the neon grip

Wheee

Tree in the mist

byzantine mosaic

Museo Nacional de Beirut

All 13 full moons of 2023

the boy who swallowed a star 🌟

CHARLES AUGUSTUS MILVERTON - part 5, the end of this particular adventure. (part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4)

content warning for blood, injury, and drug use.

(This is part of the Watsons sketchbook series)

The female ski team covered 1420km across Antarctica in 57 days, 1989

Guys. I can feel it already. THIS is the year. This is the year that Jonathan Harker will go on his business trip with no issue. Just a lovely train ride through Europe where he collects paprika recipies for Mina, meets some friendly, living people looking to buy properties in England, and then returns home safely.

Free him from the time loop.

CHARLES AUGUSTUS MILVERTON part 4 - death of a blackmailer

(part 1) (part 2) (part 3)

content warnings for: guns, blood, death. which you are *probably* expecting if you know how this story goes in canon, although this version is...not exactly how Watson told it to the Strand.

(This is part of the Watsons sketchbook series)

okay here are some thoughts I had while making this:

MILVERTON IS SUCH A WEIRD STORY. I believe it's the only case in canon where we don't meet the supposed client, Lady Eva, or even read a letter from them. That was what originally made me think there was more going on - that, and Holmes's "intensity of feeling" when he speaks about Milverton.

The 1885 Labouchere amendment, which made it much easier to prosecute men for having queer sex, was called "the Blackmailer's Law". Although queer sex was illegal before the passage of the law, two people needed to actually be caught in the act. After 1885, the standard for evidence got much looser - including suggestive letters.

Learning about that in conjunction with reading Milverton put this idea in my head - that Holmes is Milverton's target. I've been avoiding reading fic or watching any other adaptations of this story because I knew I had a specific way I wanted to do it, but I know I'm far from the first one to draw this connection!

The second WEIRD part of this story is the remarkable coincidence that, on the same night Watson and Holmes burgle Milverton's house and hide behind the curtains, a mysterious woman appears and shoots him. "No interference upon our part could have saved the man from his fate". With uncharacteristic passivity, they watch a man die and a murderer escape. Holmes has certainly let criminals go before, but usually he talks to them first!

As I was digging into the story, certain descriptors for this mysterious avenger stood out to me. She is described as tall, dark, and lithe. She has "a face with a curved nose, strong, dark eyebrows shading hard, glittering eyes, and a straight, thin-lipped mouth set in a dangerous smile". Does that sound like anyone else we know?

I truly believe that the enduring power of the Sherlock Holmes canon lies in the fact that Doyle did not write these stories with particular care. There are holes, inconsistencies, contradictions, and gaps. At the same time, the charismatic center of the story is (while chastising Watson for not recording his adventures accurately) telling the reader to pay attention to trifles. To look closer, to ask questions, to consider every angle, no matter how outlandish. The combination of these two factors results in: a series of facts that do not *quite* hang together, and authorial permission to attempt to deduce the true story.

Finally, something that fascinates me about the Victorian era is that it marked the birth of many ideologies and power systems that, in the 2020s, we are now living through the consequences of. Notably, capitalism. Milverton, who insists he is only doing business, and therefore is innocent, while ruining lives, struck me as a very modern villain. "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?"

If only we could hit more men like that with chairs.

Giacomo Balla. "Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash" 1912.

joan of arc in art antonin mercié (1848-1900) / kay nielsen (c. 1914) / jules bastien-lepage (1879) / unknown artist (1837) / christopher whall (1922) / zoé-laure de chatillon (1869)

save me sexy british army doctor save me

a post-doc was doing a guest seminar at my institute and at the beginning of his presentation he was explaining why he chose birds for his evolutionary analysis - so he said "well first of all, because birds are the best and most interesting animals and it's fun to study them" and a few professors in the room gave him a very serious nod

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i love you sherlock & co episode 19&20 the gloria scott

i'm having way too much fun with the show