tweague | Entries tagged with bertie

So Fic in a Box opened yesterday, and I received the most *glorious* gift which everyone should go and read immediately because I am just. Bowled over by how much I love it. Endless love and thanks to my absolutely-a-mystery creator, because they wrote me a fic that punched me right in the feels not once but over and over again. I adore it.

Title: Thesis, Antithesis
Rating: T
Warnings: Self-harm, discussions of the morality of violence.
Words: 10k

I'll admit that it probably hits hardest if you are a tinhatted Bertie &/ Gimlet fan like me, but it's wonderful even if you aren't, especially if you like first-rate whump, hurt/comfort and the delights of a really outstanding truth serum fic - Gimlet's solution to finding a stimulus strong enough to help him override the compulsion of the drug was absolutely outstanding, perfectly in character and absolutely horrifying, and Bertie is utterly perfect, loyal and competent and determined and always the person Gimlet needs. If you've ever wanted to crack Gimlet open a little bit and guddle around with his feelings (ugh), then this is the fic for you.

So I was having a particularly awful case of Blorbo Brain this morning, where I just wanted to write nonsense about My Fictional Guys; I'm already writing other stuff about them, but it's quite long and at present quite sad (stuck in the 'hurt' bit of the h/c dynamic for at least another 5000 words, I would guess) and I wanted something to satisfy the brain itch. So I went touting for prompts on the WEJverse Discord, and

ysande was good enough to indulge me ^_^ She asked for 'basically every joyous coming of age summer story', and set off about three dozen different ficlet ideas; here's the first of them. It may eventually be the start of a longer story about this particular holiday, the first time Bertie goes to Lorrington, if other ideas spawn around the same time period; in my head it takes place the days before ysande's glorious prompt-fest fill where Gimlet gets sunburn because he's determined to do all the fun holiday things with Bertie, all at once, right now. Unbetaed and scruffy round the edges, but maybe it'll turn into something better later.

Bertie + Gimlet, school age, Gen, c.2k.

* * *

( What We Did On Our Holidays I )

Some time I'll post something here that's not just a list of things I've already posted to AO3. (Possibly.) Early spring was a bit of a dry spell, writing-wise, mostly because I was tunnelling through a heap of research books for Trigonometry Part II (and still failing to actually write it.) And of course, because I was resolutely intending to write that, I actually ended up writing completely different, far more self-indulgent things, because writing is most fun when it feels faintly illicit.

It's really all Bertie (and mostly Gimlet) all the time here at the moment :S This is the effect of ten years of Very Particular Feelings about these characters and this pairing, and never having the chance to sit down and write it before. I'm sure it'll calm down soon when I've got the initial flurry out of my system. Probably. (Incidentally, I was vaguely intending to group my Bertie &/ Gimlet fics on AO3 into a series, just for chronological ease of reading. Does anyone have any feelings on whether I should just stick them all in one series, or perhaps do two versions - one Complete, one Expurgated, where I could just put the gen fics, rather than the ones that have a slightly more, ah, niche audience?? I don't know if there's anyone out there just reading the gen who would rather avoid the explicit content if possible. Or would that be confusing? They're all the same continuity in my head, but the relationship set-up means it actually makes just as much sense (or just as little) without the sex.)

ANYWAY. Since the last update here I've posted:
Negotiation - 11.5k, rated E, Bertie/Gimlet, with the usual selection of kink warnings (mild and badly-negotiated BDSM, basically) - please check the tags if concerned. Direct sequel to 'Correction'.
Alignment - 1k, rated G, Bertie + Gimlet school-age snippet about how public school is weird and kissing is weirder.
Hindsight - 11k, rated G, mostly Bertie with interjections by Gimlet and Lord Peter Wimsey. Five times Bertie should probably have had his eyes tested, and once he actually might have done. A present for

ysande, who is a fabulous whump-enabler.
Floriography - 3.8k, rated G, Bertie grotty childhood backstory. A promptfic response to the lovely 1st May promptfest on

sholio's DW.
rarer gifts than gold - 5.7k, rated G, Bertie and Gimlet on May Day just before and just after World War II. Another 1st May promptfic.

And under the goblin brain imprint, which allows me to post filth without feeling too fussy about the poor characterisation or repetitious adjectives, we have:
leave but ash - 5k, rated E, Bertie/Gimlet, as usual unsafe insane but luckily consensual.

Hope you've all been having a good Christmas! Here's a roundup of fic I have given and received over the last week or so.

I received:
A Christmas special chapter of my beloved Polyphony from

gatty!!!! Who is THE BEST because my god this scratched my brain so perfectly I am so profoundly grateful. MY BEST BELOVED IDIOT BOYS IN LOVE. Algy and Biggles and Erich negotiate their way around a merry Christmas together for the first time. It's *gorgeous* and sweet and perfect and I love it. Gatty also really leaned into the intertextuality with my Algy/vS AU series 'Variations' here, because she indulges me terribly.

And I gifted:
Each Ample Oblation for

gatty - largely gen, c.10k, established Biggles/Algy and past Algy/Charles, but not with any great detail for either. The fic universe no one saw coming!! A Charles Bigglesworth Lives AU and sequel to my extremely ancient Algy/Charles fic Brightest and Best (rated E). It's Christmas 1918, and everything is terrible. Gatty gave me adorable OT3 tree-decorating and vS in a cream aran jumper, I gave her PTSD Biggles. I am objectively a bad person.

Three Gifts for

ysande, who wanted something to read on Christmas morning ^_^ I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to get anything written, so I didn't volunteer for her informal fic exchange, but in the end I wrote this anyway. Gen, c.15k, Bertie & Gimlet and three Christmases over the years. With apologies to Ginger, who I tease quite a lot.

There is also my Mystery Third Thing Christmas fic, which I did not gift to anyone because uhhhhh. You'd have to know your recipient quite well before you gifted them this.
Correction - rated E, c.11k, Gimlet/Bertie. Please read the tags and warnings on the AO3 page, but mostly NB. for spanking, mild sadism, mild dubcon play and bad boundary negotiation. And it is a Christmas fic!! Sort of. I actually feel genuine pride that I have finally written and published a fic for this disaster of a pairing that I have been mulling over since about 2009.

Aaaaaaand while you're all still reeling from that, here's some more fic!!! Fairly short and fairly pointless however, so it could be worse. I've been prodding the tumblr 12 Days of Christmas prompts fest in a vague sort of way - I'm not sure I'm going to try to take part officially or necessarily every day, and some of the prompts I'm going to be filling late as they're part of gift fics I'm writing for Christmas - but I thought I'd fill some as and when I felt in the mood for it, in a low stress sort of way.

Which is of course why I was on the discord channel two days ago yowling at

ysande in her DMs that I didn't have any inspiration for day one. She suggested I just Whump Gimlet More And Harder, which I am entirely down with, and also that I dunk him in an icy river for a bit. We aim to please. Written at extreme speed and largely unedited, we die like Young Elizabethans.

Day/Prompt(s): Day 1 ❄️ First snow ❄️ Getting soaked ❄️ “Your hands are so cold.” ❄️ “I suppose it all started with the snow.” —Frosty the Snowman

Title: Water Like A Stone
Characters: Bertie Lissie, Lorrington 'Gimlet' King
Rating: G
Words: c.4k

He ought to stay where he was - he knew that perfectly well. If lost in an unfamiliar place but basically safe, the best thing to do was to stay put, especially when with someone who knew the ground a lot better than you did and knew where you’d be waiting. So stay put he would.

“Lorry old scout, if you’ve got yourself into trouble again - “ Bertie called, disconsolately.

It had been nearly half an hour. The light was definitely fading now.

Bertie sighed. “Oh, bother.”

( Read more... )

Finally got round to re-posting a couple of truly ancient fics that were up on the old LJ group 10-15 years ago :S Re-posted without significant editing, so caveat lector. They are:

Home Leave, February 1917 - rated M (ish, moderately explicit really), m/m, Biggles/Mystery Canon Male Character ooooohhhh who will it be, most of you already know but hey let's preserve the veneer of suspense. c.5000 words.

and
Home Fires - rated G for not even slightly explicit. Bertie & Gimlet are at it again, and by 'it' I mean 'trying to cope with some really difficult circumstances in WWII'. c.2800, and I may need to revise it because I CANNOT REMEMBER IF WEJ SPECIFIES GIMLET'S TITLE, I swear he was a Duke last time I checked but I have lost all faith in my memory.

Well, I can't say that this was on my bingo card for First Fics To Post After Crashing Back Into Biggles Fandom, but here we are :S Typed up from a very elderly notebook, I'd guess from about - 2012? Perhaps? I was very into Bertie + Gimlet interaction at that point, and wrote a few short and largely plotless bits and pieces which never got posted anywhere. I think I probably read 'David Blaize' and 'The Hill' at around the same time, and felt the need for some unnecessary public school fic. This is what happened.

Gen; Lorrington 'Gimlet' King and the Hon. Lord Bertie Lissie - a sort of 'how the band got together' fic. Public school setting, with (comparatively) mild levels of early-20th-century-public-school-appropriate bullying, and some mild violence. No beta, we die like Young Georgians. In which Gimlet and Bertie are thoroughly miserable, because that's literary public school in the early 20th century for you. Cross-posted to AO3 here, in case anyone prefers to do their reading there. 5000-ish words.

"You’ll never achieve anything if you continue to put all your energy into playing the fool. It may earn you the admiration of certain of the boys, and you may think that is enough. But one day you’ll find it’s too late to stop playing, and a fool is all you’ll ever be. You are in danger of becoming a caricature of yourself. Do you understand?”

The light blue eyes blinked at him again. “Oh – rather, sir. Absolutely.”

( Burning Bridges )

So I've been enjoying the Bertie-love that

ysande and

sweetsorcery have been promoting over the last couple of days, sparked by ysande's lovely ficlet. I adore Bertie. I adore all kinds of Bertie. I love him when he's a silly ass, I love him when he smuggles dynamite down his trousers, I love him when he's the first one to point out when a plan is likely to have Unacceptable Enemy Casualty Rate, I love him when he can unexpectedly go undercover in fluent Marseilleise dialect. He is wonderful. But I've never read much Bertie fic. (Which is probably because I tend to gravitate straight to the Biggles/von Stalhein, hem hem, so no one much to blame but myself.) But. BUT. I would like to broaden my reading! So, do any of you have any Must Read Bertie recs? Does the fandom have a classic Bertie 'this should be canon' fic? Who, if anyone, do you pair him with?

Tangentially related: fellows, do we do fandom Gimlet here? If I have a regular pairing for Bertie, it's probably Gimlet - they have something of the same vibe as Bertie + Biggles, but Gimlet is much more into high explosives and fast cars, so he and Bertie at least should have plenty to talk about. Also they canonically look after puppies together, so there's that. I've never written up any fic for them, but I've scribbled a couple in my notebook heap of doom - would anyone be interested if I posted them?? Gimlet is...a bit niche.

UTTERLY UNRELATED THANK GOD, except that Raymond makes a very brief appearance in

ysande's fic above and that set me thinking about it - has anyone else seen Biggles: Adventures in Time? It is literally as bad as it sounds, possibly even worse. They stole the flying sequences from (I believe) Aces High, so those at least are quite nice, but every else is truly truly awful. BUT. It utterly implausibly has Peter Cushing as Colonel Raymond, in his last film role (god, what a way to end an amazing career.) And ever since then, Peter Cushing has been my unavoidable mental casting for Raymond. Say, early Frankenstein era Cushing for WWI stories, working right the way up to Grand Moff Cushing for the later Air Police. His precision, his gravitas, his enormously sympathetic air combined with his ability to project 'but I would still let you be killed if I really had to, I'd just regret it' just...really informs the way I think about the character.

Anyone else seen it? If you haven't - probably best not to. But Peter Cushing is amazing.

ETA: ( A picture of Peter Cushing as Raymond! )

Look at him! He is so sad! He has waited literally fifty years just for the chance of maybe seeing Biggles again because of time travel absurdity! Also sad because he has to be in this terrible film, boooo.