Developing: Restitution

[LestatDraconus]

Hi all, big first fic idea but it is my first fic and I'm posting my idea here to see if it's within the rules. It has a canon beginning but turns very AU (otherwise how would W/T get back together? Also more AU than that, Babylon 5 AU )

(spoilers for a little bit of Buffy and B5 if you read on)

It starts with Willow with Giles in England after Dark Phoenix period, basically she is recovering. I really don't know how to flesh out this part because I want to rush it so we can get to Willow/Tara meeting (again? ) but I see it as non-rushable.

At one point, either through her sleeplessness or inability to concentrate on the lessons Giles (or the Coven? Input good) is teaching her, she focuses on what makes her happy, this being memories of Tara. And being the all powerful Willow, I was thinking either a spell her magic activates because of her need for Tara or her going through the spells she absorbed (kind of like scanning over pages of documents for keywords... or Google. Will-oogle even. For her mind) and coming across a form of Magical (or magickal?) Restitution; i.e, giving her what she lost (or an equal payment? This is still Will/Tara so don't worry. )

I was thinking that the spell takes her to where, approximately, Tara's soul is. Either she thinks that she's in Heaven and she doesn't care or it could be the spell wouldn't work if that person was really dead.

This spell would take her/deposit her roughly in Babylon 5, kind of in Down Below. Around this part needs fleshing out but it would at least be a chapter before I switch perspectives to Tara. Tara would be introduced as the replacement attache to Ambassador Delenn, as Lennier left because his feelings for her were becoming too great a distraction.

I wanted to make Tara a Minbari but I don't know if I can do that, at least I don't know if having Tara as an alien is even admissable, but if I set it in the third season of B5 I can at least have the option of using the device left by Sinclair, to turn Tara into a Hybrid Minbari/Human.

Feedback is massively needed and maybe a post by someone who would know if I can do this by kitten rules. Thanks.

P.S: There will be amounts of smut that rival the space between the stars themselves... Or just a healthy amount. And I will possibly have a smut advisor working out the kinks (she needs to clear her schedule )

[Alcy]

Hi there Lestat,
I'm not very up to clue on Babylon 5, I used to watch it and loved it immensely.
While your Restitution spell idea sounds great, I'm wondering if you really need to include it at all, why not just have Willow and Tara (and any of their friends you wish to include) already in the Babylon 5 universe and just make it a straight Babylon 5 AU? But by all means continue with the Restitution spell if that's the direction you want to go in.

I don't see any problem with Tara being Minbari, there's nothing in the FAQ against making her an alien so by all means go for it. Writers on this board have written Willow and Tara into a variety of scenarios that are vastly removed from their canon characters, that's part of what makes AU so interesting. The only thing you can't do to the characters is write them in a sexual/romantic situation with someone else...apart from that, pretty much anything is fair game...and that includes making Tara Minbari.

[LestatDraconus]

Thanks for replying Alcy.

I was thinking orignally going straight AU but I decided against it seeing as the two B5 W/T stories I have read are like that and I wanted something different. I wanted Willow to have her skills and be, ultimately, Willow. I think I could even make her valuble to the effort against the Shadows (think evil, ancient space spiders) or I could make her still hung up in her past (who wouldn't after being transported to the future) and for her to go to earth and look for Sunnydale or any remnants of the life she had.

I am a bit stuck whether to make Tara 'Religious' Cast or 'Worker' Cast, and whether to have her kind of ousted from her clan (for either being a lesbian, for it being taboo in Minbari culture or something else), and whether to have Minbari versions of Donny and Nathan.

Btw, I LOVE Van Rosenburg!