Yuletide Reveals: Treats (Upstairs Downstairs, Hammer Horror)

yuletide has now been revealed! I now know that I have to thank Lyrstzha for my lovely S&S gift. They are new to me and it seems to be their first S&S fic - I very much hope it's not their last!

I also wrote my assignment and two treats, somewhat to my surprise after feeling so ill for so long I thought I'd have to default. More about my assignment anon, but here are the last minute treats, beta-ed by the sterling persiflage_1 who still doesn't flinch when I throw things at them like this shortly before the deadline.


There were a lot of requests I'd have loved to have a go at, but these were the two that fell out in the end. Having watched my way through the entirety of Upstairs Downstairs (TV 1971) in the weeks before Yuletide, I hoped I'd manage to write something for philomytha, and finally did. (I originally thought of this as an x times fic, with also a bit with Hudson as footman, coming for Lady Marjorie & finding common ground with Mr Bellamy for the first time, but given that this one still went to 1.5k, it's probably as well.) It's very simple, but it was lovely to do - it's pre-canon, with Rose, newly arrived, getting her first chance to bond with an even younger Elizabeth:

All the Way Home (1647 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Upstairs Downstairs (TV 1971)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Elizabeth Bellamy & Rose Buck
Characters: Rose Buck, Elizabeth Bellamy (Upstairs Downstairs), Angus Hudson (Upstairs Downstairs), Richard Bellamy, Kate Bridges
Additional Tags: Yuletide Treat, Pre-Canon, Servants, Victorian
Summary: It had been supposed to be such a quiet evening…


I was assigned to calliopes_pen, which was great. Not only were there shiny prompts for Dracula (1968) written precisely to tempt me (possibly deliberately, given the circumstances XD) but I technically knew every single fandom requested. Obviously, I couldn't write them all - I nearly didn't write anything - but the first thing that struck me was this cracky idea for The Kiss of a Vampire about what happened to that army of hell bats Professor Zimmer unwisely conjured up at the end. And, you see, I actually watched Kiss and Scars of Dracula back to back, and in the latter, Dracula has suddenly acquired a whole army of attack hell bats and, er, well... I was a bit worried about the timeline, but honestly, there's no way all of that happened before 1872 anyway. (I reason that there's nothing to say that Roy Kinnear didn't take all of Dracula's remains to London with him that time and that Klove II came along and got the rest and so then there were two halves, which might have been why things got so more difficult for the poor undead soul after that. ;-p /handwaves) Also calliopes_pen told me that Peter Cushing absolutely refused to have Van Helsing do such a thing and, well....


Hell Bats are Not Just for the Night of the Conjunction of Capricorn With Saturn (1024 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Kiss of the Vampire (1963), Dracula (Movies - Hammer)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Gerald Harcourt/Marianne Harcourt
Characters: Gerald Harcourt, Professor Zimmer (Kiss of the Vampire), Van Helsing (Hammer), Klove (Scars of Dracula)
Additional Tags: Yuletide Treat, Timeline What Timeline, Hell bats, Post-Canon, Epistolary, Crack, Hammer Horror Universe
Summary: Professor Zimmer begins to fear that the acquisition of an army of Bats out of Hell is for life, not just the long-awaited night of the full moon.


I think there should be more excerpts in it, but time was short. I think definitely something like:

ETA: added. Now I'm happy, even if it's a bit belated!

Yuletide Reveals: Broken Vessels (Dracula)

As I said, my assignment this year was calliopes_pen. I planned to write the further supernatural adventures of Mina, Jonathan and Dr Seward and spent some time researching Yorkshire ghost stories and legends, which got me an unexpected £5 and knowledge of the existence of the Wold Newton Triangle and drafted up several pages of an accidental demon summoning in a hotel in Bridlington. (The Local Hellfire Club had been meeting there for years and nothing like this had ever happened before the Harkers checked in for the weekend!) And then I was ill and ill and ill. But I had thought of several ideas (with a vague idea of a possible 5 + 1 type thing of supernatural encounters), and one that stood out as possible, simpler but nicely emotive alternative, was this idea around a seance and other-worldly influences lingering.

Broken Vessels (4083 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dracula (TV 1968), Dracula & Related Fandoms
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jonathan Harker/Mina Harker, Jonathan Harker & Mina Harker & John Seward, Mina Harker/Lucy Weston, John Seward/Lucy Weston
Characters: Jonathan Harker, Mina Harker, Abraham Van Helsing, John Seward
Additional Tags: Victorian, seances, Ghosts, Aftermath, Possession, Dr Seward somehow does not faint, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, this was quite hard to tag for relationships, i could as easily have also tagged Jonathan/John as well
Summary: Jonathan keeps letting things in while Mina and John are having trouble letting go.


I think, in the end, this probably turned out the better Yuletide gift, but I think I'd still like to use the other. Since I actually swiped a couple of things from it for Broken Vessels, I probably can't make it another gift, but I probably could do a different version entirely for me. The world needs the Wold Newton Triangle...

Anyway, it was a good Yuletide! I even got some comments that weren't from my recips & a couple of recs on top, which I really didn't think I would this time, because of the obscurity of all three fandoms. I'm glad I made it - and then there's the whole rest of the collection still. I've barely scratched the surface.