im sherlock holmes lets solve crimes but definitely not have feelings
oh im learning what friendship is and also solving crime at the same time
what a surprising turn of events
i prefer scarves to people, make a GIF of me
i don’t have time for social niceties OR the authority of the Pope
john
shave off your mustache
while you are at it shave off your feelings as well
my face is smooth
like my heart
i dont like emotions OR the house of York
wheres my tea and also drugs
john hobbit you are my roommate but also my friend
no dont smile
dont say thank you
youve ruined it now
be quiet
the game is on
martinjohn in one way i’m teaching you about crime
but in another way your teaching me about friendship
we’re both learning
only youre learning more because im really quite smart
watsonjohn if you don’t help me produce an heir i shall cut off your head
i know everything about you from your gloves
i have a thousand peacoats and absolutely no emotions
i notice everything
thats why my face is so long
to better notice things
hoo boy
almost had a feeling there
that was close
Tags: art, benedict cumberbatch, henry viii, magic, sherlock, the tudors, time travel
Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit!
Does this mean that we have a pretty good idea of what Fat Benedict Cumberbatch w/ gout would look like?
Alternately, does this mean that Benedict Cumberbatch is bi?
GAZE UPON THY FUTURE, CRUMBLESNATCH
re: is he bi, is is tagged “time travel”
touche
Okay, is this post sticking it to Bendy Cummerbund? Because if so, I heartily endorse it. Surely there is better man-bait out there, but then again, I crush on the likes of old-timey Gregory Peck, so what do I know.
i’m not going to explain my art to you, warren
EEP! Face is going deep red, toes are curled, slinks off. But who’s Warren? Warren liked the post, he liked it all, honest!
Sent from my iPad
(It’s an Empire Records reference!)
Ah…thank you!
Sent from my iPad
The face that launched a thousand tumblrs.
i dont like emotions OR the house of York
I think his mother, Elizabeth of York, would be pretty pissed off to hear that.
(Also, I may be expelled from the Toast for voicing this opinion, but I was watching Sherlock yesterday and came to the realisation that I cannot make it through a single episode without loudly complaining about plotholes and characters behaving nonsensically. My partner has said he will never watch it with me again, because he cannot bear the fact that I pause it every five minutes to rant, and then go on and on about it even once the episode’s finished. And I only seem to like Lestrade.)
lol you look me in the fucking eye and try to tell me that Henry VIII had more Yorkist tendencies than Lancastrian, fucking TRY IT
This is possibly my favourite comment of all time.
Poor poor Elizabeth of York.
He had a lot of mistresses. You know who else did? Edward IV, Yorkist. (Admittedly, having lots of mistresses just seems to be a monarch thing, rather than a specifically Yorkist thing. BUT STILL.)
Still not buying it. Mistresses, shmistresses. Henry VIII was a Lancaster/Tudor through and through.
also if you like Lestrade, you will definitely like the movie Maurice
And Room With a View. There is wang.
You are not alone. I have a long rant about Sherlock, Doctor Who, and Stephen Moffat that I have to keep bottled up inside me, because if I am not careful I will spew it all over the face of the unsuspecting person who mentioned one of those three in front of me. I learned this when my boss casually told me that he had been watching Sherlock with his daughter and thought it was pretty smart, and to my horror I heard myself delivering a full oration on the insidious misogyny of Stephen Moffat’s work in general and Sherlock in particular.
Irene. Fucking. Adler.
PREACH.
Fucking RIGHT?!? Jesus.
I watched that episode yesterday. Her depiction was fairly infuriating.
That was the first (AND ONLY) Sherlock episode I ever saw, and I had to chug a whole lot of wine to avoid a rage aneurysm. It was like a perfect storm of awful and I never went back.
I would like to hear this oration please.
The short version is: Irene. Fucking. Adler. (and River fucking Song)
The slightly longer version is: Stephen Moffat’s women tend to be superficially strong and sexy, but then it turns out their entire lives revolve around the male main characters and they are all ultimately passive players in their own lives. In the case of Sherlock, this involves taking the two female characters in ACD’s stories who outwitted Sherlock Holmes and handled matters on their own terms (Irene Adler and The Unknown Woman from “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton”), and rewriting their stories so that Sherlock Holmes outwits them and saves them. (Plus, Irene becomes a lesbian who will turn for Sherlock, because hahaha what is queer erasure?)
Imagine my delight after the opening sequence, in which Irene Adler is a smoking hot lesbian wielding a riding crop, and not only was I getting a smoking hot genius lesbian on television, but I had remembered that she is one of the few characters in ACD’s world to outwit Sherlock. In the books I remembered it as a vaguely romantic attachment based on getting his ass kicked, but here Irene is a lesbian and Sherlock is ambiguous, and maybe this would turn out to be a gloriously modern depiction of what attachment can look like.
And then the episode ended.
And if there was any justice in the world, at that point I would have developed the ability to transform into a 300 foot tall dragon and spent the rest of the evening streaking across the London skies, setting all of Moffat’s favorite places on fire.
It just wasn’t enough to take her from The Only Person Who Ever Beat Holmes to Sexy Dominatrix Lesbo, they simply had to sink the only queer representation the show had for the sake of a peeled potato in a peacoat when they could have at least acknowledged sexual vs romantic orientation. UGH.
peeled potato in a pea coat
*cackles*
Agree but… bi representation is still queer representation.
IIRC, she represented herself as a lesbian who was just overcome by a peeled potato in a pea coat. IMO it fits more into the sadly well-defined “lesbians are good straight girls who just need the right d” trope than any positive representation of bisexuality.
Sure, but in the episode she explicitly identifies as a lesbian. Watson goes off on one of his “I’m not gay!!!” rants, and Irene says, “But I am.” And then goes on to discuss how Sherlock Holmes is so fantastic she would still do him.
tl;dr: I totally agree bi representation is important, and bi erasure is a thing. But this was a different kind of fail.
Yes, the world needs more polysexuals, but she’s never shown as bi/pan/what have you. She’s not pulling an Erika Moen and getting a character arc to redefine her sexuality; it’s just “sexy dyke domme gets turned by British navy bean.” And I for one am sick of losing even my canon lesbians to men.
Oh, I totally agree! I was just making a semantic quibble b/c the character is still canonically queer. THat doesn’t change the fact that Moffat is a douche who doesn’t try to understand anything about women and really truly believes in the magical power of arrogant emotionally distant peen.
Yep.
And the funny thing is, in the books the romantic attachment is completely one-sided? Like, Sherlock starts crushing on Irene because she kicked his ass, but she only notices him long enough to kick said ass, and then she goes merrily along her way without giving him a second thought. So great! So . . . the opposite of “A Scandal in Belgravia.”
The trope of “I’m a lesbian, but not if the right man comes along” is the worst.
I can pull the wool over my own eyes with most of the Irene Adler plot by pretending that it was all a suuuper long con, including the lovey-dovey phone password, so that Sherlock would risk his life to get her out of some trouble with terrorists that she’d obviously gotten into earlier as part of her machinations (to make my completely B.S. theory work, you have to pretend she was in trouble with terrorists before the episode started; just go with it).
But the “lesbian doesn’t really mean lesbian” thing defies everything I can throw at it. How is it even possible in the 21st century to write such a thing.
Perhaps Irene Adler, the sexiest person to ever sex (query: do many actual dominatrices spent all their time going on and on about how they like sex and domination, and have they mentioned that they are a dominatrix. WE GET IT, WRITERS) hasn’t heard of bisexuality.
By then you still have the Islamophobia in re: the terrorists. There’s no escape.
It’s the worst. I just wish I weren’t so enthralled with the way B. Cum walks down the street while tying a scarf. Stephen Moffat ruins everything.
B. Cum and his intense social awkwardness are treasures. Stephen Moffat is a terrible writer.
I find Elementary to be everything that Sherlock is not (in the ways you mention, and many others). Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu are a delightful Holmes/Watson pairing. Watson has agency, solves crimes on her own if the mood takes her, and is generally just great. Plus it has a turtle, Clyde, who is often used to ferry important information to Joan whilst she is abed.
You had me at “turtle”
Then you might like his Twitter account. https://twitter.com/ClydetheTurtle
Yes, I am here for the “Elementary is better than Sherlock” derailment thread.
Also Elementary has Natalie Dormer and she absolutely SLAYS.
Fun fact: one of the first google autocompletes for Natalie Dormer is “Natalie Dormer smiles like she knows how the world is going to end.”
It’s not wrong.
WHAT?! Natalie Dormer appears in Elementary? How did I not know this? *burns every part of my life that isn’t watching Elementary*
Yes, and her role is PERFECT because she is PERFECT if slightly less PERFECT than Lucy Liu who is the best human.
I am actually glad I have never encountered Natalie Dormer in real life, because she would only have to look at me with dem eyes and I would be a gibbering fool for days. And I have shit to do.
I LOVE Elementary! I mean, the second season was a little meh, overall plot wise (show me a universe in which Watson and Mycroft have less chemistry), but everything they did with Irene Adler was genius.
And I really enjoy that it has an interrogative relationship with the ACD stories. Sherlock is a more straightforward adaptation, which has its charms (I grudgingly admit that they are great at getting the gaslamps and London fog atmosphere across), but since Elementary is interrogative, it can do really interesting things with some of the tenets of ACD’s stories. Including but not limited to: straight white middle-class Englishmen are the only people worth writing about; Sherlock is always unimpeachably right and superior to everyone else; if you’re a genius you can totally do drugs when you get bored and not have to worry about addiction.
UGH SECOND SEASON WATSON MYCROFT SHENANIGANS. DISAPPROVE. Since Sherlock’s Mycroft (Mark Gatiss) is the only good thing about Sherlock, can we just have his character in both shows? A friend was going on about how it was neat how they tied Elementary’s Mycroft back into canon. NOPE JUST DUMB.
Also agreed on interrogative relationship with ACD stories!!
I have been watching it, and I like it much more! Sorry, Benedict Cumberbatch. I adore you in Cabin Pressure and am sure you are a lovely person, but watching Sherlock just makes me cross.
I did this very thing and now my friend’s boyfriend won’t speak to me (I also refused to validate his wailing about women who want him to put the seat down, and the injustice of having female housemates, so.)
Basically Moffat is useless and I also don’t watch Doctor Who anymore.
I like to come up with alternative explanations for his wildly speculative conclusions based on collar dust or whatever, usually ones that result in unbearable social awkwardness.
It reminds me a bit of the Adam West Batman movie, with the completely ridiculous and also apparently correct responses they come up to for the Riddler’s riddles. “What weighs six ounces, sits in a tree, and is very dangerous?” “A sparrow with a machine gun!” Duh.
I think my issue is that Sherlock’s character behaves endlessly like a histrionic 12-year-old. It’s always EW FEELINGS and EW COMMON DECENCY. I started to read the original Conan Doyle stories, and you know what Holmes doesn’t act like? A fucking histrionic 12-year-old. Yeah, he’s a jerk sometimes, but not ALL the time.
Bingo – the thesis of the show seems to be “I’m a really shitty person! Haha, isn’t that FASCINATING?”
Project much, Moffat?
And everyone seems to agree with this assessment. “Oh, Sherlock, you’re so wonderful!” NO.
THANK YOU. It’s baffling how he has so many people enabling him.
I drunk-tweeted about this a few weeks ago when I tried to watch the Season 3 premiere. ACD Sherlock = not a whiny asshole.
hi are you me? If so, we have a problem. Or rather, I have a problem.
I have not been able to bring myself to watch ep 3 of season 3 because the threesome cutes of ep 2 were so good, and I know 3 is just going to crush my dreams. It was totally a three way wedding with Mary who is smart and awesome and takes no shit from Sherlock, but understands and loves his twitty little self. And Sherlock has feelings and John doesn’t have to tolerate quite so much abuse, and it was all an illusion.
I think an episode I liked may have caused me to break up with the show. Tell me, fellow toasters, am I justified?
YES. The final one was just horrific in re: Mary.
NO NO you are not alone
yes please thank you
In addition to another potential Crazy Maurice theory, you’ve also nicely encapsulated why Sherlock got really tedious for me after a few episodes.
Who would Martin Freeman play in the Henry VIII movie? All that concern would make a decent Wolsey – and all that frustration would make a pretty good Norfolk.
THOMAS CROMWELL!
(I just finished Bring Up the Bodies.)
I admire both Freeman and Cromwell enormously, but I’m pretty sure Freeman could never murder anyone ever, and the threat of possible murder is part of Cromwell’s charm.
Also Freeman is too pretty.
Freeman’s John Watson straight up murdered that cabbie in the pilot.
I will never forgive Moffat for not having LeStrade follow up Sherlock’s deduction about the shooter with “Shhha, you think? Prat.” and had thus purged it from my memory. Good point.
That’s my second-favorite moment in the entire series. The first is when Sherlock is describing who the shooter could be, looks at Watson, who is looking nonchalantly up in the air.
…and that’s the first (and one of the last) times we got to see Watson as a badass. *sob*
I’m thinking he’s nervous enough to be a great Cranmer, secret german wife and all
God, that would be great. Just a buddy kings and archbishops movie with the two of them, conspiring to have more sex.
YES PERFECT
OMG YES
i have a thousand peacoats and absolutely no emotions
I am going to The Secret myself until I reach this goal.
It’s the new #BIGHAIRNOHEART
This right here is the one that made me howl with laughter.
*john hobbit* is where I lost it. Thank you for every pixel of this post.
I was mildly amused until john hobbit made me audibly snort laugh at my desk.
I read all of this in Lemongrab voice, for some reason. A third kindred spirit, maybe.
I went BACK and reread it in Lemongrab voice, so thank you very much.
Henry VIII looked a lot like his granddad, Edward IV: http://www.nndb.com/people/671/000093392/ Edward was obese and alcoholic when he died too, but he had the sense not to hang out with painters after he stopped being cute.
Edward died at Westminster on the 9th of April 1483, and was buried at Windsor. By Elizabeth Woodville, who died on the 8th of June 1492, he had two sons, King Edward V and Richard of York, who were murdered in the Tower of London; and five daughters, of whom the eldest, Elizabeth, married King Henry VII. Of his numerous mistresses the most notorious was Jane Shore. Before his marriage he had been contracted to Lady Eleanor Butler, and this was alleged by King Richard III to have made his children by Elizabeth Woodville illegitimate.
This paragraph is making my head explode. The author has clearly gone for the “walking on eggshells/avoiding all controversy” approach.
It’s fun, too, how it makes it seem like Elizabeth had a choice about marrying Henry VII. So much agency in the late-15th century, ladies!
I finally just watched the first episode of Series 1 and thought it was great, especially the climactic scene where Cummerbund has to decide which wine has iocane powder in it and finds out who is right and who is dead
That scene is so much better in a comedy.
On the one hand watching BC dramatically take off a scarf does make me weak in the knees but on the other hand things making fun of him and his weird looks also fill me with great joy. Too many conflicting feelings at once.
Yeah I got no problem at all admitting he looks like a lizard otter, but I would still bang him right away if asked.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
BRB posting this to every form of social media of which I am a member, thereby almost certainly destroying several Cumberbatch-tainted friendships in the process (I AM SORRY BUT HE LOOKS LIKE BUTTHEAD TO ME?? As in Beavis and. Also I’m sure he’s a nice man and he makes all his own clothes and is nice to his mother and he doesn’t sweat much, etc etc. I always qualify because I once made a MILDLY critical comment about him on Tumblr and got honest to god anonymous death threats).
ohahahaha… wait. What? Death threats?
This is so great, Mallory. Mostly because it is funny (but partially because it is about the ‘Batch). More please! That is to say: there are literally thousands of outlets for my strange obsession but it would be great if the Toast were a more frequent contributor.
Right? He's such a human guy, and a terrific straight-man for Sherlock and John.
I volunteer to be his Anne of Cleves.
No really I thought very hard about this and I get my own house, it works out great.
It’s a really nice house, too.
I volunteer to be his Anne of Cleves.
No really I thought very hard about this and I get my own house, it works out great.
Seconding the notice that Elementary is a slow starter but worth it.
EXCEPT IN SEASON THREE WHEN HE DITCHES A MAJOR BUST TIP GO RUSH TO SHERLOCK'S SIDE ON THE BASIS OF A TEXT WITHOUT EVEN CHECKING TO SEE WHAT WAS SO IMPORTANT
…sorry, I'm not angry at Lestrade, I'm angry at the shitty writing that insists everyone else do unreasonable out of character things to underline how special Sherlock himself is
That made me furious. Ha ha ha, look how seriously Sherlock is taking this! Look at how it led to a hilarious misunderstanding that caused Lestade to miss out on making an arrest that meant a lot to him! Ha ha ha, hilarious. NO.
(I mean, yes, Lestrade should have just radioed it in and got whoever was closest to Baker Street to investigate rather than going himself; unless he was right next door it wasn't hugely efficient for him to do it. But I am less cross with him and more cross with Sherlock, and with the writers for trying to present it as a hilarious event rather than something utterly enraging.)