#Also ACD has a type

[mariana-oconnor]

The Naval Treaty pt 3

Yes, we apparently have got to the point where I'm memeing myself.

Right, last time, after Percy, Watson's old 'pal' from school failed magnificently at understanding how to protect confidential data, he followed an old woman into the night and the stress gave him a brain fever. Meanwhile, I'm still certain that Joseph Harrison, who has not been implicated in any way, is involved because I am a well-balanced and entirely reasonable person.

Mr. Joseph Harrison drove us down to the station

See! He's trying to get rid of you! 🤣🤣😂

“It's a very cheery thing to come into London by any of these lines which run high, and allow you to look down upon the houses like this.”

Last time we had Holmes looking out a train window: Ugh, look how terrible the countryside is! I can't bear it.

The contrast is palpable.

“The board-schools.” “Light-houses, my boy! Beacons of the future! Capsules with hundreds of bright little seeds in each, out of which will spring the wise, better England of the future. I suppose that man Phelps does not drink?”

Board schools are not the same as boarding schools, the internet tells me, but the first state run schools with no religious affiliation. I was about to be cynical about Holmes' view of children and Victorian educational standards, but I can't. He's right, those schools were important and really did pave the way for a brighter future.

And then a bit of mental whiplash as he snaps back to the case at hand, because he's Holmes.

In answer to the question, I can't say whether Percy drinks alcohol, but he definitely has a caffeine addiction that he should work on. If not for that, he wouldn't be in this mess.

Also, it was unreasonable of his uncle to expect him to copy so much text in a foreign language in one night. But even so, Percy needs to work harder on curbing his need for coffee.

"Then came the smash, and she stayed on to nurse her lover, while brother Joseph, finding himself pretty snug, stayed on too."

Oh, so he's just hanging around leeching off people, huh? Exactly as I suspected! This is just the beginning. Clearly, he's been a wrong'un all along and I will be vindicated.

"But to-day must be a day of inquiries.” “My practice—” I began. “Oh, if you find your own cases more interesting than mine—” said Holmes, with some asperity.

First of all, Watson does have a job, Holmes. I get that you want to play with him, but he does have responsibilities. You really shouldn't be bitchy about that.

Second, if Watson actually cares enough about his patients to ditch you, that would be the first time ever.

“I was going to say that my practice could get along very well for a day or two, since it is the slackest time in the year.”

See. No problem at all. Why would Watson ever do his actual job when he could be running around with Holmes? What a preposterous idea!

"...there is Lord Holdhurst.” “Lord Holdhurst!” “Well, it is just conceivable that a statesman might find himself in a position where he was not sorry to have such a document accidentally destroyed.” “Not a statesman with the honorable record of Lord Holdhurst?”

Oh Watson, my sweet summer child. Out there believing in unicorns and fairies and honourable politicians.

I discounted him because honestly, a political plot involving the politician uncle and corruption seemed too spy thriller. Also, the time frame of everything being nine weeks ago, I think discounts a political motive because if there were spy games going on, it would be far too late to do anything about it. Of course, it might be the case. These stories have surprised me a few times so far.

“£10 reward. The number of the cab which dropped a fare at or about the door of the Foreign Office in Charles Street at quarter to ten in the evening of May 23d. Apply 221b, Baker Street.”

The Bank of England inflation calculator tells me that's equivalent to approximately £1000 today, which is a pretty impressive reward for a little bit of information. Honestly, I'd expect people to be climbing out of the woodwork to say they saw Queen Victoria herself driving the cab and dropping off Jack the Ripper.

"Why yes, Mr Holmes, I saw a man with a long white beard and carrying a large sack. No, it was right odd, y'see: he didn't go in through the door. He climbed up on' roof and went down the chimney, that he did."

"And then, of course, there is the bell—which is the most distinctive feature of the case. Why should the bell ring?"

This is what I'm most interested in. What is up with that bell?

He sank back into the state of intense and silent thought from which he had emerged; but it seemed to me, accustomed as I was to his every mood, that some new possibility had dawned suddenly upon him.

Tell me! Tell me! I need to know. The bell is plaguing me.

a small, foxy man with a sharp but by no means amiable expression.

So Lestrade is a ferret and Forbes is a fox. Must all police officers be described as animals? This appears to be a pattern.

“You are ready enough to use all the information that the police can lay at your disposal, and then you try to finish the case yourself and bring discredit on them.” “On the contrary,” said Holmes, “out of my last fifty-three cases my name has only appeared in four, and the police have had all the credit in forty-nine. I don't blame you for not knowing this, for you are young and inexperienced, but if you wish to get on in your new duties you will work with me and not against me.” “I'd be very glad of a hint or two,” said the detective, changing his manner.

Forbes changes his tune pretty quickly here, so he seems open minded enough. Although it does seem a bit like he doesn't understand the purpose of Holmes. Yes, he's supposed to take all the evidence the police give him and try to solve the case. That's kind of how being a detective works. I get the emphasis here is on 'yourself', but still.

I like this exchange, because we've already seen in the stories that Holmes really doesn't care about the notoriety or the accolades - though he's more than willing to display gifts he's given in his own home - it's entirely the case and helping the people involved that he cares about.

Not sure he really needed to say that 'you are young and inexperienced' bit, though. Seems a tad direct.

“We have set one of our women on to her. Mrs. Tangey drinks, and our woman has been with her twice when she was well on, but she could get nothing out of her.”

OK, I thought it sounded unlikely that there were female police officers in the late 1800s, and it seems like the first female police officer in London was in 1919. But it definitely appears from this that they have women working for them - unless one of them has set his wife on a suspect, which... fair. Fascinating either way.

Also, Mrs Tangey has an alcohol problem, that could be an angle.

“What explanation did she give of having answered the bell when Mr. Phelps rang for the coffee?” “She said that he husband was very tired and she wished to relieve him.”

Alright, so it either was her, or she's involved in some way. Which I think we already suspected, but this clarifies that no one impersonated her without her knowledge, at least.

“Did you point out to her that you and Mr. Phelps, who started at least twenty minutes after he, got home before her?” “She explains that by the difference between a 'bus and a hansom.”

That's fair. Not everyone can afford their own taxi. Check your privilege, Holmes.

Standing on the rug between us, with his slight, tall figure, his sharp features, thoughtful face, and curling hair prematurely tinged with gray, he seemed to represent that not too common type, a nobleman who is in truth noble.

I may have rolled my eyes at this bit. Watson sometimes needs to back off on his earnest belief in the glory of England and its political and social systems. He's so classist it's actually painful at some points. Even if he's saying the type is 'not too common' it just makes me wrinkle my nose.

I also don't like Lord Holdhurst, but that's mainly because I believe hereditary nobility is immoral and also because he is a tory politician. There was never any hope of me liking him. I don't think he murders puppies, but I bet he'd pass legislation saying that murdering puppies is okay in certain circumstances if his old chum wanted to start a puppy murdering business and was a generous donor.

"I fear that the incident must have a very prejudicial effect upon his career.”

Yeah, that I do agree with.

“But if the document is found?” “Ah, that, of course, would be different.”

This, I do not agree with. Not after nine weeks, anyway. If it had been a couple of hours and the document was found to have fallen down the gap between the desk and the wall then he could probably just be given extra training and not allowed to touch confidential documentation without supervision for a few years. But it's been nine weeks. That treaty is lost. Even if it's returned, he still lost it for nine weeks.

“Did you ever mention to any one that it was your intention to give any one the treaty to be copied?” “Never.” “You are certain of that?” “Absolutely.”

OK. That cuts off that line of thinking, as Watson's insistence on him looking 'noble' clearly means we're supposed to believe him. But we already knew it wasn't him.

Because it's Joseph Harrison.

“If the treaty had reached, let us say, the French or Russian Foreign Office, you would expect to hear of it?” “I should,” said Lord Holdhurst, with a wry face.

Like I say, any political motivations would have been thoroughly completed by now, before Holmes was even called upon, so that's not likely.

“Of course, it is a possible supposition that the thief has had a sudden illness—” “An attack of brain-fever, for example?”

Given he called Holmes in, I sincerely doubt Percy's involved. Again, if this weren't a Sherlock Holmes story, there's a slim possibility it could be that his brain fever cause amnesia meaning that he doesn't remember taking the treaty and causing the whole problem, but that doesn't seem like a likely plot here.

“But he has a struggle to keep up his position. He is far from rich and has many calls. You noticed, of course, that his boots had been re-soled?"

OK so now we give him a motive, when you've all just gone on about how he's a 'fine fellow'? Are Lord Holdsworth's money problems going to be relevant to the plot? Maybe. We've heard nothing of Percy having any cousins, so as it stands he might be his uncle's heir. Not sure how that would lead to the treaty being stolen, but we'll bear it in mind.

Ah, and then Watson is racist again. Native Americans this time. These stories are really trying to spread the racism around, aren't they. This whole section is strange though, because it's about how Watson can't read Holmes' face, when multiple times (in this very story) he's said how he knows Holmes so well that he can instantly tell from his face what Holmes is thinking.

“God bless you for saying that!” cried Miss Harrison. “If we keep our courage and our patience the truth must come out.”

She and Watson should get together and have optimist meetings.

Although, it's definitely your brother, Miss Harrison. I don't know how, but it is. It's got to be. We're running out of suspects. Mrs Tangey seems like she might be involved, but I doubt she's the mastermind behind events.

Maybe Joseph just bribed her into trying to discredit Percy, she saw the paper and thought 'well this looks important' and took it not really knowing what it was.

But that doesn't explain the bell. Unless it's because she was drunk and she stumbled and grabbed it. Or she didn't really want to be doing it, so she pulled it in a weird attempt to get caught. Or she let Harrison in and then saw him stealing something and pulled the bell, only to be threatened if she said anything.

“Yes, we have had an adventure during the night, and one which might have proved to be a serious one.” His expression grew very grave as he spoke, and a look of something akin to fear sprang up in his eyes. “Do you know,” said he, “that I begin to believe that I am the unconscious centre of some monstrous conspiracy, and that my life is aimed at as well as my honor?”

He's probably right to be worried - maybe not for his life, but I'm pretty sure this entirely thing is aimed at him, not the treaty. But at the same time, this does not sound like the thinking of a mentally healthy person.

"A man was crouching at the window."

No. No, you see it could be him. Of course you're going to want to make it seem like it was someone from outside forcing their way in. To keep the suspicion off the people who live in the house. It has to be him. Has to be.

Did he have a knife, or was it just something that looked like a knife... like...

uh...

The thing he used to unlock the window?

"As it was, I rang the bell and roused the house. It took me some little time, for the bell rings in the kitchen and the servants all sleep upstairs. I shouted, however, and that brought Joseph down, and he roused the others."

Oh oh... convenient, being the first person on the scene, huh? Was that because you weren't in bed asleep at all? Mr Joseph Harrison?

(If I am by some miracle right about this, it will be entirely undeserved as literally the only reason I decided it was him is because he seemed too happy and his sister is getting married)

"There's a place, however, on the wooden fence which skirts the road which shows signs, they tell me, as if some one had got over, and had snapped the top of the rail in doing so."

Okay... well... well... that doesn't really fit with my theory at all, but maybe it's a coincidence. People climb over fences all the time. Maybe it happened ages ago. I bet they don't check the fences every day. Totally not a sign I'm wrong.

“Oh, yes, I should like a little sunshine. Joseph will come, too.”

Why?

No, seriously. Why? Percy says Joseph will come, but not his fiancee? That's weird. Is it because Joseph is stronger if Percy needs to be carried back?

"I should have thought those larger windows of the drawing-room and dining-room would have had more attractions for him.” “They are more visible from the road,” suggested Mr. Joseph Harrison.

And right here we have the classic Columbo moment. I know Sherlock Holmes came first, no need to send me angry messages. But this is something that happens in Every. Single. Columbo. It's part of his method, it's kind of his whole method. He makes a comment about 'I wonder why the murderer didn't do x' to the person he (and the audience) knows is the murderer and the villain, in an attempt to cover their own tracks, immediately presents an explanation.

“Do you think that was done last night? It looks rather old, does it not?” “Well, possibly so.”

Aw shucks, is Holmes not falling for your clever ruse? What a pity!

“Miss Harrison,” said Holmes, speaking with the utmost intensity of manner, “you must stay where you are all day. Let nothing prevent you from staying where you are all day. It is of the utmost importance.” “Certainly, if you wish it, Mr. Holmes,” said the girl in astonishment.

Not the weirdest thing Holmes has ever asked a person to do - still remember Watson pretzeling himself behind the headboard that one time - but still kinda weird. I hope she has some sort of enrichment in her enclosure. Tell me she has a bookcase at least.

“Why do you sit moping there, Annie?” cried her brother. “Come out into the sunshine!”

Look! LOOK! He's trying to get her out of the room. He hid the treaty in the room and now he's trying to get it back but he can't! All aboard the Joseph Harrison train, next stop: Vindication.

Got to assume that even though Joseph wasn't present when Holmes was speaking to Anne, or when he was speaking to Percy, he will be aware that Percy is not in the house. But he'll only be able to break into the room by the window again, so I guess that is the plan. To catch him red-handed.

[bas-rouge]

I'm finally starting to work on my final research paper which, yippie, but also, wow, this is going to be so much work,

[riddlerosehearts]

list of acd canon sherlock holmes things i absolutely love

(and am going to mostly put under a readmore because i made most of this list while rereading the entire canon so it is very long! listen i just think sherlock holmes is the best character ever and i need to share my love for him--)

immediately upon being introduced to watson he grabs him by the sleeve, starts excitedly showing off his bloodstain testing experiment, and claps his hands “looking as delighted as a child with a new toy”. once he finishes, his eyes glitter and he puts his hand on his heart and bows “as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by his imagination”.

watson: “i object to rows because my nerves are shaken”

holmes: “do you include violin playing in your category of rows?” he asked, anxiously

he’s noted to be extraordinarily knowledgeable and zealous in his studies, and yet on the same page it’s stated that he doesn’t know the earth travels around the sun and once watson tells him about it he immediately decides to forget about it because it’s not relevant to his work. this is where the famous “brain attic” monologue comes in.

watson writes this list about him and then throws it into the fire in despair:

has a habit of laughing in a way that’s described as bursting into an “explosion” or “roar” of laughter

frequently does this at crime scenes:

enlists a gang of street orphans to help him on his cases, pays them for their work, and generally treats them as equals but also playfully talks to them like a general to his soldiers

plays the violin for watson to help him get to sleep

is incredibly knowledgable on anything from different types of tobacco, to the ways one's trade can influence the form of their hands, to medieval pottery and stradivarus violins. and yet, i reiterate, does not know the earth revolves around the sun.

has a tendency of waxing poetic about the meaningless of existence, particularly when he’s bored from not having any cases to work on

once said about a dog “i would rather have toby’s help than that of the whole detective force of london”

used the word “doggy” when speaking to toby

once told watson “i don’t wish to be theatrical” despite all evidence to the contrary

disguises himself as an old man just to play a prank on watson

watson: “i think i had better go”

holmes: “not at all, doctor. stay where you are. i am lost without my boswell.”

is known to wiggle in his chair when he gets excited about a case

discovers that a man has tricked his own stepdaughter into a fake marriage so he can keep her at home and control her life and inheritance. acknowledges that said man hasn’t done anything illegal but still tells him “there never was a man who deserved punishment more” and that he ought to get whipped for what he did, and then goes to actually get his hunting crop, causing the man to run out the door at top speed

let a criminal go free because it turned out the man he murdered was trying to force said criminal’s daughter into an unwanted marriage

was suddenly made to participate in the wedding of someone he was tracking for a case, came home and laughed about it for several minutes, exclaimed “well, really!”, laughed for several more minutes, and only then did he actually tell watson what happened

responds to the king of bohemia insulting irene adler and saying she’s not on his level by saying coldly: “from what i have seen of the lady, she seems indeed to be on a very different level to your majesty”, which is basically him saying “actually she’s way better than you, so fuck off”

refused to shake said king’s hand

built a pillow fort in a client’s house so he could think better

let a poor jewel thief go because he cried, because it was christmas and therefore it was the season of forgiveness, and because the case was really easy anyway so it’s not his fault if the police are too stupid to solve it themselves

always reassures clients that they can trust him and watson and speak freely around them

is willing to waive his fee for clients who can’t afford to pay him, because according to him his profession is its own reward

this entire scene from speckled band when he gets confronted by his client’s abusive stepfather:

this nice little example of the gentleness he often displays with his clients:

the adventure of the copper beeches. just, all of it. a woman he doesn’t know comes to holmes for advice about a potential job she’s interviewed for and they both agree it sounds incredibly sketchy, she says she’s gonna take it anyway because she needs the money, and he’s like “well i wouldn’t want any sister of mine doing something like this but FINE i guess, just please write to us and let us know if you’re okay and if anything bad happens we’ll drop everything and come help you immediately”, and then the job does in fact turn out to be super sketchy and they drop everything and get on a train as soon as she writes to them

sometimes spends several hours out on walks through the park or the town with watson just relaxing and talking with him for the sake of it, despite watson frequently noting that holmes doesn’t have much appreciation for nature

“we have had the good fortune to bring peace to many troubled souls. i trust that we may do the same for you,” he says “in his easy, genial way” to a potential client who’s clearly very upset and sleep-deprived

is completely wrong about a particular case and asks watson to remind him of that case next time he gets overconfident

is noted by watson to be very neat and methodical in his methods and way of dress, while simultaneously being one of the messiest people ever who keeps his tobacco inside a persian slipper and his unopened letters held up by a knife in the center of his mantelpiece, keeps tons of criminal relics which apparently somehow end up in the butter dish sometimes, and keeps countless stacks of papers and documents all over the place

tells watson anecdotes about his past just to avoid cleaning up said documents

deliberately knocks over a table, shattering a glass fruit bowl which then sends oranges rolling all over the room, and then blames it on watson and runs away

says snarky things like “when gregson or lestrade are out of their depth–which, by the way, is their normal state” and “you’ve done very well, watson! it’s too bad you’ve missed everything of importance”

laughs when watson suggests he’s being modest about his abilities

picked up a rose and got all sappy and poetic about it

more specifically, picked up a rose and said that religion can be a science which involves a lot of careful deduction, and that flowers are a source of hope and proof of the goodness of god due to the fact that they aren’t a necessary part of life but are still so beautiful anyway

recovered an incredibly valuable government treaty for a client and had it served to him on a platter at breakfast because, in his own words, he “never can resist a touch of the dramatic”

faked his death and then revealed to watson that he was still alive in a manner that even he admitted was unnecessarily dramatic

had a full-scale wax model of himself created and used it to fool his enemies

made a diagram out of breadcrumbs to explain something to watson

broke into a blackmailer’s house for a case because he believed it to be morally justifiable, and admitted that he always thought he might make a good criminal

held watson’s hand while they were burgling said house together

twice

allowed said blackmailer to be murdered in front of him by one of his victims and then refused to take the case when asked because he just hated the guy that much

“flushed up with pleasure” when watson complimented him

asked watson to sell his medical practice and move back into 221b with him after the death of his wife. and then secretly gave a relative of his a ton of money to buy watson’s medical practice at the highest price watson would ask for, just so they could live together again

was nearly brought to tears by lestrade saying he was proud of him

let a dog lead him around on a case, multiple times in different stories

was very gentle with a client who he knew to be the victim of an abusive marriage and allowed the man who killed her husband to go free out of sympathy for their situation

noticed watson looking sad and touching his war wound and tried to cheer him up by echoing his thoughts and providing a deduction of how he knew what he was thinking

mentioned watson’s sparkling eyes in said deduction

talked about nothing but violins and his favorite violinist for an hour while he and watson had lunch together

likes going to classical music concerts and getting lost in the music

does scrapbooking

chuckles and rubs his hands together when he’s happy

this:

takes getting called "the devil himself" as a compliment

let a killer go because he had only killed in retaliation for the unjust murder of his lover, and holmes felt that he might’ve done the same if someone were to kill the woman he loved

on a completely unrelated note tells a guy who shoots watson “if you had killed watson you would not have got out of this room alive”

also reacted like this when watson got shot:

went undercover to supposedly give a guy secret government intelligence documents, and then gave him a book about bees instead

frequently disguised himself either for cases or just to fool watson and was noted to be a great actor

once disguised himself as an old woman with a parasol

tried the best he could to talk a young woman out of marrying a man who had a history of “collecting” women for sport and destroying their lives, and admitted to watson that he thought of her as he would think of his own daughter

was prone to “imp-like moods”

sent watson a message to come over at once ("if convenient--if inconvenient come all the same") just so he could infodump to him about dogs

wasn’t surprised that a dog died of grief shortly after its owner’s death, because of “the beautiful, faithful nature of dogs”

listened with great sympathy to a depressed woman who wanted to tell him her tragic story, picked up on hints that she was planning to commit suicide, talked her out of it by convincing her that her life does have value and then called her brave for choosing to live

got lost in thought looking out the window at the publicly funded elementary schools and randomly went on about how he believes they and the children who attend them are beacons of a brighter future

made hot cocoa for watson

shook hands with a baby

retired to the countryside to live on a farm and become a beekeeper.

[swamp-adder]

Sometimes I've seen the observation made that Moriarty has grey eyes in canon as another deliberate parallel to Holmes, and I just wanted to point out that...... actually both Moriarty and Mycroft were described in canon as having grey eyes before Sherlock was! Holmes, as far as I can tell, was only mentioned as having grey eyes for the first time in HOUN. In SIGN he's actually described as having dark eyes -- admittedly while in disguise, but I can't imagine how he could have changed his eye color. (I guess he could have dark grey eyes, though the SIGN reference doesn't specify and I usually take "dark eyes" to mean dark brown.)

Grey eyes are also just really common in the canon, I counted like 19 different characters who have them. I think back then they sometimes used the word "grey" to describe an eye color that we would more often call a type of blue or greyish-blue. So it's entirely possible that ACD just happened to give those three characters the same eye color purely by coincidence lol.

[gregorovitch-adler]

My thoughts about The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes:

Let's start by summarising the movie -

No crime-solving happens in the first 34 minutes. The first act is all about Holmes and Watson's dynamic, exploration of the nature of their relationship with each other, etc. If you're the type of person who only watches/reads Sherlock Holmes for the cases, you'd believe this portion is skippable. Only the blink-and-miss detail about the "Midgets' case" is important as far as Holmes' detective work is concerned.

However, if you think exploring Holmes and Watson's interpersonal relationship and their casework are both equally important, like I do, the first act is GOLD. Most of the Tumblr gifs about this movie are from the first 30-35 mins lol.

1.) Holmes enters and they bicker like an old, married couple.

H: Oh, come now, Watson, you must admit that you have a tendency to overromanticize. You have taken my simple exercises in logic and embellished them, embroidered them, exaggerated them ---

W: I deny the accusation.

H: You have described me as six-footfour, whereas I am barely six-footone.

W: A bit of poetic license.

Not only is this whole scene just delightful in general but the theory about Watson being an unreliable narrator in ACD canon is actually being supported throughout the movie, starting right here.

--

W:It's those little touches that make you colorful...

H: Lurid is more like it. You have painted me as a hopeless dope addict - just because I occasionally take a five per cent solution of cocaine.

W: A seven per cent solution.

H: Five per cent. Don't you think I'm aware you've been diluting it behind my back?

This exchange was lovely. Way to slip in their closeness through a few words.

2.) Watson doesn't think it's odd to barge right in when Holmes is completely naked and taking a bath?

Also, why the hell does Holmes bathe with his bedroom door wide open?

And what's that thing he's taking a bath in called? Does anyone know about this stuff? Was this thing common in that timeline? It doesn't seem to fit a grown man like Holmes.

I have so many questions and I'm speechless at the same time. I'll just drop this here:

3.) Then Watson persuades Holmes to go to The Swan Lake ballet.

Watson enjoys that ballet, a little too much at that, mostly because he's staring at all the women on stage. (We'll get back to this later.)

Holmes on the other hand has dozed off. All he can admire about the most beautiful dancer, Petrova, is her strong arches. Which is... 🏳‍🌈

Then that whole scene about Nicholai and Petrova and Holmes in the dressing room. XD

Petrova offers a Stradivarius violin to Holmes in exchange for sleeping with her for a week, so that her child would be beautiful like her and brilliant like Holmes.

Holmes gets out of the situation by lying to both of them; saying he's in a relationship with Watson.

Honestly, that whole bit. Just look at the lines:

N: She has been dancing since she was three years old, and after all, she is now thirty-eight.

H: (gallantly) I must say she doesn't look thirty-eight.

N: That is because she is forty-six.

And:

Nicholai: (about Tolstoy) Too old --- Then we considered the philosopher, Nietzsche --

H: Absolutely first-rate mind ---

N: Too German --

Etc. They're all so funny. This whole scene is something else.

In fairness to Holmes, he did try to get himself out of the situation by lying about having hemophilia in his family, or saying that he's unromantic because he's English, etc but Petrova was having none of it.

Watson coming into the room all of a sudden gives so much clarity and calmness to Holmes. He just knows what to say to help himself because of Watson.

This unforgettable exchange:

N: You mean, you and Dr. Watson - He is your glass of tea?

H: If you want to be picturesque about it.

On a side note, I absolutely loved Nicholai's face journey throughout both scenes - in the dressing room, stuck in the middle of Holmes and Petrova's awkwardness, and later on when he asks about the alleged Holmes-Watson romance to Watson after having spread the rumour in the whole room.

I just loved his reactions a lot.

According to this movie-

Caprice of Mother Nature = Gay.

Half-and-half = Bisexual.

Watson comes to know about the rumour, after having had the time of his life with both men and women in the ballroom. Watson is pissed off, he goes home and confronts about the whole thing to Holmes.

They have a row at Baker Street, in which Watson is being extremely heteronormative again. Thinking too much about his reputation without stopping to question his own feelings and his weird fixation on Holmes' love life.

There's that famous line again:

W: Holmes, let me ask you a question. I hope I'm not being presumptuous -but there have been women in your life?

H: The answer is yes -- you're being presumptuous. Good night.

Awesome.

This marks the end of Act I.

The existence of these 33 minutes of the movie is proof that the writing team in this adaptation knows that exploring Holmes and Watson's characters and what they mean to each other is as important as Holmes' casework. Billy Wilder takes this seriously, even though there are some jokes here and there about it.

The whole of Act I is filled with raising questions about Holmes and Watson's preferences, etc. Does Holmes feel love or is he just a machine? Does Holmes feel love for Watson? Does Watson know about Holmes' feelings for him? Does Watson feel the same way about Holmes?

In my opinion, all the answers to the personal questions about Holmes are as clear as a day. What's really questionable is whether Watson knows and/or feels the same way about Holmes or not. Different viewers might draw different conclusions/inferences after watching this movie.

After this, the movie takes a turn because "Gabrielle" enters the picture, and the actual crime-solving begins from here. The tone becomes a bit more serious in this act.

A young woman, completely wet and in shock enters 221 B. Watson has to pay for her fare to the cabbie before he and Holmes take her upstairs to take care of her.

She can't remember anything at first, then from her wedding ring, Holmes gets to know her name: Gabrielle Valladon. Her husband's name is Emile Valladon.

She appears to have temporary amnesia because of getting hit on the forehead and almost drowning in the Thames.

She reveals info about herself that she's from Belgium, her husband was here in London for a job, they used to write to each other, and after some time, the letters from her husband stopped coming. She'd gone to the London police first after coming to this city. She says the police had advised her to consult Sherlock Holmes.

Now, this should make the viewer skeptical of her. Scotland Yard does consult Sherlock Holmes when they need him, but they aren't going to let him have the whole case if there's a situation like this.

Besides, that woman ending up at Baker Street specifically seems to be planned, anyway. Also, there's always this man who keeps waiting for her or someone else's signals on the outside.

I know what we see on screen comes from Watson's drafts on loose pages, but this movie's narration seems to be Third Person Omniscient POV to me. Where the viewer is privy to more information as compared to the characters.

The three of them keep looking for her husband's whereabouts, and she pretends to be helpless, needy, and fragile (to stroke the ego of the men around her, I believe. I mean that could be one of the reasons...) with temporary amnesia throughout most of the movie. Holmes and Watson don't suspect a thing about her as they keep working for her and she keeps sending cryptic messages to the "Trappists" (German government) with her parasol.

The thing I love about this act:

Ilse von Hofmannsthal aka Gabrielle Valladon is actually a competent character who happens to be a woman. We can see something shady is going on with her even though we don't know her real name, but one of the most brilliant people on the planet doesn't suspect anything. He thinks she's just a woman looking for her husband's whereabouts. He thinks her back story is real.

He keeps on thinking that until Mycroft basically tells him in the third act which is why we're able to see for ourselves that Ilse was genuinely able to outsmart Holmes. We don't have to be told by the narrative voice about Ilse's strengths (*cough* unlike BBC Sherlock and a lot of female characters written by Steven Moffat *cough*).

I, for one, felt respectful of Ilse or "Gabrielle" for real. It was quite refreshing to me after having watched some modern Holmes adaptations.

Holmes, Watson, and "Gabrielle" go looking for the cause of Emile Valladon's death after they've found his coffin in the graveyard, in the guise of having a picnic. Holmes and "Gabrielle" pretend to be a married couple - Mrs and Mr Ashdown, and Watson is their valet. The scenes after this point are delightful mainly because of Watson's reactions (which could be read as his jealousy over Holmes, too).

Also, me when Holmes calls Watson 'John' in an archaic Holmes adaptation:

Because of his sort of stupidity, Holmes takes Ilse, a German spy, right in front of the submersible (which he thinks is a mechanical 'monster' that lives underwater) in a boat, along with Watson.

Ilse was trying to grab as much information as she could about that secret project because she was working for her country. Who knew someone would show her the live version of that model so readily (albeit unknowingly)? :P

The three of them are obviously unable to find anything about Emile Valladon, so they go back to the inn room they're staying in.

That's when one of Mycroft's men comes to pick Holmes up and take him to his elder brother. Here's when the third act begins, I think.

Mycroft had warned Sherlock not to pursue "Gabrielle's" case any further during the second act. But Sherlock didn't listen, because a.) he's an empathetic man, and b.) Mycroft can't just order him to do or drop something just because. Sherlock is not a child anymore.

I know Mycroft was only trying to protect Sherlock, and that he couldn't have told him the real reason to stop him at that time, but still.

Either way, months of planning and testing the submersible have gone to waste because Holmes did not suspect at any point that his client, "Gabrielle Valladon" might have just been lying to him since the start. Can't blame Holmes for that. Ilse was meticulous.

Mycroft shows the model to the queen and she strongly disapproves of the model and curses it a lot. Personally, this seemed to be a shitty decision on her part, and I felt so frustrated and annoyed at her in that scene. She didn't even care to hear about its features. She just rejected it on the spot! :(

Mycroft decides to 'give the submarine' to the German government. It's implied that the Trappists were drowned along with the submarine itself in the deep waters. (That's what I gathered from that scene - correct me if my interpretation was wrong).

In conclusion, while Ilse is genuinely able to outsmart Holmes (unlike some writers forcing us to believe it in their adaptation because they told us so), the German government isn't able to go anywhere with the info they've gathered through Ilse because of Mycroft's last move. Moreover, the English government would have sent her to jail, if Sherlock hadn't suggested Mycroft send her back to her own country.

So, in the end, it's a lose-lose situation for all of them.

1.) Sherlock Holmes didn't know that Ilse was faking her name and her whole identity for a long time, so he unknowingly helped a German spy, thinking he was just helping an ordinary client. Ilse almost had him and the viewers could see for themselves that she'd outsmarted him.

2.) Even after Ilse von Hofmannsthal has got what she wanted for her government, as a spy, they aren't able to make use of that info because of Mycroft. And she has to get out of England anyway.

3.) Mycroft Holmes also fails, to some extent, because ages of effort to plan the submersible, hide the plans, and test the model in secret - all of it has gone to waste. The queen doesn't even want to hear him out in the end.

But even if it was a lose-lose situation, the battle was damn intriguing because of the high intellect on both sides - Holmes brothers and Ilse.

Months later, Holmes receives a letter from Mycroft about Ilse's arrest and execution by the Japanese government. Reading that, he's so moved that he can't even finish his breakfast. He gets up and asks Watson for his cocaine supply. Watson tells him, and then Holmes grabs the bag and goes to his room. Holmes shuts himself in, Watson gets up from the breakfast table too, sits beside the fireplace, and begins to write something on a piece of paper. Probably about the case, but for nobody to see.

End of Act III and the movie.

--

I loved the background score of this movie. It's quite touching and refreshing to listen to.

A lot of dialogue exchanges in the movie are so deep if you stop to think about them. It's unbelievable how much writers can convey through a few words. Some of them are quite funny too - particularly from Act I. There's a thin line between being funny and mocking, and TPLOSH didn't cross that. It was nice.

I love this portrayal of Sherlock Holmes. It's clear how deeply they've understood him from the original canon. Pretends to be dismissive and closed off but actually cares about everyone way too much.

I also liked Mycroft in this movie, even if he didn't have much screen time.

About Ilse von Hofmannsthal - I loved her. Seriously, this is how you write female characters, modern writers! People say ASIB is a direct adaptation of TPLOSH, which is true, but I'd prefer TPLOSH over that episode any day, and one of the reasons is the way the female lead has been written in the former. Not exactly a fan of how Moffat wrote her in his adaptation. He did her dirty, I'd say.

Characters like Ilse make me think that the writing team of this movie knew what feminism is. I can't say the same for the modern Holmes adaptation that has been heavily inspired by TPLOSH.

I loved the plot of this movie too. The case in itself was also pretty interesting and kept me hooked throughout. Even if it wasn't exactly resolved finally, and the ending was melancholic.

I wasn't expecting the movie to be this good. Which is why it took me so long to sit down and watch it.

I only have one complaint about this movie - Watson's characterisation.

I mean, Watson wasn't half as bad as I'd expected (I thought he was going to be horrible, based on the snippets of the movie I'd seen before), but still. I like how he doesn't fall into the bumbling idiot stereotype. As far as the casework is concerned, Watson is also quite competent and observant in his own right. He can handle the medical work too.

I've got problems with his heteronormativity, and the fact that when it comes to deducing what lies in Holmes' heart, he's dumb as bricks. It's annoying. Like, it's one thing if he doesn't feel the same way about Holmes, but he doesn't have to be so weird and homophobic about it. Also, I think Holmes should've told him about the truth related to Ilse and the 'mechanical monster'. I've had enough of 'keeping Watson in the dark for his own good', damn it! He should be more in the knowledge.

Watson's character was the only element in the movie that didn't receive justice from the writer. As a Watson-centric fan, I need this to stop happening in future Holmes adaptations. People should see more from his POV too, and stop to actually see where he's coming from, and properly understand his character in the next show/movie/whatever they make.

What I gathered from the movie about the characters and their interpersonal relationships-

Holmes is in love with Watson but doesn't admit it... for valid reasons this time. (side eyes at Watson's homophobia).

Watson is deeply attached to Holmes but sees him as a close friend. I wish he felt the same way about Holmes in this movie, but alas! Though if he doesn't feel that way about Holmes, why the hell does he seem so jealous of Ilse in Acts II and III? This is beyond me.

I think what they've tried to show is that Watson is too close-minded to confront his possibly repressed feelings for Holmes, deep within his heart? Maybe. It could very well be my wishful thinking lol.

But as far as Holmes' feelings for Watson are concerned, it's not even wishful thinking. It's just... right there. I wish the subtext about Holmes' pining were spelled out. I know why it couldn't (the Doyle estate was being a pain in the ass at that time), but still. It's quite clear what they wanted to write as far as Holmes' emotional side was concerned, but they dropped it from the scripts after Act I and decided to focus on the case instead.

Holmes is dismissive of 'Gabrielle' at first, but he becomes sympathetic for her after some time. He reaches out to help her with her situation, and as the plot moves forward, he grows affectionate for Gabrielle/Ilse, which is why he doesn't hold a grudge against her when he realises he's been outsmarted by this woman (even though his ego was mildly hurt for a while).

The way they maintained a balance between the plot and the characters is commendable. I love seeing well-written women in fiction and this movie showed me that.

I was surprised to see how good this movie turned out to be, as compared to my preconceived opinions. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes has officially become my comfort movie now. Miles ahead of BBC Sherlock, in my opinion.

Thanks to my discussions with @jamielovesjam in a previous post about this movie lol. I wouldn't have wanted to watch the movie if not for the long talk I had with them. Also tagging @gaypiningshit and @helloliriels for further discussion.

End of my unnecessarily long rambling.

[grison-in-space]

Question about dog breeding/breeds, if you’re ok with answering:

I’m a would-be dog owner, never had one before, and I really want to get a companion dog from a breeder/group that is ethical and aims to produce healthy litters, but… I also understand that healthy litter =/= healthy gene pool, and it would be great to support breeding efforts that promote the welfare of the breed as a whole rather than the specific animals they sell. How the HECK do I identify breeders that promote ethical breeding for both healthy animals and population diversity? (I live in Australia, not sure if that makes this harder to answer or not)

(I mean ideally I’d adopt a rescue but there are pros and cons to that and, as a newbie, I’m not going to take on an animal I can’t adequately care for. And also I can never find rescue dogs of the breeds that work for my lifestyle)

So I don't know Australia as well as some other folks (@farm-paws?), but I do know that the best way to figure this out is to find out where breeders are talking to one another and listen to the things they say. The second best thing to do is to just ask breeders producing dogs you like: how do you breed with an eye towards producing the dogs you want, and how do you breed with an eye towards making the whole breed better?

The thing about this question is that there's lots of ways to answer it, but how a breeder answers that question given your breed's context will help you figure out how much they're thinking about each. And it does mean thinking very clearly about things you value. Any person trying to achieve a goal with limited resources, which describes many passionate breeders, is going to have to make trade offs based on resource limits. Increase the genetic diversity of the population as a whole, or win big at a given sport?

Let me get you some examples under the cut.

Here are a couple of examples of what I think of as pretty nice kennels I would be happy to consider approaching for a dog, if they bred dogs of a type I currently want to own and I wanted another dog. (Some do, some don't, and I won't have space in the inn for several years yet anyway.) They are unfortunately American--without knowing your breed of choice it's hard to figure out how to navigate the Australian scene--but most of the tips should carry over okay. Because Dog Culture can sometimes be really black and white and mistake cultural markers for meaningful ethical distinctions, I'm going to try and share a wide range of perspectives, orientations, and viewpoints here from breeders who think about long term breed improvement.

Wayout ACDs: This post on the importance of collecting and storing semen from older, sometimes long dead dogs is a great green flag that this breeder thinks deeply about the long term future of the whole population--especially given her emphasis on these older dogs who might not have contributed heavily to the gene pool in their younger, living days. Collected semen from old dogs who aren't closely related to younger dogs can be a great way to help broaden and revitalize a larger population.

Border City Bullies, coming from a breed with a relatively low incidence of health testing and some big cultural variations, has a ton of resources available on how health testing works, what to do about it, and how to responsibly move forward even if a dog fails a test. The breeder here clearly feels very strongly about teaching and encouraging other American Bully breeders to start monitoring longer term health as a breeding goal and fostering a community of breeders who want to work with each other to make the dogs healthier. I love this approach. Especially when population bottlenecks are not a major problem but health monitoring is, building a better breed community is also a signal of someone who is thinking about their breed over the very long term.

Woodpont Beagles. I really like this breeder as an example of someone who keeps his dogs differently to mine, but who has firm standards for their comfort and care nevertheless. I also admire this breeder's ability to assess two "camps" in his breed that don't communicate much and do his best to take the best from each perspective. Finally I really like the emphasis on the successes and failures of breeders from the past: a good vision for the future often includes a deep knowledge about how we got to the present.

The Functional Dog Collective is probably a good place to check on, even if it's heavily North America based; my understanding/experience is that while there is certainly a lot of disagreement within the broader community of breeders, that's a spot where anyone with an interest in long term breeding for health in particular is going to pop up. The Institute for Canine Biology is another good place to look around for people in your breed of choice who are broadly interested in evidence-based approaches to more healthy breeding, too.

[peccaberry]

Volo but merman AU. His tail would probably be based on a shiny Milotic.

I will give you what you seek but I am incapable of making it anything but a Volorei AU 😂 ACD based so it's an AU of a fanfiction? Sure why not. You come to me that's what you get.

ACD Volorei Merman AU basic outline:

AU takes place in modern day Sinnoh. Both Rei and Akari are there and are in a Queerplantonic relationship.

Akari takes Rei to the lake to celebrate his 19th birthday and while they're having a picnic together Rei sees the flash of a Shiny Milotic tail in the water.

Rei is a fire type trainer but that's an insanely rare find so he pulls out a quick ball anyway and manages to hit it with a well timed backstrike.

He and Akari are beside themselves with excitement until Rei lets the Milotic out and they discover that it's a Merman with the tail of a Milotic.

Rei is freaking out, partly because he didn't believe in mermaids before but also because the merman is insanely cute.

Rei comes to the conclusion that the Milotic DNA was enough for the PokeBall to consider him a Pokemon and allow the capture.

Akari is on the ground laughing partly because the whole thing is so crazy but also because Rei won't stop apologizing to the merman who seems completely unbothered by the whole thing and mostly just curious about the technology. He introduces himself as Volo.

Akari insists on taking a photo of them together and Rei cannot keep his cool with Volo hanging off him.

Rei does his best to keep Volo a secret as he and Akari travel through Sinnoh together and they have a lot of adventures with him. Some people do find out but agree not to tell.

Volo really enjoys learning more about the human world and how things are different from the culture he's used to. Rei buys him shirts to wear and he enjoys experimenting with different outfits. Akari has to scold Rei for spending too much on clothing but Rei can't help it because Volo is just so cute.

Volo is very good at getting into trouble and a lot of adventures start that way.

Volo figures out that flirting with Rei can get him what he wants and it's all over from there.

Volo and Rei fall in love during their adventures together and have to work through the more complicated parts of how confessing their feelings and how dating each other would work. Akari is supportive of Rei dating him and also being her QPP. Volo has no issues with Akari and is happy she is around so much.

Volo and Akari become good friends and enjoy spending time together. She enjoys braiding his hair and showing him human media on her phone when they wind down at the end of the day.

Volo doesn't try to fight god in this AU or anything, it's just a good time. No sad, only happy and adventure. Volo is just a curious and charming weirdo.

Eventually Rei would probably get a house by the lake with Akari and Volo would be able to go between the lake and the house whenever he wanted. The laundry for the amount of towels he uses to dry off before going into the house is probably ridiculous. They'd have an outdoor shower for him to wash all the lake gunk off beforehand too.

This was a fun ask thank you for the prompt 🥺🙏 I love mervolo very much. God help you Rei.

Edit: I had added (and it disappeared because Tumblr I guess??) that Rei offers to release Volo but Volo says he wants to adventure with him so that's why he doesn't just go back to the lake. He is free to leave at any time and chooses not to because he wants the freedom to travel a Pokeball affords him. If he tried to adventure on his own people would freak out because he's a merman.

[maryellencarter]

Letters from Watson (the Sherlock Holmes book-club Substack) started reading the short story "The Stockbroker's Clerk" today, and the titular clerk is a young cockney who uses a fair amount of (Doyle's approximation of) then-current slang, so I wrote up some approximations in the LfW discord (which is a very fun place). @jabbage asked if I was going to put the information on Tumblr for reference, so I guess here it is? Cleaned up a little bit and with help from other people in the discord.

* St Vitus's dance: A disease that makes you twitchy and shaky. It was a general term for conditions like Parkinson's or the twitching that can be a side effect of rheumatic fever.

* Cockney: The technical definition is a Londoner born within the radius where you can hear the bells of St Mary le Bow, "within the sound of Bow Bells" for short. The implication is that Mr Hall Pycroft, our stockbroker's clerk, comes from a lower or working class, and the stereotype would be that he's somewhat irreverent and not very bright, although ACD takes care to give us a little essay about how we should actually consider him hard-working and professional.

* Outré: French for outlandish or surprising. Holmes really likes this word, so we've probably discussed it before.

* Lost my crib: We've heard "crib" as meaning a bank or business before, in The Red-Headed League, when John Clay would "crack a crib". Pycroft is using it to mean job, with an implication that it's what we might now call a cubicle job, done at a desk in narrow indoor quarters.

* Soft Johnnie: A soft touch or soft Johnnie is someone who is easily scammed, often in reference to being an unquestioning mark for a con artist.

* Billet: In this context, a job. StephenHunterUK in the Discord mentioned it's likely from the French word for "ticket".

* Were let in: Were damaged or injured. I'm not sure of the etymology.

* Venezuelan loan: StephenHunterUK pointed out there was a Venezuelan sovereign debt default in 1892. Stockbroker's Clerk was published in March 1893, so it would have been topical at that time, but of course it has to take place not later than 1889, so this reference screws up the chronology even more than it already was. At any rate, the implication is that Mr Pycroft's old employer made a bad investment in Venezuelan securities and had to close down.

* Came a nasty cropper: This can mean anything from falling downstairs to having to shut up shop, but often indicates either death or something similarly final.

* Ripping good: Very good. Slang term Doyle is using to make Mr Pycroft sound less formal, more cockney and enthusiastic, also possibly a bit like a schoolboy.

* The smash: When the old job was ruined and had to close. I usually hear this in reference to investments or stock market crashes.

* On the same lay: Looking for the same type of work. Can also be criminal slang meaning people who work at the same type of crime, such as pickpockets.

* E.C.: StephenHunterUK provided the information that this is the postcode for the "City of London" area -- not the London metro area, but the one-square-mile area in downtown London known as the City, mostly associated with banking and law work. Hall Pycroft is saying that he's not sure how familiar Holmes and Watson are with the City of London area.

* It was my innings: Cricket reference. Means that Mr Pycroft feels he has had a lucky win.

* The screw was a pound a week rise: The pay was a pound a week more than Mr Pycroft was making at his previous job, so £4 a week or roughly £200 a year. You can see that the sketchy pottery company's offer of £500 a year more than doubles what he'd make at the reliable firm Mawson's.

* In diggings: Renting a room.

* A touch of the sheeny about his nose: A "Sheeny" is a derogatory term for an ethnically Jewish person, especially male. Pycroft is saying that Pinner had a somewhat hooked nose. The stereotype is also that Pinner might be either very financially shrewd or a con artist. (I don't know if this phrase made it into the warnings document.)

* A little sporting flutter: A bet.

* The mentions of Brussels (in Belgium, north of France) and San Remo (in Italy, southeast of France) are implying that the Franco-Midland pottery company is a big deal, with offices all across France and spilling out the corners.

* In the swim: In the thick of things.

* Deal chairs: Cheap wooden chairs. Geoharee in the Discord brought up that "deal" here refers to pine wood specifically -- pine is very soft, easily dented and stained, and is a fast-growing tree, so it was used for cheap low-quality furniture that wasn't intended to be long-lasting or durable, the sort of furniture we'd make out of fiberboard these days.

* Very badly stuffed with gold: Pinner has a badly-done gold filling in one tooth.

[miwhotep]

I am still thinking on White Knight especially that how similar Milverton and Whiteley are actually while being on the exact opposite sides on the moral scale. Whiteley is pure good at the start while Milverton is pure evil - that already offers an interesting face-off between the two. But there is more.

Whiteley has a good grasp about people's personalities what he calls "a hunch" - and Milverton is also well-versed in human psychology what he use to analyze his future victims' weak points. However, Whiteley's skill is a passive one: he can tell if people are trustworthy or not, what intentions they hold but he doesn't manipulate them, doesn't use this knowledge in bad ways, he is fully honest despite being a politician. Milverton's skill, on the other hand, is active: he manipulates people all the time through his media power, he search for the people's weaknesses to utilize and use them for his own purposes. When Whiteley looks at people to analyze them, he sees what type of people they are - when Milverton does it, he sees what type of people they can be with his "little help". Whiteley's judgment about Sturridge was right when he chose him to be his bodyguard: Sturridge was truly a good person - but Milverton knew how he could turn his morals upside down to achieve his goals, what could he use to force Sturridge to act like how he wants.

Another point is the impact they can have on people while being commoners in the world where class is everything. Whiteley is a politician and as one, he has an influence on public opinion - what Milverton can change completely with his media power, since as he said...

Whiteley gives hope to people with his speech, Milverton can take it away with how he presents it to those who haven't heard the speech in person. He plants doubt and fear into the people's heart through his news.

They both attempt blackmail. Whiteley has clearly never done it before, only attempted for a good cause... and the first person he blackmails happened to be the King of Blackmail - Milverton found it really amusing as it shown at the end of their discussion. He is also able to see through Whiteley that he is unable to publish those documents - Whiteley is not a person like this.

Other than that, Milverton is only an agent who doesn't care about the people who hired him - so Whiteley's blackmail fell flat. Unlike Milverton's, who blackmailed both Officer Fowler and Sturridge which resulted in the death of Whiteley's family.

Both of them are close to their secretaries and care about them - Whiteley has Marcus and Milverton has Ruskin.

Whiteley being pure good at the start and Milverton claims himself to be pure evil - he tells the story of how the devil tempted the first man to sin - whose name was Adam, just like Whiteley's name. Good Bible reference. (And we got Eve mentioned later as well - the woman who asked for Sherlock's help against Milverton the last time was Lady Eve - like the ACD story, but with this context, we can see that Milverton, like the serpent in the Bible - Sherlock compares Milverton to a snake in the Conan Doyle story - ruins both Adam and Eve.)

Thinking this through, Milverton is like an evil Whiteley... but it's even more interesting to view on the other way around. Whiteley being a good Milverton... Milverton wasn't always evil, he might have been someone like Whiteley once - and like Milverton turned Whiteley to commit a crime with getting him through a trauma first, Milverton might became a villain in a similar way as well - because of a trauma he couldn't deal with.

I really love the game between Whiteley and Milverton, especially when they finally met. I enjoy re-reading White Knight because I keep finding details to pay more attention to. It's my favourite arc.

[shreddedleopard]

for yuumori asks: 1, 13, 21 :)

✨ From Yuumori ask game here

Ahh thank you so much for the ask!! ☺️ (and for creating this wonderful Yuumori themed game too!!)

Oh god, these questions were harder to answer than I expected, once I sat down to think about them 😆 but here goes:

1. Favourite Character (s)

I’d love to say something quirky or unexpected, but honestly it’s a toss up between William and Sherlock for first with Louis close second.

William // I think to take a villainous character from an existing story and write them from a perspective which makes them as relatable and their intentions as understandable as William’s is absolutely brilliant. William is a character who I find more interesting and more wonderful the deeper I delve into him; it feels like there’s constantly a new element of him that makes me go 🤯 and I love this. I also find that I relate to him in certain ways, too. I think he’s very cleverly written so as to have many different facets of his personality which are relatable.

Sherlock // I love how Sherlock retains a lot of his original ACD character traits but also has specific elements which make him feel as though he very much belongs to Yuumori. I think his flaws and vulnerabilities are written honestly and again in a very relatable way, and I find myself also relating to Sherlock but in a different way to William. He’s funny, too; I will always gravitate to characters that make me grin or laugh aloud when reading ☺️

As an aside, I find it difficult to separate both of these characters for first spot because it’s also their relationship and connection which I adore in Yuumori; I feel like amidst a backdrop of drama, life and death situations and change on a grand scale, it encourages us to celebrate the joy of the everyday, specific ways we connect with other people and find things in common.

Louis // I enjoyed Louis’ character in the manga, was drawn in by the soft and gentle aspects of his character brought out by the English VA in the anime, but Ikkei Yamamato’s portrayal of him in Morimyu sealed the deal for me. Louis’ balance between his vulnerable and honest emotions he wears on his sleeve for William mixed with the stoicism and guardedness he strives for the remainder of the time intrigues me no end. He’s a character I’d love to explore more in writing, too, especially post time-skip. I think it’s sometimes overlooked how he, in the end, clung on to his composure and strength where William and Albert crumbled, and how he probably makes an excellent leader, but I think the anime stopping where it does is to blame for this. He’s very much my go-to type of character.

2. Favourite Arc

Wow this is so difficult because I absolutely charged through the manga when part 1 was already complete, so a lot of it blurs into one big mess when I think about it haha. I would maybe have to say The Final Problem arc, as the way suspense was built during this had my heart absolutely racing. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to be a monthly reader not knowing the fate of the characters for months after that fall. The Two Criminals is perhaps a close second, because I thoroughly enjoyed Milverton’s character and almost wanted more of him vs. William/ Sherlock. When Sherlock ate that sandwich and drank that tea like he gave zero shits about Milverton’s little game, it did things to me. I think it was the moment Sherlock’s position as joint top favourite character was cemented 🤣

3. What I’d like to see as another OVA

I mean … I feel like the Durham Date is kinda the ultimate here, right? 😆 I would love to see this animated. But also, the storyline where William is kidnapped in earlier chapters is a favourite. I love how it shows William’s absolute dedication to his goal — he shrugs his mistreatment and injuries off as if they’re nothing, not caring for his own well being providing his plan succeeds. But not only this, his damn acting. I was so worried for him when he was shouting for Louis in the carriage, my heart was in my throat, only for him later to be like 😏 everything went as planned. When I realised he’d played me, the reader, too, I was shaking my fist at him (affectionately 🤣). I would like to see this performance animated, thank you.

This was so much fun, thank you again! 🥰

[stephensmithuk]

The Five Orange Pips

ACD likes a shipwreck, doesn't he?

I will leave discussions about the Ku Klux Klan to those with more knowledge on the subject.

A mendicant is someone who generally takes a vow of poverty and relies on charity to survive - such as a wandering preacher. In Christianity, this was often done in deliberate imitation of the Apostles, who were told to rely on others (and by extension God) for their needs. Mendicants having a luxurious club would be a tad hypocritical.

We have two barques referenced here. To repeat my comment from "The Gloria Scott": a bark - or barque - is a type of sailing ship with three or more masts - the first two masts have square sails, the one at the back had them aligned with the hull. They were fast ships that needed a relatively small crew.

The UK's position on the Gulf Stream may keep the place from getting very cold in winter, but it also leaves us open to big storms.

Pince-nez glasses were very popular in this time period.

The area around Horsham does indeed have pretty clay-ey soil that's good for growing crops.

Horsham is a market and commuter town 31 miles from London.

Cheating at cards was apparently the worst thing a gentleman could do. In Ian Fleming's novels, two of the villains are immediately clearly wrong-uns as they're rich guys who feel the need to cheat.

Being "sent to Coventry" is a British expression for being ostracised. Joseph appears to have sent himself to the West Midlands town.

Pondicherry, now called Puducherry, was in fact a French enclave on the south-eastern coast of India and was not in fact transferred to Indian control until 1954.

"London E." was one of the postal divisions of the city at the time - it remains as the E postcode area, split into 22 districts, including two specially for Natwest and News International. Yep, Murdoch has his own postcode.

PC Cook is rather off his normal beat. H Division covered Whitechapel and had, a few years prior to this story coming out, failed to catch Jack the Ripper.

The Embankment here refers to the Victoria Embankment, a road and pedestrian avenue built by the river as part of a land reclamation project earlier in the century. It had the side effect of permanently ending any hope of Frost Fairs - the river now flows too fast to freeze.

I believe this story takes place pretty much entirely in Baker Street.

Lloyd's refers to Lloyd's of London, a very long running maritime insurance marketplace, who also underwrite a bunch of other insurance policies, including film stars' legs. They keep comprehensive records of ship movements for this purposes.

Gravesend is a town in Kent near what is now the M25 and would be a good place to spot a ship before the Thames Estuary widens out - beyond that, you might easily miss a ship in poor visibility from the few communities beyond it.

The transatlantic telegraph cables were firmly in operation by this point. Their successor cables form the backbone of the modern Internet.

Mail was generally transported on the fastest ships i.e. the ocean liners; so you'd be talking around a week to cross the Atlantic at this point. A sailing ship would be looking at three times as long.

Sliced bread - i.e. bread that came pre-sliced when you bought it - was not a thing until 1928.

Please note that those who wish to post orange pips to the United States today will require a permit from the US Department of Agriculture.

[see-arcane]

You mentioned Penelosa's uglyness, and it reminded me of the fact that Jonathan never calls Mina's face beautiful or pretty, remarks her youth etc. In fact, one time he describes the aftermath on her face later that day. "She was very, very pale—almost ghastly, and so thin that her lips were drawn away, showing her teeth in somewhat of prominence."

Not only did he not feel repulsed, he stayed up the night after, just looking at her sleeping face ("Her lips are curved and her face beams with happiness..." Later-- "How strange it all is. I sat watching Mina’s happy sleep, and came as near to being happy myself as I suppose I shall ever be.") for hours until she woke up and looked at him in the eyes (to make him promise to keep silent).

WARNING: Spoilers for Arthur Conan Doyle's, "The Parasite" and a giant slab of text ahead.

The thing is, even in "The Parasite," we aren't explicitly told that Miss Penelosa is ugly--she's just immediately put in an unflattering light by the narration of the protagonist, Austin Gilroy. His first estimate of her, well before he lets her try mesmerism on him and gets the unpleasant mind control ball rolling, is:

Any one less like my idea of a West Indian could not be imagined. She was a small, frail creature, well over forty, I should say, with a pale, peaky face, and hair of a very light shade of chestnut. Her presence was insignificant and her manner retiring. In any group of ten women she would have been the last whom one would have picked out. Her eyes were perhaps her most remarkable, and also, I am compelled to say, her least pleasant, feature. They were gray in color, — gray with a shade of green, — and their expression struck me as being decidedly furtive. I wonder if furtive is the word, or should I have said fierce? On second thoughts, feline would have expressed it better. A crutch leaning against the wall told me what was painfully evident when she rose: that one of her legs was crippled.

I was worried even before this that Gilroy would have something to throw in about race, as she's written as being from Trinidad--apparently where the party's host, Prof. Wilson's, wife is also from. The only saving grace*** is that apparently neither Gilroy (nor ACD) felt the need to add explicit racial themes to her being ~visually unpleasant~

An unpleasantness that, to Gilroy, seemingly centers only on her being over 40, a little plain, having a bad leg, and cool-ominous eyes. That's it. The horror of it all. (eyes rolling out of my head)

When compared with the kind of descriptions we get for certain male characters in horror literature, ala Edward Hyde's innate rancid vibes, Erik the Opera Ghost's outright decayed-corpse-bad looks, and Dracula just sweating Instant Dread (c) wherever he goes so that it sends everyone into an uneasy panic? It kind of just looks like ACD wrote a character with some shitty opinions about women who don't exist in the Pretty Perfect Maiden demographic on purpose, the better to have a narrative payoff when Penelosa starts making her legitimately creepy puppet master come-ons and acts of increasingly dangerous vengeance.

Doyle invented Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, two of the most forward-minded characters in literature to ever come out of that era. Along with all the extremely varied characters they help and/or cast icy side-eyes at for being the exact type of haughty prick Gilroy is being before Penelosa pulls the rug out from under him.

This is in addition to Penelosa never really being shown such disdain or disregard by any of the other characters. Mrs. Wilson, for the millisecond of screen time she gets, is obviously still a close friend from their history in Trinidad. Prof. Wilson is too enamored with the potential of her gifts when it comes to his own studies to even remember she has any looks to notice. Gilroy's fiancée, Agatha, is likewise thrilled at her talent and the honor of being tapped to demonstrate it at the party and never makes a sour comment about her.

Well before the villainy kicked in, Gilroy is shown to be the only one being an ass (at least internally) about Penelosa's appearance. Although, we do get some choice words from him later as she starts dancing him along to her whims. Such as:

 I am for the moment at the beck and call of this creature with the crutch. I must come when she wills it. I must do as she wills. Worst of all, I must feel as she wills. I loathe her and fear her, yet, while I am under the spell, she can doubtless make me love her.

He really cannot help mentioning the crutch. Calling back specifically to her physical condition, rather than just sitting with the already-terrifying prospect that is 'This stranger has decided they want me as a lover. I am already in love, already in a relationship, but they have such total control over me that they can walk me along like a doll against my will. This stranger can force me to do anything and I cannot stop them.' In classic literature terms, just as the situation with Dracula and Mina was, it's all but setting up a neon sign declaring, This is the beginnings of enslavement. This is violation waiting to happen. If something is not done, this could very well end with rape.

But no! Got to mention she's handicapped first! An over-40-years-old creature of a woman! Icky!

Meanwhile, here comes Mr. Jonathan Harker.

Mr. Gets a Good Grade in Sweet Young Man Wherever He Goes.

Mr. Holiest Love.

Mr. Would Rather Die Than Join the Sexy Vampire Ladies in Eternal Bloody Undead Harem Hijinks in the Castle.

Mr. I Will Fight God and the Devil and Turn My Blade on My Own Friends Before I Let Mina Be Slain, Even For the "Greater Good."

Mr. She Will Not Go into that Unknown and Terrible Land Alone.

Jonathan Harker and any kind of 'othering' are not on speaking terms. Not before, and certainly not after, being willing to send himself to Hell to protect and/or join Mina in undeath as a monster. He's made of unconditional love for his wife, on top of being a reflexively polite and friendly golden retriever of a man as a rule, and, as you said, never refers to Mina's beauty as one of her attractive traits. He reserves that just for points of her character. He makes out with her in front of their friends when she successfully figures out Dracula's escape route using her sexy sexy wits. He can admit when she's looking ghastly from suffering the ill effects of the whole mess, plus Dracula's bullshit. It never dents his love for her any more than his illness spoiled him in her eyes. The Harkers don't play like that.

Jonathan especially would have no shitty ageist or ableist commentary to make about Penelosa and would, I'd think, be one of the few people--and likely one of the first men--to be outright gentlemanly toward her, simply because that's just how he is. This combination of general kindness, his all-encompassing devotion to the One He Loves, and the implied notes throughout Dracula that he can swing wildly between lash-batting winsome damsel-gentleman and burning-eyed robust berserker cryptid powered by love is the kind of thing that would be catnip to plenty of lonely hearts.

And, unfortunately, is the very thing that would get Miss Penelosa to switch gears from dragging along Gilroy as a victim of opportunity and turning towards the Romance Lottery Jackpot that is Mr. Harker. She wouldn't even have to use her mesmerism hooks on him to have him be cordial and engaging! Imagine that! This is the same guy who got Count Dracula running on tangents about himself for whole nights at a time (and likely saved his neck for Far Longer than he'd have gotten away with if he were to get Gilroy about it).

Jonathan is--like Mina--very good at getting people to open up about themselves and their stories. He'd legit be casually charming and friendly Just Because, never registering Penelosa's looks however good bad or plain they are. Up until things took the inevitable Oh Shit turn, he'd really think he was just making another friend, never batting an eye about Penelosa's appearance, period.

(Something something, 'This person I'm attracted to was nice to me! I Have Decided We Are Soulmates and I Am Going to Keep Them.' taken to nightmare extremes.)

((I'm sure Mina will take all of this well. :^) ))

[titconao3]

New tag game! Name nine fictional crushes (option to include photos) 

Summarize it and/or let your followers drag you for your type :) 

Thank you @acydpop for the tag! IDK that i have crushes of the twu wuv kind, but! i've definitely imprinted on some fictional characters harder than others. Here's a selection! Also, i cheat ;-) If you, yes YOU, would like to be tagged, then yes! You're tagged, come and play along !

1/ SPOCK!1!1!1!!! (Star Trek: TOS and the subsequent films only; the constant retconning of the new versions is... not for me, but kink tomato and everything). First saw the original show dubbed on TV as a pre-teen; Spock was me, Spock was aspirational, Spock was who my best self could be. Small me trained in front of a mirror to be able to raise one, and only one, eyebrow. It worked (but i only trained one eyebrow). This was before i knew of fandom and of course slash, and the internet was barely starting; i wouldn't even have heard about it. It may very well still have been the Cold War, or at least the death throes of the USSR. (Kirk/Spock forever!)

2/ Saint Seiya!! Not Seiya himself (lol nope), but otherwise... Max Whump (Hyoga and Scorpio? i MEAN! A quick look-see on Youtube showed me only dubbed versions, too-short versions, or WHAT THE FUCK is this video-game reboot or something??? ANYWAY) Central! Our Heroes keep being Mega-Whumped, but the Power Of Friendship etc etc. And when i say mega-whumped... From Shiryu who keeps blinding himself, to Shun and his many, many issues with self-worth, to that fight i mentioned with Hyoga still crawling forward even as Milo (Scorpio) keeps wounding him... And Ikki and his Tragic Backstory TM and sacrifice for his baby brother. DON'T start me on the gold saints and the ladies, k? (Yeah, i know, misogyny etc)

3/ Methos from Highlander Ooooh boy. He's sarcastic, self-serving, detached - or is he? Is he? (Yes, Methos/Duncan forever. What can i say? i'm basic) First fave in the morally grey area for this list... but not the last ;-)

4/ Daredevil/Matt Murdock *points at all the fic on my AO3* Yeah, so. Yeah. Nuff said. Picking this gif because crucifix + blood. Taking off a bloody shirt, the crisp white kind he'd wear in a court room as a lawyer, in a church: quintessential Matt Murdock. i just *clenches fist* Have Feelings

5/ Root (and the whole Person of Interest team) She's unhinged <3 Picking her because out of the whole team she's probably the one with the most compelling arc, IMO.

6/ Rodney McKay and John Sheppard and Ronon Dex (SGA) Über-nerd McKay was my first fave (yes, he's a jerk. Your point?), but also-über-nerd Colonel Sheppard and dead-pan Ronon Dex were faves as well <3 (AND RADEK!!!!) (Yes, Ronon Dex is Baby Jason Momoa before he grew huge muscles, and he is quite charming!)

7/ Sherlock Holmes (ACD or Granada versions mostly) He, too, in unhinged :D i probably don't need to introduce him, right? In the larger fandom, i also have a soft spot for JOAN Watson, in Elementary.

8/ Loki (and Cap and Iron Man, yes it's cheating) (so you're getting a two-fer in the gif) We shan't mention the various character assassinations that occurred in the MCU, k? There's an arc that shows change and growth, and then there's inexplicably ignoring huge bits of previous motivations, backstory, or characterization. But i digress

9/ Severus Snape So it's a bit hard here, because Rickman!Snape has never been my Snape, and i've only watched... idk, maybe the first... three? films? So i can't really provide a pic that fits. Anyway, loved the character from the start (he's funny, what can i say?), and when his childhood was revealed i was extra-sold. The social commentary behind his very poor origins, how he didn't fit and was bullied and grew bitter, and everything else... i discovered fandom at the time i started reading the books, around the time Goblet of Fire was published, so i first gravitated towards two fandoms: Star Trek and Harry Potter. Hence those two characters bookending this post ;-)

[cyraniadebergerac]

Sherlock Holmes/Star Wars AU

Something I've had in my head and wrought some things for though am likely not going to finish, but I want the premise out to be introduced. I wrote more notes for this, but don't have all of them with me at the moment. (I may have written this out before but don't recall.) Main gist is this.

Thrawn as Sherlock's French cousin.

Sherlock does have French relatives in the books, one of which purchased Watson's practice. Placing Thrawn among that group then not only ties him well with Sherlock, who Zhan has stated was the inspiration for Thrawn, but also ties him in with a culture and family with artistic connections (Sherlock noting one French relative as a noted painter). From that type of background along with him and Thrass staying at times with Sherlock and Mycroft, Thrawn could develop his ability to see into how people think through the art they make/like/grew up with. Thrawn then figures out how to use that in a tactical manner and in particular pursues naval strategy.

Within the acd era, Thrawn could be Mycroft's main military advisor as his French heritage, potential French Naval service, and unorthodox ways would get in the way of him being a vice admiral (or higher) in the British Navy and certainly would if he were to be the Master of the Sea (a parliamentary position appointed to members of the House of Commons, something Thrawn's political incompetence would never net him).

Within a modern era, Thrawn would have been reluctantly brought on board by Mycroft to help against terrorist attacks and other threats as, while he doesn't mind his cousin personally, he does see that Thrawn's methods would not be seen in a favorable light as they can basically boil down to stereotyping enemies by the art they grew up with/surround themselves with/make. To be fair to Thrawn, he never reduces a person down to stereotypes, only seeks an accurate knowledge of how other people think, and does also make sure to learn everything he can about those he's up against and anything else potentially relevent and is willing to adjust conclusions based on new information. But it still doesn't make him politically correct even when his methods work. And so adds to how he's too abrasive for politics.

Either way, when he drops by Baker St., he has fun helping on cases with Sherlock and Watson as well as going against Sherlock in chess, which come to stalemates or near victories for one side or the other. He's also been around Sherlock enough that he can know what Sherlock's thinking whenever he plays the violin (music being a form of art he doesn't rely on as there can be several different people involved in what's going on for one peice of music, the original composer, the arranger, the musician themselves, and the conductor with any orchestral music. But as Sherlock does improvise his own pieces in order to better think, Thrawn could read into those then be able to apply some of that to when Sherlock's playing other works). He does sometimes think that Sherlock should seek to do more, to become the leader of Scotland Yard and so be able to change and better how detective work goes. Sherlock though has never wanted that life and is content with the one he has, so Thrawn let's it be.

(Does create a terrifying but fascinating mental image of Mycroft as the British Government, Sherlock as the British Long Arm of the Law after finding a similar position for himself in Scotland Yard as Mycroft did in the government though Sherlock still prefers to go out and solve cases himself, and Thrawn as the British Navy, making sure no one dared attack the nation or it's people while still very much believing in preemptive strikes. Thrass helps as the main diplomat for all of them and hopefully, Watson still ends up with Sherlock and so can be an effective balance against Sherlock going too far. But still, especially in the 1800s with Britain in the height of it's power...)

Of course though, Thrawn shouldn't be without his own Watson, well Watsons as he has now. Gilad Pellaeon can be the most direct mirror to Watson, a Scottish army man who fought in Afganistan and has since been discharged. In Pellaeon's case, he was an army captain (or lieutenant) when his discharge came. He then doesn't have many hood prospects until a chance meeting with Thrawn (and Eli, either before or after first meeting Thrawn). And he impresses Thrawn enough that he takes him on as a bodyguard/tactical sounding board/potential successor, kinda (Pelleaon would be older than Thrawn so that last part not really...Never let it be said though that Thrawn doesn't always seek to teach those under his command). In my idea, what impressed Thrawn was demonstrated when they were first met involving a case where Eli had been kidnapped and Pelleaon was grabbed with him when he tried to save him. At the rescue, Pelleaon demonstrates his ability to take command when command is needed, quickly come up with a plan then work to enact it, rally people to himself, and his care for others that he sees as working with him or as people needing his help. But that scenario could be changed easily.

Eli Vanto, meanwhile, was an Australian naval ensign looking to get into the logistics and have a quiet desk job looking at numbers, but he proved to have a real knack for numbers, able to outshine even the Holmes in that department without being at all related to them. Thrawn found him up and scooped him up to become his personal attache/information analyst/potential successor. Eli's miffed about this change of his life plans, but he does enjoy the life now and does cone to like Thrawn. Ky idea with his intro was that he found out someone was cooking the books for the naval supply but no one else noticed because the numbers were small and added up over time. Feel free to make that different though if wanted.

[sanguinarysanguinity]

2022 Fanworks in Review

In 2022, I published:

1. With Surprising Quickness (Bush/Hornblower, Hornblower TV, 3.7K, pwp) Two impoverished lieutenants share a berth.

2. A Peaceful and Beautiful Spot (Ewen & Francis, The Flight of the Heron, 1.4K, gen) Ewen brings Francis, Lord Aveling, to visit Keith's grave.

3. Heron Feathers (various pairings, The Flight of the Heron, ficlet collection)

4. [vid] Some Things are Meant to Be (Keith/Ewen, The Flight of the Heron 1968, major character death) Take my hand / Take my whole life too

5. Hornblower's Lost Honour (Bush/Hornblower, Hornblower novels, 107K) #no one leaves this island until I see some kissing

6. Seaweed and Apple Blossoms (Laurent/Aymar/Avoye, The Wounded Name, 4.3K) Four missing scenes in which the subtext is made text.

~

Total number of completed works: Four stories (one with a prologue), one ficlet collection, and one vid.

Total word count: 117K, which is roughly twice my usual annual published word count. A lot of that is a result of Hornblower's Lost Honour having been written over the course of three years, thus pulling a significant chunk of previous years' unpublished words into this year's published wordcount. (But even if I didn't write all those words this year, I sure did edit them all! Getting that sucker published was a significant chunk of work.)

Fandoms created for: Hornblower, The Flight of the Heron, The Wounded Name.

Looking back, did you create more than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected? All of the above. My dad's death back in January knocked me out of my usual run of spring exchanges, and for a long while there I was writing nothing more than alibi sentences. Consequently, in terms of total works, this seems like a very short list for the year, even given the behemoth of Lost Honour. Flipside, my big goal was to publish Lost Honour during 2022, and I successfully pulled that off, even bringing me to a record high wordcount, which I was very much not expecting given the way the year started.

What’s your own favorite creation of the year? Maybe "A Peaceful and Beautiful Spot" -- I like the energy and some of the prose is very well. I'm not claiming it's my best work of the year -- it was written in a day and shows a consequent lack of polish -- but my feelings about it are uncomplicated, and it has a pleasing accomplishment-to-effort ratio.

Did you take any creative risks this year? I typed this sentence --

His passion could no longer be restrained; it must find expression, or he must die.

-- and had a moment of extreme self-consciousness about what I had just written. I ultimately decided not only to leave it in, but to let it guide the tone of the piece. Happily, several commenters said they liked the OTT emotionalism of that story, so I'm gonna say it worked out.

Do you have any goals for the new year? To finish Langstroth on Bees, my ACD Holmes retirement longfic that I started in 2014, and which currently sits at 70K. Also, very tentatively: now that I'm doing a Holmes canon re-read with Letters from Watson, I've picked up "Sixty for Sixty" again: a collection of sixty-word ficlets for the sixty canon stories, which I first started during my last readthrough of Holmes canon as a part of sherlock60 on LJ. I'm not gonna commit to doing ficlets for all the stories (that way lies madness!), but it'd be cool to knock out another chunk of them. Beyond that, just the usual: to keep making things for as long as I'm getting pleasure from making them.

Most popular creation of the year? "With Surprising Quickness". Yes, it's probably one of my stronger PWPs, but more significantly, 1) I wrote it at the beginning of the year, giving it more time to accumulate kudos, and 2) I wrote it for a large exchange, bringing it before more eyes. It might also help that it's in the TV tag and not the novels tag; I sometimes get the impression there are more readers in the TV tag.

Creation of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: No. Within this question lies madness.

Most fun thing to make: The vid. It came together very quickly, and making it was hella iddy and immersive, in that way that vidding often is.

Most unintentionally telling thing: Hornblower's Lost Honour. I came out in the early 90s into a society more comprehensively and reflexively homophobic than the one I live in today, and Lost Honour draws on those experiences. Most especially how society's hatred gets deep down inside your head and you can unpack it and unpack it and fucking unpack it and then you turn around and discover that no, society has still got you unwittingly doing their dirty work for them, punishing yourself on their behalf. Like a rat proactively giving yourself electroshocks because you can't imagine any other way to live, ugh. That experience (plus how it shapes and stunts you and damages your relationships) is threaded all through that story.

Biggest disappointment: Again, madness.

Biggest surprise: FANART. Three people made fanart for Lost Honour! Plus another art for one of my Heron Feathers ficlets! Behold:

@chiropteracupola for HLH chapter 1

@cedarboots for HLH chapter 7

ljm for the AU where Horatio bakes Bush and Brown an apology cake

@chiropteracupola Heron OT3

I am flat aback with astonishment and pleasure.

[delphiniumjoy]

Headcanons as Representation?

Happy Disability Pride Month everybody! Now I have a discussion question for the class. Where is the line between non-canon representation and accepted representation? I’m talking specifically in the context of autism because that’s my disability, and because hidden/speculated representation is less possible for visible disabilities. How do we define the canonicity of an autistic character? Do we consider ACD’s Sherlock Holmes to be autistic because he shows numerous traits and was created in a time before the word existed? Do we refuse BBC’s Sherlock because despite showing many of the same traits, he’s a negative stereotype to fulfill the creator’s intellectual power fantasy (the same creator who has specifically rejected people’s headcanons because his ableism means the label would ruin the fantasy)? Does representation need to be explicitly stated onscreen, or is a creator’s Twitter confirmation satisfactory? 

I want to look at a very specific (and at this point irrelevant) piece of media for this. The fandom has mostly died out, but I was an active member in the heyday from 2017-2019, and as much as it pains me to admit it, I still have a lot of opinions about Be More Chill. I’m referring specifically to the musical, because I simply never read the book by Ned Vizzini, and because many elements were changed between the two. The question is, can we officially consider protagonist Jeremy Heere to be autistic? In original drafts of the show, the word was mentioned but eventually written out, presumably for “sensitivity” purposes. There’s audio from a workshop performance that has floated around TikTok, and while autistic creators are using it in a reclaimed sense, it’s understandable why it might’ve been uncomfortable for some.  I’ll just type out the lyrics:

Every lame characteristic makes you come off as autistic. We’ll fix your vibe then fix some more… I am autistic… We’ll fix that.

This brings up another aspect to this conversation, though, and that’s how everything about the plot and Jeremy’s character arc aligns with ideas of unhealthy masking and even ABA therapy. Jeremy doesn’t fit in. He hates himself, and hates the idea that he’ll always be an outcast. He feels pathetic, which has been repeatedly reinforced by the society around him. So when he’s given a magical macguffin to make him more popular, he goes for it, despite knowing he’s doing so selfishly, and he faces the consequences. Those consequences, of course, are that the Squip is verbally, emotionally, and physically abusive (it regularly shocks him) to get him to alter his personality and behavior. One could argue that it is also responsible for the sexual assault in the second half of the show, because while another character is making unwelcome advances, the Squip makes it impossible for Jeremy to escape. It isolates him from what little support system he has, shames him for every unsightly aspect of his personality (even those he was personally okay with), and promises him that it is all in the interest of improving his life. This aligns pretty clearly with the methods and goals of ABA: forced compliance until the child can consistently appear “normal.”

Unsurprisingly, many autistic teenagers (myself included) really saw themselves in this show. Fortunately, Jeremy learns his lesson, the Squip goes away, and he’s able to build a community with old and new friends because everyone is now more able to drop the facade of social expectations. It gave us hope that maybe we would stop feeling so out-of-place eventually. Also, many of the characters were somewhat flat caricatures, in the way that most teenage characters written by middle-aged men tend to be, so the doors were WIDE open for extrapolation through fan-made content. And even though the explicit mention of autism had been written out of the version we all knew, many fans were headcanoning Jeremy as autistic anyway. Even those of us who didn’t explicitly have the headcanon were writing him as if he was, because we related to him (even if we didn’t know we were autistic at the time either). By the time the show was revived off-Broadway and transferring to Broadway, there was an incredibly dedicated fanbase of neurodivergent teenagers, and the show knew that was their audience. I have not seen the original source, but Will Roland, the actor who came on to play Jeremy in this later production, has apparently said that he also views the character as autistic, and portrayed him as such. 

So returning to the question at hand: can we consider this canonical representation? Even if it’s not textually explicit, and even if the writers haven’t made any public statements, there were traces of intent in every era of the show. Despite all that, do we avoid doing so because the show actively frames autistic traits as shameful? Even though the intent is clearly to use the ordeal to come to a “just be yourself” conclusion, the resolution is quite rushed and sloppy, and could easily be misconstrued. 

Obviously intentional, healthy representation will always be preferred, but is there a place for these characters to be considered?