[ SECRET POST #2477 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2477 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


__________________________________________________



02.


__________________________________________________



03.


__________________________________________________



04.


__________________________________________________



05.


__________________________________________________



06. [posted twice]


__________________________________________________



07.


__________________________________________________



08.


__________________________________________________



09.




















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 036 secrets from Secret Submission Post #354.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 2 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

08. http://i.imgur.com/L1SeUzY.jpg

[intrigueing]

You can always assume that Watson falcon-punched him in the dick and refused to speak to him for weeks after his explanation at the end of the story, and neglected to put that detail into the final draft of the manuscript. Seriously, imagining some of Watson's un-elaborated-upon reactions after some of Holmes's comments is really entertaining.

[weaselbee]

So true. I can imagine him rolling his eyes while writing his stories down.

[elaminator]

I love this headcanon. Beautiful.

[(Anonymous)]

Now there is an idea for some awesome fanfic. Nothing but snarky, unedited Watson epilogues.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm distracted by how dapper Watson's looking in that pic. Now that's what I call an illustration.

[(Anonymous)]

*nods* That frock coat must do wonders for his ass, because Holmes is DEFINITELY checking him out.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, true, but that's kind of a given. For a guy who professes to be gifted with imagination and putting himself in the shoes of other people, he doesn't seem to spend much time wondering how Watson would feel about his shenanigans.

But tbh, especially now that you reminded me with that picture, I'm more interested in speculating whether Holmes' hair-raising scream when he saw Watson pick up the poisoned box was genuine terror or just a ruse to get Watson to freeze.

[abharding]

Most likely both. He wanted Watson to freeze because he was terrified of what would happen if Watson were to become infected.

[(Anonymous)]

Since when is there a statute of limitations on the actions of fictional characters? The whole point of them, especially ones that last so long, is to treat them as immortal ;)

[(Anonymous)]

I love this phrasing.

[blueonblue]

I wouldn't be surprised to see an adaptation of this in series 4 because it is exactly something BBC Sherlock would do.

[spacebabie]

"John, how many times are you going to punch me in the jaw?"
"That depends on how many times you fake your death you bloody git."

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I'm sure we'll find out come 2020 or so.

[(Anonymous)]

*desires fic where Watson throws a giant tantrum over this incident. Recs plz*

[ladysugarquill]

OMG I love that story. Past of it is because it shows the respect Holmes has for Watson as a Doctor. Also, dickish as it may be, it was a great gambit.

[(Anonymous)]

I dunno, does it? He certainly shows a lot of respect for Watson's abilities as a doctor, but he shows huge disrespect for his identity as a doctor. Forcing him to sit and twiddle his thumbs while watching a suffering person slowly die in front of him unaided is one of the most insulting and painful things you can do to someone who's taken and believes in the hippocratic oath.

[(Anonymous)]

Actually, you know what makes this story so cruel to re-read if you know that Holmes is faking? The fact that we get to be right inside Watson's head from the perspective of the presence and see, blow-by-blow, Watson's panic and pain and misery at his bff's impending death all throughout the story. And all his declarations of loyalty and sympathetic responses to each of Holmes's totally bogus fits of agony spelled out vertabim.

It's hard to tell with Doyle, but given the narrative choices in that story, I think he purposely wanted the readers to be pissed at Holmes.

[sootyowl]

Well, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was ending the series when he killed Holmes off as he didn't care much for him anymore. He supposidly only brought Holmes back, because of money and death threats (I believe people close to him bothered him to make more stories as well). Maybe that's why the tone was different?

[swamp_adder]

I can mostly excuse Holmes' trick as necessary to catch the criminal -- but what I can't get over is that even after Watson has fetched the dude and the only thing he has left to do is hide behind the bed, Holmes still doesn't tell him the truth! Now, that's just dickishness for the sake of dickishness. Not to mention a huge risk, given how hard it was for Watson to remain silent when it appeared that Holmes was going to die right there in the room with his murderer. Really the only excuse for that is just narrative necessity on ACD's part -- Watson must be kept in the dark so that the reader is kept in the dark, and that's all there is to it.

But honestly I love DYIN anyway. Can't beat Holmes' rambling about oysters!

[akacat]

Here's a thought: maybe Watson actually knew Holmes was faking dying, either due to his medical knowledge or because Holmes told him. But he decided the story would be a bit more interesting if he claimed he didn't know.

IE, he's an unreliable narrator.

[dreemyweird]

Instant headcanon.

[(Anonymous)]

Never read this one - out of curiosity, how similar was it to the episode where House faked cancer? Was that an intentional parallel?

[(Anonymous)]

Sometimes people like to say that Holmes as imagined in the show "Sherlock" is unline Doyle's Holmes because the BBC character is a dick and the ACD character isn't.
No. No. Doyle's Watson is preposterously longsuffering and puts up with all sorts of nonsense, and he knows it, and the BBC show just took this dynamic and ran with it.
"The Hound of the Baskervilles" isn't quite as bad as "The Dying Detective", but in that one Holmes is all "IU'm busy, you go solve the case, Watson" and Watson gets out there and it turns out he's just a decoy while Holmes hides in the heather and solves the case. If that isn't epic trolling I don't know what is.

[dreemyweird]

My reaction to the most spectacular canon dickishness on Holmes's part is... odd. Like, I was mildly annoyed by The Empty House and The Dying Detective, and maybe a bit by The Hound, but I've always accepted Holmes's explanations as reasonable and valid. And I've always kind of thought that Watson knew what he was signing for. Watson saw perfectly well who Holmes was and how he behaved, and he just accepted Holmes this way.

Also, I don't agree that it was terrible of Holmes to do all these things. In The Dying Detective in particular I am quite sure that he was simply anxious for the case to proceed as smoothly as possible. If he would've told Watson that he was a-okay moments before the criminal entered, Watson might've become agitated or angry at him and screwed the case up. Holmes isn't so much a dick as a really professional fellow. Cases>feelings (apart from, as we could see, the instances when there's some real danger to Watson's wellbeing).

Sometimes I think that Holmes doesn't quite get what it is to be deceived like this. He has not succumbed to such deception once (save for the case of Irene Adler, which did not hurt him in a way such actions on Holmes's part hurt Watson), so he's all like, "whatever, there's no physical harm in that."