Fic rec, before I forget

Jan 04, 2011 01:31

A Dozen Different Hours
[ACD!Sherlock Holmes versus Lewis Carroll; Holmes/Watson; PG13 shading to R for drug use, crumbling boundaries of reality, non-explicit but genuinely creepy and pervasive intimations of child abuse shading to somewhat less-creepy criminal shota... okay, just call it an R]

221b_wonderland

In the event that you have always wanted your Holmesian h/c+UST to take place to a Kajiura Yuki soundtrack within the context of a steampunk goth-shoujo version of Alice in Wonderland, this is definitely the fic for you. Though it's still worth a read if the idea had not occurred for some reason. XD; In retrospect one wonders if the crossover's been done - it's sort of an ultimate throwdown between randomness and its opposite.

The thing about writers who aim for the, like, Portrait de Petite Cossette aesthetic is that they usually don't get past the set decoration. You know? But Wonderland has New Weird bone structure here. It seeps like ink into the crevices of Conan Doyle's London, and Holmes isn't the only one who goes slipstream (in canon Alice herself is a rationalist - one forgets it - alternately swimming with and against the undertow). In tenor and quality the result falls in a region bracketed by The Eight and The Shadow of the Wind (the library scene!). The plot gets away from the author toward the end, as far as I can tell**, but the fact that it holds together as an waking-hour investigation at all is something...... no right it is actually AN CASE not just Holmes' better living through chemistry ahaha. And she piles it right on: RPF, fourth-wall breakage, extensive passages of Childe Harold on which hinges Plot, j-rock bishounen. (Did I mention the library scene?) There are illustrations. I actually found this story via said illustrations, randomly surfing Devart, and have no idea why it doesn't seem to be better known. My best guess is timing, since it's ACD!verse and was published directly before ppl hared off after Sherlock.

** I have alternate theories for what happened but they're spoilery for the fic, of course.

I have figured out how to add the footer on a crosspost! Go me! /rollsalot (Original post is here: http://petronia.dreamwidth.org/19750.html)

sherlock holmes my first and best fandom, recs

Previous post Next post
Up