Anonymous asked: Who do you ship more, Sherlock/John or Sherlock/Victor?

Sherlock/John.

I had this discussion the other day and and more or less, the way I see it, they’re two very different people from two very different periods of Sherlock’s life. Victor was soft and patient and fascinated and Sherlock outgrew him. John is all of those things but stronger and hardened around his edges in the kind of casual paradox that’s exactly what Sherlock needs. He’s just urgh he’s John and he fits after the cocaine and the crime scenes and he fits despite them and he fits because of them and nobody else ever has been or ever will be John Watson.



thecityofpaper: Jess you should write one of your amazing analysis posts on John being the audience to Sherlock and Irene’s (er…I don’t know if I want to call it a relationship or…well you know what I mean, they’re thing they had with each other) because I would love to know your thoughts on that :D

jkahsljkahs shh Caroline bb they’re really not amazing they’re just me crying

Oh gosh, okay, this is something I really love about John so I’m going to try and keep it rational and not just start crying and clinging to him and, essentially, condense a lot of feelings into… not so many words.

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Anonymous asked: I apologise in advance for any further grievance this may cause you, but as in canon Holmes & Watson retired to the same home, i'm assuming BBC Sherlock & John will eventually do the same. My question is, who do you think will die first, and how will the other react?

akshakah I can’t believe I’m actually going to answer this THE EMOTIONAL TRAUMA I ENDURE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL OF YOU. 

Did they retire together? I was under the impression Holmes retired to keep bees alone and they merely kept in contact? Correct me if I’m wrong, though!

Oh gosh, okay, either way, in terms of who will die first: In The House of Silk (which is considered canonical by the Doyle estate) the book opens with Watson in his old age mourning Holmes’ death. I think the concept was that Holmes’ drug and tobacco use caught up with him and… yeah. I suppose, even taking into account Watson being slightly older and his own traumas, that’s… a believable outcome in a canonical sense?However it does owe a lot to Holmes’ substance abuse which seems to be somewhat minimised for BBC verse, if not just due to the culture change. 

With that said though I’ll be the first to admit that I see Holmes with a great (probably unhealthy) amount of hero-worship (while acknowledging his many faults) and, in a completely irrational way, it strikes me as almost hard to comprehend that someone so absolutely extraordinary and unparalleled could do something so bland as die. So, for that reason I always almost subconsciously supposed it would be Watson while Holmes would just… never really end. 

In terms of how the other will deal… I just… oh, gosh… I guess also think I agree, in part, with Watson’s reaction in The House of Silk which wasn’t so much to stand at Holmes’ grave and openly weep but instead he developed this quiet blanketing sadness about his entire person. The sort of bone-deep sadness that doesn’t so much manifest in action but… he hasn’t actively decided to end his life but just calmly given up, accepted that it was something that was finished for him - that it had come and he was ready to let it go. He has these beautiful lines about still being able to hear Holmes’ violin late at night and knowing it’s for him. I think at one point he actually says he’s ready to let go now that he knows Holmes is waiting. In a way I like that idea, I like the concept of Watson being ferociously loyal to the very end, the thought that there really is nowhere Watson wouldn’t follow Holmes - “When do we start?” “You are not coming.” ”Then you are not going,” - and nowhere they would let each-other go alone. I like the idea that he knows, that he can feel Holmes and hear him, and he’s ready to go wherever he is even though he hasn’t a clue what’s there. Then both Holmes and Watson’s loyalty isn’t proof anymore - there’s no need to forcibly establish. They just know. It’s just final confirmation.

I just read this back and realised it doesn’t at all answer your question SO JUST HAVE MY FEELINGS INSTEAD. JESUS CHRIST.LIKE I WAS EVER GOING TO BE ABLE TO PROPERLY ANSWER THIS ANYWAY.



Anonymous asked: Could you go into detail as to why you disliked that John scene? :D (I JUST LOVE YOUR OPINION POSTS AND YOU ARTICULATE YOURSELF SO WELL. AKSJFKDFJDKSf.) /creeperness

ahh okay I had a few of these so I’ll just answer the one. This isn’t going to go down well but do try to hear me out.

My problem with this scene is really part of a much larger problem to do with the fact that I think A Scandal in Belgravia as a whole was overtly, unnecessarily sexualised. I don’t mean the sexualisation of the show in terms of Irene Adler being a dominatrix, I mean everything from her approaches to Sherlock, Sherlock’s approaches to her, John’s approaches to women, women’s approaches to John, the text alert to the way Greg looked at darling Molly. 

I’ve read in interviews that Irene Adler and A Scandal in Belgravia was Steven Moffat’s way of saying to the world and to his fandom ‘These are two very straight men’ and to me that is just a waste of an episode and a waste of what could have been a flawless character. It’s not a point that needs to be proved, it’s not a point that, in the long run, matters. Because to me that is all some scenes strike me as - completely central on character sexuality and sexual themes while passing up anything to do with actual character.

To me the scene with John is one of the better examples of what I’m talking about. The John in this scene is, to me, not the John I know and love at all. He is positively predatory. It was that predatory approach to a woman he’s just met that made me so uncomfortable. I mean there’s three-continents Watson and then there’s John on a street corner looking at a woman’s breasts four times in the space of about two seconds, one look which is hideously, tactlessly, shamelessly prolonged. He doesn’t know her at all, he’s only just met on the sidewalk and the only reason he payed any proper attention to her was during the second ‘Hello’ when he realised she had a nice face and then promptly moved to realise she had nice breasts too - his primary and sole focus is sex.  It’s impolite, hormonal, tacky, completely unsubtle and not John Watson at all. Throughout that small scene all I can hear is Steven Moffat saying ’He’s so god damn straight he can’t even keep his eyes above her neckline that’s how god damn fucking straight John Watson is.’ and it’s unnecessary.

I do enjoy A Scandal in Belgravia as an episode (you’ll know that if you read my very positive review), it’s beautiful and it has some really gorgeous themes running though it and some stand out scenes for the entire series but, honestly, I find parts of it hard to watch because I feel so many of the scenes passed up the characters they were dealing with to go ‘LOOK HOW GOD DAMN STRAIGHT AND INTERESTED IN SEX THESE GUYS ARE’ and ultimately I feel they’re cheated out in that way. It happened not just Sherlock and John but to Irene too. It is not about my ship or what sexual orientation I believe Sherlock, John and Irene are because at the end of the day Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (for this adaptation) are the final say on that, once they give a label it’s non-negotiable. What I’m talking about is wasting segments of an episode and moments of a set of three flawless, limitless characters just to prove a point about their sexuality or the existence of sexuality that in the long run really has no greater impact on the show or the characters as a whole.

This turned into a much longer rant that I planned but I hope that makes some sense to you.



Anonymous asked: How do you picture Holmes and Watson when reading the original ACD stories? I know it doesn't really matter, but it always bothers me in the back of my brain when I'm reading them that I don't have a clear picture of the two.

To be honest I don’t have a particularly concrete image of them either! You’re completely right though, I don’t think it’s necessary but it has been something that’s  bothered me for a while.

I’m quite impressionable when it comes to mental images though and I often find if I go back after watching a given adaptation I’ll imagine Holmes and Watson as closer to the adaptation I’ve just seen. So, if I’ve just finished a Rathbone film and go back and read the canon I’ll see Holmes and Watson more as Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. Likewise when I watch Sherlock they’ll appear more like Benedict and Martin. I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all, though.

In a canonical sense (without the ~influence~ of adaptations) I suppose I do have a half-consistent image of them but one that I’ve only very recently decided upon and, trust me, it still shifts about a lot. I don’t really know how to explain it without becoming hideously poetic about the two of them and cheekbones and blue eyes but along the lines of the way Sidney Paget drew Holmes and sort of in the area of a taller Russian!Watson. Think ~romanticised~ Scarlet-era.



Anonymous asked: Do you think Moriarty is really dead?

Yes. While I’m not at all glad that he is dead (and I’ll miss him immensely!) in a way I like that that’s the way he went out.  It’s just so very BBC!Jim. He would rather die than be beaten, he would do everything to ensure his opponent looses even if he doesn’t live to see it. He lived just long enough to learn that he wasn’t the only one and then threw it all away just to win the game.

Plus, I love that he wasn’t dragged over by Sherlock, he remained in control, and he chose to go.



Anonymous asked: hi i just want to discuss my theory/ies feel free to ignore me but i'm thinking definitely that molly hooper faked the autopsy/death report annnd idk that's kindof all i've got except for when he was on the phone and he told john to keep his eyes fixed on him? idk idk i just need to talk about it
Hi, dear! Yeah, I think it’s kind of a universal headcanon/assumption/what-have-you that Molly was involved and I definitely agree but, I don’t know, she mightn’t be the beginning and end of it all. The main theories I’ve seen going around at the moment are:

They aren’t necessarily stand alone theories and could be combined with each other in any number of ways but I think, in that sense, maybe the rubber ball or the flower theories have a pretty good grounding based on small, easily-missed addition details and, really, it would be fantastic fun to have such a tiny detail be so important! Though the flower strikes me as more OOC than the ball, I just don’t really see a thing like making a phone call in your supposedly dying moment when you ‘prefer to text’ or tossing a rubber ball as all that OOC.

tldr: I DON’T KNOW WHAT I THINK ANYMORE.



Anonymous asked: I definitely wouldn't. He's old and not very attractive and his personality isn't that appealing to me either.. what exactly do you see in him?

I dont… I can’t… everything, anon.

I GENUINELY DON’T KNOW HOW TO ANSWER THIS.

I SEE EVERYTHING.

He’s an idiot, a brave, loyal, kind, intelligent, patient, protective, dangerous, soft idiot. He’s a little bit damaged and takes no sugar in his coffee and he has tiny bits of grey in his hair even though he’s probably too young for them and he has a high-pitched giggle that really shouldn’t belong to a soldier and he’d kill a man for someone he just met because he knows they’re good and he’d say ‘Tell him you’re alive’ before he even satisfied his own curiosity and his ears and he does his shirts up to the top button like’s like a 15-year-old-hipster and jumpers and leather gloves and ‘Nothing happens to me’ and he grabs a psychopath while strapped to explosives and says I haven’t known you for long but I’d die for you anyway and he has this weird little walk where he holds his arms out just a bit from his body and ‘shoes’ and he stands at a crime scene he created or next to his naked flatmate in Buckingham Place and giggles and cardigans and the way he says ‘bomber’ like it sits awkwardly in his mouth and his posture is still army rigid and he shouldn’t have a gun but he does and that profile and he’s a walking contradiction who pretends he really isn’t AND I HATE HIM SO MUCH THAT IF I DIDN’T LOVE HIM I WOULDN’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MYSELF.



Anonymous asked: Thoughts on Sebastian Moran?

I have nothing but love for Sebastian Moran! Dark, probably morally inappropriate love but love all the same~

He’s something I’m really hoping for in The Reichenbach Fall (though undoubtedly, if he was there, casting like that would have been found out by now) and in possible further series of Sherlock, solely because I would just love to the see the sort of dynamic someone with a waylaid army background, like Moran’s, would have with someone as plainly unhinged and psychotic as BBC’s Jim Moriarty. It would possibly be quite different to canon and rather different to Ricthie!verse just because of who BBC Jim is. Not a complete reversal of power rolls or anything overly drastic but just possibly quite different.  Also, the sort of Queen and Country angst BBC John could get out of going up against a fellow soldier with a ‘dishonourable discharge’ could be very lovely~