thisbluespirit | Fic: Red Sky in the Morning

I had a blood test yesterday, so I had to go out and therefore am too tired to anything, but also I thought it was safe to watch the last bit of Forsyte Saga segments that I was watching, but apparently the 1960s Forsyte Saga is never a safe thing to watch, because somehow I have committed fic with my sole bit of remaining brain anyway. (I am failing steadily while i post this, but the fic was ok i think, how does that work?)

In revenge I made it fit possibly more ongoing Bingo and prompt table squares than any other fic I've written.

(I am at least mildly amused that my reaction, creatively, is exactly the same as when I watched it the first time: I wrote the only Fleur/Michael fic in the world and then made Fleur/Jon graphics, and the only difference this time is that I hadn't watched enough of it to do Fleur/Michael so I did Anne/Jon instead. The visuals are pretty with Fleur/Jon, but it's not a ship that ought to sail anywhere, certainly not the second time around.)

Red Sky in the Morning (1316 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Forsyte Saga - All Media Types, The Forsyte Saga (TV 1967)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Anne Wilmot Forsyte/Jon Forsyte, Fleur Forsyte/Jon Forsyte, Fleur Forsyte/Michael Mont
Characters: Anne Wilmot Forsyte, Jon Forsyte, Michael Mont
Additional Tags: Missing Scene, Angst, Pining, Emotional Hurt, Community: hc_bingo, Whumptober, Community: genprompt_bingo, Community: 100ships, Community: 100fandoms, Complicated Relationships, Episode: An Afternoon At Ascot, fears of infidelity
Summary: Maybe there’s a terrible storm on its way to tear them all apart, maybe it’ll all blow over before it comes to that. It’s the worst kind of waiting.

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From:

liadt

*hugs* seems a popular week for blood tests!

From:

thisbluespirit

I like to be fashionable! <3

From:

sovay

but apparently the 1960s Forsyte Saga is never a safe thing to watch, because somehow I have committed fic with my sole bit of remaining brain anyway.

At least it's a productive event horizon?

From:

thisbluespirit

I suppose so, but it was very unnecessary! <3

Also I made gifs from Jon's last scene, because it was very much, oh hello, a fully formed Martin jarvis finally arrives:

(Those gifs should be the same size but they're not, cf. used up brain.)

From:

sovay

Also I made gifs from Jon's last scene, because it was very much, oh hello, a fully formed Martin jarvis finally arrives

The microexpressions!

From:

thisbluespirit

The microexpressions!

♥ And, yes - Jon's generally the most straight-forward character, and though he got a lot of melodrama heaped on his head at the culmination of the first 3-episode Fleur/Jon arc (which was also great, lol), this time he's ashamed of what he's done while being humiliatingly aware of how Fleur played him to make it happen, so there's a lot of different feelings to get expressed for the first time. Which of course gives the actor a chance to do his stuff as we've seen him before (later) (& his delivery is lovely, too.)

(The whole Fleur/Jon relationship is a mirror of Soames/Irene (their father and mother; and objectification & idealisation of Irene is also echoed in objectification & idealisation of her son). Soames committed marital rape against Irene because he believed he owned her & wouldn't let her go. Fleur gets pretty close to that in what she does to Jon here; she goes to extreme lengths to get him (to a degree you can only hope he'll never work out), and what happens between them in the end is not really consensual, even though it's complicated by Jon still having strong feelings for Fleur.)

ETA: oh, and also, in less literary things, I may have the Breakaway tie-in (there was actually only one, i misunderstood Mariocki). XD (It was very cheap and I do at least now have a decent explanation of how Sam Harvey wound up writing children's books, which, as a person who once had to spend a lot of time worrying about child protection during class visits by authors, I'm very relieved about, lol).

Edited Date: 2022-10-19 08:40 pm (UTC)

From:

sovay

this time he's ashamed of what he's done while being humiliatingly aware of how Fleur played him to make it happen, so there's a lot of different feelings to get expressed for the first time.

He's so exquisitely good at being compromised.

(That relationship sounds like it needs all the content warnings.)

From:

thisbluespirit

He's so exquisitely good at being compromised.

He really, really is.

That relationship sounds like it needs all the content warnings.

Yeah, even up to "accidentally killing both your fathers" lol. (The Forsyte saga is a lot of dry stuff about art and beauty and property and being scathing about Victorians plus slum conversion plans mixed with some wonderfully ott family melodrama.)

The gifset these were from emerged from my queue here, btw: https://thisbluespirit.tumblr.com/post/699100574718771200/but-today-up-there-on-the-downs-walking-for

(idk why I do these things - the internet is very uninterested, lol!)

From:

sovay

Yeah, even up to "accidentally killing both your fathers" lol.

That is, I believe one says nowadays, extremely extra.

The gifset these were from emerged from my queue here, btw

MARTIN JARVIS I DON'T HAVE TIME TO WATCH THE FORSYTE SAGA I HAVE A MOVE TO ORGANIZE.

From:

thisbluespirit

MARTIN JARVIS I DON'T HAVE TIME TO WATCH THE FORSYTE SAGA I HAVE A MOVE TO ORGANIZE.

He isn't even in it till the second half! XD (I mean, if one day it works out, it is interesting and it's peak b&w BBC classic drama and Eric Porter and Susan Hampshire and Nyree Dawn Porter in particular are stand-outs. 18 million people watched it! The nation closed down. Even my granny still had opinions when I read the books 25 years later, and I don't remember that ever happening over any other TV, or even books. (She liked Fleur and felt that they should have let Fleur have Jon, which teen me had v little patience with, because Team Michael "Too Good To Live" Mont, thank you. But I do get it now I've seen the adaptation.)

Btw, I was rewatching Breakaway's The Family Affair again (cos, now I have the book, right?) and aside from still having a stupidly nice time doing so, I noticed that the booklet contained some scans of press articles on the serial, most of which were in German, but under them was a Radio Times piece and enough of it was visible to see part of an interview with Martin Jarvis, talking about the filming of the first serial:

"I'd finish a scene with a character at one end of the studio and another character would begin a conversation with me at the other end. Of course, the camera would stay on him because I wasn't actually there. I would be rushing towards him changing my clothes and lighting a cigarette of a different length until eventually I arrived and leaned nonchalantly next to him on the bar. Then the camera would turn to me as if I'd been there all the time. It was pretty hair-raising."

!! And I'd been doing my head in watching the first and second times because I could tell they were doing some weird cutting away from him but I couldn't understand why. I get it now, and, of course, the plot revolves around him and there are hardly any scenes without him in. Even with the pre-filmed location stuff being quite a substantial amount, that's still going to get awkward in old time recording practice. But, lol, omg. That also explains presumably why his tie was wildly askew in the last scene I just watched with no other discernable reason and also generally the default air of amusement he's carrying around with him, despite his parents having been murdered.

(The actual booklet is all in German, but I can see they do quote some more of this interview, but it doesn't look like it's that part. However, it's probably better to see if the internet has any Radio Times articles to offer rather than translating someone back and forth into German and trying to work out what they actually said.)

From:

sovay

18 million people watched it! The nation closed down.

I think that's wonderful. And it even still exists, as opposed to being one of those legendary events you had to be alive for, so that you can make emotionally lacerating beautiful gifsets of it.

(She liked Fleur and felt that they should have let Fleur have Jon, which teen me had v little patience with, because Team Michael "Too Good To Live" Mont, thank you. But I do get it now I've seen the adaptation.)

Would the relationship have worked if left alone by their families or would it always have self-destructed regardless of family history? I ask because "goes to dubcon lengths to secure object of affections" sounds like a slight dealbreaker to me.

"I'd finish a scene with a character at one end of the studio and another character would begin a conversation with me at the other end. Of course, the camera would stay on him because I wasn't actually there. I would be rushing towards him changing my clothes and lighting a cigarette of a different length until eventually I arrived and leaned nonchalantly next to him on the bar. Then the camera would turn to me as if I'd been there all the time. It was pretty hair-raising."

Oh, my God, that's amazing. I hadn't realized that Martin Jarvis' greatest acting achievement was keeping anything that could even be mistaken for a straight face through that mishegos.

(I forgot to ask earlier, how did Sam Harvey wind up writing children's books, such that his publisher can tell him that suddenly living in a murder flat has really improved his style?)

From:

thisbluespirit

so that you can make emotionally lacerating beautiful gifsets of it.

<3<3<3

Well, 1960s BBC may have been careless, but even they baulked at junking the most expensive drama they'd ever made (£250,000 in 1966!), a massive success and which even sold to the USSR (a first for a BBC serial of that kind).

Would the relationship have worked if left alone by their families or would it always have self-destructed regardless of family history? I ask because "goes to dubcon lengths to secure object of affections" sounds like a slight dealbreaker to me.

I think the thing that I like most about the adaptation's handling of it is that I simply don't know. It shows all the reasons it most likely would never work and yet and yet and yet. (Tbf to Fleur, the dubcon thing happens only after she lost Jon the first time and spent 7 years still nursing a broken heart over it, and Fleur just cannot imagine that, if he still has feelings for her, he can not want the same thing; she's just enabling! Except, of course, that isn't how it is...)

Oh, my God, that's amazing. I hadn't realized that Martin Jarvis' greatest acting achievement was keeping anything that could even be mistaken for a straight face through that mishegos.

He keeps positioning himself at the back of the set for an easy getaway! XD Also I feel we should pour one out for people like Angela Browne and Glyn Houston left solemnly imparting plot and red herrings to a rapidly deaprting Martin Jarvis.

I forgot to ask earlier, how did Sam Harvey wind up writing children's books, such that his publisher can tell him that suddenly living in a murder flat has really improved his style?

(Aha, yes. And also, sorry, I was having annual autumnal Book Festival stress dreams again; it happens. I never had the scenario where the school refused to let the author in on the day, but my colleague had it twice. I did have one where the head evidently decided not to let the poor author near the children outside of the talks, even though the whole point of us librarians going round with them is that they're not alone in there anyway. Schools! They are whole worlds to themselves and it's so hard to navigate them, especially when you are doing it on behalf of an author, an authority, a publisher and a charitable organisation all at the same time. So, I'm just, going, OMG Sam Harvey c.2000, still writing, nobody's going to like "loner who left the police and whose Father was a drug smuggler" on the form!)

Anyway, he told the stories to his much younger sister Meg (the one his parents were supposed to be going to visit instead of getting murdered) and since to her children when he writes letters to them! (I think they cut it because it tied in too much with the other part they cut about his father actually being his stepfather. Which, I can see why, but OTOH it means he in fact writes his books under his real name; it's his other career and name which is not the real him, and I think that does tie in with what he's doing in the series, such as it is.)

From:

sovay

Well, 1960s BBC may have been careless, but even they baulked at junking the most expensive drama they'd ever made (£250,000 in 1966!), a massive success and which even sold to the USSR (a first for a BBC serial of that kind).

I know, but it's the BBC! I don't trust them even with massive successes! Public Eye was commercially and critically popular and look where it ended up!

It shows all the reasons it most likely would never work and yet and yet and yet.

All right: I will not regret watching this series even beyond Martin Jarvis, because I love that kind of ambiguity and nuance; the ways you can keep wondering, but time ran this way instead and you'll never know.

So, I'm just, going, OMG Sam Harvey c.2000, still writing, nobody's going to like "loner who left the police and whose Father was a drug smuggler" on the form!

I'm very sorry about your stress dreams, but that's a wonderful image.

(I think they cut it because it tied in too much with the other part they cut about his father actually being his stepfather. Which, I can see why, but OTOH it means he in fact writes his books under his real name; it's his other career and name which is not the real him, and I think that does tie in with what he's doing in the series, such as it is.)

I would have cut that detail even less than I would have cut the opportunity to watch Martin Jarvis awkwardly try to cover up for his murder flat.

From:

thisbluespirit

I know, but it's the BBC! I don't trust them even with massive successes! Public Eye was commercially and critically popular and look where it ended up!

Oh, no! The BBC were bad enough, especially in the 60s, but generally less terrible than the ITV companies - they did try to retain important things and example episodes and producers could mark things down to be protected, and they were supposed to retain at least one of the overseas copies, but people weren't because of the fire hazard and assuming the videotape survived and things. Public Eye was an ITV series, & like so much ITV stuff ran foul of the many regional company takeovers and changes and that's why the Thames years survive (Thames was still around till the 90s and therefore kept a lot of its stuff from 1969 onwards) but the ABC years don't, as Thames combined ABC and ah, I forget which other(s) now - Associated Rediffusion, perhaps, that also certainly got taken over and very little remains, even less than ABC - and then everything with the old logo on was junked, because it couldn't be shown again. ITV continued this sort of thing into the 1980s and are said to have nearly junked Sapphire & Steel for the same reason (the DVD booklet says it was saved by an employee who had liked it), whereas the BBC were routinely keeping everything before then. (ITV companies have lost whole 1990s children's shows and things since!)

All right: I will not regret watching this series even beyond Martin Jarvis, because I love that kind of ambiguity and nuance; the ways you can keep wondering, but time ran this way instead and you'll never know.

Even right at the end, with the scenes I was talking about (and giffing) it's not entirely clear cut.

I would have cut that detail even less than I would have cut the opportunity to watch Martin Jarvis awkwardly try to cover up for his murder flat.

Yeah. <3

We still hear about his sister, and that Kaye was his mother's maiden name (which is in the book as well, it's just revealed to be a convenient lie later), and that though he was close to his mother and sister, he never really got on with his (step)father, he was too distant, so we still get the sense of moving back to the identity he really feels at home with. (Sorry, I was forgetting for a moment you haven't watched the Beige Murder Flat serial, just the Red Murder Flat serial. ;-p)

ETA (much later!): He just sat through another scene not only with his tie askew but with the shirt not actually fully done up underneath it! (Sorry; I have a new game. It's not easy to play because it's clearly not actually done linearly as it would have been only a few years previously, but yep. He just leant on the bar and then turned up not precisely fully dressed yet. XD)

Edited Date: 2022-10-30 01:07 pm (UTC)

From:

sovay

The BBC were bad enough, especially in the 60s, but generally less terrible than the ITV companies - they did try to retain important things and example episodes and producers could mark things down to be protected, and they were supposed to retain at least one of the overseas copies, but people weren't because of the fire hazard and assuming the videotape survived and things.

I did actually know who produced Public Eye, I just glitched, being tired! I acquired a perhaps unwarranted bitterness toward the total state of mid-century British TV years ago when I was trying to track down Peter Cushing's television work and the answer was Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954) and the sound of tumbleweed.

(The ITV employee who liked Sapphire & Steel was professionally and morally correct.)

He just sat through another scene not only with his tie askew but with the shirt not actually fully done up underneath it!

That is completely endearing.

Edited (I am on something like day five or six of a migraine-level headache and it's having effects) Date: 2022-10-30 06:07 pm (UTC)

Fic: Red Sky in the Morning

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