#black peter

[atleasttheyvegotstars]

Did I mention I really love this podcast

[sherlockig]

[therealmagicdog]

A Black Peter's final update!

The Black Peters - some short extra strories which didn't become full chapters but are worth telling. Slice-of-life shorts, missing scenes from the series and the previous chapters and matter of life and death - they're all here, in the Black Peter's Finale!

“I didn’t want it to turn out that way, Waru!” Felix blurted out. “I meant well, that’s all. If I had known this would happen, I would never have...”

I really want to thank all of you guys who was supporting me on this project. I didn't fully realised how actually big and important it was 'til I started working on the translation for AO3. I really appreciate the story resonated with and got loved by so many people, it's just heartwarming.

Sooo...

Fist of all, I know this chapter is a bit late and off schedule. I really got tired of writing at some point and really needed to have a rest, but now I'm good as new and ready to work again.

Stay tuned :^)

Hope to see y'all in my other projects!

"Go Fish!" is currently ongoing, and soon I will post my LoK project too.

[holmesxwatson]

"Have you tried to drive a harpoon through a body? No? Tut, tut, my dear sir, you must really pay attention to these details."

[plish-plash]

That man guessing that John’s favorite Winnie The Pooh character was Tigger really said “this man definitely has adhd”

And of course he was right

[quill-of-thoth]

Black Peter

Case and Themes: Forensics Vs. Deduction

Much is always made of Holmes’ skills at deduction, aka reasoning from details, and how it may or may not have inspired the entire field of forensics. I have yet to see anything like a comparable amount of scholarship regarding his testing of forensics, aka applying the scientific method to those details to see if his theories actually match up.

(Note that forensics as a modern science, admissible in court, has not always actually been put to any rigorous scientific testing. See the fields of blood spatter analysis, bite mark analysis, hair matching. The forensics fields that have are often at the mercy of collection methods that may not be rigorously followed or documented. And we also must evaluate whether an attempt was even made to collect evidence responsibly: the modern police is not immune to handling their duties in an incompetent or ludicrously cavalier fashion. For a modern, famous example, see the alleged Luigi Mangione backpack and how ineptly the NYPD went about any chain of custody or documentation of their findings. I can only imagine how long Holmes would complain about them.)

It is one thing to make reasonable assumptions based on a superfluity of data and a knowledge of the prevailing biases of society, aka who is more likely to be in a vulnerable position and who the police and newspapers will dismiss as untrustworthy or a natural criminal. It is another to check those assumptions, and in Black Peter we see a great showcase of Holmes doing exactly that. It occurs to him that not every man could have successfully harpooned Peter Carney all the way into a wall. So he tested it, taking himself as a benchmark for the slightly above average athlete, and determined that the action needed professional skills. This case hinges on this experiment, but several of his standard methods involve testing to see what suspects will do (will the secret door be opened in the Golden Pince Nez, will the attempted burglar come back to try again in Black Peter, setting off a smoke bomb to see where Adler keeps her vital documents in Scandal) or testing to determine what kinds of physical traces or chemical interactions he can replicate. The attitude towards science is not modern (particularly the “whatever remains, however improbable” line, since more frequently the answer is “do it twenty more times to see if you actually removed the variables you think you did”) but it remains a sight better even than the improvements certain members of the Yard have made in their method, since testing your conclusions is infinitely more flexible than jumping ahead in your excitement to make an arrest.

In short, this is a neat little package that demonstrates what many adaptations have missed about Holmes: however dramatic his denouement, you cannot just observe something that happens in society, generalize it into a truism, and call it a deduction. You have to have some mechanical backing or scientific evidence. Either scholarship or something you can test. You can’t just swap the scratches on the watch of a man dying of alcoholism for the scuffs on a phone case and assume the underlying statement will ring true. Even when Holmes’ conclusions are partially backed by popular pseudoscience like physiognomy, he does not, like many of his lesser imitators, simply reason to one possible conclusion and leave it there. If he did, far fewer of these stories would conclude with an innocent man who happened to be adjacent to a crime walking free. And if Patrick Cairns had been caught without Holmes’ involvement, he would have a harder time arguing self-defense to an incurious bunch at the Yard and the later criminal proceedings if Holmes hadn’t demonstrated the idea of actually testing to see if your evidence is actually as clear as you think so consistently.

[python-nebula]

I’m so far into the TMA hyperfixation that when Patrick Cairns stopped telling the story of the mountain at the funeral I expected Jonathan Sims to go ‘statement ends’- 😭😭

[thebakerstreetcollection]

Entry 9-27-25: Basil

Today's entry has been submitted by the inimitable @aregularirregular221b! As our favorite mouse detective, classic Holmes actor, AND maritime alias under disguise (BLAC) all rolled up into one, the name "Basil" carries multiple Sherlockian meanings.

Well, into the net it goes! 🦋🔎 (It smells nicer now....)