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Hey, Granada Sherlock Holmes lovers, quite an important question here....

Do you think John Watson and Irene Adler have Bisexual Solidarity or Bisexual Rivalry?

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Sherlock & Co. Charles Augustus Milverton part 1 thoughts and spoilers

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This new episode is definitely one of my favourites! I love that Sherlock cooked for Mariana and John, I love that we're getting "moustachioed" Watson (although I think it's safe to say that we all were already imagining him with one up to this point), I love that Sherlock's got his iconic pipe and deerstalker, and I adore that we got to not only see John show-off his knowledge as a doctor about his knee injury, but that we also heard his outburst about his trauma regarding his past leg injury. Thanks for the prick jokes by the way, Stammo. But as nice as all the fluffy stuff was, and I always appreciate moments like it in any adaptation, I'm quite nervous about what's going to happen next. Introducing Milverton is always a huge turning point. And judging by Sherlock's outburst at Milverton's mention of "the spider", I think it's safe to say that Moriarty himself is coming soon. I don't think he'll show up in this case, but I do think that the next few parts will be quite tough for our Baker Street bunch. Especially Sherlock. Maybe bringing up Moriarty will cause Mycroft to make an appearance at last? Might just be my wishful thinking. But I hope that the next part will have Sherlock opening up more to Mariana and John about his past with Milverton, like the fact he most certainly broke into the bloke's house while Mariana and John were away last case, judging by Milverton's threat. And, as much as I think this may be what happens, I really hope that Milverton doesn't use that punch John gave him as blackmail against him in order to make a jab at Sherlock by targeting a person he so clearly cares about.

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Four words. Mycroft's violent carrier pigeons.

reblog with a spoiler for your wip with zero context. no context allowed.

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Hullo!

Reblog if you’re still an active member of the BBC Sherlock / Granada holmes / acd community

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I do love a good BAMF John Watson fic... but I also adore soft John Watson. John Watson allowing people to look after him. John Watson discovering new ways to be better. John Watson learning. John Watson and his endless fascination and of course, his endlessly fascinating boyfriend companion, Sherlock Holmes.

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Thank you, this actually helped be feel better about my own current case of the morbs. :)

Y'know that feeling of absolute inability to do anything other than lay in your bed when you get home late? Yeah.

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No wonder Holmes called him a conductor of light, he is pure sunshine <3

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You can make Holmes and watson look like whatever you want. Anyone who says they have to be white/skinny/whatever is a loser. BUT. There is one super super important thing that you cannot ever change, which is that Watson has to be HOT. Doesn’t matter what he looks like as long as that man is a total dreamboat. If you make Holmes look cool and then make Watson a goofy looking dork, you are missing the point by a fucking mile. HOLMES is the goofy looking dork. Watson is the astonishingly handsome swoon-worthy hero in these stories and EVERYONE should have a crush on him.

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I always have an angsty soft spot for the thought of Holmes and Watson remeeting eachother in different timelines/retellings. Apart of me wants to write a fanfic where Holmes and Watson are doing their first meeting again for the hundredth time, but this time they remember eachother the moment their eyes meet. A whole "you're as beautiful as the day I lost you" moment.

For the latest round of Holmestice, I got to fill @beamkatanachronicles's amazing prompt of editing @lalage's beautiful piece 25 Lives into a multiverse Holmes & Watson one! Did I spend way too much time overthinking every single choice? Yes. Was it worth it? Absolutely.

Verses cheatlist: 1. The Sign of Four (1923) 2. Sherlock Holmes (1916) 3. A Study in Terror (1965) 4. Мой нежно любимый детектив (1986) 5. Young Sherlock Holmes (1985) 6. Sherlock Holmes (1922) 7. Шерлок Холмс (2013) 8. The Last Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1923) 9. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1985) 10. The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1986-1987) 11. Sherlock (2010) 12. Приключения Шерлока Холмса и Доктора Ватсона (1980) 13. The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976) 14. They Might be Giants (1971) 15. Sherlock Holmes (1912) 16. Without a Clue (1988) 17. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) 18. Pursuit to Algiers (1945) 19. Sherlock Holmes (1968) 20. Elementary (2012) 21. Sherlock Holmes (2009) 22. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson (1979) 23. ミス・シャーロック (2018) 24. Sherlock Holmes (1954)

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That shoulder grip though <3

Holmes, relax mate, no one's going to take him away from you.

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This headcanon/scenario has me kicking my feet and giggling like an idiot, I swear I adore fan theories like this the most. Ones that are based off of things ACD was apart of, around and effected by, or references in his time period are the best.

Ever since I found out that ACD was one of the judges at a competition for "most perfectly developed body" (run by strongman Eugen Sandow at the Royal Albert Hall in 1901) I've been obsessed with the idea that Holmes has a bit of a fixation on bodybuilders. He probably has a pin up of Eugen Sandow somewhere. Maybe Watson is a bit miffed about it until Holmes tells him that it's because he has a preference for powerful men with mustaches. Then Watson has a moment of revelation. 👀👀👀

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The thing about that passage is less "My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way in which I uttered them," which is already a lot but more the "I had already observed that he was as sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be to her beauty," demonstrating that:

Watson is observant, particularly when it comes to how to charm people around him

He's been giving a close enough study to Holmes' personality to know how specifically to flatter him (he has tried this previously and noted that this works!)

He is specifically doing this TO flatter Holmes in a way he equates to complimenting a woman on her appearance, which immediately evokes flirtation

As evidenced by Holmes' reaction, it clearly works, he's clearly good at this, and this is all him indulging in the least subtle humble bragging of all time in a public forum

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Attention all Sherlock & Co. Fans!

Our beloved pilot has been animated by some wonderfully talented artists in our fandom! Go check it out!!

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YOU GET IT!!

from the granada ask!

8. If you could own one prop from the set, what would it be?

Oh, good question! If given the opportunity, I would definitely nick that poncho Holmes gave to Watson in The Cardboard Box:

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from the granada ask!

8. If you could own one prop from the set, what would it be?

Oh, good question! If given the opportunity, I would definitely nick that poncho Holmes gave to Watson in The Cardboard Box:

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Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Resident Patient; The Adventure of the Cardboard Box 

A bit of information about 221b decor (and more)

So, one of Holmes and Watson’s clients entering their living room about 1886 would have found its walls decorated, most likely, by the reproduction of one of the above famous portraits of General Charles George Gordon, as well as by the reproduction of one of the above famous portraits of Henry Ward Beecher.

We can infer from the canonical quote above, that both were Watson’s contribution to the lodgings’ furnishing: Holmes says “YOUR newly framed picture of General Gordon”, and Beecher’s portrait stands upon WATSON’S books. The fact that one of them was “newly framed”, while the other was still lacking a frame, indicates probably a recent acquisition on Watson’s part, even if, I think, not a simultaneous one, otherwise Watson would have had the portrait of Beecher framed, too, when he brought Gordon’s one to the framer’s. Besides, while Watson had already found a suitable place and hung Gordon’s portrait, from Holmes’ comment it’s apparent that he was pondering in that precise moment where Beecher’s one could better fit.

My personal educated guess (read: headcanon) is that Watson bought Gordon’s portrait not long after the news of Gordon’s tragic death, which occurred on 26 January 1885, and on the surge of public emotion caused by it. Some time later, maybe on the occasion of the following Christmas, maybe following the death of Beecher in March 1887 and knowing that Watson would have liked a memento like the one he had bought of Gordon, Holmes, remembering passionate conversations with Watson about his ‘heroes’ Gordon AND Beecher (also hinted at in the above quote), decided to present his friend with a portrait of the latter, which could be an appreciated pendant to Gordon’s picture. (After all who, if not Sherlock Holmes, should be able to deduce the perfect gift for anybody?!? And even more so for his best friend and co-lodger!)

That Watson was a huge fan of these two people tells us quite something about our good Doctor.

[WARNING: Biographical digression begins!]

Charles George Gordon, aka ‘Chinese Gordon’, aka ‘Gordon Pasha’, aka ‘Gordon of Karthoum’ was probably the most famous British general of his age and, at the time of his death, was regarded by the majority of British public opinion as an heroic, almost Christologic figure (even if many of more recent historians provide - quite rightly, according to me - a by far more critical appraisal of the man), probably reinforced by his well known strong and a bit mystical religious beliefs. Contemporary biographies had almost invariably a quite hagiographic undertone, and therefore that was his image about the British population in those years (and probably still is, to many, also thanks to Ardrey’s famous 1966 film). Gordon firstly made his military reputation in China, where he was placed in command of a force of Chinese soldiers led by European officers. In the early 1860s, this army was instrumental in putting down the Taiping Rebellion (probably the first ‘total war’ of modern history, with estimated casualties amounting to 20 millions or more, and for the first time a prevailing civilian component amongst them), regularly defeating much larger forces. For these accomplishments, he was given the nickname “Chinese” Gordon and honours from both the Emperor of China and the British. Back in England, following the death of his father he undertook extensive social work and donated the gardens of his official residence to the public, thus gaining a philantropic reputation. But his properly 'heroic’ image was built after he, in 1873, entered the service of the Khedive (with the British government’s approval) and then became Governor-General of Sudan, where he did much to suppress revolts and the slave trade. Exhausted, he resigned and returned to Europe in 1880, where he spent a couple of weeks in the Hotel du Faucon in Lausanne, probably because there had lodges also Giusppe Garibaldi, one of HIS heroes (ok, forgive this moment of national pride…). When a serious revolt exploded in Sudan, led by a Muslim reformer and self-proclaimed Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad, Gordon was sent again to Khartoum by the British Government (January 1884), with instructions to secure the evacuation and then depart. After evacuating about 2,500 British civilians, however, with the rebels advancing against Karthoum, Gordon retained a smaller group of soldiers and non-military men. Besieged by the Mahdi’s forces, Gordon organized a city-wide defence, which lasted almost a year and gained him the admiration of the British public, AND embarassed and annoyed the government, which had not wished to be so entangled in the rebellion. Only when public pressure to act had become too great did the government reluctantly send a relief force, which, however,arrived only two days after the city had fallen and Gordon had been killed, at age 51. The public outcry and indignation was immense, and Gordon was regarded almost as a martyr. His death led to an “unprecedented wave of public grief across Britain” and, in the following years, portraits of him and romanticized pictures of his death became quite popular amongst the British public; several memorials were built thanks to public subscriptions.

Henry Ward Beecher was American, the son of a Calvinist minister and a clergyman himself, albeit, possibly as a reaction to his father’s stern religious views, he developed a theology emphasizing God’s love above all else, and a novel (and very successful: he basically supported himself and his causes by the high fees he charged for his lectures, being a very popular lecturer) oratorical style, in which he employed humor, dialect, and slang. Himself a famous social reformer, Beecher had several siblings, many of whom became well-known educators and activists, most notably Harriet Beecher Stowe, who achieved worldwide fame with her abolitionist novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Beecher became involved in many social issues of his day, most notably abolition. In his essay Shall We Compromise, he attacked the Compromise of 1850, an agreement between anti-slavery and pro-slavery forces which banned slavery from California and Washington, D.C. at the cost of a more severe Fugitive Slave Act: Beecher argued that it was a Christian’s duty to feed and shelter escaped slaves, and that slavery and liberty were fundamentally incompatible, making compromise impossible (“One or the other must die”). When a conflict between anti-slavery and pro-slavery forces broke out in Kansas, in 1854, Beecher raised funds to send rifles to abolitionist forces, stating that the weapons would do more good than “a hundred Bibles”. The press subsequently nicknamed the weapons “Beecher’s Bibles”. In 1863, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln sent Beecher on a speaking tour in Europe to gain support for the Union cause - and this is evidently the occasion referred to by Holmes in the above quote. Beecher’s speeches helped to turn European public opinion against the pro-slavery Confederate States and to prevent its recognition by foreign powers. Watson was only a child at the time, and it’s therefore unlikely - albeit not impossible - that he heard any of Beecher’s lectures in person, but he probably read about them following his keen interest in Beecher’s life and ideals. After the war, Beecher also strongly supported the temperance movement (he was a committed teetotaller himself) and became a leader in the movement for women’s suffrage. On the other hand, he supported social darwinist ideas and preached strongly against strikes and strikers, believing that businessmen and captains of industry should be the leaders of society. He also was a quite renown womanizer, and ended up involved in an adultery trial which raised a scandal of national (and international: George Sand planned to write a novel about it, but never managed to begin it before dying) proportions, the so-called “Beecher-Tilton Scandal”, which alienated him from many fellow women’s rights leaders - included his sister Isabella Beecher Hooker. He died in his sleep on 8 March 1887 (aged 73), having suffered a stroke some days before.

[END of biographical digression]

Now, of course, we cannot know exactly how much, and what, Watson shared with these two men with respect to their ideas - of course, he could as well have agreed upon some of them, and disagreed on others.

Nonetheless, it’s interesting to notice what they have in common:

Both of them - albeit in different ways and different continents - actively fought against slavery and played an important role in taking it down.

They had both strong, charismatic characters, were natural leaders, had very strong - albeit occasionally eccentric - personalities, and were basically born fighters, even if they fought in different ways.

They had both, each one in his own way, a strong commitment to social work and social development (even if occasionally driven by questionable ideas…) and were, to some extent and with all their limits and all the due differences, 'revolutionaries’.

They had both a strong religious, spiritual drive and some messianic trait, in a way - they were certainly persuaded that God backed up their causes, and their faith inspired their choices and commitments.

So, what do all these things tell us about Watson?

Well, I’d guess they basically confirm some things we already knew about the good Doctor, and maybe suggest something more. That Watson was a man who admired strong, leading personalities we know from his admiration and devotion to Sherlock Holmes. That he was, himself, a “man of action”, and thus couldn’t but admire other men of action, Holmes tells us more than once, and is also apparent from what Watson tells us about his role in Holmes’ adventures. That he was - just like his literary agent, Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle - a peculiar mixture of solid British conservativism and rebellious free spirit, all topped by a dominating chivalrous spirit which led him to run to the defense of the innocent, the weak, the defenseless, we can infer from the whole Canon. Whenever Holmes breaks the law to pursue what he deems a fairer output, a more just solution, Watson is with him; whenever there is a lady in distress, an innocent unjustly accused, someone who has suffered a wrongdoing, Watson’s heart (and arm…) go to them. Can we also infer an interest, on Watson’s part, for religious, or at least spiritual, issues? Well, in the Canon there are not direct references to such an interest; and yet, we know that Watson read Carlyle (STUD) and Jean Paul Richter (SIGN) and had enough interest in philosophy to mark Holmes’ lack of interest in it as one of his top limits at the beginning of their acquaintance (STUD). More than this, I guess, we cannot tell - maybe he had a more active interest in religion than Sherlock Holmes, maybe, instead, he was just interested in the philosophical aspects of it, but I’d dare say that he, like his best friend, kept to some kind of spiritual (not spiritistic!) belief.

In any case, Watson keeping posters of his idols on the walls of his lodgings and fangirling over them is so terribly endearing!

;-)

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Regarding my previous post; the people have spoken! Thank you to all that voted! I will say that the fanfic I'm currently writing is a short story/bit of a drabble, and I am much more accustomed to writing longer fics, so forgive me if the pace seems a bit rushed so far. This is also my first time writing from Watson's perspective (I usually write in third person narration), so wish me luck in doing the brilliant man justice!

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The Adventure of The Retired Detective

"My dear Holmes and I have been with each other for a grand forty years now. Though, he and I have only been retired for twelve. Twelve years ago we solved our last case, a particularly harrowing one it was, and soon after we agreed that we properly should settle down together in our ripening age. It may come as no surprise to my readers to learn that my companion did show some reluctance in this plan, but I have thankfully learned the art of persuasion when it comes to him in particular. We moved out of our familiarly busy flat of 221B Baker Street, much to the lamenting of Mrs. Hudson and surprising relief of my partner’s older brother Mycroft, and Holmes and I instead bought a cosy cottage in Sussex. In our new home, Holmes took up the much less dangerous hobby of bee-keeping. Though he still often does the odd chemistry experiment or two, and I have gotten to indulge more in my passion for writing. If you had asked either of us years before, we most likely would have both agreed that we could never imagine us enjoying such a domestic and sedentary life style. Yet here we are. I now the age of seventy, Holmes now the age of sixty-eight, and the two of us safe and sound in the countryside together. Or, at least, that’s what I thought. This morning, just after breakfast when Holmes went out to our back garden to tend to his beloved hive of bees, I received a startling letter in the post. A letter from Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade, an old friend from Scotland Yard that Holmes and I have not heard from or seen since we left London so long ago. I couldn’t help but feel a tug of anxiety upon my heart as I gripped the coffee-stained parchment in my hands, and I was soon met with the discovery that my concerns were not unfounded. For the letter was not an innocent note of sentiment but infact a very urgent request from Lestrade begging for my dear Holmes and I to come out of retirement, hop over to London on the next available train, and help solve one more case. One more mystery. One more adventure. I found myself giving a huff of disbelief at reading the message, and then heavily slumping down into my armchair by the fireplace to worry about what to do. There was a time that receiving a letter such as this would inspire excitement in me, that I would waste no time in sharing the news with my partner and getting to work at once. But now I feel an ominous hold threatening to grip and shake the peace Holmes and I have carved out for ourselves here. Now I worry more for my dearest’s safety. It was a habit I couldn’t help but develop over the years to hold a high care for Holmes’ well-being, especially after the incident with the infamous (and hopefully damned) professor Moriarty, and now the idea of potentially leaping back into danger immediately fills my mind of what new trouble Holmes may be susceptible to these days. I must not be misunderstood; my partner has made it quite clear to me on multiple occasions that he is not at all senile, but previous readers will no doubt understand my concerns..."