Sub Rosa

[prof_pangaea]

Title: Sub Rosa
Author: Professor Pangaea
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes
Disclaimer: Mr. Holmes and sundry other characters are now in the public domain, but of course I give ultimate credit and thanks for their existence to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Summary: "One of the most attractive things about the flowers is their beautiful reserve. The truly beautiful and noble puts its lover, as it were, at an infinite distance, while it attends him more strongly than ever." -- Henry David Thoreau
























































































































































































Note: The full quote of the text "High and mighty" etc. is from Hamlet, Act IV, scene vii. It is a letter from Hamlet to Claudius, and reads: "High and Mighty,-You shall know I am set naked on your kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes; when I shall (first asking your pardon thereunto) recount the occasion of my sudden and more strange return."


EDIT: I want to sincerely thank everyone who has commented, both positively and critically -- I am very pleased at the amount of response that has resulted from this piece. I'm afraid that there were so many comments initially that I wasn't able to reply to each individually, as I usually do, but be assured that I have (and continue to) read and appreciate every single comment.

Comments

A Visual Feast

[killalla]

This was beautiful presentation. I really loved the graphics that you used for the many foreign telegrams, and the way that you managed to convey so much with just a few sentences, particularly in the case of the younger Mr. Holmes. The comparisons with Griffin and Sabine are very apt, but also, I think an epistolary format is most appropriate for Victorian-era works in general.

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

*wild applause*

[ratmmjess.livejournal.com]

That...is really, really impressive. My compliments.

[shayheyred.livejournal.com]

Perhaps Cain and Abel?

[gastonmonescu.livejournal.com]

Absolutely brilliant!

[prof-pangaea.livejournal.com]

It's actually from a photograph of Walter Paget (http://209.182.27.203/ch/img/paget-w.jpg) that I mucked about with in photoshop. Walter Paget (as you probably know) was the person that Sidney Paget based his illustrations of Holmes on, so I figured he would be a good model.

[lilka.livejournal.com]

Wow. This is awesome. Many kudos to you.

[misspamela.livejournal.com]

Oh my god. Oh my GOD. This is fucking unbelievable.

[marinarusalka.livejournal.com]

Wow. This is amazingly well done. My deerstalker hat is off to you.

[shinigamu.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I can't recall the commmunity cause I was idly browsing but I'll see if I can find it again.

Credit has been given, Apologies for the misunderstanding though. :x

[bronzelionel.livejournal.com]

That? That would be me, prostrate on the floor, dead. DEAD.

You spent a hundred thousand years in the making of this, didn't you? You did.

Caught the Paget picture: naughty naughty. Didn't puzzle out "Caine", 'though.

I am impressed.

[btvshond.livejournal.com]

Actually, what infiniteviking meant was that Caine comes from Michael Caine, who acted as Sherlock Holmes in the movie Without a Clue (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096454/). It's pretty much a parody in which Caine acts as a person who pretends to be Holmes. :)

[vass]

Have nothing to say but YAY.

Oh, and that the Sayers quotation in your name makes me beam.

[(Anonymous)]

"Soon you will run out of globe and end up were you began. "


This was marvellous. I love it. :D
Quite the orginal idea too!

[violent-rabbit.livejournal.com]

This was me forgetting to log in
*thumps head*

[prof-pangaea.livejournal.com]

No1TEK: i need mny
M2theH: Wr R U???
No1TEK: i stl need mny
M2theH: yr frnd s sad
No1TEK: lalala
M2TheH: hr s yr mny
M2theH: tlk to me now?
No1TEK: no
M2theH: uv bn gon a lng tme
M2theH: ur frnd s stl sad
No1TEK: stfu

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

Well, my life is now complete.

[(Anonymous)]

You wield a mighty talent! The air of authenticity pervades the art and the language. Such a curt disposition of Watson! Even Mycroft seems taken aback.

Wonderful historical documentation!

[zougla.livejournal.com]

Finally got to download the whole thing and read it. and if I may....

[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<squee!>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

Finally got to download the whole thing and read it. and if I may.... <squee!> that was so neat!
And of course, you left no detail unoticed. You even changed the dates on the stamps. Damn. Must have taken forever to Photoshop all of those. Love that program, but it's a time sucker.
But what is all this talk about "voice?" Was there audio or something I'm missing? Or do they just mean character voice?

[prof-pangaea.livejournal.com]

Despite their penchant for anachronism and not-quite British dialogue, the writing in Shoebox is really excellent, as well as much funnier than anything I have ever attempted (in the written form, at least). I had thought maybe the project had been abandonded but they updated a couple of times over the summer -- it seems like the multimedia aspect of it has been pretty much abandoned, though. I mean, early chapters would be made entirely of letters, or notes written back and forth, or large portions of story would be told through photographs, and now it's more like a fic with some illustrations. But it's still a pretty good fic.

As for the question, what kind of writer would I be if I just TOLD you? Have fun theorising (and if you don't want to theorise, I bet there's someone who does...).

[prof-pangaea.livejournal.com]

To be fair, what would actually be able to live up to the immense fangirling that grew up around that project? I still think it's beginning chapters were rather groundbreaking and that it's latest installments are, at the least, really good fic.

And thanks so much for the praise. I am here to please.

[prof-pangaea.livejournal.com]

I am glad that it worked. It took quite a bit of grappling to make it "do" and not "wander about without clear purpose and then sort of just fade away without making any sort of point".

Mycroft is a bit of a bastard. ^_^

[kels.livejournal.com]

Well, I still think that this is better than Shoebox, and I'm not just saying that because you're my friend. Take a compliment, Siobhan! Or those gift horses will come and bite yer face off. :P

The only reason I can imagine Holmes calling himself Caine is that he saw himself as the forsaken son. Whether he saw Watson or Mycroft as Abel, I don't know. I'd have to think on that some more.

My biblical theology is a bit rusty.

[prof-pangaea.livejournal.com]

I. You icon is slightly terrifying.

II. Technically, Mycroft is referring to the Strand's publishing of the first run of short stories (beginning with A Scandal in Bohemia, etc.). It's rather a strange thing for Watson to have done, but he most certainly did refer to Holmes in the present tense through all the original short stories (Adventures and Memoirs), though, chronologically, Holmes would have been dead by the time SCAN was first released. One can make the argument that Doyle didn't know that he would end up killing Holmes at the end of his second series, and it would certainly be a valid point -- but it would have been exceedingly easy for Doyle to write the time of Holmes' death to be in 1894, when the story was published, as opposed to 1891, before any of the short stories had seen print. Strange and interesting.

III. I do wonder what those kids got up to in the summer of '63...

IV. That might be the worst pun ever. And so I must admire you. I can only assure you that it was not on my mind when I wrote this... although it probably should have been.

V. I accept the offer of a biscuit gratefully (though quietly, on account of the terror).

[prof-pangaea.livejournal.com]

I think the name "M2theH" might be my everlastingly greatest achievement.

Also, in seriousness, thank you, because the emotion is the reason I made this piece, and I am very glad that it actually works. The encrypted language of the telegram itself was nothing compared to the encryption that surrounded every syllable of the Holmes brothers' incredible Britishness.