The Turtle Jourtle

Fandoms in this post: The Professionals, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Lord of the Rings, Peter Pan

Well hello, everyone. It's been a while since I posted about fic. I've been reading but in a haphazard way, which doesn't lend itself to posts. I'm finally ready with a batch of write-ups from my Old and New Project, though. (For anyone who's forgotten, that's where I reread the fics in my Beloved Collection of favorites, accompanied by new-to-me fics by the same authors.)

For a while, I've been toying with the idea of only writing up the fics I like as part of this project. I think I'm going to do that, possibly making exceptions if a fic I didn't like still provoked interesting thoughts. I did read some fics by today's authors that I didn't care for or felt neutral toward. As I noted in the last Old and New Project post, that can happen even with authors who have also written favorites, which is a useful lesson.

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During my Lookback Fic Bingo game, covering years 1978 to 1985, I read 20 fics. Of those, the three I would most recommend today are:

Dead Bluff by Linda S. Maclaren (Mackie) and Gina Martin (The Professionals; 22,900 words; gen)
Tiger by the Tail by Lillian Shepherd (The Professionals; 21,111 words; gen)
A Time of Certain Solace by Eileen Roy (The Man from U.N.C.L.E. x M*A*S*H; 4,992 words; gen)

All gen! 0_0

(Above: Nena performs music for the partial decade 1978-1985.)

I found three longish Starsky & Hutch fics, one from 1979, one from 1978, and one for a 1977 bonus round. They look like good fics, but I'm just not in the mood to read that much in a fandom I have only some knowledge of. So I’m going to pass on them for now. As a result, I've now finished both of the former years and, with them, my game. Woo! (I may come back to those S&H fics in the future, though, if the whim strikes.)



It's 1979. Pink Floyd is on the radio. Here in the USA, the year's top film is Superman. New terms coined include: biophilia, buffalo plaid, chill out, email, entheogen, first world problem, hip-hop, ollie, outsource, and space elevator.

For 1979, I read two pieces: one Starsky & Hutch fic and one Man from U.N.C.L.E. x The Prisoner crossover.

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It's 1978. The Village People are on the radio. Here in the USA, the year's top film is Grease. New terms coined include: attention deficit disorder, bodice ripper, curly endive, de-stress, emotional intelligence, pad thai, permaculture, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, Stockholm syndrome, and whataboutism.

This far back, most works available are based on either Star Trek or Starsky & Hutch. Since neither of those, on its own, appeals at the moment, I ended up reading only one fic for 1978: a Sherlock Holmes x Star Trek crossover.

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Okay. The past few days have been pretty bad mentally, and I've really been struggling to do these write-ups. Giving it another try.



It's 1980. Queen is on the radio. Here in the USA, the year's top film is The Empire Strikes Back. New terms coined include: differently abled, dis, ecotourism, electronica, high five, killing field, NIMBY, Usenet, voicemail, and yuppie.

For 1980, I read three fics: one Professionals fic, one Sherlock Holmes x Star Trek crossover, and one Man from U.N.C.L.E. x M*A*S*H crossover.

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It's 1981. Journey is on the radio. (In a sign of the times, their "Don't Stop Believin'" is the first song I've featured that didn't have a music video.) Here in the USA, the year's top film is Raiders of the Lost Ark. New terms coined include: boom box, canola oil, gateway drug, graphical user interface, infomercial, phone card, snowboard, spellchecker, spreadsheet, and technobabble.

For 1981, I read four fics: one Professionals, one Star Trek, one Star Wars, and one Starsky & Hutch.

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Well, things have been seriously thingish, but here it is at last: your regularly scheduled program.



It's 1982. Survivor is on the radio. Here in the USA, the year's top film is E.T. the Extra Terrestrial. New terms coined include: AIDS, barista, breakdancing, cyberspace, gaydar, metalhead, microbrewery, rust belt, snail mail, and Valley girl.

For 1982, I read two fics: one Professionals and one Starsky & Hutch.

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I'm excited about the new art technique I've come up with. I used it today to make the MFU fan art below.


For this technique, I made a rough photo manipulation, then traced it using a digital pen and tablet. Next, I deleted the manip, leaving only the tracings. Finally, I applied some virtual ink washes, also with the digital pen. (I added a couple of fictions not in the manip, too, notably Illya's right sleeve.)

This technique has two main advantages. First, it allows me to create finished images from photo manipulations without the endless color adjustment and attempts to match the noise and blur of different components. Besides being time consuming, those things tend to be hit-and-miss in their success. Second, it allows me to create something with a human touch despite my limited drawing skills. (I can draw a bit, but not well enough to create likenesses of the characters.)

It's also an interesting process. There is some artistry in choosing which lines to trace and how, what ink washes to use, etc. Not to mention the already creative process of making the kind of many-layer manips I have often produced.

I'm looking forward to exploring the applications of this technique.

Poking around today, I found that quite a few more VCR-era Professionals vids are hosted on the Internet Archive now than last time I looked. One of them is Deteriorata by DJ Driscoll. This vid is set to a musical parody of the poem Desiderata. That's the one Doyle displays in his flat in the episode Discovered in a Graveyard. This vid is funny and has a great interplay between the music and the clips.