justtwomushrooms

[justtwomushrooms]

Hi my name is John Watson and this is my long, thin friend Sherlock Holmes

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Decided to draw one of my favorite moments in The Hound of the Baskervilles as Sherlock Hound...

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“The Great Mouse Detective” concept art

[justtwomushrooms]

Does anyone else ever think about just how QUIET Watson is? He talks much more in later canon, but he’s mostly very silent, soaking everything in.

Maybe it’s just that he doesn’t write his own reactions very often, because he thinks that he’s less interesting to the reader than Holmes.

But Holmes mentions that Watson has a “grand gift of silence” so I think he’s just a quiet guy.

It does add to the idea that I’ve built up in my head of him, that he’s this strong silent man, very stoic and very steady.

Which is a really interesting contrast to Holmes, who is constantly MOVING and TALKING. In fact, I think that it creates a conflict within both characters’ personalities. Holmes’ mannerisms are loud and hyperactive; but he’s the one who notices things, and is the thinker. Meanwhile, Watson is a quiet listener, but he’s also the man of action. He is stubborn and passionately emotional, as opposed to Holmes who is more calm and calculating.

I literally have no clue where this whole essay came from lol

[justtwomushrooms]

so ok, I've been thinking about this movie again and need to get my thoughts about it out of my system.

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)

is such an insane movie to me bc this 2 hour long movie essentially consists of two parts. The first half hour and the later rest of 1 hour 30 minutes.

and the 1:30, the actual movie I would argue, I genuinely like so much. It has a fun silly plot with genuinely great characters and pacing. I love the way the movie is subtle yet clear about what it does. It doesn't take its plot or characters and slaps them in your face with obvious explanations about what's going on but instead shows you, like I said, subtle and clear and makes it still easy to follow.

I also almost forgive them for giving Holmes a(n) (Irene Adler inspired) love interest, which is HIGH praise coming from me.

and then there is the first half hour. And it's a feverdream of a story. Holmes and Watson are invited to a play (of swan lake I'm pretty sure) and Holmes is taken away to talk with a lady in private. She isn't entirely direct in what her goal is with this, throughout the conversation it seems to be about her missing husband that Holmes then offers to try and find. She corrects the course of the conversation and it is revealed that instead she searches for a suitable father (/sperm donor) of a future child. And as such Holmes seems to be a potential candidate. Holmes wasn't her first choice though, prior picks just couldn't come through due to various reasons. One of the earlier picks being Tchaikovsky (the composer of swan lake). Curious I wondered if the movie knew that, to my knowledge and to the extent that you can say that about a historic figure, that man was gay. And the movie continues with a half joke about how women weren't Tchaikovskys "cup of tea". The movie does know! Incredible!

As they ask Holmes more directly about the offer they're proposing, he explains that women also, like in the case of Tchaikovsky, aren't his cup of tea and further hints at Watson and him ~ living together for a long time now ~ as bachelors ~ etc. etc.

Cut to Watson who wasn't allowed to be part of the conversation and instead spend the time backstage where he was given a drink and (female) dancers to enjoy. And so Watson was drunkenly having fun with multiple women in both arms. But during/ after Holmes' separate conversation, person for person starts whispering some secret information behind Watson's back which leads to the female dancers in his arms being replaced with male dancers one by one. (This might be the funniest scene of any movie I have ever seen and maybe will ever see, my god.) Once Watson realises, he gets angry. I don't remember much of more of that scene.

Cut, we are back at Bakerstreet, our boys are having a heated argument. Watson is enraged by the potential following rumors of them being an item. Holmes tries to explain he just wanted to get out of the situation and that was the easiest way out. Watson tries to think of a way to "undo the damage", as I'm gonna put it, and proposes that they marry. Holmes gets confused as to how that would clear the rumors - Watson, without noticing Holmes, proceeds to explain about the multiple women he has across of three continents. (Ah yes, Holmes and the viewer realise, earlier he meant marrying women not eachother.) Watson continues that surely Holmes also has had past relationships with women. Then Watson freezes. Did he?

"I don't want to be presumptuous..." he tries to ask.

"Yes!" Holmes proclaims. (Ah yes, Watson and the viewer think, he has had relationships with women.)

"You are being presumptuous!" Holmes finishes his sentence. (Oh shit, Watson and the viewer think, nevermind to that then.)

(that scene still feels so much like 'coming out to your best friend gone wrong' to me, it's almost silly)

And then, as mentioned above, the movie proceeds to give Holmes a (ofc female) love interest throughout the rest of the movie and additionally, somewhere in the middle, a small conversation about how he has had past relationships with women but he ended up getting betrayed or they died or whatever so it never worked out. This story with his love interest ends the same way with him getting betrayed and I think her dying at the very end, off screen.

And I think I understand what the movie wanted to do. It wanted to answer the age-old question of "is Holmes gay?"

and it said "nonono, Holmes just dated the wrong women and then gave up bc of heartbreak or whatever."

but the way they did it? spend an entire half hour of the movie, that is unrelated to anything else, to essentially set you up thinking that he is, indeed, gay. and doing that so aggressively and clearly and vocally. And then proceeding to then give him a very quiet and subtle heterosexual love interest side plot, which is only ever actually happening at the very end of the movie (before, most of the movie they were, in my eyes, very much just client and detective working together. They had scenes that had clear potential of showing romantic interest but explicitly showed none (she being in dessous sleepwalking, thinking Holmes was her husband and seducing him to which he showed 0 interest and barely acknowledged it lmao))

so yea, insane movie. Feel like they accidentally circled back around and did actually make Holmes gay but just kind of on accident, I don't know. It's really fun tho, I do absolutely recommend the film.

[justtwomushrooms]

Thought I'd post my recent Christmas present from my Mum as I haven't seen these fellas in any holmesian tags

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Rewatching Rathbone and Bruce as Holmes and Watson in Pursuit to Algiers. This is my favourite scene: the romantic theme deliberately set up by the couple dancing, leading into Holmes almost sitting in Watson’s lap.

[justtwomushrooms]

John Watson Headcannon I've been thinking about for a while: Not all of the women coming to 221B were coming for Sherlock Holmes' help. John Watson is a discreet man a good surgeon, and a competent doctor.

What I'm saying is that the good doctor sometimes performed illegal abortions.

[justtwomushrooms]

will my EE most likely be about ACD's queer coding? Yes, fuck you. My country may hate gay people (esp in education) but if no one's got me I know Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's got me

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Spoilers about the sign of four.

I’m surprised at the extent of the dehumanisation and racism in the sign of four although I don’t know why it surprises me.

The framing the colonisation of India as something they had a right to, framing the people who lived there as “savage”. And the treatment of Tonga, who just, jeez. The fact that Holmes just shot him and no one bothered to find out if he was still alive and look to find him in the river. He was treated as subhuman the whole time and I honestly can’t recall if he got to speak a word in the whole narrative.

It’s how unfortunately many indigenous people are portrayed in media, not allowed to speak for themselves and just the background for some white persons story.

Idk it’s just sad that in this story the narrative never stepped in to say that this racism was wrong. We got a few moments that spoke to feminism, recognition of the horror of the murders, and then our main character Sherlock Holmes and narrator Watson never questioned the horrid racism we saw and in fact added to it. I was reading a very different story then one Conan Doyle intended to write, one about the horrors of colonialism, racism and dehumanisation of black and indigenous people. It disturbed me more then the actual murders frankly.

And I’m not surprised to find such vicious racism in a book set in the what, 1890s? I’m just somewhat surprised that someone could put this all down in black and white and still somehow believe that they’re in the right.

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Once again asking people to rifle through canon and find me their favorite quotes of:

Dr John H. Watson being an absolute bisexual disaster

Literally there is no helping this man. You KNOW he’s hopeless when he says shit like “As I looked at his dark and expressive face I felt more than ever how true a descendant he was of that long line of high-blooded, fiery and masterful men. There were pride, valor, and strength in his thick brows, his sensitive nostrils, and his large hazel eyes…” He has known this man for less than two days, and he’s already like ‘yeah, I’d die for you.’

Less popular but no less ridiculous are his…intense…descriptions of Mr and Mrs Trelawny Hope: “Dark, clear-cut, and elegant, hardly yet of middle age, and endowed with every beauty of body and of mind…”

“A moment later our modest apartment…was further honored by the entrance of the most lovely woman in London…no description of it, and no contemplation of colourless photographs, had prepared me for the subtle, delicate charm and the beautiful coloring of that exquisite head.”

“His handsome face was distorted with a spasm of despair…for a moment we caught a glimpse of the natural man, impulsive, ardent, keenly sensitive.”

“It was a queenly presence - tall, graceful, and intensely womanly.”

Every person he meets is the hottest person he’s ever met. Everyone is sexy to him and he makes it our problem. We love him for it.

[justtwomushrooms]

Sherlock Being a Drama Queen: pt 2: A Scandal In Bohemia

Hasn’t seen his bestie for like a month, as soon as said bestie comes to visit ropes him into hiding the king’s scandalous affair with a crossdressing opera singer,

Bestie is about to leave, so he gets him to stay by going “I am lost without my Boswell” instead of just saying, I dunno, ‘I wanna hang out with you’? Also when bestie tries to leave again, grabs him by the wrist and pushes him into a chair.

When the king walks in disguised, he reveals in the most snarky way possible that he knew their client was the king

King asks bestie to leave, Holmes goes “It is both or none.”

“Pooh Pooh! Forgery.”

Yawns and pretends to have more important things to do than helping the kings.

Gets in disguise and is so convincing that he accidentally ends up helping the king’s ex get married, and nearly dies of laughter afterward.

Gets bestie to smoke bomb said ex while he fakes an injury to get into her house

Realizes he’s been outsmarted by a woman, overcomes his misogyny, keeps her photograph and dramatically refers to her as “THE woman” for all time.

[justtwomushrooms]

have i ever fully watched or read an acd era story? no. will that stop me from being menaced by them? also no.

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Close enough happy 144th anniversary Sherlock Holmes and John Watson!

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genuinely hysterical shit. "oh i didn't notice" said the noticer. you gay bitch

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My Holmes and Watson 'walking arm in arm' gifset is making the rounds today, and it is all I can do not to collar everyone who is excitedly burbling about them doing THE THING!!! THEY'RE DOING THE THING!!! and say, "Do you know I made a whole vid about them walking arm in arm? Do you? Do you? It exists and you can watch it!"

Walking and talking with a girl like you Is the sweetest thing any boy can do

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I broke through that cloud of despair and had a glimpse of Holmes's face, white, rigid, and drawn with horror—the very look which I had seen upon the features of the dead. It was that vision which gave me an instant of sanity and of strength. I dashed from my chair, threw my arms round Holmes, and together we lurched through the door.

HELLO I AM GOING FERAL OVER THIS SCENE

Watson not even having the wherewithal to scream as the poison hits him, completely helpless, but then he sees a glance of Holmes resembling the dead bodies they found and just SUPERMANS THEM BOTH OUT OF THERE. Under the cloud of all things dreadful and devilish and horrible, nothing could compare to the horror of seeing his friend dead, and he breaks through its hold on him to save them both. GODDDDD