WTf Bahahah. I Wrote This At 3am And Thought It Made Perfect Sense. Well...

Inspired from a conversation with my friend, something I feel about Sherlock Holmes, is that to read him as unempathetic, monotone and emotionless, is to misread his mask for truth. Holmes's real state only comes out around those he trusts; Watson, of course, being the prime example.

For an instant the veil had lifted upon his keen, intense nature, but for an instant only. When I glanced again his face had resumed that red-Indian composure which had made so many regard him as a machine rather than a man. [CROO]

for a moment I saw something in his eyes which was nearer to tenderness than I had ever seen. The next instant he was his masterful, practical self once more. [BRUC]

We often see Holmes highly expressive and unable to contain himself at the peak of his enjoyment and stimulation of a case, and often this is something he actively suppresses. (God, we're all thinking about that scene in SIXN - or 3GAR, aren't we?)

There was a gleam in his eyes and a suppressed excitement in his manner which convinced me, used as I was to his ways, that his hand was upon a clue. [SILV]

Holmes had taken out his watch, and as minute followed minute without result, an expression of the utmost chagrin and disappointment appeared upon his features. He gnawed his lip, drummed his fingers upon the table, and showed every other symptom of acute impatience. So great was his emotion, that I felt sincerely sorry for him, while the two detectives smiled derisively, by no means displeased at this check which he had met. [STUD]

Holmes is actively masking his excitement very often, and it's through his relationship with Watson and success in his career that he learns to accept and be his openly emotional self more and more as we progress through the Canon. Aside from this, Holmes is highly emotional and compassionate towards his clients, take FIVE, SPEC, or ILLU. I don't think ACD tumblr is really the audience that needs to hear this, but I want people to read this who understand where I'm coming from. I feel that Sherlock Holmes is so often misunderstood as genuinely dispassionate, when this is, in fact, the act, the mask, the antic disposition that he wants those around him to believe.

To believe that Holmes's coldness is in any way a truth doesn't fly with me. For me it's nothing more than defence-mechanism, which, to be fair, is what most intolerable behaviour really is. However, I would disagree with anyone who argues that it is a natural part of Holmes.

the neurodivergent experience:

20% of the time: wowwieee!!! i love my passions and interests!!!!! they make me so happy i want to jump up and down!!!!! weee!!!!!!! :3333333333

80% of the time: this mind is a prison

I don’t exactly know how to say it, but..... society doesn’t seem to realize that anger is an emotion. I mean most of the time we are told to stop being so emotional and the immediat response is, to stop showing vulnerability and replacing it with anger. When men tell women (or when women tell men or men tell men...etc.) that they are to emotional, most of the time they do it in an angry way. Anger seems to be generally viewed as acting strong and not emotional, which is weird because anger is probably one of the strongest emotions you can feel. 

I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone, but the whole concept of anger being more socially acceptable than sadness, or literally anything else is just wild to me.

I was thinking about this at work the other day and like. what if the reason Hastings is so in-the-moment to the exclusion of all other moments stems from his service during the War?

Don't think about the past. Go too far and you're confronted with the horrors of the trenches. Shells screaming overhead, no way of knowing where they'll land. The sound of explosions ringing so loud in your ears that you don't know if you'll ever hear anything else again. Great, metal beasts crushing everything in their path. Boys torn apart before they had the chance to come of age.

Go back even further and you have to face the man you once were. The man you can never be again. The man you could have been but can never become after living through what you did.

And as for the future, it simply doesn't exist on the battlefield. It's become a vague, nebulous, abstract concept that may or may not come to pass, so why give it too much thought? The here and now is all that matters. It's the only thing you're guaranteed.

Captain Hastings and Miss Lemon kicking around their shared brain cell like a football

Why?!

Why is the Bull fandom so small?!

If you’re in the Bull fandom repost. I’m super curious.

Captain Arthur Hastings is so ADHD coded.

Every episode he has a new hyperfixation, that he has abandoned by the next one. His car is pretty much his only constant interest but even then he plans to participate in a 24 HOUR race without having any experience with racing. We see how easily a new hyperfixation is triggered with Hastings in one episode (don't know exactly which one) when he and Poirot visit some attorney who deals with the stock market and not shortly after Hastings is absolutely obsessed with it. It screams ADHD to me.

In 'The Wasps Nest', when Hastings is currently obsessed with photography, Poiroit even says something along the lines of "his newest tick, I'll give him two weeks" (rough translation from the German synchronisation since the English original is not available anywhere in Germany as far as I know ...). So we have canon proof that Hastings getting new obsessions/hobbies and abandoning them shortly after is indeed happening and not just the writers not showing us how he pursues his interest anymore.

I'd also attribute his naivety/slowness (some people say he's stupid but I won't) to ADHD. I myself and most people I know with ADHD keep getting told that we are naive or gullible. Taking people at face value and generally not assuming ill intent is common in people with ADHD and something we also see in Hastings.

His slowness / him not being really smart is a characteristic that is certainly being amplified by the fact that we constantly see him in comparison to Poirot (I doubt that he would be seen as that stupid if the show was just him and Japp). I'd also say that him not being able to follow Poirot's deduction and reasoning doesn't mean that he is necessarily dumb, just that he is not as intelligent as Poirot and he does have his smart moments. (Also I think he was meant to represent the audience, and we often also have no clue what'S going on) But his less bright moments can also be attributed to ADHD. ADHD causes brain frog , as well as concentration and memory issues ( If I don't write important appointments down on my arm I will forget them no matter how important, but I can tell you everything I've learned about vulcanos when I was 8). He gets distracted easily, fails to pay attention to the 'important aspects' of cases and would rather tell everyone about his newest hyperfixation or work on his car, but he's trying his best. In his areas of expertise (cars, or whatever he is currently obsessed with) he is smart and knows his way around, he's just at loss when it comes to everything else.

I forgot halfway through where I was going with this soooo....

Captain Arthur Hastings OBE has ADHD!

RIP Sherlock Holmes you would have loved Lindsey Stirling

Can we talk about Elementary for a moment? Because this show is so fucking amazing I can’t. The premise is questionable, to say the least. „We’re gonna make a Sherlock Holmes adaption. But what if John is a woman called Joan and what if she is American? Oh and the whole thing is set in New York.“

Best start for a horrible American washed gender swap romance adaption but nothing could be further from the truth. Usually when the gender of a character is changed from canon it is to push some strange heteronormative romance sub plot but NO not Elementary.

The PLATONIC relationship between Joan and Sherlock is so amazingly done. It is the best portrayal of a QPR (queerplatonic relationship) I have ever seen in media. And even if we don’t take qprs into account we see a rich, deep, trusting friendship full of so much love. Elementary had the guts to use the word love in a platonic way, something other Sherlock Holmes adaptions (I’m looking at you BBC) never dared to do. And this in a show where Holmes and Watson are opposite genders, so the association with romance is done even quicker. Meanwhile, we watch Watson struggle with traditional dating and amatonormativity until she finally finds happiness in her platonic partnership with Sherlock and later as a single mum.

Elementary is also the only adaption I’ve seen that really explores Holmes's addiction. Usually, even in ACD canon, his drug addiction is treated as some personality quirk. An annoying habit but nothing more. But that is not how addiction works. Especially not with hard drugs like morphine and cocaine if we look at Canon or heroin in case of BBC and Elementary. Elementary puts great focus on Sherlock's long, presumably lifelong struggle with addiction and the great strength and effort it takes for him to stay clean. It emphasizes his need for a stable support system and doesn’t downplay addiction like a lot of Sherlock Holmes adaptions do. This is amazing.

Another great thing is the casualness of how queer people are incorporated into the story. They are just there. Their queerness isn’t the focus of their story, it is just part of who they are. Mrs. Hutson is trans but the focus is on the many influential men she has had affairs with. Victims are queer. Suspects are queer. Police are queer. Queer people just exist in this show without making it a big deal.

Even tho it isn't a perfect ACD Holmes adaption especially if we look at Sherlock's character I love this show so much.

Ah hello! I saw you responded to my post about alternatives to hugging and I wanted to say thanks and also that's an awesome alternative I love it! I can't say I've listened to that concert specifically but Simon and Garfunkel are one of my favorites too, I especially like Bridge Over Troubled Water as a hug song!

Oh also!! Happy pride month, fellow ace!! 💜💜

~lowkey-obsession

Yes, Bridge over troubled water is an amazing song. Also belated happy pride month ( can you say that?). 🖤🌑🤍💜