Also how can Arthur Conan Doyle write a character like Irene Adler 1891 and have her 1. Outsmart Sherlock Holmes and get away with it and 2. Be in no way a damsel or love interest to Sherlock.. But every modern retelling not only has her be a sexual /love interest character but she is posed as being very very smart… But never smart enough to just outwit him, get away with it and move on? Women can be smart, sure, but no one is allowed to be smarter than Sherlock.
It’s been over 120 years and Irene is, at her best, never as decently treated as the original.
Arthur Conan Doyle: Here’s a story about male insecurity where the police underestimate her for being a woman and feel the need to get her because she’s a woman and Sherlock is ultimately beaten by a woman and in a bit of character development accepts it and acknowledges her intellect.
Sherlock fans: Uh no way Sherlock is smart Sherlock is so so smart she must have used her feminine wiles or her sexy things or her love to undermine him but he gets her in the end i feel a strange catharsis at changing this ending but I’m sure Doyle always meant to be this way, it just feels right.
Half of the reason that Adler was able to out-wit Holmes was because Holmes was too narrow-minded. Holmes is smart and has knowledge of many subjects, but he also strongly relies on social order and norms to solve crimes. He’s even says in A Scandal in Bohemia that:
“When a woman thinks that her house is on fire, her instinct is at once to rush to thing which she values most. It is a
perfectly overpowering impulse, and I have more than once taken advantage of it
… A married woman grabs at her baby; an unmarried one reaches for her jewel-box.”
Holmes uses this social norm and order to stage an attack and find out where Adler hid the photo in her house. He drops his guard and is so proud of himself because he knew that this would work, he knew that if he created disorder, “natural” order would attempt to counteract that disorder.
Adler defies those social orders and norms: she is an untitled American woman who earned her own money through a career as an opera star, instead of relying on a husband or family to have financial security; she outwitted Holmes because she cross-dressed and indicated that she frequently did so, allowing her to have a lot more freedom roaming around London on her own terms, and her stage career aided that so that she could act like a man easily; and she didn’t care one bit about her reputation or being a “pure” woman, had several boyfriends, and was known for being an “adventuress”. More importantly, she had the ability to defy those social norms while simultaneously being able to present herself as the ideal respectable and under-estimable Victorian-era woman.
Adler literally defeats Holmes by dressing in drag then happily goes off with her new husband whom she loves very much. And Holmes respects that and is thoroughly impressed. Not only does he respect that, he realizes that he was on the wrong side of things, that he shouldn’t have agreed to take on the case for the King of Bohemia. This is the exchange that follows after Holmes, Watson and the King read Adler’s letter.
“Would she not have made an admirable queen?
Is it not a pity that she was not on my level?”
“From what I have seen of the
lady she seems indeed to be on a very different level to your Majesty,” said
Holmes coldly
Holmes takes Adler’s side and realizes that the photograph is her protection from the King, not something she intended to use as a weapon against him. Adler never exploited the King to get what she wanted, only kept it as a safeguard of her own happiness. She made sure she had a way of ensuring that she alone guided her future.
Irene Adler is “the woman” to Sherlock Holmes, not because she was sexy or he was in love with her. She was a reminder that real life doesn’t always follow what social norms and order are to be expected, that people shouldn’t be taken on face value or respected just because of their title or apparent respectability and ability to follow social order and norms, and that there are two sides to every story.
Take a lesson from Sherlock Holmes, people. Doyle knew what he was doing. If we’re going to keep making him roll over in his grave from creating Sherlock Holmes media, please, at least respect him and Irene Adler.
Michael Jackson cosplay group. #cosplayers #cosplay #pcf #pcc #phoenixcomicfest #michaeljackson (at Phoenix Comic Fest)
I got this sword to the con without trouble. What do you expect? It’s made out of craft foam and basal wood. #cosplayers #cosplay #cosplayover30 #pcf #pcc #phoenixcomicfest #disney #sword #disneyprincess #mulan #disney #propstylist (at Phoenix Comic Fest)
Do y’all want to hear a secret story I’ve never told anyone?
(ok here goes. its funny i promise)
At the time this story took place, I was like 6 years old. Growing up, I was a very mature child because I was never around other kids my age. My mom used to work a lot, so that left me with my dad but my dad was high off his ass (weed smoker) all the time, so he’d be passed out. My siblings were all in their late teens and with friends, so when I got home it was just me by myself. Everyday
And I had no other way to entertain myself than by watching TV. I watched everything, but my favorite was the after dark shows that came on HBO and stuff. The down side of watching those things was that I learned about things that was way ahead of my time with no adult supervision.
Well, one day when I came home from school I was watching TV (dad was alseep again and I was alone) and I saw one of those little flity phone companies. They were like sex operators or whatever, but at that time, my naive ass just thought that it was to find best friends. Like penpals and stuff, so one day I got the house phone and dialed the number.
The first thing that popped up was this super seductive voice but my dumb ass just assumed the person was sick (lmfao) and it said “For a man, press one. For a woman, press two.”
So I was thinking “Boys are gross, I need a best friend that’s a girl.” So I pressed two.
It rang a couple times until this lady answered the phone and I remember her saying “Hey, my name is Cynthia. What’s your name?”
So I was like ‘shit I gotta come up with something cool to tell my bestie’ “What’s up, Cynthia.”
And immediately, she got super quiet before she asked me “Um…whom am I speaking to?”
“The name is Delilah, but all my friends call me D.” (I remember I was coloring in my Lisa Frank diary when I said it too omg)
And Cynthia got quiet again before speaking. “Uh, how old are you?”
“I’m six and a half.” *scribbles in diary harder* “What about you?”
So she got super quiet again and was like “Uh…sweetie, where is your mother?”
“My mom’s at her job. Something my dad can’t seem to get.” *takes a sip from juicebox*
And I could hear her let out a stiffled laugh from the other line before clearing her throat. “Well, where is your father?”
“My dad smoked too much weed again and he passed out. Again.”
This time, she let out a louder laugh and I was like ‘heck yeah I made a friend. Check mate.’
So Cynthia askes me another question. “You’re not old enough to be on here, honey. I think you should hang up.”
So I got really pressed and kinda got sassy with her and busted out a line I had seen used in the movie Clueless. “Listen Cynthia, I’m a young, independent woman that don’t need no man. I need a friend, okay? It said you’d be nice to me on the TV.”
At this point I could hear her laughing really loud and before I could finish, she stopped me. “C-Can you hold on one second, honey? I’ll be right back. Stay right where you are.”
I was like “Okay.” And in the mean time, I made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and got some juice to get comfy while I waited. She finally came back like five minutes later and asked me if I was still there. I told her I was and this time, I could hear my voice echo a bit, meaning I was on speaker obivously.
“How old are you again?” She asked.
“I’m six and a half, don’t forget it, girlfriend!” *sassily snaps my fingers and takes a sip from juice*
This time, i could hear people laughing and saying ‘oh my god’ and shit like that in the background, so I asked her who it was. She told me they were her buddies and I remember saying something like “It’s always good to have ya homeis with you, right?’ and everyone laughed again.
Then they started asking me all kinds of shit too.
“Where do you live?”
“In a house, duh.”
“What school do you go to?”
“Why? So you can kidnap me? No thanks, girl.”
“How did you even get this number?”
“The TV, duh.”
Now after a while the group of people buzzed off and it was just me and Cynthia on the phone. We had a cool conversation about Lisa Frank books and I learned that she lived in Seattle with her boyfriend and that she had a little girl a couple years older than me.
At one point, I told her about the boys in my school that were bullying me and that I didn’t think I was very pretty. And you know what? She gave me some advice that I never forgot, even til this very day I still remembered it. She told me,
“Sometimes people will be mean to you for no reason and they won’t like you, but all that matters is if you like you. If you like yourself, that’s all that matters.”
Now at one point, nine o’clock rolled around and it was my bedtime, so I sadly told Cynthia “Okay, bestie. Its my bed time. I don’t wanna miss out on my beauty sleep.” and after exchanging goodbyes, we hung up.
So yeah, that’s my experience with the chatlines. Sometimes I think about Cynthia and wonder what happened to her in life. Is she still with her boyfriend? How is her daughter? I’ll never know.
I never told anyone this until now because its too good not to share lmfao. Adult supervision is important!
This straight guy, who we’ll call Mike, has been roommates with Alex for a year. When Alex told Mike he was gay, he was absolutely fine with it. But then when Alex started to bring guys home…he started getting annoyed, resentful, disgusted.
Posting on Reddit, he said: ‘First things first, let me say that I’ve never thought of myself as being discriminatory before. I had a gay friend in high school and we made it through some tough times together, I never felt weird about him dating a guy. So all of this is coming out of nowhere.
‘”Alex” has been my roommate for one year, and I pretty much knew upfront about him being gay. At some point we became friendly enough with each other that we could even joke about it, as in, sometimes he’ll pretend to flirt with me and I’ll pretend to flirt back. I’m straight and he knows that, but I don’t feel threatened by him flirting with me and he says most straight guys do.
‘The problems started because of this: Alex brings guys home sometimes. At the start I thought I was okay with it, since it’s really not my business who he sleeps with. He’s usually discreet enough about it that I don’t see/hear anything I wouldn’t want to see/hear from anyone else, but for some reason I’ve started feeling weird if I even see him with other guys.
‘I don’t know when it started but one time that really sticks out to me is when I came home and saw him and some guy making out on the couch. I don’t know how to describe what it was like to see that, except that for a moment I felt so bad I thought I was going to throw up. Alex was embarrassed (he didn’t think I’d be back for a while), but I told him it was okay since I was embarrassed too.
‘I felt bad for being as disgusted as I was, since there’s NO good reason for me to have a reaction like that. I thought maybe they just caught me by surprise and that’s why I reacted so strongly, but it turned out it wasn’t a one-time thing. After that, every time he has a guy over (not that often, but every once in a while) I just start feeling like shit and wishing that guy would leave, and I can’t stop thinking about what these guys might have done to him even though I don’t want to imagine that. It makes me really uncomfortable and grossed out. And these are just guys he fools around with, I don’t know what I’d do if he ends up getting an actual boyfriend.
‘Alex has started to notice and it’s affecting our friendship. The other day I came home right when some guy was about to leave, and the guy tried to be polite to me but I ended up being rude to him (don’t remember what I said, but it was really obvious I was pissed). When the guy left, Alex asked me why I was being an asshole. I didn’t know what to say, but then he asked if I had a problem with him sleeping with other guys. I said no. For some reason that pissed him off more and he said I can’t complain since I used to bring my fuckbuddy over and he was forced to see me being affectionate with her sometimes. (I was in an FWB situation with a girl in the early days of me and Alex living together, but I broke it off after a few months and I haven’t done anything with anyone since.) I agreed with him and told him I was just having a bad day and I don’t care who he sleeps with, but he looked more upset and told me he’s going to a friend’s place to cool off. I said okay. When he was leaving for some reason he casually said, “and you’ll be okay if I sleep with him as long as I do at his place and not ours, right?” Or something like that. I told him it’s none of my business what he does at someone else’s place, but when he said that I felt sick to my stomach and couldn’t stop thinking about it.
‘He didn’t show up later that night even though he was supposed to hang out with me and my sister. He’s never blown me off before and it made me feel like shit, but part of it was my fault since I made him feel like I was judging him for sleeping with guys. Now he’s acting like nothing happened but I’m worried I might mess things up if it happens again. I want to keep him as a friend, but he’d be hurt if he knew that whenever I think about him with other guys it disgusts me.
‘How do I deal with this? I’ve never been homophobic but I’ve suddenly developed some kind of homophobia where just the idea of my roommate’s sex life makes me uncomfortable. And I don’t react like this to other gay people either, it’s just Alex. I don’t know if this means I’m only okay with gay people as long as I’m not living with them or what. Does anyone else have experience with this? I want to get over myself and stop whatever this is, but if I can’t I’m going to have to leave since the last thing I want to do is hurt Alex, and if I stay here and keep automatically judging him for his lifestyle that’s what’s going to happen.
‘tl;dr: Roommate is gay, I am not but I thought I was okay with him being gay until I realised I feel crappy when I see him with other guys and it’s started to affect our friendship. How to deal with this/stop being such a dick?’
One Redditor asked: ‘Are you sure that weird feeling isn’t jealousy…? i mean, this only seems to revolve around Alex specifically.’
And Mike responded: ‘I thought about that, but I don’t know what I’m meant to be jealous of. He definitely has a more active sex life than I do, but reacting like this to something like that seems really strange and irrational.’
The Redditor responded: ‘Yeah i thought maybe you don’t like seeing Alex with other people because you want his attention to yourself?’
‘The day I made the post, I met up with my sister Laura [24F] and I showed her the post. She read the whole thing and called me an oblivious walnut and said it sounds like I have a crush on Alex. The same conclusion some of you came to in the original post.
‘Anyway, she talked me through it and we confirmed I’m not as straight as I thought I was. She also pointed out something in my original post, where I said the more I tried to reassure him I didn’t mind who he slept with, the more he got upset. Also: how he brought my old FWB situation into it. I just thought he was understandably mad with me for being an asshole, but Laura thought it sounded like maybe Alex wanted me to be jealous? We moved on from that topic pretty quickly, though, since I couldn’t really handle the implications of that when I’d JUST started to understand that I like this guy.
‘The next few days were mostly me sitting on my ass trying to wrap my head around everything. I was scared of messing up our friendship and losing him, but I was even more scared that I might just let this pass without saying anything and then he gets a boyfriend and I have to see him with another guy…etc. Because if that happened I would probably have to end it anyway, since as we’ve established, I’m not great at dealing with him being with other guys.
‘Probably could have planned it better, but I told him. Right after a Tarantino marathon, if anyone’s interested, since nothing says romance like graphic violence. I told him I’ve been such a dick because I was jealous. I don’t think he got what I was getting at because he just laughed a little and said I didn’t have to be jealous since it wasn’t like I’d have any trouble finding people to sleep with me. No clue how I explained, it’s a blur. Luckily he saw how nervous I was so he knew I was serious.
‘We talked. Long story short: all that flirting was real, but Alex didn’t have any hope of it going further because of me being an oblivious “straight” guy. So he’s been trying to get over me. He laughed really hard when I told him about how I mistook my jealousy for homophobia, and he teased me by saying he’d never expected me to be the jealous type. Then again, we both ended up laughing a lot of out of nervousness and awkwardness. I’ve never seen him like that before since he’s usually pretty confident. In the end we agreed to maybe try something out, and we kissed. Never kissed anyone with a beard before, so…interesting experience, but also really good. (Plot twist: it turns out I don’t have any problem with Alex kissing guys if it’s me he’s kissing.)
‘Since then we’ve kind of been easing into the whole dating thing, I guess? I know this place is wary about roommate relationships and I get why, but it’s been great so far. We had our first proper date last weekend and it was incredible, though a bit weird since we’ve done that a thousand times already and this time there was a new context. At home we still do our normal thing, but sometimes we get distracted. Last night I almost burned dinner because I had to kiss him and we got kind of carried away, haha. We’re taking the whole sex thing slow though since I’ve never done anything with another guy before.
‘I’m a little worried about coming out to my family and my other friends, especially since this is almost as new for me as it would be for them. My parents are very openminded and my mom especially loves Alex. But I have some more conservative family members on my dad’s side, and I can already imagine them blaming Alex for turning me gay. They can also be pretty racist (Laura’s boyfriend is Latino so she knows all about that) and Alex is mixed. It’s something to think about in the longterm, I guess. Alex has said he doesn’t expect me to jump out of the closet right away, but if we end up calling ourselves a couple then I’m not going to keep him a secret or anything.
‘So…we’re trying. And I am not a homophobe, and nobody needed therapy. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I was this happy, and I never would have expected this when I made that first post. It’s a good thing some of you picked up on the actual problem and tried to get it through to me despite me being an oblivious walnut, so…thanks, guys.’
Funniest self-realization in the world? ‘Plot twist: it turns out I don’t have any problem with Alex kissing guys if it’s me he’s kissing.’
Sandra Soapbox Cosplay 