kingstoken | Snowflake Challenge #2

Snowflake Challenge promotional banner featuring feet in snuggly socks, a mug of hot chocolate, a notebook with 'dreams' written on the cover, and a guitar. Text: Snowflake Challenge January 1-31.

Challenge #2

In your own space, talk about your fannish origin story.

In past I've talked about my mom and Star Trek, shows I liked as a kid, and how I didn't get into transformative fandom until I was an adult because I lived in a rural area without reliable internet, so I won't repeat all that.

So, since I've recently gotten into watching the 1980s-1990s Granada Sherlock Holmes. I thought I would talk about my love of Sherlock Holmes as a teenager. I'm not completely sure when I started reading the Holmes stories, but I think it was probably my first year of High School. I liked mysteries before this, I remember reading stories about three boys who solved mysteries as a kid, and no it wasn't the Hardy Boys, probably one of their many clones. Anyways, my high school library was mostly non-fiction, but it had a mezzanine with fiction books, and I think that is where I read my first Sherlock Holmes book. Later on, my grandmother gifted me a Reader's Digest collection of the short stories.

I remember going to a 4-H meeting and as part of a get to know you thing we were all supposed to share our favourite book, and I said The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and everyone looked at like I was weird. (I guess late 19th century mysteries were not a normal thing for teenagage girls to be interested in, ha!)

I eventually moved on to other things, but I've come back to it in some form or another over the years, usually adaptations like Elementary, and it's been a joy. However, the Granada series is so close to the books it's like visiting an old friend. I'm pretty sure I never saw the Granada series as a young teen, even though it would have been around the right time period, because if I had I think I would have probably been obsessed with it.

When I went to London about a decade ago now we visited the Sherlock Holmes museum at 221b Baker St, and I have a leather bookmark I bought from the gift shop I use it a lot, and always try and use when I read mysteries.

Anyways, I think teenage me might be surprised, but also be happy that I have got back into Sherlock Holmes again.

(One note, because I know someone will ask, but I never got into BBC's Sherlock. I didn't have access at first, and later when I saw clips of it I really didn't like how the Holmes/Watson relationship was portrayed, from what I saw. Holmes can be rude and mean to Watson occasionally, but what some adaptations fail at is showing the respect and fondness Holmes had for Watson, and as much as I love Holmes I love John Watson even more.)

Snowflake Challenge #2

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