#and then i also read the original acd stories and i also wanted to die

[player-tag]

i just realised we're probably going to have to see the final problem as an episode on the podcast. we might have to hear john cry. we're probably going to deal with that.

[thewatsonbeekeepers]

The Wizard of Oz and tjlc - more thoughts

Edited to add in a link to this meta  by @bug-catcher-in-viridian-forest which inspired these thoughts - v wonderful eye for detail in these parallels and would definitely recommend reading it before this!

Entirely indebted to @bug-catcher-in-viridian-forest​, whose post made me think about this - I have no idea how recent this post is, because the time stamp says 2016 but it contains details from s4, which suggests a tumblr fuckup! But my 2c based off this -

I’m a big EMPer. And - as I mention in every meta I write, not just because it’s a hyperfixation but because it’s super important to tjlc - I’m a huge David Lynch fan. David Lynch is the guy who defined the dream-movie genre, who made it more than The Wizard of Oz and turned it into the most self-referential meta psychological thriller possible - and won huge critical plaudits for it. (Incidentally, except from Tarantino - his response to imo Lynch’s most underappreciated film, Fire Walk With Me, is hilarious. Look it up. But anyway.) Lynch is obsessed with The Wizard of Oz, and has stated it’s his favourite movie, and even went so far as to remake it as a very loosely adapted thriller in Wild at Heart. My meta on TAB (x) talks about how indebted Mofftiss are to David Lynch, and how making a dream based piece of media is basically impossible without using him as a reference point. Like a fool, I forgot Lynch’s own biggest reference point - The Wizard of Oz.

@bug-catcher-in-viridian-forest​ makes a lot of excellent parallels, but I want to pull on them in the light of EMP theory! The biggest one is that Eurus is Dorothy - red shoes, pigtails, blue and white dress. This is also, crucially, something Lynch does with his characters who are meant to parallel Dorothy - see Dorothy Vallens in Blue Velvet and her red shoes, for example.

Only the most iconic costume in the history of film. Anyway. Red shoes are also seen on the girl on the plane, although her costume is stripes, so not a perfect link - we do know, however, that they are the same person. Parallels with flying the plane and flying the house - lovely. Parallels with the name of the east wind - obviously this is derived from ACD canon, but it’s nevertheless lovely. However, where I want to jump in now is the plot of TWoO, because this is really important.

Everybody knows that Dorothy has a dog (making child!Eurus playing with Redbeard even more striking in resemblance) - but what is really important in TWoO is that her dog is going to die. That’s the reason she runs away from home, which is what leads to her getting knocked unconscious and having this mad dream. @sagestreet​ has pointed out exactly why dogs are connected with homosexuality, and I’ve elaborated in my EMP series on the idea that Sherlock realises he needs to wake up because John is suicidal without him. This ties in beyond well. Incidentally, the bit about TWoO that never works for me is that when Dorothy wakes up, Toto is still destined for death. Everybody just conveniently ignores it. What Sherlock has right - if we’re right (we may never tell, but I assure you guys that the series 5 I dreamed the other night was fantastic. is that reality shifting?*) - is that the dream can actually make a difference to the situation, because the dream is the difference between life and death. Think of If I Stay. Or something like that.

Okay. But here’s the deal. TWoO is all about home. When Dorothy is asked what she has learned from her dream (the knowledge that she needs to wake up), Dorothy says:

If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard, because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with.

If I may say, that is a terrible mantra. And I love that film. But anyway. (MGM movies are a hyperfixation - come and talk to me about them.) Mofftiss know that this is a fucked up end to a fantastic film, not least because it leaves Toto dying. In queer terms, this is a terrible end to the movie - queer film icon John Waters famously said:

So Mofftiss, with Gatiss being the good queer writer that he is, don’t take the backyard literally. Just a Dorothy’s heart’s desire was literally to be home on the farm, and that’s where she finds the impetus to wake up, what does Sherlock need to do to wake up?

I’m incapable of finding images on the web (my metas are so sparse in comparison to everyone else!) but it’s literally in his backyard, as he pushes down the fake wall to get into the garden where the answers are. And this time, home is much more complicated - the ancestry that is built up in Musgrave hall, which is metaphorically connected to the history of Sherlock Holmes as a character, is pushed down just like a wall in Sherlock’s mind, instead helping him to find an internal home, a unity with Eurus, the other part of himself. That’s the necessary home here, not the home-as-absolute-normality that TWoO seems to espouse, which is inevitably exclusive of queerness. And then we get that literal scene of Eurus waking up inside her bedroom from this nightmare scenario she has invented.

The original post also points out comparisons between John and the scarecrow and Sherlock and the tin man, but I think it’s more helpful to understand the theme linking the three friends of Dorothy (no pun intended ;) ). The idea here is that all of them are convinced that they lack something because of the way they are made, but of course they learn throughout the dream that they have it intrinsically. As I’ve mentioned above, Dorothy is where that logic falls down - it also doesn’t work as nicely thematically with the lion, because lions are not supposed to be cowardly - scarecrows, on the other hand, are supposed to be brainless, and tin men are supposed to lack hearts. The idea that you can go beyond the role assigned to you and still find the love you’re not allowed to have - that is peak EMP theory. Nothing better. And the fact that it ties back into the original dream movie - !!

I genuinely haven’t given this a huge amount of thought - these are cursory thoughts. I want to go and watch Wild at Heart and get back with more thoughts, because I’m pretty sure there will be a lot more parallels on overlaying TWoO onto a much darker story.

Anyway! @sagestreet​ @sarahthecoat​ @lukessense​ @therealsaintscully​ @possiblyimbiassed​ @ebaeschnbliah​ @raggedyblue​ @helloliriels​ if you’re interested!

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hi Steph! How you’re doing? First of all, I wanna say that I love your lists. So, I was wondering, do you have some long Johnlock fics? Like, with a bunch of chapters and all that. Thank you!

Hey Nonny!! 

I absolutely do! And you know what?? I’m gonna be selfish: No one has ever EVER asked me for my shorter long fics, so I’m going to take this opportunity to finally release this list, because it’s been sitting in my drafts for YEARS lol. BUT you can check the list below for the links to all my longer-fics lists! Happy reading!!

NOVELLA LENGTH FICS: 20-25K

See also:

Novella Length Fics: 25 to 50K (Aug. 2019)

Novel Length Fics: 50 to 100K (Nov. 2018)

Novel Length Fics: 50 to 100K Pt 2 (May 2020)

Novel Length Fics: 100K+ w. (May 2019)

Novel Length Fics: 100K+ w. Pt 2 (Aug 2020)

Through the Clouds by Mazarin221b (E, 20,004 w., 6 Ch. || Retirement, Home Improvement, First Time, Romance) – Sherlock takes a remarkably early retirement at 47, and convinces John that a change of pace would do them both good. They buy an old cottage on the South Downs, and exchange their nonstop life in Baker Street for quiet contemplation, bee studies, and book writing. They might go completely insane, but sometimes it takes stepping outside of the life you're living to find the life you want. Part 1 of Through The Clouds

A Life Well-Lived by Kate_Lear (E, 20,121 w., 1 Ch. || Original Male Character, Sherlock Woos John, Jealous Sherlock, Reluctant Bi-John, Past Abuse, Insecure John, Reassuring / Caring Sherlock, Protective Sherlock, Understanding Sherlock) – John got scared off men by an abusive past relationship. Sherlock has to try and woo him while not scaring him off with protective possessive rage.

The White Lotuses by SilentAuror (E, 20,340 w., 1 Ch. || Slow Burn, Domestic, Romance) – One day John realises that he just isn't where he belongs, which is back at Baker Street with Sherlock. So he goes back and Sherlock, in his own way, courts him. Romance.

Out of the Woods by SilentAuror (E, 20,471 w., 1 Ch. || Post S4, Romance, Slow Burn, Flirting, Drunk Sex, Practical Jokes, POV Sherlock, Bottomlock, Possessive John, Pining Sherlock, Frustrated Wanking, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, First Kiss/Time, Virgin Sherlock, Love Confessions, Soft Sherlock, Dancing, Bum Appreciation, Hanging out with the Yard) – Sherlock is fairly certain that John has taken to flirting with him of late, but can't be entirely certain of it. At least, not until a case takes them into a forest, along with Lestrade's team and something happens that will change everything about their lives...

You're On the Air by prettysailorsoldier (M, 20,616 w., 1 Ch. || Unilock, Matchmaking, Radio, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Sherlock POV, Pining Sherlock, Flirting, Bisexual John) – The Consulting Detective and The Woman dominate the airwaves of their university radio station, doling out advice on everything from meeting the parents to sexual positions. When their ratings start to dip before the holidays, however, manager Mike thinks it's time for some fresh blood, and who better to fill in the gaps than rugby captain--and notorious flirt--John Watson? Part 1 of 25 Days of Johnlock

whiskies neat by Ellipsical (E, 20,660 w., 15 Ch. || Alternate First Meeting, POV Second Person Sherlock, Slow Burn, One Night Stand, Rimming, Blow Jobs, Anal, Soldier John, Crying, Emotional Lovemaking, Switchlock) – Home and hearth and whiskies neat, or, alternatively, Sherlock Holmes falls in love.

Achieving the Together-Coloured Instant by teahigh (E, 20,776 w., 1 Ch. || Est. Rel, PTSD, Codependency, Fluff & Angst, H/C, Smut, Demisexual Sherlock, Experiments) – John wonders if this is how it’s going to be: A life speaking in code, because they’re both too stupid to figure out how to say, “I love you.”

Winter's Delights by Kate_Lear (E, 21,173 w., 1 Ch. || Holmes Family, Christmas, Fake Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Bed Sharing, Domestics) – Sherlock takes John home for Christmas to meet the extended Holmes family. Part 1 of Winter's Delights

Once More, With Feeling by cellard00rs (T, 21,178 w., 7 Ch. || John’s Family, Fake Relationship, Romance, Fluff, Humour) – To put off his meddlesome, matchmaking mother, John convinces Sherlock to play the role of his significant other. Unparalleled awkwardness ensues.

Love Is by SilentAuror (E, 21,508 w., 1 Ch. || Angst, UST / URT, Post HLV, Romance) – At Mrs Hudson's urging, Sherlock finally decides to tell John how he feels about him. Part 1 of Love Is

echoes through time by chellefic (E, 21,619 w. || First Time, Romance, ACD & BBC, Epistolary) – Mummy sends a trunk from the Holmes cottage in Sussex to 221B. Its contents alter the way John and Sherlock see themselves and one another.

The Real Meaning of Idioms by feverishsea (T, 21,691 w., 1 Ch. || Texting, Humour, Post S2) - After two weeks away, John finally texts Sherlock. He doesn’t expect Sherlock to respond. He doesn’t expect Sherlock to keep texting him. And he really doesn’t expect things to spiral out of control so rapidly.

5 Times John Got the Girl (and lost her) and 1 Time John Got the Guy (and kept him) by LiviKate (M, 21,695 w., 6 Ch. || 5 and Ones, Kissing, Oblivious / Awkward Sherlock, BAMF / Sexy / Stud John, Embarassed John, John’s Scar, Hurt/Comfort, Jealous Sherlock) – John has always had good luck with the ladies. He's charming, friendly and funny, not to mention great in bed. However, his usual skill with the opposite sex is constantly being thwarted by Sherlock and his outbursts. How will John ever get a leg over when Sherlock is always cockblocking him?

Brief Conversations with the Woman by May_Shepard (E, 21,906 w., 20 Ch. || Pining, Love Fairy Irene, Filler Fic, UST/URT, Drug Use, Clueless Sherlock, Relationship Advice, Angst w/ Happy Ending) – Sherlock has a puzzle to solve, and his name is John Watson.

When to Let Go by KendylGirl (M, 22,109 w., 8 Ch. || Friends to Lovers, Reverse Reichenbach, Sacrifice, Forgiveness, Angst, Love, Implied Drug Use) – What if it were John who had to die to thwart Moriarty's plans? John's supposed death shatters Sherlock, and when he returns, it will challenge the pair to forge a path of forgiveness, to peace, and to find a way back to each other. Part 1 of When to Let Go

A Shipless Ocean by myswordfishmind (M, 22,135 w. 4 Ch. || Post-TRF, John has a Kid) – Ten years after the fall Sherlock goes back to London to find that John no longer lives there. Instead, he resides in a seaside town, a widower, and the father of a seven year old son. Now, Sherlock must struggle with the fact that there may no longer be a place for him in this new world.

Ghost Stories by SwissMiss (M, 22,256 w., 1 Ch. || Pining, Holmes Family, Christmas, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Bed Sharing, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, First Time) – Sherlock's parents think he and John are a couple. They might be onto something.

The One With the Proposal by kim47 (E, 22,375 w., 3 Ch. || Fluff, Romance, Marriage Proposal) – Proposing shouldn't be this difficult.

Sonatina in G Minor by SilentAuror (E, 22,574 w., 1 Ch. || Case Fic, POV Sherlock, Angst, UST, Sherlock’s Violin, Post-S3, Romance) – John has come back to Baker Street, but Sherlock doesn't understand the strange tension between them, even after he begins teaching John to play the violin at John's request.

Dear John by wendymarlowe (E, 23,031 w., 64 Ch. || Post-TRF, Online Dating, Pining, Epistolary, Cybersex, Long Distance Romance) – With Sherlock dead, John eventually (under duress) makes a profile on an online dating site. And falls into a long-distance relationship with an enigmatic partner who reminds him of Sherlock in all the right ways. (Hint: it turns out to be Sherlock.) Part 1 of Dear John

Knotted by naughtyspirit (E, 23,166 w., 4 Ch. || UST/URT, Cuddling, Sharing Body Heat, Confessions, Kissing, Mastrubation, Frustration, BAMF!John) – John has to cancel a date because of Sherlock's case, which leads them to be tied up in a basement from which they have to escape. They get wet, get tied up close and John has to step up and save them. Because he's pretty. And hot. And just a little bit of a BAMF.

You Can Imagine the Christmas Dinners by ardenteurophile (T, 23,584 w., 9 Ch. || Pre-Slash, Drama, Fluff & Angst, Humour, Romance) – Sherlock takes John along for Christmas dinner with Mycroft and Mummy (And "Anthea", too). Over the course of the evening, John realises that everyone in the room - apart from him - seems to think that he and Sherlock are a couple. Part 2 of Xmas Dinners Verse

Once Upon a Beast Becoming by antietamfalls (T, 24,042 w., 6 Ch. || Beauty and the Beast AU || Magical Realism, Folklore, Celtic Mythology) – An act of pride, a druid’s curse, an enchanted leaf; Sherlock’s torment has lasted an age. Hope arrives in the form of one John Watson, a man uniquely suited to break the spell. But with a single night to win his affections, Sherlock finds his carefully laid plans disrupted by a monstrous killer whose sights are set on the only thing he has left to lose: John.

The Kepler Problem by kinklock (E, 24,270 w., 1 Ch. || Sci-Fi AU, Alien Sherlock, Space Repairman John, Alien Biology, Horny John) – Working in uncharted space exploration was not as exciting as John had hoped, especially when it turned out to be mostly bot maintenance on uninhabited planets. However, the mystery of the repeated, unexplained malfunctions on planet BAK 2212 might turn out to be exactly the kind of adventure he'd been craving.

Maintaining A Personal Life by Gingerhermit (E, 24,284 w., 6 Ch. || Alternating POV’s, Bisexuality, BAMF!John, Jealous Sherlock, Romance / Drama, Sort-of Case Fic, Peril & Angst, Love Confessions, Toplock, Soft Idiots in Love, Post S3) – Sherlock and John discover some interesting revelations about each other’s sexuality, which lead them both to question the assumptions they've made about one another for years. In the midst of their mutual discoveries, a dangerous psychopath looms on the side-lines who threatens to destroy their new beginning.

The Sexual Awakening of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson by suitesamba (M, 24,579 w., 10 Ch. || Post-TRF, Case Fic, H/C, First Kiss/Time) – Sherlock owes Mycroft a favor. Mycroft calls in that favor by offering Sherlock's consulting services in a charity auction. Sherlock and John soon find themselves at the country manor of Mrs. Ives-Patton Smarmington III - not very coincidentally a long-time friend of Sherlock's mother - where they are reluctant participants in her Murder Mystery Weekend. It's a play within a play for Sherlock and John, and their roles for the weekend event bleed over into their real lives, waking the sleeping dragons within.

Tomorrow's Song by agirlsname (M, 24,645 w., 5 Ch. || Post-TRF, POV Sherlock, Angst with a Happy Ending, Virgin / Repressed Sherlock, Love Confessions, Slow Burn, Pining, Jealous Sherlock) – How can he think a relationship with me would be a good idea? I am the sort of person to take a break from my life and when I come back after two years, I expect to find it exactly as I left it. In reality I find it shattered to pieces. (I actually equate you with my life. When did I start doing that?)

State of Flux by Atiki (E, 24,655 w., 4 Ch. || Sherlock POV, Slow Burn, First Kiss/Time, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, Cuddles and Snuggles, Awkwardness, Insecure/Virgin Sherlock, Romance) – John’s marriage is over and he is finally back home (i.e. at Baker Street, where he belongs). Sherlock is awfully insecure and John is awfully hesitant, and they're both awkward idiots, of course, but they figure it out. Many First Times happen.

[daughterofhecata]

@momdailykos tagged me (thank you!) to post my top five comfort characters. There will be a lot of gays.

1. Milo Sturgis. Milo gets first place, because I’m still halfway buried in Jonathan Kellerman’s Alex Delaware novels (there are still ~6 books out of the 34 that I have yet to read) and I just love this dude so fucking much.

2. Marcus Keane from the The Exorcist series. Just. My sweet, angry (ex-)priest who has too many emotions and too much love and too many hang-ups.

3. Black Sails’ James Flint. To finish the trilogy of sometimes violent but also achingly kind and non-stereotypical canonical gay men operating in (somewhat) hostile work environments.

4. Skinny Norris. Drei Fragezeichen’s chaotic dumpster fire. To no one’s surprise, but also like, the odd one out in this list. (Cotta is a close second from this fandom tho.)

5. And last but not least Sebastian Moran. Originally from ACD’s Sherlock Holmes stories, but more specifically the one the Sherlock fandom created to go along with Andrew Scott’s Jim Moriarty, with certain traits of the Basher Moran from Kim Newman’s Hound of the D’Urbervilles.

I'm tagging @crazy-walls, @sehr-wohl-die-herrschaften, @darkshrimpemotions, @autumncalls & @manga-wolfsengel (as usual, only if you want of course!)

[seeingteacupsindragons]

Thanks for answering my previous question! I'd like to know if you have any theories on how they'll adapt The empty house arc. I've been thinking about the character of Moran, and while he wouldn't have the same motives to get back at Sherlock as in the original, he might disagree that Sherlock saved Liam, given that he respected her decision to die and was very faithful to the cause, besides that he no longer has anything to lose. I also thought that it was strange that they spent so much time.

I haven’t read any of the original ACD. What I have is “I read the Wikipedia summary” and “I harassed @quill-of-thoth, my pocket Sherlock Holmes encyclopedia, into her thoughts on the matter.”

That is to say, I am not sure I would take my thoughts on “adaptations” very seriously, because I don’t know what we’re really adapting here.

I have a lot of thoughts on how the next arc could play out, based on the advertising material we’ve been given and how the story has been working so far, and what might be “left” to settle. I haven’t. Really committed to anything yet.

I don’t see how it can’t be fairly Moran-centric, because: He’s missing, he’s pretty much the only character who couldn’t have tied off a character arc yet (obviously Sherlock and William’s aren’t done if we’re getting another arc, and some of the other characters might get a little further developed, but--mostly, they’re done), and the original story was also...Moran-centric.

I’m not sure what I think he’s been doing in the last couple years, but we do know that the next arc is going to be a Story of Atonement. Except there are like five or six characters hellbent on atoning themselves at this point in the series. So that’s not super helpful!

We also know that Moran has historically been: the most devoted to William’s plan (although he did agree to let Louis and Fred approach Sherlock for help and said it was fine if they saved William’s life as long as William’s plan went through without a hitch--and it did. But I don’t think he has a clue what happened to William after that).

My vaguely preferred theory is that William (and Sherlock) will be back in London to settle things with Moran somehow because Moran has absolutely no closure with what’s going on and is probably acting out based on that.

I just thought, ugh, if in the original he wanted revenge on Sherlock for killing Moriarty, and in this one, he was sorta of semi-responsible...ick.

I also don’t know that I think Moran is going to be getting an especially happy ending. Everyone else has made it out of this series alive and mostly contented. So maybe he will. But...I don’t know, if anyone gets a Bad End in this series, I think it’ll be him.

All of this is a really long way of saying “I don’t fucking know yet, I’m still thinking about it.”

[alltingfinns]

Part 2

John crestfallen at what looks like another sign of Sherlock not caring. Except Sherlock obviously sees it differently, time is of the essence and this is probably not the first kidnapping case he’s seen.

He looked through the fairy tale book probably because it was noticably out of place.

“Anyone can walk in anywhere if they pick the right moment”. So close to Jim’s method.

Oh God. Sherlock telling the John mirror that they’re better off avoiding relationships since at least one attempt involved a master criminal. At this point John is avoiding relationships but will soon enough meet “Mary”. Also worried about his interest in Sherlock who has the air of menace drawn thickly around him.

Did that sentence even make sense?

The modern equivalence to ACD Sherlock knowing the origin of soil samples.

“Thank you John” “Actually I’m just his mirror”

Keeping a sharp eye on John so the mistake seems more psychological than visual.

He looks upset when she says she doesn’t count. Just because he doesn’t like her romantically it doesn’t mean he doesn’t value her as a friend. He’s just really bad at valuing his friends. But also she might be so long gone on him that his lack of reciprocation is seen as an all out rejection.

Oh God the quick shots of the kids eating the poisoned chocolate. That’s my fill of horror for the holiday.

“Not be myself.”

Collar goes down.

I wonder how Jim faked a Sherlock to traumatize the girl.

We know Anderson’s theory on that from TEH, latex perfection.

Sherlock being subjected to the “they’ll think you’re crazy or lying if you say anything” quick show of “I O U”. Also known as the dancing frog effect.

Sally fishing for a reaction because she needs a bit more than a hunch and a screaming child to go on. But keeping it subtle enough that you have to be Sherlock Holmes to fully pick up on it and deduce what she might be thinking.

John being snubbed but it’s like other times. Sherlock is going into danger and needs to keep John out of the firing line. Not the first or last time he pulls this stunt.

Next on fairy tales with Richard Brook: The Story of Sherlock and His Very Bad and Downright Awful Evening.

Wonder if being found with a dead body is going to compound his situation? I mean, obviously he didn’t have a gun and the guy was shot from a distance, but at this point it’s the rumors that matter not the facts.

Been a while since I saw TPLoSH, but wasn’t that the one where dust was part of his filing system?

“Can’t kill an idea”

The breaking point. The wrong conclusion I wrote in the last post. Here it is.

He thinks what would upset John is being duped by Sherlock into liking/praising/admiring him.

I want to write a bigger thing about it, although I can’t imagine that the subject has gone unexplored in the fandom.

Sherlock is the one doubting in this scene. Doubting that John sees him for more than the Persona.

Remove the Persona, and John’s affection goes with it.

But John isn’t just there for the clever man in The Hat. Coat collar up or down, he cares for Sherlock.

The doubt will unfortunately not die here, or The Hat wouldn’t have such a pronounced presence in future episodes.

Are English gingerbread men always that thick? Then again it’s possible we just generally bake them thinner in Sweden, judging from a couple of German cookie cutters I have that doesn’t quite work on the level of thin we usually bake.

John standing up for him throughout this scene while Sherlock just quietly accepts it.

Am I even going to make it to the rooftop?

Both John and Sherlock get such good smash cut scenes in this episode.

“A good friend bails you out of jail, a best friend sits next to you and say ‘We fucked up.’”

The way Lestrade underreacts to the situation is amazing.

Once again on Gun Safety with Sherlock Holmes.

Lestrade’s face in his hands. Sherlock’s very tired dad/babysitter.

“Now people will definitely talk”

Priorities, John!

They’re going to need to coordinate. Good thing that they at least can do that in life or death situations, because they’re terrible with it otherwise.

“A lie that is preferable to the truth.” Also known as every straight Sherlock reading, because people can’t deal with their hero being gay.

Interesting that the guy got shot just as Sherlock lowered his gun. As in after he got the information. He wasn’t shot by one of the others. This is the work of Moriarty’s shooter.

I thought from the look on Sherlock’s face when John mentioned Brook that he had an idea who it was. But apparently not.

So the money was good enough that he’d risk jail time but still not enough that he wouldn’t risk the wrath of his ex-employer, the master criminal, for what she could get him? Sherlock was right on the money in his analysis of her. Not smart or trustworthy, just hungry.

Oh her look of pity to John. Like he’s the one that was duped.

A folder with printouts. That’s her big cache of evidence?

For Christ’s sake, her character in The IT Club is smarter than this!

And to top off her character she does a pathetic repeat of Sherlock’s insult to her and then John brushes her aside.

Wrap up a lie in the truth. There are way too many good lines in this episode.

“If I wasn’t everything that you think I am, that I think I am, would you still help me?”

So close to the actual question he has for John but will never ask.

Mycroft doesn’t actually believe in the key code nonsense, does he? Both Holmes brothers can’t be this blind on matters of cyber security.

This scene was at the end of THoB, which doesn’t have to mean anything timewise, granted. But I sincerely doubt a hypothetical key code was of concern.

Are there any updated versions of M theory around? I think I saw some new idea about Mycroft being in charge rather than Moriarty, but I still get the impression that these scenes happened even if no key code was involved. So why did he really have Moriarty slapped around?

“Moriarty wanted Sherlock destroyed, and you have given him the perfect ammunition.”

Wasn’t there a theory that Mycroft manipulated John into Sherlock’s path because he thought the doctor could save his brother?

Jim used the code to change his identity in the records. You seriously think Kitty checked the records, rather than taking him at his word and printouts?

Even then, Jim has worked with someone who knows what the record keepers like. No need for a magical key code.

Ah yes, about ten characters of binary. The ultimate key code!

“No. Friends protect people.”

People is John.

I personally love coming up with names with hidden meanings, so that’s probably what I would have picked too.

On the one hand he brought back the scary SUDDEN SHOUT he terrified me with in TGG, but on the other hand he used it to say “doofus”.

“Ordinary Sherlock”. This scene must have been fun to act.

Mrs Hudson assuming that John’s back because Sherlock did something clever and made it alright.

“Police! ...sorta”

Sherlock has already set Lazarus in motion, but the possibility of not having to leave John if he can get to Jim has to be explored.

Faked suicide like the bride. I don’t blame Sherlock for not seeing it. He’s running on no sleep, more adrenaline than blood in his veins and someone just seemingly shot himself in front of him. Not to mention the overall pressure he’s under.

The little laugh when he can’t make John doubt him.

Everything’s blurry.

“I researched you”. Subtle slam at Elementary?

Oh God their hands reaching.

“He’s my friend” with his voice breaking

“Say it now.” “I can’t.”

Mrs Hudson outangering John is the levity needed now.

“Stop this.”

Things are blurry again.

Risked being seen just to see John one last time and hear his words.

And I need to wash my face.

I also remembered that Sherlock talked of a lookalike in TEH, but I’m keeping my musing on Sherlock faking for transparency. Also I’m too lazy to go back and edit.

[yeah-oh-shit]

Sherlock S5/Dracula Meta

I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I’ve never written any fan theories or meta before (although I have so many), so please bear with me. I know my theory is going to sound a little out there, but I here it is: I think BBC Dracula is actually Sherlock S5, or else that it is somehow going to lead directly into it without warning. 

Warning: this is going to be a long piece. I’m going to break this down as follows, because there are many different pieces of evidence to examine: 

TFP, the story and the episode

Gothic Horror, HOB, Dracula

Vision, Timing, 20/20

The Final Problem

The first one is a fan theory I read probably 6-9 months ago that sadly I can’t find anymore (if you know who this person is, please please comment so I can give credit!). Basically this person was talking about how the naming of the episodes typically has some tie to what occurs in the original story by that same name, but how TFP has nothing AT ALL to do with the original story. In the original story, Sherlock goes face to face with Moriarty, and we are all lead to believe that both he and Moriarty die over the Richenbach falls. In all reality, ACD had meant to kill off Sherlock in this story, and stopped writing Sherlock Holmes stories for ten years before bringing him back in “The Empty House,” due to the public outrage and demand for more stories. So, the logic follows that maybe the one thing that they have in common is that they are both pitted as the end to Sherlock Holmes (in the story, he is dead; in the show we are given [force fed] an ending, it's made to seem like the final piece). The author of this theory also pointed out the show runners in this way are comparing ending the series with TFP (no canon Johnlock) to ending the show with Sherlock dead. We are left with a straight-washed version of John and Sherlock, with Mary’s voice controlling the narrative and that narrative being: It Doesn’t Matter Who You Are. The chemistry between John and Sherlock has been more or less completely lost throughout S4, and so we are left with this empty, dead-feeling version of them that doesn’t feel true to the characters we know and love. Even casuals thought S4 sucked.. this is why. They metaphorically killed them/killed the show.

Before S4 aired, Mofftiss had said that if they pulled off what they had planned, it would be the biggest thing in television. Well, what we got in TFP doesn’t really fit that at all, does it? What could they be referring to: A secret sister? Not really that epic. Even if we find out that most of S4 didn’t take place (either EMP theory or some other way of explaining it) that isn’t really a new trope. The audience discovering that they have actually been seeing things that are inside the main character’s head the entire time has been done over and over (Sixth Sense, A Beautiful Mind come to mind off hand). So what could this huge, history making move be? The argument that the meta I read previously made was that the show will come back (from the dead) unexpectedly, with no warning. That it will be a revival and in that revival, we will get canon Johnlock. I can’t remember if OP explicitly theorized that Dracula is actually Sherlock S5, but I think so. 

Now, I was with this theory from the beginning.. there is just something that feels possible to me, despite the fact that it sounds far fetched. Dracula seems like a weird, random thing to do when Sherlock, Moftiss’s mutual obsession, isn’t finished. (Also creating an escape room to keep up hype is odd if the show is over, but I digress.) I just don’t believe Moftiss’s constant claims that they couldn’t get everyone together to film S5 because of schedules, that they wanted to take a break, that they don’t know if they will do more (when Moffatt has talked about wanting a 5 season arc before, not to mention John Yorke). And then there’s the fact that we know they have filmed scenes that we have never seen (Niagara Falls anyone?). All this evidence that S5 is definitely coming, combined with the fact that we haven’t heard anything about it but have heard about Dracula, sort of fell into place for me. Despite me being willing to buy into it, this theory still seemed a little far fetched. But wait, there’s more!

Victorian Gothic Literature, HOB, Dracula

A lot of people have been talking about how gay Dracula is going to be, and citing evidence of the connections between Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde (Dracula was written directly after his trial and Dracula is read as having characteristics of Wilde) as evidence. This, along with the extremely homoerotic last clip of the trailer, certain parts of the text that read as queer coded (I haven’t read Dracula, so I don’t know much but have seen some things floating around that seem v gay to me), and what we know about queer coding in Victorian gothic literature in general, all make a convincing argument. Gatiss actually recently confirmed (more or less) that Dracula will be bisexual in the upcoming series. And while I’m all about gay vampires (I am a huge vampire fan, seriously I love Vampire Diaries and True Blood and was one of “those girls” during the middle school Twilight craze), there is something about Dracula being Moftiss’s first cannon gay show that feels both disappointing and incongruous.

I want to bring up the All Ghost Stories are Gay Stories meta by heimishtheidealhusband. Now, this meta was written in 2015, in anticipation of TAB. Its great and you should definitely check it out if you haven’t/don’t remember it. The part I am most interested in is actually the reading of HOB, which I will get to in a bit. The takeaways from the first bit of the meta are that monsters and ghosts (to a different extent) are representations of queer desire in Victorian gothic literature. I’m summarizing drastically here, but as queer desire was obviously unacceptable in Victorian times, writers would obfuscate it by creating an “other,” a monster or ghost, that represented the queer or “inverted” desire and also demonstrated the fear and horror that society had for homosexuality. So the monster becomes the representation of homosexuality (homosexual acts or desires) that is pursuing the protagonists. Oftentimes, the protagonists were originally obsessed with the monsters or the concept of them, before actually confronting them, but are terrified and frightened when it actually occurs (think Dr. Jeckyll or Frankenstein). This meta also specifically talks about Dracula and vampires as the most queerly coded of the Victorian monsters: “Think about your vampire tropes: Dracula sneaks into your bedroom at night, lusting after your bodily fluids. The victim, meanwhile, is paralyzed with fear, but also excitement. (Oh hi phobic enchantment, I see you there!) The tension mounts until there’s a climactic penetration of fangs into flesh. And lots of sucking. Then think about the fact that the one doing the penetrating and the one being penetrated can be - and often are - both male.” 

This all seems to bode great for our queer reading of the new BBC Dracula, yay! Vampires are clearly queer coded, and making it explicit makes sense and seems like a no-brainer. But I think it’s important to point out the ways in which this is also potentially (and likely) problematic. In Victorian times, there weren’t really many other options for portraying homosexuality. This is part of what makes what these writers did so brilliant - they were unable to show these desires as normal and healthy, because it was too dangerous and society didn’t see them that way (hence the use of the word “inverts” for homosexuals). Using the horror genre allowed them much more freedom to explore homosexuality, identity, and societal reactions to it, but also obfuscated the difference between reactions to homosexuality and the thing itself. In some of the stories, like Frankenstein, the monsters are actually misunderstood. Frankenstein’s monster only turns evil after experiencing society’s horrified reaction to it. However, in a modern context, I wonder about the message it sends to remake a Victorian story in a modern time and make the monster queer.

To flush this out a bit, I think it would be helpful to take a look at how Moftiss (and particularly Mark Gatiss) have played with this Victorian monster trope already, in Sherlock. Which brings us to HOB. heimishistheidealhusband points out that ACD’s original story “The Hound of the Baskervilles” would definitely fit into the scope of Victorian gothic literature, and their meta “All Ghost Stories are Gay Stories” does a particularly good job of breaking this episode down with the lens of Victorian gothic literature and queer coding. I am going to quote this reading here, and also also want to touch on the reading of this episode by Rebekah of TJLC Explained.

Here is what heimishtheidealhusband has to say about this episode: “Here’s why BBC Sherlock’s treatment of Hound is particularly beautiful. The creature – the hound – is our queer monster. In ACD’s Hound, the hound was indeed physically altered – he was painted in phosphorous to give him a hellish, glowing appearance. And the hound was actually the one to do the killing. In BBC’s Hound, there’s “the hound” – the monster that everyone is afraid of which is actually imaginary, and “the dog” – the real thing that actually exists. In other words, in this version, the “queer creature” in the horror story has been de-monstered. Homospectrality is being flipped on his head – rather than separating the man from the queer, they’re separating the queer from the monster. Because the dog isn’t inherently evil, it’s just the poison in the air that everyone is breathing that makes them fear it, and see a monster instead of an innocent dog. So in this treatment, if the dog/hound represents queerness, heteronormativity becomes a poisonous element in the air we all breathe.” 

This is why it is so important that Hounds is plural (as opposed to the original story “The Hound of the Baskervilles”). They are emphasizing the differentiation between the two dogs, the differentiation between the monster and the queer. Rebakah of TJLC Explained also points out that despite all the conspiracy theories, there is actually no monster inside Baskerville, but rather a rabbit that glows “like a fairy,” (let’s all take a moment to remember the skipping dance and sing-song voice Ben does in this scene, in case it wasn’t obviously queerly coded enough). It’s hard to imagine a less-threatening animal than a glowing bunny. 

Mark Gatiss has been very open about his love for horror and the gothic. He has studied the gothic writer M.R. James, and was involved with the BBC documentary about James that explored his “repressed sexuality.” He clearly loves and respects the genre, and is familiar with queer readings of Victorian gothic lit. In HOB, he chose to engage with the genre in a modern context, and to separate the monster from the queer. In doing so, he points out the inaccuracy and harm that coupling queerness with monstrosity generates. With this in mind, the choice to make Dracula feels like a step backwards, especially when you bear in mind that Gatiss has actually said that he isn’t really interested in gothic horror anymore. In an interview with Shadows at the Door in 2017, Gatiss stated: “I used to think nothing could exist without waistcoats and bubbling test tubes and now I’m actually more interested in modern horror; the gothic but in a modern context. I don’t think it has to be about the old and obviously I still love it but it doesn’t have to be about candelabra and castles. You can get the same feeling from modern methods, and in a way that is more frightening.”

All this isn’t to say that gothic horror or vampire stories isn’t still interesting and worthwhile as a concept, or that a canonically queer Dracula wouldn’t/couldn’t be badass. (I for one would love a Vampire Diaries remake wherein Damon’s character is a woman, but I’m off topic..). It doesn’t even mean that there can’t still be something complex or provoking in this representation for a modern audience. But it also feels dangerously close to repeating the queer coded (or even plainly queer) villain that we have all seen a hundred times from horror films and Disney movies. At best, still doesn’t seem particularly new or exciting, and at worst it could reinforce frankly problematic and dangerous stereotypes.

I am now going to analyze the actual trailer for BBC Dracula that was released a few weeks ago, because it is going to help me to illustrate this point. One thing that struck me most when watching it was just how horrific it really is. The 45 second long trailer includes: a fly that crawls into an eye, a bloody fingernail being ripped off, a blood covered hand, something that appears to be being birthed, a scary, old-looking Dracula with a bloody tongue, and bloody flesh that is being carved. There are at least 3 instances of mouths: the fangs at the very beginning, the mouth with bloody tongue, and the frame after the gunshot of a mouth that looks desiccated like a zombie, that only flashes for a split second. All in all, it’s not only scary, it’s quite disgusting. The three bloody or otherwise monstrous mouths that we see relate most strongly to the covert sexual tones of Victorian gothic literature (and also remind me of Moriarty’s oral fixation in TAB). These are some of the most disturbing of the images. While the intro fangs are pretty mild, the clip of Dracula’s frightening face and bloody tongue (which is followed immediately by the bloody flesh being carved) and the decayed mouth are both quite gruesome. If we apply the metaphors that we know from Sherlock, they are making some pretty damning connections. The mouths in-and-of-themselves could be read in a sexual way, but then there is the added fact that the decayed mouth appears directly after a gunshot, which we know has been tied to dicks/gay sex in Sherlock (and generally). The bloody flesh being carved on a table also recalls the food/sex metaphor in Sherlock, specifically reminding me of how disgusting the meal scene is in John’s wedding to Mary. Food and eating can be really disgusting, and this trailer makes a point to show us that. When we connect this back to the sex metaphor again, and give it a queer lens, we are once again being metaphorically told that queer sex is disgusting and horrific. 

Whether or not Moftiss are purposefully making these metaphorical statements, they definitely went out of their way to make this variation of Dracula particularly scary, horrifying, and gruesome. It’s always possible that they are just hyping up the goriness in order to get audiences excited. It’s also possible that they are highlighting the disgustingness of Dracula’s monstrosity as a means of engaging with the public perception of homosexuality or that they will complicate the narrative in some other way. But even if we give them the benefit of the doubt here and assume they aren’t trying to paint queerness in a bad light, this highlighting of the disgusting nature of Dracula’s monstrosity doesn’t seem to push forward any kind of unique, modern narrative. We have seen this, this is exactly what Victorian gothic literature is all about. They needed to explore homosexuality through its repression, to make it monstrous, because they lived in a time when there were few alternative ways to explore it (except for maybe the example of our sweet “bohemian” boys - check out this meta from artemisastarte to learn more about bohemianism and queerness in Sherlock Holmes). But in our modern day, is this really that exciting? Is this the kind of queer representation we want and deserve in 2019 (soon to be 2020)? To me, the answer is no, especially in light of the incredible and complex work they have done in Sherlock toward building a queer love story that is normalized, and completely removed from any conflation with monstrosity. 

The fact that Dracula is tied so heavily to Sherlock makes this distinction even greater. Gatiss said that they got the idea for Dracula from a still image of Benedict Cumberbatch on the set of Sherlock with his collar up. Supposedly it reminded them of Dracula and the BBC asked them if they wanted to make it. In an interview, when asked about Dracula in relationship to Sherlock, Gatiss called it a “stablemate” of Sherlock Holmes. I’m not really sure how we are supposed to take this, and he doesn’t explain at all (of course), but that would mean that they are in some way similar or connected. I think he doesn’t just mean that they both come from him and Moffatt, as that is rather obvious and was acknowledged in the question itself. Both shows are not only created by Moftiss, but written in the same format, produced by Sue Virtue, and shot at Hartwood Studios. They also really emphasize the connection to Sherlock in the trailer (which isn’t surprising because advertising), and also in the new Netflix description, which states only: “From the makers of ‘Sherlock,’ Claes Bang stars as Dracula in this brand-new miniseries inspired by Bram Stoker’s classic novel.” There isn’t even a background image, only a weird gray distortion on a black background.

Furthermore, there are also elements from Sherlock that point to Dracula, either directly or indirectly. In S4, when John is supposedly texting “E.” He asks “Night Owl?” and the response he gets is “Vampire.” It feels odd and out of place to mention vampires in this offhand way, as we have never really seen anything like this on the show. To be fair, a lot of S4 feels this way, but I believe that it is actually chock-full of symbolic meaning and that almost everything that we see that feels wrong or untrue to the show has a deeper meaning. What, then, is the purpose that this plays? Additionally, in the escape room (Spoiler alert for The Game is Now), there is a television in the first room (Molly’s lab) that is playing what is set to look like British news. In the newsreel at the bottom, they included the announcement that Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffatt are making BBC’s Dracula. Once again, this feels a little throwaway, or could be explained away as advertising (although the escape room is so fast-paced that having any time at all to look at the television, let alone read it, when it wasn’t explicitly part of the puzzles would seem rare). Once again, there is a subliminal connection made between these two shows that I would argue is purposeful. 

The decision to make a gothic show that so completely plays on this horror trope, and then to tie it both explicitly and implicitly to the show that they have already done, which has a very different messaging around the gothic as it relates to conceptions of homosexuality, seems odd. In and of itself, a Gothic exploration of queerness is possible, but feels limited by its very nature. Gothic horror through a queer lens is about queerness and otherness being equated to and embodied by monstrosity. Dracula’s trailer seems to clearly be playing up this monstrousness. I want to reiterate that I don’t think making something like Dracula gay couldn’t be cool or interesting for what it is, or that there isn’t a way to engage with the gothic without it being problematic. But in comparison to what they are doing with Sherlock, it feels unimpressive. And in light of HOB, Dracula seems to go directly against the argument that Gatiss makes so beautifully, that queerness is harmless and very distinct from monstrosity, despite what the fog of homophobia might depict. To build up this narrative in Sherlock, then cut into the middle of it with something that is explicitly connected to it but symbolically making an opposite assertion feels counter-intuitive.

Vision, Timing, 20/20

Even with all this evidence, I don’t know that I would really believe they would go through the trouble to do all of this if not for the timing. Dracula is set to come out “soon,” but people have been speculating for this winter. That would make it the end of 2019 or beginning of 2020. Now I’m going to explain a little bit about my reading of HLV, which happens to coincide nicely with The Game is Now, and ultimately this theory as a whole. 

Something that caught my eye in HLV is how much glass there is in its first scene. We open on a shot of CAM’s glasses sitting on the table. We are below them, looking up through glass (although we see later that the table is actually wood). Next we get a shot of lady Elizabeth Smallwood, reflected through glass so as to show her in double (which is particularly interesting given that she is repeatedly called Lady Alicia Smallwood, both by CAM in the text that flashes on the screen during his analysis of her later this episode, and in the S4 scene where she leaves Mycroft her card). Next we see the entire interviewing committee through glass walls (it continues but you get the picture). We are introduced to the concept of lenses, looking through them, and at times the distorted image created by them. 

CAM owns a newspaper, and he controls people through rumors: it doesn’t matter what the truth is, it matters what people believe (what they see). (This sounds a lot like Mary in S4 to me). So we are introduced again (after TRF) to the concept of fact vs. fiction, truth vs. lie, and this time with the addition of lenses. What lens you view something through matters, has a bearing on how you read something, how clearly you see it (sounds kind of like the fog in HOB). By the end of HLV, we have been removed from the narrative enough, we can’t see completely clearly. We don’t know what has happened during the time between John and Sherlock’s confrontation with Mary and the scene at Christmas. We don’t see if Sherlock and John are on the same page or what Sherlock is planning. 

This episode leads into TAB, followed by S4 fuckiness. In S4, there are many things that feel “off” but one of the biggest is that John and Sherlock are distant the entire time. In the beginning we get the indication that John is missing Sherlock, but then we see Sherlock acting as if he is closer to Mary than John, inviting her on cases in his place. She gets inserted between them completely, becomes part of the gang. After Mary’s “death” John blames Sherlock (in a feat of logic that is truly baffling) and we have them at their most distant in TLD. And then, they come back together again in TFP, but the warmth and closeness is missing.

This season makes it clear that Moftiss were writing in all the little things that made their dynamic romantic and their chemistry so clear. They were able to take that out, and they did so with intention. It is if we are seeing the show through a lens: through the lens of straight-washing, the lens or perspective that Mary (John’s wife, the symbol of a straight John Watson, a platonic John and Sherlock) narrates for us so thoroughly at the end of the series. (Also side note, this straight-washed version of the show also fits into the 5 part John Yorke structure with part 4 being the height of the antithesis or the “worst part” - I learned about York from garkgatiss’s meta). The heart of the show is John and Sherlock’s dynamic. This dynamic is clearly intimate and romantic and has been in every iteration of Sherlock Holmes since the original stories, despite never being explicitly canon. S4 really follows through on Moriarty’s promise. The heart of Sherlock Holmes is gone, missing, burned out. 

Then we have the escape room [mild spoilers]. The entrance is Doyle’s Opticians; its filled with glasses. (Side note there was definitely a wall displaying glasses that were arranged by color to look like a rainbow). Once again we have the theme of lenses. Being in an optometry office, it’s interesting because the focus is obviously on correct vision. 20/20 vision. Vision is “right” when it’s 2020. (This wasn’t my realization, but someone else went to the escape room as well and wrote about it). So now, we have this idea of being able to see correctly tied to the number 2020. To the YEAR 2020. This is also interesting because one of the signs in Doyle’s Opticians read “You were told but you didn’t listen: coming soon.” Just another indication that we will be getting more (Sherlock) soon. 

Now, finally, we come to what I see as some of the most convincing evidence about Sherlock S5 coming in 2020. It has to do with copyright laws. 

In England, all of ACD’s stories are in the public domain. However, in the US, this isn’t so. US Copyright laws are different from the UK, so the last of the stories won’t actually enter the public domain until 2023. American copyright duration is 95 years from the date of publication. This is important because the Arthur Conan Doyle Estate is extremely protective of how Sherlock Holmes is portrayed in the media. It turns out that despite the fact that most of the stories are already in the public domain, BBC, CBS, and Warner Brothers have all gotten licenses from the Estate in order to make their shows/films. In 2014, the ACD Estate lost a lawsuit in which they were trying to argue that the characters are “complex” and that any use of the character (at all) was still valid under copyright laws (as not every story had entered the public domain) and therefore in need of a license from them. While some of the later stories are still under copyright, they lost the lawsuit and it was ruled that the character (as written in the earlier stories) is in the public domain. They sued Miramax for its production Mr. Holmes, which portrays an elderly Holmes, arguing that it drew from the later stories and therefore violated copyright. Miramax ended up settling to avoid litigation. The Estate is known for being litigious and basically doing its best to stay gatekeeper, hoard ownership, and generally extort money out of anyone who creates anything having to do with Sherlock Holmes. While the BBC has paid them for licenses before, I’m not sure how this clearly conservative group would feel about making Johnlock canon. Even if its not legally in their power to prevent it from happening, it doesn’t sound like that has stopped them in the past from suing basically anyone that has tried to create Sherlock Holmes material without their consent, and if that material in any way seems to come from the later stories, then they might have a case. 

Which brings us to the Three Garridebs. Moftiss have said in the past that this is one of their favorite stories due to it being the story where Holmes shows his depth of feeling for Watson. As stated by Watson himself, “It was worth a wound–it was worth many wounds–to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask” Generally speaking, the fandom has posited that a Johnlock reveal may happen in a “Three Garridebs” moment. And do you happen to know the story that directly precedes the Three Garridebs? The Sussex Vampire. A story in which Holmes investigates a supposed vampire only to discover a loving mother who is attempting to save her infant child by sucking poison out from his wound. Kind of sounds familiar huh? A perceived monster, who is in fact nothing dangerous at all. Who in this case is the exact opposite of monstrous, is actually loving and gentle (like the real dog that is tellingly tied to sentiment, or Bluebell the glowing rabbit).

Both the Sussex Vampire and the Three Garridebs are part of The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, the last collection of stories. They were both published in 1924, meaning that both their copyrights run out in 2019. It will really only be possible for Moftiss to use material from the Three Garridebs for a queer storyline starting in 2020. And if we assume that this is their plan all along, that they have even potentially set it up in S4 (looking at you John Watson getting shot by “Eurus”), they have HAD TO WAIT until now. But they won’t need to wait any longer, starting in January. 

Oh and by the way, here is an interview Martin gave recently in which he tells a story about how he had to literally give up the Hobbit because he was CONTRACTED to Sherlock S2 and they wouldn’t move filming on that. (Thankfully Peter Jackson moved filming around for him, so we still have him as Bilbo). So I would imagine that if S2 was contracted, and they were planning on making a 5 series show all along, that they are probably contracted for all of it. Which means all those claims that its just too difficult to get everyone together for filming are just another means of throwing us off the trail. 

If they have been waiting for this copyright to expire, but also unable to tell us that that is why they are waiting, it also makes sense why they have stretched it out so much. It's even possible that they didn’t realize how horrible the ACD Estate was going to be when they first started filming, and had to adjust/drag it out so that they could finally do what they want to do, what they have been planning for from the beginning.

So there you have it: the ending of The Final Problem, an analysis of HOB, Dracula, and Victorian gothic lit, and finally the symbolism of lenses, correct vision, and copyright issues all leading up to 2020. I think S5 of Sherlock is coming. I’ve been feeling it, sensing something for the last few months. I think we can all feel it. And it might just be sooner than we thought.

---------------------------------

Thank you so much to my love @canonicallybisexualjohnwatson who co-developed this theory with me, edited this, helped me with the links, and was also the one to introduce me to Sherlock/TJLC, subsequently changing my life. i love you b.

[raggedyblue]

#NORBURY

If you have read my meta The empty box, you know that I  see already in SIGN (something also common throughout the Canon), the same mirrors game that we find in BBC Sherlock. In the original story Mary was the daughter of an obvious mirror of Watson. It is said that when a consequence is unavoidable, it is a child of the causes that led to its realization. Two men, Morstan and Sholto, linked by a common treasure and a shared life in the East (x x). Two men Watson and Holmes who share rooms and something more. But it is not granted, every action has its consequences and Mary is the daughter of the premises, the evil necessary to preserve the true story. But now we are in the new millennium, Mary no longer has a true identity, no longer has a real parents, because the premises for her existence are no longer those of once, not only, her existence is completely useless. But there are new premises, which are not new at all, there are always Holmes and Watson, Sherlock and John, but the natural daughter of this premise is a love story in full light of the sun. Rosie is the love story. I know it has already been said, but perhaps it has not been seen under this perspective. Mary does not die giving birth to her (just the presence of John and Sherlock) because it is a dance that is still danced for a while? How long are we at stake, 8 years old? But in the end Mary is destined to disappear. Should be killed by a man who suffered for love, was tortured for love, but at the last moment is killed by law enforcement, once again betrayal, behind him, the dominant morality that asks his pledge. In the Canon there is the harrowing story of a man, betrayed by the one who believed to be a friend, who has seen the love of his life, his health, his youth, taken away. But when the three meet again, fortuitously, the past asks for his pledge, the traitor dies because he is faced with the horror of the consequences he has caused. The veteran is our Ajax, the mirror of Sherlock, but also of John, because both have suffered in this century of unrecognized love. In all this vision, the figure of Norbury remains uncertain for me. I think she could represent, as a mirror, withered, of John, the narrator. He who has confused the waters, which has given way to the double game, for his personal safety, a nest egg in the bank and a home for the old age / security that Holmes and Watson were not seen as homosexuals. In the end, however, the clues have always been there, if we can kill Mary, if we can imagine a love story between John and Sherlock we can do it because love was already there to be seen between Holmes and Watson, it was hidden in plain sight from the narrator himself. The ammunition (Amo/ Ego Amo/ I Love/ love) that are able to kill Mary, the heterosexual mask, useless by now, have been put in the charger by the narrator himself, by ACD, by Watson, by John and then by Norbury (and it was only arrogant of the public not wanting to see it to now #norbury to you).

@possiblyimbiassed @gosherlocked @ebaeschnbliah @tjlcisthenewsexy @tendergingergirl @devoursjohnlock @sherlockshadow @sagestreet @sarahthecoat

[sanguinarysanguinity]

Hey! You mentioned a Sherlock Holmes radio play earlier on one of your posts, which reminded me of when I was in 7th grade and my English teacher had us listen to a SH radio play (which I hadn't thought about in years!) Do you have recs for where to start with SH radio plays (or just some that you really like)?

YES I HAVE RECS. I’M SO GLAD YOU ASKED.

Start with the so-called “Bert Coules” radioplays (also sometimes called Merrison!Holmes or simply radio!Holmes), which were recorded by BBC Radio 4 from 1987 to 2010. These consist of:

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1987), Roger Rees and Crawford Logan, adapted by Bert Coules.

The Collected Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1989-1989), Clive Merrison and Michael Williams; all 60 canon stories, the lion’s share of which were adapted by Bert Coules.

The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (2002-2010), Clive Merrison and Andrew Sachs. Fifteen original stories expanding upon the teasers Watson would mention every now again, all by Bert Coules.

Yes, yes, I know, that’s seventy-six stories, which is faaaaaaaaaaar too long of a list for someone wanting help with where to start. So here’s a shortlist of favorites:

The Lion’s Mane (Case-Book). Bert Coules took a story that is often deemed the worst in canon, and turned it into a masterwork. ACD’s original had no Watson whatsoever in it – it’s set during Holmes’ retirement in Sussex – but Coules builds a framing story wherein Watson comes down to Sussex for the weekend and learns that Holmes, who has been anxious that Watson might be bored, has kept back a case as a surprise and wants to re-enact the whole thing for Watson, with Watson playing the part of the detective. (Because it’ll be fun, Watson!) The episode is adorkable and hilarious and startlingly poignant, Holmes alternately hamming up the death scenes and wondering whether he chose well in bypassing love, whereas Watson is keenly aware that he’s about to go down in history as a not-so-bright literary device who exists to make Holmes look smarter than he already is. These two have been friends for twenty-four years at this point, and it shows. (My god, it shows!) Things to know: the episode begins with Holmes and Watson reading the script of the William Gillette stageplay about themselves. Gillette was basically the Basil Rathbone of his time, and half of the shit we think of as classically Holmes (such as the curved pipe, or the phrase “Elementary, my dear Watson!”) come from Gillette’s version. There are easter eggs in the episode about the literary-tradition-yet-to-come, the one that grew out of Holmesian roots – Batman, the Green Hornet, Star Trek’s Spock – and the episode references their own Study in Scarlet several times. At some point you should really listen to STUD and LION back-to-back, and hear what a quarter-century evolution of a friendship sounds like. 

The Devil’s Foot (Last Bow). You may know the canon story; it’s the one where they almost die together. The episode begins with them walking on a beach, quoting epic love poems to each other about dying for one’s love. And why yes, it is Tristan and Isolde that plays when the two of them very nearly die.

The Dying Detective (Last Bow). The parts about the actual case can be a bit slow, but the Holmes-Watson shenanigans are magnificent. Watson gets to be brave and heartbroken and noble and really truly angry, and Holmes is going to have soooo much sucking-up to do to make that right.

A Scandal in Bohemia (Adventures). FYI, this was recorded during the period when the BBC higher-ups were meddling with the format, insisting that one can’t do Sherlock Holmes without Watsonian narration, boo. HOWEVER. The episode gets Irene Adler right (hurrah!), and also asks a very important question: why the hell is Holmes harassing a rich, noble bully-boy’s ex-mistress for him?? Everywhere else in canon, when a case like this is brought to him, Holmes tells Rich Guy to go fuck himself, so why did he play along that time? There’s also some lovely Holmes-Watson bits, especially at the beginning, when they’re learning how to be friends again despite Watson’s marriage.

Blue Carbuncle (Adventures). Another early story, so Watsonian narration again, iirc. But I love the Holmes-and-Watson interactions, two friends taking refuge in each other during the frenetic Christmas season. And the final moments of the episode frankly make me melt.

Retired Colorman (Case-Book). Yeah, okay, fine, I remember nothing of the first half hour. But the very last bit? When Holmes retires? Makes me cry. Every. Fucking. Time. (You can listen to LION again after if you need to feel better.)

A Study in Scarlet. Holmes and Watson are just so young and enthusiastic and taken with each other, I just.

And hello, here you are at the beginning of the canon! You could do the back-to-back listen with LION at this point, but really, you might as well just start listening in order, right through all sixty stories. :-P

While we’re talking about Coules, I also love the 1987 Rees and Logan Hound of the Baskervilles, which is more vibrant than Merrison and Williams’ take on it. Sadly, it’s difficult to lay hands on, but the BBC re-airs it every now and again.

And I frankly adore Bert Coules’ Further Adventures. It took me a little while to get used to the different Watson, but Bert Coules’ idea of what makes for a good Sherlock Holmes story suits me far better than Doyle’s did. (There. I said it, and I stand by it.) Favorites include Colonel Warburton, Miss Gloria Wilson, Cripplegate Square, Abergavenny Murder, and Miss Franny Blossom, but honestly, it’s a very strong collection. I admit that I’m so attached to a few of them that I have a hard time not reflexively rejecting other people’s takes on the same canon references. You can listen to these before the canon sixty, if you want – in fact, I support that choice wholeheartedly.

There are other Holmesian radioplays beyond the ones Coules was involved with, of course. Big Finish has an ongoing line, but overall I’m not that impressed with it. The Big Finish Holmes productions tend to go heavy on the atmosphere, heavy on the narration, and light on the Holmes-Watson partnership: if you’re not there for the case, there’s not much of anything else going on. (Here, have a review I wrote of their Hound of the Baskervilles.)

THAT SAID, I do like a few of the Big Finish Productions:

The Last Act (1x01). Roger Llewellyn, script by David Stuart Davies, adapting his own one-man stageplay. This one is angst upon angst upon angst: Holmes drinking alone on the occasion of Watson’s funeral, reflecting on all the things he never said to Watson.

The Death and Life (1x02). Roger Llewellyn, script by David Stuart Davies, adapting his own one-man stageplay. Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty join forces to keep Doyle from killing them off. I want a fixit for the Watson parts and there’s a racist bit I don’t like, but mostly I laughed lots.

The Final Problem (2x01). Nicholas Briggs and Richard Earl. See my review of their Hound for my feelings about narration-heavy adaptations of canon stories (tl;dr if you’re just going to read Doyle’s words aloud, I’d sooner have the audiobook), but this is the one instance, I think, where keeping it in Watson’s words worked. Keeping all the narration in made it a story about Watson’s grief, and Richard Earl does a fine job. Sadly, I think their Empty House – which is sold as a pair with FINA – is weak; I vastly prefer the Coules/Merrison/Williams version.

It may be that the more recent Big Finish stories get better again; I’ve only listened to the first three-or-so series.

Lessee, who else? During the 1940s, Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce did thirty-odd radioplays together, and then after Rathbone left, Bruce kept right on doing them. I haven’t listened to very many, I’m afraid: I tend to bounce off of Bruce’s Watson, and furthermore, Bruce is a mumbler and the audio quality is staticky, which isn’t a great combination. However, there were so many that there must be some good ones among them? I welcome suggestions from those in the know. Here are fifty-four of them, available for free download.

And I’m also fond of the Peepolykus radioplay of Hound of the Baskervilles. It’s very silly broad comedy, but it makes me laugh lots and Holmes and Watson love each other (and Watson maybe also loves Lestrade?), and while I’m an incorrigible crankypants about some things, I’m an incredible pushover for others.

Does that help? Let me know if you have any questions about anything!

[nightingveilxo]

Justifying Holmes/Watson or Johnlock as a Player in the Drama (Part I)

What if you’re trying to justify John’s place in Sherlock’s life, but you can’t do it via the meta or screenshots we use? If you’re any of the actual players in the drama (and this makes it possible to pair with trance or EMP theories), you have to quickly push it all together to tie up those ‘loose ends’?

John’s odd blog jpeg from T6T is shown above. Nappies, which means diapers he shouldn’t even be needing yet (unless this is a projection *coughs*) or it also means a large circular platter (if your thoughts run to reflective items and circles of thought--which they should--read the linked meta. We already know that S4 is basically the previous seasons, done backward.)

In order to hold up his place, according to some, John would have to continue on cases with Sherlock and keep writing his blog. Lestrade becomes fixated on the idea in S4, which seemed very strange, except if you’re reviewing the blog and fitting in additional information. Also, in canon ACD and Granada adaptations, this is in keeping with why Watson began writing down the cases for publication. Most of the time, and it’s mentioned more than once, Holmes wasn’t receiving credit in the newspapers for his solving of the crimes--it goes to the multiple lead investigators. Remember this point for later.

Lestrade is afraid...And Sherlock comments his Boswell is learning...

Not fast enough, Sherlock...

Sherlock thought John meant him, but John says he was talking to Mary, so this fanciful solution (7% or otherwise), isn’t working out for Sherlock. Mycroft asks modern John to look after Sherlock, but the end of the special tells us that such a thing never happened, because we’re still in 1895. It’s echoed in S4, by John having a full time job, being a husband, and then also a father. TFP ends Sherlock asking Lestrade to do exactly the same thing with Mycroft, and Lestrade finally saying Sherlock is a good man (going back to ASiP).

NEW OPENING (VICTORIAN) TITLES (with a Victorian twist to the theme tune). Close-up on an issue of The Strand Magazine.  Nearby, a news vendor is calling out to the passing pedestrians.  He is holding newspapers and another copy of The Strand with a small red sleeve around it on which are the words “SHERLOCK HOLMES” and an in-profile white silhouette of the detective.  Offscreen, carollers can be heard singing “Hark!  The Herald Angels Sing.” NEWS VENDOR: Papers!  Papers! (A hansom cab approaches along the street.) NEWS VENDOR: Papers!  Papers! (The cab slows down as Watson leans out of the window a little and gestures to attract the attention of the vendor.) WATSON: Here. (The cab stops.) WATSON: How’s ‘The Blue Carbuncle’ doing? NEWS VENDOR: Very popular, Doctor Watson.  Is there gonna be a proper murder next time? WATSON: I’ll have a word with the criminal classes. NEWS VENDOR: If you wouldn’t mind. (He points towards the figure sitting next to Watson.) NEWS VENDOR: Is that ’im?  Is ’e in there? (Holmes, mostly obscured from the vendor’s view, apparently kicks Watson, who grunts.) WATSON: No.  No, no, not at all.  (He tips a finger to his hat.)  Ah, good day to you. CABBIE (to his horse, shaking the reins at it): Walk on. (The cab sets off again.  The news vendor calls after it.) NEWS VENDOR: Merry Christmas, Mr Holmes!

The Blue Carbuncle. This is interesting, because that case isn’t on 21st century John’s blog. According to John, it wasn’t a case interesting enough for Sherlock to take on, and they go through a series of comments about Bond films and cat videos. The other option is The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone. 

The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone was one of two instances where the original canon story was written in third person. It was based on a play, and Watson was barely in it. The other story was His Last Bow (HLB). The action in TAotMS all takes places in one room, rather similar to the beginning of TAB. The plot twist comes that the play has been what Holmes has overheard of a conversation between two criminals. Now, apply this idea to the one that Sherlock is still unconscious in hospital, but capable of overhearing and processing what is heard around him. It echoes Sherlock’s comment in TAB about his MP being able to do things more than what Mycroft knows, and Mycroft agrees.

Be sure to read @jenna221b meta about how the cases are twins, and fixes are being added in as well as Sherlock S4 as Epic Theatre.

In Terror By Night, which we know Mofftiss used in MHR, includes aspects from TAofMS. In Granada adaptations, this case was merged with The Three Garridebs, which were practically absent in S4 of Sherlock.

Mofftiss would have us believe all we got was the three men hanging around at the mercy of Eurus, but I’ve been working with the idea that Moffttis is re-enacting the post Reichenbach behavior of Holmes and Watson from Granada. Hardwicke replaced Burke after TFP (comparable to Sherlock TRF), and Johnlock wasn’t the same afterward. It takes several episodes before it returns to the warm, close physical proximity, flirtatious pairing we see before Holmes “dies” and Burke was replaced.

Interestingly, the cases that do show it, are the ones where Mofftiss borrowed the most from Granada. Granada The Devil’s Foot, Sherlock S4 Imagery, and Moriarty or Mortimer & A Little Glimpse Into Granada’s ‘Eligible Bachelor’ by @ebaeschnbliah (Also interesting that we posted these meta within hours of one another, without having talked about the influence factor at all.) As you can tell from the second meta, Eurus had an obvious reference in EB (although The Musgrave Ritual--which is used in Sherlock TFP), also gave a visual hint via Rachel, the one that allowed a man to die down a hole, and it showed the coming revival of Johnlock closeness--although it wouldn’t happen until TDF. If you don’t think that’s important, remember that Moffttiss said TD12 as a name only happened, because the name they wanted to use was taken. While writing this, I found a similar meta to mine about TDF by @devoursjohnlock Maybe I am helping connect dots...

From this meta by @may-shepard we see that Doyle’s story The Parasite, coincides with S4, and the also the dates from the story fill in the missing dates on John’s blog.

At the end of TLD, John and Lestrade are discussing the morgue incident. They specifically mention HLV (HLB in canon). It seems like they are wrapping up those loose ends Sherlock doesn’t like to have on his watch, but he’s been in hospital, even though according to what Sherlock and Mycroft know from T6T--the loose ends from HLV are already edited and he’s free of that.

According to TAB, all the modern elements we know of from Sherlock, are all lunatic fantasy...or metaphorical flights of fancy...Holmes theorizes it could come to pass, but only after the echo of the idea of having proper murders. Moffttis was adamant that Mary had to die, because that’s how it was in the stories, but it isn’t. We’re never told what happened to Mary.

TAB

Shortly afterwards, the car pulls away and drives off along the tarmac.  As the scene fades out, the familiar ‘Pursuit’ music starts ... and almost immediately grinds to a halt. The screen remains dark for a moment and then ... WATSON (offscreen): Flying machines; these, er, telephone contraptions ... (The screen fades up to reveal Holmes and Watson sitting in their armchairs in the sitting room of 221B.  Each of them is smoking a pipe.) WATSON: What sort of lunatic fantasy is that? HOLMES: It was simply my conjecture of what a future world might look like, and how you and I might fit inside it. (Watson nods.) HOLMES: From a drop of water, a logician should be able to infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara. WATSON: Or a Reichenbach. HOLMES: Have you written up your account of the case? WATSON: Yes. HOLMES: Hmm.  Modified to put it down as one of my rare failures, of course? WATSON: Of course. (Holmes looks thoughtful for a moment.) HOLMES: “The Adventure of ... the Invisible Army.” (Watson looks upwards, considering it.) HOLMES: “The League of Furies”?  (He leans forward, smiling.) “The Monstrous Regiment.” WATSON: I rather thought ... “The Abominable Bride.” HOLMES (sitting back): A trifle lurid. WATSON: It’ll sell.  It’s got proper murders in it, too. HOLMES (pointing his pipe at him): You’re the expert. WATSON: As for your own tale, are you sure it’s still just a seven percent solution that you take?  I think you may have increased the dosage. HOLMES: Perhaps I was being a little fanciful ... (He looks down thoughtfully.) HOLMES: ... but perhaps such things could come to pass. (He stands up.) HOLMES: In any case, I know I would be very much at home in such a world. (Watson chuckles as Holmes walks across the room towards the right-hand window.) WATSON: Don’t think I would be. HOLMES: I beg to differ. (He looks out of the window.) HOLMES: But then I’ve always known I was a man out of his time. (He puts his pipe in his mouth and continues to look out of the window.  The ‘Pursuit’ theme starts again, this time with a Victorian twist to it, as the camera slowly pulls back.  Down in the street below, customers are going into SPEEDY’S Sandwich Bar & Cafe while more people – all dressed in modern-day clothing – walk past, and the road is busy with cars. A black cab passes a number 11 bus – destination Baker Street – as they drive past 221B ... ... where it is always 1895.) 

Transcript ( x )

So, if you’re going through the list of cases (as one of the players), you don’t always have to be present or in the physical framed shots of the events in order to do so. Remember how John was disappearing in shots from T6T, when Lestrade and Hopkins were present, and how Sherlock was working with multiple investigators regularly--not just Lestrade? It happened against in TFP, while Sherlock is trying to negotiate in Sherrinford with Eurus.

This is more in keeping with ACD and Granada, because Lestrade wasn’t the lead on all the cases. That he should be in most of Sherlock S1-3 made no real sense, so this is someone trying to cover their bases and possibly justify John’s continued existence in Sherlock’s life, through the filter of something other than being a couple. It still works though if you’re John, Lestrade, Mycroft or even unconscious or tranced Sherlock trying to show why John’s place by his side is vital--without giving away the romantic element (because to Sherlock, the romantic part is a mystery--he’s been unconscious since S2 or HLV).

[fyrapartnersearch]

Long Term F/M or M/M Wanted!

Hi, it’s Jeanette again. Since it’s been two and a half weeks and I didn’t get many bites, I thought I would try at this again and be a little more specific. I’m looking for a long-term rp.

I’m 18 years old and have about six years under my belt. I write about 1-5 paragraphs, and I’m in CST and a college student.

I’m mostly interested in playing M/F & M/M OC roleplays, but would also be interested in roleplays that take place in Sherlock (BBC, series 1&2/Granada/ACD) and Dragon Age: Origins.

What I do:

- Usually have one major character and a few other characters around to spice up the plot; purely two characters in a roleplay can get boring.

- I like a lot of past settings (Medieval, Victorian, 1900’s-50’s), but some others are fine if the story is interesting.

- While I like smut and romance, I do not like roleplays where all conflicts are solved by the characters getting together and having a roll in the hay.

- I’m okay with violence if it’s not the “shoot ‘em up” or hack and slash sort of approach. Violence is good when it has meaning.

I will not roleplay with you if:

- You control my character and rewrite their personality. Who your character perceives them to be is one thing, but passive-aggressively trying to form their personality with arguments like “But you never have coffee!” right off the bat is just foolish.

- You mind-read. How my characters react and what they think are two different things. If I say “The client’s behaviour was certainly puzzling, but she spoke not a word on the matter,” I do not want your character’s internal or external monologue referring to a dramatically quirked brow that I have not mentioned. I know this is a little nit-picky, but it’s happened enough that I had to say it.

- You kill off or severely ruin characters’ lives without discussing it. I know this can take away some of the effect, but if written well, it will matter.

- You respond in one-liners or have very bad grammar and/or spelling in every reply.

Things I would like to try:

- I’ve got a big big itch for an arranged marriage setting with two opposing characters that don’t get along very much and have to pretend otherwise for their parents and public events.

- A slave sold into marriage and trying to come to terms with it, dealing with suspicion and lack of trust towards a master that hasn’t been cruel.

- A really good medieval or noir-like adventure I could sink my teeth into.

- An alien scavenging a ship finds an injured human and can’t leave them to die. The alien (very grudgingly) saves the human and begins nursing them back to health when they’re attacked and must take refuge on a planet in the middle of a harsh winter.

I’m also okay with working something out with you! Email me at nosalvationformenow@firemail.cc if you’re interested.

[isitandwonder]

We’re all stories in the end...

What will follow is a very long explanation of why I think BBC Sherlock has become fan fiction in every sense of the word, applying a technique called estrangement effect to achieve as well as envision this. It has been happening since S3 - but came into full force in S4 and especially TFP.

Let me state at first: Sherlock Holmes is dead. He died after jumping off Bart’s. That’s the one thing Mofftisson did that no other adaption has dared to do. Not even ACD did describe Holmes dying. But Mofftisson showed us: Sherlock jumped and hit the pavement. We saw it, and it was never explained how he survived. Because he didn’t. What we watch in TEH is altered footage, like in the beginning of TST. Alienated ficitional reality.

But still Sherlock came back. How is this possible? Because Sherlock Holmes never lived, and so could never die; because Sherlock Holmes as a fictional character has long ago crossed the line between ficiton and reality. He exists in both worlds, the ficitonal and ours. Schödinger’s Sherlock, so to speak.

Mofftiss (and Steve Thompson) have adapted Holmes for the 21st century - with all its consequences. They are the first who allow Holmes to die - as it should have been, in Watson’s arms. This is truly new - like it or not.

But why could he survive? Because of the fans. Fans brought Holmes back in 1903 - and they brought him back in S3 (or even MHR). Whereas S1 and S2 might still be somehow canon compliant if modernised, with S3/MHR the show left the realm of ACD and became something else. It became our story. We are the narrators. Therefore, we appear, for example, as Anderson or the Empty Hearse Club, before we, in TAB, leave this concrete narrator position behind to ascend onto yet another narrative level.

Many commented (and lamented) the change from S2 to S3. The show became a romcom! The cases didn’t matter anymore! All those new characters! All true - because the BBC adaption had detached itself from ACD and started to become its own work of art, it’s very own pastiche. That might be self-referential; and perhaps wasn’t even always well made (TFP!) - but I think we should stop applying real life structures and standards to this work of art - because it simply doesn’t work. (And, as every writer, Mofftiss have the right to fuck their own story up).

The audience and fandom struggle with a lot of twists after S2 because making the distinction between canon compliant fictional verisimilitude and the realm of associative fan fic is especially hard to mark with a figure like Holmes - who seems real and yet never was. On the other hand, he is the perfect character to undergo such a narrative transformation.

If this interests you, please continue under the cut.

We tend to structure random things happening within a linear narration, thereby charging these happenings with meaning, embedding them within a reasoning of cause and effect. But this is an illusion. Life doesn’t work this way. Things just happen, sometimes simultaneously, mostly randomly; they don’t have to be connected. It’s us (western) humans, with our way of thinking in past, present and future, and by drawing a straight progressing line from these points, who impose this structure on life and stories. Because we need this to function in our modern societies, that are based on reasoning and predictability. We think critical and want explanations. This is the way we are used to tell stories and be told stories. So, when we fabricate stories, we mostly apply those narrative strucutres: cause and effect, connections, one thing leading to another.

Stories who evoke the impression of telling real happenings have therefore to follow those lines and rules to be believable. As @welovethebeekeeper wrote, they have to follow a certain learned cultural verisimilitude. If these rules are broken, we start to feel uneasy. Things seem strange, fucky, we become aware that something is changing. It kind of shocks us.

Of course, there are other ways of storytelling: magical realism, for exapmple, or ghost stories, who break down the barrier between what is probable and what is not. But even most of them follow the classic form of storytelling: beginning, climax, end.

This is especially true for ACD Holmes stories, in which the deduction process always followed the laws of logic. Furthermore, within the classic Sherlock Holmes stories, the reader always knew who the narrator was: mostly Watson and, in a few instances, Holmes himself. The narrator is always identified within the first paragraph. There might, additionally, be a second narrator within a story, for example the client outlining the case or the culprit telling what happened (for example, Jonathan Small in Sign of Four). But the reader always knew who was telling the story.

Now, when Holmes was tranferred to the screen, this slightly changed. Because the things that clients or culprits might have told in the written form could now be shown, to enhance the films excitment and make good use ot the new media’s ressources. Therefore, we get kind of prologues or flashbacks; we, as viewers, see things neither Holmes nor Watson have been privy to, thereby introducing a god-like narrator perspective, watching from above. Sometimes the visual adaptations even put a piece of paper at the beginning, to visualise that we are shown one of Watson’s stories, or put a voiceover at the beginning explaining that much (like BBC Sherlock did in TAB, for example).

Thereby, the visual adaptations blurred to role of the narrator. And they changed something esle: where, when we read the ACD stories, we get the official version, filtered mostly through Watson’s storytelling, most visual adaptations create the impression that we are watching raw footage. Usually, it’s only at the end of an episode/film that Watson sits down and starts to write the case up. So, some visual adaptations step back from the published accounts and seem to show us what truly happened, thereby fabricating a feeling of reality.

BBC Sherlock does the same. Even here, John writes his blog, that is shown and features from the beginning. But we are not shown the episodes from the perspective of the blog entries (or John’s perspective), we are shown the things that happen before and lead to the blog entries. The perspective has been subtly converted to some kind of behind the scenes footage. We are following John and Sherlock on their adventures as the happen.

I’ll explain further below what it means that this blog was abandoned for S4.

Now, of course, there are also written accounts that try to evoke this kind of authenticity. Sherlock Holmes was a phenomenon in that he was one of the first fictional characters that people thought was real. Even back in ACD’s time, people wrote to the detective. His death in FINA was mourned by people in the streets. The lines between fiction and reality started to blurr.

Those written accounts operate, for example, with lost manuscripts, the true diaries of Watson, found after his death etc. They all play with the notion that those ficitonal characters were real, and that there are true stories behind the published ones that can be unearthed and told.

BBC Sherlock does this as well: At Angelo’s, one fictional character asks the other: “What do real people have then, in their real lives?” - thus evoking the impression that this show is a portrayal of real life. But it isn’t. Sherlock has no girlfriends or boyfriends in BBC Sherlock - but he has in fact archenemies. The modern setting kind of conceals this at first for contemporary audiences, because the BBC adaption isn’t removed from our time, for example to Victorian London. These two seem to be modern men in modern London - but they aren’t. The series is playing with boundaries between fiction and reality as well as with the PoV of the narrator. It gets away with it, because it - as well as the audience - is aware of Holmes’s and Watsons’s legacy.

There has been lots of discussions from which perspective S4, TAB and - to a lesser extent - S3 has been told. From that stem theories like EMP, John’s mind bungalow, alibi theory. But I think this is all just scratching on the surface while pointing out nonetheless what most of us have sensed: something is strange with the perspective since S3. Something has changed.

When you start to follow through with these theories, you come to a point where you have to acknowledge that they fall short at one point or another. For example, when did EMP start? In HLV, after the Fall, at the pool, after the pilot? You could argue and proof any of it. 

Why? Because we are in a fictional story and have been from the start. How does ASiP start? With scenes neither John or Sherlock could have witnessed. They are not the narrators. It’s made plain from the start: John Watson is, unlike in canon, not the main narrator of BBC Sherlock. But still, the series follows most other adaptions in that John writes about the cases, and what happens is mostly shown from his or Sherlock’s perspective. And we, as Sherlock Holmes fans, are used to this form of storytelling and accept it. We know that we are in a story, watching an imaginated work of ficiton that is loosely based but not totally subjected to the rules of real life.

But who is telling this story?

Within the original Holmes stories, it seems to have been Watson (or Holmes). But, of course, there never was a Doctor Watson - it was all made up by Arthur Conan Doyle, who chose to tell his stories through a narrator within them, evoking the impression that said narrator witnessed the events and retold what really happened (in shaping this narrator after himself, ACD kind of started to break the fourth wall, though). And he did this so convincingly that people believed in Holmes and Watson.

Two posts I read recently gave me an idea. One is by @goodmythicalmail and explains the different PoV’s in S4 and their impossibility. The second was the already cited post by @welovethebeekeeper , explaining the trope of false documents.

Both posts refer to narrative strategies. The first one seems to call for a god-like narrator to explain all the different narrative angles we get in S4 (but which are, to a lesser extent, already present since S1). The second one describes the narrative trope of having a story told by producing an allegedly original, real manuscript within a fictional story.

This is how, for example, Nicholas Meyer tells the Holmes pastiche story The Canary Trainer. It takes the form of a lost manuscript of Dr John Watson, telling the story of Wilson, the canary trainer, mentioned in ACD’s Black Peter. The manuscript somehow finds its way to Meyer, who writes a prologue and epilogue to create the impression as if he’d edited this real story about real people.

This canary trainer is also mentioned at the beginning of TST, when Sherlock solves one case after another. Is it a clue? I think it is - a hint to the false document we’ll be watching.

Because, how does S4 end? With the hideous monologue narrated by Mary, mentioning the legend Holmes and Watson will become and the adventures they will have - as fictional characters. I ranted and hated that Mary got the last word - but it’s just a narrative technique or trope, she just tells a story, the surface narrative of classic Holmes and Watson. And so S4 is book-ended by false documents - to tell us by way of alienation that we are watching a story to which the rules of real life don’t apply.

At first, this feels totally odd and out of place, because what we’ve been watching since S3 was all about character development and the relationship of the two main protagonists: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Not about legends or adventures.

Now, in giving Mary the last word, throwing everything they developed over seven years prior overboard, Mofftiss either suddenly forgot how to write and tell their story... or it is on purpose.

Let’s go for the latter. I think it should show us that we are dealing with ficitonal characters, who somehow, however, have transgressed into our real world. But they are still protagonists in a story being told. Of course, we had elements of stroytelling within the story throughout the show: John’s blog, for example. All the writing on screen. The newspaper articles. But not to this extent, that makes it totally obvious that we are watching a pastiche.

There are numerous different versions of the Holmes/Watson story. ACD canon even ends with the words: ‘Someday the true story may be told’. But what is the true story of two ficitonal characters? Doesn’t every generation, every writer, interpret this truth differently? And perhaps that’s what Mofftiss wanted to do, that no one else had done before: Kill Holmes and Watson to free them. Liberty in death. To show how real Holmes and Watson can become, while still keeping them inside a story. A story that allows for different interpretations (like Johnlock, Adlock, Sherlolly, asexual genius + sidekick solving crimes) - but still, or because, speaks to many people on many levels. There is no truth. Every reading is valid.

Of course, this is on one hand frustrating in its vagueness - but it also opens up so many possibilities, especially for fans to engage with the original material and create their own. Like Mofftisson did.

Mofftiss are brilliant storytellers in this, for they show and don’t tell. Via all the things we don’t understand, that don’t make sense in a linear narrative, what we call fuckyness or emp or dream logic - they show us that we are watching a fictional story without telling us explicitly that this is fiction.

The oddity of S4 has been described in many ways: fake, fuckery, emp - you name it. All these explanations have in common that they don’t think S4 really happened. Which, of course, it didn’t - it’s a fictious story!

This is blatantly obvious since S3. Before that, Holmes and Watson inhabit the in-between realm of ficitonal characters people believe to be real. But then Sherlock Holmes dies. And it’s a legend that gets ressurrected. Because I’m sure that we are in a story within a story since TRF, a story told by fans to disguise Sherlock’s death or to deal with it an keep him alive in our stories.

I’d like to give you a few examples of why I think we are in a story within a story since the end of TRF before I explain where this all might lead. I argue that we don’t have these conglomerated callbacks to fiction in the prior episodes.

In TRF, there appear repeated hints at fairytales: the apple, the Grimm’s Brothers book, the gingerbread man.

Moriarty calls himself the villain needed for a good fairytale.

Moriarty calls himself the storyteller in the Sir Boast-A-Lot clip.

A story in a newspaper will reveal who Sherlock really is and expose him. Those articles are also called fairytales.

In MHR, Anderson tells us what Sherlock did during his time away. It is a fancy story about crimesolving around the globe. But it’s just a story, told in a pub.

Even Sherlock tells us a story - on the DVD Lestrade delivers to John. It’s simultaneously a glimpse in the past, a flashback... we’ll see more of those in the later series.

When S3 starts, we are again reminded that we must be in someone’s story, because a longhaired Sherlock is suddenly tortured in Serbia. There is no linear explanation how he got there.

There’s the added element of Mary. Some people have lamented that it became a romcom, following a different kind of storytelling than classic Holmes stories do. It shows increasing signs of being (fan)fiction.

The fourth wall is broken: Cumberbatch’s real parents play Sherlock’s parents. Martin Freeman’s partner plays his love interest. Mycroft is played by one of the writers (true, since S1).

We even get a false document in TEH: ‘How I did it by Jack the Ripper’. But it’s all fake, a story, set up again by the fan Anderson. Like the whole thing we are watching is set up by fans.

In the end, Sherlock nearly dies, another storyteller - media tycoon  Magnussen - presumably dies, and a third dead storyteller - Moriarty - appears again. We’ve been moving in circles.

TAB is a Victorian fantasy. The explanation for it - Sherlock solving a crime in his MP, set in another era to explain things going on in the present - is only a thin excuse for time travelling back to the original ACD Holmes setting. And the MP in TAB is totally different from the MP we saw in S2. This is a whole new world in Sherlock’s head. Yet, due to the interwoven modern scenes, we are even repeatedly reminded that we are in a Victorian story - inhabited by Sherlock, John and all the other fictional characters.

Moriarty even tells us: It’s not real. And we can deduce that because it doesn’t make sense. Like a lot in S3 - for example the Ripper case, or the increased time jumps, or Mary shooting Sherlock, or the whole leverage chain Magnussen spins and so forth.

Yet TAB has to be set in 1895 - because of the poem that circles around the everlasting presence of Sherlock Holmes - a man out of his time, for any time. Not real, yet not wholy fictional either. Poetry and truth.

At the end of TAB, John even calls himself a storyteller and declares that he knows when he’s in one. This is a fictional character stepping out of his role, acknowldeging that he plays one - a core feature of epic theatre and its alienating effect. This again changes the narrative perspective, in becoming truly meta, lifted onto an outer- or uber-textual level. It’s not John’s story. He doesn’t tell it - he’s just in it.

We get the impossible transition from Victorian Baker Street to modern Baker Street - like the transition of the Victorian fictional character Sherlock Holmes into a public figure that has left the realm of fiction and entered our reality.

Then again, with the beginning of S4, everything we thought we knew is altered. Apparently, Sherlock didn’t shoot Magnussen. There’s a new story told via a video.

Then we get the above mentioned canary trainer - from a false document story, telling us this might seem real but isn’t.

As if to point in that direction, documents feature in TAB/S4, but we never see what they contain... false documents: The list with drugs in TAB. John’s letter to Sherlock. Mary’s drugged piece of paper. Mary’s letter to John. The AGRA stick. this evokes a false sense of reality while simultaneously, in applying this trope, revelas what is happening.

Sherlock even starts to openly recite Shakespeare monologues: he’s not only talking about scenes from plays, he’s enacting them. A play within a play - a metaphore for what is going on.

Everything gets stranger and stranger during S4. Characters are there and not (Faith/Eurus). Characters act totally OOC (John beating Sherlock up). We even see a cameraman. Who is who? What is going on? People die - but it looks more and more like a farce. Because it is. It is not real - a play within a play. We see the characters act like actors (Mary dying, for example, and John’s reaction - badly acted to emphasise that it is acted).

And as every proper pastiche has the right to introduce one new character - we get Eurus. Who lives at Sherrinford - in a pastiche character! Omnipotent, allmighty Eurus. Like our storyteller. Only - of course - no one in the story can tell it like it is told. She is again a metaphore - for someone telling a story, creating a maze, making characters react to her whims. Like a puppet master. An allmighty storyteller.

As the story becomes less and less probable and and more and more illogical, we, as viewers, get hints as to question what we see: We see Saw, Shining, Shutter Island, Spectre and loads of other movies. TFP even starts with Mycroft watching a film like a fan. It becomes absurd.

We end with Mary’s voiceover. It’s all about the legend, the stories, the adventures. It’s always 1895.  Mofftiss put the storyteller’s words into Mary’s mouth - to show that this can’t be real, that it is someone else’s narrative, who tells us this version of Holmes and Watson. It’s not real, and it’s not their true story, it’s an interpretation.

It’s a story within a story, pure fiction detaching itself from fictional reality. Not like the comic books in the Geek Interpreter, where the comics started to become real. It’s the other way around now: The story becomes more and more artificial.

In that, the whole of S4, but especially TFP, reminds me of Brecht’s epic thearter that is based on the estrangement or alienation effect: “The purpose of this technique was to make the audience feel detached from the action of the play, so they do not become immersed in the fictional reality of the stage or become overly empathetic of the characters. Having actors play multiple characters, rearrange the set in full view of the audience, and "break the fourth wall" by speaking to the audience are all ways he used to achieve the alienation effect. Lighting can also be used to emulate the effect. For example, flooding the theatre with bright lights (not just the stage) and placing lighting equipment on stage can encourage the audience to understand that the production is merely a production instead of reality.” The aim of this form of theater was to “encourage playwrights to address issues related to "contemporary existence." This new subject matter would then be staged by means of documentary effects, audience interaction, and strategies to cultivate an objective response.”

In short, the audience should be aware of watching art, and shouldn’t be carried away by their emotions; instead, they should think, question not only the issues the play - or tv series - deals with, but their own circumsatnces in relation to its meaning as well. Rings a bell with lgbtq representation, for example?

In a 21st century tv show this is, however, not achievable by theatrical techniques applied in 20th century political theatre. BBC Sherlock used some of those techniques - breaking the fourth wall, characters mirroring other characters extensively and therefore actors kind of playing multiple characters - but the alienation effect was mostly achieved by continuously removing the story from the reign of verisimilitude.

It started with the end of S2, where something fundamentally changed at the end of TRF. There something happens that is totally different to ACD canon, and the first thing in the whole series that simply can’t be real, can’t be explained (and never is): Sherlock jumps of that roof - and survives. The trick in ACD’s FINA was that Holmes never went down the Reichenbach Fall. And, honestly, you can’t survive jumping off that roof. It’s impossible.

But we see Sherlock jump - therefore that’s what happened. And it’s never revealed how he survived. Sherlock Holmes is dead since TRF and what we’ve seen since then is a story told to us as a means to conceal this. It is kind of an alibi story - but not for John, for Sherlock.

Because you can’t kill an idea.

And therefore Sherlock Holmes isn’t dead. But he is. And becomes Schrödinger’s Holmes.

So, who is this narrator, who tells us this cover-up story? Mofftiss, who feature heavily in fan discourse and even got their own aconym? Or Arthur Conan Doyle, who invented Holmes and Watson?

There have been adaptions of Holmes in which ACD turns up and breaks the fourth wall (having the creator of the play step on stage is also a popular feature in epic theatre). The play ‘The Penultimate Problem of Sherlock Holmes’, for example. Remember all those penultimate tweets during setlock? ACD also figures in the German film ‘Der Mann, der Sherlock Holmes war’ - a film in which two frauds pretend to be Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, but solve a crime nonetheless and get ACD’s blessing in the end.

I am aware that after TAB, there were some metas arguing for John as the storyteller. But since S4 this can’t hold, because, as @goodmythicalmail has explained, we see stuff from a persepctive that can’t be John’s. For example, we see the flashback of John leaving Lauriston Gardens in ASiP - but not from John’s perspective, and neither from Sherlock’s. It is as if a superimposed god-like narrator looks down on the story and tells/shows it to us.

I doubt that Mofftiss would exhume ACD. And as much as they are prone to hubris - to write themselves into their own series - as writers/creators - sounds over the top even for their liking.

So, who continues to tell Sherlock’s and John’s story. The fans! Only, the more time elapses, the more our stories tend to depart from the characters we met in S1 and S2. The stories start to get increasingly fantastic. But it’s us fans who keep Sherlock and John alive. And even Mofftiss are ‘just’ fans.

I think we are watching a story, being told by fans, because the protagonist stepped off a roof and is dead, but his legend - the idea - lives on in numerous adaptations. This theory explains most things other theories struggle with: the changing PoV’s; the ever prolongued alleged coma/dream, that isn’t made explicit and therefore kind of fizzles out; the alibi theories; the fuckyness. It even incorporates things like an ARG - be it by the BBC or fanrun or imagined. Because it is created around the character of Sherlock Holmes and wouldn’t exist without the fans. We create our own ficitonal reality, our own canon.

I think everything we’ve been criticising since S4 aired was intentional. It’s a clue. For those who look deeper - us. We already ascended to meta level: we not only ask ‘Does this make sense for Sherlock as a character’ - but we start to question the storytelling itself, the writing, analyse the tropes. We are aware that we are watching a manufactured piece of art - we have stepped back in the true sense of the estrangement effect. We should now fully embrace this idea. Because imo, the increasing fuckyness, the dreamlike feeling, the plot holes, the bad writing, the adaption of other films - are all signs that this story moved from the realm of narrative verisimilitude, set in some form of fictional reality, towards a pure fairytale, a legend. Sherlock Holmes belongs to all of us. He is public domain.

And this is exactly adapting the Sherlock Holmes experience. He never lived and never died. He’s not real, we know that, yet we play the game as if he is. We believe in him. Sherlock Holmes has transcendet the border between fiction and reality - and so did the series.

Comparing the series to fan fiction is not saying btw that fan ficiton has to be badly written. On the contrary. I only think Mofftiss overplayed so heavily in S4, wrote in plot holes etc, for the inclined viewers to start to question what the hell they were watching?! In that, S4 took the concept even a step further than TAB - and that is brave storytelling. It needs courage to serve this ‘crap’ - to literally risk the alienation of the fan base by showing them that they now own the stories.

And Johnlock? Well, epic theatre is not a means in itself, not self-indulgent. It has a message. The audience shall look at what is happening, become aware of social injustice. Sherlock can be read as being about representation - not in giving answers but by asking questions in this regard and get people to think. It can be read as being about the influence of the media (fake news!). It can be read as being about the surveilance state. It can be read as fan empowerment. And, as @darlingtonsubstitution argued, John and Sherlock might very well become the narrators of their own story. I’d love to explore this angle, but at the moment I am sticking with us fans as storytellers.

And if we only take S1 and S2 as being ficitonally real, I’m sure you can very well show how Johnlock is embedded in the story. It’s set up in S1, while in S2 John stops denying, and they seem almost ‘married’. And to whom does Sherlock - like ACD Holmes - address his final note? To John. Not to Molly, or Irene, or even Mycroft. To me, this confirms Johnlock, but it ends tragic and still not explicit. Do I like that? Well, if it’s the greatest lovestory never told, I can see its appeal. It’s incredibly sad, a tragic love story - but it’s the writers decision. If Sherlock had ended after S2, I’d never accused them of queerbaiting. Because, in the end, it was made quite plain where Sherlock’s heart belonged. But by implying it heavily without making it canon, Mofftisson keep the door open for other ships to sail when we enter the realm of fan fiction in S3.

And I think if you want to, you could still read Johnlock into S4. I’ve seen it done. As you might see Sherlolly or Adlock or Warstan if you want to. This vagueness can be seen as a weakness - if you still want the series to resemble some form of reality. If not, it opens Sherlock’s story up for many fan readings. As ACD said: You can marry him or murder him. It was all fine with him. Therefore, every reading should be fine with us, the fans. We should argue, discuss, and write our own versions. Because this keeps Sherlock Holmes and John Watson alive - even if they never lived. 

[moriartysgrimmfairytales]

Post s4 feelings, and what to do with them

So, it’s been a week or so of hiatus. And I have feelings that I don’t know what to do with. So I decided to put them in a post, to maybe try and work through them. For anyone who cares, read more under the cut (fair warning, it gets long and rambly). 

I’ve been holding off on writing this post, writing about how I feel about s4, and TFP in particular. I’m still feeling a bit mindfucked, not only from the TFP, but from series 4 in its entirety. I’ve needed quite a bit of time to work through it all, mostly by talking to others and reading (both positive and negative) reactions and metas. 

During the last week, I’ve seen a lot of unreasonable negativity, and even hate, directed both at the episode and the writers. I don’t want to contribute to negativity in any way. That’s not where I’m coming from. I don’t hate this show, or TFP. I don’t feel angry at the writers, and I don’t think they owe me anything. I’m in complete understanding that this is their story and that they’re entirely entitled to take it in whatever direction they want to. I still respect Moffat and Gatiss as writers, and I’m still grateful to them for creating the only show and characters that’s been able to capture my interest to this extent. So sincerely, a big thanks to Mofftiss for making this show.

That being said, series 4, and TFP, has left me feeling bereft, wanting and a bit disillusioned. More surprisingly, I feel more than a little indifferent to it. I was, naively probably, hopeful that this series, and this episode, would finally provide me with some highly anticipated closure, wrapping up of loose threads and resolution of plotlines. It didn’t. It just didn’t give me what I needed as a viewer, and I’m a bit sad about that, for my own sake. The fact that it was loved by others, and provided them with what they needed is great. Well earned after the ride we’ve had.

What I did like about TFP and s4 So, Mofftiss decided they were going to do an “origins” story, showing us how Sherlock became the man he is when we meet him in ASiP, and his journey from a “great” man to a “good” man. That is actually one of the things I like about s4 and the episode; watching Sherlock’s progression from a “great” man to a “good” one. Getting to the stage where he’s finally able to embrace emotions as good and healthy, allowing himself to love, and have a family and friends.

I liked that in the end, it’s his ability to show emotions like compassion and love that’s key to solving the final problem. His newfound understanding of emotional context and insight into Eurus’ emotions is what makes him realize that threatening to shoot himself is the only way to get her to stop her game. The same way his own ability to show her compassion allows him to save John. I also liked that the show gave Eurus, the-villain-who-isn’t-really-a-villain, the best resolution she could get; the attention and love she obviously didn’t have as a child. And I really appreciated that Sherlock is able to give her life some sort of meaning by visiting her and playing the violin with her, now that she is ‘beyond words’.

Outside of Sherlock’s own growth, I enjoyed the new information and the insight we got into Mycroft’s character, a look behind the Iceman façade. And finally, the way the relationship between the Holmes brothers evolved, that was probably my favourite part of the episode, actually.

My problems with TFP On to the problems I have with this episode. Which are many… So while I liked the theme and the underlying message of the episode, I just can’t bring myself to appreciate and accept the wrapping it came in. No matter how much I want to. I feel that TFP kept tossing new plot points at me and didn’t allow me time to connect with the characters. It made the entire episode seem so rushed, so hectic, that most of all it just left me numb and unable to care about it the way I probably should (and I see others do).

First off, I’m not really a big fan of horror movies and dark, psychological thrillers. Which is what this episode feels like for me, most of all. I feel like we got off on the wrong foot, TFP and I. From the opening sequence and the set-up of Mycroft, complete with a scary clown and a little girl in pig tails, via the dismissal of TLD’s cliffhanger with a single sentence, to the point where Sherlock, John and Mycroft escaped an explosion unscathed - none of that even resembles any sort of reality I am willing to, or able to, accept. So already within 2 minutes I was shaking my head, frowining and going “wtf am I watching?”

See, I’ve no trouble accepting that this show is larger-than-life and that the characters’ actions and abilities are beyond real life. But I’ve still always thought of it as a form of “heightened reality”, somewhere at least close to what could happen in real life. That was part of the fascination with it, it felt “almost real.” Unfortunately, too much about this episode was too unbelievable, too fantastic, and exceeded my tolerance level for suspension of disbelief (I think maybe I used it all up when I had to accept Mary being faster than a bullet back in T6T…?).

My biggest issue when it comes to suspending dibelief, is that Eurus is made out to be something resembling a comic-book super villain. Her abilities are nearly magic and the Sherrinford facility is practically Azkaban. (The setting is another thing that made me feel disconnected from the show I know and love. I miss London!) That  being said, I know that most of the questions my brain keeps hurling at me about improbabilities and plot holes and -developments, can be answered quite simply. What’s happening is possible because Eurus wants it to happen. Because Eurus can make it happen. Because the writers decided that Eurus can do all those things. 

I’m just really struggling to feel any sort of attachment to Eurus as a character. To me, the fact that Eurus wasn’t even the lest bit foreshadowed, except for the cryptic “you know what happened to the other one” remark in HLV, made her feel like a random add-on. I couldn’t, and didn’t have time to, relate to her. In making her a full-blown psychotic, who veers between high-functioning enough to sneek out and play dress up with John and Sherlock and breaking down completely as the game comes to an end, it’s hard for me to deal with her like a real person and connect with her on any level.

I think a part of the problem is they didnt’ dedicate enough time to show me how Eurus did what she did. Mind control, manipulation and suggestion are of course real things, I don’t doubt that. But this set-up demands of me to accept that Eurus is so intelligent that she can do all of these things just by a short conversation with someone. And her abilities are so great that she has the whole facility reprogrammed, to the point where not a single person at any time is able to raise the alarm. Moreover, I’m struggling to get a grip on how exactly Eurus got those abilities? And how does a five-six year old girl become so evil that she tortures her brother and kills his best friend? That’s just too close to a horror movie to me. 

At least Jim Moriarty’s games always seemed within the realm of human abilities, because we know he spent years and years of his life building a vast criminal empire, making himself the spider at the centre of it, pulling the strings. Eurus apparently climbed out of the womb as an “incandescent, era-defining genious, beyond Newton”, because after being sent away from early childhood, I have to believe they didn’t supply her with access to an education, books, electronical gadgets etc? She’s spent all her life on an isolated prisoner island, her cell stripped, but still she appears to have endless resources. Again; I just have to accept she can use her almost magical, superhuman skills, because she can. I just wish the writers would have helped me along by showing me at least a little of how she does it, instead of just telling me she can.

The suspension of disbelief part aside, I think I would have been able to accept the secret sister scenario as plausible in this larger-than-life universe, if there had been some sort of build-up to the reveal of her existence. Honestly, I need more than a five minute set-up for the the reveal that Sherlock has a secret, forgotten, dangerous, revenge-seeking sister, who is smarter than her brothers combined. 

Since we didn’t have any hint of anything amiss until Mycroft’s cryptic “you know what happened to the other one” comment in HLV, I didn’t have any emotional connection to Eurus when she finally showed up right at the end of TLD. And show me a little more of Sherlock’s motional response to finding out his entire personality as a grown up is caused by a childhood trauma, show me a little bit of coming to terms with it before rushing off to Sherrinford. The lack of build up and reaction to the Eurus reveal makes the episode feel rushed. I think if the characters had been allowed to react and respond to the plot, the plot itself would have felt more plausible. 

Then there is the attempt to tie Eurus into Jim’s game, or him to her game. That seemed a bit forced to me. Jim was set up from episode 1 as Sherlock’s arch-nemesis (as he also is in ACD canon), and killing him off already at the end of s2 never made sense to me. I think the writers always planned for him to die in TRF, but then realized too late they should have saved it for later. So now Eurus feels like an attempt to fill in the gap he left behind. And it might even have worked, if there had been at least a few hints of a presence even bigger than Jim from the beginning. 

But there were no hints of foreshadowing. And to me, the way they retconned Eurus into Jim’s story only amounted to diminish the best baddie they ever created on this show. And the way they did it, they turned him into something of a bizarre fun house effect? I love the beach scene and his combination of power play, not having any fucks to give and amusing himself – but I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to watch those pre-recorded messages without physically cringing. (With the exception of the last one: “Holmes killing Holmes. This is where I get off.” That one works, because it’s a genuine message to Sherlock.) Those messages seemed too cartoonish, too random, and drew my attention away from what were supposed to be tense situations of life and death. The real drama came from what was going on in whatever room they were in, not from Jim’s “tick tick tick”s or “choo choo”s. They weren’t even directly linked to the tasks Eurus set. I’ll never understand why the writers felt this was a good way to go. But hey, that’s just me. 

After this episode finally laid to rest the question of whether Jim’s dead or not, it feels like his character has been continually used as a plot device for future episodes. The writers have included him to tease the audience that they may bring him back, and to use people’s interest in him, without actually having any intention of brining him back. Ever since they killed him off in s2, they’ve tried to fill in the gap with villains that Sherlock every time claims to be even worse and more scary than the last. The problem is, I don’t have any of the emotional connection to them, nothing to make them as interesting as he was? To play around with the idea that maybe he’s not dead after all, keeping him in the story in various ways, only to confirm that yes, he’s been dead for real all along…? I was confused and saddened by how they chose to solve this plotline. 

I think the retcon they chose to go with for TFP lessens Jim’s impact and importance. In some ways, I’d actually rather they’d left him out of TFP completely. I mean, they’ve even said in interviews “…it only occured to us late on that we could do that.” So it was clearly not a part of a grand plan from the beginning. And now they’ve tampered with my ability to enjoy my favourite episode. Whenever they’re on that rooftop, I’ll be thinking of the fact that in some near past, Jim’s been at Sherrinford, talking to Eurus for five minutes, recorded some weird video messages for her and set in motion a whole other game. It just somehow diminishes the effect of that scene for me. I’m gutted about that. 

I know most of the big names in the fandom feel like it’s the best thing for Jim, and for the story, that he’s dead. I partly agree, and partly don’t. Because yes, Jim was always sad, desolate and lonely, and probably didn’t intend to live to reach old age. But on a very personal note for me, I want to and need to believe that even for Jim Moriarty there are things in life that make his pain bearable, things that are valuable enough to go on. I’m of course talking about his connection with Sherlock. I want Jim Moriarty to have some human closeness in his life (I won’t go on and on, I already did that in excess in another post). If anyone thinks holding this view means I’m doing Jim Moriarty and his arc a gross injustice, or that I don’t understand him at all, go ahead. I respect other people’s right to interpret his character and his motivations the way they see fit, and I’ll allow myself to interpret him the way I do.   

Okay, moving on from Jim (oh, how I wish that was truly possible…) The murder rooms scenario, the game Eurus sets up for her brothers and John. I just can’t (not on first viewing, not on second or third) get emotionally attached to it. At no point since the girl on the plane was introduced did I ever think she would survive (and haha, clever plot twist, turned out she wasn’t even real), and to be honest I couldn’t even care much about what happend to her, no more than I could care about the three Garridebs brothers being dropped into the water.

To me, Sherlock, John and Mycroft all seem too willing to just accept the rules of the game. That just doesn’t sit right with me, given how straight from the beginning it’s clear that Eurus won’t follow the rules of her own game. For god’s sake Sherlock, didn’t you learn anything on that rooftop? Villains don’t play by the rules. And Mycroft at least, who’s very aware of Eurus’ abilities when it comes to playing mind games, should have suspected that the girl on the plane was fake. But he didn’t, and so the three of them moved through the rooms as ordered by Eurus. The problem is, I didn’t really feel too worried about the outcome. The only scenario I felt slightly emotional about, was the one with Molly. Brilliant acting by Loo. 

So by the time they get to the last room, the “Holmes killing Holmes” scenario, my brain couldn’t stop screaming at me that they should all know that they have no real reason to keep playing Eurus’ game. I kept waiting for Sherlock and Mycroft to at least try to use their “deduction thing” to figuring out a way to get all of them out of the situation alive. There was literally not a single cell in my body believing Sherlock would kill anyone in that room. That lack of emotion got in the way of fully appreciating Mycroft’s heartrendering sacrifice, his efforts to minimize Sherlock’s pain in making an impossible choice. I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t feel what I was supposed to feel by this point in the story. And the fact that it’s set on a dysmal, isolated prison island also kept it from feeling real. I missed the backdrop of London, the presence of the other characters I’ve grown to care about in this final showdown. 

Summing up, I just didn’t feel the sort of connetction to the events unfolding or even to the characters that I should have. I had trouble accepting the premise, the plot developements and the characters’ (lack of) reactions in this episode. I wish I could say otherwise, and I hope that it might change in time. 

My problem with the show after s4 To me, the foundation of the series as a whole is starting to crumble after wathcing s4. After three series where they never really resolved plotlines, they’re still doing it. They’re still not giving me any of the answers I want. I get that this is a convenient way for the the writers to move on quickly, rather than spend time on resolving problems and half-told stories from earlier. It’s just that it doesn’t really work for me as a viewer. I am too attached to stories told, characters loved to just breeze by them and move on. 

There are still plotlines left hanging up in the air, half-explained, or that are dismissed and solved in ways that feel cheap. How was the scheme on the rooftop in TRF carried out, what happened to Jim’s body, what was Mycroft’s role in what happened, the circumstances around Sherlock’s return, how did he fake his own death, the too easy resolution of how he gets off after killing someone, his ability to just shake his drug habit whenever he sees fit, the reasons behind Mary shooting Sherlock, Mary’s death, John’s cheating, the connection between Eurus and CS, Eurus’ goal in playing dress-up with Sherlock and John, and finally the whole Victor Trevor thing… I feel like I’m forced to accept that they’ll keep throwing new plotlines at me, more fantastic than the last ones, to make me forget about the ones that still aren’t resolved or don’t make sense. That leaves me more than a little bit disappointed and exhausted. The more plotlines they toss up in the air, the faster they just keep pushing forward without resolving things, the more disconnected I feel.

The difference from before s4, is that I used to firmly believed the show would eventually address the unresolved plotlines and give me some resolution. S4 and TFP finally drove home the message for me. No, the writers aren’t going to wrap up thing’s I’ve been wondering about for so long. That’s not how they want to write this show, and I’m just going to have to make do with those half-explanations (if even that) I’ve been given and move on to the new plotlines. I know the writers can’t hold my hand every step of the way and that I have to fill in some of the blanks myself. It’s just that some of the leaps I have to make to move on feel too great. Mofftiss keeps setting up complex, tense, interesting situations, and then ends up doing nothing with them. As the writers seem a lot more interested in the next big plot-twist or rug pull, my emotional attachment doesn’t pay off in the end. 

So here we are, at the end of the road. Who knows if there will be a s5? My biggest problem is that at this point I’m not even sure I care if there is a s5 anymore. I’m still struggling to reconcile myself to my post s4 feelings. I’m a little worried that what I’m feeling most of all is indiffenrence. (She says, with a straight face, after writing a thesis). But I’m wondering, if this may in fact be where I get off. In loving memory of my beloved show. My beloved Mary. My beloved Jim.  

Time will show, I guess. In either case, I’m grateful to Mofftiss for creating this show. I enjoyed the ride for as long as it lasted.  

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Deeper Still Redux: ‘The Lying Detective’ Clustermeta Update

Alrighty, so now that we are rapidly approaching The Lying Detective (the episode I have been looking forward to the most), I’ve decided I would “BRIEFLY” (HA!) update what I think is going to happen in the next episode now that we have one episode under our belt.

I’m going to be writing this meta assuming you have read Deeper Still and the tiny addition Pocketed Drugs. Please read those first, and then come back to this one. 

I wrote Deeper Still on a whim one hot afternoon during setlock and it ended up being a 7 hour crack clustermeta based solely on what I was seeing on my dash for 2 weeks straight relating to S4E2.

I may have been a TEENY BIT buzzed when I wrote it.

This is the episode I have been looking most forward to, because I think it will be one of the most powerful episodes in canon. Already it’s looking to be dark and whumpy, and HOPEFULLY a bit of relationship building in there as well, since episode two of every season is the one that focuses on John and Sherlock’s changes in their relationship (and early keywords for this episode hinted at this one being a romance episode), and I just LOVE having my heart ripped out and stomped on several times and then put back into my chest.

ANYWAY, this is just a “small” addition to that meta, updating some of my original theories with new info plus adding on some new theories based on evidence presented in T6T. I’ll separate it similarly, so you can follow along on the old post if you need to reference back. First though, I’m going to address T6T.

PART 1: What the Heck is Going On in T6T?

See Also:  Post-T6T: My Theories and Speculations || Things Bothering Me in T6T

Okay, so I’m not going to go into a lot of detail about this because other people have already taken this whole episode apart and analysed it to death – rather I will link to other meta that support my own readings, so I encourage you to check them out as well. 

That said, why bring it up at all in a meta about TLD? Because I think that the “hidden plot” will actually be uncovered either at the beginning or end of TLD (the “surprise” mentioned in reviews), OR will be the opener in TFP, as there is an excellent speculation that TFP will be the “reliable narrator” or “author god” version of events. There is a reason that Ben has said that all three episodes must be watched before coming to a conclusion about them (here and here): I think that all three stories are all one long narrative that ALL tie together in a beautiful bow at the end of TFP while also resolving the major plot holes of the series (not ALL of them; they need some left for the fifth season). I think that the next two episodes will directly link back into T6T, ergo my discussion about T6T here.

Here is what I am believing happened in T6T:

The end of the episode, where Sherlock is talking to Ella, is actually the beginning of the episode. This entire episode is an “Unreliable Narrator” story told by Sherlock as he comes up with a way to provide a believable story for Mary’s death. 

That said, I don’t think that this is “real Ella”. I believe that she is a mind-palace projection created by Sherlock as “Sherlock’s intuition” [SHERLOCK: Intuitions are not to be ignored, John. They represent data processed too fast for the conscious mind to comprehend. (x)], as Ella is someone who knows John and would be able to help understand John, while Sherlock’s MP self represents his “logic” and I think, in a way, his own heart. Bleh, I know it conflicts with the John = heart and Mycroft = logic totems of the MP characters, but I think in this case, I believe Sherlock thinks John is ‘too close’ to the situation, and he’s replacing Mycroft with himself because Big Brother can’t help him this time.

Also another idea: Sherlock represents his mind, and Ella represents his heart, ‘lo: Sherlock is allowing sentiment to rule his head, and let it guide him into doing what he intuits is right (again with the intuition)

The first scene of the episode, where they are doctoring the footage of Magnussen’s death, is foreshadowing the events of the episode, and proves that the entire episode is “doctored” to fit a narrative that is “okay for the public”.

Sherlock is telling a story that makes John sympathetic to Mary so that it takes all blame away from John and so he would have no reason to kill Mary. This is why Mary is disturbingly sweet to John, writes a letter like it was composed in Victorian era, and why Sherlock keeps reiterating that they were friends (so that her jumping in front of a bullet to save him was logical for her to do). I still think Mary is an unrepentant villain and that it will be proven by the end of TFP. Both upcoming episodes will feature snippets of info and show Mary as the psychopath she is.

The more lies you tell (only lies have detail), the harder it is to keep track of your story.  I think this is why there are a lot of inconsistencies, like the disappearing police officers at the end, the details of John’s flat being wrong, and the suddenly appearing police officers when confronting Ajay.

Unreliable Narrator “Proof” Meta:

Frame Story

Billy the Skull Has Lenses On

It’s a Fish Story

Fragmented Perceptions and The Stream of Consciousness of an Unreliable Narrator

one possible narrative

There are only four (or five) people who know what happened

Did they really…?

None of it is Real

The Physics of Mary jumping in front of Sherlock

The “Unreliable Narrator” Theory works in conjunction with “John’s Alibi” Theory. This is the belief that John actually killed Mary and Sherlock is creating a believable alibi to protect him, which was foreshadowed in ASiP.

I think the general fandom consensus is that John was oddly out of character in this episode.

Mark and Steven mentioned their headcanon for the ACD story The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton: Moffat: If you read [The Adventure Of] Charles Augustus Milverton, Dr. Watson in the opening paragraph tells you that he’s about to tell you a porkie. He says, ‘I even now must be very reticent.’ I think what Doyle is hinting at is that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson sat in Baker Street and said, ‘Right, we’re going to have to go and kill him, aren’t we? That’s the only way we can do this.’ So they break in, kill him, and then Dr. Watson writes up a version of the story that puts the murder [on someone else].  Gatiss: They’re hiding in their burglar masks behind the curtain, and this random woman comes and shoots Milverton in the face and then grinds her heel into his face. It’s odd, isn’t it? So I mean really, it’s just an extrapolation of saying, ‘Well, he probably did it, I think.’(x) This leads us to speculate, given that this is a tail-end to HLV, that they are using this headcanon for Season 4 – that John was actually the perpetrator in Mary’s death.

Norbury agreed to take the fall for the murder and was paid a nice sum of money to just “disappear”.

Norbury is a John Mirror

I think Lestrade is in on the Alibi, just like he knew / suspected about John in the pilot being the shooter.

Some Alibi Theories that I have latched onto.

John’s Rejected Alibis - All the cases listed in the episode are alibis that Sherlock was running concurrent simulations for to find the alibi that would work for John. This is how they came up with the Jellyfish Alibi. Note that I do NOT believe the death of Mary was premeditation – the simulations, I believe, run AFTER the death of Mary – Sherlock is coming up with these ON HIS OWN, and chooses the jellyfish one because it is the one that takes away the most blame from John.

The jellyfish though - John shot Mary from behind, in the shadows, foreshadowed both in ASiP (only firing when Sherlock was in direct danger) and by the jellyfish joke: You can’t arrest a Jellyfish.

Surprise! - More about the Jellyfish Assassin, and further proof that it could have been John.

Mary is acting out ‘a post- Reichenbach’ Sherlock - Mary is the one who actually took the shot. Sherlock is giving Mary the words he wanted to always say.

People do not change how they respond in crisis – John’s uncharacteristic way of dealing with Mary’s gunshot. He let her die.

John Didn’t Go Into Action – Further discussion about John’s inability to help Mary.

Did John kill Mary? (Yes. Yes, he probably did.)

John is actually working for MI5/6 to capture Mary / Moriarty and to protect Sherlock.

And Bus Stop Lady is his contact. John WAS going to throw out the paper, but SOMETHING ON IT made him second guess. 

But she’s also the same actress as in TLD, so this has me questioning if she is an agent or a twin.

But I also think that Sherlock and John have their own plan in the works, and Sherlock is the mystery texter.

Night Owl or Vampire? Confirming the Plan

John’s “cheating texts” ARE from Sherlock, but because they are part of Sherlock’s story

Cheating

John & Sherlock’s Plan: A Brief Meta

The Room in Morocco

AGRA is still one person. They are two aliases of Mary. I don’t doubt that Mary DID have a team of assassins that she betrayed. But I don’t think they were called AGRA.

The Six Thatchers busts are used as a ploy for Sherlock’s story, taking a story from John’s blog and changes details in it to fit his narrative. 

I think John’s reaction to Ajay’s torture is both "relatable” and he is suddenly realizing what Sherlock had gone through in his time away.

“Amo” will be used to prompt the “I love you” seen in the trailer. I do not believe that the trailer “I love you is genuine, but a deduction, and the keyword “Amo” is the answer.

Something went wrong, and now Sherlock is in danger.

Rewatch the aquarium scene!!

John is angry at Sherlock for going into danger without him

OR John is going on the mission alone, either per Sherlock or Mycroft’s instructions

Mary dead or alive? Right now, I think she’s dead, since I subscribe to the Jellyfish alibi. I think I’m torn because I love the jellyfish theory, but I REALLY want Mary to go down in a blaze of glory. HOWEVER, Amanda is cast for all three episodes, though that could mean anything from a major role to a flashbacks role. There is proof for both theories, though more for her having faked her death:

ALIVE:

Mary’s Death & The Last Act: A Brief Meta

We Haven’t Seen this Yet

Mary’s Trial Run (Meta)

Mary’s Death & Molly the Record Keeper: A Brief Meta

Mary at the Window

Mary isn’t dead.

Mary is paralysing Mycroft

Mary is Birdy Edwards

DEAD:

The Day, Mary Sent Sherlock to Hell

“Go To Hell, Sherlock” is both a clue and a threat. I’m wondering if this is where John goes while Sherlock takes care of business at home.

If she is dead, I think we will see her act out the missing chunks, such as what was really said in her miss me video AND what really happened at the aquarium.

Mary is the Other One?

“LONG BURIED SECRETS”

Amnesia

Baby Watson –  Possibly stillborn, though if she was, then why is Sherlock weaving her into his story? To make a softer narrative, perhaps. What has me thinking that she is no longer existent is the fact that the baby, as far as I know, was only cast for episode one. HOWEVER... given the nature of the kind of character that Smith is, I fear that he perhaps kills the baby.

The Letter – A coded message to Sherlock. Molly was the go between. Possibly reveals John’s plans with Mycroft? Sherlock read the letter in the car, so we can speculate that we will eventually find out what’s on it.

Bleh, I ain’t got no more. Don’t ask me to interconnect them into a story narrative. These are simply the theories I think are probable.

Either way, my big theory is the JOHN is the game master this season. He’s controlling the course of events, and Sherlock is doing what John has planned.

PART 2: Revisiting Deeper Still

Alright, here’s where I get into my updated theory on TLD. I’m just going to make this as brief as possible, following along with my original meta. Apologies for my free-thought meta, I’m too tired to edit it.

The Dying Detective: It Takes John Watson to Save a Life

I still believe that John Watson is the main character this episode. He will play a huge role in solving this episode’s case. However, I believe that we will see about 10 minutes of repeating events from T6T to see what really happened from John’s POV. Perhaps, if he has killed Mary, we will see that play out at the END of the episode (the shocking twist). Since we know John is away early in the episode, I think he was the one who “went to Hell” to track down Mary’s operatives and to keep up appearances of the estrangement between he and Sherlock. Honestly, I’m not really even sure where I’m going with this, just that I believe that John is on his own mission for Mycroft but may be double-bluffing and working with Sherlock without Myc’s knowledge.

We saw some MI6 filming, did we not for this episode? John and Sherlock were both seen at that setlock iirc, and I think that it has to do with John’s mission to save Sherlock.

I still think that Sherlock will be a damsel in distress for John, given how ill Sherlock actually looks. Perhaps this is why he returns at the request of Mycroft. Sherlock is becoming delusional and hallucinating, and John is the only doctor that Sherlock will allow to see him. 

NEW STUFF from the trailer, we know that Sherlock shoots at something or someone and that John and Sherlock are in a morgue and John punches Sherlock. 

Could Sherlock be shooting at John? What if this whole episode, as Sherlock gets more ill, he starts hallucinating John as Culverton and vice versa? Either way, it will be John who brings Sherlock out of it. I think and believe that Sherlock’s aimless wandering around London may tie into the Alibi Theory (there’s setlock photos of Sherlock throwing a gun into the river... is this John’s gun that was used to kill Mary?), discarding the gun in the Thames (calling back to the pilot) and trying to find John.

As for John in the morgue, I actually think it’s Sherlock hallucinating Culverton as John. There’s a reason they made them look similar this season.

There was filming for this episode at a children’s ward in the hospital. What if this is where Rosie dies? Also: I think that Culverton “runs” this hospital, and has done very unsavoury things here.

I really REALLY like Blind Theory, and I think it COULD explain Sherlock’s disorientation in the episode. Some of the hospital setlock supports the theory, plus there’s that REALLY trippy-but-beautiful looking clip of Sherlock in the trailer where his eyes are almost pinpricks. THAT ALL SAID, what if this is why John returns?

WILD SPECULATION: A “Virus in the Data”. Perhaps Sherlock knew subconsciously long ago something was wrong with him? An incubating virus? I previously speculated that Mary could have poisoned / drugged him in the hospital, and perhaps the chemical-laced paper is what activated it in T6T.

WILD SPECULATION: Sherlock has Melideliosis (highly contagious, so probably not. The meta I wrote was interesting, thought I would posit it here)

WILD SPECULATION: A callback to THoB with the drug Vancomycin Hydrochloride

Culverton is Connected to Every Season Somehow

A lot of my ongoing theories about Culverton still stand, mostly the ones listed below plus a few new additions:

We know that Culverton may possibly be based on Jimmy Savile and loosely modelled after Trump. We also know he is the most “disgusting villain they’ve ever had” (paraphrasing). With that info, I believe that Culverton has a public façade as a TV personality / philanthropist which is a front for his illicit drugging of patients, his support of conversion therapy (homophobia) and possible unspeakable acts against children.

Apparently “Business Killer” is like “Kitchen Nightmares”, so I don’t even know where to begin. I still think that Business Killer exposes the problems of businesses / business owners. Where CAM had info and used it for blackmail, I think Culverton just fucking does it – he just exposes the shit out of people and essentially kills a business. BUT they seem to be promoting him as a philanthropist, so what if on the surface he exposes bad businesses, and it looks good to the public? But he’s SO SO much worse in private.

While I do think the military theories I posited in my original post are off the plate, I do still think Culverton is interconnected with the Mary / CAM / Moriarty triangle, possibly a a Dear Jim, possibly still is developing his own “treatment” for his patients. I think he still has ties to Baskerville and the HOUND drug. CAM obviously had blackmail material on him, which got him into trouble in the past. And Mary was one of his nurses, which is how they met.

I think that Culverton’s nasty arse is part of a scandal at the hospital he runs. 

I still think John knows of Culverton Smith and what he does. The person Sherlock is talking to in the trailer (the “this monster” line) will be either Lestrade or his brother, not John. THOUGH I am wondering if the “enlighten me” bit directly follows that, so perhaps John knows OF Smith but not the extent of his evil.

Mary is Why Sherlock is Infected in the First Place

Alive or dead, Mary wants Sherlock DEAD, but not before burning his heart. I think somehow Sherlock felt John was going to be hurt, and ended up being poisoned.

BLEH, Mary ‘dying’ really put a kink in my original theory, so most of it is void now. I don’t think any of it is really valid anymore.

Meh, I’ll just throw a theory out there so I can check it off if it does happen, though I know it won’t: Sherlock was already drugged, when Mary made him sniff the paper. What if that’s what started his illness? Long acting-agent, remains dormant? Or he’s suffering side-effects from that? OR, if she is alive, what if the paper that Sherlock is carrying around was laced with ricin?

I do still think, though, that Mary was the one who gave Sherlock drugs on the tarmac, and that they were probably laced with something if they gave him a gay Victorian fever dream.

The Lady in Red Conundrum

Alright, so I’m going to concede and say that all my previous guestimations on her have been debunked with the leak that the LiR is actually Faith Smith, Culverton’s daughter. Who also is played by the same actress who was ‘E’ in T6T.  Which is interesting. Twins maybe? (one works for Myc and the other is the woman we see in this ep)? I’m guessing, if this is the case, that she and John have not met (we never have seen John with the Lady in Red, have we?) But I don’t think her intentions are wholly good, either; some speculate that it is her in the background when John is punching Sherlock.  

Why is she seen hanging around Sherlock? Apparently she comes to Sherlock with a case early in the episode, but why does she then follow him around the whole time? I still really believe that she is a projection / hallucination Sherlock is having trying to cope with the foulness of what Culverton’s actions are this episode.

And we can all laugh at how silly my Sixth Sense theory was. Wow. :/ Okay, well, the WHOLE thing isn’t completely stupid...

[...] it’s the hallucinations aspect of it all that interests me. She is a physical manifestation of the LiR that Sherlock hallucinates, and they’re so real that his mind fills in the logical gaps (the rain), kind of like it did in TAB; there’s theories going around that this woman is the same as the one in Miskin (but not confirmed), so Sherlock does have a basis to establish a voice and a mannerism set for her to create a “ghost” to help him solve the case. The Baskerville drug dealt with hallucinations, and I think it’s coming back in this episode.

As I said above, I don’t much think there’s going to be a callback to Baskerville, but whatever Sherlock is poisoned with, I think they cause hallucinations and fuck up his mind palace.

Additional Thoughts on TLD

I mentioned the paper above, but I noticed on my old meta that I also suggest that this is a “list”, one that he either received from John (the letter) or one he acquired and needs to get to John so John can save him (possibly foreshadowed in TAB when Sherlock made lists for Myc, but now he gives them to John. John is a medical man, and a very good doctor, and would know how to save Sherlock.

For some reason I mentioned the bus stop and fish and chips on my old post. Now that we ALMOST know for sure that ‘E’ / Bus Stop Lady is also the Lady in Red, perhaps it’s Sherlock piecing together the clues of John’s mission? The bus stop is so significant in T6T that I think something important happens here in TLD as well. And he’s eating, which seems to be a pretty common theme this season already... (food = sex metaphor... Sherlock’s allowing the indulgences). Anyway.

I really truly believe that the love confession will happen this episode. Sherlock’s guards are down, and he’s terrified he won’t survive this time. I think, when they’re alone and Sherlock is scared, this will be when Sherlock confesses. He can’t die this time without John knowing. To what capacity it progresses, I think it will be at least a hug and forehead kiss from John. AHH I just read my original description, and I love it: 

The extremely suggestive lighting from the bridge and London Eye shots makes me more certain than ever about this. Throw in the medical aspect of it, where John’s time to shine bright for Sherlock finally comes into full swing and we may get full confessions yet. Sherlock may feel like he might actually want to confess his feelings if he is does believe he is dying. Plus, gems from canon like “Quick man, if you love me…!” would be something Mofftiss would not miss their chance at pulling into the modern era.

I think, given that we know the description now for TFP the episode will end in Sherlock and John “going away” for a bit to heal mentally after the torment of this episode. I suspect Sherlock will be a wreck the whole time and I feel like their rift will be fully healed by the time the episode ends, especially now that we know it will pretty much be the two of them against the world for TFP.

Molly’s Role, forgot to mention, is one of two possibilities:

John’s go-between. She is his trusted go between just as Sherlock trusted her in TRF. Her “Anyone” speech was actually a coded message.

If Mary is alive, Molly is being coerced to make Sherlock believe John is mad at him. The letter is NOT from John but from Mary pretending to be John.

PART 3: Receipts for TLD

Here is a list of my own TLD-related meta, taken from my S4 Receipts Masterpost.

So What if in S4…

Sherlock in TLD 

A Theory About Culverton and Sherlock’s Drug Use

Aren’t Sherlock and John Both Technically Detectives?

John Punching Sherlock: Why Does he Do it?

What’s Going on in the Russian TLD Trailer?

Is That John?

John or Culverton?

H.O.U.N.D. and the Unrelated Drug

Melideliosis

UMQRA and the Vignère Cipher

The Stubble and the Swoop

Sherlock Faking?

Will Sherlock Tell John He’s Faking?

Will Sherlock Lie to John Again?

Sick Sherlock? 

Mentally Ill, Or Back on Drugs?

Dying Detective Headcanon #1

Why is he Faking Being Poisoned?

Sherlock Drugged With a Hallucinogen 

What if Dying Detective and Garridebs are in the Same Ep? 

The Nurses

Are the Nurses John’s Girlfriends?

There’s a Male Nurse, Plus Culverton

The Scene With The Nurses: Pointing to Sherrinford?

UNCONFIRMED for TLD:

Sherlock’s Deerstalker in the Czech Trailer?

What is Garridebs?

What is Three Garridebs (Part 2)

Didn’t We Already Have Garridebs?

Why Is Garridebs so Important?

Wait, Has it Been Confirmed?

Johnlock, Garridebs and S4

Why Will Garridebs Happen in S4?

They Won’t Permanently Kill John…

What’s the Worst Case for 3G?

‘Vatican Cameos’ and ‘East Wind’

Reverse Garridebs?

John Will Die

Billy Wiggins’ Role in Sherlock S4

OTHER PEOPLE’S TLD META

The Lying Detective: What You Need to Know

Drugs and Tea Culverton and AGRA

The Lying Detective Speculation

Isn’t Lestrade a Detective?

Sherlock Filming By the Thames

Who is Culverton Smith

Just how Evil is Culverton Smith?

Culverton Will Kill Sherlock’s Business (Blind Sherlock Theory)

“Quick Man, If You Love Me!”

Why “Estranged”?

“Estranged”

Possible Plot of TLD Pieced Together with Setlock

Culverton Smith and Trump

The Dying Detective 

It’s All Gone Dark 

The Blind Illustrator

More About Blind Sherlock Theory

Blind Sherlock / Rapunzul Parallel

First Impressions

Circles in the Czech Trailer

Manchurian Candidate?

Czech Trailer Setlock Breakdown

Conversion Disorder?

Hallucinations

The Scopolamine Theory

The 7% Solution and TLD

Mind Palace Gone Awry

PART 4: FINAL WORD & THANK YOU 

Oy, that turned out a lot longer than anticipated. I wasn’t even going to cover T6T. It was just supposed to be a quick recap of my old TLD Setlock meta, and I got this monster instead, as is my M.O., apparently. I sat down at 6:30 PM on Friday and it is now 2:30 in the morning on Saturday and I just ran with it. 

I know a lot of theories contradict each other in this post, and quite frankly, that’s because I can’t set my heart on just one theory, because as of right now I can honestly see the narrative going in any direction.

Also, I’m not discrediting everything I mentioned in my first meta; this one is just a more refined one based one info we already have and all neatly packaged up here.

Anyway. Thank you all very much for taking the time out to read through this whole thing! This is the episode I was most looking forward to, probably BECAUSE I spent so much time writing the original one. And Episode 2 of each season is usually my fave. I’m wary because of the apparent dark theme for this one, but we’ll see. The early keyword of “Romance” for this episode gives me hope, and the “Amo = Love” keyword from T6T will surely carry over into this one.

Cheers, everyone!

TAGS:

@marcespot @beejohnlocked @shawleyleres @yorkiepug​ @coloringthegreyscale​ @shervival21st​ @shylockgnomes​ @twocandles​ @benaddictmindpalace​ @mollydobby​

Because y’all talk meta with me. :)

[themeresthobby]

Fanfic recs

...or, more accurately, “I didn’t want to clog my bookmarks, so I made this”. Contains some LJ stuff not reposted anywhere else (to my knowledge), and things fished out from AO3. Mostly ACD canon and Ritchie-verse, no BBC-verse except a small mention in one.

Authors’ original summaries are italicised. Personal favourites are marked with asterisks. Updated sporadically.

[14 Jan 2018: There are even more fics I haven’t gotten around to listing here.]

ACD canon/non-specific Victorian

The Adventure of the Bridegroom’s Photograph by spacemutineer @ AO3 Gen, casefic Summary: There is more than one secret to be revealed when a young man comes to Holmes and Watson with a keepsake and a question.

A Careless Life by ingridmatthews @ LJ/DW/AO3 Holmes->Watson, angst, time-travel Summary: 3GAR didn’t happen right the first time.

The Case of the Rose by Another Name by HiddenLacuna @ AO3 Gen, humour, casefic, Shaggy Dog story Summary: Dr. Watson is called to attend to Holmes, who has a terrible cold after a case. Holmes recounts the case that led him to become ill.

A Casual Reflection on the Probability of Coincidence by mainecoon76 @ AO3 Holmes->Watson, mention of Holmes/Victor Trevor, friendship, agnosticism (what are these tags I use...) Summary: Mycroft Holmes ponders his own relationship with his sibling, the wonder that is John Watson, and the fact that, in spite of evidence that points to the contrary, the universe may not be unkind after all.

Distillery by HisMightyShield @ AO3 Gen, turbulent Mycroft-Sherlock relationship, humour, E.W. Hornung’s Raffles series crossover Summary: Holmes and Watson investigate a crime at the Diogenes Club.

* Dust and Ashes by SCFrankles @ AO3 Gen, humour, casefic Summary: Holmes and Watson investigate three cases which appear to have some similarities. Could there be something bigger going on in the background?

England is England Yet by lynndyre @ AO3 Gen, hope, friendship Summary: After Reichenbach, life goes on for Dr Watson.

Haunted by You by T.J. Lauren @ FF.net Gen, angst Summary: Hidden just off the path to Reichenbach, near the top, there is a small, nameless memorial. (Professor Moriartyyyyyy...)

* Howl by HisMightyShield @ AO3 Gen, werebeast AU Summary: A retelling of The Empty House. With Werewolves. Because awesome.

A Less Than Final Stop by JaneTurenne @  AO3/LJ Holmes/Watson, humour Summary: Shortly after The Waterfall, John Watson begins sending telegrams.

Letters by ingridmatthews Holmes/Watson, humour Summary: Watson has to take a business trip away from Baker Street. Holmes writes ... and writes ... and writes ... (This author writes both non-specific Victorian and specifically Ritchie-verse fic, but the former also works well read as the latter.)

Never by JaneTurenne Watson/Mary Morstan, angst Summary: An excerpt from the journal of Mrs. Mary Watson, from May 5, 1894

Nowhere Far Enough by ingridmatthews Mention of Holmes/Victor Trevor, angst Summary: For the prompt Five Times Sherlock Ran Away From Home, One Time He Ran Back to It

On Mount Golgotha by L-aviateur @ AO3 Watson/Mary Morstan, horror, SCP Foundation crossover Summary: "I can call to mind one case in particular that I will never forgive myself for missing." When Holmes gets in over his head, can Watson find a way to save him from something that none of them even understand?

Read All About It by SCFrankies Watson/Mary Morstan, humour Summary: “I have not seen a paper for some days." Dr. Watson in The Boscombe Valley Mystery. There was a reason for that.

* Right Ho, Moran by Anonymous @ LJ Gen, humour, Jeeves and Wooster crossover/fusion Summary: Moriarty, in the style of Bertie Wooster. (I would read a whole book of this.)

The Songs of Spring by w_a_i_d @ LJ / Waid @ AO3 Holmes/Watson Summary: Holmes sends the manuscript of The Lion's Mane to the absent Watson -- though  maybe his absence isn't as long-term as all that. (Almost angsty enough to go in the "misery" section, but ultimately fluffy as a feather bed.)

* Sub Rosa by prof_pangaea @ LJ/AO3 Gen, art Summary: A record of Sherlock Holmes’ correspondence with Mycroft during the hiatus.

Truth by JaneTurenne @ AO3 Gen, angst Warnings: Attempted suicide Summary: After Holmes's return, Lestrade pulls the Great Detective aside to discuss a certain incident during his years away.

Untitled (Chuck Testa meme) by por_queeee @ LJ Gen, crack Summary: Moriarty is back. (I liked how appropriate the meme was, ok.)

Multiple verses

London Dreaming by f_m_r_l @ LJ Gen, fluff Summary: London dreams of Sherlock Holmes. 

Ritchie Holmes

The Baker Street Record by featherfish @ LJ Holmes/Watson, horror/psychological, apocrypha, meta, House of Leaves crossover Warnings: Sexual content Summary: If I tried to write a summary, I’d just repeat the tags. I haven’t read HoL, but I still found this impressive.

Der Freischütz by indigostohelit @ AO3 Moriarty/Moran (tagged as that, but can still be read as ambiguous), Moran character study Summary: When they first meet he’s fresh out of the army, dishonorable discharge and all, and the rage behind his eyes is barely checked. He’s a ticking time bomb, and Moriarty has a use for bombs.

A Fine Mess by ingridmatthews Gen, fluff Summary: Holmes meets puppy!Gladstone.

Loyalty by ingridmatthews Gen, fluff Summary (prompt): [...] I want a fic where someone (Holmes?) says something incredibly stupid/insulting about Gladstone and Watson flips his shit. He then proceeds to demonstrate how awesome the dog still is. [...]

* Misericordia by cyanocorax @ AO3 Gen/ambiguous relationship, Sebastian Moran character study Summary: “What does he say?’ he asked. ‘He’s very sad,’ Úrsula answered, ‘because he thinks that you’re going to die.’ ‘Tell him,’ the colonel said, smiling, ‘that a person doesn’t die when he should but when he can.” - 100 Years of Solitude (This really stuck with me. There’s something about the exactness of the language.)

Untitled by Anonymous @ LJ Gen, fluff Summary: Everybody loves Holmes.

A Study In Emerald

I’ve never read anything by Lovecraft, and only know a few basic things about the Cthulhu mythos. Somehow, I still enjoyed A Study In Emerald. The fics below are ones I found interesting despite my lack of background knowledge.

Black Shuck by Aquila @ AO3 Gen, horror/supernatural, casefic Summary: There are things lurking on the moors that man was not meant to know -- but Sherlock Holmes is not most men. (A retelling of The Hound of the Baskervilles, Cthulhu-style.)

The Incident of the Opera House by Wasuremono @ AO3 Gen, horror/supernatural, casefic Summary: Another case for Albion's consulting detective: high culture, grave danger... and Irene Adler.

The Terror from Bohemia: Being the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D., in the Year of the Old Ones 745 by Satchelfoot @ AO3 Gen, horror/supernatural Summary: Holmes and Watson, having escaped to the rookery of St. Giles, meet a mysterious woman who also has a talent for killing royalty.

* Under by Nonesane @ AO3 Watson/Mary Morstan, implied Holmes/Watson, slice of life Summary: A look into the life of Mary Morstan, in the year of Her Majesty 1883.

The Whitechapel Case by Merlin Missy @ AO3 Gen, drabble Summary: Holmes and Watson meet the Ripper.

Also see: The Case of Death and Honey, Neil Gaiman’s other pastiche, not set in a Cthulhu mythos universe.

Without a Clue

The AO3 tag for this had a manageable 15 works when I last checked, and I think it’s a case of quality over quantity.

[humaneyre]

Who Would Be a Fan of Sherlock Holmes?

Dear BBC Sherlock fandom, please consider: 

Remember ASIP? 

Two answers: Moftiss and us. 

What does that mean? 

We may be crazy but our theories are as clever as theirs. AND, if they were to sit down and deliver it to us, straight out, we would only be disappointed. That is not the Sherlockian way. 

Dear friends, Moftiss does not disrespect Sherlock fans. “The Final Problem” is Moftiss’s final proof of that. They have given us a puzzle to solve, and they expect that we will solve it. And clever fandom, #warmth-and-constancy, #the-7-percent-slution, #marcespot, #nondeducible, #marta-bee, #skulls-and-tea, #jenna221b and others are well on their way to doing so. It’s a love letter. Just like Sherlock’s wedding speech -- a love letter that may seem absolutely terrible. Until it’s done. 

For a moment let’s reflect upon the initial Sherlock Holmes fandom. The public was enthralled by the great detective from his initial serialization in The Strand Magazine. When he died two short years later there was universal grieving. And the birth of fan fiction. I need not recount the innumerable pastiches, films, TV productions, plays, operas, ballets, cartoons, etc. etc. that have taken Holmes/Watson as their theme since1893, nor the hundreds of Sherlock Holmes societies that exist worldwide. Simply put, Sherlock Holmes is the most adapted literary figure of all time, and the Holmes/Watson duo has inspired devotion that is unmatched by any other literary creation, ever.

Moftiss comes to its own adaptation as part of this world, very knowledgeable of Canon, and very knowledgeable of the rich patina grown all about it. Moftiss are FANS of Sherlock Holmes. If Moftiss wished to create an adaptation of Canon that brings the love and devotion of the Sherlock Holmes fandom into the new century, recreating the entire experience, not simply the Granada re-tellings, how would they do that?

Engage the fandom to begin with. Make the viewer *read* the shows as carefully and imaginatively as the devoted Sherlockian reads Canon. No doubt Moftiss has accomplished this. As much as each Canonical story has been lovingly picked apart, added to, re-invented, and explicated by Sherlockians, so has each episode of BBC Sherlock.

But in addition, might not Moftiss wish to recreate the experience of “The Final Problem” in their own “The Final Problem”? The original Sherlock Holmes fandom experienced terrible trauma at the ruthless hands of ACD, when Holmes was murdered by his creator. It seemed that Truth and Justice had exited the world. ACD was vilified, called a contemptible brute. 

If this experience were to be re-created it could only be done by Moftiss killing off their own unique creation. 

But that creation is not Sherlock Holmes. It is, rather, Johnlock. The fandom knows, as does all the world, that Sherlock Holmes cannot die, not really, and thus in “The Reichenbach Fall” Sherlock Holmes is quite alive after plummeting to his death. 

Please remember, though: The original fandom had no such assurance. From Dr. Watson’s own pen was it written, “There, deep down in that dreadful cauldron of swirling water and seething foam, will lie for all time the most dangerous criminal and the foremost champion of the law of their generation.” Truth and Justice lay at the bottom of the Reichenbach Falls. The end. 

If we are to feel what they felt, if the experience of being a Sherlock Holmes fan is to be re-lived, then we must also believe that Moftiss -- as brutish as ACD -- has killed off Johnlock for all time. The letters, the protests, the complaints, the “How could yous??” It’s all part of it.

Sherlock Holmes does not give up his secrets easily. He lies, he disguises himself, he engages in trickery of every sort. Yet never, ever, in over a thousand cases, does he use his powers upon the wrong side. Moftiss is confident that their lies, their disguises, their trickery will be forgiven, for neither will they use their powers upon the wrong side. No fan of Sherlock Holmes ever would.

We are fans of Sherlock  Holmes. Yes, we want Truth and Justice -- but we don’t want it handed to us, dished up like so much mush. We want the drama, the unpredictability, the surprise reveal. Moftiss is giving us what our Sherlockian hearts most love. They WILL deliver our “Lost Special” because they ARE us, "Eurus,” and they love their creation as much as we do. But they’re going to make us suffer first.

What universal joy, what celebration, when Holmes returned from the bottom of that Cauldron from which no mortal man could escape. So too, it seems, is that Dreadful Cauldron of TFP. But what universal joy, what celebration there will be when Johnlock returns, “Not Dead.” 

Remember we who observe, we whose powers are never used upon the wrong side: *We* are who would be fans of Sherlock Holmes. And we shall be vindicated.