Wtf: Typical (Or, more about where my brain goes...)

[black_sluggard]

So Round 4 of the Ryan & Esposito Ficathon has officially started, and (as usual) my attempts to focus on one story (i.e. the one I intend to write for the 'thon) have succeeded in giving me a dozen ideas for all the others...

In particular, the current bunny is a bizarrely metafictional piece. It comes from a. the ideas I've had previously of using the Life AU as a template for some original fiction—probably focusing on Javi's post-vital counselor Reggie Simpson as its principle character, and b. the more recent idea that, as a post-vital working homicides, Javier might be in a unique position at the "current" stage of post-vital rights. And god isn't it just typical of me to start composing plot out of the ideas grating against my RL brain. It's not that I want the Life 'verse to become an allegory for gay rights (or stroke recovery, or mental illness, or any of the other crap that is foremost on my mind) it just seems impossible for my subconscious to avoid it...

Moving on, the idea sparked that Javier might be the first post-vital ever to be in the position that he is, and as a friend of Castle's, might be the focus for a lot more human interest than might otherwise be expected. And this turned into the idea of Castle being unable to unhook his writer-brain from his real-life brain (you know, like in canon?), and being moved by Javier's experiences to write books centering on a post-vital character.

Now, the obvious way of doing this was to just have him write in an IHN plot into the Nikki Heat books, possibly complete with Ochoa losing his wife after his infection, mirroring both Javier's experience and Kevin's breakup with Jenny. But apparently, my brain didn't want obvious. Because first it had the unconnected idea of "I wonder if Castle has ever met Reggie". Because despite having a very serious role, I've conceived him as something of a crackup, and with Castle's curiosity and Reggie's painful frankness, that interaction would probably be hilarious.

So the thought naturally followed... What if Castle started writing his books based on Reggie? Books about an elderly (though very spry) post-vital counselor as an amateur sleuth type character (a la Murder, She Wrote or...you know, Castle himself) independently investigating charges against one of his patients, while at the same time dealing with an estranged wife dying of old age and trying to reconnect with an adult son past the painful awkwardness of his mother raising him as having "lost" his father to IHN when he was a child.

(Which, though I haven't written it yet because I don't like inflating OCs in fanfiction, is only part of Reggie's painful backstory.)

TL;DR: I want to use the Life series setting for original fiction. Only if I do, from now until the day I die, in my head those stories are going to be connected to this fanfiction 'verse as having been written by Richard Castle when he decided Reggie could be sort of a cool muse too.

(Just shoot me now...)