Beyond the Roundels

Challenge #11: In your own space, create a fanwork.

So I'm not feeling great again, for reasons, but ones which are better than they initially seemed. And in lieu of anything else, I tried to make some Good Omens icons (it seems weirdly difficult to find any and I am in dire need of one so that I can converse with astrogirl with appropriate icons). I'm pleased with three and a half of them at the moment, but it was fun to do some again & hopefully I'll make a few more for a proper set presently.

(I hate when I suddenly have a year where I just stop making icons arbitrarily, because a) that is rubbish, icons are happy-making things and b) when I start again I've forgotten everything I ever learned and it's like working with thick crayons <- not specifically these! I do like 3 and a half of them.)

Challenge #8: In your own space, create a wishlist.

Well, if I were perfectly honest, I would just wish for more things related to James Maxwell - fanworks, people watching my old telly things with him, and people finding or releasing more things with him in so that I don't run out just yet. (Once I manage to watch One Day in the Life... that is it! And I don't know how to find someone else who somehow works like magic when everything is flat and terrible and unreal.) But people already do all they can in that line, so I will try to be more realistic.


1. Some more people to join in again at rainbowfic. It is a very lovely origfic comm, where you work your way through prompt sets, like we used to have lots of for fanfic. (It was based on Runaway Tales from LJ.) You can use it as a place to tell your story in installments or for playing around in the canon and worldbuilding or fanficcing it, in a way - whatever works for you. There are usually monthly writing games as well. It's all very friendly and fun, but it's getting dangerously quiet at the moment and I would be gutted to lose it. I'm sure there must be other people out there who would enjoy it as well and maybe mentioning it during Snowflake will lure someone over, who knows?


2. If you have any lost TV lurking in your attic that contains James Maxwell, you should send it to the BFI. Have you checked? And down the back of the sofa? Everywhere? You never know! (I said I'd try to be more realistic; I didn't say I'd succeed every time!) Would not say no to any more fanworks, either. ;-p


3. There should always be more Sapphire & Steel things and I love new elements! I would be very excited to know that someone used my series of graphics of potential/mentioned other elements to actually make a thing! (Whether the write up inspired a totally different take or someone ran with my casting, however vaguely - either would be wonderful.) I think that would be very cool indeed. If anyone wrote 'my' Copper that could combine wishes 2 & 3 even...

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!

snowflake_challenge is running again:



I haven't done it for a while, so I think I hopefully might again this time.


chocolateboxcomm is now open for sign-ups and I probably won't sign-up (because I am not letting myself do any more exchanges until I can manage myself better again) BUT it is taking all the will power I possess! So, you know, if you fancy it, it's a fun exchange with low mins (300 words), for both fic and art.

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...)

Since I seem to be accidentally doing this, as I did #1 the other day and in the course of it, also did #5 and have friended and talked to quite a lot of people!

So here goes for the rest:



Challenge #2: In your own space, talk about your fannish history.

I partly covered this in the intro, but I started out when an Information & Library Studies lecturer introduced us to newsnet while at uni back in 1995. He said there were groups for everything, including breakfast cereals, and not being much into Weetabix, I looked for Doctor Who... and found fandom and fanfic. I settled in alt.drwho.creative (rec.arts.drwho was a bit scary, although I did read it) and wrote stuff, and then the TV Movie came out and things livened up. We started our own pretend-official Doctor Who series called the Internet Adventures, which we wrote as round robins.

I had written odd bits of things that might count as fic before, for both Doctor Who and Dungeons & Dragons (the cartoon), and had DWM since I first discovered it on holiday in 1991, but it was the first time I'd been able to do creative and fannish things with people and I loved it.

I lost internet access for ages after that, but in 2006/7 went looking for the remnants of newsnet in Google Groups, found alt.drwho.creative and joined back in, and asked where everyone was. They pointed me to A Teaspoon and an Open Mind and that was amazing. (I mean, you could have italics even! I was still writing italics like *this* because that was how we did it in newsnet when you had no html). And Teaspoon was full of links to LiveJournal and I followed them and fell in love. It took a while before I had an actual flist, but it was pretty much the perfect format for me. The bad stuff was still around, but it was so much easier to pick and choose where you went and who you interacted with.

And that was that, basically. I have a tumblr, but it's just an extra and I wish everyone would come back to journalling. I can't live without communities, adjustable privacy and boundaries and threaded commenting. And icons.

I also wound up tag wrangling on AO3 in about 2013 or 2014, which was partly due to vilakins, who suggested I might like it after that time I added tags to b7friday.

I flirted with forums for a while, but on forums I always spent all my time in the off-topic thread talking about a different fandom to the one the forum was about. (That was how I ended up watching Blake's 7: I was on the Spooks forum talking Classic Who in the Off-topic section and then my two fellow DW fans suddenly started talking B7 and I couldn't join in. And then told me that if I liked Classic Who and Spooks then I would definitely like B7, and they were totally right. I did. It was also the start of a downhill road, because that was the first time I found that other old TV could also be awesome, because that first B7 watch was just amazing.)

I used to be more monofannish, as you can see from this all being Doctor, but LiveJournal and yuletide are enablers and so is AO3 and I'm basically incurably multifannish these days. I like flitting about and having one night stands, but I'll always come back to my main fandoms.

Day 14

In your own space, talk about what you think the future holds for fandom. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

This one will be short: I don't know! It's going to depend on technology as well as fandom and that, and the way we access it, keeps changing so quickly I wouldn't even dare guess.


Day 15

Talk about why you participated in Snowflake &/or what you got out of it. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I've done it before and enjoyed it, but I hadn't for a while as the questions tend to remain the same/similar, so doing it too many years in a row can feel a bit frustrating/silly. But it's huge fun to do, and to see everyone else's posts. You usually wind up making a couple of new friends along the way and it's lovely to see such a lot of fannish posts and fannish positivity on my flist and via the comm's posts. As ever, I've picked up recs and new communities and all sorts.



(Now I just need to remember that I still haven't done Day 3 yet!)

I'm falling behind with everything again - comments, friending etc. etc., sorry. (Snowflake Challenge is being lovely, but also overwhelming, and today won't be better, as I intend to go out, so that will take all my energy), but in the meantime...



Day 9

Commit an Act of Kindness. In your own space, share what you’ve done, talk about what you’ve done, or simply leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.


Day 10

Create a fanwork. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I have nevertheless done a couple of small things for Fandom Stocking, though, which should, I think, count for both of these days.

And now for today's (not that I'm caught up yet, but nearly):

Day 8
In your own space, post self-recs for at least three fanworks that you created. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

This took some thought, since I wanted to rec at least two of the three I recced last time. And last year I did two memes that involved self-recs, and I recced those same works then, plus a handful of others. So, I thought hard and came up with something that wasn't Salt of the Earth (but if you don't know me, hi, I think Salt of the Earth is pretty accessible without canon knowledge, being about a minor character, and I still like it, and it's about as me as you get, really).


So, first off, talking of Sapphire & Steel...

Assigned (100 Element Prompts) (37901 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 38/38
Fandom: Sapphire and Steel
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Sapphire/Steel, Sapphire/Silver, Silver/Steel, Sapphire/Silver/Steel, Copper & Silver
Characters: Copper (Sapphire and Steel), Cerium (Sapphire and Steel), Steel (Sapphire and Steel), Silver (Sapphire and Steel), Diamond, Sapphire (Sapphire and Steel), Gold (Sapphire and Steel), Jet (Sapphire and Steel), Ruby (Sapphire and Steel), Lead (Sapphire and Steel)
Additional Tags: Ficlet Collection, being fannish about the periodic table, Tropes, Trope Subversion/Inversion, Telepathy, Elemental Weirdness
Summary: A collection of various Sapphire & Steel ficlets/short fics written for a table of 100 fanfic cliche prompts.

I love S&S, and I love Elements (or whatever they are) and their relationships (or whatever they are), and I also love the generator that provided these prompts (its near doppelganger is here), I loved writing them all. So... read any one of them you please - there is an index here. (I'm not reccing a 37,000 word fic, don't worry. The individual pieces vary from perfect drabbles to ~1500.)

They vary, but, yes, very me, and if you can go with 'it's just weirdness and time and inhuman beings who put stuff right and we don't really know anything and then there's flirting' it's probably as accessible with or without canon. Possibly?


Also, I love Doctor Who, Once Upon a Time, libraries, Clara, Belle, crossovers and [x] times type fic.

Shelved (or The Whistle Stop Library Tour of the Universe) (1712 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Doctor Who (2005), Once Upon a Time (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Belle (Once Upon a Time)/Clara Oswin Oswald, Belle (Once Upon a Time)/Eleventh Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald
Characters: Belle (Once Upon a Time), Clara Oswin Oswald, Eleventh Doctor
Additional Tags: Crossover, Humor, Libraries, Books, Alternate Universe, Fluff, Crossover Pairings
Summary: The Doctor and Clara show Belle the universe, one library at a time.

(I don't know how accessible it is, but there are no spoilers for anything at least.)


I wrote an origfic canon for the LJ Runaway Tales comm for quite a while, and loved doing it. I have a few AUs involving my favourite pairing on AO3, written for other challenges, so they are basically standalone romance fic. This one I wrote in response to oonaseckar who said I couldn't write the two of them having a fake relationship in the 21st Century and so obviously I had to prove that there is no century Edward and Julia couldn't have an awkward fake relationship in. But I still like it, I think it's fairly light and fun, and has fairy tale undertones that please me.

Substitute (13695 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Characters: Julia Graves (OC), Edward Iveson (OC)
Additional Tags: Community: hc_bingo, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Romance, Grief/Mourning, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Brief mention of car accident, Community: runaway_tales, Fluff, Humor, Angst, Community: genprompt_bingo
Summary: Julia Graves has perfectly reasonable motives for fake-dating a customer – it’s all about interior decorating, honestly…


(It's really weird seeing familiar old fic like this with the wrong name on!)

Day 4

Comment to someone you haven't ever interacted with before or introduce yourself to someone you've interacted with and friend/follow them. Afterwards, leave a comment in this post with the equivalent of "I did it!"

I did this earlier today, while looking through some of the Day 3 entries.


Day 7

Stretch yourself a little and try something new. Go play in a new fandom or with a new pairing. Try working in a new medium. Or check out some fanworks that are new to you. (The recs from Day 2 might be a good place to start.) Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

So I was writing a Chocolate Box exchange letter and thinking about Barry & Kara prompts, and the mind naturally drifts to cakefic, and so, I wrote this, in two new-to-me fandoms. It will also no doubt be new to the Arrowverse to meet cakefic, so we'll, er, see how that goes... (Cakefic is a thing, and it is all the fault of the lovely clocketpatch and the folks of DeathByAsprin in days gone by.)



Superhero Sandwich (1027 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Flash (TV 2014), Supergirl (TV 2015)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Barry Allen & Kara Danvers
Characters: Barry Allen, Kara Danvers, Cisco Ramon
Additional Tags: Cake Fic Meme, Crack, Cake, Stealth Crossover
Summary: Is it a bad day or a good day when some megalomaniac chains you up and covers you in cake? Whatever, Barry is pretty sure it's worse when they've stolen your suit...

(Please tell me if I got horribly British at any point. <3)

snowflake_challenge will be happening again, from tomorrow:




And chocolateboxcomm ("a low pressure, low commitment multifandom gift exchange run on AO3") has just finished taking nominations and is about to start sign-ups tomorrow.


iconthat (a low level, fun icon comm) has its latest challenge up.


And fandom_stocking is still full of stockings to stuff with small fannish gifts of all kinds, from icons to recs to fic to recipes!



(I'm going to try and remember to make more posts about what's going on, so here's a start to that, or a restart rather.)

I wasn't sure whether to do it again or not, because they do keep re-running the same questions, but I saw that the last time I did was 2014, so here goes:

snowflake_challenge Day 1:

In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you have created. It can be your favorite fanworks that you've created, or fanworks you feel no one ever saw, or fanworks you say would define you as a creator. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Looking back brought me to my two previous answers to this question and I had been thinking that maybe I should self-rec something different than obscure fics I write that nobody else will read, but I realised that I still go yes inside at my choices for the last two, and that's kind of an odd but nice record to have. My answers for this questions are the fics that mean a lot. (I don't know in what way, but they do.)

So, since 2014, what works have I written that also bring out that feeling? It turns out there are conveniently three main candidates (although I'd like to also talk about the origfic, of course, but I won't. ;-p) And since they're an AU, a fic centring on a minor character, and post-canon for a thing that is at least based on a very well-known story, I think they're all reasonably accessible, too. Or, well, hope springs eternal.

Light on a Hill (3166 words) by lost_spook
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Spooks | MI-5
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ruth Evershed/Tom Quinn
Characters: Tom Quinn (Spooks), Ruth Evershed, Malcolm Wynn-Jones
Additional Tags: Community: hc_bingo, Identity, Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Season/Series 02, Implied/Referenced Character Death, References to Shakespeare
Summary: ”I think the king is but a man, his fears be of the same relish as ours.” It’s the end of days, and Ruth and Tom are having delusions of grandeur, but then, what’s new?

I'd been threatening to write a Spooks apocalypse fic where Tom runs the country and Ruth runs him for around forever. Of course, I waited till the entire fandom had vanished like officers going back into hibernation, but still, I did it. Finally! And I still like it; I still think it's good. Even if it probably shouldn't have involved an alien invasion. (I can't help it sometimes. I'm a Doctor Who fan.) It has no spoilers, although of course, I'm sure it helps to know the characters (Ruth, Tom, Malcolm), though - but then again someone could test read it to tell me? You might not...


Salt of the Earth (4153 words) by lost_spook
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Martha Tyler, Jack Harkness, Original Characters, Twelfth Doctor
Additional Tags: Community: dw_allsorts, Minor Canonical Character(s), 20th Century, Witchcraft, Serial: s094 Image of the Fendahl, Women Being Awesome, Folklore, Community: dw_guestfest
Summary: Martha Tyler lives on a time rift, sees things no one else does, and fights evil with rock salt. It’s been that way all her life.


... and I had also been threatening for years to write that fic where Mrs Tyler from Image of the Fendahl lives on a rift all her life and is way more awesome than Torchwood, because she does, and she is. And I did, for the first Minor Characters Ficathon I ran. The character in question is so obscure and this is mostly backstory, so again, I don't think you need to know too much really; much less so than for Light on a Hill. A basic knowledge of what Doctor Who is and its kind of universe helps naturally, but it's probably pretty easy to get the idea of. I hope so, anyway. (It's kind of not unlike some of my Miss Marple fic, I suppose, but with more aliens and the supernatural getting defeated instead of murderers. Although I feel sure Mrs Tyler wouldn't be having with them, either.)


The Poison Tree (27259 words) by lost_spook
Chapters: 7/7
Fandom: Dracula (TV 1968)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Jonathan Harker/Mina Harker, Count Dracula/Jonathan Harker, Mina Harker & John Seward, Jonathan Harker & John Seward, Jonathan Harker/Original Male Character(s)
Characters: Jonathan Harker, Mina Harker, John Seward, Mrs Weston, Mrs Perkins (Dracula TV 1968), Mrs Hoskins (Dracula TV 1968), Original Characters
Additional Tags: References to Mina Harker/Lucy Weston, Vampires, Hypnotism, Post-Canon, World War I, Victorian, Edwardian Period, Blood, Yuletide, Dark, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Summary: Dracula may have been defeated, but the future has never been less certain for Jonathan and Mina. Everything has changed, most especially the Harkers themselves…


My Yuletide 2016 assignment. It became a lot more than I intended, not only in the word count and I think it's genuinely good. I hope it is - it's a more recent effort than the other two. But I think so; I hope so. I know the feeling when a fic gets into this category and when it doesn't. And it's been read by at least two people who only knew the book, so I don't think canon is essential (and I have a few small, (hopefully) helpful author's notes at the start).

(Nearly done with the snowflake_challenge!)

Day 10:
In your own space, create a list of at least three fannish things you'd love to receive, something you've wanted but were afraid to ask for - a fannish wish-list of sorts.

Even though I've waited for well over a month, this time of the year is the worst for doing this. I just took part in Yuletide! And fandom_stocking!! I had so many marvellous gifts, even in some of my completely obscure things and it was wonderful (♥) But, well, the meme dictates, and happy-making fannish things are nice, and I'm tired again, so here we are...

But really, my fandom stocking entry is pretty much my wishlist. Especially all the impossibly obscure bits at the end. Which I know nobody knows and all that, but still. And that's more than three things. Whoops.

My heart yearns for impossible things. (Isn't that just the truth? ;-D)

How about everyone else? What impossible fannish things do you want to see? Let's all be unreasonable together...


ETA: That was cheating, really wasn't it? I'll put some effort into it:

1. I could really use some Lynda Day in my life right now. Well, when don't you?

2. Some sort of mild Mary/Louisa or Mary & Louisa from Duchess of Duke Street. (I cannot write it, but I would love to read it.)

3. Someone to talk to about Public Eye S4 and "The Man Who Said Sorry". (Though said person is not allowed to dislike Mrs Mortimer. That would be sad. Maybe best not, then.)

4. I feel like Heroes of the Revolution is a real thing now. There should be fanfic for it/a fanmix/something... (Anyone feel like researching energy crises or something? ;-D I know, I know, that's the bit I'm supposed to go off and do. *sheepish*)

Oh, that was more than three. *cough* At least one of them was sort of possibly even achievable! *is proud of self*

There. I still want to know everybody else's impossible wishes, though...