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even more land fish

The way that most of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories’ most horrible villains are rich dudes that are abusive to women, in a time such as the 1880’s, compels me.

gardnerhill

There’s a whole subset of Sherlock Holmes stories that could be labeled Asshole Guys Try to Control Women’s Money.

three--rings

Yup, there’s a huge number of times where Sherlock Holmes is the ONLY person to take a young woman’s complaint or worry seriously and finds out someone is up to some serious evil. Holmes also shows a lot of compassion and empathy with the victims over and over again. (This is why I find “Secretly a woman” or “Trans” Holmes headcanons much more convincing than “sociopath” Holmes.)

waterhobbit

I am never going to shut up about how much I specifically love The Adventure of The Copper Beeches because it is literally Sherlock Holmes listening to a young lady he does not know except as a potential client, agreeing with her that a potential job she has interviewed for that she thinks is SUPER SKETCHY is, indeed, sketchy as fuck and when she says she’s probably gonna take the job anyways because the money is good and she needs it going “OKAY I GUESS but for the love of god please write to us so we know you’re okay we will literally drop everything and jump on a train if you want us to”.

The job turns out to indeed be sketchy as fuck, she writes to them, Holmes and Watson drop everything and jump on a train when she asks them to. I read this story for the first time when I was twelve and it made a HUGE impression.

three--rings

This is also the basis for a lot of speculation about Holmes’ family life. The idea that he has been a victim of abuse, or his mother was abused (or even murdered by his father.) There’s definitely SOMETHING that makes him very aware of how dangerous isolated families can be, and the dark things that can happen behind closed doors. Plus, of course, the motivation to devote himself to stopping crime. And yes, so much of it is of the personal type.

volkswagonblues

dude see this is one aspect of the original books i NEVER understand why modern remakes (cough cough) don’t go all in on. Like, in the 21th c we HAVE all the dumb forensic shit that made Victorian Holmes stand out, but we STILL DON’T HAVE uh….you know, compassion for women and minorities, or the willingness to believe them, adequate community support for domestic violence or hate crimes, etc. etc. which you’d think is exactly where a renegade consulting detective would come in handy. A good modern day Sherlock Holmes remake, instead of trying to convince us that Holmes is some super genius for being better than fingerprint analysis or whatever, could have him just be…a good person who helps out people the police can’t and won’t help. There you go. That’s how to write a relevant modern Holmes.

fahbee

One thing that annoys me is how much the BBC version of Sherlock (and the fandom around it) focus on police cases or cold cases. In the stories, Holmes’ bread and butter cases had fuck-all to do with the police and in a few stories, he actively works around/against them, or outright lies to them. Of the many, many things I wish that show had done differently, this is one is particularly obnoxious since it’s such a gimme.

tiger-in-the-flightdeck

There were very few actual murder cases in the Canon, and Holmes handled them either one of two ways:

Option one: The murder victim was innocent while the killer was an abusive bastard, see Speckled Band. Conclusion, arrest and have the killer charged (Or in the case of Speckled Band, indirectly murder him yourself then shrug and go home)

Option two: The victim was murdered to protect someone that the victim was abusing, or for vengeance, see Boscombe Valley, Devil’s Foot, Abbey Grange. Conclusion, Oops, I don’t know who the killer is, I am suddenly incompetent, oh look a pheasant.

faejilly

#my favorite murder in holmes canon#is when they straight up witness a lady murder her blackmailer#do nothing except destroy his other blackmail material#and then straight up lie to lestrade about it#sherlock holmes#more of this in modern adaptations pls (via @cactusspatz )

muffinworry

Let’s not forget the time Holmes helps a young woman who’s being catfished by her own stepfather to steal her inheritance, and when the villain sneers that the law can’t touch him, Holmes grabs a horsewhip out of sheerest chivalry.

smokingtigerhiddengun

So, the most canon-accurate iteration of Sherlock Holmes in the last few decades is actually Benoit Blanc….

marzipanandminutiae

I think it’s also important to note, and complicates our ideas about what the highly patriarchal/misogynistic society of 19th century England looked like, that these stories SOLD

they were POPULAR

the Victorians LIKED reading about women who won out over shitty men in their lives, even when that plotline reaffirmed a woman’s power and agency or put an active sexist in his place (ie Irene Adler besting Holmes)

which is fascinating in light of. you know. [gestures broadly at all of Victorian gender dynamics, laws, etc.]

#sherlock holmes

buffycaps

Rest in peace to the incredible Anthony Stewart Head (20th February 1954 - 1st June 2026)

RUPERT GILES in BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1997-2003)

#rupert giles #buffy the vampire slayer

farmgf

IT’S SPRINGTIME YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS. PASS THE INSTRUCTIONS ON NOT GIVING UP BY ADA LIMÓN

farmgf

IT’S THE GREENING OF THE TREES THAT REALLY GETS TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!

“One of the poets, whose name I cannot recall, has a passage, which I am unable at the moment to remember, in one of his works, which for the time being has slipped my mind, which hits off admirably this age-old situation.”

— P.G. Wodehouse

#same

ajaxgb

Okay no I need to talk about the book version of Howl's Moving Castle. I love the movie but the book has such a different vibe and you, yes you, should read it.

Movie Howl is a soulful and quiet. Book Howl is a drama queen and Causing Problems and has a long string of jilted exes and couldn't shut up if you paid him.

Sophie and Howl drive each other up the wall at the beginning and it's really funny. Sophie and Howl are (despite themselves) very much in love by the end and they still drive each other up the wall and it's even funnier.

In the movie, Howl has been ordered by the king to participate in The War, and Howl is avoiding it because he is a brave conscientious objector. In the book, Howl has been ordered by the king to rescue his lost brother from the Witch of the Wastes, and Howl is avoiding it by any means necessary because he is a cowardly weasel who wants to stay as far from the Witch as possible.

In the movie, the Witch cursed Sophie because she was jealous about Howl speaking to Sophie for five minutes. In the book, the Witch cursed Sophie because Sophie had been doing surprisingly powerful magic for years without knowing it and it was actually starting to cut into the Witch's plans. (Sophie does not discover any of this until nearly the end of the book, but the reader can start to pick it up much earlier and the way Sophie's magic works is pretty darn cool.)

In the movie, there's a rumor that Howl eats the hearts of maidens, but this is implied to be nothing but nasty fearmongering. In the book, there's a rumor that Howl eats the hearts of maidens because Howl started the rumor so people would stop asking him to do wizard junk all the time.

The book lightly parodies a couple of tropes from Western fairy tales. In particular Sophie has internalized that, as the eldest of three sisters, her "destiny" is to fail so that her younger sisters will look cooler when they succeed, which is why she's so resigned to the hat shop at the beginning. (Sidebar: Sophie's sisters come up much more in the book and they're great.) There's also a really funny bit where Sophie attempts to operate a pair of seven-league boots.

In the movie, the fourth and final location that the magic door connects to is some sort of black void / mindscape / time portal dealy. In the book the fourth location is Wales, in the UK, on Earth, so that Howl can visit his family, because from Howl's perspective this is an isekai story.

#howl's moving castle

princesssokphanny

A once-in-a-lifetime shot — the moon perfectly framed by a rainbow. Caught at just the right time. 🌈 🌕

#my beautiful wife

holly-warbs

afraid, but facing it

(clips from my latest short animation)

#art

milowing

the father (dolly parton), the son (sabrina carpenter), and the holy spirit (miss piggy)

merweleftthisbehind-deactivated

Maiden, Mother, Crone in the best way possible...

#laugh tag

grumpyjesterr

on another note, watched The Mummy (1999) the other day and I couldn’t help feel like the O’Connells and the Addams (Addams Family Values (1993) would get on really well ya know? The O’Connells are basically the pastel adventure version of the Addams, surely they would just be vibin’ over tea and crumpets in an extremely haunted mansion having a ball of a time

grumpyjesterr

Morticia: “So what is it you do for a living my dear?”

Evelyn: “We dig up dead people who often have monstrous curses placed on them!”

Morticia: “fascinating”

grumpyjesterr

Gomez: *leaping out from behind a pillar which is encrusted with ominous looking runes* en garde!

Rick: *grabs sword from equally ominous looking wall full of weapons one of which seems to be glowing* fantastic I was getting a bit rusty

Gomez: *nearly in tears* oh he’s screaming nonsensically, what spirit! what reslove!

grumpyjesterr

*Rick and Gomez, still frantically sword fighting*

Rick: Have I mentioned how wonderful my wife is yet, I really feel like I haven’t really expanded enough on how wonderful she is

Gomez: do go on, I would be delighted to hear about how wonderful your wife is, I strongly encourge all men to extoll the virtues of their wives with rapturous praise, however I should perhaps mention my wife is in fact better

*sword fighting intensifies as both men rapturously extoll the virtues of their wives*

#the mummy #the addams family

saintmelangell

A Jewish-Iranian woman from Esfahan, 17th century. x

#art

cparti-mkiki

"hephaistion made this" in a beautiful trompe-l'oeil piece of paper half unstuck by the wind still some of the rawest stuff ever put in a mosaic (2nd century bc, pergamon)

#art