#I asked you about it two days ago

[silly-pilled]

What to do when my muse is ugly and uncomfortable, siiiiiiiiigggghhh

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

[mintjeru]

i am neither easy nor immune o(-(

open for better quality | no reposts

my shop is open!!

[aprito]

sasori week 10/11: family

his mind was at peace, if only for a moment.

[vanyafresita]

me, after catching up w malevolent: ok lets sketch my designs for some characters to have a reference before drawing any serious fanart

my silly ass: draws that one meme

[necrotic-nephilim]

I started in DC by reading fanfics, but as I began to read actual comics, I started to be unable to read the actual fanfic that got me into it in the first place because it's so out of character.

But there are still some stories that I love to read because I love the found family trope so much, even if it isn't really accurate to the source material.

As a comics purist (sometimes), are there tropes that you like enough that you'll still enjoy a fic even if it's not accurate to canon?

oh my god this is SUCH a fun question. bc while i started with the comics, there were certain characters and/or character dynamics where i was exposed to the fanon before the canon (just bc it's hard to read everything when you start out just to read some fanfic) and so i've definitely experienced the fanon to canon transition. (*especially* with Jason Todd. i had only read 80s/90s stuff where he was already dead or the New-52 bc that was on-going when i got into comics and man. the fanon misunderstandings i had about him before i got frustrated and sat down to read all his pre-Flashpoint stuff were absolutely bonkers.) and aside from that, whilst i tend to prefer canon over fanon, i'm not past giving fanon its flowers for occasionally having really interesting insights. occasionally. so some of my fanon "guilty pleasure" tropes would probably be

Morally Grey Tim Drake - this is one where if you try to back it up with canon, i *will* get salty about it. of everyone in the Batfam aside from maybe Bruce and Cass, Tim has the *most* black and white morals. often his internal conflicts are routed in such an inability to compromise his moral views and it can cause him to clash with other characters. he's *very* stiff and rigid in his beliefs and is *rare* to compromise in even the smallest ways. i mean, DC has repeatedly used Tim Drake of Tomorrow/Savior/Gun Batman!Tim for a reason. it's to demonstrate that of everyone, Tim *cannot* have his morals compromised. there's no grey area for him. he's zero or a hundred, so if he tips over the edge of "too far" he tips *all the way*, and doing so is one of his worst fears, how he could go "too far" if he let himself. a couple panels out of context from Red Robin (2009) (which was a grief spiral for Tim to begin with) don't change that. now that said. if it's done *right*, i sort of love Tim being morally grey in fanfic. it takes a specific flavor for me, and it's incredibly important to include that mental spiral along with it, of him struggling to justify it. i don't have any interest in "Tim Drake is loosy goosy with Bruce's morals and has the highest kill count and no one knows teehee" bc it doesn't play with the interesting parts of making Tim morally grey, which are fracturing his psyche. but all in all, i think it's fun to put Tim in a morally grey area and i will read it in fanfic and i enjoy writing it a lot

Joker Junior!Tim Drake - i've not written it on this account (yet) but on my main ao3 account one of my biggest fics surrounds this concept. this is one of those "well *technically* it's canon but only in a specific very divorced from the comics universe and would not work at all in the main timeline" so, i categorize it as fanon in that 95% of fics exploring the concept are not doing so within the Batman Beyond universe, but the main timeline. i just love it. I'll take any excuse to whump Tim, but this concept is so fun. psychologically breaking Tim will always be my favorite pastime. there are so many ways to explore the long-term effects this could have on him, how it could affect the Batfam. i'm not a fan of it being used as a "gotcha" to Jason or Babs' trauma with the Joker to paint Tim as the Ultimate Victim, but it is fun to see how their relationships would be affected by being mutual victims of him. (i have a vague JayTim idea where TIm fully retires from being Robin after being Joker Junior and killing the Joker, making Steph Robin for most of his typical Robin era and Jason still tracks him down out of curiosity bc he wants to know what happened and all. very underbaked but i've got thoughts.)

Renegade/Apprentice of Slade!Dick Grayson - this is another one where yes, this happened *sort of* in canon, but i highly doubt most people writing Renegate!Dick have read or are actually pulling from Nightwing: Renegade. it's just an exploration fo the concept fo Dick being Slade's apprentice and i will always eat it up in any capacity. whether Dick grows up with Slade from a young age, or chooses Slade for whatever reason later in life. it's not anything that works in canon bc it compromises Dick morally (similar to the above with Tim) and therefore will always come across incredibly fanon in most fics. but i can't say i don't enjoy it. it's fun to make Dick a little morally fucked up and see what you can make him under Slade's tutelage.

Jason & Damian Meeting in the League -there's no world where i believe this could work in the canon comics. (maybe in the Young Justice cartoon i suppose, but even then i think it's iffy) i would go as far to say it's wildly unrealistic. i don't see a world where Ra's would let Jason anywhere *near* Damian, bc Jason was Talia's pet project that he didn't approve of. that all said, there's something very interesting about how they *could've* met and them potentially bonding during that timeframe. them being somewhat brotherly during this time because Jason sees Bruce in Damian and sort of latches onto the kid and Damian is full of wonder hearing real stories about Batman and Robin, then that getting violently ripped away by Jason leaving the League is fun to me. it's fun how that could affect them within the Batfam and all. it's super fanon to me, but i do not care. i will eat it up

Bad Dad Clark Kent/Good Dad Lex Luthor - i will admit as a late, i've been less and less kind to this particular fanon bc of everything i've argued with people about, *this* one seems the most pervasive as misunderstood fanon. i don't mind when fanon exists, my gripe is when ppl try to claim it's canon. and the *arguments* i've had over this with people who can never seem to cite an actual comic are... frustrating. but that said, i think there is something fun to this strictly in fanon. the duality of who you expect to accept Kon and who you expect to hurt him being flipped is just sort of fun for the occasional guilty pleasure fic. it can make Kon's internal conflict a bit more interesting. the same goes for the Jon favoritism from Clark, it's not a canon thing (and i rlly wish ppl understood how complicated the timeline of Kon and Jon is and any distance from Clark toward Kon isn't malice, it's that Kon is from a timeline that Clark does not remember in the current canon so Clark just straight up doesn't know the poor kid.) but it's sort of fun to give Kon that complex of being overlooked and forgotten sometimes. making Kon just a *bit* more Luthor than Kent will *always* appeal to me in fanfic, especially if he *knows* it's wrong but craves approval from anyone who will give it.

Good Dad Bruce Wayne - i'll die on the hill Bruce is canonically a shitty father. maybe not to the extreme some people write him as, but he's not great at it. that said, i enjoy it in fanfiction. sometimes, i just want silly fluff or hurt/comfort where Bruce finally gets it right and manages to comfort whatever Batkid is in the fic. one of my favorite fics of all time is hinged on Bruce being a good dad, so i think it's just fun to explore how good the relationships *could* be, if Bruce was slightly less of an asshole. i usually prefer him as an asshole, but there are times i want low stakes nonsense.

Gotham Rogues Having Soft Spots for Robin(s) - just about every Rogue in Gotham has done something absolutely irredeemable, and most of them don't like or care about anyone in the Batfamily. but if there's a fic where one of the Robins inexplicably is sort of close with a Rogue and they have a cute silly relationship out of it? I'll eat it up i fear. Steph and the Riddler are besties? I'll believe it. Tim and Scarecrow get along pretty well? give me ten of these. Rogues protecting Robins just hits a spot. the unexpected nature of the relationship, as well as the fact they see each other regularly, can make a lot of good fodder.

[coollyinterferes]

The unmistakable sound of footsteps approaching begins to fill the air. Whoever is coming seems to have brought some company along…

They are getting closer… and closer… and closer…

…and closer…

……until..................

"Goooooood evenin'!!" Comes the loud greeting from a certain blond man. A big smile on his face and all.

"We beg your pardon for our prolonged absence. It was completely beyond our control..." Then adds the gentleman standing by his side, apologizing on behalf of both, offering a genuine smile along with the apology.

"...BUT! We're back!" And hopefully for good this time…

[deepfriedpaddymayne]

girls when they remember that wilfred owen was killed in action A WEEK before the armistice was signed

[dont-open-dead-inside-25]

*voice of boy who just experienced romantic/sexual attraction for the first time* did you guys see that. that was insane. wdym you live like this

[akanbleh]

AKANBLEH!!! GIVE ME MORE SUMMER HE-MAN AND MY LIFE, IS YOURS (I have been waiting all summer, Need more He-Man/Prince Adam)

Your wish is my command :)

[faaun]

procrastination is starting to have its consequences finally

[mokutone]

your art makes me wanna start testosterone

i can't read tone well, so this is either an incredibly touching ask, or an extremely funny one, and in the absence of confirmation: both!

i'm in a chatty mood, so i'll share some thoughts about testosterone and my art.

i liked being on testosterone a lot. i had an IM injection every two weeks (on tuesdays!) and because that's a sizeable dose every 14 days that slowly disperses, it can cause some mood fluctuations (every other friday i would have a crisis about not feeling like the world had a place for me in it) but even those were far more manageable than the ones that would come with my previous and current monthly hormone cycle (every month i spend a solid week thinking the world will never have a place for me in it)

It gave me a patchy little bit of scruff on my chin and a whispy mustache under my nose that still struggles on, despite adversity!

It redistributed my fat a little bit, but that's long since gone back to pre-T shape.

it lowered my voice! that hasn't changed :^)! even if i never go back on t, that won't change. it was the thing i most wanted, and its the one i'm most grateful for. Pre-T, I didn't speak much. I'm getting better and better at talking and getting more and more comfortable communicating with people because of it.

having been off t now for 3 years, i don't pass anymore—not as a cis man, or a cis woman, certainly not as anything approximating straight. if people look at me and see anything, i'd hazard a guess that they see me as A Queer (the noun—for all it's complicated connotations).

i'm not surprised that my art might make somebody want to start testosterone! a lot of my art was made out of the aching grief that came with being kicked off of testosterone, and how neatly that loss of autonomy over my own body knits in with yamato's loss of autonomy over his own.

how my body started doing things i disliked, how i didn't have the support necessary to access the healthcare i needed—how my inability to give myself what i needed made me feel as though i were trapped inside of myself and abandoned (by both myself and the world at large)

when i write comics about yamato as a trans man, i don't take away his testosterone, because that hits a little too close to home for me. for Ninja War Town Reasons, he has plenty of access to all the HRT he could ever need and nobody questions his need for it—instead, i project my own horrors onto the way Danzō defined his identity for him as a child, the way that Kabuto and Obito dehumanize him as an adult in their war efforts, and reduce him to the thing his body holds (the Mokuton). I give him a kneejerk compulsion to dehumanize himself (out of a feeling that he has a duty to his community to do so) and I give him a slow-growing resistance to that impulse (which comes out of a feeling that the people he loves would frown upon seeing him reduce himself like that)

it's dysphoria! it's not gender dysphoria, but it's a loss of self, and a need to reclaim it. it's a war between the hollow shell of a thing he thinks he has to be, and the vibrant and messy person beneath it that he is. it's a desperate need to say "this is who i am—only i can say it"

I enjoyed HRT a lot. it was a really useful tool in helping me feel like my body was my own, that i didn't have to fight it, that we were the same entity. It's not the only tool, but it was a really good one, and one day I hope to use it again.

(as for the being off of it—it's unpleasant, but i'm enduring! being somebody who now doesn't really pass as anything has put me in a weird and interesting position, where I'm constantly having to declare myself to people, because nobody knows what to make of me on any front. they don't know if i'm a man, a woman, nonbinary, nor even what age i am (Augh!!!!) it forces me to be brave and vulnerable more than I'm comfortable with—if I tell somebody I'm a man, there's no way that they will believe I'm cis, but I'm not about to recloset myself—and I don't think I could at this point anyway.)

(there's something fascinating about the position i find myself in, and while i'd leap back on t the moment that an opportunity presented itself to do so, i do feel like i'm experiencing something interesting and important in this weird zone i find myself in)

[chenziee]

The very concept of a Luffy - Katakuri relationship (however you interpret it) is so funny because these two would drive everyone insane by having entire conversations with kenbunshoku only

Just imagine a lazy afternoon on the Sunny, everyone relaxing and enjoying the quiet... and suddenly Luffy screams, "NO I WILL NOT SHUT UP, FUCK YOU, MEAT IS BETTER THAN DONUTS!!" And even the sea kings 500 meters below jump out of their skin in shock because neither Luffy nor Katakuri have said anything in like an hour.

And then it would just be Luffy and Katakuri shooting snappy replies at each other, sentences that seem completely unrelated to each other or, you know, to anything at all because they only say the things that they just HAVE TO say out loud so everyone is so fucking confused? What the fuck does mochi have to do with rain? Or Big Mom's vivre card with Robin's flower garden?

And then Katakuri finally leaves but that's not the end to their suffering, oh no. Because after every time they see Katakuri, it takes Luffy a good half a day to un-learn future-talk. So Sanji would ask what Luffy wants for dinner, and Luffy would perk up, his eyes shining and drooling.... but it would take him a solid minute to realise that Sanji does not, in fact, know what Luffy was going to say

Needless to say, the Straw Hats fucking hate it whenever they see Katakuri

[antebunny]

as a huge fan of the original ACD canon, I desperately want to hear your elaboration about why you don't like BBC's Sherlock :D

hi OP I hope you're ready for a monster essay in response because that's what I ended up with!

For ease of reading I've divided up my answer into four sections: 1) explaining Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock with historical context, 2) analyzing BBC Sherlock/Moffat's Sherlock using a cross-section of Watsonian and Doylist techniques and sheer spite, 3) my thoughts on Johnlock, 4) comparing & contrasting Doyle's Sherlock with Moffat's Sherlock. Disclaimer: I'm not a historian, although I do I have some understanding of the history of detective fiction. Mostly I'm just an avid reader/fan.

Part I: Original Sherlock

To start with! I will talk about the characterization of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. Here's something which people who have never read the stories don't seem to know: Sherlock is kind.

He's not particularly nice, I'll give you that. He tends to think he's the smartest person in the room, and you know what? He almost always is. He has plenty of dry and sarcastic comments for the London police, for clients who don't bring any evidence, etc. But he goes out of his way to be kind. My favorite example of this is the Boscombe Valley Mystery.

The Boscombe Valley Mystery is far from my favorite Sherlock story in terms of mystery-solving, but one of the best in terms of characterizing Sherlock. To summarize: two wealthy, widower landowners, John and Charles, are next-door neighbors with one kid each–John, a daughter named Alice and Charles, a son named James.

Sherlock gets called in when Charles is found murdered, and everyone suspects James of doing it. Of course, it's not that easy. It turns out that twenty years ago, John was a highway robber in Australia, and he robbed Charles but left him alive. John then left the life of crime, started a family and settled in England a wealthy man. Then Charles moved in next door, recognized John, and proceeded to blackmail him for money, land, etc. This escalated until eventually Charles demanded Alice's hand in marriage for his son James. John refuses, and eventually kills Charles to protect Alice and to free himself from Charles' blackmailing/tyranny.

(The problem is that James is actually a decent person, and he and Alice are secretly in love, but there's also a bar maid involved and it's complicated and not relevant. Anyways).

Of course, Sherlock being Sherlock, he figures out that John is the murderer. But here's the thing: he defends John. He doesn't turn John (or his signed confession) over to the authorities. In fact, Sherlock goes to court to protect James by arguing that there's not enough evidence to find him guilty. Sherlock catches a murderer, goes "you know what? He was kind of right tho" and looks away.

Do you understand how radical this is for Victorian England? This is the 1890s. People still believe in God over gravity. The idea that a criminal isn't a criminal for life? That a highway robber can turn over a new leaf? That a murderer can be in the right? [Now would be a good time for a source] Like this is so new, I can't think of a way to translate it to the 21st century.

And it's key to who Sherlock is. He puts his reputation on the line for this case. He says that he didn't manage to solve this case, even though he did. His professional pride and reputation is worth less to him than protecting John, a MURDERER, and James, his son who admittedly is a nice guy whose worst crime is making dumb decisions in college (see: the bar maid).

Because here's the thing about Sherlock's "professional pride:" it's not "I'm the smartest person" or "I'm always right." Sherlock genuinely believes in his deduction method, not as a superpower which he alone possesses, but as a tool which anyone can use if they apply themselves. Which brings me to my second example: Irene Adler.

If you (general audience) only know Irene Adler from BBC Sherlock, I'm gonna ask you to forget all of that right now. Arthur Conan Doyle's Irene Adler is an American opera singer who used to be in a relationship with the future King of Bohemia. The king asks for Sherlock's help retrieving an incriminating photograph that Irene Adler has threatened to send to the king's future wife (a Scandinavian princess) and her family. (Irene Adler is currently in England, getting married to some guy named Norton).

Sherlock promptly gets outsmarted by Irene Adler. She leaves for America with Norton and the photograph, though she promises not to use it against the King of Bohemia, and keeps her promise. Because here's the thing about Irene Adler: she's not a criminal. She's not a bad guy in any way. She doesn't blackmail the king. She had a fling with the King of Bohemia, eventually moved on with her life and married Norton. When Sherlock came sniffing around for her private property, which she was under no obligation to return/give up, she got the hell out of England.

Despite this, Irene Adler is often framed not only as a criminal but also as Sherlock's love interest in adaptations. (And I'm not even talking about BBC Sherlock, trust me, we'll get to that). I think this is due to a fundamental failure or refusal to understand the nature of Sherlock's interest in Irene Adler. He explicitly states that he is not romantically attracted to her. (And neither is she to him). He is impressed by her intellect. It is rare enough for Sherlock to be outsmarted; I think Irene Adler may be the only example in the original stories where the person/group who outsmarted Sherlock was not a career criminal or other type of evil-doer (such as the KKK, in The Five Orange Pips, yes that KKK).

For all intents and purposes, Irene Adler is an ordinary woman, trying to do an ordinary thing (get married to Some Guy), who just so happens to get one over Sherlock in a case where he is arguably in the wrong. That is what makes her so special. Sherlock believes that his deduction methods can be implemented by anybody, but here's somebody, actually implementing them! And she was trained as an opera singer, not as a detective or some such field! And she's not using it to systematically murder or blackmail or anything else, she just wants to live her best life away from this Bohemian nonsense!

Sherlock is excited when someone outsmarts him. And it is so rare for there to be no horrific crime taking away from that excitement.

In summary: Sherlock Holmes is a perfectly well-mannered English gentleman (the social class, not polite descriptor) with shockingly progressive morals for the 1890s, a need for brain puzzles and adventures, and a non-debilitating addiction to crack cocaine.

Some other notes about original Sherlock before I move on to the next section:

Sherlock indirectly caused someone's death in The Adventure of the Speckled Band, and does not feel at all broken up about it. Honestly? I respect that.

Doyle was not perfect. Irene Adler was smart "for her sex." All of the stories mentioned above contain examples of foreigners importing struggles to England. Violent Americans from Five Orange Pips, armed robberies from Australia in Boscombe Valley, loose(?) Bohemians(???) in A Scandal in Bohemia, a mercenary and violent "doctor" from Calcutta (though English by birth) in Speckled Band, etc. I could go on. And I am sure that he made some claims later proved to be scientifically inaccurate.

Aside from Doyle's biases, the Sherlock Holmes stories are also prone to the same real-world changes as any other famous series. Doyle famously killed off Sherlock only to bring him back due to the public outrage. The many, many short stories vary quite a bit in quality, and a little in consistency. Sometimes you just have to throw your hands up and go with the Doylist (heh) reading. We'll get back to this.

Sherlock would not be caught dead in Buckingham Palace wearing only a bedsheet. He often disguises himself in the short stories, as a grandfatherly figure, faking a Cockney accent, as all a manner of (typically older, and therefore less threatening) men. Part of his strength as a detective is his awareness of social circles and the workings of society. He uses it to his advantage, he doesn't provoke public scandal.

He's a private person. He didn't ask to be famous, or to be memorialized as a genius, and again, he doesn't go around looking for adoration or outrage.

Sherlock scorns romance, yes, but not in an internalized aphobia, "I'm suppressing my emotions/desire for the sake of The Case" kind of way, but in an "I'm the only reasonable person here, the rest of you are just weird" kind of way. We'll get back to that one.

Sherlock did have Moods. He also did drugs. But drugs didn't have the social context of drugs now.

Sherlock was superhumanly strong, for no particular reason? There's one story where someone threatens him (in his own flat, no less!) and he remains very polite and unflustered by it. Once the man leaves, he picks up the metal poker that the man bent and straightens it.

Honestly the disguises and the hand-to-hand combat made original Sherlock so OP. I'm not projecting modern values onto old characters, you are. Send Tweet.

Doyle was a spiritualist?!?!?! Like a committed believer in ghosts. Like so committed it ruined his friendship with Houdini. Yes, Harry Houdini. This is not relevant, I'm just impressed that an author so spiritual could write a character so famously and firmly rational.

Okay that's the important bits for original Sherlock. I could easily double the length of that section, but I hope it's clear enough now why I consider original Sherlock to be Very Cool and Interesting.

Part II: BBC Sherlock

Boy oh boy oh boy oh boy. Where to start with this one. Well, here's hbomberguy's 2-hour video essay on why BBC Sherlock is trash, to start. It's been a long time since I watched it but I recall it focusing more on its creator, Steven Moffat (and what that man did to Doctor Who as well, God sometimes I just lay awake thinking about every precious thing Moffat was allowed to put his slimy hands on). So I will attempt to focus on a few key things I don't remember hearing in that video essay.

First: The Trope of the Autistic Genius. I'm sure you (general audience) have seen this in some form of media: a socially awkward or unaware character, perhaps outright on the autism spectrum, perhaps just Weird™ who is a genius in a particular field. It's related to the Idiot Savant trope, thanks TV tropes, and portrayals range from a cute fictional romance with an autistic lawyer in Extraordinary Attorney Woo to the somewhat real-to-life story of John Nash, a real mathematician who made incredible contributions to the field of economics and also had incredibly difficult personal relationships due to his schizophrenia.

For some reason, Moffat decided to use this trope for Sherlock Holmes. I say "some reason" but it's pretty clear why: Sherlock is a genius. And there's a long tradition of "genius as a curse" characters where their intelligence comes at a cost: their ease of relationships with other people. Sometimes this is an explicit curse where the character traded power/intelligence/money etc. for the ability to feel (romantic) love (see: Howl's Moving Castle the movie). For the autistic genius, usually the price of their ability to grasp concepts (usually math or some type of science) beyond the understanding of Mere Mortals is their ability to understand people and social cues.

The thing is, the way Moffat does this with Sherlock makes no damn sense. He's a detective. His whole ass job is to understand social cues, human behavior, motivations and generally what makes people tick. There's probably a good way to make Sherlock autistic. However, the way Moffat does it creates this inherent contradiction, where Sherlock swings wildly from totally missing social cues to perfectly understanding people's desire and motivations. Make it make sense. Make up your mind. Is your Sherlock a tortured genius who cannot understand or relate to normal Molly Hooper, or is he a brilliant detective who Gets how people work? You (Moffat) can't have it both ways. It doesn't make any sense.

Second: the Reading People as Superpower thing. Moffat fully subscribes to the idea that you (general) can just look at somebody and deduce their whole backstory. This one pisses me off personally because it leaks to real life all the damn time. The phone charger is probably the most infamous example of why this doesn't work. (Fun fact, if the area around your phone charger is scratched from you repeatedly failing to plug it in, that doesn't mean you are an alcoholic!)

But it occurs both in BBC Sherlock and IRL. Usually IRL people are nice enough to only say out loud something that they think is positive. But here's the thing: they're almost never right. I've had nice little old ladies tell me "I can see that you are XYZ type of person" in the most well-meaning of ways and be completely off the mark. Not a single person who has guessed my race (out loud) has gotten it right. But I'm not just saying "don't make assumptions for the big things like race/sexuality/religion etc." I'm saying, we all make those assumptions when we first meet someone, whether we like it or not. But we have a choice whether to act on those assumptions. Reading people is not a fun thing smart people do in media, it's a common thing all of us do despite not having a higher chance of being correct than Moffat was with the phone charger thing.

The "you can read into anything because there's secret meanings behind everything" that BBC Sherlock encouraged led to one of the funniest and most pathetic phenomena in fandom: The Secret Good Sherlock finale. There's a good 1.5 hour video essay about it and how a portion of BBC Sherlock fans deluded themselves into thinking that the horrible, horrible ending of BBC Sherlock couldn't be real, and that there was a real finale coming if you just followed the clues where Johnlock was canon (more on that later). Because they just couldn't accept that this show which portrayed itself as so clever and Moffat as a 4D chess-master always fifteen steps ahead, was just Not Good.

(Side note: I missed all of the BBC Sherlock fandom experience despite watching the show, because I watched the show with my family. We all knew Doyle, you see; my father read those stories to my siblings and I as bedtime stories when I was little. I still remember his reading cadence and the character voices that he did. So when we heard about BBC Sherlock, we thought "hey, we know that guy!" and settled in to watch it as a family. I distinctly remember thinking that it was…fine? Like, just okay. But nothing about it was better than the original, and I would how much worse it was years later).

Third: Sherlock is just weirdly mean? All the time? In BBC Sherlock. I can only assume this is some sort of power trip fantasy, where the author self-insert (we'll come back to that) Sherlock is the most perfect boy who is always right and correct and so much smarter than everyone else that he just doesn't have to put up with their stupidity.

Like many of the gripes I have with BBC Sherlock, what I hate the most is how Moffat's portrayal seems to have influenced the general public's perception of who Sherlock is. Would this type of Victorian Sherlock exist without the type of arrogant monologuing that Moffat favored? I mean, maybe. I can't prove it. I just feel like they're related. (To be clear, I like Sherlock in that scene. I just think it's inconsistent with original Sherlock's interactions with the police, but to be fair, original Sherlock didn't have a little sister in jail for murder).

Fourth, IRENE ADLER MY BELOVED I WILL AVENGE YOU ONE DAY I SWEAR.

So Steven Moffat cannot for the life of him write a female character I'd feel bad for him if it wasn't so painful to watch in Doctor Who, Sherlock, and basically everything else he's ever done. Moffat, like many adaptors of Sherlock, was dead-set on making Irene Adler a femme fatale. She's not only a criminal, she's also sexy and very weirdly interested in Sherlock (again, the author self-insert strikes again. All the women must be interested in me I mean my most perfect boy!)

I am far from the only person who noticed this. Here's a Reddit post which calls Irene Adler out for basically sexually harassing BBC Sherlock throughout that episode. I don't disagree with the substance but I disagree with the reading. That post takes a Watsonian approach: Irene Adler repeatedly expresses sexual interest in Sherlock, who does not reciprocate. Despite this, the characters around him assume he reciprocates and at the end of the episode his brother Mycroft blames his nonexistent/unconfirmed interest in Irene Adler as the reason why she got one over him. When he does his dramatic "I am Sherlocked" reveal, he is saying 1) that he's really not interested, 2) that she didn't get one over him, and 3) that her emotional/sexual investment(?) in him is why she lost.

Here's the Doylist reading: Moffat's fantasy is the sexiest/coolest woman (Irene Adler) chasing after his author self-insert (Sherlock) who remains coolly aloof despite her advances, because he's cool. Everyone else's assertions that he's secretly interested stems from society's need to smash two dolls together and say "now kith" regardless of what the dolls in question are saying. At the end of the episode Sherlock makes the points that I made above, yes, but Moffat's also reaffirming that no one is allowed to outsmart his most special, most perfect boy (/self-insert), not even the character that CANONICALLY OUTSMARTED HIM. (Although to reiterate: original Irene Adler was not a criminal, did not blackmail anyone, and was not interested in Sherlock. Also she was American lmao).

There's one key scene (which I loathe with all my heart) that demonstrates how Moffat sees Irene Adler, and that's her introduction scene. Why? Because she walks in naked. Why? Because that way Sherlock cAn'T rEaD hEr. (Which brings us back to point #2, Reading People as Superpower).

This is mind-bogglingly, mind-bafflingly stupid. If Irene Adler really wanted Sherlock to """"not be able to read her"""" she should've just stolen the clothes of the first woman she saw that was her size. Or men's clothes, not her size, and not hers. That way any traces of character left on the clothes (i.e. coffee stains, hems worn down from constant worrying, cat fur, etc.) would've belonged to someone else, thus throwing Sherlock off even more.

And it's not like the body lacks marks unique to the person. Jesus Christ. Surgeries leave scars, as do accidents and injuries. Birthmarks, bite marks, stretch marks, scar marks, people drawing reminders or hearts on themselves with sharpies, tattoos, the list goes on and on and on and on and on. Bodies are not blank canvases.

There is no good Watsonian reading for why Irene Adler walks in naked. There is only a Doylist reading: Moffat thought it'd be hot for his femme fatale to meet his self-insert butt-ass naked. That is why I disagree with the Reddit post I linked which I assume you (general audience) read. Irene Adler's actions don't make sense when framed as "she's smart but obsessed with Sherlock despite never having met him before." I mean, it's possible? But it makes her far less intelligent from the very start than the show tells you she is. Her actions only make sense when framed as "Moffat thought it would be hot." (Dear Moffat: it's not).

Fifth, and finally: The Big Bad. This is not Moffat-specific: the need to have one main villain, to have everything in a series building to the big showdown with the Big Bad exists all over the place. Episodes are getting longer and longer while seasons get shorter and shorter. Sherlock, originally a series of short stories (with some long-form stories, my favorites <3 thrown in the mix), is perfect for the 30-45 minute 12-16 episode seasons. Instead it got…BBC Sherlock. With Moriarty as The Big Bad. Who Irene Adler is working for? For some reason? And has come back to life maybe? It's dumb. Bring back my case-of-the-week type stories :(

There are plenty more gripes I could list about BBC Sherlock, but those are the main ones. This is already getting much longer than I intended, so onto part three: my thoughts on Johnlock.

Part III: Do I ship Johnlock?

No.

Part IV: Just kidding!

Well, I don't not ship them. A friend asked me recently if I shipped them, and I thought about it for a minute and eventually said: "Honestly? I am so thoroughly neutral about them."

You could convince me of Johnlock. However, I remain unconvinced by the vast majority, if not all, of BBC Johnlock. It essentially feels like a derivative form of a derivative and vastly inferior form of the real Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Basically: the Johnlock that you (general BBC Johnlock shipper) are a fan of are just two people who happen to share names with the characters I know as the great detective Sherlock Holmes and the good doctor John Watson. But they're not actually Holmes and Watson, thus what you're shipping isn't even "real" Johnlock.

There are two parts of Johnlock's dynamic that I think are missing from the broader conversation (which is not to say that they're not talked about, just that they should be talked about more).

First, we're back to Watsonian vs Doylist readings, this time with the origin of the term in mind! (My literary analyst heart cackles in delight). You see, the Doylist reason for Watson's existence is to chronicle Sherlock's adventures. Genius characters are near-impossible to write from their perspective. The mystery and ingenuity vastly improves when explained by Sherlock to Watson after the fact. We, the audience, need John Watson to exist for the stories to be enjoyable. He is a plot device.

Now, I'm not saying that because John Watson exists for plot purposes, we can't consider the emotional connection between him and his flatmate. The Watsonian reading, according to Johnlock shippers, is that Sherlock and John live together because they are gayandinlove.

Which brings me to part two of their dynamic: the QPR-ness of it all. I think there's a lack of conversation about anything between "straight" and "gayandinlove" when there's so much gray area to discuss. Johnlock, in both the original and in my preferred version, strike me as a very comfortable queer-platonic relationship. It feels wrong for Sherlock to have a wife, husband, boyfriend, lover, etc. because it is so contradictory to who Sherlock is. I just can't picture him engaging in any modern or Victorian-era dating or courtship ritual. And not just because he explicitly derides and expresses his lack of interest in romance in the originals. After all, it's impossible to separate Sherlock's bachelorhood from the part where it was obviously impossible for him to marry a man in the 1890s; the institution of marriage simply didn't mean then what it does now. He certainly never and would never speak about sex, or his sexual preferences. I am sure they were assumed to be Good And Heterosexual. Which isn't to say that Victorian times were less queer than modern times. Doyle's contemporary, the Irish poet Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was very famously (/infamously) gay. The author Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) is also rumored to have cheated on his wife with her brother/his publisher.

No, I've always seen Sherlock as aroace just because…he comes across as very aroace? I don't know how to explain it other than "read it and tell me I'm wrong." And Johnlock always came across as very comfortable to me. Like there was a total lack of yearning. Don't get me wrong, I totally understand projecting into characters, so if you (general Johnlock shipper) add yearning to your Johnlock I'm not criticizing you. (And no, I'm not getting into Mary Morstan and her differing characterizations because then we'd really be here all day).

I also don't subscribe to the idea that Sherlock is aromantic because of his genius, his detective career, or his suppression of natural instincts in favor of the aforementioned reasons. It's aphobic and it's not how Sherlock works. The man is not judging himself for his lack of interest, he's judging you (aphobe) for thinking there's some deeper cause or something wrong with him for not being interested in romance.

And I can't fathom him engaging in sex except as an intellectual exercise. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I always thought BBC Sherlock was so weird about the concept of being gay. I mean, there were gay jokes galore but They Were Not Gay and Moriarty was gay-coded but John was definitely not into Sherlock and Sherlock was not gay but he wasn't into Irene Adler either, but that didn't make him asexual either, just…a genius?? Apparently??? Like he's straight but he's also too smart to be fooled by Irene Adler's wily wily feminine wiles. Like Straight 2.0 where they make you pay more for the same product with ads this time.

Which finally brings me to the last section: comparing original Sherlock and BBC Sherlock!

Part IV: We all know where this is going

Honestly most of this section has written itself already.

Original Sherlock Holmes was remarkably progressive for its times; BBC Sherlock was somehow less progressive despite being made centuries later. Its portrayal of women was somehow worse than the thing written in the 1890s. I'm a big believer in judging things with historical and social context in mind, which makes original Sherlock all the more astounding, and BBC Sherlock all the more regressive.

Original Sherlock Holmes was an excitable bloodhound who believed in his rational method and was genuinely delighted when he met his match. He was irritable and moody and indirectly killed a man with no remorse. BBC Sherlock is an arrogant, self-obsessed jerk who constantly belittled and mocked the intelligence and achievements of others. He, despite not understanding people, popularized the "you wear that sweater to remind you of your dead mother. You feel lost without her and are seeking a substitute in Macys Mother's Day line products" type of armchair psychoanalysis.

Original Sherlock loves a good case but sees his clients as human, at the end of the day. BBC Sherlock cannot stand to be wrong.

Original Sherlock and John are companions, comfortably; not normal/regular friends, though I would never say "more" than friends. Maybe, in a modern era, they'd be romantic partners of some sort, maybe not; I don't really care. BBC Sherlock and John are…friends but you gotta believe Moffat when he tells you that they are Definitely Not Gay. Like Not At All. Not Even A Little.

In conclusion: I loathe BBC Sherlock with all my heart. It is an insult to the legacy of Sherlock Holmes. A regression in the face of how radical Arthur Conan Doyle was. i genuinely feel sorry for all the people who have watched that show but never read the originals because they have no idea who Sherlock is, and original Sherlock is so damn cool.

[fluffyartbl0g]

Ohh my God the most recent comic, when it's spelled out like that, speed running paradise, fighting an admiral sun God thing happening way early than any of this should be it's any wonder ace isn't in worse shape in this let alone seeing sabo again because it's two years early and he would probably be fresh into white beard crew im picturing *jinbei the warlord I just finished fighting days on end to exhaustion is joining your crew?* "I give up, it's too much at once, there are to meany others to be more concerned about" their concern on white beards ship should be warning about black beard before the bastard gets the 1st stupid strong devil fruit.

YEYSYEYSYESYEYSYRFSEUDYGTYUHSDOGUHFDGUDFUH!!!!!! Like I drew Ace getting kinda choked up in the second page when listing things because,,, man he really was worried. I dont think he was like losing sleep type worried until he found out Luffy and his gang had a pretty intense encounter with an admiral.

It's only been like 1.5 to 2 years since Ace last left Dawn Island and sparred with Luffy, so even if he's improved a lot, there just cant be any way his 15 year old baby brother would be able to handle an Admiral- HECK he can barely handle an admiral. So when he found out they had an encounter, I assume his stomach just dropped and full on big brother freak out mode started happening.

Like he always had a mild worry niggling in the back of his mind, but Ace has his own adventures and his own nakama now, he's got stuff to do and at the pace Luffy is going at, it seems like explanations will be coming soon anyways.

Luckily this whole admiral encounter thing happened shortly before Luffy found Ace again, because every second Ace was waiting on Whitebeard's ship after he found out about it was another second away from Ace just going completely ballistic and shooting off to find his baby bro. The Whitebeards were real good at getting Ace to just calm down and wait a bit, soo good job to them :D! Though, that like idk,,, week or two??? (im not good with timeframes tbh), that he was just waiting to see if his brother was okay was prolly one of the worst weeks of his life.

U know I really debated if I was making Ace recognise sabo too quickly and if I was making him like too emotional or what not,,, but like YEA HE'S SO CONFUSED AND TIRED AND WORRIED!!!! IF THOSE BROTHERS DONT SPEND THE NEXT HOUR JUST SOBBING AND GRASPING AT EACHOTHER LIKE NO ONE ELSE EXISTS THAN I DONT KNOW WHAT I'LL DO!!!!!!

[piglii]

Thinking about the time I was playing Runescape as a literal 9 year old and happened to meet a more experienced player in all black armor and a red cape who showed me good spots to mine and gave me a couple of good items for a new player. I remember we hung out and talked for a good long bit while they gave me some good pointers about the game. There's something that really touches me about people in multiplayer gaming spaces choosing to be nice to strangers for no other reason than to be kind. There are cathedrals everywhere for those with eyes to see