#WATSON

[contact-guy]

THE ADVENTURE OF CHARLES AUGUSTUS MILVERTON - part one of several, because this is one of my favorite Holmes stories! Ever since I read it I had a feeling there was something more...personal...going on with Holmes's hatred for Milverton than simply a principled stand against blackmail. A lot of this is directly pulled from the books but of course I took it in my own direction!

This is in the Watson's sketchbook series, and specifically references the Hound of the Baskervilles entry in that series :)

also thank you to my friend Phoenix for reading this when it was in sketch phase and reassuring me that it made sense!

Milverton design under the cut:

watson says he has a 'touch of Mr. Pickwick about him' so I tried to do Pickwick but...scary

[detournementsmineurs]

"Wisteria" by Albert Watson, 1985.

[fogdraws]

Let them be content let them be cozy let them be happy

Also I'm very happy abt Holmes' face there, I think I did nice on the perspective - given that I struggle a lot w it

[allallestodo]

THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

2.01 The Copper Beeches

[ofbakerst]

[juihwhite]

Just two gentlemen on an evening stroll through the park before listening to Sarasate at Sir. Jame’s Hall. Oh how I adore the fact that these two go on walks together. Me and who?

This was drawn after having read “The red headed league”. Definitely one of my favourite stories. I might colour this digitally at some point but it’s unlikely.

[doriana-gray-games]

can we get a snippet of Dr Watson taking care of Sherlock? :>

“You were foolish—“

“Calculating—“

“Foolish!”

“I miscalculated,” you correct. “Or missed some variable. Being wrong, in some small way, is not the same as foolish. Truly Watson, to think you so against learning, improving oneself by accepting failures—“

“YOU BROKE YOUR TOES!”

“Just the one toe…”

“The important one.”

“I don’t discriminate on such things.”

Watson pushes you down to remain on the bed. “I need to bind it. How’s your pain?”

“Tolerable. Unless…”

“No—“

“Then do not ask.”

Your good doctor had kept you in bed, elevated foot and everything for far too long now. It had been nearly an hour.

There’s tea on your cupboard. Extra sugars. And the very best biscuits, the one Watson hoards for the longest of days.

“Watson?”

They hum a soft sound, an acknowledgment, as they bind your broken appendage with steady and careful hands.

“If I am forced to endure monotony, I shall demand you do it with me.”

Watson looks at you, over those steady shoulders. A small smile across their lips. “I shall remain by your side. For as long as… as you need me, Sherlock. I can promise you that.”

[meep-meep-richie]

he really went from being Sherlock Holmes to being John Watson

[ogsherlockholmes]

*average chronicler lies three times in their entries* factoid actualy just statistical error. average chronicler lies 0 times in their entries. Dr John Watson, who lies all the time and can't keep track of his lies which leads to a series of inconsistencies which can only be explained by his being an unreliable narrator and has lied One Thousand times, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

[mouse-of-mischief]

I just had a not-so-fun thought. Since Sherlock & Co. is aware that it's a podcast and occasionally references real word events that are currently happening or have recently happened...Do you think the creators will stop releasing episodes of the podcast for two or three years after the Reichenbach Fall to create a consistent and realistic timeline of Sherlock's faked death and John and Mariana mourning? Or do you think they'll shorten the time of Sherlock's absence to merely a few months of playing dead for the audience if they go down this route? Maybe after Sherlock "dies" we'll just get a few sad episodes of John venting to us about missing Sherlock. Whatever happens, I'm both looking forward to and fearing how they will handle this part of the story!

[thebeesareback]

Back at it again with the weird Sherlock shit from the original cannon

- Sherlock becomes a beekeeper

- Sherlock spends two years in Tibet and meets the Dali Llama

- Sherlock describes the countryside of Cambridgeshire as "flat as the palm of Watson's hand". The description is accurate.

- they foil an attempted murder by using a wax model of Sherlock. Incidentally, if you visit the Sherlock Holmes museum on Baker Street, you'll find a bunch of incredibly creepy life-size figures of the characters. The staff think they're haunted. I asked.

- to sneak through a dark house, Sherlock and Watson hold hands. Watson keeps commenting on it

- to establish an alibi, a man invites some guy to his house, gets him drunk, changes the clocks and shouts that it's 1am, when in fact it's much earlier. Presumably, this guy doesn't wear a watch

- A visitor to 221b says that it's a long carriage ride from Baker Street to his home in Hampstead. It's 3 miles

- the final appearance of Sherlock Holmes is in 1927, which means if he were real he could have met David Attenborough

- the line "elementary, my dear Watson" is never said in the original stories, but Sherlock often calls Watson "my dear"

- unlike in Sherlock (bbc), we do find out how Sherlock escapes Moriarty. The two tussle, then Moriarty falls off a cliff whilst sort of running backwards through the air like a cartoon. Sherlock hides on a ledge for a bit

That's all for now, but I'm sure I'll find more bonkers shit

[amberarmedheart]

In Defense of John Watson and the Importance of the Besotted Narrator

Every couple of years, the world as a collective likes to ruminate and come up with a new adaptation of the stories of Sherlock Holmes, every single new one promising to be either "The Ultimate Adaptation" or "Holmes for the New Era", there is no in-between. And it is understandable, this amazement and awe we hold for the beloved mysteries, they are classics for a reason.

And despite that, time and again I see creators of tv shows, pastiches, and movies, neglect the most important aspect in every single Sherlock Holmes' story: the immovable presence of John Watson. Some even going as far as turning Watson into a villain, a caricature of himself, or even erasing him completely from the narrative. "After all, the important one is Holmes, isn't he? He is the genius, and Watson is there just his biographer."

That is the capital omission to me when it comes to any of the adaptations, because it ignores the vital part that Watson plays in Holmes' life. Watson is the companion, he is the bridge between the "normal" world and the genius that is Holmes' deductive brain. He is, for a lack of a better descriptor, the translator between what jumps in judgement and reasoning Holmes' brilliant mind comes up with, and the layman's language.

There is a reason why we as readers come up with the idea that Holmes is smart beyond his quirks and his drug addiction, beyond his ignorance of anything and everything that in his opinion doesn't help him solve the cases that distract him from the boredom of normal life... and that reason is that John Watson is the person narrating the whole thing. We are not introduced to Holmes through an omnipresent, anonymous narrator which is the case with other books. We are thrown in the middle of a mystery from the start the same way that Watson is unexpectedly thrown in 221b.

What we think of Holmes, what we feel for him, it is all because Watson wishes us to experience. The stories themselves carry with them one of the best storytelling devices graciously blended into the narrative, which is the fact that Watson is an incredibly good writer, so much that the public gazes into the spotlight where Holmes is and in most cases ignores that the one shining it down is Watson himself.

Creators who like to ignore Watson and his function in the narrative tend to see Holmes as their own self-insert: a super smart man whose genius cannot compare with the mediocre world population and who can barely tolerate their stupidity, basically a gift to men from god and who has to be worshipped for it... When the reality is that every single thing we perceive from Holmes is because of how Watson sees him.

Watson is our unreliable narrator, his descriptions and impressions of Holmes are the ones that are weaved into the story; even goes as far as giving us a glimpse of Holmes' opinion about it through the way the consultant detective sometimes accuses Watson of adding too many embellishments to his narrations. If we see Holmes as an incredible genius, as someone whose intelligence is above the rest of the world, it is because Watson says so. With every passing story, we come across different characters that every once in a while whose first impression of Holmes has been influenced by what they themselves read in Watson's stories... All in all, the in-universe characters falling under the same influence we, as readers, are.

John Watson's love for Holmes is one of the main plot points in the story, we see its evolution the same way as one normally goes through different stages of falling in love. We see Watson's first infatuation, his interest in what makes Holmes what he is, first in a superficial way and later on with every new story. We see them have misunderstandings, which most of the time end up in a deeper appreciation of Holmes as a person.

All culminating in the incredible rendition of The Final Problem, which could easily be seen, without little effort, as Holmes' planning his own death. By what means we are never completely sure, to be honest, since we can only see it through Watson's deep grief. It is true that Arthur Conan Doyle's plans were to end Holmes' adventures with the short story, but even with the author's motivations being the main recourse behind its inception, there is no doubt when reading the story that the focus of the narrative is Holmes' spending his last moments with Watson.

The subsequent creation of The Empty House and further adventures after that, diluted partially the importance of the whole ordeal, but gave us a different insight of Holmes and Watson's relationship. Through that lens, we as readers witness the evolution of it, the toll that Holmes' fake death had in both his biographer and his own author, adding depth through the strain put by the facade.

E. W. Hornung made one of my favorite homages to Holmes and Watson through his stories of The Gentleman Thief, and put a greater emphasis on the strained relationship between the two characters after the fake death. He gave his besotted narrator another source of turmoil: the fact that while Raffles (our stand-in Holmes) was away living life and even having a romantic interest, Bunny (his Watson) ends up falling in disgrace after being sent to jail.

A.J. Raffles' stories lean on the importance of the unreliable, uselessly enamored narrator, to the point that Hornung didn't shy away from having Bunny refer to Raffles as handsome and attractive in many different instances. He understood how there is no Holmes without a Watson to appreciate him, how their dynamic is the fuel behind the success of the whole series.

And ultimately, that it is impossible to have a good story without a good storyteller.

[fogdraws]

Portrait of how I picture Watson's face while I read ❤️🙌

[allallestodo]

THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

2.01 The Copper Beeches

[ofbakerst]