Holmes, Watson, and cocaine fic

Once again Helen Stoner is an excellent conduit to slash. I have decided to let the subtext in DIM become text, and to firmly establish the triangle of Holmes, Watson, and Helen Stoner.

I recently read a slash story that posited the idea that Holmes must have used cocaine during the Baron Maupertuis case in REIG, in order to work fifteen hour days, for five day stretches. Here it is: Katie's "An April's Journey." This is a sketch inspired by that notion, and it's more angsty than my previous hurt/comfort fic called Paris Nights.

Chivalrousness vs. love

So I'm reading Chris Redmond's In Bed with Sherlock Holmes for information on SPEC, and I happily discover that the "Sherlock Holmes in Love" Chapter is not about Irene Adler. (Redmond discusses her and SCAN in earlier chapters.) No, it's about damsel in distress clients, beginning with Mary Sutherland of "A Case of Identity." And then I read this!

Holmes... falls hard for Mary Sutherland.

Redmond makes a big deal about Holmes repeatedly calling her a maiden (as if that wasn't merely his way of describing her naivete and vulnerability). Then he quotes someone named Schweickert who points out that Holmes is so indignant in the story that he attempts to horsewhip the villain. Uh, yeah, but if Holmes loved Mary Sutherland so much, then why the fuck didn't he tell her the truth? Why did he let her continue to pine for Hosmer Angel? No, to me, Holmes pities her but also judges her to be too fragile to handle the truth. A paternal attitude, but a very condescending and sexist one as well.

Helen Stoner in my novel

For what it's worth, my still unfinished novel is called Deeper in Memory, or DIM for short. And this is a sketch/summary of Helen Stoner's plot in it. It's actually all new, never been posted on my old website either. The scenes are heavy on Helen and Irene Adler for right now, but they will eventually be balanced out with Holmes and Watson. The plot is still subject to change, as you can see in parenthetical questions; I also haven't decided whether Mycroft knows about Helen Stoner or not. I will have to put up the "Reminiscences of Miss Helen Stoner" and "Reichenbach" later, after I've revised them sufficiently to update my current thinking on the SPEC snake and other details.

Holmes and Helen Stoner

So anyway, I've been editing the SPEC entry on The Slasher's Annotated Sherlock Holmes lately. I know the story so well that I was able to do a lot just off the top of my head before I went looking for Sherlockian books to cite. I had to resist the urge to put in any theories about Helen Stoner that come from my novel, though.

With Holmes, everything always comes back to SPEC for me. I remember once reading a random Sherlock Holmes story in one of my English classes in school, but it didn't interest me one bit. It was old-fashioned and strange to me. However, when the teacher played for the class a dramatized audio recording of SPEC, I suddenly saw the appeal of Sherlock Holmes mysteries. Thereafter I became interested in the canon and read it along with my sisters, who were also Anglophiles. By college, I even got into online Sherlockian communities like the Hounds of the Internet and began writing fanfic. At the time I was still only writing hetero stories, in all fandoms. That's just the way I was. I remember, as a little girl I was teased by my older sister for always playing out wedding fantasies with Barbie and Ken dolls. As a teenager, my desire to find a female soulmate for Holmes was encouraged by my listening to plaintive love songs like Linda Ronstadt's "Long, Long Time" and Heart's "Alone."

So who was I going to pair Holmes with? I'd decided that no canonical woman would do. I would create my own feminist character named Diana Struthers, a woman whose first love was tragically killed, and so was forced into a loveless marriage. After her horrible husband is murdered, Diana is accused, and Holmes investigates the case. She rebelliously begins to meddle and be generally troublesome, but Holmes does eventually catch the true killer. Then Diana returns to her maiden name of Struthers and does not see Holmes for years, until Reichenbach, when she runs into Holmes again, and finally they do fall in love, etc. etc. But it wasn't working! I was trying to bludgeon Holmes with Struthers, but it just wouldn't click into place like the "Holmes and Irene" fic. So what did I do? I went back to SPEC of course. The rest is best summarized by the bit that I previously posted at my old website.

Speckled Band film

Yowsie! I just watched the 1931 "Speckled Band" movie starring Raymond Massey, and it was bloody awesome. I think I may have found a new favorite Holmes actor, at least until I see Robert Downey Jr. in the part.

Holmes and Irene fic

Well, I should start archiving some old fics here as I'd intended. This fic was written under my Miss Roylott persona, during the time that I read the Laurie R. King Mary Russell books. I don't remember now why I stopped reading the Russell books; I think I may have been growing bored with them, and much more interested in slashing Holmes with Watson. Holmes is one of those strange characters that is fascinatingly ambiguous. Depending on my viewpoint at the moment, I can see him as asexual, bisexual, homosexual, or even straight. (In fact the first fanfic I ever wrote about Holmes paired him with an original feminist character of mine, which then grew into pairing him with a reinterpreted Helen Stoner, in my perpetually unfinished novel.)

Anyway this story isn't really based on the Mary Russell books. It's more based on my reading William S. Baring-Gould's "biography" of Holmes. Baring-Gould didn't invent the theory of Holmes having an affair with Irene Adler in Montenegro, but he popularized it, along with many other Sherlockian ideas.