Beyond the Roundels

Another of the AU_gust ficlets, this one for the prompt "Masquerade Ball" and also for allbingo Crime Classics square "Foreign Bodies." I put 0 research and accuracy into it and the fandom doesn't have enough fic to warrant an AU, but I was thinking about WML when I saw the prompt. Anyway, less traumatic than the actual incident's end in 1.6, one trusts.

Masquerade Ball (633 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Wish Me Luck (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Colin Beale/Matty Firman
Characters: Colin Beale (Wish Me Luck), Matty Firman
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Regency, Spies & Secret Agents, Ficlet, Community: allbingo, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Alternate Universe - Napoleonic Wars, handwaves accuracy, Matty just being Matty in any time period, Implied Sexual Content
Summary: Matty and Colin get caught in a compromising position.

(I thought I was doing better today but I just failed at the summary sentence three four FIVE times in a row, so I do hope my editing was actually okay. It was only tweaking, so let's hope so.)

I forgot I hadn't quite brought my rainbowfic posting up to date, so here's the last one I wrote before summer:

Name: Singled Out
Story: Starfall
Colors: Warm Heart #29 (Pleasure); Beet Red #29 (Wear it well)
Supplies and Styles:
Word Count: 3726
Rating: PG
Warnings: Minor injury.
Notes: Portcallan, 1313; Viyony Eseray, Leion Valerno, Kadia Barra, Seahra Jadinor, Kettah Jadinor.
Summary: Leion is being frivolous, Viyony has a question, and Kadia is behaving strangely yet again...

I managed to post one of the other AU-gust ficlets I did - this one for the prompt "Dragons" for B7. (Also for 100_women prompt #68 fire & allbingo Crime Classics square "Green For Danger.")

Green For Danger (751 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Blake's 7
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Jenna Stannis, Roj Blake, Kerr Avon, Liberator (Blake's 7), Zen (Blake's 7)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Ficlet, AU-gust | August Writing Challenge, Community: allbingo, Episode: s01e02 Space Fall, Community: 100_women, Liberator/Zen is a dragon, Alternate Universe - Fantasy
Summary: There's freedom or death waiting at the end of this tunnel...

Okay, I knoooooow I am being rubbish at all my other bingos currently, but if allbingo's August theme happens to be irresistible, everything will be different this time, right? XD

(Tbf, the odds are rather better than the last few weeks anyway...)

But, I give you a Crime Classics Bingo Card made from titles from the British Library's crime catalogue:

Someone from the Past	He Who Whispers	Tour de Force	Fear Stalks the Village	Antidote to Venom
Family Matters	Foreign Bodies	Tea on Sunday	It Walks by Night	Green for Danger
Settling Scores	As If By Magic	WILD CARD	The Black Spectacles	Somebody at the Door
Twice Round the Clock	The Man Who Didn’t Fly	Excellent Intentions	Crossed Skis	Serpents in Eden
The Wheel Spins	Final Acts	Deep Waters	Not to Be Taken	Bats in the Belfry

I love it. I even got the source for The Lady Vanishes, go me! Any suggestions? (With the usual caveat of me probably doing something else anyway, heh.)

A couple more belated rainbowfic crossposts, which bring me very nearly up to date:


Name: Something Fishy
Story: Starfall
Colors: Vert #19 (Rescue from a dragon)
Supplies and Styles: Thread
Word Count: 1871
Rating: G
Warnings: None.
Notes: Portcallan, 1313; Viyony Eseray, Nin Valerno, Leion Valerno. Follows on immediately from On the Trail and Trap for the Unwary.
Summary: Leion has been found.

---

Name: Leftovers
Story: Starfall
Colors: Warm Heart #6 (Comfort)
Supplies and Styles: Novelty Bead (From 11 Years of Rainbowfic Space Month "sauce") + Thread
Word Count: 2604
Rating: PG
Warnings: None.
Notes: Portcallan, 1313; Viyony Eseray/Leion Valerno, Imenna Pollens. Follows on directly from Something Fishy
Summary: Leion attempts to thank Viyony.

I found this sitting in my posts in progress from March, about what I'd been watching at the time, or some of it. I obtained the two small pieces of info it was lacking and have otherwise posted as-is, so it's probably fairly babbly, but I feel it is better to post than not to post. (At least with random mostly-complete media posts, that is.)

The Ghost Camera (1933) This was recced to me ages ago by sovay and I managed to snag it in passing on TalkingPictures TV, but then failed to watch it. (I have issues with watching all sorts of things still for reasons that are too stupid and annoying to go into, but they are all basically the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome being a pain.) But then, liadt sent me it on DVD as well! So having been recced it twice by two people who know what's what when it comes to elderly film and suchlike, I had to eventually consider putting it in the dvd player and watching it.

Anyway, as I mentioned before, I really enjoyed it! It was sweet and fun. The internet tells me it was an unexpectedly good 'Quota Quickie' and it is. A nerdy scientist accidentally acquires a camera with a dangerous set of photos inside it, develops them and sets out, while being dogged by the criminals who want it, to find out whose camera it is - starting with finding the woman in one of the photos. It's engaging, the hero is charmingly atypical and shy, and it really does do some cool things with experimental camera angles and techniques, some of which almost even come across like handheld camera in places.

It's very early UK film, so it doesn't have the polish that a lot of the US ones had acquired by even this point, but if you like old films, this is a fun and interesting one.


Dope Girls (BBC) s1 I've only watched half of this because it was too much for me, but I neverthless watched that much, because it looked fascinating and different and the sort of thing I would be all over if it wasn't so much about crime. I'm hopeless when people in fictonal things are routinely committing crimes, and this is very violent, lots of 'rave' type shooting of scenes, none of which I can cope with. Saying I watched it, given how much I used the skip 10s button is probably an exaggeration BUT it's really beautifully made and it's about women immediately post WWI, based on a true story of a woman who set up a Soho nightclub (given value of 'true' no doubt varies in the show). The series also follows her illegitimate mixed race daughter Billie, a dancer, her legitimate teenage daughter who's getting into spiritualism following her father's death, and Violet, one of the very first women in the police, who's sent undercover into the nightclub.

Warnings for pretty much everything ever: dodgy accents, murder, suicide, meat & butchery, drugs, sex, 'rave' type scenes, beatings etc. It seems to be trying to be the new Peaky Blinders but since PB happened while I was ill and also contains characters who routinely commit crimes, I can't comment on accuracy of media's "the new x" pronouncements.

In short, it looks great if only I weren't me. I might still finish it, unwisely, anyway. It's about women immediately post WWI! /o\


They Came To A City (1944) This is one I happened to catch on TalkingPictures TV just as sovay was talking about John Clements, and I realised I had accidentally snagged this, featuring him. It's adapted from a play by J. B. Priestley, who actually turns up in a little prologue with a wee Ralph Michael & Brenda Bruce to tell the story of the film as a fable to prove a point to them. The story within a story is of nine ordinary British people from different walks of life who find themselves transported to a mysterious city run by an apparently perfect sort of socialist ideal. Some of them hate it, some of them stay, and some of them return to their regular lives to try and make their own cities more like the City. It's very static and talky and we don't see the city, but they pretty much lifted the original play's cast into the film and the performances are great all round and always raise it when it gets too close to being too much just talking about the ideas. It's slow but I found it utterly fascinating and loved it. I had to leave it on the DVR, so I couldn't even delete it as watched!

Also it gave me all the feels about the Beveridge Report and I've never said that about a piece of fiction before.


The Ghost Train (1941) wiki tells me there are actually about nine different versions of this, originally a play by Arnold Ridley who I know as Godfrey in Dad's Army. This is the most comic version, I gather, but also the one that has villainous Nazis instead of unlikely Cornish communists. It was another one I snagged recently from TPTV and, encouraged by current watching ability, I gave it a try and enjoyed it very much indeed! It does occasionally veer towards becoming a vehicle for Arthur Askey but it recovers itself in time, although I would definitely be interested in seeing some of the other versions. But his role as comedian was written in very well (he's a seaside vaudeville performer, his antics cause the stranding & solve it, and everyone gets annoyed with him) and I liked everyone else very much. Another mixed group of strangers get stranded in a remote Cornish railway station - with a story about a ghost train that runs through the station.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun, and I'd definitely be curious to see a version played more straight, but like I said, this is the one that sends a bunch of Nazis off a railway bridge, so I don't feel that it was the worst place to start!


[May comment: still didn't go back to Dope Girls; the state of my brain when employing the iPlayer can be easily illustrated by explaining that what I did was to watch a series and a half of Malory Towers instead. XD]

I have a few more rainbowfic pieces to catch up with again, so here's a start:

Name: Boxed In
Story: Starfall
Colors: Warm Heart #15 (Anger); Azul #18 (Trust your own strength); Beet Red #24 (Try, try, try again)
Supplies and Styles: Canvas + Novelty Beads (October 2024 Challenge "hate.")
Word Count: 1781
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Fighting, swearing.
Notes: 1306, Portcallan; Leion Valerno, Tana Veldiner, Atino Barra, Donn Chiulder, Tam Jadinor. Carries on from Whispers in the Mind.
Summary: Leion and Tana attempt an escape.

---

Name: Big City
Story: Starfall
Colors: Warm Heart #21 (Caution)
Supplies and Styles: Pastel (also for no_true_pair's March mini-round prompt "March Thirtieth - Leion & Viyony with the title "Big City".")
Word Count: 957
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Notes: 1313, Portcallan; Viyony Eseray, Leion Valerno, Imai Lullers.
Summary: Viyony and Leion cross paths for the first time, unknowing.

I made this post mostly in February and prefaced it with: "Belated, and I'm still not through reading the collection yet, but a bunch so far. It's only, what, February? /o\" I must report, I am still not through reading the collection and likely never will be, but I should post this so other people can read the gems I have enjoyed (so far?) anyway:

( Recs in Adventure Series, A Civil Contract, Craddock & Co, Death in Paradise, The Detectorists, The Devil's Cub, Drop the Dead Donkey, Emma, Enemy at the Door, Ghosts (US), The Good Place, The Holiday, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, The Mabinogion, McDonald & Dodds, No Wind of Blame, North and South, The Winslow Boy, Welcome to Our Village Please Invade Carefully )

I am doing terribly at schooling myself to actually complete any of my existing bingos, but allbingo's latest one was too tempting to resist, so I didn't.

ETA: Now with re-done table without the duplicate:

yellow streak	follow the yellow brick road	white wedding	black velvet	blue blood
greyhound	canary yellow	at the end of the rainbow	true colors	red light
silver fox	purple squirrel	WILD CARD	red cross	whitewash
blackout	big yellow taxi	black eye	red in the face	golden boy
nothing rhymes with orange	black as coal	pot calling the kettle black	red flag	in glorious Technicolor

Now, the question is, what do I write for it, and how do I avoid my usual pitfall of still being here in two years time with 13 squares completed and no bingo yet? (And do I want to, or is that actually the best state of being? XD)

As I said, I sort of stopped updating properly for a bit. Just the usual low patch, but I navigated last month's better in terms of posting than this month's.

1. I did manage to do three Fannish ficlets for no_true_pair and still have some rainbowfic ones I'll post for their amnesty, so that is quite good. Although I was quite blurry, I'm not sure how they turned out, really.


2. unconventionalcourtship is back! Time to pick a terrible romance novel and kill it with fanfiction or whatever your preferred approach is. As ever, you can ask the brilliant Unconventional Courtship Generator for ideas if you don't want to personally wade through Mills & Boon's back catalogue.


3. genprompt_bingo is open for a new round!


4. I don't know what is happening with this year, but I received a NYR gift from edwardianspinsteraunt for The Winslow Boy! It is amazing! I need to go comment properly, and will soon, but spent all day finishing off doing the 100 list thingies going around (see point 5.)

At the Threshold (5149 words) by edwardianspinsteraunt
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Winslow Boy (1999)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Robert Morton/Catherine Winslow
Characters: Robert Morton (Winslow Boy), Catherine Winslow, Desmond Curry
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Kissing, Vulnerability, questionable decisions, Confessions (of various sorts), semi-resolved sexual tension, Angst with a Happy Ending, past Catherine Winslow/John Watherstone
Summary: Catherine learns earlier of Sir Robert's sacrifice - a discovery that has surprising results.


5. I've been doing the tumblr-moved-to-Dreamwidth top 100 personal favourite/foundational movies list, plus, because I picked it up from lirazel (who I think was the one that added the other two categories), also 100 TV series, which took the longest. In the meantime, while it moved round my flist, it became solely a book list meme instead, because I suppose that is tumblr vs Dreamwidth for you, lol.

I'm not entirely surely fiddling with things for a week has made my lists any less weird. (You have to bear in mind that my most influential/favourite things, like everyone, tend to be from when I was growing up/younger but then also I have spent the last 15 years having appalling trouble trying to just read or watch anything and at least 5 or so years of that time solving that problem by watching slow-paced Brit TV, some of which was genuinely awesome and then the loss of DVDs for the past 3-5 years has completely scotched any means I had of watching anything not on terrestrial UK TV or the iPlayer. But it does make my list look like it was made by someone whose next words will be muttering about isn't modern stuff too Ruined By The Woke, which is very distressing to me, but that's why. I might mutter that people should write TV episodes like they're one act plays again instead of a soap opera installment and that it honestly doesn't have to cost THAT much to be good, but that's as far as it goes re. the worst effects of all the beige tv on my brain, I promise. It was excellent beige TV! And the bits that weren't, I was looking at James Maxwell's nose or Alfie's face or Suzanne Neve's awesome anyway. And the reading has been even worse, except the few books that worked could at least be from any era, because so far they haven't changed how that works. BUt, still, they had to be old enough to be chanced upon in charity shops so...)

If you want distractions of clicking things and telling me that you also watched/read about 10 of these, here is the film list, the TV List (much beige TV included some of which I had to add manually) and the books list.

No doubt I have forgotten obvious things and would probably make different lists again next week, but I had fun. It had some of the most obscure books and films on it, it just had issues with the TV sometimes.

It's taken me nearly 24 hours to realise that when I posted this fill for the last prompt of no_true_pair's mini-round yesterday, I crossposted it everywhere but here.

one here will constant be (851 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Pilgrim (Radio)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Death (Discworld) & William Palmer (Pilgrim)
Characters: Death (Discworld), William Palmer (Pilgrim)
Additional Tags: Community: no_true_pair, Crossover, Ficlet, Immortality, Community: genprompt_bingo, Community: 100fandoms, Community: allbingo, Original Character Death(s)
Summary: Death meets a conundrum.

First little piece for this round of no_true_pair, for the prompt "March Twenty-Sixth - Catherine & Charley at the beach" & also for 51pluscrossoverfandoms prompt #15 "promise."

The Wide Blue Yonder (969 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio), Winslow Boy (1999)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Charley Pollard, Louisa Pollard, Catherine Winslow
Additional Tags: Pre-Canon, Post-Canon, Crossover, Community: no_true_pair, World War I, Seaside, Children
Summary: Charley meets a strange lady on a south eastern beach in 1918.

Some nice things:

1. Trailer for the new Librarians series! It looks just as fun as before! I have NO idea how I will see it, but I've been missing having a fun magic TV series so much, and especially The Libs. (My usual method was to wait for the UK DVD release and then rewatch it all to death, cheering myself up muchly. ha bloody ha, as they say.)




2. I don't know what was in the water re. my fandoms for last Yuletide, but not only have I continued to have much fun with edwardianspinsteraunt and The Winslow Boy, but someone showed up this week on tumblr to first shower love on my for writing the only Jack/Angela The Net fic on the internet, but then wrote their own start of an AU, which promises to be fun, and turned up on AO3. (The Net is v hoky, but also deeply nineties, and Sandra Bullock and Jeremy Northam play a fun game of cat and mouse, plus JN, a cyber terrorist, fails to win because he doesn't know when to use an escape key, which should get some sort of prize for popcorn-worthy silliness.)

Alive on Paper (2842 words) by theelectriccat
Chapters: 2/?
Fandom: The Net (1995)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Angela Bennett (The Net 1995), Jack Devlin (The Net 1995), Ruth Marks (The Net 1995)
Additional Tags: Suspense, Killer For Hire, Crisis of conscience
Summary: Angela Bennett sees her perception of the handsome Jack Devlin crumble before her, but before he can fulfill his employer's expectations, he has a crisis of conscience, which only intensifies when his coworker notices his obvious attraction to his target.


3. Talking of The Winslow Boy, I am now watching the 1970s BBC version from The Rattigan Collection - I didn't entirely mean to, but I finally treated myself to rewatching the 1980s Browning Version with Ian Holm & Judi Dench & Michael Kitchen (&, as it turns out, a wee Stephen Mcintosh as Taplow and, briefly, Imogen Stubbs as Mrs Gilbert) for the first time in 30+ years, and it was on the same disc. I wasn't sure if I was ready to be fair to an alternate version, but it's got such different emphases etc, plus I can see more of where the 1999 does differ from the play, and it's not only really good in itself, but it's fascinating. Sir Robert has just turned up, and I was intrigued to see what Alan Badel would be like, because I mainly know him from being the perfectly OTT saving grace of duff 1960s films, and it's a very different performance to anything I had expected he might do (but good obv.) Eric Porter has rocked up for duty, aged up as per usual. I am happy to see him, but I am beginning to worry that he spent the entirety of the 60s and 70s as an aged up Edwardian gent. XD


4. My main way of calming myself lately re. the whole world being what it is has somehow turned out to be watching the better end of the Thomas More vids for The Tudors (with occasional relapses into Obidala vids, as per 2020). (It was because I knew I had found a good one, but I'd lost it, but I rediscovered it last week. It turned out I had saved it, but it was to Hallelujah and I'd assumed no good could come of fandom's eternal use and abuse of every version of that, and then another one, if with some dialogue going on there, and apparently angst and dodgy hat-wearing angles help? Plus, I'll give the person who couldn't resist making one to I'm Just More points for the lols.)

... oh drat, late for dinner now!