✈️⏳🧛‍♂️🪼🪑🪦🌊🦠🕸️⚰️🧵🌠🪞🍂♟️🗡️📜✨✒️

[jones queerholmcs] said "what if series four was a crossover with the collected works of oscar wilde?" and they were so right.

- rebs victorianpining

Series four opens with five people in an office watching edited video footage, and we are informed that "that's not what happened at all"—but, no; "it is now."

So, naturally, I've done the only thing I could do, and have spent the past [unintelligible mumbling] months considering my interpretation of what really did happen. A handful of spreadsheets, numerous drafts, innumerable series four rewatches, and a hundred thousand words later—it is my privilege to present: That's Not What Happened At All.

I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge how indebted I am to my beloved mutual (and Dr John H Watson scholar) Rebs @victorianpining for their unwavering support throughout this project—including their refusal to believe for even a moment that this would be the simple 30k novella I once imagined it would be. Further thanks to Allyssa @gundark and Elena @ohwatson for their moral support and assistance with the beta-reading process. 🫶

Chapters will be posted on Fridays and Mondays for the next two months or so. There's also a carefully-curated Spotify playlist to accompany the written word, which I will be updating along the way for those who enjoy that sort of thing.

The tags are a bit dark, I know, but I promise there will be sunlight at the end of this; the nature of their story simply is such that they have to go to hell and back in order to get there. And so, after all this time, it is my absolute pleasure to share that story with all of you. 💖✒️🌇

That's Not What Happened At All

✈️⏳🧛‍♂️🪼🪑🪦🌊🦠⚰️🌠🪞🍂♟️🗡️📜✨✒️ Or, a BBC Sherlock s4 fic written by a guy who's had eight years to get far too weird about both John H. Watson (lying narrator extraordinaire) and Mycroft Holmes as portrayed by Mark Gatiss the writer, and who did take a quick intermission during the drafting process to devour the collected works of Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde.

There will be devastating failures to communicate. There will be mirrors. There will be looking-into-the-camera statements about Art and Truth. There will be blood, and there will be catharsis. And all of this will occur over the course of approximately 115k words' worth of me inflicting my love for s4 on the world, because a certain someone never believed me for a moment when I said (a) that this would be a quick and reasonable 30k, and (b) that I'm not capable of writing more that much before I lose interest in a project (everyone say thank you to @victorianpining 🫶).

And, in the meantime, here's a playlist I made to prove how little real estate the idea of BBC Dorian occupies in my mind. Enjoy!

it's officially one week until i get to have the absolute pleasure of sharing the first chapter of "that's not what happened at all" (a.k.a. the story that has taken over my life and soul for the past year or so), and so in honour of that, i would like to share some spoiler-free previews in the form of some of my favourite out-of-context comments left by my beloved vampire mutual rebs @victorianpining during the beta-reading process 🫶✒️🥰

(also, fun fact: if you leave something like 120 comments on a gdoc over the span of about two hours, google will accuse you of violating their spam policy and ban you from leaving any further comments for a day or two. so credit to rebs for making that discovery!)

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i think the osmosis brainwashing is the one i'm most pleased about. like yayyyyy my evil plan is working!!! and if it takes me writing 120k of a love letter to series four to pull you all over to my side then so be it!!! 💖💖💖