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 )

I'm just stopping by to say a Happy Wednesday or possibly something else. I wasn't around much this week because I was unwisely trying to get two treats down for yuletide. I managed the first obviously, but tied myself up in knots over the second yesterday, but at least my resulting overtiredness was hopefully not in vain - I think I can untangle it for an NYR.

What I would have said had I not been doing that was that THREE GIFTS have been appearing for me over the last couple of weeks, in THREE different super-rare fandoms. I am still so overtired and also excited and also general Christmas that I am still at the stage of looking at them on my gifts page and my brain sticking at !!!!! and am too excited to read them.

Anyway, I will calm down before the end of the day and actually read them, and in the meantime, they look amazing and here they are, and I am overtired, there's nearly rain on my face:

Common Ground (14870 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 3/3
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 (Winslow Boy), Desmond Curry, Grace Winslow, Ronnie Winslow
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, World War I, Courtship, Reunions, Getting Together, Slow Burn, Minor Character Death, minor character injury, (neither of these two tags happen to the main characters in the pairing), home front, Sequel
Summary:

Robert and Catherine meet again and begin a hesitant courtship. But when war breaks out, neither of them can remain unchanged or unscathed.

like birds i' th' cage (5366 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Craddock and Co (Radio)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Charles Craddock & Lucy Greenwood
Characters: Charles Craddock, Lucy Greenwood, Mr. Grout
Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Family Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Protectiveness, not entirely a casefic but casefic-adjacent, Yuletide 2024
Summary:

“Oh, uncle.” Me heart sank right down into my stomach. “Don’t you talk like that."
“Like what, dear girl?”
“Like you won’t have any other chance to say it.”

 

Or: Uncle Charles runs afoul of a band of criminals, and despite Lucy's best efforts, their rescue might not arrive in time...

All's Fair in Love and Invasions (4864 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Welcome to Our Village Please Invade Carefully (BBC Radio)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Katrina Lyons/Uljabaan
Characters: Katrina Lyons, Uljabaan (Welcome to Our Village), Lucy Alexander (Welcome to Our Village), The Computer (Welcome to Our Village)
Additional Tags: Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Cultural Differences, Attempted Seduction, Humor, Enemies to Lovers, Antagonism, that thin line between love and hate, or between romance and interplanetary conflict, Yuletide 2024
Summary:

“I will defeat Uljabaan with something uniquely and deeply human, which the alien menace will be defenceless against! I will bring him down with…”
Katrina leaves a pause. Clutches her fist to her chest, adopting the noble gaze-into-the-distance pose she hopes the history books will depict in their illustrations of this moment.

 

“...love.”

 

“Oh, ew,” says Lucy, instantly. Katrina hopes the history books will cut that bit out.

I mean. I don't think any actual irl presents are going to beat that, really. *flails like a faily thing*

Following on from how much I got hung up on a 1984 radio production of Dangerous Corner, I did take some steps to continue by J B Priestley experience by listening to a 1994 production of Time and the Conways, another of his 'Time Plays'. I spotted this one on the wiki and managed to find it at Radio Echoes. It had Stella Gonet, Amanda Redman & Toby Stephens in it, and it was adapted and directed by Sue Wilson, who did at least two of the Christmas at the Wells installments I thought were so good.

(There's also a 1984 version here starring Zena Walker; and a 2014 version here with Harriet Walter. Apparently the BBC are only permitted to perform it in years ending with a -4?? ;-p)

Anyway, generally, I'm not regretting my decision to continue, but right at the end of the second third (Act?) of it, two characters had a conversation that included this:

"...it’s hideous and unbearable. Remember what we once were and what we thought we’d be... Every step we’ve taken, every tick of the clock — making everything worse. If this is all life is, what's the use? Better to die... before you find it out, before Time gets to work on you. I’ve felt it before, but never as I’ve done to-night. There’s a great devil in the universe, and we call it Time.... We've seen it to-night. Time beating us."

and: "No, they're real and existing, just as we two, here now, are real and existing. We're seeing another bit of the view – a bad bit, if you like – but the whole landscape's still there."

And I was just... omg, J B Priestley effectively laid out part of the premise of Sapphire and Steel right there in 1937.


I haven't stopped listening to Crown House; I was just interspersing the odd SNT in between. I am about to get back to it, as we left it at a point where Richard Pasco might even possibly be persuaded to leave the roses alone and have some plot, but I don't count on it. XD


(I did distract myself a bit because Welcome to Our Village Please Invade Carefully s2 is now on BBC Sounds again, after them repeating s1 in the autumn. So a head's up, anyone listening to it that way and left hanging for s2. It's here! And obv. could not resist listening to "Tempting Fete" and now the next episode is up... and a person can't help but press that play button every now and then. (It's the pub quiz one now.) It is such a cheering thing. <3<3<3)

Thanks for all your questions! My list of characters:

1. Uljabaan (WtOVPIC)
2. Katrina Lyons (WtoVPIC)
3. Servalan (B7)
4. Silver (S&S)
5. Twelfth Doctor (DW)
6. Ezekiel Jones (The Librarians)
7. Hercule Poirot
8. Robin (BBC Ghosts)
9. The Cat (Red Dwarf)
10. G'kar (B5)
11. Death (Discworld)
12. Lucy Greenwood (Craddock & Co)
13. Orac (B7)
14. John Seward (Drac 1968)
15. Zari (Legends of Tomorrow)

( Cut for fannish shenanigans )

Mixed bunch of icons made Apr-Oct this year, mostly random, but including a two sets for perioddrama_ic (Heroes + alts & Blue Outfit), random ones for 100fandomicons and a bunch of text icons for Welcome to Our Village Please Invade Carefully:

Teaser:



( I'm extremely keen to show everyone how fine I am with it all )

Memed from nostalgia: Tell the world one (1) fact/anecdote/secret/etc about each of the last ten (or whatever) things you wrote.

( Secrets under here. Also I really have not written much this year so far. I got right back to August with this... )

Thanks everyone for all the questions! Here's the first round of answers:

1. Regina Mills (OUaT)
2. Jenkins (The Librarians)
3. Rumplestiltskin (OUaT)
4. Silver (S&S)
5. Twelfth Doctor (DW)
6. John Seward (1968 Dracula)
7. Death (Discworld)
8. Holly (Red Dwarf)
9. Uljabaan (WtOVPIC)
10. Padme Amidala (SW)
11. Charley Pollard (DW)
12. Jenna Stannis (B7)
13. Lynda Day (PG)
14. Michael (Good Place)
15. Carolyn Knapp-Shappey (Cabin Pressure)

( The results under here )

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.


That said, here is the long version...

( Fandoms: Indigo Saga - Louise Cooper, Sapphire & Steel, The Shadow of the Tower, A Sudden Wild Magic - Diana Wynne Jones & Welcome to Our Village Please Invade Carefully )

So, when I asked for recs for other radio sitcoms a few weeks back, persiflage_1 suggested Welcome to Our Village, Please Invade Carefully by Eddie Robson, starring Hattie Morahan, Peter Davison & Jan Francis. And as you can imagine at that combination of things, I jumped on it.

The obvious outcome is that I loved it, and the dratted thing is a too-short, unfinished radio sitcom with no fanfic. So, now it does. \o/ And on the up side, at least I found it in time for Yuletide.

(If you are, quite naturally, also wanting to know where this has been all your life and where can you get hold of it, it had a CD release, so presumably should be available by people's usual means of obtaining audiobooks, and you can also get the off-air recording from the Internet Archive as uploaded by a couple of people, including here. There are 2 series plus the pilot, with 11 x c.28mins episodes.)


Charm Offensive (2151 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Welcome to Our Village Please Invade Carefully (BBC Radio)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Katrina Lyons/Uljabaan
Characters: Katrina Lyons, Uljabaan (Welcome to Our Village), The Computer (Welcome to Our Village), Richard Lyons
Additional Tags: community: 100ships, Humor, Aliens, Rare Pairings, Community: trope_bingo, Not all that shippy, but still kind of shippy, as per canon, Post-Season/Series 01
Summary: “You're not seriously asking me out on a date, are you?”