50th Anniversary Fanwork-a-thon-a-thon, Round Seven: Five
50th Anniversary Fanwork-a-thon-a-thon, Round Seven: Five
(Secondary prompt: Minor Characters)
Past the halfway point in our 'thon-of-'thons, now! It doesn't seem like more than a month or two since we kicked the whole shebang off with Eleven. The Six-themed Round Six continues, but already we have to look to the future and start preparing for the next leg. Drink your fortifying bat-milk, who_at_50 members, and remember - brave heart!
(Remember also, though, and speaking as somebody whose entry for the Seven round is still languishing incomplete, if you're still working on entries for prior legs - please, please still post them to the comm whenever they are finished - better late than never!)
He certainly had a tough act to follow, our Doctor for this month, coming after the titanic Four and the inimitable Tom Baker. And yet, the boy (the youngest actor to play the Doctor before Matt Smith, in fact) done good. Even when some of the stories, arguably, were of variable quality, the new lead actor's performance is something you rarely hear a dissenting opinion about in fandom. This Doctor is in some ways a deceptive character - softly-spoken and unassuming, occasionally appearing as an innocent adrift in a cruel and uncaring universe, but also on occasion a snappish, irritable old man in a young man's body. His outward air of boyish naivety is, we come to suspect, a disguise masking the bottled-up anger and pain and disillusionment within. A Doctor characterisation, in other words, not dissimilar from some of the portrayals in the post-2005 series. Yes, this month's Doctor is:
Five is this month's person of interest. And yet, in spite of all that he faces, the cruelty and death and disappointment the cosmos continues to throw his way, he remains a hero, one who fights the good fight come what may and whose first (and last) thought is for his friends, however much they sometimes seem to irritate him. That's what friendship's like, sometimes, isn't it? And as I said above, whatever people think of the Five era, you'd be hard-pressed nowadays to find a fan who has a bad thing to say about Peter Davison's heartfelt performance. And the Five era does have a lot of things to recommend it - there are some classic stories, and the multiple-companion teams that this Doctor travelled with provided the scope for all sorts of interesting interactions and moments; Adric's shocking fate and his travelling companions' different reactions; the at-times spiky Five-Tegan and Five-Turlough relationships; the way that, when it came right down to it, he was willing to give his life to save Peri, who on the face of it he barely knew (incidentally, in The Caves of Androzani, providing one of the all-time great Doctor Who stories and one of the very best regeneration set-ups in the programme's history). And like the rest of the surviving pre-2005 Doctors, he has of course had a second existence, including new companions, in the realm of audio adventures.
Okay, friends, this is how it's going to be: All forms of fannish endeavour are welcome - that goes for fanfic, fanart, fanvids, fanmixes, icons, podfic, and absolutely any other medium in which you want to express your creativity and celebrate your love for that which is Who. Think of Five and the things that make him the Doctor he was. Think of celery and Brainy Specs and all of those past monsters returning for another round. Think of those companions we were talking about just now, inserting "/"s to taste. Think of the Master turning up seemingly behind every rock with yet another rubbish disguise...!
As ever, something that evokes the idea of the oncoming 50th Anniversary would be especially welcome, but maybe the best way to do that is by creating the most categorically Fivey-tastic Five fanwork you can?
And once again, we have a secondary theme for those of you who would like to do something different. And for July 2013, that will be...
Minor Characters. Quite honestly, a television programme doesn't last as long as Doctor Who has without seeing an awful lot of characters coming and going, especially when it's exploring a new setting and a new story with more or less a whole new cast every so many weeks. So I'm asking you to spare a thought for the minor characters, although maybe "minor" sells them short; I mean the one-offs. Not the companions, or the recurring villains, but the people the Doctor randomly encounters, occasionally loves and leaves, in the course of his adventures. I think every Who fan probably has favourites, people the Doctor runs into who capture our eye or our imagination, or just amuse us for some reason. We could be talking about goodies or baddies, humans or aliens, big, flamboyant, scene-stealing one-off characters, the Henry Gordon Jagos and Canton Everett Delaware IIIs of the Who 'verse if you will, or some random UNIT squaddie who dies a miserable death and doesn't get any lines. Big or small, good or bad, pivotal to the story or just standing around in the background, don't they deserve some love in the form of fanworks, which may or may not also involve the Doctor? This theme is inspired by the most excellent who_like_giants ficathon that I participated in a couple of times, and had a lot of fun doing so, but which sadly doesn't seem to have run in quite some time. But don't confine yourself to fic - what I said above about all forms of fannish endeavour applies just as much to this one.
Whatever you end up doing, my friends, I can't wait to see it. :)
Hopefully all of the above will give you some ideas. If so, please express your wish to participate in the comments to this post. It would be great if you could name a date too (list provided below) as it helps spread the contributions across the whole month, but it isn't an absolute requirement.
The Days
July 2013
1 - demonicsymphony
2
3
4
5 - femme_slash_fan
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20 - a_phoenixdragon
21
22
23 - tessa_maeve
24
25 - ponygirl72
26 - clocketpatch
27
28
29
30
31 - akashasheiress
Members who would have expressed interest in participating but would prefer not to be tied to a specific date include: jjpor, meatball42, merryghoul
Oh well, before we start I suppose it's worth your while to take a look at the so-called rules:
- Please feel free to post your fanworks directly to the community, or link to your own Livejournal/Dreamwidth account or any external archive or site you use for hosting your stuff.
- There are no minimum length requirements, but please put any large images or, in the case of fanfic, anything over 1000 words, under a cut or the other side of a link.
- There are no rating restrictions, but again please cut and provide warnings for anything over PG-13, or which might be considered triggering. Use your common sense.
- Character-bashing is in the eye of the beholder, but there are ways of critiquing or lampooning something you don't necessarily like about the show without resorting to straight-up hatchet-work that is going to cause angst on the comm. Common sense, again.
- Disclaimers may or may not actually work from a legal standpoint, but they help me sleep at night.
- Most importantly, HAVE FUN!
Anyway, that's my bit done. You'll have to take it from here. :)
(Secondary prompt: Minor Characters)
Past the halfway point in our 'thon-of-'thons, now! It doesn't seem like more than a month or two since we kicked the whole shebang off with Eleven. The Six-themed Round Six continues, but already we have to look to the future and start preparing for the next leg. Drink your fortifying bat-milk, who_at_50 members, and remember - brave heart!
(Remember also, though, and speaking as somebody whose entry for the Seven round is still languishing incomplete, if you're still working on entries for prior legs - please, please still post them to the comm whenever they are finished - better late than never!)
He certainly had a tough act to follow, our Doctor for this month, coming after the titanic Four and the inimitable Tom Baker. And yet, the boy (the youngest actor to play the Doctor before Matt Smith, in fact) done good. Even when some of the stories, arguably, were of variable quality, the new lead actor's performance is something you rarely hear a dissenting opinion about in fandom. This Doctor is in some ways a deceptive character - softly-spoken and unassuming, occasionally appearing as an innocent adrift in a cruel and uncaring universe, but also on occasion a snappish, irritable old man in a young man's body. His outward air of boyish naivety is, we come to suspect, a disguise masking the bottled-up anger and pain and disillusionment within. A Doctor characterisation, in other words, not dissimilar from some of the portrayals in the post-2005 series. Yes, this month's Doctor is:
Five is this month's person of interest. And yet, in spite of all that he faces, the cruelty and death and disappointment the cosmos continues to throw his way, he remains a hero, one who fights the good fight come what may and whose first (and last) thought is for his friends, however much they sometimes seem to irritate him. That's what friendship's like, sometimes, isn't it? And as I said above, whatever people think of the Five era, you'd be hard-pressed nowadays to find a fan who has a bad thing to say about Peter Davison's heartfelt performance. And the Five era does have a lot of things to recommend it - there are some classic stories, and the multiple-companion teams that this Doctor travelled with provided the scope for all sorts of interesting interactions and moments; Adric's shocking fate and his travelling companions' different reactions; the at-times spiky Five-Tegan and Five-Turlough relationships; the way that, when it came right down to it, he was willing to give his life to save Peri, who on the face of it he barely knew (incidentally, in The Caves of Androzani, providing one of the all-time great Doctor Who stories and one of the very best regeneration set-ups in the programme's history). And like the rest of the surviving pre-2005 Doctors, he has of course had a second existence, including new companions, in the realm of audio adventures.
Okay, friends, this is how it's going to be: All forms of fannish endeavour are welcome - that goes for fanfic, fanart, fanvids, fanmixes, icons, podfic, and absolutely any other medium in which you want to express your creativity and celebrate your love for that which is Who. Think of Five and the things that make him the Doctor he was. Think of celery and Brainy Specs and all of those past monsters returning for another round. Think of those companions we were talking about just now, inserting "/"s to taste. Think of the Master turning up seemingly behind every rock with yet another rubbish disguise...!
As ever, something that evokes the idea of the oncoming 50th Anniversary would be especially welcome, but maybe the best way to do that is by creating the most categorically Fivey-tastic Five fanwork you can?
And once again, we have a secondary theme for those of you who would like to do something different. And for July 2013, that will be...
Minor Characters. Quite honestly, a television programme doesn't last as long as Doctor Who has without seeing an awful lot of characters coming and going, especially when it's exploring a new setting and a new story with more or less a whole new cast every so many weeks. So I'm asking you to spare a thought for the minor characters, although maybe "minor" sells them short; I mean the one-offs. Not the companions, or the recurring villains, but the people the Doctor randomly encounters, occasionally loves and leaves, in the course of his adventures. I think every Who fan probably has favourites, people the Doctor runs into who capture our eye or our imagination, or just amuse us for some reason. We could be talking about goodies or baddies, humans or aliens, big, flamboyant, scene-stealing one-off characters, the Henry Gordon Jagos and Canton Everett Delaware IIIs of the Who 'verse if you will, or some random UNIT squaddie who dies a miserable death and doesn't get any lines. Big or small, good or bad, pivotal to the story or just standing around in the background, don't they deserve some love in the form of fanworks, which may or may not also involve the Doctor? This theme is inspired by the most excellent who_like_giants ficathon that I participated in a couple of times, and had a lot of fun doing so, but which sadly doesn't seem to have run in quite some time. But don't confine yourself to fic - what I said above about all forms of fannish endeavour applies just as much to this one.
Whatever you end up doing, my friends, I can't wait to see it. :)
Hopefully all of the above will give you some ideas. If so, please express your wish to participate in the comments to this post. It would be great if you could name a date too (list provided below) as it helps spread the contributions across the whole month, but it isn't an absolute requirement.
The Days
July 2013
1 - demonicsymphony
2
3
4
5 - femme_slash_fan
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20 - a_phoenixdragon
21
22
23 - tessa_maeve
24
25 - ponygirl72
26 - clocketpatch
27
28
29
30
31 - akashasheiress
Members who would have expressed interest in participating but would prefer not to be tied to a specific date include: jjpor, meatball42, merryghoul
Oh well, before we start I suppose it's worth your while to take a look at the so-called rules:
- Please feel free to post your fanworks directly to the community, or link to your own Livejournal/Dreamwidth account or any external archive or site you use for hosting your stuff.
- There are no minimum length requirements, but please put any large images or, in the case of fanfic, anything over 1000 words, under a cut or the other side of a link.
- There are no rating restrictions, but again please cut and provide warnings for anything over PG-13, or which might be considered triggering. Use your common sense.
- Character-bashing is in the eye of the beholder, but there are ways of critiquing or lampooning something you don't necessarily like about the show without resorting to straight-up hatchet-work that is going to cause angst on the comm. Common sense, again.
- Disclaimers may or may not actually work from a legal standpoint, but they help me sleep at night.
- Most importantly, HAVE FUN!
Anyway, that's my bit done. You'll have to take it from here. :)