Funny how people don’t realize there was a majority of fans blogging and writing for TJLC who were not harassing bloggers who didn’t agree, who did not threaten the writers/actors/producers after S4, and who did not get along with the other bloggers in the community that were like that. People paint TJLC bloggers with a wide brush, but those of us who have been here many years know better and should take it with a grain of salt.
See? That smile? Sherlock stops in the middle of his showing off and goes see John. According to Lestrade’s surprised face at first, this is something that’s never happened before. Sherlock misses the opportunity to find a murderer to protect the man he just met, pretends he’s in shock and goes talk with that man. This doesn’t look like a logical reaction. It looks like a human reaction. Caused by emotions… Shock? Really??
The explanation is so blindigly obvious even Lestrade worked it out on day 1. That’s why he smiles.
I WILL NEVER GET OVER SHERLOCK KNOWING WHAT BRAND OF UNDERWEAR GAY MEN WEAR IN THE SAME EPISODE HES CONFIRMED TO NOT KNOW ANY TRIVIAL NONSENSE THATS IRRELEVANT TO HIS LIFE
I was wandering in a bookstore and I found this French manga edition of ASiP. It is a BBC-approved adaptation of the TV series, which means that everything in it can be considered official and canon. I quickly flicked through it and found the Angelo restaurant scene, which you can see above. The translation choices were SO Johnlock-oriented that I had to take pictures and share them with the world.
Let me tell you that the written down version is even gayer than the actual TV series (apart from the pink gay light on Sherlock’s face, you can’t beat that).
Here are the main differences:
1) The word “date” (“for you and for your date”; “I’m not his date”) is translated by an equivalent of “boyfriend” in French. Cute.
2) In the show, after Angelo brings the candle, John says: “People don’t have arch-enemies. In real life. There are no arch-enemies in real life, it doesn’t happen.” This is how the dialogue plays in the manga:
John: Your arch-enemy… He advised me not to hang out with you if I wanted to have a normal life.
Sherlock: Really? That’s lame [there is an ambiguity there: we don’t know if Sherlock is talking about Mycroft’s advice or about the idea of “a normal life”]
3) Actually the rest of the dialogue is just as incriminating (scratch that – it’s WAY MORE incriminating), so I will just translate it all and let you see for yourselves:
Sherlock: So who do they hang out with, then, people with a normal life?
John: Their friends? They befriend someone else, then fall in love, or not, with that person… Be it a girl or a boy…
Sherlock: I already told you so, but this is of no interest to me.
John: So you don’t have a girlfriend then?
Sherlock: Girlfriend? No chance. It is not my cup of tea.
John: Oh. Oh, right… What about a boyfriend?
[Sherlock looks at him without answering]
John: I’m not the type of man who’s got preconceived ideas/prejudice, you know, but-
Sherlock: Neither am I.
John: So you have a boyfriend.
Sherlock: No!
John: Alright, I understand better now. You’re like me. Unattached. Good.
[A beat]
Sherlock: John… You should know, I consider myself married to my work. I’m glad that I’ve started to live with you, but… I… that is…
John: You think I’m flirting with you, right? Don’t be mistaken. I’m just saying, whatever your inclinations are, it won’t bother me.
Sherlock: Oh, okay… Thank you.
Soooooo… I’m sure I don’t need to point out how much more obvious than the original dialogue this is, but I’m going to anyway.
First of all, John doesn’t talk about “people they don’t like”. He just talks about friends, and about the eventuality of THESE FRIENDS BECOMING LOVERS. WHATEVER THEIR GENDER IS. Oh, and just to be a tad more on-the-nose, the whole thing is discussed IN THE SINGULAR. Like, John is talking about A friend whom he could fall in love with. And he specifies that this friend could be either male or female.
Then, we’ve got the “no chance” that’s added when Sherlock answers John’s question about a girlfriend. Just to make it perfectly clear that Sherlock is as gay as they come. And “not really my area” is changed to “not my cup of tea”, which brings TPLoSH to mind, of course. But then, the movie is not famous at all in France, so idk if the change is really significant.
Instead of John’s line: “Which is fine, by the way”, he says that he’s not the kind to have “préjugés”. In French, the word means “prejudice”, as well as “preconceived ideas/stereotypical views”. So the first meaning would be that he is not prejudiced, i.e. he has nothing against gay people. However, his remark is followed by a “but”, just before Sherlock interrupts him. That’s weird, because we know that John is fine with gay people: his sister is a lesbian, and he himself is bi. So this works in favour of an understanding of the line as: “I don’t have stereotypical views, but…” That would imply that John thinks Sherlock is gay, because Sherlock looks the part. How interesting, right?
And then we have Sherlock interrupting John by saying: “Neither am I”. It is rather more telling than the “I know it’s fine” that we get in the original dialogue, because instead of being defensive, Sherlock is being OPEN and even ENCOURAGING. I just love that in this moment, Sherlock feels the need to interrupt John, not just to defend himself and his sexual orientation, but to reassure John that he isn’t prejudiced either, that John can trust him with the truth about who he really is.
Next, we get this intriguing change: “while I’m flattered by your interest” becomes “I’m gald that I’ve started to live with you”. I don’t really know what to make of this, but I thought it was interesting to point it out.
And lastly, we get the very upfront conclusion to the dialogue: “Whatever your inclinations are, it won’t bother me”. It just makes it reaaaally obvious what they’re talking about, whereas the original dialogue treats us with the much more laconic: “I’m just saying, it’s all fine”. Once again here, John offers reassurance and acceptance in a more explicit way, rather than sounding a bit ill at ease with the topic at hand like in the original dialogue, which had a more comical tone to it. He wants to make sure Sherlock knows that being gay will never be a problem in John’s opinion. This is just so lovely and touching, and Sherlock’s “thank you” takes a lot more meaning in this context.
Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention, I love it!! The french version is more explicit, whereas the English version – much like its people – likes to beat around the bush and not say anything too controversial. “It’s all fine” is a very English thing to say. It’s also very English/American to overlook that type of language because it is so vague. If English John Watson were to have said “I’m not prejudiced or anything, but I wanted to make it clear that I am accepting of–” then the English audience would have honed in on how gay this conversation actually might be, and that is something they didn’t want to do right at the beginning. By giving the equivalent of “hey, whatever, it’s cool, man” they let the English-speaking audience drop the subject as quickly as possible, since that’s how we handle those things.
the face sherlock makes on the tarmac when he realizes john doesn’t know he’s going to his death
and then him trying to protect john by saying “who knows [where i’ll go next]”
like, that right there was the love confession
oh god
sherlock, you love him so much
just say it
and then john starts making those faces trying not to cry because he won’t know where sherlock is and sherlock makes the joke to save him from crying
because if he starts, sherlock will start, and they’ll both just melt
and instead of confessing his feelings and leaving john with (what he thinks would be) that burden he makes him laugh, so john’s last memory of them is like the first night’s: laughter.
“i don’t have friends…i’ve just got one” like seriously if someone said that to you in real life and they just happened to be the same someone you had spent the last year-ish trying not to wank yourself to death over in a stew of hormones that has you google searching whether soulmates are real at 3 a.m. while he plays you a lullaby downstairs on his fucking violin bc you had ninety seconds of a nightmare, what would you even do. what do you even do with that. implode on the spot? spontaneously combust? honestly by the fact that he got through that alive, john watson is a powerful man and deserves to be feared
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