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Thanks for the tag! I've never done one of these before, so here it goes!

Colour: Brown Food: Buttered toast or macaroons Beverage: Earl grey tea Movie: Victor and the Secret of Crocodile Mansion TV Show: Granada's Sherlock Holmes series with Jeremy Brett, BBC Sherlock, and Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries Book: Any of the original Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but especially The Hound of The Baskervilles Animal: Mice or Hedgehogs Singer: I don't have one Song: Last Carnival by Norihiro Tsuru Time of day: Dusk if it's raining, midnight if it's not Song lyric: "Don't dare regret anything. Remember what you're here for. You just play your violin, and we will manage somehow." - Mitski Emoji: 🏳️‍⚧️ Tagging, for if you want to join! @fogdraws @holmosexualitea @anerdynerd

reblog with your favorite:

color: purple

food: french fries

beverage: dr pepper

movie: the parent trap

tv show: percy jackson and the olympians

book: neverseen (fight me on this🦅🦅💥💥)

animal: sloth

singer: toss up between taylor olivia maisie gracie and sabrina

song (atm): good luck, babe!

time of day: midnight

song lyric: address the letters to the holes in my butterfly wings, nothing’s forever, nothing’s as good as it seems

emoji: 🧐(im not kidding)

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He's just so *yippee!*, you know?

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Every time a new episode of Sherlock & Co. comes out, I can't help but get extremely excited for Mycroft to be eventually introduced and for The Hound of The Baskervilles case to happen. I really hope that they handle Mycroft's character well, like the Granada series did, and don't make he and Sherlock basically despise eachother in rivalry like BBC's Sherlock. And The Hound of The Baskervilles is just my favorite story in the original canon, and I can't help but beg and imagine Jonk hearing the legend of the Baskerville curse and saying "oh, so it's definitely werewolves, right?"

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So you know I'm a Scotson truther

I was looking at Clan Watson tartan for something and I found that their motto is "Inspirata Floruit", meaning "It Has Flourished Beyond Expectation"

And isn't that so Watson? Sad and injured and alone in London, not thinking himself much good for anything at all, but then he meets Holmes and LOOK AT HIM GO

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I find it so funny how modern adaptations of the Sherlock Holmes stories make the first meeting of Holmes and Watson so dramatic. In the original ACD canon when Watson meets Holmes, the silly little guy was just experimenting with blood samples. But in BBC Sherlock, it's a cold open to him whipping a corpse with a riding crop. And then in Sherlock & Co., perhaps the best example of what I mean, Holmes is running on a treadmill after stabbing himself and is still bleeding. Poor Watson is just constantly never getting a break after meeting this man.

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A little appreciation for the 221B Baker Street because it’s literally my dream flat

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The reason the general public nowadays cannot see Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson as a romantic couple is because romantic relationships in real life are not nearly as good as theirs is. The characters come from a time when men and women had a very different power dynamic in society – many can argue there are still remnants of that dynamic resonating today. The man ruled the roost, the little woman attended the home but made no actual decisions in her life. Can you imagine being a Victorian, used to that lifestyle, that unfair power dynamic, and getting your hands on a Sherlock Holmes story? Two people live together, work together, care about each other more than anything in the entire world, and each person is equal to the other? One is an army doctor, the other a detective, and together they kick ass… until it’s time to go to dinner and the Opera together. They vacation together, wake up and eat breakfast together, they know each other’s sleeping habits. They walk together in the park and don’t feel pressured to speak because they know each other “intimately”. They stay living together long into old age. What a romance! What an exceptionally high bar for romance! A bar everyone wants to meet but most don’t. Who doesn’t want to be in a romantic relationship where you and your partner love and care about each other most in all the world? Where you two spend every day together and you’re glad for it, and days you’re apart you wait impatiently for a reunion? Where you build a life together? Where you literally take to Journaling about how great your partner is? Where each person is equal?

Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson have had an 130-year romance and that’s precisely why people love them. If someone does not understand that those two men were as intimate as lovers, it’s because that person does not grasp what a romantic relationship should be.

Have i ever had a romance as great as that of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson? No, not by a long shot, but i hope that one day I’ll be lucky enough to experience it myself.

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Watson describing Lestrade as "rat-faced", having "bulldog features", being "little", and a "ferret-like man" has led me to imagine Lestrade being just barely five feet tall with a long, lightly bent and drooping nose like one of those Bull Terriers with some of the most absurd nose hair you've ever seen. On another note, I had a dream where he was fond of knitting in his spare time.

Everyone please, give me your favorite ACD Lestrade headcanons

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Whenever someone says that johnlock couldn’t be canon, because it would ruin the source material, I always have to mention Granada Sherlock Holmes.

Produced in a time when suggesting that Holmes and Watson might have been in a romantic or sexual relationship could get you black listed from Sherlockian communities, this series thumbed its nose and pushed as many boundaries as it could. 

One of the first screen adaptations to showcase the equality in the partnership between the two men, it gave us a Watson who was anything but the bumbling oaf he had been in previous works. This Watson was intelligent, strong, protective, and loving. When he wasn’t doctoring his Holmes after scrapes, he was comforting him in his failure, or helping to direct him toward success. 

Rather than marry Watson off, Granada kept him a happy, if often put upon, bachelor. This deviation from the source Canon was handled smoothly, by occasionally sending Watson on much needed holidays or keeping him busy at his surgery, for stories that needed the men to be separated at the beginning. 

Beyond the less than subtle hints into the nature of the relationship between Holmes and Watson, Granada is noted for including a story line in one of their most well known films that dealt with why that very relationship needed to be kept a secret. Working off of a few scant lines found in the original Charles Augustus Milverton, the film The Master Blackmailer featured a subplot of a soldier taking his life, when his love affair with a man is found out. This is a subject which leads to Lestrade making the remark that it isn’t the first time it has happened to a soldier, and it certainly won’t be the last, a remark that ends with Watson all but slamming the door to Baker Street behind the inspector. 

There is hardly a scene throughout the show- which ran for a decade, and included five feature length films- that doesn’t show the gentle intimacy between Holmes and Watson. Whether he is threatening an armed man with a chair, insisting that his detective eat, or jumping between Holmes and a hired thug, Watson is every inch the devoted companion. As the series progresses, and the actors change, Watson subtly evolves from a man who loves the excitement of the world Holmes has shown him, into one that wants them to slow down and think of the future. There is a delightful scene in one of the later episodes, which shows Watson obviously relieved to learn that there is money in Holmes’ family.

And of course, nothing says canon otp, like giant floating rainbows splashed across the backgrounds of their scenes together. 

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The Criterion Bar’s Gay History

Most know the Criterion Bar as the place where Dr. John Watson met his young friend Stamford on that fateful night before being introduced to the one and only Sherlock Holmes, the man who would be the star of Dr. Watson’s writings.

What is not commonly known or spoken about is the Criterion Bar’s Victorian history…

That of being a Victorian Gay Bar.

Now official ‘gay bars’ were not exactly a thing in the Victorian Era due to anti-LGBT laws (including Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885). That said, the Criterion Bar was known (when the stories were written) as a meeting point for gay men in the Victorian era.

‘A New City of Friends’: London and Homosexuality in the 1890s

By Matt Cook

“..Ives noted that the Criterion Bar on Piccadilly Circus was ‘a great centre for inverts’ until it closed in 1905 .”

The Inverted City: London and the Constitution of Homosexuality 1885-1914, M. D. Cook

https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/jspui/handle/123456789/1620

The Criterion Bar is spoken about by George Cecil Ives, an LGBT advocate in the Victorian era and leader of the secret LGBT society, the Order of Chaeronea.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Chaeronea

George Cecil Ives was also friends to both Oscar Wilde and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and George Cecil Ives were friends and cricket teammates on the team “Allahakbarries”, which, at the time, they thought meant ‘Heaven Help Us’.

When it comes to Sherlock Holmes, of all the bars within London that could be chosen for Dr. Watson and Stamford to meet, and for Watson to be lead from to be introduced to Holmes, Sir. Arthur Conan Doyle chose to use -that- one.

(Special thanks to @ImaBretthead for pointing out the bar’s past.)

“ Willie Hornung, the brother-in-Law Of ACD, was a friend of George Ives. He used him as the model for the gentleman thief Raffles, in his series of books. Sir Arthur was also acquainted with Mr. Ives.

Cafe Royal, The Langham Hotel, The Criteron Bar…These are not coincidences.”

- @ImaBretthead

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Rereading some of the original stories to try and help my current writer's block, and I rediscover this little gem.

Sherlock Holmes saying, "doggy".

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This entire monologue reads to me like Holmes saying to Watson with the biggest internal puppy-eyes ever: "You don't HAVE to run away with me, but if you WANT to we COULD..."

Holmes you aren't exactly beating the allegations™ here...

This monologue oh god

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Whoa

I'm being perceived

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I'm going to melt into a little puddle of warm fuzzy feelings, thank you how dare you.

“Labours of Love”

Summer Holmestice 2021 for “Ghostbees” 

After my giftee ( @ghostbees ) mentioned “scrapbooking” and “English paper piecing” I went down a rabbithole of research and learnt about this wonderful quilting technique.

From the EQS website: “English Paper Piecing is a method of quilting that involves using a paper shape, most commonly a hexagon, to add stability to the quilt. The quilt is hand stitched with pieces of fabric cut a ¼ inch bigger than the paper shape. The fabric is basted to the paper shapes before the shapes are sewn together. Once the quilt top is completed the papers are removed.” The technique dates from 1770s and was popular during the early 1800s in the UK, then in the mid 19th century in the US and it made a comeback during the Great Depression of the 1930s, when the pattern was called in the sewing magazines “Grandma’s Flower Garden”, but before that it was simply known as hexagonal pattern or (you guessed it) honeycomb pattern. The paper used for these quilts were usually recycled from newspapers or scrapped letters, and the fabric used to come from old garments that had seen better days, and since a lot of the times the paper was simply left in these quilts are marvelous time capsules that contain a wealth of information about the person who made them and their environment. I encourage you to look up English paper piecing (EPP) quilts from the early Victorian decades, they’re fascinating!

So this little series of illustrations shows Watson dealing with Holmes still indulging in scrapbooking, and how the doctor picks up the discarded pieces and their old 221B era clothes to make something entirely new and uniquely theirs.

1. I keep seeing lovely examples of Victorian silk braces with floral embroidery and I couldn’t resist giving the boys some fancy ones. Also I know that a bright pink and blue shirt is probably not too historically accurate 1910s but screw it, trans flag shirt colours!

2. I both hate and love drawing furniture. Footstools/ottomans are cute, though.

3. “My dear fellow, if you didn’t spend all morning in bed instead of reading the newspaper as soon it arrives all of this could be avoided.”  Also Holmes is wearing a silk piano shawl because what are gender norms?

4. Holmes not only uses newspaper clippings for scrapbooking, but per Ghostbees’ suggestion I looked briefly into the Victorian hobby of pressing and collecting seaweed and I think it would be a fantastic subject for Holmes to branch out to (especially if there’s any poisonous types).

5. Old dressing gowns and blankets that have seen better days. The moths got ahold of them but I’m pretty sure the constant chemical experiments back at 221B claimed more than one victim. 

6. I got a bit carried away with the ink and gouache here. But it was fascinating to see the first published patterns in magazines making their appearance, especially in publications aimed at women that contained a wide range of home-related subjects. 

7. Someone in the Dreamwidth website pointed out that both Holmes and Watson are working on beehives and that warmed my heart. One interesting bit about EPP is that the paper can be left inside the quilt, so historians have been able to gather very detailed information about the person who crafted these pieces and their life. 

8. Oh god so many hexagons. Here’s an example of one of those magazines with patterns and instructions. 

9. I had too much fun giving them embroidered slippers. It’s a shame I overdid the watercolours and turned out quite muddy, but I would love to draw their clothes in more detail in the future.

10. Smooch! (Also the paisley trim is my favourite part) 

11. Initially I wanted this story to end in a picnic at Beachy Head, until I was told that quilts aren’t picnic blankets and are more appropriate for domestic use only. You still get to see some of the cliffs at least!

12. Another accidental discovery during my research: pickle and marmalade jars! I could draw a hundred of them and not get tired. That little spoon! Ugh!

13. I will never not cry about these two old fools in love. 

14. Cross stitching and lettering isn’t my forte, nor is Watson’s, but I saw several quilts had names sewn into one panel, almost like a painter signing their canvas, or dedicating  the piece to a loved one. So you know I had to add this little detail, plus some green carnations for extra queerness, a forget-me-not flower and a plump bee because I have to be extra. 

Looking back this is one of the things I’m the most proud of that I have made this year, or even longer. I work digitally for my job and I miss the feel of traditional materials, so this was a project that let me flex those watercolour muscles and try gouache for the first time. All while drawing incredibly indulgent things, so thank you Basil for giving me an excuse to have some fun. 

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Currently battling the new temptation to combine my everlasting Sherlock Holmes hyperfixation, my past Magnus Archives interest, and the old cassette player I have by recording all of the episodes of Sherlock & Co. onto a bunch of tapes and then hiding them in a box in a mysterious places to confuse and intrigue whoever finds them.