Speranza

Name:	speranza, User:Speranza
Alias(es):	cesperanza, Cesca, Ces, Francesca
Type:	fanwriter, vidder, moderator
Fandoms:	C6D, due South, M*A*S*H, QAF UK, Stargate Atlantis, The Dead Zone, The Sentinel, The West Wing, Sherlock_(BBC), True Blood, Fringe, Person of Interest, Avengers/Thor
Communities:	sga_flashfic, sga_noticeboard, sherlock_flashfic
Other:
URL:	Speranza's Fiction Cesperanza on blip.tv Cesperanza at BamVideoVault Speranza on AO3 Speranza on livejournal
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A prolific writer in multiple fandoms, Speranza has most recently been active in Person of Interest and Sherlock (BBC) fandoms. She spent several years in the 2000s primarily writing fic and making vids in the Stargate Atlantis fandom. She wrote in due South fandom beginning in 2001 and migrated to SGA in 2005, with a number of other ex-Sentinel dS writers. Anything for Love, a 2012 Vividcon vid she made with astolat, can be read as part fannish autobiography, showing how astolat seduced Speranza into a succession of fandoms that Speranza had previously insisted she would never be interested in.

She mods the SGA flashfiction LiveJournal community [1], the SGA noticeboard LJ community [2], and the Sherlock flashfic Dreamwidth community [3].

She currently serves as the archivist of the Due South Archive [4], and is also the moderator of the dS mailing lists DSX and DIEF. She was a moderator of LJ communities DSReporter and DSNoticeboard, modded the dS flashfiction community from its inception until 2007, and founded the community dS flashback.

In addition to her community-infrastructure work in her current and past fandoms, she has also run several multifandom writing challenges, most notably the Canadian Shack Challenge, the Inappropriate Elf Challenge, and the Tax Shelters Challenge.

Francesca / Speranza / Cesca / Cesperanza

Speranza first gained fannish fame in The Sentinel fandom under the name Francesca. When she first entered Due South, she wrote under a new name, Speranza, and made no reference to her Sentinel stories, perhaps wanting to see how her stories would be received if read on their own merits rather than through the lenses of already knowing and liking her work. Alternatively, she may have wanted to avoid the persistent Sentinel fans who kept asking her to continue updating The Nature Series.

zvi says, though she can't provide links to said confrontation and was never in the fandom herself: "Although confronted with the similarity of her work as Francesca to her work as Speranza, she did not initially admit to being the same person." Liviapenn recalls that Speranza told her not to tell anyone else that she was the same person, but no longer has the email for confirmation.

Speranza's livejournal user name is Cesperanza, and she also goes by the nicknames "Ces" and "Cesca".

All these aliases account for the otherwise perplexing file structure of her website, Fanfiction by Speranza.

Writing style

mamaffy in ds_profiles says about Ces's due South writing:

"She is just a wonderful storyteller. She can take an unusual idea (like Fraser, the criminal mastermind) and develops a detailed and convincing scenario that is true to canon, yet stretches it into something new. Her stories often have a complex overall plot with enough detail to make it unforeseeable. It's like watching the show sometimes, or reading a very good book with beloved characters. She involves crimes, action scenes, backstories, the bullpen, quirky events, and full-fledged OCs. Slash is plentiful and special but not always front and center. Every story has something different to it, and it's worth to read them all."

Influential Works

• Written by the Victors SGA, 2007

• Chicago's Most Wanted due South, 2001

• With Six You Get Eggroll due South, 2001

• The Nature Series: The Sentinel, 1998

due South Notable Works

• Beyond Embarrassment (Fraser/Kowalski, ~11,000 words). Wonderful spin on the magical realism in Due South. It's angsty, emotional, and very exciting to read.

• Kowalski Is Bleeding (Vecchio, Fraser/Kowalski, ~40,000 words). Vecchio rushes to be on Fraser's side when Kowalski goes missing. It's very angsty, has beautiful Fraser-Vecchio friendship, and great Vecchio POV. There is also a DVD commentary for this story that explains some of the decisions behind this fic; for example, the slightly unusual format.

• Ping (Fraser/Kowalski, ~6,900 words). One of her shorter stories, it's hilarious and much fun to read. Fraser pings on another man and Kowalski is not amused.

• Scrabble (Fraser/Kowalski, ~29,000 words). An unusual format. The story is told with parallel Fraser- and Kowalski-POVs, presented in a table next to each other. It's just a trip to read, to see how their thinking differs. There are links for two different browser versions to choose from.