Beyond the Roundels

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 my irl bff visiting last week, so I couldn't do very much else, of course, and then this week has been mostly recovering. However, I did manage to finally finish editing something I all but finished otherwise in January.

(February has just had lots of rl stuff in it, and I've still a couple of things to get through, and I've not yet recovered, insofar as I ever do recover yet, either. At least one big bit of that was also very nice!! And the others were only (mostly) regular things. But I'll post properly soon! Maybe even catch up a bit, who knows. <3<3<3)

Anyway, rainbowfic piece that I edited and posted:

Name: Round In Circles
Story: Starfall
Colors: Light Black #22 (push)
Supplies and Styles: Portrait
Word Count: 5587
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Imprisonment, some mental distress/illness (minor character).
Notes: 1317, North Fort; Leaira Modelen, Ennan Hilten, Tol Anness, Tamman, Allian Otlevo, Duza Eisterwill. Follows on from Establishing Credentials.
Summary: Leaira has a plan to escape confinement, but gets more than she'd bargained for when she tries.

(One of those pieces where I have no idea how this got so long, but at least things Happen at the end, anyway.)

1. I managed to sign up for chocolateboxcomm and my assignment should be fun, so I hope I will not fail again this time.


2. I had to Do The Thing and upgrade to Windows 10, which I was very scared about. (I had meant to do it in December, but LOL.) Anyway, while I foresee many years of trying to fend off Microsoft's efforts to take over my entire life, I followed the free workaround and not only did it work but I didn't lose anything, not even my most ancient of freebie software. And I think some of my fonts that weren't working before are working now, so overall, I'm relieved and amused. And possibly have more fonts. But backing everything up while overtired kept me away from almost everything here again for a bit.


3. I did some friending tidying, so if anything weird happened yesterday, I was just subscribing to people I seem not to have subscribed to and given access to and meant to, and removing random people who subscribed to me without introducing themselves or interacting with me (that just weirds me out and makes me scared of posting because strange people I don't know are reading this and probably judging me for my James Maxwell obsession.) If I did anybody the wrong way round, I am sorry, and just let me know.

Also I finally tried to friend about three or so people from st_aurafina's friending meme without doing my own blurb for it (because I just don't want more Silent Ghost People friending me right now), so:

Hello! I am thisbluespirit. I used to be lost_spook until about this time last year. I also used to run the Obscure & British Commentfest, and I run several comms including tardis_library, historium, tic_tac_woe and others I should pay more attention to. I am, by fandom standards, very old, although not actually old enough to have seen most of my current fandoms of my heart the first time round. I write fic, sometimes make icons, basic gifs, even more occasionally rec sets and other things. Once upon a time I experimented with vidding.

I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and therefore a lack of spoons for being too serious or negative about fannish things and sometimes for anything at all, but I do what I can. It does mean I'm more often around than not and usually comment.

I am first and foremost a Doctor Who fan, especially Classic, early Big Finish and the Moffat era, but I really do like all of it one way or another.

Other fandoms of my heart include: Sapphire & Steel, Blake's 7, Spooks (or MI5), Press Gang, Adam Adamant Lives!, Once Upon a Time but I am very multifannish and like trying to create in new fandoms. I am not good at OTPing and my shipping frequently comes out like other people's gen, but I'm working on it. I also like The Librarians, Star Wars in a non-fannish way, The Flash, ST: Voyager, Discworld, New Tricks, Lucifer, and lots of little Yuletide-type fandoms. I go in and out of most fandoms, but I rarely put them down entirely.

When I was first ill, I watched a lot of old theatrical British TV because modern TV was too fast and noisy for me to cope with. The side-effect of this was that I got intensely fannish about cardboard problematic telly that isn't on Netflix that nobody else wants to watch and have a gallery of favourite 60s & 70s actors. I especially like James Maxwell. (He's a ghost and has a nice obit; apparently this is what I look for in a man these days. He falls over in fake moustaches a lot. It may be the weight of the moustaches.) Also David Collings. (He dies a lot in everything and has great hair.) And Margaret Lockwood, Barbara Murray, Alfred Burke, and Suzanne Neve. But on the upside, sometimes I picspam Thriller (ask me about the one where Patrick Troughton battles Satan who is Diana Dors dressed up as Mary Poppins) or films where people tried to colorize it without bothering to do anybody's hair, so I like to think I'm at least being entertaining about it sometimes.

Of my ancient telly voyages, I really loved (in different ways) Enemy at the Door, Shadow of the Tower, The Power Game, Public Eye, Doomwatch, Department S, Dracula (1968), Elizabeth R, Survivors, Manhunt and no doubt other things I have forgotten right now, but I am always happy to talk about them.

What else? I'm in the UK, in the North East, was a children's librarian when I was an anything, she/her/they is fine, like family history, and originally am from the south west. (I am not a proper Northerner at all.) Sometimes I write origfic for rainbowfic here, too.

I like random generators and writing memes and hope this year will allow for a bit more of the latter, because last year was not so good on that front. If you want to unfriend me again, that's fine, but I hope not. ♥

(I suppose I've accidentally now also achieved Day 1 of snowflake_challenge too. I don't know how I feel about that.)

1. It's now summer, so please bear with me if I am not able to keep up with my flist. It's the worst time of the year, I suffer from a lot of stress, and, in purely practical terms, my PC time often gets completely halved if it is at all sunny, so if you see me around still making posts or other small things but not commenting (or vice versa), it's just summer, sorry. We'll see how it goes, but everything's just kind of weather permitting from now on.


2. One of the small, cheerful things I hope to still do on occasions is take part in the second tardis_library Reccer's Bingo, and here is my card:

Vampires/werewolves/zombies	Mind control/possession	Kissing/Hugging	Work	Famous figures
Date	Introspection	Undercover	Backstory	Drink/Drugs/Intoxication
Crossover	Explosions	WILD CARD	Original Characters	Blue
Spin-off	Rainbow	Artificial Reality	Mundane/domestic	Crafts/Crafty
Circles	Epic/large scale	Master	Runaways	Special occasion

(There is still oodles of time if anyone still wants to sign up! All you need is to have some Doctor Who fanworks up your sleeve to rec. It was good fun last year and hopefully will be again.)

I'm feeling a little better (ish, more maybe feeling better about not feeling better?) but I haven't been posting so much, as I've still been tired. Also some of the things I would talk about are Yuletide research and things. (Isn't it always the way?)

But my assignment now has words in my notebook! Several pages of them, even. They need to get out of there and onto the computer, but, all being well(ish), that should be okay at this point. I have mostly defeated the complicated overlong treat, I think.


Anyway, some things:

* fandom_stocking has opened for sign-ups! Just fill out a form, get a 'stocking' hung up, and people will put nice fannish bits & bobs in it. You can put nice things in other people's too. It's almost guaranteed not to open on time, but it's usually a lot of fun.

* genprompt_bingo is opening for Round 15! I still have a Round 14 card I'm working on, but it's one of my favourites. (The prompts are gen, but the fills can be shippy or gen or whatever as you please.)


In the meantime, I have mostly been amusing myself when tired by making pretty S&S element-things for tumblr, which I think helped on the being more cheerful front. Either that or despairing a lot on Weds, or both, most probably.

1. I think I actually do feel better! I am back to my usual level of rubbish, at least for now. I hate to jinx it by typing something like that, which is generally asking for trouble, but here's hoping...


2. I think my Yuletide letter is almost done. \o/ (I just have to check it again first.)


3. Not unrelatedly, I have discovered that someone has a lot of Department S episodes up on Dailymotion, starting with episode 1 Six Days! This is still my favourite ITC offering! I promised last summer to make a post all about it, but I still haven't, whoops, although I did post some trailers and things here.

Basically it is about an international team who investigate extremely weird scenarios - like how can a plane be six days late when its pilot thinks it's thirty minutes early? Why did an astronaut die of oxygen starvation in the middle of London? Why is there a fake room with a dead body in a warehouse and what's with all these plastic dummies driving cars?

These things are investigated by Stewart Sullivan (Joel Fabiani), whose talents are generally being drugged and tied up a lot, I think; Annabelle Hurst (Rosemary Nicols), computer expert, and Jason King (Peter Wyngarde) who just uses authorly imagination, flirting, and probably his terrifying moustache. Their boss is diplomat Sir Curtis Seretse (Dennis Alaba Peters) who likes giving Stewart cases in far-flung locations and gets kidnapped every so often. Episodes vary, of course, but I found it v engaging & on film, unlike a lot of the old telly things I watch, and Jason being a writer gives it a fun meta commentary at times, Annabelle gets a better deal than any other ITC female lead I've yet seen, while Sir Curtis makes it refreshingly a lot less racist than most 60s things. Also whole villages just vanish overnight, and a lot of familiar faces are responsible.

Anyway, if anyone should want to watch it & can't get the DVDs, there is a way - for the moment! And then you can write me Yule-fic. *looks innocent*

My friend has been and gone and we had a nice time, and now I should be back around a bit, instead of just keeping an eye on the commentfest and posting Things I Made Earlier*

The commentfest continues however! I shall do a second wave of promotion for the weekend. Anyone you wishes to help by promoting it on their journal or a relevant comm is very welcome. (And thanks to those who already have! <3)

There are many banners like this one with coding ready made to c+p here (plus links to a selection of rebloggable tumblr posts), so you barely need to do any work at all:



And I will happily make one for any fandom you wish, as long as there are images available.

It is going pretty well, though, so far. And of course, please feel free to add all the prompts you wish and make any fills you fancy. (I mean, without prompts, nothing.)


(tl;dr: I'm back, I'm still a nuisance.)


* I don't have a Blue Peter badge, but I should do.

1. I have my family up visiting this week! They are staying in a farmhouse nearby, so I am still around, but will be v erratic about commenting/not commenting, so forgive me if I miss/seem to ignore anything or take longer than usual to reply, while commenting/posting elsewhere; it's just how it goes with the CFS and my socialising energy is going into rl for a little bit till they go again Friday. (My family also includes little sis and her two wee ones and bump that will eventually be another wee one. \o/) I have some Posts I Made Earlier, so I may even confuse things further by still posting.


2. There is a meme going round: COME PLAY @ THE [ FIC POSITIVITY FEEDBACK MEME ]

I don't have a thread (yet anyway), but I'm all for giving authors feedback (even if possibly not this week), so if you're interested in leaving nice comments/concrit/having your own thread, you should make your way over there.


3. Talking of my family and PSAs, my four (almost five) year old nephew had apparently recently been learning about death for some reason (possibly via heaven or something; it's a CofE primary school), which was fine, except that he decided he needed to share this fact with his 3 and a bit year old sister at 7.30am. Wee Niece was of course not pleased to learn about death and mortality without warning when getting ready for nursery ("Everybody dies - even Mummy and Daddy and you and me!") and was fairly inconsolable for a bit. Cue Small Nephew being sent to his room, departing with a muttered, "I'm right, though. Everybody does die!"

They are both still adorable; I saw them yesterday, it is a fact. As an auntie, I am totally unbiased and objective on that score, so if I say so, it must be true. I introduced them to Daleks for the first time yesterday, so you will be glad to see I am a responsible DW fan. (I have some tiny ones that run on wheels and can be played with by small nephews and nieces.)

1. I've just done a friending meme and even actually managed to friend new people (I asked some of them myself!) (hi, new flisters!) and now of course, I am off to my parents' for Christmas, where internet access will be variable and most likely reading rather than commenting. Sorry about that.

Also because the next few posts following this will very likely be the one where I'm not here but I have to mention my Yuletide gift, the one where I'm back but exhausted, and then a wave of Yule-recs. So, um, yes, welcome? I will try and do something properly introductory in the New Year, though.

But I hope everyone who is celebrating Christmas has a lovely one, and anyone not celebrating manages to have a nice week despite any unwanted festivities! ♥


2. I nearly managed to finish the last writing meme before I went (because if I don't now, I won't) but I embarrassingly ran out of spoons with one left to go. (Sorry last person; once I cross that line, I cross that line. It was accidental!) I will have another writing meme soon enough, I'm sure. I might even get through all the prompts next time.

And here are the last three:( Under the cut so as not to take up too much space )

Sorry about all the political posts yesterday, when I usually avoid such things in fannish spaces, but yesterday was exceptional. It's not every day you wake up to find out that not only have we voted to leave the EU, but that the PM has resigned, the Opposition are calling for a vote of no confidence in their leader, Scotland and Ireland are making plans to leave the UK and the economy has crashed. It's a shock. I feel like a small alien walking around in my north east town full of flags hanging out of houses, and I'm British. (I think. It's a bit hard to tell suddenly.) (I was trying to remind myself it might be for Euro 2016, but they weren't there last time, and then extra Union Jacks appeared. Oh, the irony.)

The point of this post being really, I'm sorry! Fannishness and cheer will now resume (I hope) while my country takes a few weeks/months/years to figure out what comes next (politics is mostly v slow) and hopefully we'll all work to make things get better. And I have a hurt/comfort bingo table to work on while the country falls apart, which seems vaguely appropriate...

But for the moment: I just don't know or recognise my country any more. I don't know what it is or will be. I didn't know I could feel like that. It's unhelpful, but it's true. What may come may be good, but for today I am very sad - for me and for everybody else who didn't want this, especially those who didn't even get a say and who have now been made to feel afraid and unwanted here. <<♥>>

Just dropping by briefly, because Yuletide! Dear flist, I got a fic for Dracula (1968)! And I didn't know what anyone could possibly make of my babblings, but my author (who I hope wasn't left tearing their hair out) wrote this fic, which is just an utterly gorgeous and subtle take on post-canon. It's short but it's got a lot in it - if you have any familiarity with the original Dracula, even if not for this one, please take a look and shower them with the love the fic deserves! (And which, hidden in such an obscure fandom, it might not otherwise get - sorry AGAIN dear author, if you see this!)

Bookmarks and Garlic Flowers (1061 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dracula (TV 1968), Dracula & Related Fandoms
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Mina Harker/Lucy Weston/John Seward
Characters: John Seward, Mina Harker, Lucy Weston
Additional Tags: Post-Canon
Summary:

On rational explanations.

It looks as though I should have a little treat tomorrow in Madness, too, so \o.

I hope everyone else taking part is also having a good Yuletide! And Merry Christmas to those (like me) who are celebrating. (I need to go away again, because I must rest before my sister arrives with two very small people that I'm looking forward to seeing!)

1. clocketpatch has some friends needing help with their imigration fund


2. Another user has collected really helpful links for how to help with the Syrian refugees & to try and get governments like the UK to try and actually respond (we're being shamingly terrible about it). Anyway, links here and some for US-ians, too, here)

Well, I am still not back on LJ, so forgive me if I'm ignoring you. (I can see people's comments on my posts via my email, but I have absolutely no way to reply or read anything on LJ until it deigns to let me back in.) If it's not back by this evening, I may need someone to put in a report for me, if anybody's willing, because it's getting silly now. In the meantime:


1. I have started watching Man at the Top (Thames, 1972), and the next two episodes should have James Maxwell in. I knew he was playing somebody called Bernard MacLaine, and throughout this ep, he hasn't appeared but everyone keeps talking about him. Apparently, he's a really mean millionnaire who goes round firing people and closing factories and also is very puritannical. The anti-hero may be going to steal his wife. I await his actual arrival with interest... (I am amused that the other week I watched him being someone called Peter Kane and this week it's Bernard MacLaine. If he plays any more rhyming people, I could write a poem. Simms could probably do an awful limerick.)

(I might have got the day muddled for my blood test, so now I am going on Thursday instead. This bit was entirely my ME muddled-ness, whoops. I usually double-check everything because I know I do things like that. /o\)


2. Also Remix has been revealed in the night! I wrote two fics, one for scripsi in the main collection, and one for Madness, for Redrikki. And I need to thank paranoidangel for her remix of my Ruth/Harry AU, All Russians Are Spies (The Retirement Remix), which I had strongly suspected. (We do have this tendency to get assigned to each other!) It's still awesome if you haven't read it yet.


First up, I remixed parts of Scripsi's A Little Less Than Kin series, which was huge fun to do:

Unrelated (The Loop the Loop to Affinity Remix) (2971 words) by lost_spook
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (1963)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: The Master (Delgado)/River Song, The Doctor/River Song, The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who)
Characters: The Master (Delgado), River Song, Missy (Doctor Who)
Additional Tags: Remix, Death, Timey-Wimey
Summary:

It takes time to achieve perfection. Several times, in fact. Both the Master and River Song know this a little too well.

Then, when reading through the sign-ups for Madness, I found a wonderful Ats/Pushing Daisies ficlet that accidentally happy-ending-ed everything. I couldn't resist remixing it (and accidentally ruining things again, because once you start writing AtS-side, as opposed to the pie-and-dead-people side, something has to go wrong.)

Criss-Cross My Heart and Hope To Die (The Lattice-Top Rebake) (1327 words) by lost_spook
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Angel: the Series, Pushing Daisies
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Angel (BtVS), Olive Snook, Ned (Pushing Daisies), Emerson Cod
Additional Tags: Remix, Crossover, Humor, Pie
Summary:

Angel has a seriously weird experience in a pie shop.

So, that was Remix, and I mustn't forget to post the DW to Teaspoon now that I'm free to own it. Otherwise, I am probably mostly proud of my terrible titles, really.