Discussion post: in other media...

[thisbluespirit]

Time for another Discussion Post! (And don't forget anyone's welcome to start one should they wish.)

This time it's fics based on spin-offs – collectively, there’s probably quite a number but individually it can be tough to get a fix of your fave non-TV team TARDIS. Of course, it’s obvious why – if you haven’t been able to listen that audio/read that book/comic, you don’t know the characters. Duh, as they say.

However, I find fic is a good way to get an introduction – some of them are even better in fic! Certainly, I got lost and bewildered long before the EDAs had finished their run, and never got to meet Anji, (tho' I know Fitz) but I find I really enjoy fic with that team. Fitz-fic has a tendency to be entertaining also. And I tried out fic with Hex, Lucie and Erimem before I got to meet any of them - it acted as a useful taster. And being way behind with Big Finish’s main ranges, I’ve never yet caught their Gallifrey series, but I love almost any humorous fics based on it.

So, maybe fic here is even more important than for the mainstream characters, as it can work as a taster (or even a substitute for out of print stuff)? What do people think and which spin-off characters deserve more fic?

Are you an addict for anything Bg Finish? Missing the New Adventures, or the PDAs? Or are there some highly obscure one-off novel/audio/comic strip characters/ideas you’re desperate to have explored further? (e.g. I managed to get hold of one of Kaldor City audios. Now if I can only get the rest, I’d love to see some fic for that – how’s about that for obscure? But snarky. Oh, how snarky…)

I did (it’s got Traditional) collect some Random Pairing Prompts to whet our appetites, but as there were so many characters, it got epic so see the previous post for the prompts! It’s Big Finish’s fault for taking in the other spin-offs, [Benny, Fitz, Izzy, Frobisher…], I suppose - it became impossible to separate them. (I do like BF’s optimistic view that it’s a big universe, universes, in fact, and the timeline’s pretty wibbly-wobbly and that all of this happened somewhen, somewhere and we don’t need to un-canonise anything. Sorry, slightly off-topic.)

So, what do people think and, more importantly, what fics would we like to see? Any ideas, people? There's no guarantee they'll get picked up, but they may (and all suggestions will be included on updates and put into the hat for Prompt of the Month).

Comments

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

I always enjoy more Evelyn - and I first met her through that brilliant fic where Sixie is flying a kite and they're discussing mathematics (sorry don't remember the title off hand and I'm supposed to be beta-reading!)

I'd love fic with DI Menzies (also from Sixie's era), and more Lucie fic is always a treat.

Additionally I'm a sucker for missing scene/tag fics for audios (I've got two more Liz-centric ones bubbling away in my back brain for Shadow of the Past and Sentinels of the New Dawn which I hope to write some day!)

And more Eight/Benny never goes amiss (I wish they'd let Benny travel with Eight for more than just 25 minutes in Company of Friends), ditto Eight/Romana II (Shada is an obsessive love of mine!)

[curuchamion.livejournal.com]

The Chinese Remainder Theorem (http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=19057) by Eve11?

(I didn't remember the title either. But I was like "I know that fic! Hey, wasn't it on Calufrax? *pokes tags* Huzzah!")

I LOVE THAT ONE. I don't understand it, but I still love it. XD

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's the one, thanks... I didn't want to take the time to go and hunt through my Teaspoon faves to find the title when I was struggling to beta-read.

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, I don't think I've seen any fic with Menzies in - she'd be a good character to do stuff with.

Evelyn, yay! :lol:

Actually, I'd quite like to see some multi-era stuff for Mila. Not that I'm a mad fan of the character, but given who she was, there could be some interesting stuff to play around with her being there unseen for so long. I'd quite like to find someone exploring that, just once, at least.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Actually yes, Mila's unseen presence would be an interesting idea to explore - though I don't think I'll be the one doing it!

[thisbluespirit]

Yeah, that was pretty much my thought. I thought someone was bound to have written something about her, but I've never come across anything. Maybe when I finally feel better, I'll have to relisten to Patient Zero and have a go, or something.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

It's a shame that no one has.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Huh, that's weird - where did Curu's comment go?!

[thisbluespirit]

The comm filtered it as possible spam, probably because of the link. I've rescued it. :-) (Don't worry, you're not going crazy.)

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Oh!

See, LJ can't do that on my LJ/comms - I changed the settings. (Moronic settings at that!)

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

I've always been intrigued by Larry Miles's Faction Paradox stuff that started off in the EDAs like Alien Bodies and then later (after he'd burned his bridges - for the first but not the last time - with the people producing the EDAs) spun off into its own weird serial-numbers-filed-off ersatz version of the Whoniverse (although I believe some of the audios featured "canon" characters like the Sontarans and Sutekh - the main thing was they weren't allowed to use the words "Doctor" or "Who" with capitals on them... ;D). But yeah, as far as quixotic attempts to reboot Who because you think you know better than everybody else involved go, it was brilliant stuff for the most part. You can see how it influenced the new series a little bit, although it was much weirder in tone, selfconsciously so really. But yeah, Faction Paradox.

Or failing that, I've always had a fascination with the 80s DWM comic strips I used to get once in a blue moon when I were a nipper. Frobisher doing penguiny private eye stuff - I'd quite like to see that. :)

[thisbluespirit]

I love Frobisher - I'd heard of him, but BF's The Holy Terror was I think on DWM's top ten, so I got that & he was great fun. I must get my hands on The Maltese Penguin sometimes, too, that reminds me.

I must confess I have a really weird reaction to Faction Paradox - I think they make a suitably nasty background thing in Alien Bodies but I literally hate them - not in an 'I think they're rubbish' way but anything more to do with them, and I react with a sort of instinctive revulsion. And you will have gathered by now that that's pretty unusual for me! I suppose that must mean they're v effective baddies, but it makes me want to burn anything they're in. I never want to do that. So when I say weird, I mean *weird*. I have no idea why. Just something about them gets at me, clearly. Good luck with sucking people in to writing stuff (but if someone starts throwing spam and causing techincal issues to eat the fic, well, that'll be me. If I knew how to do that stuff. :lol:) Isn't life strange? :-) Um, sorry. Even seeing the words typed in this comment - I shuddered. And considered deleting it. Which would be rather against the spirit of the thing!! Heh.

[thisbluespirit]

Deleting the comment might be in the spirit of Lawrence Miles, though, I suppose...

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

Yes... ;D

Frobisher and characters like him just go to show how creative the comics writers had to get, considering they didn't always have the rights to use most of the supporting characters - and indeed, they were at times writing the strips before any of the stories featuring a particular Doctor had aired, meaning that they sometimes just had to make up characterisation etc. At times, the effect was very strange, and at times it led to some great things...

It's interesting that you say that, because reading some of the Faction Paradox spinoff books like The Book of the War...I don't know, there's something creepy going on there, in that you're sort of piecing together the real story from a lot of hints and suggestions and clues that you're meant to piece together as you go along, and the overall effect can be strangely unsettling at times. A bit like with some of the recent Eleven arc, but with no concessions made to the fact that it's going out on a Saturday teatime and the majority of the audience couldn't care less about clues etc. Maybe it's just something about Miles's writing, then. I don't know, really...

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, it wasn't intended as a criticism (as far as his books go, I have only read Alien Bodies and Interference - both volumes - and I loved Alien Bodies whereas I disliked Interference a lot) but from that much of them I developed a reaction of feeling uncomfortable and queasy when they were on the page - wanting to be in a universe where they had never even been invented. I don't think I could pinpoint it to anything logical so it must be some deep-seated squick they're hitting. I haven't read the others, and I usually like writing like that. But obviously, as you can imagine, if I feel horrible when Faction Paradox is mentioned [urgh], I have not chased those particular spin-offs. For obscure spin-offs (as opposed to the NAs, PDAs and Big Finish), I shall stick to trying to chase down those first four Kaldor City audios, (which is not easy). Robots of Death and Fendahl and possibly-Avon-calling-himself-Iago, and plotting and snark. (Can't imagine what the attraction there is, then.) ;-D

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Agreed with Pers about more Eight/Benny, and I'd say that also goes for post-CoF Eight/Fitz.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Also! I think Fey Truscott-Sade of the DWM comics could do with more love. Pre-or-post 'Feyde' (if the latter, you could completely mix-and-match with Doctors and timelines, since the whole point is that she's wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey now)!

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, and didn't she end up with Izzy or something? I read the DWM comic strip with more attention in the days of Izzy, Destrii, and Fey more than I ever have since, but I am forgetful...

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Well, she did kiss Izzy, but I think she went solo in one comic after that.

(And yes, that was my heyday for DWM comic-reading too!)

[pitry.livejournal.com]

Huh. Almost all of the spin-off media characters I know are from fanfic. I've only ever read one EDA, and while I have tried to read some of the more famous NA, I got bored and exasperated with all of them.

I did love all of the Evelyn fic I've read, though!

[thisbluespirit]

The NAs really do depend on a) either reading the whole lot, or reading very specific ones that are excellent and stand alone (and there are some, Human Nature, being generally agreed to be the best. The TV version loses a lot for not having Benny in it. I missed her muchly throughout. Although the TV version has better villains, I think.)

Yay, we all want More Evelyn! We'll start a campaign or something. :-)

[pitry.livejournal.com]

Wait, aren't the NAs the whole Eight stories? Are those the EDAs then? In which case it's the other way round.

I think I started reading Human Nature once, though. But possibly too early, I didn't know a lot about Seven then. It was very different from the TV version, that's very true, although I did like some of the changes they implemented...

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, the New Adventures were the Virgin-published stories that picked up where Seven's run left off. The EDAs were the Eighth Doctor Adventures published by BBC once they took the license back off Virgin in 1996. They have several different phases. The Eight Doctors is typical Terrance Dicks fun, so that's always great. The first few books vary, but I like them - straightforward compared to the last. Then they go through an insanely complex and baffling story arc, which is then dumped and rebooted in The Burning (the amnesiac Doctor trapped on earth run is therefore a good place to start - and a solidly good run of stories). Thereafter I just lost track again!!

Yes, like I said, I do like the TV villains in that much better. But I liked it being Seven as John Smith, and Martha could have done with Benny around to commiserate and tell her the Doctor is marvellous, but sometimes he's a total git. I missed her a lot when I watched it; it was funny, really.

ETA: I should add that the above are my totally subjective opinions - most people will tell you The 8 Doctors is totally rubbish. But it's just Terrance Dicks being himself so I enjoy it, personally. Poor old Sam didn't really deserve to be hated, but the NA authors were feeling understandably miffed about the licensing thing at the time.

[john_amend_all]

One spinoff that I think could do with fic is Seven Keys to Doomsday, to flesh the characters out. You can get quite a good sense of Trevor Martin's Doctor, but Jimmy and Jenny have about one trait each.

I've written fic with Lucie in the past, but I think all of it has been in AU settings, or Outside altogether. And given her story arc, or what I've read of it in summaries, her options Outside now appear to be limited to parts in Storytime: Barchester Towers and Storytime: The Moonstone. She's even got the right name for the latter one :-)

[thisbluespirit]

Ssh, I don't know what happens to Lucie, I'm still halfway through S3! Also Storytime Barchester Towers? Do you think the children would sit through that, even if it did give as many Masters as wished the chance to be clergymen... ;-)

[john_amend_all]

Bearing in mind the sort of clergy we're getting in Who these days, I suspect that Storytime: Barchester Towers would end up rather shorter than the original, but with more machine guns :-)

[moon-blitz.livejournal.com]

Let's see...I have limited access to the books (all were of Eight, I believe), but I did get my hands on some of the audio dramas and comics (mostly Four and Five stuff, but a little bit of Six). I'd love to see more of Erimem, and what little I've seen of Frobisher intrigues me. Oh, and Iris Wildthyme! I've only had a small taste of her, but she seems awesome. Her and River need to meet.

Oh, what about fan-produced Doctor(s) and companions? I've listened to a few of Darker Productions audio dramas featuring their own Doctor, and I think another group is doing their own take on the Doctor as well (Broken Seas, perhaps?). Would they be eligible for fic, or are they to obscure?

[thisbluespirit]

Heh, yes Iris and River is certainly a thought.. :-)

I don't think anything's too obscure for this discussion. Of course when it comes to persuading people they want to get hold of these things and then hope they'll write, you probably need to do a bit of selling the idea! :-D But nothing's ever too obscure to mention, not round here, anyway. I don't think I'd even heard of those...

[moon-blitz.livejournal.com]

Of course, Iris and River might make the universe explode with their combined awesomeness should they ever meet...

The audio dramas are free and are available for download on the respective websites. Once I listen to more of both, I might make a discussion post urging people to go listen to them. Here are the links, if you wish to check either out:

Darker Projects (David Ault Doctor): http://darkerprojects.com/doctorwho.html
Broken Sea (Mark Kalita Doctor): http://brokensea.com/drwho/

[thisbluespirit]

Thanks for the link!

[thisbluespirit]

Thinking about this one myself, as I mentioned above, I'd love to see a fanfic look at Doctor Who in the light of Mila's backstory - did she interact with anyone other than Charley etc? (I wouldn't mind some sort of better working out of that storyline, although I don't know how you could really salvage the way Six doesn't come out of it so well.)

Also, Benny with Seven. They have a really great relationship, plus there's Wolsey quite often, and Diary Entries. There should be more NA type Benny fic with diary entries.

I can't get enough of BF's main companions anyway - more Evelyn, Charley, Lucie, Hex - that'd keep me happy.

Frobisher's fun, too, and he's definitely a rarity in fic.