Come out and play

[impulsereader]

Grandmere is dying to hear about one of Sherlock and John’s adventures. Which ACD story should be adapted for her benefit? Come on – throw me your favourite – Silver Blaze, Yellow Face and Speckled Band are the only stories off the table as I’m trying/planning to use or have already used those.


I’m still not sure what Mycroft is building – or assembling – he has the MJN crew bringing in one element and Sandy Arbuthnot flying in another – there may very well be other components as well... This leads one of the opening scenes in the Much Ado season to feature a dogfight bringing down Sandy’s plane and a group of armed men hijacking Gertie! Luckily, John and Not Anthea look harmless and are taken along as hostages. It does not take them long to return control to Martin (who displays a slightly startling willingness to be Captain even when doing so requires him to be kidnapped at gunpoint. “No, being Captain means taking the bad with the good, Douglas.”).

What is Mycroft building/assembling? Maybe he’s let one of you in on it? He doesn’t seem inclined currently to tell me.


Mycroft refers to the clan as ‘a blizzard of Holmeses’. Do we like that or can you lot come up with something better? I know djarum99 is good at this – a charm of hummingbirds - *happy sigh*.


Do John and Sherlock exchange gifts? If yes, what would you like to see them give each other? Two holidays here, mind…is anyone interested in any other possible gift exchanges?


What do you think might be in the bottle (sealed with lead) which Sherlock pocketed in the attic?


The boys are scheduled for a final fitting of their costumes. I think this requires another canon character (anyone but Donovan *glares at Sally*) to drop by the flat coincidentally while Sherlock is trying on dresses. Who would you like it to be? What else is going on in November at Baker Street? What are we talking about while the fitting is going on? Is there a case on? Maybe we can even put in another ACD adaptation here…go wild!

Comments

[pargoletta.livejournal.com]

Do John and Sherlock exchange gifts? If yes, what would you like to see them give each other? Two holidays here, mind…is anyone interested in any other possible gift exchanges?

Here's an idea. Somehow, I've heard that Sherlock's birthday is January 6, which is awful close to Christmas. My sister's birthday is January 23, which is usually fairly close to Hanukkah. Sometimes, in the past, someone has given her something really nice as a combined holiday/birthday gift (there's a chair that I might do that with this year if she's still interested in it). Maybe John finds something nice for Sherlock as a combined Christmas/birthday thing. Or maybe he gets two small things, figuring that all the rest of the Holmes family always combined gifts and Sherlock got skimped throughout his childhood. Or maybe even two halves of the same gift (i.e. a gift in two parts, one for Christmas, one for birthday).

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

Hm. A discussion has apparently been boiling over for years... http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/the-curious-case-of-a-birthday-for-sherlock/

I can see John, in this first year where we're angsty giving Sherlock something meaningful - no, wait - that's not right - he's joking him out of his doldrums.

Finding the sonata is meaningful - the gift should be pure fun.

[djarum99.livejournal.com]

The words for birds aren't mine, they're a product of centuries of the human habit of giving fanciful names to preternaturally beautiful and wondrous things - but I'm flattered :-)

A flock of rooks is a clamour, a group of raptors is a convocation (I like that one) or a kettle (?), and owls en masse are referred to as a parliament. A murder of crows and a kindness (or unkindness, depending on who you ask) of ravens are terms used a little more frequently.

Perhaps these for Sherlock's gift from John, for the texting :-)

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

You deserve credit for spreading the word...give me an educated magical guess on what a group of Holmeses might be whimsically designated...you are my resident authority on magical poetry.

Oh, that is a lovely sort of gift for Sherlock. He would totally appreciate that. And here I thought the Sharper Image and Pier 1 were completely useless; it turns out that in fandom they are completely wonderful...

[djarum99.livejournal.com]

Perhaps a "cornucopia of Holmeses," or a "conflagration," or a "Gordian knot" :-)

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

I like all of these - thank you so much for weighing in! I appreciate it immensely...nearly at the point of posting the first section - thankfully...

[natsuko1978.livejournal.com]

My personal favourite is "an exultation of larks" :D

[djarum99.livejournal.com]

They're all lovely, aren't they? And still never quite enough to contain the beauty they describe. Birds are creatures of magic :-)

[221b-hound.livejournal.com]

I've always been massively fond of both The Red-Headed League and The Solitary Cyclist (the latter because Violet is pretty BAMF, considering).

I'm wondering now if Mycroft is *not* building something sensible and grown up but completing an experiment from his teenaged years, for which he needs the engine of a Trabant (weird communist car from Eastern Europe). Perhaps he always fancied that he could soup up the engine of that thing so it was less like a lawnmower. Or that he could use the lawnower engine of the thing to build one of those mini-helicopters. I think I'm just amused by theidea of it being Mycroft for a change who is indulging some fanciful inventor/experiment ideas. Just a thought.

Instead of a blizzard of Holmeses... a gaggle of them, maybe? (I'm thinking of geese, all long necks and imperiousness and bad tempers).

The bottle may contain the results of one of his earliest experiments with chemicals, and he wants to see what the chemical soup has turned into since then?

I love those touchscreen gloves that djarum99 linked to. Apart from practical gifts, I wonder if John might find experiential gifts for him. I mean, I expect Sherlock acutally knows how to ballroom dance, but a set of lessons in salsa might come in handy for a case sometime. There's actually this neat thing you can do in Poland, where one of the last steam trains still running a commuter route exists. For a week you can learn how to be a steam engine driver and then take the train on one of its runs. With his medical contacts, John might be able to arrange for Sherlock to spend time observing some kind of medical specialist at work. Or, if he wants it to be more of a kidding around present, a cookery course in some cuisine that John really likes. I read someting recently about an apron that reads "Cooking is science for hungry people".

I wonder if Sherlock might be willing to give John sort-of experiential things too, instead of material gifts. Like a note promising to not destroy the kitchen for a month. Or to do the shopping at least once in January. (And when he does it, he does the shopping EXTRAVAGANTLY).

Though maybe he might just get John a really, really, really good bottle of whisky.

Or typing lessons. In retaliation for last year's cooking lessons.

I think Molly catching SHerlock in a dress would be all kinds of hilarious, because she'd be blurting out things and trying to be all 'Oh, it's cool, my uncle's a cross dresser and you like much nicer than he does. More feminine. Uh. And. I have a handbag that would go nicely with that..."

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

Hm. This is all good to meditate on. I very much like the idea of something I can then translate into one of our interludes - like doing the shopping as a present. I think I'd quite like to write John and Sherlock out grocery shopping. Ugh, that would require quarryquest to work overtime as I've only been in shops in London very briefly.

I'm actually toying with the notion that the bottle contains something other than a liquid. A note, perhaps? I kind of want to go for - a genie - but on the other hand want to keep the story firmly in RL.

I quite like fanciful!Mycroft as well. I think whatever he's assembling is something that he's over-complicating. He's flying things in and being all secretive and telling people off because they're interrupting his working on it and he ends up with a can opener or something.

Yes, Molly might be good. Having just read Pargoletta's fic Nearer My God to Thee - highly recommended, by the way http://pargoletta.livejournal.com/tag/nearer%20my%20god%20to%20thee - I was meditating on bringing in Sarah to poke fun at Sherlock in a dress.

[221b-hound.livejournal.com]

I wonder if Little sherlock made a list of wishes for his future on a sad day. Things he wanted to have or to be one day, and he put it in a time capsule to check when he was older and all grown up, and he didn't remember until he saw the bottle. And a tightly rolled up piece of paper would contain a list of things like:

I will be a pirate and have adventures, I don't care what Mycroft says.

I will have a best friend (a real one not an imaginary one) (and not Mycroft) and we'll have adventures together.

Daddy will like me again.

I will prove that Mycroft broke my violin so he will stop blaming Plutarch.

I will never like sprouts. Not even when I'm really really old like 30.

Re the shopping, I can't help thinking that Sherlock will come home with strange gourmet goods or weird foreign brands (Polish beer, for example. Last time I was in London, the local supermarket had all this Zywiec in, catering for the immigrant Polish population, which amused us no end. Polish beer is excellent, by the way).

I've bookmarked that fic to go read. :) I liked Sarah a lot, so it'll be good to read more of her in fic.

[natsuko1978.livejournal.com]

Why would only quarryquest have to help you? I lived on the borders and worked in London until I was 30, still have family in London and am under a London hospital (St Thomas' on Westminster Bridge Rd) so o there several times a year...

[djarum99.livejournal.com]

My vote for The Solitary Cyclist. And, oooh, Sherlock doing the shopping - I can just picture him in a market buying all the cantaloupe, with some experiment in mind, and taking a course in Thai cuisine. He would drive the instructor to murder, I think.

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think I'll go with the Solitary Cyclist. Now I just have to knock it into a more modern shape.

I know, right? Sherlock grocery shopping has to be epic!

[northernwalker]

1. I liked A Scandal in Bohemia and The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist.

2. Not sure- he hasn't told me either.

3. A murder of Holmeses, like crows?

4. I have trouble seeing Sherlock giving gifts.

5. A shrunken head.

6. Mrs. Hudson walks in. She doesn't even blink- she's seen far stranger things. Public holidays inclued Guy Fawkes Day on the 5th and St. Andrew's Day on the 30th- though that's only for Scotland. Mrs. Hudson may be Scottish, though.

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

Oh, two votes for the Solitary Cyclist. I'll read it and see what I can come up with. Thanks!

Man, Mycroft is being a little bitch about this. I'm really going to have to have Not Anthea scold it out of him.

I'm liking a labyrinth of Holmeses or an extravagance of them so far.

I agree, I'm not sure about the gifts. I do think, though, that in this case Sherlock is aware that he's been putting John through the wringer a bit and he might be inclined to want to do something nice for him. We shall see...

Wait? There's a shrunken head in the bottle? *Boggles* I was thinking something not liquid, but - wow. Okay, that's cool. That might actually lead to something in an interlude. How big would a shrunken head actually be? *circles this idea warily*

I must put Mrs Hudson in somewhere, I really must.

Thank you! All this is lovely and makes me think thinky thoughts which was exactly the point! Well done!

[northernwalker]

I like labyrinth, since it's the Holmeses.

Maybe buying John some tea? Unadulterated by Sherlock's experiments, that is.

According to a site I found, they could be the size of an orange, though there is a rare African shrunken head the size of a man's thumb.
http://www.notsonews.com/shrunken-heads-how

Mrs. Hudson MUST be involved. Perhaps she and Grandmere have been corresponding off a pen pal site!

[f-m-r-l.livejournal.com]

I know what was in the lead sealed bottle I suggested, because I know what story I swiped it from. And I'm fairly certain your story wants nothing of the sort. :-)

Hmm. I know that there have been stories of rare spirits being used as tontines. Maybe everybody died and it's simply the last remnants of a very good whiskey. (I can hear Sherlock say "dull".)

A mysterious chemical that does something might be good. Holmses (an extravagance of Holmeses?) may have been mucking around with scientific experiments since the days when it was alchemy. Maybe it's a hallucinogen. Maybe it attracts cats. Maybe it gets the stain out of the tabletop. Maybe it clots blood. Maybe it is a nearly perfect lubricant and is needed to unjam some stuck machinery used to operate the sets or spills across the floor and makes things more hazardous. Perhaps it gilds things and causes awkward stains. It could be, but probably isn't, an aphrodisiac. Maybe it's a sentimental keepsake and someone from the family recognizes it—"Oh, that's water and sand from the seaside where your Great-Grandmother Rose proposed to your Great-Grandfather Henry." or "Great-Great-Great Uncle Herbert always loved the smell of his flatmate's moustache wax and wanted to preserve it forever."

[f-m-r-l.livejournal.com]

Oh, wait... something Holmeses might find useful based on the two we've seen so far: a chemical synthetic hormone that influences people's perceptions and makes the wearer seem more likable. Good for politics, good for investigations, good for cutthroat dinner parties....

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

Oh, where did you swipe it from? I kind of want there to be a genie in it, but I don't really want to go Fantasy suddenly in the middle of the fic. I do want its contents to spark something - some action on Sherlock's part - maybe not a full-blown case since I'm trying to keep these interlude chapters under some sort of control (they are now laughing and pointing at me and beefing up their word count as I type) but something...

Your list is amazing, I love it. Hm...Sherlock is in the flat and doing experiments on the liquid? He's trying to figure out what it is...I wonder if I could make that entertaining.

[f-m-r-l.livejournal.com]

Somewhere on my shelves there is a book of short stories whose names I have forgotten. Or maybe it was on someone else's shelves entirely; I'm fairly certain it was in a different book.

At any rate, in one of these stories (or perhaps the other stories), a man acquires and opens a beautiful and mysterious antique lead sealed bottle. It turns out to contain a jinn who has spent enough time trapped there to become phenomenally irked. As retribution against humanity (the specific human who did this to him is long gone, of course), he traps the human in the bottle to take his place.

So presumably the bottle contains a somewhat miffed human, or the remains of one. Now, Sherlock does like human remains, or at least interesting human remains. But to have them come tumbling out of a bottle that's demonstrably too small to contain them would be somewhat unnerving even to him. And I have in the back of my mind the idea (forgive me, it's been a while) that it may be necessary for something to be in that bottle.

I have every confidence in your ability to make things entertaining.

Mycroft's craft work

[natsuko1978.livejournal.com]

Being a miniaturist myself, I'm still going for the 1/12th scale reproduction of Holmes Manor and/or the Much Ado sets (you can buy special glass "room boxes" for single room dioramas etc). Seriously - Queen Mary's Doll's House is gorgeous and even lesser houses are Great Fun.

I now have a mental image of Mycroft hand-embroidering the chair and sofa covers in petite-point...

OH! Okay, now I really want to make BC and MF 1/12 dolls (I doll-make in craft-clay not porcelain unfortunately) and dress them in 16thC period costume... one of them in drag. :D

Or at least draw/paint that. I *am* working on John but your blasted oak is complicating matters, unless I want the whole thing to be is shadow tones...

My Dad - who is 76 - owns a wax-sealed bottle of scotch that is older than he is (sort of, it was 25yo when it was bottled in 1950) which is apparently worth at least £1k. (An 18yo or 21yo Scotch will probably set you back £90-150, as a guide. A decent 12yo is about £30. The youngest aged Scotches are 8yo.)

What else could be in the bottle? Great Aunt Maud's extremely potent home-made elderberry port? What else does one bottle? Messages, naturally... but wouldn't someone have opened it by now?

Something pickled? Walnuts or a shrew or something?

OH! In some parts of Greece they used to bottle scorpions and other venomous beasties in oil - the scorpion-oil was then supposed to be an anti-venom if you did get stung or bitten!!! How about a snake or some such in oil or brandy that was once supposed to be an antidote to all poisons or something? Or *actual* snake oil from the 19thC?

5th November is Guy Fawkes' Day aka Bonfire Night aka Fireworks Night. We remember the foiled Gunpowder Plot when the Catholics (allegedly) tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament with the King in them (in about 1605!!!) with fireworks and bonfires. It is traditional to have an effigy of a man - representing either Guy Fawkes or the Pope! depending on where you live - on top of the bonfire. I was severely traumatised aged 5 or 6 by the burning of my cousins' extremely life-like "Guy".

"Remember, remember the 5th of November, Gunpowder, Treason and Plot! I see no reason why Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot!"

And unlike Advent calendars, Advent proper begins in November, 4 Sundays before Christmas. Some people put their Christmas decorations up on the 1st Sunday in Advent.

Any use?

Re: Mycroft's craft work

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

Yea! You're working on John! I'm thrilled, and also deeply sorry for the bloody oak! It's John's fault, really, he has so much strength of character. *blames John*

Even if Mycroft isn't currently building a miniature of the House, there is now definitely one built by him either in the attic or on display somewhere.

Very useful. I'm having a devil of a time deciding what is in the bottle because I sort of want it to lead to something happening during one of the interludes. I like your ideas very much, and something has to unlock something eventually. Oh! Maybe it's a map...I was stuck on note, but it could be a map...hmmmmmm Could I use this to send the boys on a treasure hunt of some sort? hmmmmmm...

Re: Mycroft's craft work

[natsuko1978.livejournal.com]

Are you on AIM, YIM or googlechat?

Re: Mycroft's craft work

[natsuko1978.livejournal.com]

Dubious!John is dubious. And worried that if you incorporate every idea that fizzles through your brain or f'list, this will become the Neverending Story. (I am reminded of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series - first there were supposed to be 3 books, then 6, then he died while writing the 12th which still didn't complete the actual *story*. )

But petite-point is very repetetive and soothing. And I'm always insanely pleased when you like one of my ideas. lol I'm just... concerned.