Oh, fine, I cave
Hey, I've been good and turned in all my fic on time.
Ask me my fannish Top Five [Whatevers]. Any top fives. Doesn't matter what, really! And I will answer them all in a new post. And I will answer them all by editing them into this post, because I am lazy sometimes about scrolling down on my own journal.
Top 5 Alt!Team TARDISes, for biichan
In no particular order:
• Seven/Ianto/Anji (AKA, the Sarcastic Bastards Society)
As I've said on the meme somewhere, I am pretty fond of the idea of Seven and Ianto travelling together-because oh, they would have things to discuss. You'd have Ianto there, and Seven would be all like, "Oh, you think you grok this shady manipulation thing? WELL, SON…" and then he would SCHOOL HIM. And Ianto would probably be a pretty apt pupil.
At the same time, you'd need someone to cut the… whatever it would be. It would have to be someone pretty strong and not easily impressed and not tolerant of bullshit… yet, it would be most interesting with someone who could deal with moral grey areas comfortably, and I can see Anji doing that. In fact, I can envision Anji out-manoeuvring both of them from time to time. At Monopoly, at the very least.
• Six/Peri/Ianto (no, honest)
So, the idea of Ianto and Peri interacting was just crack, even if it did end up being a scenario that genuinely terrifies me, but it's still got me thinking about how those two would work together. I'm in the minority in not only liking Peri, but thinking she and Six really worked. However, there's obviously a huge gap between Revelation of the Daleks and The Mysterious Planet, and somehow I can sort of see Ianto being part of the mellowing process. They'd all come dangerously close to killing each other several times first, of course.
• Two/Barbara/Martha
If this one needs explaining, I do not know what's wrong with you.
• Romana/Leela/Zoe
What? You never said it had to be the Doctor's TARDIS, or that he had to be the one piloting it if so.
• Romana/Martha/Anji/Ace
If this one needs explaining, I despair. And because Anji just makes everything better. As does Ace. And Martha. And, when you get down to it, Romana.
Top 5 "where's the fandom?" books/shows/etc., for brewsternorth
• French in Action, a strangely compelling if rather stilted TV immersion program from the 80s. The day I properly understood that I am fucked in the head was the day I was watching this series and said to myself, "Hey, I ship Hubert/l'homme en noir pretty hard."
• I was going to say Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, but then I realized that there really is a fandom. It's not structured like usual, fannish fandoms, but it's there in all the right ways. \o/
• There's no way to say this without sounding like a pretentious ass, but: Socrates. Except that there sort of is a fandom here, too; it's just that this one is spread out over two-and-half millennia, with most of the activity c. the 400s/300s B.C.E. Plato's dialogues about him are of course the most famous, but there are other writings, notably Xenophon's. Anyway, I've always loved all the different ways one could read the various relationships that defined his life (get your mind out of the gutter… good, now, go put it back in), and, if I can blur the line between Socrates and Plato fandoms, I love all the huge, ominous open ended things in Republic, Symposium, and Phaedo, and the drama of the Apology. I may have, uh, written an unbelievably crappy one-act opera based on the Apology when I was in high school. Anyway.
• Uzumaki, a surreal manga by the brilliant Junji Ito, whose Enigma of the Amigara Fault is one of the true masterpieces of horror-and easily the scariest shit I've ever seen outside of Kafka or Sam Beckett. There probably is a fandom for Uzumaki, actually, and I just haven't run across it.
• …I can't come up with a fifth. I'm a bit of a fandom monogamist, really; I just don't have the energy for that many.
Top 5 historical figures I'd like to see in Who, for livii
Pah, you just like making people make hard choices, don't you?
• Elizabeth I. My first monarchial crush. You never forget your first monarchial crush.
• Machiavelli preferably with Seven Chiefly, I'd like to see him on the TARDIS for the perspective he could bring to history; he was far more a commentator than an innovator, and some of the subtextual messages of The Prince are very interesting indeed. Also, he had particularly interesting things to say about the power of the teacher in the world, and given the pedagogical slant the Doctor/companion relationship has so often had… yeah. So I definitely envision him on the TARDIS with another companion.
• A young Indira Gandhi-from sometime in the 1930's, say.
• Themistocles, the magnificent bastard par excellence. I am perennially fascinated by this guy and have a bit of a history crush on him.
• Paul Erdős, because, oh. Imagining him and the Doctor in the same room together for long hurts my brain, but oh.
Top 5 people who should have been companions, but weren't, for rushikayu13
• Vrestin. …what? I think it would have been awesome.
• Dr. Todd, from Kinda
• Ida the Awesome Scientist, from TIP/TSS (but not with Ten, because he took her discovery from her and does not deserve her)
• Winifred motherfucking Bambera (Ancelyn could have come with, it'd have been the most adorable thing ever)
• AMELIA MOTHERFUCKING RUMFORD
Top 5 characters from any fandom, anywhere, who'd make a good companion for the Valeyard, for nam_jai
• Peri. It has to be said. Where by "good," I of course mean "an indescribably hellish train wreck, but one that just has to happen".
• Turlough. I mean, you can see the advantages of this, right?
• Dexter Morgan. Actually, I can't help wondering how Deb would work out, too; maybe a brother-sister team?
• Miss Marple. Don't ask me why that would work; it just would.
• Julian Morrow from The Secret History, for a darker reading of the Valeyard: They'd deserve each other.
Edit: Honorable mention: Evey from V for Vendetta.
Ask me my fannish Top Five [Whatevers]. Any top fives. Doesn't matter what, really! And I will answer them all in a new post. And I will answer them all by editing them into this post, because I am lazy sometimes about scrolling down on my own journal.
Top 5 Alt!Team TARDISes, for biichan
In no particular order:
• Seven/Ianto/Anji (AKA, the Sarcastic Bastards Society)
As I've said on the meme somewhere, I am pretty fond of the idea of Seven and Ianto travelling together-because oh, they would have things to discuss. You'd have Ianto there, and Seven would be all like, "Oh, you think you grok this shady manipulation thing? WELL, SON…" and then he would SCHOOL HIM. And Ianto would probably be a pretty apt pupil.
At the same time, you'd need someone to cut the… whatever it would be. It would have to be someone pretty strong and not easily impressed and not tolerant of bullshit… yet, it would be most interesting with someone who could deal with moral grey areas comfortably, and I can see Anji doing that. In fact, I can envision Anji out-manoeuvring both of them from time to time. At Monopoly, at the very least.
• Six/Peri/Ianto (no, honest)
So, the idea of Ianto and Peri interacting was just crack, even if it did end up being a scenario that genuinely terrifies me, but it's still got me thinking about how those two would work together. I'm in the minority in not only liking Peri, but thinking she and Six really worked. However, there's obviously a huge gap between Revelation of the Daleks and The Mysterious Planet, and somehow I can sort of see Ianto being part of the mellowing process. They'd all come dangerously close to killing each other several times first, of course.
• Two/Barbara/Martha
If this one needs explaining, I do not know what's wrong with you.
• Romana/Leela/Zoe
What? You never said it had to be the Doctor's TARDIS, or that he had to be the one piloting it if so.
• Romana/Martha/Anji/Ace
If this one needs explaining, I despair. And because Anji just makes everything better. As does Ace. And Martha. And, when you get down to it, Romana.
Top 5 "where's the fandom?" books/shows/etc., for brewsternorth
• French in Action, a strangely compelling if rather stilted TV immersion program from the 80s. The day I properly understood that I am fucked in the head was the day I was watching this series and said to myself, "Hey, I ship Hubert/l'homme en noir pretty hard."
• I was going to say Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, but then I realized that there really is a fandom. It's not structured like usual, fannish fandoms, but it's there in all the right ways. \o/
• There's no way to say this without sounding like a pretentious ass, but: Socrates. Except that there sort of is a fandom here, too; it's just that this one is spread out over two-and-half millennia, with most of the activity c. the 400s/300s B.C.E. Plato's dialogues about him are of course the most famous, but there are other writings, notably Xenophon's. Anyway, I've always loved all the different ways one could read the various relationships that defined his life (get your mind out of the gutter… good, now, go put it back in), and, if I can blur the line between Socrates and Plato fandoms, I love all the huge, ominous open ended things in Republic, Symposium, and Phaedo, and the drama of the Apology. I may have, uh, written an unbelievably crappy one-act opera based on the Apology when I was in high school. Anyway.
• Uzumaki, a surreal manga by the brilliant Junji Ito, whose Enigma of the Amigara Fault is one of the true masterpieces of horror-and easily the scariest shit I've ever seen outside of Kafka or Sam Beckett. There probably is a fandom for Uzumaki, actually, and I just haven't run across it.
• …I can't come up with a fifth. I'm a bit of a fandom monogamist, really; I just don't have the energy for that many.
Top 5 historical figures I'd like to see in Who, for livii
Pah, you just like making people make hard choices, don't you?
• Elizabeth I. My first monarchial crush. You never forget your first monarchial crush.
• Machiavelli preferably with Seven Chiefly, I'd like to see him on the TARDIS for the perspective he could bring to history; he was far more a commentator than an innovator, and some of the subtextual messages of The Prince are very interesting indeed. Also, he had particularly interesting things to say about the power of the teacher in the world, and given the pedagogical slant the Doctor/companion relationship has so often had… yeah. So I definitely envision him on the TARDIS with another companion.
• A young Indira Gandhi-from sometime in the 1930's, say.
• Themistocles, the magnificent bastard par excellence. I am perennially fascinated by this guy and have a bit of a history crush on him.
• Paul Erdős, because, oh. Imagining him and the Doctor in the same room together for long hurts my brain, but oh.
Top 5 people who should have been companions, but weren't, for rushikayu13
• Vrestin. …what? I think it would have been awesome.
• Dr. Todd, from Kinda
• Ida the Awesome Scientist, from TIP/TSS (but not with Ten, because he took her discovery from her and does not deserve her)
• Winifred motherfucking Bambera (Ancelyn could have come with, it'd have been the most adorable thing ever)
• AMELIA MOTHERFUCKING RUMFORD
Top 5 characters from any fandom, anywhere, who'd make a good companion for the Valeyard, for nam_jai
• Peri. It has to be said. Where by "good," I of course mean "an indescribably hellish train wreck, but one that just has to happen".
• Turlough. I mean, you can see the advantages of this, right?
• Dexter Morgan. Actually, I can't help wondering how Deb would work out, too; maybe a brother-sister team?
• Miss Marple. Don't ask me why that would work; it just would.
• Julian Morrow from The Secret History, for a darker reading of the Valeyard: They'd deserve each other.
Edit: Honorable mention: Evey from V for Vendetta.