Hallowe'en Trick or Treat Meme
Oct. 29th, 2011 08:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thisbluespiritMemed from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
justice_turtle and dbskyler:
In honor of All Hallow's Eve, I'm inviting trick-or-treaters to my 'door.' Comment "trick-or-treat" to this post and...well, you know the drill. Treats can be anything that strikes my fancy (pics of fave actors or pairings, one sentence fics, graphics, a few words why I'm glad to have you on my flist, etc. etc.). The more "houses" to visit the more fun it'll be, so go ahead, open your journal and help spread the fun!
(It'll be better than me waffling on forever about happy letters...)
justice_turtle and dbskyler:In honor of All Hallow's Eve, I'm inviting trick-or-treaters to my 'door.' Comment "trick-or-treat" to this post and...well, you know the drill. Treats can be anything that strikes my fancy (pics of fave actors or pairings, one sentence fics, graphics, a few words why I'm glad to have you on my flist, etc. etc.). The more "houses" to visit the more fun it'll be, so go ahead, open your journal and help spread the fun!
(It'll be better than me waffling on forever about happy letters...)
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-29 07:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 05:25 pm (UTC)Since it is for Hallowe'en, what could be better than a spooky gen Jonathan Creek fic? One Foot in the Grave
***
This another Chesterton poem that I like (although the Great Minimum is still my favourite. Aside from maybe his Christmas ones):
The Pessimist
You that have snarled through the ages, take your answer and go--
I know your hoary question, the riddle that all men know.
You have weighed the stars in a balance, and grasped the skies in a span:
Take, if you must have answer, the word of a common man.
Deep in my life lies buried one love unhealed, unshriven,
One hunger still shall haunt me--yea, in the streets of heaven;
This is the burden, babbler, this is the curse shall cling,
This is the thing I bring you; this is the pleasant thing.
'Gainst you and all your sages, no joy of mine shall strive,
This one dead self shall shatter the men you call alive.
My grief I send to smite you, no pleasure, no belief,
Lord of the battered grievance, what do you know of grief?
I only know the praises to heaven that one man gave,
That he came on earth for an instant, to stand beside a grave,
The peace of a field of battle, where flowers are born of blood.
I only know one evil that makes the whole world good.
Beneath this single sorrow the globe of moon and sphere
Turns to a single jewel, so bright and brittle and dear
That I dread lest God should drop it, to be dashed into stars below.
You that have snarled through the ages, take your answer and go.
***
Also, sweet little multi-fandom vid that includes Martha and Sarah. (I like it, even though I have no clue about the other fandoms - maybe you will know some of them!)
:-)
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Date: 2011-10-30 08:52 pm (UTC)I'll check out the fic tomorrow - but thanks for sharing the vid and poem.
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Date: 2011-10-31 08:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-31 10:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-29 08:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 05:39 pm (UTC)***
Dr John Smith had suddenly recalled that he was actually Sir John Smith Pearsby of Scotland Yard – it was finding his police badge and papers that did it – and abandoned his assumed persona of bored academic and amateur forger to hasten to the house of Lady Pollard, who was complaining that a pink elephant had been stolen from the stables.
This should have seemed a little unlikely, but somehow it didn’t.
*
“Thank you for coming, Inspector,” said Lady Louisa. “It must sound rather odd, but my husband is away and I hardly knew what else to do.”
He nodded. “Perhaps you can enlighten me, Lady Pollard – was this a misleadingly named horse called Pink Elephant or has a large and unusually-hued pachyderm actually gone missing?”
“It was an elephant,” she admitted. “The circus were in dire need and wanted somewhere to put her -.”
“Her?”
She glanced at him in mild surprise. “Pearl,” she informed him. “The pink elephant. She’s terribly rare and relatively small as elephants go. And now she’s vanished. I don’t know what to make of it and the owner of the circus is being quite beastly about it.”
“I see,” he murmured. He didn’t, not yet, but it wouldn’t do to admit to bafflement to civilians quite so soon. “I think I had better question the rest of the household.”
*
He started with the daughter of the household, since he assumed that if anyone was likely to have had the time and inclination to take an interest in a visiting elephant, it would be young Miss Pollard.
*
“Did you want to take my fingerprints?” Miss Pollard asked almost immediately on entering the room. “I don’t mind, you know. I think this is all jolly exciting. Much more fun than that dreadful murder with Miss Wright and Professor Smith.”
He coughed. “Miss Pollard -?”
“I’ve been looking for footprints because you’d think an elephant would leave some, but no luck. I’m sure you must have done, though. I expect you’re dreadfully clever. Did you?”
“Miss Pollard, if I could just -.”
She leant forward. “I think that circus owner had something to do with it. I mean, it’s awfully suspicious, isn’t it? ‘By the way, Lady Pollard, do you want to look after my pink elephant?’ and two minutes later someone’s swiped the animal. Maybe it’s an insurance fraud?”
“Miss Pollard!”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sure you’ve thought of all that already. I should say that I’m sure it’s not Jem the stable boy, because he would never harm an animal. I can give you my word on that.”
“If I could possibly -.”
She turned thoughtful. “Why would someone steal an elephant? I mean, there’s been no ransom note and unless it’s one of those professional burglars looking for a challenge -.”
He gave up on doing the interrogation himself. “Do you want to join the police force?”
“Oh, no. I’m going to be an explorer,” she returned. “Mind you, it would be a thrill. Can I be your plucky assistant?”
He said, “I’d be delighted, but you’re still a suspect, young lady.”
“Oh, so I am. How funny. What about if you search my room and check there are no elephants there?”
He paused. “You might, having time on your hands, think this sort of thing an amusing practical joke.”
“Well!” She stared at him open-mouthed. “Do you know, I think that might be the rottenest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
He shrugged. “It had to be asked.”
“Have you any reason to believe I’m the sort of girl who goes around pinching pink elephants for a lark?”
Sir John swallowed. “You did try to run away from home last month.”
“That’s different. That was because Mother was talking about having me presented again and I said -.”
He gave in. “You know, I could use a plucky young assistant. I don’t know how it is, but police sergeants never have a proper sense of humour.”
“That’s an unfair generalisation,” she pointed out.
He smiled at her. “So it is. Perhaps you could tell me if you’ve observed anything unusual around the house and the grounds in the past few days?”
***
no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 06:09 pm (UTC)***
“Do you think it was somehow airlifted away?” suggested Charley.
He considered that. “It’s an interesting suggestion, but again, we come back to the fact that no one saw anything. Flying elephants are not common.”
“No-o,” she admitted. “But land-travelling ones leave footprints or tyre marks if they’ve been carted off.”
He said, “You know, I think I understand what this is about – at least in part.”
“Oh? You are clever, John.”
He frowned momentarily. “That’s Mr – or Inspector – or possible Sir John Ap – what was my name again?”
“Pearsby, I think.”
He nodded. “Well, it appears to me that we’ve been unfortunate enough to find ourselves in a Michael Innes parody. We’re only lucky that no one’s run off with a building yet.”
“I see,” said Charley. “I mean, I don’t, but it sounds about as likely as anything else, although I thought it was more like something out of a book by Joan Aiken.”
He looked at her. “Charley, this is the 1950s -.”
“1940s.”
“Whichever, it’s confusing enough without you bringing in books that were written in the 1960s and 1970s – and which, therefore, you couldn’t have read anyway.”
Charley paused. “I have. They were jolly good fun, too. I suspect it must have been in your library.”
“My library? What library?”
She said, “I think I’m beginning to get a headache. But there was a pink whale and nasty Hanoverians with a gun that could shoot across the Atlantic, although it wasn’t going to do Nantucket any good.”
“Well, unless any plucky, streetwise orphans turn up, I think we’ll stick with my theory. And it really is a shame. Given that I was supposed to be an academic, it could at least have been Edmund Crispin.”
Charley sighed. “But the elephant?”
“The elephant is, I believe, a red herring.”
“Now you’re just being silly!”
He directed a reproachful look at her out of blue, blue eyes. “Charley. Why would anyone want to steal an elephant? Aside from a small amount of ivory from the tusks, there’s little motive to be had. Pearl is only valuable if she can be exhibited. If she is exhibited, the perpetrator is immediately discovered. Therefore the theft of the elephant is in fact a distraction and what we need to discover is what else occurred that night that was overlooked in the light of that more obvious event.”
“Yes,” she said, her voice faltering. “I mean, that’s jolly clever and what have you, but I still don’t understand what someone did with the elephant.”
He faced her, with a stern light in his eyes. “We’re never going to get anywhere until we stop looking at the elephant. From now on, we are going to study everything else until we uncover an explanation.”
“Hmm.”
He smiled at her. “I see you’re dubious, Charley. I understand, but you must bear in mind that our elephant-thief is not necessarily sane.”
“Ah,” she said. “Well, that would explain a lot.”
***
no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 08:54 pm (UTC)(I particularly liked the Inspector attempting to question Miss Pollard).
no subject
Date: 2011-10-31 08:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-31 03:11 pm (UTC)“The elephant is, I believe, a red herring.”
And Charley! Hello again!
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Date: 2011-10-31 04:59 pm (UTC)Did you not want a treat? (I'm not madly into Hallowe'en, but 'treats' for flisters, well... ;-D)
(PS. I was going to give you a poem. Not one what I wrote, don't worry. :-p)
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Date: 2011-10-31 10:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-01 01:20 pm (UTC)Here is a pome what I didn't write. I like it, but it is important to bear in mind that it got tangled in my head with a post nuclear fallout book I was reading at the time (which was a long while ago). So it is an Apocalyptic poem, even if it actually isn't:
*
The Child Dying by Edwin Muir
Unfriendly friendly universe,
I pack your stars into my purse,
And bid you so farewell.
That I can leave you, quite go out,
Go out, go out beyond all doubt,
My father says, is the miracle.
You are so great, and I so small:
I am nothing, you are all:
Being nothing, I can take this way.
Oh I need neither rise nor fall,
For when I do not move at all
I shall be out of all your day.
It's said some memory will remain
In the other place, grass in the rain,
Light on the land, sun on the sea,
A flitting grace, a phantom face,
But the world is out. There is not place
Where it and its ghost can ever be.
Father, father, I dread this air
Blown from the far side of despair
The cold cold corner. What house, what hold,
What hand is there? I look and see
Nothing-filled eternity,
And the great round world grows weak and old.
Hold my hand, oh hold it fast-
I am changing! - until at last
My hand in yours no more will change,
Though yours change on. You here, I there,
So hand in hand, twin-leafed despair -
I did not know death was so strange.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-05 02:47 pm (UTC)Unfriendly friendly universe,
I pack your stars into my purse
Ugh.
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Date: 2011-11-05 04:55 pm (UTC)(I copied it out long ago from a textbook for English Lit - it had Six Modern Poets, and our teacher kept making us read Robert Frost for no good reason, and I would be sneakily reading this one. As a teenager, I had a preference for death and angst over mending a wall and milking the cow. Obviously, I've long since forgiven Mr Frost for having the misfortune to be the favourite poet of a quite dreadful teacher. Of course, in this instance, I just found it on the internet...)
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Date: 2011-11-06 10:49 am (UTC)Ha, don't all teenagers have a preference for death and angst? I need only flip through my secret notebooks of appalling fic (not that I realised at the time that it was fic - and not that I flip through them now if I can at all help it!)
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Date: 2011-11-06 07:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-29 09:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 01:53 pm (UTC)Also, this makes me think of you now, even if it is not your era of DW: "For some people, small, beautiful things are what life is all about." (It's the icons.)
(Some of the quotes make sense, some are just for the words, some because they amuse me & they're mainly from things I've randomly collected at some point.)
***
And by what witchery in the western hills
A throne stands empty for a thousand years.
The trees looked more than ever like sulky phantoms, obliged by an unkind spell to linger shivering out there in the wet.
"I'm undefined, that's my trouble. I like to think of myself as a shady, rather mysterious figure about the household, but I'm not, I'm not. I'm just the general dogsbody."
From witty men and mad
All poetry conception had
"We would not, even if we could, be ostentatiously vulgar."
Passionate peace is in the sky--
And in the snow in silver sealed
The most frightening word there can be is love.
I have known the inorexible sadness of pencils.
O God, make small
The old star-eaten blanket of the sky,
That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie.
The silver and violet leopard of the night
Spotted with stars and smooth with silence sprang;
And though three doors stood open, the end of light
Closed like a trap; and stillness was a clang.
A good image is a picture fired point blank into the brain.
The umbrellas looked like parties on sticks.
Reason and justice grip the remotest and loneliest star... Think of forests of adamant with leaves of brilliants. Think the moon is a blue moon, a single elephantine sapphire...
"I'm silly all the time. It's just more noticeable in the mornings."
Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would be too long, and the age of epics is past.
Shortly ere He came, the deep foul gulf did move
On all sides down to the centre, till I thought
The universe trembled in the throes of love.
***
Oh, and I mentioned Joan Aiken the other day. She is clearly also in love with words; I failed to say that. I was v amused to hear (in the TV version of MiaP) this line of hers: "Of all the pesky, contumacious, bellicocious tax-defaulters, he's the worst!" (I can't remember if they also kept the following one: "Will you please represent to Sir Randolph that he must not punch a tax official nor call him a skrimshanked blatherskite?" But it may be the only time they got contumacious in a children's TV serial. I thought you'd approve.)
And, just in case you haven't seen this & weird random highly subjectively chosen quotes were not much of a treat, (probably my fave Eleven-era fanfic): The Care & Feeding of Tiny Humans by netgirl_y2k.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-02 10:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-02 09:28 pm (UTC)Also, I left off any attributations, but if you want to know who said any of the less obvious ones, I do have that info. Somewhere. (I just wanted random word-snatches for you, heh.)
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Date: 2011-11-05 10:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-06 07:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-29 10:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 06:02 pm (UTC)I have a total of three...
Obverse (125 words, gen. Jonathan Creek/Sherlock crossover.)
Our Days Begin With Trouble (562 words, gen, Crossover with SJA.)
Also, which you won't have seen, because it's not posted anywhere else, a long gen missing episode type fic (in blog entries) by my flister
Have a Georgette Heyer fic from last Yuletide while you're at it: The Intrepid Vincent.
:-)
no subject
Date: 2011-10-31 10:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 12:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 01:06 pm (UTC)Two comms:
You like an outrageous costume picspam. I don't have a non-spoilery B7 one for you, but here are 3 of my faves of Servalan's amazing outfits (all right, I couldn't decide which to take and upload properly):
The chicken wire one: http://www.framecaplib.com/b7lib/html/chars/images/weapon/alone/weapn114.htm?subj=128
The hat: http://www.framecaplib.com/b7lib/html/chars/images/pressure/alone/press144.htm?subj=128
The lizard: http://www.framecaplib.com/b7lib/html/chars/images/pressure/alone/press154.htm?subj=128
A Poem I Like by a poet I haven't heard you mention yet:
When I set out for Lyonnesse,
A hundred miles away,
The rime was on the spray,
And starlight lit my lonesomeness
When I set out for Lyonnesse
A hundred miles away.
What would bechance at Lyonnesse
While I should sojourn there
No prophet durst declare,
Nor did the wisest wizard guess
What would bechance at Lyonnesse
While I should sojourn there.
When I came back from Lyonnesse
With magic in my eyes,
All marked with mute surmise
My radiance rare and fathomless,
When I came back from Lyonnesse
With magic in my eyes! (Thomas Hardy)
And you will have seen this, but, hey (all right, for you it should be THree, but Three needs his Moriarty, and the Master must be set to Johnny Cash):
no subject
Date: 2011-11-06 12:10 am (UTC)*giggles* I really haven't. Only most of everything. XD
F'rinstance: I hadn't seen
I had stumbled across
I don't think I ever heard of Thomas Hardy before, but that is a lovely poem. I do love clever rhyme-schemes, if the rhythm stays regular enough to not confuse me completely. (Gerard Manley Hopkins gives me rather a headache, because he does not generally keep anything consistent. He's like Sixie's coat in verse form. O_O)
And Servalan's dresses! Wow. Especially the lizard one. WOW.
Hee, and Delgado!Master! He is so awesome. (I've never quite cared to watch anything with any other Master, because how can they measure up? *sadface*)
*wants to watch all the Three-era Who now*
no subject
Date: 2011-11-06 07:24 pm (UTC)And... never heard of Thomas Hardy? 0_o Maybe he is not as much a permanent feature of the English lit curriculum on the other side of the Atlantic then, but he is an amazing poet (even when he's writing novels). I had to do Far From the Madding Crowd for GCSE and then Tess of the D'Urbervilles (which is one long prose poem or metaphor in a way. Annoying character-wise, because they are all Doomed a Cruel Fate & I want to go round being commonsensical at them, but the writing is amazing) & his love poetry. (Castle Boterel, The Ghost and At The Waterfall are some others I remember). Also never read Jude the Obscure without finding out the plot first.
Yay; those are three particularly good ones, but it was hard to choose. The lizard and the chicken wire ones probably have to win, though. (Servalan has the best TV wardrobe ever. Because, of course, when you are Supreme Commander of the Federation you can have a great dressmaker. And, even the stranger ones, Jacqueline Pearce can wear them, and then some.)
Aw, I know what you mean, because I love Roger Delgado's Master so much that even Three can't compete. :-) However, as long as you do not expect any following Master to be the same, it is just regeneration, same as the Doctor. And the first one/two are all cloaked and decayed. But Anthony Ainley is quite fun, so it is worth seeing him eventually.
(If you don't, you can't watch the party that is The Five Doctors, or The Mark of the Rani, where the Rani is very eyerolly at the Doctor and the Master and their rivalry. She says the Master would get dizzy if he tried to walk in a straight line. You could try The Keeper of Traken first, which starts with AA playing a different character, to break yourself in gently. Also, Survival is a great performance from him. And he loved being the Master so much that he apparently used to ring up the DW production office in character to ask when he would be coming back. :lol:)
:-)
no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 12:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 07:50 pm (UTC)A story that wasn't on Teaspoon (last time I looked), A Matter of Taste (328 words, Sally Ann from The One Doctor meets Eight.)
Sixth Doctor Tumblr.
I'm a bit short on anything nice with Five right now, so have him in the icon.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-06 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-06 07:27 pm (UTC)(I keep thinking that How To Avoid Large Ships sounds like useful advice for online fans...)
no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 01:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-31 04:57 pm (UTC):-)
no subject
Date: 2011-11-09 03:26 pm (UTC)(They kind of remind me of the good old days of
no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 02:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 08:22 pm (UTC)Fanfic: Writing History (Given that you do like a bit of Six and Evelyn from time to time.)
Icon:
Pic:
Mr Campion, specialist in fairy tales.
Fanvid:
You've probably seen this, but it's brilliant. Multi-fandom tribute to SF females.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-31 07:47 am (UTC)And, Peter Davison! Looking quite dapper, I must say. And a Harry and Sarah icon! And a pointer to good Six-and-Evelyn fanfic! Thank you so much!
no subject
Date: 2011-10-31 08:57 am (UTC):-)
no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 05:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-31 01:27 pm (UTC)Anyway, I thought that, as more of a New Who fan as yet, it was just possible you hadn't seen Calapine's amazing multi-era vids. As she gets at the heart of DW, and includes all eras, it doesn't matter which one you prefer. The only question is, which of these three is the best? (And if you have seen them, well, they're always worth a rewatch.)
(She also did a River fanvid, too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zMkfuJLf5c)