Snowflake Challenge 2021 Challenge #9 - Brag about yourself/rec yourself

[nym_wibbly]

Because of the enormous Once Upon a Time WIP eating most of my writing time, I've done very little else in fandom recently. However, this year is the 50th anniversary of the Master's first appearance in Doctor Who, and I'm giving myself permission to celebrate that and recharge my fannish batteries. Doctor Who is normally one of my quiet, background fandoms, really - I'm more immersed in canon than active in dissecting it - but when I do get creative, I think I'm pretty good at it. I have a mindset/headcanon that trickles gently across my handful of works in the fandom, but they're usually written years or decades apart, and are in no way a series.

 

I'm nearly finished writing a two-part story featuring the current Master and Doctor, under the AO3-series heading of Madness for Two. The first piece, from the Thirteenth Doctor's POV, is called Interdict. Very smut, much bonking. That one's finished. The second, from the Master's POV, is called Mortification, and dissects their relationship on multiple levels. That one's nearly finished as I post this.

I've thrown all my pet tropes at this - pairing, angst, hurt/comfort, character-driven-smut, sickfic, plot-in-a-bottle, massively-unreliable-narrator - and wrangled my way through recent Doctor Who canon (2015-2020) that I've not fully processed before. As well as Thirteen/Dhawan's Master, it's got flashbacks to Twelve and Missy, and the momentum of what was, before those incarnations, a m/m slash pairing with its roots in the early 1970's - just before I was born. This show, these characters, this Doctor-Master relationship, has literally been part of me my whole life and has shaped everything fannish I've done since - hence me making a big deal of the 50th anniversary.

I think (I hope) that these stories capture a snapshot of both the central characters and my lifelong passion and love for this aspect of Doctor Who. I've given it everything I've got, and I'm proud of that.

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Comments

[luthien]

It's been so great to have you working on something new lately, particularly something that you know so very well and love so much. Yay! *hug*

[sjh2009]

Thank you for the updated link, I meant to come back directly to your journal to look for it. Doctor Who is such a favourite isn't it. I loved it as a child but dipped in and out after as I dint like all of the doctors, not that they were bad but just didn't live up to the doctors I watched as a child (John Pertwee and Tom Baker).

I will bookmark your fic to read later.

Thank you for sharing.

[nym_wibbly]

It's always hard to let go of "our" Doctor. Mine was technically Tom Baker, but I was a bit young to fully embrace him, so I count Peter Davison as "my" Doctor. Even now, when the show's come so far, part of me still compares these newcomers to him and Baker!

I'm grossly disconcerted by the fact that the actors portraying the Doctor are now quite a bit younger than me.

[sjh2009]

Oh age yes, and to me it seems weird to have a female doctor! Not that I'm sexist because it's great to see a woman in such a prominent role!

[nym_wibbly]

The gender change is eased in quite gently and cleverly, I think - and of course, they cast one of Britain's finest character actors in Jodie Whittaker, who sells it. My mum just watched through New Who from start to end and I tagged along - first time I've seen it all in one go and taken note of how we got here. By the time it happens, the viewer is accustomed to the idea that the Time Lords can switch gender without batting an eyeid - a gentle drip-feed of the concept through Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor era, then the Master shows up female in Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor run and hangs a lantern on it to the extent that it becomes a non-issue. I don't think it could've worked a moment earlier than they did it - the contrast with the strapping-lad, romantic-male-hero Doctors would've been too stark after David Tennant or Matt Smith, and the revamped show was too new and insecure to attempt it when Christopher Eccleston departed in 2005.

If you're not sure about New Who, I'd recommend jumping in with Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor at season 8. Each re-casting in the new era is structured as a soft reboot for the show, accessible to new viewers and dropping enough exposition to get newcomers up to speed on things like Ice Warriors and TARDISes. Capaldi's a mega-fan from our timeframe, and he played Twelve partly as a walking tribute to the early Doctors. Modern, contemporary, but recognisably the 'original' Doctor too - prickly, alien, ancient, totally against the sexy emo huggy stuff that his predecessors got up to, and often quite scary in his own right. He's an easier sell than his immediate predecessors for someone steeped in the Pertwee-Baker eras.

[sjh2009]

That you. I'll give it a go, it will be interesting to see how much it's changed. Certainly the special effects must have come a long way, lol.