lost-without-my-detective - Tumblr blog

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I laid down a story idea in my 'cellar' years ago to mature, and it’s finally coming together! Sherlock Holmes is about to bring Professor Moriarty to justice, when the murder of an old sailor triggers a flood of long-buried memories. Because all children grow up... even Peter Pan. https://archiveofourown.org/works/47254072/chapters/119065483

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Sherlock Holmes: A Criminal Carol

Some Holmes fans may be familiar with my ebook, ‘A Criminal Carol’, in which Professor Moriarty is visited by the three Christmas ghosts. Now my book has been adapted for the stage by Jonathan Goodwin of Don’t Go Into The Cellar theater company! But it’s only being performed with enough backing on kickstarter, so please donate! Campaign deadline November 28th.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amazonianexplorer/sherlock-holmes-a-criminal-carol?fbclid=IwAR0UQhHx8rm19MtFZX1vjGssNxkcWB-qF6BIgq6ScAwQ_ERPXbzleuUjwdI

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When Will Vacation End? (‘Tangled’ parody)

6:45, the usual morning wind up

Yell at the kids that no, they can’t watch TV

Wheaties or cornflakes, wish they would make their minds up

Toast again, and by then, it’s like 8:53

*

So then I’ll clear the plates and hide the damn remotes

‘You cannot start the day until you’re wearing clothes!’

The bathroom floor looks like someone brought in a hose

Just four more weeks till vacation ends

*

Not even lunch, they’re nagging me to do baking

Paper mache? Forget it, no way, get dressed!

Slippers aren’t shoes, just look at how long you’re taking

Gumboots fetched, patience stretched, and they ask why I’m stressed?!

*

So I’ll reclear the plates and turn on Avatar

A parent’s sanity can only stretch so far

Oh God, who put their toast into the VCR?!

These brats are driving me round the bend

Just hang on four weeks, then three weeks, then two weeks, then one week

Until vacation ends *

But every night I tuck them in bed

Turn out the light as they cuddle their teds

Hug them goodnight, take a deep breath and then

Tomorrow morning, go through all this $#@% again...

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Introverts vs. extroverts. 

Still a little rough, but I love this one. Moran’s just trying to be a good friend. 😄

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They’re best friends, really.

My first finished Moriarty comic in with the Caliart markers and Pentel brush pen, as well as my own font based on my handwriting! I drew the first version of this comic two years ago, actually… It’s still kind of rough, but I’m pretty happy with it?

I’ve got a few other older comics to redraw, and then it’ll be time to move on to new ones! At this rate, they’re probably going to be Christmas. I’ve got several Christmas ones in mind. 😄

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Lol, I have absolutely no problem sharing a spotlight with President Biden! And Madeline’s illustrations are amazing - she actually studied Sir John Tenniel’s art in Lewis Carroll’s original works to learn the cross hatching technique, and she now has it down to a fine art! Check out more of her work at astudyinimagination on tumblr and instagram.

The Hunting of the Nark: Pushing Sherlock Holmes and John Watson through that looking-glass

So, the U.S. election was always going to overshadow this release, and now Biden’s victory has been called?! Historic. Show-stopping.

Good golly, there could hardly be a worse day for this, lol.

But my best friend and partner-in-crime’s new book is finally available! You can order The Hunting of the Nark: Sherlock Holmes Through the Looking-Glassfrom MX Publishing and I strongly recommend…

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THIS. Alice is the complete opposite of a Mary-Sue and I love her for it.

pg. 48, chapter 5; Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

-> I have read Alice many times before, and yet reading it now with a different set to my mind and thoughts, I am beginning to find that Alice is a journey exploring how Alice routinely puts her foot in her mouth and routinely talks herself into trouble.

-> Also: that poor stressed pigeon

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Alice musings

One of the things I like about Lewis Carroll’s Alice books is that the nonsensical elements are all treated as entirely mundane by the author, and the characters who inhabit those worlds. Scenes change in the blink of an eye, the laws of physics and time are often reversed, objects and people regularly change size, creatures and plants talk, and there are ‘fabulous monsters’ such as unicorns and gryphons... but there are no obvious clues to indicate that any of these things are the way they are by magic: no sparkling or twinkling effects, no great sweeping spells, no dark hints of supernatural forces that man was not meant to know of. Wonderland it may be called, but the inhabitants don’t seem to find it particularly wondrous! Everyone Alice meets seems to have the attitude of ‘So? This is how things are, take it or leave it!’ They also tend to be more irritated than interested when Alice describes the differences of her own world.

*Spoiler alert*

When you get right down to it, Alice isn’t technically even the heroine of the stories. There’s no momentous quest to be embarked on, no dastardly villain to conquer; she’s just a wide-eyed tourist exploring new worlds while everyone else gets on with their usual business. And much like any stereotypical tourist, when she’s not watching from the sidelines, she’s often being a dreadful nuisance. She’s constantly insulting other characters by accident, she floods the doorway hall with tears and almost drowns herself and the other creatures, she destroys the White Rabbit’s property, she’s terrible at flamingo croquet, and disrupts proceedings in the courtroom without presenting any exonerating evidence for the accused. 

She doesn’t stop Humpty Dumpty from falling off the wall, or decide the outcome of the Lion and Unicorn battle, or stop the Tweedle brothers from fighting (the crow does that!), and the White Knight has to rescue her from the Red. She doesn’t even save the playing card gardeners after the rose fiasco, because no one ever actually gets beheaded, the Queen of Hearts is always thwarted by the King in this. On the chess board, she isn’t the pawn questing to become a Queen, she’s one pawn out of sixteen. The chief reason her journey is more interesting to us than the other pawns is because Alice has more difficulty navigating the board and the rules than the other pieces.

Offhand, I can’t think of any other protagonist in a fantasy setting who has been written this way. Alice is neither hailed as a saviour or a threat, she’s just… there, passing through, making all kinds of gaffes on the way. If there was ever a complete opposite of a Mary Sue, Alice is it.

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Book Review: The Hunting of the Nark - Sherlock Holmes Through the Looking-Glass

https://mxpublishing.com/blogs/news/book-review-the-hunting-of-the-nark-sherlock-holmes-through-the-looking-glass?fbclid=IwAR3LCKfSYX3kdj6iSy4oQcSC03Ur1nFwLUc1sH9wBRgDfDyw08-GEnsre5M

Big thank you to Joseph W. Svec III for the wonderful review! 

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Book Review: ‘Sherlock Holmes - The Adventure of the Grinning Cat’

I just finished reading a hilarious parody, another Sherlock Holmes/Wonderland crossover! When writing a pastiche, especially a crossover, writers have to walk a fine line between the original author’s vision and taking the characters into new territory. Joseph Svec III’s ‘Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Grinning Cat’ walks that tightrope with as many dramatic flourishes as one could wish for, as Holmes and Watson must journey to Wonderland to save Alice Liddell and Lewis Carroll, helped and hindered by a familiar cast of colourful characters. Joseph Svec has a clear talent for describing people, settings and action simply but evocatively. I especially liked his introduction and fleshing out of some unexpected characters, such as the Jabberwock from the Looking-Glass poem. Readers looking for a fun, light-hearted romp down the rabbit hole, with a surprising yet satisfying conclusion, will not be disappointed!

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Angstober, Prompt 31: ‘Monster’ 

Trigger warning: Assault

No one asked Mina Harker what she was wearing.

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My babies! *hearts for eyes*

Flufftober Day 28: Coffee.

So, I already did Holmes and Beth with Coffee, Silly, so it was time to do Holmes and Beth with Coffee, Sappy. No, I am never not going to ship them and sooner or later they are always going to pop up in my art. 😁 Sidenote: the design on Beth’s coffee mug, the Sherlock silhouette, is inspired by the Baker Street Babes’ logo.

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The Back-to-Front Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: A Case of Soldiers

My first fill to my own writers’ challenge! For those who’ve forgotten, the idea was to combine two Holmes titles to create a new/remixed story - in this case,  ‘The Blanched Soldier’ and ‘A Case of Identity’. This one doesn’t really have any elements from those two cases; it’s more of a sequel to ‘The Six Napoleons’, born after noticing the similarities between that and ‘The Blue Carbuncle’. Plus, I wanted to be able post something Christmassy for December! I haven’t been on tumblr lately, so please let me know if there are more of these out there.

~0~

“Well!” I exclaimed to Holmes, as Lestrade returned to Scotland Yard with the precious black pearl in his pocket. “What an extraordinary case! Who would’ve thought such a mundane object could hold such priceless treasure?”

“You said the very same about the blue carbuncle hidden in the Christmas goose, if I recall,” Holmes smiled. “Although, Watson, even that adventure was not the first case I ever had of its kind.”

“Really?” It wasn’t often I caught Holmes in a communicative mood over early cases.

“Indeed.” Holmes cast himself into his armchair, stifling a yawn as the usual post-case lethargy crept back up on him. “One Christmas, I assisted Lestrade in breaking up a smuggling ring. The culprits were melting down stolen silver and casting it into new moulds... of toy soldiers.”

I gaped. “Of course... Once painted, no one would ever think those heavy little figures weren’t simply made of lead!”

“Precisely. Fortunately, we were able to track down most of the purchased sets discreetly, and without the press getting wind of it.” Holmes chuckled in satisfaction, and I had to join in, although not without a pang of sympathy. That Christmas would have been a great deal less jolly for some parents, having found out that they’d unwittingly been hiding a king’s ransom under the tree!

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<333

“Jeremy was always going to be handsome. There was no way that one could avoid that. I remember Sandra, my wife, saying to me when the project was being set up, 'Heavens above, why do you want to do yet another version of those two dreary old folk in Baker Street?’ And I said, ‘Suppose Sherlock Holmes was played by Jeremy Brett?’ And she said, ‘Ah, well, that’s different.’" —Michael Cox, producer, as quoted by David Stuart Davies in Bending the Willow

Happy Birthday, Jeremy!

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The Back-to-Front Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

This is meant to be an amusing writers' challenge for Holmesians not doing NaNoWriMo. Feel free to use any of the combinations below, or come up with your own. No set number, no set length, use any elements from the canon cases you feel like, just try to stay true to the title! :) Go nuts, and have fun!

The Three Cyclists / The Solitary Garrideb

The Man with the Twisted Stone / The Mazarin Lip

The Dancing Valley Mystery / The Boscombe Men

The Priory Pince-nez / The Golden School

The Empty Problem / The Final House

A Valley in Bohemia / The Scandalous Fear

The Shoscombe Detective / The Dying Old Place

The Stockbroker's Squire / The Reigate Clerk

Blue Peter / The Black Carbuncle

The Speckled Builder / The Norwood Band

The Devil's Gable / The Three Feet

The Three Clients / The Illustrious Student

The Red-Headed Lady / The Disappearing League

The Beryl Interpreter / The Greek Coronet

The Crooked Face / The Yellow Man

The Sussex Blaze / The Silver Vampire

The Second Lodge / The Wisteria Stain

The Engineer's Bow / His Last Thumb

The Scarlet Noble / A Study in Bachelors

The Sign of the Colourman / The Retired Four

The Creeping Grange / The Abbey Man

The Blanched Identity / A Case of Soldiers

The Missing Beeches / The Copper Three-Quarter

The Cardboard Mane / The Lion's Box

The Charles Milverton Plans / The Adventure of Bruce Augustus Partington

The Five Scotts / The Gloria Orange Pips

The Naval Lodger / The Veiled Treaty

The Baskerville Napoleon / The Six Hounds

The Resident Thor / The Bridge Patient

The Musgrave Circle / The Red Ritual

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Peter Pan and Sherlock Holmes? No problem!

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10688110/3/B-for-Baker-Street

This is just a three-part drabble, I have an idea for a longer, much darker story in the works...

TUMBLR NERDS I HAVE A CHALLENGE FOR YOU

HERE ARE THE STEPS: 1 - TAKE YOUR OLDEST FANDOM you know the one, that first thing you made art or wrote fic for, where you made all those really weird over the top OCs because you didn’t know any better 2 - TAKE YOUR NEWEST FANDOM yeah, that thing that you love and can’t stop thinking about right now 3- SMASH THEM TOGETHER like freakin’ conceptual play-doh 4 - MAKE SOMETHIN’ OUT OF IT make fic! art! a song! whatever!

HERE ARE THE RULES:

1- HAVE FUN WITH IT 2- THERE ARE NO RULES THIS IS CROSSOVER TOWN AND WE’VE STOPPED THE CAR IS GONE YOUR ROOM IS BOOKED AT THE OLD-TIMEY NERD MOTEL IT’S TIME TO DO SOMETHING STUPID

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Would you buy a book and rip the cover and front pages off so no one could see who wrote it? (If you are that kind of person, pay no attention to that little red dot on your forehead...)

Dear artists...

No, I’m not going to link back to your page. I edited out your ugly signature too. I paid for the art. It is mine.

Don’t worry, this does not mean I take credit for drawing it. When people ask if I drew it, I say “Nope.” When people ask who did, I say, “Sorry, I don’t remember.”

Just because I bought your art does not mean our profiles have to be linked forever. It’s the same if I buy an apple from the grocer. I don’t have to keep the sticker on it or tell people where it came from. I’m not a walking advertisement for your shop.

If you want credit so badly, then I should get a cut of your future profits for my part in the advertising.

I know I’m probably going to get the wrath of whiny, entitled artists for this, but I don’t care. I won’t be making a shrine around their art dedicated to them. I paid for a service, and now we should go our our separate ways!