#orphaned ideas

So, love potions. How about a twist?

Their new client, pretty and seemingly nice girl about the dead boys’ age, gives them complicated, if not dangerous, case. They spend quite a lot of time on it, enough to get to know her a bit, and it seems like at some point Charles develops a crash on her. It doesn’t trigger any alarms, it looks normal: a bit of flirting from the get-to, a few weeks during the case to connect even more, and then, after the case is wrapped up, they just… continue to see each other. 

Charles behaves, well, normally. He doesn’t hide that he’s enamoured with her, but at the same time he is trying his best to be gentle and considerate with Edwin. 

And Edwin — hurts. He can’t be a total bitch about the girl, because this time Charles is oh so aware of his feelings and is actively trying to spare Edwin any hurt. Failing at it, but not for the lack of trying. So Edwin straps up for a rough journey and minimises occurrences when he needs to interact with the girl. Cherishes the times when there’s only he and Charles, and occasionally Crystal.

It goes on for a few months.

The thing is, the love potion the girl uses is of extremely high quality. It doesn’t change the target’s personality, it doesn’t make them stupid or inconsiderate. It just adds an emotion, a feeling. So Charles is still Charles in all the things that matter, it’s just that now he loves this new girl. Or, rather, he is under the impression that the feelings for this girl are his own.

They’re not.

And of course it’s Crystal who catches the whiff of something being not right. And, well, the thing is Crystal does like the girl. She is nice and kind, and Charles is perfectly happy dating her. So it’s not like she is trying to undermine their relationship or some shit.

It’s just.

They go somewhere together (she, Charles and the girl. Edwin skips), a day trip to an adventure park or maybe a music festival, and the trip is so much fun, she’d have absolutely loved it.

Except.

Charles may be behaving as usual with Crystal and with Edwin, with anybody, really. 

But with the girl he is behaving as anybody but Charles Crystal knows and loves.

Crystal feels like a whole trip is some kind of fucked up joy ride through an uncanny valley. She doesn’t pick up this at first, but after few hours the details pile up. One moment Charles bickers with her and everything is fine, but then he turns to the girl and everything is wrong: his smile isn’t right, his words are a bit off, even his mannerisms are not really his. And then he tells some joke and turns back to her, and winks, and it’s their Charles again.

The worst part? She cannot put her finger on what is wrong.

After the trip Charles goes with the girl wherever, Crystal goes straight to Edwin.

Could you imagine the emotions of all participating parties not only during, but also after the scheme is resolved for good?

Our protagonist is Paul, a young man who has recently moved to a new city where he doesn't know anybody. He’s feeling quit lonely and sad, but he likes to go to the city, sit in coffee shops writing and listening to music. Eventually Paul meets some nice people and they ask if he wants to go see some music. He goes along with them and it turns out they're part of a Pentecostal Christian church. This is not what he had in mind, but he humors them because they seem nice and he doesn’t want to be rude. 

As the Pentecostal event ramps up Paul starts to get into it. The music is lively, the people seem happy, the preacher is saying stuff about love and community that makes sense to Paul. When the preacher asks if there’s anyone present who has not given their life to Jesus Paul puts his hand up (along with numerous other people scattered through the crowd). A little later in the service the Preacher does an altar call, inviting people to come up the front and give themselves to the Lord. Paul is feeling a bit too shy, so he doesn’t go up immediately and things start to get weird. There's laying on of hands, people are shaking and falling, speaking in tongues - the usual Pentecostal stuff. 

Paul is starting to feel a bit freaked out now. He decides to try and lay low. He can't really sit down without drawing attention to himself, so he's sort of shrinking back. The service keeps going, music is ramping up, the people are dancing, etc. The preacher repeats the altar call several more times. Eventually he says, "I can still feel that someone in this house hasn't given themselves over to the Lord". His eyes search the crowd until finally he spots Paul. The Preacher points directly at Paul and invites him to come up the front. Things go quiet as the crowd waits for him to answer the call. Paul nervously starts to make his way out of his seat into the aisle. In the aisle he takes a step or two toward the front before turning and sprinting out of the building. 

From that point in the movie, beginning with his rapid exit of the building, Paul is pursued by Christians. They seem manic and totally unconcerned for their own safety, but otherwise still human. They claim to want to bring him to the Lord, though whether as a convert or a ritual sacrifice isn’t clear. At no point in the movie do any of the Christians try to hurt him or do anything worse than restrain him. We don't see them consciously choose to hurt anyone else either (though they may accidentally endanger other people, for example by disrupting traffic). Paul, on the other hand, is not afraid to resort to violence in order to escape the Christians. They are scaring the shit out of him. At times they resemble a smiling zombie horde.

There could be a scene where Paul tries to get help from the police. They sound skeptical at first, but ultimately he persuades them to drive him to safety. Once they’ve put him in their car they take him back to the Christians instead. Paul manages to escape the police car, but ultimately the Christians catch him and drag him back to the building where the service is being held.

What if Jesus had succumbed to temptation in the desert (Matthew 4:1-11) and agreed to worship Satan in return for dominion over the earth?

A police procedural set in a medieval city where the police department is run by necromancers and the undead. The beat cops are all zombies controlled by necromancers whereas the detectives are more intelligent undead such as wights, revenants, vampires, etc who have more autonomy to perform their duties. The necromancers can also summon ghosts to interrogate them or to send them on surveillance missions. Most (but not all) of the crimes would have some kind of fantasy or magical element involved.