#at the very least they both work in STEM because sherlock is in more of a general field

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Rekindling the Sherlock Holmes and boots n bombs brainworms in me simultaneously .. I give you BnB Holmes and Watson

[twistedtummies2]

Top 10 Portrayals of Mycroft Holmes

In my last couple lists for the supporting cast of Sherlock Holmes, I discussed two of his closest allies: Mrs. Hudson and Inspector Lestrade. It’s now time for another of his allies, though perhaps the most begrudging of them all: his elder brother, Mycroft Holmes. Mycroft is an intriguing character, because there are essentially two completely different ways to portray him. In the original books, Mycroft is declared to be even smarter than Sherlock is, which is already quite interesting. What makes him even more fascinating, however, is the reveal of his career: Mycroft “IS the British Government.” He’s the head of political and military intelligence, his power seemingly second only to the Prime Minister and the Royal Family themselves. With so much power and brilliance, one would expect Mycroft to be a rather imposing figure…but in Conan Doyle’s stories, the character is actually depicted a sort of comical figure. Mycroft is a sort of stereotypical, pompous bureaucrat in the books; like Sherlock, he’s a trifle eccentric, as well as rather pompous and slightly foppish in demeanor. The humor comes from his blustering attitude and exaggerated rotundity, which are completely at odds with the potential for something more dangerous when you realize what and who he really is. As a result of this dichotomy, different reimaginings and adaptations of Mycroft tend to gravitate more towards one side or the other: some versions play the character very much in the Conan Doyle vein, as a comically uppercrust caricature. Others, however, have focused much more on his political prowess, making him a much more serious character, with the humor stemming now from his dandy manners and the relationship he has with his brother. In the books, Sherlock and Mycroft have a SLIGHT sibling rivalry, but they actually seem to get along fairly well; most reinterpretations, however, really play up that rivalry and have the two constantly at each other’s throats…but when push comes to shove, that brotherly love still shines through. With so many different ways to handle Mycroft, choosing my favorites was rather difficult: this duality to the character and the way he’s been portrayed means that he is both easy to mess up and yet hard to mess up at the same time, if you can imagine such a paradox. I think, however, that the choices I’ve made are more or less finite, though a few may rise or fall on the scale depending on my mood, more than anything else. With that said, here are My Top 10 Portrayals of Mycroft Holmes!

10. Rhys Ifans, from Elementary.

It took me a while to warm up to this version of Mycroft, but ultimately I did come to like him. In here, instead of being the head of British intelligence, Mycroft is simply an AGENT of said intelligence: he’s essentially this universe’s version of James Bond, a suave and classy spy for MI6, who works under the facade of a restauranteur. While I do have a few issues with this take on the character, overall I think it’s an interesting one; a big part of what makes him good comes from Ifans’ acting.

9. Robert Morley, from A Study in Terror.

This Mycroft COULD have been in my Top 5, at the very least, if he had a larger role. Morley is probably the most book-accurate take on Mycroft ever, but he’s only in the film for a couple of short minutes, and…well…frankly, he has absolutely NO purpose to be in the story at all. I feel like someone just included him BECAUSE they wanted to see Robert Morley play this character, and…fair play to them, I suppose, I’m glad it happened. I just wish he had more of a reason to be there, and more screentime in his pocket.

8. Peter Jeffrey, from Hands of a Murderer.

In this period remake of “The Woman in Green” (one of the Basil Rathbone films), Jeffrey’s Mycroft ends up being kidnapped by Professor Moriarty, who is seeking information he wishes to sell to enemy agents. (Which actually sounds similar to a completely different Rathbone movie, “Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon,” but I digress.) While his role is relatively peripheral, I enjoy Jeffrey’s work with the character, and they really play around wonderfully with the relationship between the two brothers.

7. Richard E. Grant, from Sherlock: Case of Evil.

While Mycroft’s role in this film is small, his presence is important: it’s revealed that part of the reason he is such a reclusive figure is because he was captured and tortured by Moriarty (after the previous pick, I’m sensing a pattern) during Sherlock’s first encounter with his arch-nemesis. Mycroft’s brain is as sharp as ever, but his body still bears scars. This is one of the most supportive takes on the character out there, and Grant plays him very well.

6. Boris Klyuyev, from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson. 

Arguably one of the funniest versions of Mycroft, in my opinion. This Russian-made TV film series used Mycroft fairly often, and he was always fun to see in action, really leaning into the comedy of the character from the original stories, and even doing a few new things with him, such as having him help Mrs. Hudson during “The Tiger Hunt” (their adaptation of “The Empty House”). Very, very amusing to watch.

5. The Version from Moriarty the Patriot.

This version takes some obvious cues from the rendition from “Sherlock,” portraying Mycroft as a more traditionally handsome, limber fellow, and really emphasizing his power as “the very embodiment of the British government.” However, he’s a much “warmer” character than the BBC version, which I think helps make him stand out, and gives him a little more of the humor that was present in the original stories. In Japan, he's voiced by Hiroki Yasumoto; the English dub is played by "Black Butler" star himself, J. Michael Tatum.

4. Stephen Fry, from the Guy Ritchie Films.

Mycroft appears in the second film, “Game of Shadows,” in another case of a “small but important” sort of role. Some of the funniest scenes in the film are thanks to him, and he’s also important in terms of the movie’s climax and conclusion. Fry is a shockingly book-accurate take on the character for the modern era, both in appearance and portrayal, and I think that’s a big part of why I like him. For all the things these films did differently from Conan Doyle, Mycroft almost feels ripped straight out of the pages.

3. Christopher Lee, from The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.

Lee was the first “serious” Mycroft, depicting the character as a more athletic and icy sort of character. This is ironic, since “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes” is mostly rather comedic in nature, although it does have its hard edges. With that said, while he is a bit more dramatic than earlier interpretations, he still has a lot of humorous bits and moments. Plus, it’s Christopher Lee: of COURSE he’s awesome.

2. Mark Gatiss, from Sherlock.

Gatiss not only plays Mycroft in the series, but is also one of its chief creators. As if the guy needed MORE power. This version rather famously plays up Mycroft as a very, VERY authoritarian figure: much colder and more mean-spirited than almost any other interpretation. At times, he’s more of an antagonist than a protagonist in the show. However, he does still have a heart hidden under his dictatorial ways, a fact that’s made clear literally from the start of the series, and does help Sherlock out in various ways throughout the show. I was sorely tempted to make him number one…hopefully the person I chose instead won’t disappoint.

1. Charles Gray, from the Granada Series.

Gray first played the character in the film “The Seven Per-Cent Solution,” but it’s the Granada series (with Jeremy Brett as his younger brother) that I REALLY recognize him for. Alongside Robert Morley (and possibly Stephen Fry), I would argue that this is the most book-accurate take on Mycroft there’s ever been. I love how even though he is depicted as the generally more lighthearted figure from the original stories, he’s not played up as a caricature or a cartoon, and can be serious when the moment calls for it. The show even had two episodes where Mycroft took the place of each of the Baker Street gang, with one episode teaming him up with his brother, and another teaming him up with Watson. Gatiss may be more recognizable nowadays, but for me, Gray IS Mycroft, just as Brett IS Sherlock and Colin Jeavons IS Lestrade, plain and simple.

[itsclydebitches]

Enola Holmes: A Not So Elementary Adaptation

It's cliché and a bit unfair to say that the book was better than the film, but I'm afraid that's precisely where I need to start. Nancy Springer's Enola Holmes: The Case of the Missing Marquess is leagues better than Netflix's adaptation of it. They did her work dirty and to say that I'm shocked at the accolades other reviewers are heaping on the film is an understatement. Before I dive into any critiques though, it's worth acknowledging that not every minute of the two hour film was painful to get through. So what worked in Enola Holmes?

The film is carried by the talent of its cast, Millie Bobby Brown being the obvious heavy-hitter. She helps breathe life into a pretty terrible script and it's only a shame her talent is wasted on such a subpar character.

The idea to have Enola continually break the fourth wall, though edging into the realm of Dora the Explorer at times—"Do you have any ideas?"— was nevertheless a fun way to keep the audience looped into her thought process. Young viewers in particular might enjoy it as a way to make them feel like a part of the action and older viewers will note the Fleabag influence. 

The cinematography is, perhaps, where most of my praise lies. The rapid cuts between past and present, rewinding as Enola thinks back to some pertinent detail, visualizing the cyphers with close ups on the letter tiles—all of it gave the film an upbeat, entertaining flair that almost made up for how bloated and meandering the plot was.

We got an equally upbeat soundtrack that helped to sell the action. 

The overall experience was... fine. In the way a cobbled together, candy-coated, meant to be seen on a Friday night but we watched it Wednesday and then promptly forgot about it film is fine. I doubt Enola Holmes will be winning any awards, but it was a decently entertaining romp and really, does a Netflix film need to be anything more? If Enola was her own thing made entirely by Netflix's hands I wouldn't be writing this review. As it stands though, Enola is both an adaptation and the latest addition to one of the world’s most popular franchises. That's where the film fails: not as a fun diversion to take your mind off Covid-19, but as an adaptation of Springer's work and as a Sherlock Holmes story.

In short, Enola Holmes, though pretty to look at and entertaining in a predictable manner, still fails in five crucial areas: 

1. Mycroft is Now a Mustache-Twirling Villain and Sherlock is No Longer Sherlock Holmes

This aspect is the least egregious because admittedly the film didn't pull this version of Mycroft out of thin air. As the head of the household he is indeed Enola's primary antagonist (outside of some kidnappers) and though he insists that he's doing all this for Enola's own good, he does get downright cruel at times:

He rolled his eyes. “Just like her mother,” he declared to the ceiling, and then he fixed upon me a stare so martyred, so condescending, that I froze rigid. In tones of sweetest reason he told me, “Enola, legally I hold complete charge over both your mother and you. I can, if I wish, lock you in your room until you become sensible, or take whatever other measures are necessary in order to achieve that desired result... You will do as I say" (Springer 69).

Mycroft's part is clear. He's the white, rich, powerful, able-bodied man who benefits from society's structure and thus would never think to change it. He does legally have charge over both Enola and Eudoria. He can do whatever he pleases to make them "sensible"... and that right there is the horror of it. Mycroft is a law-abiding man whose antagonism stems from doing precisely what he's allowed to do in a broken world. There are certainly elements of this in the Netflix adaptation, but that antagonism becomes so exaggerated that it's nearly laughable. Enola's governess (appointed by Mycroft) slaps her across the face the moment she speaks up. Mycroft screams at her in a carriage until she's cowering against the window. He takes her and throws her into a boarding school where everything is bleak and all the women dutifully follow instructions like hypnotized dolls. Enola Holmes ensures that we've lost all of Springer's nuance, notably the criticism of otherwise decent people who fall into the trap of doing the "right" (read: expected) thing. Despite her desire for freedom, in the novel Enola quickly realizes that she is not immune to society's standards:

"I thought he was younger.” Much younger, in his curled tresses and storybook suit. Twelve! Why, the boy should be wearing a sturdy woollen jacket and knickers, an Eton collar with a tie, and a decent manly haircut—

Thoughts, I realised, all too similar to those of my brother Sherlock upon meeting me (113-14).

She is precisely like her brothers, judging a boy for not looking and acting enough like a man just as they judged her for not looking and acting enough like a lady. The difference is that Enola has chaffed enough against those expectations to realize when she's falling prey to them, but the sympathetic link to her brothers remains. In the film, however, the conflict is no longer driven by fallible people doing what they think is best. Rather, it's made clear (in no uncertain terms) that these are just objectively bad people. Only villains hit someone like that. Only villains will scream at the top of their lungs until a young girl cries. Only villains roll their eyes at women's rights (a subplot that never existed in the novel). Springer writes Mycroft as a person, Netflix writes him as a cartoon, and the result is the loss of a nuanced message about what it means to enact change in a complicated world.  

Which leaves us with Sherlock. Note that in the above passage he is the one who casts harsh judgement on Enola's outfit. Originally Mycroft took an interest in making Enola "sensible" and Sherlock— in true Holmes fashion—straddles a fine line between comfort and insult:

"Mycroft,” Sherlock intervened, “the girl's head, you'll observe, is rather small in proportion to her remarkably tall body. Let her alone. There is no use confusing and upsetting her when you'll find out for yourself soon enough'" (38).

***

"Could mean that she left impulsively and in haste, or it could reflect the innate untidiness of a woman's mind,” interrupted Sherlock. “Of what use is reason when it comes to the dealings of a woman, and very likely one in her dotage?" (43).

A large part of Enola's drive stems from proving to Sherlock, the world, and even herself that a small head does not mean lack of intelligence. His insults, couched in a misguided attempt to sooth, is what makes Sherlock a complex character and his broader sexism is what makes him a flawed character, not Superman in a tweed suit. Yet in the film Mycroft becomes the villain and Sherlock is his good brother foil. Rather than needing to acknowledge that Enola has a knack for deduction by reading the excellent questions she's asked about the case—because why give your characters any development?—he already adores and has complete faith in her, laughing that he too likes to draw caricatures to think. By the tree Sherlock remanences fondly about Enola's childhood where she demonstrated appropriately quirky preferences for a genius, things like not wearing trousers and keeping a pinecone for a pet. They have a clear connection that Mycroft could never understand, one based both in deduction and, it seems, being a halfway decent human being. We are told that Enola has Sherlock's wits, but poor Mycroft lucked out, despite the fact that up until this point the film has done nothing to demonstrate this supposed intelligence. (To say nothing of how canonically Mycroft's intellect rivals his brother's.) Enola falls to her knees and begs for Sherlock's help, saying that "For [Mycroft] I'm a nuisance, to you—" implying that they have a deep bond despite not having seen one another since Enola was a toddler. Indeed, at one point Enola challenges Lestrade to a Sherlock quiz filled with information presumably not found in the newspaper clippings she's saved of him, which begs the question of how she knows her brother so well when she hasn't seen him in a decade and he, in turn, walked right by her with no recognition. Truthfully, Lestrade should know Sherlock better. Through all this the sibling bond is used as a heavy-handed insistence that Enola is Sherlock's protégé, him leaving her with the advice that "Those kinds of mysteries are always the best to unpick” and straight up asking at one point if she’s solved the case. The plot has Enola gearing up to outwit her genius brother, which did not happen in the novel and is precisely why I loved it. Enola isn't out to be a master of deduction in her teens, she's a finder of lost people who uses a similar, but ultimately unique set of skills. She does things Sherlock can't because she is isn't Sherlock. They're not in competition, they're peers, yet the film fails to understand that, using Sherlock's good brother bonding to emphasize Enola's place as his protégé turned superior. He exists, peppered throughout the film, so that she can surpass him in the end. 

You know what happens in the novel? Sherlock walks away from her, dismissive, and that's that.

That's also Sherlock Holmes. I won't bore you with complaints about Cavill being too handsome and Claflin being too thin for their respective parts, but I will draw the line at complete character assassination. Part of Sherlock's charm is that he's far more compassionate than he first appears, but that doesn't mean he would, at the drop of a telegram, become a doting older brother to a sister of all things. Despite the absurdity of the Doyle Estate's lawsuit against Netflix for making Sherlock an emotional man who respects women... they're right that this isn't their character. Oh, Sherlock is emotive, but it's in the form of excited exclamations over clues, or the occasional warm word towards Watson—someone he has known and lived with for many years. Sherlock respects women, though it's through those societal expectations. He'll offer them a seat, an ear, a handkerchief if they need one, and always the promise of help, but he then dismisses them with, "The fairer sex is your department, Watson." Springer successfully wrote Sherlock Holmes with a little sister, a man who will bark out a laugh at her caricature but still leave her to Mycroft's whims because he has his own life to tend to. This is a man who insists that the mind of a woman is inscrutable and thus must grapple with his shock at Enola's ability to cover the "salient points" of the case (58). Cavill's Sherlock is no Sherlock at all and though there's nothing wrong with updating a character for a modern audience (see: Elementary), I do question why Netflix strayed so far from Springer's work. The novel is, after all, their blueprint. She already managed the difficult task of writing an in-character Sherlock Holmes who remains approachable to both a modern audience and Enola herself, yet for some reason Netflix tossed that work aside.  

2. Enola is "Special,” Not At All Like Other Girls 

Allow me to paint you a picture. Enola Holmes is an empathetic, fourteen-year-old girl who, while bright, does not possess an intelligence worthy of note. No one is gasping as she deduces seemingly impossible things from the age of four, or admiring her knowledge of some obscure, appropriately impressive topic. Rather, Enola is a fairly normal girl with an abnormal upbringing, characterized by her patience and willingness to work. Deciphering the many hiding places where her mother stashed cash takes her weeks, requiring that Enola work through the night in secrecy while maintaining appearances during the day. She manages to hatch a plan of escape that demonstrates the thought she's put into it without testing the reader's suspension of disbelief. More than that, she uses the feminine tools at her disposal to give herself an edge: hiding her face behind a widow's veil and storing luggage in the bustle of her dress. Upon achieving freedom, her understanding of another lonely boy leads her to try and help him, resulting in a dangerous kidnapping wherein Enola acts as most fourteen-year-olds would, scared out of her mind with a few moments of bravery born of pure survival instinct. She and Tewksbury escape together, as friends, before Enola sets out on becoming the first scientific perditorian, a finder of lost people.

Sadly, this new Enola shares little resemblance with her novel counterpart. What Netflix seemingly fails to understand is that giving a character flaws makes them relatable and that someone who looks more like us is someone we can connect with. This Enola, simply put, is extraordinary. She's read all the books in the library, knows science, tennis, painting, archery, and a deadly form of Jujitsu (more on that below). In the novel Enola bemoans that she was never particularly good at cyphers and now must improve if she has any hope of reading what her mother left her. In the film she simply knows the answers, near instantaneously. Enola masters her travels, her disguises, and her deductions, all with barely a hitch. Though Enola doesn't have impressive detective skills yet, her memory is apparently photographic, allowing her to look back on a single glance into a room, years ago, and untangle precisely what her mother was planning. It's a BBC Sherlock-esque form of 'deduction' wherein there's no real thought involved, just an innate ability to recall a newspaper across the room with perfect clarity. The one thing Enola can't do well is ride a bike which, considering that in the novel she quite enjoys the activity, feels like a tacked on "flaw" that the film never has to have her grapple with.

More than simply expanding upon her skillset—because let’s be real, it’s not like Sherlock himself doesn’t have an impressive list of accomplishments. Even if Enola’s feelings of inadequacy are part of the point Springer was working to make—the film changes the core of her personality. I cannot stress enough that Enola is a sheltered fourteen-year-old who is devastated by the disappearance of her mother and terrified by the new world she's entered. That fear, uncertainty, and the numerous mistakes that come out of it is what allowed me to connect with Enola and go, "Yeah. I can see myself in her." Meanwhile, this new Enola is overwhelmingly confident, to the point where I felt like I was watching a child's fantasy of a strong woman rather than one who actually demonstrates strength by overcoming challenges. For example, contrast her meeting with Sherlock and Mycroft on the train platform with what we got in the film:

"And to my annoyance, I found myself trembling as I hopped off my bicycle. A strip of lace from my pantalets, confounded flimsy things, caught on the chain, tore loose, and dangled over my left boot.

Trying to tuck it up, I dropped my shawl.

This would not do. Taking a deep breath, leaving my shawl on my bicycle and my bicycle leaning against the station wall, I straightened and approached the two Londoners, not quite succeeding in holding my head high" (31-32).

***

"Well, if they did not desire the pleasure of my conversation, it was a good thing, as I stood mute and stupid... 'I don't know where she's gone,' I said, and to my own surprise—for I had not wept until that moment—I burst into tears" (34).

I'd ask where this frightened, fumbling Enola has gone, but it's clear that she never existed in the script to begin with. The film is chock-full of her being, to be frank, a badass. She gleefully beats up the bad guys in perfect form, no, "I froze, cowering, like a rabbit in a thicket" (164). This Enola always gets the last word in and never falters in her confident demeanor, no, "I wish I could say I swept with cold dignity out of the room, but the truth is, I tripped over my skirt and stumbled up the stairs" (70). Enola is the one, special girl in an entire school who can see how rigid and horrible these social expectations are, straining against them while all her lesser peers roll their eyes. That's how she's characterized: as "special," right from the get-go, and that eliminates any growth she might have experienced over the course of the film. More than that, it feels like a slap in the face to Springer's otherwise likeable, well-rounded character.

3. A Focus on Hollywood Action and Those Strong Female Characters

It never fails to amaze me how often Sherlock Holmes adaptations fail to remember that he is, at his core, an intellectual. Sure, there's the occasional story where Sherlock puts his boxing or singlestick skills to good use, and he did survive his encounter with Moriarty thanks to his own martial arts, but these moments are rarities across the canon. Pick up any Sherlock Holmes story, open to a random page, and you will find him sitting fireside to mule over a case, donning a disguise to observe the suspects, or combing through his many papers to find that one, necessary scrap of information. Sherlock Holmes is about deduction, a series of observations and conclusions based on logic. He's not an action hero. Nor is Enola, yet Netflix seems to be under the impression that no audience can survive a two hour film without something exploding.

I'd like to present a concise list of things that happened in the film that were, in my opinion, unnecessary:

Enola and Tewksbury throw themselves out of a moving train to miraculously land unharmed on the grass below.

Enola uses the science knowledge her mother gave her to ignite a whole room of gunpowder and explosives, resulting in a spectacle that somehow doesn't kill her pursuer.

Enola engages in a long shootout with her attacker, Tewksbury takes a shot straight to the chest, but survives because of a breastplate he only had a few seconds to put on and hide beneath his shirt. Then Enola succeeds in killing Burn Gorman's slimy character.

Enola beats up her attackers many, many times.

This right here is the worst change to her character. Enola is, plainly put, a "strong woman." Literally. She was trained from a young age to kick ass and now that's precisely what she'll do. Gone is the unprepared but brave girl who heads out onto the dangerous London streets in the hope of helping her mother and a young boy. What does this Enola have to fear? There's only one martial arts move she hasn't mastered yet and, don't worry, she gets it by the end of the film. Enola suffers from the Hollywood belief that strong women are defined solely as physically capable women and though there's nothing wrong with that on the surface, the archetype has become so prevalent that any deviation is seen as too weak—too princess-y—to be considered feminist. If you're not kicking ass and taking names then you can only be passive, right? Stuck in a tower somewhere and awaiting your prince. But what about me? I have no ability to flip someone over my shoulder and throw them into a wall. What about pacifists? What about the disabled? By continually claiming that this is what a "strong" woman looks like you eliminate a huge number of women from this pool. The women we are meant to uphold in this film—Enola, her Mother, and her Mother's friend from the teahouse—are all fighters of the physical variety, whereas the bad women like Mrs. Harris and her pupils are too cultured for self-defense. They're too feminine to be feminist. But feminism isn't about your ability to throw a punch.  Enola's success now derives from being the most talented and the most violent in the room, rather than the most determined, smart, and empathetic. She threatens people and lunges at them, reminding others that she's perfectly capable of tying up a guy is she so chooses because "I know Jujitsu." Enola possesses a power that is just as fantastical as kissing a frog into a prince. In sixteen short years she has achieved what no real life woman ever will: the ability to go wherever she pleases and do whatever she wants without the threat of violence. Because Enola is the violence. While her attacker is attempting to drown her with somewhat horrific realism, Enola takes the time to wink at the audience before rearing back and bloodying his nose. After all, why would you think she was in any danger? Masters of Jujitsu with an uncanny ability to dodge bullets don't have anything to fear... unlike every woman watching this film.

It's certainly some kind of wish fulfillment, a fantasy to indulge in, but I personally preferred the original Enola who never had any Hollywood skills at her disposal yet still managed to come out on top. That's a character I can see myself in and want to see myself in given that the concept of non-violent strength is continually pushed to the wayside. Not to mention... that's a Sherlock Holmes story. Coming out on top through intellect and bravery alone is the entire point of the genre, so why Netflix felt the need to turn Enola into an action hero is beyond me.  

4. Aging Up the Protagonists (and Giving Them an Eye-Rolling Romance)

The choice to age up our heroes is, arguably, the worst decision here. In the original novel Enola has just turned fourteen and Tewksbury is a child, twelve-years-old, though he looks even younger. It's a story for a younger audience staring appropriately young heroes, with the protagonists' status as children crucial to one of the overarching themes of the story: what does it really mean to strike out on your own and when are you ready for it? Adding two years to Enola's age is something I'm perfectly fine with. After all, the difference between fourteen and sixteen isn't that great and Brown herself is sixteen until February of 2021, so why not aim for realism and make her character the same? That's all reasonable and this is, indeed, an adaptation. No need to adhere to every detail of the text. What puzzles me though is why in the world they would take a terrified, sassy, compassionate twelve-year-old and turn him into a bumbling seventeen-year-old instead?

Ah yes. The romance.

In the same way that I fail to understand the assumption that a film needs over-the-top action to be entertaining, I likewise fail to understand the assumption that it needs a romance—and a heterosexual one to boot. There's something incredibly discomforting in watching a film that so loudly proclaim itself as feminist, yet it takes the strong friendship between two children and turns it into an incredibly awkward, hetero True Love story. Remember when Enola loudly proclaims that she doesn't want a husband? The film didn't, because an hour later she's stroking her hand over Tewksbury's while twirling her hair. Which isn't to say that women can't fall in love, or change their minds, just that it's disheartening to see a supposedly feminist film so completely fall into one of the biggest expectations for women, even today. Forget Enola running up to men and paying them for their clothes as an expression of freedom, is anyone going to acknowledge that narratively she’s still stuck living the life the men around her want? Find yourself a husband, Enola. The heavy implication is she did, just with Jujitsu rather than embroidery. Different method, same message, and that’s incredibly frustrating when this didn’t exist in the original story. “It's about freedom!” the film insists. So why didn't you give Enola the freedom to have a platonic adventure? 

It's not even a good romance. Rather painful, really. When Tewksbury, after meeting her just once before, passionately says "I don't want to leave you, Enola" because her company is apparently more important than him staying alive, I literally laughed out loud. It's ridiculous and it's ridiculously precisely because it was shoe-horned into a story that didn't need it. More than simply saddling Enola with a bland love interest though, this leads to a number of unfortunate changes in the story's plot, both unnecessary additions and disappointing exclusions. Enola no longer meets Tewksbury after they've both been kidnapped (him for ransom and her for snooping into his case), but rather watches him cut himself out of a carpetbag on the train. I hope I don't have to explain which of these scenarios is more likely and, thus, more satisfying. Meeting Tewksbury on the train means that Enola gets to have a nighttime chat with him about precisely why he ran away. Thus, when she goes to his estate she no longer needs to deduce his hiding spot based on her own desires to have a place of her own, she just needs to recall that a very big branch nearly fell on him and behold, there that branch is. (The fact that the branch is a would-be murder weapon makes its convenient placement all the more eye-rolling.) Rather than involving herself in the case out of empathy for the family, Enola loudly proclaims that she wants nothing to do with Tewksbury and only reluctantly gets involved when it's clear his life is on the line. And that right there is another issue. In the novel there is no murderous plot in an attempt to keep reform bills from passing. Tewksbury is a child who, like Enola, ran away and quickly discovers that life with an overbearing mother isn't so bad when you've experienced London's dangerous streets. That's the emotional blow: Enola has no mother to go home to anymore and must press out onto those streets whether she's ready for it or not.

Perhaps the only redeeming change is giving Tewksbury an interest in flowers instead of ships. Regardless of how overly simplistic the feminist message is, it is a nice touch to give the guy a traditionally feminine hobby while Enola sharpens her knife. The fact that Enola learned that from her mother and Tewksbury learned botany from his father feels like a nudge at a far better film than Enola Holmes managed to be. For every shining moment of insight—the constraints of gendered hobbies, a black working class woman informing Sherlock that he can never understand what it means to lack power—the film gives us twenty minutes worth of frustrating stupidity. Such as how Enola doesn't seem to conceive of escaping from boarding school until Tewksbury appears to rescue her. She then proceeds to get carried around in a basket for a few minutes before going out the window... which she could have done on her own at any point, locked doors or no. But it seems that narrative consistency isn't worth more than Enola (somehow) leaving a caricature of Mrs. Harris and Mycroft behind. The film is clearly trying to promote a "Rah, rah, go, women, go!" message, but fails to understand that having Enola find a way out of the school herself would be more emotionally fulfilling than having her send a generic 'You're mean' message after the two men in her life—Sherlock and Tewksbury—remind her that she can, in fact, take action.

Which brings me to my biggest criticism and what I would argue is the film's greatest flaw. Reviewers and fans alike are hailing Enola Holmes as a feminist masterpiece and yes, to a certain extent it is. Feminist, that is, not a masterpiece. (5) But it's a hollow feminism. A fantasy feminism. A simple, exaggerated feminism that came out of a Feminism 101 PowerPoint. To quote Sherlock, let's review the salient points:

A woman cannot be the star of her own film without having a male love interest, even if this goes against everything the original novel stood for.

A feminist woman cannot also be selfish. Instead she must have a selfless drive to change the world with bombs. 

The best kind of women are those who reject femininity as much as they can. They will wear boy's clothes whenever possible and snub their nose at something as useless as embroidery. Any woman who enjoys such skills or desires to become lady-like just hasn't realized the sort of prison she's in yet.

The best women also embody other masculine traits, like being able to take down men twice their size. Passive women will titter behind their hands. Active women will kick you in the balls. If you really want to be a strong woman, learn how to throw a decent punch.

Women are, above all, superior to men.

Yes, yes, I joke about it just as much as the next woman, but seeing it played fairly straight was a bit of an uncomfortable experience, even more-so during a gender revolution where stories like this leave trans, nonbinary, and genderqueer viewers out of the ideological loop. Enola goes on and on about what a "useless boy" Tewksbury is (though of course she must still be attracted to him) and her mother's teachings are filled with lessons about not listening to men. As established, Mycroft—and Lestrade—are the simplistically evil men Enola must circumvent, whereas Sherlock exists for her to gain victory over: "How did your sister get there first?" Enola supposedly has a strength that Tewksbury lacks— he's just "foolish"—and she shouts out such cringe-worthy lines as, "You're a man when I tell you you're a man!"

I get the message, I really do. As a teenager I probably would have loved it, but now I have to ask: aren't we past the image of men-hating feminists? Granted, the film never goes quite that far, but it gets close. We’ve got one woman who is ready to start blowing things up to achieve equality and another who revels in looking down on the men in her life. That’s been the framing for years, that feminists are cruel, dangerous people and Tewksbury making heart-eyes at Enola doesn’t instantly fix the echoes of that. There's a certain amount of justification for both characterizations—we have reached points in history where peaceful protests are no longer enough and Tewksbury is indeed a fool at times—but that nuance is entirely lost among the film's overall message of "Women rule, men drool." It feels like there’s a smart film hidden somewhere between the grandmother murdering to keep the status quo and Enola’s mother bombing for change, that balance existing in Enola herself who does the most for women by protecting Tewkesbury... but Enola Holmes is too busy juggling all the different films it wants to be to really hit on that message. It certainly doesn’t have time to say anything worthwhile about the fight it’s using as a backdrop. Enola gasps that "Mycroft is right. You are dangerous" when she finds her mother's bombs, but does she ever grapple with whether she supports violence on a large scale in the name of creating a better world? Does she work through this sudden revelation that she agrees with Mycroft about something crucial? Of course not. Enola just hugs her mom, asks Sherlock not to go after her, and the film leaves it at that. 

The takeaway is less one of empowerment and more, ironically, of restriction. You can fight, but only via bombs and punches. It's okay to be a woman, provided you don't like too many feminine things. You can save the day, so long as there's a man at your side poised to marry you in the future. I felt like I was watching a pre-2000s script where "equality" means embracing the idea that you're "not like other girls" so that men will finally take you seriously. Because then you don't really feel like a woman to them anymore, do you? You're a martial arts loving, trouser-wearing, loud and brilliant individual who just happens to have long hair. You’re unique and, therefore, worthy of attention, unlike all those other girls.

That's some women's experiences, but far from all, and crucially I don't think this is the woman that Springer wrote in her novel. 

The Case of the Missing Marquess is a feminist book. It gives us a flawed, brave, intelligent woman who sets out to help people and achieves just that, mostly through her own strength, but also with some help from the young boy she befriends. Her brothers are privileged, misguided men who she nevertheless cares for deeply and her mother finally puts herself first, leaving Enola to go and live with the Romani people. Everyone in Springer's book feels human, the women especially. Enola gets to tremble her way through scary decisions while still remaining brave. Her mother gets to be selfish while still remaining loving. They're far more than just women blessed with extraordinary talents who will take what they want by force. Springer's women? They don't have that Hollywood glamour. They're pretty ordinary, actually, despite the surface quirks. They’re like us and thus they must make use of what tools they have in order to change their own situations as well as the world. The fact that they still succeed feels very feminist to me, far more-so than granting your character the ability to flip a man into the ground and calling it a day.  

Know that I watched Enola Holmes with a friend over Netflix Party and the repeated comment from us both was, "I'd rather be watching The Great Mouse Detective." Enola Holmes is by no means a horrible film. It has beauty, comedy, and a whole lot of heart, but it could have been leagues better given its source material and the talent of its cast. It’s a film that tries to do too much without having a firm grasp of its own message and, as a result, becomes a film mostly about missed potential. Which leads me right back to where I began: The book is better. Go read the book.

Images

Enola Holmes

Mycroft Holmes

Sherlock Holmes

Enola and her Mother Doing Archery

Enola and her Mother Fighting

Tewkesbury and Enola

[thebeethathums]

Observers - 77

Pairing: Sherlock Holmes x Reader

Warnings: Slightly suggestive situations.

A/N: Next Chapter is a Lemon again so like lead up in this chapter. Again the Lemon will be skippable so you are welcome to just move on to 79 if that is not your thing.

When Sherlock came out of it, John was gone and you were lying on your back where he’d been, humming to yourself with your good arm thrown over your head as you kneaded the outside of his thigh with your toes. He blinked at you for a moment, unsure of what to do with his latest discovery, and then poked your foot as he huffed, “What are you doing?” “Dunno… bored,” you admitted before giggling, “Did you have a nice think?” Not particularly wanting to delve into what he’d been thinking about, he answered with a question, “What happened to John?” “I sent him to bed when he started to snore.” “How long ago was that?” You froze as you thought that over and then tilted your head to the side, “I’m not sure. Time passes differently when you can’t see… an hour maybe. Could have been longer." He pulled your legs straight so they were in his lap again and you flexed your toes to a point with a quiet sigh, “Sherlock?” “Yes?” “Would you teach me to play the violin?”

Normally he would have immediately said no- no one touched his violin but him and he certainly didn’t have the patience to teach other people with their slow minds- but, with the conclusion he’d just come to and the fact that it was you, he decided to look deeper. Sherlock scrutinized you for a moment before answering, “You only want to learn because you’re bored and afraid. You need something more complex to occupy your mind than folding cranes- understandable- but your request really stems from your need to have a creative outlet should your vision not return… It will, (F/n).” The corners of your lips pulled down in a frown, “And if it doesn’t? John’s worried Sherlock. He thinks I can’t tell but I can hear it in his voice- he’s worried that nothing has changed. It should be getting better but it’s not. What happens if it never does?” You didn’t wait for an answer, frustrated tears starting to roll down your cheeks as you tumbled, “My entire life has revolved almost exclusively on my ability to see and now I can’t even get from one side of the flat to the other, much less draw or paint. I thought at least maybe I could create music but I probably can’t do that either. What am I supposed to do? I can’t do anything. I can’t even fix my stupid sling from being stuck on my bloody shirt.” In the time it took him to blink, he went over his options in his head and then gave an inaudible sigh- he didn’t want you to cry, which meant he was going to have to make an attempt at comforting again. Hoping that he would be able to get it right, he pulled you up towards him, shifting your legs so you were straddling his lap, and then began fixing your sling, “There are plenty of things you can still do, (F/n), and, while I believe your vision will return, if it doesn’t then you will learn to live without it.” By the time he’d finished, you were free of the sling, which he set aside, and the tears were flowing steadily down your face to leave a smattering of spots on his shirt below. He hated those tears. The pads of his thumbs quickly erased them as he offered, “If nothing has changed in a week and you’d still like to learn then I will make an attempt to teach you the violin.” “Thank you,” you whispered as you stroked up from his shoulders to find his cheeks, cupping them and bowing your head down to place a soft kiss on his lips. To your surprise, he responded fervently, pressing his lips firmly against yours as one hand slid around the back of your neck to pull you down to him and the other fell to the small of your back to keep you close. Melting into him with little resistance as you let him soothe your frustrations with affection, you parted your lips with a small pleased sigh and he took the opportunity to catch your lower lip between his teeth, giving it a little tug. You moaned softly in approval, reassuring him since you could feel the hint of hesitation in his actions, and moved your fingers into his hair as you leaned your forehead on his. He tilted up to catch your lips again before smoothly purring, “Let me show you all you can do without needing to see.” “I don’t know, Sherlock,” you sighed, “After last ti-“ “I made a mistake… this time will be different,” he persisted, running his hands up your thighs with a tantalizingly gentle touch before cupping your rear with both. Just as he thought, that was enough for you to give pause and think it over as your fingers twirled locks of his hair around their lengths and made his eyes flutter closed. After a moment you leaned closer, your lips brushing against his as you seductively breathed, “Alright, genius. Prove it.” That was all it took for him to sweep you up and into his room as you pressed open mouth kisses to his neck and nipped at his earlobe. You could hear his breath catch but little else and wondered how he managed to keep himself so composed when a similar treatment from him had rendered you nearly unable to stand. What you couldn’t see made all the difference- his face was flushed a dark shade of pink, he was biting his lip to the point of it being painful, and his eyes were so dark with desire that, if he wasn’t focused on carrying you, his hands would be all the places John thought they shouldn’t. You returned to his lips just as he set you down on the bed, feeling him loom over you while you worked at the buttons to his shirt, the smooth fabric slipping between your fingers to allow them to brush each new section of bare chest. Buttons were no match for your practiced fingers, even if you couldn’t see them, and before the kiss was broken you were pushing the shirt away from him. He pulled from you to finish the task, tossing it away carelessly, and then returned, his fingers working at the edge of your own shirt. His other hand tangled into your hair, relishing its softness as the locks encompassed his fingers, and then pulled you back to his mouth with a new sense of urgency. Sherlock internally marveled at his how his body instinctually responded to the situation, how it screamed at him to hurry up and get his skin against your skin- to lock your form against his and make your exhale his inhale. Even his vivid memories couldn’t do this moment and these feelings justice and he realized just how much and for how long he’d wanted to do this with you again. At the same time, something about it now was very different than before- better in a new and curious way- and he briefly wondered if it had to do with the new folder in his head. Sensing his drifting thoughts, you deepened the kiss, snapping him back to the present and to you. His hand slipped up your shirt, caressing your sides and stomach as he worked his way up to a point where he absolutely had to pull away from the kiss to get rid of the article of clothing. In his impatience, he nearly yanked it over your head but then caught sight of the bruises still patterning your torso and slowed to ease it off your injured arm. Seeing your injuries fully for the first time made him change his approach from heated to gently affectionate, his arms winding around you to pull you into his lap as his lips fell to the large bruise coloring your shoulder. Nothing needed to be said for you to understand what he was doing as he covered the area with sloppy open-mouthed kisses. You just tangled your fingers into his hair, rested your cheek against him, and let him try to erase the pain with his tender touch. He stopped at the bandage on your arm, gently stroking at the edge of it with his thumb as he rested his forehead on yours. He closed his eyes as he tightly sighed, “This was my fault.” You startled, hands coming around to his cheeks in a flash, “You know that’s not true, Sherlock.” In a rare moment of total vulnerability, he buried his nose in your neck, his silky curls brushing against your cheek and jaw as he murmured, “I was the reason he gave you that... that he marked you.” You buried your nose in his hair, stroking it with one hand, “Don’t, Sherlock. Thinking like that benefits no one but him.”   He simply nipped at your neck in response, the moment of guilt passing as quickly as it had come, and you chuckled, tugging him to your mouth with the fingers in his hair. It was one of those kisses that went from incredibly gentle, with your fingers tracing his sharp cheekbones while his swirled lightly over your hips and lower back, to beyond heated as your tongues danced and teeth nipped at the soft flesh of your lips, your nails raking down his back as he laid you down and shifted his weight over you. You paused for air, soft panting filling the room as your hands cupped his shoulders and then slid down to feel out his lithe form as his lips returned to yours. When your hands fell to the waist of his trousers to pull him against you, you felt the reverberation of a chuckle before he parted from you just barely, lowly taunting, “Patience, darling.” You pouted, pulling him to you anyways, and he nibbled at the sweet spot on your neck, possessively growling,  “Not until I’ve had my turn, love. You made me beg for mercy- it’s only fair I return the favor.”

[raggedyblue]

THE SEVEN-PER-CENT SOLUTION

In the collective imagination Holmes wears a deerstalker (not true), wears a cape (maybe), uses a magnifying glass (often), smokes a pipe (very willingly), is a heartless machine (only at a first glance ) and is a drug addict.

His habit of drugs, consolidated in the Canon, often, probably in order not to offend current morals, has been neglected by subsequent adaptations that have become fossilized on stereotyped and even not completely true characteristics.

The attitude towards drugs has changed over the past 130 years, to tell the truth, it has also changed during the course of the Canon itself. Sherlock Holmes will stop his vicious habit at some point.

You can’t even blame Doyle for having started it, substances such as morphine and coacaine, recently synthesized (1803 morphine, 1855 cocaine) were used in the medical field, were also given to children, and for voluptuous purposes. The same heroine, the last born, sees the light in the pharmaceutical field in the Bayer company. Toning drinks whith cocaine were common, the same CocaCola contained it in its first formulation. Cocaine was above all much appreciated by intellectual circles as it gave the feeling of being able to open the mind and stimulate mental processes. No wonder if a man like Sherlock Holmes may have wanted to linger in such a vice.

However, the negative effects of drug intake were gradually more evident. A doctor like Doyle couldn’t ignore the course of events and Watson's position on drugs became rigid, even Holmes himself gave up on this practice (MISS).

The use of drugs wasn’t seen as pathological, a traumatic cause wasn’t sought in the habit of indulging. So wanting to see something more behind Holmes's addiction could just be, perhaps, a distortion by what we know and feel now. However, even in the Canon the use of drugs is associated with a sense of abandonment and the consequent search for comfort (SIGN).

This is one of those rare glimpses in which the mask of Holmes slips and he appears as a sensitive man. Ignoring his habit takes away a chance to make the detective a creature less chilly and more human, imperfect. No wonder then that the two adaptations that for first tried to see Sherlock Holmes as the human being behind the detective didn’t leave out this habit and tried to suggest that there was something more behind it. I'm talking about The private life of Sherlock Holmes and The Seven-Percent Solution. But both adaptations, I must say, make promises they don’t maintain. We don’t know much more about Sherlock Holmes' private life after seeing the film (I have not read the book), it is suggested that between him and Watson there is more than a friendship, or at least that Holmes would like more, but then they missed tyself in a maze of international plots, fatal woman  and submarine. But The Seven- Percent Solution is perhaps, in my opinion, even a greater disappointment.

Spoilers under the cut.

The assumptions are excellent, brings together Holmes' drug habit, which appears much more obvious and out of control, and Sigmund Freud. A step not too bold. The alienist himself had suffered from cocaine addiction and had lost a friend for the same reason. So if at the beginning he had praised the virtues, using it for his patients, he had come to recognize the danger of it. It seems therefore possible , if not probable, a connection between the two minds. Fascinating meeting considering a similar approach to the method and a complete difference in the result. Freud uses  to probe the inner world the same techniques that Holmes uses to navigate the surface and untangle the nodes of sensitive reality. The rational man meets the man who "invented" the unconscious and the reason for their encounter is cocaine. Potentially dynamite. But if attention is paid to detoxification, little is told, if not hastily and superficially (a few lines) of the reason that may have prompted Holmes to indulge in a potentially deadly vice. In the book as in the movie attention is diverted by a case and if in the book it sees a woman at the center of a political intrigue that heralds the great war  ( east wind), in the movie is further simplified and reduced to an operetta show, with barons, pasha, and a beautiful woman whom Holmes eventually falls in love with (sigh). In the book Watson shows a sincere affection for Holmes and Holmes despite his difficulties, is sensibly moved and obviously in need of his friend. There is Mary Morstan but, to the delight of the wary reader, she refers to Watson always (and many times, too many) calling him Jack. Particularly in a text in which Watson admits to having tampered with and falsified some of his work is a rather sugary detail. Watson saves Holmes' life by trickery, dragging him to Vienna to meet Freud. It doesn’t pass unnoticed, however, that the necessity of saving his life comes to light because Holmes' drug habit has considerably worsened since the doctor married. In the movie all this is less obvious, between the two it is difficult to see a real bond. Holmes seems, throughout the movie, a thinking machine (in the grip of delirium induced by cocaine, but still anaffective), we see he melt and soften only at the end while he smiles at the beautiful woman who they have decided to match to  him (do you understand that I'm nervous?). Given that he has just turned away from Watson without any thought, on the part of both to be true, Watson seems more concerned about his readers who will remain without adventures, it is definitely annoying.

But I'm also annoying because I'm talking about all this without explaining the plot. Actually there are elements in the book, and partly also in the movie, terribly interesting from "our" point of view. I think one of the funniest elements of what we're doing here, is digging to find all those little details, steps, that, possibly, brought the Moffits to do what they did, how they did it. And I think this book / movie, like The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, was a huge inspiration (maybe they even said it, I'm not good at keeping track of anything, even less interviews). And perhaps this character of incompleteness that combines the two works has been a stimulus.

The book opens with a preface by the author who pretends to have come in possession of a ( another) unpublished Watson’s script. A text dictated to a complacent typist when, at the end of his life, the doctor found himself alone, dead Holmes for ten years, in a nursing home (and here we can all cry crying in a corner). In the typescript Watson tells what really was behind the Final Problem. He also promises to tell the background to The Empty Houses, but unfortunately this is another promise he doesn’t keep. We are told that Holmes, left alone by Watson, has lost himself in an abyss of drug binges. A worried Mrs Hudson asks Watson for help, being afraid to enter Holmes' rooms, evidently prey of delirium. In the movie we can see him locked in home, room in an absolute disorder, nervously brandishing a gun in his hand. (say hello to Billy).

Apparently Holmes is totally obsessed with a certain Professor Moriarty, whose name Watson had heard only a few times and always when Holmes was high.

Holmes says that this gruesome individual is behind every crime perpetrated in recent years, the spider in the center of the web, the Napoleon of crime etc, etc.

Back home, Watson finds Moriarty in person waiting for him. He turns out to be a poor little man, former tutor of mathematics of the young Holmes. The man is worried because Holmes pursues him, following him physically and threatening him by  letter. He admits at the same time of being attached to the two Holmes, that his time in their home was pleasant, until the moment of the tragedy. However, he refuses to elaborate  the subject.

Watson then has proof that his friend is just  about to lose his reason first, and his life then.

He find, the same day, thanks to the incomparable Stamford to which he had the good sense to ask for help, a newspaper article that talks about a certain Dr. Freud expert in disorders related to cocaine.

He therefore decides that at all costs he must induce Holmes to reach Vienna. Not being able to come up with a valid plan, he turns to Mycroft who has the "brilliant" idea of ​​convincing Professor Moriarty to go to Vienna so that Sherlock is induced to follow him (it took a genius for a plan so elaborate ... .but again, we want things to be smarter than they are). Holmes in his ravings had thrown out of a vanilla extract in front of the professor's house, in this way he’s now able to chase, with the help of trusty Toby, the traces of Moriarty from London to Vienna ...

Once in the Austrian capital Holmes discovers the deception and is taken care of by Freud, who through hypnosis takes care to make him overcome the physical difficulties of addiction to cocaine. Holmes is obviously enraged with Watson who stoically endures all kinds of insults. Until the day when, to calm his friend, he hits him so hard that he loses his knowledge.

Once detoxed Holmes falls into a depressive state, from which he’s recover only thanks to his violin and a new case. Despite being in the house of Freud we never facing with the demon behind the vice, let alone the tragedy  referred by Moriarty, that apparently never is mentioned.

The story then follows the development of the case, ending  with a spectacular pursuit in a train. Pleasant, but seeing Freud used to shovel coal and not know anything about Holmes is a bit frustrating. In the movie is even worse, the case is silly, there is a ridiculous scene in which the three are attacked by a pack of dressage horses completely out of control (why, how!? ... maybe there is a Freudian allusion behind that I don’t want to investigate, or at least I hope) or another improbable in which the woman leaves as a trace to follow lilies from the very long stem. Holmes takes a while to notice the first, and a dumb Watson  wonders if by accident they have accidentally escaped from the woman's hair. I'll not dwell on the scene in a brothel where Holmes continues to have to draw the attention of Watson who was drooling around with an imbecile expression.

At the end of both cases, Freud as a reward for the assistance provided, asks to hypnotize for the last time Holmes. Finally in this circumstance he ask about the famous tragedy that has disturbed Holmes' childhood by making  that his future fixations was shaped on Professor Moriarty. It turns out that Holmes's mother had betrayed his father, which is why he ended to kill her and her lover. In the movie in a more simplistic, but also more direct, it is revealed that the mother's lover was none other than the tutor of the boys, Moriarty. In the book the path is more tortuous, Moriarty is guilty only of having told what had happened, to the young Sherlock. He becomes the scapegoat of his trauma, although he participated in a tangent way, probably in the absence of the real protagonists. This episode would also be the cause of Holmes's distrust of women.

This is another of those stereotypical characteristics that are given to Sherlock Holmes that although almost never expressing appreciation for the female gender, has at heart their health and happiness, in its own way, much more than most of the men who trample this land. He simply doesn’t love them, but this is not called misogyny, it's called homosexuality.

At the end of the story Holmes decides not to return to London with Watson, but to allow himself time to heal better. His intention is to earn a living with the violin under the false name of Sigerson. Perhaps even to deepen the knowledge of what it really is, but this is something that will happen,maybe, off the screen.

And maybe that's what the Moffits are trying to do is show what this book / movie, despite having courageous premises, didn’t know / wanted to do.

Meyer, the author, in fact, as a good Sherlockian, had, ably bringing forth the Great Game, putting together theories already circulated among Holmes fans.

The idea of ​​child tragedy, of mother's betrayal, is taken by Trevor Hall who in 1969 theorized it in the Holmes-Ten Literary Study. Even the idea of ​​paranoia from cocaine, which causes hallucinations on an innocent Professor Moriarty is taken elsewhere. Fred Musto in 1968 theorized that the figure of the criminal genius Moriarty was nothing more than a paranoid hallucination of Holmes while trying to detox himself (paranoia moriartii).

Moreover, the difference in "thickness" between the normal villains of Sherlock Holmes and the others of the Canon is so abysmal that no one can blame the man for thinking about it.

Extrapolating from TFP it seems even evident. (x)

"You have probably never heard of Professor Moriarty?" he said. "Never." "Aye, there's the genius and the wonder of the thing!" He cried. "The man pervades London, and no one has heard of him. "

Wanting to study the man behind the detective seems to me sensible to have been inspired by such premises.

Sherlock's dependence throughout the series is shown in an escalation that can’t be random. It starts from simple patches of nicotine, which could be the equivalent of cocaine used as medicine, to ended in real binges of drugs.

The hypothesis of a Sherlock who, in the grip of a delirium, an allegorical (x) delirium induced by drugs, perhaps so serious that it may have even left him in a coma, retraces moments of his life making to play to more or less innocent characters the part of villains seem to have deeper roots than they seem to appear.

Parts of the book and the movie seem already seen (or better, reviewed) in Sherlock.

From Mrs. Hudson asking John for help,

Sherlock closed in 221b in the grip of delirium whit a gun,

Moriarty who suddenly appears in the detective's thoughts, replacing something that already frightened him: the mastiff in THOB and in the movie when during one of the dreams in which Holmes falls prey during detoxification, Moriarty's face overlaps that of the SPEC snake.

Watson hits Holmes with more force than he wanted.

Another interesting idea is the scene in which, always during the detox, a ferocious mastiff leaves a closet.

 I don’t know if there may be any subtext here, even if I suspect that dogs were related to homosexuality in the Canon itself, but it is a cue from which the Moffits may have departed.

A curious case about dogs is also the choice of Toby's "interpreter". Dog not of breed both in the Canon and in the book, in the movie it has this aspect and is perhaps the living being towards which Holmes demonstrates greater affection.

Holmes the first time he finds himself in front of Freud accuses him of being just Moriarty disguised with a beard and a ridiculous operetta accent. Even in TFP we have someone disguised (this time for real) as a psychoanalyst and with a ridiculous operetta accent.

Another interesting fact is that Holmes speaks of Moriarty as the snake of Eden. Plausible considering that in the movie they make him the lover of the mother, but it is something that we also see in Sherlock.

So it's safe to ask who our Moriarty really could be. Too young to be the lover of the mother, or of the  father if the clues collected by @sagestreet lead us to the right direction. Moreover here is the mother to become "incredibly monstrous". Mathematic genius is also the mother.

We know nothing about Moriarty, they do not give him any background. In Doyle we know his origins, his studies, his career and his profession. In Sherlock we only know from TFP that he has a brother of whom he has always been jealous and who was responsible for the death of Carl Powers. We only know that he is a criminal genius, not why or how he became like this. More or less the same things we know about Sherlock Holmes in the Canon.

@possiblyimbiassed @ebaeschnbliah @gosherlocked @sarahthecoat @sagestreet @loveismyrevolution

[there-will-be-trouble]

For Tomorrow Elliot Alderson x Reader Prompt: “Please stay with me.” & “You make me feel alive.” Words: 1988 Warnings: Light swearing, drinking

Schrödinger wondered: "when does a quantum system stop existing as a superposition of states and become one or the other?" He posed the scenario of a cat within a closed system, a box. It could, prior to observation, be either dead or alive. Since keeping the box closed staved off determining the state of the cat, it actually became both dead and alive. He also argued that any observer could not be in this state of quantum superposition, as observing one’s condition immediately decided one’s condition. It would be impossible to test the theory.

Elliot was calling. Your phone was ringing. You hadn’t yet answered it. Until you did, his condition would remain undecided.

“You make me feel alive.” Well– that’s a relief. But more so than it already did, his voice sounded harsh and unused. “Thank you,” was the first thing you could think to say. There was a sense of urgency behind what he was saying. “It’s true,” he wanted so badly for you to believe him, you could see that. But you didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to tell that the strain in his voice didn’t come from feeling alive and well. “Are you okay?” There was no pause before he spoke, “No.” He didn’t say anything else and neither did you. He hung up.

You had stepped out to take the call while meeting a small group of friends at a bar downtown. Downtown actually means as close to downtown as you could afford. The paint was peeling and it wasn’t on purpose, the floor was warped and sticky from all the spilled drinks, the chairs groaned dangerously, and the tables appeared to be more of a delicate balancing act than something to rest your elbows on. The friends themselves weren’t old friends, but they weren’t new friends either, they weren’t really friends at all. They were people who’d invited to you a shitty bar in a shitty neighborhood so they could justify drinking on a weeknight. You walked back inside the bar and picked up your things before saying, “That was my boss. I gotta go.” “Awwww, that’s a shame,” someone slurs, half drunk, “we were about to order a round of shots!” You’re done with these people, “All the more for you guys, right?” They cheer at that, an uncoordinated chorus of hollers and whoops. You make your exit.

Elliot’s apartment was a number of blocks away that would have been inconvenient if you were wearing heels. But luckily, you didn’t care enough about what these people thought about your appearance to bother with dressing up.

A week ago the apartment building’s door had broken and the building owners either didn’t care or didn’t have the money to fix it. Either way, you didn’t need to be buzzed in. Then you ascended the front steps and four flights of stairs before making it to apartment 4E. It took only a gentle knock for him to open the door. “Hi, Elliot,” you smiled. He smiled back. Even if you hadn’t dressed up, you’d still put some effort into your outfit. “Were you out?” He questioned, observant as ever. You shook off your shoes, coat, and bag as you responded, “I didn’t want to be. It was some crappy place a few blocks away, with people I barely know and frankly didn’t want to. I’m glad you called.” He closed the door and you noticed how dark the room was and how tired he looked. Life had exhausted him, drawn away all resources and all energy and left him here to deal. His eyes were rimmed in red and lines seemed to have been sketched in and around every feature of his face. He looked at you like he could finally take a breath. He didn’t have any words, but he didn’t need to explain it. His hand reached out and took yours. He rubbed a finger into your palm, and then on the back of your hand. Then he looked back to you. It was heart-wrenching, the way his head was slightly tilted wearily, the way he pulled his eyebrows together and turned his lips down just a smidge. It was subtle, but you could tell how done with the world he was. You reached your other hand to touch his cheek and his eyes darted all over your face. He kept giving you that look as he stepped closer. He needed this. His arms wrapped around you, he leaned down to rest his head on your shoulder. It was like the tug in your heart had pulled him in and how he was holding onto you for dear life. He didn’t want to move, he wanted to stand like that forever. He didn’t need to take on the world or his problems if this was all he had to do. If he could just hold you like this all day- then maybe everything would just resolve itself. When you pulled away there were tears on his face. Carefully, he leaned in making sure to keep his eyes open long enough to watch yours close as the kiss began. It was slow but loving and meaningful. Elliot wasn’t a sloppy kisser, he wanted to cherish every moment and feel every second of it. It grounded him. Kissing him, however much you loved it, seemed selfish right now. There were more important things at hand, “Elliot-” He could guess what you were going to say, “Tell me about the bar. Why was it so crappy?” It used to piss you off when he would use you as a distraction. You didn’t understand why, his reasoning behind it. It was because you could take his mind off everything. He could listen to you talk for hours if you had that much to say. He would ask you a thousand questions to get you to speak. He would play a hundred songs to get you to dance, say a hundred things to get you to respond. It wasn’t that you were distracting, it’s that you were so separate from all the negative things in his life that they could just vanish while you were there. “Are you sure?” He looks you in the eyes. Somehow his austere stare comes off as loving and gentle, “Yes.” After one last kiss, he takes your hand and leads you across the apartment to his bed. He lays down on top of the sheets and you lay down next to him. He doesn’t stop holding your hand. “You want to hear about the bar?” You ask after a moment of silence. “Go for it,” he whispers in response. “Well for starters-”

It was heaven to be there with him. Absolute heaven. Is heaven different for everyone? It could be. Heaven is simple, you think. Whatever it is or isn’t, it’s simple. For you, heaven is a person. For you, heaven is a listener. Heaven doesn’t have many words but heaven has a sense of humor. Heaven wants to do better and wants to be in control. Heaven cares completely and loves deeply. Heaven is Elliot.

Conversations like this are a blessing. It’s hard to get Elliot to talk, but occasionally, if you let him, you won’t have to, “Where do you think those people from the bar are now?” He asks. “Oh, I don’t know,” you answer, “drunk, probably.” “That’s a given,” you can hear the small laugh in his voice. “They might still be at the bar.” “It’s been almost an hour,” he reasons. You’re still lying side by side, as you were when you first arrived. You haven’t so much as picked up your phone since you got here. You’ve most definitely lost track of time.   “Time flies by when you’re having fun,” you joke. “Is that what they think is fun?” He asks. “Drinking to excess, throwing up, passing out, having a hangover?” “What’s the alternative? Sobriety? The world’s too much for some people to handle.” You know Elliot can understand this, that’s why you brought it up. Thinking about it, actually, that’s the very reason you’re here. “They’ve numbed themselves with superficial social interaction and chemicals.” “They don’t see the world as it is.” “And more importantly,” Elliot tells you, “they don’t care.” He’s right. You let the room be silent before speaking again. “There are so many things you can do with your life.” “What do you mean?” His question is one stemming from curiosity, not an actual lack of knowledge. Your conversations have become a way to be around each other, not just a means to an end. “There are so many things you can be, so many choices to make.” “You mean how people choose to live?” “Sure. How people choose to live.” “You’re right. People can be any number of things. But how much of that is something they chose and how much of it was chosen for them?” “Does free will exist? Is that what you’re getting at?” It’s difficult to decipher what he’s trying to say, he’s being vague on purpose. “No, not really. It’s just- sometimes things happen that dictate how your life will play out from then on.” You’re catching on to what he means. He shifts a bit uncomfortably. The mattress dips subtly, the sheets rustle. “And sometimes you don’t have a say in it,” you finish. His voice comes out as a whisper and you can’t tell whether or not that’s what he intended, “Exactly.”

It feels like you could fall asleep here. Right now. Elliot’s shoulder is against your cheek, your head is leaned against him. The room is silent save the quiet sounds of life. Elliot’s breathing is slow and calming. The world seems to revolve around him. Your world does, at least. The quiet of the room can be attributed to him, to his silence. He’s taught you that you don’t need anything more than a person’s presence to love them. There are countless ways to tell someone how you feel without having to say it. Remember that always.

You’re unbelievably comfortable and it’s his bed you’re in. You’re at total peace and it’s him you’re lying next to. You love the world only because he’s in it. It feels like heresy to speak, but you do so anyway, “Are you awake?” “Yes. Are you?” That makes you smirk and you can tell that he is too, “Yeah, what time is it?” He groans, the sound of someone not completely lucid, “Don’t know.” “I’m gonna check.” You lied. You don’t move. You want to get up and go look at your phone, but… “Why?” He makes a compelling point. “I have to go eventually.” You reason, trying to work up the nerve to let go of his hand and sit up for the first time in hours. “I mean it,” he urges, “you don’t have to.” “Do you really want to have a discussion about what we do and don’t have to do in today’s society right now?” You joke. “I’m being serious.” “Elliot-” He cuts you off, “You could stay, with me, please stay.” You remain silent. “Please stay with me.” He sounds so small. His voice is minuscule. But it’s undeniable proof that he wants you. You don’t care about properly considering his request or processing the ramifications, you want to stay here with him forever. You’re convinced. You sit up- “(y/n)-” -and cut him off with a kiss. “Stay with me for everything.” He whispers. “Through the night.” “Until the sunrise.” “For tomorrow.” “And the day after that.” “For all our days.” “Through the years.” “Until the next life.” “We could be together even then.” “We will.” “Until the mountains move.” “Until the sun swallows the Earth.” “We’ll see the Andromeda galaxy together.” “We’ll see the whole universe together.” “I love you, (y/n).” “I love you, Elliot.” And then you slept. Together forever. And ever. And ever.

[inclineto]

Books, March - April 2019

Whom the Gods Love - Kate Ross

Meddling Kids - Edgar Cantero

Severance - Ling Ma [hashtag relatable!]

Waste Not: Recipes and Tips for Full-Use Cooking from America’s Best Chefs - James Beard Foundation [most of this is common sense - why wouldn’t you eat the broccoli stems, to begin with? - and a great deal of the rest seems implausible for home use, or requires you to acquire food in order not to waste it later, like the hilariously impractical recipe that instructs you to begin with 20 day-old doughnuts (tbf, the headnote admits this, but they went ahead and ran the recipe anyway)]

European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman - Theodora Goss [I liked this much more than the first, probably because Sherlock Holmes was in much less of it (Mary Jekyll, for God’s sake, stop mooning)]

Return - Peter S. Beagle

Mother Clap’s Molly House: The Gay Subculture in England, 1700-1830 - Rictor Norton [I realize I’m admitting to a queer heresy here, but I’m baffled by how so exuberantly gossipy a book could also turn out to be so tedious. Prone both to insights I found convincing and also enormous correlative leaps that I did not - plus some truly epic workings-out of professional and, I think, personal antipathies. (dnf)]

Still Waters: The Secret World of Lakes - Curt Stager

Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood

The Ruin of a Rake - Cat Sebastian [I needed to think about Julian]

Books Before Print - Erik Kwakkel

Endeavour: The Ship and the Attitude that Changed the World - Peter Moore [Get a load of that subtitle! Yes, this book does open by ponderously working through the dictionary definitions, but the author has at least considered, if mildly, a postcolonial perspective. Anyway, I was only in it for Sydney P. (dnf)]

The Lake on Fire - Rosellen Brown

Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants - Mathias Énard

Studying Early Printed Books 1450-1800: A Practical Guide - Sarah Werner [lucid, informative, conversational; a fast, entertaining read, clearly pitched at undergraduates whom you don’t want to loose on Gaskell, and I may well keep a copy as a desk reference for book history-adjacent classes...and yet while reading I was still unspeakably glad that I came to it with the tactile memory of having handled a lot of early modern books and set type and used a handpress more than once]

The True Queen - Zen Cho [entirely entertaining, although also one of those books that you spend most of waiting for the characters to figure out what has been made perfectly obvious to you, complete with a very Heyeresque rushed emotional denouement. The creepy hilarity of dealing with fairies makes up for it, and Rollo and Georgiana are especially great: deliciously inhuman.]

The Expected Dissolution of All Things, a Motive to Universal Holiness. Two Sermons Preached in Boston, N. E. on the Lord's-Day, Nov. 23, 1755; Occasioned by the Earthquakes which Happened on the Tuesday Morning, and Saturday Evening Preceding - Jonathan Mayhew

Spinning - Tillie Walden

Radio Free Vermont - Bill McKibben [turns out a one-line mention of Bernie Sanders by a fictional character is nearly enough to make me rage-quit a novel! but I’m glad I didn’t. Lake Wobegon comparisons are inevitable; the Rex Tillerson cameo’s going to date fast.]

Our Universe: An Astronomer’s Guide - Jo Dunkley [if you, not an astrophysicist, feel moved to spend a couple of evenings trying to wrap your brain around astrophysics, this isn’t a bad way to try to do it]

Danse de la Folie - Sherwood Smith [more Heyer pastiche; a bit of a slow starter, which is surprising given the shipwreck and the smugglers and the cross-dressing, but it picks up steam by the midpoint]

The Devil in Music - Kate Ross

Hazards of Time Travel - Joyce Carol Oates

Think of England - KJ Charles [refresher course before Proper English, and oh, right, that’s why I never reread this one: low tolerance for blond, bluff, buff chaps who call other chaps “chaps” - but credit for setting up what looks like it’s going to be an “I’m not gay I just love you” endgame and then decisively rejecting it]

Mirrors of Heaven or Worldly Theaters? Venetian Nunneries and Their Music - Jonathan E. Glixon

[writefasttalkevenfaster]

Sherlock Holmes / Mutual Admiration

Prompt: Sherlock Holmes and you are engaged through work, but end up in an experiment that Sherlock hadn’t tried in many, many years: love. 

This is gonna be a little series i work on, on the side. I just love Sherlock a lot and he’s too adorable and I need to write him b/c it makes me happy. I hope you guys enjoy! I hope even if you don’t watch the show, maybe give this a read?? I had a lot of fun with it. Or just watch Elementary. Do it. <3 

“What happened to you?” You had left your work untouched, moved several meetings around, left your A.D.A. despising your very existence after you left a dozen texts and emails asking her to take over your work for tomorrow, and left complete utter hell in your wake to come here, and all Sherlock did was blink at you, as he sat bloodied and bruised on a hospital bed. His back with angry red and purple marred against his tanned skin, his profile disfigured with scratches and cuts, and his face stuck thoroughly in his phone. He didn’t bother to look up, as he remained intent on his search. Joan whispered a hello, excusing herself to grab a cup of coffee, but more to escape the proceeding conversation

“I thought it was quite obvious,” His voice was monotone as per usual. “I was roughed up by some of Maria Gutierrez’s relatives.” You bit back a smart reply, remembering the time he was going through at the moment, deciding words were a bad choice. So instead, as he shut his phone off, you pried the device from his fingers, and placed your hands gently, splaying your fingers against his bare shoulders, pressing your forehead to his. His eyes shut, as if he was trying to avoid your stare, avoid giving you all of the secrets he had hidden away for so long in that mind of his, as if he was afraid your look would utterly break him. “You are much better at physical comfort than Watson is, she practically pushed me out the door to get to this hospital. Waste of time,” He added, eye opening to make sure she hadn’t returned, but then you couldn’t hide the fear in your eyes. “I’m fine, Y/N.”

You couldn’t seem to catch your breath, as your fingers shifted to rest upon his cheeks instead, gliding slowly over his injuries, as if he would break apart if you pressed any harder. “I was so worried. Joan called and said you got beat up and were in the hospital, I didn’t even think, I just cam-“

His lips pressed to your own, or rather, an effective method of rendering one speechless Sherlock would say, except he couldn’t, as his lips moved against your own. His emotions were present in the kiss: passion, warmth, but especially pain. And he was more than willing to use you to numb the pain, you were the only drug of choice he had been willing to subject himself to since his rehabilitation, from both drugs and romantic attachments, and you were more than willing to do it. But his lips were a moment away, as he whispered. “Why did you come?”

“I was worried, Sherlock,” You murmured, as his breath sent shivers up your spine, trying to conceal your own pants. “Joan calls me and tells me you’re in the hospital, what did you want me to do? I thought you told –”

“She only called because I hadn’t told her.” He whispered, the words were warm against your lips, but seemed to only freeze your heart to the point of shattering. “about us. She had figured you would have wanted to know.”

“Oh.” Your cheeks flushed, taking a step back, unable to meet his gaze any longer. Figures, he hadn’t wanted you here. It was just a mistake. Just like your relationship with him. You had warned yourself against falling for him, especially after you had spurned his sexual advances, but you had thought he had changed, that he had grown. And he had, but not enough. For either of you. “I should go.”

“Yes, it seems that would be best,” He replied, words mostly whisper at this point, as you gathered up your things, allowing the silence to drape around the two of you, as you stepped away from him, and the feelings tacked alongside him. “Please,” he made you pause. “don’t inform Watson of our mutual separation. I would like to be the one to tell her. I will be speaking to her presently.”

“Mutual,” You repeated, a nag of a sigh wanting to exhale from your chest, but you wouldn’t allow it. Though you were sure he noticed. “Of course. Goodbye Sherlock.”

And to think, it had all began with a stupid phone call.

“What do you know about human trafficking rings from New York to El Salvador?” You stopped in your tracks in the middle of a crowded courthouse, much to several other’s disgruntlement, as they brushed past you. “I know the line is clear in the courthouse, and it can’t possibly be the signal in my own home.”

“Who is this?” You held your head as you made your way over to a bench, and though the British accent and sheer, almost startling arrogance hadn’t given it away, his next remark sent a throbbing pain through your head, which only confirmed your suspicions.

“I suppose your apparent confusion about who I am stems from the fact that you did not enter my contact information into your mobile device when I painstakingly handed it to you to be sure that you received it. Or you could have lost or deleted it, both of which are viable options.” And you sighed, the only thing you could do when a man such as the one who decided to ring you that early morning did.

“Sherlock Holmes, I should’ve known from the first grating word left your mouth.” You murmured, half hoping he would hear, and he did, then remarking after a moment’s pause:

“Now, I’m sure you deleted that contact information,” He then quickly moved onto other matters, asking several prying questions about your time heading up a Federal Task Force for the U.S. Attorney’s office regarding human trafficking from South America. “Don’t bother denying your involvement in the task force, I know you declined to state your involvement, not wishing for the fame and cry to run for political office that would go along with it, which was, I dare I say, admirable on your part, but that doesn’t dissuade me from inquiring.”

“Holmes, I –”

“I believe I have some information you will find interesting as well, regarding several of the cases you’ve been assigned to prosecute, especially against the drug cartels and in particular, the K.K.K.” You paused in consideration, which he took as an opportunity to run his mouth yet again. “All of which will be made available to you if you meet me for dinner tonight at my place.”

His place? Ay, there’s the rub. “Your place? Holmes, if this is you trying to get me in bed, I told you –”

“I assure you, Ms. L/N, this is not an attempt at bedding you, this is merely a mutual exchange of information that will benefit us both. You made it quite clear the last time I tried to persuade you into a more physical relationship, and I would not dishonor your decision,” You weren’t going to get off this call, unless you agreed, were you? So, you did, reluctantly and right as you were about to hang up, Holmes stopped you. “And, Y/N,” dropping all pretext of formality. “my offer was one of the standing sort.” Click.

And so, you had arrived at the doorstep of Sherlock Holmes’ brownstone. You frowned at the door, as you would at the consulting detective. A brilliant, but irritating man, who had little regard for those around him, and viewed his own intellect as exceptional. And though it was, there was one type of intelligence he would never excel at: emotional. You had sat beside him when you worked a case with Scotland Yard as he broke apart a defense witness’s alibi, but reduced her to tears in the process, only for him to offer her a box of tissues and excuse himself from the room. But even so, he had saved your case, put several rapists and murderers away, and saved you the hassle of a trial. So the least you could do was accompany him to the drink he offered you, and the two of you sat, quietly discussing the case in the corner of a mostly empty bar, and though his fingers did graze you once or twice, you hadn’t thought anything of it. But then you couldn’t seem to break his gaze, though you couldn’t bear to look away, though you had done it several times over. There was something there you couldn’t quite discern, an emotion, a longing, and suddenly, as his lips brushed yours and your mind was filled with only the taste of his alcohol ridden lips, the smell of ash wood and leather, and a distinct sense of pleasure. And as he pulled away, his smile made your heart skip exactly two beats, continuing to flip and twirl, as he got to his feet, holding a hand for you to come with him. None of his brash words necessary. But you knew the end to that story, and the end was the same as the one here: Sherlock was not interested in any romantic entanglements, but you were. Simple as that.

But nothing was that simple when it came to Sherlock Holmes. You learnt that as you knocked on his door that day, to reveal several mannequins laid on the floor, one of which who’s hand was currently in his hand. “Oh good, I thought your house would be as strange as your methods are.” You brushed past him. “Looks like you aren’t the only deductionist around.”

Your eyes scanned the room, as you were careful to step over the mannequins, before settling yourself on the sofa, as he stood before you, raising an eyebrow. “You aren’t going to ask?”

You shrugged, making yourself comfortable. “I figure it has to do something with your case, if you are going to explain why bother asking?”  

“All good things…” He trailed off, before turning and walking off in the opposite direction through the foyer. When he didn’t come back, you rose to your feet, following after him. “My question to you still stands, you know, I need to know about the taskforce you were on, and what truths you fathomed from the investigation.”

“And my reply is,” You called after him, after going down a set of stairs turning the corner, “why?” You paused, as you found yourself with a set table, complete with white tablecloth, and an impressive spread for dinner set before you. “What is this?”

“My compensation for dinner, along with the information you want, of course,” He offered a smug smile, noting your shocked expression with all the subtly he could muster, before turning his head back to the pots. “I thought you might as well get something out of this trip.”

“Something besides sex, you mean?” Taking the glass of water he offered to you gratefully, as he sat at one corner of the table closer than you would have liked. His gaze was intense as he sat, tilting his head as he sipped.

“It’s funny how you keep bringing up fornication, when you are the one who doesn’t want it,” He leaned in on his elbow. “and my deduction is that you do, based on that and other evidence.” He added, making you raise your brow.

“What other evidence?”

And he moved away, as listed things: “The way you speak, you treat me like I’m odious, but you do that to conceal your emotions, a defense mechanism, you should know all about those, you are an expert in the field of psychology, after all,” You opened your mouth to retort, but he went on, placing his hand over yours. “The way you react to my touch: hesitation,” Just as the word left his mouth, your hand slipped from his. “See there? You retracted a bit too late, the thought crossed your mind, and a decision was made,” Your eyes narrowed, and he leaned in close once again, and you could almost feel the words as they came off his lips. “Ah, yes, and your eyes are of particular note,”

“Why?” And his hand came up to rest upon your cheek, and you did not shy away this time, you did not hesitate, as your fingers curled around his own, but you couldn’t find the heart in you to wrench them off.

“Because they are absolutely, without a doubt, beautiful,” He murmured, using his hand to draw his lips to your own. And you broke it a moment later, a smile playing across the same lips he had warmed with his own.

“That’s not relevant to the case at hand,” But Sherlock only shrugged, his thumb rubbing back and forth across the top of your cheekbone.

“What can I say? It got you to kiss me, didn’t it?” You laughed, before moving his hand away from you, and returning to your sitting position. He looked slightly bemused at your suddenly professional appearance, though his eyes still skimmed your now smudged lips with some satisfaction, but disappointment still ran rampant.

“This can’t happen, Sherlock, as I told you before, I don’t do this,” You gestured between him and you, “without strings. I can’t do that. And you can’t do with them.”

“But, Y/N, how do you know if you never really tried?” And you considered it.

“Because I know it wouldn’t make me happy,” You said softly, “and I’ve had too many heartbreaks do anything that did otherwise.” But he only shook his head, his tossed aside hand, coming to rest upon your cheek yet again.

“But, Y/N, what you fail to understand is, I wasn’t referring to you.”

And you slowly understood in that moment, something you were unable to accomplish in London: his methods, his idiosyncrasies, his behavior, you could grasp, but Sherlock always remained just out of reach. But right now, he wasn’t, for the first time, he was in your hands, and his were on your body, and your mouth was on his. And even after, as the two of you got down to work, his lips still pressing butterfly kisses to your shoulders, you remarked: “It’s a good thing this case is much stronger than your last,” which only led to another re-presentation of the evidence, until you proclaimed a mistrial.  

And, as you drifted off into the arms of sleep, another quite familiar lover, for the first time you thought you understood: the feeling was mutual, and finally the relationship was too.

For a time.  

“Stay,” You mumbled to him, as he shifted to move out of bed, your sleepy grasp an anchor of temptation that kept Sherlock Holmes glued to his spot. And how he longed to stay, to learn more of the sounds that could leave your lips, the new trails he had yet to make down your body, and the sensations he could elicit for the both of you. His mind already raced with the sheer, number of possibilities of what to touch, what to do, and what to feel, especially as your hand dipped under his wrinkled boxers, thumbing at the hem. “Sherlock, please?”

“I have to go, love,” He informed you rather matter of factly, trying to keep the lust at bay with the thought of the consultation at hand. Captain Gregson had only called him into consult, a curious and rare incident indeed, as he often wanted Watson nearby to deal with his so-called “tantrums,” and he hoped to sate his curiosities upon arrival. “The Captain doesn’t like to be kept waiting, particularly not by me.” Even so, his will was crumbling, as you rose from the bed, letting the covers slip off, and he was ready to sate his appetite instead, the Captain could wait, but you only kissed his cheek, hopping off the bed.

“I’ll make you breakfast then, I have a case of my own to handle this morning,” And to your obvious surprise, his hand caught you by the wrist, pulling you back onto the bed, and he was perched on top, and you weren’t displeased with his actions, especially as his lips brushed your burning skin, charting a new course down your neck. “Sherlock, what about work?”

“They can wait,” His lips nipped at your collarbone, as his fingers simultaneously traveled quite some ways lower. “This cannot.” You gasped beautifully, back arching upwards into his touch, and his ego was thoroughly stroked. And as he noted your response, filing it away for future, both proximate and long-term use. And in that moment, he paused, to take in the sight of you: your skin flushed under his touch, your smile full and grinning, and your eyes, as they fluttered open were indescribable, filled with an emotions words could not begin to approach, but one word could: love.

You were in love with him.

And that gave him pause, much longer than he could justify in this moment. “Sherlock?” He blinked, before pressing a quick peck to your lips.

“I have to go,” He pulled on his clothes, keeping his eyes fixated toward the door, unable to meet your eyes once again. This feeling, your feelings, he didn’t understand, he hadn’t felt it in a long while, and he didn’t have a clue whether he wanted to. Or if he actually could anymore. “No time for breakfast. Work is for the weary after all.” He spared you once last look, only to see your lips curl and shake your head as if he had done something endearing rather than insulting.

“I’ll see you for dinner tonight,” And he was out the door, his mind not flush with details of crimes, but details of you. Your body language, your voice, and that look. You had asked him to stay, but did it mean something more than just for the morning? If he had stayed that morning, then he would stay the next, and the next, and perhaps then, he would stay forever. Forever. Was there any word more terrifyingly existential? Would that be so terrible? That was what a relationship was, was it not? 

But the more pertinent question remained: were the feelings mutual? And for one of the first times in his life, Sherlock Holmes didn’t know the answer, but he did know this to be a fact: staying was the one thing he had never learned to do, and after that morning, he wasn’t sure he could.  

Tags: @motherbearof03, @awakedorito, @supermoonpanda, @nairobiwonders, @wheninromeopuke, @possibility221, @joanlocklives, @bitumziskastletrash, @v-mack, 

(I tagged who liked/commented my original post here, or those who were taggable <3 I’ll only be doing this for this first part, just let me know if you want me to continue tagging you in future installments!) 

[agirliswriting]

Mycroft/Sherlock PTSD rp

You: You should really update your security. SH

Stranger: Excuse me? MH

You: Do you want me to repeat myself? SH

Stranger: Why do you think so? MH

You: It was easy than the last time I 'broke in'. SH

Stranger: Because I let you. MH

Stranger: I knew /you/ were getting into my flat. MH

You: I've been doing it for years, and you decide to change your mind about it now? SH

Stranger: I know what happened between you and John. MH

You: You should have left me to get on with it. SH

You: No you don't. SH

Stranger: Sherlock, I don't want you to leave my house tonight. MH

Stranger: I know, don't underestimate me. MH

You: What do you think I'm going to do if I leave? SH

You: Nothing has happened. SH

Stranger: Get high and probably be a danger to the public. MH

You: I'm not getting high. You paid everyone off. SH

Stranger: You both had an argument that broke half of your furniture and you said nothing happened? MH

Stranger: You are staying the night in. MH.

You: [Delayed] Stop bugging Baker Street Mycroft. SH

He started it. SH

And for your information, brother dear, I had planned on staying a few days. SH

Stranger: I know he started. And you can stay how long you want. MH

You: Do you know why he started it? SH

Stranger: John has never learned how to control emotions and you have never learned how to control your tongue. MH

You: Perhaps. But you don't know the reason. Maybe I shall tell you when you return. SH

At least he directed his temper to the furniture. SH

Stranger: If he directed his temper to you, I had been there in less than three minutes. And you shall tell me. MH

You: You work over an hour away from Baker Street. Even by your standards, it would have taken you longer. SH

If I want to, I shall. You cannot force it from me. I'm not a child anymore. SH

Stranger: 5 or 6 minutes perhaps. But I would be there in a short amount of time. You're right. But I can force you to get rid of your drugs before I get home. MH

You: I haven't got any. I haven't gotten high since Mary died. And even then, I took reluctantly. SH

Stranger: What do you expect me to think? You weren't yourself since Mary's death. Lestrade can't tell me any Thing about youm John tells me to fuck myself. I had to get cameras in yiyr flat so I had a slightly idea of what on earth was with You! MH

You: I haven't been myself since I went undercover. SH

Stranger: Sherlock, I want you to.. be yourself again. MH

You: That's never going to happen Mycroft. I cannot become what I was before those two years. SH

You: No one can tell you what is up with me because they don't know. Why would I tell them? SH

Stranger: You are broken, brother. And I hate seeing you like this. MH

Stranger: I'll be home in a couple of minutes. MH

You: No need to remind me. SH

I don't think there is anything you can do. SH

Stranger: Than why are you coming to me? MH

You: You still have work, you don't need to return right away. SH

You: Because I need something safe. SH

Stranger: You are more important than work right now. MH

You: You always say that. SH

Stranger: Because it's true for me. MH

You: I know. SH

Stranger: I want you to be safe right now. I want to be with you. I... want you to know that there is hope. MH

You: I'm not going to be stupid, nor am I suicidal. I just need to find a different solution to help me. SH

I'd like to be with you as well. SH

Stranger: Do you remember when you overdosed for the first time? How we sat down and found a solution? How it took a while, but we both got there? MH

Stranger: We'll do it again. It's not that hard. MH

You: I fought you the whole way, but I do. SH

It is always hard when it is about you. SH

Stranger: About me? What does this have to do with me? MH

You: No, I'm just saying that even when we got to a solution, it was easier for you than it was for me because the solution was for me. It will be the same this time round. SH

Stranger: Of course. But you are strong and you proved it before. You don't.. need tonwirry about Watson. Or Moriarty. Or anyone. I am there and time makes big problems shrink. MH

Stranger: *to worry

You: John is my friend. SH

Well, Moriarty is where this problem of mine is stemming from. His... employees can be very creative when they want information from the opposite team. SH

Stranger: What do you mean? MH

You: We both know exactly the types of methods MI5 and MI6 use to extract information from enemies. Our enemies use the same methods, some even more creative. SH

What you saw in Serbia was tame, brother. SH

Stranger: And you... are still their main aim? Even after Moriarty died? MH

You: Well I was going after them, dismantling his web. SH

I was sure I got everyone, but recently, I just am not so sure. SH

Stranger: If you need access to research methods. To men, or to anything my connections could help you with, just ask me, brother. I know how much Moriarty owns of your mind. How much he is in your thoughts. MH

You: It's not even that. Its the after affects of what happened. But he is in my thoughts, my mind palace. SH

I'll tell you fully when you get home. SH

You: I don't want to do it like this. SH

Stranger: I know. I am on my way. Traffic is a whore. MH

You: The reason traffic is bad is because you cause trouble. SH

Stranger: I only try to solve it. 7 minutes. MH

You: Sherlock just gave his phone a smile as if his brother was right in front of him. Sometimes Mycroft made him feel safe and loved, other times the elder man frustrated him to no end. Right now, it was a mix between the two. He wasn't ready to talk about it, but his brother had bugged his flat and listened in on an argument he and John had. At least his anger never went to him like the Culverton case. Now he had to get new furniture again. Regardless, he was sitting on the sofa, curled up with a cup of tea in his hands. He'd showered, not that it did any help, and dressed in a pair of Mycroft's pyjama's, ones that felt the most soft and comfortable. It was weird. They bought the same brand and yet Mycroft's always felt better, which was why he chose his instead of his own. When he heard the door open, seven minutes later, he smiled to himself and sat up a little straighter. "Your estimation was spot on this time round."

Stranger: The older Holmes looked at his brother in release. He approached the couch and took Sherlocks hands into his. "It is so good to see you." He smiled back. He didn't wanted to overwhelm his brother with touch, so he quickly let go of his hands and looked at the other tea cup on the coffee table. He didn't ever remember Sherlock making tea for him. He thanked him gently and looked at him, before he sat down. "Do you need anything, brother?"

You: He was feeling ansty and thought to busy himself with making tea. One for himself and one for Mycroft. Seven minutes were enough to get the tea to the right temperature. Just the way he remember Mycroft liking it. Even still, it was there whether Mycroft wanted it or not. When the elder Holmes sat down, he pressed his foot against his thigh, nodding his head at the thanks. "It's just... When you came to get me from Serbia, how they had be tied up and was beating the crap out of me? Well that was nothing. The others were worse. More creative, more harmful. I never did tell them what they wanted... And now..." Sherlock trailed off unsure how to put the next part into words. The younger put it down to him not wanting to say it out loud.

Stranger: Mycroft got closer to him, knowing that Sherlock wanted to have someone to lean on but was too proud to admit it. He listened carefully to his words and felt Sherlock giving up on the last part of the sentence. He laid a arm around his shoulders. Their intimacy stayed in the walls of Mycroft flat. Sherlock could fully express himself here. Nobody would ever know

You: Frowning at himself, he slowly leaned against him, resting his head against his shoulder. At least this way, he wouldn't be able to see Mycroft's reaction. He didn't need to see the disappointment. "A few months after I got back, the nightmares started. Everything they did haunted me. I tried locking it away behind a steel door and filling it with concrete but it never worked. Being cautious and paranoid, jumping at things. Anxiety attacks. Flashbacks at sounds or words and even smells. It's just been getting worse... I had lashed out at Rosie and that's why we got into an argument. It was an accident, but in that moment I couldn't help it." Sherlock took a deep breath, reminding himself to breathe deeply and happy that it was said and out of the way now.

[imaginemycroftholmes]

Pretty pretty please, imagine Mycroft and his little brother being drunk and accidentally over emotional with eachother? And just maybe being awkward in the hungover? 😌

As loathe as he was to admit it Captain Watson was afraid to enter the quarters of Ambassador Holmes especially when his second in command Sherlock had been suspiciously absent for more than one rotation.

For almost a year and a half into their four year mission on board the U.S.S. Bakerstreet Sherlock had made it no secret that he and his older brother Mycroft had some issues. 

Some of it stemming from their half Vulcan heritage, parts from upbringing, a large part due to their different paths both career and spiritual and then there was a small part, that not even Sherlock could deny was just plain sibling rivalry that transcended all species.

When John had broken the news to Sherlock that the Bakerstreet had been given orders from central command to charter the elder Holmes to the next starbase to act as a mediator for a much needed truce between the Amdomials and Cruicans the half Vulcan hybrid was absolutely livid.

Well, as livid as John could tell.

Sherlock liked to pride himself in not showing any emotion better than that of his older brother who he claims “was just oozing it in a way that was most unfitting for anyone of the Vulcan high council” (something John had yet to see with his own eyes as the ambassador’s face appeared to be chiseled with but one expression that Sherlock often echoes throughout their missions-bored and annoyed) but even after the news hit that twitch in his commander Sherlock’s left eye had not stopped and only seemed to increase as the elder Holmes materialized on board.

And to make matters worse once ambassador Holmes had settled into his quarters Sherlock had seemed to make it his own personal mission to remain scarce wherever his brother roamed which sucked for John because that meant more often than not Mycroft was stuck in his company.

Sure, Mycroft might be found chatting idly with his chief security officer Lestrade assigned to keep him safe or even chatting up Molly in the science labs, however any rapport that the elder Holmes tried to establish with Dr. Hudson was shut down effectively and forbidden to enter medical bay unless he had a 98% chance of fatally dying.

Now John suspects that Sherlock may have turned Dr. Hudson off to his brother by his horror stories of growing up with Mycroft but those people were used to Sherlock, they liked Sherlock and were willing to make an effort to create some sort of acquaintance as opposed to most of the crew  who Sherlock either pissed off in the Academy or were simply put off by his demeanor. 

And while Mycroft is on the surface more polite than Sherlock and far more complimentary has ever been in their year into the service John feels that he is far colder, more disassociated than he has ever felt with Sherlock.

Like an alien ghost in the shell of a human form Mycroft would ask questions concerning Sherlock mostly in a clinical way that made his skin crawl and express far too much interest in Sherlock’s personal relationships with the few crew members that one could loosely label his “friends” that John would try to dodge whenever he could.

Its creepy but as captain he can’t let his passenger feel alienated and is bound by code to keep him company in his off hours.

 On the fifth day on course to the next starbase John all but ordered for Sherlock to spend time with Mycroft just to get some time to himself.

“He’s your brother Sherlock and all he ever does is ask questions about you that I’m not comfortable answering so the least you can do is humor him by spending the minimum of an hour to settle them,” John had shouted through the door separating them as Sherlock’s hiding place this time appeared to be Molly’s bathroom.

Molly of course looked rather conflicted as the he continued to bang on the shower’s door and John can’t exactly blame her.

Since the Academy its no secret that Hooper had been holding a torch for the half human hybrid and had gone to great lengths to prove herself to Sherlock with very few successes. 

Having Sherlock in her personal space seemed like a win for someone that  had been pining for Sherlock for so long but to have him hiding in her personal bathroom with all her feminine and personal effects? Not so much.

“I would rather launch myself out the nearest trash compactor than spending a single second with that gluttonous emotional genetic abomination,” Sherlock declared coldly from within the locked bathroom.

John has to stop himself from snorting. “And you don’t think you’re not being emotional right now? For Christ’s sake Sherlock he’s your brother and for all his invasive question it sounds like he misses you and cares.”

“That’s simply him manipulating you much like he tried to do with me as a child.”

John is this close to just using his captain’s override to open the door when Molly walks timidly to her locked bathroom door and says, “Then why don’t you prove it Sherlock. Think of it like an experiment and prove your hypothesis correct. If your brother truly is as bad as you say you should be able to prove it with an hour’s meeting right?”

The other side of the door grows silent.

“Sherlock,” Molly calls again.

The suddenness of his voice nearly causes John to back into Molly as Sherlock replies, “And how would you expect me to capture my evidence ensign Hooper?”

“Through the starship’s logs. Everyone has access to them and can be turned on before you even enter your cabin anyway,” Molly explains quickly, “You could even livestream it if you’re so certain that the meeting will fly afoul. It’s not that hard.”

A beat passes and then another before Molly’s bathroom door is opened to reveal Sherlock’s even more stonier looking mug. “Then I shall prove my convictions valid with concrete evidence and you will all understand why I loathe my brother,”  Sherlock declares before walking rigidly out of Molly’s quarters leaving John gobsmacked and Molly relieved.

“Finally,” Molly sighs as she rushed into the bathroom with very little acknowledgement to her captain that she effectively shuts out the second the front door closes behind Sherlock.

Leading himself out of Molly’s quarters John sets a timer before he decides that he should go “save” his second in command from their passenger and waits.

Now standing outside the ambassador’s quarters and finding that not only does his captain’s override doesn’t work or Dr. Hudson’s medical override John finds himself in a panic.

No one can get into the room without causing structural damage that would impede upon the safety of not only the ship but the other crew members on-board.

This is not good not good at all John worries as he rushes down a jefferies tube  to Greg’s office hoping that he could find some solution to all of this. 

Upon entering Greg’s office John is rather frank. “Greg, Sherlock’s been holed up in his older brother’s quarters for more than one ship rotation and I’m worried that they’ve killed each other or worse.”

Vulcan strength was nothing to sneeze at as John has been a wittiness it first hand both as an opponent and on the field and John could only imagine how much damage two Vulcans even if they were only half could do in an enclosed space.

Greg being the sensible man that he is quickly puts away his replicated doughnuts and starts to try and establish a connection to the ambassador’s room.

“It won’t let me send any communications to the room,” Greg complains after the fifth time trying to patch his way in.

“How about video,” John asks anxiously. Ever minute that goes by could be another minute that Sherlock or Mycroft could use his interference. 

Pushing some more buttons and typing some more code Greg gives an annoyed, “Negative. That’s been blocked as well.”

Feeling far more unease John is desperately trying to devise a way to get access to the room when it hits him.

Pulling out his communicator and scrolling through the screen before showing it to Greg. “Try connecting to this frequency code,” John rushes while pointing to the line.

“What the hell is that,” Greg questions but nevertheless obeys his captain.

“Its the frequency to a device I gave Sherlock for his last birthday,” John elaborates,”It allows us to communicate and share video along with coordinates should we ever be separated or kidnapped like on Theas 5. We should be able to access it and finally see what’s going on in there.”

Shrugging Greg finishes typing in the code manually when the big screen lights up with a picture that John though he’d never see and sounds that he would only assume would only happen in a fictional world.

“I*hic* I don’t care that you’re just tryin’ to be compliant to Mummy I *hic* just want my brother back,” Sherlock complained whilst draped upon his brother’s back like a woeful child in need of consoling.

His face was fraught with emotion and color that John had never witnessed before that sent chills to his very core.

“I too wish *hic* to have our *hic* previously estb*hic* relationship prior toward my enro*hic* into the Vulcan Academy but you know that *hic* it was the only way to regain some honor into Mummy’s line *hic* and we both know you *hic* wouldn’t do *hic*” Mycroft defended as he was slumped forward onto the desk next to his bed thanks to Sherlock’s weight.

Like his younger brother Mycroft was suddenly the portrait of emotion surrounded by what looked like five bottles of chocolate liquor and two empty boxes of fancy earth chocolates with tiny wrappers littered about.

“I just *hic* love you is all and I hic* hate that you won’t acknowledge me as I *hic* am.”

“I have *hic* always *hic* acknowledged and *hic* accepted you for *hic* who you *hic* are.”

The elder Holmes pulls his younger brother into a sloppy hug and there is no mistaking the sound of tears coming from the speakers within Greg’s office.

“This gets out to no one agreed,” John says sternly.

“Of course not Captain-”

“And any and all files of this will not be saved on any file aboard my ship for any reasons.”

“Come on John, what do you take me for Sally?” 

John looks Greg in the eye and states, “Just so we’re clear.”

“Like crystal,” Greg complies before shutting off the feed and effectively terminating the connection.

As John made the journey back up to his quarters he reflected on the nature of Vulcans and the stereotypes surrounding them. Devoid of emotion and feelings indeed.

[letitrainasunnyday]

May I add Sonoko to the list of people who know Shinichi in one aspect at least, which is LOVE she knows him so well that I don't think any remark she ever made was false. I was rewatching the paper planes episodes and Sonoko told Ran "It must be because his lovely wife was in crisis" Where Ran dismissed as usual but HE SAID "to be blunt it was probably the case" it's actually always the case lol and Sonoko who might not be that smart can always deduct shinran's heart when it comes to their love

You may, but I think Sonoko’s knowledge and understanding of Shinichi differs substantially to the one Hattori and Ran have. 

Like, let me set the record straight. No one knows Shinichi like Ran, in any and all aspects. First and foremost. 

The way Hattori knows Shinichi is based largely on case-work and a mutual understanding not only of their driving passion (murders and mysteries) but also of their situation (love-wise especially). Both see themselves mirrored in the other in so many ways that they don’t necessarily have to know the other to understand them. Shinichi understands and knows Heiji because he knows himself; Hattori can read Shinichi’s mind because he knows how his own works. Of course this is later reinforced by the friendship they build –indestructible, eternal, precious– but one of the beauties of their dynamics is the fact that they very rarely have to communicate what they feel –although, when they do, it’s still Big News™– because they just have to think what they would do in that situation and just understand. I will never be able to stress enough the importance of the numerous “What would you do in my place, Hattori/Kudo?” times we get between these two, because that’s the gist of their relationship: the unsaid “I know you’d do the same as me because you and I are the same.” 

But Sonoko is like a whole other thing. Sonoko has grown up watching Ran and Shinichi –their every move, every step forwards in their friendship/relationship, every fight, every make up… Everything. And let’s not forget she is Ran’s best friend, and as Ran’s best friend she 1) always wants what’s best for Ran and therefore 2) is as big a ShinRan shipper as I am (and boy is that a statement). So Sonoko is no stranger to either of these idiots because she has been with them through it all. And Sonoko, my God we never ever give her enough credit, but she is SO CLEVER. She is so quick and fast on her feet and intelligent and bad ass and yet we’re always amazed at like everything she does because we assume she’s the rich girl who is rather flirty and superficial. But she is so much more than that. And because she is so clever and witty, she understands the situation. And despite not truly 100% getting Shinichi the way Ran or Heiji do (she’s said numerous times that she doesn’t know what Ran sees in him, etc…) she’s learned to read and analyze the situations and Shinichi’s reactions to them, and can thus understand them and him. To be honest it doesn’t exactly take Sherlock Holmes to figure out what’s going on between Ran and Shinichi (it seems pretty clear that the entire class ships them), so it’s not exactly strange that Ran’s best friend would understand as well. 

What’s great about her, however –and this is why we must build her a temple right this very second–, is that she plays it as teasing and banter, but deep down only wants what’s best for either of them. So when she tells Shinichi to dress up as the Black Knight and hug and kiss Ran, it’s not because she’s teasing them –that’s how she wants to make it look. It’s because she knows both of them are dying for that to happen and the only way it will, by how things are going, is if it’s justified by something like the play. And also because Shinichi must be DYING to do so. But that’s another story. 

When she constantly “pressures” Ran into telling Shinichi how she feels and replying to his confession it’s not because she wants gossip. It’s because she wants them to be together, to finally clear the air between them –and the possible misunderstandings that may stem from them– so that they can be happy. So that they don’t have to suffer in guesses and “I wonder what”s. 

In the newest spoilers (STOP READING AND SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THEM YET AND DON’T WANT TO) when she texts Shinichi a picture of Ran “cheating” it’s not to make things tenser between them. It’s to finally give them the push they need and close the distance once and for all. 

Sonoko looks like the innocent, teasing best friend that lives for gossip and juicy details. But boy, she’s the cleverest and smoothest of them all. She gets shit done. She wants them together and happy just as bad as anyone –even more. 

We do not give Sonoko enough credit and we never think about the fact that however long we’ve been shipping this, she’s been shipping it for longer. She’s been actively trying to get them together since she was three. 

Which is why it’s not fair to say that in the ShinRan relationship I am always Sonoko. I wish I was Sonoko. 

She’s the best of them all. 

[vthiker09]

Managing My Medical Record

We all have our areas of expertise.  Areas of expertise can stem from life experience, decades spent within the same profession, or activities we engage in just because we enjoy doing them.  My areas of expertise, ironically enough, includes Electronic Health Records.  Six years ago, I accepted a position at a non-profit as their Software Administrator.  At the time, I felt my employer wasn’t transparent around what my responsibilities would be and was quite bitter about my newly accepted role.  Before this gig, I had worked within non-profits for many years, mainly in direct service or program management.  I, like most non-profit employees, hated data.  It was a time suck and took time, I didn’t have, from my main purpose - to actually help people.

Metaphorically kicking and screaming, I took on my new role and my strong “fix it” perfectionism, decided making this non-profit's data usable, was more important than my soap box rants around how it was a useless endeavor which only stressed, already stressed, service systems.  Over the next three years, I worked to make their data useful.  I facilitated trainings, wrote user manuals, created silly awards and games, audited more records then I would like to admit, and constantly nagged people - all in the attempt to prove data was important.  What I learned, in this period of time, was data is only something forced upon service providers, for no reason, if the agency or system used it in this way.  Data is only as helpful as the people who are collecting it, are dedicated, to making it useful.

After a few reports I ran secured funding for homelessness prevention and outcomes I generated, made a transitional housing program seriously look at it’s programming - I realized there was power in data.  It was the only tool this agency had to look at what was happening on a broader scale, from a service provision perspective, and see if what they were doing was actually helping people. 

I ended up leaving this agency to work for a software vendor.  For the last three years, I work every single day, helping non-profits begin to use an Electronic Health Record.  My scope of perspective has changed quite a bit since I worked at that small non-profit in a rural state.  I now work with state and local entities, across the country, with a 100% focus on their data.  The motivations for adopting an EHR vary - sometimes it’s to meet new funding regulations, or to be able to bill for services provided more accurately, or sometimes it’s rooted in being able to run more accurate reports on program outcomes.  There are some agencies who I work with who will say “I want my EHR to help me provide better services to my clients/patients.” 

These are my favorite agencies.  They are my favorite agencies because they see their EHR as a tool to help people.  They don’t see it as something thrust upon them by governing bodies or agency admins, who don’t really understand how difficult their day-to-day life is.  They not only see the value of well planned data collection on the individual level, they see value in shared data.  On both the state and federal level, across the country, there have been and are attempts at sharing data across vendors and providers, all aimed at a common theme - providing better services.

Although the nuances are complicated and the implementation can be easier said than done, the general concept is if different providers, working with the same patient, knows what the other provider is doing - they will be able to provide better care.  My instant thought is “No shit - Sherlock.”  It makes all kinds of sense if multiple providers are working with the same patient, they should share what they are doing.  The patient is an individual and all the pieces of their care equates to their overall health. 

The concept is simple and in practice, there is so much room for growth.  HIPAA regulations and confidentiality agreements, although very important, created an environment where providers felt they needed to keep everything under ten layers of red tape - even from other providers working with the same person.  I am not going to attempt to argue HIPAA is poor legislation, because it isn’t.  It provides very important layers of protection for patients.  At the same time, along with other regulations, it complicates coordinated care efforts.

Coordinated care has become a strong area of focus both on a federal level, within the medical and non-profit community, and for software vendors.  Since the actual coordination of information happens within a database, it’s of particular interest to have software which can help providers do this.  What I’ve found, the really hard way, is the software can provide the means and the provider can make it as hard as possible to create any level of care coordination and it hinders positive patient outcomes.

When I hurt myself, I was transported to Vermont’s largest hospital. UVM Medical Center is part of the UVM Health Network.  UVM Health Network is a collection of hospitals, specialists, and providers across the state.  They are all part of the same health network i.e. they all are owned by the same people.  It wasn’t always like this.  Many of these hospitals and practices used to be owned by other entities and were bought by UVM Health Network.  Thus, all these providers used different software vendors, or if they used the same vendor, they had their own implementation.  If you ask UVM Health Network, they will say they are working on a universal platform and it’s very expensive and complicated, which is why they haven’t done it.

I’m sure there is truth to this and it’s creating a care nightmare in Vermont and the burden is falling on patients to coordinate their own care for providers who should be able to do it themselves.  

Here’s my story: I was brought to the UVM Medical Center ER.  I was referred to a surgeon, via a paper referral, who worked at UVM Medical Center.  For a few months, my electronic health record didn’t really matter - because I only had one provider.  As a software consultant, I found it annoying my patient portal was basically a barren wasteland and all my follow-up was provided to me on paper.  At the same time, it didn’t really matter, because all I needed to do was show up to follow-up appointments and talk to the same person.  After I was referred to PT, I started to see a PT at Central Vermont Medical Center.  CVMC is part of the UVM Health Network, except they use a different software vendor.  The PT didn’t even tell me I could sign up for my second patient portal, so clearly they were not using it as a venue to coordinate my care, or at least not in a meaningful transparent way.  

Central Vermont Medical Center and UVM Medical Center do not share data.  Even though they are owned by the same people, they work in cylinders.  Thus, there was zero communication between my PT and my surgeon.  When things started to go downhill, it was my responsibility to say “my PT thinks I should get an MRI.”  We all know how much I believe my first surgeon valued anything I said, so you can surmise how much he valued what I communicated my other provider thought was going wrong.  After my first PT said “you aren’t getting better fast enough,” I went to a private PT practice in the Mad River Valley.  I’m not sure they even had a patient portal and they surely didn’t share information with UVM Medical Center.  Again, it became my responsibility to ask questions the PT had for the surgeon.  This time it came in the form of a crumbled piece of paper.  I brought said piece of paper to the surgeon and then did my best to relay the answers to my PT.

In a short period of time, I had an MRI done and was referred to another surgeon.  Since this was within the same hospital and the surgeons worked down the hall from one another, it was seamless.  After my third surgery, I decided to go to a PT in the same building as my surgeons.  I did this because I wanted the PT to be able to easily communicate with my surgeon and figured since they used the same software, were part of the same hospital, and literally worked 100 ft from one another - this should be pretty simple.  There were a few times I would say things like “Does Dr. so and so even read your notes,” and the PT would say “no” and then would offer to go talk to him - this never actually happened.  Thus, even though they were 100 ft apart, using the same software, they didn’t actually talk about my care - for the same issue.

Things became more complicated when I started to see a back specialist.  This person worked on the same floor as my ankle surgeon.  At this point, I had a PT, a surgeon, and a PA - who all worked about 100 feet from one another.  My PT would read the PA’s notes, and the ankle surgeon looked at my back MRI results when I was with him, so I suppose I should give them some credit for this.  At the same time, there was zero actual coordination of care.  The ankle guy said “you don’t want me to read your back MRI” and the back PA said “I’m not here to talk about your ankle.”  I remember literal fireballs coming out of my eyes when the back PA wouldn’t let me talk about my ankle, since the whole reason I was there was because the ball of my busted foot, wouldn’t stop burning. Although this may not seem related to the software they were using, it’s related because it speaks to the mindset which fuels hesitation to provide actual care coordination.  If medical providers treat people like body parts, instead of people, it makes sense why the won’t put a lot of effort into sharing information, about said body parts, in an effort to provide whole person care.

Shortly after this, I added an out-of-state private practice to my provider list.  This is when it really fell apart from my patient record perspective.  I was receiving significant care and all my medications were coming from this practice and this practice shared zero information with any of my Vermont providers.  At the same time, I actually got a Primary Care Provider, at a smaller practice in the town I live in.  This practice also had it’s own vendor and patient portal.  Thus, in a few months, I ended up with four patients portals and four providers who didn’t share any information.  These four being - UVM Medical Center, Central Vermont Medical Center, My Primary, and the Ankle Surgeon in NH.  I got a Primary because I was tired of the stink eye looks I would get when people would ask if I had one and I said “no.”  The rest of these providers only existed because of my mangled limb.

Adding the NH provider made my electronic health record almost impossible to manage - even for the software consultant.  There are many areas of frustration:

Medications: Every time I go to my Primary or Central VT Med Center, they ask me to update my med list.  Since most of the medications I am/was taking were narcotics, there is a level of mandatory information sharing.  I don’t know the rules and I am confident, in practice, they aren’t working.  My Vermont providers have zero idea about the medications my NH provider gave me - unless I told them, which I did.  When I would tell them I was taking something, they would add it to my meds list.  My providers were really great at adding medications.  They are awful at taking them off.  My meds list has become this really bitter area for me, because every appointment starts with the same conversation around meds, I haven’t been taking for months, which the provider has failed to actually discontinue.

At this point, if I was actually taking everything my VT providers think I’m taking, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to function and might have many more medical problems, then I do.  It’s infuriating to me, as someone who knows it’s doable, to be a patient who can with 100% certainty say: my medical providers can’t get my medications list correct and these are the people who are supposed to ensure the medications I’m given are safe.

Care Coordination: Every time I go to NH, they ask me who my Primary is.  Every time I tell them.  My Primary isn’t in their system, so it just ends up being blank.  Someone finally decided my Primary is someone in NH, with the same last name.  I don’t know who this person is and I’m not sure how much info has been sent to them about me.  My Primary has zero idea what is happening with the surgeon in NH.  A few months ago I rolled into my Primary’s office, in a medical shoe, for an unrelated routine reason, and my primary said “Oh my, you are really having a hard time.” She had no idea I had surgery, why, and didn’t even care to ask.  My NH surgeon is better than most in many ways.  When I started to go to PT, he said if the PT had any questions to reach out.  I provided the PT with his cell number and she never reached out.  She provided care to me with no actual information about what the surgeon did, other than what I told her.  Had my medical record been shared with UVM Medical Center - perhaps she would’ve just been given the necessary information.  I recently went to see an endocrinologist for a non-ankle related issue.  This was probably the worst example.  For some reason, she didn’t have access to any of my medical records, even though she works at UVM Medical Center and does office visits at Central VT Medical Center.  When I went to see her, it was like I had never seen a doctor, other than my disaster of a medications list, and two pieces of paper about a hip issue I had fifteen years ago.

Records Sharing: All of these providers have required access to my previous medical records.  Some of them required them before they would even book an appointment with me.  NH was one of these providers.  When I learned this, I promptly drove the hour to Burlington to get my medical records, in paper form, from the UVM Med Center Medical Records Department.  I then hopped over to Radiology to get my pile of imaging.  I then went to a UPS store and spent almost $100 to fax the paper and overnight the CD’s.  In 2018, I had to fax and snail mail my medical records, because I didn’t want to wait a month for them to be sent.  There is something fundamentally wrong with this statement.   When I started to see my primary, I had to send in a request to share my medical records from UVM - I can’t even request it online.  I have to print the piece of paper, snail mail it, and then wait a month.  I recently switched my primary to a primary who works for UVM.  I had to request my medical records be sent, in person, to a provider who works for the same hospital network.  I’m not sure if this has even happened.  I suppose I will find out at the end of April, when I go to see this provider for the first time.  When I first went to see the endocrinologist, they called me three times asking for my medical records.  I told them each time I had requested them to be sent and I didn’t know why they didn’t have them - they never ended up being sent.  If I am 100% honest - I am reluctant to seek care from a new provider because of this issue.  It’s a logistical nightmare and I’m tired of dealing with it.

Patient Portals: I have four of them.  This means I have four usernames and four passwords.  Thus, every time I want to look at test results, images, notes, or appointment info, I have to remember which provider did it and which patient portal it is.  When you’re rocking a couple hundred provider appointments, it can be difficult to remember who took the ankle x-ray in the fall of 2017.  In Vermont, patient participation in a patient portal is optional.  Thus, everything is still available on paper.  I can’t imagine how frustrating this must be for providers because everything is duplicated.

Communication: My plentiful number of patient portals, doesn’t make it any easier to talk to my providers, even though it could.  Each provider has different rules about how to contact them. Provider A likes texting, but only likes texts if it’s urgent.  Otherwise, call the office or just go there. Provider B only allows phone calls and you’ll always get voicemail, which goes to their nurse. They may or may not actually call you back.  You can email the nurse and it’s not clear on if they will actually answer you.   Provider C only has office assistants who will answer the phone.  You can’t get an actual answer unless you go there.  Provider D is pretty great at email and that’s it.  So not only do I need to remember which website they are using for their patient portal, I also have to remember how they like to communicate, so they’ll actually answer me and it changes based on what my need is.  All of these providers have messaging in their patient portal and that’s the last place I would go to communicate with them. 

I put my medical records in the same category as Aetna - they are there to make my medical life more complicated.  I like to ignore them as much as possible because they cause me a lot of stress and it’s not transparent to me how they are helpful to any of my providers, because at best, they are a fractured picture of what my care looks like.  The fix is specific to the system and as an Implementation Consultant, I’m sure I or someone like me, could be helpful to improving the current system.  At the same time, there’s no universal fix other than to mandate medical systems to improve, for the sake of their patients and themselves.  I’m a smart cookie and these are systems, which I’m familiar with, and it’s difficult.  I can only imagine what it’s like for someone who has more complex medical needs or isn’t able to engage with the red tape as easily.  It’s an unnecessary complication for people who are already struggling and it needs to change.  It needs to change because it complicates patient care - when if it was done correctly, it would actually help to improve the quality of care.

[bonerhitler]

Death in (shonen) Anime

We all know the jokes about Krillin's many deaths in Dragon Ball Z I'm sure. But lets take a more expansive look into the attitudes towards death that many anime series, some out of date shonen in specific, have. So to start off lets delve a bit further than Dragon Ball Z.

It's an age-old trick of any fictional series to kill a character only to reveal later on that they're secretly alive. Whether it's the eternally non-secret that Racer-X is actually Speed Racer's presumed dead brother, or the question of whether or not the Green Goblin really is dead or if that's just another guy pretending to be him. On many levels it's easy to understand why a creator wouldn't want to just permanently get rid of a character they might like, or be tempted to give in to fan demand to bring back a deceased character as happened most famously with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. But what does it mean for the tone of a story when this starts happening more than once, what happens to the consequences and emotional investment of a narrative when death as a potential outcome becomes nothing?

Dragon Ball, and Dragon Ball Z as an extension, tend to be the prime example of this. For most of its run the only people who died were villains or side characters. However the titular dragon balls tend to just hang over the subject up until Goku promises to bring a kid's dad back to life and follows through. We see that death is easily thwarted but at the same time there do seem to be some limits to the power of wishes as there were efforts to keep the body intact and the dragon balls have a year between uses. Then Krillin dies.

It's a pretty big surprise when you're reading or watching for the first time, you don't really expect Dragon Ball to get that serious but here's the main character's best friend dead and a quest for revenge begins. Except it's not just revenge, is it? Because the main stated goal of the arc is the revive Krillin. Throughout the course of the arc Master Roshi and other characters die, even the Dragon from the dragon balls dies and things seem pretty dire. But then Goku just talks to god and what do you know, he can just make more. Everyone is brought back and at once, death has no meaning in this world. Dragon balls can just bring people back as they see fit, the dragon balls can be remade and there are no consequences.

Cue Dragon Ball Z. This one opens with Goku dying, which isn't a big deal because everyone knows they can just bring him back to life. There is no tension until piccolo dies and whoops, turns out if he dies the dragon balls die too. But it's okay, there are more in space. Turns out those ones give you three wishes too. What I'm getting at here is that, that first moment where Krillin died in the original Dragon Ball? That was a serious turn for the series. It had emotional weight and impact, right until the characters turn around and remember they can just bring him back to life. It's even less of an issue when Goku dies, despite him being the main protagonist, because gathering the Dragon Balls is an absolute non-issue by the time Z happens. Finding out there are more dragon balls in space that give more wishes just further saturates the issue - death has no meaning in this universe now. How can any viewer feel worried about whether or not Goku will win a fight if we know he'll just come back within a year? Even if you can only come back once with each set of Dragon Balls, apparently anyone can just make a new set on another planet. So there's no emotional investment in the show after a while, you're just watching an immortal shirtless ape-man laserbeam a weird looking alien to death on occasion.

So now that I've laid out the crux of this issue, what about other series? How do other popular big name series handle this subject? Well, it's a mixed bag. Take Naruto for example. Death was mostly permanent in that series for the first half, but in the later half dead characters just came back thanks to ninja magic and every meaningful character development and arc just started to unravel bit by bit. Even one major antagonist who had spent the whole series being slowly punished for being evil before dying, just kind of pops up as good as new and receives little more than a raised eyebrow before being shrugged off under the spectacle of zombie ghost ninja wars. Bleach had a strange problem where no one but middling antagonists ever seemed to die. By the end the only a handful of notable protagonists had died, easily less than five. In both series case death once again has very little meaning. In the former, everyone dies but comes back and dies again so it's the dragon ball issue all over again. There were so many ghosts, zombies and ambiguously sentient memories/illusions just kind of showing up so often in Naruto that the only real answer to whether or not a character was dead, was “probably?”. Bleach on the other hand, the answer was a firm “No” if they were part of the main cast. No one of popular note died in bleach and it once again took the stakes out of the fights, and interest drains quickly when that happens. The whole series became predictable in its forumla of losses, victories and how no matter what happened the protagonist would gain some new power to win at the last minute. But none of the main cast would die of course, no matter how often the author would leave that on a cliffhanger. So you knew any time they, or any of the other popular characters, were in a fight they would come out relatively unharmed and generally undamaged.

Then there's One Piece. One piece stands out from the crowd because it doesn't feature a lot of death. Most deaths occur as a show of a villain's power or malevolence, the heroes them selves almost always leave the antagonists alive after a fight. This doesn't stem from some prudish attempt at being child-friendly or anything, in fact One Piece touches on many darker themes than many of its former peers ever did, rather because the author understands the impact death can have on a work and that too much of it can weaken the impact of a well done scene. To that end, in the middle of the series it hits a turning point where a massive battle takes out and in rapid succession two important and beloved characters die. It shocked the readers to say the least, these things didn't happen in One Piece! But it did, and unlike Dragon Ball Z and other series, these characters weren't coming back and the impact of their death could still be felt through the series in later arcs. It also left a hanging axe over other characters. Even if it's unlikely that the main character will die, the fact that the author was willing to kill such loved characters without warning leaves the rest of them on shaky ground. Unlike other series, One Piece's deaths are few and far between, whether it's a background character giving drive to a smaller arc, or one of the main cast. And that is all the difference in the world between this and the series previously talked about.

For a moment, however, lets talk about the deaths themselves. Typically speaking I find you can break a death in a shonen series down into one of the following three categories.

A. Deaths for the villain's sake. These are deaths which usually serve to show how evil or strong a villain is. Rarely they're the deaths that motivate a villain to become what they are. These are deaths like Krillin and most of the Dragon Ball cast, really. Their only real purpose within the narrative is to make the antagonist of the current arc seem stronger, because they're usually supposed to be a major game-changer of a villain such as a series or season finale villain.

B. Deaths for the hero's sake.

These tend to be heroic sacrifices that give the hero more time to complete their goals, such as charging up a spirit bomb or escaping an exploding building. Sometimes it's Goku dying so he can come back stronger and fight the stronger villains.

C. Deaths for the plot's sake.

These are deaths that are, at the time at least, largely irrelevant to anyone but the narrative at hand. A conveniently dead soldier here, crashed jet fighter there. Maybe it's just an assassination that sets off the whole arc, but generally doesn't directly tie in to either the protagonist or antagonist.

In most of the series I listed above, deaths are generally in the villain category. In Bleach the only time a protagonist dies at all is when the series introduces a bunch of new characters only to have the new godly villain kill them all one by one. It comes across as very shallow and disingenuous when the only time your characters die is to make another one look better.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that One Piece is good, and most shonen series are very bad when it comes to giving death any kind of consequence or value. But if you're into a million ambiguously dead ninja or immortal god-teens then I guess Naruto and Bleach might be your thing.

[raggywaltz1954]

This is the big one.  The unicorn.  The white whale.  The record that woke the vinyl collector within me.  The search for this record took years, but this year the vinyl gods smiled on me, and I am now the owner of this rare bootleg album.  One of the reasons why I’ve been on the hunt for this album is because it’s only available on vinyl.  It was because of this and other rare Brubeck and Desmond music that’s only on vinyl that started me on the journey of record collecting.  Naturally, this record has a rather unconventional background.  But first…

The Music

Tune:  Two-part Contention

Recorded live 25 August, 1956 at Basin Street, New York City

Personnel:

Dave Brubeck-  Piano

Paul Desmond-  Alto Sax

Norman Bates-  Bass

Joe Dodge-  Drums

This album is a super bootleg album made up of at least two different radio broadcasts of Dave Brubeck performances, one from 1959 and the other from 1956.  Side one is a broadcast from a December 1959 Carnegie Hall performance featuring the Dave Brubeck Quartet with the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Leonard Bernstein.  They play “Dialogues for Jazz Combo and Orchestra” by Dave’s brother Howard.  The music was eventually recorded in the studio the next month and came out on the Columbia album ‘Bernstein Plays Brubeck Plays Bernstein’.  The liner notes to that album mention that there three Carnegie Hall performances of the work on December 10, 11, and 13, 1959, so this broadcast is from one of those dates.  By the sound of the music (stiff, tentative, with a few ‘mistakes’ compared to the studio album), I’d peg it closer to the December 10th date.  The preservation of this performance on record is a great historical document and it’s interesting to compare this with the official Columbia release, but I’m more excited and interested in the other side of the album.

The main reason why I wanted to find this album was for the music on the second side of the album.  The two tracks allegedly stem from a Basin Street club date on 25 August, 1956.  I say allegedly because the two tracks differ in sound quality, which makes me wonder if they’re from two separate dates.  Putting on my Sherlock hat (i.e. serious Googling), I discovered a very detailed schedule of the NBC radio show Monitor from the weekend of August 24-26, 1956.  Scheduled for late Saturday night, August 25 at 11pm Eastern Standard Time was live music from Dave Brubeck at Basin Street, in New York City.  I don’t know where the 25 August, 1956 date came from originally, but it looks like it’s accurate.

Dave Brubeck was frequently on Monitor during the mid-1950’s as well as other jazz shows on the radio, and a few of these live airchecks have turned up on bootleg CDs and records over the years, but nowhere near as many have surfaced as similar radio broadcasts from Miles Davis.  The few Brubeck radio broadcasts that have showed up typically have Paul Desmond and Brubeck in great form.  Live Brubeck is the best Brubeck, especially when it’s a club date.  This particular lineup provided Desmond and Brubeck with a solid foundation to really stretch out and play some tasty stuff, as Desmond does on the cut above.

‘Two-part Contention’ is a Brubeck original, being a play on words based off of Bach’s ‘Two-part Invention’.  The contention comes from the changing rhythms and soloists.  After some improvised counterpoint, Paul Desmond launches into his solo, followed by the slower section featuring Brubeck’s piano.  It’s the fast section after this that Desmond really shines.  He throws a lot of different quotes in his solo, including the melody of Gerry Mulligan’s ‘Limelight’, and Brubeck follows with a solo that references the old standard ‘I Get A Kick Out of You’, before concluding the performance at the twelve and a half-minute mark.  Joe Dodge’s drumming is simple, basic, but solid.  His successor, Joe Morello, had a much more powerful and noticeable presence on the drums, but I like Dodge’s drumming.  His occasional accents and spare playing (he only used a bass drum, snare, hi-hat, and two cymbals) are a welcome contrast to the many busy jazz drummers popular then and now.

Being a club date, there’s applause, rattling dishes, and the buzz of conversation, but it’s hardly intrusive.  Taken with the info above, it’s a great example of late-night jazz from a jazz club, as heard on somebody’s radio in 1956.  I wonder if people back in the 1950’s truly appreciated those days of radio when you could flip a switch and catch a club date from Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Thelonious Monk, and the other jazz greats, with barely any commercials?  Those days surely aren’t coming back.

The Cover

College Jazz Collector Rating:  D+

It’s extremely basic, the cover is.  Of course it’s a bootleg, so the bar is already low.  We get treated to three stencil-like reproductions of a Brubeck photograph and an actual photograph of Leonard Bernstein himself, surrounded by a frame of… rope?  Flowery banner?  I’m not sure.  What’s up with the ‘stereo-mono’ up there, too?  The lack of any color all makes for bland cover, typical of a bootleg album.  It looks like it was made in someone’s basement.  More on that later.  The album came sealed in shrink-wrap (!), but still has signs of a rough life, including a tattered upper spine and bent edges.

The Back

This album takes minimalism to another level.  There’s absolutely nothing on the back of it.  Not a thing.  This is the only album I have that has a completely blank back.  It’s actually kind of neat.  The bootlegger provided all of the info on the front and felt that none was needed on the back, I suppose.

The Vinyl

The vinyl is extremely thin and flimsy, non-deep groove, but in mint condition.  The labels continue the trend of little information.  The info that is there is partially incorrect.  ‘Musical Montage’ as labeled on the cover and the label is completely false, and is in fact the musical work by Howard Brubeck entitled ‘Dialogues for Jazz Combo and Orchestra’, and the four different ‘musical montages’ are ‘Allegro’, ‘Andante-Ballad’, ‘Adagio-Ballad’, and ‘Allegro-Blues’.  The four movements aren’t separated on the record, instead lumped together as one big block of music as it’s performed on the record.  There were slight pauses between each movement, but the record presser didn’t bother to separate them.

The sound quality is amazingly clean for being taped off of the radio.  Despite the ‘stereo-mono’ label on the cover, the music on both sides of the record are in mono.

I did some research on the Ozone label, as I was unfamiliar with it, and was surprised to discover that this album was recorded by the legendary jazz bootlegger- I mean archivist- Boris Rose.  Boris Rose was a man from New York City that tirelessly captured live jazz performances of some of the greatest jazz musicians on his portable tape recorders, either by taking them illicitly into clubs (particularly Birdland) or taping radio broadcasts from his home.  During jazz’s golden era of the 1950’s and 60’s, Rose documented the jazz that came through New York and meticulously kept written records of the tapes he made.  He amassed quite an archive of valuable live music, and the whole operation was conducted in his basement.

Rose traded tapes between like-minded friends, and in the 1970’s began pressing some of his tapes to records and sold them in small quantities on a variety of made-up labels, such as Alto, Ozone and Session Disc.   Apparently he didn’t like serious record collectors and discographers (ironic given his meticulous record keeping) and consequently provided little or purposefully wrong information on his albums.

I found about Boris Rose before I bought this album though, through late-night internet searches for rare live jazz performances.  I always wondered if Rose had captured the Dave Brubeck Quartet on tape, and it looks like he did and that there’s possibly more.  An article from the Wall Street Journal about Rose has made the rounds on different websites, and it is in the spirit of Boris Rose that I bootleg a bootlegged article.  Bon appetit!

Wall Street Journal December 4, 2010

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704354704575651483072044218.html

Elaine Rose, daughter of famed jazz archivist Boris Rose, holds a portrait of her father in front of a small portion of his many master tape recordings from Birdland and a number of other New York jazz venues.

In a dark basement in a quiet residential neighborhood in the Bronx, a well-known archive of privately recorded live tapes and acetates is gathering dust and waiting for some institution to acquire it. The Boris Rose archive, named for the New Yorker who amassed it, is so capacious, in fact, that no one has even cataloged all of it and Elaine Rose, who has owned it since her father died 10 years ago, can’t even begin to guess how much it’s worth.

“This collection certainly deserves to be in a major institution, such as the Smithsonian, Library of Congress, or Institute of Jazz Studies—intact,” said John Hasse, the curator of American music at the Smithsonian Institution.

The collection contains everything from rare performances by modern jazz legends like Charlie Parker and John Coltrane to swing stars like Benny Goodman, Count Basie and Mr. Rose’s own favorites, like Sidney Bechet and Eddie Condon. Ms. Rose is well aware of the need for finding a permanent repository; the acetates and the tapes are, she said, in delicate condition.

“It needs a home. I just can’t keep it in storage. I’m giving myself a time frame of six months to a year to do something with it,” she said.

Boris Rose (1918-2000) was one of those legendary characters who seem to proliferate in the world of jazz. He was tall, articulate, always very well groomed—and by all accounts an outrageous character. An inveterate prankster, he dreamed up a dizzying array of fake label names (including “Titania,” “Ambrosia,” “Caliban,” “Session Disc,” “Ozone” and “Chazzer Records”), many of which he tried to pass off as European imports. Most of his albums bore an address on the front, such as “A Product of Stockholm, Sweden.” But if you looked closely on the back, it would say something like “Manufactured in Madison, Wisconsin” in much smaller type.

The truth was that Mr. Rose produced them all from his brownstone on East 10th Street. He told me once that he took great delight in confounding collectors and discographers, whom he regarded as the bean counters of jazz.

“I always felt something about jazz,” Mr. Rose said in an undated interview with historian Dan Morgenstern that was taped for German television. “As far back as 1930, I listened to broadcasts from the Cotton Club. I heard Duke, I heard Don Redman, I heard Cab Callaway.”

During his years at City College, Mr. Rose practiced the c-melody saxophone but began to find his calling when he got a job at the MRM Music Shop on Nassau Street.

“As far back as 1940, I purchased a home [disc-cutter] recorder and I began to dub records,” he told Mr. Morgenstern. “For the next few years while I was in the Army, I was able to dub records for collectors who couldn’t find the originals.”

From there, he branched out to recording radio broadcasts and then live bands in clubs. “Getting out of the Army in 1946, I had professional equipment, and began to take down all of these jazz broadcasts,” he explained. “First on 16-inch acetate discs. Later on, when tape came into the picture, I was able to record on tape.”

Mr. Morgenstern remembers Mr. Rose as “a man who never sat down—he was always monitoring three or four tape recorders or disc-cutters at any given time.” For decades, Mr. Rose ran a thriving business, recording jazz wherever he could, then making and selling copies or trading them for rarer material.

He operated from 10th Street, but stored most of his original tapes and acetates in the basement of his house in the Bronx, where he raised his three daughters.

One of Rose’s tape recorders

It’s still fairly well-organized: Discs are mostly in one area; soundtracks are in one set of cabinets; 10-inch reels are in one spot and 7-inch reels in another. 78 RPM discs and LPs are all over the place. A thick layer of dust rests on top of everything, but considering the vastness of the collection, the few tapes I recently took out and examined seemed to be in good shape—though neither tape nor shellac will last forever.

Mr. Rose kept detailed notebooks of almost every recording he made. The trick, though, is to find the tape to match the written entry.

“We won’t know what’s in there—or what shape it’s in—until somebody wants it,” Ms. Rose said.

The centerpiece of the Rose archive is the Birdland Collection: Mr. Rose recorded virtually every band that played this most legendary of jazz joints, either directly off the airwaves or by smuggling a concealed tape recorder into the club.

Over time he amassed a spectacular library of modern jazz from the glory years—the 1950s. His friends found this amazing since he rarely listened to the stuff himself; his own tastes ran to Louis Armstrong and Kid Ory. Still, he documented an entire era of music, the great majority of which hasn’t been heard in 60 years.

Around 1970, Mr. Rose’s business entered a new phase when he began using some of his material for mass-produced LPs that were distributed internationally, generally bearing amateur-looking artwork and misleading information. According to friend and researcher Arthur Zimmerman, Mr. Rose rarely if ever bothered to negotiate with the actual musicians or pay mechanical royalties for the compositions (with the exception of several country albums by Gene Autry, after the singing cowboy’s lawyers got in touch). He sold Charlie Parker and Billie Holiday material to ESP Records, and a famous double-LP set of Parker at Birdland to Columbia Records.

In the end, Mr. Rose released hundreds of albums, under dozens of label names, up through the mid-’80s. When compact discs took over, he gradually lost interest. In the ’90s, he made it known that the archive was for sale, but kept raising the price whenever anybody expressed interest.

“He left it to me so I could have an income,” said Elaine Rose. “His words to me were, ‘Make money with it.’ But it’s a whole different era now.”

That was in 2010.  I’ve tried to find out what happened in the seven years since, but haven’t found a thing.  I sure hope somebody with more money than me takes interest in it.

The Place of Acquisition

Good old eBay.  After an almost six-year search, I found this album for sale online as ‘Buy Now’ for $20, sealed and in mint condition.  It’s only shown up once on Discogs since 2011, and I barely missed a sale on eBay last year.  Good things come to those that wait.  Like the other rare Brubeck bootleg album, I clicked ‘Buy Now’ quick, and in a week I was the proud owner of this album, probably one of the rarest if not the rarest album in my collection.  A search on Popsike only turned up one result, and that was my own purchase on eBay.  Despite its rarity, it doesn’t seem to go for much.  A sale on Discogs ended at $10.00 and some change.  Either the people selling it don’t realize it’s worth or it’s really just not that valuable.  Any thoughts and comments would be appreciated!

Dave Brubeck, Leonard Bernstein, Dialogue For Jazz Combo & Orchestra // Ozone (Ozone 14) This is the big one.  The unicorn.  The white whale.  The record that woke the vinyl collector within me.  

[sherlockedmeta-blog]

In responding to your post I came up with a theory of my own, as far as I can see it works as a logical way to look at ASiB in the most positive light (instead of as a sexist queerbait).

Also I want to clarify that in my point about people being sexist for taking Sherlock’s word over Irene’s I’m not saying that’s anyone who thought Irene loves Sherlock is a bad person, rather a victim of the sexism and heteronormativity that is forced onto us from birth (I also only just realised that she didn’t like him, this is something that all people need to work on).

 Hey @haroldisnotaunicorn ! Sorry I was just getting to actually answering your ask when I saw this! I’m so glad you sent this though it’s a really great theory! Here is my response! 

Yeah first I would like to say that I absolutely could have spent some more time and effort on my theory and analysis, I just had some thoughts I wanted to pump out so I apologize for any inconsistencies and being unclear.

Before I start to respond, because I 100% agree/understand where your coming from on a lot of your points, I always came to the same problem at the end as you which was “why would the password(her heart) be Sherlocked” and why were her pupils dilated and why about those other examples of her attraction to Sherlock. And my conclusion was that Moftiss absolutely wanted to make the audience think she was in love with Sherlock, like with the music swell like you mentioned. So I think that is where a lot of our differences stem from, is that at the end I believe they wanted us to believe she was “in love” with him. Even though I desperately wish they didn’t.

Also thank you for putting numbers I’m ADHD as hell and cannot put together a cohesive writing(as you could probably tell from my meta) so I’ll just rebuttal by numbers.

 1)      I 1000% agree with you on the dodging the bi question. I think Irene knows John is trying to dodge it too and that is why she pushes for him to at least confront his feeling for Sherlock, if he won’t for men in general. Because at the end that is what really matters, John and Sherlock ending up together. So, I believe, whatever previous crush on men he’s had before(Sholto) is just him warming up to the idea of being with a man(of course this is plot wise not real life wise) so by the time he realizes he’s bi and his feelings for Sherlock he’s gotten used to the idea so they can end up together with no sexuality questioning complications. (Btw I’m very johnlock endgame heavy and most of my theories stem from that so I apologize if your not.)

2)      Again absolutely agree. I absolutely think John is bi and Sholto was an example of that.

3)      That is a really great point about her needing to specifying that she is bi if she is to be related to John. But I think, in a way, she is specifying. This is just my personal belief but Irene is extremely smart, and like Sherlock, manipulative. Their whole conversation up to the “Well I am. Look at us both” part is specifically about Sherlock and how SHERLOCK relates to both of their sexualities. So I think when she says “Look at us both” she’s is referring only to their attraction to Sherlock, not men in general. That’s where the manipulation part comes in. She doesn’t come out and say “I’m bi too, were the same so John face your feelings.” she goes straight for the jugular of what is making John question his sexuality in the first place, Sherlock. And she knows that this is what that have in common, their mutual attraction to Sherlock, so she’ll leave out the part that she is not completely bi, and will manipulate John into realizing his feelings toward Sherlock by saying they are the same(look at us both). That they are both attracted to someone not apart of the gender they knew they were attracted to. I’m still not sure about Irene being bi. I think Sherlock is a one off sort of thing and that she doesn’t identify as bi. But I’ll get to why I hate that(like you I think) later.

4)      I totally get you are trying to debunk the ways Irene shows attraction to Sherlock to show how she really does not love Sherlock(which I wish I could do too) but the part where her pupils were dilated was when her and Sherlock were both in a completely relaxed environment in 221 B. If it was during the big standoff that her pupils dilated I would, too, jump on the chance to say it was for another reason like fear. I sadly can’t debunk any other reason why they would dilate in the relaxed environment they were in :/ Now if for some reason she wanted to make Sherlock think she was romantically attracted to him, she could make her pupils dilate on purpose, but as we know there is no reason for that. I can’t think of any other reason why her pupils would dilate.(and why they made it such a big deal of it in the show)

5)      Again, absolutely agree she is mirror for Sherlock, I’ve read so much about that as I’m sure you have. But just like her very complicated and diverse character, I think it is possible she could be a mirror for both of them. We both agree she wants John to see he has a crush on Sherlock. Why? I think because she just enjoys all the drama and maybe even wants to help John in a way, that’s a whole nother meta though. But I think if she can see the whole picture of John’s attraction to Sherlock she could mirror the whole picture, john being bi and Sherlock being gay.

6)      I HATE this part. That was a point I was trying to make in my meta that I couldn’t quite put into words so thank you for doing that. I don’t understand why they would make a lesbian character fall in love with a man, it is absolutely destructive. Sadly, I can’t see a way that she doesn’t actually have some sort of attraction to him.

7)      Yeah addressed this one at the beginning. Again, why would they make her password to her heart Sherlock for any other reason? Trust me I am just as unhappy about it as you are.

8)      Yeah addressed this too at the beginning. The writers at least wanted it to seem like she really loved him. The first thing I think of is that this was a whole plan that Irene just wanted to make him think she loved him for some other way more complicated- plan she was making but, of course, that makes no sense because her apparent “love” for Sherlock is what ruins her at the end and is the whole message of the episode. Love is not an advantage. Going back to her being a mirror for Sherlock, she is the version that let feelings in the way of her plan and it ruined it and she would have died because of it. Although we know Sherlock saves her at the end but yeah.

I love your final conclusion and I think with all the other points you made it makes total sense. I just have trouble with unless there is another underlying plot here that Irene comes back bigger and better and wanted Sherlock to think she loved him to trick him or something, that there is no reason they would have made her being in love with him the big message and climax of the episode. Other then what you said of course, the bitter explanation of it baits Adlock shippers. So as much as I WISH SO MUCH that Irene really didn’t have feelings for Sherlock in some way, it is the only thing that makes sense. I hope it is a case of people like us being able to read past what they have shown us(which happens all the time in this show) and make a deeper and reasonable meaning of something that doesn’t make any sense(a lesbian being in love with a man), but it’s not evident in the shows “lore”, for lack of a better word. If there was another relevant reason to the plot for it they would have had to made it relevant, maybe they still will. I really loved reading your response and I totally agree with what your saying and let’s just agree to disagree on our differing points. I hope if you have any comments or anything to let me know! You’re a really great writer(better than me) and meta-er and it was great being able to share some thoughts with you! Sorry for the length of this, I really enjoyed responding! Also am I exhausted currently and am sure I made a tone of spelling and grammar mistakes in this, I hope it is still readable enough that I made my point.

[cumberblocked]

The Six Thatchers Reaction and Theories

To start off, a disclaimer, this is almost completely different than other theories I’ve seen about what’s going on in The Six Thatchers, but I worked really hard on it and I’m fairly new to the fandom so bear with me (and correct me) if something is deviant from accepted fan theories and stuff. I’m taking things on a more literal level here and then I’ll digest some of the more layered theories afterword- can’t wait to see everything! I saw a post that talked about the Sherlock fandom theory acceptance, and in the words of the blogger, I’m going to see if anything sticks. Maybe I’m not a Sherlock of fan theory, but I can at least be a conductor of light, right? Here goes:

I’m not nearly as eloquent and good with words as some people in the fandom, but I saw @moriarty ’s post about how people theorizing about John and Sherlock premeditating Mary’s murder is a bit off, and I got inspired.

I feel like the events of TST don’t explain a strong enough motive for a man like John to go to the aquarium with the sole intention of shooting Mary. He has such a strong moral compass, as shown by the shooting of the cabbie in the first episode (it was one of the first really important things we learned about John, right? He only kill in Sherlock’s or his defense) all through the series to him turning down the Bus Stop Woman’s advances (accepting the theory that John was texting Sherlock in the Devil Baby scene at the Watsons’). “E” might be important in the next episode, but she was put in TST for a reason, and I think showing John’s self-control once again might be one of them.

Mary literally shot Sherlock, and almost killed him. I think if John were to kill Mary, it would’ve been after he found out, right? Of course, she was carrying their child, and he wouldn’t want to kill the baby, but if he’d really wanted to kill her he would’ve divorced her right after he found out she shot him. He didn’t. She doesn’t really do anything worse in TST, so why would John decide he wanted to kill her after that? Ok, she lied a lot, but HER SHOOTING SHERLOCK WASNT A STRONG ENOUGH REASON FOR HIM TO WANT TO EVEN DIVORCE HER. It seems unlikely that anything Mary did in the new episode would even be a “last straw” to John, and I think he would have just divorced her rather than kill her, mainly stemming from the fact that she’s the mother of his child, no matter how much he comes to hate her. He doesn’t divorce her = he likely doesn’t even hate her.

Conclusion: Mary either did something even worse than shooting Sherlock that TST episode covered up so that John wouldn’t get executed/exiled/jailed for her murder (I’m not familiar with murder punishment in the UK), and/or John killed her at the aquarium in self or Sherlock’s defense and Mycroft and Crew covered it up Magnussen style (supported by previous things I’ve reblogged about the Hollywood cheesiness of Mary’s death, how fake the scenario we see seems, and the showing of the doctored video in the beginning of the episode). I also believe that John didn’t hate her, and was genuinely grieving at the fact that he’d had to kill her in the end, even though the scenario we saw probably wasn’t what happened actually.

This conclusion satisfies Johns tendency to do the right thing soldier-style, the genuine emotion the asked Ben, Martin, and Amanda to show during her “fake death” scenario, and Mary’s “go to hell, Sherlock” line at the end of the episode that puts us right back into seeing Mary as a villain.

In short: Mary’s really dead, John really loved her till the end, John really hates Sherlock at of the end of the episode (keep reading for more on this), and Mary’s death scenario, as well as probably the events of nearly the whole episode, are fake.

However, I do think the alibi theory (I reblogged earlier) is legitimate BECAUSE the episode seems fake. The timeline’s a little wonky, but Sherlock’s cases throughout the beginning of TST could be shown onscreen to not only show Sherlock hiding his grief at John and Mary’s happiness (as suggested by the “Norbury” conversation with Mrs. Hudson) but also to show the cases Sherlock went back and sifted through in order to make John an alibi to give to Mycroft to fabricate and paste into “what really happened” like with Magnussen. This doesn’t mean John was actually a part of the planning other than to inform Sherlock that he knew what they fabricated, maybe via the letter? (Written things are nearly untraceable), and was going along with it.

FURTHERMORE: (Accepting TJLC-) John’s “anyone but you” hatred of Sherlock in the end: we don’t know what really happened, so John could actually hate Sherlock, making Moriarty’s threats of “burning the heart out of” Sherlock come true. After all, burning requires the situation to progressively get worse: Sherlock can’t be with John for two years, causing John grief; Sherlock returns, only to find his “heart” unavailable in the hands of another person; John married said person, who turned out to be a liar about practically everything, which is DEVASTATING to Sherlock; said person then causes their further separation even after her death, and this plausibly could’ve been predicted by Moriarty if Mary was, in the end, Moriarty’s metaphorical matchstick with which to burn Sherlocks heart out.

OR they might be required to act that way because they know that was part of Moriarty’s plan and they both could both be in danger if they don’t fake it (parallel to why Sherlock had to fake his death and leave in Season 2). That would support the theory of John’s letter being a secret correspondence of sorts, entrusted to Molly, but not a very good explanation of Sherlocks decline back into drugs in the upcoming episode (The Lying Detective), his conversation with Mrs Hudson about “Norbury”, and him seeking Ella out at the end of the episode in order to figure out how to help John.

So what the heck really happened to make John kill Mary and hate Sherlock? There’s definitely something deeper going on behind the scenes.

Either way, it seems likely that Mary was working in Moriarty’s web, especially since she would’ve been out of a job after the British Government (literally Mycroft, teehee) stopped employing freelancers.

Predictions: - We don’t have an answer to what Moriarty’s intention was with DID YOU MISS ME and that whole thing, so we’ll probably see more of his plotting somewhere in the rest of the whole show. Mary will be involved with it, as well as another living person, maybe Culverton Smith or maybe even Sebastian Moran, whom we haven’t seen yet on the show.

- The Lying Detective will probably end with John forgiving Sherlock (which follows right along with John’s forgiving nature), but we might have to wait for the boat scenes we saw behind the scenes until the last episode. Previews for The Lying Detective don’t have a ton of John screen time, which also suggests his appearance toward the end (because who includes footage from the ending in the Trailer??) I don’t think Mary was kidding about Sherlock needing to save John, and that might be what brings them back together.