Friday fics — tricksters and other enigmas

Sat, 18 Jan 2014 01:31:34 GMT

Je ne suis pas un cadeau et mes cadeaux encore moins (449 words) by Nelja
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Norse Religion & Lore
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Loki/Sigyn, Frigg/Óðinn | Frigg/Odin, Loki & Óðinn | Loki & Odin
Characters: Loki (Norse Religion & Lore), Óðinn | Odin, Sigyn (Norse Religion & Lore), Frigg | Frigga
Additional Tags: Humor, Gift Giving, Worst at Friendship
Summary:

Odin et Loki s'interrogent : qu'offrir à l'autre pour le nouvel an ? Il faut que ce soit le pire cadeau de l'histoire des cadeaux. Leur honneur est en jeu !

Norse Mythology was always a rare fandom, but now you have to craft increasingly-arcane queries to confirm just how little non-Marvel fic there actually is. And then sometimes it's in French. Luckily, I read French!

Learning Russian (1210 words) by perevision
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: William Wilcox/Amedeo Kaplan, Jake Kaplan/;)
Characters: William Wilcox, Amedeo Kaplan, Jake Kaplan
Additional Tags: Books, E.L. Konigsburg
Summary:

Several years later, Amedeo no longer feels like a member of Aloners Anonymous, but he still hears the double exclamation points when he thinks William Wilcox's name.

I love this book so much—it's one of my favorite Konigsburgs, and she was one of my favorite authors, ever. There should be more fic for it, but as there's only the one, luckily it's delightful.

When Wart met the Doctor (1470 words) by SansSerif
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Doctor Who, Once and Future King series - T. H. White
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: The Doctor (Doctor Who), Arthur Pendragon, Wart, Pellinore (Arthurian), Merlyn
Additional Tags: Sword in the Stone, Christmas, Feast, Questing, dragon - Freeform, Acting, Forest Sauvage
Summary:

“It was Christmas night and the proper things had been done. … There had been mummers to play an exciting dramatic presentation of a story in which St. George and a Saracen and a funny Doctor did surprising things…” — TH White’s Sword in the Stone c.1939

I don't know the classic Doctors well enough to work out which one I think this is! Perfect idea for a crossover, though.

the beatings will continue until morale improves (1621 words) by astolat
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Sherlock (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson
Additional Tags: Spanking, BDSM, First Time, 3x01-The Empty Hearse
Summary:

"This is why you didn't tell me, isn't it," John said.

So I actually really hate it when people slap and/or punch each other, especially if it's played for laughs, unless one or more parties are deriving sexual gratification from it, in which case I love it, so this is, like, fix-it fic for me.

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'Dr. Watson's Christian Name' by Dorothy L. Sayers

Tue, 07 Jan 2014 02:54:11 GMT

Happy Epiphany/Twelfth Night/Sherlock Holmes's birthday (Observed)! In honor of the last, and because it was a plot point in last night's episode of Sherlock, I present Dorothy L. Sayers's essay which originally put forth the Hamish Hypothesis. (This post is also available on tumblr.)

Dr. Watson's Christian Name
A Brief Contribution to the Exegetical Literature of Sherlock Holmes

Dorothy L. Sayers

It has always been a matter of astonishment to Dr. Watson's friends, and perhaps of a little malicious amusement to his detractors, to observe that his wife¹ apparently did not know her own husband's name. There can be no possible doubt that Watson's first Christian name was John. The name "John H. Watson" appears, conspicuously and in capital letters, on the title page of A Study in Scarlet,² and it is not for one moment to be supposed that Watson, proudly contemplating the proofs of his first literary venture, would have allowed it to go forth into the world under a name that was not his. Yet in 1891 we find Watson publishing the story of The Man with the Twisted Lip, in the course of which Mrs. Watson addresses him as "James."

Mr. H. W. Bell (Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, p. 66, n. 2) has been unable to account for this, and despairingly suggests that it is a mere printer's error. "Watson," he remarks, with much truth, "was a very careless reader of proof." But if he had read the proofs at all, this particular error could not have failed to catch his eye. A man's own name is a subject on which he is sensitive; nothing is more exasperating than to be "called out of one's name." Moreover, in December, 1891, Mary Watson was still alive. Tenderly devoted as she was to her husband, she could not have failed to read his stories attentively on publication in the Strand Magazine, and she would have undoubtedly drawn his attention to an error so ridiculous and immediately reflecting on herself. In the month immediately preceding, the Doctor had made another trivial slip in connection with his wife's affairs; he said that during the period of the adventure of The Five Orange Pips Mrs. Watson was visiting her mother. Mrs. Watson, who was of course an orphan, (Sign of Four), evidently took pains to point out this error and see that the careless author made a note of it; for on the publication of the collected Adventures in 1892 the word "mother" is duly corrected to "aunt."³ On such dull matters as dates and historical facts the dear woman would offer no comment, but on any detail affecting her domestic life she would pounce like a tigress. Yet the name "James" was left unaltered in all succeeding editions of the story.

( How are we to explain this? )

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Friday fics — tricksters and other enigmas

'Dr. Watson's Christian Name' by Dorothy L. Sayers