Fic: White Feather

[thisbluespirit]

I had one last prompt from the Runaway Tales set (Lemon-Lime Sorbet) that I was using for the Edward/Julia AUs, and even though I'm not at the comm now (and it's died anyway), I don't like leaving things undone! So I wrote this for a genprompt_bingo square. It was meant to be five vignettes but wound up having to be hit a lot to stop taking in bits of the original canon's plot. (I won.) Anyway, a stupid thing to waste energy on really, considering, but I finally fixed the last few details yesterday, and there we are.


White Feather (9073 words) by lost_spook
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Characters: Julia Graves (OFC), Edward Iveson (OMC)
Additional Tags: World War I, 20th Century, Alternate Universe, mild infidelity, 5 Times, Community: runaway_tales, Community: genprompt_bingo, Influenza Epidemic, Survivor Guilt
Summary: The first time Julia Graves saw Edward Iveson, she gave him a white feather. It wasn't necessarily a mistake...

Comments

[sovay]

It was meant to be five vignettes but wound up having to be hit a lot to stop taking in bits of the original canon's plot. (I won.)

What was the original canon? I enjoyed this.

[thisbluespirit]

Oh, thank you! The original canon was one of those isurrendered fake TV shows, only, me being me, I decided to invent a depressing 1970s cheap TV show. It was basically an AU dystopian future Britain (well, future for the 1970s; it was set in 1991) (but the original posts for the concept are here and here, with the one for the inevitable rocks-fall-everyone-dies prequel here

I then wound up using it for the comm Runaway Tales, so I wrote up a lot of pieces set at various points in the timeline, although mostly for the prequel (which is where Edward and Julia come from - so much of it was all their fault!) and then when rl started getting much too dystopian itself, I wound up doing a lot of Edward/Julia AUs, like this one, where people got to have fun and not die or get stuck in a dystopia.

I have a chronological masterpost of what I wrote for it for Runaway Tales, but there were a lot of pieces, of variable types - I took part for three years, I think. (Edward and Julia's story goes from 1949-1961 mainly, I think.)

[sovay]

It was basically an AU dystopian future Britain (well, future for the 1970s; it was set in 1991) (but the original posts for the concept are here and here

Well, Charles Terrell on paper looks like my obvious favorite character. Also this chimes startlingly well with the novel I am currently reading. (I love yhlee's Machineries of Empire for many reasons, but a significant one is the way the decisive act of dystopia overthrow occurs in the second book and then a major thread of the third is "so . . . provisional government with a side order of civil war, huh?")

the prequel (which is where Edward and Julia come from - so much of it was all their fault!)

I feel I should have guessed that Edward was played by James Maxwell.

I have a chronological masterpost of what I wrote for it for Runaway Tales, but there were a lot of pieces, of variable types - I took part for three years, I think. (Edward and Julia's story goes from 1949-1961 mainly, I think.)

Thanks! This is one of the more interesting modes of original fiction I've seen.

[thisbluespirit]

Well, Charles Terrell on paper looks like my obvious favorite character. Also this chimes startlingly well with the novel I am currently reading. (I love [personal profile] yhlee's Machineries of Empire for many reasons, but a significant one is the way the decisive act of dystopia overthrow occurs in the second book and then a major thread of the third is "so . . . provisional government with a side order of civil war, huh?")

Ha, yes, that is a similar theme! And obv. I like it when anybody likes any of the characters, even from the line up alone, but Charles is a good one. He was the first character I wrote a piece about.

(The actual most predictable casting for the time when I put it together was Alfred Burke as Charles, as I was only just emerging from my massive Public Eye obsession. James Maxwell had a false start and then I gave him up in disappointment & bafflement because after Henry VII I just had not anticipated all the dreadful fake hair and the soft-spoken fainting 60s side-kicks or the awfulness of Gilbert Osmond, or my complete inability to obtain the flipping Raffles pilot episode. I just came round again later, as you can tell. :-D)


This is one of the more interesting modes of original fiction I've seen.

I had been eyeing up Runaway Tales and its wonderful prompt sets for years, and had done isurrendered a few times before it finally occurred that they were the perfect combination, and I eventually worked up my courage to post a piece, and now I have no regrets. It carried me from a bad place where I had been too ill to write any origfic for nearly 4 years to, er, well, a marginally better and more cheerful/aware writing place, anyway!

I keep thinking, because there are a couple last bits and pieces I wouldn't mind picking up again, about taking a prompt set from its Dreamwidth equivalent, rainbowfic, but RaTs had an ice cream theme, so each prompt set was an ice cream flavour and then you added different toppings & somehow colours and craft bits just don't seem as enticing. Heh.

I found quite rapidly that having plotted main canon to death (I did not know I was going to be writing any of it up) and it being something I would prefer in many cases to watch as a 1970s TV DVD to actually writing it, that I just slid into the much more loosely-plotted 'prequel'. And then I had dental surgery and it all turned into fluff and AUs, but that was fun and instructive too, in the end.

Which is a long comment just to say that I did have an awful lot of fun on that comm, both writing and reading other people's stuff, and also playing community prompt games. And thank you for taking the time to read the odd AU above. You may in fact be the only one, but one is all that is needed...

[romanajo123]

Awww that was great! Love their relationship. (do they stay together???)

This AU is an awesome idea. This all came from that meme? Wow!!!

Got more stories with them?


how do I get one of those TV show things? :)

[thisbluespirit]

Awww that was great! Love their relationship. (do they stay together???)

Thank you!! (And, yes, they do. They tend to be hard to prise apart; it's not always a virtue. ;-D)

Got more stories with them?

Well, if you look on the masterpost, almost all the stories in the 1940-1961 sections are Edward and/or Julia, plus the AUs are listed at the bottom (and there's only one drabble out of those that isn't Edward & Julia, as I was working through a set of AU prompts with them.) For various reasons, there are two others I also posted to AO3: Substitute (a coffee shop AU!), and Scandal of the Town, a Victorian AU for unconventionalcourtship.

As to isurrendered, it was basically just one of those memes! So, just post it to your journal and see what happens. The original version is here but given that you want to be given a show (and you can't guarantee other people will pick it up), probably best to do the reverse version you will find here.

Have fun!