#alice merren

[femmehysteria]

A few suggestions :

Nicolás Vázquez - High Seas

Warren Flynn - Midnight Mass

Alice Merren - The Betchley Circle

Thank you for the suggestions!

[meluisart]

Okay okay okay hear me out, what if 👀

[jessicabadasspearson]

Bletchley Park Discord Server

Hey Bletchley stans! We wanted to find and connect with more fans of the show and the actresses so we made a discord server! Please jump in and say hello and maybe even hang around and make some new friends!

https://discord.gg/7zM9a24

[cookiepotofchaos]

Part 1 Here

Part 2 - Getting into the Tags

Tags, tags, tags... Such a key part of AO3 and how many of us navigate finding works we might enjoy (apart from those of us in tiny fandoms who have already read everything. Thrice. Even our own stuff)

Also quite fiddly to match up and combine given differences in spelling, tagging styles, and due to evolving information like learning Surnames! I have a new-found admiration and sympathy for the volunteer tag-wranglers at AO3.

Anyway, onto the character, relationship and freeform tags of The Bletchley Circle works.

Character Stats

Camilla "Millie" Harcourt was the most tagged character, being tagged in 160 (85.11%) of works, followed by Jean McBrian in 127 (67.55%) of works. However, Jean McBrian's popularity only took off after 2018 and the release of The Bletchley Circle: San Fransisco. Prior to this, Jean was the 3rd most tagged character behind Susan Gray.

The four leads of the original series were, unsurprisingly, the most tagged characters before 2018, as follows.

Millie Harcourt - Tagged in 64 works

Susan Gray - Tagged in 44 works

Jean McBrian - Tagged in 31 works

Lucy Davis - Tagged in 30 works.

96 of the 127 works tagged with Jean were written since the San Francisco continuation series came out, whereas Susan has been tagged in 30 works since then and Lucy in 27. As Millie and Jean were the two characters from the original Bletchley Circle who continued onto the San Francisco series, this is unsurprising.

After Millie and Jean, the 8 most tagged characters are: Susan Gray (39.36%), Lucy Davis (30.85%), Hailey Yarner (12.77%), Iris Bearden (9.57%), Alice Merren (6.38%), Claire Gray (3.72%), Timothy Gray (3.72%), and Original Character (3.19%).

All the leads from both series featured in the top ten, which was also unsurprising. The popularity of the original 4 main characters has persisted beyond the release of San Francisco, with both Susan and Lucy being tagged in more works than Hayley and Iris after July 2018.

As 'Original Character' is multiple different characters, this tag is excluded from the demographics information below. Of the remaining 9 characters:

8 are female (Millie, Jean, Susan, Lucy, Hayley, Iris, Alice, Claire)

2 are canonically sapphic (Millie Harcourt - Bisexual; Hayley Yarner - Lesbian)

8 are white (Millie, Jean, Susan, Lucy, Hayley, Alice, Claire, Timothy)

1 is Black (Iris Bearden)

2, arguably 3, are canonically Disabled (Jean - Canonical physical disability; Timothy - Canonical physical disability; Lucy arguably neurodivergent, through portrayal only as language for this was limited in the 50s)

Ships - Platonic and Romantic

There are two Ship tags that are far ahead of the rest, no doubt quite easily guessed from the character tag data and both featuring Millie Harcourt.

Camilla "Millie" Harcourt/Jean McBrian with 53 works.

Camilla "Millie" Harcourt/Susan Gray with 47 works.

In a distant third with 15 works is Jean McBrian/Hailey Yarner

Prior to July 2018, as with the character tags, Jean featured far more rarely in ship tags. In fact, pre-July 2018, there was a single Millie/Jean fic and 27 of Millie/Susan. Post-July 2018, 52 Millie/Jean works were written, overtaking Millie/Susan, though a further 20 were produced in that pairing as well.

The single M/F ship in the top 10 ships (otherwise consisting of F/F or F&F) was Susan/Timothy, and most of these works were also tagged with Millie/Susan.

There were 67 unique ships tagged across all The Bletchley Circle works, including characters from other series in crossovers/challenge combination works.

No Relationships Tagged: 35 works (18.62%) had no ships at all tagged.

Platonic Ships Only Tagged: 10 works tagged 1 - 3 platonic ships.

Romantic/Sexual Ships Only Tagged: 130 works tagged 1 - 4 romantic or sexual ships. 4 works focused on 5+ romantic or sexual ships, these were all crossover fics.

Both Ship Categories Tagged: 9 works tagged both platonic and romantic/sexual relationships.

Considering the 6 main characters again, they appeared in this many works tagged with ships each:

Millie Harcourt - In 149 (62.87%) of ship tags.

Jean McBrian - In 91 (38.40%) of ships.

Susan Gray - In 66 (27.85%) of ships.

Lucy Davis - In 27 (11.39%) of ships.

Hailey Yarner - In 17 (7.17%) of ships.

Iris Bearden - In 1 (0.42%) of ships.

Freeform Tags

There were 609 freeform/additional tags used, covering 404 different tags. After much back-and-forthing (and silent praising of the AO3 tag wranglers once more!) I did my own form of wrangling into 34 distinct categories of tags that I can (hopefully) use as a template going forward with minimal expansion.

In terms of the exact tags, as used on AO3, the top 5 free-form tags were as follows:

Fluff - 19

Femslash - 13

First Kiss - 9

Misses Clause Challenge - 8

Romance - 8

What a fluffy bunch of authors and video creators there are in this fandom 😄 The source material did touch on difficult topics, given its post-war time setting, so Fluff being the most used freeform tag is not a surprise. They dealt with a fair bit in-canon; people just want to see them happy.

There were also 15 Alternate Universe tags (when combined) associated with works, which surprised me because I didn't remember there being that many, though it has been some years since I read a number of the works in the fandom.

When moving onto looking at the top categories in my own tag wrangling, Fluff does fall out of the top five, though it does remain in the top ten.

Commentary - 71

Romance - 59

Sexual - 57

Context Tag - 54

Content Warning - 49

Commentary tags are those the "chatty" sort of tags that are similar to many Tumblr tags. Some of my favourites from The Bletchley Circle included:

"Being a Lesbian is Fucking Beautiful and SOMEONE Needed to Say It" - And the fic this tag is attached to, blood under the bridge, is equally beautiful.

"I am trash for vintage lady loving ladies" - You and me both, dear author.

"Jean is done with their nonsense" - I mean... fair.

Context Tags were tags which broadly "set the scene" (and I may change the name to that later) so for example "Picnics" or "Late Night Conversations" or "Hijinks & Shenanigans". Kind of a catch-all tag, I have to admit.

I also think that Jean's cane should get special mention since it was explicitly tagged in a number of fics, though not enough to break the top ten by any means. When it was tagged, it was being used almost exclusively for Millie's pleasure. I see you and your love for a strict(ish), grumpy Scottish code-breaker, dear fandom.

So that is the broad overview of the tags associated with The Bletchley Circle! I was going to put some recs at the bottom, but decided they would be better served in a post of their own. So I'll get around to that in the next few days.

In the meantime, I will be getting to work on the next fandom.

[kwebtv]

The Bletchley Circle -  ITV -   9/6/2012 -  1/27/2014

Drama (7 episodes)

Running Time: 60 minutes

Stars:

Anna Maxwell Martin as Susan Gray

Rachael Stirling as Millie 

Sophie Rundle as Lucy 

Julie Graham as Jean 

Mark Dexter as Timothy Gray 

Ed Birch as Harry 

Michael Gould as Deputy Commissioner Wainwright 

Simon Sherlock as DCI Compton 

Simon Williams as Cavendish 

Steven Robertson as Malcolm Crowley 

Hattie Morahan as Alice Merren (series 2)

Faye Marsay as Lizzie Lancaster (series 2)

[redrikki]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Bletchley Circle, Agent Carter (TV) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Alice Merren/Millie Characters: Millie (Bletchley Circle), Alice Merren, Jean McBrien, Peggy Carter Additional Tags: Misses Clause Challenge Summary:

Millie is having a hard time making a go of things, with her security clearance still not restored, but a call from Jean may just change everything.

[kattahj]

TV ages strike again

Susan: Alice Merren is your mother.

Lizzie: No!

Me: Yeah, I'm with you, Lizzie, that can't be right.

Alice: We were very young.

Me: You were EIGHT!

[booasaur]

The Bletchley Circle - 2x04 - "So, let's try this code of yours."

[canonsasusaku]

[meluisart]

No thoughts, head empty, just Hattie Morahan in series two of The Bletchley Circle.

[booasaur]

The Bletchley Circle - 02x04 (part 2)

[booasaur]

The Bletchley Circle - 02x03 - How can you have access and seclusion in one?

[canonsasusaku]

John Richards and Alice Merren

[jessicabadasspearson]

Boosting this again

Bletchley Park Discord Server

Hey Bletchley stans! We wanted to find and connect with more fans of the show and the actresses so we made a discord server! Please jump in and say hello and maybe even hang around and make some new friends!

https://discord.gg/7zM9a24