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

[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.

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

This is predictably lovely. The story you enjoyed (or perhaps the other story you read and liked) sounds quite familiar. I'm not sure if this means we read the same story at some point or if bottles and jinn's just travel together as a rule - though the addition of a human is suggestive - perhaps this is Gaiman? I am flailing about here much as Martin is doing after Douglas has declared him French - within the lemon ep - listening to that now and using the concept of travel to link the events in my head...oh, poor Martin...

Sorry - Cabin Pressure being a radio show - it is sometimes difficult to weave into a fic-based post...

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

This story sounds hauntingly familiar. I've either read it at some point or this scenario is somewhat commonly used in fiction.

I recently watched Labyrinth for the first time and was both surprised and (at the same time) realized I (possibly had) should have known that Brian Froud was involved in that. Biting fairies tend to = Brian Froud.

The dichotomy of fairy tales interests me a lot. These were cautionary tales originally but modern media has transformed them almost completely. Still, there are hold-outs who keep insisting on doing away with the sugar-coating which somehow also make it into the mainstream - producing Grimm as a quite recent example. Obviously, this isn't even scraping the surface here...

jinn/djinn/genies seem just about ready for their own pop-culture make over. I Dream of Jeanie and Aladdin are things my generation grew up with and are bound to be sentimental about. That's my prediction for 'the next big thing'. Fairies out, Jinn in. This, of course, will be a mixed blessing on their house.

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

The first book that popped into my mind was Kitty Raises Hell. But I think the Bartimaeus books have jinn in there somewhere, and P.B. Kerr has an entire series, so maybe it's a thing with children.

I think "I Dream of Jeanie", like "Bewitched", is largely about the pressure to conform to standards of normalcy in mid-20th-century America, even when one is extraordinary, even when it's not part of one's culture and one doesn't understand it.

One of the differences between working with a story involving the fae and working with a story involving a jinn is that the traditions surrounding the fae are largely familiar to my presumed 'Western' and English speaking readers. As long as I keep to the more mainstream types of fae, I can assume that both my reader and I are coming from a similar familiarity and perspective and I can make my variations as variations. The jinn are unfamiliar to both myself and, usually, my reader. There are the common ideas that they are obligated to grant a certain number of wishes, that one must be quite careful regarding what those wishes are (a common theme in fairy tales) because they will generally disappoint, and that they are magnificent. I gather there is a rich tradition beyond that, but it would require both research and careful introduction to the reader or I'd run the risk of bad cultural appropriation and/or boring my reader with exposition.

On the other hand, vampires are almost nothing like they were before Stoker and subsequent popular fiction got hold of them, and that's worked out for the most part.

Don't mind me, just babbling.

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

Babble away, it's always terribly interesting and insightful. The only real danger is that I'll babble right back.

Yes, you've pegged "I Dream" and "Bewitched" just right there. A lot of people don't realize that though and still make with the sentimental glow of youth.

Gosh yes, everyone knows that those wishes are bound to be more trouble than they're worth, except the person making them...

You're right about the research, and I wonder if it's just about time for someone who is familiar/has grown up with the culture to come along and dazzle us all. I think there's enough set up now that an educated take from a talented writer could really accomplish something. Alas, that writer will probably not be either you or me; neither of us will get Harry Potter rich over Jinn as we weren't farsighted enough to start the research years ago. Oh well.

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

In which I am extremely disorganized... So, in order to better make myself look scary, I've sent a second reply to this. One - I'm glad I had something slightly more interesting to say this morning. Two - must be better about clearing inbox of replied-to messages.

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

Maybe I should do that with comments on "Wrong". I want to say something really impressive about it and how much I liked it, but I've been known to get so intimidated from not figuring out how to say what I want to say that I just wander off and don't comment on something after all.

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's good to hear you liked it. I was having a lot of time getting some love for that story. I didn't realize how much I actually liked it until I posted it and it was like dropping a lead balloon. I'd been nervous about whumping everyone so much and worried that I wouldn't be able to whump John as realistically as I wanted to. I was also nervous because it was my first time writing Post Fall Sherlock and he sounded different in my head. I wasn't sure if I could write PFS without having seen him on screen.

I wasn't sure if it was the whump warning which was putting people off or what. Finally I posted it at the bbcsherlock comm after their reboot - I'd been sticking to the smaller comms - just to see what would happen. It's still not doing well in the kudos to hits ratio, but I'm glad at least some people like it.

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

See, now I'm just filled with envy. I don't think I've ever had so many kudos on anything I've written. Well, fiction, anyway.

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

I'm chalking it up to the fact that someone mentioned in a post a little while ago that the Sherlock fandom has a huge presence on AO3. All my stories got hits immediately after I'd posted, so there's got to be some way on the site for people to be just sitting there waiting to pounce on newly-posted stories.

Honestly, at this point I'm avoiding attracting attention considering what I'm doing asking for prompts. I really don't need newbies coming on shouting out "Beer!" and "Freebird!"

Is your Holmes fic on AO3? I hadn't checked, was just slowly perusing here on LJ.

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

Not yet.

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

And now I've started posting things there.

[impulsereader.livejournal.com]

I imagine you will be flooded with hits and kudos. Comments, I find, are a bit more difficult to come by, but not entirely absent.