Beyond the Roundels

I made this post mostly in February and prefaced it with: "Belated, and I'm still not through reading the collection yet, but a bunch so far. It's only, what, February? /o\" I must report, I am still not through reading the collection and likely never will be, but I should post this so other people can read the gems I have enjoyed (so far?) anyway:

( Recs in Adventure Series, A Civil Contract, Craddock & Co, Death in Paradise, The Detectorists, The Devil's Cub, Drop the Dead Donkey, Emma, Enemy at the Door, Ghosts (US), The Good Place, The Holiday, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, The Mabinogion, McDonald & Dodds, No Wind of Blame, North and South, The Winslow Boy, Welcome to Our Village Please Invade Carefully )

As I said, I sort of stopped updating properly for a bit. Just the usual low patch, but I navigated last month's better in terms of posting than this month's.

1. I did manage to do three Fannish ficlets for no_true_pair and still have some rainbowfic ones I'll post for their amnesty, so that is quite good. Although I was quite blurry, I'm not sure how they turned out, really.


2. unconventionalcourtship is back! Time to pick a terrible romance novel and kill it with fanfiction or whatever your preferred approach is. As ever, you can ask the brilliant Unconventional Courtship Generator for ideas if you don't want to personally wade through Mills & Boon's back catalogue.


3. genprompt_bingo is open for a new round!


4. I don't know what is happening with this year, but I received a NYR gift from edwardianspinsteraunt for The Winslow Boy! It is amazing! I need to go comment properly, and will soon, but spent all day finishing off doing the 100 list thingies going around (see point 5.)

At the Threshold (5149 words) by edwardianspinsteraunt
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Winslow Boy (1999)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Robert Morton/Catherine Winslow
Characters: Robert Morton (Winslow Boy), Catherine Winslow, Desmond Curry
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Kissing, Vulnerability, questionable decisions, Confessions (of various sorts), semi-resolved sexual tension, Angst with a Happy Ending, past Catherine Winslow/John Watherstone
Summary: Catherine learns earlier of Sir Robert's sacrifice - a discovery that has surprising results.


5. I've been doing the tumblr-moved-to-Dreamwidth top 100 personal favourite/foundational movies list, plus, because I picked it up from lirazel (who I think was the one that added the other two categories), also 100 TV series, which took the longest. In the meantime, while it moved round my flist, it became solely a book list meme instead, because I suppose that is tumblr vs Dreamwidth for you, lol.

I'm not entirely surely fiddling with things for a week has made my lists any less weird. (You have to bear in mind that my most influential/favourite things, like everyone, tend to be from when I was growing up/younger but then also I have spent the last 15 years having appalling trouble trying to just read or watch anything and at least 5 or so years of that time solving that problem by watching slow-paced Brit TV, some of which was genuinely awesome and then the loss of DVDs for the past 3-5 years has completely scotched any means I had of watching anything not on terrestrial UK TV or the iPlayer. But it does make my list look like it was made by someone whose next words will be muttering about isn't modern stuff too Ruined By The Woke, which is very distressing to me, but that's why. I might mutter that people should write TV episodes like they're one act plays again instead of a soap opera installment and that it honestly doesn't have to cost THAT much to be good, but that's as far as it goes re. the worst effects of all the beige tv on my brain, I promise. It was excellent beige TV! And the bits that weren't, I was looking at James Maxwell's nose or Alfie's face or Suzanne Neve's awesome anyway. And the reading has been even worse, except the few books that worked could at least be from any era, because so far they haven't changed how that works. BUt, still, they had to be old enough to be chanced upon in charity shops so...)

If you want distractions of clicking things and telling me that you also watched/read about 10 of these, here is the film list, the TV List (much beige TV included some of which I had to add manually) and the books list.

No doubt I have forgotten obvious things and would probably make different lists again next week, but I had fun. It had some of the most obscure books and films on it, it just had issues with the TV sometimes.

I'm not being terribly good at updating, but I am mostly okay, so that is good. Last week my Mum sent me a package in the post which, when I opened it, contained a small clear plastic packet with mystery white powder inside it. When I stopped laughing for long enough to read the accompanying note, I discovered it was washing powder. XD

Anyway, fannish things:

1. no_true_pair's four character mini round is open for sign-ups!

The prompts don't get posted till the 17th, so I have to think about which characters I shall put down this time, because I definitely find the four characters one weirder to do than the full-range glory of the eight-characters one, but it does usually kick off something unexpected and worth writing, whether fannish or original. It would only be more delightful if more of us also did it, of course. (No penalties, only fun prompts to use or not use! What is there to lose? ;-p)


2. edwardianspinsteraunt also wrote a little (Modern) AU for The Winslow Boy, which made yesterday evening a whole lot better immediately:

The Facts of the Case (634 words) by edwardianspinsteraunt
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), Arthur Winslow
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Coffee Shops, Lawyers
Summary: Catherine was well aware that Robert Morton hadn't taken her family's case out of principle.


3. I was thinking about what to do after I finished 100fandomicons. I remembered working through a set for an old icon comm (icons200, I think), doing 20 prompts at a time, but also that it is no fun to do such things alone for defunct comms.

Anyway, the upshot was that it struck me there was no current icon comm that had the kind of thing I was thinking of, so I have now very nearly finished making one!

It is called 20icontables. There are lots of 20 icon tables to choose from and you can suggest more at a suggestion post. There are no deadlines or limits and hopefully it will provide laid back inspiration for when needed, or no-deadline ongoing projects, or the excuse to icon a thing you've been meaning to icon etc. Or whatever. Speedy people who eat icon challenges for breakfast can work their way through every single table if they want. There will be more.

If people, especially any icon-makers, but anyone, want to poke around it and see if it looks okay, that would be great! It's fairly straight forward and I think it's okay, but stupid errors gratefully received as it were...

I need to add a few more tables before I start launching it officially, just because I don't want to be flooding it with tables once it has subscribers.

(So if there are there any obvious omissions in tables, especially technically then let me know here or go right ahead and submit to the suggestion post there already.)


4. I keep linking to SesskaSays's reactions, I know, but she reached Vengeance on Varos on Friday, which people round here with long memories will know I am a tad obsessed with and I was v gratified to see her completely blown away by Part One. \o/ I thought she'd probably like it, given her track record, but you never can tell.

I had tags in the Sid Halley bins and at a "comedy retelling of the book" clicked out of curiosity, and was rewarded beyond all bounds of my expectation, which is to say that I just died laughing while reading this fic, and I can run here and complain about it to you because I am not a jockey and am therefore allowed to feel humour. And pain.

Anyway, it's Very Accurate. I laughed a lot. Canon knowledge is not required. It's just even funnier because Accuracy, and I thought quite a few of you would appreciate it, or know someone else who would appreciate it. XD

Odds Abridged (4816 words) by sousverre
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Sid Halley - Dick Francis
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Characters: Sid Halley
Additional Tags: Jockeys, Jockeyposting, Jockey related violence, the condition of horselessness, a comedy retelling of the book
Summary:

It is not true that jockeys don't feel pain. We do. We just don't talk about it, even when our skeletons are torn out; we don't feel the pain until people say something hurtful like "why aren't there any horses," and then we have to take all of that toughness and try not to break down and sob, because we are bastards and bastards don't cry, because if bastards start crying even a little bit then they just end up laying on the floor drinking their full bodyweight in brandy, empty, pitied; not having any horses at all, the horseless men of the horseless world.

Instead I said, "because when I put the menaces on people it works strangely well, because I'm so much smaller than them, and it makes them go, oh, look, he's so little and menacing, Gladys, give him a biscuit."

Then I thought about it some more and added, "And then I keep the biscuit."

Or,

An abridged retelling of the 1965 Dick Francis novel “Odds Against.”

Happy 61st Doctor Who anniversary! <3

If you like audios, Big Finish are giving away a free download of one of their audios, The Five Companions to celebrate!


Also, a really sweet First Doctor Era fanvid that someone just posted:

1. The classic Who reactor I'm following at the moment managed to reach Earthshock somehow totally unspoiled, which produced a great reaction, both last week in Pts 1&2 at the Cyberman reveal (she loves Cybermen), and then at the final two parts here, pretty much as JNT intended, I'd say. /slightly sadistic, I suppose, sorry, but as someone who read so many of them in Target novelisation form first and got spoiled further by years of DWM first, it's completely fascinating to me.

(I do like this reactor - if you're looking for someone currently going through Classic Who, I'd recommend them - they're thoughtful, enjoying the ride and certain SFX and costumes & guest stars, adored the original Team TARDIS (important), but also willing to be critical sometimes too.)


2. Rarest of Rare Pairs Ficathon, which is actually a commentfest (for all types of fanworks) for rare pairs, so that's fun.


3. small_fandoms has a fest going on for posting works in small fandoms there in August, based on a set of Rolling Stones lyrics prompts, which you can check out here.


Otherwise: ♥ all. (it was summer for at least a whole day here, and I'm still not any better at that yet.)

I had to go out yesterday (last official appointment for a while, hopefully!), so am all tired/ill again for a bit, but in the meantime, have some things:

1. no_true_pair's spring mini round is open for sign-ups! (It's like the 15 characters meme, except you actually write the random prompts. The mini round is for only 4 characters, but you can have multiple sets of four if you want. I don't know if I'll manage anything, but I shall try and think of some characters sets - there's no penalty and who knows? Better to sign up and see what fun prompts I get than not!)


2. The vidder who made a lovely whole-era First Doctor vid has done one for the Second Doctor's era and it's pretty great and adorable and cheering:




3. Courtesy of persiflage_1 who alerted me to this on tumblr: 1000 radio plays have been returned to the BBC! (They're going to actually broadcast some of them as well over the upcoming months. And, as ever, BBC Sounds is not region-locked, unlike the rest of the Beeb.)


4. ( Gifs of Jacqueline Pearce in Ep3 of the 1974 BBC David Copperfield what I made )


5. As usual, I'm sure there was something else! Ah well... (Tell me what it was in the comments, lol.)

My great and appropriately eerie Yuletide Madness treat, for a fandom I did not, in the end, request, which is worryingly S&S really, isn't it? XD Anyway, I'm a lucky so-and-so:


The March (1803 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Sapphire and Steel
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Silver (S&S)
Additional Tags: Reminiscing, Post-War, Sad and Happy, Mission Fic, Yuletide Treat
Summary: Time was winning; Silver had to do something, but what exactly? How to stop it?

It's Doctor Who day! (I mean, I realise all the US people are all off celebrating something else, but clearly that is obviously much less important. ;-p Though I hope you also enjoy yourselves!)

A multi-era vid that, though I've recced this before at tardis_library, I don't think I've ever posted it here - Regeneration by Andriy Griffin.



I love this - it's such a great look at the show through the years, the way that change is essential to it, both in the optimism of adventure and friendship and renewal, but the balance of that in that every friend must leave, every Doctor must fall and die, and all things must change, whether we like it or not. (And quite often, DW fans, being as resistant to change as most human beings, do not like it, very vocally.)

Anyway, congratulations to the most go-anywhere, be-anything show ever made, the longest running Science Fiction TV show in history, and the cheap little show that nobody but William Hartnell thought would last more than 13 episodes in 1963-4, was wiped and burned in the 1970s, and which got cancelled for good by the BBC in 1989, but just regenerated again, because of course it did in the end. It's always exactly the same and yet completely different, and I love it very much.

Somehow, it's still here, or most of it is, one way or another, and so are we. ♥

1. intoabar will be running again soon! Sign-ups open next weekend. It's a very laid back and fun fest - you choose a character to walk into the bar and 1-4 other fandoms, and the mods assign you a random person from those other fandoms for them to meet (in a bar or similar location). And that's it! The results are often very entertaining.


2. It took me a little while to be well enough to read this after heimeldat pointed me in its direction on tumblr, but I finally did, and their S&S fic is as great as their awesome DW fic, so have a wonderful post-Assignment 6 fic:

Escape from Nowhere (5098 words) by Heimeldat
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Sapphire and Steel, Doctor Who (2005)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Silver (S&S), Sapphire (S&S), Steel (S&S), The Doctor | Ruth Clayton
Additional Tags: Serial: s06 Assignment Six, Fix-It, Time Travel, Alien Technology, POV Silver, Post-Canon, Escape, Telepathy
Summary: When the trap closes on Sapphire and Steel, Silver is set free with no idea what happened or how to fix it - until a strange woman arrives and offers to help Silver break the trap and free his colleagues.

So, I was wishing I was well enough to write fic no one would ever read for Craddock and Co because I'm still thinking about it. Well, actually, I was wishing someone else would at least have drawn art on tumblr or something, but also fic.

Anyway, I resorted to trying to draw the scene where Lucy and Uncle Charles are starting their lives of crime-fighting together myself. Apologies for the bad drawing, but in my defence a) i do not practice the art sufficiently to do it well and b) please admire my choice of suit for Lucy because I feel it is Canon now:

( But it's Indian silk! )

And talking of comforting fictional period detectives, I was shocked and delighted to find on my reading list today that someone had written Sam & Sister Boniface fic. Can Sister Boniface possibly have been EATEN BY A BEAR? Sam is DISTRAUGHT. Felix is trying to patiently point out that there are no bears around in the UK any more. (spoiler: Sister Boniface has not been eaten by a bear.) <3

Sister Boniface and the Little Hillside Bear (2182 words) by meridian_rose
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Sister Boniface Mysteries (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Sister Boniface & Sam Gillespie (Sister Boniface)
Characters: Sister Boniface (Father Brown), Sam Gillespie (Sister Boniface), Felix Livingstone
Additional Tags: Friendship, Character of Faith, Community: 100fandoms, 100 fandoms dreamwidth
Summary: When Sister Boniface goes missing after a visit to her penpal, the rumour is she's been eaten by a bear. Sam and Felix won't stop until they uncover the truth.


(I'm also sorry because I seem to be over-achieving on the "post the stupid thing anyway" resolution, but I'll be ill again in half a week cos I have to go out and things and I'm still barely able to anyway. although that might just lead to worse burbling.)

Just a flaily drive-by post because here is a cheerful thing - festivids is live!!

I have watched about 3 or 4 vids so far, but there are plenty of things to appeal to people in these parts. There is another beautiful Ghosts vid (which inevitably made me tear up a bit halfway through, from which you can tell the tone is perfect <3) but the reason why I am posting now is first and foremost:

There is an Assassination Bureau vid! So now I can point to it and go: look! see! this is why you must watch this film! it is a film with all the things. <- /points

I mean, as if "Diana Rigg is a journalist who hires Oliver Reed to get his own assassination bureau to assassinate him and then they have a giant assassination chase across pre-WWI Europe while she tries to report on it. shenanigans go down." was not enough on its own, pfft.

anyway, that is one nice thing. festivids!

... first off to graycardinal and selenay - I hope you both have great days!




But, of course, also to one of the longest-running and probably the very best television show of them all - Doctor Who!

Have a little sort of all-eras credits/tribute to everybody:



And a more straightforward fun little all-eras vid (not quite up to date):



Happy 59th anniversary! ♥