#queer holmes

[whentherosespeaks]

When the Rose Speaks Its Name: A Sherlock Holmes Anthology is a gift of love. 

With a gorgeous full-color cover by @Khorazir, inspired by the original cover on The Strand Magazine.

Enter a world of shared love and overcoming difficulties together - with Sherlock Holmes and John Watson at his side. 

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Why do you think there's so little official LGBT Sherlock content? Even outside BBC Sherlock there's basically nothing, no tv shows or comics or books.

Like yes there's subtext but here's none that have it in plain text

It feels like every big corporation is too afraid to do it and I don't get why, especially after the success of shows with queer leads like heartstopper.

I'd love a book or tv show that was like, the original scripts of Watson's books or something, that turned out to be super queer.

Hey Nonny!

LOL there's "official" BBC Sherlock LGBT content?? Honestly had no idea, never saw any official merch on this side of the pond being explicitly for the community. The show itself, or at least the earlier seasons, felt like it was headed that way, didn't it, though?

And I feel you, I really do. I think before, though, it never blossomed above more than subtext because there was always the looming possible threat from the remaining copyright holders in the UK and the States still having a say in the remaining stories and in turn how Holmes and Watson are portrayed in said stories (even if it was just on 8 or so stories specifically), so no one really wanted to test that I guess. Now that the copyrights expired and Sherlock Holmes the entity and its stories are completely public domain, there really is no excuse anymore.

THAT SAID, I encourage you to check out Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Furtive Festivity, which is a short ACD-canon Holmes and Watson film that's explicitly queer, and it's SUPER CUTE. PLEASE GO SUPPORT IT 💜

I'm hoping that maybe, POSSIBLY the third RDJ Holmes will go that route (Jude Law scoffed at a reporter calling their relationship a bromance, that it is explicitly a romance), but I don't have much faith in the "big corporations" ever doing it like WB or Disney. But who knows, I do hope, in my lifetime, we see an explicitly queer Holmes/Watson film or show produced by a Big Name Company.

BBC Sherlock Could Have Been It, though, and they KNEW IT.

And I think that's what hurts the most about S4 for me. I dunno.

[scientistofdeduction]

I respect Sherlockians who Play the Game (live as though Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were real and treat the canon as true stories), and admire the commitment of those who hold to that no matter what. It’s a fun and very unique experience across all fandoms that I don’t see anywhere else.

But I did see a post about the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series by Laurie R King (which is good fun though not without some stuff that does deserve questioning). In that thread, one of the comments was from David Marcum, who does the MX Publishing’s massive collections of Holmes stories and who is one of the more serious who Play the Game. He linked a post where he talked about how he rationalizes the series with The Game—specifically how can one rationalize a Holmes who is in retirement marrying a young woman in her twenties.

You can read it here

Basically what I find interesting is that Marcum firstly adheres to Holmes’ supposed age in the Game, making him in his very late 60s in most of the Russell years, instead of his early 50s as suits the story (Holmes remarks to Russell that he was often assumed to be older due to Watson’s stories). A woman in her 20s with a man in her 50s will still raise eyebrows, especially as he met her as a teenager, and yet that’s not the same gap as 70 and 20. Likewise Russell has gone through a lot of life experience by the time any romantic moves are made; her and Holmes are on fairly even footing by then. (Do I still approve of the age gap? No, but then again maybe that’s just my personal preference.

But my bigger qualm with Marcum’s rationalizing the Russell thrillers within The Game is how he rationalizes it all. Russell is a woman who is sick in the head after her family’s death, becomes obsessive over Holmes (fairly directly in opposite to the text where she doesn’t care if he’s a neighbor or a myth, and berates him to his face for assuming her intelligence—point in her favor, I might add), and further descends into madness creating a romance between them in her mind, a life well lived with family.

Here’s hoping I’m not the only one who is a little disturbed by this—yes, the way to rationalize an intelligent woman holding her own with Holmes intellectually, romantically, and as a crime solver, is that she’s insane and disturbed and creepy. Yuck.

He notes that he’s on board with Holmes having romance with Irene Adler, which is fairly bonkers to me. I can read stories where they’ve had a romance, in fact, if memory serves, the two had something brief pre-Russell era in that canon. But I do not like the idea that Holmes cannot be romantic with a “fan made” character. An argument can be made that many Dan made characters are Mary Sues, or John Does, for Watson, as many find the good Doctor difficult to write (and I agree, he is, but that doesn’t always warrant a stand in when Watson would’ve suited the same character actions). But it’s strange that when the newcomer is a woman, she’s hated or interrogated so thoroughly, especially when Mary Russell is so strong a presence and definitely holds her own as a unique character and not just a stand in (even if Watson is a bit dim in her stories compared to canon, we can forgive that because he is so loved by everyone in the Russell texts).

Instead, if I were playing The Game, i would submit this (and I plan on writing a fic to challenge Marcum’s own little story):

Russell is the neighbor of semi-retired Holmes and their meeting is unchanged, he begins to tutor her and saves her in his own way, and she him. The events of Beekeepers and O Jerusalem take place fairly close to recorded, save a few alterations.

Holmes in retirement is living with Watson, as a romantic partnership. Russell discovers this early and although taken aback at first, comes around to it quickly. She creates the stories as fabrications to hide their romance, and with permission from H&W, creates the romantic relationship on paper between her and Holmes to disguise what would’ve been illegal and perhaps reputation ruining for the pair.

The three remain their own sort of family and the series progresses as published to continue that fabrication of the truth.

No mentally disturbed Russell, but a Russell who’s still strong and sane and perhaps at times cleverer than Holmes. No creepy stalker behavior by a girl, but the same in canon amazing woman we get to see grow up. Same partnership, just no romance.

I wonder if this solution wouldn’t occur to a canon purist who plays the game— a purist up until the point where they play a game of rationalizing a non-canonical work to fit their version of Holmes. Not saying that to be scathing, just if one is to entertain the possibility of modern pastiche fitting into The Game, it would be fun to be a little more creative.

I wonder if queer H&W doesn’t slot into their version of the game, and so a clever woman protecting that deep love wouldn’t either. But it seems a far better solution to approach the Russell texts under The Game than Marcum’s rationalization. Again, I’d want for some more creativity than his version.

But then, My Holmes, when I finally write him, is queer, and I enjoyed the Russell series, so it wasn’t a difficult solution.

[quintessential-johnlock]

The Blanched Soldier. AKA: that time where Holmes wrote a story from the inside of his closet and filled it with passive aggressive gay frustration towards Watson... his amazing, underrated helpmate* who's only selfish action was deserting Holmes for a wife.

Oh, and then Holmes proceeds to impress a "big, fresh, sunburned" soldier with some crackshot deductions that highlight Holmes's textbook knowledge of military culture, runs off to have a gay adventure, and finally reunites the soldier with his gay lover that had been forcibly separated from him by their father/Commanding Officer.

All alone and without his dear Boswell.

"And here it is that I miss my Watson. By cunning questions and ejaculations of wonder he could elevate my simple art, which is but systematized common sense, into a prodigy."

* Let's take note that the word "helpmate" is only used 2 other times in canon, and both are by Holmes and referring to a female lover/wife. The word has a general context of being applied to a spouse, and Holmes tends to use it in this manner.

[tremendousdetectivetheorist]

Fireworks Splice HTML

Fics to read!!! This is a site of a multi-fandom slash zine with all works in pdf. I don’t remember how I found it, but it appears to have last been updated in 2002 and I’m glad it’s still up, cos there are some good Holmes/Watson (or Johnlock) fics here! There’s X-Files and Star Trek and a variety of other fandoms, but I read the 5 Sherlock Holmes fics and summarized them below. The guys confront their Victorian internalized homophobia in these fics and so there is plenty of angst to satisfy my cravings. All mention Holmes’s drug use.

“After Marcini’s”, Gael X. Ile: Post-HOUN. Domesticity, theatre, blow jobs, dancing! I like to imagine they’re at the old Imperial

“The Harbourmaster’s Tale”, M. Fae Glasgow: Not only does Watson learn that Holmes likes men, he also has a particular “type”.

“If I Needed Someone”, Emma Scot (yes, after that Beatles song): A friends-to-lovers story, with sex in the middle. The second half is relationship angst surrounding Watson’s marriage to Mary Morstan.

“Post-scriptum“, Edi N. Burgh: A sort of epilogue to The Harbourmaster’s Tale. No one but Watson himself knew about his story filled with “grotesque indignities” but when Holmes finds it...another story begins. Light BDSM in this.

“A Thrice Daily Injection“, Jane Mailander: Post-SIGN. Holmes gets his fix from “injections” of Watson’s sex. This one has an addictive/needy relationship dynamic.

[whentherosespeaks]

[days-of-storm]

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY DELIGHTFUL!

[inkonice-main]

Why hadn’t I been told about the super gay ending of this movie? I would have watched it years ago! My God! Even when they are mice they are in love ♡♡