These two “fake fic summaries” are really more like fake fic titles. I guess this is kind of a cross-post, too, since I’m really just rehashing a rant I had on my lj a while ago. In response to metisket’s WONDERFUL Teen Wolf fic, Play It Again. So really, this post is just SUPER derivative all around. Hooray!
So, if you haven’t read that fic. Seriously, go read it. This post will undoubtedly have spoilers and be nowhere near as fabulous as the fic in question. If you’re still here for some reason, then let me present to you today’s fake fic, aka fic that I would love to read/write and etc, as it relates to metisket’s Play It Again.
Here are the TWO fake fic titles:
Play It Again (There’s Always Tomorrow Remix)
and
Play It Again (You’ll Never Get To Heaven Remix)
Because, if I’m going to be derivative about these fake fics, I might as well give credit where it’s due, right? The thing is, neither of these are really remix fics per se (or at least, what I understand to be remix fics), but I just like the way they sound.
Here’s the premise for metisket’s Play It Again which would be necessary to understand for the fake fics. Stiles jumps into an alternate universe via a ~mysterious~ Hale artifact which sends the soul of the wearer into a compatible body such that they can better protect/aid the Hale family. Derek gave that pendant to Stiles. Before Stiles, the wearer was Derek’s older brother, Philip.
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The “There’s Always Tomorrow Remix” would be a prequel/side story of sorts, and is actually about one of metisket’s OC Hale characters, Philip Hale–aka Derek’s older brother and the only human born to the Hale wolf pack. In the fic, Stiles briefly wonders what happened to his universe’s Philip since he was wearing the pendant the night of the Hale House fire. But because Stiles is a little bit sociopathic, he drops the matter and goes on with protecting the few people he actually cares about.
Unlike Stiles, I AM CURIOUS AS FUCK as to what happened to Philip. And… don’t need to protect any of my friends/family from supernatural disasters so…
But, I digress. In “There’s Always Tomorrow Remix” the fic follows original universe Philip on his journey throughout multiple alternate universes as he tries and fails to figure out why his family (and therefore he) keep getting burned to death. I like the horrifying potential for the most depressing and frustrating Groundhog Day on earth where he keeps getting shunted into different realities in which he keeps dying horribly and can’t figure out for the life of him why. I mean, we know it’s because of Kate Argent, but the way the Hale family missed her creepy molester act on Derek the first time means it’ll take a while for Philip to get to that conclusion.
At some point he either does figure it out–but, as the remix title suggests, not on his own (yeah, it’s a reference to the song Lean On Me). In Play It Again, Deaton and Philip are close enough such that Philip designed Deaton wards and they’re comfortable discussing various magical matters. Maybe not quite friends or mentor relationship, but close enough. Also in PIA, Stiles is ridiculously magically powerful. Whether or not Philip gets help from yet another pendant-wielding alternate Stiles or actually a child who just happens to have crazy amounts of magical potential Stiles or even Claudia Stilinski (who I personally think would be the parent from whom Stiles inherits his magical ability), Philip manages to figure out what’s going down and stop it. And stop dying. Hooray for him!
Here’s a tiny ass snippet/possible fake fic summary for it:
You are Philip Hale. You are a human born to a pack of werewolves. You can do magic. You can do anything. You can do this.
“I can’t do this,” you say to yourself, tugging at your hair in frustration. The vigorous motion knocks your glasses askew and the scribbled rune-work in your notebook becomes even more useless.
“I’m majoring in library science. I volunteer at the vet clinic on the weekends. I don’t know anything about stopping a mass murder.”
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The “You’ll Never Get To Heaven Remix,” a reference to the Dionne Warwick song, is an exploration of the Sterek ship through the Play It Again lens. Which, perhaps, does not make much sense, so I will explain. Play It Again, for all that it’s a story about a boy crossing universes and fighting monsters (of the human and creature variety) with magic and saving the day, is really a character study of Stiles. It throws Stiles into a bunch of situations, shows how he reacts to them, and shows how other people react to his reactions (mostly confusion). There are some internal musings, but for the most part Stiles is very goal-oriented in PIA and so doesn’t let himself stop to wonder about certain matters.
At the end, though, after all the action/adventure part of the story is over, Laura asks Stiles if he was in love with his original Derek. And, really, you should read that fic because his response was so very elquently poignant that it got me wondering about the almost Sterek in the original universe.
Stiles’ answer basically amounts to: he didn’t yet, he could have, and he maybe wanted to. And it’s almost like you can taste that lost potential love. And I have to wonder if any of that was at all reciprocated on Derek’s side. Because the fact that he even gave Stiles his family’s magical pendant and, sure, maybe he assumed it was a human-only thing but he still gave one of the last remnants of his family to Stiles. That speaks of something right there.
An aching, potential, something that grips my heart and squeezes because it ends with death and alternate realities and mourning and not-quite-regret but something similar. Because even in canon they always risked their own safety to save each others’ lives. They would die for each other, had died for each other (at least Derek had), but they didn’t necessarily love each other (yet or maybe never) and there’s something poetic and forceful about that. A deeper connection than the implied romance with the alternate Derek that Stiles gets.
And also, while it would push it almost too far into the alternate reality of an alternate reality, I kind of have to wonder if Stiles hadn’t definitively known his Derek had died. Because PIA ends with Stiles staying in the alternate reality since basically everyone else in his original reality is dead. He wasn’t super sure about his dad or Scott (but there had been a sort of vision/dream sequence which implied death), but he had actually witnessed Derek dying. Confirmed dead Derek. But… I kind of feel like Stiles would have worked harder to get back to his original universe if Derek were alive, or even possibly alive. At the very least, I think Stiles would consider that too.
The way I see it, Stiles would consider it his duty to keep his dad and Scott safe, but ultimately his self worth means he would think their lives are better without him. But Derek? Stiles knows Derek’s life is better because of Stiles. Or at least, Derek is alive thanks to Stiles. Subconsciously, being needed by Derek would be a greater motivation for Stiles to get back than his perceived duty to his dad and Scott. And maybe Stiles would ponder on that as his relationship with alt!Derek grows, because even if Stiles and original!Derek hadn’t been romantically involved they were mutual life savers which is a stronger bond than what he has with alt!Derek even without the possible unresolved emotional tension.
Basically, a lot of feels.
I actually think second POV would work for this fake fic too. But very disjointed, time-skippy sections.
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The related lj post is here. For anyone curious enough to read my stream of conscious of what I basically rehashed above.
JackSGreyson Says 