The Turtle Jourtle

Old and New Project: 7 by Mab, 2 by RandomFlyer, 5 by JantoJones

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 07:27:50 GMT

Fandoms in this post: The Professionals, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Sentinel, Horatio Hornblower

It's been a long time since my last project post, but you see that I have not been idle. Also, I kept notes, thank goodness.

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Old and New Project: 4.5 by Elizabeth O'Shea, 1.5 by PFL, 2 by JantoJones, 4 by Waid

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 21:48:11 GMT

Fandoms in this post: The Professionals, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Sherlock Holmes

Howdy, fellow fans. I have a lot of write-ups to share today. I've also added quite a few of the new fics to my Beloved Collection. I've decided to introduce some notation for that, which you will see below. Sometimes I collect a fic after some reflection, though, rather than immediately, and my posts may not capture that.

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Old and New Project: 3 by Cassie Ingaben, 3 by JantoJones, 2 by Culumacilinte

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 04:09:34 GMT

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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Pros Fic Bouquets for Newbies

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 22:51:08 GMT

Well, I seem to have inspired one of my friends to watch Pros. He started at the end of last week and has been making rapid progress, so that now he is most of the way through series 2. Today we were talking about Pros fic and he said he might be interested in some recs. (Wanting to read my Big Bang fic was one of his reasons for checking out the series in the first place. He is a good friend.) Anyway, following that conversation, I went through my collection and made him a little bouquet of fics.

Here they are:

Quis Custodiet by Sarah K (100 words), a drabble episode tag
A Hill of Beans by fiorenza_a (4,239 words), a backstory fic

Angels Unaware by bardicvoice (29,702 words), a case fic
Easy Prey by jaicen5 (43,233 words), a sort-of case fic

These Layers of Charnel Air by Slantedlight (byslantedlight) (16,835 words), a character driven slash fic
Babylon is Fallen by PR_Zed (przed) (29,990 words), an AU crossover

The first four are gen or het, the last two slash. My friend is not anti-slash and acknowledges the show's potential in that area, but I don't know if that type of fic interests him. Still, I was trying to cover the range of Pros fic.

If you were creating such a bouquet of fics for a friend new to the fandom, what would you include?

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Lookback Fic Bingo: Highlights 1978-1985

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 07:00:27 GMT

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.)

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Lookback Fic Bingo: 1980

Sun, 14 Dec 2025 07:17:53 GMT

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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Lookback Fic Bingo: 1981

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 05:06:15 GMT

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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Things I Like: Deteriorata

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 15:23:13 GMT

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.

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A New Idea: The Little Rewatch

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 05:33:34 GMT

I had a really good time writing my longish Professionals fic The Wind and the Rain. Pretty much the only parts of the process I didn't like were the parts where I wasn't feeling well enough to work on it. Now I want to write more fanfic. In particular, I'd like to write another Man from U.N.C.L.E. fic. (I posted a short one in 2021.) To do that, though, I need to refamiliarize myself with the show; it's been a long time since I watched it regularly.

That need gave me the idea to do a rewatch of the entire Man from U.N.C.L.E.. All 105 episodes feels like a lot to work through, though, if my main goal is to get to a point where I can write some fic. Also, I don't think it's controversial to say that some MFU episodes just aren't very good. Thus, I'm thinking of restricting myself to the list that I generated some time ago by asking other fans to name their favorite few episodes. (The list was part of my eventually abandoned project to run a regular social MFU watch.) I ended up with 51 episodes, which appear below in filming order.

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At this point, I started feeling sad that I would be watching so much MFU and no Professionals. The number of Pros episodes is also in the 50s, so I could have chosen a few more MFU episodes and maybe weeded out a few from Pros—*cough* Blackout *cough*—then alternated them. MFU is still the show I'm trying to bone up on, though, so I decided maybe I'd do a similar highlights tour of Pros. I was able to find a list I'd made a long time ago after asking LJ Pros fans for their favorite episodes. It contained 22 entries, and appears below, again in filming order.

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Then it occurred to me that if I chose one more MFU episode and three more Pros ones, I could watch two MFU followed by one Pros twenty-five times, then two more MFU at the end. Accordingly, I picked the following supplements:

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And there you are: a detailed plan for what, if I proceed with it, I'm going to call The Little Rewatch (in contrast to a Great Rewatch). I'm not going to set any kind of timetable for this, since consistency is very much not my strong suit. (That's what happened to the social MFU watch, sadly.) As I go along, though, I will probably post some informal thoughts on what I watch. I'm not sure yet whether they should be in my journal or in the appropriate fandom comms.

Let me know what you think. I know I've got a bit of a tendency to try to organize everything, but it's been making me happy in the case of my fanfic reading games, so this seems worth a try. This post itself has cheered me up on a bad night.

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Big Bang Fic Away!

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 19:12:46 GMT

Hello, everyone. My journal has been very quiet, hasn't it?

Over the past few months, I've been putting a lot of my fannish energy into writing The Wind and the Rain, the 13,000-word story that is my contribution to this year's Professionals Big Bang. I've been reading a little bit of fic, too, but not in the organized way that lends itself to write-ups.

Last night, I finally posted The Wind and the Rain. I'm elated. I'd been working on it since March, and it's the longest fic I've ever written by a factor of ten. Indeed, I think it's the longest piece of any kind I've ever written, including everything I wrote in college.

As I bask in the glow of my finished fic, I'm also looking forward to having more time for reading again. For the rest of the month, that time will be dedicated mostly to reading the other Pros Big Bang fics, but after that, expect a return to your regularly scheduled program. At least until I have a new idea for a story. :)

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The Lads Through Time: My Bistocon Recs

Mon, 11 Aug 2025 01:23:39 GMT

This Friday and Saturday I attended another virtual Bistocon. There were panels, games, vid shows, and episode watches followed by discussion. A good time was had by all.

I led the rec panel this year, choosing the theme "the Lads through time" and asking participants to share recs in a number of time-related categories. When I prepared my own recs before the con, I allowed myself to choose up to five per category, so that I would have back-ups in case someone else recced one or more of the stories I had chosen. You can find my selections below. Some I brought up during the panel and others not. (All fics are slash unless otherwise noted.)

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Lookback Fic Bingo: 1983

Fri, 30 May 2025 04:38:08 GMT

It's 1983. Michael Jackson is on the radio again. Here in the USA, the year's top film is Return of the Jedi. New terms coined include: 12-step, AIDS virus, beta test, breakdance, cell phone, cyberpunk, designer drug, empowered, gender nonconforming, green screen, information superhighway, liposuction, mosh, and nuclear winter.

For 1983, I read two Professionals fics. I had a couple more selected, but one of them turned out just not to be my thing, and the other persistently annoyed me until I gave up on it.

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Lookback Fic Bingo: 1984

Thu, 01 May 2025 04:33:56 GMT

It's 1984. Michael Jackson is on the radio. Here in the USA, the year's top film is Beverly Hills Cop. New terms coined include: bi-curious, death metal, desktop publishing, genetically modified organism, glass ceiling, moonwalk, plug and play, power walk, spin doctor, and wack.

For 1984, I read two Professionals fics and one Professionals x Starsky and Hutch crossover.

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Lookback Fic Bingo: 1985

Tue, 22 Apr 2025 08:22:24 GMT

I enjoyed the first step of my Old and New Project, but I couldn't resist another year-by-year game. So here is the first post of Lookback Fic Bingo. I may end up alternating the two.

It's 1985. Katrina and the Waves are on the radio. Here in the USA, the year's top film is Back to the Future. New terms coined include: attachment parenting, AZT, beatboxing, biodiversity, intifada, IP address, latte, mixtape, n-word, and trendoid.

For 1985, I read three Professionals fics.

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Old and New Project: 6 by Rebelcat

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 05:22:41 GMT

Fandoms in this post: The Professionals, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Starsky and Hutch

Hello, and welcome to the first post of my Old and New Project. As I explained previously, for this project I will be reading each fic in my Beloved Collection of favorites, followed by at least one new (to me) fic by the same author.

To start this step of the project, I read the two fics by Rebelcat (myrebelcat) that I had collected in the past. (I'm not sure if I'm always going to read all the fics I have by a particular author at the same time, but I did in this case.)

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Lifetime Fic Bingo: Highlights 2016-2024

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 21:49:26 GMT

During the final 9 rounds of my Lifetime Fic Bingo game, 2016 to 2024, I read 46 fics. Of those, the five that I would most recommend today are:

The Craven Hive by OldShrewsburyian (Sherlock Holmes; 35,627 words; gen)
The Moon and Planets by LaurytheLatrator (Sherlock Holmes; 33,924 words; femslash)
True by JoJo (The Professionals; 13,366 words; slash)
Out of Reach by cornishcat (The Professionals; 23,187 words; slash)
High Water by unbelievable2 (The Sentinel; 9,633 words; slash)

(Above: Lil Baby performs music for the partial decade 2016-2024.)

All recommended fics:

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Lifetime Fic Bingo: 2024 Bonus Round

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 21:19:31 GMT

Ring the bells and toot the horns, it's finally time for the last round of Lifetime Fic Bingo! Between some very bad mental health, some medical distractions, and becoming caught up in the fic I am writing, this round was a bit discombobulated. Unfortunately, that means that we are going out with more of a whimper than a bang, because my memories of some of the fics I read are now rather vague. Still, finishing this nearly two-year project is very exciting.

It's 2024. Shaboozey is on the radio. Here in the USA, the year's top film is Inside Out 2. The American Dialect Society's Word of the Year is rawdog.

For this bonus round, I read five fics: one Professionals, two Man from U.N.C.L.E., one Sentinel, and one Harry Potter.

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Slow and Steady Enters the Race

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 23:26:04 GMT

Despite having only one round left, I haven't been making very rapid progress on Lifetime Fic Bingo over the past couple of weeks. My mental health has been bad, and my concentration has suffered. What I have been doing, to my surprise, is coming up with an idea for a long Professionals fic and making it concrete to the tune of six pages of notes and a 2,500 word outline. All this inspiration came too late for me to sign up on time for this year's Big Bang, but the kind BB mods have just welcomed me as a late entrant. So here we go. A rough draft by July 1st shouldn't be too much of a problem, right? Right?

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Lifetime Fic Bingo: 2023

Wed, 05 Mar 2025 02:32:44 GMT

It's 2023. Taylor Swift is on the radio. Here in the USA, the year's top film is Barbie. The American Dialect Society's Word of the Year (coined in 2022) is enshittification.

For 2023, I read five fics: two Professionals, one Sentinel, and two Man from U.N.C.L.E..

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Lifetime Fic Bingo: 2022

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 22:47:24 GMT

It's 2022. Harry Styles is on the radio. Here in the USA, the year's top film is Top Gun: Maverick. New terms coined include: mpox and quiet quit.

For 2022, I read five fics: two Man from U.N.C.L.E., one Professionals, and two Sherlock Holmes. In a first for this game, I particularly recommend all five of them.

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Lifetime Fic Bingo: 2021

Sun, 23 Feb 2025 01:26:24 GMT

It's 2021. Olivia Rodrigo is on the radio. Here in the USA, the year's top film is Spiderman: No Way Home. New terms coined include: rizz.

For 2021, I read five works: one Man from U.N.C.L.E. fic, one Professionals fic, two published Sherlock Holmes pastiches, and one A-Team x Inception crossover.

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Lifetime Fic Bingo: 2020

Sat, 15 Feb 2025 05:12:37 GMT

It's the plague year 2020. The Weekend is on the radio. Here in the USA, the year's top film is Bad Boys for Life. (Does anyone else have no memory of such a movie?) New terms coined include: COVID-19, doomscroll, long COVID, physically distance, unidentified anomalous phenomenon, and wandering dude.

For 2020, I read five fics: two Sherlock Holmes, one Raffles, one Professionals, and one Man from U.N.C.L.E.. For some reason, all of the fics I picked out for this year were fairly short, even though I generally try to read at least a couple of long ones each round. That's okay, though. I have mostly long fics queued for 2021.

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Lifetime Fic Bingo: 2019

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 08:10:20 GMT

I've been done with this year for a while, but I wasn't able to do the write-up because my laptop was out of commission. Happily, it's back now.

It's 2019. Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus are on the radio. Here in the USA, the year's top film is Avengers: Endgame. New terms coined include: large language model and review bombing.

For 2019 I read five fics: one Man from U.N.C.L.E., two Sherlock Holmes, and two Professionals.

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Lifetime Fic Bingo: 2018

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 20:37:26 GMT

It's 2018. Drake is on the radio. Here in the USA, the year's top film is Black Panther. New terms coined include: deepfake.

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Lifetime Fic Bingo: 2016

Sat, 11 Jan 2025 04:23:56 GMT

It's 2016. The Chainsmokers are on the radio. Here in the USA, the year's top film is Rogue One. New terms coined include: cancel culture, girlboss, MAGA, and touch grass.

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