Beyond the Roundels

Time for another round of who_guestfest, this year being run by shivver again! Open now for leaving prompts and signing up:



All corners of the Whoniverse are welcome, and anyone can leave prompts whether or not you intend to sign up - the more the merrier! (Anon commenting is on.)

It's a basic old school ficathon, no exchange pressures - claim a prompt if one takes your fancy or sign up with your own idea instead to produce a min of 500 words to be posted on your chosen date. Or just drop a prompt into the mix and see if you inspire someone. It's usually pretty good fun.

And once more, for real this time - the Doctor Who Minor Characters Ficathon over at who_guestfest is now a go-go!




It is a low-pressure old style ficathon focused on the minor/guest characters of the entire Whoniverse (no matter what corners they may lurk in).

Prompting is now open (until posting begins) here. Anyone is welcome to leave prompts, regardless of intent to take part and anon commenting is on. The more the merrier!

Sign-ups and claiming will begin on Saturday! (You may also sign-up and take part via anon-commenting; Dreamwidth accounts not necessary.)

(shivver is running it this year.)

(And then hopefully no more! It takes quite a while to fiddle about and pack up stuff, and spoons too. Also rl was a little busier at the same time.)

1. I have been moving my communities! Some of these are still waiting on import, for various reasons (also the queue is still very long; it's definitely a mass back-up/exodus this time) and so have nothing on them yet, and some of them are more for archival purposes, but most are active or would happily be again, and certainly this mod is around for questions/tagging etc. if anyone else posts:

I moved dw_allsorts over here in January, and it is all shiny and ready at who_allsorts. I won't close the other, but feel free to switch your claim over (or drop your claim and start a new one at Dreamwidth, I won't tell). Also I probably will only add new tables on this side now.

dw_straybunnies is now fully imported at who_straybunnies! (It hasn't been active for a while, but as long as I'm still here, I'll be fine with people posting to it - it is/was a community for donating Doctor Who fanwork ideas (plotbunnies, if you'll forgive the tweeness, but it makes for a handy name) plus regular discussion of plot ideas we'd like to see and occasional challenges to fill some of the donated prompts.)

dw_guestfest is created now at who_guestfest, but I won't import it until this weekend is over, as someone's still trying to write a last fic for this year's fest. Obviously, the ficathon is over for this year, so nothing will be happening there until it runs again.

house_of_eliott is now in progress to house_of_eliott, hopefully before the LJ version entirely crumbles off a cliff. It's very tiny, but it's a general House of Eliott comm. (This is the only one I will be deleting, because it's so very tiny and crumbling and my co-mod has deleted their account, so it's on virtual point of collapse.)

cakefic is not yet in progress (but will be as soon as HoE finishes) and you'll find it at cakefic. It's not exactly very active, I know, but I do mean to finally run a cakeficathon one day (and heaven forfend that cake fic should be lost)! (clocketpatch, shall I make you co-mod again?)

I am also co-mod of b7friday, which vilakins has imported to b7friday and I hope to see if it's possible to revive it over there, as I think quite a lot of the B7 crew are more Dreamwidth based, such as there is in journal-land anyway). vilakins also imported b7fic, and already runs blakes7 (and foolishly just made me co-mod of both, which is new. Soon, I shall be supreme commander of the Federation and have all the best dresses!)

And I think I really am going to launch Apocabingo soon at tic_tac_woe, but more about that anon!

Please feel free to join any of them you like, even the ones that are still slightly works in progress. I do mean to pimp who_allsorts and b7friday a bit, and of course tic_tac_woe once I've firmed up the rules, and we'll see how it goes with the rest.

And, wow, no wonder that's been taking it out of me. *collapses* (Also, if you are not so much on Dreamwidth, or even if you are, and are feeling a little concerned about imported content, claiming your open ID is super-easy and seems to work like magic on assigning those posts and comments to your actual Dreamwidth account (providing you have one, of course) and then that allows you to edit/delete them as with the original.)


2. Also, in order to get me over the transition bump among other things, I've decided to turn off commenting on my crossposts for the next two months (at least). I've been trying to make sure I've granted access to everybody I can think first so you'll still be able to see and comment on flocked entries, but spotting who I've missed is rather like that game where you have a tray of objects and then take one or two away - and I was always rubbish at that game! So if I haven't yet, just point me in your direction at Dreamwidth. I am a terrible turncoat, I know, but I feel very happy about it! I hadn't realised how much worrying about LJ apocalypses was getting me down.

(tl;dr after this entry, you will have to click through on the link to comment, but I have faith in your ability to cope with slight extra clickiness, even if you judge me for it. ;-p)

1. This week got eaten by complaining about my lack of the book I ordered to an Amazon Marketplace company but at least I have said book now, even if I may possibly wind up with two. (It's not that they were awful, it's just that I can't do these things very well at all these days, and I had to phone the Post Office delivery place, even though you can't, and talk to both my neighbours, it was terrible.)



2. But here is a better thing - dw_guestfest, the Doctor Who Minor Characters Ficathon is now open for prompting! You don't have to be taking part to leave prompts - you don't even need to be on LJ. (Anon commenting is on for your convenience, or you can pm me with them here, or leave them in this post if you'd rather - and, indeed, you can sign up and play that way too - there's more details in the info post at the comm.) If you have ever loved any of the one-off characters of the Whoniverse, feel free to leave inspiration and see if anyone picks it up!


3. I am still watching Doomwatch, but only in between things, because it is sheer 70s paranoia TV about the ways in which all scientific developments could KILL YOU and the apocalypse needs to come in relatively small doses. The second surviving episode is the (apparently infamous) one about the killer rats, which despite the cute fakeness of some of the rats, was indeed enough to give me nightmares, but it's very good. It was made about exactly the same time as S7 of Doctor Who (that is to say, the original S7), except it is less awesome because it doesn't have the Brigadier or Liz Shaw, but it does still make for gripping TV. (Also, there should be crossovers, they were literally showing at the same time, where are all the crossovers? I can see there will be one before I'm done, lol. Probably not for the Minor Characters Ficathon, unless some dodgy DW scientist also gets investigated by Doomwatch...)

The Doctor Who Minor Characters Ficathon is having a mini-round for 3 weeks in late July/early August:



This is because this year's ficathon seemed to coincide with life hitting a lot of us during the round. So, this is a bonus mini-fest with lower minimums and open to ALL fanworks, not just fic. Please do join in and leave prompts (for all mediums) or claim a day and make some fic, icons, art, rec sets, podfic, manifestos, picspams, gifs or whatever you can think of for any minor characters in the Whoniverse who need some more love. (Which, frankly, is pretty much all of them.)

I will try and remember to actually promote it places over the coming week, but there are three generic banners that you can snaffle from the comm if you would like to promote it yourself in any appropriate comms or your own LJ. Thank you!

1. Yay, people have already signed up for dw_guestfest! I am a happy and relieved fest-runner (even if I haven't sorted up my own sign-up yet.) Sign-ups stay open till the fest closes and prompting will be open until 27th Feb. Please do feel free to check it out, leave a prompt or sign-up!

(PS. Please do also pimp anywhere you can, as appropriate. I am tackling what comms I can think of, but any help is wonderful. There are banners you can c+p for promoting around LJ & Dreamwidth and the link here and I made a Tumblr post here for all your reblogging needs, although you can always make your own, betterer one. That is fine, too.)


2. Also, not something I'm involved in at all, but which I adore - festivids has gone live! Festivids is basically Yuletide for vidders, and it is always worth checking out the masterlist to see what amazing vids have been made in tiny fandoms. (I spy already, out of things I know, An Adventure in Space and Time, Bedknobs & Broomsticks, Persuasion & Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.) Anyway, a head's up for those of you who like vids, too! It's always awesome.

*goes off to watch some more*

1. dw_guestfest is now over! You can find the Masterlist here. (Please do check out the fic if you haven't already - it really has been brilliant all round!)

Given that I decided to count it as a success if I had even half a dozen people sign up, with say even 3 or 4 fics, I'm thrilled that we wound up with 18 fics featuring 20 minor characters (some of whom don't seem to have ever been written for before), I really am. We only lost one or two people to rl along the way, and the comm's on amnesty now for anyone who still wants to post anything or pick up any of the other prompts.

All being well, I should run it again next year, though hopefully now it's all set up from this time, a little earlier and with slightly more lead-in time. But yay! (Sorry. I always assume things I run will be a disaster and have low expectations, which then means I get very excited if they go well.)


2. calufrax is out of reccers again! If you can come up with 4-10 favourite fics from A Teaspoon and an Open Mind that haven't been recced before, then I recommend it - it's a lot of fun to do. (I know most people round here already know and have recced recently, but still. Making the announcement anyway!)



3. I'm sure there was something else. There always is...

<center><a href=http://dw-guestfest.livejournal.com/><img src=http://i59.tinypic.com/2v98bx0.jpg></a></center>

Please feel free to go forth and pimp (the coding will give you the banner linking back to the comm), & also leave prompts. (You can sign up from tomorrow). Or, alternatively, patiently ignore me while I spam everywhere with this, of course, always an option.


Oh, and, does anyone have/know of anyone who has made icons of New Who including minor characters and wouldn't mind me using them to make another couple of banners (mixed and New Who only)? It won't really matter, but I haven't any & won't exactly manage it over the weekend. *looks hopeful* *goes away to rest*