thisbluespirit: (spooks - Ruth!)
2020-08-30 08:54 pm

[sticky entry] Sticky: Welcome post

Hail, fellow travellers, and well met. My Dreamwidth is mostly for fic, recs, icons, vids and fannish nonsense & fic/vids/icons etc. generally remain open. I'm terribly obscure and multi-fannish, but generally happy to make new friends with shared fandom interests.

My fic:
thisbluespirit on AO3
vvj5 at A Teaspoon and An Open Mind (the Doctor Who archive)


Current & Past Prompt tables etc: AllBingo Crime Classics Bingo August 2025 | AllBingo Colour Fest Bingo May 2025 | allbingo Gothic Bingo April 2023| allbingo Valentine's Card Feb 2023 | 100 Ships table | 100fandomicons masterpost | 51pluscrossoverfandoms table | genprompt_bingo (Round 24) | 100_women Prompt Table | 100fandoms table | Hurt/Comfort Bingo Card (Legacy) | apocabingo card | Historical for [community profile] who_allsorts | 100 Element Prompts | Shakespeare Plays Watched.

Also the 500 Prompts Meme. runaway_tales/ [community profile] rainbowfic Masterpost here.

Notes on permission: Any remixes, fanart, podfic or translations or other fanworks based on mine are wonderful. Please do let me know or link me back on AO3, though - I'll be delighted.

Please don't repost/c+p/scrape any content here to anywhere else. If you want to link to any public posts for any reason, please just do so.

Dear Author tag, for exchange letters.

Friending/subscribing: Please drop a comment here (or any other public post) to say hi first and let me know how we know each other, or which fandom(s) we share. I'll usually friend you back if I recognise your name.
thisbluespirit: (TV)
2025-10-28 06:34 pm

A very belated watching post

I see the last time I properly did some little write-ups of anything I'd been watching was about June, and that was a catch up one, so I'm forever out of date, but I'll see if I can do better now!


Suspected Person (1942) - a UK B-movie thriller, which I recorded off TPTV because it featured Clifford Evans, Patricia Roc and William Hartnell, and indeed, generally, the only thing worth saying about it was that I did enjoy watching Patricia Roc and Clifford Evans play brother and sister, and William Hartnell did his best to try and steal the film in his scenes, but everything else was very meh and run of the mill. Fine if you want a bonus bit of Hartnell! Or CE & PR, but not of any note for anything else, really. I only wrote this here, because it does prove I still have judgment and therefore my comments on the rest might be worth more.


Death Valley (BBC TV 2025) This was one of the many cosy detective shows I watched over the summer, and it was pretty good! A bit uneven, in that the two main characters were great & so was their odd friendship, but quite a few of the mysteries were very so-so, even for this kind of thing, although they did get better. Gwyneth Keyworth as Janie Mallowan, socially awkward detective with issues, and Timothy Spall as John Chapel, reclusive actor who used to play Maigret/Poirot her favourite TV detective Caesar, were very good together, though & I enjoyed them a lot.


Stephen Poliakoff's The Tribe (BBC 1998), only available via somebody's VHS recording on YT, unless you live in R1, where you might be able to snag a DVD, but the BBC somehow didn't even include it on their Poliakoff at the BBC set. (Why, yes, I AM annoyed that I cannot have a DVD of the Stephen Poliakoff that stars Jeremy Northam, even if it seems reasonable even on small acquaintance with Poliakoff to suggest that it is second tier Poliakoff. Is that not what completist DVD sets for significant playwrghts are for?) It stars Jeremy Northam, Joely Richardson, Anna Friel, Trevor Eve & Laura Fraser, plus Jonathan Rhys Meyers & Julian Rhind-Tutt & is all about a very 90s collection of concerns - creating different kinds of living spaces and the hypocrisy of those who grew up in the 60s having the sexual freedom of expression and creativity that they refuse to allow the 90s to have.

More details about The Tribe ) Anyway, it and its themes still linger in my head, so I'm very grateful to the YT uploader.


The Halfway House (1944), starring Mervyn & Glynis Johns and Esmond Knight. This is another film I recorded off TPTV because it's summary was "a bunch of strangers get stranded together." For WWII moralising and ghosts )

Anyway, I have no regrets over every film I've recorded off TPTV because of the summary being "bunch of random mid-century Brits get stranded somewhere," and I will continue to snag any others I see - if there are any more!
thisbluespirit: (writing)
2025-10-26 05:46 pm

Alphabetical Fic Meme

New-to-me fic meme snagged from [personal profile] astrogirl:

Rules: How many letters of the alphabet have you used for starting a fic title? One fic per line, ‘A’ and 'The’ do not count for 'a’ and ’t’. Post your score out of 26 at the end, along with your total fic count.

LIke [personal profile] astrogirl, I went for the first fic for each letter, saving only once or twice where I really didn't want to, because it's not as if it's a rule in this meme.

A - An Absolutely True And In No Way Fabricated Account of the Difficult, Dangerous and Entirely Improbable Invention of the Biscuit (Bleak Expectations, Sir Philip Bin)
B - Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me (Public Eye, Frank Marker/Helen Mortimer)
C - Cameo (Sapphire & Steel, Jasper, Tin, Jet)
D - Damned Giraffe (Discworld, Death, Death of Rats, A Giraffe)
E - Each A Glimpse And Gone Forever (Chalet School/Doctor Who, Seventh Doctor, Hilda Annersley, Ace McShane)
F - Fading Fast (Spooks, Ruth Evershed/Harry Pearce, Beth Bailey)
G - A Gallifreyan at Blandings (Blandings/Doctor Who, Tenth Doctor, Galahad Threepwood, Earl of Emsworth, Constance Keeble, Beach, the Empress of Blandings).
H - Half an Angel (Shadow of the Tower, Henry VII/Elizabeth of York)
I - I Do, I Do, I Do (The Month of Sundays Remix) (Doctor Who, Thirteenth Doctor/Most of her other selves, Yaz, Graham, Ryan).
J - Jo Grant, Assassin For Hire (Doctor Who. Jo Grant, the Brigadier, Third Doctor).
K - Keeping Secrets (Blake's 7, Dayna Mellanby/Del Tarrant)
L - Ladies in Waiting (The Hardest Part) (15th C RPF, Margaret Beaufort, Elizabeth of York).
M - Made For Each Other (Adam Adamant Lives! Adam Adamant & Georgina Jones).
N - Nature Is Red (Doctor Who, Tenth Doctor/Leela).
O - Of Elements and Existence (Sapphire & Steel/Discworld, Steel, Death, Sapphire, Ridcully, Silver, Nanny Ogg, Granny Weatherwax, Ponder Stibbons).
P - Painted Smiles (Blake's 7, Servalan).
Q - Quandrangle (Sapphire & Steel, Sapphire & Silver & Steel).
R - Random Factors (Good Omens/Doctor Who, Aziraphale, Vicki Pallister).
S - Salt of the Earth (Doctor Who, Mrs Martha Tyler, Jack Harkness, Twelfth Doctor).
T - Take the Second Path (OUaT, Regina Mills/Emma Swan, Rumplestiltskin, Cora Mills).
U - Unbreakable (OUaT, Regina Mills).
V - Valley of the Shadow (Dracula 1968, Jonathan Harker/Mina Harker).
W - Waiting For the Sky to Fall (Enemy at the Door, Philip Martel & Dieter Richter).
X -
Y - you asked me how i knew (my true love was true) (The Lady Vanishes, Iris Henderson/Gilbert Redman).
Z -



That was an interesting way to go through the fic, and a pretty representative mix of fandoms, really. Most surprising thing to me was that I only have one work beginning with K. And that's 24/26, as I don't have either an X or a Z, but those are hard letters to casually have in your titles. I clearly need to work on that, presumably in the SFF fandoms, heh.
thisbluespirit: (viyony)
2025-10-23 08:22 pm

Starfall Stories 50

I've left it a while since I did a crosspost for [community profile] rainbowfic, which was because I was doing a very long sequence divided up into five parts and wasn't sure what to do about it now it's complete - it's something like 28k altogether (this is what has been absorbing my whole writing time for four months, when I've had any). Anyway, I've decided I might as well crosspost all the parts at once and move on. People certainly aren't obliged to read any of it, let alone all of it.


Name: Calla Island
Word Count: 5053
Rating: PG
Summary: Viyony visits Calla Island, the ancestral seat of the Allin family.


Name: Dazzled
Word Count: 5364
Rating: PG
Summary: Viyony explores a sacred cave and gets considerably more than she bargained for.


Name: Assignations
Word Count: 8293
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Death, blood, injury.
Summary: Viyony arranges an assignation with Leion, but she's not the only one with plans for midnight.


Name: Storms
Word Count: 5326
Rating: PG
Warnings: Threat of drowning, sea-sickness.
Summary: Viyony's determined to get Leion off the island.


Name: Harbour
Word Count: 5079
Rating: Teen
Summary: Leion takes Viyony home.
thisbluespirit: (writing)
2025-10-20 08:47 pm

Dear Yuletide Letter 2025

Thank you for writing for me! This letter is bound to be long, so tl;dr: I love all kinds of different things at different times, I love these fandoms and characters, and I'm sure to enjoy whatever you come up with.

Any prompts are intended purely for inspiration, not to restrict your choices. Take what's useful and leave what isn't. I hope you have a lovely Yuletide.

Fandoms: Enigma (2001), Indigo Saga - Louise Cooper, The Schoolmistress (BBC Radio), & Wish Me Luck (TV) )
thisbluespirit: (reading)
2025-10-04 08:29 pm
Entry tags:

A Cunning Art Fraud, Complete With A Goose

I will try and make a post again soon, but am now recovering from parental visit (due to me and the ME/CFS, not any fault of said parents). Yesterday, though, I got lucky at the BNA while searching for a newly-discovered address for an ancestor's siblings and found him accidentally involved in a plot to steal a painting by Petrus van Schendel. (London ancestors are v hard to find, especially when they have common names, but the joy of London is that every so often your relatives are briefly entangled with someone or something famous).

Anyway, the fraud was discovered, I was rewarded by a description of two rooms in a relative's house (29 St Mary-at-hill) and I thought some of you might enjoy the resulting magistrate's hearings:

A Cunning Plot )
thisbluespirit: (dept s 2)
2025-09-25 06:23 pm
Entry tags:

Yuletide Nominations

I'm sorry, I still haven't really tried catching up properly, and next my parents will be here for a week, although that may actually not stop me posting some things.

Anyway, it's nearly [community profile] yuletide again! I'm not at all sure whether I shall be able to do it or not, but it's looking more likely than I thought, so I have had to consider the important issue of nominations.

Other people have nominated Welcome to Our Village Please Invade Carefully and The Winslow Boy, so my 5 (five!!) are looking like this:

* Enigma (Movie 2001)
1. Hester Wallace
2. Tom Jericho
3. Mr Wigram


* Indigo Saga - Louise Cooper
1. Indigo
2. Grimya
3. Nemesis
4. Fenran


* Mimic (1997)
1. Susan Tyler
2. Peter Mann
3. Chuy Gavoila


* Time Police Series - Jodi Taylor
1. Jane Lockland
2. Luke Parrish
3. Celia North
4. Matthew Ellis


* Wish Me Luck (TV)
1. Matty Firman
2. Colin Beale
3. Liz Grainger
4. Faith Ashley

I was VERY tempted to put down The Schoolmistress (BBC Radio 1991) but I decided that I shouldn't make my Jeremy Northam problem quite as bad as all that. Maybe next time! (Also because I'm not sure what I would request beyond "more shenanigans," really). I might swap out Mimic, though, idk. (I think it would be a great one for the Hurt/Comfort exchange or maybe Chocolate Box because I want a v specific thing (not an unreasonable specific thing), but OTOH I do not seem to be managing more than Yuletide, if even that, at the moment. Hmmm.


I don't know what I'll actually request if I do sign up, as there look like being a fair few other shiny things in the tagset already, just from the nomination coordination post. \o/
thisbluespirit: (viyony)
2025-09-23 09:32 pm

Starfall Stories 49

A [community profile] rainbowfic piece I finally posted a couple of weeks ago:

Name: On the Interpretation of Dreams
Story: Starfall
Colors: Warm Heart #17 (Honesty)
Supplies and Styles: Nubs
Word Count: 1891
Rating: G
Warnings: None.
Notes: Portcallan, 1313; Viyony Eseray, Osmer Nivyrn.
Summary: Proof that Viyony also takes Leion's advice from time to time.

On the Interpretation of Dreams
thisbluespirit: (winslow boy)
2025-09-21 08:34 pm

Fic: A Family Affair (Winslow Boy)

As I mentioned about a month or so ago, I did some AU_gust prompts, starting with flash fic for the prompt Romance, using the UC generator to get a summary for The Winslow Boy. It was a bit of a complicated summary for flash fic, and it's just taken me about, um, seven weeks to straighten this out into being a reasonably more comprehensible bit of AU nonsense than it was at the start. idk why. Anyway, also for [community profile] genprompt_bingo & two [community profile] allbingo squares (for two different bingo fests of theirs, that is, I'm not cheating).

A Family Affair (1472 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Winslow Boy (1999)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Robert Morton/Catherine Winslow
Characters: Catherine Winslow, Robert Morton (Winslow Boy)
Additional Tags: AU-gust | August Writing Challenge 2025, Alternate Universe - Regency, Regency, Unconventional Courtship Generator, Accidental Baby Acquisition, Stranded
Summary: Catherine Winslow's day is getting worse by the minute.
thisbluespirit: (writing)
2025-09-05 02:48 pm

Ficlet: Masquerade Ball (Wish Me Luck)

Another of the AU_gust ficlets, this one for the prompt "Masquerade Ball" and also for [community profile] allbingo Crime Classics square "Foreign Bodies." I put 0 research and accuracy into it and the fandom doesn't have enough fic to warrant an AU, but I was thinking about WML when I saw the prompt. Anyway, less traumatic than the actual incident's end in 1.6, one trusts.

Masquerade Ball (633 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Wish Me Luck (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Colin Beale/Matty Firman
Characters: Colin Beale (Wish Me Luck), Matty Firman
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Regency, Spies & Secret Agents, Ficlet, Community: allbingo, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Alternate Universe - Napoleonic Wars, handwaves accuracy, Matty just being Matty in any time period, Implied Sexual Content
Summary: Matty and Colin get caught in a compromising position.

(I thought I was doing better today but I just failed at the summary sentence three four FIVE times in a row, so I do hope my editing was actually okay. It was only tweaking, so let's hope so.)
thisbluespirit: (history)
2025-09-02 08:15 pm

Two things

I'm not recovered from going out last week, but hopefully I will be soon, or at least before I have to go out again next week. Anyway, two fannish things:


1. People may remember a few Yuletides ago, I wrote We'll Burn That Barn When We Come To It, aka the first Harold/William the Conqueror fic on the archive (how???)* because a) Irresistable Request and b) childhood obsession with all things 1066.

Anyway, the BBC have made a big epic about William and Harold! I have tried 10 minutes and so far it seems decent and though it did the standard opening with Grimness, just to show it was that kind of thing, it was all right & I liked everything else so far, so yay. As far as I know, the last time the BBC did a thing about William the Conqueror, it was the 60s and it had Julian Glover in so never in my lifetime, omg. Don't let us down...

(I was wary and slow to start it because ill and also the preview made it look a lot like The Last Kingdom, which was too much for me, although tbf to TLK, I hear it got more interesting as it went, but I was there for Matthew Macfadyen and then they killed him in the first episode and I was too ill for all the Vikings. Matthew Macfadyen led me to Spooks after being great in v different ways in a small role in Enigma and as Felix in The Way We Live Now, but he has worked hard to stop me ever since Tom Quinn walked into the sea, damn him.)

The BBC have apparently paid attention to historical detail like the size of the ponies but somehow missed the fact that the one thing we can all see in the Bayeaux Tapestry is that the Anglo-Saxons have epic moustaches and the Normans are clean-shaven by deciding to give all the Normans moustaches and have the Anglo-Saxons clean-shaven, but you can't have the French wandering around without a proper goatee to show they're French, sacre bleu etc.



Matilda and William just mentioned Emma of Normandy in a way that suggests she should be Significant, so I got v excited. I await her actual appearance with anticipation. \o/

(Someone has already dropped a fresh kudos on my fic, because there are still only 3 William/Harold works in the world. I look forward to it becoming a tiresome large-sized vessel soon, as Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is playing William, so that should bring some people in, right?)



2. I just found that [personal profile] daibhidc wrote a really great Miss Marple ficlet based on my Miss Marple is a goddess fic (talking of Yuletide hits of yore), which brightened up the week no end:

Nemesis the Virgin (614 words) by DaibhidC
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Miss Marple - Agatha Christie
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Jane Marple
Additional Tags: Historical, Anglo-Saxon, Miss Marple is a Goddess
Summary: An Anglo-Saxon priest has a strange encounter with a parishoner.

(We are TECHNICALLY on Ro3 for Goddess Jane Marple now, except one of those is a translation of my work so it doesn't really count. Hmm...)


I shall stop typing now because I am still not really up to it, but lo a post, a positive post. With 1066-ness and Miss Marple in it!


* and it was a Modern AU, what a terrible person I am. ;-p
thisbluespirit: (viyony)
2025-08-31 08:26 pm

(no subject)

I forgot I hadn't quite brought my [community profile] rainbowfic posting up to date, so here's the last one I wrote before summer:

Name: Singled Out
Story: Starfall
Colors: Warm Heart #29 (Pleasure); Beet Red #29 (Wear it well)
Supplies and Styles:
Word Count: 3726
Rating: PG
Warnings: Minor injury.
Notes: Portcallan, 1313; Viyony Eseray, Leion Valerno, Kadia Barra, Seahra Jadinor, Kettah Jadinor.
Summary: Leion is being frivolous, Viyony has a question, and Kadia is behaving strangely yet again...
thisbluespirit: (jeremy northam)
2025-08-27 09:31 pm

Fic: Revisions (A Fatal Inversion)

I was feeling a bit better yesterday and typed up this, which I've had in my notebook since spring, for A Fatal Inversion. It of course ended up less shippier than planned and maybe even darker than canon warrants, idk. But it was where my brain went when I rewatched it. (The first time around it's a sort of reverse murder mystery; the second it's an intense character study of the fallout in those involved.)

For [community profile] genprompt_bingo, [community profile] allbingo, [community profile] 100fandoms & [community profile] 100ships, because if I'm going to write super obscure fic that probably won't make sense if you don't know canon, I might as well make it count!


Revisions (1529 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: A Fatal Inversion (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Rufus Fletcher/Adam Verne-Smith
Characters: Adam Verne-Smith, Rufus Fletcher (A Fatal Inversion)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Dark, references to murder, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Flashbacks, Community: 100fandoms, Community: genprompt_bingo, Community: allbingo, Community: 100ships, Pre-Canon, Past Trauma
Summary: Adam and Rufus try to resume their friendship where they left off. It's not the best idea.


Tomorrow I go to have my eye test, so no doubt I'll be around a bit less again, although I'll try to post the last AU_gust bits still if I can - they add up to a bingo line for [community profile] allbingo and it would be a first if I actually got it completed within the month, lol. (We'll see).
thisbluespirit: (b7 - jenna)
2025-08-26 09:49 pm

Ficlet: Green For Danger (B7)

I managed to post one of the other AU-gust ficlets I did - this one for the prompt "Dragons" for B7. (Also for [community profile] 100_women prompt #68 fire & [community profile] allbingo Crime Classics square "Green For Danger.")

Green For Danger (751 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Blake's 7
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Jenna Stannis, Roj Blake, Kerr Avon, Liberator (Blake's 7), Zen (Blake's 7)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Ficlet, AU-gust | August Writing Challenge, Community: allbingo, Episode: s01e02 Space Fall, Community: 100_women, Liberator/Zen is a dragon, Alternate Universe - Fantasy
Summary: There's freedom or death waiting at the end of this tunnel...
thisbluespirit: (agatha christie)
2025-08-23 08:05 pm

(no subject)

I've not been posting or even keeping up with people so much because I've largely been wiped out for one reason or another or prioritising something else with the reduced summer PC time - sorry. This will continue for a little while yet, until it is eventually replaced by my usual slightly less flakeyness.


* The other week I managed some flash fic/scribblets for AU_gust (AU August) on tumblr. I've only managed to tidy up and post one of them since, & there are 2 others to follow once I tweak them a bit, as well as 1 more that I don't know if is worth proper posting & a drabble I still need to type up. But this used up my posting energy for now, so they can wait.

Anyway, in a shocking attempt at pandering to what might pass as popular demand among my works, I committed another Miss Marple + supernatural fic(let):

Tea on Sunday (572 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Miss Marple - Agatha Christie
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Jane Marple, Griselda Clement
Additional Tags: Ficlet, Alternate Universe, Witchcraft, AU-gust | August Writing Challenge, Community: allbingo, Community: 100_women, Community: 100fandoms, Miss Marple is a witch
Summary: Miss Marple's secret is out.


* In other writing, before summer got underway, I typed up the bulk of the longest continuous sequence I'm doing for the current arc at [community profile] rainbowfic, and then ever since have been scraping away at finishing it and editing it, and I am nearly there, although I suspect it'll still take another week or two before I have the first section ready to post. (I knew this would happen, so I also started two shorter pieces, but one of them, which is more or less done, has just been even harder to edit because tiredness etc. and the other one is still stuck at only two paragraphs, so that plan went well. Summer brain is not up to much. That was why I had to silly no-pressure AU ficlets my way back to life and even then summer rudely and immediately interrupted all over again). But there has been writing of sorts even so.

(The long sequence was one of the very first bits of this arc that I drew up, which is very funny because I essentially set up a sort of grand house murder mystery affair except that then everything changed so much that now my main characters aren't bothering taking part in the murder bit so am not sure if it will read ok (hopefully when edited) or if I committed Worst Murder Mystery ever as a result. I think probably I will also write a note on the header when we get there saying that One Day I Will Come Back, yes, one day I will come back, until then all 2 or 3 of you should go forward in all your beliefs about how people shouldn't wave a murder mystery at you and then literally run away from it, and I will eventually demonstrate that what is going on is in fact an Apocalyptic Overarching Plot, so there. And edit, of course.)


* I am currently listening to: a 1989 BBC Radio adaptation of Wilkie Collins's No Name I was delighted to find, starring Sophie Thompson as Magdalen, Jack May (as Captain Wragge), Eleanor Bron (as Mrs Lecount) & Robin Ellis (as Captain Kirke). I'm going slowly, but have just started part 3. It's very good and they're making excellent use of the epistolary bits, which is where radio has an advantage over TV. Mrs Lecount and her sinister toad have just turned up and Eleanor Bron is obviously a v good choice.


* I have watched some things, which, aside from what I've already mentioned, and a ridiculous amount of TV detectives, includes these:

The Tribe (1998), The Halfway House (1944), A Matter of Life and Death (1946), The Admirable Crichton (1957), Creation (2009), Cause Celebre (1988) & Eye in the Sky (2015), all of which were either v good or worth talking about anyway. (Creation and Eye in the Sky have brought me very nearly to the end of my Jeremy Northam's viable CV, so I'm a little bit in mourning now; I suppose a new blorbo will come along in time. Talking of which, I found that the iPlayer had the BBC 1970s All Creatures on it, so finally got around to seeing Suzanne Neve's episode of it, which would be the one thing I would certainly have watched with her when I was a child to see if I had shadowy feelings and indeed, as soon as she appeared, before even I saw her, the set was suddenly Significant in the back of my head, so yeah. I think I can prove childhood imprinting on all my top faves and that's what the thing is about, and why even when I'm so ill they reach me in ways that other people, no matter how much I enjoy them in things, don't unfortunately.)

(Hopefully I will get to talk about some of them properly, but I am happy to attempt such talk in comments if wanted, although sense is not guaranteed, and it is true that at least one or two I watched in a fugue state that all I can say is, well, it was good and I watched it very slowly in bits and there we are, but, yes it was good /o\)


* Also random funny thing. My old housemate N lent me a DVD (!!) of The Residence (was not joking about the sheer amount of detectives watched this summer), which I enjoyed so much I recced it to my Dad. A couple of weeks later we had this conversation:

Dad: I've been watching that medical drama you recommended, but it's not that great, really, so I've stopped.

Me: ... Medical drama??

(It turned out he'd found The Resident on one of the back Freeview channels, so I emailed him a trailer of the 2025 Netflix detective show that I magically got lent on DVD as if it was 2015 or something. He found a pirate source and then lost it again, but he definitely liked what he watched so far a lot better than the Resident).
thisbluespirit: (daisy dalrymple)
2025-08-01 05:58 pm
Entry tags:

allbingo Crime Classics Bingo Card

Okay, I knoooooow I am being rubbish at all my other bingos currently, but if [community profile] allbingo's August theme happens to be irresistible, everything will be different this time, right? XD

(Tbf, the odds are rather better than the last few weeks anyway...)

But, I give you a Crime Classics Bingo Card made from titles from the British Library's crime catalogue:

Someone from the Past He Who Whispers Tour de Force Fear Stalks the Village Antidote to Venom
Family Matters Foreign Bodies Tea on Sunday It Walks by Night Green for Danger
Settling Scores As If By Magic WILD CARD The Black Spectacles Somebody at the Door
Twice Round the Clock The Man Who Didn’t Fly Excellent Intentions Crossed Skis Serpents in Eden
The Wheel Spins Final Acts Deep Waters Not to Be Taken Bats in the Belfry



I love it. I even got the source for The Lady Vanishes, go me! Any suggestions? (With the usual caveat of me probably doing something else anyway, heh.)
thisbluespirit: (reading)
2025-07-27 01:31 pm

A post

Things continue much as before. I wanted to make a post, but I haven't quite the brain for reviews or the like, so here are two random quick things:


1. Back when we were all making top 100 lists, [personal profile] osprey_archer did a picture books one, and there was a discussion in the comments about US vs UK picture books, so I did a UK one, with the best/most popular/influential picture book illustrators I could think of (up to 2010 when I stopped being a children's librarian and, indeed, anything much), but it took ages to try and make sure I wasn't missing people and put all the covers on, and then I kept forgetting I'd made it.

It's here for those who like clicking on books in a list.

(I apologise for the lack of 2010s and 2020s; but I have not kept up at all! Also I included picture books only for the most part, with a few honourable exceptions, so this means there are very few early reader type books & no comics, but there are picture books for older readers. It needs to be an unorthodox size and shelved in the kinder boxes! Also, I focused on illustrators not authors. Plus a tiny handful were just personal favourites, but it is my list. ;-p)


2. I was talking about Outrageous, the U&Drama/Britbox TV series about the Mitfords last time. It continued to be excellent and it finally occurred to me that I could link the trailer, which would be helpful:

thisbluespirit: (viyony)
2025-06-15 08:39 pm

Starfall Stories 48

A couple more belated [community profile] rainbowfic crossposts, which bring me very nearly up to date:


Name: Something Fishy
Story: Starfall
Colors: Vert #19 (Rescue from a dragon)
Supplies and Styles: Thread
Word Count: 1871
Rating: G
Warnings: None.
Notes: Portcallan, 1313; Viyony Eseray, Nin Valerno, Leion Valerno. Follows on immediately from On the Trail and Trap for the Unwary.
Summary: Leion has been found.




Name: Leftovers
Story: Starfall
Colors: Warm Heart #6 (Comfort)
Supplies and Styles: Novelty Bead (From 11 Years of Rainbowfic Space Month "sauce") + Thread
Word Count: 2604
Rating: PG
Warnings: None.
Notes: Portcallan, 1313; Viyony Eseray/Leion Valerno, Imenna Pollens. Follows on directly from Something Fishy
Summary: Leion attempts to thank Viyony.
thisbluespirit: (fantasy2)
2025-06-02 08:29 pm

Starfall Stories 47

I'm still a bit behind on crossposting these:

Name: Trap for the Unwary
Story: Starfall
Colors: Warm Heart #1 (Hope); Vert #28 (Fear less, hope more)
Supplies and Styles: Chiaroscuro + Thread
Word Count: 2375
Rating: PG
Warnings: Imprisonment, nausea.
Notes: Portcallan, 1313; Leion Valerno. (Leion's side of On the Trail.)
Summary: Leion walks into a trap.




Name: Blink of an Eye
Story: Starfall
Colors: Beet red #18 (Easy does it); Azul #19 (Trust the strength of another)
Supplies and Styles: Pastels (for [community profile] no_true_pair prompt "March 27th - Osmer and Pello out in the woods") + Canvas
Word Count: 1091
Rating: G
Warnings: None.
Notes: 1311 somewhere in High Eisterland; Osmer Nivyrn, Pello Ahblan. (Slightly random snippet as yet.)
Summary: Pello gets his first taste of the Paths.
thisbluespirit: (margaret lockwood)
2025-05-26 10:35 am

Belated watching post

I found this sitting in my posts in progress from March, about what I'd been watching at the time, or some of it. I obtained the two small pieces of info it was lacking and have otherwise posted as-is, so it's probably fairly babbly, but I feel it is better to post than not to post. (At least with random mostly-complete media posts, that is.)

The Ghost Camera (1933) This was recced to me ages ago by [personal profile] sovay and I managed to snag it in passing on TalkingPictures TV, but then failed to watch it. (I have issues with watching all sorts of things still for reasons that are too stupid and annoying to go into, but they are all basically the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome being a pain.) But then, [personal profile] liadt sent me it on DVD as well! So having been recced it twice by two people who know what's what when it comes to elderly film and suchlike, I had to eventually consider putting it in the dvd player and watching it.

Anyway, as I mentioned before, I really enjoyed it! It was sweet and fun. The internet tells me it was an unexpectedly good 'Quota Quickie' and it is. A nerdy scientist accidentally acquires a camera with a dangerous set of photos inside it, develops them and sets out, while being dogged by the criminals who want it, to find out whose camera it is - starting with finding the woman in one of the photos. It's engaging, the hero is charmingly atypical and shy, and it really does do some cool things with experimental camera angles and techniques, some of which almost even come across like handheld camera in places.

It's very early UK film, so it doesn't have the polish that a lot of the US ones had acquired by even this point, but if you like old films, this is a fun and interesting one.


Dope Girls (BBC) s1 I've only watched half of this because it was too much for me, but I neverthless watched that much, because it looked fascinating and different and the sort of thing I would be all over if it wasn't so much about crime. I'm hopeless when people in fictonal things are routinely committing crimes, and this is very violent, lots of 'rave' type shooting of scenes, none of which I can cope with. Saying I watched it, given how much I used the skip 10s button is probably an exaggeration BUT it's really beautifully made and it's about women immediately post WWI, based on a true story of a woman who set up a Soho nightclub (given value of 'true' no doubt varies in the show). The series also follows her illegitimate mixed race daughter Billie, a dancer, her legitimate teenage daughter who's getting into spiritualism following her father's death, and Violet, one of the very first women in the police, who's sent undercover into the nightclub.

Warnings for pretty much everything ever: dodgy accents, murder, suicide, meat & butchery, drugs, sex, 'rave' type scenes, beatings etc. It seems to be trying to be the new Peaky Blinders but since PB happened while I was ill and also contains characters who routinely commit crimes, I can't comment on accuracy of media's "the new x" pronouncements.

In short, it looks great if only I weren't me. I might still finish it, unwisely, anyway. It's about women immediately post WWI! /o\


They Came To A City (1944) This is one I happened to catch on TalkingPictures TV just as [personal profile] sovay was talking about John Clements, and I realised I had accidentally snagged this, featuring him. It's adapted from a play by J. B. Priestley, who actually turns up in a little prologue with a wee Ralph Michael & Brenda Bruce to tell the story of the film as a fable to prove a point to them. The story within a story is of nine ordinary British people from different walks of life who find themselves transported to a mysterious city run by an apparently perfect sort of socialist ideal. Some of them hate it, some of them stay, and some of them return to their regular lives to try and make their own cities more like the City. It's very static and talky and we don't see the city, but they pretty much lifted the original play's cast into the film and the performances are great all round and always raise it when it gets too close to being too much just talking about the ideas. It's slow but I found it utterly fascinating and loved it. I had to leave it on the DVR, so I couldn't even delete it as watched!

Also it gave me all the feels about the Beveridge Report and I've never said that about a piece of fiction before.


The Ghost Train (1941) wiki tells me there are actually about nine different versions of this, originally a play by Arnold Ridley who I know as Godfrey in Dad's Army. This is the most comic version, I gather, but also the one that has villainous Nazis instead of unlikely Cornish communists. It was another one I snagged recently from TPTV and, encouraged by current watching ability, I gave it a try and enjoyed it very much indeed! It does occasionally veer towards becoming a vehicle for Arthur Askey but it recovers itself in time, although I would definitely be interested in seeing some of the other versions. But his role as comedian was written in very well (he's a seaside vaudeville performer, his antics cause the stranding & solve it, and everyone gets annoyed with him) and I liked everyone else very much. Another mixed group of strangers get stranded in a remote Cornish railway station - with a story about a ghost train that runs through the station.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun, and I'd definitely be curious to see a version played more straight, but like I said, this is the one that sends a bunch of Nazis off a railway bridge, so I don't feel that it was the worst place to start!


[May comment: still didn't go back to Dope Girls; the state of my brain when employing the iPlayer can be easily illustrated by explaining that what I did was to watch a series and a half of Malory Towers instead. XD]
thisbluespirit: (fantasy2)
2025-05-25 08:27 pm

Starfall Stories 46

Two more [community profile] rainbowfic pieces, as I did let crossposting drop a way behind for a while:

Name: Hidden Lights
Story: Starfall
Colors: Beet Red #28 (Beg steal or borrow); Azul #30 (Token of strength or loyalty)
Supplies and Styles: Canvas + Pastels (also for [community profile] no_true_pair prompt March 26th - Leion & Pello at the beach) + resin (also for [community profile] allbingo May color fest square "true colors.") + Giftwrap + Triptych + Novelty Beads - https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/00/09/8b/00098b9d3a37c21ed8bd3ee00da58c7c.jpg (September Secrets 2020) + "Fire Opal" (Birthday prompts 2020) + Graffiti - for the May Parents challenge.
Word Count: 1918
Rating: PG
Warnings: Brief mention of possible death, risk of drowning, abandonment.
Notes: 1297-1306, Portcallan; Pello Ahblan, Joend Ahblan, Leion Valerno, Tana Veldiner, Tam Jadinor. (Introducing a new character who we're going to see more of in time. The end scene of this takes place immediately after the recent Atino and Leion sequence.)
Summary: Pello's fascination with starstone leads to an unexpected encounter on the beach at midnight.




Name: On the Trail
Story: Starfall
Colors: Warm Heart #7 (Calm)
Supplies and Styles: Thread
Word Count: 2692
Rating: PG
Warnings: None.
Notes: Portcallan, 1313; Viyony Eseray, Nin Valerno.
Summary: Leion has vanished.