The Audiobook Initiative

You know what would be cool? If Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman recorded Sherlock Holmes audiobooks, sold them, and donated the proceeds to charity. Want it to happen? Go here, read, and sign!

http://audiobookinitiative.webs.com/

Ventones

Posting this here because I want to be able to create a Sherlock ringtone :)

Free Ringtones

Just a few thoughts...

...on 'ship names.

I'm a hardcore fangirl. Will be til the day I die, most likely. But I just don't understand 'ship names. Who comes up with them? How does one certain name become so popular and become prevalent over all other names? Why, after one name gains ascendency, are no other names ever considered, even if they work better? And why are they usually so preposterous?

I mean,take the Merlin fandom for instance. Merthur? Really? How do you even pronounce that? Is it a hard 'th' or a soft 'th'? I know that Arthur is a soft 'th', but 'ship names are a whole different beast, so who knows. And, honestly, wouldn't Arlin work just as well (and not be so utterly silly)? But it's never even considered. And why does Merthur always remind me of Werther's originals?

Or Arwen. Honestly, you sound like you're talking about The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien would be appalled.

And don't even get me started on the Harry Potter 'ship names. They just make me giggle. Uncontrollably. Squidwarts, anyone? (If you'd like more info, go here: pairing names 1 and pairing names 2).

Then there's the Sherlock fandom and all it's silly 'ships. Like Johnlock. What is that? A gun? "Oh, yeah, I shoot a Johnlock when I'm out hunting." Crazy.

And my absolute favorite, the 'ship that tops them all in the absurd name contest: Sherlolly. Seriously? While I actually support this one (my Sherlock OTP, all the way), it still sounds absolutely AWFUL. I mean, the first thing it makes me think of is Sherlock and a lollipop. Or Sherlock AS a lollipop, depending on my state of mind. Ridiculous.

...On second thought, those last two might be pretty hilarious...

(To be fair, there is one, and only one, 'ship name I've ever actually liked: Caskett. It just sounds cool. But all others? Forget about it.)

Thoughts?

Not So Lost - a Sherlock fanfiction

 SPOILER WARNING: Do NOT read this if you have not seen The Reichenbach Fall. You have been warned. :)

Disclaimer: Sherlock (c) BBC

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The Personal Blog of

Dr. John H. Watson

HE HAS LOST IT

That's right. My flatmate, the great Sherlock Holmes, sociopath, genius, world's only consulting detective, and scourge of criminals everywhere, has finally lost it. He has gone over the edge. I seem to remember calling him a madman when I first met him. Bloody hell, was I wrong. Because if he was crazy then, what is he now?

Insane, that's what he is. Absolutely psychotic. He's… he's… there are really no words to describe the level of strange I've been observing lately. But perhaps you would all be better able to understand what I'm talking about if you saw it for yourselves.

[Video of Sherlock singing opera and baking. Insert your own imagery here.]

He's been like this for a week. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, believe your eyes and ears. Sherlock Holmes is singing and baking. So far, he's gone through three Mozart operas and made ten dozen cookies, two chocolate cakes, one blueberry cobbler, three loaves of bread, one cheesecake, and a cherry pie.

Quite honestly, it's almost like he's on… wait, hold that thought.

            I looked up from my computer screen. "Sherlock, you're not using again, are you?"

            He looked up from the cake he was meticulously decorating, completely oblivious to the question I had just asked. "Hmm?"

            Speaking slowly and clearly, I said, "Are you or are you not currently under the influence of drugs?"

            He thought for a moment, even going so far as to roll back his sleeves, apparently checking for injection holes or nicotine patches, just to be sure. "No, I don't think so. Why?"

            I shook my head. "No reason. Continue," I said, before turning back to my blog. Sherlock shrugged and went back to his cake.

Well, he's not on cocaine. Or nicotine. I don't think he even has any caffeine in his system. At least, there isn't any coffee about. So WHAT in the name of all that is good is GOING ON??????? Anyone?

            Suddenly, Sherlock entered the sitting room holding two shirts. I hadn't even been aware that he had left the kitchen.

            "So, what do you think, John, the blue or the purple?"

            I looked at him like he was nuts (which he very well may be…). "Um… I don't know. For what?"

            Sherlock didn't seem to hear. "The purple, I think," he mused before leaving again, only to reappear a moment later wearing the purple shirt. He grabbed his coat and pulled on his scarf. "I'm going out," he announced decisively to the room at large before matching his actions to his words.

            I stared after him, more than a little confused.

UPDATE: Sherlock's just gone out. After asking me if he should wear the blue shirt or the purple. He decided purple, just in case anyone was wondering. Should I be slightly terrified by this abnormal behavior? Okay, okay, I know, it's Sherlock. All of his behavior is abnormal. I guess I mean his more than usual abnormal behavior.

I'm calling a war council. Or a peace summit. Whichever you prefer. If you'd like to assist, please apply to 221B Baker Street tomorrow at 1300 hours. Please.

UPDATED UPDATE: He's switched to show tunes. Show. Tunes. I'm not kidding. Last night, I heard him singing "I Feel Pretty" from West Side Story. The sound is burned into my brain forever. I'll go to the grave still hearing it. And when they dig my bones up in a thousand years, archaeologists will still be able to hear it bouncing around in my skull. THAT is how disturbing it was.

The Personal Blog of

Dr. John H. Watson

AT A TOTAL LOSS

Well, that was… inconclusive. No one seems to know anything that could help determine what in the hell is going on with Sherlock. Everyone is stumped, Mrs. Hudson, Mrs. Turner, Molly, Lestrade, Stamford, Harry, Bill, everyone. Even Mycroft, Sherlock's own brother, is baffled. He can think of absolutely no reason for his sibling to behave like this. And he's known Sherlock to do some pretty strange things. We all have. Does jumping off St. Bart's and pretending to be dead ring any bells?

Honestly, I think Mycroft was more shocked than anyone else. He told us that the last time he could remember Sherlock doing the whole baking and singing routine was when he was 12 and had just created an adrenal extract from the family sheep. Knowing Sherlock, he would have been absolutely ecstatic about that.

So that's good news, right? At least it means Sherlock's happy at the moment and probably isn't going to go on a shooting spree. Right?

I'm not sure I can deal with a flatmate who is truly mental.

Hold on a second, he just walked in carrying…

            "Sherlock, are those flowers?"

            He glanced at me in that lazy way of his, the one that I knew actually meant he was taking in every detail of his surrounding environment. "I'm not going to grace that question with an answer, John," he said languidly. "I know your powers of observation to be slightly more astute than that."

            I scowled at him. Trust Sherlock to try and change the subject by answering with an insult to make me angry enough to forget my original purpose in questioning him. But I was not to be distracted. "You know that's not what I was really asking, Sherlock. Why do you have flowers?"

            "Why are you writing a blog post about me when we haven't had a case for the past two weeks and you've already written up the last one?"

            I opened my mouth to reply, then shut it with a snap. This was obviously getting us nowhere. Besides, I knew he wouldn't hear my response anyway, or at least he'd pretend not to hear it. He was back to belting show tunes as he arranged the flowers in one of Mrs. Hudson's old vases.

He was carrying flowers. Honest to God. Flowers. And not from a shop or anything, because there wasn't a wrapping around them. He must have picked them. So now we've added picking flowers to the list of insanity.

Oh, and he hasn't performed any experiments on Gladstone lately. Which slightly terrifies me, because he's always doing something scientific to the dog. If you've forgotten, Gladstone is the bulldog I found sitting outside my door one evening before Sherlock "returned from the dead." Turns out Sherlock sent him. Why? I don't know. Maybe just so he'd have a test subject handy when he came back.

 I think I'm going to go mad trying to figure out what's wrong with him.

UPDATE: Now he's cooking. I'm not sure what he's cooking, although it smells rather good. I didn't even know he could cook. Course, I didn't know he could bake, either… Be that as it may, it's downright odd—er than normal. But I'll get to the bottom of it yet!

The flowers are gone, too.

The Personal Blog of

Dr. John H. Watson

A LOST CAUSE

I don't understand him.

When I came down for breakfast this morning, he was somewhere in the middle of a soufflé and somewhere towards the end of Richard III. Oh, did I fail to mention that he stopped singing show tunes and started reciting Shakespeare? Yeah… At least it's an improvement. He even does a different voice for every character. Which would be quite entertaining. If it wasn't Sherlock. And he wasn't up until three every morning talking to himself.

Now I've been sitting and watching him all day. I know. My life is pathetic. I'm reduced to attempting to figure out if my flatmate has sustained any brain damage. Currently, he's in the middle of arranging nine vases of flowers. To what purpose, I haven't a clue. I'm as lost as I have been all week.

I give up.

            Suddenly, I felt a presence behind me and swung around, only to find that it was just Sherlock. He was holding something out to me. An envelope, plain white, smallish, thin. I looked at it, then looked at him, though it was clear he wanted me to take it. "What's this?" I asked.

            "Just take it, John."

            So I did. "What do I do now?"

            He huffed in annoyance.

            "Fine, fine, I'll play along." Sliding open the tucked in flap, I pulled out a small card. It read: You are cordially invited to 221B Baker Street at 7:00 pm this Saturday. Please RSVP upon delivery.

            I sighed. Typical Sherlock. No explanation and complete impatience with the lives of anyone else. Then it sunk in that today was Saturday. Did that mean…? "Sherlock, is this tonight?"

            He nodded.

            "And is this why you've been baking? And cooking? And arranging flowers?"

            "Obviously."

            I rolled my eyes. From his tone, apparently he thought I couldn't have asked a stupider question. Whatever. "Okay, Mr. Everyone-is-beneath-me-because-they-don't-observe, then why have you been singing and reciting Shakespeare morning, noon, and night? That's just a tad bit odd, even for you."

            He looked baffled for a moment. Not obviously baffled, just obvious to anyone who knew him well. "I wasn't aware that it was. It's just something I do. Something my mother used to do. Does that satisfy your insatiable curiosity as to my psychosis?" He gestured at my computer as he asked.

            I sat back, stunned but trying not to show it. Not shocked that he'd been reading my blog. I assumed he'd do that. He always does. But that he'd opened up so much about his past. That one little sentence about his mother was more than I'd ever heard him say about anything in his childhood that wasn't connected to becoming the world's only consulting detective. Made me wonder if he really had suffered a traumatic head injury and I just didn't know it.

UPDATE: There's a party tonight. At 221B Baker Street. And Sherlock is the host. God help us all…

The Personal Blog of

Dr. John H. Watson

NOT SO LOST AFTER ALL

Well, the party wasn't a complete disaster. At least Sherlock didn't insult anybody like he did last Christmas. And he didn't kill the dog, which is a miracle in and of itself.

Turns out Sherlock is a pretty good cook. I already knew he was a good baker. I guess I forgot to mention that he kept leaving cookies next to me when he thought I wouldn't notice. Peace offerings? Probably not. More likely, he was conducting some sort of experiment on me. Anyway, the food was good.

He's not a bad hand at flower arranging, either. Even Mrs. Hudson commented on how nice the flowers looked – after asking if I'd put the vases together. Should I be insulted? Never mind.

Apparently, Sherlock invited half the world. Okay, that's exaggerating things, but the flat was pretty crowded. Lestrade was there. So was Mrs. Hudson. And Molly. And Mrs. Turner, Harry, Mycroft, and notAnthea. Even Donovan and Anderson – though I suspect they were only on the list because Sherlock had a nagging desire to humiliate them and make them feel awful for doubting him.

About fifteen minutes after everyone arrived, I decided Sherlock had better say something to let everyone know why we were all here. I mean, I wasn't exactly sure myself. So I tapped his shoulder. "Shouldn't you perhaps thank your guests for coming?" I asked. "This party was your idea after all."

He paused for a moment, then nodded once and moved to the front of the room. Everyone's attention was immediately drawn to him and I don't think, in all the time I've known him, that I've ever seen him look more uncomfortable than in that moment.

Clearing his throat –but not nervously of course, the great Sherlock Holmes is never nervous – he began to speak. And what he said was so singular that I wrote it down immediately just so I could reproduce it verbatim here.

"I… ah…………Thank you for coming here tonight. To those of you who were taken in by my, ah, apparent demise, I would like to say I'm sorry. The only explanation I can offer is that it was necessary because, as a very wise man once told me, 'Friends protect people.'

And to those of you who assisted with my, er, subterfuge, thank you. I couldn't have done it without you."

Then he stopped talking and stood there in the ensuing silence. Despite his words, for a moment I was tempted to let him suffer, but only for a moment. When he looked at me with the 'John, help' look in his eyes, I took pity on him. I walked up to stand by him and said, "Thank you for having us all, Sherlock. And I think I speak for each of us when I say we're glad you're, um, back."

After that, everyone clapped and Sherlock escaped to the corner by the window. I couldn't blame him. I know I was right about how we all felt – except probably Donovan and Anderson, who just stood uneasily in a corner all evening – but it would still be a rather awkward conversation that ran along the lines of,

'So you're still alive, huh?'

'Yeah, sorry about that. I had to pretend to kill myself so that no one else would die.'

And Sherlock isn't the greatest conversationalist at the best of times.

I couldn't help but watch him out of the corner of my eye the rest of the night. I'm still a little worried about him. I think this business with Moriarty really shook him. He just looked so forlorn, staring out the window, like a fallen angel. Or a lost child. Hopefully he'll be okay.

Sherlock glanced around the room at all of his… guests. He still found it difficult to think of them as friends, though he knew that was what they were. Who else would put up with him?

All the same, it was hard to be among this many people all at once. A million little details and he couldn't ignore a single one. Looking furtively at those most likely to notice his absence, he decided he wouldn't be missed and slipped down the front stairs to stand outside on Baker Street.

Stuffing his hands into his trouser pockets, Sherlock took a deep breath and gazed up at the stars. They were one of the few things he could truly appreciate as beautiful. Stars didn't commit crimes, act as murder weapons, or provide a space for crime to occur. They just were.

A few moments had passed when Sherlock heard a soft step behind him. From its tentative nature and the time between each footfall, added to the quiet swish of skirts and nearly soundless woosh of breath, he immediately identified the approaching person as Molly. She stopped when she was next to him, silent but for her breathing.

Sherlock looked down at her. She was staring fixedly at the flats across the way, though he was sure she wasn't actually seeing them. He watched the slight rise and fall of her shoulders and the way the starlight sat silvery still on her hair. She was calmer than he'd ever known her to be in his presence.

After a few minutes, she spoke. "This was a really lovely idea, Sherlock. The party, I mean."

"You think so?"

"Yeah."

Another silence. Then…

"I'm really glad you're alive. The world wouldn't be the same without Sherlock Holmes."

He glanced down at her, slightly stunned. He could read this little slip of a woman like an open book when he chose and somehow she still managed to surprise him. "But you knew I was alive the whole time. You're one of the reasons I am."

Molly laughed softly and shook her head ruefully, then tilted her face up to the sky. "I know. But I'm glad all the same."

Sherlock looked at the ground, contemplating her words, then gazed back at the heavens. Quietly, he whispered, "Me, too."

She smiled slightly and they stood there for long moments, admiring the stars.

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I twitched the curtains back into place, closing off my view of the scene below, before turning back to the party. There were some things that just weren't meant for a blog.

fin

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