Aurelia on dreamwidth

9. In your own space, list your Fandom Wrap categories.

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10. In your own space, rec a fanwork (fic, art, vid, playlist, anything!) you did not create.

I was struggling to narrow down a recommendation, so I'll go with a fic I read today and loved: "Let Zygons be Zygons" by fancyadancebrigadier. It's an entry in the Doctor Who Dream Team Exchange, an exchange where participants were matched on combinations of characters who didn't necessarily meet in canon. This one is Twelfth Doctor & Evelyn Smythe, and it's as lovely as that suggests! But really I would rec everything I've read in the fest so far, and I encourage everyone to check it out!

11. In your own space, Interact with someone.

I've had some lovely discussions here and on Tumblr lately!

12. In your own space, tell us who you would recast in a film, tv series or webseries, or maybe someone voicing a cartoon or videogame. Or who would you cast to play a character in a book, comic or maybe even your own fiction!

I don't have a lot of fancasts or faceclaims, largely because I'm not familiar with many actors that aren't already in my fandoms, but I have been saying for years that Sonequa Martin-Green should play a new regeneration of Romana, if we could somehow lure her away from Star Trek.

13. In your own space, share a favorite memory about fandom: the first time you got into fandom, the last time a fanwork touched your heart, wild times with fellow fans (whether on-line or off-line), a lovely comment you’ve received or have left for someone.

Staying up till literally 2 am with the University of York Doctor Who Society after The Timeless Children aired--we didn't even all like the episode, some people hated it, but it was one of the first times I'd let myself be completely open about how much I cared about a ridiculous sci-fi show in public, and other people cared too!

In your own space, tell us about 3 fandom resources, spaces, or communities you use or enjoy. (One or two is fine, especially if you're in a smaller fandom!)

My #1 fandom resource is definitely Chakoteya.net. It has complete, fan-made transcripts for every episode of Doctor Who and Star Trek that has been broadcast on free-to-air British TV, plus a number of curious extras. If you're in either of these fandoms and don't know about Chakoteya, check it out right now!

(If you do know about it and appreciate it as much as I do, did you know you can tip the transcriber? I am not affiliated with her in any way, I don't even know her, and I'm not trying to pressure anyone, but I do know that she does a lot of incredibly useful work just for the love of it, and since I can I like to buy her "a cup of tea and a slice of fruit cake for her efforts" every once in a while!)

I also use Tragical History Tour, a compendium of Doctor Who screencaps and images. Great for checking costume details, making sure of people's eye color, and convincing people that your favorite goofy-looking 80s episode is actually a cinematic masterpiece. Well, trying at least.

And I don't suppose anyone needs to be told about ao3 or online word counters or Wikipedia or Spotify, which are the other main tools I use when doing fannish things, so... I'll mention something not inherently fannish, but it's my favorite book to look for titles in, which is The Top 500 Poems. It's an anthology of the 500 most anthologized poems in English, and it's a fascinating cross-section of English literature. It's amazing how many of them seem to be just free-floating in bits in the collective psyche. Hence fic titles!

(I recently read a novelization of an episode of my faves [The Pirate Planet for those curious], and at the end of the novelization, one of them quoted from the same Andrew Marvell poem, "The Garden," that I'd recently nabbed a fic title from. Not the same quote, but still. I felt vindicated.)

In your own space, talk about an idea you wish you had the time / talent / energy to do.

Not so much an idea as a type of idea. I wish I had drawing talent/time to learn to draw, especially expressive cartoon figures. I often come up with humorous little ideas that have the rhythm of a three-panel cartoon or a quick doodle, but I can't draw quickly so they become drabbles.

(I like to draw and make art stuff, but that's not my strong point! I know I could learn by studying, but... well, that's where the time comes in.)

In your own space, put some favorite characters into an AU, fuse some favorite canons together, talk about your favorite AU/fusion tropes, or tell us why AU/fusions aren’t your cup of tea. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Well, I was *going* to finish up an AU prompt meme that I owe to romanajo123 from literally months ago, but RL has been very much demanding the priority this week (general exams, yay! XD) so instead I will simply make the resolution of doing it very soon. It was a great prompt and I look forward to finally doing it when there is brain!

In general, I don't think I've ever done a fusion fic or setting-change AU longer than the mini-ficlets from the prompt memes, and for me that seems to scratch the itch. Once I've found roles for everyone, that's what I wanted out of the fusion--no need to keep going! But then I'm not a very plotty writer in general. Of course, I write mainly in Doctor Who, and you can already put them in pretty much any setting canonically, so the whole question is a bit moot actually!

(I think I would draw a lot of fusions and setting AU if I were a visual artist, because that's the same thing--just the vignette of character + setting is exactly what I want. I did draw an eighteenth-century Mel Bush once. She had a polka dot apron.)

On the other hand, I really enjoy good crossovers--especially when they act as a sort of quasi-meta, a way to comment on characters and characterization, by bringing either two similar characters or two very different characters together.

On the crackier side, I love those fics that bring together characters played by the same actor. I was listening to The Eternal Summer and thinking that it's at least my second-favorite audio drama in which Peter Davison gets trapped in an English country village by alien forces, and maybe I would write a crossover with it if I can keep this WtOVPIC writing streak up.

Oh, yeah, I never said what I wrote for Yuletide, did I? Well, at least not here, I've been talking about it everywhere else I think! It was two fics for Welcome to Our Village, Please Invade Carefully, an assignment ("Bestride the Narrow World") for thisbluespirit and a treat ("Dear Villageswap Author (Probably Lucy, Let's Be Honest)") for isis. I got lovely comments from both recipients and was pleasantly surprised to see how many people knew the fandom enough to enjoy the stories! The first was what counts as plotty for me, while the second was exactly as meta as the title suggests, so I felt like I stretched myself a bit, which was nice.

( Cut for intense writerly navel-gazing )

Challenge #1

In your own space, update your fandom information! Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

A couple of days ago I updated my AO3 profile (with a more detailed transformative works statement), so today I decided to update the page of fic links on my Tumblr profile: https://lurking-latinist.tumblr.com/fics. It doesn't have everything--it's more of me walking readers through the highlights. I don't know if anyone looks at it--it seems like it would be quicker just to open my AO3 page--but it's nice every so often to stop and think about patterns in my fics and what goes together.