Vid Rec: Troublemaker

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Title: Troublemaker
Music Title & Artist: "Troublemaker" by Weezer
Vidder: signed_aislynn
Pairing or Character: none specified
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Link: Troublemaker announcement page and vid

Reccer's Comments: This vid is a charming ode to Sherlock's petulance. It's an oldie (and goody!), made after Series 1. Lots of fun lyric/visual matches throughout, but to be honest I'm reccing it mostly for the violin sequence in the middle which I find unfailingly hilarious. How's this for arts and crafts, indeed!

Fic Rec: The Semantics of Crop Circle Formation: a case study by Sherlock Holmes [unpublished]

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Title: The Semantics of Crop Circle Formation: a case study by Sherlock Holmes [unpublished]
Author: canolacrush
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Length: 41,000 words
Rating: M
Warnings: none
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: "Look at these photographs," I said, gesturing to the wall of crop circles. "What do you observe?"

"Crop circles," John replied.

"Obvious. What else?"

"Are...are those intestines surrounding them?"

"Yes. The majority are bovine and ovine in origin. The farmers who have acquired these crop circles in their fields have also had a tenth of their livestock murdered and arranged thus."

"Why?" John said, presumably in a rhetorical fashion.

I detest rhetorical questions. "That is what I must find out, John."

Reccer's comments: And now for something completely different. Really, the first word that springs to mind when I think of this fic is "unique." A terribly entertaining Sherlock POV piece, in which Sherlock is writing out a post-mortem analysis of his recent bizarre, failed case. This unpublished study comes complete with irascible footnotes, and through it all Sherlock unfolds the mystery piece by piece and kicks himself over the various points at which he can see important clues in hindsight which he overlooked or misinterpreted the first time through. And though many of these clues have to do with the actual case, some of them have to do with John as well.

I will not say much about the actual plot for fear of spoiling its surprises, but it's fair to say that it has science-fiction elements, and Sherlock's unphased reaction to those elements is utterly charming.

Sherlock, like the story itself, is divided between the case and his rapidly evolving relationship with John, and for him the strain of these divergent foci is painful and passionate all at once. This is an imaginative love story with a tone that swings expertly between humor, heartfelt romance, determined empiricism, and close encounters of the third kind.

This is what happens when someone takes a cracky premise and writes it seriously (or at least half seriously) -- the result is a truly memorable and delightful oddity. Plus you will learn more about crop circles than you ever wanted to know. And meet a version of Sherlock and John that I think you will not quite find anywhere else.