It is here, another product of my insane ramblings. Many thanks are due to Not You and rabidsamfan who beta-ed for me, and are both the only reason this chapter doesn’t suck quite as much as it could. rabidsamfan in particular bunnied the ending into shape, for which I am very grateful.
And for those of you who might be wondering why Watson is so injured after merely falling from a bike… well, it was this type of bike.
To hell with it. Chapter six.
I spent last weekend at a sci-fi convention, basically going to as many slash panels as I can. What have I learnt? That I am nothing at all like the typical slasher. >.<
I was most surprised with the way people seemed quite happy to jump from one ship to the next, without any real thought other than ‘oh yeah, those characters would be hot together’. The question was asked if anyone present had only ever had one ship, and I was the only person to raise my hand. I suppose Holmes/Watson is my ‘one true pairing’ as they put it, which I guess makes me a feeble slasher. I mean, I’ve read plenty of other pairings, but most of them I simply can’t believe in. There are some good Jeeves/Wooster stories, for example, but I just can’t actually see it happening. It feels wrong and slightly strange. I say this with the full-awareness that someone somewhere (i.e. my husband, in the kitchen) is saying ‘but Holmes/Watson? That’s wrong and slightly strange!’
There definitely seemed to a lot of ‘kink’ involved, as well. I got the impression that slash was a kind of addictive pornography for some these people, and that they had to write stranger and stranger stuff to still get a hit from it. It was mentioned that rps was basically underground a couple of years ago, but now it is lot easier to find. I shall probably tread on someone’s toes when I say this, but person I find rps very offensive, and almost a form of abuse. Perhaps this is because someone wrote and published rps on their website about me once; it’s not really a very nice feeling. Recently Stephen Fry had a chuckle over twitter about some Fry/Laurie Jonathon Ross had read him on his show – so I suppose some people don’t worry about it so much, but still.
Today I was doing a long and laborious screening at work, which allowed me to have a good old think about slash, my fic, and why I write it when I don’t really fit in (seriously, please don’t ask for the list of slash tropes I hate, I’d be here all night). It occurred to me that actually a lot of the plotty bits of Smoke <3s are quite a lot like another fanfic I wrote six years ago – even though this is Holmes slash, and that was Final Fantasy VII gen. It occurred to me that maybe I have my own tropes that I keep regurgitating, and maybe just like the fanfic writers, I need to keep taking them to further and further extremes. One trope of mine is a fallen priest. Another is biopunk ‘they control our DNA!’ drama. I like monsters, and blood, and psychedelia. I also like taboo love, or sexual dysfunction, often combined with fallen priestery. One NaNo I wrote was about a monk who brought about armageddon by having sex with Goddess he was supposed to be venerating. A story I wrote when I was seventeen was all about undead decaying dragons. The last story I completed ended with a sex rite which burned everyone to death.
So why am I writing all this? I don’t know, but maybe because I want to remind myself that I’m not ‘better’ than other people because I don’t write hard-core porn. I might gloss over the details of sex, and switch to waving corn etc, but actually, the way I portray relationships isn’t really that great. But hey, maybe that counter-balances all the fluff, magical first time sex, and enduring one true love fic out there.
Heh.
Back to the tentacles for me.
… but before we get to it, a PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT. ^^
While I’ve been writing Smoke <3s I’ve had the great fortune to stumble upon some ace bits of FREE steampunkin background music. So of course, I shall share and share alike!
Vernian Process – this young gentleman has a very impressive website, and pretty much all his music is available to download. His instrumentals are ace, although I’m *cough* not keen on the vocals (watch as website referral stats means that comment comes back to bite me in the arse). Some definite Blade Runner inspiration here, yummy yum yums.
Robbie Taylor – this little fellow and his MacBook make for super-happy-fun writing times. Quite excellent headphone music to drown out a busy sitting room when trying to write, although might be too techno for some people’s tastes. Sadly not that many songs, but all free.
Abney Park Authors of the AWESOME airship pirate song, these fellows are a real band, who very very nicely let people download a few songs for free from each of their albums. Of course, they do this knowing that once you’ve heard their sound, you will be quite happy to part with some cash. The Secret Life of Doctor Calgori is a must-hear.
And that’s it. Pimping over. Now you may pop along to the new story page (the old one was getting slow with 20k of words) where chapter five is waiting for you. Just one little note about this chapter… yes I am aware the Paris-Roubaix started in 1896, but I couldn’t refuse the reference. ….oh okay, TWO little things. I chose a deliberately poor gel, alright? I have since cracked that PCR. 
Mmm. Writing fast means I don’t have much to say about this one. Written in between moments of checking the American election live text feed, and not finished for a couple more days after that due to Obama celebration, and Fireworks Night. 
Sorry about the ridiculous amount of errors in the previous chapter. I hope this one isn’t so bad. I’m afraid Inspector Watkins, who is of course the sekrit love-child of Watson and Hopkins will not be making another appearance.
This chapter brought to you by the madness of the second day of NaNoWriMo, so forgive typos, mistakes, etc.
Here’s a nice soundtrack for the chapter for you. Sadly the site is under construction at the moment, but when it returns, there will be lots of free steampunky music there. Horay! (I stole all the albums before he started playing with the site).
The show goes on here. Or you can see what nice Mr. The Hitcher thinks about combining the future and the past…
(I’m going to see the Mighty Boosh live next month, and I’m more than a little excited about it).
EDIT: Ta muchly to all those who have picked up the typos for me. Muah! x
The very amazing picture above you is of Jem and his Fée from ‘Fée et tendres Automates’ by Frank Leclercq and Téhy. The background image is from Steampunk Wallpaper, used under a creative commons license, which means you are free to nick my edited colours version.
… although I admit I was tempted. ^.~
This chapter is brought to you by the number 23, the letter w, and the fact that I could NO LONGER BEAR writing it. From this point onwards all similarities to STUD will be dropped. Writing a story with the same basic plot as another is incredibly tedious. Sure it’s out of copyright, but you know what kids? The copyright act was invented for a reason.
(and that reason was to supply us with lots of lovely books in big libraries, yum)
SO. Brief disclaimers: slash, crack, general abuse of Watson’s character, (over use of parenthesis) and incredibly poor aseptic technique. All those who spot the CLUUUE relating to tentacles shall receive a sticky gold star*.
* Actual sticky star may or may not exist. Suck it up.
So, I wanted to join in with the current stream of steampunk inspiration.
Smoke Hearts was inspired by Katri’s beautiful evil Holmes and Watson, and catalysed by Elina and Spacefall’s own contributions here and here.
Thanks to Haldane for the secondary title (which I swiped), and the offer of beta-ing (which I was too impatient to take up, my bad).
Disclaimers
- It isn’t true to the canon.
- It isn’t even REMOTELY historically accurate.
- The biochemistry is stupid.
- It’s CRACK people!
Oh and possibly you shouldn’t read it if you don’t like tentacles or Watson’s good name being dragged through the mud.
Okay, enough putting-it-off now. >.>;;;
Smoke Hearts with Mechanical Parts
Rated a 15 for evilness, weird, and drugs. Although according to Batman’s standards, it probably should be a U.
As Stephen Fry said in his fucking incredible autobiography…
“In the cold light of the cup of coffee and the banana sandwich that are beside me now [LSD opening the doors of perception] appears to be nonsense, but I expect you know what it is taken to mean.”
I thoroughly advise not reading this blog under the influence of coffee and bananas (except maybe unless if it is particularly fine coffee, and the bananas are those extremely rare ones with the seeds), because it will appear to be nonsense. Not that I am suggesting you should drop a µg of acid and then read this blog, because you might find the words moving about on the page a little too alarmingly. I’m just saying… it may appear to be nonsense.
I have to say that you see, because it hurts my pride to think that it may actually be nonsense. It quite possible is. I like to think that I am quite ‘avant-guarde’ and ‘Bohemian’ with my little absinthe ritual in front of the computer, my rather poorly put together photoshops, and my babbling monologues. I like to think that this is why I do not get much attention or comments, that the online slash community just isn’t ‘out there enough, man’. But, clearly this is bollocks. The slash community is pretty much Pluto’s neighbour with the ‘out there man’-ness. If you can read about Holmes being a merman, and Watson getting shagged by octopi… then… please…
I think maybe the online slash community are just too nice to say what they are thinking. Which is this.
“This isn’t fucking Clarity, it’s fucking insanity. Yes, yes, you suffer from flashbacks and synesthesia, that’s very nice, BUT IT’S YOUR OWN FAULT. Now stop with the taking of random photos of light switches, and learn to write in sentences. Noun plus verb, please! And a side-order of first-time sex.”
Ah, I think that serves as all the warnings that this blog needs. Yes, it’s about Holmes and Watson being in love. Or out of love, as the case may be. Yes, there is a lot of mind-altering weirdness. Yes, there is slash. And when there isn’t slash… there’s always mind-altering weirdness.
But hey, in the soup kitchen of the internet, someone’s gotta serve up a different flavour! Personally romantic first time fluff is my bread-and-butter, but you’ve got to have something to go with it. ^.~
