50th Anniversary Fanwork-a-thon-a-thon, Round Ten: Two
Better a few days late than never...
50th Anniversary Fanwork-a-thon-a-thon, Round Ten: Two
(Secondary prompt: The TARDIS)
Well, friends, the 50th anniversary continues to race towards us, thrillingly yet slightly terrifyingly. The spoilers are coming thick and fast, as is the fan-moaning about this and that (guilty of a bit of that myself!) It does not seem like nine going on ten months since we started this whole thing, does it? We've still go two to go, though, and an excellent two they are. Our Pertwee-themed Round Nine is still in progress but right now it's time to grab your recorder and clear your 500-year diary - here comes Round Ten.
(And as I always say at this point, if you're still working on entries for prior rounds, then please, please, please still post them to the comm whenever they're finished, even if it's on the sixtieth anniversary, assuming there's still a Livejournal and/or Dreamwidth to post to...)
This month's Doctor says you can't kill him, he's a genius. Or his giddy aunt either. Don't believe the banter, though, because like Seven who we considered lo these five months past, this is a Doctor of two halves. There's the likeable clown who shows up to steal the show in multi-Doctor anniversary stories, and then...there's the real him. Behind that cosmic hobo facade, you see, there beat the cold, dark hearts of a true player of the greatest game of all. Except it's hard to keep sight of this, even for those of us who watch him closely, because there's just so little of him left; words without pictures, pictures without movement, and then those few precious strands of truth that got saved from the burnination pile. It's not that he's not charming and amusing, or that he isn't true to his friends, or doesn't fight the things that must be fought, or indeed that he isn't the fabbest, swingingest, sixtiesest Doctor of them all...but if he's a clown, he's the kind of clown that gives you nightmares. That's the real him. You know who we're talking about:
Two, as those of you literally keeping count will have guessed ages (like, weeks) ago, is this month's Doctor. And while I may overplay his calculating, vaguely sinister side above (although it definitely is there), I think it's true that those of us fans who are too young (or too far overseas) to have seen those stories when they were actually going out will never really know him. Patrick Troughton is easily the most awesome thing about all of the later reunion stories he appeared in (well, apart from Sgt Benton observing that yes, of course the TARDIS is bigger on the inside - he can see it!), but that version of Two was really a broad-strokes rendition rather than a recreation of his 60s persona. And recons can only go so far in recreating everything that was lost when the BBC decided storage space and cutting costs by reusing videotape was more important than posterity. Very British sort of decision-making, that. It's okay, I can say that - I am British. ;D
And perhaps that's why both tie-in novelists and fanfictioneers think of Two as being notoriously "hard to write". Consider, though, how difficult it must have been back in 1966. The very first regeneration (not that they were calling it that yet) - the very first time the lead actor had been replaced (Hartnell was the Doctor, the only Doctor up to then). Peter Capaldi has it easy by comparison. And yet, the series survived and prospered. And it's not as if the vast majority of Two stories (those that survive in full form, that is) are really any better, script or design-wise, than most One stories - quite the opposite in a lot of cases. To a very large extent it survived due to the fact that Troughton was very possibly (imho anyway) flat-out the best and most versatile actor ever to play the Doctor - he also had charm and charisma in buckets, and an easy chemistry with his companions, especially Frazer Hines's Jamie. He is at the end of the day an immensely likeable Doctor, even by Doctor standards, and that is perhaps where, via a couple of decades of fan folklore and collective memory, the more straightforwardly comic version in, for example, "The Five Doctors", comes from.
Anyway, enough of my half-baked pontificating. Many of you must know the drill by now, and if you're new on board, then it's very simple: 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 Two, the original iteration of the Doctor as anarchic trickster-god, doing terrible things to those who he thought deserved them, but all with a disarming sense of whimsy and love of his companions. Think of Jamie and his almost innocent view of the universe he found himself thrust into. Think of Ben and Polly and the swinging 60s scene they emerged from; groovy, baby! Think of Victoria, whose time aboard the TARDIS seemed at times to be not so much adventure as trauma, and of Zoe talking computers to death and looking fabulous while doing it. Think of the first glimmerings of what was to become the UNIT era. And then think of Cybermen, Yeti, Ice Warriors and all of the rest of the rogues' gallery, and base after base after base under siege...
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 quintessentially Two-y Two fanwork you can?
And as is normal by now, there will be a secondary theme for those of you who would like to do something different. And for October 2013, that will be...
The TARDIS. I think one of the reasons why a lot of fans (and I'd include myself in this) think that "The Doctor's Wife" is one of the very greatest Who stories of recent times is that it manages to present to us long-time fans as new ideas and concepts that really we'd known, consciously or unconsciously, for a very long time indeed. Of course the TARDIS is the Doctor's "wife". Of course she's in many ways the most important being in his life or lives. And she is of course a "she" rather than an "it"; has been for quite some time now. It all makes sense. Right at the very beginning, back in Totter's Lane, Ian declared "It's alive!" and he wasn't wrong. It was "The Edge of Destruction", though, that really cemented the idea of the TARDIS as sentient being and fully-fledged cast member; bear in mind that that was only about eleven or twelve weeks into the show's existence. So yes, consider the TARDIS. As much part of the Doctor's history as any of his incarnations or companions. Always revealing new and strange and intriguing things about herself. And remember, he didn't steal her, not really; she stole him. And even in mundane, real-life terms it's such a great concept and such a central plank of what Doctor Who is. Get this: this strange, half-mad old man of mysterious origins, he's got this magic box, and if he steps into it, it can take him anywhere, absolutely anywhere you can think of. Genius. And it's bigger on the inside - not just bigger on the inside, but huge - you will literally never stop learning things about it as the series goes on. The fact that it looks like a police box - something that was probably getting to be a bit quaint even in 1963 - is just the cherry on top, but I defy you - any of you, including myself - to think of anything better and more iconic.
I think we'd be very remiss if we celebrated fifty years of Who without finding time and space for a bit of TARDIS-love. I look forward to anything you might come up with to that end.
I'm sure whatever you end up doing, my friends, it's going to be something worth seeing (or reading, or listening to, or...experiencing). :)
Hopefully you are by now fizzing with inspiration, eager to get to work with the business of creation. If so, please express your wish to participate in the comments to this post. It would be great if you could name a date (list provided below) as it helps spread the contributions across more of the month, but it's not essential to do so.
The Days
October 2013
1 - femme_slash_fan
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23 - a_phoenixdragon
24
25
26 - clocketpatch
27
28
29
30
31 - eerian_sadow
Members who would have expressed interest in participating but would prefer not to be tied to a specific date include: lost_spook, akashasheiress
Well, I guess we should take a look at what are theoretically known as the 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!
Well, that's my lot for now. Have at it, then! :)
50th Anniversary Fanwork-a-thon-a-thon, Round Ten: Two
(Secondary prompt: The TARDIS)
Well, friends, the 50th anniversary continues to race towards us, thrillingly yet slightly terrifyingly. The spoilers are coming thick and fast, as is the fan-moaning about this and that (guilty of a bit of that myself!) It does not seem like nine going on ten months since we started this whole thing, does it? We've still go two to go, though, and an excellent two they are. Our Pertwee-themed Round Nine is still in progress but right now it's time to grab your recorder and clear your 500-year diary - here comes Round Ten.
(And as I always say at this point, if you're still working on entries for prior rounds, then please, please, please still post them to the comm whenever they're finished, even if it's on the sixtieth anniversary, assuming there's still a Livejournal and/or Dreamwidth to post to...)
This month's Doctor says you can't kill him, he's a genius. Or his giddy aunt either. Don't believe the banter, though, because like Seven who we considered lo these five months past, this is a Doctor of two halves. There's the likeable clown who shows up to steal the show in multi-Doctor anniversary stories, and then...there's the real him. Behind that cosmic hobo facade, you see, there beat the cold, dark hearts of a true player of the greatest game of all. Except it's hard to keep sight of this, even for those of us who watch him closely, because there's just so little of him left; words without pictures, pictures without movement, and then those few precious strands of truth that got saved from the burnination pile. It's not that he's not charming and amusing, or that he isn't true to his friends, or doesn't fight the things that must be fought, or indeed that he isn't the fabbest, swingingest, sixtiesest Doctor of them all...but if he's a clown, he's the kind of clown that gives you nightmares. That's the real him. You know who we're talking about:
Two, as those of you literally keeping count will have guessed ages (like, weeks) ago, is this month's Doctor. And while I may overplay his calculating, vaguely sinister side above (although it definitely is there), I think it's true that those of us fans who are too young (or too far overseas) to have seen those stories when they were actually going out will never really know him. Patrick Troughton is easily the most awesome thing about all of the later reunion stories he appeared in (well, apart from Sgt Benton observing that yes, of course the TARDIS is bigger on the inside - he can see it!), but that version of Two was really a broad-strokes rendition rather than a recreation of his 60s persona. And recons can only go so far in recreating everything that was lost when the BBC decided storage space and cutting costs by reusing videotape was more important than posterity. Very British sort of decision-making, that. It's okay, I can say that - I am British. ;D
And perhaps that's why both tie-in novelists and fanfictioneers think of Two as being notoriously "hard to write". Consider, though, how difficult it must have been back in 1966. The very first regeneration (not that they were calling it that yet) - the very first time the lead actor had been replaced (Hartnell was the Doctor, the only Doctor up to then). Peter Capaldi has it easy by comparison. And yet, the series survived and prospered. And it's not as if the vast majority of Two stories (those that survive in full form, that is) are really any better, script or design-wise, than most One stories - quite the opposite in a lot of cases. To a very large extent it survived due to the fact that Troughton was very possibly (imho anyway) flat-out the best and most versatile actor ever to play the Doctor - he also had charm and charisma in buckets, and an easy chemistry with his companions, especially Frazer Hines's Jamie. He is at the end of the day an immensely likeable Doctor, even by Doctor standards, and that is perhaps where, via a couple of decades of fan folklore and collective memory, the more straightforwardly comic version in, for example, "The Five Doctors", comes from.
Anyway, enough of my half-baked pontificating. Many of you must know the drill by now, and if you're new on board, then it's very simple: 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 Two, the original iteration of the Doctor as anarchic trickster-god, doing terrible things to those who he thought deserved them, but all with a disarming sense of whimsy and love of his companions. Think of Jamie and his almost innocent view of the universe he found himself thrust into. Think of Ben and Polly and the swinging 60s scene they emerged from; groovy, baby! Think of Victoria, whose time aboard the TARDIS seemed at times to be not so much adventure as trauma, and of Zoe talking computers to death and looking fabulous while doing it. Think of the first glimmerings of what was to become the UNIT era. And then think of Cybermen, Yeti, Ice Warriors and all of the rest of the rogues' gallery, and base after base after base under siege...
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 quintessentially Two-y Two fanwork you can?
And as is normal by now, there will be a secondary theme for those of you who would like to do something different. And for October 2013, that will be...
The TARDIS. I think one of the reasons why a lot of fans (and I'd include myself in this) think that "The Doctor's Wife" is one of the very greatest Who stories of recent times is that it manages to present to us long-time fans as new ideas and concepts that really we'd known, consciously or unconsciously, for a very long time indeed. Of course the TARDIS is the Doctor's "wife". Of course she's in many ways the most important being in his life or lives. And she is of course a "she" rather than an "it"; has been for quite some time now. It all makes sense. Right at the very beginning, back in Totter's Lane, Ian declared "It's alive!" and he wasn't wrong. It was "The Edge of Destruction", though, that really cemented the idea of the TARDIS as sentient being and fully-fledged cast member; bear in mind that that was only about eleven or twelve weeks into the show's existence. So yes, consider the TARDIS. As much part of the Doctor's history as any of his incarnations or companions. Always revealing new and strange and intriguing things about herself. And remember, he didn't steal her, not really; she stole him. And even in mundane, real-life terms it's such a great concept and such a central plank of what Doctor Who is. Get this: this strange, half-mad old man of mysterious origins, he's got this magic box, and if he steps into it, it can take him anywhere, absolutely anywhere you can think of. Genius. And it's bigger on the inside - not just bigger on the inside, but huge - you will literally never stop learning things about it as the series goes on. The fact that it looks like a police box - something that was probably getting to be a bit quaint even in 1963 - is just the cherry on top, but I defy you - any of you, including myself - to think of anything better and more iconic.
I think we'd be very remiss if we celebrated fifty years of Who without finding time and space for a bit of TARDIS-love. I look forward to anything you might come up with to that end.
I'm sure whatever you end up doing, my friends, it's going to be something worth seeing (or reading, or listening to, or...experiencing). :)
Hopefully you are by now fizzing with inspiration, eager to get to work with the business of creation. If so, please express your wish to participate in the comments to this post. It would be great if you could name a date (list provided below) as it helps spread the contributions across more of the month, but it's not essential to do so.
The Days
October 2013
1 - femme_slash_fan
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23 - a_phoenixdragon
24
25
26 - clocketpatch
27
28
29
30
31 - eerian_sadow
Members who would have expressed interest in participating but would prefer not to be tied to a specific date include: lost_spook, akashasheiress
Well, I guess we should take a look at what are theoretically known as the 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!
Well, that's my lot for now. Have at it, then! :)