Sherlock receiving gifts and his reactions about them + john telling him to behave

definitely relate to sherlock's deep discomfort here.

each of these gifts reflects the givers' conventionality and lack of knowledge/understanding about sherlock as a person. it's not so bad, john saying "he means thank you" the first time, but by the Hat Of Another's Choosing, it's (especially in hindsight) john reinforcing that conventional (ie, heteronormative) presentation, at the expense of who sherlock really is. so later in the episode, when john says "i know you", it's understandable why sherlock would wonder if he does. john denies that moriarty is messing with his head too, but john's head is already messed with right here.

i don't know how much s2 and s3 meta is still on tumblr, but it's worth looking for.

So I’m going to become the knife cat meme for this take mayhaps but I’m gonna talk about Ed and Stede re the topping/bottoming conversation and how it unfolded early on in the fandom. Now, My personal headcanon for this is based entirely on the bunk beds and the stabbing scene and the fact that I’m personally Ed kin, so I do want to just disclose my bias there but I do think that my perspective on this as someone who actually has gay sex is relevant. Also I do want to disclose that I’m not saying that you have to think of them a certain way. But there is one take that pissed me off that we need to talk about and it’s the idea that Stede is too soft to top, because that was sure a take I saw early on even despite Ed being canon bottom coded and I think we need to talk about it.

Because literally anyone who has that take has never had gay sex. I’m telling you that right now. That take comes from virgins and straight women. If you have that take you need to download grindr or a wlw grindr equivalent post haste. If you’ve had gay sex and still think that take has merit I’m sorry but you’ve been having sex wrong. There are a million different ways to be a top and a million different ways to be a bottom. He could be a bottom I’ll allow for that I haven’t fucked him, but the idea that he couldn’t top tells me that you’re conforming to heterosexual ideas about topping and bottoming. It tells me that you’ve been living under the delusion that top=dom=masculine=rough and bottom=sub=feminine=soft. It tells me that you saw Ed being rough and piraty and said “He’s the man in the relationship” and you saw Stede being soft and flowy and you said “he’s the woman in the relationship.” But Ed and Stede are both masculine and feminine in their own ways. Ed is masculine by modern biker standards and Stede is masculine by 17th century aristocratic standards, and yet they both have gender non conforming moments, Stede is flamboyant and Ed is in touch with his emotions.

I also saw the take that Stede could never suck it up and have heterosexual sex, and I do buy that he would never want to have straight sex, but what you guys need to realize is that straight sex and gay sex are not that different, gay sex is just cooler and better and has less rules. Stede has two kids, him having had sex with Mary is not that far fetched or our of character. Stede’s entire life before he ran away to be a pirate was doing things he didn’t want to do in order to meet expectations. Heterosexual sex was just one of those things that he did even though he didn’t want to out of expectation, which I understand is an uncomfortable thing to accept especially since queer culture has been moving more towards consent as king and only doing things you want to do, but he’s in an arranged marriage in the 1700s, being told to lie back and think of England or whatever is pretty standard.

but brief aside about Mary and Stede notwithstanding, I do just want to drop some facts about gay sex to sort of lay out what I’m saying here. Dom and Sub and switch refer to who is dominant and who is submissive, this is a bdsm metric, there does not always have to be a dom and a sub. The idea that there does is a heterosexual idea stemming from patriarchy(ie women always having to submit to their husbands). Being submissive or dominant can be fun, but it’s not a necessity to having sex. Top, bottom, and verse refer to who is filling a hole and who is having a hole filled. This is also not a necessity to having gay sex, there are ways for cis gay men to have sex that do not require anal sex. Sometimes gay sex is a dominant masculine top and and a submissive feminine bottom, and that is a valid way to be gay but assuming that all gay sex is like that is a heterosexual idea. Seeing a character and assuming that he is incapable of filling a certain roll in bed because he’s too effeminate (according to whatever standards you define femininity by) is a homophobic and sexist idea that has been put there by society. I personally am glad that the character who is on the surface more aggressive and boisterous is bottom coded and the character that is on the surface more polite and soft spoken is top coded. I think that’s awesome and we should take it for what it is and shouldn’t reproduce the ideas that the writers are almost definitely trying to combat in our discussions of their sex life (again head canon them however you want, just don’t go saying that he can’t That’s the idea that’s being combated here)

So here’s a thing, OFMD color theorists:

Stede’s wedding outfit.

For one, it’s pretty drab color-wise, though I think one of the most elaborate patterns he ever wears. Stede wearing dark brown usually seems to happen when he’s in an emotional slump, and he’s head to toe brown there. He still has his color, though: teal necktie, darker shade than he wears later but still his, present and muted even in misery. One thing, though, one thing I haven’t seen discussed yet:

The other main color in his wedding coat is red. It’s the only time so far Stede wears it. We don’t know it yet, but by the end of the show red is definitely established as Ed’s color. What could it mean, I wonder, that Stede wore red on his wedding day? No, I’m actually asking, anybody got a good theory?

thing is, red is Ed's color when he's conforming to masculine roles the same way blue is for stede. when they're being more sincerely themselves Ed wears purple and stede wears yellow. the reasoning as to why red is representative of Eds conformity is because it implies a level of violence, which is also why we moreso see him covered in black. Ed is a lot less violent than he's made out to be (and as for that robe it is pink and there's a whole lot to say about that some other time but it isn't red). Stede's is blue because it leans more into dignity beyond reproach. His masculine conformity is off the intelligent yet removed variety. otherwise we tend to see him in white, which is always the closest color to his body, including here. there's a good deal of commentary going on with race in the way black and white get used for outfits. Anyway, the red being mixed with the brown here doesn't read to me as a flagging of Ed, it reads as a distress call. stede is being forced into an unconsenting marriage and it is a violence being done to him. I think this is topped off by just how bad he looks. this outfit sucks, and tbh i think that's intentional.

Coming at it from this angle, the reality that Stede is wearing a red suit with a dark teal blue pattern really becomes so much darker in implication. Because if that’s the case, he’s swathed head to toe in not just his own brand of performative masculinity, but Ed’s as well, which underscores the new hotbed of trauma Stede is about to find himself in as he’s forced into this next step of heteronormative life. Stede and Mary’s marriage was just…bad. Not a ranking system, but just because it wasn’t violent doesn’t mean it didn’t leave both of them with permanent scarring. Stede wearing a darker version of his own blue (intellectual performative masculinity) imposed over red (violent performative masculinity) on his wedding day really does drive home how bad it was for him, huh? (Posting the close up of the pattern again for reference.)

Additional interpretation: it’s a blue pattern over a red base. Implication: intellect holding back violence? Stede refusing to be the father and husband that his own father was? Stede still finding ways to peek through even though every bit of him is being stifled down and forced down?

Additional additional thought: if we take red as a marker of vulnerability (the red silk as a stand-in for Ed’s heart, Stede’s gut stab from the Spanish staining his white suit red and showing the weakness in his façade), could it also be said that Stede’s blue is just barely managing to hide this display of vulnerability, turning it somber brown at a quick glance instead? Could even Stede’s intellect-based performative masculinity be unable to fully mask how vulnerable and hurt he is in this moment as he’s married off to a stranger he didn’t choose?

Listen folks there’s a lot to play with here and I’m losing my actual mind.

i think use of color is very much a "yes, and", in terms of associations. there are already enough episodes to discern some of the patterns being used (on top of the commonly used visual keys), and with more episodes this will undoubtedly be more clear.

Guys… guys.

As hilarious as all the “how oblivious ARE you?” jokes about Stede are, I think we’re missing the big picture. This isn’t about obliviousness, it’s about trauma.

Stede isn’t ignorant of the fact he’s in love with Ed. he’s been abused his whole life for his queerness and is having trouble conceptualizing that he’s allowed to be.

Notice how Stede immediately has the instinct to walk back his comment of Ed being “lovely”? This is the same man who didn’t even pick up that his very obviously mutinous crew was planning a mutiny, that shit was learned behavior. He’s speaking as a little boy was tied to a boat and stoned for picking flowers, and as someone who was told mere days ago a man falling in love with him was “defiling a beautiful thing.”

Homophobia/ heteronormativity is alive and well in this world and Stede, being forced to live in the conservative circles he does, would’ve absolutely been painfully aware of it. The fact that he feels the need to ask a woman what it’s like to be in love with a man speaks volumes after he’s already been happily kissed by one and has roleplayed being married to him when lonely. He’s not just casually making conversation then has a eureka moment when he happens to notice the description applies to him and Ed too, he asked specifically to compare them.

It’s him testing the waters and thinking that maybe “they” were wrong. Maybe he’s not broken or pathetic, maybe he never deserved to be treated as such. Maybe he didn’t “seduce” Edward, or “ruin” him, or “defile” him. And maybe his feelings for Ed are just as loving and romantic as Mary’s feelings are for her boyfriend.

It’s such a beautiful moment when he slowly smiles, let’s out that little breath like a sigh of relief, and tells his wife of an arranged marriage with nothing less than wonder in his voice that what he’s found at sea is in fact love. Fuck, it gets me every time.

There’s an absolutely gorgeous through line of queer liberation in Stede’s half of episode 10 after this scene. How he refers to Ed as his “newfound love”, confidently says they’ll “all be great”. He smears the blood on his face himself, breaks his own flowers, all to reach someone who sees him as perfect and beloved exactly as he is. What a fitting ending to his days of crying himself to sleep because he cannot be what everyone’s failed to beat him into.

Oh my fucking god… It is the whole show in a paragraph. I’ve never seen it so well put in such a short text.

if we understand the show correctly, we also know that having introduced a psychic in the previous post is a “Chekhov’s gun”. After the psychic has read the author’s mind, Conan Doyle enters from the afterlife. He is crying. I leave it to your personal sensitivity to decide whether it is frustration or joy.

TOS's Finest Hour: "Amok Time"

In the little review I did of Nimoy’s acting on Star Trek: TOS, I didn’t mention anything about “Amok Time.” That’s because a) all of “Amok Time” is awesome, and Nimoy is bringing the awesome 24/7 in that episode, so it’s hard to pick out a favorite moment and b) that episode got me so sucked in that it was difficult to remain detached enough to actually comment on the acting. Also c) “Amok Time” is the Spirkiest Spirk that ever Spirked, and not all of Nimoy’s fans are into that.

For those who ARE into that, however, I offer my heartfelt appreciation of what I believe was not only Nimoy’s best episode but the best episode of TOS that was ever made: the season 2 opener, “Amok Time.”

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JELLYFISH OR MEDUSA?

I start from this meta of @sagestreet (X), but since I completely move away from his topic I quickly put my ideas here ... hey soon it's Christmas, who really has time to think about jellyfish?

However, when I think of the jellyfish in Sherlock, despite the visual stimulus (aquarium) and the suggestions (THOB), I can't help but think of Medusa in the first place.

Now who was this creature? She was a Gorgon, terrible creatures that petrified men at the mere glance. She was not alone but she had two sisters and they were daughters of Forco, who represented the dangers hidden in the depths of the sea. I would emphasize the concept of depth and sea / water. The dangers inherent in the depth of emotions, Sherrinford is also under the sea, one could easily think that it is about the depths of the human psyche.

And what are these monsters, these dangers, which are hidden so deeply? They are sexual perversion (Euryale), moral perversion (Steno) and intellectual perversion (Medusa).

And what was experienced as perverse in all respects, moral, sexual and intellectual, in the Victorian era? yes, homosexuality.

John and Sherlock tell us that a jellyfish/Medusa cannot be stopped and in the presence of jellyfish, this time, no one is petrified, instead the heteronormativity is killed.

A rebellion against the preconstituted, and it is not the first time that Medusa is used as a symbol of change, she was a symbol during the French Revolution, and Shelley dedicated a poem to her attacking the patriarchy that had made Medusa victim, monster and victim again. In fact, the myth tells that before she was a monster she was a beautiful girl that Poseidon fell in love with. He ended up raping her, unleashing Athena's anger who, instead of taking revenge on him, Poseidon, transformed the girl into a monster that Perseus ended up killing. Medusa therefore also became a symbol of the feminist movement of the 70s. A woman transformed into a monster by men who could not tolerate her being seductive. And the Moffits explicitly used feminism and the feminine as an allegory for homosexuality, just look at the multiple female mirrors, Eurus and the League of Furies. Homosexuality transformed into monstrous because it is scary. But at the end of Medusa's severed-headed story, Pegasus (practically a My Little Pony) and a giant with a .... long golden sword were born.

@possiblyimbiassed @gosherlocked @ebaeschnbliah @sagestreet @sarahthecoat

IM HAVING A THOUGHT

QUICK BEFORE ITS GONE

Dr Sarah: you sure this job won't be mundane?

John: mundane is good

Sherlock: how did the job interview go?

John: she's great

John: Sarah, wanna go out on a date?

John's work with sherlock: exciting, not mundane

Someone please analyze my thoughts & explain them better. Sarah and girls are mundane and Normal heteronormative, work is mundane. Sherlock, queer, and crime solving is abnormal and fun.

Do you get what I'm saying?

& then his relationship w mary is an attempt at a picket-fence life

hmm! i am picking up on the equation being made between dr sawyer and the clinic job. it is passed off in the text like a joke or a "freudian slip" , which in this show is always a signal to look under the hood. so john sees dating a woman as work, something he has to do to get by. i don't quite get the vibe from his time with dr sawyer that he sees it as "completing him as a human being" like he describes romance to sherlock. in fact he falls asleep at both the job and her flat. and this in spite of dr sawyer being totally up for code breaking, and wading into a real fight at the circus. (yeah, ok, being tied up and threatened with a giant crossbow was a bit much, but she was still up for being friends)

and the women he tried to date after her, were even less interesting to him.

oh, and we have also noticed that sherlock's version of taking john out on a date, is crime solving, which he does enjoy. that is also dating=work, but sherlock's work is more fun.

Who cares about decent?

Crime, Police Report, Alibi 

“The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 however, went a step further once again, making any male homosexual act illegal – whether or not a witness was present – meaning that even acts committed in private could be prosecuted. Often a letter expressing terms of affection between two men was all that was required to bring a prosecution. The legislation was so ambiguously worded that it became known as the ‘Blackmailer’s Charter’, and in 1895, Oscar Wilde fell victim.” (x)

@possiblyimbiassed​ John’s alibi - poetry or truth? (x)

Still 1895 (x)

“John is a made up person” (x)

@sarahthecoat​ @raggedyblue​ @therealsaintscully​ @disfictional​ @ebaeschnbliah​ @helplessly-johnlocked​ @thewatsonbeekeepers

Well spotted, @lukessense; gives food for thought! Suddenly Sherlock’s comment (”Who cares about decent?”) to Mrs Hudson in ASiP, when she claims that ”it’s not decent”, makes perfect sense subtextually. ”Gross indecency” was the offense (as of the 1885 Criminal Act in your link) that Oscar Wilde was convicted for. So yes; John and Sherlock ending up in police custody after the stag night (which I try to explore in this meta series about John’s wedding being a crime scene X, X, X) might also be seen as a response to Sherlock’s initial comment, yes? On a meta level, the characters are being punished for their same-sex relationship. And the fact that Mycroft (= British government) has a file on John also speaks of some kind of ’fellony’. But Mary is his alibi, his ’beard’ (= facial hair). Interesting is then also Sherlock’s comment on John’s moustache in TEH: ”Well, we have to get rid of that”. And that in TLD Sherlock consequently blames himself for Mary’s ’death’.

@possiblyimbiassed yes and additionally something I wanted to post earlier but you were faster now ;) (because I think it’s not just about the wedding/stag-night):

Self-reblog for discussing the police report under the picture of John with his beard (TEH):

It‘s not the same police report as the one on set in 2016 (x) but there were additional ‚crimes‘ committed until S4 right? What I‘m getting at: I think this connection of John‘s beard (=his alibi, his heterosexual facade) and the police report make it rather obvious what the crime of S4 is about, doesn’t it? Mofftiss decided to put exactly this picture of John on top of a police report so that the subtextual crime and alibi-connection can be made. And we know that John needed an ‚alibi‘ after TRF where the media turned (confirmed bachelor John Watson), Mr. Sex Jim Moriarty broke into ‚London‘ etc. and as the quote above shows us is that even just the suggestion of a ‚crime‘ was enough to get people persecuted (x). And we know that at least John is still stuck in ‚1895‘ at the very end of TFP (he remains Dr. Watson).

So to me this is yet another subtextual proof that the crimes committed here are the crimes @possiblyimbiassed suggested (x). The problem is that while Sherlock embraced his human/emotional side throughout S4 John still ends with his doctoral degree (Dr. Watson). TLD and TFP specifically focus on John being first a bad doctor (Culverton‘s claims) and then describing John as a soldier in TFP who is „unmarried, practical about death, alone“ (via mirror Molly) because that‘s what soldier-John is. He‘s still stuck in ASiP, only his „who you are […] doesn‘t matter“/Dr. Watson-side made it to TFP, but it‘s not the real John. It‘s Dr. Watson from 1895 („Since when do you call me John?“). If you‘re thinking about the last scene of TAB they specifically pan from 1895 into the modern world to show us how Sherlock and John move into S4. As a Sherlock who realizes he is „a man out of […] [his] time“ and a John who is still hiding behind his moustache. I think S5 really needs to be about John now. Saving him from the ‚well of emotions‘, saving his true identity. He is the original storyteller, so he is the one we should ‚end‘ with to finally tell the true story :).

(quotes are from memory here, I hope they are right)

What do you think @sarahthecoat @raggedyblue @possiblyimbiassed @disfictional @i-believe-n-sherlock-holmes @megara-holmes @not-a-bit-good?( @therealsaintscully just subtext here but maybe the police report in TEH could be helpful for your theory?)

wow, yes!

Of course would Mycroft (=Sherlock‘s logical mind) send Lestrade (Mr. Heterosexuality), whose name Sherlock can’t be bothered to learn, to seperate John and Sherlock and keep them away from the luminous rabbit.

No wonder Sherlock knows Greg‘s name in TFP when Mrs. Heteronormativity narrates.

hmm, this is a new way to think of greg for me. in the past he's represented The Work, but there is that aspect of "bros" about him, i.e. the bro-hug in TEH, drinking beer, etc.

The Lying Detective

As the discussion about TLD here (x) got a bit confusing, I decided to start a new post about it to get a clearer overview again. This is just a brainstorming-post where anybody is free to join the discussion to make some sense of the episode.

So it’s been established in the discussion mentioned above that the hospital wing featured in TLD was opened by Culverton Smith on 20/07/2014 (x). This is the day before John writes up the Mayfly Man-case on his blog (x), the case that is clearly about him dating a row of women only to stab Sherlock in the back with it, as @possiblyimbiassed​ established here (x). As we are under the impression that Sherlock is constructing the narrative of the show inside of his head, this means that Sherlock built the hospital wing dedicated to Culverton Smith the day before John wrote up the Mayfly Man-case.

Furthermore @possiblyimbiassed​ pointed out that Sherlock planned to get a confession out of Culverton three weeks ago (x), the amount of time between the Mayfly Man-case and Sherlock’s blog post about John’s wedding (x).

Let’s take a look at TLD again with this information in hand (I’m not gonna dive into every tiny little bit of this episode, because that would be too much for my early morning-rant here; and this is not spell-checked or anything, I’m just writing my thoughts down):

Edit: It’s neither morning anymore nor is this post in any way short. Oh well…

Keep reading

this makes sense, on the whole. that the subtext of TLD is generally consistent with the subtext of TSOT definitely reinforces it.

i love the insight that "faith" as played by "eurus" is a projection of sherlock's own mind/emotions, that's why she's such a strong john mirror. and throwing her gun in the river is a kind of "if only" moment for him. a little bit like how sherlock rewrote their meet-cute in TAB.

i also couldn't help noticing that the screencap of john with nurse cornish over one shoulder and "mary" over the other, reminds mexof the framing in TFP when sherlock has john over one shoulder and mycroft over the other. Also how in tis image, all three of them are dressed very similarly, wearing a dark blue jacket with a v neck over a white shirt. nurse cornish's white lanyard stands in for that v neck shape in her case. so that makes me wonder if they are representing something about john's inner conflict?

yes! it's very gratifying for us old fogies to have someone new come along who sees a lot of the same things we do in the sub/meta text, plus new insights! yes, a good text invites multiple readings. and yes, the show is the thing, not what the writers may or may not say about it elsewhere.

Sherlock’s Birthday

Since I stumbled upon two posts that made me think about Sherlock’s birthday in the last 24h, I had to write down my thoughts about that, before I’ll loose them again. Maybe I’ll gain some new insights from this.

So how many times is Sherlock’s birthday hinted at in the show? Three?

Which date is right?

None of them is. As I mentioned in my post about the Carl Powers case ((x),  I suggest reading the discussion in the notes of the post as well or wait for me to write an updated version of the post, since I gained new insights about the case through the discussion) the story Sherlock tells us about the case doesn’t add up. That’s why I won’t believe the mentioning of Sherlock’s age in the context of the case. Maybe Sherlock was nine years old when something happened to Victor Trevor. But since I’m still not sure wether that character ever existed, I’ll leave that thought for now.

The gravestone that was presented in TRF and TEH is definitely wrong. Not just that the dates on the stone are not visible on the show anyway (only on the prop itself), the stone is literally covered in birdsh*t in TEH. That was always striking to me since the first time I watched TEH as it made me believe that the stone itself was…well sh*t. And on top of that, the dates on the stone were all wrong. Remember that sentence?

Yes, you remember correctly. The prop of Sherlock’s gravestone suggests he was born in 1977 and died 2012. But that’s the problem: If we follow the narrative of John’s blog, TRF happened in 06/2011. Yes, John says they are going into 2012 on his blogpost ‘Happy new year’ here (x), but that doesn’t make sense. If this were true, the narrative of the blog would miss a whole year.

So either something very weird is going on here, I am missing something (then please help me out here) or this is supposed to be a typo that is actually an easter egg to suggest that we should question the timeline that’s being presented on the show itself. Because John’s blog and the plot of the show tell different stories. And as I have suggested here (x) and others did before me, John’s blog was always my anchor to reality whereas the timeline of the plot of the show was unreliable to me. So that’s why I suggested that Nemo Holmes died in 2010 (x), because this fact is once again presented on a gravestone with wrong dates and directly linked to Eurus and Sherlock.

And about TLD: remember how Sherlock and John decide to eat cake for Sherlock’s birthday that John deduced so very professionally (x)? And remember how very present Irene (her text message at least) and Mary were in this scene? Well good that Mofftiss told us that cake was code for violent death (x). They didn’t just come up with this idea to suggest that somebody is dying by eating cake or that the cake is simply foreshadowing a death on the plot-level of the show. No, this is about meta text. Sherlock’s birthday is once again an issue of the narrative of Samarra.

Sherlock Holme’s birthday has always been an issue, nobody actually knows when his birthday is. The only reason it’s supposedly on the 6th of January is because Christopher Morely, a fan of Sherlock Holmes that established the first fan organization around him, decided that Sherlock Holmes was born on the twelfth day of Christmas (x). He based this decision on the mentioning of Twelfth Night by Shakespeare in ACD canon. As @sagestreet​ suggested in their post here (x) the Twelfth Night is not only about the play by Shakespeare but also the holiday that brings epiphany with it and where cake is obligatory (x).

So lets just connect the dots here for a moment: We don’t know when Sherlock’s birthday is, not just in TLD but throughout the whole show! It’s supposedly on the Twelfth Night, the night of epiphany and cake. But cake is code for death. So what I think is going on here is that once again a false identity (false birthday) was forced on Sherlock which eventually leads to his death (death of his true identity). As I’ve argued here (x) for me the narrative of Samarra, the narrative of certain death on all layers of text of the show, was already set in motion in ASiP. We never know Sherlock’s birthday, we never know his real identity. All we know are fake dates. But on the Twelfth Night, the weird season 4, where cake=death is omnipresent, Sherlock has an epiphany. The dates are wrong, the narrative is wrong (Mary=deaths voice-over at the end of TFP). Heteronormativity is directly connected to Sherlock’s fake birthday (=fake identity) in TLD (Irene’s text message and Mary’s ghost), Sherlock can only solve the cipher at Musgrave Hall in TFP when he reads the fake dates on the gravestones and finally applies emotional context. Because once again this is how Sherlock can leave Samarra: realizing that the dates (identities!) are wrong and apply emotional context.

What’s even more interesting here is that the riddle of Musgrave Hall in TFP was also wrong (x). The numbers and the text presented on screen don’t add up. Sherlock adds the words „lost without your love, save“ to finally solve the Musgrave Hall cipher. He can only solve the riddle, because he realizes that the logic behind the ritual is faulty and needs additional information as in emotional context (look at the words he adds, they are damn emotional!).

As soon as Sherlock embraces his true identity and accepts emotional context, he can solve the cipher of Musgrave Hall, he can save John Watson and he can finally leave the narrative of Samarra (run out of Rathbone Place at the end of TFP) and go to Sumatra instead. But it’s not just about him. It’s about us. We have to accept that the we don’t know the real Sherlock, we don’t know his birthday. We can’t just force an identity on him, because this will eventually kill him. This show is not about being clever. It’s not about solving puzzles with mere facts. Wanting everything to be clever is a weakness! What we need is emotional context and an epiphany. Find a narrative that goes beyond the twelfth night of Christmas (post-it note with 13th anyone?), where Sherlock is not portrayed as the son of God (like the wise men do on the Twelfth Night with Jesus in Bethlehem and yes, this is religious because Mofftiss decided to portray Sherlock as Jesus in TEH after all). A narrative where Sherlock can be himself, an actual human being.

So I hope I haven’t lost you here as this was more of a rant than an actual analysis. I just had to put my thoughts somewhere.

As always I’m very thankful for everyone who still likes to participate in discussions around BBC Sherlock as I just discovered that show a couple of weeks ago and still have so many thoughts about it. 

Tags under the cut:

Interesting. After all, we see Sherlock wearing the hat that Mary insists on giving him to go get the cake on his alleged birthday. John’s deduction that this exact day was Sherlock’s birthday has the same scientific validity as Morley’s conjecture, one of the many conventions that the detective found himself stuck on, like that of his heterosexuality and his hat. But I’m not sure that the cake coincides with the death of the character (albeit metaphorical) or the death of conventions with the consequent rebirth of the character himself. He had also been promised a cake for Rosie’s baptism. Rosie as a love story between Sherlock and John, baptism as a rebirth.

@possiblyimbiassed @gosherlocked @ebaeschnbliah @sagestreet @sarahthecoat @therealsaintscully

@raggedyblue I‘m actually starting to think that BBC Sherlock is not so much about Sherlock himself but actually us (the fans, the audience, society). And the baby metaphor: isn‘t this once again a metaphor that‘s heterosexually coded? It is the baby of John and Mary after all and tbh using a baby as a metaphor for a relationship seems really problematic to me. Maybe (probably) I‘m overthinking this but hear me out for a second: S4 is so heavily written in the subtext that it‘s almost a parody. There is no real plot, you only get some kind of story if you apply the subtext. It‘s as if Mofftiss we‘re trying to rub into our faces that we want the show to be clever when actually hiding in the subtext is very problematic. It‘s killing John and Sherlock. It makes Mary=heteronormativity so powerful, that she takes over the narrative in the end. A narrative that is so problematic (it doesn’t matter who you are) that Sherlock and John are running away from it. So what if the metaphors that are directly connected to heterosexuality should be reflected especially in S4 where the heavy influence of subtext is destroying the whole plot? I collected some information about expressionism that I found very interesting in the context of BBC Sherlock (x). Especially the heavy use of mirrors in Sherlock‘s narrative allows not only a momentum of reflection distanced from his own identity for Sherlock himself inside the narrative, but for us as well. Maybe I‘ll write this up more thoroughly sometime, because the idea really is rather complex I guess. 

Can somebody point me to the meta about rosie being a metaphor for a relationship? Because I read the baptism scene in TST differently and I‘m trying to follow the logic @sarahthecoat @possiblyimbiassed @thewatsonbeekeepers @therealsaintscully

what you are looking for are the "baby switch" metas by @sagestreet . we could have a separate conversation about whether having a baby really does cement a real life relationship, but i think in terms of her "function in the narrative" it's fairly conventional, like trains going into tunnels or turning a rain machine on a sad scene.

BBC Sherlock S5 Crack Theory

The more I think about S5 of BBC Sherlock, the more I think that in the end all of our theories could turn out to be true. Attention: crack theory incoming.

Picture this: 

05x01: Sherlock wakes up from EMP. He’d been shot in HLV and remained in a coma for a couple of days. Mycroft approaches him at his bedside to tell him that John and Mary had a fight which resulted in Mary getting shot and John being the prime suspect. Nobody knows what actually happened but John is in danger now. Sherlock has to figure out how to save John from being sentenced to a lifetime in prison by creating an alibi for him and proving that Mary is not actually dead (or whatever). Oh and the baby was not real, or at least John wasn’t the father. The case takes us through the whole episode until we end with a climactic gun fight situation between Sherlock, Moriarty and Mary. Stuff happens, Mycroft appears, but this time Sherlock cannot be saved and dies -> inception-like transition-shot incoming that shows us that we’re going up a “dream”-layer aka textual layer -> next episode

05x02: Sherlock wakes up yet again, this time in reality layer. He’d overdosed on drugs after Johns and Marys wedding in TSoT and had been retelling Johns and his story to himself since. He was transported to a hospital around HLV and everything that happened after that was stuff his mind dreamed up to solve the problem around John Watson. As Sherlock wakes up at the hospital he realizes that John is in danger of commiting s**cide because he is heartbroken over Sherlock and stuck in his marriage to Mary. Sherlock leaves the hospital desperately trying to save John. In the end, Sherlock saves John, tells him that he loves him vice versa both repressed morons etc. etc. Sherlock tells John that he had been dreaming about him (explains subtext by that) and THEN John tells Sherlock that he also had been dreaming about the two of them and both their dreams had been complimentary in a way because they’re soulmates or I don’t know. Something cheesy I guess.

05x03: Sherlocks trauma gets explained and we get to meet Harry Watson. We finally learn more about the backstory of Sherlock and John, whatever that story might be. Maybe the loss of a former lover, maybe the loss of a family member, maybe a family secret. Maybe all of that. The episode ends with Sherlock and John back at Backer Street, both in their chairs at the fireplace, but we don’t see them at first. We can only make out the surroundings of Baker Street. Then a close-up on a book: The Giant Rat of Sumatra - A modern-day Sherlock Holmes. The camera zooms out while somebody is closing the book -> it turns out to be John Watson in 1895 sitting in his chair at the fireplace in Baker Street. He looks at Sherlock while explaining that with this book he could finally tell the real story about the two of them. The story about two men in love. Sherlock and John smile at each other, say ‘I love you’ to one another and the camera slowly pans out while framing the two of them sitting in their chairs by the lit fireplace. The End.

So I fixed it right? Can we apply for an Emmy now? As a writers collective? And they have to make up a new category for us, something like ‘Best Idea for a Season of a TV Show’?

PS: as always I’m sorry for my English, I’ve been out of school for quite some time now and need to re-learn how to write proper English.

PPS: additional thought: John Watson closes the book in 05x03 on New Year’s Eve as 1895 finally turns into 1896.

Tags under the cut:

i like the idea of multiple layers of waking up! and it’s possible they could write “explanations”, they did do that once in THOB. (which was at least plausible within the context of the episode) It’s also possible they won’t… s2 hiatus was a lot about “they have to explain how sherlock survived jumping off a four storey building” which they totally did not. s3 hiatus had some about “they have to explain how moriarty suvived the rooftop in TRF” and they absolutely did not. Unless you look at the metaphorical level, in which case they didn’t have to. Pretty sure whatever they write next would be at least as chock full of subtext and coded metaphors as anything gone before. i’ll be disappointed if there isnt at least one #confirmed moment for a code we cracked after s4.

@sarahthecoat yes they could definitely keep the subtext in S5 and therefore keep some/all layers of text intact. But the thing is, I come from a background of media pedagogy so I don‘t „just“ analyze the text/the medium itself but ask the question: how does the medium influence the audience’s perception of themselves and their surrounding world/their worldview? And the way I read the show it tries to dismantle the heteronormative reading of Sherlock Holmes. And at the moment this reading of the show is not available to the general audience, because it is hidden in the subtext. The queer reading is not available to the general audience. And as long as this continues, the general audience, which should be the target audience of the message of the show, cannot decipher the code/subtext. And tbh creating irritation is always good to initiate a process of reflection within the audience but S4 was so irritating that it didn’t create a process of reflection but one of defense. So to get the target audience back on board so you can actually dismantle the heteronormative reading of the show and initiate a process of reflection to change the self-perception und the worldview of the audience you have to make the reading available to them. Simply making Johnlock canon for example won’t do that. It would be irritating yes, but you can’t expect your target audience to suddenly understand the subtext because of that. It‘s way too layered and based on queer subtext your general audience won‘t know. So at least some of the subtext needs to be text. And whenever I think about the complexity of the show I always have to think about this quote: „That’s your [Sherlocks] weakness. You always want everything to be clever.“

But I‘m just rambling along here :).

well yeah, that's what i HOPE they will do! i actually think some of the general audienc did get that TFP at least, is one huge metaphor for confronting the inner demons, cos i recall a conversation with a friend, who as far as i know is not in sherlock fandom at all, but has watched the show. she got it immediately and loved tfp, got very excited to talk about it. i was still in ugh, need much more knitting to clear the taste of that out of my brain, regardless of how much subtext. so i wasnt able to contribute much, but it was very heartening to hear her impressions. i think it took me a while, and a lot more meta, to get beyond the s3 semester conclusion (it's gay, and gonna be gayer) to see, what ELSE are they doing besides just johnlock? and this multilayered, metatextuality, fits the bill. I just know better than to get stuck on any specific expectations, after both s3 & 4.

[M-Theory] Skeletons, fires and the question of John and Mary’s relationship in The Empty Hearse (“why would anyone bother?”)

tl:dr what if the ‘Jack the Ripper’ case in The Empty Hearse was a hint about Mary’s past that Sherlock, distracted and upset from his homecoming, simply missed?

A FEW DISCLAIMERS: I’m not a native English speaker and this wasn’t betad, so excuse the less-than-perfect English. Additionally, this is my first ever piece of meta so excuse the amateurism. Lastly, this may have been picked up before by other meta writers and if so - I’m not aware of it, as I’m quite new to this fandom.

As I was rewatching The Empty Hearse last night, researching for my newest fic, the Jack the Ripper scene/case stood out to me yet again. This is the first time I’ve watched the episode with such attention since reading @loudest-subtext-in-tv​ M-Theory in full, and since then I’ve been watching the episodes far more critically.

This case/scene always stood out as very strange to me. It’s the first official case Sherlock accepts with NSY immediately after his return, while he’s supposed to beworking to stop a devastating terrorist plot.

My funny little theory is that this case is actually subtext/hint/metaphor for fans who are questioning Mary’s background and the motivation behind her attachment to John. More importantly, to those who wonder how Sherlock could have possibly missed out on the hints that Mary was not who she said was.

The case, such as it is, would not even be a ‘1’ in Sherlock’s eyes, but as others have said before, the cases featured in episodes are supposed to say something about the show - subtext, essentially. And one of the biggest suggestions in M-Theory is that Mary was planted as John’s partner by Moriarty for a number of reasons: in the short run, to be able to get a sense about Sherlock and his status (is he actually dead? is he communicating with John?) and in the long run, to ‘burn Sherlock’s heart’ by having him find out hat John had moved on.

My rewatch last night suddenly made the scene seem a bit different than before. Let me guide you through it (transcription with credits to Ariane DeVere): 

Sherlock and Molly (a John mirror and a de-facto replacement of John in this episode) are shown into a crypt that houses a skeleton. This is a NSY case, since Lestarde is the one bringing them into the crypt. LESTRADE: This one’s got us all baffled.

SHERLOCK: Mmm. I don’t doubt it.

This skeleton is the same ‘skeleton mystery’ that Sherlock was reading about earlier in the episode. The skeleton is surrounded by an empty carafe and wine glass on one side and a syringe on another. I read that some fans seem to think the skeleton is wearing Sherlock’s clothes (which made me laugh as I remembered this scene from The X-Files).

Now, let’s start with the obvious. We have a skeleton in a discussion about Mary’s secret past life. Mary literally has skeletons in her closet, skeletons that Sherlock has to pick up on in order to question who and what she is. In a way, if this is supposed to be subtext, it’s fairly on the nose.

Sherlock begins deducing immediately using his sense of smell, represented by writing on the screen:

PINE?

SPRUCE?

CEDAR

NEW MOTHBALLS

…

Fire Damage

So in my reading of this, Sherlock sniffs for and maybe expects ‘old-timey’ smells - pine, spruce, cedar. @loudest-subtext-in-tv​, in a post that no longer exists, pointed out that this is a hint to Sherlock’s state of mind - he spruced up for meeting John, and was instead met violence and rejection, leaving him pining. Hmmm. Instead what he actually smells are new mothballs and fire damage. 

The new mothballs smell seems to be his first hint that something is off - a skeleton in this stage of decay should indicate a long period of time in this condition, but instead that new mothballs suggest that the timing is off.

Let’s not ignore the ‘fire damage’ smell as well. Something was burning. Is it Sherlock’s heart?

MOLLY: What is it?

(Sherlock gets out his phone and holds it up high to try and get a signal.)

MOLLY: You’re on to something, aren’t you?

SHERLOCK: Mm, maybe.

(John’s voice sounds in his head and the words he speaks appear in Sherlock’s mind.

SHOW OFF

Sherlock senses that something is off, that it doesn’t add up, but something stops him.

It’s John berating voice, telling him off in a way that’s very similar to the night of their reunion.

MOLLY: Trains?

SHERLOCK: Trains.

What a weird exchange for two Londoners in a crypt, wouldn’t you say? We’re being called out about the trains. Here’s what LSiT writes about trains in this episode: We then get a lot of trains and tunnels imagery, which carries both sexual connotations, and the idea of twists and turns and paths intersecting at various places. If this is meant to be a visual metaphor for Moriarty’s plot and the involvement of Mary, Mycroft, and Magnussen, it certainly works. We got train track imagery two episodes in a row during John and Sherlock’s investigations in the The Blind Banker and The Great Game, after all, both of which revolved around Mycroft’s involvement with Moriarty. It visually suggests the idea of connections.

John’s breathing of Sherlock in his mind continues throughout the scene. 

MOLLY: Male, forty to fifty.

(She looks round at Sherlock.)

MOLLY: Ooh, sorry, did you want to be …?

SHERLOCK: Er, no, please. Be my guest.

(John’s voice sounds in his mind again.)

JOHN (voiceover): You jealous?

(His second word appears simultaneously in front of Sherlock’s mind’s eye.)

JEALOUS?

SHERLOCK (angrily, through gritted teeth): Shut up!

Sherlock is distracted by none other than John accusing him of being jealous when Molly (John?) approaches the skeleton and asks if he wants to inspect it - to look into it, to see what mysteries it’s hiding.

MOLLY: Doesn’t make sense.

LESTRADE: What doesn’t?

(Sherlock gently blows away the dust around the hand and continues blowing towards the edge of the table.)

MOLLY: This skeleton – it’s … it can’t be any more than …

SHERLOCK and MOLLY (simultaneously): … six months old.

This six months hint, I think, was the thing that made me think of this scene in the context of John and Mary’s relationship. I think by this point it’s agreed upon in fanlore that John and Mary have known each other and/or dated for six months when Sherlock returns. John is probably already living in Mary’s flat in October, about a month before Sherlock comes back - so much so that Lestrade comes over there to give him the DVD containing Sherlock’s video message. This, despite the fact Mary’s first comment on John’s blog is left on April (prompting Harry to ask ‘Who’s Mary?’), so that could roughly suggest the ~six months timeline is correct.

So we have Sherlock confused - we have a case of a skeleton (some secret) that’s not as old as it’s supposed to be (Mary’s identity as Mary Morstan) and something significant happened to it around six months ago.

Sherlock pulls out a book from the drawer in the table -

How I Did It

By

Jack the Ripper

And, after being berated by John inside his head yet again, Sherlock explains:

The-the-the corpse is-is six months old; it’s dressed in a shoddy Victorian outfit from a museum. It’s been displayed on a dummy for many years in a case facing south-east judging from the fading of the fabric. It was sold off in a fire-damage sale … (he gets out his phone and shows the screen to Greg) … a week ago.

LESTRADE: So the whole thing was a fake.

SHERLOCK: Yes.

(He turns and heads out of the room.)

LESTRADE: Looked so promising.

SHERLOCK (already out of sight): Facile.

So here we have a few more things that points in the direction of hints we’ll hear and see again S3 and M-Theory: a shoddy victorian outfit, like Mary in TAB, a dummy, like in His Last Vow, and of course the fire, burning and even ripping Sherlock’s heart out (Mary shooting Sherlock in the heart).

Would this be Moriarty, playing a game of clue with Sherlock, telling him ‘this is how I’m going to burn your heart’? By planting a dummy, displayed for many years, on a corpse that’s six months old?

Lestrade, who - let’s remember - opened this scene by telling Sherlock ‘this one’s got us all baffled’, announces it was all a fake, having looked so promising. Is Lestrade mirroring Mrs. Hudson’s words earlier in the episode? Surprised that John had moved on and was somewhat baffled by John and Mary’s relationship?

Also, a note about Jack the Ripper and Moriarty from Baker Street wikia: “Due to the very nature of [the Jack the Ripper] case, it has proven to be very popular to pit [Sherlock] against one of history’s most infamous killers. The sheer amount of times these two have clashed through various media rivals that of Sherlock and Moriarty.”

And then Molly, John’s mirror, wonders out loud:

MOLLY: Why would someone go to all that trouble?

SHERLOCK (offscreen): Why indeed, John?

Dear Molly here is actually asking the right question - why would anyone go through all that trouble?

Sherlock, distracted and confused and even somewhat disappointed seems to be missing out on the clue entirely, even when Molly raises this very obvious question herself. Is it Sherlock’s fear of upsetting John further that prevents him from looking more deeply into this?

Is this Moftiss’ explanation for how Sherlock missed out on such a huge clue, as it was standing right in front of his eyes?

Of course, later in the episode we discover that sometime during this scene Sherlock figured out who actually placed that skeleton there - it was Anderson, in what others note as an attempt to convince Sherlock to come out of his hiding after his return.

Anderson represents the show’s fans in this episode, and when Sherlock berates Anderson for wasting NSY’s time by staging a fake crime scene it almost seems as if Moftiss are berating the fans for asking stupid questions about Mary and her relationship with John.

In a way, they sort of rule out this entire post - it was Anderson, not Moriarty. But let’s not forget that according to M-Theory (and in general) Moriarty works via proxy. It was Anderson and Donovan who fell for Moriarty’s trap of suspicion in TRF. How difficult would it be for Moriarty to push Anderson to do something like setting up a fake crime scene?

Also let’s not forget that while Anderson is ridiculed in TEH, he’s the one who knows where to find Sherlock in HLV (either because Sherlock wants him to find him in his bolthole, or because Moftiss are saying the fans are right and are on track).

Tagging other meta readers/writers who I think might enjoy this (apologies if you don’t - I won’t tag you again): @sarahthecoat​, @devoursjohnlock​ @inevitably-johnlocked​ @possiblyimbiassed​ @waitedforgarridebs​ @tjlcisthenewsexy​

Hey, this is pretty neat! I don’t think I ever consciously connected that there’s a Sherlock-dressed dummy in both TEH *and* HLV, even though I talked about the symbolism of the dummies separately; it didn’t occur to me because the HLV one was actually John, but it drew upon the ACD canon actual-dummy used to foil Moran, so there is a real matching pair. The HLV dummy scene deals directly with Mary’s past with allusions to Moran in canon, so it makes sense that the dummy in TEH is related.

Comparing the two dummy scenes is cool, reading this brought to mind that Mary accentuated her Sherlock-like traits to draw John in: intelligent, a bit bossy, dark sense of humor, helpful skillset, comes across as nice but in an unsettling acerbic way that John relates to and is motivated to believe the best about, etc. So a Sherlock-costumed dummy in TEH is a great symbol not just of Sherlock getting his heart burnt out by Mary showing up six months ago, but specifically of Mary assuming an attention-grabbing Sherlock-ish facade six months ago and Sherlock not being able to fathom why such a thing would be orchestrated because his mind is too preoccupied with losing John to think clearly.

I’m on the fence about whether Moriarty is directly involved in that case by manipulating Anderson. It’s simplest to speculate in terms of Moriarty exerting direct leverage over people, such that they’d be aware they’re pawns, but I also take it seriously that Moriarty is capable of manipulating people without ever directly interacting with them or threatening them, just by planting ideas via intermediaries for them to pursue. For example, in M-theory I said that Dr. Frankland was probably working with Moriarty to cover up his crimes, and Moriarty’s interest in seeing Sherlock’s reaction to fear gas (to see if it disables Sherlock’s ability to think clearly) made it a mutually beneficial arrangement. But the way Moriarty gets Sherlock involved in the case is to have Dr. Frankland suggest to Henry Knight that Henry get Sherlock on the case, which is how we get the weird scenario of Dr. Frankland summoning Sherlock to expose his own conspiracy. That doesn’t make sense for a normal criminal to do, but Moriarty deliberately baits Sherlock just to watch him solve crimes, and Moriarty doesn’t have any affection for the criminals he exposes for that entertainment. So Henry Knight was a pawn of Moriarty’s without even knowing it, just because he was manipulated by someone working with Moriarty. 

So while I believe Anderson’s guilt that he fell for a Moriarty scheme and wrongly accused Sherlock is pure, and he would not agree to do anything for Moriarty even if threatened, Anderson and Donovan were unknowingly manipulated in TRF to carry out Moriarty’s schemes. If I’m right that both Anonymous and theimprobableone are Moriarty’s aliases, then Moriarty is always pulling strings online, behind masks. It would be really easy to pose as a fan of Sherlock’s online and suggest the scheme to Anderson, or befriend a member of The Empty Hearse club online (ahem, goth Sheriarty chick) and have that person suggest they try to summon Sherlock back with that scheme, etc. The Jack the Ripper scheme is perfectly in line with Moriarty’s MO to bait Sherlock into solving orchestrated crimes.

Thanks for sharing this, I love it!

rb for even more discussion

Heteronormativity in BBC Sherlock

(and how it affects Johnlock)

First of all, what’s heteronormativity? Here’s Wikipedia’s definition:

So basically it means that usually in people’s mind being straight is good, being straight is normal, being straight is the “default setting”, heteronormativity is the reason why lgbt community isn’t really accepted by society and it often creates homophobia, because it makes people think that not being straight isn’t natural. Unconsciously, for example, many people see more easily that a man and a woman are in love because they have been taught that it’s natural and normal. (As I did with Sherlock and Molly)

Before I explain to you how specifically the relationship between Sherlock and Molly is just a straight version of Johnlock you have to know what mirror characters are and how are they used in bbc Sherlock, you probably already do but in case you didn’t here you can find some metas about it - Molly is John’s Mirror -

Now, Molly is a girl, she’s in love with Sherlock and we all know it and see it, in many scenes she showed affection to him and it’s not deniable. In the first scene where she appears she just offers Sherlock a coffee, and yet we all get that she feels something for him, probably just a crush, but the way she acts make us remember about all the cliche tv series with the shy clumsy girl crushing on the tall smart guy, it’s not necessary to explicitly say that she wants to date him. But if it was a man doing that not everyone would have understood (or accepted) that he had a crush on Sherlock. They would have had to explicit it. That’s how heteronormativity works: a men and a woman? Possible couple, typical love story. Two men or two women? Nothing more than friends, it would be weird thinking of them as a couple unless they’re openly gay.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s okay to ship the shy girl with the smart guy, but if we see Molly as a John’s mirror we should also see some Sherlolly scenes as a “straight heteronormative version” of Johnlock. Thinking of Molly as John’s mirror is really helpful when you try to understand Johnlock, because her love for Sherlock is more easy to see for ordinary public since they’re a man and a woman, even the fact that she’s jealous of Irene is obvious, like in these scenes for example:

Instead, it’s more difficult to see that John is jealous of Irene because he’s a man, but he’s acting even more jealous than Molly in these scenes:

Molly wasn’t in the ACD’s books and I personally believe that Mofftiss introduced her character with the main purpose of making Johnlock more obvious. Just take a scene like the one at Angelo’s restaurant, if you keep the exact same lines but you think that one of them is a woman the flirt will be impossible to ignore. Molly makes the most heteronormative minds see that Johnlock is there and that if everything John said and did was said and done by a woman (or vice versa with Sherlock) probably no one would argue about the fact that Sherlock and John are acting like a couple at this point.

Also with Irene the things are similar, even if she’s a Sherlock’s mirror, we can see for example that when she tries to seduce sherlock the scene is shot with the same angle and the same movements as the scene of the stag night as you can see here (credits)

With Irene is more obvious, she’s The Woman, The Dominatrix, she talked about “having someone”, she touched Sherlock’s wrist and everyone thought about the fact that “dinner” was something else in that scene (and in the whole episode). But when John during the stag night scene touches Sherlock’s knee and says “I don’t mind” there are still people that don’t get, or don’t want to get, the subtext, which is honestly obvious here too.

So in conclusion I don’t actually think that all the female characters or all the straight ships in Sherlock have the only purpose to mirror John and Sherlock’s relationship, but if we take Johnlock as the very endgame of the series then we should consider that those characters and ships are also meant to make people see Johnlock in different ways.

Hope you liked this meta! Probably my longest one, it took really long to be written. What are your thoughts?

This was really good!

I will say, I watched commentary at one point that said that Molly was originally supposed to be a one off character. She was just supposed to be the pining woman in the first episode, and that was it, but fans really liked her, so they decided to keep her around.

I don’t think she started out as a way to highlight Johnlock, but maybe that’s what they decided to use her for when they decided to keep her as a reoccurring character.

Yes, Molly’s character was meant to appear only in S1, and her purpose was to show how clueless Sherlock is when a woman is obviously pining for him and hitting on him (while he immediately picks up when John’s doing the same at Angelo’s), and also how little he cares - if he notices at all - if his words hurt someone’s feelings. But I agree that they decided to keep her as John’s mirror and to highlight Johnlock and heteronormativity, and they were upping their game with her character and what she was meant to highlight until the very end.

It’s interesting how they wanted to show him clueless with Molly, but then they have him supposedly able to tell quite well when women are interested in him, according to John on his blog.

well, they *said in interviews/commentary* that they use molly to show "sherlock is clueless", but is that what is actually going on in the scene? with this show in particular, it is really important not to take "word of god" over what is actually on screen in the show itself. better meta writers than me have pointed out how sherlock 1) lets molly down hard, but john down gently in ASIP (this is special, take it slow); 2) offers molly styling tips as a deflection from flirting (which is a form of queer coding) multiple times. he may be uncomfortable with her flirting, but he knows what it is. (also he thinks it's extremely skeevy for "jim from IT" to flirt with him in front of her.)

the first time we see sherlock make a wrong deduction is because of a heteronormative assumption

now isn’t that telling

ha, heteronormativity! on your face!

Also, if you follow the phone=heart metaphor, Sherlock deduced that the owner of the phone heart was straight, when she wasn’t straight at all.

yep.