Beyond the Roundels

For snowflake_challenge - Challenge #6: In your own space, make a list — anything between one and ten things is a sweet spot, but don't feel constrained by that! - of things that you wish existed in fandom or elsewhere, or that you'd like someone to make for you.

I mainly want more anything for or anyone into my ridiculous obscure old telly fandoms, especially the ones with James Maxwell in, but that is too unreasonable to ask.

So:

1. I have a Dear Author tag which contains all my previous exchange letters and therefore details of Things I Like, why, and in what ways I would like All the Fic. Especially if it has James Maxwell in, obviously or by stealth. :-D (Other things are good! I want All The Things when I'm not at my most tired.)

2. Comments on my fic. If I have Thoughts on things, that tends to become fic and because I am actually a lot more shy than I may appear while babbling on the internet, I have always used that as my prime way into talking to people and making friends, and given my shaky concentration, I'm bad at doing it from the other way round (although I hope to improve again soon).


But, funnily, I was about to post this, so I shall include it! I was going back through all my editions of the 15 Characters Meme (and the 12 Characters thing) and noting down things that really should exist, whether as a begging list or a reminder to self, I cannot say, but I think, given this topic, it should go right here! So:

3. All these things should totally exist somewhere, right?


a. The Master goes to Granny Weatherwax's used vehicle lot to purchase a vehicle. Long John Silver offers unsolicited advice about it.

b. Ace, Sapphire, and Cally spend the night in a haunted house.

c. Violet Crawley is made supreme ruler of the globe.

d. Rupert Giles & Violet Crawley get thrown back in time to 1066 in a freak accident. The fate of England rests on the shoulders of one or both of them.

e. Zen & Holly are stuck in a museum after closing hours (presumably ancient exhibits in a technology museum, long forgotten...)

f. Harry Pearce, Esme Weatherwax, and Jane Marple are alone in a house/other building of your choice. It is a dark and stormy night. There is a thunderous knock on the door followed by the sound of feet running away. When they open the door, there is a baby in a basket, and voila, one tiny child has three of the best and scariest godparents ever. Do not mess with them.

g. Charley Pollard and Clara Oswald go into business together

h. Ros Myers is catapulted into another dimension where they meet the good/evil mirror version of their friends. (With bonus debate as to whether this would therefore be the mirror dimension where everyone was fluffy and into kittens and then Ros would have to kill them all, or if Ruth would be a megalomaniac she needed to defeat.)

i. A Bill Potts/Kara Danvers College AU where Bill is teaching physics and passing on the wonders of the universe, Sam Vimes is teaching a criminology course that is turning out to be way more hands on and practical than the university was up for, Kara is teaching a journalism course and is really nervous about it and her first few lectures do not go well, since they involve public speaking. She keeps winding up in Bill's study for biscuits and sympathy. Bill is very helpful and is developing a serious crush. (It'd be adorable only with bonus Vimes. What's not to like?)

j. The Sixth Doctor and Zelena Mills have to fake a relationship.

k. Kara Danvers/Obi Wan-Kenobi, and/or this impressively pretty, explosive and effective sedoretu comprised of Dayna Mellanby & Kara Danvers, Kara Danvers/Bill Potts, Kara Danvers/Obi-Wan Kenobi, Dayna Mellanby/Bill Potts and Dayna Mellanby/Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Bill Potts & Obi-Wan Kenobi. It would involve a lot of handwaving, but is that not what fic is for?

l. Kara Danvers and the Sixth Doctor are entered in the Great British Bake-Off. (Optional: Orac is a guest judge and Servalan is trying to sabotage the whole thing.)

m. The Twelfth Doctor and Cora Mills are now buddy cops.

n. Twelve and Henry VII are running a coffee shop that lives off the attraction of Twelve's terrible customer service and Henry's excellent book-keeping. (I don't know what kind of AU it is, but I'd read it.)


(I'd like to point out that I did write the one where Donna Moss got locked in the wine cellar with Eight and One and the one where Henry VII and Ace went on a (kind of date; stuff blew up anyway), and more or less the Jenkins and Twelve find a stray kitten, if you substute 'baby winged horse' for kitten, so I have done my part, or some of it, anyway...)

End of year fanfic meme stolen from tumblr - give me a number and I'll answer the question. (#20 is making me laugh. I often wonder what the view looks like from a megafandom...)

1. favorite fic you wrote this year
2. least favorite fic you wrote this year
3. favorite line/scene you wrote this year
4. total number of words you wrote this year
5. most popular fic this year
6. least popular fic this year
7. longest completed fic you wrote this year
8. shortest completed fic you wrote this year
9. longest wip of the year
10. shortest wip of the year
11. fandom you enjoyed writing for the most this year
12. favorite character to write about this year
13. favorite writing song/artist/album of this year
14. a fic you didn’t expect to write
15. something you learned this year
16. fic(s) you completed this year
17. fics you’ll continue next year
18. current number of wips
19. any new fics to start next year
20. number of comments you haven’t read
21. most memorable comment/review
22. events you participated in this year
23. fics you wanted to write but didn’t
24. favorite fic you read this year
25. a fic you read this year you would recommend everyone read
26. number of favorites/bookmarks you made this year
27. favorite fanfic author of the year
28. longest fic you read this year
29. shortest fic you read this year
30. favorite fandom to read fic from this year

1. Commentfest with a fairy tale/fae theme spotted around and about: November Nymphs & Nixies.


2. I have my Yuletide assignment and it's a nice one, so fingers crossed, I can do something with it! (I haven't yet, though.)


3. In my Dracula giffing, I have now achieved Dracula (1958), although most of the gifs are still pending in my queue or hanging about in my drafts over at tumblr. In the meantime, have a Peter Cushing or two:

( Cut for a Van Helsing or two )


4. I also did these gifs from Spiders (2000) an SFF/Horror film starring a young Lana Parrilla as UFO-obsessed college reporter Marci Eyre. It promised to be terrible in exactly the right enjoyable way and it was. I would say have some gifs of a young, geeky Lana vs a giant mutant spider from space, but I'm sorry, I edited out the spider. I have priorities. They don't have eight legs.

( Cut for Lana Parrilla in glasses shooting things )

Other than that, I've been pretty tired and had an appointment, hence gifs. Tragically no James Maxwell ones, though. This year is very short on James Maxwell and it's an unfair thing, but OTOH, it had Lana vs a Giant Spider, so I suppose that is something.

Oh, look another fanfic stats meme! How can I resist?

List your top fanfic on AO3 for every year, sorted by kudos.

2011
I joined AO3 in 2011 and spent most of that year putting my back catalogue onto it, and though I backdated some of it, I left a lot as it was, which skews things. So, the top listed is this:

Five Times the Doctor Got in the Way of Captain Janeway (and One Time They Got Along Just Fine) (Doctor Who/Star Trek Voyager, gen, 5260 words.) (I'm pretty sure this was c. Oct-Nov 2010 but am too lazy to look at Teaspoon for the date just now.)

But topmost of fic written in 2011 is this:

Truth & Compromise (Discworld, William de Worde/Sacharissa Cripslock, 4404 words.) Written for NYR 2011.

My Last Fic before becoming ill. Like, literally: I wrote this and my brain died. Not that it was the fic's fault. It just happened to be what I used my last bit of functional brain on, and I can't say I have any regrets. It was a good use of it, I think.


2012
Of Elements and Existence (S&S/Discworld, gen, 2642 words.) Written for yuletide 2012.

Some of my best fic originated with the statement, "Of course, I couldn't write x/x couldn't be done..." It's fatal.


2013
So We Meet at Last (Dracula/Miss Marple, gen, 758 words.) Written for fan_flashworks

So, sometimes you write lovingly crafted giftfic, and sometimes you just scribble a ficlet in half an hour and it gets weirdly popular. This one is that. I even once been greeted in fandom with, "Oh, you're the person who wrote that Dracula/Miss Marple crossover!"

Yes, I am, it's true. I did. Joan Hickson was woefully under-used in the 1968 TV Dracula and just think where they could have gone with that instead, if they'd only been able to see into her casting future. So I made a ficlet. It also got recced, without which, nothing, I'm sure.


2014
Not Bad For a First Attempt (Heyer - The Convenient Marriage, 200 words.)

In the same category, one time, back in the days when any wrangler who'd done the training could canonise fandoms, I accidentally canonised The Convenient Marriage when it in fact had no works and was just an exchange nomination tag lying about on the archive. (Embarrassing Wrangling Mistakes I Have Made #602)

So, either I could de-canonise it, or I could make it legit by writing a drabble. I wrote a quick double-drabble, because after all, it was a crime not to have fic for Horry. All I can say is, even if it's only a double drabble and not in a fest, Heyer fans are really appreciative of fic for underrepresented books.


2015
A Matter of Common Sense (Heyer - The Reluctant Widow, 445 words.) Treat for yuletide 2015

I was surprised by this one, I have to say. Still, see above. Heyer folks are appreciative of fic for underrepresented books, so it's probably garnered a small but steady couple of kudos a year since or something.


2016
The Spirit of St Mary Mead (Miss Marple, gen, 4005 words). Written for yuletide 2016

So, also good for the popularity stakes: Yuletide fic where Miss Marple is a genius loci. Combining elements of my previous top works clearly paid off. (So... next up, I shall be writing a Miss Marple/Discworld crossover double drabble for Yuletide, and after that I shall be an actual MNF. ;-p)


2017
AU Meme: Sam Vimes (Discworld, gen, 898 words.) Written for the AU Meme.

Random meme ficlet. Discworld fans are also appreciative? (I don't even really write Discworld! At least, not unless it's a blue moon and I'm walking whiddershins round my room. It must be magic.)


2018
We'll Burn That Barn When We Come To It (11th C RPF, Harold/William the Conqueror, 3511 words). Written for yuletide 2018

The Yuletide effect, Historical AU Crack Edition. :-D


2019
(So far anyway. We haven't had Yuletide yet, so it's too early to tell.)

We'll Be Dating to the End of Time (Doctor Who, Thirteen/Yasmin, 1934 words.) Written for Chocolate Box 2019.

Look, a Doctor Who fic!! On my most popular fic list? Less likely than you'd think, apparently.

I may not be around so much, but everyone else suddenly seems really busy...

* intoabar has finally reappeared... in summer when it's no use at all! But it's fun, and I can recommend signing up if you like a fun crossover challenge.

* remixrevival has opened for sign-ups! Remix is my one summer thing I do, as it usually works out, and I love Remix too much not to try. I'll wait till nearer the 20th to do it, though, just in case the weather is awkward, and see how I am. (There's such a fascination with trying to pull out something from the bones of someone else's fic to play with, and seeing someone else give your own fic that same attention and pull unexpected things out of it. Sort of terribly navel-gazey, I suppose, but great fun and there's usually some amazing fic.)

* There's a mid-year equivalent of the Snowflake Challenge going on - the sunshine_challenge, with a challenge every other day (starting yesterday).

* trope_bingo has opened for its latest round, too.

* Plus, tardis_library is having a reccing bingo.

So, since I seem to be really rubbish about writing memes lately (I only managed two of the one I did last time and one of those was late, which is just dismal, and I'm sorry about that; the prompts were great, I'm just being weird about writing lately) I thought it best to concentrate on my ongoing 500 Prompts, because the list just exists as a shiny thing and not a source of stress like unfilled meme prompts, but still allows me to right random things for people, which is a lot of the point of fandom, really.

ANYWAY, this way to the 500 Prompts Meme! Then browse the prompts and attach a ship (of any kind) or TWO or more characters* to an unclaimed prompt.

Any fandom I know is fair game (you can check my tags or my interests for starters), plus any isurrendered things. Crossover characters and pairings are also fine. If you come up with anything I don't know or can't do, I'll just say so. Leave one prompt or a bunch! It's all good.

I have plenty already, but if I'm not doing memes much, then I do want the newer people round to have a chance to leave prompts so I can write something for them too and as many fandoms as possible, including newer ones as well as the old. (People who have left some before are welcome to leave some more, too, though!)


I make no promises about when/if anything will be filled and whether it will be a drabble or ficlet or full-length fic, but equally nobody's obliged to read the result, especially if I take 3 years. I always enjoy looking at all the prompts, though, even when I fail at writing, so I am grateful. (Thank you. <3)

(I was going to say I said last year I was going to concentrate on these and then failed, BUT in fact I checked, and I wrote and posted 10 and have 2 more very short ones I need to type up, so actually, I can do it, even if I may need to have a very long lifespan if I want to do all of them at the rate I'm going. Plus, I think I have a new method of selecting them that might help, plus there's 100fandoms...)



* I have learned I find one character prompts harder and while I'm working on that with the ones I have, I would prefer most new ones to be for 2+ characters.

I didn't manage to get my story done in time, as I felt rotten for a while, but it's enough done that I expect I will still post it when I can finish it. In the meantime, have a post I made earlier...

It's that time of the year again - a little late even! Last year's is here. The short version is probably that it's all a self-fulfilling prophecy, and that I'll never write anything more popular than Miss Marple, but we shall see ( under the cut )

Memed from senmut: A list of female characters I love:

1. Ruth Evershed
2. Regina Mills
3. Kathryn Janeway
4. Servalan
5. Clara Oswald
6. Alice Jones
7. Ace McShane
8. Cora Mills
9. Evie Carnahan
10. Dayna Mellanby


Give me a number from the below list & I'll answer the question. Or try to anyway.

1. What defining trait draws you to them?
2. Do you have a pairing you prefer for them?
3. Is there a point of canon you would change?
4. 3 sentence ficlet please? {provide prompt)
5. Random 5 things about this one?
6. What is the best point of canon in your opinion?
7. Random crossover crack ficlet please? (choose two of the ladies, or one and provide a second fandom to cross with)
8. How would canon be different without them?
9. Give a shag/marry/cliff trio for the lady.
10. Ask any other question!

While I'm here, let's do the thing:



I love random generators! They are my favourite internet creative toy and responsible for many a fic from me, one way or another.

My favourite was the Genremixer, which sadly died, but thankfully john_amend_all stepped in and made another version, the Ersatz Genremixer. It is the one that most works for actually kick-starting fic for me. It's simple, adjustable to your preferences, allows you to put in your own choice of characters, it's sometimes semi-sentient, and altogether delightful.

( Random results )

But for hours of amusement, the Unconventional Courtship Generator is probably even more fun. (I think because it gives you summaries, it's like little ridiculous stories in themselves without me having even to write them.) While I've been ill, I have cheered myself up with this more times than I can count, and certainly more times than I have ever written for the results. (Although I have written for the results, including the Steed/Baldrick one that astrogirl said I couldn't do. Few of them are romantic, but romance is most certainly not required.) It was originally made for unconventionalcourtship ficathon (where you write fic based on terrible Mills & Boon type summaries, hence the generator full of them). You can type in your own characters here, too, if you wish to, although it comes pre-populated.

( And then you get things like this.... )

Other generators that I am very fond of and/or find extremely useful:

this Bingo generator, which came via allbingo, which I've used for both of the bingos I've run.

They Fight Crime (Just for the lols mainly: "He's a bookish small-town gentleman spy from a doomed world. She's a violent hip-hop nun from a secret island of warrior women. They fight crime!")

The Doctor Who Random Pairing Generator (the cause of a lot of DW fic from me once upon a time. Although, as with me and the UC generator, very rarely actually romantic, and still a favourite.)

The Cakefic Generator (cakefic is important!)

Probably one I should look at now, for my thingies, an Element Pairing Generator

And I have made an awful lot of use over the years of the random poetry generator for making prompts for memes and comms and things (despite its Emily Dickinson fixation).

corvidology came up with this idea, which sounds much more fun than shit-posting:



I don't know if I'll post every day, but I also don't know how to be short about stuff I love. Anyway, I just randomly discovered (via someone linking some of the others on tumblr) that someone's reuploaded a lot of the Thriller episodes onto YouTube. (If you remember, the ones I started epically picspamming for the lols before I gave up - there were 30+ episodes okay - and which mainly involve Americans getting randomly menaced every time they visit the UK). Including, yes, you've guessed it...

Good Salary, Prospects, Free Coffin, aka the One Where Julian Glover and James Maxwell move in together and bury girls in the back garden. Theoretically this is because they're spies with a ridiculously complicated and improbable plan, but it actually involves Julian wearing manly pullies and digging graves while sneering at James Maxwell for reading classic lit and wearing cardigans and vaguely angsting about all the murdering going on.

Plus, it has the proper number of Americans getting menaced, natty knitwear, Keith Barron is randomly the world's worst boyfriend, and basically it is 1 hr and 10 minutes of pure beige cheese.

I have a lot of things I love with people I love in and I could recommend many of them and rhapsodise about them. This is not one of those, but, let's be honest, I have watched this too many times since liadt sent me a piratey version and since I got the actual anthology myself. I just wish it was a sitcom with less murdering and more episodes.

Thriller was not really for me, but I did enjoy the starry casts, the supernatural ones (like the one where Diana Dors is Satan and Patrick Troughton is a drunken priest) and the ones that were pure cheese. I also liked Suzanne Neve getting to sword fight and seeming truly nice and normal before she tried to bake people in ovens and I was highly amused at Brian Clemens' determination to menace any and all Americans who dared to cross the Atlantic.* But mostly I love the above piece of 100% cheddar. (Alas poor Babs, though! Too dim to live.)

I think this post is totally in the spirit of both memes.


* Thriller was an ITC film series, made with US money. The US backers liked to see American characters in leading roles. However, in Thriller that starts to look like something they should have thought through a little bit harder, much to my amusement...

The characters:

1. Servalan (B7)
2. Steel (S&S)
3. Barry Allen (The Flash)
4. Kara Danvers (Supergirl)
5. Dayna Mellanby (B7)
6. Emma Peel (Avengers)
7. Lucy Weston (Dracula 1968)
8. Bill Potts (DW)
9. Sixth Doctor (DW)
10. Arnold Rimmer (Red Dwarf)
11. Zelena (OUaT)
12. Sam Vimes (Discworld)
13. Obi-Wan Kenobi (SW)
14. Orac (B7)
15. Hercule Poirot

( The usual mayhem under here )

Picked up from misbegotten: what are the summaries of the last 10 AO3 stories you read/downloaded? What made them seem appealing?

I went through my history and, avoiding things which I was only looking at for wrangling or in desperation/a spirit of completism (maybe this one for this ship won't be awful??), I get:

1. If you’ve scrolled past one too many well-meaning memes on your social network thinking “surely, empty platitudes superimposed over a photo of flowers is not really what the gods crave from me?” it might be time to think in more concrete terms. [x]

2. The lost correspondence of Djekhy son of Tesmontu and Djefmin, as concerns their mother-in-law, Mrs. Mutirtais. [x]

3. Albert Campion was too young for the war, but idealistic enough to sign up for duty in a devastated France, working with the Foreign Office and the French Government on reconstruction and defense. Lugg, however, a fixer if ever there was one, has his own games afoot, and that's before they run into the Germans.... [x]

4. While digitizing the BBC archives, an intern who asked to remain anonymous discovered a transcript of a lost episode of the Great British Bake Off. The paper could neither be photocopied nor scanned as all the copies came out blank; and the actual footage was never found. [x]

5. Mina can hear Seward's heart beating before he enters the room. [x]

6. A generations-long struggle over one (1) Welsh Country House results in an Unexpected Christmas Gathering OR: I Turn The Wars of the Roses In A Hallmark Movie [x]

7. When Sophie Beckett first lays eyes on Benedict Bridgerton, her entire world bursts into color. Alas, she knows all enchantments must end when the clock strikes midnight. (A soulmate AU.) [x]

8. At the Dark Castle, Rumpelstiltskin does something that's very nearly romantic, and Belle feels something that's very nearly love. A ficlet in honour of the anniversary of "Skin Deep", International Fanworks Day, and of St Valentine's Day.

Slowly, week upon week and discovery after discovery, out of conflict and compassion and curiosity, Belle has begun to burn for him. [x]

9. Ten years ago, Belle's heart was broken. She has long since considered herself a bookish spinster, but things change the night of Lady Nolan's ball. Regency AU. [x]

10. The Doctor accidentally gets married again. Must be Sunday. [x]

A lot of this was also Yuletide reading where the point is, "OMG, thing in shiny tiny fandom, must read!" but 2 and 4 were fandoms I don't really know & tried anyway due to the summary. (2 turned out not to be accessible without canon, whatever canon actually is (I suspect a quick Google would do it, and it looked good), but 4 was brilliant even via general osmosis). Some of the others were from the self-recs day at Snowflake Challenge so were again mostly more I just tried to read anything I actually knew than specifically for the summary as such, although 9 was longer and was bookmarked for a day of more brain. (One day that day will come and I will have much long(er) fic to read.)

Misbegotten also looked at the summaries for their own top ten by kudos, and who can resist naval gazing... ( More summaries under the cut )

Now that Yuletide is done, I can finish and post this, too! (Last year's post is here.)

( Cut for length )