The Turtle Jourtle

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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I was going to wait to discuss new endeavors until after I had finished my Lifetime Fic Bingo game. I'm feeling really rotten tonight, though, and I thought doing it now might cheer me up.



First, let me introduce the Old and New Project. For each step of this project, I will reread one of the fics in my Beloved Collection, then check out one or more new (to me) fics by the same author. I will probably do write-ups of at least some of what I read as part of this project, but I may restrict myself to the fics I recommend.

This project will be more informal than the reading games I've played over the past several years. I will read fics not related to the project whenever I have a notion and only work on the project when I am at a loose end. My Beloved Collection is large, so the project will probably take years to finish. I may also play some other reading games while keeping the project on the back burner.



That brings me to my other planned endeavor, Lookback Fic Bingo. This game is an extension of Lifetime Fic Bingo. For Lookback Fic Bingo, I will read fics by year, but counting backward from the year of my birth instead of forward. With the help of Fanlore, I've found a handful of available fics from each year stretching back to 1980, so that's where I've decided to stop my game. All the fics are from Professionals fandom, so I am dropping the requirement of at least two fandoms per year that was part of Lifetime Fic Bingo. I've also decided to set the number of fics for each year at between one and three, rather than between three and five.

I'm not sure when I will start Lookback Fic Bingo. It probably won't be immediately after I finish my current game. I'll wait and see when I feel like it.

I hope those of you who have enjoyed Lifetime Fic Bingo will enjoy these new endeavors as well.