#this is like how people make watson the normal one in the dynamic and holmes a robot. watson's thought process is probably a roulette

[nanashi1869]

tcomc adaptations have to stop being cowards and not make albert into a naive kid snuggled up in bubble wrap. let him be unhinged and with zero fucks to give.

[cyanidecrystal]

SPOILERS FOR SHERLOCK AND CO. AHEAD.

Ok so I've been listening to Sherlock and co. for months now, not really cause I'm a big fan od the podcast, more so that I have adhd and I'm a fan of background noise. I've been enjoying a lot of it, it's easy on the ears. Comfy. But I have some criticisms that I feel should be at least put out there.

1. The way the show treats disability

So we all know this is the first Sherlock adaptation with a canon autistic Holmes and I appreciate that I really do, but I'm afraid that's where the positive disability rep really ends.

Whenever a disabled character appears the the episodes after that, you can bet your ass they're going to be the villain. There has been a lot written about the horrible DID portrayal, but I'd also like to call attention to the mentally ill stalker guy, who not only is shown as a deranged murderer but we get to witness a graphic torture scene with him. How fun.

The last one (so far) is the very obvious twist villain of The Sign of Four and I was really hoping I was wrong when I guessed he'd be the bad guy because he seemed like a real step in the right direction if he turned out good. Sadly, as I said if a character outside of the main cast is disabled they are evil. That's just how it is.

This is obviously a very old stereotype. Showing the villain as unstable and mentally ill or disabled as a shortcut to let the audience know they're dangerous or evil. Even though in real life, mentally ill and disabled people are way more likely to be victims than perpetrators.

2. Sherlock's violent outbursts

Ok, this point I'm way less confident with so if someone knows the books better and can tell me I'm wrong I'll accept that but does anyone else think that Holmes is really quick to hurt people in this series?

I've been kinda letting it slide for ages now but in a lot of the episodes it seems like they're going normally and then suddenly Sharlock starts torturing people.

The reason I've let it slide is because they're usually actual killers so u know what that's not so bad, but in the latest episode he just goes off on some low level guy, who seemed mostly just kinda scared.

Even thought these people are always bad guys it really takes me out. It's so jarring. Idk.

3. Watson bullying

Yeah, just hear me out, okay?

I get that this is kinda their dynamic but between Mariana, John and Sherlock, Watson is constantly getting teased and bullied and it usually seems like he doesn't rly enjoy it.

It's usually about things he's seriously self conscious about. Then when he gets a love interest/friend who's actually nice to him they act even worse. I know it's comic relief so I just let it slide till now.

Until the last episode where Mariana seriously crossed the line. The fact she continues recording not only after being asked not to but also after he thanks her for not recording in such a sweet and passive way that makes me think he expected them not to honor his wishes.

I really hope this causes some kind of argument or fight or anything between them, but I expect it will just end up with John saying "you were right, guys I needed to get back to it" and never think of it again.

Anyway, I'm still listening to the series so don't take it as some bitter hater ramble. It's just some things I've noticed that have been bothering me for weeks and weeks. Feel free to agree or disagree or add your own thoughts.

[pinkgrapefloyd]

1 for tdims; 4, 5, 10, 17, 18!

thank you for the ask! <3

1 share a song that makes you think of 'there's daggers in men's smiles'

I don't necessarily think the themes match 100%, but I listened to "moon song" by phoebe bridgers a lot while writing! also "coma" by taylor acorn because it has major johnny-unlearning-bullshit vibes.

4 How many WIPs do you have right now?

oh god. if we're talking unfinished works that I haven't abandoned... thirteen. jesus fucking christ. one for good omens, four for frey & mcgrey, eight for cobra kai. but I'm only actively working on about three or four of those right now!

5 What's a fic idea you've had that you'll never write?

hm idk. i usually write something down for every distinct idea that i have. the only one that i currently haven't written anything for is a frey & mcgray idea that plays off the TPLOSH scene where holmes implies he's with watson to get out of being propositioned by a russian ballerina. because i think that'd be juicy as hell with the mcfrey dynamic. but i can't guarantee that i'll never write for it! maybe one day! it's just currently a very basic idea.

10 Is there a fic that got a different response than what you were expecting?

honestly, i was surprised by the sheer amount of readers anti-hero had because I personally don't read WIPs that often. (I know, shame on me, I'm probably missing out on many great works and the fun of reading and commenting as someone uploads!)

and i thought tdims would get a lot of 'cute fic but would have been better with karate' type comments and was really happy people liked the fencing content independently of how much previous fencing knowledge they had!

17 What's something you've learned while doing research for a fic?

My top 3 facts that I've learned during fic research:

in my research about typhoid fever i learned about the worst potato salad of all time, which was prepared in 1898 by a cook in Saarbrücken who didn't wash his hands after cleaning a toilet and subsequently killed forty people with his cooking. yikes.

if you remember the 1982 fencing championship casualty - it was actually a german fencer who fatally injured a ukrainian one (USSR at the time). when russia invaded ukraine forty years later, he took in his opponent's son-in-law and grandchildren.

I bet everyone's sick of me talking about this, but the US Supreme Court case that decided sodomy laws were unconstitutional is called Lawrence v Texas. I just think it's cool that the plaintiff shares a name with Johnny, whose fic I researched that for.

18 What's one of your favorite lines you've written in a fic?

published: it's split between these two (both from tdims. lmao. no i don't have favorite children.)

"Grief makes you into an odd animal that flinches at all sorts of normal things. But of all animals out there, none are as adaptable as humans. You can get used to the unacceptable if you just give it enough time."

and

"The heartbreak burns so brightly inside of Johnny that it called across the ocean like a lighthouse, and now the other monsters are crawling up from the depths of the sea to extinguish him before Johnny's softness can give them a bad name."

unpublished: this line from "worse by the hour" of a character in 1880s scotland coming out to his butler (pretty much the only family he has left). I wrote it and immediately said "bro!" out loud. lmfao. i feel like that means something.

“What if the McGray name dies with me?” “Then it should feel honoured to share yer grave.” 

[lyratums]

jes has au rambles

detective emukasa au because i think the holmes/watson esque dynamic is very fun for them. “wow, you’re just like sherlock homeless!” “ITS HOLMES!!!” it is not recommended to read this im self indulgent.

the main case of the au is emu’s precious jewel (the brooch she wears in her sekai jewelry box art) mysteriously disappearing. emu seeks out help, and decides to recruit the “star detective” (tsukasa) to help her find it. they both end up working together to find it, and as they uncover the truth, they become the best detective duo.. :,) tsukasa is one of the town’s best detectives. he used to be affiliated with an elite crime agency, but is now mostly working independently under a smaller, friendlier agency (shiraishi’s agency). he’s an eccentric and confident guy, who’s very proud of his craft and skill as a detective. he’s on very good terms with most people, and has lots of connections due to his previous cases. he has a strong passion for solving interesting cases, and had this dream of becoming a detective ever since he was younger. not going to get into details about his character but he’s somewhat similar to sherlock holmes, especially his humor and dramatics, and his denseness when it comes to love. he even has the amazing acting skills like holmes! also he’s good at piano. not relevant, but it’s like holmes being good at violin. (also that one scene of holmes playing violin for watson to fall asleep.. think about that but tsukasa’s playing piano for emu..)

emu would be tsukasa’s loyal, devoted, caring, partner. she also likes to write about their adventures, just like watson, unlike watson in the acd series, emu plays a stronger role with the actual case as she helps tsukasa solve them. emu does not have experience as a detective, but her intelligence, particularly her strong emotional perception, is a very useful skill when conducting investigations by interrogations. she believes in the impossible, which is a good trait when it comes to solving cases that don’t seem logical. she comes from the richest family in town, so you could imagine tsukasa’s surprise when she approaches him one day for help with a case. her “genki” personality throws tsukasa off, but he eventually warms up to her..

just like watson, emu is tsukasa’s greatest admirer. she constantly is amazed by his feats, and compliments them often. she finds it incredible how great tsukasa’s deductive skills are. tsukasa enjoys the praise, just like holmes. she also has strong faith and loyalty, always by his side no matter what happens or what anyone thinks about him. whatever tsukasa lacks, emu makes up for. she is basically the perfect partner for tsukasa. her days have been relatively normal and ordinary until she got dragged into thee cases with tsukasa, and she has been happily enjoying the exciting, unpredictable life since. she feels like she’s been smiling and laughing a lot more often because of him.

holmes needs watson. tsukasa doesn’t take emu for granted, always wanting her by his side for everything he does. he stands up for her whenever someone speaks poorly of emu. (like holmes saying “if you’re going to say something, say it to both of us”) he proudly introduces emu as his amazing partner, and is happy whenever emu makes progress . he makes sure that emu understands just how important she is to him and how valuable her contributions are. without her, he is lost. (when she is too busy to help him, he is sad and mopes like a loser. holmes-core.) emu was one of the first people to truly appreciate him and recognize his potential, when everyone else thought of him as ridiculous.

the banter between the two is silly. they tend to disagree about stupid stuff but whatever. tsukasa corrects emu on silly things (like their usual dynamic, straight man and wise guy type). even if they tend to argue, it’s obvious that they both care deeply for each other and get along very well. they both are crazily energetic and match each other’s energy. they are able to build off of each other’s ideas in discussions to solve things together very efficiently (like holmes/watson).

they get into lots of antics. sometimes it gets risky, but they have strong mutual trust and go along with each others’ plans despite being dangerous. (just like emukasa in the actual prsk series). emu is the one who always has to bring the revolver btw. tsukasa makes her do it, just like holmes. (“Watson, bring the gun.”) sorry i just thought it was funny that emu’s the one taking action. is everything that they do legal? not exactly!!.. but yk holmes and watson do like to break the law willingly too! (“you don’t mind breaking the law?” “not in the least.”) they also have a lot of fun! its not always a serious business while pursue the cases. they do everything together, basically inseparable.

i want to write more, this does not do them justice.. but im sleepy so ill stop here lol

Okay also before I end it for now, i love imagining tsukasa saying “my dear emu” in the same way that holmes constantly says to watson.

[boypussydilf]

I'm going to throw you a curve ball and say Sherly and that one guy whose name I don't remember who you ship him with (I think it's Soseki?)

idont know how to say this without unintentionally sounding mean but this is the second funniest ask ive ever gotten. (i was going to say funniest, but i cant lie even for comedic purposes- the funniest ask ive ever gotten was “shouldve KNOWN an AKESHU shipper would RIP MY THROAT OUT IN PUBLIC for mentioning shusumi”) i got curious and looked at all the relationship tags for dgs on ao3 until the site wouldnt let me anymore and i can almost conclusively say tht no one on this earth ships sherlock and souseki, which, to be honest, is kind of a surprise. on my journey i learned just how dire the state of the dgs ao3 relationship tags really are. i hadnt looked that hard, and i had thought, “oh, woe is me, only about 200 of these are homumiko” There are less than 30 with the susahao tag. theres like, a Small Handful of fics with kazuma interacting w iris or yuujin. This is. This is awful. Someone needs to fix this. What’s wrong with you people? You could have filled this website with one hundred Kazuma Asougi Gets Forcibly Absorbed Into The Greatest Family fics and you’re still asobaroing away? Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

Anyway it’s completely understandable to mix up souseki and mikotoba when you havent seen a ton of them they do both . have mustaches. thank you for thr ask and also for always calling him Sherly bc its cute here we go

describe their canon relationship/dynamic

*putsmy head in my hands* they have like 2 hours of screentime interacting its hard to describe a dynamic beyond “God they are so mean to each other”. its ok though. Its ok. the concept is very clear honestly. World’s Most Hyperactive and Completely Insane Man & Completely Normal Guy Who Goes Along With It. Oh My God They Were Roommates. lets see. serious notes. they trust each other completely and implicitly (mikotoba has to find a good home for The Baby He Was GOING To Raise But CAN’T and asks sherlock and he IMMEDIATELY agrees On The Spot my god ……) look . what do u call devotion if not saying “our home” about a place youve been away from longer than u ever lived at and thought youd never even see again & acting like you were never separated in the first place. Unreal. unreal.

anyway the fact of the matter is theyre literally just another variation on the Holmes & Watson concept go read an acd sherlock holmes story and imagine if they were ace attorney characters and idk i think youd more or less have it

your ideal/headcanon version of it? how does it differ from how it is in canon & why is this your favorite version? any other alternate versions of it you enjoy?

*pulls out my giant conspiracy board and 90% of it is just screenshots of fanfic The Legendary Pair by Meowzy on AO3* IF YOU LOOK AT IT. THE NOT-REALLY-INDICATED-BY-CANON BUT MORE FUN AND COOL TO ME VERSION OF IT. it makes this A Necessary Relationship. sherlock is. smart in Some places. definitely observant. But has. 0 common sense. you would think hes never been to this planet before with his apparent complete lack of frame of reference for what is or is not plausible or likely. there is too much shit going on in his brain for him to figure out which ideas are Actually Likely without taking like 2 days to work it out. Give him someone who actually has common sense and can crossreference What Sherlock Has Actually Noticed And Figured Out with What Actual Human Beings Generally Would Do.

OHGOD MAYBE I CAN TRY TO ELABORATE IN A MORE SERIOUS TONE ON MY FUCKING “YUUJIN MIKOTOBA SILLY ARC” POST. GOD. what im attempting to drive at is thinking abt . the idea proposed of 16-years-ago sherlock being more of a prickly little bitch and, Much More Importantly, mikotoba going to britain to try and escape the Grief Of Losing His Wife & subsequent Depression That Made Him Unfit To Take Care Of His Baby . and then theyre . again, worlds most hyperactive and completely insane man, and, again, GUY WHO TAP DANCES DURINVG INVESTIGATIONS ?!!!!?!???????????

basically fuck you *gives you by chance a fundamentally life altering friendship right when you need it*

Anyway i dont think theyre that different in my head than in canon but its hard to say.

what do you like about their relationship, why is it interesting or enjoyable to you?

i like it because i think they are neat. i like it bc i love families and fuck dude they sure do have one. i like it bc i am a dgs sherlock holmes kinnie and this drives my behavior,

what about the individual characters involved? what does this relationship mean to them, what makes it unique among their relationships?

*SCREAMS* BESTIES. anyway,

sorry for once again saying serious concepts in the dumbest fucking ways possible but Pov u are yuujin mikotoba age 26 leaving ur home to try and run away from the deepest pain of ur life & deciding not to stick with ur very close friends uve known for quite a while as you do so? For some reason? AND IT WORKS ???????????? in some part bc of this weirdo freak u moved in with impulsively who keeps almost blowing the fucking house up?

This is basically something i already said in this post earlier and i STILL . cant think of an actual good way to say it. I guess just . as many people on this blog may have noticed. me wh. me when stories involve the way positive connections with others help people <3

Also basically the only 2 reactions sherlock seems to invoke in people are “this guys insufferable” and “this guys insufferable but i also admire him” - god the trajectory of this train of thought just changed drastically im laughing so hard Bear with me . mikotoba is of course in th second camp bc thats where all sherlocks Positive relationships are. this is known to us. see: thr dialogue where hes like “Well your methods are unusual but ive always been willing to try them :)” (and then sherlock yells at him for being stupid.) anyway thats wonderful and its also Wonderful. mikotoba shortly after meeting sherlock watching this man rip up a handful of grass an d just eat it and then solve an entire mystery and mikotoba has to work out if this guys a genius or insane. He quickly realizes it is both. Anyway i guess to yuujin mikotoba sherlock holmes is his dear friend and partner & also the guy who cursed him to occasionally think “i DO wonder what that grass tastes like” at inopportune times

I don’t know WHAT the fuck i just rambled about for like ten minutes. So anyhow. sherlock describes mikotoba as “the only person i could truly call a friend” so shoutout to this friendless man i guess . no but literally hes a little weirdo freak and people dont tend to. like him. societal perceptions of ND people are not conducive to sherlock holmes having close friends . (Also he might not be. or might at some point not have been. particularly social in the first place - But this is my extrapolation based on acd canon and nothing in dgs at all so it cant be counted as anything other than my female hysteria.) and like. epic win for him finding someone who can Tolerate Him Enough To Live With Him and not just that but like . Actually Likes Him. Actually Likes Being Around Him And Would Like To Be His Friend. Congrats! also a win 4 him having like, a normal human being around. who can keep track of him and yknow. Help him remember important things. make sure he actually sleeps and eats instead of spending 42 hours straight trying to make The Sequel To Toasters (It’s Also A Juicer!)

favorite interaction they have in canon

oh,my god you know the thing is theres not a Lot of them but what there is is Really Good Actually.

on one hand we have the shit from the legendary pair scene like “:/ only JAPANESE mice go Chu. make a RUSSIAN mouse noise” or “YOUR BIRTHDAY? THATS FUNNY BC AS OF TODAY YOURE DEAD TO ME :D” “measured as always.” On the other hand we have the part from the scene after the last trial where sherlock thanks mikotoba for leaving iris in his care.

Basically i dont know how to decide. im going to say the Other part of the scene after the last trial where sherlock is excitedly telling mikotoba a story about something he did. With mikotoba. like a day before. and mikotoba lets him get through thr whole fucking thing before going Yeah i was. i was there.

favorite interaction they have in your head/a situation you want to put them in

OH GOD I DONT KNOW ACTUALLY. what is there to say beyond the Default List Of Every Homumiko Fans Shared Interests. its all been done. “Remember That Time They Raised A Baby Together For A Month”; “Have You Heard Of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Adventures of Sherlock Holmes? Great Here’s My Adaptation-“; “Put That Beast (Sherlock) In Japan LOL”. i will say that like. i dont remember where but theres some tiny bit of optional dialogue where iris says that sherlock playing the violin was a detail she wrote into the stories for fun and then after that he felt obligated to actually learn. i think a lot of people dont know this or dont use this. which is fine its a tiny random one off line i wouldnt even be able to track down. and a lot of people have the order of events go sherlock has violin -> mikotoba learns to tap dance, Look another musical thing matchy matchy :) . which again is FINE. BUT. isnt the other order of events - the order that it’s only reasonable to assume is canon - more fun ? Sherlock goes HEY GUESS WHAT I LEARNED VIOLIN NOW WE CAN MAKE MUSIC TOGETHER. He has not seen mikotoba in person in 9 years

thats the end of the post thank you i like the dads

[anubisystem]

PLEASE tell me about dogboy Holmes

Okay so first of all my primary assertion that Sherlock Holmes is a dogboy is based on subjective but also completely correct literary interpretation and character analysis. I will admit to not only viewing (for the first time, in the year of our lord 2022, by the way) but DEEPLY ENJOYING the recent bbc Sherlock adaptation with bandicoot bumbershoot, but one thing that I have mixed feelings about is how the recent bbc Sherlock characterized Holmes in a different way from the Doyle impressions. The differences are hard to explain (I’ll go into more depth as I continue to explore and go insane) but the simplest way I can think to phrase it (and this does NOT mean it makes SENSE mind you) is this: Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes is cat-coded, but Arthur Conan Doyle clearly wrote him as a dogboy. I am so normal about this.

So let me get at what I mean. As early as “A Study In Scarlet” we are presented a picture of Holmes through Watson’s point of view and he comes off… odd, aloof, but very clever and like he clearly has a certain gift. I’d say that this depiction is not abandoned in the new BBC version BUT the writers and actors involved put an additional spin on the character of him being, like, a bit of a sicko in this very overt way and no one really knows what to make of that. Like I mean, people comment on that through dialogue at a few points in the series and it’s a significant driving force in his overarching Thing with moriarty. He’s got this energy in his brain and he needs to solve crimes or puzzles or do drugs or fight something big and WILD to satisfy that craving, that addiction thing. And he loves the games, they give him something vital (in a stimulating way) to do. He’s gotta feel Danger or he gets bored, and when he gets bored he gets destructive; as I said it once, “the bbc Sherlock is very much a show about fucked up little guys who need enrichment so they fight. it’s like if [my bonded cats who love to wrestle and yowl like they’re killing each other and then lick each other’s heads angelically when I check in, it is apparently fully consensual and they’re having a good time] were human guys who were a little fucked up.” Cats being predator animals with adept senses and used to hunting and navigating in the wild tend to get bored without enough enrichment in their house pet lives, and they become destructive. I see this in the bbc take; Cumberbatch’s portrayal of Sherlock Holmes is undeniably cat-coded. I do love this take, for the record, and haven’t decided if I have a favorite adaptation of Sherlock Holmes or if I need one; I’m still exploring like a kid in a candy store (and always taking recommendations). I think the dynamic between Holmes and Watson and the experience of Sherlock Holmes in a near-present day setting with some themes remaining translatable but others being changed due to creative license makes for fun viewing and the characterization is exciting to me as some autistic person online who kinda kinnie vibes with Sherlock Holmes. No shade in particular for deviating from the books by Doyle, but I did notice it and think it’s interesting!

What struck me about reading Sherlock Holmes as imagined by Doyle is that he comes across as similarly desperate for something vital to do, but the implications I read into it has him approaching his work in a servile way rather than purely for his own enrichment. There’s no doubt that Sherlock GETS enrichment from his work, but the way he talks about Scotland Yard with indifferent disdain and a knowledge that he probably won’t get credit for his contributions makes it seem like he’s rather looking for someone to notice what he’s doing. Maybe not the whole world, but somebody he can bond to… through conditioning and training… in essence, he wants to impress a person he values in some way. What’s extra headpat-able about him to me is that Watson can see this pretty early and mentions it: he notices Holmes is “susceptible to flattery” and sometimes uses it to get Sherlock to reveal more about his processes of deduction. I mean, what’s another word for flattery? Praise. He’s such a dogboy.

Plus, he sniffs the crime scene and is always close on the trail of a clue. He’s a bloodhound, through and through. And he wants Watson to tell him he’s a good boy. I think this literary analysis is the best possible use of my limited creative writing schooling by the way. I will continue to be insane about him for the rest of time.

[annethepancake]

Sherlock rant

I recently rewatched BBC Sherlock for Rupert Graves, and aside from the lack of Lestrade appreciation I have a lot of problems with this series. Here are my thoughts:

1. It was all a blur

My second first impression of the show: I don't remember anything but the characters. And some characters I just blatantly forgot, like Mary. And I loved Mary on my second watch! I really forgot that at one point John actually got married and I don't even remember when I watched the show for the first time. I can still recall most of HIMYM's events and I hated that series.

2. It’s overall not a detective/crime show

Watching Sherlock for the second time, I mostly turned off my brain and just let it play in the background because (1) there's hardly anything for me to solve with the characters, most clues are taken by Sherlock off-screen anyway (especially after season 2), (2) they focus way too much on the quirks of the characters that make it almost like a sitcom that got dragged on for way too long. A crime/detective show shouldn't allow me to turn off my brain.

3. The characters just kinda fall flat

Exploring the depth of human emotions is not a bad approach to a modernized version of anything, I’m not trying to pretend I’m better than someone who gets sentimental over fictional character (if you know my blog at all, you know I am not), but at least write good characters. Sherlock is hardly a multi-faceted person; in fact, he’s kinda like the Wattpad teen fic main character sometimes. He physically fights off some terrorists with a machete to save the damsel in distress? He gets high off his tits but still got everything right all the time? John is just kinda there for most of the cases. Jim is a poorly written antagonist. Irene is a lesbian but gets the hot for our main character, surprise surprise. The only interesting characters to me are the ones who act like normal people: Molly, Greg and Mary. They are the multi-faceted characters, ones who I can actually relate to without feeling inferior to them in any way. Write characters like them, stop trying to be smart about it and stop writing Wattpad fanfictions for Sir Conan Doyle’s original works.

I get that they try to make Sherlock more like a human with emotions, making him quirky and arrogant, then make him quirky and more likable. It’s hardly a convincing character development though. He’s given over-powered deduction skills, so edgy, so high and mighty all the time. When he is finally written as vulnerable, turns out he has plans for that too. I would love to see him get it wrong once and maybe get humbled by that mistake, but getting Mary shot and killed is hardly even his fault, he is only doing his job. And killing off Mary is overall a bad idea anyway.

4. They treated the fandom like shit

I was absolutely disgusted at the start of season 3 when the showrunners just straight up shat on their fans. I wasn't there with the fandom during the wait between season 2 and 3, but I believe it was a pretty long wait (2 years, I could barely wait 2 years for my comfort series, and they have like 10 episodes per season), and they were presented with the first actual mystery of the series: How did Sherlock survive the fall? After years of waiting and having fun theorizing, they were met with a mockumentary about them, starring the most hated character of the protagonist and the fans. Those are the people who actually cared about the show for god's sake. The fact that the showrunners treated fans like crap and there's still an active fandom for the show appalled me.

Now not only The Empty Hearse bugs me, but the entire show does as well.

Allow me to digress.

Doki Doki Literature Club is a great example of audience engagement done right (Sorry for using this example I’m not actually that invested in the other franchises). After the success of the first game, the story provoked so many fans into solving the mysteries of the characters, some of them went really, really far. And that’s because of the actual mysteries that the development team took effort to plant into the plot. There is actual pay-off for painstakingly following the clues; as far as I know, only two (2!) people in the world have come close to solving the mystery of the first game (or they actually did). The game developers value their fans and their intelligence enough to have planted those clues where they did, and it’s a genuine exchange between the fans and the creators. Now even though you haven’t actually played the game, when you hear of the name and you’re only kinda familiar with gaming (like me), you’ll probably know what it is. What started as a mere open-source game by an indie developer became a sensation which left millions of fans begging for more.

Looking back at Sherlock, there are tons of logical flaws for a self-proclaimed crime series, virtually no clues for the audience to solve crimes along with their favorite detective, and when there was actually a mystery (Sherlock jumped off the building), they plainly showed him alive and well minutes later. Do we really need to see things spelled on screen to know what’s going on? Are we supposed to accept that Sherlock Holmes is an all-knowing future-predicting genius now too? Not a great sign of respecting the audience there.

So far, the only thing left that’s interesting about this series is the characters’ dynamic. Which brings me to the next criticism I have for the show.

5. The plague that infested mainstream media

Why is there still an active fandom? Queerbaiting and targeted marketing.

Community marketing is proven to be one of the best marketing methods there is, if not the best, to lengthen the lifespan of a product or service. The way they do that for shows and films and video games is usually by planting seeds of possible lores and history inside the content. Look at Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, they are franchises that ran for multiple years with a ton of history and world building that provokes fans’ imagination.

Sherlock - well, Sherlock has sexually ambiguous men.

Sherlock has a formula for success. It was an adaptation of the most iconic detective novel in the world, funded by one of the biggest TV networks in the UK and possibly the world (don’t quote me on this). Making this series means you can appeal to such a wide group of audience even before airing. Adding in the quirky smart men who live together, you’ve basically guaranteed a prime-time show with millions of loyal fans all over the world.

Fans are not stupid, and queer people don't just find queerness everywhere they go. They know a gay subtext when they see one. Sherlock came back from the literal death for John, pretty gay if you ask me.

This show is very much not just about some guys being dudes solving crimes, they have relationship that’s deeper than friendship, and definitely not platonic. They deliberately wrote a sexually ambiguous Sherlock Holmes from the get-go - literally from the very first episode, then capitalized off of the targeted demographic, never a pay-off for their anticipation. Martin Freeman said in interviews that he could recognize Sherlock fans, them being generally women from 16 - 25. No shit Sherlock, this show targets them and capitalizes off of them, being quirky and gay as hell, of course the fanbase is generally 16 - 25 and female.

Sherlock queerbaited the fandom for years for the sake of marketing and there’s never a pay-off, nor was there any recognition to the community, and to add to all that bigotry, queercoding pretty much all of the villains? Why was a show aired in the 2010′s allowed to do this? Why did Mark Gatiss, an openly gay man, a writer of the show, allow this to happen? Why are millions of fans all over the world allowing all this to go on?!

6. Conclusion

Now I haven’t read the books yet, so I’m not at all qualified to criticize the adaptation quality of the TV series; I’m just talking about the TV series on its own. Despite my criticism, I think the first two seasons did quite okay. There are quite a few nice cases there, I like The Blind Banker and The Hound of Baskerville. They did those well because the focus was on the cases themselves, and the connection between John and Sherlock was only in the background. I, like many other fans, like to figure things out on my own, to read between the lines, and to not have things spelled out for me. With the next seasons bombarded with Sherlock and John bonding it seriously felt like mere fan service for me and even though I wasn’t there when the show was on, I still felt like I was robbed and my interest in the show was abused.

Sherlock is undoubtedly super influential in pop culture even now. It has to have done something right to be in that spot (capitalizing off loyal fans?). I’m not writing this rant to change someone’s mind about the series, by all means, I’m still gonna love the hell out of Gavin Lestrade, and absolutely lose my mind over Mary Watson. So do take my words with a grain of salt, I’m just disappointed that one of the most influential shows there is is just short of my expectations.

[izlaria]

Some thoughts on Enola Holmes

I’ve seen people come up with all kinds of criticism towards this movie and I feel like venting a little. There will be light spoilers ahead.

Is it a movie about Sherlock Holmes? No.

This is probably one of the main complaints that I’ve seen, which I don’t get at all. People are complaining about the lack of Sherlock and Watson and I just... don’t understand. This movie is very clearly about Enola, who is Sherlock’s sister. In general I dislike the purists who hate on different adaptations simply because they aren’t their cup of tea, but the fact that people are irritated by the familial connection is just strange. This is a work of fiction, inspired by another work of fiction.

We’ve had hundreds of interpretations of Sherlock already, so why does it bother people so intensely that a new character has been introduced to create a new universe of canon? I find the idea of a sister quite intriguing, because it puts Sherlock and Mycroft into a position that is yet unexplored, as brothers to a young girl. It also creates an interesting starting place. What would be of a girl who was raised by the same people who raised the genius Sherlock? How would she handle the expectations her surname raises?

Is it loyal to the Enola Holmes books? I don’t think so.

I haven’t read the books, but, from what I’ve gathered, there is a lot the movie has changed. Comments on the books have led me to believe Eudoria, in the books, doesn’t actually care about Enola and that the girl is actually “alone” in the world. Sherlock, it seems, doesn’t take the same level of interest in her that they show in the movie, and Mycroft’s character was also changed, though I can’t say exactly how. Book Enola is younger (14yo), not a detective and not interested in a romantic subplot.

Having said all that, I can see why Netflix would have changed these points. The romance attracts attention in a way that a simple coming-of-age female-led movie would not. I personally don’t think it subtracts from the story. I’m glad that the actors and the characters are the same age, and I’m even gladder that they were written as somewhat flirtatious friends that don’t go any further than that. A kiss would have probably seemed forced and, with the actors being so young, it would have also been a bit uncomfortable to watch. In this house, we are against the sexualization of minors.

Also, who doesn’t love a bit of yearning? That hand kiss was peak wholesome romance.

On the matter of the family, I can see why some people would be irritated. I myself enjoy a good family dynamic and I loved to see Sherlock grow into his role as a brother, but I also know that plenty of the series’ fans were inspired by Enola’s independence and her ability to move forward despite being met with indifference from her family members. Again, the happy ending with Eudoria seems to be a more sellable take on the story. This is probably one of the most reasonable criticisms towards this piece, though I confess it was a change I enjoyed. In my opinion, it was nice to see a story about a mother who was not perfect, but who still had her daughter’s best interests at heart. Like every good mother out there, I would imagine.

The feminism

This is another controversial point. I’ve seen people say it was too feminist (there’s no such thing), but also that it was the wrong kind of feminism and this last one I can kind of get on board with. It did lean towards a type of feminism that we’ve seen a lot, the “not like other girls” type that villainizes femininity and only values more male-coded abilities, like fighting and pure rationality.

It does make sense when in context: Enola was raised apart from normal society, in a house where her only measure of normalcy was her mother and the news articles she obsessively collected about her genius brother. She was never exposed to more female-coded activities and, so, she has a strong disregard for them. As a part of the narrative, the message gets a bit iffy, because it repeatedly deprecates a lot of abilities associated with womanhood that are not harmful in and of themselves. The strong female characters are all too “extraordinary” to be representative of women in general.

On the other hand, there were certainly things the movie did right.

I did enjoy the subversion of the interests between Enola and Tewksbury. Tewksbury is not helpless, but his knowledge lies in botany, not fighting. He is the one in need of Enola and he’s the one who wants to stay by her side, even though she wants to forge her own path. It struck me, as I was watching, that these roles usually fall to the female romantic interest and that it is the male lead who usually goes off on lone quests to find himself.

At the same time, Enola is not completely separate from her femininity. Her empathy and her inability to stop herself from helping Tewksbury are both qualities that can be seen as female-coded, especially when in contrast to Eudoria’s messages of individualism.

One last thing that I would like to comment on is the corset scene. I understand why a lot of people may be irritated to have another movie corset-bashing, but I honestly think a different interpretation was intended. I think the corset, like bras and all types of shape wear, does factor into a system of female repression, since it helps create an idealized image of the female body that is seldom natural. The root of the problem is not in the corset itself, but in the society that demands that women alter their bodies or else be exposed to shame and ridicule. Enola, in this sense, is a young girl who never had an interest in fashion and who was so far satisfied with her figure, but who had just been told by Mycroft and Miss Harrison that she was inadequate.

When Enola says that the corset is a symbol of repression for those forced to wear it, she is absolutely right. It’s a matter of choice. The garment does serve her, as it does all women of the time, when she must blend into London society.

I would like to see Enola find a female friend, someone whose abilities lie towards the ordinary, in order to have her see the use of female-coded activities, even if they do not interest her. It would be a good way to balance out the message of this movie and to show the value of women in all the different areas they might apply themselves.

[whyqueerbaitingisbad]

movies & shows

cracks knuckles* alright this is going to be more of a rant than an analysis because i’m basing this on both my research, but also how it felt to personally be baited by these shows. there are obviously more pieces of bad (almost every horror movie) and good ones but these are the ones i’ve watched.

please keep in mind that i am but one queer and everyone has different opinions.

Supernatural (CW) 2005

This show is 15 years old and just ended. From season 5 till 15, there has been tension between two of the lead characters. They were constantly shipped together and not only did the entire fandom know about this ship but so did almost all of Tumblr. On top of that, the actors and show runners knew about it as well. Which is why it makes it ridiculous that it was constantly pushed aside while the romantic coding  kept happening, even after show runners dismissed it as being intentional. The Destiel (Dean x Cas) case has been going on for years, and as the show came to its end, many fans had hope. But N O P E. Instead, we got a love confession from Cas where Dean looked like he was near constipated and the Cas was killed and sent into a fiery place that was not hell but s u p e r  h e l l.

… w hy.

Sherlock (BBC) 2010

Just like Supernatural, this show was renown on Tumblr for not only how good it was, but its hinting at a potential relationship between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. But again, like Supernatural, the intentional tension between the two characters was denied by producers. This caused an uproar within the fandom, and even left some people believing that, after the last season aired, it had been a joke and the producers were hiding a “secret, unaired season” because they had felt so robbed by this show that had implied something and denied it.

The 100 (CW) 2014

We got lesbians. We got background gays. We were happy. Then, all of a sudden, one of them is killed for no reason. Did it advance the plot? No. Was she fighting and died in battle? lol no. She was doing literally nothing and got shot and died. And then the producers kept bringing her back once a season in the form of a ghost or illusion because why? Because she was a fan favourite queer character. ✨bury your gays and sparingly bring them back for profit anyone?✨

Voltron: Legendary Defender (Netflix) 2016

*deep breathe* This one is a special disaster. Not only was there romantic tension and romantically coded scenes for 7 seasons, but producers, voice actors and artists working on the show repeatedly said “don’t worry klance (Keith x Lance) shippers, you’ll be happy”

. … w h e r e??? You code one of their scenes with a sunset in the background while they talk about love and then one of them goes on a date with someone who has declined his advances for 7 seasons but now in season 8 decides to do a full 180. Not only that, but you announce at a Comic Con (a convention) that a character is gay and has a fiancé, only to kill off the fiancé and never make it explicit in the show except at the last second of the last episode where he marries a no name character. 

Personally, i’d like to say a big fuck you to the show that strung me along for 2 years and never stopped saying we’d be happy to then pull the rug out from under us and call us crazy for thinking anything from the past 8 seasons was intentional.

Scooby-Doo (2002) 

While not being outwardly queerbaiting, this movie’s filmmaker has just revealed some shocking news, which wasn’t at all shocking to the gays who had watched this movie over the years. In July of 2020, James Gunn, the filmmaker of Scooby-Doo, revealed in a podcast that, initially, Velma was explicitly gay in his script, but then the studio watered it down until it became nothing. This isn’t an example of baiting as much as it is changing a character’s initial design to “better fit an audience”. The worst part of all this is that with Velma’s character having been written with a l i t t l e queer subtext, people had been theorizing about if since the movie came out, but were always yelled at by the internet for “imagining something that isn’t there”. But now, even with it being said that the initial point was for her to be gay, people have no objections to still refusing to accept it. Why?? So we can’t get the subtext gays OR the confirmed gays?? Make it make sense.

Brooklyn 99 (NBC) 2013

To have the queer characters firstly introduced without mentioning their sexualities and have it brought up naturally was so goddamn nice to see, because no one does a big deal about it unless they ask for that. This show is amazing in general but the way they show their queer characters is *chefs kiss*.

She-ra and the Princesses of Power (Netflix) 2018

This. Show. My heart SOARS. It's just a remake of an old show so absolutely nothing was ever expected, but then it was sprinkled in and ENDED WITH A BANG. And it was so beautiful and real to see the struggle of two friends who care for each other and want to be together but have different visions of the world fall in love. And they also had characters with disabilities, a non-binary character and jUST SUCH A GOOD SHOW.

Kipo and The Age of Wonderbeasts (Netflix) 2020

This is a case where you go into it not expecting anything and are BLOWN AWAY by the bare minimum. And not because it’s bad!! It's mind blowing because this is the simple representation we need!! Not something over the top, but an every day relationship. It’s just two boys falling in love and going on dates and being nervous around each other, yet i was so stunned. Because it’s not shown enough. I should not be this excited over something that should be this normal. 10/10 though this show is so good for all kinds of representation.

Steven Universe (Cartoon Network) 2013

This show did so much for queer representation with its general message of loving everyone and loving who you want. Especially since it was aired on Cartoon Network, a channel for kids, it was able to help normalize something so looked down upon in some circles. It made it easy to watch for s o m e people because it's a cartoon but it's so beautiful to see these ladies so in love with each other, both platonically and romantically and we see them have a family dynamic that isn’t a “nuclear family”. Rebecca Sugar (creator) really said “lemme just break all stereotypes real quick”.

Adventure Time (Cartoon Network) 2010

It's the “knowing a fanbase shipped something so hard that the creators made it canon” for me. This relationship had been theorized by fans for years, but it had never been explicit in the show. When the finale episode came out and the two shared a kiss, it was a moment of celebration. The producer of the show said that it had not really been planned but when the episode was being made, the choice of what happened was given to one of the artists (bless your soul Hanna K. Nyströmthe). And as the show releases little bonus episodes, its latest was centered around Marceline and Bubblegum and their relationship. AND WE LOVE TO SEE OUR DOMESTIC LESBIANS BEING HAPPY AND IN LOVE.

Yuri on Ice!!! (anime) 2016

The fact that an A N I M E gave us a love story between two men is mind boggling and it makes me so happy!! Especially because it's a Japanese show and they’re very conservative about these things just makes it more emotional. The creators said they wanted to make the anime take place in a world where gay/straight isn’t a thing, it’s just love (ladies, you’re going to make me cry). So as the weekly episodes came out and fans start speculating, THEY GAVE US THE LAST FEW EPISODES FULL OF ROMANCE AND EMOTIONAL SCENES BETWEEN THE TWO AND THEN THEY GET R I N GS?!???!! You watch for the figure skating, you stay for the figure skaters that are in love.

Shadowhunters (Freeform) 2016

*insert me being frustrated that the actors are straight so we can move on from that disappointment*

This show really said “let’s name a whole episode after this couple because they deserve it”. But seriously, they gave us two characters whose entire plot does not center around their sexualities while still showing us the differences in a relationship between someone experienced and someone new at this. They were both powerful and amazing characters apart from each other, with their own story lines and goals but they loved each other so much omgs. SO MUCH. 

It was so great to watch.

Love, Simon (2018) 

There’s a lot of disagreement on whether this movie is good representation or not. However, we need to take into consideration that this was Hollywood’s first movie with a main character that was gay, where the story’s focus was on Simon’s love story. The biggest problem, for me at least, was that the actor playing Simon is a straight man and not queer. My problem is not with him, but the fact that there are other actors that are gay and that could have played Simon just as well. (the love interested was however played by a queer actor so ✨progress✨)

All in all, this movie does represent what a lot of queer kids have to go through: being outed at school, how they then come out, the bullying and doubt they go through.

The book is also really good.

Call Me By Your Name (2018)

This movie is so aesthetically pleasing and was able to capture the confusion and heartbreak felt by a boy who’s struggling with his own feelings towards a man. His inner conflict and joy and l o v e he feels but doesn’t know how to deal with is so well communicated through the screen and just breaks your heart because it feels so real.

But again, they could’ve gotten gay actors to play gay characters…

through having this list here, i want to show you that it’s not hard for creators to give good queer representation. the LGBTQ+ community isn’t asking for much, we just want to be well represented on screen as just a regular character, not some token queer kid there for the diversity points. having been exposed to so much queerbaiting and just not seeing any representation on screen, i always get over-excited when i see a queer character, and that’s not how it should be. it should be a normal thing, something you can find in most pieces of media, just like there’s a straight white cisgender person in everything.

and they seriously need to start casting queer actors for queer characters...

[thewatsonbeekeepers]

Chapter 5 – Hey, Soul Sister: Who is Eurus?

Do you get it? She’s his sister? But metaphorically, she’s a part of his soul? I was very impressed with myself for this title. Anyway…

This chapter of the meta is going to deal with the various times we meet Eurus before TFP and what this might mean, which will help us to understand who she is once we have stripped off the disguises.

Before series 4, we had real!characters and MP!characters set up as distinct entities, particularly in TSoT, which distinguishes between MP!Mycroft (the deducing brain) and real!Mycroft, as well as MP!Irene representing desire and real!Irene, who doesn’t come near the episode. The MP section in TSoT, for a lot of people in the fandom, broke down Sherlock’s psyche into MP!John vs. MP!Mycroft – and John is clearly winning.

However, I want to suggest that Sherlock’s psyche isn’t nearly so straightforward as a tug of war between the brain and the heart. Whilst MP!Mycroft undoubtedly represents the oppressively reasonable part of Sherlock’s psyche, that’s not the only thing repressing him – it can’t be. If it were simply a rejection of ‘sentiment’, this wouldn’t be the powerful queer love story we know it to be – there is a lot more internalised homophobia being dealt with than just love being illogical. That’s where Eurus comes in.

Eurus and Mycroft are parallel oppressive forces in Sherlock’s brain, but they’re oppressive in different ways. Having family members and childhood trauma be the psyche’s symbols for repression is particularly poignant in a queer love story, for obvious reasons. However, I want to take you through my reasoning behind Eurus being the most secret and troubled part of Sherlock’s soul.

The first clue is that her prison is called Sherrinford. We all assumed that the third Holmes sibling was going to be Sherrinford back before s4, and it seemed that way in the beginning, with Mycroft mentioning speaking to Sherrinford several times, construing it as a person rather than a place. This is no coincidence – for those who aren’t familiar with the history of the stories, Conan Doyle’s original name for his protagonist was Sherrinford Holmes, which he later changed to Sherlock. That Eurus is trapped inside Sherrinford is a clear suggestion that Eurus is something that’s trapped inside Sherlock – a dangerous MP entity. More important than that, Sherrinford is the version of Holmes that never made it into the books. Plenty of people have worked on queering the Holmes canon and working out what ACD might have been implying and leaving out and arguably none more so in an adaptation that Mofftiss. Let’s think about the implications of this. A kind of second self, not shown to the public, buried inside your mind and forgotten since childhood, which is bursting out into a moment of acute psychological distress. Gee, I don’t know what that could be about. The Sherlock that Sherlock thinks he is has thus far been dominated by MP!Mycroft, but this series is about uniting canon!Holmes with the non-canon, queer Sherrinford who has always existed, judging by the name, and who is currently dominated by the destructive MP!Eurus. The other important point to note here is that Sherrinford is an island in the middle of the sea – that’s not a coincidence, given how much water imagery abounds in this series. I spoke briefly in Chapter 2 X about how water represents Sherlock sinking deeper and deeper into his own subconsciousness – this is the deepest he can go. In Greek mythology, Eurus was the name of the wind most associated with causing storms at sea X – this isn’t a coincidence either. She’s very deliberately tied in with water.

(In real life terms, of course, all this means that a real!Eurus probably does or did exist in some form, although I can’t begin to hazard a guess about this. However, I’m trying to refer to her as MP!Eurus when she’s in her normal form in the MP, in case we get a series 5 with Sian Brooke as real!Eurus, and also to distinguish her from therapist!Eurus etc.)

This is my reasoning as to why MP!Eurus represents Sherlock’s innermost trauma. She is not merely the fact that he loves John – he deduced this in TSoT without her appearance. She is the trauma that he needs to come to terms with. A running theme through our analysis of Eurus will be that her gender is particularly important; her representation of Sherlock’s repression cannot be but as a woman, because for most of s4 he is only able to process his identity through the most heterosexual of lenses. We see this hinted at quite early on in TST, when Sherlock takes on a case called ‘The Duplicate Man’, warning John that it is never twins. The word ‘duplicate’ here, removing twins, leaves us with the only real possibility that it is in fact the same person. Eurus’s gender makes that more difficult to see; she needs to be female, but it’s much more difficult to elide the two characters without employing a Cumberbatch doppelganger. However, this hint that Eurus is not only male but an actual ‘duplicate’ of her brother should give us pause for thought. With this in mind, I want to use the rest of this chapter to analyse her three forms before TFP.

1.)    Faith!Eurus

I’m certainly not the first to point out that Faith!Eurus is a mirror for John, nor will I be the last – people jumped on it pretty much as soon as TLD aired. There are a few good reasons for this. Firstly, she walks with a cane, a throwback to ASiP – in case we’d forgotten, however, Sherlock has a flashback to John walking with a cane to make the link explicit. We are supposed to link these two characters, the authors are saying pretty clearly. Faith!Eurus is also suicidal, which John was at the start of ASiP, as made clear by the fact he carried a gun – and Faith!Eurus does the same. Sherlock also takes her out for food (for more on the food/sex metaphor, see here X) which he doesn’t with anyone bar John, and we certainly never see him talk so easily with someone who isn’t John. An eagle-eyed tumblr post that I can’t find now also broke my heart in pointing out that Faith!Eurus’s unseen self-harm matches long-sleeved John Watson a little too well.

This isn’t just the show trying to remind us of what John was like in ASiP, however. MP!Eurus is the trauma prodding Sherlock’s sexuality – it’s going to be hell to get through it, but he absolutely needs to do it. This is Sherlock’s trauma, not reminding him that John was suicidal, but forcing him to acknowledge it in the first place, something which Sherlock has buried. We know this because of the way the image of John forces its way into Sherlock’s mind – it’s much like the way Moriarty breaks into TAB. His brain is making a connection that he’s not quite capable of making and it’s knocking him. His deduction that Faith!Eurus is suicidal is accompanied by that image of John, and he then re-enacts the food ritual he completed with John the evening John left his cane behind, before throwing Faith!Eurus’s gun into the Thames – proving that it was Sherlock himself who stopped John from taking his own life.

This is trauma, however, and Sherlock can’t process it in full – hence why the image of John that breaks in is shaky, and Sherlock tries to push it out of his head. It’s also why Faith!Eurus, who in Sherlock’s subconscious could take any form, specifically takes the form of a woman. His gay trauma means that he first has to process John’s suicidal ideation in a heterosexual dynamic, before fully grasping and applying it to his relationship with John. (Chapter 9 X explains how that plays out over the rest of TLD in full detail.)

2.)   E!Eurus

Taking a jump back to surface level plot here, the first thing that grabbed me about E!Eurus was just how minor John’s flirtation with her was. In the terms of a television show which really rides on very high drama (multiple faked deaths and insane cliffhangers for a start), the emotional peak of John’s emotional arc with Mary being that he texted another woman – not went out for lunch, not kissed, not slept with – is bizarre, particularly when we know next to nothing about E!Eurus at this point. It’s incredibly anti-climactic as a means of John falling short of Mary’s view of him. Maybe we can accept it as in line with John Moral-Principles Watson, but it’s difficult to accept as in keeping with the nature of a show whose intent is nearly always to shock.

With this in mind, let’s delve back into the MP to see how that might give this moment greater emotional significance. Chapter 10 X is on the hug scene, and that will deal with John’s revelation of his infidelity in greater detail. For the moment, the most important thing to remember is that John Watson is not real!John – he is heart!John. In other words, we are seeing a similarly heterosexualised re-enactment of Sherlock’s relationship with John.

I will talk a lot in Chapter 10 X about how MP!Mary is linked to Sherlock’s compulsory heterosexuality; at the end of TST, Sherlock substitutes Mary’s body for his because he cannot conceive of John’s queer grief without breaking himself. This is interesting because the E of Eurus actually stands for Elizabeth in this scene (certainly in the credits, and possibly elsewhere, although I can’t remember Sian Brooke actually saying it). Elizabeth is Elizabeth is Mary’s middle name in BBC Sherlock, which looks like another of those shared name links our creators love so well. If so, this begins to justify how Sherlock’s heart is conceiving of its emotions. We will see in TLD that heart!John’s relationship with fem!John in the form of Eurus is aligned with Sherlock’s sexual desire in the form of MP!Irene. Both are hidden and exist only in texts – i.e., they cannot be spoken yet. But they will be.

 3.)    Therapist!Eurus

This one is perhaps the most straightforward on a symbolism level, but also possibly the most significant moment in the series. Therapist!Eurus, plain and simple, is Sherlock’s trauma prodding at John, interrogating him like a therapist would, trying to work him out – and largely failing, right? She can get basically nothing about how he feels about Sherlock out of him. But this is part of MP!Eurus’s ongoing project to get Sherlock to wake up – the Gay Trauma is interrogating John, trying to suss him, and failing.

Except, in the final scene of TLD, without the help of Therapist!Eurus, Sherlock has finally sussed John – it has taken until Culverton’s confession to recognise that John is suicidal without Sherlock (Chapter 9 X). The sigh of relief that is the hug scene (Chapter 10 X) is a kind of acknowledgement of that relief that he’s finally worked out what he’s been trying to cover up with drugs – so much so, that he misses the obvious, which is that John is suicidal again. When John leaves his cane with Sherlock in the hospital, it is a reminder of the first time he is suicidal, and Sherlock doesn’t make the immediate leap in his comatose haze that this is what his psyche has been trying to tell him. Hence you have this moment of immense relief and fade out at the end of the hug scene which suggests the end of the episode, and could feasibly end Sherlock’s life, except we’re started awake with a much more abrupt and troubling ending scene – Therapist!Eurus shooting John. Because, of course, if Sherlock is gone again, John must be suicidal again, and it has taken a few scenes of cognitive dissonance for this to clock. Indeed, it’s not Sherlock himself who clocks – Gay Trauma in the form of Eurus!Therapist returns and shoots John for us. This shooting isn’t, of course, permanent (in one of the worst cliffhanger resolutions in TV history), but that’s because it’s not real – it hasn’t happened yet. It is Sherlock, through MP!Eurus, finally recognising the problem – John.

This is particularly poignant in light of the opening and closing shots of TLD. Although there’s the fucky not-blood red that fills the screen at the end of TLD, apart from that the shots of Norbury shooting Mary and Therapist!Eurus shooting John are one and the same shot. It’s also a stylish shot (what I call split screen, but given that I never went to film school I think that’s just my name for it) and it’s repeated enough times over TLD that it’s pretty clear the creatives want it to be memorable. By the time John gets shot, then, we shouldn’t be caught up in the drama of it – we should be thinking, as so many did, “something’s fucky.”

And it is – but it’s brilliantly fucky! Head over to Chapter 7 X if you want to read about Norbury shooting Mary, but TLDR it’s a metaphor for Mary shooting Sherlock as understood from Sherlock’s warped and depressed perspective – and he’s finally realised what it means! The version in which Mary shooting Sherlock means John losing Mary (the Norbury version) is one in which John is sad, goes to therapy, and the world moves on. Now, however, that Sherlock has recognised that John was suicidal, he can also recognise that Mary shooting Sherlock will make John suicidal again – hence why it’s the same shot. Mary shooting Sherlock is the same as John dying – and the latter is much more important in Sherlock’s mind.

[It’s worth noting that the identical shots we see in TST and TLD don’t match the shot in HLV, although admittedly that one’s not in the MP – it does strike me, however, that the sounds are reversed – HLV sounds like a dart, whereas the MP shots sound like bullets. If anyone has any thoughts on that, do let me know – it has me flummoxed for the moment. If you want meta explaining why the shot from TST is the same as HLV, Chapter 7 is here X, and I’m certainly not the first to hypothesise this. For me, the TLD shot being the same is therefore a logical extension.]

[marta-bee]

More Mary Thoughts

@wizardlysherlok replied to this post on AGRA/Agra parallels in Doyle-cannon and BBC-canon:

it feels like if AGRA was empty of full, it wouldn’t be right for john neither way: if it was full, it would the the great betrayal and also the “she wasn’t supposed to be like that”, the wife who lied immensely to her husband and(for god sakes) shot his bf. If it was empty it wouldn’t work either because it was boring and the same life john was trying to scape because it was making him unhappy...conclusion : Mary does not work for john in every way 

Ooh, a chance to talk about Mary generally! I’ve apparently got just enough codeine still in my system, and it’s close enough to the witching hour, that this seems like a fun topic rather than the don’t-poke-the-bear dread that usually falls on me when I speak her name in this fandom. Here’s hoping I don’t regret this come tomorrow.

Even in Doyle canon, I never particularly liked Mary’s story, which is meant as a judgment on Doyle and not some fictional woman. She’s clearly introduced because Watson --being a romantic-- needs a romantic partner, and for a whole host of historical reasons Doyle felt like it needed to be a woman. Any woman would do, apparently. And even without getting into issues of whether this is akin to queerbaiting, it also just makes for a very boring character IMO. Mary is the equivalent of a Bond girl : more saintly than sex-appeal, perhaps, but who only really exists as an object the male characters get to react against. There’s precious little of Mary specifically that makes any difference to SIGN.

I do like some of the grace notes Doyle gives her in later stories. I think there’s a reference in one of the stories that she had a reputation for being both kind and clever and women from her neighborhood came to her to help them solve their little problems, a sort of more everyday vision of Sherlock Holmes. But at least in SIGN she’s a walking trope and frustratingly little more. 

I think the Granada series was wise to leave her out almost entirely. (She only appears in the movie version of SIGN, and there is only a client.) She just would have been a distraction to the story they were trying to tell. In the RDJ/Jude Law movies she’s actually brilliantly done, somehow challenging and supporting their relationship at the same time. She’s also witty and daring and would not seem at all out of place in a Jane Austen novel with all that witty back-and-foth, and all three of them have this great chemistry. If ever there was an adaptation that screamed both Johnlock and Johnlockary (and of course Warstan), it’s this one.

Goodness, we need more fanfic about Kelly Reilly’s Mary. I need to write her again. She’s brilliant.

Which brings us to the BBC. I’m going to be very brave and say my biggest problem with her isn’t that she wedged herself into John’s and Sherlock’s relationship and somehow came away with the right to dictate its terms, even posthumously. It’s not even that she lied to her husband and manipulated him, endangering him and their child in the process; or that she shot Sherlock, or was an assassin who apparently went mercenary. All of that could be really interesting if done well! And really, I can think of storylines that would actually justify quite a lot of that. Even shooting, even killing Sherlock, even not being apologetic about it after the fact- I could write a story where that character made sense as a romantic opposite to John. I actually got about 10,000 words into one attempt, though I never finished or published it because the fandom was pretty toxic to anyone interested in a more shades-of-grey ersion of Mary at the time.

No, what really drives me up the wall with BBC’s version of Mary is they don’t really settle on any one version of her. Actually in each of the five episodes she appears in, there’s this radically different version of who she are and what motivates her: supportive friend; bride; sociopath assassin; government agent; martyr. The most sympathetic take on that I can give is that Sherlock himself is trying to figure her out and can’t make sense of her so keeps trying one mold after another. But whatever the intent, the effect is that Mary’s just ridiculously muddled for me, and I never really connected to her because I didn’t understand her. I’m not sure the show-runners did either. Seeing what Moffat in particular did with women characters in Doctor Who makes me think he genuinely struggles to find them interesting if they aren’t really... extra, for lack of a better word. John and Sherlock, being men, had their BAMF moments but also a psychology that actually made sense along somewhat normal terms; Mary had to be a super-sekrit assassin, and a rogue that was targeted by a media mogul, and the hero who saved Holmes and then did it again from beyond the grave. All of which would have been fine if it actually came from a coherent characterization. But BBC’s Mary was all BAMF and stunning reveals and little to no coherence that made that make sense, so her character never really developed any kind of a reality for me. My brain couldn’t make sense of her, so my heart never latched on either. In the end I was just left confused and frustrated

Even all these years later! I still don’t know what to make of her, and that’s just bad writing. I would love to have a Mary who lied from start to finish with John “Trust Issues” Watson, or who shot Sherlock to the chest where it somehow made sense. That could be fascinating. It’s not what we got, though; at least it’s not what I was able to get out of the show.

Here’s another thing that would be fascinating, and I’d really love to see in some adaptation; even this one, though I don’t think we’ll get it. Mary Morstan in 1895 makes some sort of sense even with a suspiciously close friendship between Holmes and Watson, because male friendships operated in a very different realm than heterosexual marriages did. There were different kinds of intimacies in that time, I think. But when you bring the characters into the modern world, it eems like a super-close friendship like Holmes and Watson seem to have, one that seem to emotionally resemble marriage even if there’s no physical/sexual component, would be a challenge to what any self-respecting modern woman would tolerate from her husband. I don’t mean because it makes John gay, and of course married people can have friends, but there’s something about John and Sherlock that in the modern world strays damned close to emotional infidelity. 

I mean, how can you have that without either weakening the relationship between John and Sherlock, or making Mary cuckolded in some sense? Now throw into the mix in this particular adaptation, even before Mary, John and Sherlock had a ... unique relationship. John would date and have sex (or not), Sherlock would be stuck in seemingly perpetual celibacy, but if Sherlock dared to date (and I think this would be true for a man as well as a woman) John goes into a disbelieving jealous rage. This strikes me as not normal male friendship, though it’s not romantic or sexual either. It’s queerplatonic af on Sherlock’s side, increasingly stretching the bounds of what can be called “platonic”, and for John, it’s kind of a monodirectional monogamy in at least an emotional sense. I mean, the man went and got married, but we all saw his reaction when Sherlock dared to (seemingly) date someone else.

Now throw a modern woman into that mix, trying to marry and start a family with one half of a duo in that truly fucked-up dynamic. Imagine what it would be like for her to exist in that world. You can imagine polyamory of some variety, or jealousy, or a very altered view from what the mainstream imagnes are the expectations of married life, or whatever spin you like to put on it. 

I guarantee you -- if done well -- it would be fascinating. And I’d very much like to see it. Or read it, or something. If you want to make that woman as much of a danger junkie as John, as much of a skilled, professional killer, wehther on the government’s payroll or a disillusioned former agent who refused to follow orders and was forced to “branch out” or even just a true psychopath who was utterly self-motivated and ruthless but still wanted to protect John or at least what John represented to her? 

Well, that could be fascinating, too. Even more so. There’s just one catch: you’ve got to actually tell the story. They never seemed to get around to that, and I think I’m still more than a bit bitter.

..... And apparently I’m rambling. Thanks for allowing me to talk about her a bit. I’ll shut up now. :-)

[inevitably-johnlocked]

hi steph!! im looking for some domestic johnlock, could you direct me to some?? i want my heart to burn from the domesticity bahaha

Hi Lovely!!

BWAH OF COURSE I HAVE DOMESTIC JOHNLOCK. A huge list of them in fact, and I just checked my offline list and I can totally update the lists with some new fics I’ve recently filed! :D <3

DOMESTIC JOHNLOCK Pt. 5

See also:

Platonics and Domestics

Platonics & Domestics Pt 2 / Hugs, Cuddles & Kisses Pt. 3 / Tooth-Rotting Fluff Pt. 5 / Love Confessions, Slow Burn & Dev. Rel. Pt. 2 / Established Relationship Pt. 3

Platonics / Bromance / Friendship Pt. 3 

Domestic Johnlock Pt. 4

And When The Night Is Over by Simply Isnt On (K, 329 w., 1 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Platonic Bed Sharing / Not Slash) – Sherlock and John sleep together.

You Should Have Let Me Sleep! by theraggedypond (T, 1,542 w., 1 Ch. || Humour, Sleepy Sherlock, Cranky Sherlock, Domestics) – After a three day case with no sleep and hardly any food, Sherlock is recovering from it by playing comatose. John finds out what happens when you wake up London’s favorite consulting detective.

Happy Birthday John by Starlight05 (K, 1,580 w., 1 Ch. || Humour, Friendship, John’s Birthday, Shopping, 3rd Person POV John) – When an important date comes up, Sherlock finds himself doing something he never has before - shopping! But will he succeed and manage to get his best friend a present?

Baskerville After Dark by Ttime42 (T, 1,921 w., 1 Ch. || THoB, Friendship, Humor, Bed Sharing, Missing Scenes, Cranky John, Cuddles) – John and Sherlock have to share a bed at Baskerville. Gen, but can be preslash.

Nothing Left Untouched by ForeverShippingJohnlock (K+, 2,617 w., 1 Ch. || Friendship, Romance, Bed Sharing, Oblivious Sherlock, Anxious/Worried Sherlock, Grumpy John, Fluff and Cuddles) – Sherlock rearranges the flat. So what if John’s bedroom is now a research library. It’s not like John needs a bedroom, he can share with Sherlock. They’re friends and John has obviously slept in close quarters with men before and it’s not like Sherlock sleeps much anyway. It’ll be fine.

Insomnia by TheSingingGirl (K+, 2,635 w., 1 Ch. || Friendship, Humour, Bed Sharing, Sleepy Sherlock) – Sleep is merely the next frontier in what has become the battle to keep Sherlock alive. It’s because of this that John ends up in bed with a sociopath.

The General Idea by agirlsname (T, 3,022 w., 1 Ch. || Retirement, Promise of Forever / Proposal, POV John, First Kiss, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Soft Sherlock, Idiots in Love, Crying / Emotional Sherlock, Love Confessions) – After twenty years of friendship, John is used to Sherlock acting weirdly. But the news Sherlock finally brings himself to deliver change the carefully built dynamics between them, and John realises it’s time to act.

It’s Just Another Birthday by Vintage Tea Party (K, 3,207 w., 2 Ch. || Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Sherlock’s Birthday, Sherlock 3rd Person POV) – When John makes a birthday cake for Sherlock he thinks its an innocent enough gesture. But nothing is ever normal with Sherlock and this isn’t just another birthday.

Human Body Pillow by Lunavere (K, 4,122 w., 1 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Five and Ones, Sleepy Johnlock, Bed Sharing) – A story about the five times John fell asleep on Sherlock, and the one time Sherlock fell asleep on him.

Sleepless nights by El loopy (T, 5,467 w., 3 Ch. || Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Panic Attack, Worried Sherlock) – Sherlock has a nightmare and John wants to know what it was about. Set during season 1. Three-shot.

On Favors and Keeping Score by Ewebie (G, 7,622 w., 1 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Sick Fic, Fluff, John Whump) –  John woke up to the horribly unpleasant sound of his clock alarm. Which meant he’d slept through his phone’s alarm. And for a moment he glared blearily at the noisemaker before smacking at it with his palm. Ugh, he felt like rubbish. The back of his throat was burning with the irritation that heralded a proper dose, his nose was threatening to drip every few seconds, and he had the uncomfortable flush that normally suggested a fever. Nothing high, just uncomfortable. Nothing deadly, just irritating. Nothing worth calling in sick with, just a full day of discomfort in the face of other people’s discomfort. It was going to be a day where he was forced to bite his tongue from telling people off. “You’re not as sick as I am, so off you pop.” Part 7 of Tumblr Shorts

Sometimes When We Touch by kedgeree (M, 7,755 w., 6 Ch. || Post-TRF, First Kiss/Time, Inappropriate Giggling, Romance, Friends to Lovers, Virgin Sherlock, John Whump, Touching) – John might be touching Sherlock a little more often than is strictly necessary. Sherlock probably hasn’t even noticed. Right…?

You fit me, Sherlock Holmes by orphan_account (G, 10,077 w., 1 Ch. || It’s An Experiment, Bed Sharing, Slow Burn, Fluff and Angst, Idiots in Love, Mutual Pining, Questionable Science) – An unfortunate series of events leads to John accepting being a part of Sherlock’s study in physical intimacy. As the days pass by, John realizes he might be in for more than he bargained for. He doesn’t entirely mind.

London Gods by a_different_equation (E, 11,092 w., 5 Ch. || American Gods Fusion || Magical Realism, Sex Magic, True Love, PTSD John, First Kiss/Time, Marathon Sex, Sensuality, Genie Sherlock, Human John, Internalized Homophobia, Star-Crossed Lovers, Soul Mates) – Sherlock Holmes is a jinn who does not grant wishes. However, when Dr. John H. Watson, recently returned from the war in Afghanistan, gets into his cab by “accident”, it might not even need magic to grant both men their deepest wish: love.

A Silver Sixpence by _doodle (NC-17, 16,400 w., 2 Ch. || LJ Fic || For a Case / Case Fic, Fake Relationship, Humour, Romance, Marriage Proposal, Awkward Idiots, Cuddling, Touching, Kissing, Love Confessions, Bed Sharing, Friends to Lovers, Fake Until It’s Not, Schmoop and Fluff, Bottomlock) – “John, we need to get married. It’s for a case, not any romantic notions on my part pertaining to our partnership,” Sherlock said, with brutal honesty, and without even looking up.

The Winter Garden by Callie4180 (T, 31,213 w., 13 Ch. || Post-S4, Retirement, Christmas, Slow Burn, Grown-Up Rosie, Parenthood, Rosie’s Cat, Angst with Happy Ending, Holidays, Beekeeping, Magical Realism, Sherlock POV, Sherlock’s Violin, Future Fic, Sussex, Honey, Magical Healing Honey, Love Confessions, Sherlock’s Scar, First Kiss, Touching) – As Sherlock nears the end of his career, he’s given the gift of a cottage in Sussex. The honey from the beehives out back is amazing. Almost… magical.

carrying up his morning tea by darcylindbergh (E, 34,504 w., 5 Ch. || Post S3, Minor Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Wakes/Funerals, Estranged John, Pining Sherlock, Depression/Insecurity, Slow Burn, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Chronic Pain/Injury, Reconciliation, Awkwardness, Loneliness, Scars, Angst With Happy Ending) – His fingers tremble as he dials and he can’t force them steady. Familiar number, even though he hasn’t used it in two years. He isn’t even sure he should be calling it now, but she’d asked. She’d made him promise.

Proving A Point by elldotsee & J_Baillier (E, 186,270 w., 28 Ch. || Me Before You Fusion || Medical Realism, Insecure John, Depression, Romance, Angst, POV John, Sherlock Whump, Serious Illness, Doctor John, Injury Recovery, Assisted Suicide, Sherlock’s Violin, Awkward Sexual Situations, Alcoholism, Drugs, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn, Body Image, Friends to Lovers, Hurt / Comfort, Pain, Big Brother Mycroft, Intimacy, Anxiety, PTSD, Family Issues, Psychological Trauma, John Whump, Case Fics, Loneliness, Pain) – Invalided home from Afghanistan, running out of funds and convinced that his surgical career is over, John Watson accepts a mysterious job offer to provide care and companionship for a disabled person. Little does he know how much hangs in the balance of his performance as he settles into his new life at Musgrave Court.

[wackygoofball]

Moodboard: Jaime x Brienne - Elementary AU

Just FYI, I am sending ahead that I absolutely, with all of my heart adore Elementary and Jonny Lee Miller’s and Lucy Liu’s portrayals of their characters, which is why this moodboard should please be regarded as an homage to the show above all else, even if I take the romantic high road here despite the fact that the show seems to follow the trajectory of the platonic love (which is so pure and so well written I still cry) up until this point of time, though as a shipper... one can still hope, right?

I will also send ahead that I had to do some tweaking to create the Watson/Sherlock dynamic since Jaime’s character is different from a Sherlock Holmes in many ways, so I employed a little workaround I hope suffices.

To give a bit of a teaser, here the plot bunnies I have thus far:

Brienne of Tarth knows what she is getting into whenever she takes on a new client. After all, she chose to become a sober companion to deal with the unexpected and help those who can’t help themselves in times of crisis. What she doesn’t know is how she stumbled over this most curious case. First she gets an ominous phone call from an assistant to Mr. Blackwater to request her services for his friend who just came out of rehab and now needs some looking after, then she finds out the same man would not meet up with him.

All Brienne knows about her client is that his name is Jaime Lannister, a former consultant for the King’s Landing Police Department, and that yes, this is the same man known as the Kingslayer in the Seven Kingdoms after he killed Aerys Targaryen, but was found to have acted in self-defense even though evidence begged to differ a lot, or so she heard on television. From the medical files she was provided by the facility, Brienne knows that he lost his hand and as a result got addicted to pain killers, which resulted in his drug abuse that landed him in the rehab in the first place.

Their first meeting couldn’t be any more unfortunate as it doesn’t take long for the truth to unfold that Jaime Lannister does not want and won’t tolerate a sober companion, or “mannish drug nanny” as he puts it, to watch every of his steps.

“I have no intention to be using again, so Bronn can just fuck off and leave me alone. He actually has a lot of experience with that ever since he got his villa.”

Brienne won’t budge, however, she never does, and makes it clear to her new client that she won’t be going anywhere until she knows for sure that he is settled in and doesn’t run the risk of relapsing anymore during this very critical transition period from rehab center to normal life again.

She is used to clients who display hostility towards her, show mistrust, but Jaime Lannister puts a new level to it, because no matter what, Brienne not once encountered an client who would play fanfares late at night, arguing it vital to his recently picked up again consultant duties, dumping trash on her bed for a “long overdue experiment concerning decomposition of evidence” or introducing her to police staff as his “personal valet.” Though Brienne will have to admit, despite his sheer intolerable behavior, Jaime Lannister is even better than the rumors about him would let one assume: through deduction alone, he sees right through a crime scene, gets down to the bottom of it and finds the culprit. It is such a stark contrast to the childish man trying to drive her out of the house. On the job, he is exceeding any expectations, is sharp, focused, and cuts through lies and stories with the precision of a scalpel.

Jaime, for his part, would rather have this sober companion gone for good, but Miss Tarth appears stubborn enough to stick around against better judgment, or perhaps Bronn pays her better than he would have calculated. His interest in her witnesses a slight peak while working a case, since his “personal valet” happens to have some medical insights bringing him forward in finding the murder suspect that would have taken him quite a while longer.

Not that he would admit that to her, of course. After all, Jaime shouldn’t be surprised by her knowledge of the field. He did his research and knows for a fact that she is a former army doctor turned drug nanny. Nevertheless, she happens to have deductive skills of her own, he discovers, and while unrefined in some aspects, she has a certain clarity in her mind that most others lack.

However, in the end, that shouldn’t matter. Jaime has other things to do, and she is just the constant reminder of his failure, which is why Jaime undertakes the efforts necessary to drive her out of the house. At last, his research reveals that one thing that may drive her over the edge – how she ended up as a sober companion in the first place. In the course of a heated argument, Jaime snaps and confronts Brienne about it that she only ever took on the job because she failed to keep Renly Baratheon safe when she worked as his personal secretary and he ended up getting shot in the streets outside a restaurant where they met with Catelyn Stark for business dealings.

When Jaime considers himself the winner at last, he is taken aback by Brienne’s reaction, however:

“It appears your only method of dealing with your own emotions is by projecting them on others.”

“So you deny you have any problems? Please. I just proved that wrong.”

“I know I have them, and that means I am three steps ahead of you. Because you can’t look into the mirror because you are ashamed of what may be looking back at you. And quite frankly, I find that… craven.”

After that, neither one knows how to talk to the other for a while. Brienne genuinely considers quitting the job, but before she makes that decision, Jaime brings himself to an apology, which is, she knows, an absolutely rare exception.

“I overstepped a line to drive you away. I am not used to have other people deduce things about me. I tend to think that no one ever really got me other than my brother, perhaps, but that’s another story. Because yes, I wanted you gone so that I don’t have to face the fact that this is the reason why you are here. I want to do my job and forget about those past months. I wished they never happened.”

“They don’t go away, though.”

“I know. But there is just going forward from here, for me at least… but… it was wrong of me to take that out on you. Which is why I am generous enough to offer you my services as part of what I tend to refer to as a truce: I am willing to dedicate some of my free time to Renly’s murder case.”

“Hell no.”

“… I actually thought you would be flattered by that. You are aware that I am the best consultant currently residing in King’s Landing, arguably in all of Westeros I daresay?”

“That is my responsibility and my responsibility alone.”

“… You want to find the person responsible yourself.”

“Your deduction skills are, as per usual, very much on point.”

“… Well, if that is the case, I can only offer you my resources, should you decide to dig into his case again, or otherwise be of assistance. I still propose a truce as part of our agreement of sober companion and client because, frankly, I gave it some thought and I suppose you are the least trouble. Imagine some dimwit stepping on evidence at crime scenes. You at least know how to stay put.”

“… I suppose that is a compliment.”

“You may take it as such. So do we have a truce?”

“You need trust to have a truce.”

“I trust you.”

And on that trust, they start to build for the next weeks. Brienne finds herself more and more drawn to Jaime’s work whereas Jaime can no longer deny Brienne’s apparent talent for detective work outside the medical sphere. She is perceptive and thanks to her military training knows more about fighting than most ever will.

He finds her… promising, in a way. Just like someone once found him promising, only to destroy it all, but maybe, just maybe, he can make things right this time, who knows?

While Brienne enjoys the work more and more, she knows that her days with Jaime Lannister are limited, which means she must not get attached to either the man or his profession. When Brienne communicates that to him, Jaime starts distancing himself from her. Brienne already fears for a relapse and is close to calling Mr. Blackwater to request an extension, but before she can make the call, Jaime breaks his silence with a sudden offer: to become his apprentice and become a consultant like him.

“If you decide to take the offer, of that I assure you, I will train you to the best of my abilities. Make you cry, very likely. But once the training is completed, you should know all there is to know about solving crime the way I harnessed that skillset.”

“I am a sober companion.”

“And before that you were a personal assistant to Renly. And before that an army doctor. You see, a woman once told me that I was craven for running away from my problems, and I think it is time I give these wise words over to the next generation sitting before me. I think you are running away from an opportunity, just because you are afraid of making that step. You want to be out there. I saw you at the crime scenes. I saw the satisfaction on your eyes when we got the bad guys.”

“And I don’t deny it. But I am helping people, too, as a sober companion. I am preventing people from relapse, I am preventing them from committing crime.”

“And that is admirable, without a doubt. And you are good at your job. You kept me from the drugs and I thought that was virtually impossible. Nevertheless, I think this is an opportunity for you and…”

“And?”

“And me as well. Because I have to admit that… that my work has been better ever since you started to come along. I don’t know why, I just know that this is the case. That I am better with you.”

Brienne remains unsure about the offer for a while, but eventually agrees to the training regiment, no matter how much spiteful glee Jaime takes in basically tormenting her.

Jaime, for his part, rediscovers how much joy it gives him to do this job, and discovers something new as well, starting to understand how Tyrion loved training him to become a consultant back in the “good old days,” not just to make the other suffer, but to see them grow, deduce, put the pieces together. When he watches Brienne, when he sees her succeed, Jaime finds himself succeeding. And when Brienne is proud and happy, he finds himself smiling along.

As things progress, their truce soon grows to a deeply felt friendship since both lacked someone to rely on with those very private insecurities and inner demons for a very long time.

Brienne admits to how she ended up as Renly’s assistant, namely because she was hopelessly in love with the man, as Jaime had rightly deduced on the day they had their first fallout, and that she chose to join him to be around him.

“After I came back from my military service… I don’t know, I had so many people die, slip through my fingers, people we were sworn to protect, good people, good soldiers and far too many civilians. And then I heard that Renly was running for presidency after Robert’s death and I just… I just wanted to be sure that he was alright. I have seen the results of political upheavals in times of crisis during my service as an army doctor. I know that political enemies tear each other to shreds and that this will always lead to bloodshed on all sides. No one really questioned me and my decision because… you know, trauma. Everyone just assumed I wanted something boring, something conventional after all that I saw and went through. And perhaps I did, I don’t know. I just wanted to keep close to Renly, that much I knew. But then… Renly was killed and I only ever held him as he died.”

“And you couldn’t identify the guy.”

“It was a shadow. And it had Stannis’s name all over it.”

“Can you prove it?”

“Not yet.”

“You see, it’s always risky to deduce from the conclusion to the fact. It should be the other way around.”

“Those are the facts. Renly ran as an independent party to split potential votes between him and Stannis because he didn’t want Stannis to ever make it past the primaries. He had a motive to want to have him removed. Many of Renly’s voters went ahead and joined Stannis after his death. He has a woman in his ranks who will carry out almost any kind of task you give to her. It was Stannis. I know it, I just need a way to prove it.”

“Melisandre of Asshai. I read some interesting things about her.”

“She is a murderer. And one of these days, I will be able to prove it that she and Stannis did this.”

“You just need the remaining evidence.”

“Even more so since he runs for president. I will rather leave the country than live under him as my commander in chief.”

“And you would just abandon me? How rude. Even more so as a former sober companion.”

Jaime, for his part, also finds the courage to let Brienne in on his secrets, even the ones he kept so well for all those years, such as the true nature of Aerys’s assassination and Tyrion’s disappearance, and how it broke him that his brother went behind his back to kill their father and Tyrion’s ex-lover Shae before disappearing to Essos as it was planned to buy Jaime time to prove his innocence of Joffrey’s murder.

“What pissed me off foremost, though, was that he didn’t trust me. That was always the thing we relied on, that was stone one. That was our truce. He trusted me and that I trusted him. Blindly. Or so I thought. Because my smart, smart little brother didn’t trust me to clear his name. He didn’t trust me as his brother, as his friend, as the consultant he helped frame when he picked me up after the Aerys affair to offer me a new perspective. He believed he was the only one who could clear his name, and when Tyrion saw no chance anymore, he quitted, on himself, on me, on our work. And I will never forgive him for that. Well, that and murdering two people for the simplest and most basic motive there is: revenge.”

As things progress, it isn’t until long that they run into a hacker group called No One run by a man named Jaqen H’ghar. They “help” them on a number of occasions to gather evidence they could not otherwise acquire, in exchange for oftentimes publicly humiliating Jaime, such as carrying around a sign to encourage people to “Slay the Kingslayer with a Golden Slap,” a task many people happily agree to, apparently. The members remain ominous, only ever appearing in chats wearing masks. A young group member, a teenage girl, catches their attention as Brienne pieces together that this is in fact Arya Stark. Due to Brienne’s personal involvement with her family, she feels ever the more urged to help the girl and keep her from potentially committing worse crimes to carry out her revenge against the people she deems responsible for the deaths of most of her family.

However, Jaime’s and Brienne’s attention soon turns to politics as the elections come into the hot phase, only to be shocked to the core when a newcomer emerges from Essos to enter the race rather late: Daenerys Targaryen, the Mother of Dragons as she is called, wants to become president of the Seven Kingdoms alongside her rivals Stannis Baratheon and Cersei Lannister.

Things take a sudden turn with the re-emergence of someone Jaime thought he would never see again in a life time, and a nemesis who may no longer be just after the infamous consultant Tyrion Lannister but now the new detective team solving cases in King’s Landing.

And if history taught them one thing by now, then it is that this person will do anything to get what he or she wants. And from the sounds of it, that is one thing and one thing only:

Power.

A game of cat-and-mouse begins, putting everyone involved in danger as a country is bound to decide on who will come into power next…

 Additonal Image Sources: Elementary ( 2012-), http://gwendoline-christie.com/.

[maskedheroics]

𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝟎𝟎𝟏 / 𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐎𝐂𝐊 𝐃𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄* / DO NOT COPY OR REBLOG

IN WHICH MARY MORSTAN IS EXACTLY WHOM SHE CLAIMED TO BE AND NOT AN ILL-THOUGHT TWIST FOR THE SAKE OF MAN PAIN

INCLUDES SPOILERS FOR SERIES 3 & 4

Mary Morstan was an orphan raised in the foster system until she was eighteen years old. She was born in Cardiff, but she was sent to homes all over the place for years on end, prompting a very unstable childhood. She had a few wild years during her teens and early twenties, partying and shirking responsibilities. She dated people who were bad for her; and hung out with friends who dragged her down. Mary felt hurt and disillusioned by the world around her, drowning out her feelings and unprocessed trauma from her youth of feeling unwanted and unloved.

Mary was working in a dead-end job in a shop to make ends meet, tired of coming into work after a screaming match with her boyfriend at the time over the same things over and over again. Mary was tired and on the verge of breaking point after all these years. She felt like she was seconds away from making a terrible mistake.

Rock bottom came the night of her twenty-third birthday, when she came home to find her partner cheating on her (again) — and trying to blame her and gaslight her (again) for it and finally snapped. Mary broke up with him, to his anger — and found herself walking out the door and wandering the streets of the city for hours in the rain. While she was wandering, she felt her chest aching and her mind reeling. She thought she was going crazy, thought maybe she was having a heart attack. Eventually feeling herself shut down and sit on the curb crying incoherently. The rest of the night was a blur, but when Mary regained consciousness she was in the hospital being told that someone had called them because they had been frightened about her condition — and she had suffered from an extreme anxiety attack and a bit of hypothermia from the storm.

Mary couldn’t go back to what she had been doing, she was scared and stressed and sad all the time. It was killing her. She wasn’t admitted, but she was referred to a therapist and given the card of a support worker. It was extremely hard, she had to change a lot of things in her life. Cut a lot of ties — but that was nothing compared to the difficulties she had confronting the things in her life that she had been actively avoiding for years.

By the time Mary was twenty six, Mary had started to find new support systems. She was working still, but she was also now starting school. Her motivation to become a nurse, inspired by her new best friend who felt she had a knack for it (and as she was also one, Mary trusted her when she said that). Things weren’t perfect, but they were better. She hadn’t dated in a while, not quite ready to go down that route just yet.

About four years later, however, that would change. Mary had begun a new job at a clinic in London where she met Doctor John Watson. The two had got on pretty quickly, but fear of risking her job gave her a bit of pause before pursing the growing dynamic between them. As she grew to know him, Mary learned more about John’s past. Sherlock, the war — and although she wasn’t about to claim their damages were on the same level; the fact that they were both patching themselves back together again gave them something to bond over.

Mary wanted to hate Sherlock when she first met him, appearing in the restaurant after letting him think he had been dead all this time — her first words to the man were her cursing him — but as the night progressed, and their party moved from place to place due to their fights; the woman couldn’t help but be charmed by him. He had an excitement to him, one that kind of reminded her of the rush her old life had held (without the heavy cost to her well-being). Even in his rage, she could see John come to life in a way he hadn’t in two years since she’d known him. It was hard not to be sucked in; however she knew what he had done was wrong and while she encouraged John to speak to him — she also knew where her loyalties lied.

Then John was kidnapped. After that, they were sucked in. Apart of Sherlock Holmes’ world and she loved it; but she quickly learned that their world came with great risks and outcomes. Mary and John faced it together, with their friends and although the world was unstable — she found that this time, it was a kind of instability that she could handle. Perhaps this time because she had those on her team now, helping each other. Balancing each other out. It was familiar, but better.

Mary and John married, and not long after gave birth to their daughter Rosamund Mary Watson; naming Mrs. Hudson, Molly Hooper and Sherlock Holmes the godparents. Although a baby made chasing criminals around town difficult, they managed to find balance between the two and make it work.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Mary is still shot in the aquarium, but she is shot trying to pull Sherlock to the ground. The shot is not fatal, and both survive the incident. Instead it hits her arm and while she has some recovery and her arm is never fully the same again afterwards, all survive the encounter.

Just in case it needed repeating, Mary is not an assassin in this verse. She has skill sets that come in handy, but she is relatively normal and adjusted otherwise.   

The default is because of the lack of assassin plot, there's no emotional affair plot either because there's no divide for it to sprout from.

For the Magnussen plot, there are more than enough characters in the episode and in the series itself to draw the gang in. Mary does know Janine and might tip Sherlock off at the wedding about her job (inadvertently planting the idea in his head), but she doesn't use that for her own gain.

I don't have a full canon for how The Lying Detective works, but I feel like even though she's fine --- Mary getting shot would likely still cause some tensions with their newborn child and make them reevaluate somethings. Which could lead to distance, and maybe a version of events where Sherlock is relapsing for real and Sherlock and John had to confront their demons and unresolved issues outside their relationship and within it. Which isn't to say they don't want to go on these adventures, or 'ruin' the fun --- but they have a small person to look after and getting shot at by choice is not a good way to do that and this dynamic is just going through a re-calibration period. I'll likely plot this with partners specifically to make it work for out threads, but this is my generic default.

Because of how fast paced and unexpected it is, Mary is with them when Eurus' drone attacks Baker Street and is with the three of them there. She also was apart of the trick played on Mycroft by Sherlock and John to push him to confess to Eurus' existence --- but she also voices during the scene that she thought the whole thing was a tad bit dramatic, but when are things ever not. "Also, the costume fit and it was a little funny."

[raggedyblue]

the adventure of secon stain

I have always loved the Canon and Holmes, since I was child and I thought I knew the stories quite well. But the more time passes, the more I realize how faulty my conviction was considering how many references in BBC Sherlock I continue to lose. And I am more and more amazed at how they have taken such a monumental work, even in terms of size, they have taken it apart bit by bit, to reassemble it in a way that is deceptive and perfectly consistent at the same time. After commenting on this meta, which basically talks about  two stains, I took up "the adventure of the second stain". It is one of those stories rich in subtext and in which, if you are in this game, you can notice a remarkable game of mirrors.

The story is about two very famous politicians asking for help from Holmes and Watson to resolve the case of  a missing letter, potentially compromising.

Let's start by looking closely at the two men because apart from the fact that Watson / Doyle describes them in a blatantly flattering and quite unusual way for a strictly heterosexual pen, their peculiar characteristics are decidedly unique. One is "austere, high-nosed, eagle-eayed and dominant". He has "thin" and nervous hands, "a gaunt, ascetic face". The other, named Hope, "elegant and clear-cut, endowed with every beauty of body and of mind" (oh Doyle as you are vain) and with two beautiful mustaches. Under the normal behavior of a man of his extraction, he hides an "impulsive, ardent and keenly sensitive man". Now it does not seem to me that a great interpretative effort is needed to see the similarities. The dynamic between the two men is also particular. One of the two, in a working position submitted (yes the one with the mustache) has lost the letter (let's say that Watson / Doyle has sometimes let  transpire something , otherwise we wouldn't be here), but the other man never seems  altered with him for this, despite the terrible implication of the fact, indeed we see him "placed his hand kindly upon his shoulder". The two are worried because  has disappeared the letter (a document), the disclosure of which would have devastating consequences, so much so that the police cannot possibly be involved in the investigation. The umpteenth version of "one day the true story can be told". Involved in the affair is also the wife of one of the two men. Obviously the one with the mustache, even here our author / narrator made it very easy. Holmes is wary of women since the first visit, and he take advantage of it for say that women cannot be trusted (let's not forget that we are in the time just before of Watson's wedding). At the end, when Holmes corners Lady Hilda ("the curtain rings up for the last act"), It will turn out that the woman took the letter from her husband:

A letter written by a man on the spur of the moment, a letter of which we know nothing, but of which, probably the author has already very much regretted. The woman first tries to extort confidential information from Holmes, then, once discovered, she begs him not to reveal anything to her husband. "For heaven's sake, don't tell him!"

It turns out that she had stolen the letter as payment for a blackmail by a certain Eduardo Lucas. He too is described in an interesting way in terms of mirrors. Amateur tenor of known fame (consulting tenor?), A bachelor, he lives in the company of a housekeeper and a valet to whom he is particularly attached, so much to have given him many personal items. He has many female friends, but no one whom he loved. His house is furnished with numerous objects and luxurious, in a way that borders on the feminine. (this is reminiscent of Taddehus Sholto, another obvious Holme's mirror X, along with his twin). A man who leads a double life, it will be discovered that he has a wife in France who once discovered the deception will kill him. "A comparison of photographs has prouved conclusively that M.Henri Fournaye and Eduardo Lucas were really the same person"

Not yet three people, but two are aleredy  interesting. Holmes starts unraveling the case just when he learns of his death, since he was one of three people whose abnormal behavior would have signaled that something was happening.

" SHERLOCK (voiceover): There are certain people – they are markers. If they start to move, I’ll know something’s up – like rats deserting a sinking ship “

Lucas blackmailed Lady Hilda with a letter she had written at a young age, a compromising letter, which she absolutely didn't want to make known to her husband.

"If he knew how I have acted-how I have been compelled to act- he would never forgive me....it was a letter of mine-Mr.Holmes, an iniscreet letter written before my marriage- a foolish letter, a letter of an impulsive, loving girl... Had he read that letter his confidence would have been forever destroyed”

“ MARY: Because John can’t ever know that I lied to him. It would break him and I would lose him forever – and, Sherlock, I will never let that happen “

MARY: Everything about who I was is on there. (Directly to John) If you love me, don’t read it in front of me. JOHN (lifting the hand nearest to the table in a shrug): Why? MARY (apparently trying to hold back tears): Because you won’t love me when you’ve finished ... (John holds her gaze.) MARY: ... and I don’t want to see that happen.

This is one of those cases in which Holmes lets the culprit go, although he never seems to have a great liking for that woman.

It's a whole story about writings that must remain secret, with unspoken stories and reputations that must appear without a stain ... let alone two.

-the italics are by Doyle, the bold of Ariane Devere-

@ebaeschnbliah @gosherlocked @sagestreet @sarahthecoat@possiblyimbiassed @loveismyrevolution @sherlockshadow@devoursjohnlock @fellshish

[thebeautyofdisorder]

Blog of John H. Watson, Hidden Post #57 (Adlock Drabble, Post S4)

This is what happens when I’m bored at work and speculate on the possible dynamic that could spawn out of Irene’s continued presence in Sherlock’s life being revealed in The Lying Detective, as well as the thought that John totally keeps an up to date documentation of Sherlock’s bullshit, even when he doesn’t share it. Short head canon in a blog post. A happy medium ending shall we say. Compatible with canon.

Rated T, for language and innuendos.

---

Sherlock Holmes is not a romantic, by any meager stretch of the imagination. In fact, if there were a term in the English language adequate enough to be defined as the polar opposite of a romantic, I wouldn't hesitate to employ it in regards to the world's only consulting detective. But, as with everything else in the complex world surrounding him, it's never quite so simple as that, either. For every area of disinterest in his over-wrought brain, there never ceases to be an exception to the rule. He hates the television, except for when he needs to pass the time.; he's seemingly ignorant of any charms the fairer sex may possess, until he decides to point out which one's they're lacking; he doesn't eat while on a case, unless you buy a very particular brand of biscuits and force them into his line of sight; and he doesn't have a single romantic bone in his body until The Woman is brought into the equation.

Now when I say 'romantic', don't think I mean that in the normal sense of the word - marriage and babies aren't something I can see him ever willingly seeking out, even for the likes of her.  That man's idea of a valentine is probably the still-beating heart of one of her enemies, but thankfully (dreadfully?) that woman would happily accept it, and even prefer it over the largest diamond at Tiffany's. Domesticity, suffice to say, has never been a prominent part of their 'relationship'. They do so enjoy flirting with it though. The way anyone else would take a holiday from their mundane desk job to somewhere more exciting, every once in a great while, The Woman formerly known as Irene Adler takes a brief respite from whatever chaos she's getting up to on the other side of the pond and finds her way to Baker Street. Sherlock never seems surprised, though whether that's because she warns him ahead of time of her eminent arrival or if he can sense her presence like some sort of lovesick bloodhound, I don't know (I mostly suspect the latter). But one moment everything is perfectly normal, and the next she's there - and the world has turned upside down. It's never really that dramatic a shift, though, truly. Sherlock is still very...Sherlock. Not even Cupid could fix that. It's his resolute single-mindedness that suddenly seems to take its leave. Whatever has been at the forefront of his thought process is, if not completely usurped, carefully shifted over as if to make room for her. Normally anyone or anything having such an impact on his needle-point focus would annoy him - and sometimes it still does, 'defiance' added to the cluster of other emotions that seem to radiate from him in her presence. More often than not, however, he accepts this adjustment without complaint. If he's particularly deep in the depths of boredom, dare I say with relief. One moment he'll be in a rush to go over some experiment or contact a client, and then there she is - sometimes sitting in his chair looking over a file he'd left lying on the floor or lounging in the bathtub as though she had always been there, and hadn't just broken in. If the timing is really inconvenient, he might shoot her a look not unlike one you or I would give a beloved but stubbornly misbehaved house cat - but it still happens, the immediate recalculation of his priorities. He probably just pulls up a day planner in his mind and starts crossing things off and pushing them around. Brooding can wait ‘til next week, there'll be time to annoy Mycroft tomorrow afternoon, etc. The case - if there is one - still gets solved, of course. No force, however unstoppable, would ever halt the investigative side of his brain. If anything we just gain an amused spectator or even another educated opinion. However as soon as the thinking is done and the only thing left of it is the 'boring' part - contacting the client, handing over evidence, explaining all of his elaborate deductions to a mostly confused and unappreciative audience - I tend to finish it out. Hell, I volunteer to do so, or else it simply doesn't get done. Found that out the hard way once when he stopped answering Mycroft's phone calls halfway through halting a smuggling operation and - well, suffice to say he always knocks now, even if he did have a spare key made just to be intrusive. Not that it seemed to phase either of them. Hardly anything does, during these short visits. As affronted or even offended Sherlock will no doubt be at the turn of phrase, the world by and large ceases to exist to him when The Woman is in town. Once the mostly-metaphorical detective hat is off, there's nothing that can begin to compete with her hold over his attention. I've certainly never had any interest in trying. It took me less than five minutes, the first time she showed up, to see how obviously under-stated he had been when he told me that it was 'just texting' between them that first night I discovered their continued interaction. There had been a tension between them since the moment they'd met, obviously, but it had evolved somehow. It wasn't the unresolved curiosity it once was, but it wasn't a comfortable fondness like most couples have after a reasonable period of time either. It was trapped somewhere in the middle: a constant thrum of kinetic energy almost. It was the power of uncertainty and yet the knowing acknowledgement of potential. I've never seen it’s like anywhere else, probably because no other two people in the world have the patience and tenacity to make such an unreasonable constant work. Coupled with the fact they seemed to be in a continuous competition with each other, for what stakes I still don't know, it was a tangible thing. I'd call it a 'battle for dominance' but that seems far too on the nose for my taste. No, the only thing out of the ordinary about her physical proximity to the detective was that I was now privy to it. I'd say I'm now 'in on the joke', but that doesn't sound right, as funny as the idea of Sherlock shagging a (former?) dominatrix sounds. More like being an unwilling member of an obscure and elitist secret society whose meetings I don't attend and yet end up bearing witness to anyway. Then again, with Sherlock Holmes, when don't I feel like that? Neither of them have ever asked me to make myself scarce during these periods (the shortest being all of 12 hours or what I would deem An International Booty Call - the longest was a full week: Christmas to New Year, leading into a suspicious spike in our usual caseload), but I often do it anyway. No matter the innocence of the conversation they're having - or not having, it seems voyeuristic somehow. And not just in the sexual way. There's a certain foreign intimacy to their seemingly benign interactions that makes it almost more intrusive to walk in on them having tea than any of the more explicit scenarios that end up occurring at 221B Baker Street behind closed doors. There are exceptions of course - the three of us have managed a few pleasant evenings (as pleasant as Sherlock is capable of), but all in all, I leave them to themselves. For as suddenly as she arrives, she's just as quickly gone - leaving no obvious sign of her presence save the lingering of her perfume and usually some spontaneous possession that finds its way to the mantelpiece, and remains there until the next time she inevitably appears in another few months. Hell, maybe the next year. A bottle of red nail lacquer, a hair pin. Last time it was a dagger. I think it's probably deliberate - an excuse, outside of sheer interest, to return. Or maybe some sort of weird code, fuck if I know. Regardless, as soon as her presence dissipates, the Consulting Detective is back to his obnoxious and hyper vigilant self, as though nothing and no one could ever distract him from his single-minded search for problems to solve and humans to outsmart. If Sherlock's unhappy with this unstable 'arrangement' - hell, even if he's perfectly happy with it - he's never really said. In fact, he makes almost no comment about her at all when she's not here. This alone, apparently unbeknownst to him, makes her unique in the whole of the human race. The only exception seems to be under the specific pretense of making his older brother look both nauseous and disapproving at the same time. As for Mycroft Holmes, if 'The Ice Man' ever had any specific ill intentions towards The Woman who nearly brought the nation to its knees, he's apparently given up on them for now. He's even stopped making lewd comments about beheadings just to make Sherlock angry. Every once in an even greater while - only thrice in my memory - some mysterious 'case' will arise from overseas and Sherlock himself will vanish from the streets of London for a number of days. He always asks me if I'd like to come along, and I always give some sort of excuse to remain: can't find a sitter for that long, my passport expired, etc. I know what he's really doing, just as he knows that my passport is perfectly legal, and yet neither of us say a word. I don't know if it's some twisted way to extend the 'mystique' of a secret tryst, or he's just helping her out with something very illegal, but I'm not sure I want to. It's not up to me to say if this sort of dynamic will last - if either of them will eventually require something more steady or resolute, or simply grow bored with one another. But for now, as I write this, Sherlock is restocking the kitchen for the first time in months without being harassed and has ceased whining about Lestrade not calling him back all weekend - so I doubt it's going to be a concern for a long while. By morning I'm sure I will walk in to witness my boorish and manner-less best mate who will rarely even boil his own water trip over himself to have her coffee made by the time she wakes, so he can regale her with the gory details of how he solved the grisliest murder we've had since her last visit. And they say romance is dead.