#astudyincanonbookclub

[adventureofthedancinggirl]

This is primarily a fandom blog, currently focused on BNHA, previously active in BBC Sherlock.

Here you'll find fandom things, headcanons, rambling about fics (and writing in general), occasional meta & translations, as well as other miscellaneous things I find interesting. (See the index below if you're looking for my old posts.)

Writing updates are tagged: dancing girl writes.

AdventureOfTheDancingGirl on AO3.

@/dancinggirl221b on x & bsky

Sideblogs:

@seeyouafter a collection of my thoughts and various ephemera related to my ongoing tdbk epistolary fic "See You After"

@ordinaryoffensivemagic various content related to the manga/anime 葬送のフリーレン (Sousou no Frieren)

Notes and helpful tags:

Asks are open if you want to chat. Give me an excuse to talk about my writing notes or headcanons if you want to make my day. Anon is usually on but be kind. There is a real human on the other side of the screen.

Replies are tagged as dancing girl asks. If you want to say hi but don't know what to say, feel free to check out the ask games tag.

🏷️Tag Index:

I have a comprehensive tag index that I finally updated but these are the tags that I'm using most often these days:

💜Personal Tags:

dancing girl rambles - random thoughts, generally not fandom related

dancing girl writes - tag for my fics and general thoughts on writing (previous tags: my writing - this one has mostly Sherlock stuff, writing updates)

also: see you after fic, sya writing log

dancing girl's reblog themes - sometimes I go down a rabbit hole and reblog a bunch of related posts. It's a fun time.

🩵General writing & fandom stuff

on writing, writing reference, fandom life, AO3 tips, tumblr tips

💚BNHA Content

dancing girl’s bnha thoughts - includes my personal reactions, headcanons, misc. thoughts related to bnha

bnha fanfic - includes my fics and others I recommend

I use the tag bnha for all my hero academia related reblogs. spoilers are tagged bnha manga spoilers

Chapter reactions/thoughts are tagged with the chapter number as bnha xxx,  see also: bnha meta (not all meta is mine)

images: bnha manga, bnha anime, bnha art (for my favorite bnha fanart)

Multi-ship, but TDBK is my OTP. (that being said, a lot of my reblogs with "ship" tags are purely for organization purposes and many can be viewed as platonic.)

I just want a happy todofam au so I made a tag for it (other favorite AUs: fantasy au, winter au, childhood friends au)

The ladies of this series don't get enough love so I like to highlight them with the tag bnha girls

Todoroki Shouto tags: shouto loves cats, sleepy shouto, todofam, shouto art, shoutocat, strawberry shouto-cake, shouto birthday

Bakugou Katsuki tags: dynamy, sleepy katsuki, katsuki comfort, bakugou family

Other commonly used character tags: class 1a, origin trio, remedial squad, dadzawa, eri-chan (If you're searching for someone specific I generally just tag the character’s name as it shows up in AO3’s tagging system) 

misc collections: 2023 bnha xmas sketch

💛BBC Sherlock

Main tags: sherlock, johnlock

Sherlock Fic Recs - Mostly BBC Sherlock universe. Most of my own Sherlock fics are under the My Writing tag

BBC Sherlock: sherlock meta, series 4 theories (also: season 4 theories), sherlock parallels, mirrors

Original Canon: acd canon, AStudyInCanonBookClub, acd parallels, sherlock analysis

see tag index for additional tags and other fandoms

🧡Misc. Tags (not fandom)

mental health, reminders, encouragement

otterly adorable, cute animals, beautiful things, reasons to smile

bookish things, reading log, quotes

💭Random Facts:

I share my birthday with Dabi and Burnin'

My username is a play on the Sherlock Holmes story "Adventure of the Dancing Men".

Even though I'm not active in the Sherlock fandom anymore, I decided to keep the same username because dancing is part of my IRL identity and I didn't want to keep track of a separate account. Also, Mina is my dancing (alien) queen so the name still works.

[travelingwithoutthedoctor]

I love that we get Sherlock’s perspective in this story. This whole opening page is something. And then he is like “actually my Watson is way more remarkable than he gives himself credit for. Let me tell you about it.”

Just to then enter the story like “but he left me.” 😭 oh my, that heartbreak! 💔

“I was alone.”

[materialofonebeing]

“‘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.’” The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot

“For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.” The Adventure of the Three Garridebs

What rings true about these passages:

Holmes’s love brought Watson deep satisfaction.  It was his ultimate reward for partnering with Holmes in their work.

Watson wanted to declare to any and every reader that Holmes cared for him.  Both cases occurred in the years following Holmes’s return when Holmes “barred” Watson from releasing any account except for The Hound of the Baskervilles.  So Watson saved notes.

At times, Watson took Holmes’s affection on faith.  Devil’s Foot started with Holmes close to a breakdown and Three Garridebs with Holmes in bed for days.  Watson did not attribute Holmes’s emotion to weakness, though.  The investigations and danger brought Holmes back to him.

[satan-in-a-tea-cup]

thanks to GOLD i’ve learned that

watson sure loves to tell us, again, that there are loads of stuff he ISN’T telling us

holmes makes the coffee

watson can’t look at the river thames without being reminded of SIGN. (watson sentimental much)

holmes smokes so fast it’s comical i mean he’s starting on his fourth already?! that must be like a cigarette a minute

holmes has a piss poor excuse about his extreme smoking habits (connoisseur my ass. a connoisseur doesn’t chain smoke with that speed. a connoisseur takes time to appreciate all the complex flavours and revel in them. not inhale the damn things in two seconds and light the new one with the last one’s stub like trash)

holmes takes a break in the middle of a case to spend time alone with watson in a garden

[bluebeardsbride-archive]

excerpt of ‘The Adventure of the Abbey Grange’ The Return of Sherlock Holmes, 1904.

[sarahthecoat]

The Sussex Vampire

For @astudyincanon book club, I listened to the wonderful audiobook read by Sir Christopher Lee, thanks so much for the link!! This is the one with the tantalizing mentions of Mathilda Briggs and the Giant Rat of Sumatra and other cases we can only imagine. I also love the “Watson of course comes with us” in the plan to visit the Ferguson home.

This has always been a favorite because it’s such an outstanding example of Holmes helping a woman in need, even though she’s not the client herself, and initial indications are that she might be an antagonist. In contrast with SCAN, though, when Holmes is just learning that maybe his client isn’t entirely in the right, he goes into this case with a much broader mind. I’d say both stories have a happy ending, but in SUSS, Holmes has the satisfaction of actually championing the wife, and bringing about a reconciliation between her and her husband. Irene Adler Norton had already left town before Holmes had fully understood the situation behind and around the case in SCAN.

It also rings changes on THOR and PRIO, also with happy or happier endings. In THOR, the south american wife was already deeply estranged from her husband, jealous of his emotional infidelity, and killed herself: no reconciliation would ever have been possible. In SUSS, the couple are still faithful to each other, and eager to be reconciled. Holmes’ explication of the situation enables their temporary, reluctant estrangement to be healed quite readily. Her only illness was (I assume) due to having accidentally ingested a tiny bit of the poison she was drawing out of the baby’s wound, and the expectation was that it would pass soon.

In PRIO, we also have two half-brothers, where the elder is jealous of the younger and wants to do away with him, but in SUSS it is hoped that the “year at sea” will give Jack the healthy transition to adulthood and independence, so he can outgrow his jealousy. meanwhile the baby will grow up safely, and not be himself warped by his brother’s ill will, about which he can do nothing. Given that both boys are legitimate (unlike in PRIO, where the elder is always going to be the social inferior of the younger, and can never inherit while the younger will get all), one can imagine a future in which they both feel securely loved by loving and united parents, and they will outgrow the rivalry and become friends.

There are minor points of contact with other stories, but these seem to me to be the main ones.

[hayaomiyazaki]

animals have a strange instinct: they seem to know when some mischief is intended.

silver blaze, ep.23 • for @astudyincanon​ & their wonderful book club ♥

[tremendousdetectivetheorist]

Edward Hardwicke reads “The Adventure of the Crooked Man”

Thought I’d share this for @astudyincanon book club this week. :)

[nightingveilxo]

Here is the letter which I had this morning acknowledging my assistance.

Holmes, who then nonchalantly tosses the letter Watson’s direction, oh so casually mentions Le Villard is translating his works into French, then goes off on a tangent to show Watson just how many intelligent works he’s written that Watson really ought to know about, right?  #howtogetyourpraiseon

[adventureofthedancinggirl]

What’s up with Victorian wives calling their husbands by completely different names?

In The Adventure of the Yellow Face the client’s name is given as Grant Munro. But in his (freaking long) explanation of the case his wife calls him “Jack”.

Here is the annotation from the Leslie S. Klinger annotated edition. 

Who is “Jack”? Is this another symptom of the “John/James” syndrome exhibited in “Man with the Twisted Lip”? Or did Holmes misread  Munro’s handwriting upon the lining of his hat, and Munro is subtly correcting Holmes? Note that no one actually calls Munro by the name “Grant,” and Watson, who consistently identifies him as “Grant Munro,” is only following Holmes’s lead. D. Martin Dakin suggests that “ ‘Grant’ sounds rather formal from a loving wife, and no doubt she adopted a pet name, which might well have been his second one.” Patrick Drazen points out that “Jack” is a familiar version of “John,” Effie’s first husband’s name.

Even when Holmes and Watson accompany Munro to see the conclusion of the mystery Effie calls her husband “Jack.” So is his name actually Grant?

Well, at least Watson isn’t the only man whose wife randomly calls him by a different name (see the John/James discussion here).

@astudyincanon

[travelingwithoutthedoctor]

Sherlock wants to see John in the light.

And John feels 20 years younger by seeing Holmes.

[materialofonebeing]

Imagining 1913

When Holmes left on his counter-intelligence mission, Watson wrote to cope as he had during their last long separation 22 years earlier.  This time, though, he was mad as hell for a while.  

The Adventure of the Dying Detective, or That Time the Young SOB Didn’t Trust Me, made it to The Strand first.  Then there was The Valley of Fear -- Watson imagined another secret operative in danger -- in which Holmes’s cleverness only got another man killed.  Watson stuffed a draft of Creeping Man into the box.  He was a habit and an irritation.  But he had his humble role.  Still Holmes had ventured to America alone.  

Later, on a calmer evening, Watson penned The Adventure of the Three Garridebs.  He remembered Holmes’s loyalty and love.  Holmes would always be worth the wounds.  And the wait.  Another story into the box.

[satan-in-a-tea-cup]

magine reading the final problem in december 1893. imagine you’re following the sherlock holmes stories in the strand magazine.

right. so. here enters this super villain from fkn NOWHERE. never mentioned before. even the story teller has never heard of him! super baddie swoops in from nowhere and holmes is dead. boom. that’s it. the end. the real end. no trick. no hope. holmes really just died. for real. no bbc sherlock hiding behind a tree anywhere.

reading tfp in 1893 you had no way of knowing the empty house would be published 10 years (!) later.

wow. let’s be grateful for a moment we weren’t contemporary fans of canon.

imagine picking up the strand magazine in december 1893 and after you read that sherlock holmes story there was no more sherlock holmes

[bluebeardsbride-archive]

some vocabulary from The Adventure of the Abbey Grange (definitions courtesy of The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes)

de novo, Latin— anew, afresh. A trial de novo is one at which none of the evidence or rulings from any previous trial is automatically placed before the judge.

forment, noun— to apply hot, moist cloths to the body; to treat with a poultice or warm medicinal compress.

vox populi, vox dei, Latin— the voice of the people is the voice of G-d. a proverb attributed to William of Malmesbury in the twelfth century. Legal scholars credit the growth of the jury as an institution in the Middle Ages to its rôle in ameliorating the “divine” justice dispensed by the royal court.

[sarahthecoat]

The Engineer's Thumb

It's funny how every week I look forward to the next story, remembering somewhat dimly "oh, that's a good one, i like that one!" as if there was ever one that i didn't like! I do like this one, even though Holmes has so little to do in it. Maybe I remember it so fondly because Watson actually has more of the spotlight, and carries it well. He treats Mr Hatherly with gentle compassion, readily whisks him off to see Holmes, who he's clearly eager to see himself. As others have pointed out, Stark's offer is WAY too good to be true, topping all the other too good to be true stories so far, yet Watson isn't condescending about that. Holmes makes a "bit not good" joke, but... somebody had to, right? And other than that, Holmes is also welcoming and comforting.

I think it really was mostly an excuse for watson & holmes to hang out together though. If Hatherly had just gone to the police after being bandaged, they would have gone with him to the train station he'd got off at, and pretty shortly the column of smoke from the burning house would have gotten their attention, even though it wasn't "ten miles" out of town. The crooks had already gotten away anyway, nothing would have changed. Only Watson missed Holmes, and this was the perfect opportunity to go see him, and have a jaunt out of town. And Holmes was clearly happy to see Watson, and go on that jaunt.

The eeriest part of the whole story to me, is the thought Hatherly has inside the closing press, about whether to meet his fate on his back or front. I don't know about the actual mechanics of such a situation, whether it actually makes a difference, or what the difference would be, but it's a ghastly thought. And I can't help thinking about all the meta about "forwards or backwards" regarding bbc sherlock, though that's another tangent.

[nibblesofflesh]

So this line from A Scandal in Bohemia:

As I passed the well-remembered door, which must always be associated in my mind with my wooing, and with the dark incidents of the Study in Scarlet, I was seized with a keen desire to see Holmes again, and to know how he was employing his extraordinary powers.

His “wooing”? What does that mean? It’s not him wooing his wife, because that doesn’t make much sense in the scope of his memory of 221B. So is he the one that had been wooed here? If so, it’s obviously by Holmes. And that’s such an odd word to use. I know to woo can mean to curry general favor, but it’s almost always connotated romantically, or at the very least meant to sound like an enticement.

So, put another way, “When I passed the door and thought about Holmes wooing me and our first case together, I was seized with a keen desire to see him again.”

That’s adorable. And gay. So very gay. Honestly, how do people interpret lines like this WITHOUT a queer lens? Where do the words go? Even if there is another way to interpret that line, how does someone adequately argue AGAINST this interpretation?