#name one other work by ACD I dare you

[meowmeowgrrrl123]

Thinking again about how Arthur Conan Doyle once said that if Sherlock Holmes was all he was known for, his life would have been a waste

[ogsherlockholmes]

16th October

I’m not even going to bother writing an introduction but today’s villain (yes, definitely villain) is Charles Augustus Milverton. 

Pretty much everyone knows him, but for background he’s a blackmailer who ends up getting shot by an unknown woman (love her) at the end of the story. Instead of boring you by writing my random opinions and criticisms, I’m going to just insert a load of quotes and let Sherlock and Watson do the job for me. Also, the times when ACD built detailed characters, he really went for it and it’s enjoyable to read.

As Holmes turned up the lamp the light fell upon a card on the table. He glanced at it, and then, with an ejaculation of disgust, threw it on the floor. I picked it up and read:— Charles Augustus Milverton, Appledore Towers, Hampstead. Agent. “Who is he?” I asked. “The worst man in London,”

“He is the king of all the blackmailers. Heaven help the man, and still more the woman, whose secret and reputation come into the power of Milverton. With a smiling face and a heart of marble he will squeeze and squeeze until he has drained them dry. The fellow is a genius in his way, and would have made his mark in some more savoury trade. His method is as follows: He allows it to be known that he is prepared to pay very high sums for letters which compromise people of wealth or position... I happen to know that he paid seven hundred pounds to a footman for a note two lines in length, and that the ruin of a noble family was the result. Everything which is in the market goes to Milverton, and there are hundreds in this great city who turn white at his name. No one knows where his grip may fall, for he is far too rich and far too cunning to work from hand to mouth. He will hold a card back for years in order to play it at the moment when the stake is best worth winning. I have said that he is the worst man in London, and I would ask you how could one compare the ruffian who in hot blood bludgeons his mate with this man, who methodically and at his leisure tortures the soul and wrings the nerves in order to add to his already swollen money-bags?” I had seldom heard my friend speak with such intensity of feeling. “But surely,” said I, “the fellow must be within the grasp of the law?” “Technically, no doubt, but practically not. What would it profit a woman, for example, to get him a few months’ imprisonment if her own ruin must immediately follow? His victims dare not hit back. If ever he blackmailed an innocent person, then, indeed, we should have him; but he is as cunning as the Evil One. No, no; we must find other ways to fight him.”

Charles Augustus Milverton was a man of fifty, with a large, intellectual head, a round, plump, hairless face, a perpetual frozen smile, and two keen grey eyes, which gleamed brightly from behind broad, golden-rimmed glasses. There was something of Mr. Pickwick’s benevolence in his appearance, marred only by the insincerity of the fixed smile and by the hard glitter of those restless and penetrating eyes. His voice was as smooth and suave as his countenance, as he advanced with a plump little hand extended, murmuring his regret for having missed us at his first visit. Holmes disregarded the outstretched hand and looked at him with a face of granite. Milverton’s smile broadened; he shrugged his shoulders, removed his overcoat, folded it with great deliberation over the back of a chair, and then took a seat.

His insufferable smile was more complacent than ever.

[Milverton speaking] “Now, you remember the sudden end of the engagement between the Honourable Miss Miles and Colonel Dorking? Only two days before the wedding there was a paragraph in the Morning Post to say that it was all off. And why? It is almost incredible, but the absurd sum of twelve hundred pounds would have settled the whole question. Is it not pitiful?”

[Milverton speaking]  “I assure you that I am armed to the teeth, and I am perfectly prepared to use my weapons, knowing that the law will support me.”

With bow, a smile, and a twinkle Milverton was out of the room, 

“It is I,” she [unknown woman, my favourite person] said; “the woman whose life you have ruined.” Milverton laughed, but fear vibrated in his voice. “You were so very obstinate,” said he. “Why did you drive me to such extremities? I assure you I wouldn’t hurt a fly of my own accord, but every man has his business, and what was I to do? I put the price well within your means. You would not pay.” “So you sent the letters to my husband, and he... broke his gallant heart and died. You remember that last night when I came through that door I begged and prayed you for mercy, and you laughed in my face as you are trying to laugh now, only your coward heart cannot keep your lips from twitching? Yes, you never thought to see me here again, but it was that night which taught me how I could meet you face to face, and alone...” “Don’t imagine that you can bully me,” said he, rising to his feet. “I have only to raise my voice, and I could call my servants and have you arrested. But I will make allowance for your natural anger. Leave the room at once as you came, and I will say no more.” The woman stood with her hand buried in her bosom, and the same deadly smile on her thin lips. “You will ruin no more lives as you ruined mine. You will wring no more hearts as you wrung mine. I will free the world of a poisonous thing. Take that, you hound, and that!—and that!—and that!” She had drawn a little, gleaming revolver, and emptied barrel after barrel into Milverton’s body... Then he staggered to his feet, received another shot, and rolled upon the floor. “You’ve done me,” he cried, and lay still. The woman looked at him intently and ground her heel into his upturned face. 

Fortunately, the woman gets away, and she makes sure that Milverton doesn’t.

[disaronnus]

“He calls to us from the icy depths of the Reichenbach”: The Pop Sherlock Exhibit & Arthur Conan Doyle Collection at Toronto Reference Library. Part 1/2.

Well it only took me...two months...but @devoursjohnlock, here’s the report you requested from the Pop Sherlock exhibit at @torontolibrary ’s Toronto Reference Library.

This got long, so I’m dividing it into two parts.

Part 1 is pretty much nonstop cracky goodness. Including original fanart and what I’m calling Picklelock.

Part 2 will be more Serious, as we tour the ACD permanent collection, with mentions of female fictional detectives and female detective novel writers through (Western) history. Also Stephen Thompson and Mrs. Hudson.

I happened to be in Toronto visiting my OTF, the fantastic @antheiasilva, for a couple weeks, so I was able to go to the library twice - once to Pop Sherlock, once to the Arthur Conan Doyle Room & permanent collection.

Now, I’m a newcomer to Sherlock and Sherlock Holmes in general, so much of the exhibit content was previously unknown to me. I imagine for a longer-term fan, some of it might have been old hat. (It was a fairly small gallery.)

That aside. I saw *amazing* memorabilia (book/comic covers, movie posters, advertisements, omg the ads). WHERE TO START. Oh. I know. (You have 3 hours of being stranded in the Porter lounge at Billy Bishop airport to thank for this one.)

WARNING: SUGGESTIVE IMAGERY below the cut. Hold onto your hats. (NOT actually nsfw, though.) Brief mention of butts follows.

CAPTION:

Original drawing in graphite pencil by yours truly, disaronnus, of a Tuck’s Saf-Tip Phosphate Enema advertisement, circa _?_.

Straddling and grasping the long curved tip of a Tuck’s Saf-Tip Phosphate Enema bottle, which leans against the box it came in, is a cartoon Sherlock Holmes, whom I’ve stylized as a mix of BBC Sherlock and Sidney Paget’s Holmes. (The actual ad utilizes classic Holmes iconography.)

The tip of the bottle is...extremely close to Sherlock Holmes’ mouth. The expression on Sherlock Holmes’ face might best be described as...beatific, like there is nothing Sherlock Holmes would rather be doing right now than clutching the tip of an enema bottle.

The packaging comes with the following Important Information on the side of the box: (I’ve taken some liberties here)

Directions For Use: It’s this or Cluedo Who cares about decent Brainy’s the new sexy Abstinence is not immortality Dead is the new sexy Pop round to Baker Street Who knows maybe jump out of a cake I don’t shave for SH Clueing for looks Both ends is too much work Don’t u want me on the floor too So in fact you mean I’m Emotional context it destroys you every time You say it Say it like you mean it Come at once if inconvenient If inconvenient come anyway

Warnings: From time to time we might just all be human Even you Even you

I DID NOT MAKE THIS UP. THIS WAS A REAL THING.

FIRST: I want to know what was going through the Tuck’s advertising executives heads. I mean, I also want to shake their hands and exchange fist bumps, but how the living fork did they decide what their enema ad campaign needed was a cartoon Sherlock Holmes, in the filthiest, most provocative position possible, short of him actually having the tip in his mouth?

SECOND: What are we supposed to infer from this helpful advertisement? That nobody knows more about clean butts and proper anal hygiene than the famous William Sherlock Scott Holmes? Well if you say so, Tuck’s Saf-Tip Phosphate Enemas. I won’t argue with you.

More Entertaining Highlights:

Some of these would make amazing fic prompts.

Mycroft Holmes spin-off novel covers:

“The Resources of Mycroft Holmes”: hard to imagine a more spot-on encapsulation of one of Mycroft’s most common characterizations in BBC fandom.

Addressing the tenderer side of Mycroft Holmes: “The Dorking Gap Affair.” You’re right, author whose name I don’t remember and should really google, Mycroft is a dork. An adorable one. He’s...adorking.

Mrs. Hudson spin-off novel covers: all the Mrs. Hudson crime-solving badassery I didn’t know I needed.

Mrs. Hudson in New York.

Mrs. Hudson, the Game’s Afoot.

Mrs. Hudson and the Spirit’s Curse.

Mrs. Hudson’s Diaries.

Most Baffling, Mrs. Hudson.

Note to self: go find some Mrs. Hudson fic stat.

A Joker/Sherlock Holmes special comic issue.

The cover illustration: a two-sided door with locks on each side; Sherlock Holmes is turning the key on one side, the Joker (”the clown prince of crime”) is turning the key on the other.

“In a world of locked rooms, the man with the key is king,” anyone?

Informational brochure entitled “Sherlock Sloans Takes the Mystery Out of Food Shopping: How to get the best for your money.”  I think we can all see the patent absurdity of this one.

A Claussen Pickles advertisement, called “Claussen Presents The Case of the Purloined Pickle.”  It depicts a thoughtful cartoon Sherlock Holmes in plaid examining the raised lid of a pickle jar.

OK Claussen. I see your ad, and I raise you one...Picklelock.

Sherlock: Jawwwwwwwn! Jawwwwwwwwwn!

John: what. WHAT NOW.

Sherlock: John, the last pickle is gone! Gone! *throws hands into air tragically, falls to knees on the kitchen floor* Somebody ate the last pickle! *whips out magnifying glass, frantically clues for looks looks for clues*  Who would dare eat the last Claussen pickle?! Moriarty. No. Dead. Moran? No. Prison. Life sentence -

John: Sherlock.

Sherlock: Gavin? No. Too busy hugging kittens.* The Woman? No. Too busy robbing banks with Molly. Magnussen?!?! No. Dead -

John: SHERLOCK IT WAS YOU, YOU BERK. LAST NIGHT? AFTER THE CASE?

Sherlock: Oh. Right. *clears throat* *snaps magnifier shut.* Well, I’ll have a very firm talk with myself about it.

* thanks @barachiki. your Lestrade and kitten series is a gift that keeps on giving

And lastly: the perfect premise for a 1950s pulp sci-fi Fusion AU:

“Shunning society and devoting himself completely to scientific research, he ["a legless heavy who hates war”] becomes a brilliant inventor who conceives a new engine of death - the CYCLOTRON-ELECTRON-ACCELERATOR-COSMIC RAY, with the idea of using this as a means of ending war. Or - is mentally warped, using the device for the purposes of revenge.

“Scientific Basis for the CYCLOTRON-ELECTRON-ACCELERATOR-COSMIC RAY...”

I can’t remember who the “legless heavy” is supposed to be; I don’t even know what a legless heavy is; but my brain assumed the script meant Holmes. I just realized that might be wrong. Anyway, this is an excerpt from an *actual* pre-production script draft of Sherlock Holmes in Canada, which became The Scarlet Claw, one of the Nigel Bruce and Basil Rathbone films (and losing the initial concept in the process). Pity.

Next Up in Part 2: we tour the permanent ACD collection, review some history of female fictional detectives and female detective novel writers, learn a bit more about Stephen Thompson, and salute Mrs. Hudson, Our Queen.

@88thparallel​ @fleurdelisandbees​ @devoursjohnlock​ @barachiki​ @inevitably-johnlocked @artfulkindoforder @a-different-equation @tendergingergirl @savagecatlady @tremendousdetectivetheorist @seriouslymarythough @antheiasilva

[tiger-moran]

Why do you dislike Mr. Baring-Gould? Is he not the first Sherlockian to do what Dr. Watson failed to do when he wrote his extensive biography of Mr. Holmes?

1/ Many of his theories aren’t even his own, that ‘biography’ is just a mash-up of big chunks practically cut and pasted straight from the canon with theories and claims largely made by other people which Baring-Gould presented as supported fact and without making it clear they largely weren’t his own words or theories.

2/ Most of those ideas actually have nothing to support them and in many cases even contradict the canon, yet many are now actually widely believed to be canonical.  

3/ He tried to claim Sherlock Holmes’s name wasn’t even Sherlock and was in fact William. In other words he tried to say that ACD was wrong about his main and title character's name and give Holmes the same name and initials as himself instead. That alone would make me despise his work.

4/ His work is such heteronormative rubbish that repeatedly shits on the canon and canonical characters/characterisation essentially just because he shipped Holmes/Adler. Holmes’ romantic disinterest in women is totally ignored and overwritten. Adler's marriage is dismissed and her characterisation is shit on by turning her into some woobified helpless damsel who of course made a shitty choice of husband and has to be rescued by the ‘’’heroic’’’ men. Godfrey Norton’s character is absolutely ruined by making him an abuser who only wanted Irene’s money (also some kind of Evil Foreigner too, probably). Etc etc. 

5/ He is not the only person to do this but is certainly a major contributor to it - this situation amongst Holmes ‘scholars’ where they can propose the most utterly absurd theories themselves and have them treated as plausible but if you dare suggest a character is queer then that’s treated as absolutely ridiculous and '’’way out’’’ and just mocked and dismissed as impossible. Like apparently it’s fine for Baring-Gould to talk about Holmes and Watson fighting a pterodactyl and people will still say his biography is so amazing but someone says maybe Holmes is gay and that's treated as absurd and impossible. (And no that is not just down to being a product of its time and male homosexuality still being criminalised when Baring-Gould was writing. People even now are still doing this whilst still fawning all over texts like Baring-Gould's biography.)

6/ He didn’t really even do anything with the ideas he had (or took from elsewhere), he just skipped over lots of stuff in the biography without bothering to explain it. Like Holmes and Moriarty for example. He never explained why they developed this supposed antagonism between them, he just says hatred sprang up between them but never explained why, and it's like that throughout - where things happened that would actually have required him to use his imagination instead of just pasting in chunks of the canon or taking other peoples' ideas he didn't do anything, usually he just skipped straight past it.

7/ He claims other totally absurd stuff which is just laughably awful like Holmes’s last words supposedly being “Irene. Irene.” (despite also claiming Holmes died alone therefore leaving no one to hear his final words). A lot of it just makes me cringe so much.

8/ The constant ‘pretending Holmes was a real person and calling him the Master and claiming everything that happened is real and ACD was only the editor and nitpicking over every tiny contradiction’ thing drives me up the wall. It’s fiction. It’s not real; they are stories; lots of details were deliberately made up; lots of stuff was fudged because ACD didn't care that much plus things like computers and the internet and email didn't exist making it much harder for people to check things, and I find that whole obsessively pretending it was anything else, that it was all real, so incredibly obnoxious and irritating, as well as insulting to ACD to call him just ‘Watson's editor’, and while being far from the only one doing that, Baring-Gould was a major proponent of that.

9/ I don't like and have no time for the majority of this 'Holmesian scholar' stuff anyway because almost all of it is a bunch of obviously cis straight white mostly men who think it's fine to have their Sherlock Holmes societies and dress up in costumes and call themselves names from the canon and write essays analysing the most trivial details from the canon but then they insult and mock the modern fandom and particularly shippers. No that's not solely down to Baring-Gould and I know he's not directly responsible for the latter since he's been dead for a long time and never got to see the rise of internet fandom and the like, but he certainly significantly contributed to that. Then a lot of their content is also riddled with homophobia and misogyny and the like. Meanwhile there's all this other stuff in the canon that could be addressed and analysed but they almost entirely ignore it while they obsess over the moon being in the wrong phase for X to have taken place on Y date or something. That part of the Sherlock Holmes fandom has almost entirely ignored anything in the canon I actually care about. As with much of this that isn't just Baring-Gould but he was a driving force behind that side of the fandom and the one who collected all of that stuff I loathe into one place and made it more accessible and therefore popular while ignoring other fascinating characters and details in the canon.

There are probably other reasons I loathe him/his work but those are just off the top of my head.

[redvanillabee]

Musings on A Study in Pink (3)

Part 3: ‘Who’d be a fan of Sherlock Holmes?’ – The biggest obstacle to Johnlock

TRIGGER WARNING: discussions of homophobia, including negative stereotypes of gay people; passing mention of suicide

ASiP Recap: the Cabbie’s sponsor

During the confrontation, the Cabbie informs Sherlock that he has a ‘sponsor’: 

JEFF: I ’ave a sponsor.

SHERLOCK: You have a what?

JEFF: For every life I take, money goes to my kids. The more I kill, the better off they’ll be. You see? It’s nicer than you think.

SHERLOCK (frowning): Who’d sponsor a serial killer?

JEFF (instantly): Who’d be a fan of Sherlock ’olmes?

(They stare at each other for a moment.)

JEFF: You’re not the only one to enjoy a good murder. There’s others out there just like you, except you’re just a man ... and they’re so much more than that.

(The side of Sherlock’s nose twitches in distaste.)

SHERLOCK: What d’you mean, more than a man? An organisation? What?

JEFF: There’s a name no-one says, an’ I’m not gonna say it either. Now, enough chatter.

…

SHERLOCK (furiously): The NAME!

JEFF (agonised): MORIARTY! [x]

In ASiP, we find out that ‘Moriarty’, whoever that is/they are, is a sponsor of a serial killer, a fan of Sherlock Holmes, and could be more than one single man. 

In review: fandom theories about Moriarty

Ah, Moriarty. The longest standing enigma of the fandom. Below I will sum up a few more common theories regarding who Moriarty may be, and analyse their implications in relation to A Study in Pink.

 In cahoots – Jim, Mycroft, ‘Mary’, and M Theory

The M Theory is arguably one of the fandom’s cornerstone discussions on Moriarty’s identity and motivations . One of the key proposals in M Theory is that Jim, ‘Mary’, and Mycroft are in cahoots. 

M Theory – Jim Moriarty the criminal mastermind

M Theory asserts that Jim Moriarty as we see him since TGG is the criminal mastermind that he claims to be, while ‘Mary’ and Mycroft are both his underlings. According to the theory, Jim’s unhealthy obsession with Sherlock is his sole motivation. Jim has an unhealthy sort of ‘romantic obsession’ that ‘defines all of his actions throughout the series’ [x].  His ‘fatal attraction’ to Sherlock entails a desire to ‘mould Sherlock into his psychopath boyfriend, or failing that, break Sherlock’s heart trying’. This is a plan that John and Sherlock must fight to end up together. 

ASiP, then, is pretty straightforward and is as the Cabbie has described: Jim, obsessed with Sherlock, sponsors the Cabbie to go on a killing spree, hoping to grab Sherlock’s attention, thus putting himself on Sherlock’s radar. 

Jim in subtext – Sherlock’s repressed sexuality and internalised homophobia

Aside from being Moriarty, Jim has also featured in Sherlock’s imaginary. In both His Last Vow and The Abominable Bride, the Jim we see in Sherlock’s mind represents ‘all the things and feelings that Sherlock fear’ [x].  The ‘things and feelings that Sherlock fear’ is his romantic and sexual desire for John, and we can tell from the state of Moriarty in Sherlock’s Mind Palace. Jim in both scenarios symbolise Sherlock’s repressed sexuality—his fear that his desires are unwanted and perverted, and a fear of intimacy, presumably caused by a childhood of learning ‘caring is not an advantage’ from Mycroft. 

Jim in Sherlock’s mind is heavily associated with Victorian imagery—perhaps one of the most homophobic times in western history—even before TAB. In His Last Vow, Moriarty is put in a straitjacket and a padded room that looks like it came straight out of a Victorian mental asylum.

Moriarty, who we have seen in The Great Game and The Reichenbach Fall as being quite blatantly and invasively sexual, is cast away by Sherlock as someone unstable, out of control, and needs to be locked up in the Victorian way. In TAB, Jim goes even further. In a signature move, he fellates his gun right in front of Sherlock:

In Sherlock’s head, the romantic and sexual desires (for John) are repressed in the Victorian manner, so out of control that it has to be tied up, and is horrifyingly perverted. Sherlock sees his sexuality as someone like Moriarty. For a while, especially around the time of The Reichenbach Fall and The Empty Hearse, he must have seen his love for John as something destructive to the latter. To Sherlock, John prefers and would be better off with ‘Mary’. In TEH, he apologises for coming back into John’s life:

JOHN: I wanted you not to be dead.

SHERLOCK: Yeah, well, be careful what you wish for.

(John sighs.)

SHERLOCK: If I hadn’t come back, you wouldn’t be standing there and ...

(Baring his teeth, John turns away, shaking his head.)

SHERLOCK: ... you’d still have a future ... with Mary. [x] 

And indeed, in TAB, one of Sherlock’s greatest fear, his ghostly skeleton in the grave, is that John prefers his life with ‘Mary’, and would willingly let her take him away because he is tired of Sherlock:

JOHN (loudly): No, everyone always lets you do whatever you want. That’s how you got in this state.

SHERLOCK (straightening up again): John, please ...

JOHN (angrily): I’m not playing this time, Sherlock, not any more.

(He steps back, flexing his left hand, then speaks more calmly.)

JOHN: When you’re ready to go to work, give me a call.

(He takes Mary’s arm.)

JOHN: I’m taking Mary home.

MARY (instantly): You’re what?

JOHN: Mary’s taking me home.

MARY: Better. [x]

While Sherlock knows, perhaps theoretically, in ASiP that ‘it’s fine’ for him to have a boyfriend, He is increasingly doubtful of whether he would be a good boyfriend and a good future for John. Mycroft’s teaching of ‘caring is not an advantage’, and seeing John getting into different life-threatening situations because of him surely makes Sherlock question whether he is right for John, whether his desire and love for John should be allowed. 

Subtextually, in Sherlock’s head at least, Moriarty is everything he fears he is to John: perverted, invasive, disgusting. In short, while less serious than John, Moriarty can be read as a representative of Sherlock’s internalised homophobia.

Moriarty as a title – ‘Mary’ as ‘Moriarty’

Since S3, people have been speculating that Jim as we see him is not the real Moriarty. Since the release of the Sherlock adult colouring book, it is basically confirmed that ‘Mary’ is present at the pool scene in The Great Game.  Some, such as @deeepfield, thinks that Moriarty is just a title, and ‘Mary’ is the real ‘Moriarty’.  If ‘Mary’ is the real Moriarty, and Jim is just the public face, this adds a whole new dimension to the subtext. 

‘Mary’ is heteronormativity. ‘Mary Morstan’, in both ACD canon and BBC Sherlock, is the reason why many people insist John and Sherlock are not in love with each other. She stands in the way of John and Sherlock. The recently devised Heimish Test,  started by @heimishtheidealhusband and elaborated by @sherlock-overflow-error, has actual numbers on how ‘Mary’ has impeded John and Sherlock’s relationship.

Roped into it all – Mycroft and Sherlock’s perceived brand of masculinity

I have not come across any theories saying that Mycroft is Moriarty, but it is generally accepted that Mycroft is roped into Moriarty’s scheme. M Theory, amongst other theories, suggest that Moriarty has Mycroft under his control, just as we see in The Reichenbach Fall. However reluctant he may be, Mycroft is indeed in Moriarty’s game, so let’s take a closer look at him.

Mycroft serves multiple purposes in the show’s narrative. Often he is a stand in for the show’s writers, such as at the end of ASiP, or at the beginning of TFP. In the story, to Sherlock at least, he is apparently the British government. As part of Moriarty’s group, on a more superficial level of subtext, Mycroft in BBC Sherlock is the Sherlock Holmes that has been envisioned in so many other adaptations. 

In the ACD canon, Holmes is hardly an unfeeling machine. He flushes at Watson’s compliments, he beats up a criminal for wounding Watson superficially (heart-eyeing Garridebs), and apparently he ‘chuckled and wriggled in his chair, as was his habit when in high spirits’ [x]. Yet for years, readers and adapters of the Sherlock Holmes stories believe he is a robot, a machine. They believe that ‘all emotions are abhorrent to [him]’ [x]. Dare I say, for quite a while, Holmes is the pinnacle of stoic straight British masculinity.

In the BBC adaptation, Mycroft seems to fit this common perception of Sherlock Holmes more than Sherlock himself does. He is coolly detached. He values logic and deduction above all else. He proudly proclaims that he ‘not given to outbursts of brotherly compassion’ [x].  He is the one who taught Sherlock – and keep reminding him – that ‘caring is not an advantage’ [x]. 

But as we know, in both ACD canon and BBC adaptation, Sherlock Holmes is none of that. Mycroft Holmes, in this reading, becomes a stand-in for the kind of straight masculinity that readers through history have projected onto Sherlock Holmes.

Whoever the real Moriarty is, this unholy trinity – Jim ([internalised] homophobia), ‘Mary’ (heteronormativity), and Mycroft (toxic masculinity) – are in cahoots, and together they stand in the way of canon Johnlock.

If you need assurances that S4 is fake, then this reading provides one, too. The modern scenes of TAB ends with Sherlock saying this:

SHERLOCK: Moriarty is dead, no question. But more importantly ...

(He raises his head and looks to one side.)

SHERLOCK: ... I know exactly what he’s going to do next. [x]

Then we get the clusterfuck that is Series 4. And the supposed ‘happy ending’ of S4? It is one narrated by ‘Mary’ ‘heteronormativity�� Morstan. S4 is what would happen if all the ‘Moriarty’ forces take control of the narrative: dramatic death scenes, forced I Love You’s to minor characters, fake tans galore, NO CANON JOHNLOCK, etc. And they won’t be around forever; Moriarty must be stopped.

Fan and Sponsor: Moriarty blocking the way to Johnlock

This brings us back to M Theory. In M Theory, the ultimate goal of Moriarty (partly) is to change Sherlock – from a soft, caring man who cares for his landlady, his flatmate, and hates people like Magnussen, to a real heartless psychopath. The other part of his goal is to tear him away from John. Is that not what the unholy trinity of Moriarty is doing, throughout the show? Driving John and Sherlock apart, telling either of them that they are not good enough for each other, telling them (in particular to Sherlock) that love and intimacy are weaknesses?

The Cabbie tells us that Moriarty is his sponsor and a fan of Sherlock Holmes. A ‘sponsor’ is ‘a person or an organization that pays for or plans and carries out a project or activity …  in return for advertising time during its course’ [x]. By killing John mirrors and attempting to kill Sherlock – killing their real selves as we see in the BBC adaptation, and killing the possibility of Johnlock – is Moriarty not advertising? Is the absence of Johnlock not the triumph of heteronormativity and homophobia and toxic straight masculinity?

By saying Moriarty is a ‘fan’ of Sherlock Holmes, the writers are also lowkey dragging self-proclaimed ‘fans’ of Sherlock Holmes who fail to see the true nature of his and John Watson’s relationship. Take a look at the other fans of Sherlock mentioned on the show. Nurse Cornish in TLD, who says she is a fan of Sherlock Holmes’ adventures, does not even know whose blog (storytelling) she is reading. 

NURSE CORNISH: I love his blog, don’t you?

JOHN: His blog?

NURSE CORNISH: Oh, don’t you read it?

JOHN: You mean my blog. [x]

Kitty Riley, who claims to be a Sherlock Holmes fan in TRF, turns out to be a fake fan, a reporter who is only interested in ‘helping’ Sherlock ‘set the record straight’ [x]. 

Even Culverton Smith, a dark!John mirror,  says he is a fan of Sherlock. By the time of TLD, John Watson is still so plagued by his personal issues we discussed in Part 1, that he casts himself as a creepy serial killer, and sarcastically calls himself a fan of Sherlock Holmes.  

But wait! Isn’t the Queen a fan of Sherlock Holmes too? Are Mofftiss dragging the Queen?

That’s one way of reading it, certainly: that the head of the institution, the symbol of British decorum, is one who is a fan of the straight, public façade of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. But I think there’s more to it.

In ASiB, the Queen is not simply a fan of the ‘frankly ridiculous adventures’ of John and Sherlock, oh no. She is very aware of what she is reading: 

EQUERRY: My employer is a tremendous fan of your blog.

JOHN (looking startled): Your employer?

EQUERRY: Particularly enjoyed the one about the aluminium crutch. [x]

The Queen is very aware that she’s reading John’s blog, John Watson’s own sometimes-fictitious representation of what actually happened.

When Harry tells John that his employer likes his stories and has particularly enjoyed one of the stories, it is a callback to The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, the closest we ever got to an openly gay Sherlock Holmes to date. 

The case that the Queen particularly enjoys, The Aluminium Crutch, is beautifully loaded with subtextual meanings too. The Aluminium Crutch is a case writeup that gets us the closest to the real events. The case writeup is actually a very long text Sherlock has sent John, with only very minimal editing done by the latter. The Queen is enjoying a story that gets us past the embellishments and rewriting John would usually slather onto a writeup. 

On top of that, in the same long text, Sherlock claims that he has no time to explain the case to the police, but apparently has the time to type it all out to send to John. He, seemingly, always has time for one John Watson. I hope the Queen has enjoyed that little fact.

The Aluminium Crutch is also a play within play – a theatrical show within the BBC Sherlock show itself. In this play, the actor who plays Detective Sidney Paget – same name as the illustrator for the ACD stories in The Strand – accidentally gets himself killed on stage in what he thought was a clever ploy to incriminate his colleague. Sidney Paget the illustrator is (in)famous for taking quite a lot of artistic liberties with his illustrations, adding features that were not in ACD’s original stories. Some of these added features have somehow become staple characteristics of Sherlock Holmes throughout history, such as the deerstalker. The Deerstalker, in the BBC adaptation, is a symbol of a fake public persona, more specifically the public illusion that Sherlock is straight. And in this show, ‘Sidney Paget’ gets himself killed. The one who has ‘saddled’ Sherlock Holmes with the ‘improbable costume’ accidentally dies of his own plans.

The 1954 American adaptation

Is there more to the Queen? Yes there is. In Mycroft’s bunker in TEH and TST, there is a painting of the Queen.

This portrait of the Queen was painted by Pietro Annigoni in 1954. Incidentally, 1954 sees the first American television adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and was the only one until Elementary in 2012. This 1954 adaptation, produced by Sheldon Reynolds, approaches the ACD source material in a way similar to how Gatiss and Moffat claim they are approaching it. Reynolds said he wanted to portray a younger Holmes and Watson than seen in most other adaptations: 

I was suddenly stuck by the difference between the character in that book and that of the stage and screen. Here, Holmes was a young man in his thirties, human, gifted, and of a philosophic and scholastic bent, but subject to fateful mistakes which stemmed from his overeagerness and lack of experience.

Besides, like BBC Sherlock, the 1954 adaptation feature mostly non-canonical original stories, with a few based directly on the ACD canon, and a few others loosely inspired by the canon. The main difference between this adaptation and the BBC version, as far as we know, is that while Gatiss and Moffat think Sherlock Holmes became a bane for ACD in his later writing career because ACD could not make Holmes explicitly gay, Reynolds simply bemoaned that in the later stories, Sherlock Holmes has become a ‘literary monster’ for Doyle.

On the one hand, this can be taken to mean that the Queen—the head of state, the symbol of British history and decorum—stands for an adaptation of Sherlock Holmes that is essentially the BBC version but not gay. On the other hand, we can see it as the public façade Mofftiss are putting on regarding Johnock.

When they mention ‘the Queen’ on the show, it is not always a reference to Queen Elizabeth II herself. She is Mycroft and Harry’s employer in ASiB. In the same episode, we even see Mycroft himself being jokingly called ‘the queen’:

JOHN: Here to see the Queen?

(At that moment Mycroft walks in from the next room.)

SHERLOCK: Oh, apparently yes. [x]

Mycroft is an established stand-in for the showrunners. In both episodes where we see Mycroft in this bunker, Mycroft is trying to save Sherlock’s life from getting involved with Moriarty and his minion’s evil plans. Mycroft – the reluctant accomplice in Moriarty’s game, the stand-in for the showrunners – is trying to save Sherlock from falling victim to Moriarty. The 1954 portrait of the Queen, standing in for the 1954 American adaptation, serves as both a shadow and a reminder – a shadow and a reminder of what is essentially the non-gay version of BBC Sherlock. Under this, Mycroft – the showrunners – is working hard to save Sherlock from heteronormativity, homophobia, and toxic masculinity.

If we are to read very deeply into things, we can even say the Queen stands in for the BBC commission of this show. Remember, the Queen in the show is an employer of Mycroft. As far as I know, when a portrait of the Queen is placed inside a government/public office, it usually carries the meaning of ‘by royal appointment’, or rendering services to the crown. We see this portrait in a secret bunker – the showrunners are secretly trying to save Sherlock from Moriarty. On the outside, however, the showrunners and their employers will vehemently deny that they are making Sherlock gay. They will only make references to TPLoSH, to the 1954 adaptation – two versions of the Sherlock Holmes stories that has every potential of becoming something like BBC Sherlock (with a canonically gay Sherlock), but did not because of various reasons.

We always hear that a good book must make the conflict clear in chapter 1. In A Study in Pink, the main conflict of the show has been laid bare for us – the media’s failure to recognise serial suicides as murder, John’s (implied) issues from childhood, and Moriarty, all attempt to kill John and Sherlock. They stand for the oppressive forces in our society – heteronormativity, homophobia, and toxic masculinity – that try to sto canon Johnlock from happening. Don’t worry though; in ASiP, John shoot the Cabbie and save himself and Sherlock. In TAB and TLD, we see glimpses of Sherlock and John rising to face their own demons. John and Sherlock will get their happy ending and make it down the last step, like it is foreshadowed in ASiP.

  Acknowledgments

This meta could not have come into being without the works of meta-writers that have come before me. It is thanks to the groundwork they have laid that I am able to further the analysis and create this piece.

Honorary mention: this piece by @toxicsemicolon​ four months ago put the idea of the show being about LGBT suicide prevention in my head, and when this idea met the Sherlock bot tweet in Part 2, this meta was born. 

I can’t say thanks enough to Amanda @SisterEdgelord, Carol @yesiamTHATcarol, Lin @lomes123, Tara @HeartDuct, and others on Twitter. They have all been incredibly supportive throughout the writing process, and keeps me going when I am questioning my own reading.

I hope you have enjoyed this ridiculously long three-part meta. 

Part 1: Shot in the left shoulder – the Cabbie as a John mirror

Part 2: ‘You can’t have serial suicides’ – media, chain suicides, and social problems

Part 4: ‘I that am lost, oh who will find me?’ – John Watson’s Final Problem

[boleynns]

LOOSE ENDS, ASSHOLES.

I wrote this 3 days ago, because I just KNEW they were going to fuck it all up.

^PHOTO OF A LIAR, for reference. LONG list of pissed off thoughts below.

ON YOUR WATCH.

That Molly scene in TFP was so horrendous. I don’t even ship them at all, but really. How much of an asshole do you have to be???

How did John and Sherlock survive a bomb by jumping through glass windows and landing 2 stories down on the concrete with no injuries?

How did they get on that boat?

WHY were they on that boat?

WTF was that imaginary plane bullshit???

NO ONE CARES THAT THE DOG ISNT REAL, ARE YOU KIDDING ME

Why did Mary think John would pull away from Sherlock if she died, if she didn’t know she was going to die saving Sherlock? If she’d died ANY other way, John would have no reason to pull away.

Why did Mary give Sherlock the 10000% worst advice in the world (seriously, who tf tells their “friend”, who is a DRUG ADDICT, “GO FUCK YOURSELF on drugs, and GO DIE on purpose” on the random ass off chance that John would find this out in time???)?

Why did Mary have a slip of paper to knock Sherlock out prepared ahead of time?

Why did Mary tell Sherlock and John that “A.G.R.A.” was her initials, when if they had just looked at the fucking drive they would see her real name?

Why was she SOOOOO worried that Sherlock and John would look at the drive, if all that was on there were A.G.R.A.’s identities???

Why did Mary shoot Sherlock directly in the chest point blank, which did kill him enough that the doctors GAVE UP, if she wasn’t trying to fucking kill him dead forever?

Why would Mary not recognize Vivian (or at least, her voice) if A.G.R.A. worked with her?

If Mycroft dealt with freelancers, why did he not know Mary wasn’t fucking MARY???

Why would Mary name her daughter after an alias that could get said daughter KILLED??? AND WE FUCKING KNOW THAT NAME WAS DANGEROUS, BECAUSE MARY LEFT IT BEHIND TO BECOME “MARY MORSTAN” YOU IDIOTS

What did John’s letter to Sherlock say? If is wasn’t going to be addressed, why the fuck would you put it in the episode??

Why did Molly deliver such a hard “John would rather have anyone but you. Anyone” message if it had NO POINT.

Where did the baby go when everyone the baby knew was at John’s “Therapist’s” office at the beginning of TLD? And don’t give me that “it was with friendS” crap, literally only Sherlock, Molly, and Mrs. Hudson went to that kid’s babyshower for fuck sake, John has no other friends.

If you can’t handle the placement of a baby for ONE EPISODE, don’t write one into your show FOR LITERALLY NO REASON.

What was Sherlock’s reoccurring dream that he was telling Ella? Why put that in if it wasn’t important?

If Mary isn’t bad, and therefore wasn’t working with “Faith” and Culverton to set Sherlock up to die (which would have been a perfect and interesting conspiracy), HOW did “Faith” and Culverton know Sherlock would be drugged up enough to fall into their trap??

WTF was the POINT of Eurus texting with John IF SHE WASNT WORKING WITH MARY to mess with Him and Sherlock? Literally ZERO point to the “plot”.

Also, we see that John and Eurus see eachother for a 2nd time at the bus stop. I thought it was important, even though y’all acted like all they did was text, BUT NOPE just another loose end.

TD-12 was absolutely useless, and you spent SO MUCH time on it. 

why did mary keep repeating villain lines (“Miss me?” multiple times, “Anyone!” multiple times in her video, literally fuck off)

If mary had time to jump 5 feet to take a bullet after its already been shot than sherlock had time to jump out of the way you idiots

also the irony of your holier-than-thou deduction sequence when Sherlock got shot, about how big spurts of dramatic blood only happens in movies? You literally fucked yourself.

zero point to Sherlock and John’s extended “ROMANTIC LOVE WILL COMPLETE YOUUUUU” scene on every level, went no where

speaking of that scene, how did Sherlock hear “Mary” say that he should wear the hat???? HUH>?

Mrs. Hudson WATCHED Mary’’s DVD with sherlock, why was she all “OH, wonder what this is, what could it be, WOW LOOK JOHN its your wife???” later with John and Mycroft WHEN SHE KNEW SHERLOCK WAS PROBABLY DYING

Also why would she just let John watch that cold, knowing Mary’s face would show up??

Why did you make Irene a lesbian if you were going to keep making her ride Sherlock’s dick via text message AGAIN.

I’m sure she would want to tell you this if she was here, so I’ll relay the message: LITERALLY GO FUCK YOURSELVES, YOU “SHERLOCK CAN TURN A LESBIAN WOMAN STRAIGHT, HES JUST THAT AMAZING, NO HOMO!!!” ASSHOLES

why was John still crying about his no homo bro being dead after two years, no offense to my best friend but I will think of you really fondly but probably not be going to therapy forever and being all “I literally am so heartbroken that i cant even say the things that i wanted to say to him when he was alive”

speaking of that thing that he couldn’t say out loud to Ella the Therapist: i guess he just really wanted to tell sherlock “No homo tho”, just to make sure he knew that before he died

speaking of things unsaid - I guess the serious thing that sherlock was going to say to john on the tarmac, that he chose not to say for absolutely no decernable reason, was “Bro, I’m gonna miss you, bro! We had some good bro times bro, NO HOMO!!1!” and then they do that back-slap hug that guys do so things don't get too homo

no offense to the prop department, but that light-up skull, that would be either lit or not lit or COMPLETELY BLACK, was bullshit

speaking of bullshit: kindly shove all of those elephants up your ass

including that Take-Out menu on Mycroft’s fridge. I hope you get a paper-cut that never heals.

i might as well have not even bothered taking notes on these episodes, when I could have literally never watched the show before, not cared at all, and been totally fulfilled by everything by not giving a shit about details and character arcs and, you know, literally all of ACD’s original works.

OMG SHERLOCK HAS A SISTER, I don’t fucking care.

AW POOR MARY, John and her were clearly soooo in love!! - says a person who thinks couples that don’t want to be together even a little are super romantic

literally he was trying to leave his marriage like a month after it started, literally go fuck yourself

Your show made less sense, in terms of emotion and character arcs, than Guy Ritchie’s cash grab movies. Yeah. I said it.

“Look at us both”. YEAH, LOOK AT YOURSELVES IN THE MIRROR.

oh wait i forgot, you don’t know what a mirror is. what is literature? what are emotions? idk, lets make mary gasp for breathe and say “you were my whole world!!!” to john even though that makes zero fucking sense for her character or their relationship at all and does huge disservice to them both LOL

Mary could have been the most Awesome Badass Mastermind EVER but you fucked her

An Emotional Arc: Its this thing where characters (who, like people) have emotions (CRAZZY i know), and they start in one place emotionally, and end somewhere new through the story! Lets see:

Sherlock: Starts as a suave, kinda swashbuckling guy who tries to tidy up his apartment for John, asks him to dinner, and basically blushes at John’s attention. In the middle: a bit of an asshole, but one who literally tries to die for John over and over, and literally COMES BACK TO LIFE from a FATAL gunshot bc his subconsious doesn’t want to leave John with Mary. End? “Sometimes I text Irene, just like you text your side-chick! No Homo For Life, RIGHT??? Don’t think about how every action I take is to keep you safe or happy, lol”

John: Starts as an emotionally repressed, suicidal, PTSD stricken loner who is immediately enamored with Sherlock’s brain, and literally kills a man like 1 day after they meet. Middle: A bit of an asshole who is horrible at understanding that Sherlock is NOT a robot without feelings - but an asshole who is willing to die for him, and with him, but who has major trust issues. End? “I wish I had REALLY cheated on Mary with Bus Girl, I can’t believe I missed my chance! Also, even though I’m reacting extremely jealously to you texting Irene, I think you should hit that! Now hold me while I cry, and then lets get cake while my baby cries on the floor like a Sim somewhere NO HOMEO”

I will never let you forget this.

Congrats actually, you HAVE made history! You’ve made a Historically Huge Fuck Up.

Your show’s depth is thinner than Donald Trump’s skin.

200+ adaptations of Sherlock Holmes, no courage present - oh, except for that one parody “Oklahomo” one (thanks for including Sherlock tweeting an “Oklahoma!” reference also! if I had balls, that would’ve been a kick to them!).

LOL Sherlock and John - literally so hilarious!! All those people whining “They’re Not GAY that gross, Doyle would be rolling in his grave if he found out people thought that!” and “NO! SHERLOCK IS AN EMOTIONLESS ROBOT except he can fuck irene I'm okay with that for some reason”? They were all right! What a fucking joke.

I guess “Could he daily feel a stab of hunger for you, and find nourishment at the very sight of you? Yes [he’s in love with you]. But do you ache for him?” meant nothing—OH WAIT that’s from a show that actually textually acknowledged the feelings of love between it’s two main characters. And they didn’t even say “No homo!” afterwards?? I can’t believe it.

don’t ever ask your audience to pay attention on a subtextual level again. clearly, you can’t handle it.

also: I honestly couldn’t give a shit about your endless and constant derision and annoyance with people asking about the relationship between the MAIN CHARACtTERS OF YOUR FUCKING SHOW get over yourselves, and i really hope somehow ACD comes back as a ghost to haunt you one christmas, just to tell you straightt to your stupid faces that you fucked up, and how sad he is that it will always be 1895 - because nothing ever changes, and they will be stuck there forever, out of time.

how dare you bring Oscar Wilde and Freddie Mercury into this mess.

Your intentions don’t matter - what matters is that I would have been better off not paying attention to literally ANY details, not caring one ounce about the characters, and just tuning in as a completely casual viewer. 

The real lesson was “Caring is not an advantage.”, and that is sad.

And the real Final Problem? “It’s not about the characters, its about some stupid ass dog and a stupid ass ‘Saw’ house, and who gives a shit about the rest.

Congratulations - I no longer care!

[gloriascott93]

Side note to The Women's Intuition

A more personal tangent…

I am a huge resistor as some of you know to definitive readings or speculation. Everything comes with an IF.

And more, though I rarely mention it, I loathe binary opposites. Gay vs trash. Especially when applied to characters. DFP vs smol. BAMF!John vs perfect loyal dog John. I can’t stand characters put into binary boxes because it makes them caricatures, not real and this unrelatable. It counters the text.

And binaries so often make for speculative leaps while ignoring data. It draws erroneous conclusions. “Must” should always take a back seat to “might”.

So for me to take such a hard line in a narrative reading of the text is for me not insignificant. It goes against impulse. It doesn’t let the writers hide behind for now a supposed and inferred unreliable narration. It draws a line in the sand I am usually very uncomfortable with.

I have always ALWAYS given these writers a massive benefit of the doubt. Perhaps more than necessary or warranted. Reading, as I do, a narrative end game - displayed by the surface text that the unobservant viewer doesn’t yet see. The rug pull. But also giving the writers latitude in how they play that game. And always knowing I may be wrong. Even though every instinct as a feminist queer Holmesian who knows their history tells me I’m not. Unless I have been royally baited and the text is lying to me and to boot is using women characters to tell that lie.

I am troubled by Moffat’s “doing the dishes” line on Thursday. It’s hugely problematic. It’s demeaning of everyone. Including himself. And yet I don’t need that either, even though in their historical context, it would be entirely congruent with ACD to frame these characters domestically without trivializing them.

And I’ll note that doing the dishes is historically women’s work. Trivialize that, you trivialize women. It’s the text book chicken and egg of misogyny: Women do dishes. Women are therefore trivial. Doing dishes is women’s work, therefore doing dishes must be trivial work. Therefore women are trivial. And should only do trivial work. Stay in the kitchen. Where you belong. Round and round and round it goes. For a momentary outburst it carries an immense historical weight. It is congruent with the reading of homophobia as the bastard child of misogyny. God forgive the man that ends up acting like a woman. Loving like a woman. Stuck at the kitchen sink like a woman. How trivial.

But dishes aside, however, I don’t trivialize this love at all. I see it written as High Romance. A kiss, or sex are not my benchmarks though I am uncomfortable with a desexualised queer reading of the text without very clear justification for it that fits these characters. I read these characters as ultimately epic. Their love story, canonically (a term I refuse to apply to anyone but ACD) as epic and queer. With a canonically textual and highly detailed domestic life to back it up told by an unreliable closeted narrator.

I am struck by the irony that while I don’t feel emotionally hurt at this juncture, others do. They feel driven mad, gaslighted, mistreated - cruelly so. I accept that for what it is. I understand it though I don’t feel that same strong emotional reaction. Perhaps as a queer woman I should.

But it strikes me as highly coincidental that the place I land in speculating on the narrative from a feminist, queer position matches the current fandom anxiety so perfectly. That the women characters are indeed potentially just like the fans. Wrong. And fools for thinking as they do.

And without wishing to seem uncaring, I don’t feel a strong impulse as an older fan to extend a caring hand to teenage fans. Perhaps I should. Mofftiss don’t intimidate me. I admire them but they are not my dads. They are my equals only a few years older than me. Talented, privileged, fortunate and very hard working - but ultimately my equals. They are human and capable of fucking up. As I am. Capable of being churlish or unkind.

I enjoy the fun on here but I am aware that I am nowhere close to being as emotionally invested as some others. I like the debate. The conversation. The analysis. But my happiness or sense of self in no way hangs on this show. This is simply an extension of the grand Sherlockian game from a queer perspective around one adaptation. And I enjoy the exchanges with bright, thoughtful, intelligent people who I literally don’t know - don’t even know their names or they mine - who like the game - the research, the speculation, the debate, the possibility of changing Sherlockian history. I appreciate the exchanges I have on here greatly.

I say all this for a very specific reason. Because that coincidence - that reading of women in the show and the alignment with fandom is not coincidence. Both are examples of an ongoing historic continuity. Of how women are treated in texts and in real life fandoms of texts. This is not me projecting. This is fact. I know categorically that i am not overly emotional. Hysterical. As if emotions are something to be ashamed of! If anything I’m not emotional enough. I find myself concluding a defense of a fandom that I often feel little emotional identity with and from which I feel generationally apart. And I cannot deny that there is something way off base in how others in this fandom are treated. Historically congruent and way off. And I admit I have sided with Mofftiss more often than not.

I am more than up for the debate. I am happy to be proven wrong or shown a way to break the binary opposition I see in the textual narrative. Bring it on. Show me I am wrong. I have never been one on here to shy away from saying oh, I made a mistake or I misread or misunderstood or misremembered. Prove me wrong and I will happily concede the point.

I am very very far from the caricature fan Moffat imagines. I am very very like him in many ways. But as a queer woman I am different from him. And if my read is wrong I want to know why. I want to know why I should let go of my own reading to serve his. Because my reading makes more sense of the text as he has written it. He, not Gatiss, is the extravagantly Romantic writer here.

I don’t know what my benchmark is for TFP. I am open to being surprised. But there is a binary I find in this text that is highly problematic. Because it is more than queerbaiting. It casts women in a very dodgy light unless the narrative follows through to an endgame that proves them right. (Look at TAB for god’s sake. That episode which I loved and was critiqued at the time is so very problematic in not only its treatment of women but of Sherlock himself if the narrative doesn’t deliver a queer endgame.)

I want him to prove me wrong. I really do. Not because my feelings are hurt but because I want this story to be something other than the same old crap women and queer people have put up with for years. I want him to dare to go there. To follow through on the narrative he has written. To have an ending worthy of it. Worthy of all these characters.

Because I want it to be good.

If there is an option C it will have to be a really good one. It will have to be a very compelling read. I have hope. Genuinely. But I am under no illusion that this narrative is on perilous grounds. That this show is potentially going to go way down in my estimations.

And rather than saying, “these writers are so clever” I will have to change course and say, “I was wrong. This really is nothing new. It’s a bit not good.”

And I will potentially then also conclude that how i and so many others read this story - queerly - is actually the *more* clever solution.

I hope I am proved wrong. I hope they surprise the life out of me. I would happily concede the point. I would like the writers, for me, for us all to win this game in the end. I don’t want progress to be on the losing side. And boy do we need some progress in this current climate where progress is under such extreme threat.

A lot hangs on TFP. Inside the narrative and without. But in the end all I want is it to be a little sign of hope in the world. A story of resistance. Of change. Of progress. That the goodies will win. Because they must win. There is no if about that. The alternative is so bleak right now. I want a story where my heroes win and I win too. Where I get to feel just a little bit heroic. I’d like that for Mofftiss too.

There’s nothing trivial about me wanting people like me to be heroic. That’s the power of stories. They don’t have to be real to be true. They change us. They shape profoundly how we view ourselves. There is nothing trivial about it.

And let’s be honest. If all that lay ahead for Sherlock and John was that they spent their days washing dishes and living in peace and solving puzzles in the safety of their own home, with someone who loves them, to grow old with, to walk safely down the street without threat of violence or hate - that’s not nothing. It’s a darn lot more than many women and queer people have gotten or still get. But they’d be lucky to have it. Anyone would.

We will see.

[harriet-spy]

like birds to a lighthouse

“Mary (the never once named wife in ACD canon”

“A client who became a convenient ‘beard’ in canon”

etc.

Sometimes I wonder whether people realize just how dim they sound, mindlessly repeating what some other rando on Tumblr told them to support their arguments without its even occuring to them to check it.  Behold:

Miss Morstan entered the room with a firm step and an outward composure of manner. She was a blonde young lady, small, dainty, well gloved, and dressed in the most perfect taste. There was, however, a plainness and simplicity about her costume which bore with it a suggestion of limited means. The dress was a sombre grayish beige, untrimmed and unbraided, and she wore a small turban of the same dull hue, relieved only by a suspicion of white feather in the side. Her face had neither regularity of feature nor beauty of complexion, but her expression was sweet and amiable, and her large blue eyes were singularly spiritual and sympathetic. In an experience of women which extends over many nations and three separate continents, I have never looked upon a face which gave a clearer promise of a refined and sensitive nature...

I sat in the window with the volume in my hand, but my thoughts were far from the daring speculations of the writer. My mind ran upon our late visitor,—her smiles, the deep rich tones of her voice, the strange mystery which overhung her life. If she were seventeen at the time of her father's disappearance she must be seven-and-twenty now,—a sweet age, when youth has lost its self-consciousness and become a little sobered by experience. So I sat and mused, until such dangerous thoughts came into my head that I hurried away to my desk and plunged furiously into the latest treatise upon pathology. What was I, an army surgeon with a weak leg and a weaker banking-account, that I should dare to think of such things? She was a unit, a factor,—nothing more. If my future were black, it was better surely to face it like a man than to attempt to brighten it by mere will-o'-the-wisps of the imagination...

Our guide had left us the lantern. Holmes swung it slowly round, and peered keenly at the house, and at the great rubbish-heaps which cumbered the grounds. Miss Morstan and I stood together, and her hand was in mine. A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two who had never seen each other before that day, between whom no word or even look of affection had ever passed, and yet now in an hour of trouble our hands instinctively sought for each other. I have marvelled at it since, but at the time it seemed the most natural thing that I should go out to her so, and, as she has often told me, there was in her also the instinct to turn to me for comfort and protection. So we stood hand in hand, like two children, and there was peace in our hearts for all the dark things that surrounded us... 

"The treasure is lost," said Miss Morstan, calmly.  As I listened to the words and realized what they meant, a great shadow seemed to pass from my soul. I did not know how this Agra treasure had weighed me down, until now that it was finally removed. It was selfish, no doubt, disloyal, wrong, but I could realize nothing save that the golden barrier was gone from between us. "Thank God!" I ejaculated from my very heart.  She looked at me with a quick, questioning smile. "Why do you say that?" she asked.  "Because you are within my reach again," I said, taking her hand.  She did not withdraw it. "Because I love you, Mary, as truly as ever a man loved a woman. Because this treasure, these riches, sealed my lips. Now that they are gone I can tell you how I love you. That is why I said, 'Thank God.'" "Then I say, 'Thank God,' too," she whispered, as I drew her to my side. Whoever had lost a treasure, I knew that night that I had gained one...

"Well, and there is the end of our little drama," I remarked, after we had set some time smoking in silence. "I fear that it may be the last investigation in which I shall have the chance of studying your methods. Miss Morstan has done me the honor to accept me as a husband in prospective."  He gave a most dismal groan. "I feared as much," said he. "I really cannot congratulate you."  I was a little hurt. "Have you any reason to be dissatisfied with my choice?" I asked.  "Not at all. I think she is one of the most charming young ladies I ever met, and might have been most useful in such work as we have been doing. She had a decided genius that way: witness the way in which she preserved that Agra plan from all the other papers of her father. But love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things. I should never marry myself, lest I bias my judgment." "I trust," said I, laughing, "that my judgment may survive the ordeal.”

I had forgotten until re-reading the “might have been most useful in such work as we have been doing.  She had a decided genius that way.”  That’s clearly what the writers were riffing off of when they went for super-agent Mary (even if they did it in a way that many people found ill-advised).