Hiding fandom in the underwear drawer since 1977

• UST; witty banter and snark; Politics, finance or military strategy; World War 2; Worldbuilding; Gap-filling; Culture clash (within Narnia or Narnia vs. Spare Oom); healthy, normal, romantic relationship between consenting adults (canon pairing or OC); someone being extraordinarily clever and getting out of a jam; any Narnian (Pevensie or otherwise) observed from a third person point of view; anything sly, wry, and silly; rapid fire dialogue; a delightful sense of the absurd
• A happy ending, delightful characterization, and to laugh at least once
• Pagan and/or mythological influences;
• Adults and old souls in young bodies;
• A Narnia with creaky wheels, the faint smell of manure, grass stains, open windows, and lots of animal hair that everyone is too polite to comment upon
• I prefer humor over angst and sex over violence.
• Cross-overs! 
•  AU and canon divergence is great too.  A Golden Age > 15 years, so, therefore I'd love an AU look with adult Pevensies, OC consorts, and the next gen.  Similarly, I’d love a Spare Oom AU with a happily ever after and no train crash
• I'm more interested in periods other than the Telmarine era onward and really I'd be very happy if you just ignore TLB completely.

 What I definitely don't want in my fic: it's a short list but pretty strongly held:  explicit m/m (everything else is OK); excessive angst, gore or violence; any dub-con whatsoever (Rilian & Lady of the Green Kirtle (OK); Susan written as "Fallen Away From Narnia because of Lipstick and Nylons"; Lucy sidelined or being protected by her overbearing big brothers and worry-wart sister.  I have a strong preference for humor over angst and romance/sex rather than violence.

So, let’s see…

Big Bang is at 41,000 words (including a glossary and cast of characters so that you can keep track of how a Sten is different from a Bren).  I’m guessing maybe 10,000 words left?  Granted, that's a BIG bit to do in a week for a rough draft but I actually have a pretty coherent outline and as I’m following an order of battle, it’s not, as things go, a huge challenge.  So I say now.  Gawd.  A war story.  I'm such an idiot.

I’m assuming that the H&M update got hit by ff.net being down or something -- possibly something.  Thanks so much to those who did persevere against the site problems and comment!  In less chipper news, I have been called out in two separate things on ff.net for harassment and flaming.  I responded to one and didn’t bother with the other.  My thanks to those who have assisted/weighed in/provided moral support.

A burning question.  Why is my world not full of the new Upstairs Downstairs and the promised relationship between Alex Kingston/Emilia Fox  aka River Song/Morgause?  Why?  Why?  Where is the fic?  Where are the gifs?  WHERE WHERE?  Show me NOW.  Cross over madness I tell you.  This is the sort of thing that drives me to the sort of infringing conduct that is not age appropriate.

intrikate88 has been doing some terrific Once Upon A Time Fic  exploring Belle and Rumpelstiltskin so do check that out.

Which brings me to the related issue that I have finally seen Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.  It was a typical and very grown up sort of thing – a late matinee with Important People in the audience and no one under the age of 30.   I dearly love Le Carre’s book and it and Conant’s The Irregulars inspired a lot of TQSiT and my TSG AU.  I enjoyed the film and Oldman plays a very, very cold Smiley.  It’s a good adaptation in a 2 hour film.  The challenge is that so much of Smiley is internal and he reveals practically nothing to others.  That can get dull in film.  Le Carre is not great with his women characters and the film I thought provided a critique of that – we never see Lady Ann’s face.  She could be anyone.

It seemed every respected British male actor working was in the film, except maybe Alan Rickman and Jim Broadbent.  So the eye candy was excellent.

Some spoilers – if you don’t know who the mole is, you might not want to read.

 He summoned Major al-Masri from Bletchley Park and the man arrived so promptly, George concluded the impatience to meet was mutual.  He’d sent Tebbitt off to Thame Park for a refresher in wireless training and that would keep him occupied for a week – two if the latest agents there for training were attractive, which they invariably were.  He did have to wonder if striking looks and trim figure where on the intake sheets Selwyn Jepson used when interviewing female candidates for insertion into France.

Instead of "he," could/should it be George?  Or Walker-Smythe?  Same thing with Tebbitt:

Tebbitt knew the origins of Jean-Louise.  The Shoemaker, the master forger at the British Embassy in Washington, had gifted her with two beautiful sets of shoes – fake identities.  She had lived one of them, assuming the identity of Mrs. Susan Caspian, for the last year.  The other she would trot out and take for a spin occasionally and so he’d come to know Mrs. Jane Louise Ellis pretty well.  Mrs. Ellis was from Leeds, younger than Mrs. Caspian, and her dress – usually red –cut low.  She was a flirt and looked smashing on a man’s arm.    Jane Louise Ellis had become Jean-Louise Lambert.

Where the surname Lambert had come from, he didn’t know, but as Colonel Walker-Smythe was fond of saying, the Queen of Pentacles that was Mrs. Susan Caspian knew how to keep her own counsel.

If not "he," should it be "Tebbitt"  or "Reg?"  This has really stumped me.

Last there has been an update in the vanity project, Girl Falls Into rth-verse Narnia story that greaves is undertaking and she had Jalur make a wonderful, wry appearance here.

Not thirty minutes into the training flight and the deck of the Waco they were trapped in was awash in the vomit of hardened men.  He was, quietly, proud that he’d retched on only four of the twelve training flights.  That was eight better than his CO.  Major Howard had gotten sick every time they went aloft in the Waco.

For his fortitude, Peter won win twenty schillings and 9 cigarettes in the Company-wide betting pool.

But this lead me to the realization that it was all exposition and so I should write, you know, real time vomiting and why Peter was pretty much inured to the smell of it being accustomed as he was to the stench of giants, wet sheep, and stewing offal meats.  Which meant he had something to fix his gaze on which meant I needed to know what was inside a Waco CG-4 glider.  (Yes, I will explain why everyone is sick in the first place).  15 minutes of google-fu later and I hit the jackpot.
138 years of Popular Science available on line.  For free.  This is from the February 1944 issue.  On page 94 is the article about the gliders. Also on page 104, Daily Workouts Guard Your Health is the 1944 version of softcore porn in a science magazine.  What is cool is that these are the actual scanned magazines so you get the ads and diagrams and it's a wonderful slice of history.  And science!  [edit -- RAWRR it won't let me link to the pages directly so you'll have to go to the table of contents and link to pages 94 and 104 or scroll through it or search "glider" and "workout."]

An hour later, I've been skimming science articles about Darwin from 1894 and a long discussion about kangaroo like dinosaurs  from the 1920s and the history of how mental illness was assumed to be the result of demonic possession.  It's time to shut the browser.