Fandom Snowflake: Days 13 & 9

[thisbluespirit]

Some more for the snowflake_challenge:

Day 13: In your own space, talk about setting yourself a fannish goal. Big or small, it doesn't matter. Some great examples include: complete a bingo, sign-up for a Big Bang, write that fic you've been thinking about for years, podfic that story that you love, make a fanmix for your fandom, post that bit of meta or reclist you keep postponing. Maybe resolve to be better at leaving feedback, or answering comments.

Well, I am half a story short of a bingo for hc_bingo, and though it's too late for the challenge, amnesty is open till June - so I'd like to get the other half of the fic done. (It's for the "tentacles" square, and I also happened to have a prompt for S&S that "Silver & Sapphire & Steel: woke up in bed together & tentacles".) I know how it goes, I just can't quite get round to finishing it, which is silly. So, that. There's a goal.

Also, I really am going to finish the isurrendered things. (The episode guide of evil is nearly finished and will look entirely unimpressive and much like any other innocent episode guide for a fake TV show, but it is evil and fought back, I tell you.)


Day 9: In your own space, rec at least 3 fanworks you thought you wouldn't like (because they weren't your fandom or they pushed against your boundaries or you thought you just wouldn't be interested) but you ended up loving.

I wasn't sure I could do this for a while, and then thought about it. I don't tend to go round looking for things I think I won't like, but there are times when I get bored/desperate in a small fandom, or risk something higher rated than my usual (wimpish) standards, or follow a rec that promises that a scary sounding fic might not be so scary after all. (Some of these attempts end in reaching for the brain bleach, only to find that JJPOR has swigged the last few drops (because he always has, the rotter ;-D) and the rest in cries of "But Sapphire's eyes aren't blue, author!" /o\ In which case, I at least don't need the brain bleach, just the restraint not to write obsessive reviews about people's correct eye colours.) Anyway, here are some of these occasions that went remarkably well, because authors are talented and things aren't necessarily as scary as they seem.

Entitled by Nope.
(Teen, 7200 words. Sapphire, Steel, Silver.) Sapphire and Steel are assigned to a Time breakout in a library.

(As far as I could see, this was too long to read (I still only have small small amounts of concentration, shh), it was explicit Sapphire/Steel (it wasn't, I don't know why I thought that, but I'm very wary of human-style Sapphire/Steel and possible related Silver-hate), and it was in second person. It is in fact both Sapphire/Steel and Sapphire/Silver/Steel and one of the cleverest Sapphire & Steel fics I've come across and I adored it, once I finally dared to print it off and try reading it.)


The rest had Scary Higher Ratings, but proved to be awesome and non-brain-bleach requiring. For me, at any rate. I can't promise for everyone. :-)

Unfinished Business (1838 words) by tree_and_leaf
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart/Liz Shaw
Characters: Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, Liz Shaw
Additional Tags: Unresolved Sexual Tension, Resolved Sexual Tension
Summary: Liz has unfinished business with the Brigadier. She thought she’d accepted it would have to stay that way…


Acted Over (3142 words) by pauraque
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Julius Caesar - Shakespeare, Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Marcus Brutus/Caius Cassius
Characters: Caius Cassius, Marcus Brutus, Portia, Junia, Pindarus
Additional Tags: Canonical Character Death, Suicide, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop, Anachronisms, Dreams, Surrealism, Bondage, Knifeplay, Yuletide Treat, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Summary: For Brutus, there is always time — time to consider, time to speak, time to make his point in twenty ponderously balanced lines. For Cassius, there is barely time to breathe.

(Look at the scary tags! And yet, as it turned out, so very, very clever about the nature of plays and time and...)

This Penguin For Hire by Levendis.
(Teen, 3985 words. Frobisher, The Sixth Doctor, Ainley Master.) When it comes to political espionage, Frobisher is really not your man. (It was disguised as Doctor/Master Mpreg. It was in fact, as Calufrax explained, mainly an awesome Frobisher fic and needed to be read.)

Anyway, yes, I'm wimpish and easily scared when reading ship fic. It's a thing. (Sometimes I am brave, though. Just sometimes.)

Comments

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

I shall have a read of those fics later.

[thisbluespirit]

:-)

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

The Brigader/Liz? That's just... wrong. But very well done for tackling that question! And I am now absolutely paranoid about Sapphire's eyes. They're blue when you notice them! The rest of the time they're just there. Did I make them the wrong colour in your fandom stocking thing?! *runs to check in a panic*

I think my surrendery thing is ready to post, but I keep getting cold feet. Maybe it needs just a bit more tweaking?! This is what happens when you design yourself the perfect TV show. You worry that nobody else will like it! :) I do look forward to reading yours eventually though (whenever you get around to it, obviously). Your seventies one is genius.

[thisbluespirit]

Brig/Liz is one of the very best ships, all snark and repression. It is awesome, so, shh. *gives you stern look* (Doomed, I know, but brilliant. Also Brig/Liz writers are a pretty talented bunch, so I'm in excellent company.)

POST IT!!

I will hopefully finish off the second half of the 1970s one very soon, and then the others will be much easier. For some reason, I just ended up taking the 70s one ridiculously seriously.

(Nobody can see if your show is imperfect, because the episodes don't exist. You just tell us it is awesome and we imagine it as such and lo, it is awesome! Which I'm sure it is anyway.)

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

But the Brigadier is married! Twice. I suppose she could have snuck in between the two wives. Which sounds a lot more suggestive than it did when I started typing, but nevermind.

[thisbluespirit]

Marriage 1 goes wrong at some point, though, and that leaves plenty of options. Besides, a lot of Brig/Liz is about repression and being terribly British about not having an affair. But also epic snark, at least on Liz's end. Anyway, I suppose I should stop justifying my terrible shipping habits, but... try looking at screencaps of them in Spearhead of Space out of context. (Though this one is just plain silly. :-D) I am mostly gen, but I have a few dips into obsessive shipping here and there. It happens.

Which sounds a lot more suggestive than it did when I started typing, but nevermind.

The Brigadier is considerably alarmed. He went so far as to raise his eyebrow...

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

Oh crikey. I take it all back! I'm not sure if he's just goosed her, or whispered something spectacularly inappropriate, but either way, you are right and I am wrong, and things are clearly afoot. :D

[thisbluespirit]

:-D

It is one of my favourite screencaps. I meant once to do a picspam of dodgy Brig/Liz pics from Spearhead, but I only ever got around to sharing that one on Tumblr, because... well...

[honeynoir.livejournal.com]

*cheers your fannish goals on*

Thanks for the recs! 'Fics that sound scary based on their tags but are actually little treasures' is a sorely neglected genre...

[thisbluespirit]

Thank you! If I can stop writing for things nobody's ever heard of, I can get back into writing for things at least five people have heard of! \o/

:-D

Yes, the "No, really, don't run away! It's not that bad!" type fics. Heh.

[honeynoir.livejournal.com]

But who would write for the things nobody's heard of then? :)

Yes, the "No, really, don't run away! It's not that bad!" type fics. Heh.
Hee! It would be great if that was a recognised tag used by many people (except not overused because then you wouldn't dare read it anyway)...

[thisbluespirit]

Life is hard. :-/

It's the sort of tag that can only be used properly on bookmarks, because otherwise you'd have to trust the author. Mind, I did once label a fic "Not As Shippy As It Sounds". That could be a tag, I suppose.

[honeynoir.livejournal.com]

Ooh, Not As Shippy As It Sounds is a v. good tag!

[corngold.livejournal.com]

Have just finished the Blakefest fic (finally!), and so I have wandered over here to say - I saw this post a few days ago and thought 'oo, an S&S fic I have not read,' and naturally went to read it, and loved it. Thank you very much for reccing it here! It is indeed excellent and unusual, and works incredibly well.

[thisbluespirit]

It is so good, isn't it? As I said, I was wary of it for unfounded reasons, and then it turned out to be marvellous and exactly the right kind of weird. And OT3. (Not that I'm biased about that bit.)

Blakefest seems to be going well! I have peeked at some of the non-fic things. Hopefully I shall poke around some of the fic (without the scary tags :lol:) soon, too.

[corngold.livejournal.com]

It is! Definitely worth many re-reads. I do think second-pov can be a scary tag, and so I don't read many fics that use it - although I think most of the ones I've read have been really amazing. When used in a particular way, it can really lend an unusual atmosphere to a story which does work marvellously for S&S.

Plus, yes, bonus OT3 :)

I hear there is excellent fic that has been produced! I haven't taken a look yet, really, since I've been trying to do last minute edits and get my fic posted before the deadline became nothing but a distant memory. Mine, I will warn you right now and save you the trouble, is most probably not your cup of tea. But I'm sure there are others that you will enjoy!

[thisbluespirit]

It is such a shame about my terrible taste in tea, but there we are... (I am sure it is marvellous fic! :-D)

And I think one of the things about S&S is that it breaks quite a lot of TV narrative rules and unsettles the viewer by doing so - so, when writing, it's in-keeping to find ways to play outside the usual narrative rules of writing. Of course, you can't do that all the time, but it's very interesting to see how different people have taken that on. And this one is very effective in a lot of ways, and I am all admiration for it.