#subtext study

[sword-wielding-sapphic]

We had canon gay Sherlock Holmes in barely post-Hays Code Hollywood

(Rogozhin tries to persuade Holmes to sleep with Madame Petrova)

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) dir. Billy Wilder

[sharrrrt]

The grumpy cynical awful evil man and the little girl he totally definitely doesn't care about <3

Skarra and Dee headcanons below 🥺 and also a fic idea cuz I got carried away with ranting 💀

Dee definitely does bad stuff just because it's fun and that's why she went along with Skarra's scheming. But she also looks up to him in some way, otherwise why would she copy his look☝️ she would never admit that tho cuz it's cringe

Dee is a bully at school. Skarra tries to tell her off but he can't help laughing at some of the stuff she does 💀

Dee's parents travel a lot for their work so she's usually left with a hired caretaker

One time tho, Skarra was free to look after her and ever since then they usually leave her to stay at his place (Dee really liked hanging out with him and annoyed her parents to death about it)

Skarra hates how Dee's parents are and once he realized how often she's basically left alone he makes the most of their time together yayyyy healing his inner child

Skarra loves Dee's personality but he also doesn't want her to end up like him :(

They practice soccer together sometimes. Dee isn't seriously into it but she has fun learning tricks

Skarra would make fun of her fails and then pick her back up the very next second

God forbid Skarra leaves anyone in IU to look after Dee 💀💀 he caught her talking to Dooma once and the man was about to list his entire criminal record 😭

So Skarra definitely spoils her right. Like yea the pink buggy wasn't her style but that must have cost some pennies, and most importantly her custom jersey awwwwwww 🥺💕✨️ srsly if Skarra didn't care he wouldn't have spent a dime for her✋️

Next few are a continuation of this post which I MIGHT turn into a fic no promises:

Shakes helped a lost Dee find Skarra and once they found each other she kicked Shakes in the shins and they both laughed at him 🫶🥺

This happens on the same day as a game against IU so Shakes honestly thought it was a ploy to get him to miss it

Dee kept running around and being generally annoying so Shakes at his boiling point said "fuck it" and left Dee to wait by herself (remember this is the same guy that didn't give a damn about that kid in japan 💀☝️)

On his way to the stadium tho, he spots Skarra!!! Asking people around, looking for Dee!! He's missing the game to find his neice...who Shakes just abandoned...for the game...

He leads Skarra to Dee.

They have a nice reunion :) and figured at this point they can't make it to the game. No second-half surprise entrances this time!

This fic idea is basically my answer to what !should be! Shakes' biggest flaw and that is his unwillingness to compromise soccer for anything. Like in "beautiful gaming" as mentioned it gets to a point where it goes from admirably fighting for his dream to an unhealthy obsession that's a coverup for some deep-seated trauma and self-worth issues

The guy needs to get a life🙏

[raphaerolo]

Cloud + colour study turned out pretty <3

[theroyalmisfitmess]

People aren’t talking about this enough

Like do y’all not understand why I was more inclined to believe it might happen? Because what do you mean the scarf and the garnish looked so similar? I hate it here!

[nectarinesinthesun444]

In case you wanted another reason on why Neil is sub-textually gay, in the scene after the play when mr perry argues with Neil and Neil says “I’ve got to tell you what I feel” and mr perry says “is it more of this acting business?” and Neil is defeated and says “nothing”, it’s painfully obvious that mr perry has a suspicion that Neil is gay because he says that line “is it more of this acting business?” that insinuates this with the use of the word “it”. He has an inkling of what “it” is and Neil feels intimidated and exposed because of that, he knows that there’s more to what he’s feeling than just acting, he knows what “it” is and he can’t tell anyone. He knows he can’t answer mr perry’s question because it’s just too hard to get the words out and he knows it will make everything even worse in the already brutal situation he’s facing.

I know how he feels in terms of feeling something and only saying the more “acceptable” side of the story and keeping the less “acceptable” side of the story hidden and wanting to take it to the grave because it’s so stressful to face. Acting is everything to him. Acting and Todd and Keating awakened so many things in his mind and he knew what he wanted to live for.

[starry-bi-sky]

pouring one out for luo binghe in my disciple SQQ fic, poor guy has taken a backseat here. we're nearly 30k words deep and he hasn't even shown his face once. it'll be much longer before he even actually talks to Shen Qingqiu.

(i say im pouring one out but in reality im sitting in my director's chair chewing on a cigar and wearing a beret as he tearily and unsuccessfully pleads with me for more scenes with Shen Qingqiu)

[samdeancrimespree]

the wincest marriage parallels in roadkill are so. fucking blatant. like molly goes “the only time we fight like that is when we’re stuck in the car.” and sam goes “yeah, i know how that goes.” and dean kinda raises an eyebrow at him. and then she’s like “you know the last thing i said to him? i called him a jerk.” ??????!!??? ok writers we get it. sam is the wife. please shut up

[elevenenthusiast]

STRANGER THINGS has been telling its own Lord of the Rings since Season 1

And it’s always been leading to Will and Mike

“The Shire is burning.”

“Mordor it is.”

These weren’t just throwaway lines

They were signposts

Breadcrumbs

Season 1:

• The boys called the forest Mirkwood — already speaking in Tolkien

• Will the Wise enters the shadow

• Will disappears. Mike never stops searching

• Blue follows yellow through the dark

Season 4:

• Eddie: “The shire is burning, so Mordor it is.”

• Hopper takes up a sword like Aragorn

• Dmitri and Yuri arrive like the Eagles

• Dustin mourning Eddie mirrors Pippin and Boromir

• Hawkins cracks open — the west burns

At the heart of it

Two boys

Running toward each other across a battlefield of fire

Will is Frodo

The burdened one

Changed by the darkness

Haunted by something no one else can feel

Mike is Sam

The steady light

The heart that doesn’t give up

Not when it’s hard

Not when it’s hopeless

“I can’t carry it for you… but I can carry you.”

“When blue meets yellow in the west”

Not a riddle

Not background noise

A prophecy

Mike is blue

Will is yellow

And the west is where it all collides

Season 5 is their Mount Doom

Their storm

Their mirror

[gingergofastboatsmojito]

He wants to talk about it

He's right there

But she said it's FINE!!! AND IT'S NOT FINE BY ANY MEANS!

Nothing is fine. And no, it can't wait.

Can we stop blaming EVERYTHING ON HIM FFS?!?!!

He also tried here:

And here:

And here:

This is him trying too you know?

And this is him trying too:

And he tried this as well because he thought this was how he was gonna get her her star, which still might be the case, actually:

And here he was trying too:

IM SOOOOOOOOO JADED!

[lifeandeathepub]

mochizun heard y'all calling vnc queerbaiting and said NOT ON MY WATCH. absolute icon. gay people win again. polycule rights.

[battleshipgarcy]

In The Shadows

word count = 2,418

In a rain-soaked alley in Victorian London, Garcia shields Lucy as they avoid capture by the Rittenhouse agents who hunt them.

Notes: The other day, I meant to look at a few fics that I am kinda throwing around to see if they'll work. Two The King of the Delta Blues one-shots, and a The World's Columbian Exposition one-shot. But I got caught up reading about how to better write subtext, so I went looking for prompts and exercises that I could use to work on subtext using Garcy, and this fic came of it. It's not set during any specific episode of the OG26, but it does take place a couple months after Chinatown (ignoring Shitmas, ofc).

[risingmoonyue]

I was re-watching ep. 52 of Fairy Tail, and something interesting caught my eye.

When Lucy and her dad are talking, he specifically says (in the subtitles anyways) that “Heartfilia Railways was confiscated”. Which got me thinking, what can get a company confiscated? I’m operating with American laws, but I’m going to go ahead and assume that Japanese laws work more or less the same way from what I skimmed through.

I attached a screenshot of the definition via Cornell, but basically the gist that I understand is that the government can confiscate property or possessions for reasons like criminal justifications [aka drug paraphernalia, etc] or to satisfy a person’s debt. Based off this, is it too much to assume he was faced with consequences for hiring Phantom Lord to basically kidnap Lucy, and subsequently kicking off a guild war?

This is me admittedly just speculating with literally a google search’s understanding of basic confiscation law and I’m probably using the term incorrectly, but the thought that Jude actually faces consequences for his part in the whole thing is actually pretty interesting to me.

Food for thought I guess.

[trauma-express]

Simon was never even given a chance to beat the misogyny allegations bc he was the only main guy character in Book 3, so he only had conflict w girls/women 😔 (Tuba, Grace, Hazel, Amelia, Samantha)

but even in Book 2 he also make Lake cry and called Jesse weak for choosing compassion which could have toxic masculinity vibes since it was a parallel to the ‘man test’

[lunelicmoone]

tntduo and their need to commit to the bit has ruined the lives of everyone around them

[winterdaphne2]

Musings on Johnlock and Moftisson's Use of Dialogue from ACD Canon

I recently finished rereading the original ACD Sherlock Holmes stories, and I had a lot of fun spotting places where the BBC Sherlock writers lifted dialogue directly from the original canon and incorporated it into the show. For example, this exchange between Sherlock and Moriarty during the pool scene in TGG…

Moriarty: I would try to convince you, but everything I have to say has already crossed your mind. Sherlock: Probably my answer has crossed yours.

…comes from Holmes and Moriarty’s first meeting in “The Adventure of the Final Problem,” with only very slight modifications.

Moriarty: All that I have to say has already crossed your mind. Holmes: Then possibly my answer has crossed yours.

Another one of my favorites might be when Sherlock says “Sorry, I never could resist a touch of drama” to Mary in the Leinster Gardens scene in HLV. This line comes from “The Adventure of the Naval Treaty,” where Holmes shocks his client by revealing the missing treaty from under a serving dish and then says “…Watson here will tell you that I never can resist a touch of the dramatic.” (The Sherlock writers liked this one so much that they gave it a callback in TAB. In the church scene, Sherlock strikes a gong to catch the women’s attention and then says “Sorry, I could never resist a gong, or a touch of the dramatic.”)

There are lots of other examples!

What really caught my eye during my reread, though, were places where it seemed like the show writers lifted lines from the ACD stories, but then changed them in some way or incorporated them into the show in ways that changed their meanings or significance. I think there are a few places where they did this and perhaps made the dialogue more…Johnlocky.

There are four passages in particular that I’m thinking about. I would love to hear your thoughts on these!

 “Oscillation on the pavement always means there’s a love affair.” In TSOT, Sherlock says this to John as John looks out the window of the 221B sitting room and watches a potential client trying to make up her mind about whether to come in.

Sherlock: She’s a client. She’s boring. I’ve seen those symptoms before. Oscillation on the pavement always means there’s a love affair.

This comes from the ACD story “A Case of Identity”:

Holmes: I have seen those symptoms before. Oscillation upon the pavement always means an affaire de cœur.

The literal situation in the original story is very similar; Holmes is looking out the window of the sitting room and watching a potential client try to make up her mind about whether to come in. In the show, however, this line is much more significant than just an observation about a client. As many of us have recognized, in the show there’s some very important subtext going on because this is a reference to John’s oscillation on the pavement in TEH, when John came to visit Sherlock after their disastrous reunion but hesitated outside the door.

(gifs from @afishlearningpoetry, here)

So in the show, because the writers also included John’s oscillation on the pavement in the previous episode, this line becomes much more important. The text of the line itself is pretty much the same as in the original story and appears in a very similar immediate context, but the show writers changed the broader context to modify its meaning and significance. Now it’s about Sherlock and John and full of Johnlock subtext.

I also think the fact that we’re talking about a love affair is significant. This tells us that John feels torn between Mary and Sherlock after Sherlock’s return in TEH and he’s not really sure what to do about it. I wonder if this might be a clue that John was already thinking about cheating on Mary with Sherlock in TEH—we saw that he was prepared to do this a few months later during the stag night in TSOT. Read another way, perhaps the reference to an “affair” here indicates that John is already cheating on Sherlock by being with Mary, because the real love story in this show is always the one between Sherlock and John. Just a thought.

When they lifted this line from “A Case of Identity,” the show writers also changed the French phrase “affaire de cœur” to the English phrase “love affair.” I’m not a French speaker, but I think “affaire de cœur” might have the same meaning in French that “love affair” has in English—it’s not just referring to an “affair of the heart,” as in something to do with love, but to an actual affair. But please, if there are any French speakers reading this, I would love to hear what you think! If this phrase does have a different connotation in French, that could be really interesting.

“…he has many fine qualities of his own that he has overlooked in his obsession with me.” There are at least two lines from Sherlock’s best man speech that seem to have been inspired by the original stories, but changed slightly. Here’s the first one.

Sherlock: If I burden myself with a little help-mate during my adventures, it is not out of sentiment or caprice—it is that he has many fine qualities of his own that he has overlooked in his obsession with me.

This comes from “The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier,” one of only two stories in the original canon narrated by Holmes instead of Watson. In the original story, Holmes writes this:

Holmes: Speaking of my old friend and biographer, I would take this opportunity to remark that if I burden myself with a companion in my various little inquiries it is not done out of sentiment or caprice, but it is that Watson has some remarkable characteristics of his own, to which in his modesty he has given small attention amid his exaggerated estimates of my own performances.

Sherlock’s line in TSOT is a bit harsher towards John than what Holmes writes in the original story, but it comes in the section of the speech where Sherlock is purposely trying to make himself look like a jerk. Sherlock is deliberately self-deprecating right after this, explaining that “…if I didn’t understand I was being asked to be best man, it is because I never expected to be anybody’s best friend. Certainly not the best friend of the bravest and kindest and wisest human being I have ever had the good fortune of knowing.” So perhaps we shouldn’t take Sherlock too seriously when reading this line in particular.

Even so, it seems notable to me that the show writers changed the end of the quote and specifically chose to have Sherlock use the word “obsession” to describe John’s attitude towards him. That word isn’t in the passage from the ACD story, so I feel like the writers must have put it there for a reason. To me, “obsession” feels like much stronger language that what Holmes wrote and is more suggestive of love or infatuation than of a platonic relationship.

Moreover, I wonder if Sherlock’s use of the word “obsession” here is also meant to give us a clue as to how Sherlock sees John’s feelings towards him at this point in the narrative. Personally, I think Sherlock has known or suspected that John is in love with him ever since he overheard John and Irene’s conversation at Battersea in ASIB. But I also think that by the time we get to S3 (and especially to HLV) Sherlock and John have both come to believe that their love for each other is destructive and dangerous. (I could write a much longer meta about this, and might do so at some point.) So to me, perhaps Moftisson using the word “obsession” here is meant to indicate that Sherlock believes John’s love for him is unhealthy, or that John doesn’t see him clearly. It’s a very sad thought. But then again, I might be reading too much into this, because after all, this is the part of the speech that Sherlock later tells us to dismiss by revealing that he purposely meant to make himself look bad here.

Although actually that’s still pretty sad, because Sherlock is basically saying that he doesn’t deserve John. So I guess either way, Moftisson took what was actually a pretty sweet and complementary thing that Holmes said about Watson in the original canon and made it part of the evidence that Sherlock is feeling quite down on himself by this point in the narrative of the show.

“…but then, you know, he’s a romantic.” In the best man speech, we also get this line from Sherlock when he’s talking about John’s blog and how John writes up their cases.

Sherlock: Of course, he does tend to romanticize things a bit, but then, you know, he’s a romantic.

In the original ACD stories, Holmes often critiques Watson’s writing style and how he presents their cases in his stories for the Strand and other magazines. One of the first instances of this takes place in The Sign of Four, where Holmes critiques Watson’s write-up of A Study in Scarlet.

Holmes: I glanced over it. Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid. Watson: But the romance was there. I could not tamper with the facts. Holmes: Some facts should be suppressed, or, at least, a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them. The only point in the case which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning from effects to causes, by which I succeeded in unravelling it. Watson [narrating to the reader]: I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been specially designed to please him. I confess, too, that I was irritated by the egotism which seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet should be devoted to his own special doings.

We could probably have a whole separate conversation about the queer subtext in this passage, but I’ll try to stick to the aspects of this that I think are particularly relevant here. First, Holmes specifically uses the word “romanticism,” basically saying what Sherlock said in the show when he said that John tends to “romanticize” their cases. So this is pretty similar! But what I think is different is that in the passage from The Sign of Four, Holmes is criticizing Watson’s writing in a negative fashion, is actively pointing out areas for improvement, and seems a bit peeved, or at least not wholly impressed. Watson certainly takes it that way, since he writes that he was “annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been specially designed to please him.”

In contrast, Moftisson softened Sherlock’s comments significantly for the best man speech. He’s not actually picking a bone with John like Holmes is in the original canon. Sherlock is still saying that John is “a romantic” who “romanticizes” their cases together, but he doesn’t mean it in a bad way!

(gif from thejohnlocked, here)

And now here’s the sad part, because this is BBC Sherlock, after all. When Sherlock says this, his voice drops in pitch a bit and sounds sadder, more subdued. He also looks down, avoiding eye contact with John. So the way this line appears in the show, it’s about Sherlock acknowledging that John is a romantic in the context of John marrying someone else. Sherlock knows that side of John isn’t directed solely or mostly at him anymore.

“Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it.” In TLD, Sherlock says this to Faith after he realizes that she’s seriously thinking about committing suicide.

Sherlock: “Taking your own life.” Interesting expression. Taking it from who? Oh, once it’s over, it’s not you who’ll miss it. Your own death is something that happens to everybody else. Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it.

This comes from “The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger,” where Holmes also encounters a woman who has a plan to commit suicide and talks her out of it. Moffat wrote TLD, and he took these two sentences in particular straight from the original story with no wording changes:

Holmes: Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it.

There’s not much that I like about S4, but I do think this is one place where the writers actually improved on a line from the original canon and used it very effectively in the show. In this scene from TLD, it’s so clear that Sherlock is talking about his own fake suicide. His small speech to Faith demonstrates that he feels deep, genuine regret over his actions on the rooftop that day because of what his fake death did to John.

In the original canon, “The Veiled Lodger” is set in 1896 (see here), so it takes place after Holmes’s fake death at the Reichenbach Falls in 1891 and his return to London in 1894. The dialogue that surrounds the two sentences that Moffat pulled is more about the minor character than about Holmes, though, so although it’s possible that Holmes was thinking of his own fake death when he said them, it’s not as obvious as it is in the show.

In TLD, Sherlock first says “Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it,” to Faith as she’s leaving 221B, similarly to how Holmes says this to the minor character at the end of their interview in “The Veiled Lodger.” But Moffat decided to have Sherlock say these lines again later on when they’re by the water, and in that scene he added this part to Sherlock’s dialogue, which isn’t in the original story and makes it clear what Sherlock is really talking about:

Sherlock: “Taking your own life.” Interesting expression. Taking it from who? Oh, once it’s over, it’s not you who’ll miss it. Your own death is something that happens to everybody else.

If we accept S4 as the official ending of the show, then Sherlock’s fake suicide in TRF is the crucial turning point in Sherlock and John’s love story. It is the terrible event that they are never able to recover from, and it sets in motion all of the pain that follows after. (This is also something I could write a much longer meta about.) So having Sherlock express such deep regret over it in TLD was actually a very powerful move on Moffat’s part. So yeah, that’s at least one good writing choice in S4. (*Screams*)

Anyway, this is what’s been on my mind recently, and I would love to hear what you think in the reblogs and replies! Thank you for reading 😊

[my-otp-list]

truelove.jpeg