Beyond the Roundels

The usual writing meme for the year. (Last year's post is here.)

( Cut for length )

This was going around, so I said baa like the good meme sheep I haven't been for ages:

TV questions: pick your five favourite TV shows (in no particular order) and answer the following questions. Don’t cheat!
1. Doctor Who
2. Blake's 7
3. Sapphire & Steel
4. Spooks
5. Once Upon a Time

( 19 Questions )

I got sidetracked out of anything I was supposed to be doing today, and instead made a TARDIS Team Mash Up Generator! (ETA: Via Perchance, I should say, which potentiality_26 linked to and though I've looked at it before, this time I had an idea and I made a bit more sense of it.)

I think it's pretty good fun already, although I suppose I would. (It matches up a Doctor (or another Time Lord) with a companion (or companion team) plus a plot and object (generally based on something from canon). I might tweak it a bit as well, but we'll see.

End result = things like:

The Twelfth Doctor and Charley, in an adventure in Cromer, armed only with their wits and a rope ladder.

The Rani and Rose, in an adventure where the authorities won't listen, armed only with their wits and a banana.

The Rani and the Master and Frobisher, in an adventure with Vikings, armed only with their wits and a double bluff.

The Twelfth Doctor and Rose and Jack, in an adventure at the beginning of the universe, armed only with their wits and a cricket ball.

The Sixth Doctor and River, in an adventure without the TARDIS, armed only with their wits and a motorbike.

The Fourth Doctor and a Clara splinter, in an adventure with the Mara, armed only with their wits and flirting ability.

The Rani and Shirley Bingham, in an adventure with a virus, armed only with their wits and ruthlessness.

The Eleventh Doctor and Amy, in an adventure with demons, armed only with their wits and a mobile phone.

Thanks for all your questions! My list of characters:

1. Uljabaan (WtOVPIC)
2. Katrina Lyons (WtoVPIC)
3. Servalan (B7)
4. Silver (S&S)
5. Twelfth Doctor (DW)
6. Ezekiel Jones (The Librarians)
7. Hercule Poirot
8. Robin (BBC Ghosts)
9. The Cat (Red Dwarf)
10. G'kar (B5)
11. Death (Discworld)
12. Lucy Greenwood (Craddock & Co)
13. Orac (B7)
14. John Seward (Drac 1968)
15. Zari (Legends of Tomorrow)

( Cut for fannish shenanigans )

Sorry, it took me a little while to finish answering these! (There were loads! It was great! XD)

( The results under here )

Picked up from el_staplador - how can I ever resist?

1) Make a list of fifteen characters first, and keep it to yourself for the moment.

2) Ask your f-list to post questions in the comments. For example: "One, nine, and fifteen are chosen by a prophecy to save the world from four. Do they succeed?", "Under what circumstances might five and fourteen fall in love?", "Which character on the list would you most want on your side in a zombie invasion?"

3) After your f-list has stopped asking questions, round them up and answer them using the fifteen characters you selected beforehand, then post them.

So someone tagged me in this meme on tumblr and I'm reposting it here, because it seemed like the sort of meme people round these parts would also enjoy!

Go to the following website https://www.random.org/lists/ and type in 15 different characters from any Fandom (they can be in the same fandom). Then it will give you an order, after shuffling the characters. You must answer the following in the order they give you!

Fandoms: Dracula (1968), OUaT, Sapphire & Steel, Blake’s 7, Doctor Who, Press Gang, Adam Adamant Lives!, Spooks, The Shadow of the Tower.

( The answers/categories under here )

Back on the meme horse!

18. How many fandoms have you written for? How many have you been in, and how many are you still in?

So the meme saw me avoid this question yesterday with the writing one and decided, nope, I've got to go off and count.

*collapses* ~111, trying to not to count bits of Doctor Who and so on as more than one. Quite a few are only in crossovers with DW, though.

The main one I'm in is DW, and after that Sapphire & Steel, Blake's 7, OUaT, Spooks, Press Gang, AAL!, Star Wars and a whole heap of Yuletide things. But I like trying out writing for new things.


19. Has social media caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?

No, not really, although it can sometimes take away from the fun of it, or make it very difficult to be active in that fandom. It's not that people were better in journalspace, because they weren't, but we weren't all smushed in together with no privacy in the same tag. Sometimes we couldn't find each other, it's true, but mostly, for me anyway, I could pick and choose which corners of fandom and which people I went near and which ones I tactfully dodged round/avoided like the plague. I never even needed to block anything on LJ, I just tried to choose wisely and kept my head down as much as I could.


20. What fandom broke your heart?

Up until last year, the answer to this was either none or all the angsty ones that break my heart in the best possible way that I love them for (B7, Spooks etc. etc.).

Then "The Timeless Children" happened and I found out I could break my heart over a fandom. Luckily, it was not as permanent as I feared and I have managed to tape it back together (with sticky-backed plastic obv) and I am okay as long as I don't poke at the wound too much. I'm done with Chris Chibnall now, but, happily and thank goodness, not with the show, or even with Thirteen & Co.

A wild writing meme appears! Being that I have done with the AU meme at last. (Either by fulfilling the prompt or giving up on the basis of needing to do a rewatch/relisten first and because it has been over a year, and that's just ridiculous. Apologies to the - I think - two people that meant leaving and the one who got half a fill, because lack of brain.) Anyway, I did some variation on this once before and it was fun, so here goes. Hopefully I'll do it in less than a year this time... :D

(As ever with memes, any fandom goes, my interests/tags are a reasonable guide, or just give me a couple to choose from.)

Comment with a number from the below list, and a pairing/2+ characters, and I'll try to write you a ficlet or drabble.

1. “Come over here and make me.”
2. “Please, don’t leave.”
3. “Is there a reason you’re naked in my bed?”
4. “I almost lost you.”
5. “Wanna bet?”
6. “Don’t you ever do that again!”
7. “Don’t you dare throw that snowba-, goddammit!”
8. “I think we need to talk.”
9. “It could be worse.”
10. “Looks like we’ll be trapped for a while…”
11. “This is without a doubt the stupidest plan you’ve ever had. Of course I’m in.”
12. “I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice.”
13. “I can’t believe you talked me into this.”
14. “I got you a present.”
15. “Marry me?”
16. “I thought you were dead.”
17. “It’s not what it looks like…”
18. “You lied to me.”
19. “Please don’t do this.”
20. “You heard me. Take. It. Off.”
21. “You fainted…straight into my arms. You know, if you wanted my attention you didn’t have to go to such extremes.”
22. “Hey! I was gonna eat that!”
23. “I swear it was an accident.”
24. “YOU DID WHAT?!”
25. “If you die, I’m gonna kill you.”
26. “Tell me a secret.”
27. “No one needs to know.”
28. “Well this is awkward…”
29. “What the hell are you wearing?”
30. “Teach me to fight.”
31. “I’d die for you. Of course, I’d haunt you in the afterlife but really, it’s the thought that counts.”
32. “Before you decide to murder me, let me explain…”
33. “It’s only one night, we’ll just share the bed.”
34. “I wish you could see yourself the way I see you.”
35. “Of all the people I could’ve gotten stuck in an elevator with and it just had to be you.”
36. “Why the hell are you bleeding!?”
37. “Kiss me, quick!”
38. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
39. “Don’t let go.”
40. “I need you to pretend we’re dating…”
41. “There was never a choice.”
42. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
43. “That’s the third time I’ve saved your life!”
44. “How can you think I’m anything but hopelessly in love with you?”
45. “I need you to leave.”
46. “This is all your fault! I can’t believe I listened to you!”
47. “I’m dying.”
48. “I will never apologize for saving your life, even if it costs me my own.”
49. “I guess dying with you isn’t the worst way to go.”
50. “Don’t panic but I think we might have accidentally got(ten) married…”
51. “I’m not leaving you!”
52. “I can’t do this anymore.”
53. “I tried, but I just can’t stay away from you.”
54. “There’s no going back if we do this.”
55. “We’re in an abandoned lodge in the middle of nowhere. Sure, you’re totally right, nothing bad could ever happen here.”

(For people who like finding the originals of these things, I had this lurking in my drafts since 2016 and it appears to be a cannibalised version of two different prompt memes.)

Snagged from tumblr, because why not here as well? We can all use a meme from time to time.

Reply with a fic premise that sounds 100% like the kind of thing I would write, and I'll tell you how embarrassingly accurate it is.


(Mind you, at this point, I think some of us know each other so well that the accuracy will be easy and I'll have long gone past being embarrassed, but let's see. XD)

Challenge #3: In your own space, tell us who, from one of your fandoms, would you most want to have dinner with (or tea, or a random afternoon visit), And why? This could be a creator, an actor, a costumer, a set designer, a director, a character, a composer, anybody! What would you talk about? What are you dying to know?

I'm not sure how much I'd want to have dinner or tea with anybody out of a fandom that I really liked, because it'd just be awkward. But if I could be one of the guests at the same time as them, well... I suppose, honestly, I'm going to give the same answer as before - James Maxwell. I just think he'd be interesting. I could ask him about adapting The Moonstone and The Count of Monte Cristo maybe; that'd be cool. (I mean, I assume that this meme allows for time travel when it comes to dead people, but even if not, I could have an encounter with his ghost, so I'm covered either way. ;-p)

Fictionally, probably the Doctor. Any of them. Not that in that case we'd get to eat the meal because there would inevitably be trouble in the middle in some shape or form. But the possibility would be a bit too hard to resist!

I was badly tempted by littleblackdressex earlier this year, but it was on at the same time as Just Married. (Basically, you request characters you love and get a surprise pairing with them, with a few DNWs/ specifications as to M/F/Any just to avoid too many unpleasant surprises, which is a lovely random and multishippy idea, and I do like random and multishipping.)

And now there's apparently Little Black Dress Flash, taking noms now (till end of sign-ups), sign-ups open tomorrow (in my time zone), I think. And I'm tempted again... and given how little writing I did last week, is that a plan? (I mean, I'm writing this because I don't feel up typing my ficlet just yet.) But otoh, I fail, I default, and it's only a 300 word minimum and all over pretty much within the week, so well out of the way of Yuletide yet.

And I've never done one of them flash exchanges, either...

Anyone else tempted?

So, I continue to feel rotten, even though the weather is giving me a break but hey. ANYWAY, to turn to something more cheerful than weather, illness, and certainly than current news, liadt is running the unconventionalcourtship fest again this summer! Sign-ups open now!

unconventionalcourtship is the ficathon where you take a Mills & Book/Harlequin/Avon type book blurb and then kill it with fanfic use it as inspiration for a fic, as shippy or not, or cracky or serious or not as you please.

It's an old school fest, so you just choose a prompt and sign up for a posting day some time in August and there you are. \o/

Anyway, I doubt I can do it (see above), but in addition to pointing you to it, I have generated some random summaries from the Unconventional Courtship Generator in case anyone is short of ideas. I'm sure these would make great crack fic. XD (On more sensible note, you can also customise it for your own fandoms, too, if you want help with inspiration.)

( a whole bevy of unholy pairings under here )