XistentialAngst's Blog, page 83
August 21, 2016
Im leaving for my first year of college monday and have a fifteen hour drive ahead of me. I was wondering if you had any recommendations that are not on rec list that Ive completely exhausted? I love your work and trust your judgement
how completely exhausted are we talking here cause im really not holding back fics from you guys, oK SO in the hopes that you haven’t read EVErything below how about a random sample of middle length to longish fics:
A Further Sea - the pirate fic finished recently right?? its longThe Bee & Bonnet by belovedmuerto - beer !! AND tattoos Second Intention by fiorinda_chancellor - telepath john… if I had to explain, John goes into Sherlock’s mind palace and becomes a disney prince
HAVE YOU READ THIS? it was time for me to be like this The Curious Adventure of the Drs. Watson by ShinySherlock - ACD Watson and BBC Watson switching places !
Once Upon a Beast Becoming by antietamfalls - Celtic Mythology beauty and the beast
Breakable by MissDavis - have you ever just literally wanted to die
Strange Neighbours by jinglebell - like pygmalion but with a hedgemaze
Upstanding Books and Sorrowful Diaries by Heurtebizzz (hertie) - ACD and BBC fUSIONOasis by mydwynter - alternate canon verse fic, angst central station, AU where John was in on the plan… warning: John has to fake a relationship with Mary which is a hard pill to swallow
The Verdant Heart by doctornerdington - the Secret Garden!
Long Ago and Far Away series - this feels like a solid closer
PLAYING WITH MIRRORS
_______________________________________________________________
DRAMA IN THREE ACTS AND ONE AFTERTHOUGHT_______________________________________________________________
Dreams can
be inhabitated by many creatures … spiders and rabbits … hounds
and dragons … rats, magpies, cats, dogs … even goldfish …. and down in the
fathomless deep circles the shark …. biding his time … sometimes sharks
come in different shapes and sometimes they come … in swarms …..
missmuffin221:
conversationswithjohnlock:
John’s not going to stop.Sherlock’s eyes are wide with...
John’s not going to stop.
Sherlock’s eyes are wide with disbelief, but he doesn’t back away. He stands there with his proud posture and his wide eyes, eyes that reflect the anticipation of John’s inevitable regret, and he watches John approach.
John steps right up to Sherlock and Sherlock looks down at him with doubt and wariness, but he doesn’t say you’re wrong. So John touches Sherlock’s cheek, and Sherlock keeps his eyes open until the very last second, waiting for the joke, for the denial. It doesn’t come.
John’s lips are half a dream from Sherlock’s when Sherlock finally closes his eyes, and John presses his mouth to Sherlock’s, pulls, presses, pulls, and Sherlock doesn’t do a single thing but wait. John doesn’t stop, not until long after Sherlock responds, even if those responses are filled with fine, but you’ll see, you’ll see, you’ll see.
John’s not going to stop.
Sherlock stares up at John in the darkness of his bedroom, and he doesn’t say a single word. He watches, observing, giving John every opportunity to change his mind, but it doesn’t happen. John murmurs and asks and confirms as he touches and kisses and moves, and Sherlock breathes harder and harder until he can’t breathe at all, because John never stops.
Afterward, John holds Sherlock close, holds him tight, whispers and pets and won’t let go, and when Sherlock wakes up, John is still there, and he doesn’t stop smiling, he doesn’t stop murmuring, he doesn’t stop touching.
John’s not going to stop.
A week later, two weeks later, three weeks later, John hasn’t stopped touching Sherlock, hasn’t stopped kissing him, holding him, whispering to him. John is intent on loving Sherlock, but he can see what Sherlock doesn’t say, all those swallowed words: you’ll see, you’ll see, you’ll see.
John doesn’t stop, not even when they leave the flat. He puts his hand on the small of Sherlock’s back when they’re walking, and he straightens his lapels at crime scenes, and he strokes his thumb over the back of Sherlock’s hand when they go to Angelo’s, because he is not going to stop, not until Sherlock get’s it.
A month goes by, and another, and another, and John does not stop showing Sherlock, telling Sherlock, proving to Sherlock, that this is it. This is it. John tells other people, too. He tells Donovan to lay the fuck off his partner, and he tells Lestrade he can’t because he already has a date with Sherlock, and he tells Mrs Hudson what she already knows, that Sherlock is the best thing that’s ever happened to him.
Then, when the new nurse from the surgery calls to ask John out, John says he’s so sorry, he thought she knew he was with Sherlock, so no, but thank you, he’s flattered. He ends the call and turns just in time to see the corner of Sherlock’s mouth quirk up, and he thinks maybe, maybe Sherlock is getting it.
John’s not going to stop.
John catches Sherlock watching him, studying him, looking for the tells. There are no tells. John watches Sherlock wait, and wait, and wait, but John just settles in more, and more, and more.
And one day, one day when John isn’t expecting it at all, Sherlock holds his hand out, and pulls John close to him, and takes him to bed, and Sherlock says, you really aren’t going to stop, are you? and John says, my God, you are such an idiot, and then Sherlock touches John, he touches and kisses and moves, and afterward he whispers and pets and won’t let go, and Sherlock says, okay, then, me neither. I’m not going to stop. you’ll see, you’ll see you’ll see.
*dances and sings and praises cwb* fluff…sweet tender understanding and all the love. Dear , you and yours writing keeps me right.
Something soft for @imnova @yorkiepug @folkyfaery @totallysilvergirl @golden-hamshine @celerylock
Lovely
August 20, 2016
monikakrasnorada:
johnlockhell221b:
larygo:
Martin @the...
August 19, 2016
“...There's something here that doesn't make sense. Let's go and poke it with a stick.”
- Amy’s Choice (Doctor Who 5x07)
What do you do to see if something is real? If it really is standing right in front of you, or if it’s an apparition, or a dream? You give it a poke.
❤
Hmm. Very interesting.
Oh no…I am watching it right now. That whole conversation with Mycroft, Mummy and Sherlock:
“It’s been Christmas Day for a week now”
“Mycroft is the name you gave me. If you could possibly struggle all the way to the end”
“Why are we doing this? WE NEVER DO THIS”
“Am I happy? I haven’t checked.”
Mummy to Wig( Sherlock’s literal and metaphorical emotional crutch when feeling alone, stressed, or without John) “Not exactly sure why you are here.”
Sherlock: I INVITED HIM
@sherlock-little-weed I feel faint. This sounds like dreamspeak.
“Dragonslayer. Is that what you think of me?” “No, it’s what you think of yourself”
“You can imagine the Christmas dinners…”
ebaeschnbliah:
weeesi:
literally the two people closest to john betrayed his trust
to one he said:...
literally the two people closest to john betrayed his trust
to one he said: “these are prepared words”
to one he said: “of course I forgive you”
one ended with this face:
one ended with this face:
The problems of your future are my privilege! Indeed!
no-goldfish-required:
“A facade. Who does that remind you of...
“A facade. Who does that remind you of Mary?”
Wow, Sherlock. Tag your Mary wank.
“...There's something here that doesn't make sense. Let's go and poke it with a stick.”
- Amy’s Choice (Doctor Who 5x07)
What do you do to see if something is real? If it really is standing right in front of you, or if it’s an apparition, or a dream? You give it a poke.
❤
Hmm. Very interesting.
The Woman in Black: Gothic Conventions in The Abominable Bride
I’ve been reading up on this a bit, and this is just a tiny something I found that I wanted to share. I know lots has been said about Mary’s dress at the start of TAB, and I haven’t been reading my meta as I probably should have (maybe someone has already found something else on this, Idk?), but this struck me as important regarding the interpretation of Mary in TAB. If you’re a Mary stan, this probably isn’t for you.
I present you with The Woman in Black.
This picture is featured in the article “Spectres of the Past” by R Clarke in Gothic.
The Dark Heart of Film. and shows one of the versions of the Woman in Black, Pauline Moran in the 1989 TV adaptation of a novel by Susan Hill.
Remind you of anyone?
Yes.
Apart from blatantly blending in with the (significant) title, Mary is here in all black. Last time I read any meta about that was on this possibly being her mourning clothes–mourning the imminent loss of her husband who has abandoned her for “a companion of dubious morals”?–but when I read about more about The Woman in Black, this rung some bells, especially regarding the nature of Mary in TAB.
So, there are two traditional
Gothic archetypes: The Woman in Black and the grim reaper.
The descriptions
given for The Woman in Black are very poignant: “Who was this
terrifying murderess with her satin sheen as glossy as a raven’s wing,
her face doubly obscured by a black face veil […]?” (Clarke
89-91). As mentioned, the woman in black is a
particular favourite among Gothic devices. Popularised in late 1800 with
Byron’s The Monk, she appears often as a nun, is
associated with “foreign malignancy” (she is often e.g. French or
Spanish) and vengeance. Summarised: She embodies “the notion of a deadly
murderess, a foreigner, a woman in black capable of returning from the
grave” but “sometimes The Woman in Black doesn’t even have to be a
ghost. Sometimes she has just the suggestion of the deathly” (ibid.
91).
A reading of Mary as The Woman in Black is easy: she’s speculated to be foreign (”your accent is currently English but I suspect you are not”), is confirmed as a murderess (her past; ”all those wet jobs for the CIA”; explicitly shooting Sherlock), up here wears explicitly black (in an episode Sherlock attempts to figure out Moriarty’s supposed return from the dead), and she might simultaneously be a ghost (the ghost of Moriarty?) and she definitely is suggestive of the deathly. To me, this quite confirms her reading as villain and shows me that Mofftiss are more than aware of what they’re doing, and why.
It becomes even more fun when you see this:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is one of the few instances in TAB in which we have a mirror coming up (besides the one that is broken for Pepper’s Ghost). Mirrors are a Gothic convention with two functions: according to Showalter’s queer reading of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (Sexual Anarchy), a mirror is a symbol of homosexual literature revealing the hidden, repressed self, a confrontation with one’s own desires (strikes me as a fitting analogy for the Pepper’s Ghost’s mirror breaking; the Ghost can’t be recreated fully since Holmes refuses to believe in them, keeps running from his own metaphoric ghosts?); in the Gothic occult, however, “what the glass shows us is a ‘double’, a menacing second self.” (ibid. 50) This goes hand in hand with the general idea of doubles being uncanny in Gothic fiction, and guess what? This is also often linked to twins, “ominous portents” (ibid. 39).
So Mofftiss have done it again–handed us the meaning right at the start before leading us down the rabbit hole. They often do that: they gave us Irene and Mycroft’s line of “this was textbook. The promise of love, the pain of loss, the joy of redemption… then give him a puzzle and watch him dance.”
They’ve given us the formula of what’s going to happen, or of how we should read this, Mary: as The Woman in Black. I’m fully on board with this and won’t believe in any saccharine sob backstory anymore.
Anyway, right now we’re all watching Sherlock dance. It is a rather bittersweet dance; hopefully next time he won’t be dancing alone in his living room but with John.
What an interesting meta! I studied The Woman in Black by Susan Hill for my English Lit GCSE and for my Drama GCSE so I have a few things to add.
The Woman in Black reverses gothic horror genre conventions. In typical gothic horror, the woman is the victim who faints in horror at the supernatural entity and is saved/protected by a male protagonist. But in The Woman in Black, the female has the power, and Arthur Kipps, who represents the patrariachal society at the time, is the victim.
Jennet Humphre (who becomes The Woman in Black) had a child out of wedlock (without being married) and was punished by society for it; her child was taken away and he eventually died. Jennet becomes mad with grief and vengeance, and even after death she avenges her son’s death by killing other children.
The avenging ghost, indeed. When linking this to BBC Sherlock and assuming that Mary represents The Woman in Black, maybe it can be said that Mary and John’s child will not be John’s (Mary had a child out of wedlock, well out of wedlock to John, more specifically), the child is taken from her by a patriarchal society (Sherlock and John take the child) and then Mary becomes mad with a desire for revenge and, well, does what an assassin does best.
What a brilliant addition, thank you so much!
Yes, she does indeed invert the traditionally feminine role. I think they coupled Mary here–and the women of TAB in general, tbh–as a new sort of woman, the Victorian New Woman, if you will. It certainly felt that way and made me recall much of Showalter’s writing about the New Woman. It is after all as a surface reading about feminism.
The Woman in Black also pops up in versions as being able to hold spiritual communication (Rebecca’s Mrs Danvers) or as unstable (The Devils 1970). Troughout all of this, the one point of connection is death, or the deathly, and most importantly vengeance–”no love lost for the living.”
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