For the Queer Love of Costume

WATSON turns to face him. His resolve is almost broken.

WATSON

Sherlock.

HOLMES touches his hand. 

HOLMES

You don’t have to write about the rest.

I am about a third of the way through writing the first draft of the as-yet unnamed gay play. This is the part where you are probably asking what play this is. I wrote a post about it last week, but to reiterate- It’s Sherlock Holmes, it’s Victorian, they’re gay, it’s a love story, and there are lesbians. 

Now that you’re up to date

I could do with some help. Volunteers. For now I’m only asking for some script-writing help as I have never written one before, and I get the feeling I’m making it too direction-heavy. 

As we move forward, I’d love to team up with some Ireland-based theatre people, particularly in Dublin. I have worked in a bit of theatre, but as my major is costume I haven’t the experience of running a show, even for a festival run. 

Thankfully, as I’m a trained designer, the artistic side of things is covered. If anyone wants to send on any reference material feel free to message me and I’ll hit you up on Pinterest *finger guns*

More to come. Do keep in touch. Please signal boost this too <3

Tags under the cut.

@vivahate1988 @loudest-subtext-in-tv @ghostbees @eggcroft @kinklock @sherlockgotohell @vanetti @hudders-and-hiddles @cassieparkes @anotherwellkeptsecret @graceebooks @bbcatemysoul @justlookfrightened

The day seemed so similar to that other so many years ago. The same black shrouding costumes, tears from barely-known acquaintances, the weather’s predictable pathetic fallacy rain and grey. So painfully similar.

John plodded across concrete and sodden grass to his wife’s final resting place. A simple headstone, gunmetal grey, with clean white text.

Mary Watson

Mother, Wife, Friend

Sherlock’s black stone stood under the branches of an old tree on the far side of the cemetery, in comfortable shadow. Mary was covered in fresh flowers, and would have the sunshine eventually.

Face set and posture perfect, John gazed long at the grave. Silent, while the hours ticked by towards a hazy dusk. The gates would be locked soon.

He had to tell her now, while she was still a fresh thought, a pure raw feeling in his chest. He wouldn’t let it decay and become some horrible regret- “You never said it,” was the last thing he needed to hear in his head, especially after dealing with that the first time around with Sherlock.  He breathed in deep, feeling the words, prepared words (always, for her), and pulled them up from beneath every layer of his being.

Quiet, so only he and Mary would hear,

“Get fuckin’ rekt.”

Because I’m going hard on alibi theory and fuck Mary tho

Posted on Ao3

if you’ve ever sat down to write your story and thought ‘ok but what is the historical backdrop for these characters on this particular month, or this day, in this country, in this city’

the british newspaper archive [link] has literally millions of archived newspaper pages going all the way back to the 1700s

A sequel to my Dutch Angles meta, I wanted to mention the use of Low Angles vs Top Shots in the show (and due to tumblr image restrictions, I’m splitting the topic into two parts. This one is about Low Angles, the next one is Top Shots.)

I was chatting with @isitandwonder​ and they brought to my attention this shot from ASiP:

This is not a Dutch Angle due to technical filmmaker reasons BUT it is a Low Angle.

A Low Angle or “Worm’s Eye View” is a shot from a camera angle positioned low on the vertical axis, looking up. This is used widely throughout filming to make the subject looking dominating or imposing. Sometimes this makes the character look heroic, but just as likely or even more so it is meant for the character to look intimidating. This is quite obvious in ASiP where we see Sherlock from the cabbie’s POV looking up at him. The stark lighting across his face and his shouting makes him even more intimidating. The audience is meant to feel uneasy about what Sherlock is doing. His behaviour here is very much in contrast with the rest of his characterisation in this episode and it’s our first real glimpse at him doing something not-good.

Let’s take a look at some other low angle shots:

Pretty much all of the noticeable Low Angles are only used for Sherlock (or for Irene who is basically the female mirror of him), which brings up an interesting point. A lot of times when we see Sherlock from this angle he is doing something that fits into the public perception of a “sociopathic dfp machine”. This doesn’t mean he actually is like that, in fact Sherlock himself has shown disgust when people treat him like he’s completely unfeeling, despite his protests that he is whenever he’s particularly vulnerable. We see him torturing the cabbie for answers, putting possibly hallucinogenic sugar into John’s mug. Also a lot of these shots are used in S1 when Sherlock is deducing because they make him look cool and dominating (and since I mentioned dominating, can I just point out that John is on top in that ASiB shot ;). 

The majority of the audience may not realise it, but actually it’s these kind of shots and the cold lighting that made a lot of viewers come out of S1 and 2 believing Sherlock was truly a sociopath.

Of course, these shots are used less and less as the show goes on and Sherlock’s character changes as well as our perception of him. The only time this is used again in S3 for Sherlock is when Anderson tells his dfp!Sherlock solution to the Fall, and then in reality when Sherlock’s telling John about his not-good plan to fake date/propose to Janine. 

S1 and 2 showed us how John used to view Sherlock, as this cold and supposedly cool character, then we flipped over to S3 where we start to see just how vulnerable he is.

And speaking of vulnerability… (on to part 2!)

@inevitably-johnlocked @mrsmusicaddict @irrelevantbl0g @pornpreferencejohnlock @just-sort-of-happened @monikakrasnorada @yorkiepug @tendergingergirl