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In the midst of writing five ways Sir Robert and Catherine could have got together post-canon for

yuletide, the inevitable result was also thinking about what if they were just married already. And I hadn't yet actually written them for

100ships or TWB for

100fandoms, so I scribbled this down somewhere in between or after the assignment, and here it is.

when all the leaves are gold (1497 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Winslow Boy (1999)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Robert Morton/Catherine Winslow
Characters: Robert Morton (Winslow Boy), Catherine Winslow
Additional Tags: Community: 100ships, Community: 100fandoms, Community: allbingo, Post-Canon, Edwardian Period, Marriage, Suffragettes, World War I, (outbreak of), Vignette, Happily married Sir Robert and Catherine, Established Relationship, 1910s
Summary: Catherine and Sir Robert, making a marriage work.

(

edwardianspinsteraunt, the second section centres around the imminent announcement of WWI and fears in that regard, but only discussions of it, and the first section is entirely war-free anyway, so you are definitely safe there.)

luthien

This is my favourite kind of established relationship fic, exploring the "learning how to be together" phase of a relationship. Sweet but in a believable and not too sweet way. This one contains some spoilers for The Long Game, but is mostly set after the end of that book.

Heaven Has Got Nothing On Us (Oh, I Love You Even When My Body Turns to Dust) (39629 words) by overlycaffeinatedgalaxy

Relationships: Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov

( Summary )

luthien

1. The heatwave - or heat dome as the meteorologists have been calling it - is over. There's eight days I never want to live through again. The max got to almost 42C/107F here again on Saturday, but was down to about 30/86 yesterday and we're on track for only 24/75 today. I'm actually sitting here with a light wrap around my shoulders. When I went out at 8.00 this morning it was, like, 9/48 degrees. Talk about temperature whiplash. It's going to heat up again later in the week, but only to about the mid-30s, which is much easier to live with than 40+.

2. I had dental surgery for an implant this morning. It went well, and very glad they could do it under local anaesthetic, but also very glad it's over. Currently sipping tepid coffee on the non-numb side of my mouth and icing the other side of my face. I think I might curl up in bed with some fic in a while.

3. Festivids is live. I haven't had a chance to watch as many as I'd like yet, but just off the top of my head there are several Babylon 5 vids (yay!), a great character study of Gromit from Wallace and Gromit, and some really inventive Dykes to Watch Out For vids that manage to turn a static source (a comic strip) into something really effective and dynamic.

Current Mood: uncomfortable

thisbluespirit

I continue to make slow progress with recovering, which is very dull, but still generally in the right direction, however hard it is to be patient. I haven't been able to keep up much at all here, only in bits and pieces.

However, I realised I was behind with crossposting

rainbowfic pieces, and I can do that:

Name: Turn To Dust
Story: Starfall
Colors: Warm Heart #25 (Spite); Azul #9 (Willpower); Colour of the Day - 30/10/2025 (Wheedle)
Supplies and Styles: Charcoal + Chiaroscuro + Graffiti (for October Challenge incl. bonus prompt "Psychological Horror") + Novelty Beads ("But I am alive. And I am not afraid." from

bookblather for Birthday Prompts 2021).
Word Count: 3808
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Mental manipulation, threat, injury, death.
Notes: Portcallan, 1313. Leion Valerno, Donn Chiulder, Tana Veldiner. (This isn't Psychological Horror as a genre per se, but I thought taken as a prompt, it fitted too perfectly not to use for this).
Summary: Leion faces his worst nightmare.

shivver

My last post was about a comment on my latest story that sounded sarcastic, or at least insincere, and I postulated that it was written by AI.

Well, I was on the AO3 sub last night and people were talking about a new trend where someone leaves a comment on your fic and then when you engage with them by replying with a thank-you, they follow up with "I really want to do some art of your fic. Contact me on Discord so we can hash out the details." In other words, a new type of art spammer. People are especially outraged by this new thing, because they get the excitement of receiving positive feedback and then find out it was a lie, and that the commenter is just trying to manipulate them.

No idea if this is what this was, as I'm not going to reply to them, but I wouldn't be surprised, especially since they left the "omg this is wonderful" comment but weren't impressed enough to leave a kudo.

luthien

I have the first line of a Heated Rivalry fic in my head, but I'm not sure where it fits in the timeline. It's possible it may be a canon divergence AU.

I guess I'm just going to have to rewatch the whole thing in order to work it out, aren't I? Oh, woe. The hardship.

luthien

Challenge #15

How Did the Fandom Snowflake Challenge Go?

Not as well as previous years. lol. I was going well up to challenge 9, and then life happened and I got behind and it all got too much and I crashed and burned. I did enjoy taking part, though, and it was good to interact with some new people as well as people I already knew. Really, the interaction is what I want out of snowflake more than anything, so in that sense it was a success even though I didn't get to all the challenges.

Snowflake Challenge: A flatlay of a snowflake shaped shortbread cake, a mug with coffee, and a string of holiday lights on top of a rustic napkin.

shivver

So that story I just posted yesterday. It was okay, right? I mean, nothing amazing, nothing groundbreaking, not even anything moving. Just a couple thousand words connecting the real-life colorful belt from the Byzantine era to the Doctor's scarf.

Well, I got this comment on it:

( Read more... )

And I have to ask, to anyone who cares to voice an opinion: Is this sarcasm? Are they saying it really was rubbish without making it look like a bash?

Because it's so excessive -- especially for such an average, vanilla story -- that I can't take it at face value. I mean, really, who gets emotional about a description of a city being loud and colorful? Not to mention, I didn't even describe the city at all. I just had Victoria say it was noisy and the Doctor point at the church.

And they want "the next update immediately"? This is so obviously a one-shot. Sorry about your hands and knees.

I feel like the person fed ChatGPT my story and asked it to write the most over-the-top emotional comment it could come up with.

I'm torn between answering nicely and deleting it entirely, but I'm starting to lean towards the delete.

luthien

One more fill for

threesentenceficathon

Language!
Fandom: Heated Rivalry
Pairing: Shane/Ilya
Rating: T
Prompt: being in so much pain that you’re swearing in multiple languages

“Jesus fuck – putain – Говно – Christ, I need more languages to swear in if the team keeps doing this sort of thing every time I’m out with an injury; watching this is even more painful than my actual MCL sprain,” Shane complained, jabbing a finger at the TV screen.

“There is no need for cursing; he did not miss the goal by so very much – only feet, not yards,” Ilya said consolingly, and leaned in to stop Shane’s mouth with a kiss before he had the chance to direct more swear words – whether in Canadian English, Canadian French, or very bad Russian - at Ilya.

“See моя любовь,” Ilya continued when he lifted his head – not from Shane’s mouth – sometime later, “we only need one language, and it has no words.”

luthien

We survived the high of 42C/107F yesterday - thank you, ducted air con - but I wound up with a particularly bad headache that snuck up on me over the course of the day. It was one of those days when I kept wondering why everything was so hard and I couldn't get anything done. Eventually, when the penny finally dropped and I took some painkillers, my first thought was: I can't think straight. I can't write! This is it. I'll never be able to write again.

I will just point out here that I have lived with chronic daily headache and migraine for literally decades - and yet logic still goes out the window every time I get hit with a bad one when it's been a week or two since the last one. The human mind - what can you do? I think I'll try to write something tonight, just to prove to myself that my mind while in the grip of a headache doesn't know what it's talking about.

Today has been much better. The headache has departed and the max temperature today was 'only' 35/95. You can really feel the difference in how less suffocating the air outside feels, even though the poor garden is still baking. It's going to get back up to 40/104 again tomorrow and the day after, though, so we'll see how I go. I'm having my weekly massage tomorrow, which should help stop my upper back from clenching up too much.

One other side effect of the hot weather is that we're only sleeping under a sheet atm, so no real surprise that I was awakened fairly early this morning by my feet being pounced on, not long after D had left for work. When I opened my eyes I was surprised to find that it was Abby, who is seven now, and not Olly, who is not quite ten months old. Then she growled, and I realised she thought my feet moving under the sheet were a moving kitten. Even after six months, she is still DEEPLY offended that Olly exists, and, worse, that he exists in her house.

So I rolled over and went back to sleep, and a while later I got woken up by another pounce. This time it was Olly. He didn't let up, so I had to fold the doona back over to protect my feet. Then, when I'd spoilt his fun, he jumped up to play with the blind cord. At that point I incarcerated him in his bedroom. (Yes, he has his own bedroom with his own special fluffy bed, blanket, litter tray, scratching station, water bowl and overnight snacks, partly because he's spoilt to death, and partly because every time we leave him free overnight, he wreaks havoc on the other pets and the house in general. I guess we're getting off reasonably lightly, though. As a friend pointed out to me, think how much worse he would be if he hadn't been desexed.)

Have some pics:
( Cat pics )

unfeathered

This evening I finally got round to watching the live action version of Disney's Aladdin, which I rather enjoyed despite the somewhat lacklustre performances. Will Smith as the Genie was as engaging as always but I wasn't impressed by his singing, and Mena Massoud as Aladdin was sweet but didn't blow me away, but I found myself captivated by Naomi Scott as Princess Jasmine. I don't think I've ever seen her in anything but I thought she was lovely, and all the way through she kept reminding me of SMG as Buffy. That wide-eyed, shocked, almost-about-to-start-crying look. She was really, really lovely.

So afterwards I decided to watch OMWF, for the first time in forever. I've barely watched any Buffy or Angel in the last decade or so, except a couple of episodes when I was role-playing Giles. I found myself feeling too grown up (finally!) for the rather childish behaviour of all the characters, and hesitated over whether to watch OMWF again in case I'd finally fallen out of love with what used to be my absolute favourite episode of any television ever.

It still is. Still as perfect as ever. One hell of a piece of storytelling, with gorgeous music that carries the story along brilliantly, incredible performances from the whole cast and inspired direction and camera angles, and just something that it way, way more than the sum of its parts.

P.S. I posted about some of the things I love about OMWF here in 2018 (which may well have been the last time I watched it)

P.P.S. Yes, I know this icon isn't from OMWF. Turns out I don't actually have one that is.

shivver

Title: "Threads and Memories"
Fandom(s): Doctor Who
Characters: Second Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon, Victoria Waterfield, Third Doctor
Rating: G
Genre: General
Word Count: 1809

Summary: The Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria visit Constantinople in the early part of the Byzantine Empire.

Read it on AO3.

Author's Notes: This was inspired by the post shown in the ending notes, from Archaeology & Art on Twitter, which

romanajo123 sent to me a couple of days ago. As she said, "there's so many possibilities here", which of course, is exactly the kind of thing I like to write, so how could I resist?

I mean, as Paul Cornell said in response to the question, "Where do you get your ideas?"

The answer is that everyone has ideas. The difference is that writers write them down and work on them.

I got a few ideas from the image, and another few ideas from my husband (who loves to come up with ideas), and this is the one I selected and worked on. Two days later (one day writing, one day rewriting), and here it is. And the most fun I've had writing in a while, because this wasn't induced by my monthly posting deadline (though it still counts for that). \o/

luthien

It looks like parts of western Victoria have recorded the state's hottest ever temperature today. Right now, it's 48.9C, or 120F in the old money.

The forecast is for 42C/107F here tomorrow, which will be bad enough. I'm really glad I don't have any appointments until Friday. I'm not planning to budge from the house. I'm worried about fires, though. Where I live is just far enough from bushland that I don't have to worry about them for myself, but god. There were 900 buildings lost and a big chunk of land all burnt out in the heatwave a few weeks ago, when there were dozens of fires burning across Victoria and New South Wales.

How many fires are there going to be in this sort of heat?

(And still we have politicians trying to say that this is normal. I saw one leader of a far right less-and-less-fringe party call climate change 'rubbish' today. I won't dignify her words by attaching her name to them, but if you're Australian I'm sure you know who I'm talking about.)

luthien

I wrote a couple of fills for

threesentenceficathon. There could be more, but for now there's these two:

She Knows
Fandom: The Scarlet Pimpernel
Pairing: Percy/Marguerite
Rating: M
Prompt: she knows

( Read more... )

Rumours
Fandom: Heated Rivalry
Characters: Hayden & Shane (Shane/Ilya implied)
Rating: G
Prompt: Have you heard the rumors about us?

( Read more... )

luthien

I've been intending to put together a Heated Rivalry recs post, but I think this one needs its own.

Haydenov Phone Swap by icopythefax is a series of three stories, and the premise is what it says on the tin:

After a mix-up leaves Hayden with the wrong phone for three days, he ends up learning more about Ilya Rozanov and his secret girlfriend, Jane.

The first story, I Like Jane For You, is told from Hayden's POV. Initially, I had to suspend my disbelief a bit that:
1. They would accidentally swap phones in a bar,
2. Neither phone had a passcode,
3. They would wait three days until they could meet up and swap the phones back, and
4. Neither of them saw fit to tell Shane about the phone swap.

HOWEVER, once you just roll with the premise, this story turns out to be an excellent outsider POV fic that is both humorous and heart touching.

But the second story, Do Not Text Jane, oh MAN. It's the same sequence of events as in I Like Jane For You, but told from Ilya's POV, and it is a fantastic character study of Ilya. As well as explaining WHY he didn't tell Shane about the phone swap, it also shows just how much he loves and misses and thinks about Shane ALL THE TIME, as well as his more general loneliness and need for some proper friends. (It's probably not too much of a spoiler to say that he ends up with some, though the number remains debatable in the third story. Don't worry, it will make sense once you get there.)

SO YES, then there's the third story, Please Be Normal About This, set a couple of years later:

After the events of I Like Jane For You, the public reacts to Rozanov and Pike as secret friends. Conveyed through text threads, social media, and news articles.

Okay, so this is hardly the first story in this sort of format that I've read in this fandom, but it's the only one I've read multiple times.

Samirant and I read it together in chat and kept exchanging quotes as we went. It's so clever, and utterly hilarious. Ilya's media statement in Chapter 2 in particular is one for the ages, but it's truly one of those stories that if I tried to quote all my favourite lines I'd be pretty much quoting the whole story.

I have a tag on tumblr called Read This - and yes, yes you should.

scripsi

Esaias Tegnér (1782 – 1846) was a Swedish bishop and writer. He wrote this poem in 1810 as a reaction to Napelon. And 216 years later I find it still has relevance.

The eternal

The strong one shapes his world with the sword,
His reputation soars like the eagles;
But one day the wandering sword will break,
And the eagles will fall in their flight.
What force will create is both fleeting and short,
like storms in the desert it soon comes to nought.

But truth will live on. Amidst axes and blades
her calm, gleaming brow she uncovers.
She guides through the nocturnal world’s shady glades,
and constantly points to some other.
What’s true is eternal: round heaven and earth
its words will re-echo from birth to new birth.

What’s right is eternal: its lily though crushed
can ne’er be completely uprooted.
Should evil prevail and the world end as dust,
what’s right can be willed unrefuted.
Though round you with cunning and force it’s oppressed,
it still has a refuge concealed in your breast.

And will which in flaming breast refuge did seek
takes mandom like God, becomes action.
What’s right now gains arms, what’s true now can speak,
and all see a world that’s re-fashioned.
Each hazard you faced and each sacrifice made
like stars rise from Lethe and never will fade.

And poetry lasts, unlike flowers’ passing scent,
or rainbows in clouds someone glances.
The beauty you fashion as dust will not end,
its countenance old age enhances.
For beauty’s eternal: with mind keen and brave
we fish up its gold-sand from time’s mighty wave.

So grasp all that’s true, so dare all that’s right,
the beautiful fashion with pleasure!
The three will for ever be mankind’s delight
and from time do we plead for such treasure.
What time gave you once you must give back as well,
the eternal alone in your heart may still dwell.

Det eviga

Väl formar den starke med svärdet sin värld,
Väl flyga som örnar hans rykten;
Men någon gång brytes det vandrande svärd
Och örnarna fällas i flykten.
Vad våldet må skapa är vanskligt och kort,
Det dör som en stormvind i öknen bort.

Men sanningen lever. Bland bilor och svärd
Lugn står hon med strålande pannan.
Hon leder igenom den nattliga värld
Och pekar alltjämt till en annan.
Det sanna är evigt: Kring himmel och jord
Genljuda från släkte till släkte dess ord.

Det rätta är evigt: Ej rotas där ut
Från jorden dess trampade lilja.
Erövrar det onda all världen till slut,
Så kan du det rätta dock vilja.
Förföljs det utom dig med list och våld,
Sin fristad det har i ditt bröst fördold.

Och viljan, som stängdes i lågande bröst,
Tar mandom, lik Gud, och blir handling.
Det rätta får armar, det sanna får röst,
Och folken stå upp till förvandling.
De offer du bragte, de faror du lopp,
De stiga som stjärnor ur Lethe opp.

Och dikten är icke som blommornas doft,
Som färgade bågen i skyar.
Det sköna, du bildar, är mera än stoft,
Och åldern dess anlet förnyar.
Det sköna är evigt: Med fiken håg
Vi fiska dess guldsand ur tidens våg.

Så fatta all sanning, så våga all rätt,
Och bilda det sköna med glädje!
De tre dö ej ut bland människors ätt,
Och till dem från tiden vi vädje.
Vad tiden dig gav må du ge igen,
Blott det eviga bor i ditt hjärta än.

romanajo123

Let's see if I can do all this... :P

Thanks, @thisbluespirit !

By the fireside	Snow	In the library
"I'll help you"	WILD CARD	Happy ending
Under a spell	Dressing up	Dancing

Current Mood: blank

luthien

I've fallen behind with fandom snowflake this week. I'll have to see if I can catch up tonight. Oh well, it's meant to be a relaxed challenge, so it won't really matter to anyone except me if I finish it or not.

While I've been not doing snowflake, I HAVE been reading quite a bit of Heated Rivalry fic lately. It's been quite a while since I last just sat down and read a bunch of fic for a single fandom. It's been nice to just immerse myself like that. Not sure if I'll write anything. Even apart from all the hockey stuff, it's a very (North) American canon, and I haven't written for a fandom like that in a really long time. But maybe. We'll see. I do have the kernel of an idea. Maybe. Perhaps. If I have the strength, I'll do a recs post, at least.

(I did manage to write a three sentence fic for

threesentenceficathon today. I might write a few more if the mood strikes.)

One funny thing. I just left kudos on a HR fic, and noticed that half a dozen names along from mine was an old friend who hasn't had time for fandom for the last few years until very recently. Looks like we have a fandom in common again, for the first time in... fifteen years? More? I'm laughing at the way I found out, though, particularly given the sheer quantity of kudos a lot of the fics in this fandom get. What are the odds that we should leave kudos on the same fic at almost the same time? I guess we must have both followed the same rec, but STILL.

Meanwhile, the weather is being pretty brutal here. The other week, we had the most intense heatwave since the Black Summer six years ago, but this week's heatwave is going to be worse. It got to about 37 (98F) today, which felt like walking into an oven whenever I opened the front door, and it's going to be similarly hot for the next few days, but they're forecasting 43 (109F) for Wednesday. I'm super glad I don't have any appointments that day. I'm just going to batten down the hatches and stay in my nice, cool air-conditioned house until the temperature finally drops. It will be one of those days when it might still be around 30 at midnight, though, so I think the dog's chances of getting a walk that day are basically nil.

I still haven't made it to the beach this summer, mostly because of the weather. Every weekend it seems to be either a heatwave or else a post-heatwave storm, neither of which makes for fun travelling to the beach or being at the beach conditions. There were also four shark attacks in 48 hours along the coast last weekend, including one in Sydney Harbour. That NEVER happens, so everyone is a bit freaked out. The attacks occurred in the aftermath of a big storm, when a lot of storm water was washed into the sea and stirred it all up, though. That attracts bait fish, and the bait fish attract sharks - plus climate change has made the water temperature warmer, which means that the sharks hang around in the area for longer. I grew up a five minute walk from the beach, and my dad taught us from an early age that murky water is sharky water, so there's no way I would have gone swimming in those conditions. But it's clear that not everyone knows that rule. It might be time for the authorities to add a "don't go swimming in murky water" warning to the usual summer slip, slop slap (slip on a shirt, slop on sunscreen and slap on a hat) campaign.

I'm flying up to the Deep North in a few weeks to visit my mother, so maybe I'll get a chance for a swim while I'm there. She lives right on the coast, which makes it a lot easier than trying to have a day at the beach from here.

thisbluespirit

Some things that I have had stashed away for a little while:

1.

sovay very kindly sent me a copy of Exit Through the Fireplace by Kate Dunn, which was waiting for me at the new house when I got here. It is about repertory theatre with lots of accounts on every aspect from actors and others involved, including a lot of people I have watched in old telly, so I enjoyed it a lot.

But having only recently before tried to make a post explaining what I loved about Terence Rattigan's plays, including floundering about trying to say how effective his dialogue is, I was v pleased to find this quote:

John Moffatt: (On being in rep, and the difficulty of remembering the lines, doing a new play every week): "You got to know who the good writers were. With Rattigan you barely had to learn it at all, even after just blocking it you almost knew it because it is so beautifully written. The only way to reply to something that has just been said is what he's written."

2. Talking of people being kind,

swordznsorcery wrote me a lovely Sapphire & Steel story with a new Element and a stealth crossover very RTMI here, and if you also like S&S, I recommend taking a look, as it's great! <3

3. The book I was reading introduced me to the utterly untrue but very S&S like urban myth/ghost story of the Zanetti Train. Sounds like an Assignment to me, or a film I would watch, anyway. (It seems to have been taken from a Ukrainian work of fiction, most likely - certainly not one detail of it has any truth in it).

4. Making personalised bingo cards proved to be exactly in my wheelhouse right now, so I had fun with that. If anyone missed it the other day and would like one, feel free to still ask! (Here or there, whatever).

5. Random AO3 tag found while wrangling that is currently amusing me: It is literally just Twelfth Night but with Moomins.

Otherwise still slowly progressing and all that etc etc etc.