Oh how I do like to be fannish about the periodic table...

[thisbluespirit]

It's a side-effect of obsessing about Sapphire & Steel.

I made this post a while two months ago, partly for me, partly to share, but then again, it does feel weird going on about "my" Elements and mental casting sometimes seems a bit odd too. However, I have this post, I did cast actors (it's such a visual show; it seemed a logical step if I was going to make up Elements, and there was no chance I wasn't) and swordznsorcery asked me about it the other day. So here it is. If people are going to be patient enough to read the resulting 100 Element Prompt fics, I might as well share the pictures, after all. (Also with links to the relevant Wiki pages, mainly for my own convenience.)


List of Elements (Wikipedia, as are all links unless stated otherwise).

Starting with the actual Elements, because any excuse for pics of them in my LJ.

Steel (David McCallum)

Steel

Sapphire (Joanna Lumley)

Sapphire

Silver (David Collings)

Silver
(Silver, Copper and Gold belong to a group on the periodic table - and copper and silver have very similar uses, but silver is usually better/faster, it's just too valuable, so copper is used instead. I think this would be reason enough for Copper to get annoyed at Silver, really.)

Lead (Val Pringle)

Lead


Gold (Mark Gatiss)
From Big Finish. I don't have a pic, but I expect most people round here know what Mark Gatiss looks like. Please use your imaginations at this point. ;-)
Gold

Jet (Josette Simon)

I forget this is just my made-up casting sometimes. I have to remind myself.
Jet
There were two obvious ways to go with Jet and since everyone else seemed to have taken the other, I went for this one - and Josette was in my mind from the beginning.


Copper (James Maxwell)

I've seen quite a few things with James Maxwell in and I can't quite find a good Copper pic yet. So here also is my early attempt at drawing Copper, except he lost the glasses before I ever wrote him in something, so that looks wrong now.


Copper

(Also, I drew this for naarmamo, and posted it, which went like this:

everyone: we can see you've been watching lots of David Collings, you can tell it's him.
me: but it isn't David Collings! It was supposed to be JAMES MAXWELL.

This is one of the many reasons why I don't try drawing real people instead of made up ones.)


Antimony (Nicola Walker)

belantana asked me for the prompt-me post last year to write Ruth/Nicola Walker as an Element and then helped me narrow down which one. Antimony is particularly useful with computers etc., which is fun.

Ruby

(This is misleading, Ruby is an amalgamation of a few people, none of whom look quite like this, but wytchcroft prompted me to write a fic about Ruby in the 1920s ages ago and I never have, so I thought I'd try drawing 1920s Ruby instead. She didn't come out right, but my effort is here, anyway.)

Plutonium (Nicholas Chagrin)

(I only just looked the actor's name up. :lol: That's perfect! S&S scary apt casting strikes again.) Plutonium was created for my Yuletide fic, as sophiap was interested in the Transuranics. Tempted as I was by having a Rutherfordium or something, Plutonium worked best in lots of ways - and I immediately remembered this actor from a Campion episode I watched a year or so ago. (He was also Quillam in Vengeance on Varos, if anyone thinks he looks familiar). This isn't the best pic, really - if only I'd known I was going to be making use of him when I was capping Campion ages ago!

Iron (Martin Jarvis)

He turned up in Enemy at the Door (1980) looking like this. Clearly an Element, although you can't see his grey suit here, really. (I don't cast everyone who wears a grey suit, but when it's Martin Jarvis in 1980, it's perfect. And I needed someone for Iron.)

Cerium

Cerium
Cerium was my first Element I made up for a specific story that I've never written. She's completely out of my head, so the drawing was okay, if too cute as ever with my drawings.


Mercury (Saeed Jaffrey)

(From The Strange Report. I really can't get quite the right screencaps of him at all.) Mercury's new, but I think he'd work pretty well as another technician.

(I also have Diamond to add, but I'm not completely sure about her yet.)

Comments

[mab_browne]

I *like* your made-up casting for Jet. I really enjoyed Josette as Dayna. :-)

[thisbluespirit]

Thanks! I like my made-up casting for that one too. :-)

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

I take it you haven't heard any of the Ruby audios from Big Finish - where she's played beautifully and entertainingly by Lisa Bowerman?

Sadly your pic of Martin Jarvis isn't showing up for me. :(

[thisbluespirit]

No, as I've said, I meant to wait to write Ruby until I could listen to those, but then my own version turned up! You know how it is with these things! :-)

Yes, well, either LJ or Photobucket is being odd - I can see Iron, but it won't let me see Lead. They're both there, though - when the internet can get its act together.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Oooh there he is! :D

Heh, yes I do know...

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, I thought you were familiar with the concept of plotbunnies and impatient characters etc. ;-p

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Hell, yes!

(I kinda feel bad that you can't read my current magic/fantasy fic, what with it being so X-rated and all... I'd have liked to know what you thought of it.)

[thisbluespirit]

:-)

Aw. I'm sure it's v good! I expect I'd like it. ♥

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[singeaddams.livejournal.com]

I might have to watch this to see how Joanna Lumley does. She's one of my favorite comedians/actors. Hell, she even did a documentary on the Nile that I loved.

[thisbluespirit]

Oh, if you like Joanna, you should see it. S&S visually consists of close-ups of Joanna, close-ups of David McCallum and Scary Stuff (like pillows and flowers and books and torchlight and photographs and...).

It's all on YouTUbe - there are Six assignments, the equivalent of six DW serials. And it is SLOW. But it uses its slowness deliberately and once you get used to it is one of the weirdest and most original and freaky TV shows ever made.

eponymous_rose did a brilliant intro here if you want to know what you might be getting yourself into.

But all the close-ups of Sapphire, basically. Sapphire is truly amazing.

It also has David Collings in two of the Assignments, hence me being adoring of Silver and OT3ing Silver, Sapphire and Steel even though I never really had an OT-anything before.

I might like it just a bit. It is weird, though. And slow. The weirdest and slowest TV show anyone's ever made - well, that works. It's not going to be to everyone's tastes, but... yes. LOTS of Joanna Lumley. LOTS.

:-)

[singeaddams.livejournal.com]

Great! Thank you. I don't mind slow and I loved Eponymous Rose's intro. I'll check into it soon.

[thisbluespirit]

:-) Sorry if I was a tad overenthusiastic. It stole my brain and hasn't given it back yet. (It's very inconvenient - several shows are sharing pieces of my heart while S&S has my brain and... what's left of me, I don't know.)

It's not just old TV slow, though, it's old TV that deliberately decided to be slower than other slow TV slow. Sapphire and Steel don't run. They stand very still and look alarmed and then walk slowly in unison towards the source of trouble (or away from it.)

:-)

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I like Mercury. Good choice. Jet is perfect, and I like the look of Cerium (your drawing is very good, incidentally). It's all a bit mixed up though, as most of them are from the seventies, so poor Gold and Antimony are still in school! I suppose that's the beauty of fantasy casting.

Ruby looks a bit like Helen Baxendale. Cerium is really reminding me of somebody too, but I can't think who it is. I know you say she's too cute, but I quite like the idea of one of the Elements looking like she'd break easily, and Cerium is a soft metal (but one with a lot of zap).

I can see all of the pictures, by the way. Hopefully whatever the problem was has now cleared up.

[thisbluespirit]

Thank you! :-) And what you say about Cerium is exactly why I created her - I was going to write a fic where it was a plot point that I needed a more unreliable Element (but not in terms of which-side-are-they-on, merely their nature). I just never wrote it, but still kept her.

I think LJ was being odd yesterday. But then, it could be Photobucket... :lol:

As for timing, none of them really fit together - Josette and Martin Jarvis are exactly the right time, Saeed Jaffrey and James Maxwell are c.1970, Nicholas Chagrin must be c.1990 and, as you say, Gold and Antimony positively modern. Luckily it doesn't matter with fantasy casting. Or with Elements. I'd imagine they only age if they feel like it, or if something really horrible happens to them.

[dimity-blue.livejournal.com]

everyone: we can see you've been watching lots of David Collings, you can tell it's him.
me: but it isn't David Collings! It was supposed to be JAMES MAXWELL.

I think part of the confusion comes from James Maxwell having a lot of hair. Lots of hair + Lost Spook = David Collings. It's a natural progression.

I hope that helped a little bit. I like your sketches. I also like all the actors you've chosen for your characters. And, yes, I can picture Mark Gatiss as Gold. :oD

[thisbluespirit]

:lol: But it doesn't have enough hair for David Collings, or at least, it should be curlier if it's that length! (I dunno, doesn't everybody study David Collings's hair in great detail or is that just me? ;-p)

Anyway, thank you. :-)

[dimity-blue.livejournal.com]

(I dunno, doesn't everybody study David Collings's hair in great detail or is that just me? ;-p)

It might be just you. Sorry.

But, on the plus side, you're probably the world-wide expert on David Collings' hair. :oD

[thisbluespirit]

Aw. I should have a printed out version! I just have a Wikipedia link (and might have picked up a dictionary of chemistry second hand, and a dictionary of geology). I think it's perfectly reasonable to be fannish about the periodic table. :lol:

Who says they need to be British? Lead is played by Val Pringle, who was American. I just amused myself by using people from the old TV I'd been watching, so that explains most of these. I just sort of let them turn up, really. I'd love to see any you came up with. But feel free to snaffle mine if you so wish - I don't think anyone could lay claim to an Element, or certainly not to knowing all about one!

Judi Dench would always be v cool as anything. I have vague notions for Diamond, which are quite different - but that doesn't stop you! :-)

[thisbluespirit]

Fancasting is a bit strange, isn't it? I did isurrendered a couple of years back - a meme where you had to make up your own TV shows (and cast them) from prompts and that got me thinking - it was very useful.

I just sort of... snaffle people while I'm watching stuff though, rather than going out and hunting them down like a casting director. :-)

[liadt]

Martin Jarvis & Josette Simon would be perfect. When I saw the top of Plutonium's head I thought it was....Ian McShane. I want an elemental couple played by him & Jacqueline Pearce (both are in 'Sky West & Crooked')now. S&S could have been their replacements; origin fic alert.

[thisbluespirit]

:lol: See, you'll be fic-writing before you know it!

And thanks. :-)

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

Some nice fantasy casting there - Martin Jarvis and Saeed Jaffrey in particular look absolutely perfect in those pictures. And not just because they're both in grey suits! Jarvis in particular, there - something about the attitude.

Hmm - are Iron and Carbon (whoever Carbon is - Diamond is a form of carbon?) Steel's "parents" - or would that be too literal? ;D

I want to read the fic with Plutonium in it, because I'll admit to being a bit fascinated by the idea of the Transuranics - Simm!Master-like complete monsters on the loose or poor misunderstood "lepers" shunned for their unwittingly deadly natures?

[thisbluespirit]

Martin Jarvis and Saeed Jaffrey in particular look absolutely perfect in those pictures

Yes, they do, don't they? Martin Jarvis was particularly Elemental in that role (although less so once you factored in the slight fake Swedish accent, but happily, that cannot be seen in a pic and I know what he sounds like normally).

My brain implodes at Elements having babies, okay. ;-p

The Plutonium fic was my Yuletide assignment - it's sort of Silver vs a Transuranic (my recipient was curious about Transuranics and also said that Silver was always a delight to read. It was a terrible assignment, truly) - and it's here if you really do want to take a look.

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

Well, you know, parents in some sort of weird metaphorical, not-really, and almost certainly never actually explained "onscreen", sort of sense. ;)

Thanks for the link - I'll bookmark it and peruse it at my leisure. As I say, I find the Transuranics fascinating too, because so little is said about them, but just enough to make them sound ominous and dangerous. And plus the fact that they'd all have names like Plutonium and Neptunium and Ununpentium and stuff. ;D

[thisbluespirit]

:-)

[emeraldarrows.livejournal.com]

Wow, awesome casting! I don't know very many of these actors, unfortunately, but they definitely have the right look, especially Copper!

[thisbluespirit]

Thanks! And they're mostly really obscure, found in my epic watching of old TV of late. But then, I think it might be distracting if they were too familiar perhaps.

Copper is James Maxwell, and, weirdly, he has a very S&S story attached to him. I saw him in something, looked him up to see if he was alive or dead, and apparently people think he's a ghost. (One of the many haunting the Royal Exchange Theatre, which could totally be an S&S setting from reading its background of Victorian suicides and Blitz bombings.) Anyway, it's not what you expect when you ask the internet a simple question. :-)

[emeraldarrows.livejournal.com]

I really need to watch more old British tv now that I've run out of American. :P Makes sense.

Haha, that's pretty cool.

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

This is a fabulous collection! You have done much more research than I ever did!

[thisbluespirit]

Thank you! And, not really, it's just sort of grown up gradually from each time I've ended up putting a different Element in a fic. It kept me from going mad with boredom while I was particularly ill! :-)

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't know you hadn't been well! I'm so sorry to hear that! Better now?

[thisbluespirit]

Much better than I was, but not better yet - I'm enjoying a relapse of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and it's a long road. But definitely better than it was, thanks. :-)

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

Aw, that's no fun. I had to go read up on it and it doesn't sound like a bucket of laughs. I must say you are in remarkable spirits for being in such a difficult position.

Good luck and *hugs*

[thisbluespirit]

Thank you! :-)