Last night I dreamt a Sherlock/Elementary crossover.  Both Sherlocks and their Watsons were in some big fancy skyscraper at night, working together on a case.  Sadly I remember absolutely no details of the mystery.  There was lots of snarking and arguing amongst Sherlock, Sherlock, John, and Joan, but they were ultimately putting their heads together and making good progress on the case.  Then the Elementary pair were poisoned!  (By the bad guys, not the BBC characters.)  The poison had been hidden in a bottle of Dr. Bronner's soap that I guess both of them used before either manifested symptoms, with the poison being absorbed through the skin.  (I have no clue why that is just about the only detail my brain retained upon waking.)  They weren't dead yet, but their chances of survival weren't good.  I remember feeling really upset, both because they were people I cared about who were in danger of dying, but also because if they died I wouldn't have any televised Holmes to watch while waiting for BBC!Sherlock's series three.  My dream gave all the Holmeses and Watsons this odd sort of doubled existence of being simultaneously real people and television characters.

Sadly I woke up before I found out whether Joan and her Holmes lived, if the mystery was ever solved, or whether any of them ever made out.

Having that dream prompted me to finally finish the season in Elementary. I enjoyed it.

( Major Elementary spoilers within )

Someday, I will make a post that is not largely about Sherlock.  Today is not that day.  New fandom has wrapped its tentacles around my brain in a major way.  Today, I have some recs for you.  Some of them are even about things other than Sherlock!

First, a piece of crack!fic that sent me into absolute fits of laughter:  Aptronyms by elapsedspiral .  This is a slight AU where, as the summary says, Mr Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson are characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Mr Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson are the unfortunate sods named after them.   When you get to the end, I hope you'll agree with me that we have a new catchphrase!  You'll know the one I mean.

Second, a delightful vid by humansrsuperior starring Sherlock's Coat of Great Sexiness.  I can't figure out how to embed this player, so here's a link to the relevant LJ entry.  All coat, all the time.  The vid is free of major spoilers, so if there is anyone reading this who is (a) still on the fence about whether to watch Sherlock, and (b) attracted to men and/or long, dramatic coats, this might convince you.  Watch it swirl!

Now, a Merlin rec!  I wanted to make sure all the Merlin folks on this list have seen rosa_acicularis 's  amazing Merlin fic, Goose Girl.  It's got richly layered emotions, plenty of Rosa's trademark wit, and a wonderful character who is sort of an OC and sort of someone you know.  There's also a fierce goose.  It's set post-S1.

Here's a fascinating NY Times article about a practice in Afghanistan of disguising girls as boys.  Some of them wear boys' clothes in order to work to help their families out with income, but others are presented as boys largely because of the social stigma on families without sons. Even when the child's original gender is an open secret among friends, there are still social benefits to simply appearing to have a son.  Most of these young people are supposed to revert back to femininity at puberty or when their parents arrange a marriage, with varying degrees of success and happiness. 

Now, a bit of yammering about my subconscious (you can skip if you like).  A few nights ago I actually dreamed I was in Afghanistan.  I don't remember any details, but I think it was in the context of visiting there rather than being Afghan.  I am somewhat concerned that my subconscious may be attempting to emulate John Watson in hopes that this will cause Benedict Cumberbatch to become my flatmate.  Sadly, it doesn't work that way.  At least strange dreams are preferable to a psychosomatic limp. 

Last night I had even stranger dreams.  Perhaps inspired by the lovely Sherlock/His Dark Materials fusion fic, "Theory and Practice," I dreamt about the Firefly crew in a universe where everyone has daemons*.  In a rare instance of awareness that I was dreaming, I kept realizing that my sleeping mind was assigning Mal a daemon that didn't quite suit him (golden eagle, then tiger) and insisting that the dream give him a  different one.  I wish I could tell you what brilliant ideas my brain eventually cooked up for who would have what species of daemon, but that got lost in the transition to the next dream.  (What would their daemons actually be? Mal, I think, would have a coyote.  River would be either a cat or some sort of bird, perhaps an owl.  Kaylee strikes me as an otter.  Anyone else have opinions?)

After half-waking, I transitioned to a school stress dream.  I haven't had one of those in a while, though I have teaching stress dreams not infrequently.  When I do dream about being in school, most often it's at the college level with some sort of test I didn't study for/paper I didn't write/classroom I can't find as the plot.  Last night, however, I dreamed about being in high school. I went to one of the classes assigned to me on the first day and was really upset when it was WAY too easy and beneath my level.  Everyone else in the class seemed ludicrously dumb. I was worried I was going to be stuck in that class all semester, bored out of my skull, and I had no idea where the office was or how to change my schedule.  My brain seems to think I need to do more with my life.

How about one more bit of Sherlock silliness for anyone still with me?  Sherlock demonstrates how to dance the robot.  It made me giggle like a crazy person.


*In Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, daemons are external manifestations of a person's soul, taking the form of animals.

( a fairly short post with SPOILERS for 5.07 )