#sanctuaryappreciationweek

[captain-sassy-socks]

[thegirlbehindthegasmask]

Sanctuary Appreciation Week Day Seven: Free Choice

S3E10 Hollow Men - Time Stamp Roulette

[galactic-pirates]

Just a day job that's someone's gotta do...

SANCTUARY APPRECIATION WEEK

Day Seven (Free Choice) Everyday Superhero (Kate Freelander style)

[galactic-pirates]

SANCTUARY APPRECIATION WEEK

Day Six (Missing or Divergent Scenes) Fanfic Style

I’ve always been a fan of canon-divergence. The moments that spin into “what ifs?”, are moments that spark my imagination, and make me fall deeper for a show. The first fanfic I wrote for Sanctuary was Our Darkest Hour, which is canon-divergent from Revelations in season 1. I was so captured by that episode I wrote it before I’d finished watching the show. As such some of my headcanons at the time were jossed by later episodes. I prefer that actually, the headcanons I have now are much better :)

The next fanfic I wrote was Happy Ending which has got to be among the most sickly-sweet fluffy fics I’ve ever written. It diverges pre-canon imagining a world where John never encountered the energy creature, and never became the Ripper. In fact looking at my list of Sanctuary fanfics I think almost all of them qualify on some level as being ‘missing’ or ‘divergent’. It takes little effort to watch a man carry a load is purely a missing scene. It’s James post-Ripper reveal and it makes my heart hurt.

Anyway what I really want to talk about today is Out of the Shadows and the main companion alternate fic which I have still NOT written - Shadow Play. The summary for Out of the Shadows is:

Massive explosions have ripped through the calderas in Chile, Indonesia and Russia. Abnormals are pouring out of Hollow Earth. It looks like an invasion. Will Zimmerman, and Henry Foss, are conferencing with the UN but the military is about to take control. Without Helen Magnus to argue the case for the Sanctuary network the situation looks desperate.

But then like an answer to their prayers, reinforcements arrive, but not who they were expecting. Doctor James Watson strides into the Sanctuary concourse with information as unexpected as his arrival.

because Time Travel!

Could there be any bigger gift offering the chance of ‘missing scenes’ than Helen’s 113 year sojourn into the past? Basically with the moment of ‘re-joining the timeline’ I had 2 options. There was canon-divergence (which is what I went with in Out of the Shadows) and canon-compliant which is what I want to do in Shadow Play. Basically the two fics share a background right up until the moment of the events of Uprising. In fact that same background also plays into the crossover of Odyssey: Future’s Legacy as I wrote it with the thought it had taken place during season 4, we just hadn’t seen it. I mean we don’t see all the adventures they have after all, which is how I can technically tag some of my Helen/James fic as canon-compliant - you can’t prove it’s not!

Shadow Play is a fic purely of missing scenes, as I fill in the blanks of season 4 which includes some flashbacks. I have a grand total of one scene written for this fic thus far. I won’t post the whole scene as it’s quite long, also I’m loathe to do a teaser in case this fic doesn’t ever become an actual thing. But still a small (or not so small) snippet could be fun?

This post is getting long so under the cut we go!

“Tell me how I died,” James demanded. “I’m not afraid of death, Helen. I’m afraid of leaving you to face your own personal hell alone.”

“You were one hundred and sixty,” Helen whispered hoarsely.

James’ firm implacable tone dragged the words from her. She questioned the wisdom of this but she couldn’t deny him, truthfully she didn’t want to, all the fight was gone from her. The last few years had been hell. Seeing James again, all her armour had been stripped away. Ashley, Ashley, Ashley, echoed through her mind. Helen had understood and deeply sympathised with Adam’s desire to save his daughter, she just couldn’t quite bring herself to damn the world even to save her own. Helen wasn’t sure what that said about her and she felt herself starting to shake.

“Your suit failed, the inevitable you said,” Helen finished. She tensed her jaw and blinked rapidly. She shook her head, suddenly realising her words wouldn’t make sense to James. “You invented a suit to sustain your life-”

“That was a reasonable deduction,” James said wryly. He reached up, brushing a stray lock of hair away from her face. “I’d have stayed with you forever, if it was possible, but alas my gift was never longevity.”

Now logically I know that TV writers don’t come up with stuff until they need it, so when they wrote season one they likely didn’t know about Helen’s time travel. However, it fits too beautifully for me because it explains why James and Helen were separated for all those decades after she moved to Old City. I’ve used this headcanon in every fic where it could come up (post-Our Darkest Hour, hence my comment about headcanons changing earlier). Here’s another snippet where I explain it. First this:

James didn’t understand and he couldn’t because she could never tell him. Part of her was tempted, oh so very tempted, but the thought of her younger self stopped her in her tracks. Helen knew that James couldn’t be with her, because he’d spent the bulk of every year until just after the second world war by her side - well the side of the Helen Magnus that belonged to this time.

“You’re incredibly strong, Helen,” James murmured from behind her. “But this is a weight nobody should carry alone. I’m not saying it’ll be easy because I could never abandon you in any incarnation, and the last thing I want is for your younger self to believe I’m having an affair.”

and then later in the scene:

“You’re insufferable sometimes you know that,” Helen said but there was no bite to her tone. “I desperately do want to tell you, James, but I’m afraid.”

She met his eyes willingly for the first time since he entered the room. She was Helen Magnus, she didn’t really like to admit fear, but this was James and she knew that he would understand.

“We make decisions and we have to live with the consequences. I’m almost glad that time travellers aren’t immune to that.” James’ lips quirked and Helen rolled her eyes.

It was a question of trust and if there was anyone in this lifetime, or any other, that Helen trusted implicitly then it was James Watson. The only decision he had ever made, which she hadn’t understood and hadn’t believed his explanation, was when James had stayed in London when she’d moved to Old City. He’d made some noises about it being better politically, as it was still early days with the UN taking over sponsorship of the Sanctuary network from the Crown, but then the years went by and they stayed on opposite sides of the world. She’d come to believe that it was because of her longevity. His suit sustained him but he felt the years - and she didn’t.

“Dear lord,” Helen breathed, as the obvious answer finally dawned. “In the late 1940’s I moved to America, and founded a new Sanctuary on the west coast. I assumed you would come with me but you didn’t, you stayed head of the London Sanctuary. We saw each other maybe once a year.”

“That doesn’t sound right.” James frowned deeply. “Why would…” he trailed off. “Because I can’t be with two versions of you at the same time.” He chuckled lightly. “Well, I’d say we have our first clue that the timeline is intact, that this is indeed a time loop.”

“We can’t know that,” Helen warned. “We also can’t take it for granted. We can’t assume the timeline will just resolve itself, we need to be careful, to work at it-”

“You can start by telling me everything,” James interrupted gently. “I’ll never not be by your side, Helen, you might as well.”

Helen bowed her head in defeat. Her heart hammered with hope. The moment James had suggested maybe finding a way to change things, without changing them, she had lost. If there was a remote chance of saving Ashley without burning the world, then Helen had to take it. She eyed James speculatively. If she could save James as well, then the torture of the next hundred and thirteen years would be more than worth it.

Anyway I think I’ve gone on long enough now. TLDR Sanctuary has a rich tapestry which offers so much potential. I think that’s part of what makes me love the show so much. It’s a deep sandbox to play in.

Happy Sanctuary Appreciation Week! :)

[pleasureprose]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[thegirlbehindthegasmask]

Sanctuary Appreciation Week ⤷ Day Five: Favourite Settings

The Lost City of Bhalasaam, Final refuge of the Vampires

[galactic-pirates]

SANCTUARY APPRECIATION WEEK

Day Five (Historical Adventures) Fanfic Style

I currently have 4 posted fanfics that are set in the past but only Gentlemen of Blood really qualifies for the ‘adventure’ tag. Choosing Fate is an arranged marriage AU pre-canon in the 1870′s. It takes little effort to watch a man carry a load is a technically canon-compliant oneshot post Ripper-reveal and The Tragic Tail is about Helen’s ill-fated trip on the Titanic.

So Gentlemen of Blood! Summary:

In 1909 the Prime Minister called a meeting of The Five. Adam Worth had become a real problem. In true Moriarty style his danger came not just from his mind, but from his insidious organisation. James Watson scoffed at the Prime Minister’s paranoia, right up until the moment he was shot by one of his own security men. When you hear “they have people everywhere” you expect it to be hyperbole, you don’t expect someone to be working for them inside the bloody room. Now the Five have to stop Worth before he can enact his plan to destroy London. However, Worth’s Jekyll and Hyde nature raises some questions about an old mystery... Whitechapel.

All the stories are James/John/Helen obviously, I mean it’s me haha. Anyway, writing the 19th century involves an awful lot of googling “did they have...” or “what did they call...” or “when was this invented...” AND word choices and phrases too. Language evolves over time so a lot of searching for word origins. I probably don’t get it completely right but I like to try.

Something else I try and think about is the passage of time. I had Helen reflect on this a bit in The Tragic Tail. She noted that the Titanic had been her first major disaster involving a huge loss of life. The memory still has the power to shake her a century later because it was the first. She made decisions then and reacted to it, in a way that she wouldn’t have after living through the two world wars. 19th century Helen is obviously still Helen but she’s less experienced and I try and weave that in.

That’s current fics. Now are there any WIP’s in the works...

From a purely historical standpoint yes. I’m currently finishing up writing Time Will Tell, which is a soulmate AU mostly set in 1887-1889. But again that doesn’t really qualify for the ‘adventure’ tag. Now what might is (should I ever write it) an idea on the list for another Sanctuary/Warehouse 13 crossover. Obviously as this fic is still in the ‘idea’ stage, this is just a working summary:

The Warehouse explodes, Pandora’s box is open and the world has lost hope. Riots and wars erupt around the globe as tensions rise. The Sanctuary is barely keeping up and then the abnormal uprising begins. Thousands of abnormals pour out of Hollow Earth. It is the end times... and then John Druitt appears at Old City. He warns that Adam Worth is constructing a time machine intending to change the past. The world in his image? Helen Magnus can’t allow that, no matter how bleak this future has become.

Strange readings dispatch Myka Bering to the Hollow Earth tunnels and she follows Helen through the portal to 1898 - to a world that still has its hope. Myka knows the future is lost. Pandora’s box is open, that isn’t something that can be fought through and changed, it’s the end of all things. There are parts of Helen’s past she’s desperate to change, but her principles say that she came back to stop Adam Worth from changing history. If she does alter the past, that makes her as bad as him, but if the future is already doomed... 

No guarantee this will ever be a thing. I have 9 fics on my ‘idea’ list at the moment. Plot bunnies spawn faster than I can write them. I think it would be fun though. I didn’t manage to get Helen and HG Wells working together in the Odyssey: Future’s Legacy crossover, and that’s a scene I want badly so Helen and HG having adventures at Warehouse 12 does call to me.

Happy Sanctuary Appreciation Week! :)

[thegirlbehindthegasmask]

Sanctuary Appreciation Week ⤷ Day Four: Friends and Family