two-penny spells

... aka, happy birthday to Roger Delgado, who would have been 107 (!!) today. This old fanvid drifted across my tumblr dash yesterday and made me laugh, so it's getting a share on the big day:


In other brief news:

Crocheting is going better: while watching Cadfael in the evenings, I've finished one (1) square consisting entirely of single crochet stitches! :D Now it just needs a border in a different colour and I will have reached my first goal of making a basic potholder!

I've also started reading the first of Ellis Peters' Cadfael novels! I've had a couple of them sitting around for years, and I've thoroughly fallen in love with the characters now from watching the TV series. The prose is so lovely -- a little lyrical, period in a way that feels effortless, and genuinely funny. Reading it feels like a warm cup of tea and a blanket.

I wrote a short anonymous fic for The Terror, for a prompt-meme event that was run on tumblr and in the server I moderate. It was very out of my comfort zone (dubcon/sex exchanged for career advancement, in a rather coercive way), so I wasn't sure at all if it was a success. But it took me no time at all to write, compared to my usual, and with posting being anon, it didn't feel like it would be too embarrassing if nobody liked it or it wasn't what the prompter had wanted. So I posted it, and even though the same prompt received another fill which was much longer (and better, imo!), I still got three very lovely comments on my own fic within 24 hours! Baffling, but very encouraging!

I've been updating my recs spreadsheet (and also rereading old favourites, as you do!), so I'm reccing the two most recent additions:

All You Need is Love (and Chocolate Cake) by fallingintodivinity
Fandom: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV), The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Pairing: Napoleon Solo/Illya Kuryakin
Rating: T
Tags: First Time, Fluff, Romance, Food, Cooking, Friends to Lovers, spies in love, Napoleon Gets a Clue, Slow Burn, Podfic Available
Word count: 6064
Summary: The way to an U.N.C.L.E. agent’s heart is through his stomach; or: how to cook for – and fall in love with – your partner in ten easy steps.

This fic has such a cozy, intimate feel, and somehow feels very retro even though not much in terms of technology etc is really mentioned -- there's just something very 60's about the images it conjures (perhaps it's the rather elaborate recipes Napoleon slaves away over!), plus there's some very satisfying pining. Characterisation wise, even though it has both tags, I would say this is a TV show fic more than a movie fic, but if (like me) you're really only familiar with the movie, it's very much still enjoyable!

Through a Glass, Darkly by sospes
Fandom: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Pairing: Napoleon Solo/Illya Kuryakin
Rating: M
Warnings: Rape/Non-con, Graphic depictions of violence
Tags: Honeytrap, First Time, Drama, Action/Adventure, Torture
Word count: 11991
Summary: Illya watches Solo work and sees something he was never supposed to see. And then that work follows them all home.

This is one of the fics I enjoyed the most when I first started reading in this fandom a few years ago, and though I haven't reread it in a couple years, I trust it to hold up. Heed the warnings on this one, but it's a great plotty/case-fic with good characterisation and a very satisfying dash of pining angst.

Thanks to maevedarcy posting about having signed up for Fannish 50 (challenge post is here, over at goals_on_dw), I got inspired to try it too!

I'm hoping to use it to post more fic and/or drabbles here, and also, to finally get going again on posting recs and working on my big Masterlist of fic recs.

It's entirely too easy for me to just get sucked into the fast-paced, easy-posting allure of tumblr and forget to use my DW, but I do enjoy talking about fandom, so a fannish series of posting prompts should be just up my alley. Fingers crossed!

As I make posts, I'll be linking to them in this post, under a cut.

( fannish 50 masterlist )