Beyond the Roundels

I'm a little better, but overtired again tonight, and wanting to make a positive post, so:


1. Whumptober 2024's prompts are out! (For anyone, like me, also signed up to lyricaltitles, some of them come with song lyrics attached... could be handy for combining both challenges, heh.)


2. Also courtesy of tumblr, ( pic of Jeremy Northam as Berowne in the 1993 RSC Love's Labours Lost )


2a. Talking of him singing, I don't actually have another British Newspaper Archive sub currently, but a little while ago, I idly put a Jeremy Northam search in to see if the results would help sort out exactly what he was doing in the theatre early in his career. I did not expect to get a bunch of little preview paragraphs c.1987 where he was apparently in a thing playing the piano while all the local reviewers went, "He looks just like Ivor Novello!" You don't say. XD (The Novello resemblance was probably deliberate, as the garbled previews suggest that the other characters were also made up to look like 30s stars for that particular production of Rough Crossing by Tom Stoppard, but still. It was apparently inevitable at some point. Clearly I need to repeat this search whenever I do actually have access, but that was so unexpected, it made me laugh.)


Anyway, am off to hopefully do fictional typing for a few minutes or so before bed. ♥

I had a blood test yesterday, so I had to go out and therefore am too tired to anything, but also I thought it was safe to watch the last bit of Forsyte Saga segments that I was watching, but apparently the 1960s Forsyte Saga is never a safe thing to watch, because somehow I have committed fic with my sole bit of remaining brain anyway. (I am failing steadily while i post this, but the fic was ok i think, how does that work?)

In revenge I made it fit possibly more ongoing Bingo and prompt table squares than any other fic I've written.

(I am at least mildly amused that my reaction, creatively, is exactly the same as when I watched it the first time: I wrote the only Fleur/Michael fic in the world and then made Fleur/Jon graphics, and the only difference this time is that I hadn't watched enough of it to do Fleur/Michael so I did Anne/Jon instead. The visuals are pretty with Fleur/Jon, but it's not a ship that ought to sail anywhere, certainly not the second time around.)

Red Sky in the Morning (1316 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Forsyte Saga - All Media Types, The Forsyte Saga (TV 1967)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Anne Wilmot Forsyte/Jon Forsyte, Fleur Forsyte/Jon Forsyte, Fleur Forsyte/Michael Mont
Characters: Anne Wilmot Forsyte, Jon Forsyte, Michael Mont
Additional Tags: Missing Scene, Angst, Pining, Emotional Hurt, Community: hc_bingo, Whumptober, Community: genprompt_bingo, Community: 100ships, Community: 100fandoms, Complicated Relationships, Episode: An Afternoon At Ascot, fears of infidelity
Summary: Maybe there’s a terrible storm on its way to tear them all apart, maybe it’ll all blow over before it comes to that. It’s the worst kind of waiting.

Post-canon ficlet for Hammer's Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), because they left Martin Jarvis lying around semi-vamped in a highly ambiguous fashion, and obviously I had to write the worst possible outcome for Whumptober as a result. (See tags: not a fixit!)

For Whumptober 2022 Day 2 "Hair's Breadth from Death;" 100fandoms prompt #53 (arrested) and genprompt_bingo square "Hey it's that guy: minor characters."

Open and Shut Case (804 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dracula (Movies - Hammer)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Jeremy Secker, Inspector Cobb (Hammer)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Vampires, Dark, Minor Canonical Character(s), Whumptober, Murder, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Capital Punishment, Blood, Taste the Blood of Dracula, Community: 100fandoms, Community: genprompt_bingo, Prison
Summary: Jeremy's left in the police station with blood on his hands, and none of it matters any more.

I do feel that I haven't really updated properly for ages! I've just really spent all of October recovering from my parents' visit, which was a lot to do with unfortunate timing, and when I've been a little steadier in between, i've just done some family history and completely left the writing alone. I feel a bit stronger again now, although I won't make any rash statements about not getting so low again, because whenever I do, I just get immediately worse!


1. Belatedly, but I think not too late yet, undeadrobins is running a fun ficathon - the second Kissathon!


2. Yuletide assignments went out and mine is a fun one! It was for a fandom I had regretted signing up for, but this was the letter that made me be so unwise & I have an idea and it doesn't seem too unrealistic/ambitious, so I'm cautiously excited. (Actual writing happened yet = 0, though so we shall see!)


3. Talking Pictures did indeed provide me with two not-quite-complete installments of The Hidden Truth on Monday and Thursday (and getting up from my afternoon rest to face the worst bit of the day (when I'm lowest) with the prospect of new-to-me old James Maxwell is a delightful way to fight misery). Monday's had less JM (but had plenty of non-evil Bernard Archard*) but then Thursday's was basically a Richard Harris-penned episode featuring James Maxwell and Zia Mohyeddin doing autopsies and getting annoyed by small-town prejudice and aside from the fact that what was missing from this even-more-almost-complete episode was the actual conclusion to whodunnit, I can't say what I enjoyed more. If I'm allowed to be frivolous, it might even have been the height difference between the two of them and the imaginative framing that the director resorted to was my personal highlight. But idk. I'm very happy to have such a thing brought out of the archives and onto my TV. Thanks Talking Pictures, now repeat the one I missed, pleeeeease!!! XD (Still one more to go, although I haven't checked the cast - might be no JM at all.)


4. I was going to try and do Whumptober but I wrote 1 fic in rough. It is still in rough. I hope to type it up soon, though, now! Ah well.


5. I am doing a trick or treat thing on tumblr where I will make one (singular) gif for everyone who leaves an ask saying "trick or treat!". I have quite a few, but not so many that I can't repeat the offer here. Obv this is better suited to tumblr, but if it would also give anyone pleasure here to have one random (middle-ability) gif, then well done on making it down to this part of a longish post and just say "Trick or treat!" in a comment and I will try to make one I think you will like. ♥


There may well have been other things, but this is a good amount of catching up to be going on with!

* Bernard Archard is not only usually invariably evil, he's frequently also undead.

The other Whumptober fic I wrote (over 3 weeks ago!) needed much less editing than I thought, so here it is. \o/

Brief Candles (1058 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Daisy Dalrymple - Carola Dunn
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Daisy Dalrymple/Alec Fletcher
Characters: Daisy Dalrymple, Alec Fletcher
Additional Tags: Blood, Blood Loss, Murder, Hurt/Comfort, Whumptober 2020, Community: 100fandoms, Community: hc_bingo, 500 prompts, 1920s
Summary: "You couldn't have lost this much blood. You'd be dead..."

Also for hc_bingo square "Blood loss", 100fandoms prompt #20 (discover) and for delacourtings in the 500 Prompts meme: #186 nothing could bleed that much - Alec/Daisy.