If inconvenient, come all the same

every other case Watson is like "can I come along? unless I am nothing but dead weight to you. In which case I brought a hammer for you to beat me to death with." and Holmes always replies something along the lines of "You are my bestest friend and if you came along that would make me the happiest man in the world. Pack your gun." peace and love. also what is wrong with them.

Shhh…let him stay innocent

Rereading The Hound Of The Baskervilles with my mom and cackling at how the INSTANT Watson is apart from Holmes he turns into the most romantic gothic Victorian horror narrator ever. He is no longer shackled. He is living his goth crime girlie fantasy.

There are plenty of reasons why the insistence of adaptations and reviews on making the relationship between Holmes and Adler romantic is deeply frustrating, but the one that sticks out to me has always been this implication that a man can't respect and pay attention to a woman in a way that isn't centred around desire. She is the woman because she bested him, because she saw exactly what he planned and slipped away, even leaving a letter to tell him how she did. He's shown the exact same respect and excitement for multiple criminals since, because by nature he's delighted to find people who can challenge or match him intellectually. I don't generally take issue with the societal obssesion with romance, I get it, but the idea that a man can't regard a woman as remarkable or have any focus on her without implying romantic love and desire has just always rubbed me the wrong way