[ SECRET POST #5492 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5492 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.



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02.
[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]


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03.
[Meta Runner]


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04.
[food writer/chef Alison Roman]


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05.
[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World]


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06.
(the poem "Tam O 'Shanter" by Robert Burns)


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07.
[Sapphire & Steel]











Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 19 secrets from Secret Submission Post #786.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

07. https://imgur.com/LmzgE9k.png
[Sapphire & Steel]

[(Anonymous)]

I think there are a couple over 20k on AO3, although most of them are crossovers. As much as I adore S&S, I'm kinda not surprised, though? I'm guessing it's for the same reason horror fics are rarer than other genres. There's a certain sort of mood you have to find and sustain for a Sapphire & Steel fic, and it's not the easiest thing in the world. And, if you're doing casefic, a certain sort of old-school sci-fi/horror/fairytale general weirdness sort of plot. S&S really is sort of alien and abstract that way.

(I love it so dearly, though. Particularly the train station serial, that one was definitely the best. The photograph ghost children serial and the first serial with Lead were also really good. The goddamn haunted animal capsule on the roof was definitely the weirdest of them)

[(Anonymous)]

Secret OP here.

Man, Assignment 3 (the apartment meat ship one) was weird and pretty mediocre, but that last episode was a BANGER.

I generally don't read crossovers, but with this fandom I just might crack and try to find a couple good ones. I've literally read every non-crossover fic on AO3, FFN, and the ones I can actually find on Livejournal.

[(Anonymous)]

Pic looks intriguing. OP, can you give me an elevator pitch for this show or ship?

[(Anonymous)]

Not OP, but … wow this show is hard to describe. It’s an old-school British sci-fi from the 70s/early 80s, and it’s weird. Think old-school Doctor Who but darker, weirder and more abstract.

The pair pictured here are the main characters, Sapphire (Joanna Lumley) and Steel (David McCallum), and they’re ‘elements’, strange alien beings that come to fix … weirdnesses. Things like time loops, alien intrusions, ghost photographs that eat people, that kind of thing. It’s a very abstract show. It’s so, so good. It’s only got six television serials (ie stories, with a couple episodes each), though I’m pretty sure there are more audio serials and an expanded universe of novels. The mythology of the show is so hard to explain. There are other agents, we see Lead and Silver in particular, and there are more mentioned in the EU. They’re all alien entities, and they deal with intrusions into the normal universe of abstractly hostile things. Some of the stories come across like ghost stories, some of them are more science fiction, one of them had murder mystery elements, and then you had Serial 6, which was … a whole other ball game.

Of the two characters shown, Sapphire is the most on-the-surface gentle and relatable to humans. Her abilities are more focused on sensing and telepathy. Steel is the more brusque and seemingly hardass partner, and his abilities are a bit more offense focused. There’s a couple of stories, though, where you realise that Steel is actually quite affected by the things that happen to the more fragile beings caught up in the things they have to deal with, and Sapphire is occasionally stone fucking cold.

Ah. The show is also quite dark. It’s a very horror-themed science fiction, but not really in an upfront way. Sapphire and Steel are broadly nice and heroic, but they are absolutely not human, they do not have human priorities, and if bad things happen to you in these stories, they will not necessarily stop it. They might, on a rare and awesomely horrific occasion, actively arrange it.

On the shipping front, Sapphire and Steel are there in spades. They're stuck fighting together in an extremely hostile universe, and bad shit happens around them, and they are extremely there for each other. There's hints a few times that Steel is quite jealous and attached, and Sapphire's loyalty to him is beyond question. There's also another character, a technician named Silver who helps them out in Cases 4 & 6, and let's say he has chemistry with both of them. Case 6 is definitely the shipper serial.

The show is so weird, and I love it so much.

[(Anonymous)]

Sounds pretty rad, actually. Watching the first episode on youtube now. Seems a little Twilight zoney so far, which is a good thing.

Sadly, I don't really write longfic, though, oops!

[(Anonymous)]

SA. Meant to add that from the pic I thought it was a typical detective show, guess not, haha.

[evil_little_dog]

You are so on point with your review. I also love this show but man, is it out there.

[(Anonymous)]

I wish we still got tv like this!

[tabaqui]

Pats and Ducky! Or - Purdey and Ducky!

I know, i know - can't help it. :D

[(Anonymous)]

Ducky? Illya man, Illya. Always first and foremost Illya. :D

[tabaqui]

Ah ha ha. That show was never my jam.