Beyond the Roundels

I got slowed down in the writing meme not only by life, but by the fact that this one wanted to be a full length missing adventure. (It is instead now one of those things where I reckon if I sound tongue in cheek enough about cliches I can merrily skip over plot and thus not implode my brain. One day I will be up to the epics again, though. Or possibly I'll just die in the attempt; it could go either way.)

Trouble Comes in Threes (4609 words) by lost_spook
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dracula (TV 1968)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jonathan Harker/Mina Harker, Jonathan Harker/Mina Harker/John Seward
Characters: Mina Harker, Jonathan Harker, John Seward, Abraham Van Helsing, Original Characters
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, duplicates, Cliche, Request Meme, Random Pairing Generator, Dr Seward only faints once, Imprisonment, Science Experiments, Waxwork dummies, Castles
Summary: It appears that the Harkers and Dr Seward are now doomed to run into danger of the supernatural kind wherever they go…


It's always weird trying to write recovered Jonathan for this adaptation, because it really does not give you much idea of what he's like, other than far less into Mina than book Jonathan, but at least I didn't kill him to get round it again. Oh, and clones in this being in the general meaning of 'duplicates'. It was an interesting prompt, though (even if it wasn't the one I was meant to be writing), as Mina/John/Jonathan is a logical solution to some issues of their post-canon situation when you think about it. (It's just obv. not as good as Mina/Lucy/John.)

I didn't complete my assignment, so I have no main fic in the collection, but, once I'd put the poor malformed thing down and admitted defeat, I went back to some treats I'd had vague ideas for already:

arrows to the heart (1102 words) by lost_spook
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 15th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Margaret Beaufort & Henry VII of England
Characters: Margaret Beaufort
Additional Tags: Yuletide Treat, 5 Times, Mother-Son Relationship, The Wars of the Roses
Summary: She sends him arrows, always.

( More details )


Served Cold (3402 words) by lost_spook
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dracula (TV 1968), Dracula & Related Fandoms
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Jonathan Harker/Mina Harker
Characters: Jonathan Harker, Mina Harker, John Seward, Abraham Van Helsing
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Dark, Revenge, Vampires, Blood, Yuletide Treat, Crueltide, Major Character Undeath, Rocks Fall Everyone Dies, Mentions of Mina/Lucy
Summary: Mina’s one remaining desire is simple: she wants revenge.

I'm never less anonymous than when writing for Dracula (TV 1968), but one of calliopes_pen's prompts, about the Harkers getting revenge on Van Helsing, matched something I'd already come up with. (A five times fic about Mina, which actually I might type up as well anyway, since this adaptation of the end segment wound up very different to the original.) And, er, what the tags say, really!


Of Human Bondage (or Five Times Adam and His Friends Found Themselves All Tied Up) (2486 words) by lost_spook
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Adam Adamant Lives!
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Adam Adamant & Georgina Jones & William E. Simms
Characters: Adam Adamant, William E. Simms, Georgina Jones, Louise (Adam Adamant Lives), Other(s)
Additional Tags: Victorian, 5 Times, Yuletide Treat, Humor, Bondage, 1960s, Hijinks & Shenanigans
Summary: In Adam’s line of work, getting tied up is practically a daily occurrence.

I'd also wanted to do two AAL! stories (the other one being Liadt's prompt about Adam's house), but that was over-ambitious, but at the eleventh hour before I left for home, I managed to finish this, which was pure frivolous fun and I enjoyed coming up with the canon-typical ridiculous scenarios and also dropping rl historical figures into them too just because I could. (I'm sorry, Liadt! One day!)


(With many thanks to persiflage_1 who never even blinks regardless of what I ask her to beta, or when, or how fast and who went through all three of them to catch any typos and moments of ME-incoherency. <3 <3 <3)


And, as I've said, my gifts were pretty fab all round and at least now I know who to thank! And I may be able to write a couple NYRs too, which would be great. And next year I will be v v careful about what I sign up for. (The thing about book fandoms is that in most cases, I still find reading hard work, so canon review exhausted me and squashed any hope of fic before I'd started, especially once life also took a hand. Whoops.)

And another now-edited trope_bingo fic, this time one that was also written from an idea given me in a meme by calliopes_pen:


Spiritual Awakening (3474 words) by lost_spook
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dracula (TV 1968)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Abraham Van Helsing & John Seward
Characters: Abraham Van Helsing, John Seward
Additional Tags: Community: trope_bingo, Demonic Possession, Hypnotism, Victorian, Pre-Canon
Summary: Van Helsing’s experiments with hypnotism take an expected turn from the scientific to the supernatural…

And so my treats. I wrote the first for calliopes_pen, chiefly in a hopeless attempt to remain anonymous, so that she might at least wonder which one was me. (I had vague plans for a rather different one, but I got seized by this idea while reading through her likes in the letter):

Influence (1368 words) by lost_spook
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dracula (TV 1968), Dracula & Related Fandoms
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Abraham Van Helsing & John Seward, Count Dracula/Jonathan Harker, John Seward/Lucy Weston, Jonathan Harker/Mina Harker, Mina Harker/Lucy Weston
Characters: Abraham Van Helsing, John Seward, Dracula, Jonathan Harker, Lucy Weston, Mina Harker
Additional Tags: Yuletide Treat, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, Dark
Summary: Some personalities are magnetic, they exert an irresistible pull on others.


Then there were two prompts in particular that jumped out at me this year, the first being Wasuremono's great prompt about Miss Marple being a goddess, the genius loci of St Mary Mead, which I obviously had to write:

The Spirit of St Mary Mead (4005 words) by lost_spook
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Miss Marple - Agatha Christie
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Jane Marple, Griselda Clement, Original Characters
Additional Tags: Yuletide Treat, Historical, Multi-Era, Roman Britain, English Civil War, 18th Century, 20th Century, 21st Century, Misses Clause Challenge, Miss Marple is a Goddess
Summary: St Mary Mead has had an unusual guardian down through all these centuries.


The second was for moemachina, about Feste & Olivia from Twelfth Night. As I've loved Feste since I did the play for A-Levels mumble years ago, I couldn't resist. I had an idea, but then remembered that writing Shakespeare fic is TERRIFYING. So I watched BBC TN twice in a row, found some 16th C jokes and riddles on the internet, built my fic around those and then went for it. And then typed it up while mentally going LALALA not writing Shakespeare etc. Happily, it seems to have got some really lovely comments, so I clearly didn't mess it up too badly.

movements of the mind (1892 words) by lost_spook
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Feste & Olivia (Twelfth Night)
Characters: Feste (Twelfth Night), Olivia (Twelfth Night), Original Characters
Additional Tags: Yuletide Treat, Friendship, Backstory, Jesters, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Summary: ”Look you now, he’s out of his guard already; unless you laugh and minister occasion to him, he is gagged.”


That done, I decided to write a couple of treats for Madness if I could, but the Adam Adamant Lives! fic for Liadt grew large enough for the main collection, even if it was probably too frivolous for Yuletide (and I don't think Liadt was fooled by my anonymity for a minute, either):

Battered and Bruised (1812 words) by lost_spook
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Adam Adamant Lives!
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Adam Adamant & Georgina Jones
Characters: Adam Adamant, Georgina Jones, William E. Simms
Additional Tags: Yuletide Treat, Cake Fic Meme, Cake, Humor, Hijinks & Shenanigans, I was going to label this crack, and then thought soberly about canon, and didn't
Summary: Mr Adamant suffers a truly traumatic incident at a village gala. Unfortunately for him, Georgie is on hand to help...


And lastly, this tiny bit of post-canon for Gerry and Sandra from New Tricks, for Dynapink:

Vintage (532 words) by lost_spook
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: New Tricks
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Sandra Pullman & Gerry Standing
Characters: Sandra Pullman, Gerry Standing
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Ficlet, Yuletide Treat
Summary: "You look as if you've seen a ghost..."

With many thanks to Pers who patiently beta-ed all three full treats and a second beta of my long assignment! (Those who have been around these parts a while: I think you can probably already guess which one got the influential rec. Oh, yes. It is my fate, my doom, my only claim to fame. :lol:)