Drabble: Jelly-bean McQueen, Sherlock Holmes (ACD or Grenada)
Oct. 27th, 2025 09:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sixbeforelunchkingstoken for a prompt and she gave me "jelly beans". I looked them up on Wikipedia and learned something new about early 20th century slang. And then I wrote a thing.Jelly-bean McQueen
Sherlock's American informant was knowledgeable, but Watson found his dialect quite unintelligible at times. "I've heard him called Jelly-bean McQueen," the informant said, "And by golly it fits. That boy's a Jelly-bean if ever there was one."
"A what?" Watson asked.
"A Jelly-bean," Sherlock said.
"I am familiar with the confectionary, but what has it to do with our suspect?"
Sherlock tutted. "Really, Watson, you must keep up with the slang of the modern times. A Jelly-bean is young man made of more flash and style than substance, and generally quite idle. A fop. A dandy. Naturally."
"Oh, yes. Naturally."
---
(Per Wikipedia this slang came into use in the 1910s and 1920s, so it just fits the timeline of ACD-era Holmes.)
Also on AO3
fic meme
Oct. 26th, 2025 07:59 pmsixbeforelunchSeen in a few places, but most recently via senmut
How many letters of the alphabet have you used for starting a fic title? One fic per line, ‘A’ and 'The’ do not count for 'a’ and ’t’. Post your score out of 26 at the end, along with your total fic count.
A - Accented Interest (Stargate: SG1)
B - B'Minga (Star Trek: TNG)
C - Cadence (Star Trek: TNG)
D - Dah Vokaya (Star Trek: Expanded Universe)
E - Elephant Jokes (the only slightly evil remix) (Stargate: SG1)
F - f'(x) (MCU)
G - get your swagger on (MCU)
H - Hafayat (Star Trek: Expanded Universe)
I - Illusory Reality (Star Trek: TOS/Vulcans Glory)
J - nada
K - Kal'i'farr heh T'naehm (Star Trek: Expanded Universe)
L - Laid Bare (Star Trek: TNG)
M - Masu-kastra (Star Trek: Expanded Universe)
N - Nailed My Faith to the Sticking Pole (Stargate SG1)
O - Of Quadruple Weddings and All You Can Eat Seafood (Stargate SG1)
P - Pessum (Star Trek: TNG)
Q - Quality Time (Star Trek: TNG)
R - Reciprocity of Care (Star Trek: TNG)
S - Safe Landing (Key Largo)
T - Tea and Company (Sherlock Holmes)
U - Unconventional Courtship (DCU)
V - Vaunah (Star Trek: Expanded Universe)
W - Waiting Game (Star Trek: TOS)
X - XFVCU 1x07 : Prism (X-Files)
Y - Yel-nel-dath (Star Trek: Expanded Universe)
Z - Z is for Zenith (Stargate: SG1)
25/26, although "X" squeaked by on a bit of a technicality. I've currently got 198 stories posted on AO3. I've also written in more fandoms than this list would suggest. I sorted in alphabetical order and grabbed the first one I saw for each letter, but for whatever Star Trek got heavily weighted. I have written a lot of Star Trek, but I don't think it makes up half of all of the stories I've written so. Huh.
Database maintenance
Oct. 25th, 2025 08:42 am![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png){kind=small}
mark posting in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_maintenanceGood morning, afternoon, and evening!
We're doing some database and other light server maintenance this weekend (upgrading the version of MySQL we use in particular, but also probably doing some CDN work.)
I expect all of this to be pretty invisible except for some small "couple of minute" blips as we switch between machines, but there's a chance you will notice something untoward. I'll keep an eye on comments as per usual.
Ta for now!
UK people: Scrap The Bathroom Ban
Oct. 25th, 2025 11:33 amrydra_wongFrom TransActual and Trans+ Solidarity Alliance. Produces a template letter to your MP which you can customize as much as you can or want to.
Article by Jane Fae of TransActual (who have been absolutely kicking ass):
https://www.scenemag.co.uk/jane-fae-a-director-of-transactual-writes-on-the-eve-of-launching-a-new-campaign-to-get-mps-to-reject-the-ehrcs-bathroom-ban/
There are now a bunch of Labour MPs who are worried and making noises at the government, even if it's only about the impact on businesses of rules which are possibly illegal and impossible to follow without getting sued:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/oct/23/dozens-of-labour-mps-warn-of-chaos-for-firms-over-gender-recognition-advice
It's alleged that Bridget Phillipson was sitting on the guidance because she was worried it'd scupper her bid for the deputy leadership, whereas Powell is actively trans-friendly and has called for MPs to have a chance to debate and vote on the guidance.
The below may be an overly optimistic view but it seems clear there's tension and conflict between the EHRC and government:
https://iandunt.substack.com/p/frightened-and-desperate-ehrc-anti (warning for Substack, in case you are boycotting it)
So this is a moment when leverage is possible, and letters to your MP may actually do something.
Anyway here is a cool person I didn't know about before
Oct. 22nd, 2025 06:08 pmrydra_wong
[Image description: Bluesky post by Luke Turner reading "here is a pleasingly anti-fascist animal painted on the Hurricane of gay RAF pilot Ian Gleed", above a picture of Gleed in the cockpit of his plane pointing to the image on its side of a cartoon cat swatting at and destroying a swastika.]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Gleed (he may have been the fastest RAF pilot to ever make ace, in two days; he was only 26 when he was killed)
Further research by
robynbender established that he actually had said antifascist cat painted on all his planes:http://www.hatfield-herts.co.uk/aviation/gleed.html
AWS outage
Oct. 20th, 2025 10:11 amalierak posting in dw_maintenanceEdit: all services are running as of 16:12 CDT, but there is definitely still a backlog of notifications to get through.
Edit 2: and at 18:20 CDT everything's been running normally for about the last hour.
I now have basically no internet or phone reception at home
Oct. 20th, 2025 09:37 amrydra_wongSo while that's going on, replies to anything may be delayed, but I'm reading when I can and distractions are still very much appreciated.
ETA: may now be fixed, I am deep in spoon debt and would like to be allowed to falldowngoboomnow.
Just wanted to say
Oct. 19th, 2025 09:07 amrydra_wong
For anyone who enjoys synecdochic being the Pope's Anger Translator
Oct. 18th, 2025 07:53 amrydra_wongOkay! This is going to take a while so I had to finish some stuff first, but: Why Da Pope Fucking Up Opus Dei Is A Huge Fucking Deal: a thread
I believe the proposed reforms are currently leaked/not confirmed yet, but this is fascinating.
(ETA: the previous round of Pope-exegesis.)