Beyond the Roundels

I went out (briefly, with my friend, to town), on Weds, am still not recovered (bah), but feeling a bit better today, I think. Anyway, two nice fannish things:

1. B7 is going to be released on blu-ray! S1 coming out soon! (They'll finally include the Making Of documentaries that got left off the DVDs.)



2. I idly looked at Sister Boniface Mysteries on AO3 as I do sometimes, and this time there was a delightful fic. Well. delightful for me, less so for Sam, but it's traditional to suffer for fic:

Swing (1063 words) by ImaginaryThings24
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Sister Boniface Mysteries (TV)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Sister Boniface & Sam Gillespie (Sister Boniface)
Characters: Sam Gillespie (Sister Boniface), Sister Boniface (Father Brown), Reverend Mother Adrian
Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, accidental injury, Bleeding, Bad Things Happen Bingo
Series: Part 5 of General Fandom Whump
Summary:

“There’s been a slight accident,” Sister Boniface says.

“I suspected as much,” Reverend Mother Adrian says. “Since Inspector Gillespie is bleeding all over the floor.”

These things will happen to try the Reverend Mother, especially if Sister Boniface is around. Top notch voices. I'm only surprised this has never happened in an ep. XD

So, yesterday I managed to post one of my private post-in-progresses out loud and aside from that causing me to face-palm in the morning when I awoke, startled, to magic replies on my supposedly-invisible post, it made me realise that nevertheless it was so very much better to post and have nice comments on things I wanted to talk about than to not post all the time, so here I am again!

Although also at the same time that possibly I should have put the internet down for most of this week, but alas, one of the things about being more ill than usual is a lose of gauging exactly how ill that is and when I should shut up and lie down.

So, I should just say that re. A Piece of Cake, it was not based on memoirs, but on a novel (that was, however, supposed to be pretty authentic, and the series itself felt on a par in that regard with things like Danger UXB and Wish Me Luck, and I would have looked it up enough to say properly that it was Richard Hope who kept scene-stealing for me before I eventually posted it in two years or whenever. (But thank you sovay! ♥)


And, lurking in my actual secret post in progress tag is a complete post on my reading, which is A Post but also happily was not written by me this week (in which I have mainly been even more stupid than usual; whenever I got on the internet, which I should know better by now, although on the plus side, I did do that gifset, and I have achieved progress in my graphics program and headaches from both.)

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Continuing my 2017-to date catch up of (some) of my reading.

At this point, I'm hitting the end of 2020, where I decided to have one last re-read of Louise Cooper's Indigo Saga and get rid of the books. If anyone's been paying attention to my Yuletide requests in the last few years, you'll realise this did not go according to plan. I really enjoyed and appreciated them all over again instead. The previous re-read had been while being ill and I think hadn't helped. Some of them are still a bit overly horror-y for me & there are a couple of inevitable problematic things, but actually very few overall and the whole arc across the series resonated so much more with me now than before.

It's a quest fantasy retelling of Pandora's Box, set in a geomagnetically reversed version of our world (so turn the map at the front upside down and have fun.) Anghara Kaligsdaughter, Princess of the Summer Isles, goes to the forbidden Tower of Regrets, unleashing 7 demons, which slaughter her family and the royal court. She is cursed to walk the world unaging until she has destroyed each of the demons. So each book features a different demon in a different place with different characters. It's much more metaphorical than it seems, and I do enjoy the changing locations. I'm particularly fond of Infanta for the setting, Nocturne, for the Brabazon players and the vampire-demon plot, and Troika, for the vast, snowy geomagnetically-reversed Australia.

Mainly, though, what I love is Grimya, and Grimya and Indigo. Indigo meets an outcast mutant wolf who can talk to humans (out loud if she must, but mostly telepathically), called Grimya. Grimya volunteers to join her on her quest, so they are the main two continuing characters & so it's all telepathic wolf-human bff loyalty & true friendship, which = ♥.

tl;dr: I did not get rid of the books! I set about obtaining some of her others as well, heh. (I discovered in the process that she started out as a horror writer, which does not surprise me. I'm not very into horror generally, and when they edge more towards that, I find them harder going, but not enough to put me off.)


The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, which I enjoyed quite a bit, although it was another one of the SFF reads I could finally get to, but didn't quite manage to enjoy as much as I'd hoped. It was very readable and I liked lots about it I can't remember in detail at this date, but it could lost most of the 2nd or 3rd (?) quarter of the book and not suffered in the slightest. I haven't read any of the author's other books, but it did make them curious about them - as I said, the style was really easy for me to read, the characters were distinct, and I'd be happy to read something shorter by her.

Incidentally, when I was almost at the end I looked in the tumblr tag and saw people instantly fancasting the queen character as Katie McGrath and even though I never watched Merlin, I just immediately saw it as a Gwen/Morgana AU. I could map out all the characters and I don't even watch the show! I have no idea if that's actually true, but it was definitely a once seen, it can't be unseen thing. I don't think it entirely helped, lol.

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.)

I'm falling behind with everything again - comments, friending etc. etc., sorry. (Snowflake Challenge is being lovely, but also overwhelming, and today won't be better, as I intend to go out, so that will take all my energy), but in the meantime...



Day 9

Commit an Act of Kindness. In your own space, share what you’ve done, talk about what you’ve done, or simply leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.


Day 10

Create a fanwork. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I have nevertheless done a couple of small things for Fandom Stocking, though, which should, I think, count for both of these days.

1. I defaulted on Not For Prime Time. I know by now I shouldn't sign up for exchanges, excepting only Yuletide (because once a year come hell or high water to see how it goes is a good thing) and possbly Remix (because it works differently). But of course I love exchanges and it's hard to remember that they don't mix well with being ill even in the best circumstances. So I'm kicking myself for giving in and signing up, and also for defaulting on a really lovely assignment that I had a perfectly workable idea for, but I'm immediately a good deal less stressed. Bingos are fine, Runaway Tales, prompts, commentfests, but not exchanges and only some ficathons. I know this by now. *kicks self again*

(When I'm well enough, one day, sometime, never, I shall sign up for ALL THE EXCHANGES. And run some. And ficathons. All of them. Well, maybe, lol.)


2. While not doing NPT, I did quite a lot of family history (tidying, small bits of transcribing and typing up mostly, but more and more consistently than I've managed for six years), which is amazing. If I have been quiet lately, that was one of the reasons.


3. Also I wrote some more ficlets (while not writing my NPT fic, I know, I know. I should be able to do it; it's just never quite that simple). Two more for the meme, one for the Commentfest (it hasn't entirely ended yet):

Gateaux and Glitz (571 words) by lost_spook
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Blake's 7, Doctor Who (1963)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Kerr Avon, Dayna Mellanby, Melanie Bush
Additional Tags: Crossover, Humor, Cake Fic Meme, Prompt Fic, Meme
Summary: "Are you ticklish?" (Melanie Bush + Kerr Avon.)


Safe Break (496 words) by lost_spook
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Blake's 7
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Vila Restal & Soolin
Characters: Soolin (Blake's 7), Vila Restal
Additional Tags: Ficlet, Humor, Prompt Fic, Bank Robbery
Summary: “We shouldn’t be doing this.” (Vila + Soolin)


Ruined (392 words) by lost_spook
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Sandbaggers
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Sir Geoffrey Wellingham, Neil Burnside, Matthew Peele
Additional Tags: Ficlet, Obscure and British Commentfest, Humor
Summary: Matthew's interests come in handy for once.

Well, I still don't have LiveJournal, but I achieved soup, which is something. For various reasons, I can't be particularly productive on the pc just now, so lack of LJ continues to be a pain. In the meantime, I played with random generators (because what else do you do?) and got this:

250) His Counterfeit Condesa by Joanna Fulford
The Major and the wild English lion
Major the Ninth Doctor does not approve of Wellington sending a man on a perilous mission across French-occupied Spain, but he can see that Mr Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart is no ordinary fellow! The marriage-shy major and the English lion must pose as the Conde and Condesa de Ordoñez, travelling to a high society ball, and soon Nine doesn't know what is more dangerous — the menacing shadow of French patrols, or the sensual torment of sharing a room with this tantalising charmer…


Which is kind of priceless, I have to say. I think that may win the random generators contest for today. (Can you see the Brigadier's face?)


And then I looked at the contents of the Royal Exchange Theatre tag on Tumblr, and it really is rather cool. (I am still curious about how a round theatre like that actually works, but it is obviously cool, look, so I can feel happy about how obviously I like the best people, even if nobody else has heard of them. Well, until I go on about them till everybody goes zzzzzzzzzzz...)


And, er, well, yes. Then I made a post? Hopefully productiveness will be a thing later, and maybe tomorrow LJ will come back to me and there will be joy in the world and all that. It's all right today, though. Yesterday I had my thing where I get very panicked and upset when any of the things I can still do reliably gets taken away from me. I'm very fortunate in many, many ways, but that's a thing that happens for obvious reasons.


There might be posts like this every day, sorry. A person has to do something and I already made soup and sugarless scones and that's kind of exhausted the immediate cooking options. I read too much of my book yesterday, so I mustn't read any more today. I may be driven to go and watch that other thing I obtained with James Maxwell in, if tomorrow I have blood tests and still no LJ.


ETA: Also watched this vid. It's very cheering:

( Embed under here )

1. LJ, whatever that stupid bar thing is at the bottom of my page, make it go away now, or I'll be off myself. Aargh. (It's the small things, sorry. I don't want it; it annoys me, and I've got my browser lower so that at the moment it's hidden behind the desktop toolbar thingy, but I'd rather make it go away.) The good thing about LJ is that someone's bound to come up with a way to do that pretty quickly, at least. *sigh* LJ, you'd been doing so well lately, too.) ETA: Yay, someone knows a way to turn it off. (Go to Profile: Settings: Extensions & untick the LJ Times box. Hurrah! Thanks, a_phoenixdragaon!)


2. Yuletide assignments are out, and the period of secrecy begins. I'm pleased with my assignment, but also very amused, for reasons. I hope everyone else is okay with theirs, too? Good luck! See you at reveals...


3. I went to the doctor's this morning, so was a bit weird but happily (unhappily?), I was at the last ep of SotT and therefore could come home, watch it, and cry in the good way. Very helpful. Thanks, 1970s BBC. (I can always rely on them to make me cry these days.)

(I also yesterday finally watched the extra on the DVD - a 50 min drama from 1969 called "The Tower: The Innocent", from which SotT was eventually extended. It has different actors - except for James Maxwell. Which is weird. He's Henry VII, but not the SotT Henry VII, just, well, a rather stern king. I was writing a whole post making comparisons and then realised that nobody else has seen either of them except maybe Liadt and I should either not or at least wait till I had pictures.)



4. Talking of which, have a vidlet I made two years ago for a Hallowe'en fan_flashworks challenge, since it's Hallowe'en and I've just been appropriately rewatching this very episode. (Death masks, people! Death masks. Creepy. *nods*) (It's even more appropriate when you factor in the James Maxwell ghost story. ;-p Though, it's possible I was just being shippy and gloomy at the time, but what the hell.)



(I don't really do Hallowe'en, but I like some spooky things. ♥)