Holmes/watson - Tumblr Posts

I know we all like to laugh at Watson for taking such pains to conceal dates and people and events but being obviously obvious about his love for Holmes but like. hear me out. what if he’s not. what if it’s on purpose

Ok, so. Watson is an intelligent man. He is not stupid. He would not read his drafts and not notice the obvious romanticism. I think a lot of evidence supports the idea that he’s doing it on purpose. I mean, he even defends himself when Holmes accuses him of romanticising the stories by saying that the romance was there and he’s just reporting it the way it was. The interesting question is just, why? Why not be more careful?

Here’s what I think: uhm. so. multiple things.

1. Imagine writing stories about the person you love above anything else in the world. The person who seems to you so incredible and unbelievable and wonderful that you’re in awe they even exist and even more that they have chosen you. How do you write about them without that bleeding through. Holmes isn’t just a person that appears in the stories, the stories are completely about him and his personality. Of course Watson notices that the way he sees Holmes is evident in the loving descriptions. But what, really, can he do? Change or omit parts of Holmes’ personality? Make up a Holmes character for his stories? Invent a Holmes who he is not in love with and who does not inspire the same feelings of awe and admiration? He might as well just write a different story. The whole point of these stories is that they’re about Holmes. Or alternatively, could he somehow describe every one of Holmes’ personality traits rationally and without emotion? No, he couldn’t. “Fascinating” and “wonderful” are just traits that describe Holmes to him. He never says that he loves Holmes. We can only infer it from those descriptions. How is he supposed to describe Holmes if he can’t use them?

2. In extension of that: Watson’s perspective is essential to the stories. He is the only one who understands Holmes. He is the only one who can tell us about the kindness and compassion and the silliness and the deep care for humans and the devotion to justice because he’s the only one who gets to see everything. Taking any other perspective would probably result in a much worse portrayal. Knowing that Holmes is by every standard very neurodivergent and queer and generally just absolutely not “normal”, that portrayal probably wouldn’t be kind and it would miss all of those key features of his character that Watson understands. So Watson can not take another perspective that isn’t his own, not just because he’s too in love but because it would just not work.

3. Perhaps most importantly: Here’s what is actually my main point. What if… Imagine this. You’re a normal Victorian person. You have the normal views of the time. You read the Sherlock Holmes stories. You read them because the cases are interesting and Holmes is a curious personality but, unconsciously, you also absorb everything else that’s in the stories. The deep bond between these two men. The love. The fact that they would do anything for each other. The way that Holmes is someone who is so strange and abnormal by your standards but who is still deeply loved and who deeply loves and who is kind and funny and a good person. And maybe you don’t realise it but in some way, it influences you nonetheless. Perhaps the next time you meet a person who acts “weird” or “abnormal”, they remind you of Holmes and you have to smile. Maybe the next time people mention the unspeakable sin of love between two men, something doesn’t sit quite right with you. Maybe, just maybe, you begin to think.

I think Watson knows this. I think this is why he writes. Of course he also wants to tell everyone how amazing his husband is, but mostly, he really wants to live in a world where he is actually able to tell everyone that that’s his husband. And this is his part. Maybe only 5% of readers really begin to change their minds about what is “abnormal” and what is acceptable. Maybe it’s only a dozen people. Maybe it’s one person. It all matters. Change doesn’t come suddenly. Change comes when many people change their minds. And here is something he can do. Of course it’s obvious. Not obvious enough to be censored, that would defeat the purpose, but obvious enough to make his point. Of course it’s dangerous. It’s a balancing act but it’s worth it. Even if just one person changes their mind, it’s worth it.

I think people forget Watson’s purpose in the stories isn’t only to ask questions so that the case is revealed to the audience naturally. Watson’s purpose is also to ask questions in a way that reveals the case to Holmes. He’s not integral to Holmes’s work just to stroke his ego with the stories. He has weaved his way into Holmes’s mind so thoroughly that Holmes is at his best when Watson is able to lead the march.

granada holmes and watson are so married. holmes bought watson’s favourite cigars as a welcome home present. watson sits beside holmes rapt as he de-disguises himself and tells him about his day. watson reads his paper as holmes conducts his experiments. watson tries to get holmes to eat supper with him. do you see how they are husbands??

Watson is Holmes' favourite hyperfixation, and most certainly vice versa...By that I also mean that they are deeply in love.

Holmes will be like “I only remember things that are functionally or practically important to my work and forget everything that isn’t” then go out of his way to memorise all of Watson’s habits and routines

This. I think about this constantly.

just thinking about holmes' inability to be chill around watson in private, and how much that means to watson when he comes inside from a world where sherlock holmes is the unfeeling machine, a world he helped to create, and is greeted by a smile that holds all the love you could fit into the stretch of a mouth

It's getting to be that time where I have to write another Sherlock Holmes story...

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Quick, if you love me!

Since Watson is canonically an unreliable narrator, anything could have plausibly happened behind the closed doors of 221B. He doesn't tell us readers everything. Any sort of twist could have happened during a case that he couldn't write for the public... Like all those times he kissed Sherlock Holmes.

That feeling when I see the sun rising outside my window and I realise that I've once again spent the entire night reading Johnlock fanfiction and/or the original Sherlock Holmes stories once again.

Self care is writing fan fiction that you are the sole target audience for.

"My dear fellow," said Sherlock Holmes, as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker-street, "life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind could invent. (...)"

"The Illustrated Sherlock Holmes Treasury" - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Absolutely obsessed with the headcanon that Watson sings like an angel and Holmes can't sing for his life.

Does anyone else just occasionally miss the Victorian intimacy of calling someone by their first name?

So, I've been a bit of a historical kick again in doing research for a Johnlock fanfic I'm considering writing...And I now can't stop thinking of Watson secretly working as a Resurrectionist. Honestly, I'm just imagining he and Holmes meeting in a graveyard by accident one night because Holmes is investigating a case and Watson is illegally digging up a corpse, and it's the most adorably awkward thing.

Guess what? That "historical kick" hasn't ended. Infact, it has gotten worse. I have been introduced to the world of Victorian era bare-knuckle boxing, also called prize fighting, and I can't stop imagining Watson finding Holmes in one of the illegal fights. Considering the hints to Watson being interested in gambling and placing bets at one point or another and Holmes shaving a decent talent in boxing in ACD canon, I am now also imagining a possible fanfic where Watson goes to one of these underground fights one night and finds Holmes there...Oh, someone stop me, please, I already have enough unfinished stories in my drafts.

So, I've been a bit of a historical kick again in doing research for a Johnlock fanfic I'm considering writing...And I now can't stop thinking of Watson secretly working as a Resurrectionist. Honestly, I'm just imagining he and Holmes meeting in a graveyard by accident one night because Holmes is investigating a case and Watson is illegally digging up a corpse, and it's the most adorably awkward thing.

I cannot stress how much I agree, and love this man.

So much to love, but red-headed league highlights:

- Holmes calls Watson “my dear ___” at least 3 times—twice within like the first 15 minutes of Watson showing up

- The boys are giddy to be together working this weird case, which is extremely clear because:

- Holmes WIGGLES IN EXCITEMENT

- The two of them look at each other and burst out laughing

- Holmes sees Watson trying to deduce the client and smiles fondly

- They go on a date to hear music and Watson apparently spends the entire time watching Holmes and thinking about his poetic side vs his rational side (and clearly loves and respects both). He throws in heaps of praise for his violin playing and composing while he’s at it

- they finish their date and Holmes is like “You have to go? :(“ and Watson is like “Yeah, I guess I should :(“ but then Holmes is like “but come back late tonight for danger adventure?” And Watson is like “literally my life is so boring, what time do you need me? :)”

- They finish their danger date with a nightcap at Baker St

Now I'm just imagining Watson snatching away Holmes' syringe and giving him a coca-cola instead to try and prevent him from using too much of the stuff, and it just looking like a Mum giving her fussy baby a bottle.

So you’re telling me Sherlock Holmes could have enjoyed a refreshing coca-cola

trying to oppose holmes and watson as 'unfeeling' and 'human' respectively does not work because that theory operates on the assumption that watson is the normal one when he is, in fact, the romantic one, which is not a state of normality but instead one of heightened, performative emotion and an attachment to narrative- he is ridiculous actually, they're both freaks <3

me: okay time to go to slee-

my brain: in the sign of the four, holmes professes decisively that he will never marry, lest it clouds his judgment, nor will he ever love. in later stories, however, we see him saying things like "should i ever marry" or "should i ever have a son". he seems to have become quietly more open to the possibility of love ever since his relationship with watson flourished because watson makes holmes believe in love

me, crying: fuck you

i know i talk about this at least once a week but… holmes/watson has so much more potential than johnlock. johnlock is like insults and belittling and condescendingness 99% of the time and kindness and sweetness and tenderness the other 1%. nineteenth-century romance between a brave and kind doctor and a brave, kind coked-up detective on the other hand?? imagine. the language. the gestures. something like (and i’m just spitballing here) “in the soul i fear i have neglected, the mind i cherish above all my other qualities, and the heart i did not know i had before you graced my life with your presence, you may believe me to be, my darling, very sincerely yours, for as long as we both do live”. where are you going to find shit like that if not in the 1800s??? i like bbc sherlock i really do but it needs to get off its high horse akljfkfa