You've got to admit, the Bristow/Derevko family tree is just fairy tale like...

[selenak]

I've been waiting to find a story which takes advantage of the casting of David Anders in both Once upon a time and Alias. This one does so, but manages to do far more as early s3 Alias Sark and Sydney Bristow, as usual fighting it out on a quest to find Rambaldi device #245343, get swallowed up by a hat instead and end up with Snow White, Emma, Mulan and Aurora during the first half of s2 of OUAT. Now I should add that back in my Alias days, I actually wasn't a Sark fan (I was in business for the First Generation Spies, aka Arvin Sloane and the Spyrents), though I finally got around to liking the little blonde menace in s4 and s5. Which means I'm not naturally prone to seek out stories with him as a main character, and thus when I say I was thoroughly charmed by this one I do not speak in bias. :) (My darling Arvin isn't even in it.) I really like what the author does with Sark and Sydney among the fairy tale characters, that the story isn't tagged "male-female friendship" for nothing (it builds up between Snow White and Sark), and the sense of humour is great. Take, for example, Sark's reaction to Hook: It didn’t take many hours to discover Hook was everything Sark loathed, made even more loathsome by being a scruffy, brunette mirror of Sark himself. The same flexible loyalties, the same cocky charm, the same position as underling to a powerful older woman. In conclusion: go and read!


the lion and the unicorn (12267 words) by aurilly
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Alias, Once Upon a Time (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Julian Sark & Snow White|Mary Margaret Blanchard, Sydney Bristow/Julian Sark
Characters: Julian Sark, Snow White | Mary Margaret Blanchard, Sydney Bristow, Cora (Once Upon a Time), Captain Hook | Killian Jones, Mulan (Once Upon a Time), Aurora (Once Upon A Time), Emma Swan
Additional Tags: Crossover, Male-Female Friendship
Summary:

Sark isn’t sure which is more intolerable: being swallowed by a hat, or being forced to listen to Snow White blather on about ‘true love’. (Blech.) A story about spies, princesses, and the magic of unlikely friendships.

Also, I watched 2.03 of Call The Midwife. The idea of people living by a 500 years old medicine book sounds so far fetched that I have to assume it's based on the real Jenny's memoirs. Though the name "Culpepper" makes me associate Catherine Howard's lover rather than a doctor. Anyway: I assume the Jimmy subplot is wrapped up now, and I appreciate that the way they did it was combined with telling a story about Jenny's professional life, in this case a stint at the hospital. The difference between how the nurses were treated there and how the midwives interact said a lot about hierarchies (with the hospital still dominated by the "male doctor is god" basis, though not inflexibly so, as the end proves). Meanwhile, the fact that our new temporary character, Jane, is a medical orderly (not sure about the last word, maybe I misheard), not a midwife, and everyone's reaction shows there is a hierarchy there as well, just expressing itself more subtly. It's interesting, and probably a wise choice, that Jane isn't introduced via a "showcase" episode focusing on her but in one of three subplots. So far, she seems shy but likeable enough.

Comments

[legionseagle]

I think I might have a copy of Culpepper's herbal somewhere (for I hasten to add historical novel research purposes rather than use). I think, though, it's the sort of thing that doesn't go out of print because it does get picked up by New Age types (not that the sisters were precisely that)

[selenak]

Oh, I have a copy for the Trotula (11th century first gyneological treatise written by a woman) for the same purposes. As for the sisters, as I said, it sounded so unlikely to me it just had to be true...

[legionseagle]

I agree, though at one point I was seriously wondering why the highly trained midwife and doctor combination who were trying to put the woman into a more upright position in the bed didn't actually realise that the birthing chair they'd been so rude about earlier was in fact the right tool for that particular job.

[jesuswasbatman]

I don't know if you've heard but Colin Morgan is appearing in The Tempest at the Globe this summer, presumably as Ferdinand although the press release didn't say.

I just hope this doesn't lead to more made-up fangirl bashing in the press.

[selenak]

Quite. I remember how they invented that story about fangirls interrupting Catherine Tate's performance when David Tennant attended and it was reposted endlessly until someone pointed out that since the play in question was in fact a one act play, the tale of DT having to leave in the intermission because of fangirls was completely made up from scratch.

Als for the delightful Colin Morgan, I spotted it only five minutes before reading your comment! Alas his run at the Globe starts at the end of April, and I've already booked my annual London trip for the Easter holidays (because I can see both Judi Dench and Helen Mirren then). Such is a fangirl's life. :)

[legionseagle]

Oh, God, I'm reminded of the piece about Cumberbatch's appearance to read poems at a Britten concert part of Wimbledon Music Festival which inspired this post which, again, was littered with made-up fangirl bashing, including the assumption that if they hadn't scheduled the reading after the interval they'd have all left once he'd done it.

Mind you, even the otherwise excellent John Finnemore made a somewhat suspicious comment about being pleasantly surprised that the "changed" audience for series 3 of Cabin Pressure "laughed in all the right places" so maybe it is a canker that runs deep.

[jesuswasbatman]

Saw a more detailed thing this morning: apparently he's playing Ariel, which is much more interesting as a choice.