stonepicnicking_okapi

Challenge #6

Share your favourite piece of original canon.

I am going to attempt to start a Sunday Sherlock tradition (doing a post about Sherlock Holmes on Sundays).



So have a moodboard or two. And a favorite piece of Sherlock Holmes canon (meaning the original novels and short stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle) is that there are a lot of Violets in it.



A collage or two (Holmes themed & Watson themed):



And the nice thing about Holmes canon is that there's always something new to learn. For example, I did not know that ACD was paid 25 pounds for A Study in Scarlet and that in the novel reprint in 1888 included drawings by ACD's father, Charles Doyle. Here's one of them:

Prompt #72 of the 100 days of Halloween is Halloweentown and #74 is Cauldron.

Halloweentown is what Jack Skellington is king of in "The Nightmare Before Christmas," BUT it is also a film 1998 film starring Debbie Reynolds. I looked up the first Hallmark movie and the Hallmark channel began in 2001 so this movie is a pre-Hallmark channel kind of movie (it is free on the Disney channel).

It had 2 funny parts. 1. when Debbie Reynolds makes instant witches brew and presses Bubble (twice), Toil, then Trouble on her microwave and 2. a sign on the wall of the pool in a gym/spa/sauna in Halloweentown which reads NO DEATHGUARD ON DUTY (both cracked me up, those were the only funny parts, so I wouldn't recommend watching the whole film).

So I did a quick collage and then a card with a cauldron theme and I did a ficlet for holmes_minor inspired by the instant witches' brew gag.





Title: Instant Witches' Brew
Rating: Gen
Length: 500
Notes: This is from my Were & Nightwalker AU where Holmes is a vampire and Watson is a werewolf. It also features two OC's a charwoman (and witch) named Hecate and her partner Sylvie. I got the idea after watching a 1998 film called Halloweentown starring Debbie Reynolds. She puts a packet of Instant Witches Brew in the microwave and buttons are Bubble, Toil, and Trouble. And later her potion doesn't work and she says, 'I knew I shouldn't have used instant.'
Question for the reader: What is Watson's prize at the end? I would love to read your ideas.

( Read more... )

Honey has been on my mind because the boys' father prefers it (he eats it on frozen waffles every morning and prefers local honey whenever I'm in a place to buy it, like farmer's markets and produce stand) and the doctor told him he has to cut out sugar to get his A1c down so he was talking about cutting it out. I like it in theory and bees and honey as symbols but I don't eat it.

I don't think I can do better than this collage from last year. I checked my local craft store and these were the bee stickers they had so I'd make the same collage over.



The concept of 'mad honey' caught my attention in a language of flowers book and I read up on it. It's honey and comb made from bees who forage among species of Rhododendron in Turkey. It's been used as a weapon for millennia.

So I wrote a poem and did a triple drabble for holmes_minor.

Title: Mad Honey
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes ACD - Sussex
Rating: Gen
Length: 300
Summary: In Sussex, a case upsets Watson.

( Read more... )

mad honey sonnet by okapi

they do as they have done, nectar-seeking
among the golden blossoms, gathering,
returning to the hive, honey-piquing
with all due diligence and swaggering

by the Black Sea, artisans of mad fruit,
gold comb and syrup have laid armies low,
ambrosias to madden along the route
of soon-ambushed soldiers, a sticky woe

weapon of ancient Greeks, who could conceive,
toil’s end of busy forger and scout,
ages later, who could fail to believe
old war dog’s wagging tales and who could doubt

that nemesis could choose a treacle helpmeet
and a revenge so old could be so sweet

( The list )

Title: Green
Fandoms: Sherlock Holmes & Miss Marple - Agatha Christie
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Raymond West (Miss Marple's nephew)
Rating: Gen
Prompt:
Length: 750
Warning: Discussion of murder methods. Deus ex machina. Breaking the fourth wall.
Summary: Raymond West wants to murder his fiancée.

( Read more... )

Title: Lapsang Souchong
Fandoms: Sherlock Holmes & Miss Marple - Agatha Christie
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, Raymond West (Miss Marple's nephew)
Rating: Gen
Prompt: petrichor
Length: 500
Warning: Discussion of murder methods. Deus ex machina. Breaking the fourth wall.
Summary: Raymond West wants to murder his fiancée.

( Read more... )

Title: Orange Pekoe
Fandoms: Sherlock Holmes & Miss Marple - Agatha Christie
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, Raymond West (Miss Marple's nephew)
Rating: Gen
Prompt: capable
Length: 750
Warning: Discussion of murder methods. Deus ex machina. Breaking the fourth wall.
Summary: Raymond West wants to murder his fiancée.

( Read more... )

Sherlock Holmes is my first fandom. I learned of fandom through BBC Sherlock and then re-discovered the original Sherlock Holmes stories and other adaptations.

I'm surprised it's taken me this long to do a Holmes collage but I ordered some specialty paper and stickers from Etsy for my birthday.



Of course, it's very easy to make Holmes murder-y.

I did a Gen-rated triple drabble for holmes_minor.

( Two unrelated scenes/something is catching )


( The list of all the Fannish 50: 2024 posts so far. )

Challenge #6

In your own space, share a favourite piece of original canon (a show, a specific TV episode, a storyline, a book or series, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much.

I don't have anything remarkable for this. Some quotes from the Sherlock Holmes stories which give us insight into his character and Watson's/ACD's lens in viewing him.

A very romantic description of Holmes from A Study in Scarlet.

In height he was rather over six feet, and so excessively lean that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes were sharp and piercing, save during those intervals of torpor to which I have alluded; and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole expression an air of alertness and decision. His chin, too, had the prominence and squareness which mark the man of determination. His hands were invariably blotted with ink and stained with chemicals, yet he was possessed of extraordinary delicacy of touch, as I frequently had occasion to observe when I watched him manipulating his fragile philosophical instruments.

( Read more... )

And here are some Bertie Wooster quotes.

From Carry on, Jeeves

She fitted into my biggest arm-chair as if it had been built round her by someone who knew they were wearing arm-chairs tight about the hips that season.

And from The Code of the Woosters:

“There are moments, Jeeves, when one asks oneself, 'Do trousers matter?'"

"The mood will pass, sir.”

And from The Old Guard, Joe's speech in the van:



That's all I got at the moment.

I meant to get this done in October, but oh well. This is set in my 'Holmes is a vampire AU'
For the Holmes Minor poetry page prompt of bradshaw train timetable guides. I used a guide from 1891 and a random number generator and picked 5 pages to use as inspiration for the various murders.

The Haunted Bradshaw by okapi


“We have a spot of bother,” said the Yarder to the sleuth,
“and we’d be much obliged, if you could ferret out the truth.”
Detective eyed his pipe, both undead in all their glory.
Former lit the latter, saying, “Tell me the whole story.”
“It has to do with trains, sir. There’s an awful lot that’s rum;
one mad, two dead, and pardon me, I ‘spect there’s more to come.”

“The first was a young girl—though no one knew it at the time—
the lass was found a-babbling—tragic but not a crime.
Twixt Swindon ‘n’ Wootten Bassett, they found her on the track,
looked like poor thing was struck mad by a fit or an attack.
Twas’ traveling alone to visit Gran, we understand,
but see here, she’d a page of Bradshaw clutched in her dear hand.”

( Read more... )

I often use the Victorian language of flowers in ficlets, and the resource I use is Kate Greenaway's The Language of Flowers [1884].

I did four ficlets and four collages for four flowers.

Two for vocab_drabbles in Sherlock Holmes (ACD): Hibiscus means 'delicate beauty' and Red poppies mean 'consolation.' And two for sweetandshort in the Miss Marple fandom: Water lily means 'purity of heart' and Camellia means 'perfected loveliness.



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