Subject: If I were to write Dr. Who fanfiction...
Author:
Posted on: 2015-07-11 22:08:00 UTC
…which I have a strong feeling I might… How much canon should I watch at a minimum before I attempt to try it? What was the amount for you other fans before you started?
I apologize for the double post, but there was no other thread to put this on.
So I found a fic. It's an utterly stupid crossover between Doctor Who and Mario, that's only about 500 words in length.
It features Davros and the Daleks, all of whom have been replaced.
There are only four Doctor Who experts currently active in the PPC; unfortunately, all are Time Lords who probably wouldn't mix well with Daleks.
Rina has her own problems, I have plans with the Librarian, I just did a cowrite with Dawn not too long ago (no Reader), and I think we can all agree that the Notary would be a nightmare for all parties involved.
I guess technically there's Morgan, since hS is still active, but... honestly? I'm kinda scared of working with the real oldbies. I don't know if my writing style (fluffy, lighthearted and generally happy) would mesh with that of, for instance, hS.
I'd love to work with Fish Custard, because the Fisherman is one of my favorite PPC characters, but alas, he seems to have faded into oblivion.
Does anyone else have Action agents familiar with Doctor Who, Time Lord or not? It's a short fic, but I'm not an expert in the field.
The fic is here, by the way.
I'm still around here and there - I'm just not on the Board all the time.
If it's not too late, I'd love to lend a hand with killing this thing. Equally if you've already planned it out, that's cool too!
Seen that you've already posted the mission further up. I like it, well done! ^__^
Would you be so kind as to share your email address? I'd love to work with you in the future.
richardjenkins28 AT gmail DOT com
That obfuscation will almost certainly not deter harvester-bots, but hey, worth trying!
But yeah, Season 9, much excite? :D
In other words: YES! :D :D
...I was planning to introduce Agent Alpha, a resurrected canonical from The Evil of the Daleks. Alpha already had the Human Factor in canon, so that's one less step.
We've already got humanized Dalek agents, at least one of which is yours, IIRC. What do you need with another one, and a canon character at that?
Just a reminder to all and sundry: recruiting canon characters, even ones that died in canon, is discouraged if not outright banned. It's one of those things that, while it did happen in the past, was generally agreed to have been a bad idea, even by some of the people that did it. I distinctly remember Chatvert expressing regrets about Team Phoenix, for one. The PPC is supposed to be preserving canon, not tinkering with it, which kinda means that dead people should stay dead.
~Neshomeh
If you really can't think of an original character from that setting, cobble together an Obvious Expy of the relevant canon character and say they're from a badfic. There's always comedy to be milked from that - or drama, in one of my own agents' cases. Poor Lilianna. She may one day be well.
((algie is in no way a compounded expy of strange and norrell nuh uh why did you even ask that nosiree bob))
As someone who's got WAY too many agents (and who may or may not be writing out one of my teams soon, shhh!), I can say with confidence that there IS such a thing as too many good ideas.
Now, I'm not a Dr. Who fan, but I know that it would be interesting to recruit a species considered canonically evil, even if I agree with the discussion on the Shroobs below that there's a limit to that. But I've learned the hard way that too much of a good thing can lead to bad outcomes - like trying to control too many things, for a start. This gets doubly problematic with regards to recruiting canon characters - Sarah's a replacement of a bit character at best. The closest we'd have to recruited canons is recruited canon REPLACEMENTS, which is a pretty big difference.
So, well, if you do have a humanized Dalek already, and if he's suitable for Action Department mission stuff, I'd say just use him. It can't hurt, can't it? :)
I believe I do.
Would you be interested in seeing the fic in question?
Let me just say that everything is wrong on the Mario side of things.
I tried to access one of your missions and what I got was this lovely thing.
I'm actually in the process of moving my missions all here.
Not everything is there yet, but a good portion of what I've written is.
You might want to edit the wiki accordingly, then.
I've been on the busy side lately.
I hope I didn't offend you in any way. I'm still just kinda intimidated by the prospect of working with you.
Me and my younger sister are still watching the 2005 first season. We're new the end, just finished the two London Blitz episodes (those FREAKED ME OUT BEYOND MEASURE - it's a wonder I didn't get nightmares) and I'm excited to see how this return to London in Rose's present day will go. The Slitheens AND the Rift working together… Hoo boy…
One question: Taking into account what the Time Lords can do with Regeneration, how did all of the Doctor's people get wiped out except him? How is it possible with an ability like that? How did all the Daleks get wiped out except the one with their abilities?
There's a way to stop regeneration. Certain ways prevent it entirely, and you may have noticed agents on DW missions shooting Time Lord Sues twice. As far as I currently remember, if a Time Lord is killed mid-regeneration, it's permanent. Something like that.
But yeah, as the Boarder below me who I really need a nickname for said, it gets explained later on in the series.
~DF
PS: [EvilAI]UBEROverlord, do you have a particular preferred nickname? I definitely need one for you--from memory, the best I got was 'Evil[AI]Uberoverlord'. Which is the right words and word order, at least, but...nickname would be great. I'm just not at all sure which part of your name to take...
If you wanted to you could call me Mr. Grumpy Gills. Of course I might question the sanity of that, and would like to be informed ahead of time. But most people I think are using EAIOU or something similar.
It gets explained later in the series. I think the episodes, The Name of the Doctor, The Day of the Doctor, and the Time of the Doctor end up explaining it best.
I'm terribly confused. Some are arguing that since John Hurt's Doctor was actually called a Doctor in the 50th Anniversary (which I know nothing about except that a whole bunch of Doctors get together in one place), then he /should/ be the Eighth Doctor, and the whole list might have to be renumbered.
So, does he count or not? And why "The War Doctor"? Was he more bloodthirsty than his fellow versions?
Y'know... cause he's 8½.
Is Seven the Kurosawath Doctor?
I AM NOT GOING TO GO THROUGH IMDB LOOKING FOR FILMS THAT ONLY HAVE A NUMBER AS THE TITLE yea i totes am
Seven is the Fincherd Doctor, not the Kurosawath.
((I shall be ignoring the "vain phase"))
William Hartnell is the Crowderth Doctor
Patrick Troughton is the Papaioannouth Doctor
Jon Pertwee is the Raffillth Doctor
Tom Baker is the Sladeth Doctor
Peter Davison is the Obolerth Doctor
Colin Baker is the Karpynecth Doctor
Sylvester McCoy is, as Des correctly ascertained, the Fincherth Doctor
Paul McGann is the Blackburnth Doctor
John Hurt is the Fellinith Doctor
Christopher Eccleston is the Ackerth Doctor
David Tennant is the Kiarostamith Doctor
Matt Smith is the Madejth Doctor
Peter Capaldi is the Schumacherth Doctor
I have a lot of films to watch now. =]
Since you already know about the War Doctor, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to show his origin. Here it is.
Also, for the Time War-- you can catch a glimpse of it here.
Is why the Librarian, when he heard about the Last Great Time War, considered running away before it even began the single most important decision of his life.
You said you'd seen most of the '05 series, right? So you've heard of the Last Great Time War? I'm pretty sure the Gelth mention it way back in The Unquiet Dead, and I'm nearly certain it comes up in Dalek.
Anyway, short answer: 'the War Doctor' is a term we use for the incarnation of the Doctor who was around during the (latter part of the) Time War. He was more warlike than his pre- and post-decessors, as a deliberate choice (he decided to take part in the Time War, rather than stay on the sidelines). He also specifically rejected the title 'Doctor', though as Some Say, he kind of reclaimed it during the 50th Anniversary (which you should wait to watch in order, for the record).
So should the numbering be changed? Ehhh... no. ^^ It's all external anyway - Nine never said 'I'm the Ninth Doctor' (or indeed 'I'm the Tenth Doctor, but I don't like to count the last guy, so let's go with Ninth'); they're just designations we use so we know which one we're talking about. And 'the War Doctor' is a perfectly acceptable title.
The production team pretty much settled this when they chose to call the current incarnation Twelve, even though he's in the thirteenth distinct form the Doctor has taken.
(Oh, and going back to your original question about the Time War: pretty sure Time Lords can't regenerate from a Dalek extermination beam. It'd be a pretty shoddy weapon to use against them if they could. ^^ Also they can't regenerate from being atomised or whatnot.)
hS
Paul McGann was Eight, and he comes before the War Doctor. The War Doctor would be Nine, thus ruining the numbering scheme for all the New Who fans. If he needs a number, he's officially 8.5 to me.
But yes, watch everything in order.
Because we watched The Parting of Ways/The Christmas Invasion in one night… And what a satisfying conclusion for the Ninth!
The Tenth's opening episode was beyond funny. We laughed until I had to stop due to my sis not wanting what they said to be blocked out. So I smiled until my face hurt, to things like these:
Fire coming out of instruments
I know it's the Christmas Tree of Death, but the fact that it's playing "Jingle Bells"…!
His asking Rose how he looks, while surrounded by hostile aliens, and then complaining about his hair
The way he says "Button"
My sister doesn't like him though, says he's creepy and she doesn't like his new form.
Aside from that, I just realized that if the ninth series, and thus the 17th Doctor are to begin soon, then we're six series behind you if you count the 10th. Aww man…
(Hey, I got the italicize command to work! Yay!)
We're only up to the 12th. ;)
I assummed a new Doc came along at the end of each series. Guess not. Is it just me, or does that version look creepy?
…which I have a strong feeling I might… How much canon should I watch at a minimum before I attempt to try it? What was the amount for you other fans before you started?
Imagine trying to write fan fiction of, say, Harry Potter, while having only watched one of the movies. You're obviously going to get loads of stuff wrong, because you don't have all the information.
Obviously, you can't watch all of Doctor Who because there are missing episodes from the Classic era, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't see as much as you can before writing. And where you're unsure of stuff, use the Wiki. It's full of information you might have missed on your first, or even second or fifth viewings.
I don't think Ixendelle are trying to claim you need to watch literally every episode of Doctor Who still available before writing fic of it, because that would be pretty silly. You don't need to watch the First Doctor nearly marry an Aztec priestess in order to write the Ninth fighting banjo-wielding aliens, for instance.
What you need is to have a clear understanding of how the setting works, and to have all the facts relevant to the story you're writing. If you want to write about the Seventh Doctor, watch enough of him that you know how he acts. If you want to write about giant insect aliens, find out how many times the Doctor has faced those before (it seems to be quite a few). If you want to write a regeneration, find out how those work - preferably by watching some of them, but the Wiki is always useful.
hS
PS: I mean, hopefully the opening statement was kind of obvious? Iximaz writes Pokemon while presumably not having watched all 885 episodes of the anime; Desdendelle writes a Time Lord while not having, I suspect, listened to every Doctor Who audiobook; they both write for the PPC while not having read everything ever written about it, because a lot of it is very hard to find! Sometimes simple logic goes a long way. ^_~ ~hS
Nobody's expecting you to know what's not yet known. It is, however, expected, that you will know what is already known.
It's expected you'll know as much as possible about the fandom before writing fanfic for it.
But that'll be hard to do since the canon has never finished completely as of yet.
