm sorry if my pestering is being annoying, because you definitely should be focusing on school and All That Fun Stuff right now.

It doesn't look like Bloody Sunday would have to change overly much, although you'd have to give Danny another reason to blow up over Mac, if you weren't going to introduce Lindsay in there, and I guess Aiden wouldn't die, then?

It might as well be about cows, because gah, I cannot read Latin. Not that I want to, but this stuff makes my head hurt. Cows are more interesting.