#Sherlock Holmes and drugs

[thehmn]

“lol Arthur Conan Doyle clearly didn’t know anything about drugs. Sherlock Holmes did cocaine but it calmed him down. That’s not how cocaine works!”

There are two options: Arthur Conan Doyle had never met someone addicted to cocaine or he met some with ADHD who was addicted to cocaine

[contact-guy]

Made myself laugh drawing that first panel...this is part two of THE SIGN OF THE FOUR, part one here!

(this is part of the Watson's sketchbook series)

[fluffyartbl0g]

Everytime I go into the Zosopp tag, I just see people SCREAMING CRYING SOBBING about the lack of posts IN the Zosopp tag. THE ZOSOPP ECONOMY IS IN SHAMBLES

[giveemcoffeekid]

Yeah the brainrot is real xx

[sygneth]

There is a very specific version of Sherlock Holmes in my head, that I don't think exists in any modern adaptation, just lives rent-free in my head, but I keep thinking about him more and more, so maybe it's time I shared. (This is going to be a messy ramble/stream of consciousness btw. I am not sure if that makes any sense, I just need to push it out of my head. (okay, I warned you.))

I need a modern Holmes who is canonically autistic and ADHD, but high masking and late diagnosed. Perhaps even not diagnosed by the time he meets Watson. Holmes who learned to mask well enough/didn't have symptoms that were considered "typical" in the late 90s/early 2000s when (assuming he'd be in his late 20s/early 30s nowadays) he was a kid, so no one (including him) ever even considered the possibility of him being neurodivergent until John H. Watson M.D. met him.

I need Watson observing Holmes and going from "he's kinda weird isn't he" to "oh so that's that. Yea that tracks". Watson who discovers that Holmes is drugging himself up sometimes, and eventually deicdes to confront him about it, to learn that Sherlock is taking speed to "be able to think better" and things click. Holmes I think would be sceptical at first, but eventually he'd do a research and it'd change his life. Perhaps Watson could even help him find a specialist and get officially diagnosed. Seriously, think about it.

[capfalcon]

i love how sherlock, without fail, loves women. he claims to not enjoy a relationship with one, but we know that's not true, and we see his relationships. he struggles with bell and gregson, he picks alfredo on a whim. but he loves, and i mean loves, women. he loves irene and he loves moriarty and he loves watson, obviously. he loves kitty and he loves spending time with women, including ms. hudson, who he's protective of and supportive of. he loves sex workers of all kinds, he is very sympathetic to the plight of injured and taken women, including kitty, but also it's been shown numerous times. he, someone who doesn't care much about other people's feelings, makes sure to remove lucas bunch from the scene before getting his survivors out. he holds the woman that was kidnapped in a closet, even though he doesn't like touch. he also puts in the work with fiona, courting her sincerly and with effort. it's easy to say it's because he loves his mother and has very complex feelings towards his father, and has a myraid of feelings regarding mycroft. but i think it's more than that. i think he feels more himself around women, i would go so far as to say.

[blistering-typhoons]

drug abuse/addiction cw for below the cut (and to a lesser extent the video)

In the context of the scene, I can imagine the intention of this line is a) some sneaky anti-drug propaganda, very in line with this era of film making or b) Holmes maybe panicking at how he's going to fake his way into not being hypnotized (long story), but-

I cannot help but wonder about Rathbone's particular delivery here. There's an almost deeper fear to his face than just a momentary concern.

A kind of thoughtfulness in the way he says 'drugs', like he's remembering what the word truly means to him. And then the line after that, almost pushed out, like a reminder to himself.

No, I'd rather not.

Obviously, we were never going to see Rathbone Holmes struggle with substance abuse, that particular image of the character wiped near clean to bolster the appearance of the wartime hero- stalwart, masculine and unaffected by common vice.

Until now, I had just sort of headcannoned him as one of the Holmes unlikely to struggle with addiction, until this scene came across now.

It makes me wonder about the brief glimpses of emotion under Holmes' dry exterior, of his clear discomfort existing in his feelings. It makes me wonder if any of the highest government officials look into his face and see that old vulnerability- if he lives in a fear of being found out, of being cast out and back into his crutch.

It makes me wonder about endless holidays in Scotland, of getting him to a river for as long as possible, to get him to breathe clean, wet air.

I wonder if this Watson knows.

[bamboo-bees]

Where were you on that one, John 🤷

[jay-wasreblogging]

At first I was like 'LMFAO HE FUNNY ASF WHY HE DOING ANGELS VOICE!!' cause bruh ain't no way he devious like that 😂

Then I got confused because ??? Wait is he fucking around or being serious right now? Huh?? Like I genuinely did not process that it was anything mentally/psychologically related until Watson started pleading. 😐

[ofbakerst]

David Stuart Davies:

Jeremy Brett's growing erratic nature began to seek out ways of making points about Holmes. The Paul script presented Holmes as a bored and very reluctant guest at Hurlstone, the Musgrave estate. Brett seized on this point and decided to suggest that Holmes was back on cocaine again. As a result we see Holmes behaving oddly for the first section of the film, wearing a travelling rug about his shoulders and giggling irrationally...

[anime-ships-all-good]

Sherlock Holmes x William James Moriarty

Moriarty the Patriot

[contact-guy]

Part 7, the final comic in my SIGN OF THE FOUR chapter. (Part one), (part two), (part three), (part four), (part five), (part six).

The context for this conversation is: Holmes has had no work from Scotland Yard due to rumors about his and Watson's relationship. He responded to this with excessive cocaine use and then working himself unhealthy on the one case that came along; Mary Morstan's. Meanwhile, Watson befriended Mary, who is also gay, and realized that a lavender marriage with her could make him and Holmes safe, as well as granting her more freedom. Watson has not yet told Holmes of his decision.

(This is part of the Watsons sketchbook series!)

canon scene under the cut, which is achingly poignant in its own right:

“Well, and there is the end of our little drama,” I remarked, after we had set some time smoking in silence. “I fear that it may be the last investigation in which I shall have the chance of studying your methods. Miss Morstan has done me the honour to accept me as a husband in prospective.”

He gave a most dismal groan. “I feared as much,” said he. “I really cannot congratulate you.”

I was a little hurt. “Have you any reason to be dissatisfied with my choice?” I asked.

“Not at all. I think she is one of the most charming young ladies I ever met, and might have been most useful in such work as we have been doing. She had a decided genius that way: witness the way in which she preserved that Agra plan from all the other papers of her father. But love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things. I should never marry myself, lest I bias my judgment.”

“I trust,” said I, laughing, “that my judgment may survive the ordeal. But you look weary.”

“Yes, the reaction is already upon me. I shall be as limp as a rag for a week.”

“Strange,” said I, “how terms of what in another man I should call laziness alternate with your fits of splendid energy and vigour.”

“Yes,” he answered, “there are in me the makings of a very fine loafer and also of a pretty spry sort of fellow. I often think of those lines of old Goethe,—

Schade dass die Natur nur einen Mensch aus Dir schuf, Denn zum würdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff.

“By the way, à propos of this Norwood business, you see that they had, as I surmised, a confederate in the house, who could be none other than Lal Rao, the butler: so Jones actually has the undivided honour of having caught one fish in his great haul.”

“The division seems rather unfair,” I remarked. “You have done all the work in this business. I get a wife out of it, Jones gets the credit, pray what remains for you?”

“For me,” said Sherlock Holmes, “there still remains the cocaine-bottle.” And he stretched his long white hand up for it.

[thelogicalghost]

There's a scene in Elementary that's stuck in my brain, one of the ones where Sherlock is at his support group meeting, and he has a little monologue that's obviously very meta and can be summarized as, "maybe I would have been better off if I lived in an simpler time."

The first time I watched it, I was a little irked at this scene. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I felt like the show was trying to have Sherlock directly say, "I would have been better off in my canon era," and that felt too, idk, crude perhaps, for a show that's usually better at mixing up its canon references and giving new perspectives to old stories.

Recently I was rewatching it, however, and I had a moment of epiphany:

Sherlock Holmes in canon does drugs because he's bored. Sherlock Holmes in Elementary, while sometimes inconsistent, often is portrayed as having used drugs to help him focus, and is saying here that he finds the modern world too full of distraction.

The point of this scene, which flew over my head the first time, is the suggestion that there is no perfect era for Sherlock Holmes. It's not a matter of his environment. The problem is internal, and every Holmes will struggle with it in one way or another.

[skyriderwednesday]

The obvious answer is that ACD hadn't pinned his character down yet, but it would be sooooo funny if the reason Holmes is described as 'quiet' and 'tidy' in A Study In Scarlet was because he was trying really hard to make a good impression on his new flatmate.

And then once he and Watson have gotten more comfortable with each other, his weirdo tendencies start revealing themselves...

[sherlockianscholar]

what a viscerally striking picture.

[capfalcon]

rewatching elementary makes me love sherlock's relationship with mycroft so much more. because if Watson is the person that he's open with, softer with, then mycroft is the person who reveals his more childish, less encyclopedic personality. and it makes perfect sense, because holmes is his younger brother. in those terms, sherlock and mycroft are the same as any pair of siblings who have love for one another and annoyance in equal parts. sherlock is far more indignant with mycroft, he's very easily provoked and quick to irritation, he's defensive and sulky. it's a great dynamic to watch, especially in comparison with joan. and i think the vast majority of the difference is in jonny lee miller's acting, which is incredible.