Looking for a screenshot I needed for something else... and I found this amazing promo image.
I like to imagine that John and Sherlock are taking a publicity photo, and Mycroft just wandered in on the shot and is grumpy that Sherlock asked him to move.
It fails. It fails so hard. I didn't even crop this image, it is the only way I could find it online. The composition is terrible in so many ways.
Let me break this down!
The shadow across Mycroft's face is hilarious. The fact that this photo is public enough that I could find it is bad enough, but taking this photo with shadows looking is just unforgivable. And for some reason they are all shiny and shadowy at the same time.
Let’s talk height. In other photographs in this set, Mycroft is about the same height as Sherlock, maybe even a little taller. Fine. In this image, he looks a little shorter, but he’s standing farther away and we know what perspective is, so it should make sense.
Except... Look at their shoulders. In this picture Mycroft’s shoulders are actually still higher than Sherlock’s. And yet his head is noticeably smaller. I am pretty dang sure this isn't a photo composition. So with that in mind, the photographer is doing Mycroft absolutely no favours.
It is probably their poses that really ruins things. John and Sherlock are both facing forward with their chins tilted slightly down, which gives us just slightly more of the tops and backs of their heads. More hair. More volume.
Meanwhile, Mycroft is leaning back and looking down his nose, and vaguely up and to the right, apparently doing everything in his power to make his head look even smaller.
So now we have three men standing together, all holding their heads at completely different angles, with Mycroft farther away, his shoulders inexplicably higher than Sherlock’s, and his skull apparently retreating into the distance without the rest of him. Totally bonkers choices there.
Ok, let's move on.
Composition-wise, this image struggles to have a focal point. Mycroft is stealing focus in the image by having a darker saturation and being in the middle. John and Sherlock are more muted and stand out less.
And though John has the most interesting expression on his face in this image, they just tuck him to the side. All we see is Mycroft looking at Sherlock, and Sherlock, who is wearing a mild expression isn't doing anything to draw attention.
And finally, with Mycroft off-centre, it just makes the eye impossible to rest comfortably.
So how to make this photo better?
Just get rid of Mycroft. Easy.
Look at that! Powerful! They still have their attitudes, and John looks fantastic with the "I can kill you and you can't do nadda," look on his face, and Sherlock's look still reflects "Yup, he's with me."
But if Mycroft is a must, I've added him this way.
I did it this way because he's over there looking like he's judging them both instead of the weird glance at Sherlock. I changed the lean of his head slightly, the direction of his eyes, and put him on a body that was from the same set of pictures (i think it is still a little out of proportion, but that wasn't my point).
So what do you think? Did I fix it?
(also the colours and lighting in this image were brutal to work with. Don't yell at me for those!)
The one she gave John helped them meet,
And so for their wedding day treat
She gave one to each
So they’ll always reach
Each other when they’re feeling sweet.
'Tis a Gift is on AO3.
I wonder if you think you know
What gift that could be? Well, if so,
Please share it with me
And fill me with glee
By putting your guess down below!
SHERLOCK : Also my shoes, John! Yves Saint Laurent! I don’t want them to get drenched with soapy water.
JOHN: Perhaps you could put on other shoes, then?
SHERLOCK: There are other shoes?
JOHN: You snobby idiot.
~~~~~~~~~~
Photo 2
I saw everything on the CCTV. Are there several snipers or just one? You and John stay under cover, a task force will arrive in less than one minute. MH
Calm down, everything is under control. You can turn off the CCTV and go back to The Great British Bake Off. SHW
Sherlock, don’t be rude. We’re fine, Mycroft. It was just a gust of wind. JHW
A gust of wind? Such a lightweight, brother mine. I see that even your husband didn’t manage to feed you up. MH
At last he doesn’t need a running machine at home to lose his spare tyre. JHW
Oooh, John, don’t be rude. SHW
~~~~~~~~~~
Photo 3
SHERLOCK: John, look! A dog!
JOHN: How could a dog enter our gard— OH GOD WHAT IS THIS MONSTER!
SHERLOCK (delighted): It’s a gigantic hound!
JOHN: Must I expect you to drug my coffee and lock me in a gloomy lab again?
SHERLOCK: Don’t be silly. Hey there, doggie! Who’s a good boy? WHO’S A GOOD BOY? You are! Yes you are!
JOHN (nervously): I’m not sure the notion of good-boyness can apply to an animal of this size.
SHERLOCK (with big puppy dog eyes): John.
JOHN: Nope.
SHERLOCK: But John! I’ve always wanted a dog and never had one! I’ll call him Redbeard! I’ll train him to attack Mycroft’s umbrella! I'll—
THE GIGANTIC HOUND: *goes for a wee on Sherlock’s shoes*
JOHN: Take this coat off, love. It’s 30°, you’re going to have heat stroke.
SHERLOCK: Don’t be ridiculous, I won’t.
JOHN: You’re right, how should I know, I’m only a doctor after all. Who, incidentally, worked in the desert.
SHERLOCK: But John, if I take it off everyone will see I got sunburnt!
JOHN: If you listened to me when I tell you to apply more sun cream…
SHERLOCK: I had no time for that, I was playing with that dog and—
JOHN: Sherlock, if you don’t take this coat off immediately I swear to God that tonight when you’re asleep I’ll take a photo of you, I’ll caption it “A Study in Scarlet” and I’ll send it to Mycroft.
On our last day here, we painted a coconut that will become part of the landscaping at the resort! It's not the best artwork but we did the best we could with the brush we had! 😅 Anyway, the sentiment is still true.
Here’s a shot of the chairs without the boys! John is getting a new chair next, more like the one in the show. I never wanted their place to be an exact replica of BBC 221B (I mean, how could it be, with their wedding portrait above the fireplace) but it feels important to get their chairs Just Right 🥰 And I’ve never been satisfied with John’s chair anyway 😅
SHERLOCK: I hope you notice that I left you our only beach chair because of how generous I am.
JOHN: I thought it was because you wanted to parade your beach body about because of how much of a show-off you are.
SHERLOCK: John, it’s hardly my fault if I look stunning in my new swimming trunks!
JOHN: You look stunning in any clothes, love.
SHERLOCK: Oh, thank you. I was going to say that I left you the chair only because of how old you are but I take that back. I might even let you apply sun cream on this stunning beach body.
I truly can’t accurately express how much I look forward to seeing whatever dialogue @chocolamousse comes up with whenever I post something new. Always golden and perfect!!! 😍🥰❤️
Aww, thank you! I can only wish you to love my Cro-dialogues (which are obviously dialogues for tiny people) as much as I love your posts because that would mean you love them enormously ! 😀
We don't have a canonical date for when John was born, but his fans are resourceful, and July 7 is one of the extra-canonical dates when his birth is celebrated, possibly chosen because that is the death date of his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in 1930. (Not a great reason, but these are the same people who decided Watson had six wives.)
August 7 is also celebrated, because William S. Baring-Gould uses this date in his biography, Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street. BBC's Sherlock chose April 23, for reasons unknown. It seems that Sherlock knew this, but missed the party because he had a 'thing.'
I'd like to celebrate today by quoting some of my favourite descriptions of the good doctor from fan fiction. 🥳 (And thereby recommending some favourite stories to you!)
Berty / @bertytravelsfar, from This Time:
For John to be here, with a memorised speech in a room full of strangers, apologising for who the hell knew what, must be hellish for a man like him. He's a private man - outwardly respectable and affable, inside he is a complex mess of recklessness, caring, conflicting drives and misdirected anger. He's a ticking time bomb of a man and Sherlock thinks it will take more than a new therapist to defuse him. He has known John for some time. He has seen him at his highest and lowest and all points in between. He’s seen him defeated and broken, exhilarated and euphoric. Sherlock has seen John cry, seen him angry, seen him helpless and aroused. Sherlock knows John's face better than he knows his own. He appears to be in earnest - he's making eye contact but not excessively so, his hands and breathing are relaxing now he has begun, and his voice, though low and quiet, is sincere and not strained.
John Watson is the biggest short man in London, but you wouldn’t know it now. He has taken down men more than a foot taller than him, faced down serial killers and taken the piss out of the British government to his face. John Watson is not intimidated or diminished by anything that Afghanistan or London has thrown at him, but to look at him now it would be easy to assume that he has been defeated in most every sense of the word.
2. Fangs_Fawn, Worth the Wounds:
John Watson’s nature was made up of fascinating contradictions. The same hands that skillfully healed horrific battlefield injuries were equally skilled at dealing them out. His affable personality, kindness and instinctive compassion so made people think of him as warm and friendly that it took them a long time to notice that he held his cards close, giving very little of himself away. He came off as an easygoing, always-in-control, laidback bloke, but underneath he was an adrenaline junkie.
3. @weeesi, Edge of the Sea:
John thinks about himself and considers, not for the first time, that he’s not someone people deeply care about, really, or remember unprompted out of the blue. He’s the type of person who can slip through the cracks: he’s sufficiently present when he’s present, forgettable to people the moment he isn’t.
To most people, he thinks. To everyone but Sherlock, he used to think. But then Sherlock hadn’t deemed him sufficient after all, had slotted him firmly into the forgettable side of things when he’d made the decision to send John away, after using John’s compulsion to care to his advantage, and climbed those winding steps to the rooftop alone. John had cared in the wrong direction that morning and look where he is now.
4. @raina-at, Nothing Gold Can Stay
"Nobody’s ever stuck with me. My whole life, nobody’s ever chosen me over anything. Harry fucked off as soon as she had the chance, and I don’t blame her for it, but she left me alone with our parents, and didn’t look back. My dad split when my mum got sick, and then my mum died. And do you want to know why you never heard about Sholto before? Because he sent me one text when I was in the hospital and then never bothered with me again. People don’t stick with me, Sherlock. They never do. And now there’s this intelligent, beautiful, reliable woman, who loves me…” John’s voice breaks, and he runs a hand over his face to try to keep his emotions in check. “And next Saturday, she’ll promise to stick with me. No matter what. And that should make me happy. It should make me fucking ecstatic that someone wants to stick with me for once. And yet. Fuck, and yet, all I feel is dread.”
“Why?” Sherlock asks, gently, quietly.
“Because…” John’s voice is almost gone, but he clears his throat and continues, looking down at the ducks paddling away from them, “because I’m holding on to something. And I’m as afraid of letting go as I am of looking it in the face.”
5. Glenmore / @glenmoresparks, Albion and the Woodsman
John Watson has a special smile he uses when he is about to maim or kill you. It looks like an ordinary closed lipped smile, and can be mistaken as quite friendly until you see his eyes, which will be filled with mayhem and lethal conviction.
And:
John Watson always wants a cup of tea. It is one of his factory settings.
Bonus: @hitlikehammers has a wonderful backstory for John in Chapter 1 of The Architect of Solitude. I can't quote the whole thing here, but it begins:
In the ninth year of John Watson’s life, he learned a magic trick, and he starred in a play.
Go read some fanfic and thank the talented writers who have given life to John Watson and Sherlock Holmes!
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