Links to all fanfiction I've written in various fandoms. That I'm admitting to.

( Alias )


( Angel the Series )


( Babylon 5 )

( Battlestar Galactica )


( Breaking Bad )

( Buffy the Vampire Slayer )

( Citizen Kane )

( David Copperfield )



( Doctor Who )

( Farscape )

( Earth: Final Conflict )

( Heroes )

( Highlander: The Series )

( Historical Fiction )

( Lost )

( MCU )
( Merlin )

( Mythology )


( Once upon a time )

( Order of the Air )

( Penny Dreadful )

( Rome )

( Star Trek: The Original Series )


( Star Trek: Deep Space Nine )


( Star Trek: Discovery )


( Star Trek: The Next Generation )

( Star Wars )

( Sunset Boulevard )

( The Americans )

( The Beatles )

( The Borgias )

( The Godfather )

( The Medici )


( Torchwood )

( X-Men )

( The West Wing )


( Crossovers )

The Hobbit:

Green Lord of Dol Guldur: both hilarious and touching story two parter, in which Bilbo and Gandalf, en route back post Battle of the Five Armies, stop by at Dol Guldur, and... unexpected and very Hobbit-ish things happen. (Which deal also with one of my pet peeves about Tolkien's universe per se, see also: entire races born evil.)

In the second story, Tauriel arrives at Dol Guldur as well, and it's a wonderful growth and healing story for her. It's a such a great mixture of crack premise and straight forward execution, I can't tell you.

Blake's 7:

Rumours of Immortality: Avon and Orac consider alternatives, not too long before Gauda Prime. It makes for a great character portrait.

A sad beginning of the day this morning, as I learned Jacqueline Pearce, aka Servalan in Blake's 7, has died. The most fabulous evil overlady of them all, who had the rare distinction of not solely ending her canon alive but having outlived all her opponents (both heroic and villainous).



I also bring another vid rec. Bates Motel, see tag, was the prequel-update/reboot-and-new-take-on-herror-icons series of my heart, and thus I was glad to discover Sisabet vidded Norman and Norma (and Mother; one of the not so minor feats of art in this vid is that you always know whether you're watching real Norma or Mother), to David Bowie, no less: Heroes.

First, I suppose I should specify what I mean with „redemption“, because fandom has a whole range of definitions going from „villain is written with sympathetic traits and tragic background explaing his/her actions“ via „villain confronts own misdeeds, does act in attempt to make up for them /acts to help others from this point onwards“ to „villain is proven to have been not a villain at all and accepted by other heroes as fellow hero after they apologize for ever having seen that person as a villain and/or are revealed as the true villains“ (this would be one favourite fanfic trope). Sometimes, in specific circumstances and for some people, it even seems to mean just „villain should have sex with hero(ine) and be declared their one true love to blast all other loves“. (At least some of the participants in the Spike Wars back in the day gave me the impression that this was what the meant when wanting redemption for Spike. Cough.)

As for the characters named below: my own definition of what I mean when I say that I don’t want this characters to be redeemed doesn’t include sympathetic writing, or the occasional non-hostile relationship with a heroic character. But what my definition of „redemption“ for the purpose of this list does include is for the villain in question to turn another leaf, realise their misdeeds and trying to atone for them, and it most definitely includes „villain revealed to have been right and misjudged all along“.

In no particular order, listed by fandom:

( Spoilers for Babylon 5, Blake's 7, Spartacus and I, Claudius ensue )

The Other Days

What sad news to to wake up to: Gareth Thomas is dead.

It's not "just" the "Blake from Blake's 7" part. I remember watervole taking me to watch him in Barrie's Dear Brutus, and then later to the pub to meet him. He had such a warm rl presence. (A very big contrast, btw, to the last on screen character I saw him play a few years later, the old serial killer in Torchwood's first season.) I'm usually highly inhibited and embarassed when I meet actors, preferring to watch them from a distance as they do their jobs, but he was really good at putting all of us at ease.

Speaking of jobs: he was great as Blake, and I think the later two seasons of B7 proved that something many fans claim they want, ditching the hero and putting the fan favorite in the center of the show, results in a lesser, not a better story. (Not least for the fan favorite, btw.) But for me the best performance of his that I've watched was in the mini Morgan's Boy, which watervole gave to me on video, and where he was heartbreaking as the taciturn Welsh farmer.

2016 continues to take away.

Day 26 - Lots of Star Trek Parodies out there. Which do you dig?

The sinister Federation in Blake's 7 just happens to have the same insignia as the one in Star Trek, turned sideways, and in the s3 episode Deathwatch there's even a direct parody of the "space...the final frontier..." speech. More than one B7 fan has speculated that Star Trek is simply government propaganda produced by the Blake's 7 Federation. As amusing as this is, it makes it only just that my (and probably most people's) favourite Star Trek parody makes fun of B7 as well. By Graphtar's Hammer, what a parody!

Yes, of course I dig Galaxy Quest most. Both because it's hilarious and because it's made with such obvious love for the subject. It laughs with, not about the fans. Which is why it rules.

( The other days )

I meant to do this before going to Italy, but didn't find the time:

5 instances of theories getting Jossed (fanon or common fanfiction tropes being invalidated by new canon), Kripked (fanon or common fanfiction tropes being confirmed by new canon), or some combination of the two.

1.) Jossed: Snape Manor (Harry Potter). Which I use as a shorthand for the kind of background fanon gifted Severus Snape with pre-Half Blood Prince. Actually, the Jossing already started, if you like, with Order of the Phoenix, because the kind of House of Usher background Sirius Black has there - Gothic rotting mansion, crazy mother, near crazy servant, sibling with mysterious fate - is exactly the type of thing Snape had been given in fanfic a lot, and after this book, it was unlikely Snape would have the exact same thing in canon. Still, Snape Manor, home of Severus, persisted in showing up (not least so, say, Hermione/Harry/Draco/Whichever-student-the-author-ships-with-Snape in War-with-Voldemort fics could find refuge in it)... until it became canon that good old Severus' father had been a Muggle, that there was no manor, and he lived instead in an entirely normal looking house in an industrial northern town. I still get a kick out of this, I must admit.

2.) Jossed: Angelus as Spike's sire/Darla's status in Angelus' life. (BTVS and Angel.) Literally Jossed, what with both being Joss Whedon shows. I once wrote an entire post about why I loved the Fanged Four dynamics as established by AtS and the later BTVS seasons much more than the fanon that had been written before, so check it out. Hooray for vampire matriarchs!

3.) Kripked: Time Lords can change gender and skin colour when regenerating (Doctor Who and spin-offs). Our former Welsh overlord confirmed the later in the Sarah Jane Adventures episode where Eleven shows up and gets quizzed by Clyde on the subject, and our current Scottish overlord allowed Neil Gaiman to confirm the former in my favourite s6 of New Who episode, The Doctor's Wife, when Eleven reminisces about the Corsair.

4.) Jossed: Avon may display a lot of cynicism, but he wouldn't really save his life at the expense of his friends. (Blake's 7.) Of course I came to the show many years later, but fanzines were still sold, and thus I read a great many stories, all written pre-Orbit, in which Avon is in an emergency situation with Vila or Blake and could save his life at their expense, but comes through for them. Well, nothing happened in canon to jettison the Blake assumption, but alas, poor Vila. I must admit my perverse fondness for Orbit results not a little from an overdose of cynics-with-a-heart-of-gold/noble-jerk type of characters who while being interestingly ambiguous in canon were promptly whitewashed into never ever displaying a negative trait in fanon, being meanly judged and misunderstood and what not, etc. And Orbit certainly is a slap in the face in that regard. (Mind you, I've still read a lot of Orbit denial/apology fic in which Avon absolutely knew where Vila was hiding and didn't really mean to space him, but that's fandom for you.)

5.) Kripked/Jossed: Morgana is Uther's daughter and Arthur's half-sister. (Merlin). On a Doylist level, it's somewhat obvious that in the earliest episodes the show's makers hadn't yet intended to have Morgana as Arthur's sister, which she is in most versions of the myth, but in the later s1 episodes, we've arrived at a siblingesque dynamic between Arthur and Morgana anyway, and while there was Morgana/Uther shipping due to their chemistry, as of s2 there was also speculation as to whether or not there was a biological connection. zahrawithaz, for example, argued repeatedly for Morgana as Uther's biological daughter, while I was holding out for Morgause as Ygraine's secret love child with Gorlois. S3 then settled the bastardy question, which retrospectively brings back a bit of an incestious slant on very early s1 where originally none had been intended, but which is, err, sort of traditional. Anyway. I'm not sure whether to call it Kripked or Jossed, but whatever it was, it happened and works for me.

Blake's 7:

Compendium

Five games Avon and Servalan played with each other (and mostly lost). I always have had a soft spot for the twisted Avon/Servalan relationship, and find them both deliciously in character here.

Hamlet/Faust

How Luther laughed at the devil

Not a slash pairing, but a crossover of plays! And ten times more entertaining than when Gerhard Hauptmann sort of did it in his prequel play Hamlet in Wittenberg. (No, you didn't miss anything.) Official summary of this delight: "When a Wittenberg mathematics professor is possessed by a demon, there's only one man to whom Prince Hamlet can turn: the demonologist Doktor Faustus."

The Good Wife

Something to talk about

A Dana pov story that explores her while at the same time having a go at Cary and the way he relates to different women - Kalinda, Diane, Alicia, Wendy Scott-Carr, and of course Dana herself.


Greek and Roman Myths

The Dioskouroi

A story that uses the Castor and Pollux myth (brothers to Helen and Clytaimnestra, if you're not so up on your Greek mythology) to create a sci fi story with some wonderful world building. It's absolutely awesome, a treat both if you're familiar with the various Greek myths and if you've never heard of them. (For example, if you know who Jason is in Greek myths - he of the Argonauts, Medea's no good Greek husband - you'll get a kick out of the characterisation, but solely within the context of this story he works just as well.) If you're squicked by incest, I should warn you that this story has the twins, Castor and Pollux, as lovers, but that's handled very subtly, and left to hints; unless your squick is also a trigger, I would really advise you to read the story regardless, because it's just that good.

The death and resurrection of Persephone, in stages

A feminist rewrite of the myth of Persephone, and what's most impressive about it is that the actual actions were not changed from (many of) the myths - but the motivation and agenda, oh, that's such a very different story now. Brilliant.

Fairy Tales

Lovely, dark and deep

This one tackles Hänsel and Gretel, with Gretel as the pov character and center, focusing on her relationship with the witch. Who turns out to have another fairy tale identity as well. Really well written, disturbingly good.

Rome

Let it be

Despite having a song title by the Beatles, this one is not by me. :) It's Antony and Caesar talking shortly before the Ides of March. Considering how much the relationship with Caesar shaped Antony both in history and on the show, it's amazing how little it gets explored. Here we get a good glimpse.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Son of a Preacher Man

Jake and Nog through the years. Both get rarely tackled by fanfic, and I was delighted to find them and their relationship front and center here. Bonus for added Quark!

Tough Guide to Fantasy Land

A special limited time offer

A marvellously funny spoof of dark, gritty fantasy. Just the thing to read after watching Game of Thrones and/or reading G.R.R. Martin, among others. :)

Winnetou - Karl May

Okay. Karl May's Winnetou novels were the very, very first books I ever read, as soon as I could read, because my grandfather used to tell me stories from them when taking me along for walks, and so something in me shall remain eternally six years old, tackling books and being enthralled and thus not capable of sensible criticism when it comes to these novels by a nineteenth century German novelist who basically proved fantasy to be stronger than reality for a long time until reality caught up with him in a brutal fashion. And the first fictional character I ever cried for is the woman who gets explored by these two stories, one in English, one in German. Two character explorations of Nscho-Tschi:

Beautiful Dawn (the one in English)

Poetry in Motion (the one in German)

Five favorite ships - sailing ships, spaceships, etc., not relationships.



1.) The Liberator (Blake's 7). While the B7 budget was tiny to nonexistant, the Liberator was a splendid ship anyway (and for a glimpse of how it would have looked like with GCI, see the Excalibur from Crusade, with the ship not being the only thing in the B5 spin off - or B5 itself - used in homage to B7). It was the first but not the last "living ship" I fell in fannish love with (see below) and Terminal is as sad an episode as Orbit or Blake for me for that reason.

2.) Moya (Farscape). Moya the leviathan, a living ship in which the majority of the show's action takes place never says a single word on the show, but the series manages to convey her personality distinctly nonetheless, and she's as much a cast member as the ones played by human actors. ( Spoilers for Farscape and Doctor Who's sixth season ensue. ) Visually, the brown and golden organic colouring and all the curves instead of sharp angles really sell you on Moya as grown instead of built, and it's part of the unique Farscape world.

3.) The TARDIS (Doctor Who). One of many reasons why shipping wars in this fandom are so very superfluos is that the true OTP was always and without question Doctor (any regeneration)/TARDIS over forty years, and thank you, Neil Gaiman, for devoting an entire episode to this fact. :) (Well, there was that fling he had with Bessie the car , but other than that...) Seriously now, the idea of a blue police box being really the closet to Narnia a ship to traval through time and space with encapsulates the "wonderful nonsense" (lovely quote from The Next Doctor in one of the best verbal reactions to the TARDIS ever, uttered by David Morrissey) that is Doctor Who, and they who do not care for the TARDIS probably can't care for the show, either. Also?



4.) The Enterprise D (Star Trek: The Next Generation). Yes, I'm thoroughly fond of the original Enterprise, and get misty eyed when it explodes in ST III. But I still love the D best, with its bar Ten-Forward, its holodeck, its beige colours, Data's cat Spot and the ready room with Picard's goldfish Livingstone. It had a cosiness and home-iness the other versions lacked, which is of course why it later was disdained by certain fannish quarters. Maybe it's a sign of me getting old, but I like cosy. Space is cold enough anyway.

5.) Serenity (Firefly). Also a ship that feels like a home, despite coming from the other franchise tradition (aka it was obviously and acknowledgedly inspired by the Millennium Falcon). The show in its short life not only gave us one episode which showcased how Mal came to find her (Out of Gas) and why he's as in love as any other captain, but also a River-centric one where Serenity is both an invaded home and one that fights successfully back against the invasion (Objects on Space), and where she's paralleled to River, while the Big Damn Movie in its opening sequence manages to reintroduce the entire cast via a long uncut trip through the ship, thus reintroducing it as well, and ends with a direct Serenity/Zoe equation, and this last one is the one that struck me as most apt. If Moya, the Liberator and the Enterprise are more the motherly types of spaceships and the TARDIS is the Doctor's fellow traveller (or rather he is hers), Serenity is the war veteran of ships, battered, but still flying, and splendidly so.

1.) Patrick Stewart guest stars in season 4 of New Who. Err, I think there were rumours about him being Davros or something like that a few years back? Anyway. I wish. Not necessarily Davros (though any Patrick S. would have been fine!), but oh, I wish. (Especially since I've seen him and David Tennant together on stage.) (I'll never stop boasting about this.)

2.) JMS (that's Joe Straczynski to you, non-Babylon 5 people) does a remake of Blake's 7. Because he's the only one of the current crop I'd trust do one that gets core elements of the original and comes up with a spin of its own. Mind you, there would also be the usual JMS weaknesses (watch out for characters with the initials J.S.! Operatic speech! Someone at some point quotes the "never start a fight, but always finish it!" staying!), but it could be really really interesting. I tend to be sceptical of remakes/reboots, but now and then they surprise you in a good way. This one would have great potential. Alas, I don't think it was ever more than wishful thinking.

3.) Elves get it on more than once a millennium, or whatever the Tolkien-approved time span was. Not that I'd go to the opposite end of the spectrum as much fanfiction does, but come on. No species deserves that little of a sex life.

4.) The Double Quickening at the end of the Comes a Horseman/Revelation two parter in Highlander has left Duncan and Methos with the ability to recognize each other beyond the general Immortal buzz. This was a popular fanon I was fond of back in my HL days and shamelessly used myself in fanfiction, despite the fact it's actually disproven by the show (in Forgive us our Trespasses, Duncan at one point feels an Immortal approaching and assumes it's Keane until he sees Methos).

5.) Various members of the Beatles have the ability to time-travel. At least judging by the sheer number of stories that let them do this, usually, but not always, to prevent John's death, it seems to be a popular conviction. Well, they did appear on Doctor Who once...