#acd what a legend have you created

[fogdraws]

Imagine you're a man in the nineteenth century writing silly stories abt a silly detective and his dear army doctor and people are still talking abt the characters you created a century later. Must be crazy

[belphegor1982]

Got tagged by @accidentallylita for a 20 questions for writers thing! Thank you 💜 I'm gonna tag... @tameila, @fantasiawandering, @kabbal, @kaantt and @thisstableground - no pressure at all though.

How many works do you have on AO3?

88. But I still have 44 others over on FFnet.

What's your total AO3 word count?

659,354 (holy crap that's a lot!) and I'm way too lazy to add the FFnet numbers. The FFnet counters are a mess anyway.

What fandoms do you write for?

I have written for... Ready? Go! *deep breath* Harry Potter, Great Mouse Detective, The Mummy, Pirates of the Caribbean, Kung Fu Panda, Watchmen, Justice League, Discworld, White Collar, Hogan's Heroes, Zorro (the 1950s Disney series), Kaamelott, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the 2012 cartoon and a TMNT 2003 and 1987 crossover missing scene from Turtles Forever) , the Don Camillo stories/films, Cobra Kai, Karate Kid, The Legend Of Vox Machina, and Critical Role. Whew! And that's not counting unpublished WIPs, because then I would have to add ACD Sherlock Holmes, Jeeves and Wooster, or The Pirates! In an Adventure with Musicians Scientists :D It's mostly Critical Role and Vox Machina at the moment, though.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Let's see:

Villains (Justice League Unlimited, Flash's Rogues watch the finale of season 2's near apocalypse on TV in their bar, 442 kudos)

Reading the Colours (TMNT 2012, kid!Mikey having trouble learning to read and a bit of synaesthesia, and kid!Ralp being a good brother, 225 kudos)

Culture Shock (Turtles Forever (TMNT 2003 and 1987 crossover), 2003!Don and 1987!Leonardo having a conversation about danger and stakes and genre shifts, 215 kudos)

After the Sunset (The Mummy, a getting-to-know-each-other scene set just after 'The End' to tie up loose ends and explore character dynamics, 202 kudos)

Wife (Justice League Unlimited, the writers made Captain Cold (of all people XD) mention a wife so I created a character and explored her relationship with her husband and his nemesis, 168 kudos)

Aww 💜 I was kinda surprised by this list, to tell the truth!

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try (oh my god do I try ♫). Currently there's still a couple in my AO3 inbox I haven't responded to yet because I like to take my time (and also I like having that little number beside my inbox on my page 😭)

What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oh that's easy. If, a Hogan's Heroes snapshot (<800 words) where I essentially went "hey, what if [character] really had been killed in that scene?" and picture the aftermath.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Oh that is hard! I have comforting endings, I have peaceful/hopeful endings, I have bittersweet endings with a side of sweet... But just plain happy? I mean, Pas de Deux would end on a thoroughly good and happy note if it weren't for that pesky last sentence ("This summer 1914 is going to be the best summer"). I'd say Perfect Picture has the happiest: it's a (few years into the) future JLU fic set at a Christmas do, PoV Jimmy Olsen, that ends on him taking the titular perfect picture in the immediate wake of a very happy announcement. I love it a lot.

Do you get hate on fics?

No, thank goodness. Something of a miracle in 22+ years of writing online! My beta has, though, because some people are idiots.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do, although it's a recent (ish) development! I've written three kinds of smut: loving and sometimes fumbling between two then three young people who don't a ton of (or any, in some cases) experience, quick and ill-advised between two desperate people convinced they'll die in a few hours, and cosy and warm as a means to (re)connect (two different fandoms) between middle-aged people. Love every one of them.

Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I have! Like the aforementioned TMNT crossover (within the same franchise, bit still, two different shows and fandoms). And, well, it's not exactly crazy, but I wrote a tavern-as-an-afterlife fic in which Sergeants García and Schultz have a little conversation about their respective supposed-to-be enemies. Would that count as "crazy" if they have approximately a century and a few years between their lifetimes?

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't... think so. Can't be sure. Sometimes I post fic here and I've definitely found my Tumblr accounts on those crappy Tumblr mirroring websites, so yeah, probably.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Someone asked me once if I minded them translating one of my Don Camillo fics into Italian, to which I responded with happy flailing and "not at all, go ahead!" But I never heard back from them. OTOH, I have done the translating :D I translated a Mummy fic into French back in the day (2004) with the author's permission, and I wrote L'éléphant de Carter (Hogan's Heroes) in French then translated it into English.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not really. I participated in group projects and big bangs and stuff, but I've written a fic "with four hands".

What's your all-time favorite ship?

It should be an obvious choice, because I have so few I ship actively - you know, not just "sure, I like the idea of them together". For the purposes of the question I will say Pike Trickfoot/Scanlan Shorthalt, from Campaign 1 of Critical Role/The Legend of Vox Machina (it's a slow burn with minimum pining! They both have personal growth! He pursues her but then apologises and asks if they can be friends! Each is the only one who truly sees and perceives the other on that level!). But also I really really love my one-third-canon-character-two-thirds-OCs OT3 set in 1910s Oxford. So... tie? :3

What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I have one of those eternal WIPs (more of an idea, really) of a Discworld/Quantum Leap crossover where Sam Beckett Leaps into Sam Vimes who's in the middle of an investigation, which would mean that 1) Sam B has to wrap his mind around the existence of magic and dwarves and trolls and Nobby Nobbs while Sam V and Al Calavicci stare at each other down (Spider-men-pointing-meme style in the end) going "if my guy/my people get(s) hurt by your shenanigans then so help me I will go SQUARE" (and quickly enough work together).

What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, apparently? I've been told a few times over the years by readers that they could "hear" the characters speak in their heads, which is the greatest compliment 💜 (especially since English is not my first language, so I'm always worried about things not sounding right!)

What are your writing weaknesses?

Actual plots, especially ones with a bit of complexity in them 😅 I'm the first to admit 80% of my fics are one-shot character exploration (with conflict - internal and external - being resolved via dialogue and/or communication). Also finishing things on time, GOD.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Heh. I'm French and when I write for Hogan's Heroes I often write a French character who canonically (though rarely, gotta respect the ratio) says things in French sometimes. Of course I'll include some! But I always make sure 1) to include a translation/explanation in the notes (AO3 is really great for footnotes) and 2) that it doesn't really require a translation to understand the situation/stakes. I tend to go back and forth on the use of italics for foreign language words.

Now, if I don't know the language as well as I do French (and, more importantly, if the PoV character who hears it speaks that language), I just clarify in the "s/he said", like

"You gotta be kidding me," muttered Bob in [insert language here].

Works in English too, of course, especially if you're having a multi-language environment in your fic.

First fandom you wrote for?

I was gonna say "Harry Potter", because that's the first fandom I wrote for (and published) after discovering fanfiction (the first fics I read were for Starsky & Hutch), BUT. I guess I should answer Titanic?? On account of how I kinda wrote a self-insert in high school (when the film came out) in which an imaginary inventor uncle build a time machine and my sister and I did some time tourism (obviously money wasn't an issue), thinking "oh we'll just go home on April 14th". I was a soppy 16 years old otherwise 0% interested in romance, so I had my stand-in recently lost her boyfriend (very tragically) and Fabrizio (Jack's Italian friend) be her gently manic pixie dream boy (and, of course, die). In retrospect I might have given my 14 year old sister the best part as the snarky no-nonsense little sibling. I tragically lacked self-awareness and poured my entire heart into it. Thank goodness I had no idea you could put out stories on the internet and that my best friend at the time (the only other human being who read this story) was kind and just as obsessed with the movie as I was ^^'

(I should point out that I wrote it with pencil on loose paper gathered in a binder I lost long ago. Such is life.)

Favorite fic you've ever written?

You can't just - I - oh come on! I can't choose between my babies!! No but seriously, I actually can't choose, sorry :D

[concerningwolves]

Listen few things delight me as much as the existence of so-called "Holmesiana" (not to mention the fact that we've decided to call this body of art and literature a name that evokes Arthuriana, which is also very delightful in itself). I love how it falls broadly into two categories – stories where Holmes faces the supernatural, and what fanfic writers would call "casefics" – with an infinite variety of subcategories.

I love that you have some very good stuff and a lot of bad stuff with a very large body of "mediocre but nonetheless enjoyable stuff", and that it's something that pretty much anyone can jump into writing because most of the Holmes canon is now available online free. I love that if someone thinks "Hm, I want to see Sherlock Holmes face Cthulu", they can find multiple works on that very theme. Same with "what if Sherlock Holmes faced Dracula?". It, like post-apocalypse and romance, is one of the ultimate "yay, two cakes!" genres.

What also enthrals me about this whole phenomenon is that, relatively speaking, Sherlock Holmes is a baby. The first Holmes story was A Study in Scarlet, published in 1887. Although 135 years ago feels like a very long time, it's really little more than a lifetime, give or take a few decades. To put that in perspective, the oldest living person is Lucille Randon at 118 years old; she was born in 1904, and the last published ACD Holmes story was published in 1927. And yet Holmes' presence in the arts world is as ubiquitous as that of King Arthur, heroes from Greek myth, or characters from Shakespeare's better-known plays.

I mean, Arthuriana has had hundreds and hundreds of years to trickle into the cultural subconscious. Arthur was and is a very large (you could easily say integral) part of Welsh myth and legends, but what most people consider to be "real" Arthuriana first appeared in the 12th century. That means the ""modern"" image of King Arthur has had, what? 800 years to crystallise and circulate. And I'm not even going to expound on how much longer Greek myths have had to percolate through popular culture because then we'd be crossing back over the BC/AD divide and that gives me a headache.

But it's incredible to me that with nothing more than a magnifying glass, a deerstalker, and a pipe (and sometimes not all of these together), you can create an immediately-recognisable shorthand for Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle wasn't even the first person to write what we'd now consider a Holmesian archetype! That honour is widely attributed to Edgar Allan Poe with C. Auguste Dupin, who was created before the word detective had even been coined, iirc.

So what did (and does) make Holmes so popular, in particular? That's not a question I want to try and answer, but it is one I enjoy pondering, much like my dog enjoys systematically dismantling all of her toys. Is it the iconography? I mean... maybe? Heracles has his club and lionskin. King Arthur has Excalibur. Harry Potter as his lightning scar and glasses. The Doctor their TARDIS and sonic screwdriver. People do like easily-recognisable visuals, and there is a high correlation between that and characters who've become wildly popular...

But it could just as easily be his friendship with Watson, maybe. Or the fact that Holmes is at once alienated and also deeply, fundamentally human in ways that are uncommon but meaningful. Or the sheer prolific nature of the Holmes canon. Or the appeal of someone swanning into your life and righting injustices with quick observations. Or the delightfully multi-faceted nature of his character. Or the thrill of the cases. Or the fact that Holmes is ripe for queer and autistic readings. Or. Or. Or.

I don't know.

[Image description: the "I just think they're neat" meme, which depicts Marge Simpson holding up a potato. The potato is labelled "Holmesiana" and the caption reads "I just think it's neat". /End ID]

My recommendations on audible are now 90% derivative & transformative works based on ACD Holmes, and a lot of it is currently included with my membership which means there's nothing stopping me from doing a deep(er) dive into the wonderful, wild and whacky world of Holmesiana. Uh oh

[crunch-nerd]

I posted 4,126 times in 2021

375 posts created (9%)

3751 posts reblogged (91%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 10.0 posts.

I added 449 tags in 2021

#crunch rambles - 245 posts

#yes - 51 posts

#crunch answers - 49 posts

#kaz brekker - 18 posts

#loki spoilers - 16 posts

#yep - 16 posts

#patrochilles - 15 posts

#shadow and bone - 14 posts

#this is beautiful - 13 posts

#please - 12 posts

Longest Tag: 128 characters

#i have like a thousand fandoms but i don’t pay enough attention to any one one of them for long enough to make a proper sideblog

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

About me

Call me: Crunch or Jules

Pronouns: they/them is always fine but my pronouns change, so feel free to ask :)

Gender? What’s that

Sexuality: biromantic and somewhere on the ace spectrum

Hello all! Welcome to my somewhat chaotic blog! Usually I post art or just random stuff. Warning, I will change fandoms randomly, so if you follow me for a specific fandom, I’m sorry in advance.

Ancient civilizations sideblog is @pro-milone (although I haven’t done much in that blog yet lol)

My random shitposts and stuff will be under the tag #crunch rambles

This blog is and will always be a safe place for poc and lgbtq+ people.

I am a Ravenclaw, an INTP, and a chaotic neutral. Usually I just post about whatever my current obsession is. I am a parent to plants and chickens. My hobbies include reading, exploring new places, making various kinds of art, learning about history and physics, and a lot of obessing over books, shows, and movies.

I probablyyy have adhd, but it’s not diagnosed or anything.

My longtime interests include Sumer, the Minoans, and astrophysics.

I am on pacific standard time.

I enjoy talking to people, so don’t be afraid to send me an ask or a message. :)

Anti LGBTQ+, racist, sexist, etc., pedophiles, Tr*mp supporters, Nazis, ableists, exclusionists, and other general scum of the earth, please DNI.

Main fandoms list*:

BBC Sherlock

Sherlock Holmes books by ACD

Good Omens

Random history stuff-mostly ancient civilizations or American revolution (does this count as a fandom? I’m putting it on this list anyway)

Shakespeare plays

Turn: Washington’s Spies

Six of Crows/ Shadow and Bone

Wings of Fire

All of the books by Rick Riordan

DC Legends Of Tomorrow

Song of Achilles, The Iliad, and Troilus and Cressida

Classics and greek plays

The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels and The Mandalorian ( as well as other Star Wars stuff)

Marvel and Marvel Agents of Shield 

See the full post

72 notes • Posted 2021-01-07 06:36:18 GMT

#4

I love the fact that Alexander the Great shipped patrochilles and wanted his relationship with Hephaestion to be like it.

76 notes • Posted 2021-04-09 05:15:58 GMT

#3

BI ACE AND BI ARO SOLIDARITY

104 notes • Posted 2021-07-04 06:35:45 GMT

#2

The “killing your gays” thing started with Homer

110 notes • Posted 2021-06-23 06:17:18 GMT

#1

Straight friend groups be like: *chad*, *jock™️*, *girl with a lot of unnecessary y’s in her name*

Gay friend groups be like: *wlw power couple*, *shapeshifter*, *chaotic bisexual exorcist*, *reformed theif romance novelist*, *daughter of evil cult leader* , *magic amulet user*, *soft and slightly idiotic person doing their best*

301 notes • Posted 2021-01-24 01:26:41 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[lioncel]

OK.  Now What??

So here I am, long after Season 4, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around everything and find a way to make this mess work for me.  A few assorted thoughts to start.

First of all, you will never, ever convince me that Moffat and Gatiss are fans of ACD SH.  Their entire goal seems to have been to debunk and demolish the myth and rebuild it as a mockery of the original.  The original legend rests on two pillars, Holmes’s decision to hold himself aloof from emotion in order to better perform The Work, and Holmes and Watson’s relationship, built on mutual admiration and  respect.  After Moftiss’s butchery, we’re left with a lovelorn, pining Sherlock who seems determined to sacrifice himself endlessly for a massively damaged John who is not only quite prepared to let Sherlock die, but actually wants to do the job himself.  The fact that Moffat made comments to the effect that living in Baker Street solving crimes was absurd and ridiculous and no-one could live a life like that seems to me crucial.  Whereas ACD created Sherlock’s lifestyle as an ideal to be respected and even envied, Moftiss (like Ritchie, interestingly) view it as a schoolboyish and irresponsible way of living that can’t sustain itself but must inevitably be abandoned for marriage and family.  I believe that’s why Moftiss chose to change the show in Season 3.. As long as they were presenting Sherlock solving cases, it conferred a value on Sherlock’s talents because we could see people benefiting from and being grateful for those talents.  From Season 3, Sherlock’s talents are deployed in trying to navigate personal issues, reducing The Work for the benefit of others to an addled and incomprehensible ramble through Sherlock’s psyche in search of “being human.”

Way back in the beginning, Moffat was sending out troubling signals.  He said they were “taking the mickey out of SH, in the way that you can only do when you love something.”  But really, if you want to “mock, tease, joke, ridicule, scoff, or deflate” someone, there isn’t much love entering into it. You can’t ridicule someone in a loving way, The implication is that you think someone is too full of themselves without justification, and you want to bring them down a peg. There is always a faint but definite amount of contempt involved.  Moftiss, and by extension John certainly seem to feel this element of contempt in regards to Sherlock, but ACD’s Watson, the one who really is a true friend and a soulmate of his Holmes would be horrified at the thought of belittling his Holmes. 

Yeah, yeah, I know.  Moftiss are trying to strip away all the hero worship and reduce Sherlock and John to their very ground level, basic humanity.  But why?  That’s the central problem that I just don’t understand, why it was so desperately important to Moftiss to ridicule and deflate Sherlock, why they arrogantly thought it needed to be “fixed”, and how they could possibly think that their version was in any way an improvement over the original, or even over Granada, for that matter. 

Yeah, yeah, I know again.  It’s all backstory.  The Sherlock and John of S4 are not the finished version.  Moftiss has deliberately burned them both down to the lowest possible state so that they can from there rebuild themselves in the likeness of Moftiss’s beloved Rathbone Sherlock and Watson.  But in stoking the fires of that particular bonfire, it feels to me as though Moftiss have caused so much damage to John and Sherlock and their relationship that it’s impossible to imagine them ever being able to fight through to the rock-solid affection and trust and RESPECT that ACD;s pair shared from the moment they met.

[a-different-equation]

Musings on a final fan problem

Watched 'The Lying Detective' last night. It had its free-TV premiere here. I won't say that I did understand everything (part of the deductions, the Shakespeare-quotes) or how it will went downhill so fast with 'The Final problem' but what I get is how unique this episode (and this TV show) is. I was really anxious. To face this on my own did not help. The harsh critic of the newspapers, let alone the wank of fandom, got to me over time. I was prepared to be still pissed and to switch it off. Three things changed the game (for me). 1. The GRANADA watchalong. We watched 'The Case of the Master Blackmailer'. It's one of the few 90-minutes-episodes which means the TV show did add own content and presented their 'fix-it' of ACD. It was not bad... but it wasn't great either. The beginning of the episode was all new (caleidoscope of blackmail cases; yes, with queer content, after all, it's the 19th century) while the ending was very close to canon (client shoots villan; Watson is instructed to cover it up in his story, after all, Sherlock Holmes kind of not solved it; the maid aka the fake fiancee is dropped without further notice etc etc etc). Many of us did not remember all the blackmail cases; it's not a sign of great storytelling when the hyperbole falls flat. The end, on the other hand, there were still questions. Firstly, of course, about the female characters. You know who fixed it? Put a spin onto ACD? Answered GRANADA (abd we found A LOT of references)? BBC SHERLOCK did it. 'His Last Vow', to be precise. 2. 'Tatort'. It's a crime show, iconic and trademark here. The newest episode just aired before 'The Lying Detective'. This particular Tatort was set in Berlin and dealt with hate crime. You heard correctly: the supposed victim was a gay teacher and his (all homophobic) stundents who were (all) migrants and therefore all were suspects. Besides the fact that the case was simple and I had been just 2 weeks ago in said part (even the gay bar!) of Berlin and surprise,surprise, not my experience --- OMG! Seriously, 'The Lying (Dying) Detective' is more than 100 year-old short story... and the adaptation looked fresher, younger and modern than this 'Tatort'. 3. 'The Lying Detective'. Because it was GREAT tellly. It was entertaining, it had great dialogue, the cinematography was too die for, and yes, it was ACD in the 21th century. Modern, updated version does NOT mean a fix-it. And this might be the no1 reason: it was as flawed as ACD. Canon had plot holes and questionable female characters and was an overall mixed bag. BUT it changed the game for detective stories and built a legend and created an amzing fandom. While I watched 'TLD' I came to the conclusion that THIS - for me - is ACD legacy. Because it's not only about characters and plot or cases (and definetly not about putting things into a museum!), but about the form and function, too. When I watched 'The Lying Detective, I thought that is 'The Dying Detective' in the 21th century, a modern take of a classic; not a check-list but its own cinematic piece. To sum it up: I won't deny that there are parts that made me sad, angry, anxious etc about BBC SHERLOCK. And yes, Johnlock would have been nice. Still: I am a fan of Sherlock Holmes for nearly 25 years. I cannot tell you how often I read ACD. I might know ca 30 adaptations. For me, BBC SHERLOCK remains the best (so far). When I first watched 'The Final Problem', I was furious and thought that THIS was not what I had signed up for. But I did. Nearly 25 years ago. ('The Lying Detective' reminded me why.)

[katyagrayce]

The Final Problem: my final opinion

I know that there are some fans, on Tumblr and elsewhere, who actually liked this episode. THAT’S OKAY. SERIOUSLY. You’re entitled to like whatever you want. It doesn’t mean anything other than that we have different taste in movies/different priorities when it comes to what we want from Sherlock, and that kind of opinion divide is pretty much inevitable with a show this varied and this popular. So if you belong to the TFP Fans Club, I want to clarify that I mean you no hate :-)

Personally, however, I did not like The Final Problem. My reasons included, but were not limited to: a) The disproportionally rapid, action-reliant and melodramatic storytelling, which wasn’t really consistent with the series’ tone so far. (This encompasses everything from that crazy Hollywood explosion to the fake cell Euros built for Sherlock - not to mention the the ‘video game’ set up of her puzzle system. Also, the age-old idea of throwing someone down a well. There were a lot of clichés at play in this episode). b) The suddenness with which Euros was introduced as a character, and the unfeasibility (IMHO) of Sherlock not remembering her at all. c) Speaking of unfeasibility - I also had issues with Euros planning the entire torture session in five minutes, building all of that underground lair, ferrying herself between Sherrinford and London so easily, getting everyone to Musgrave Hall/into their various cells so quickly, and getting John/Victor down that well without causing them serious injury. d) The oversimplicity of Euros’ psychological arc also frustrated me. I mean - there is loneliness, and then there is clinical psychopathy. They are two separate things. It’s true that there’s some overlap between the two groups, but not enough to pin all Euros’ behaviour on her being a scared little child with ‘no one’ to turn to - someone who later becomes 100% complacent just because she’s finally been hugged. Plus, when they decided to oversimplify Euros’ psychology Mofftiss basically dropped the chance to create a really complicated, really nuanced villain like Moriarty (remember all that amazing analysis about whether he wanted to beat Sherlock or just wanted the distraction, why he killed himself, whether boredom had driven him almost to the edge of insanity, etc., etc.? Euros doesn’t get any of those interesting conversations, mainly because she’s been automatically typecast as a ‘creepy loner child in need of attention.’) e) Speaking of emotional oversimplification - I also didn’t like the maximum emotional milking that Mofftiss brought to EVERY SCENE. Entire sequences, like Sherlock’s phone call to Molly and Euros forcing Sherlock to choose between Mycroft and John, seemed explicitly orchestrated to stir up audience feels as quickly as possible, instead of doing it slowly, skilfully and in-context (eg. I found Sherlock’s conversation asking for Molly’s help at the end of TRF much more feels-worthy than his phone call here, because it tied back to a conversation they’d already had about her ‘not counting’ and didn’t take place in a completely staged, high-tension situation.) f) And now for a big one - inconsistent character development. I feel that there were a lot of characters who acted quite OOC in this episode. First up, I think that John would have shot the governor. After all, he’s a soldier, he knows the pain of losing a wife, he’s very morally self-assured and he has killed before (see ASIP for evidence of the last two points), so even though he would have found it difficult I think he would’ve pushed through. I also think he would’ve tried very, very hard to talk Sherlock out of suicide, not just stood there dumbly and watched. Especially considering that he’d been prepared to die for him literally twenty seconds beforehand. Now for a second character: Molly. I understand that the scene with Molly was really effective for a lot of viewers, but - I wasn’t one of them. In TEH, it seemed that Molly was finally getting some character development beyond her crush on Sherlock - she recognised that he was using her as a replacement for John and cut that behaviour in its tracks, despite how difficult it might have been for her. In this episode, she spends every second on-screen looking totally lovesick, and proceeds to sacrifice her dignity just to answer a request that - from her perspective - must look a lot like either a cruel prank or a childish whim. The Molly we knew had grown beyond that - and, while I’m happy she survived, I’m not happy she had to fall apart to do it. Plus, what about that quick glance of her in the closing sequence when she pops into Baker St, smiling and seemingly totally okay? Did the phone call really have that low an emotional impact on her? To me, it just seems like a quick, lazy fix. And now, last but not least: Sherlock. This episode throws some spanners in what has been, up until this point, a very consistent and well-written subplot about his emotional growth. Throughout all the previous episodes we can track his ‘becoming a good man’ - he knows he’s hurt Molly in ASIB, he soothes a hysterical Henry Knight in THOB, he can talk down Major Sholto in TSOT and understands John’s grieving process in TLD. He even goes from subtly intervening in John’s suicide in ASIP to explicitly saving ‘Faith’ in TLD, which is an amazing example of how much he’s grown as a character. But in this episode - all of a sudden - he starts fluctuating wildly between ‘emotionally incapable’ and ‘emotional paragon’ when he shouldn’t really be at either end of the scale. The kind of man who can’t understand why Molly isn’t picking up, and who thinks “But it’s me calling!” is a valid excuse, can’t possibly be the same person who charms his sister out of psychosis with a hug and explicitly tells a DI that his brother ‘isn’t as strong as he thinks.’ Personally, I think that the episode’s latter actions are slightly more in-character for Sherlock than the earlier ones, but that’s not the point. The point is that this episode muddled a lot of very good character development back up again. g) A more minor thing, but - this episode was literally full of plot holes. Including, but not limited to, how the furniture in 221B possibly survived the blast, how Euros (an adult woman) sounded like a little girl on the phone, and how John climbed out of a well he was chained to. h) Another, less minor thing - ALL THE LOOSE ENDS FROM THE SERIES THAT THIS EPISODE LEFT BEHIND. Irene Adler was brought back into the picture, only for nothing to come of it. Rosie Watson was born and then featured for a grand total of two seconds after TST. Euros had a working partnership with Culverton Smith (? How did that exist while she was confined at Sherrinford?) that was neither explained nor justified. And, perhaps worst of all - this whole ‘final problem’ promised by Moriarty ended up being organised by someone totally different. i) And finally, one of the most disappointing elements of the whole episode - Mary’s final video. Put bluntly, it contradicted everything that I see the show as being about. Sherlock has always been very much about the two people behind the legend, putting the spotlight on Sherlock’s fragility and John’s dangerous addictions where ACD just smoothed them over with a Victorian gloss - ‘there’s always the two of them,’ as said in TAB, and the focus is on the relationship in between. But what Mary is saying in this speech is that nothing the show gave us apparently matters. Only the legend does. The ACD stories are apparently the important part. It’s a very, very demeaning way for the series to summarise itself, and it’s this, over anything else, that makes me suspect we might have a secret 4th episode upcoming.

Now, you might notice something - reading the above list. You might notice that I didn’t mention Johnlock. That’s right. I, personally, didn’t mind whether Johnlock happened or not. And it’s getting really frustrating seeing people dissatisfied with TFP get dismissed because ‘they’re just angry that their ship didn’t happen.’ There was a lot, a LOT wrong with this episode beyond the ship, and while it might be a valid reason for people not to like TFP (I’ll get to that in Point 4) it’s not the only one. Please, don’t write off some very legitimate, very reasoned disappointment as some kind of ship-driven whim just because you can.

Now, all that said - I have to add that the queer-baiting in the lead-up to this episode was absolutely horrendous. Like I said, I’m not a Johnlock shipper and always had doubts about it happening, but the trailer editing and publicity stunts - Sherlock saying ‘I love you’ right after the Culverton Smith ‘darkest secret’ quote, the flickering rainbow letters on the PBS TV spot, Benedict saying ‘Love conquers all’ and Amanda saying TFP ‘makes television history’ - all those things were pointing in one pretty obvious direction. Now, this wouldn’t be such a bad thing if it had happened with literally any other potential plotline on the show, but the thing about queer-baiting is that it exploits a highly vulnerable and extremely under-represented group - the LGBTQ+ community. It lures them in with something they sorely want and need - media representation - and then not only fails to deliver but thumbs its nose at their disappointment. It rubs salt into the wound. It’s cruel and not okay, and as an experienced partnership with one gay member Mofftiss should have known better. So, even if you think disappointed Johnlockers are ‘just being petty,’ you have to remember that the experience of being denied this ship can carry a lot of emotional impacts other ships don’t.

And, finally - there were things about this episode that I liked, even loved wholeheartedly. Sherlock calling John family. Their re-decorating the flat, and the two-second snapshot featuring a happy Rosie. Sherlock remembering Greg’s name, and Greg calling him a ‘good man’ (it was a bit on-the-nose, but still). Mrs Hudson sassing Mycroft about the kettle. Even the idea of Euros as a little girl on a plane was fundamentally a good one, if oversimplified, over-focused on and overdone. So yes - this episode did have its moments. And it’s not affecting my enjoyment of Sherlock as a whole, but still - that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Um... If you’ve read this far, congratulations! I didn’t mean for this post to get so long, but it feels good to have vented a bit :-)

[say-duhnelle]

ok I gotta know what the fuck happened in Sherlock bc people are FREAKING OUT

so um i don’t know how caught up you are but (spoilers ahead, obviously)

this whole season has seemed off- the characterization, the storytelling, the very jumpy, hole-ridden plot that has not matched up AT ALL with what was foreshadowed previously or really any sort of linear narrative at all, it’s all been a mess. So a lot of people were theorizing there was deliberate alteration going on this season - either we were presented a lie, being told to protect someone’s innocence (alibi theory), or Sherlock had never woken up from the gunshot in HLV/drug trip in TAB and everything was occurring in his mind (EMP theory). This was also backed up by other Fucky Stuff ™ such as really glaring obvious continuity errors that would have required actual effort to create (like walls turning different colors and a painting in 221B being lit up differently at random) and John ignoring his child 99% of the time and Sherlock’s birthday being at the wrong time of year and pretty much every character reusing lines that had previously been Moriarty’s.

theeeeeen, on thursday, the preview of TFP at the BFI was held. no one was required to sign an NDA (Fucky Stuff ™), so spoilers got out, and based on details a lot of BNF started to theorize that the version shown at the screening was incomplete, altered, or even completely fake. this theory was partially based on s4 sharing a tagline (It’s Not Just A Game Anymore) with the Clue movie, which infamously had multiple endings. another theory, based on a line in the show last week (”people always give up after 3″) was that a secret 4th episode would be announced when TFP ended.

yesterday, the episode as shown at the BFI leaked on the site of the Russian channel that airs Sherlock - complete and in HD. earlier today, the Turkish affiliate released it (in English with subtitles this time). and like… the BBC did nothing about it. The showrunners and the official show Twitter tweeted something like “the episode has leaked, please keep the secrets”, but the leaked episodes were not taken down (I literally watched the Turkish one on their site as the TV version was airing in the UK lol) and there was no action taken by a legal team that is normally extraordinarily tight fisted re. this show (according to people who were in the fandom in previous seasons, leaking spoilers could get your blog taken down). So naturally, large portions of the fandom are now convinced it has to be fake, otherwise they would at least act like they care, right?

Well, the show aired and turns out this wasn’t the case. And despite the entire marketing cycle (until this very morning) having been all about how this episode would be GROUNDBREAKING and TELEVISION HISTORY and INSANE WISH FULFILLMENT and TYING UP LOOSE ENDS and CLIMAX OF 7 YEARS OF BUILDUP and so on… it was terrible. I’m not even talking about no Johnlock:

the whole thing started with just writing off last week’s cliffhanger in one majorly underwhelming sentence

the entire plot was a reach; any “buildup” we got for it occurred exclusively in s4, not over the whole series arc

it also involved playing the “mental illness = danger to society” trope for shits and giggles so there’s that

there were multiple gaping, obvious plotholes in the same vein as the earlier s4 episodes (and none of those holes were stitched up including but not limited to:

the main characters surviving an explosion that resulted in a fall from an upstairs window with NO injury whatsoever

John being chained up in a well and then the chains magically disappearing one transition later

Sherlock’s villain!sister being able to control people’s minds, apparently

and Sherlock being able to apparently enter HER mind/the whole airplane thing just doesn’t add up)

there was a lot of ridiculous, over-the-top pastiche of horror movies like saw and ring

3 Garridebs, perhaps the most emotional climax in the ACD canon, was completely squandered - played for laughs with nothing of the original plot retained beyond names

Victor Trevor, another story fans have been expecting would be a Big Moment if it was adapted, was almost an afterthought despite being the point of the whole episode - we got no real info on who he was, his relationship to Sherlock, or really even why Euros killed him

all the buildup about Moriarty went nowhere meaningful either

the love confession from the trailer was coerced and actually ruined Sherlock’s relationship with the person he said it to (Molly)

the cinematography and visual style characteristic of the show were almost completely absent

there was little to no variety of location, the sets used in the lion’s share of the episode looked cheap, and there were almost no special or practical effects (unlike every other episode) and what was there was cheap and terrible looking

despite being promised “loads of new music, every note composed with love” by the composers themselves, there was maybe one cue that was not an exact copy of music from earlier episodes

at the end of the episode, a voiceover from Mary (who died two episodes ago I might add) says that “it’s not who you really are that matters, it’s the story, the legend” as the series’ Big Ending Moment when literally every episode up to this point has been about the exact opposite of that so yeah that felt cheap af

there was a lot of other just over-the-top stuff like Sherlock commandeering a boat in the most ridiculous manner ever and creepy clowns and portraits crying blood and umbrellaswordgun and Elephant Glass and Uncle Rudy and and and and

and the “seems fake but ok” nature of the last two episodes continued to be the case in this one

and yeah okay after last week when J&S finally got back together as friends with dead!Mary imploring John to be the man he wants to be and John telling Sherlock that romance would complete him as a person and The Hug, yeah, not getting Johnlock was pretty surprising considering that these writers have been outspokenly pro-textual gays and anti-queerbaiting in many panels and interviews they’ve given

We got no real answers for any of the existing questions, opened up a lot more, and the whole thing felt cheap and poorly thought out. so yeah even though my life doesn’t hinge on canon johnlock like a lot of fans, I still feel ripped off because this thing was a hot goddamn mess. TAB + S4 have also included what at least seemed to be some really obvious shoutouts to TJLC theories, and of course they noticed, so they’re feeling REALLY led on. And since it was strongly implied during publicity that this was either the last season ever, or at least the last one for a realllllllllllllly long time (i’d guess 5+ years) they are going stark raving mad thinking this is all they’re going to get, that this mess is where Moftiss really intend to end this. (There were no extra scenes, nor has there been any announcement thus far about a secret/bonus episode.)

Moffatt actually said in an interview earlier this year that TFP was the single piece of his writing that he was most proud of and like if that’s true… then every negative opinion people have of him is totally, completely, and absolutely justified because this episode was unequivocally trash.

[a-different-equation]

The Case of the Lost Sherlock Fan

I will be my grown-up, sophistiacted, well-educated and well-spoken self LATER. When I have mourned for them, and us, and me. Because whatever the hell “The Final Problem” was... it will not have the last word.

Actually, I do not know which part of myself is more upset: the Sherlock Holmes fan for almost 25 years, or the BBC SHERLOCK fan since “The Blind Banker”, or the queer woman, or... This version, their version, of ACD “The Final Problem” has hit me on so many levels; it has truly pulled the rug... but in no way pleasant or - hopefully - like they intended.

Maybe it’s the feeling of uneasiness.

Before “The Final Problem” aired, I was sure of myself. As I have mentioned above and in several posts, I am a Sherlock fan. I have read the stories so often, I have them in several editions, and I have seen/watched/listen to 35- 40 adaptations of ACD works. Adding to that, I have consumed (let’s say it what it is: casual viewer and mostly fangirl) so many other “incarnations” of the archetype: crime proceduals. I do not lie or exaggerate when I write that I cannot tell how many crime shows and detective stories I know. Since ACD, and “The Three Investigators”, and “The Famous Five”, I am a fan of that particular genre.

It’s not only a love story, it’s a queer one.

One reason why many queer people choose this genre is because it’s not about (traditional) “love” and “romance” and all that jazz in the first place. Other genres do share a bigger amount. Instead, the crime is queerer than anything. No surprise here: the most famous writers are mostly queer, the same goes for genres similiar to crime: spy novel and thriller. All those stories might not be openly queer (in general) but they lack the hetronormativity the rest have. Plus: Most queer people do know about its origin and therefore spot the queer subtext far easily.

What I want to say (sorry, rambling thoughts tonight): it is a love story, and it is a queer one,... until “The Final Problem” happened. Because the TV series was/is great: it hits you in all the right places; it seemed to by created by people who claim to love Sherlock Holmes. What we could see for 6 years, at least for us, was a love story, a queer one. Whenever one would look around in fandom, all kinds of transformative works, it was made out of love. I am not saying that everything was good writing, or the best drawing, or Academy worthy fan video, or anything... But - no matter the shipwars, no matter the heated meta discussions, no matter the tagging issues, no matter what - even hate (fandom wank) morphed out of love.

I am not delusional: I am aware of the fact that the general audience, critics and academics alike, weren’t overly fond of our love. To be polite, they didn’t understand it. Still, we believed, I believed, that the show, and to an extent, the creators, cast and crew, would love - if not us - then at least, Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle’s work.

I am not delusional: I am aware of the fact that there are numerous reasons for doing a show. This show however promoted for six years, from creators to cast and crew, how much they love(d) it. Even today, even in the minutes up to and afterwards, they promote “love” - and “legend”. They really truly do.

The problem?

This is not what I have witnessed. And I am not only a fan, I am an academic, too. I am one of those people they seem to oversee in interviews and articles, when they speak about female fans who are all into the male leads and are of a certain age range and are overall “crazy”. Not my life story, I am afraid. But it’s not about me me (as in: myself, my biography)...

It’s about a basic misconception, miscommunication, misleading: the lie about “being a fan of Sherlock Holmes”, “updating Sherlock Holmes” and “based on the works of Arthur Conan Doyle” --- all in a TV series called “SHERLOCK”.

Because as far as I can see it at the moment: it’s not a love story, or even a queer one, it’s a lie. Because what I have watched for 90 minutes was not made out of love (except maybe for themselves...). In particular, it had nothing to do with the essential parts, the premise and promise, they hinted at in title, 12 episodes prior, and all their “quotes”.

And this is it, that was my rug pulled: I expected love. I expected Sherlock Holmes, in a modern way. Canon with a twist. And I expected to see the man behind the myth, the “human” instead of the “hero”. And maybe I even expected a queer representation. Not because I can but because they could. And because I grew up in a country in which homosexuality was still a crime when I first discovered “The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes”.

I love Sherlock Holmes. Because for me, he was always a queer man, just like Arthur Conan Doyle wrote as a first desription of his most famous character in “A Study in Scarlet” 130 years ago. Back then, homosexuality was a crime, back when I read it myself, it was in my country. Today, it isn’t, you could have freed him, for the first time, “quick, if you love me”, or in a long game, but instead,... “the final problem” for people like me is to come to terms that love is not enough, that it is a weakness, and that it is thrown under a bus via voice over, lack of explicit/canonical queer representation etc. , ... and all called in a name of “love”.

The final problem? I love Sherlock Holmes, I love(d) SHERLOCK, I love the work of Arthur Conan Doyle and all its adaptations and transformative works and everything... and I am, as I said in the very first paragraph, an eduacted, well- spoken, sophisticated person.

I expected that a show called “SHERLOCK” would deliver what it would promised in the title, I hoped that a show with such a rich queer coding would finally make it into text, and, most importantly, I wished that no matter that I would still love the show...

“The Final Problem” cannot have the last word, nor here, not in “real life”.

But first, I have to fall back in love again.

And to mourn my love.

Until I can say again with a smile: “The Game is On.”