Beyond the Roundels

I'm sorry, I ended up being tired all the time and not posting. Anyhow, fandom_stocking went live yesterday and I had some lovely things in my stocking, left me by some very, very kind people.

You can find all the goodies here and, my, they are marvellous! I had three Sapphire and Steel fics and a Blake's 7/Sapphire and Steel crossover from annariel, amaresu, kaffy_r and swordznsorcery. They are all great and they all have Silver in them. *is very happy*

There were also good wishes and some beautiful graphics from people, including a Sapphire and Steel wallpaper, some gorgeous icons of Nicola Walker as Ruth Evershed in Spooks from dreamer_98. (I may not mention Spooks so often, but my love for Ruth will never die.) I am using one now (on Dreamwidth). Over on LJ, I shall attempt to edit the entry and use the Public Eye one made for me by eve11, who even went Googling Alfred Burke images to make icons for me. (♥)

liadt also took pity on me in my obscurity and wrote me a Public Eye/Avengers (TV) crossover, in which Frank Marker meets two eccentrics in search of champagne in a dark alleyway. And also Dark Towers fic! (I can't explain again. Click on the Look and Read tag on this entry if you're feeling brave and possibly ready to pause and read things slowly at need.)

Doctor Who was not forgotten, either, as I had a great drabble from john_amend_all, and a lovely ficlet from cosmic_llin, both of which featured Tegan.

Not actually in my stocking, but tucked away on AO3, I had two excellent Heyer drabbles from desert_vixen (Excitement and Notes. The first is my favourite, I have to admit, because it's beautifully evil.)

I also wrote some things, and made some icons, but I shall have to find them all again and make another post, I think. I should say that I was very tired and ended up with this Desperate Drabbling plan, in which I wrote down all the characters/pairings from requests I might be able to do and randomly generated poetry prompts, matched them up and attempted a drabble until I ran out of steam. Also some icons. But it did end up a bit random as to who actually got things and who didn't. Still, it was better than nobody getting anything. (Well, unless it wasn't, but let's hope otherwise!)

Anyway, I loved everything, so thanks to everyone who was kind enough to stuff things in my stocking: ♥ ♥ ♥

Title: Lost in a Book
Author: lost_spook
Rating: All ages
Word Count: 1463
Characters/Pairings: Lord Dark, Gorwen, Charn (Dark Towers/Through the Dragon’s Eye)
Notes/Warnings: None.
Summary: Lord Dark goes in search of a book and encounters something rather stranger in his library. Of course, it can’t possibly be real; that would be as silly as believing in ghosts…

For liadtbunny in the 500 Prompts Meme - prompt 292: dragons in your eyes – Gorwen/Charn/Lord Dark (Look and Read). This was about as shippy as I could make a fic about an unconvincing dragon, a creepy evil thing, and an oblivious lord, two of whom happen to be David Collingses – which is to say, not shippy at all. (Liadt did say I should feel free to insert commas. This being Look and Read, I did think about doing that literally, but managed not to.)

1. Lord Dark, from Dark Towers (one of the BBC’s educational Look & Read serials) is David Collings c.1980, living in a castle, full of ghosts he doesn’t notice and being an artist who carves things out of polystyrene by the power of mime. Despite his name, he’s not evil. 2. Charn and Gorwen the dragon are from a later Look & Read – Through the Dragon’s Eye. Charn is an evil thingumy and Gorwen is the good dragon. Have their incredible epic battle.

( Lost in a Book )

Okay, I tried posting about this last night, but while I watched it, and the giggling made me incoherent. More incoherent than usual. Maybe.

Out of curiosity I went looking for some Look & Read/Words & Pictures stuff on YouTube and found the whole of Dark Towers here! It was v v funny. Even if you didn't have to watch this at primary school, there are Doctor Who and Stars Wars connections. (Oh, yes, there are.) I defy anyone not to start giggling at the narration. Which totally seriously tells us that "Tracey was a loner. She thought boys were daft." Or states the painfully obvious in a really DRAMATIC tone. Or tells us that the old coach house was very dark, when we can see it really wasn't.

Anyway, if you don't remember the 1980s (or, knowing teachers with video players, any time up to about 2000) or aren't British, the BBC used to make children's programmes for schools. They taught us how to do quite a bit of stuff, but Look & Read and Words & Pictures taught us how to read. Although looking at these now they definitely seem to indicate that reading too much will make you a weird loner and you'll talk like a prig. On the other hand, you will have DW-style adventures and catchphrases and things. And if you can't read, you'll look really stupid as you stumble over simple words, yep.

Anyway, here you can enjoy the LOLsome narration, watch DWM/Big Finish's Gary Russell being truly terrible as Edward (Tracey thinks he's crackers; although to be fair, he does improve once they forget he was supposed to be priggish and posh) and whether he's more hilarious or David Collings is as Lord Dark (Tracey thinks he's crackers, too) for acting as if he's in a normal drama, except when he's playing the Friendly Ghost (yep, Tracey thinks the Friendly Ghost is crackers as well; she may have a point.) There is also Christopher Biggins being a villain called Bunce. Or Benger. And Peter Mayhew (who is Chewbecca from Star Wars, I believe?) turns up as the Tall Knight, and is actually quite impressive. (Tracey doesn't think he's crackers). Or at least, compared to everything else.

Also, something I did know without watching this - I occasionally have trouble with S18-20 because the music sounds exactly like Look & Read. (And of course, it is, it's Peter Howell and the Radiophonic workshop behind it all.)

If Dark Towers doesn't ring any bells, follow the link about and the related videos give you Badger Girl, Fairground, The Boy From Space & Through the Dragon's Eye among other things. (I haven't tried watching those. I have a feeling the hilarity would be significantly less. I suspect some may even border on good, and where would be the fun in that? Plus, The Boy From Space terrified me. I hadn't realised that was a L&R story. I had nightmares.)

Anyway, I watched this when I was about 6 and thought it was wonderful. Oh, dear.... LOL I post here because I really don't think anyone could fail to find at least the narration hysterical after a bit. (Plus, the poster has done some fairly hilarious summaries for each part. Also, after Pt1 they have thankfully edited out Wordy and all the songs about vowels and the repetitions. And I don't know what explains the fact that Tracey doesn't notice when Christopher Biggins shoves something in her back jeans pocket, either... Maybe the script had her wearing a jacket or something. *giggles again*)

Or maybe my primary school was the only one that made us watch this stuff, but somehow I doubt it. (Maybe there could be some mileage in L&R icons? "Tracey thinks you're crackers" "Norman knows what's what" "Edward prefers books to people".)