Sherlock Fic: The Scottish Play
Title: The Scottish Play
Author: impulsereader
Fandom: Sherlock BBC
BritPicked by quarryquest. Any remaining Americanisms are my own error. (And she advised I leave off the attempted mating with the box of frogs…but I just couldn’t make myself take it out, so that’s all me…yup, the hare and frogs and the box and the attempted mating is mine, aaaaalllllllll mine. There is still time to turn back.)
Rating: PG13 for the weaponisation of Sherlock’s parents (mental abuse on display and physical of children heavily implied) as well as language.
Length: each act is between 7k and 9k words. This first portion of the ‘you can imagine’ ‘verse therefore adds up to ~40000 words. (Yes. I have written 40k words just as set up for the real thing. I boggle right along with you. [Wanna hear a secret? I could have written more, this narrative has clearly not achieved critical mass in shenanigans for a fortnight full of Holmeses.])
Characters: Sherlock, John, and a whole lot of Holmeses. OCs as well as characters borrowed from the television series As Time Goes By and the Hannay novels of John Buchan. But really, it’s mostly the John & Sherlock show. :-)
Pairing: Overwhelmingly gen with a small side of Mycroft/Not Anthea thrown in, because she insisted.
Summary: It turns out that Sherlock’s Uncle Rocky lives on a rambling estate (John refuses to call The House a castle, he really does) in the Chilterns. Each year, all Holmes relations (close, distant, and honorary) are free to join the gathering which takes place there for a fortnight over the Christmas holiday. As Sherlock explains to John, “Various activities are undertaken; hunting, nature walks, recitations and chamber music in the evenings, there will be Shakespeare performed, the children will be given tuition in painting and chess among other things, we will all Dress For Dinner each evening. It will all be terribly boring and tedious, but I have been threatened in the severest of terms if I do not present myself and pass the interminably dull time along with everyone else.” Of course, nothing is ever that simple (or dull) when the boys are on the scene. Soon Sherlock is having a bit of a breakdown, John is posing shirtless, they end up with a case involving a missing horse, Sherlock tutors the kiddies in science, and John is about to discover exactly how seriously the Holmes clan takes their Shakespeare.
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize belongs to me. Other things which you don’t recognize also do not belong to me. I have cleverly already signed everything over to the cats; feel free to sue me.
A/N: Since it seems a lot of people are a bit burned out on Reichenbach angst right now, I’m going to go ahead and tell you here that there is quite a bit of TRF angst in the first three acts of this story. I’m sorry, my brain needed another go round apparently. After that I promise things lighten up and we’re all about the wacky hijinks!
Act I
Act II
Act III
Act IV
Act V
Individual thanks below - but here a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone on my flist who contributed to this story. Look, we made art! You all are seriously brilliant! Many, many thanks to 221b_hound who prompted all this, way back when, by suggesting that Sherlock be cast as Beatrice and John as Benedick.
Acknowledgements: All MacBeth stage directions are taken from either Project Gutenberg's Etext of Shakespeare's The Tragedie of Macbeth which can be found here or Project Gutenberg’s Etext of THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH which can be found here
Some lines in the Silver Blaze section are taken directly from the original work by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, also accessible via Project Gutenberg here
[aside] Project Gutenberg is brilliant!
The poem which is quoted by Forester Holmes (parenthetical insertions are mine) is Bartók’s String Quartet No. 5 written by Géza Képes and translated by Peter Laki.
The lines which come directly from The Reichenbach Fall are taken from the transcript here by arianedevere. Many thanks for all of her hard work. quarryquest did suggest changing an ‘er’ to an ‘um’ which I then did, but otherwise I used this work verbatim.
Ahem - all my LJ friends listed below provided me with wonderful suggestions and support during this process, please do not think their contributions were limited to those I list below, this is simply a fairly random sampling of the first things which came to mind when I sat down to type this. It is a snapshot, not a comprehensive view of the help everyone has given me during the course of writing this story. I’m also hoping that I haven’t left anyone off as I’ve sorted through posts in haste. If I have, please, please don’t be offended and do let me know!
Many thanks to:
221b_hound who inspired it all, and continues to gift us with absolutely superb Sherlock fic. Honestly, go read any (then all) of her stories right now, you will not be disappointed! Also, here there be Plutarch!!
northernwalker for the gift that is Grandmère and Claude. These characters are the ones who make the Holmes family work in this fic. Thank you!!
quarryquest who provided the setting for the estate, told me about the Red Kites, and told me it worked when I asked. She is also writing a fabulous post TRF fic which is currently a wip - hop on board!
djarum99 who solved the riddle of the Holmes family group noun, and who read over Sherlock’s über troublesome parents and confirmed for me they were plausible.
natsuko1978 (Who very kindly taught me the invaluable word ‘shufti’.) and mizz_history, both of whom sat down to give me the info I need to send Sherlock shopping. *rubs hands together in anticipation* This is part of the first Baker Street Interlude, and I can’t wait to get started!
f_m_r_l who gifted me with The Attic. *worships at your feet* If you're taking recs from here, go read her fic as well!
pargoletta who sat me down and talked to me about Bartók, told me I could subject Forester to interrogation by the Hungarian Secret Police, kindly corrected the worst of my musical errors, and let me run a bow across the strings of a violin for the very first time in my life. She also makes a mean Chinese chicken dish (yum!). And again with the fic rec!
jobia who confirmed Claude could plausibly work the way he does in order to keep the pose a secret…for now…and insisted I include creepy artistic staring which, it turns out, is pretty much comic gold, I love that bit!
Author: impulsereader
Fandom: Sherlock BBC
BritPicked by quarryquest. Any remaining Americanisms are my own error. (And she advised I leave off the attempted mating with the box of frogs…but I just couldn’t make myself take it out, so that’s all me…yup, the hare and frogs and the box and the attempted mating is mine, aaaaalllllllll mine. There is still time to turn back.)
Rating: PG13 for the weaponisation of Sherlock’s parents (mental abuse on display and physical of children heavily implied) as well as language.
Length: each act is between 7k and 9k words. This first portion of the ‘you can imagine’ ‘verse therefore adds up to ~40000 words. (Yes. I have written 40k words just as set up for the real thing. I boggle right along with you. [Wanna hear a secret? I could have written more, this narrative has clearly not achieved critical mass in shenanigans for a fortnight full of Holmeses.])
Characters: Sherlock, John, and a whole lot of Holmeses. OCs as well as characters borrowed from the television series As Time Goes By and the Hannay novels of John Buchan. But really, it’s mostly the John & Sherlock show. :-)
Pairing: Overwhelmingly gen with a small side of Mycroft/Not Anthea thrown in, because she insisted.
Summary: It turns out that Sherlock’s Uncle Rocky lives on a rambling estate (John refuses to call The House a castle, he really does) in the Chilterns. Each year, all Holmes relations (close, distant, and honorary) are free to join the gathering which takes place there for a fortnight over the Christmas holiday. As Sherlock explains to John, “Various activities are undertaken; hunting, nature walks, recitations and chamber music in the evenings, there will be Shakespeare performed, the children will be given tuition in painting and chess among other things, we will all Dress For Dinner each evening. It will all be terribly boring and tedious, but I have been threatened in the severest of terms if I do not present myself and pass the interminably dull time along with everyone else.” Of course, nothing is ever that simple (or dull) when the boys are on the scene. Soon Sherlock is having a bit of a breakdown, John is posing shirtless, they end up with a case involving a missing horse, Sherlock tutors the kiddies in science, and John is about to discover exactly how seriously the Holmes clan takes their Shakespeare.
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize belongs to me. Other things which you don’t recognize also do not belong to me. I have cleverly already signed everything over to the cats; feel free to sue me.
A/N: Since it seems a lot of people are a bit burned out on Reichenbach angst right now, I’m going to go ahead and tell you here that there is quite a bit of TRF angst in the first three acts of this story. I’m sorry, my brain needed another go round apparently. After that I promise things lighten up and we’re all about the wacky hijinks!
Act I
Act II
Act III
Act IV
Act V
Individual thanks below - but here a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone on my flist who contributed to this story. Look, we made art! You all are seriously brilliant! Many, many thanks to 221b_hound who prompted all this, way back when, by suggesting that Sherlock be cast as Beatrice and John as Benedick.
Acknowledgements: All MacBeth stage directions are taken from either Project Gutenberg's Etext of Shakespeare's The Tragedie of Macbeth which can be found here or Project Gutenberg’s Etext of THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH which can be found here
Some lines in the Silver Blaze section are taken directly from the original work by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, also accessible via Project Gutenberg here
[aside] Project Gutenberg is brilliant!
The poem which is quoted by Forester Holmes (parenthetical insertions are mine) is Bartók’s String Quartet No. 5 written by Géza Képes and translated by Peter Laki.
The lines which come directly from The Reichenbach Fall are taken from the transcript here by arianedevere. Many thanks for all of her hard work. quarryquest did suggest changing an ‘er’ to an ‘um’ which I then did, but otherwise I used this work verbatim.
Ahem - all my LJ friends listed below provided me with wonderful suggestions and support during this process, please do not think their contributions were limited to those I list below, this is simply a fairly random sampling of the first things which came to mind when I sat down to type this. It is a snapshot, not a comprehensive view of the help everyone has given me during the course of writing this story. I’m also hoping that I haven’t left anyone off as I’ve sorted through posts in haste. If I have, please, please don’t be offended and do let me know!
Many thanks to:
221b_hound who inspired it all, and continues to gift us with absolutely superb Sherlock fic. Honestly, go read any (then all) of her stories right now, you will not be disappointed! Also, here there be Plutarch!!
northernwalker for the gift that is Grandmère and Claude. These characters are the ones who make the Holmes family work in this fic. Thank you!!
quarryquest who provided the setting for the estate, told me about the Red Kites, and told me it worked when I asked. She is also writing a fabulous post TRF fic which is currently a wip - hop on board!
djarum99 who solved the riddle of the Holmes family group noun, and who read over Sherlock’s über troublesome parents and confirmed for me they were plausible.
natsuko1978 (Who very kindly taught me the invaluable word ‘shufti’.) and mizz_history, both of whom sat down to give me the info I need to send Sherlock shopping. *rubs hands together in anticipation* This is part of the first Baker Street Interlude, and I can’t wait to get started!
f_m_r_l who gifted me with The Attic. *worships at your feet* If you're taking recs from here, go read her fic as well!
pargoletta who sat me down and talked to me about Bartók, told me I could subject Forester to interrogation by the Hungarian Secret Police, kindly corrected the worst of my musical errors, and let me run a bow across the strings of a violin for the very first time in my life. She also makes a mean Chinese chicken dish (yum!). And again with the fic rec!
jobia who confirmed Claude could plausibly work the way he does in order to keep the pose a secret…for now…and insisted I include creepy artistic staring which, it turns out, is pretty much comic gold, I love that bit!