John Watson and Trust Issues

Yk I’m reading through ACD Canon and I’ve only gotten to about halfway through the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes but I find it extremely amusing how little Mary Morstan appears.

Like John Watson really married this woman and then spent the rest of his life making vague allusions to her before going “ANYWAY now onto my much more interesting and very close friend and companion Sherlock Holmes, who is the light of my life” and I respect him for that.

tale as old as time etc etc

Being a female character in a show with a popular mlm ship is literally a fate worse than death

Mary, darling… 😭

Someone tell me what's wrong with me because why is he the prettiest at his lowest point??

Can't decide whether I want to draw this or cuddle him tbh

Anyways, rec your favourite Johnlock fics if you want.

John calling Mariana “Mari” is just fueling my “Mariana is both ms Hudson and Mary Morstan” headcanon

Mary Morstan reading The Sign of the Four and seeing the passages where Watson was professing her love to her despite the fact that her version of it was watching Holmes and Watson gaze into each other’s eyes lovingly and sneak off on their own then living together again afterwards and having very little contact with her again, connecting the dots and realising she was a plot device.

BBC Sherlock + certainly not a  tumblr bot description generator | insp.

Domesticity in The Sign Of Four

Can we just take a moment to appreciate the domestic stuff in the chapter The Baker Street Irregulars?

So basically what happens, is after a midnight goose chase (ft. Holmes and Toby the mongrel) and the three of them return to 221B, Watson is tired and in an iffy mood. He goes upstairs to take a shower and a change of clothes, and when he comes down again, breakfast is already laid and Holmes is pouring out the coffee ^_^

After a chat about how nothing new's going on in the case, Watson asks Holmes:

"...Are you going to bed, Holmes?" "No. I am not tired. I have a curious constitution. I never remember feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely..."

And Holmes then explains to Watson the mystery of the criminal's accomplice, the savage until he notices Watson is tired, and plays a beautiful melody on his violin which he composed himself to lull his friend to sleep...

"...Look here Watson; you look regularly done. Lie down there on the sofa and see if I can put you to sleep." He took up his violin from the corner, and as I stretched myself out, he began to play some low, dreamy, melodious air - his own, no doubt, for he had a remarkable gift for improvisation. I have a vague remembrance of his gaunt limbs, his earnest face and the rise and fall of his bow. Then I seemed to be floated peacefully away on a soft sea of sound until I found myself in dreamland...

Ironically, this is also the story where Watson gets married - some people think that the above is a last ditch effort on the part of Holmes to keep his companion... 🥲😭

Fandom: Sherlock

Sample Size: 104,398 stories

Source: AO3

This is my entry to this month's Sherlock Challenge and the prompt was game.

Cold Tears

Summary: Sherlock has to go on this mission to save John Watson despite the fact that John will consider him dead if he does.

@sherlockchallenge @totallysilvergirl @keirgreeneyes @calaisreno @phoenix27884 @a-victorian-girl @safedistancefrombeingsmart @gregorovitch-adler @topsyturvy-turtely @peanitbear @helloliriels @raina-at @7-percent @ninasnakie

“Because… you chose her.”

“Liar.”

—— The Empty Hearse

Remember when Sherlock saw but ignored the ‘Liar’ as he deduced Mary? The reason why he didn't have the heart to tell John was not just because he didn't wish for John to think that he was trying to “meddle” with his life, but more importantly, it was because Sherlock felt like he was in no position to hold Mary hostage for being a liar.

Sherlock knew well enough that being the liar he was, as he had lied to save John he had also almost killed him. He knew well enough that Mary‘s lies were what had pulled John back from the brink once more, so how was he in any position to condemn Mary for committing the same crime as he has only with the result of saving John.

And by urging John to forgive Mary‘s lies, how was Sherlock not wishing, wishing, wishing for John to forgive him as well.

I lied to save you, John. I don't give a damn if she lied for her own sake but she ended up saving you nonetheless.

I don't want to die but I killed myself to save you, John. I would die over and over again to save you, I would step off of a building I would let serial killers suffocate me I would shoot a man point-blank for your wife and embrace the consequence of going on a suicide mission with no return. I would, and I have.

I'm sorry that my lies have hurt you, John. But I am never sorry that those lies have saved you.

I lied to save your life, John.

“Because… you chose her.”

—— SHERLOCK, The Empty Hearse

As for the “you chose her”?

It was not the accusation of Sherlock‘s toward John for choosing Mary‘s lies over his. Because how could John not.

Her lies were pretty dresses decorated with promising smiles and overt affection. Her lies were far less harmful than my vacant pulse under your fingertips or my brains splattered on the pavement in front of your eyes.

You chose her. It is what it is.

Round 2

Propaganda Under Cut

Allura

Lots of people (myself included tbh) ship klance (Keith and Lance). In s8 the creators made Allura/Lance canon (but then they killed her off and left the ending ambiguous it was weird). Anyway the fandom treats her like she's the most terrible bitchy woman ever but all she wants to do is end the war and avenge her destroyed home planet. Yeah she wasn't always the nicest or always the best, but you could argue some other characters in the show aren't either and they aren't treated near as bad as allura. people really just hate her bc Lance liked her. I don't think allura/lance are good together, but I still liked her as a character and thought she was interesting and had a lot of growth during the show. she DEF is not evil like some people portray her as in fic or talk about her in captions on posts. I've seen people say that they HATE her and that she's the worst and I'm like ??? let her live (well sort of ig she is dead now). lots of fic writers use her as the villain which is so interesting to me bc the show literally has villains like use them. anyway allura so perfectly fits the bracket description she deserves better.

I hate to acknowledge my time in this fandom but I hate the way the fandom treated her more. Allura was treated like shit no matter what side of the Great Ship War you were on because she was always a threat to the biggest ships (klance and sheith). At best she got put into Background Lesbian or Consolation Prize Shallura (Space Mom-zoned) (She was not a motherly figure btw. She was just Black). At worst she was violently demonized for being ~racist~ (kinda not cool with the alien race that blew up her planet for a few episodes), complete with misogynistic language hurled at her (she got called a bitch sooo much). Allura was a good and cool character and the show did her dirty but the fandom was somehow worse.

i apologise for speaking the dark magicks, but amidst the voltron fandoms many, many transgressions, there were a particular subset of people who just hated this girl. the infamous klance wars of the 2010s kept this perfectly fine childrens cartoon character in the sights of shippers everywhere, and she (and her voice actress im sure) were subjected to years of petty squabble blown up to global perportions. ive seen hate, ive seen rants, ive seen fanfics that made her homophobic. girls been through the ringer, and even though voltron was never the show its fandom wanted it to be, i believe allura deserved better

Mary Morstan

a controversial one i know, but it’s tumblr. how could i not? anyway shoutout to the writers for CANONICALLY killing her off for the non-canon ship. she was so cool honestly poor girl

Oh god where do I start? Constantly being turned abusive? Killed off (in canon!)? Constantly being removed from fic? I cannot stand the way she's treated, but it's 100% impossible to find Johnlock fic without the "umsympathetic Mary Morstan" angle. It's infuriating!

The fandom insulted Mary at every conceivable turn, refused to acknowledge her narrative importance or impact on the other characters, called for her death repeatedly, and even SENT DEATH THREATS TO HER ACTRESS because she had the AUDACITY to be a morally gray female character who was married to John (they did not care about the moral grayness of the male characters, but she was irredeemable, apparently-presumably because she was a "threat" to the main fandom ship). And though she was definitely sacrificed on a SPECIFIC mlm ship altar, she was still tangentially victimized by OTHER mlm ships too! For example, this fandom was willing to make up a character WHO LITERALLY DID NOT ACTUALLY EXIST to ship with different male character (who was morally...way worse than she ever was), as well as create swathes of content about two men who had maybe one canon interaction in the whole show, before even thinking about the possibility of making content for this character or even just talking about her in a way that wasn't overtly misogynistic and degrading. When Mary died in-story (in what, in my opinion, was an unnecessary, bullshit way), her death was, to this fanbase, not actually about her and was just seen as "proof" that the two male leads would now get together (they didn't). And this STILL continues to this day. People reduce her to "selfish bitch," completely ignoring any of her complexity by claiming that she's incapable of caring about anyone (despite helping to save lives on more than one occasion, as well as dying in an act of sacrifice) and insisting that any of her positive qualities MUST be completely fabricated. I've seen a lot of female characters get mistreated by fandom for a mlm ship's sake, but I don't think I've EVER encountered an example as bad as this one.