just a ghost at most

COLORING 003 - REBELS OF THE NEON GOD by sorasrph

made for neon images as a very surrealist coloring (drastically changes colors) please do not re-distribute this coloring and claim as your own. please do use and enjoy! like and reblog if using, no need to credit me.

scrapbooked the hell out of his newspapers

put on a hat that was too big for him 

giggled

cried because lestrade was nice to him

got all sappy and romantic by smelling a rose

let a puppy lead him on adventures

“impish mood”

lit his pipe with an ember from the fireplace because he thought it looked cool

told a guy he was giving him secret government documents and then gave him a book about bees instead

Was offended that Watson doesn’t praise his skills as a housekeeper

Waived his fee if his clients are too poor to pay him

Made hot chocolate to wake Watson up on a cold morning

Danced around and bowed to imaginary friends

‘Flushed up with pleasure’ when being praised

Wouldn’t explain how he comes to conclusions because he was worried Watson would think he is ordinary

Grabs Watson’s hand when he’s frightened

deliberately knocked over a table, shattering a glass fruit bowl which sent fruit rolling everywhere, then blamed it on watson and ran away

was not surprised when a dog died after its owner died, due to the “beautiful, faithful nature of dogs”

sent watson a telegram telling him to come over at once so he could tell him his most recent thoughts about dogs and the importance of their emotions to detective work

told Watson anecdotes about his favorite violinist for an hour while they had lunch together

Makes his client wait while he changes into slippers

Has a realistic dummy made of himself and uses it to fool a client

twice

a, the thief cried 

b, the case had been really easy & if the Yard couldn’t solve it then frankly fuck em

For children under 10, this looks like “Don’t do things that people online tell you to do without checking with an adult you trust to make sure it isn’t a predator, even if it just seems silly,” and “Be wary of adults who want to touch you or watch you do weird things for no reason, even if it’s something that seems harmless like letting them touch your feet or squishing up things. Any touch you don’t want is a bad touch.” This fits in well with other basics about bodily autonomy.

For preteens and younger teens, you can be more direct (they’ll understand that sex is a thing beyond just creating babies, whether they’ve been properly educated or not). Something like “Some predators might have requests that don’t seem explicitly sexual at first. If they seem to be getting something sexual out of it, or if it just seems too weird or if it makes you uncomfortable at all, don’t do it, or ask a trusted adult and alert any site mods, if it’s online.”

For older teens and adults, more of the above, plus showing examples of common “challenges” that are actually kinkbait. (i.e. writing stuff on your feet and taking pictures of it, stepping in slime or gross/painful things, questions about theoretically squishing or eating people, tying up yourself or others, “gallon of milk” type challenges that often cause vomiting.) At this point, the object is not just to prevent individual victimization, but to allow them to identify situations where children are being preyed upon.

In addition, knowing what kinks are means that people who have them are less likely to think it’s okay to trick others into doing them. If you emphasize that kinks are sex, people will realize that forcing them on others is not just a prank with a dirty secret, but actually sexual assault. Younger people with kinks (they often do start in childhood; sometimes they’re not explicitly sexual until around puberty) will learn not to put themselves in dangerous situations over things they don’t understand yet, and also that there isn’t anything wrong with them. In all cases, it should be emphasized that the kink is not the problem, but the predatory behavior is not the problem, but the coercion of others into sexual acts. If the kink is portrayed as the problem, people won’t make the distinction between doing it with a willing partner and tricking people into it, and the cycle will continue.

Also be careful about posting pictures of yourself or posing for pictures for strangers. They may say they’re a photographer and you could be a ‘model’ but you have no idea where they’re posting those photos or what they’re doing with them.

And after mentioning something in passing in another post, it suddenly hit me what that difference was.

J.K. Rowling approached her character with the mentality that a person can be redeemed if its revealed that they could have been a good person but circumstance and tragedy got in the way. She sees the fact that you could be forced into being a horrible person as a huge tragedy and tries to emphasize what could have been. She doesn’t just do it with Snape (Dumbledore’s another great contender) but Snape’s arguably her biggest victim when it comes to this. She shows you what his life was like and lets you know what could have been if only this had changed or that had changed. And she does so in a way that makes you feel sympathetic towards Snape, enough so that you’re supposed to totally agree with Harry when he names his child after him. Because sure he wasn’t that great but he could have been had the situation been different.

And Daniel Handler begins doing the same thing with Olaf. After books upon books of building him up to be this evil guy, he abruptly releases one of the most tragic backstories in villain history, making you realize that Olaf‘s life could have been a lot different had he not been forced into certain situations due to tragedy and circumstance. And like Rowling, Handler also presents this as something that’s tragic. But here’s where he differs. 

Because Rowling’s stance is: “This character could have been this instead and can you imagine how wonderful that would have been, had it not been for these circumstances?”

Whereas Handler’s stance is, “Well yeah, this is what the character could have been but this is what he ended up becoming and like it or not, this is who he is and this is who he’ll be remembered for.”

Rowling wants you to know that doing horrible things doesn’t make you a horrible person because there could be a rhyme or reason to your actions. A solid grey morality.

Handler wants you to know that doing horrible things does make you a horrible person because no matter what the motif is, you’re still doing horrible things and will be remembered for said horrible things.

Which is infinitely more tragic, infinitely more morally ambiguous, and infinitely more interesting.

J.K. Rowling tried to redeem Snape.

But Handler? Handler managed to redeem Olaf and not redeem him at the same time. Handler made his backstory tragic and he showed the reader exactly how things could have ended up, causing you to sympathize with the villain. But he also showed the reader exactly how things did end up, reminding you that no matter what could have been, it’s not what happened; instead we have this evil man who has done horrible things that are far too heinous to take back, no matter how much he may want to.

And while Rowling and many other YA authors took the approach that it’s never too late to redeem yourself and become the good person you should have been all along, Handler straight up took the, “Nope, for some people it’s far too late and no matter how much they may want to redeem themselves, they never will and they’ll have to die knowing that they are hated.”

And I don’t care how much you love Harry Potter, Handler’s approach to this character and the overall bleak philosophy and moral implications is on a whole other level of writing! I think the only other piece of fiction I’ve ever seen that approaches this philosophy of un-redemption is Bojack Horseman and you can still argue that Handler does it better because he’s able to scale it down so that kids can understand it, even if they don’t want to.

And yet, at the end of the day, Handler’s entire philsophy of how you might not be able to redeem yourself can really be summarized in one gif:

But Elementary goes “you know what? I bet Sherlock put a lot of work into developing and honing those skills, and that he could teach those skills to other people”. Sure, there’s definitely a measure of natural talent to it, but it’s also made clear that it’s just as much about training and learning and depending on others when your own knowledge and skills aren’t enough.

In the process, it’s also tacitly acknowledged that Sherlock couldn’t be what he is or do the things he does if he hadn’t been born so privileged. The only reason why he’s had the time and opportunity to train himself up, to gather such a deep and varied well of knowledge and to form such a vast network of experts he can contact for help, is because he’s rich.

Without his father’s money, he would have less time to devote to bettering himself as a detective: he would have to worry about earning a paycheck, about keeping himself fed and housed and keeping his living space clean and orderly without the help of a housekeeper. 

He would have to worry about the cost of his experiments and equipment and consulting fees and all sorts of other mundane things that would clutter up his mind. He would have to charge for his services, and accept boring cases just to pay the bills.

Without his father’s money, he wouldn’t have his extensive education. He wouldn’t have the Brownstone. He wouldn’t have Watson.