The Musgrave Ritual: The Long Game is the Only One Worth Playing

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Title: The Long Game is the Only One Worth Playing (subtitle: 'Fiery Welsh Temperament' Hides a Multitude of Sins, Or Maybe Just One)
Canon Story: The Musgrave Ritual
Rating: Gen
Summary: 'Beyond the sea' isn't nearly as far as Holmes thinks it is.
Author's Note: Inspired by an exchange of comments on the comm around Christmas about the possiblity of Mr. and Mrs. Moriarty naming all of their offspring James.

“Well, if it isn’t the second house-maid!”
“Hello, Professor.”
“Don’t you have something to sweep?”
“Brunton. Musgrave. Holmes. Predictable. Blind. D’you like Hamlet, Jimmy?”
“Everybody does.”
“Every man thinks he’s a displaced prince. I like Through the Looking-Glass. I’m the only sane one in a mad dream.”
She produced a brilliant stone.
His jaw dropped.
“Mummy’s Christmas gift!” she cried.

Comments

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

So Rachel Howells was Miss Jimmie Moriarty all along? ^^ I think I rather like that idea.

And I love: “Every man thinks he’s a displaced prince. I like Through the Looking-Glass. I’m the only sane one in a mad dream.”

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Yes, I am always suspicious of 'female madness' in stories. I'd prefer to think that Rachel was crazy like a fox.

I got the line off the internet, so I can't take credit. But it works here.

[debriswoman]

An inspired set of connections:-)

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Thank you, and after last week, now I'm always going to be wondering if you've written a whole epic on the same subject.

[debriswoman]

Nope...not covered this one:-p

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

As I sit here in my Alice in Wonderland t-shirt which says "Have I gone mad?" I can only applaud this.

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Hee, hee. Nice. A question I ask myself all the time, with varying responses.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

To Professor Moriarty she is always the woman.

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Hee, hee. Yeah, his kid sister who's a better criminal mastermind than he is.

And maybe you appreciate my raised eyebrows at this story. I said, C'mon Artie! The Brazilian in Thor Bridge, the Peruvian in The Sussex Vampire, and now the WELSH...is there any kind of woman beside your traditional (and we all know what that stands for) English rose who DOESN'T have a fiery temper or a streak of madness. The man had some ISSUES.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah - not even counting the grudging respect for that cunning AMERICAN woman who bested Holmes.

[capt-facepalm.livejournal.com]

ACD plays it safe once again. Sure, the Welsh and south Americans are fair game. Much safer than going after the French, or (shudder), the Irish.

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

You understand the nuances of it much better than I do. I was just struck by how all these women have 'fiery tempers' and ungovernable passions and streaks of madness and it's attributed to their 'tropical' nature but of course, then come the Welsh! And so it's really just xenophobia. But to a non-European the idea that the Welsh would be 'other' is sort of puzzlingly laughable.

I wrote a parody: http://fan-flashworks.livejournal.com/680502.html