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an undue share of my imagination

@materialofonebeing / materialofonebeing.tumblr.com

ACD canon. Adaptations and Holmes/Watson, with tags.
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materialofonebeing

“with the dry chuckle which was his nearest approach to a laugh”

                     – Watson of Holmes, The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire

Holmes laughs until he gasps and snorts.  With tears.

Literally never understood this line. In other stories Holmes “laughs uproariously.” WTH ACD?

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a-candle-for-sherlock

I don’t think he ever once reread his own damn writing once it was printed.

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educatedinyellow

^^ This.

Among the descriptions of Holmes’s laughs, though, my favorite is this one from The Blue Carbuncle:

“A few yards off he stopped under a lamp-post and laughed in the hearty, noiseless fashion which was peculiar to him.”

I love that one of his heartiest laughs is full-bodied and silent. He must just stand there and shake. Evidence of deep enjoyment, but only noticeable to someone watching him closely. It’s very him.

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iwantthatbelstaffanditsoccupant

Ummm….ok this sounds self-serving, but what the hell, why not?

In “A Cat-Like Love”, which is understandably a fic of limited appear because it is Holmes & Watson (2018) fandom, I wrote a part where Watson is doing the whole ‘but you are an automaton who never laughs’ speil. And then I counted how many times Holmes actually laughs. Mind you this is searching “laugh”, not giggle or chuckle or anything. I counted 21 times before I decided that was plenty to include in the fic. And in Scandal he laughs so damn hard he can’t breathe.

Sure enough, Watson furrowed his brow in concentration and then smiled. “I can hear it, Holmes! A quiet piano playing just beneath my words. It sounds as if it is repeating…. No! It can’t be! For you are an automaton! A man who never laughs! Except that time with the stone, and the time with the other stone. And actually on our first case together, you laughed. And then you laughed at the King of Bohemia. And then you laughed for several minutes straight later that evening when you returned home after that Adler woman got married. You laughed so hard you exhausted yourself come to think of it. And when we had that case with the Australian, and the time that man left the hat in your place, and when Lestrade dragged the Serpentine and when the criminal dredged the moat. And that time when the murderer was a horse. And that time I felt bad for you because you knocked over the fruit bowl—that was mean-spirited, Holmes— and when you tried to read my mind, and when we discussed your brother. And when you knew I was at the club and that time you tricked me about your getting engaged, and then when you helped that college kid, and when I thought you were getting high but you weren’t and, the time you found the missing boy and the cow-horse and had the bar fight and…and the time Baynes wanted to solve the case on his own. And when Evans tried to bribe you and… well… you… you laugh about ten times as much as I do. Do… do… do you think I have your characterization all wrong, Holmes?”

#holmes laughing#love it
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why ACD imagined Holmes as a looker

"The handsome Walter [Paget] took the place of the more powerful but uglier Sherlock." Conan Doyle, Memories and Adventures

Despite what Conan Doyle wrote there, I believe he originally thought of Holmes as an attractive man.

Forget what Holmes looked like.  Now here's his face in 1887 from A Study in Scarlet:  "His eyes were sharp and piercing, save during those intervals of torpor to which I have alluded; and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole expression an air of alertness and decision.  His chin, too, had the prominence and squareness which mark the man of determination."  The description could resemble this guy, who ACD wrote in 1889 was "the handsomest man in the collection" of the National Portrait Gallery.  

If ACD first imagined Holmes with the beady eyes etc. from later works, still he found this unconventionality attractive.  This is how Munro/ACD described his crush, Cullingworth/Budd, in 1895:  “His face was wonderfully ugly, but it was the ugliness of character, which is as attractive as beauty."  So, Conan Doyle could have Watson record that every Tom, Dick, and Godfrey was handsome, but only Holmes transformed before Watson in ways that those "who had only known the quiet thinker and logician of Baker Street would have failed to recognise."

#holmes's appearance#holmes/watson#acd canon#queer readings
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swamp-adder

I love how pissed Watson gets about Holmes dissing Dupin and Lecoq, like

I felt rather indignant at having two characters whom I had admired treated in this cavalier style.

I love how this implies that Watson was like… an actual Fan of detective fiction before he met Holmes. Holmes is literally like one of his fictional heroes come to life.

#acd canon#a study in scarlet
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Imagining 1913

When Holmes left on his counter-intelligence mission, Watson wrote to cope as he had during their last long separation 22 years earlier.  This time, though, he was mad as hell for a while.  

The Adventure of the Dying Detective, or That Time the Young SOB Didn’t Trust Me, made it to The Strand first.  Then there was The Valley of Fear -- Watson imagined another secret operative in danger -- in which Holmes’s cleverness only got another man killed.  Watson stuffed a draft of Creeping Man into the box.  He was a habit and an irritation.  But he had his humble role.  Still Holmes had ventured to America alone.  

Later, on a calmer evening, Watson penned The Adventure of the Three Garridebs.  He remembered Holmes’s loyalty and love.  Holmes would always be worth the wounds.  And the wait.  Another story into the box.

#cree acd#astudyincanonbookclub#the adventure of the creeping man#the game
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Imagining 1881

As Holmes became more comfortable with Watson, he started teasing him.  A little.  That was what men did, wasn’t it?  At least that’s what boys did, in most of Holmes’s social experience -- his brother, fellow students, other fencers and boxers.  So, Holmes deployed more of his quick wit for his friend to appreciate.  Or, acted something like a schoolboy tugging a girl’s pigtails (though Holmes never had done exactly that).

The competitor in Watson, in return, mischievously could make Holmes blush.  At almost nothing.  This escalated the situation.  

#holmes/watson
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Holmes on being fabulously bad

“I believe that you are the devil himself!” he cried. Holmes smiled at the compliment.

“I believe you are the devil himself.” “Not far from him, at any rate,” Holmes answered with a polite smile.

“Why, you're a common burglar.” “So you might describe me,” said Holmes cheerfully.

“I know you, you scoundrel!  I have heard of you before. You are Holmes, the meddler.” My friend smiled. “Holmes, the busybody!” His smile broadened. “Holmes, the Scotland Yard Jack-in-office!” Holmes chuckled heartily.

“I am the most incurably lazy devil that ever stood in shoe leather”

“I say, Watson,” he whispered, “would you be afraid to sleep in the same room with a lunatic, a man with softening of the brain, an idiot whose mind has lost its grip?” “Not in the least,” I answered in astonishment. “Ah, that's lucky,” he said, and not another word would he utter that night.

#with that breathtaking kate-mckinnon-super-gay wink#acd canon#fabulously bad holmes
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materialofonebeing

Why sad Holmes and Watson?

In Mazarin Stone, Conan Doyle changed out the original, comic beginning of his Crown Diamond play (Holmes in drag) with a chunk of his Speckled Band play (nostalgic Watson, Billy, and a languishing Holmes).  So, as the Speckled Band was making it back to a theater in 1921, apparently Conan Doyle thought something like, “Oh, yeah.  That next-level, angst-iest thing I ever wrote about Watson and Holmes – I can use that in The Strand.  Maybe tone it down a bit.”  

Yes, it effectively pulls the heartstrings.  But why this decision?  Thoughts, @astudyincanon book club?

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acdhw

In Crown Diamond Holmes’s opponent is Colonel Moran, not Count Sylvius, so basically, MAZA in many ways is a rehash of EMPT, or its stage adaptation. Hence the bust, Holmes’s apprehension of airguns, Watson’s return to Baker Street, and bittersweet feels of nostalgia. Watson hadn’t left Holmes, it’s supposed to be a post-Reichenbach coming back.

Also, from the Speckled Band play:

HOLMES (in disguise): Very untidy man Mr. Holmes, sir.
WATSON: What do you mean by that?
HOLMES: Well, sir, you can’t help noticing it. It’s all over the room. I’ve ‘eard say he was as tidy as any when he started, but he learned bad ‘abits from a cove what lived with him. Watson was his name.
#the adventure of the mazarin stone#the crown diamond
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Why sad Holmes and Watson?

In Mazarin Stone, Conan Doyle changed out the original, comic beginning of his Crown Diamond play (Holmes in drag) with a chunk of his Speckled Band play (nostalgic Watson, Billy, and a languishing Holmes).  So, as the Speckled Band was making it back to a theater in 1921, apparently Conan Doyle thought something like, “Oh, yeah.  That next-level, angst-iest thing I ever wrote about Watson and Holmes -- I can use that in The Strand.  Maybe tone it down a bit.”  

Yes, it effectively pulls the heartstrings.  But why this decision?  Thoughts, @astudyincanon book club?

#the crown diamond#the speckled band#the adventure of the mazarin stone#maza acd
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(WATSON sits down, lights a cigarette, and opens a paper.  Enter a tall, bent OLD WOMAN in black with veil and side-curls.)

WATSON (rising): Good day, Ma'am.

WOMAN: You're not Mr. Holmes?

WATSON: No, Ma'am. I'm his friend, Dr. Watson.

WOMAN: I knew you couldn't be Mr. Holmes. I'd always heard he was a handsome man.

Holmes disguised as a woman and pranking Watson, from the play The Crown Diamond: An Evening with Sherlock Holmes by Conan Doyle, 1921

#the crown diamond#acd canon
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materialofonebeing

“‘You know,’ I answered with some emotion, for I have never seen so much of Holmes’s heart before, ‘that it is my greatest joy and privilege to help you.’” The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot

“For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.” The Adventure of the Three Garridebs

What rings true about these passages:

Holmes’s love brought Watson deep satisfaction.  It was his ultimate reward for partnering with Holmes in their work.

Watson wanted to declare to any and every reader that Holmes cared for him.  Both cases occurred in the years following Holmes’s return when Holmes “barred” Watson from releasing any account except for The Hound of the Baskervilles.  So Watson saved notes.

At times, Watson took Holmes’s affection on faith.  Devil’s Foot started with Holmes close to a breakdown and Three Garridebs with Holmes in bed for days.  Watson did not attribute Holmes’s emotion to weakness, though.  The investigations and danger brought Holmes back to him.

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rsfcommonplace

I always feel like Holmes created a persona for himself when he was young.  I’m not sure why.  Perhaps he was asexual or demisexual, and not having the vocabulary to understand it, decided that his lack of lust meant he was cold and unfeeling.  And having decided that, assumed it was advantageous, because it would mean he was always rational.  And Watson, who understood him better than anyone else in the world, dutifully reported the limitations of that persona to us, telling us what Holmes wanted to believe.  

And then undermining that image constantly.

He tells us that Holmes seldom laughed, but then reports multiple occasions when Holmes does just that.  He tells us that Holmes is a cold logician, and then reports leaps of faith and acts of mercy.

And he tells us, in 3GAR, that he only glimpses a great heart once, in all their years together.

Y’know what?  I don’t believe him…

#the adventure of the three garridebs
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