I Was Seized With A Fervor And Could Not Rest Until I Illustrated One Of My Favorite Scenes From Sherlock

I was seized with a fervor and could not rest until I illustrated one of my favorite scenes from Sherlock Holmes: the Adventure of the Devil's Foot. While Holmes and Watson take a holiday in the Cornish countryside for Holmes's health, multiple people in the nearby village are found driven mad or dead from horror. Holmes deduces a substance that was burned in their presence is to blame. With a bit of the mysterious powder and a gas lamp in hand, he proposes an experiment to Watson...

content warning for drug use!

I'm not sure if it's supported by the canon but in my mind this is the first time Holmes ever apologies to Watson and he is so overcome with emotion that he immediately makes it weird

Text under the cut:

"It is not for me, my dear Watson, to stand in the way of the official police force. I leave them all the evidence which I found. The poison still remained upon the talc had they the wit to find it. Now, Watson, we will light our lamp; we will, however, take the precaution to open our window to avoid the premature decease of two deserving members of society, and you will seat yourself near that open window in an armchair unless, like a sensible man, you determine to have nothing to do with the affair. Oh, you will see it out, will you? I thought I knew my Watson. This chair I will place opposite yours, so that we may be the same distance from the poison and face to face. The door we will leave ajar. Each is now in a position to watch the other and to bring the experiment to an end should the symptoms seem alarming. Is that all clear? Well, then, I take our powder--or what remains of it--from the envelope, and I lay it above the burning lamp. So! Now, Watson, let us sit down and await developments."

They were not long in coming. I had hardly settled in my chair before I was conscious of a thick, musky odour, subtle and nauseous. At the very first whiff of it my brain and my imagination were beyond all control. A thick, black cloud swirled before my eyes, and my mind told me that in this cloud, unseen as yet, but about to spring out upon my appalled senses, lurked all that was vaguely horrible, all that was monstrous and inconceivably wicked in the universe. Vague shapes swirled and swam amid the dark cloud-bank, each a menace and a warning of something coming, the advent of some unspeakable dweller upon the threshold, whose very shadow would blast my soul. A freezing horror took possession of me. I felt that my hair was rising, that my eyes were protruding, that my mouth was opened, and my tongue like leather. The turmoil within my brain was such that something must surely snap. I tried to scream and was vaguely aware of some hoarse croak which was my own voice, but distant and detached from myself. At the same moment, in some effort of escape, I broke through that cloud of despair and had a glimpse of Holmes's face, white, rigid, and drawn with horror--the very look which I had seen upon the features of the dead. It was that vision which gave me an instant of sanity and of strength. I dashed from my chair, threw my arms round Holmes, and together we lurched through the door, and an instant afterwards had thrown ourselves down upon the grass plot and were lying side by side, conscious only of the glorious sunshine which was bursting its way through the hellish cloud of terror which had girt us in. Slowly it rose from our souls like the mists from a landscape until peace and reason had returned, and we were sitting upon the grass, wiping our clammy foreheads, and looking with apprehension at each other to mark the last traces of that terrific experience which we had undergone.

"Upon my word, Watson!" said Holmes at last with an unsteady voice, "I owe you both my thanks and an apology. It was an unjustifiable experiment even for one's self, and doubly so for a friend. I am really very sorry."

"You know," I answered with some emotion, for I have never seen so much of Holmes's heart before, "that it is my greatest joy and privilege to help you."

He relapsed at once into the half-humorous, half-cynical vein which was his habitual attitude to those about him. "It would be superfluous to drive us mad, my dear Watson," said he. "A candid observer would certainly declare that we were so already before we embarked upon so wild an experiment. I confess that I never imagined that the effect could be so sudden and so severe." He dashed into the cottage, and, reappearing with the burning lamp held at full arm's length, he threw it among a bank of brambles. "We must give the room a little time to clear. I take it, Watson, that you have no longer a shadow of a doubt as to how these tragedies were produced?"

Má vlastní postava

Takže, konečně představuji svou vlastní RŠ postavu, a tou je Čára.

Čára se přestěhovala do Stínadel asi dva roky před začátkem děje stínadelské trilogie. Je jediným děvčetem mezi Vonty, ale přemýšlí a chová se spíš jako hoch, a ostatní Vontové ji taky tak berou, i když trvalo dost dlouho, než ji začali uznávat.

Když přišla Čára do Stínadel a trochu se rozkoukala, samozřejmě se chtěla hned přidat k Vontům. Ti se jí pochopitelně smáli, posílali ji k šípku a k Amazonkám, ale ona o dívčí partu nestála a obdivovala jen vontskou organizaci. V chlapeckém oblečení a se žlutým špendlíkem neúnavně okouněla na schůzích, pročítala všechny vzkazy ve vitrínách, naučila se, kdo je ve které ulici náčelníkem, cestou ze školy se pokaždé potichu zavěsila na některou skupinku a vůbec o vontské věci projevovala velký zájem, ale Vontové ji přesto ignorovali; přinejlepším ji někteří zavolali do kopané, když jim chyběl hráč. Několikrát jí s pohrůžkami sebrali špendlík, ale vždycky přišla s novým.

Tak to šlo víc než rok – až do dne, kdy v její ulici vypukla rvačka. Čára se tam připletla taky a v boji, jak jinak, opět přišla o špendlík. Na druhý den k ní ovšem přišel náčelník ulice, s naprosto vážnou tváří jí podal nový špendlík a beze slova odešel. A představte si, od té chvíle už jí ho nikdo nesebral.

Čára je introvertní a má ráda svůj klid, ale je chytrá, svérázná a nemá problém mluvit k velké skupině nebo se ubránit ve rvačce. Její přezdívka se dá použít v obou rodech: ten Čára i ta Čára. Vypadá jako kluk – má krátké vlasy a nosí košile, kabáty a kalhoty. Občas si ale vezme tmavou sukni, hlavně do školy, protože ve třicátých letech nebylo úplně přijatelné, aby mládež chodila v oblečení opačného pohlaví. Přátelí se s Losnou (sedí spolu ve škole v lavici) a jako jediný Vont dokáže vyjednávat s Amazonkami.

(Dolní obrázek je lehce inspirovaný stylem oblékání Štěpy Gordonové z knihy "Studna osamění" od Radclyffe Hall.)

So, there's a lot of USians around who are very clearly fucking fed up with their political choices this election cycle, and planning to sit it out.

And I get it! What's the point of voting if there's no one to vote for?

The thing is, I'm Australian. In Australia, voting is compulsory. We don't get to sit out our elections, and I'll be real honest with you - we don't exactly get better choices than you lot. So how do you vote if there's no one to vote for? You find someone to vote against. And there's always someone to vote against.

Now, we have the pleasure of preferential voting in Australia - We get to rank every candidate from 1 to X, and I'll tell you, there's something so cathartic about putting the biggest bastard of the lot at the very bottom of your preferences. I understand that USians don't get that option - you get to mark one person, and that's it.

That means that you get one shot, so aim it at the biggest bastard of the lot. The candidate you most utterly detest. Put your vote in the worst possible place for them. Don't even think about who that vote's going towards, that's not the point. Remember, every vote is a vote against someone. Make sure you fuck up that someone's election day!

the worst thing that could possibly happen to ao3 is it being put on the app store so please stop asking for it because you don't understand what would happen if that went through. ao3's whole deal is it archives EVERYTHING, while the apple app store's whole deal is keeping everything clean and safe. so if ao3 were to have an app all of the 'bad' stuff, including nsfw in general, would have to be censored at best or would be purged at worse. the google play store is more lax but who fucking knows what GOOGLE would police if they got their hands on the archive. do not ask for an app. do not use third party apps. it's on mobile browser functioning perfectly, just fucking use that before you ruin everything for everyone please.