Beyond the Roundels

So, chocolateboxcomm has now been and gone, and I can thank lurking_latinist and romanajo123 for my gifts, both for Five/Tegan - Doubt and Doubles and Just This One Time. (Again, lurking_latinist! ♥)

I was assigned to calliopes_pen, and wrote three stories for Dracula (TV 1968) - and thanks to Pers for beta-ing for me again! The first two were Canon Divergence AUs based on their prompts and the other a post-canon fic (I - sort of - had made this one earlier!)

I wrote a Lucy/Mina ficlet for their prompt about an AU where Mina interrupts Dracula's nighttime visits to Lucy...

Morning Prayer (902 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dracula (TV 1968)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Mina Harker/Lucy Weston
Characters: Mina Harker, Lucy Weston, Dracula
Additional Tags: Ficlet, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Vampires, Fix-It, Implied harm to a bat, but it is not an actual bat anyway, it is a vampire having a bad night
Summary: Dracula's visit to Lucy is interrupted. It's not a good night for the Count.


And then for their Van Helsing & Dracula prompt, about Van Helsing's giving in to Dracula tempting him with all his knowledge at the end, which was too fascinating not to write. This version has a rather more severe Van Helsing than many of them, so it was a fun AU to explore.

To Catch A Spider... (2082 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dracula (TV 1968), Dracula & Related Fandoms
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Dracula & Abraham Van Helsing
Characters: Dracula, Abraham Van Helsing, Jonathan Harker, John Seward, Mrs Hoskins (Dracula TV 1968)
Additional Tags: Dark, Evil Wins, Major Character Undeath, Character Death, Vampires, Alternate Universe
Summary: Van Helsing gives into temptation. The Count will learn to be sorry for it - and so will everyone else.

And, finally, for their Jon/Mina/John request, I actually had almost all of this piece written out in rough from a previous Yuletide, but wasn't able to do what I'd planned with it at the time due to illness. I wasn't quite sure if I'd be able to get it into shape and typed up for Chocolate Box, but I did, so here it is:

Inner Demons (3867 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dracula (TV 1968)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jonathan Harker/Mina Harker/John Seward
Characters: John Seward, Mina Harker, Jonathan Harker, Original Characters
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Demonic Possession, Victorian, Blood and Injury, The forces of darkness do not take holidays
Summary: If there's one thing this supernatural business has taught Dr Seward, it's that wherever the Harkers go, there'll be trouble. Unfortunately, it seems that wherever the Harkers go now, so does he...

I had meant to write some other treats because there were so many fun requests, especially in the Doctor Who fandom (there were even other Five/Tegan requesters! Unheard of!) But I got a tad carried away with my assignment mostly because I just had to dust off the would-be hellfire club in the Hotel in Bridlington (although I still did not even get to use the whole Wold Newton Triangle thing).

snowflake_challenge is running again:



I haven't done it for a while, so I think I hopefully might again this time.


chocolateboxcomm is now open for sign-ups and I probably won't sign-up (because I am not letting myself do any more exchanges until I can manage myself better again) BUT it is taking all the will power I possess! So, you know, if you fancy it, it's a fun exchange with low mins (300 words), for both fic and art.

So, chocolateboxcomm has revealed and I can finally talk to the world again! When I signed up, I offered Padme/Obi-Wan (as I've done for a few exchanges where it's been an option) and then discovered I needed to offer two relationships, hovered on the point of deleting that offer (because I've never written proper SW fic!) but then added in Padme & Obi-Wan as well... and guess what I was assigned?

The long and the short of it is, I wrote Obi-Wan & Qui-Gon master and apprentice fic for dragonlingdar, since I liked their prompts, and, why not?

So... then I rewatched the Prequels, inadvertently had overdue fictional catharsis and broke through something, except I apparently also broke through my carefully constructed 15 yr old "I don't have SW Prequel Feels" dam, and I do have feels, okay. I've written 25k overall in three weeks, my tumblr draft folder has gone up to 100+ Prequel reblogs I was trying not to drive away all my followers with. (I have 57, which is very much not a lot on tumblr. I don't want to lose them and they mostly came for the vampire gifsets and not Obi-Wan Kenobi). ( I've been trying to pretend I was just having a bit of a resurrection of Padme/Obi-Wan feels, and be casual ever since. It's a lie. Send help. Or more beautiful gif sets. Either will do. /o\)

Anyway, that has very little to do with this fic, which was fun to write even if it had me permanently on Wookieepedia, checking everything and learning that every single pre-canon idea I had for early Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon has already been done. At which point, I decided I could write a bland missing scene, default, or just damn the EU and write all the ideas up into a five times fic, so obv. I did the latter. (It is one of those stories, though, where this is totally not what it was going to be when I started out and I'm still not sure what happened to that story. It just... went somewhere along the way?)

(The irony of this being the time that I finally got to watch Good Omens was also pretty funny, after waiting all that time and hoping I'd feel fannish about it like everyone else in the universe my flist. Yeah. Somewhere in between being drowned in my pent up Prequel feelings, I may have had an actual feel, like, once in episode 4? I enjoyed it very much otherwise, though. But the thing about stories is it's the right thing that comes at the right time for you, and what that may be and if it will come at all is unpredictable.)

But I wrote a little real SW fic and didn't die even though I put Yoda in it. And then I wrote more, including two treats I'll post later. (Although none of them have Captain Janeway and Obi-Wan on a coffee heist, so I will never again reach the heights of glory of my first attempt (but crossovers can never count fully). ;-p)

The Long Way Round (4386 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Qui-Gon Jinn & Obi-Wan Kenobi
Characters: Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda (Star Wars)
Additional Tags: 5 Times, Jedi, Pre-Canon, Master & Padawan Relationship(s), Lightsabers, Hurt/Comfort, Crash Landing
Summary: Five steps forward in a Master & Padawan relationship.

Dear Chocolatier,

Thank you for making something for me! This letter is bound to be long, but tl;dr: I love all kinds of things, I love the fandoms and character combinations I've chosen, and as long as you don't write my few hard DNWs, I I'm bound to love whatever you come up with. Prompts are intended purely for inspiration, not to restrict your choices. Take what's useful and leave what isn't, and I hope you have fun.

That said, here is the long version...

( General Likes etc. )

---

( Requests: Arrowverse, Doctor Who (BFA), Doctor Who (1963), Once Upon A Time, Sapphire & Steel, Shadow of the Tower, Spooks, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, )

... and guess who has a marvellous gift and two treats? I feel bad all over again that I only managed my assignment and not even a tiny treat for anyone else, but that is life, I suppose.

ANYWAY, more importantly, my gift is an amazing thing in which someone wrote me pitch perfect Sid & Charles from Dick Francis's Sid Halley series only it is ALSO a crossover, being a very excellent Sapphire & Steel assignment with Sapphire and Silver and Steel. Chocolate Box only has a 300 word minimum and somehow I got 6000+ words of an impossible and great crossover casefic. I am overcome. Anyway, if you also like one or both of the fandoms, I recommend it. (If you don't know S&S, it is just Dick Francis + Weirdness; if you don't know Sid Halley, it's a typically strange assignment via outsider POV.)

Stalk On (6074 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Sid Halley - Dick Francis, FRANCIS Dick - Works, Sapphire and Steel
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Sid Halley & Charles Roland | Charles Rowland, Sapphire/Silver/Steel (S&S), Sapphire & Silver & Steel (S&S)
Characters: Sid Halley, Charles Roland | Charles Rowland (Dick Francis), Sapphire (S&S), Silver (S&S), Steel (S&S)
Additional Tags: Crossover, Case Fic, Timeline Shenanigans, The Royal Navy
Summary:

Far up in the stretches of night; night splits and the dawn breaks loose;
I, through the terrible novelty of light, stalk on, stalk on;
Those great sea-horses bare their teeth and laugh at the dawn.

W.B. Yeats, High Talk

Sid spends another pleasant evening at Aynsford.


I am a very lucky so-and-so, for I also received two smaller but also very lovely Sapphire & Steel treats, one playing with the strangeness of elements, the other a brief but eerie/melancholy little assignment:

Like little maps to the stars (786 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Sapphire and Steel
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Sapphire (S&S), Silver (S&S), Steel (S&S)
Additional Tags: Elemental Magic, Elemental Weirdness, Time Loop, Illusions, Post-Canon, Fix-It of Sorts, Chocolate Box Treat
Summary: They will start again, they will start over. They always do. They will become that small, bright light, and they will find their way again. Out here, they will become the world. They will be everything, the three of them. Somehow, they will be.

After assignment 6, three Elements find themselves again. And again. And perhaps, again.


Figments and Fragments (1224 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Sapphire and Steel
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Sapphire (S&S), Silver (S&S), Steel (S&S)
Additional Tags: Forests, Hidden Things
Summary: Someone and something's in the forest that shouldn't be there. The Elements investigate.


(And I'm sorry, I went a bit AWOL again the last day or so. I am just trying to get various other things done in between the usual bouts of tiredness, and so this may just happen a lot for a while, but one of the things is some wrangling stuff that actually will be done with soon, as well as the family history. And I just can't always do those things and keep up, unfortunately.)