When we think of farewell scenes in BBC Sherlock, two things come to mind: The Roof and The Tarmac. Both times it is Sherlock who is going away, leaving John behind. The fall’s echoes resonate throughout the show.
However, there is another pattern as well – John going away and leaving Sherlock behind, even rejecting him. In every single episode after Sherlock’s return this theme is explored, either in the reality of the show or in Sherlock’s mind (no matter what you think happens in EMP and what does not).
TEH
For me this has always been one of the saddest scenes in the show. In spite of the violence preceding this moment, John talked at least to Sherlock. After the head butt, however, he drives off with Mary, leaving Sherlock behind, injured and alone.
This post essentially sums up the one thing I hate the most about the entire show: John keeps leaving Sherlock. I also agree that the one redeeming feature of TFP is that John didn’t leave him and that they were a united team throughout. (That and Sherlock’s cute, slouchy walk, hehe!) But yes, this is so painful. The cane scene is almost the worst for me: that John’s final leaving was done in such a cowardly way, rejecting everything Sherlock ever was to him, down to healing his limp, and without even doing it face to face. Leaving Sherlock while he was unconscious and dying. Ouch.
Sherlock: “Really? I correctly anticipated the responses of people I know well to scenarios I devised? Can’t everyone do that?”
Yes. Literally everyone can do that.
Sherlock: “Really? I correctly anticipated the responses of people I know well to scenarios I invented through careful and complex thought? Can’t everyone do that?”
So Sherlock can run mental simulations and know what’s going to happen ahead of time? No! That would be crazy! Completely out of nowhere! It’s not like that’s exactly what Sherlock said he was doing at the end of The Abominable Bride when he told Watson about a future world and how they might fit into it. It’s not like The Abominable Bride ended in the mind palace simulation, Victorian Holmes looking into the future he devised for him and Watson.
TAB was a warning to TJLC to be quiet. There are stills that literally say ‘absolute silence’ that hang on screen for a good two seconds. John is bodily silenced and dragged off screen by two men (hi dads) before he’s shoved into a room with mycroft essentially telling him to uphold the tradition. Like… That’s pretty meta, my guys.
There’s so much that TAB tells us but the most pressing is its foreshadowing of series 4. ‘It’s always 1895’ is a statement of denial. 1895 was the year that homosexuality was forcibly prosecuted in the UK and the year of Oscar Wilde’s trial.
TAB explains that should TJLC continue spreading the good gay news, they will need to actively undercut us with the ‘nasty’ pill in order to ‘restart’ the public consciousness as far as sherlock goes. But, uh. We didn’t get the message, hence an act four that was quite devastating for many of the hardcore tjlcers
We tried to pull the rug when it wasn’t ours to pull, and s4 is the response to that. We were too clever and they had to discredit us before we ruin the plan they’ve had in motion for years.
So, basically what I’m saying is they put the entirety of TJLC in the basement. Hope you guys enjoy cold cellar floors because you’ve been sitting on one for months
No problem! And sorry about not answering sooner, I was on vacation. To make it up to you, I’ve made one of my trademark Long Posts about it.
TIPS ON HOW TO WRITE PAIN (FOR BOTH ORIGINAL CONTENT WRITERS AND FANFICTION WRITERS)
When I first started writing, about eight years ago, I had the same issue as @imjustafuckinggirl.
How are you supposed to write about pain you’ve never experienced before???
The characters in my book suffer through all sorts of terrible shit, and in no way am I writing from experience, which is marginally easier to do than write about something that has never happened to you.
However, with time, I managed to gather up a few strategies on how to write pain.
1. Don’t Write Paragraphs About It
I know, it’s tempting. You want to convey to the reader just how much pain the character is in, and you think that the pain will be emphasized the more you write about it.
This, however, is a lie.
As a reader, when I’m reading a book or fanfiction where, whenever the writer uses agonizingly long paragraphs to describe when a character is hurt, I skip it.
Entirely.
It’s boring and, quite frankly, unnecessary, especially during a fight or huge battle, which are supposed to be fast-paced.
When it comes to writing about pain, it really is about quality and not quantity.
In my own writing, I stick to short, quick paragraphs, some of them which are barely a line long. This gives it a faster pace and sort of parallels with the scattered, spread out thoughts of the character as they suffer.
2. Describe it Right
Many times, usually in fanfiction, writers over-exaggerate certain injuries.
This partially has to do with the fact that they’ve never experienced that injury before and are just thinking about what it might feel like.
As a girl with two brothers and who often participated in rough play-fights, I can assure you that getting punched is not as painful as you think it is.
(However, it does depend on the area, as well as how hard the punch is, on top of the fact that you have to take into account whether or not the punch broke bones)
I’m reading a high school AU where a character gets punched by a bully (Idk where they got punched it wasn’t stated) and the author is describing it like they’d been shot.
It was to the point where I was like Did the bully have brass knuckles or something????
It was very clear that this author had never been punched before.
When describing the pain of an injury or the injury itself, you have to take into account:
– What object was used to harm the character
– Where the injury is
– How long the character has had the injury
– (For blades) How deep the cut is
– (For blunt force trauma) How hard the hit was
– Whether or not the wound triggers other things (Ex: Concussion, vomiting, dizziness, infection, internal/external bleeding).
There’s also the fact that when some authors described wounds caused by blades such as knives, daggers, and swords, they never take into account the anatomy of a person and which places cause the most blood flow.
Obviously, a cut on your cheek will have less of a blood flow than a cut on your wrist, depending on what the blade hits, and I hope that everyone consults a diagram of veins, capillaries, arteries, etc. when they’re describing blood flow from a certain place.
There’s also the fact that you have to take into account where the blood is coming from. Veins? Arteries?
The blood from arteries will be a brighter red, like vermilion, than the blood from veins, which is the dark crimson everyone likes to talk about.
Not all places gush bright red blood, people!
3. DIFFERENT INJURIES HAVE DIFFERENT KINDS OF PAIN
Here, let me explain.
A punch feels different from a slap.
A broken arm feels different from getting stabbed.
A fall feels different from a dog bite.
I’ll give you a list of all the kinds of things that can be described for the three most common kinds of injuries that happen in stories:
Punch/Blunt Force Trauma
How it feels:
– Aching
– Numbness (In the later stages)
– A single spike of pain before it fades into an ache
– Throbbing
Effects:
– Vomiting (If the character is punched in the gut)
– Swelling
– Bruising
– Broken bones
– Unconsciousness (Blow to the head)
– Dizziness (Blow to the head)
– Concussion (Also a blow to the head)
– Internal bleeding
– Death (In the case of concussions and internal bleeding and broken bones- ribs can pierce lungs)
Stab Wound/Cut
How it feels:
– Stinging (only shallow wounds have just stinging)
– Burning
– With stab wounds, I feel like describing the effects of it make it more powerfully felt by the reader
Effects:
– Bleeding (Consult chart of the circulatory system beforehand for the amount of blood flow that should be described and what color the blood should be)
– Dizziness (Heavy blood loss)
– Unconsciousness
– Infection (if left unattended)
– Death
Gunshot
How it feels:
– Depends on the caliber bullet, from how far away they were shot (point-blank range is nothing like being shot from a distance), and in what place. Do careful research and then make your decision.
Effects:
– Bleeding
(Consult chart of the circulatory system beforehand for the amount of
blood flow that should be described and what color the blood should be. Also take into effect the above variables for blood flow as well.)
– Dizziness (Heavy blood loss)
– Infection (if left unattended)
– Death
Some things that a character may do while they’re injured:
– Heavy/Harsh/Ragged breathing
– Panting
– Making noises of pain
gasping
grunting
hissing
groaning
whimpering
yelping (when the injury is inflicted)
screaming
shrieking
wailing
– Crying/ Weeping/Sobbing/Etc.
– Clenching their teeth
– Unable to speak
– Pressing their hands against a stab wound/cut to try and stem the bleeding
– Eyesight going out of whack (vision blurring and tilting, the room spinning, black spots consuming sight)
i had the worst idea for a post but i dont have the will power to finish this
Okay jokes aside here’s a much more comprehensive metric:
I think I might delete permanently because I understand everything about this image, even though to a healthy, normal person, this should be incoherent.
I wanted to post this, a long time ago, but one of the main fandom friends that I used to talk to about the inter-weaving of Myths and Astrology in BBC Sherlock left ( I miss you @longsnowmoon5!), so I shelved it. Previously, I toyed with the idea of Mycroft as Saturn. That was fun. In A Scandal In Belgravia, Aphrodite Venus, the Empress Tarot, herself, is reincarnated as Irene, who really lived up to the myth, not only coming between Sherlock and John, but also being a strong catalyst for attempting to bring their romantic relationship to the surface. Venus, the planetary body, representative of Love, is known by certain motifs: I will go through them here.
“What are you going to wear?” asks Kate. “My Battle Dress.” answers Irene. “Lucky Boy!” Irene then ask for a lip color in the shade of Blood.
This is awesome @tendergingergirl – Irene Adler is more important to the romantic relationship of Holmes and Watson in ACD canon than I ever realized. She is indeed THE woman, her gender is her disguise and battle dress, or vatican cameo, and she’s the invert of every M characters. I think we’ll see why Sherlock Holmes from being the witness-in-disguise to Irene Adler’s wedding in ACD canon, to being John Watson’s best-man-in-battle-dress in TSoT. Perhaps The 7th Chronical is foreshadowing what’s to come, because:
We’ve been stuck on “the sixth” for a while now – The Six Thatcher, a total of six episodes after TEH (including TAB). “The Big Rat. Rat Number One.” The Giant Rat of Sumatra “a story for which the world is not yet prepared” according to Holmes………
Sherlock Fandom Archive 