fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2580 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2580 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

__________________________________________________

06.

__________________________________________________

07.

__________________________________________________

08.

__________________________________________________

09.

__________________________________________________

10.

__________________________________________________

11.

__________________________________________________

12.

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 082 secrets from Secret Submission Post #369.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Like, Jane Eyre on absinthe creepy, with Rochester's pervy creep uncle instead of Rochester.

AHAHA this is the best thing I've read all day. :D And yes, that story is really really creepy, and Holmes being worried about Violet is one of my favorite character moments for him ever.

Lestrade is the cutest. I don't recall the exact number of stories he appears in, but he's such a doll and always so admiring of Holmes even when he's grumbly about it. I have a certain headcanon about one of his appearances that I don't want to spoil for you...

Watson sneakily portraying St. Simon as a snooty tool is like the best thing ever. He goes into so much superfluous detail over it and it's just hilarious. I can imagine Holmes reading it and shaking his head. The two of them get in quite a few choice slams against nobility -- the general theme of upper-class propriety serving as a thin veneer over a crumbling hot mess of dysfunction and pettiness comes up several times throughout the stories.

Watson sometimes does this thing where he glosses over his own actions or phrases them in the passive voice, which is both somewhat irritating and endearingly in-character. Almost the only times he gives himself credit is in order to establish his credibility as a writer: for example, he will admit that he can fight pretty well in order to emphasize just how big and strong this dude strangling him was, or that he's been on loads of thrilling chases before to reassure the reader that THIS chase was the greatest chase of all even by his standards, or will say he's romanced a ton of women in order to convince us that he knows what he's talking about when he says this one woman was really, truly that amazing. (Or maybe that's his sneaky way of bragging. Who knows?)

Actually, I think this last one is due to an elegant, albeit a little lazy, literature device some 19th century authors were extremely fond of using. It was considered good manners to start your story, or even just a paragraph of your story, in a roundabout manner that would give the reader only a subtle hint as to what was going to come next. Thus, you wouldn't write "he walked up to me and hit me square in the jaw"; rather, you'd write something like this:

"I cannot say that I'm a man with little experience when it comes to these situations in which one finds himself hard pressed to continue confronting his opponent verbally and considers resorting to the more physical methods of persuasion. Nor would I claim that I have never been on the receiving end of the deal. But, admittedly, it did come as a surprise when the foppish gentleman with a white moony face walked up to me and hit me square in the jaw."

Edited 2014-01-26 00:44 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure I've seen that in other books of that period as well, but I meant that that's the only way that Watson says cool things about himself, not that it's a way of writing specific to the SH stories. ;)

Also LOLOLOL at that paragraph. ACD would never write anything so flowery, but that could fit almost perfectly into the mouth of a character from, like, Oscar Wilde.

True; I was rather thinking about ACD's intentions - maybe it wasn't a deliberately crafted part of Watson's characterization so much as a "man how do u start a story" case. Which is, of course, authorial intent and stuff *sighs*. My attraction to the matters of authorial intent shall be the ruin of me, I feel.

But on a lower meta-level, certainly. Watson is a humble fellow :D

[ SECRET POST #2580 ]

Re: First Time Sherlock Holmes Readthrough III (ignore if you're uninterested, etc)

Re: First Time Sherlock Holmes Readthrough III (ignore if you're uninterested, etc)

Re: First Time Sherlock Holmes Readthrough III (ignore if you're uninterested, etc)

Re: First Time Sherlock Holmes Readthrough III (ignore if you're uninterested, etc)