Things associated with me
silly_cleo tagged me in that 'five things I associate with you meme', so...
setting up communities for new fandoms and obscure pairings and such things and being awesome at maintaining them
*squishes silly_cleo* The maintaining them I'm, erm, not so good at; I remember about tags and memories on who_otp, which is probably my most active comm, every few months and them do them in a batch. I can set things up like a trouper, though, so occasionally I'll decide I need a comm to exist, magic it into being and hope it will become populated like my little settlements in Sim City where people inevitably died because I didn't connect up the power. There's a very clear pattern to my fandom interaction, in that I start off in a big popular ship (Doctor/Rose, Buffy/Spike, all the way back to my Kirk/Spock fixation that shifted to a general Uhura-Sulu-Chekhov fangirling) and once I've glutted myself on it I start to drift towards rare pairings and minor characters and while I still think the big popular ships are great and everything I need bits of the sandbox that aren't about them, so I usually end up creating them myself.
There are tons of comms, mine and other people's, that I'd love to see get more action - rose_lives, leftbehind__, empireoftraken, dw_femslash, whoadventures, jackgwenrhys, gingerminx, trap_one, tons of others, especially if said action was in the form of discussion (not that I don't love fic and icons and such) and now I'm pondering some sort of 'poke smaller comms into activity' week...
I have been strongly resisting the urge to make a Rose/Mickey/Jake or general alt-verse comm (because I love me some Handy, too), even though clearly it's a thing that should exist.
Rose/Mickey/Jake and the alt-verse in general
I stand by my manifesto - which has now been Jossed, dammit, since the three of them are no longer in the same universe, and while Rose/Handy/Jake could also be great I love Mickey best and it isn't the same without him there...
Obviously the distinct lack of Jake in The Stolen Earth and Mickey having nothing to stay in the alt universe for are a bit of a blow to my OT3, since the most obvious assumption is that Jake's died (and that Mickey blames Rose, since he doesn't so much as look at her let alone say goodbye, and even if you aren't over your ex it seems a bit extreme to give up your flashy world-saving gig and strand yourself in a different universe from her: dude, you could just move to another city in the alt-verse). But dead Jake and irreparable Rose/Mickey rift is far too angsty for me, so I'm going with 'Jake got stuck in an (extremely nice) alternate alternate universe while he and Rose were testing the dimensional cannon, and Mickey's still in a strop about it. He'll get over it.'
The alt-verse: well, it's mostly the zeppelins. I'll leap all over anything with airships. But I love canon alt-verses in general - I was mad for the Wishverse/Birthdayverse/Asylumverse on Buffy and Angel too, and the Star Trek episodes I've watched the most are the Mirror, Mirror universe ones - because of all the associated tropes with changes in history and politics and meeting alternate versions of characters. Worldbuilding, all of that. This is making me want to relisten to either Jubilee or Auld Mortality.
Looking for my Rose/Mickey/Jake post reminded me how much fun rare ships month was. Maybe we should go again this summer.
Buffyverse1000
buffyverse1000: a heroic, if failed, attempt to write 1000 different pairings (735 is not to be sniffed at). Still one of my favourite projects I've ever run in fandom. There's a Doctor Who version now, whoniverse1000, which I'm constantly meaning to write stuff for. I'm having to restrain myself from working out the number of possible pairings among Doctors and companions, or worse, writing a program to do that for me.
The Avengers
I've seen woefully little Avengers even though it's sitting right there on my hard drive, tempting me with Sixties goodness. The few stories I have seen have been amazing. Clearly Mr Steed and Mrs Peel are at it every second the camera's not on them, and I love Emma Peel and her catsuit and her mad karate skills and the fake-out where it looks like she's breaking down in tears from the stress of it all but lols, it's the tear gas pen in her pocket going off. She's my hero. If anybody's got episode recs...
Merlin
Much has been said about Merlin's historical inaccuracy (potatoes and chocolate in God-knows-what-century-this-is) and there's been some unpleasant whining - not on LJ, thank goodness - about suggesting there were black people in Britain before 1950, which is when half of Doctor Who Forum apparently believes immigration was invented at this nebulous point in history when dragons and Questing Beasts roamed the land, but I could frankly give a stuff. Season 1 of Merlin was like a gigantic bowl of delicious-though-very-silly ice cream that I devoured in about three days while I was off sick from work. I'm completely unironic in my love for this show, I should say. I'm not doing the "oh, I know it's rubbish, but I watch it because it's pretty and entertaining" thing, though that's fine and valid; I accept that it's Smallville Goes Medieval and there are ropey and cracktastic bits of writing but I think it finds its feet by season's end and has a lot of genuinely good moments.
I love Merlin, Arthur, Gwen and Morgana in just about any combination, though best of all with the four of them having adventures and being adorkable, and I'm holding out a very faint hope of canon Uther/Morgana; Uther could have been such a cardboard tyrant, or a knockoff of Alan Rickman's sheriff of Nottingham, but Tony Head's marvellous. I haven't gone looking for Uther/Giles but I'm sure it's out there.
The plethora of modern AUs is annoying, though. I know some of them are excellent but I don't get the attraction, really - are people daunted by the prospect of research? Because, honestly, potatoes and chocolate in canon. I'd kind of thought the fandom would go the way of early-Pirates of the Caribbean fandom, earnestly stripping the crack and supernatural elements from canon and writing lots of meticulously researched historical fic. Which would have been interesting, though admittedly less fun.
setting up communities for new fandoms and obscure pairings and such things and being awesome at maintaining them
*squishes silly_cleo* The maintaining them I'm, erm, not so good at; I remember about tags and memories on who_otp, which is probably my most active comm, every few months and them do them in a batch. I can set things up like a trouper, though, so occasionally I'll decide I need a comm to exist, magic it into being and hope it will become populated like my little settlements in Sim City where people inevitably died because I didn't connect up the power. There's a very clear pattern to my fandom interaction, in that I start off in a big popular ship (Doctor/Rose, Buffy/Spike, all the way back to my Kirk/Spock fixation that shifted to a general Uhura-Sulu-Chekhov fangirling) and once I've glutted myself on it I start to drift towards rare pairings and minor characters and while I still think the big popular ships are great and everything I need bits of the sandbox that aren't about them, so I usually end up creating them myself.
There are tons of comms, mine and other people's, that I'd love to see get more action - rose_lives, leftbehind__, empireoftraken, dw_femslash, whoadventures, jackgwenrhys, gingerminx, trap_one, tons of others, especially if said action was in the form of discussion (not that I don't love fic and icons and such) and now I'm pondering some sort of 'poke smaller comms into activity' week...
I have been strongly resisting the urge to make a Rose/Mickey/Jake or general alt-verse comm (because I love me some Handy, too), even though clearly it's a thing that should exist.
Rose/Mickey/Jake and the alt-verse in general
I stand by my manifesto - which has now been Jossed, dammit, since the three of them are no longer in the same universe, and while Rose/Handy/Jake could also be great I love Mickey best and it isn't the same without him there...
Obviously the distinct lack of Jake in The Stolen Earth and Mickey having nothing to stay in the alt universe for are a bit of a blow to my OT3, since the most obvious assumption is that Jake's died (and that Mickey blames Rose, since he doesn't so much as look at her let alone say goodbye, and even if you aren't over your ex it seems a bit extreme to give up your flashy world-saving gig and strand yourself in a different universe from her: dude, you could just move to another city in the alt-verse). But dead Jake and irreparable Rose/Mickey rift is far too angsty for me, so I'm going with 'Jake got stuck in an (extremely nice) alternate alternate universe while he and Rose were testing the dimensional cannon, and Mickey's still in a strop about it. He'll get over it.'
The alt-verse: well, it's mostly the zeppelins. I'll leap all over anything with airships. But I love canon alt-verses in general - I was mad for the Wishverse/Birthdayverse/Asylumverse on Buffy and Angel too, and the Star Trek episodes I've watched the most are the Mirror, Mirror universe ones - because of all the associated tropes with changes in history and politics and meeting alternate versions of characters. Worldbuilding, all of that. This is making me want to relisten to either Jubilee or Auld Mortality.
Looking for my Rose/Mickey/Jake post reminded me how much fun rare ships month was. Maybe we should go again this summer.
Buffyverse1000
buffyverse1000: a heroic, if failed, attempt to write 1000 different pairings (735 is not to be sniffed at). Still one of my favourite projects I've ever run in fandom. There's a Doctor Who version now, whoniverse1000, which I'm constantly meaning to write stuff for. I'm having to restrain myself from working out the number of possible pairings among Doctors and companions, or worse, writing a program to do that for me.
The Avengers
I've seen woefully little Avengers even though it's sitting right there on my hard drive, tempting me with Sixties goodness. The few stories I have seen have been amazing. Clearly Mr Steed and Mrs Peel are at it every second the camera's not on them, and I love Emma Peel and her catsuit and her mad karate skills and the fake-out where it looks like she's breaking down in tears from the stress of it all but lols, it's the tear gas pen in her pocket going off. She's my hero. If anybody's got episode recs...
Merlin
Much has been said about Merlin's historical inaccuracy (potatoes and chocolate in God-knows-what-century-this-is) and there's been some unpleasant whining - not on LJ, thank goodness - about suggesting there were black people in Britain before 1950, which is when half of Doctor Who Forum apparently believes immigration was invented at this nebulous point in history when dragons and Questing Beasts roamed the land, but I could frankly give a stuff. Season 1 of Merlin was like a gigantic bowl of delicious-though-very-silly ice cream that I devoured in about three days while I was off sick from work. I'm completely unironic in my love for this show, I should say. I'm not doing the "oh, I know it's rubbish, but I watch it because it's pretty and entertaining" thing, though that's fine and valid; I accept that it's Smallville Goes Medieval and there are ropey and cracktastic bits of writing but I think it finds its feet by season's end and has a lot of genuinely good moments.
I love Merlin, Arthur, Gwen and Morgana in just about any combination, though best of all with the four of them having adventures and being adorkable, and I'm holding out a very faint hope of canon Uther/Morgana; Uther could have been such a cardboard tyrant, or a knockoff of Alan Rickman's sheriff of Nottingham, but Tony Head's marvellous. I haven't gone looking for Uther/Giles but I'm sure it's out there.
The plethora of modern AUs is annoying, though. I know some of them are excellent but I don't get the attraction, really - are people daunted by the prospect of research? Because, honestly, potatoes and chocolate in canon. I'd kind of thought the fandom would go the way of early-Pirates of the Caribbean fandom, earnestly stripping the crack and supernatural elements from canon and writing lots of meticulously researched historical fic. Which would have been interesting, though admittedly less fun.