#I am a murderer of the luds

[ludinusdaleth]

i'm convinced that lud's just spiraling at this point now after the dominox vision and this orb thing. he is going to break like a glass plate if the hells point out that he is no better than who he wants to murder in chucking fae and ruidusborn into the fire to justify his god-hate. they don't need to kill him themselves, i think he's one wrong word from self-destruction.

oh, absolutely. you gotta admire his steel dedication to his plan, rending himself apart to live a thousand years solely for a plan for vengeance. but what happens when your moment of truth (the malleus key) is interrupted by the entire world fighting you to the point the key was half-broken? what happens when your banking on chaos as the leylines align leads to a beast in aeor awakening that slaughters your troops in front of you? what happens when wildemount finally fights back from your rule? what happens when dominox shows you everyone you cared for but you chose to sacrifice for a greater cause? what happens when your closest partner's daughter lightning bolts you even as you try to help her because of what you did to her mother? what happens when you watch aeor be slaughtered and in that moment of vindication you're also faced with these seeded moments of doubt, that the gods did exactly what you did? he hasnt even learned one of his generals was killed by an aeormaton who killed themself for it or that liliana despises him when he's used her as his only crutch.

his hero complex is otherworldly strong, but as ive said before, the way he asked the bells for their perspective on aeor means he needs someone to actually set a distinct pov for him because his reality is completely falling apart. i dont think he knows what to do in any situation where he may be wrong after an entire eon banking on being the only right, after thinking it would all end at the key only to be thrust into the consequences of his actions. i think he is going to cling onto his perspective with all his might, but if untamed in revelation i think he would go utterly suicidal. if the bells can sway him, as matt keeps hinting and driving me crazy about, he is going to break the fuck down. only their intervention or lack of decides how soon he phoenixes. and if he does something with that anguish.

i am very, very interested in this direction. every single snippet of matt we get implies he thinks ludinus is on a teetering point into something new for him and even if it's fated he'll die in some way or another before the solstice is done it is tantalizing how the last moments? hours? days? of this impossibly old mans life is the time that he finally sees something new, to his complete terror, and perhaps wonder.

[httpcup1d-02]

As a Polish woman, I am not a stranger to the horrors of genocide.

For generations, my people have been slaughtered, tortured and shamed. We have been partitioned three times, stuck under the iron curtain, destroyed by the soviets only to be built back up by them to their standards. The current constitution was only formed in 1997.

I have heard the stories of people being murdered for looking the wrong direction, the language was banned, the culture was forbidden- they wanted to get rid of us, displace us.

Sound familiar?

Fuck what the government says, because the people of the Republic of Poland will always stand with Palestine.

Because we know, and we remember, and we greive with you.

Rafah in 2024 is no different than Wołyn In 1943/44

Wołyn may be Ukrainian now, but it was once Polish, taken by force and by murder. We will not allow Rafah to be Isreali, they will not take Palestine.

The history will not repeat itself

Jako Polka, nie jestem obca dla horrorów ludobójstwa.

Przez pokolenia mój lud był mordowany, torturowany i upokarzany. Byliśmy trzykrotnie rozbrojeni, uwięzieni za żelazną kurtyną, zniszczeni przez sowieckich, tylko po to, by zostaliśmy odbudowani według ich standardów. Obecna konstytucja została ustanowiona dopiero w 1997 roku.

Słyszałam historie o ludziach mordowanych za patrzenie w złym kierunku, język był zakazany, kultura była zakazana - chcieli nas pozbyć się, przesiedlić.

Brzmi znajomo?

W dopie mam co mówi rząd, bo ludność Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej zawsze będzie stać po stronie Palestyny. Ponieważ wiemy, pamiętamy i w żałobje jesteśmy z wami.

Rafah w 2024 roku nie różni się od Wołynia w latach 1943/44.

Wołyn może teraz być ukraiński, ale kiedyś był polski, wzięty siłą i przez morderstwo.Nie pozwolimy, aby Rafah stało się izraelskie, nie wezmą Palestyny.

Historia się nie powtórzy

[awellboiledicicle]

Lud's eyes are Like That because of Mora and Nocturnal fighting over her. Ok more specifically it's Mora after all those damn books when the cult was after her that one time.

No, not that cult, the other-- the dragon one.

She's literally only not in nightengale armor bc a mod for that hasn't been uploaded. In universe of the fic she can just. manifest it from the shadows, so rn she's just slumming it in travel leathers.

Shadowheart thinks she's worshipping Shar when she makes little alters in camp and burns inscense. Lud very calmly explains that Shar isn't a very good goddess of night if you know jack and shit about her. This lead to a vaguely tense but enlightening conversation about aspects of darkness and how they focus on the different ones.

Gale and Wyll are in the background wondering if they signed up with a cultist.

Then Lud tries to understand the planer system and gets a headache. Because listen, she went to the College. She did her studies so she'd understand the shit that could help her in battle and in thieving. But the finer academic points were not her strong suit. She can cast fuck you beam, doesn't really understand how the magic gets from extraplanar sources to her outside of "Magus does it". She does hate the idea of working with Mystra, though. Not even for anything gale related at first, she just hates the idea of asking permission to do what comes innately.

She also accidentally Fus's Gale into the lake by their camp because he insisted he could speak dragon without clarifying he meant draconic, not... whatever the fuck she does.

Wyll's whole warlock deal just strikes her as daedra worship with paperwork. Which she kinda just nods and says she gets it, because yeah. A bit confused why he sold his soul to NOT the biggest baddest player, but she assumes he had a reason.

Speaking of Mizora and by extension Raphael.... they don't know what to actually offer that would be like. fair. for her soul. Because she's a dragon. And while fair isn't usually what they go for, when a divine being is what you're aiming at, you try to get the legalese straight and make it semi-equitable if only so if they get mad at you, their godly relations don't get pissed. Because they don't know how far a god from another plane can reach, but time is not a domain you fuck with. So rules lawyering to get what they want becomes infinitely more tricky. Add in that she knows how to pick through contracts with a fine toothed comb, and Raphy boy is sweating through his doublet during the initial meeting. Mora writhing behind her eyes doesn't help either.

Lud is not really aware of this little fidget happening, because she's principally just generally against sharing out even more of her soul level. Because she's got, technically, spares. Which she hordes. Because if you didn't listen to Paarthy, your soul and skull got to be housed in her manor. And she's very protective of her horde.

Lae'zel reminds her of the Companions. This is both good, because she liked Kodlak, and bad because the rushing in headlong to fight is exhausting. There's tactics, sure, but managing where she is makes Lud tired. Mostly because if they HAVE to be killing people, at least do so swiftly. Lae'zel is, by dint of the size of her weapon and her armor weight, going to move slower than her. Which means not getting too far or too close to her. It's a thing. Learning how young she is turns it into "oooh, murder child" "I am no child." "Relatively, you are child."

Astarion meanwhile has to deal with her peering over his shoulder while he's practicing his lock picking to be as fast as she is at it. She's doing it to learn how they do it in Faerun, since the locks are designed differently. She's just very good at learning fast, so it looks like she doesn't have to learn. She's going to fuck up a trap disarm and have to deal with him laughing at her, followed by him being loomed over by a very on fire nord that informs him she doesn't appreciate being laughed at.

A fun thing is i'm delighted imagining the boar scene because i can imagine her commenting that vampires don't generally do well eating animals, in her experience. Prompting a "what" from the group, and Astarion to recalculate how he's going to word things. She gestures to the neck of the boar. "Back home, you meet a vampire in woods, it will try to drain you. You meet a vampire in their den, you will find a larder of human bodies. Thralls tending fireplaces. Armed." A frown as she toed the carcass. "Only vampire I have seen eat mostly animal? She does not waste the flesh. I can only assume it was scared off before it could properly finish." "Then we can't waste time getting out of here, can we?" Astarion tucked the idea that she was friendly enough with a vampire to have a present tense explanation of her diet into a corner for now. Because either he was safer than expected, or wildly more unsafe. Lud huffed through her nose and regarded him for a moment with those inky eyes. Like she was knowing something about him in that moment. And he hated it. "What?" With a dismissive wave, her expression eased back into the relaxed smile they'd all gotten used to from her. "We will see what comes. Now, let us find more goblins to kill, yes? If they reach the grove again we will have nowhere to go drinking after."

Karlach is a delight to her, if only because then she can fire breath without worrying about actually hurting the person running out ahead of her. She's also very very quick to catch onto the kind of person Lud is and is wary for about as long as it takes to find Halsin. Because she reminds her of Gortash. The difference, of course, being that Lud is also genuinely cordial until you fuck with her.

I just. [waves hands] having fun

Making a skyrim/bg3 au entirely to make Astarion not know what to do with an equally morally dubious nord that deeply doesn't take anyone's shit.

She is also 40. Because she gets yote to Faerun on one of her "let's go make sure the mages aren't breaking time again" runs post saving things and posturing at the Thalmor.

Shes also a nightingale.

Her name is Lud and she is good

[electricbluetempest]

Widowerner AU - Part 3

The family was ecstatic, but one person still wasn’t entirely convinced. “So his ghost is moving the little window thingy?” Wilbert asked. “Yup, it’s like a way for spirits to talk to us from the other side.” Rosie explained. “But why can’t we see him? Your dad’s a ghost too and we can see him.” “Because my dad crossed over from the other side and decided to stay here.” Wilbert tilted his head, then asked the board a question. “Can we /see/ you again, dad?” ‘Yes’ The air around everyone got colder all of a sudden. Rosie’s spine tingled, there was a lot of spiritual energy suddenly forming here and she could feel it. This is the last one, so enjoy it anons!! (Feat. Luds’ ghostblossom fankid)

Perhaps Nic has to wait for the perfect time for his idea to come. He told his dad he'll be out for a bit and went to the end of Isle 3 to find his friend, Rosie.

"Hey... sorry about your dad, Nic." She approached.

"I know.. say, now that my dad's a ghost....."

"What, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Let's find him if he's inside the train" The two said together.

They went inside the train as Rosie grabs a walkie talkie "Is Dr. Alfred Kahl on this train?" No ghost didn't come up to the young woman. Rosie faced her friend and sighed. "I think we're gonna have to do this the hard way."

"What do you mean 'the hard way'?"

"Get the Ouija board, we're summoning him."

The two of them sat down on the ground by the train with a Ouija board, both of them with their hands on the planchette and waiting for something to happen. Rosie had lit a candle and put it beside them as part of the ritual they were about to do.

“Do these things actually work?” Nic asked. 

“Trust me, I’ve done this before.” 

“How do we know if the spirit isn’t lying?”

“I’ll be able to tell. Now. If there is a presence here, let us know.”

The candle wavered and went out, but neither of them felt any wind. Nic’s eyes widened. Is this really it?

“We are looking for the spirit of this boy’s recently deceased father. Are you the ghost of Dr. Alfred Kahl?”

The planchette seemed to skitter, slowly hovering to the ‘yes’.

"Dad?!"

"Shhhh, don't scare his spirit away away."

Nic kept quiet as a small gust of wind whooshed over his face. "Are you lying? If not, do you know my name?"

The planchette slowly moved to the 'no'. Meaning the ghost is not lying. Then the planchette hovered to the letters 'N', 'I' and 'C'. 

"Dad.... can you hear me?" The planchette moved over to the 'yes' again. Nic was relieved. He's actually talking to his dad.

“Oh my god, it’s really you! Dad, we’ve missed you so much!”

‘I  M-I-S-S  Y-O-U  T-O-O’

“But, with this, it’s like you’re not really gone! Rosie, this is amazing!”

Nic stopped himself. He realized this could be his chance to say something to his dad. “Listen...I’m sorry I was a bad kid growing up. I keep thinking back to all the times I got mad and yelled at you, and I just feel awful and stupid. And I’m sorry I never got to say goodbye as you were dying. ...Can you forgive me?”

‘I  A-L-R-E-A-D-Y  H-A-V-E’

Nic felt a weight off his shoulders. “Is there any way we can see you again?”

‘YES’

“I can feel the presence slowly leaving.” Rosie said with urgency. “Spirit, send your final message before I lose the connection.”

‘B-R-I-N-G  T-H-E  R-E-S-T  T-O-M-O-R-R-O-W’

The planchette slowly scooted to the 'good-bye'.

Nic had a small smile on his face. "Rosie. thank you."

"You're welcome."

Nic stood up and went back home, it was already late at the evening and he had to come back for dinner. He got back home with Werner and Wilbert at the table. 

"Goodness, vhy are you late? Your dinner's getting cold."

"Sorry dad, I actually did something really awesome today."

"Vat is it?"

"I talked to dad!"

Werner didn't believe that much. Did this really happen?

“How is zhat possible?”

“So you remember my friend Rosie? She and I went and channeled his spirit! We actually got to talk to him for a bit.”

Werner was amazed. “Can ve see him?”

“He wants us to meet him again tomorrow. You, Wilbert, Uncle Robot, all of us should go to Rosie’s tomorrow so we can do this again.”

As Nic ate his cold dinner, Werner felt a warm feeling rising in his chest. A mix of excitement and relief, he had felt so empty after his husband died and now they had something to help with that feeling.

It was already past bedtime, quarter to midnight, Nic is still up writing something in his journal.

'I did something awesome today. I talked to my friend Rosie earlier to ask if my dad's ghost is present. Fortunately, this board thingy (Ouija? is that the spelling?) called my dad's ghost and I was able to talk to him! I promise him to bring my family tomorrow so my other dad can see him too! For now I should be asleep. This is Nic Werman, signing out. Good night!'

Nic closed his journal and placed both the book and the pencil on his desk and turned off the lights. He snuggled under his blanket and closed his eyes. By the window, a ghostly figure can be seen forming a shape of an old man. Dr. Kahl touched the glass to see his son asleep.

"Thank you, Nic....."

***

Nic could barely concentrate at all the next day. This was going to be the real deal, his family was going to see what he saw last night. When nightfall finally came, he rushed everyone out of the house to meet up with Rosie.

“So, why are we here again?” Wilbert asked as they arrived at the haunted railroad tracks.

“Rosie has a way for us to speak to dad again. When I spoke to dad’s ghost last night, he wanted all of us to come here.”

Wilbert’s eyes got wider and he had to hide his excitement. Werner was trying to do the same, still a bit skeptical about how this exactly worked. Rosie was waiting outside for them, ready to begin.

"You guys know the drill?" Rosie asked as she lit the candle.

"What's this board thing?" Wilbert touched it.

"Hey... you don't want to summon an evil ghost."

Wilbert placed his arms away as they all wait for any paranormal presence.

"If there is a presence, let us know." A sudden gust of wind blew, the candle was put out. Nic had a smile on his face, knowing his dad came. "We are looking for the soul of this family's recently deceased relative. Are you the ghost of Dr. Alfred Kahl?"

'Yes'

Werner opened his eyes to find out his husband had came to see them. "Alfred? Is zis really you?" 

 'I-T-S  M-E  W-E-R-N-E-R"

It was the robot's turn to ask. "FATHER? ARE YOU ACTUALLY TALKING TO US?"

'Yes'

The family was ecstatic, but one person still wasn’t entirely convinced.

“So his ghost is moving the little window thingy?” Wilbert asked.

“Yup, it’s like a way for spirits to talk to us from the other side.” Rosie explained.

“But why can’t we see him? Your dad’s a ghost too and we can see him.”

“Because my dad crossed over from the other side and decided to stay here.”

Wilbert tilted his head, then asked the board a question. “Can we see you again, dad?”

‘Yes’

The air around everyone got colder all of a sudden. Rosie’s spine tingled, there was a lot of spiritual energy suddenly forming here and she could feel it.

Rosie felt the tingling on her head. Her eyes twitched a bit and she placed her hands on her head to find the signal. "I can feel something. Spirit, show yourself."

The air blew in a moderate to fast speed. The candle managed to light itself as the family felt the coldness of the wind. The wind starts to form a shape of a man, the wind suddenly stopped as the family saw the ghost of Alfred.

"Dad?" Nic gasped. "Is that..... you?"

“It is.” He replied.

Kahl looked down at his arms and hands, then the rest of his body. He was now bluish and transparent, his legs gone with a spindly ghost tail taking his place.

“Well, this is an interesting form, isn’t it?”

“Dad!” Nic wasted no time running over to his dad to hug him, as tightly as he could.

Kahl’s new body was weightless and couldn’t be felt by Nic, but Kahl could feel how tightly Nic was grabbing on. Wilbert joined, grabbing ahold of Kahl’s ghost tail and hugging that. Kahl wrapped his arms against both boys, even though they couldn’t feel it.

“I’m back, boys. You don’t have to cry any more.” This didn’t stop them, though. Both boys were overwhelmed with emotion.

Uncle Robot put a hand down for Kahl to climb on to, just as he did when Kahl was alive. But the robot was surprised to see Kahl float up towards his face and give his cheek a hug.

“Look at that! I don’t need to climb on your hand any more. Have you missed me?”

The robot gave his tiny ghost creator a squeeze, then let him float back down. Werner had been the most shocked about this, standing perfectly still and watching his dead husband suddenly appear before his eyes. Now it was his turn, and Kahl’s ghost stood before him with a gentle look in his eyes. Both men waited for the other to speak first.

The waiting is starting to get a bit awkward. Both men wanted to speak but they don't want to talk first.

"A-A-Alfred?" The rat began.

Dr. Kahl hugged him tightly, even though his husband can't feel it. Werner wrapped his arms around his dead husband as his eyes began to water.

"I missed you very much." Kahl continued to hug. He can feel his husband's tears pour down and landing on his shoulder. "Please don't cry, my love. I'm here, it's ok."

"Alfred... I miss you too.." Werner kept sobbing as he can feel the love coming back from the doctor.

“You don’t have to miss me anymore. I’m here now. I’ve crossed the plane, I can be with you all again. ...Just as a ghost.”

Werner jolted back. “You are?!”

“It’ll take some getting used to, me being a ghost and all. But I couldn’t bare to leave you. All of you.”

Werner started to laugh-cry. He tried nuzzling his husband’s hair like he would when Kahl was alive, so happy for his return.

“...Can you feel zhat?” Werner’s voice was hoarse from crying.

“I can, actually.”

“Can you feel zhis?” Werner pulled the ghost in for a kiss. Kahl was shocked for a moment but kissed his husband back, not sure if Werner could tell that he did.

The two men continue to kiss, thought one of them can't feel the other one. They pulled away and held each other's hands.

"It's really great talking to you again."

"Alfred, I vish you can stay here for a bit, but I know it's time for you to go."

"I wish too. I wish I can spend more time with you guys again."

The family pulled into a group hug for good-bye. Dr. Kahl can feel his family's love again, even though he's dead. Now it's time for him to say good-bye.

"I'll go back to the other side now. Don't worry, I will see you guys again, one day." The doctor waved his arm. "Good-bye!"

The wind slowly blew as Dr. Kahl's ghost disappears along with the air. Werner wiped his tears as the wind stopped blowing.

"Zhank you, Alfred......."

[animeyanderelover]

Prompt 40 for HxH Machi please?

I'm craving for holidays as always. Studies are a drag.

Tw: Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, unhealthy relationship, possesssive behavior, abduction,

Prompt 40

"How long are you going to lock yourself up inside of there?"

There was no answer from the other side of the door and Machi swallowed down the sigh that she felt building up inside of her. She was frustrated with your recent rebellious behavior yet knew very well that she couldn't have expected anything else after the abduction. It was entirely her own fault that she hadn't noticed you back then when she had found out that some hunters had found out about you and had gotten into a bloody fight. out of worries what Chrollo would do to you and her fear that you'd tell others about her identity, she hadn't been left with much of a choice but to kidnap you. The only thing she was thankful for was that the troupe had helped her with the search for a new place where you could be kept. Chrollo seemed partially fascinated with Machi's small obsession, had been lenient and allowed you to stay alive.

"(y/n), please answer me for once." she said to the closed door, her foot tapping impatiently against the wooden floor. It had been like this for the entire last week, your ignorance. Machi was sure that she was someone with a good amount of patience but she felt how you slowly broke it down with your touchy behavior. As justified as it was, you were only making the whole situation more complicated. All she wanted to do was to talk with you.

"(y/n), open the door or at least talk to me or else-"

"Or else what? Are you going to threaten me, break the door open or use your strings to kill me like you did with those two men?"

You snapped at her before she could even finish her sentence and your tone gave your entire bitterness, betrayal and resentment away. The pink-haired woman paused, she didn't like the accusing tone in your voice. Whilst it was true that she was a criminal and had killed people, she wasn't fond of being called only a mindless killer with a lust for blood and no heart, she had her own morals.

"I only want to talk with you like a civilized person but I can't if you continue to act like a bitchy child." was her quick response and she couldn't completely hide the ever so slightly present tone of annoyance in her voice.

"Oh, I'm sorry for reacting like a bitchy child after finding out that my supposed partner is a murderer and internationally wanted criminal who kidnapped me after I found out her secret and keeps me like some sort of prisoned pet in the middle of nowhere so I won't tell anyone!" you hissed fiercely back, her own annoyance only fueling your own temper as you were in disbelief how she had just told you that she only wanted to talk. What was there to even talk about?! It was all her fault.

"(y/n), I am not treating you like a prisoner. If you would be seriously considered a threat for them, you would have been dead already. It's only because I pleaded to let you stay alive because I love you that you're still unharmed. You don't want to know how we handle people we consider a threat for us." Machi replied in a low tone as if she really wanted to scare you right now. She heard shuffling behind the closed door and in the next moment she heard a lud slam from the other side as you hit your flat palm against the door.

"Am I supposed to be thankful now?! For having to stay the rest of my life as a imprisoned person with you?! I don't give a care anymore how you feel about me! You're just a liar and a murderer and nothing more! You killed people in cold blood and expect me to believe you and your promise that I'll be fine! Why don't you just kill me now?! That's what you and your friends can do best after all, can't they?!"

Deep down you knew that you were on thin ice with your words but you just didn't care anymore. You wanted to hurt her as much as she had hurt you with her lies. You had genuinely loved her at one point, had believed her to be better than your previous ex yet she was even worse than him. He was a scumbag but she was just a criminal who had gotten you into this situation where you would be killed if you would try anything. What a wonderful relationship it was!

You didn't hear her answer after that, you could only hear your own enraged breath and heartbeat. Initially you didn't care but after a few moments of nothing, anxiety started to fill you. Had you gone too far and truly triggered her? You hadn't meant it when you had said that you'd rather be killed now, you still valued your life and didn't want to be killed by the hands of the Phantom Troupe. You knew the rumors about them being cruel and heartless. You silently pressed your ear against the door, halting your breath to listen to any sounds from the other side. Still nothing.

"You want me to kill you?"

You flinched back when you heard her icy tone, your heart beating as your body was filled with anxiety. You made as much distance between the door and you as possible and only moments later that turned out to be the right decision. A sharp sound suddenly filled the silence and in the next moment the door suddenly opened itself with a loud bang, hanging afterwards only loosely where it was supposed to hang. You could see that the door handle outside had been broken, the slight glimmer of razor-sharp threats which had successfully cut through the material like it had been butter and Machi who was holding the threats. Her eyes landed instantly on you, took in your terrified form.

Your eyes were wide with horror as you cowered against the wall. You could feel the tears springing into your eyes and your breath quickening and tightening your chest. Machi didn't move, instead both of you continued to stare at each other.

"You're such a monster, you know? You expect me to forgive you after what you've done to others, to me? Are you going to kill me now like I expected you to do?"

Your tone was shaking and high-pitched as you choked on your own tears, still looking at her with your quivering pupils. For a short moment you saw something flashing across her features, a look of guilt or maybe even sadness. Her facial expression was just as fast to harden again and you didn't truly believe that she'd be able to feel like that after you had seen her taking lives with such ease as if it was nothing anymore to her. She turned around on her heels and walked away with quick steps and you only watched her walking down the stairs. You didn't move, not even after hearing the door slamming downstairs, hinting strongly that she had just left the house. You were too terrified, afraid that she'd come back to really finish you off. It took you about 10 minutes before you dared to carefully and cautiously move again.

---

You had told yourself that you'd be fine without her, that you wouldn't worry after she had scared you, threatened you like this. It had been fine the first three hours but after five hours you had started, despite your better judgement, to question when she'd come back. If she would even come back at all. You had gone to bed with a troubled mind despite your attempts to push all your worries down, only got a few hours of sleep before you woke up again and stayed awake for the rest of the night.

When she still hadn't returned in the morning, you had started to feel truly uneasy which had led you to walking around in panic in the living room. She wasn't here and you had time to run away if you would have wanted yet the still present fear of being killed in gruesome ways from the Phantom Troupe held you back.

After a while you had started to search for some kind of phone in hopes of being able to call her even if you didn't even know if she still had the phone from back then when you hadn't known the truth about her. After a while of just rummaging around in all drawers, you had indeed found some sort of cellphone. It seemed like an older exemplar which you couldn't unlock and you instantly assumed it was because otherwise you might try to call someone. The only thing this device seemed to be able to do was to call someone, you didn't know whom though.

You just held it in your hands for a while, thought with jittery nerves whether or not you shold risk to call this emergency number or not. It was in this house so you could have assumed Machi had left it for you in case you'd be in trouble but you weren't completely sure. What if you would end up calling the boss of hers, the worst from all? After weighting out the pros and cons for a while, you decided with a heavy and nervous heart to press the function to call the number.

You only received the long beeps which made you feel more and more on edge, instant regret filling your mind. What if a completely unknown person would answer you? Just as you were about to press the red button to end the call, someone picked up and the sudden lack of the beeping sound startled you more than it should have. No one on the other side of the line answered though as if they were just listening and so you held the phone against your ear with sweaty hands, contemplating whether to say something or not. You still didn't know who it was.

"What is it? Why did you call me via the emergency phone?"

You stumbled back out of relief when you recognized Machi's voice, still sounding cold and distant, but it was her nevertheless.

"Where are you? What are you doing? You haven't come back since yesterday evening?" were the first things you blurted out to her.

"...What I am doing? I'm punishing myself."

This answer took you back quite a bit as you didn't know what to say after hearing her saying it.

"...Why? Why would you do that?" you decided to ask after a moment of silence from your side, your voice giving away how unsure you felt.

"Why? Because I upset you earlier. I do know that it's my fault and that I can't expect forgiveness anytime soon. Instead I only scared you even more, didn't I? I lost my temper which shouldn't have happened. Especially not with you."

She mumbled the last part in a softer tone and you really thought that you could hear the regret in her voice in that moment.

"Ah..." was the best thing you could reply with, you didn't know what else you could say. You couldn't deny that you were a bit worried but your anger was far from resolved either. Another silence filled the two lines afterwards and somehow you could feel that both of you didn't have to say anything else to each other, or rather both of you didn't know how to.

"I see, I guess both of us need to calm down a bit. Be careful." you said halfheartedly before ending the call. You stood there for a couple of seconds more though, with the phone pressed against your ear before you put it back in the drawer.

[almondmilks-posts]

C!schlatt- executed

I got lots of DMs asking for more angst so here

* You and schlatt get into an argument about him being president and executing tubbo ect, in a drunken rage he stabs you.

*Woah this is the longest thing I've ever written.

It all started when Fundy tipped you off about schlatts plans of executing tubbo for helping Wilbur and Tommy out,which you knew about ofc. You treated tubbo like one of your own and even sometimes helped him sneak out the Whitehouse without schlatt knowing; but killing tubbo over that broke you. You had to say something to hopefully put a stop to your husband's madness and his drinking. God did you hate how much he drunk, it drove you nuts.

You- he's just a boy. (Get the reference...)

Schlatt- I. Don't.give a fuck. He's. Traitor

You- do you blame him schlatt? Him and Tommy are close brothers even he probably felt terrible about what happend you know when you-

Schlatt- oh well should of thought I'd that before helping that that CHILD. HE'S MY RIGHT HAND MAN HE HAD ALL THE POWER AMD NOW and now he's going to pay the price and it's an expensive price to pay.

You walked over to the window and stood looking out into manburg. Just thinking about how you can save the poor boys life. How  could warn him without schlatt finding out? you came to nothing. You and schlatt were married you were first lady, wherever you went he went. You were in a deep thought about tubbo and what his death would mean to the server when quackity quietly Knocked on the dark oak door.

Quackity- uh boss I hate to interrupt but you have a meeting in 20 minutes down at the twitch prime church.

Schlatt sighed. Stood up off his chair and walked over to you, but not before grabbing the bottle. Schlatt got super close to your face, so close you could see the little wrinkles that had developed around his eyes and forehead since becoming president, your nose scrunched under the smell of alcohol from his breath or from his clothes you honestly couldn't tell anymore.

Schlatt- we will no longer speak on the matter. I AM THE PRESIDENT FOR MANBURG WHAT I SAY GOES.

He slaunted away from you pushing past quackity. Quackity gave you a sad smile as you both knew how mean schlatt could get when he drank, and recently he had been drinking alot. Quackity turned towards the open door to make sure schlatt was outta ear distance.

Quackity- go.

You- huh?

Quackity- I told Phill that you would be seeing him thecno Wilbur and Tubbo in the bunker. Go warn them.

You- i- hhhh thank you quackity I love you so much man.

Quackity- I know I know. Hurry because it looks like we are going to be in for along night if schlatt messes up this meeting

You- he's so drunk he can't even walk straight of course he's going to ok I'll run along I'll take the horse to speed things up.

Quackity quickly shut the door before running to where schlatt would be waiting downstairs for the meeting while you grabbed your axe and saddle. You made your way out the escape hatch in your office and found your horse (name your horse here pls comment the names I wanna see what y'all name your animals)

Horse- neyyyy

You- heyyyy boy shhh it's just me ok ok steady ok I'm getting on 3...2...1... And uppp fewww ok not so bad is it (horse name) ok off to warn Tubbo.

Your horse stamped it's hooves and took off for the bunker. You had ridden this path hundreds of time so it was easy for you and the horse to get to, quackity said he already told Phill about your arrival do he should be waiting for you to turn up. You were right because Wilbur was waiting outside for you to arrive. His usual green jacket and black Beanie on his head.

Wilbur- hey y/n in here look you can rest (horse name) in here Niki built it.

You- Niki joined? Awesome o haven't seen her in so long, well since she messed up the soup and schlatt fired her

Wilbur- how is he by the way y/n? Come inside and we can talk about him later or should I say rant

You- true true.

You walked through the entrance carefully, you had fallen down the rails the first few times Wilbur took you here. Over his presidential campaign you and wilbur had actually been pretty close and luckily kept in contact even though schlatt won. SBI was a group you practically grew up with just not enough for Phill to adopt you, but you don't blame him, you wouldn't fit the dynamic plus your parents didn't really like the idea but they never really liked anything you did.

Phill- oh hey y/n were all down here what do you want to talk about quackity said it was urgent so I called a meeting.

You got to the bottom of the steps to find everyone waiting on the floor for you to arrive. By everyone I mean: Phill, Tubbo, Tommy, Niki, thecno. You waved at Niki who had changed her hair colour since you saw her last she waved back with a huge smile on her face but a hint of sadness in your eyes. You had changed so much, you just look exhausted which was not wrong.

You- oh um yes hi everyone, sorry to be so blunt but uhhh there is no better way to say this. Tubbo is in grave danger. Schlatt is planning to...

Your hands started to shake vigorously, you felt dizzy, you wanted to throw up. Almost as if your body is warning you about doing this right now it's screaming at you to not betray your husband of four years like this but you have to.

Tommy- planning what y/n spit it out?

Niki- hey, y/n it's ok shhh Tommy what schlatt planning in doing to Tubbo?

You- he's PLANNING TO EXECUTE you tubbo. He knows, I don't know why or how but he knows about all of this and your his right hand man he's going to kill you tubbo, hang you for tertiary. I'm so sorry I-

Tommy- Tubbo? No? You can't die not now

Thecno- all our plans. Just gone.

Phill- he can't hang tubbo he's just a boy.

At this point you were sobbing now. Full on ugly crying. Your heart physically hurt from all the angst and the possibility of Tubbo dying. Your knees gave out on the floor as you wept for the young boy and he was still alive. The others argued in the back as to what to do. Tommy grabbed Tubbo and hugged him, Wilbur was crying over the threat of danger even thecno was a little on edge.

You- I'm sorry. But I must go I can't I can't stay im sorry.

Phill- it's ok. Thank you for warning us sport.

With that you climbed the stairs thinking about nothing honestly. You were numb. Your husband was going to murder someone you looked as your brother for years what did this mean for you? You were also helping them did he know about that? How did he know about tubbo's tretariy? You got on the back of your horse and rode back to manburg.

Climbing up the shoot to your office was miserable. You felt miserable, confused and alone. You had no idea how long you were sat in your chair looking at the chipped desk until the door was slammed open hitting the wall with a lud bang. You didn't need to look up to know it was your husband. Even before marriage he always slammed doors open like they were nothing.

Schlatt- what's got you all down in the dumps? HM sweetheart?

You- you know what and don't call me that.

You crossed your arms still refusing to make eye contact with the ram hybrid. This really pissed him off. He however pissed you off more by calling you sweetheart which to some would seem sweet but you knew schlatt better. This time was dripping in sarcasm because he was mind fucked drunk by now not caring about anyone or anything. Schlatt waddled up to your desk and stood right on front of you, still not looking up at him you pulled out some paperwork and started to mindlessly sign it.

Schlatt- me YOUR PRESIDENT just signed a huge deal with badboyhalo.what is wrong with you recently huh? Cats got your tounge ok what about pig hybrid got your tounge? Or angel of death got  your tounge or exhild child got your tounge?

You froze. He did know.

Schlatt- AHH struck a nerve, don't stop signing MY papers dear you are my wife after all.

You- no. Fuck you schlatt you can't hang the poor boy he's so young and innocent what was he supposed to do? You know I have to sign paperwork before you do anything and I won't sign off on it.

You threw your pen at schlatt in a rage. You didn't see if it hit him to enraged to care, papers were ripped, you there everything off your desk onto the floor. Schlatt just stood there blank expression not saying anything to you.

You- fuck you schlatt you don't control me.

You picked up the photo of you and schlatt on your wedding day. You ponderd on it for a second before stomping up to schlatt and shoving the picture on his face.

You- look at it. LOOK AT US LOOK HOW HAPPY I WAS NOW LOOK AT ME? DO I LOOK HAPPY TO YOU? OR DO I LOOK EXHAUSTED? STRESSED? because I am all of them things being married to you schlatt you are a terrible president and you have no power you're a pussy and won't face your problems like a real man.

Schlatt picked up the bottle of vodka and downed the whole lot you just stood there absolutely raging over this man's attitude and willingness to just disregard everyone in his life.

Schlatt- I DONT CARE HOW YOI FEEL I DONT CARW ABOUT ANYONE NOT EVEN QUACKITY OR MY WIFE. I AM THE BEST PRESIDENT MANBURG HAD EVER SEEN AND YOU WILL OBAY THE RULE OF SCHLATT. I KNOW YOU HAVE BEEN HELPING THE FUCKERS AND YOU WILL SUFFER JUST LIKE TUBBO, JUST LIKE TOMMY, JUST LIKE DREAM YOU WILL PAY THE PRICE FOR YOUR CRIMES. AGAINST. YOUR COUNTRY. AGAINST. YOUR PRESIDENT.

With every word schlatt got closer and closer to you. Terrified of schlatt, becoming increasingly more angry to the point his horns have grown pitch black out of pure hatred. You moved back as far as you could against the glass in your office. Schlatt pressing you up against it with his body but this time shoving a finger in your face and still yelling about how incompetent you are as a wife and as a person.

Suddenly you felt a stabbing pain just above your heart. You look down to see a black colour sword through your chest and red blood gushing out onto your clothes and floor ( ok the sword is still in so in irl not a lot of blood would actually escape unless the object was removed top tip but for theatrics blood eveywhere) you weakly reach up to grasp the blood covers wrist of schlatt to pull the sword out but to no avail as you suddenly feel super dizzy and everything goes black.

Quackity- she's.... She's.....y/n's dead

Quackity heard you and schlatt yelling in his office when silence happend. He knew this was a bad sign and anxiously walked to schlatts office with shaky hand. He got close enough to hear a loud thud and XP drop on the ground. He ran back to his office to think when schlatt walked by ( in this his office is made.of glass) staring at his hands, suit all covered in blood. His heart dropped and ran back to the office to collect your stuff, running on adrenaline he ran all the way the he bunker to tell the others. No time for him to cry yet he was still in shock over what just happened.

Niki- no no no no pls say your lying pleas no no not y/n

Niki dropped to her knees sobbing and rocking backwads and forwards much like you did less than three hours ago when you came to warn the crew. You were her friend and was the only person who helped her when she was working for schlatt at the white house.

Wilbur- no no why how? Pls no?

Wilbur and you were probably the closest, he found you in the forest over 12 years ago chasing after foxes and collecting berries Wilbur always wanted a younger sibling as this point Phill only had thecno and Wilbur.

Phill- oh no poor y/n.

Tommy- what the fuck how?

Phill when he first saw you recognised you emidiatly looking much like your father. However he knew the man and knew what he was like so he had no problems when you visited them for tea many nights a week. He did think about adopting you right after Tommy arrived as you looked after him so well. Crafting him many clothes and many pumpkin pies. So so so many he always asked Phil if he had the recipe as he knew you couldn't make them as frequently as you used to.

Everyone was going to miss you greatly they just didn't expect to see you at the festival but now as ghosty/n. All your tries and efforts were in vain. Manburg still got blown up. But you did make good friends with Ghostbur. Glatt knew off you but was too embarrassed to see you.

Ugh ok this took me over two hours to write non stop. I just got this idea and ran with it omg I got so carried away. As of now probably my fav story.

[luluminouslife]

Lud: RAE I CAN‘T BELIEVE YOU MADE ME THIS TO MY FAVORITE PEOPLE. I CAN‘T BELIEVE YOU MADE ME DO THIS...

Rae: It‘s fine, it‘s fine... shhh shh it‘s fine Lud, it‘s fine. Just cover it up, just cover it up.

Lud: NO I CAN’T I AM NOT A MURDER. SYKKUNO I WILL STAY BY YOUR SIDE. I DON‘T WANNA LEAVE YOU.

The best thing I saw in 2020!

[keiksy-cake]

Lunatic Blue Ch 7 (Gore TW || Hetalia Doujinshi)

I do not own this series, I am just a friendly neighborhood translator~ (Pixiv ID is 78530899)

Lunatic Blue 1

Lunatic Blue 2

Lunatic Blue 3

Lunatic Blue 4

Lunatic Blue 5

Lunatic Blue 6

I’m glad this chapter didn’t have any gore but seeing Feliciano in this much pain is also hard on my heart :’(

I know he’s a murderer and I shouldn’t feel any sympathy but it just looks so painful to watch! I feel like I can feel his anxiety of being abandoned, as well as the anxiety he feels of having to be willing to tell Lud about what he’s done right then and there, followed by the despair that it’s no longer of any use.

Also, for some reason this time the raw images were blue? But I figured it must’ve been a mistake so I kept it black and white.

Also also, I’ve gotten a lot better at “cleaning” right? >:3 (compared to the shaded pages of the the previous chapters)

Lunatic Blue 8

[randomshipperhere]

Since Toast uploaded the 7k IQ video which is the start of the Lud-Syk trolling duo, more peeps are getting interested about the incident again and I have a lot of thoughts.

I personally believe the most annoying thing about the whole Sykkuno incident a few days ago is that SOME people are like:

"Oh, Corpse would've made sure he was okay" or "Corpse would've done a better job at protecting/defending him"

and some of these people are the same that hate and blame Valkyrae and Toast for what happened. Emphasis on some since most people just want to show their appreciation to Sykkuno and try to comfort him in their own fan way.

Really fucking irks me how they romanticize and make Corpse and Sykkuno seem so much closer than they actually are. There are many friendships like this so I'm used to the life cycle but that doesn't mean it doesn't piss me off everytime.

(Hey remember when Septiplier was at its peak and people pushed away Bob and Wade despite being literal friends with Mark for years prior to YT. Or when Ethan and Tyler first hopped on board[specifically Ethan] and when the trio would play with a 4th person that isn't Jack they would just go apeshit)

I am also not joking or taking it too far but this kind of thinking really pisses me off

You know what Corpse would've done? He would've been the same as Lud. Lud and Corpse are just new friends. There are still walls and boundaries that they have yet to pass and they really can't do more than what Lud has done. I am a shipper, it is in my username. I live off of the idea of romance. But to drag a real life person that a lot of people romantically ship with in a VERY personal situation (personal enough that Syk would not even tell anyone on stream his problems) is not cool.

The playful yelling was the tipping point. It wasn't the cause. Rae and Toast are both known for their tough love to Sykkuno.

Like look, in those series of events, Ludwig was the most outwardly protective person of Sykkuno in the last game. That was pretty much all he could do due to his limitations and I'm sure Sykkuno really appreciated that. He was body guarding Sykkuno, stood up and talked for him when he was clearly sad, choked up even. Until his character's dying breath. He stood by his side. More like when the lights turned off but you get it. It was sweet, it was nice, he really tried his best (and I love him for it).

The thing is though Ludwig wasn't the only one who tried to help Sykkuno that round. Valkyrae who is known to love killing Sykkuno (for the memes) killed the other 2 people and fessed up for her crimes. One is because she was caught in the act of killing in the 1st meeting by Toast and two, upon realizing that Sykkuno was dead in the 2nd meeting she felt guilty and just admitted to the murder. She wanted to speedrun so Sykkuno could play again sooner. Right after, Toast calls button and gets to avenge Sykkuno by voting out the other impostor, his killer, Tubbo. Toast didn't even get to explain why Tubbo is the killer, he just made him fess up. To say they remotely didn't care is really fucking pissing me off.

BTW I watched Lud and Toast's streams for this specific match and I will say this, Toast had nothing to go off to know for sure that Sykkuno was sad. Him and Rae were trolling back and most likely didn't know how bad Sykkuno's day was. He doesn't read the comments on his live so when he was trying to find Sykkuno in the 1st round, with Rae (for the most part) that says a lot about how much he knows what Syk was feeling at the time with what little info he had. After pressing answers for him in the 1st meeting he just stopped and pretty much figured out what was happening.

Now another thing. After the match, Sykkuno is obviously sad and said he was going to go and get dinner, Rae follows up by saying she has to head out. We sure as hell know that these guys could stream for hours but she stopped there and even deleted her VOD as well. Now why could she have done that. Oh yeah. She must've talked with him. About what. I think you all know at this point. With two people quickly leaving, and two VERY important people in this "drama", Toast changed discussion and asked if the MC server was back up which made the others leave, ending their Among Us game that day. He left a parting message to the viewers and called it a day there.

2:16:50 is where the "yelling" starts and 2:26:00 is where he said this

Toast: Chat, Sykkuno's fine, okay?He's an adult. Okay. You don't have to tell me, or his friends, or him what to feel or what to do.

It's really disrespectful. Knock it off

Now tell me, what about that makes you think they don't care?

Are we also just forgetting that it was Rae that helped push Sykkuno to create his own lobby with people he loves playing with a while back? How this Tsunderae tells him how good of a player he is even when he thinks he just got lucky (god damn, Valorant days).

Are we forgetting how Toast was probably the most important person that helped Sykkuno grow confident in himself? When they hang out together and the bits we've heard from the podcasts, Sykkuno absolutely treasures his friendship with Toast the most (There have been multiple occassions where Sykkuno and Toast are caught on-cam or at least heard in the mic speaking to each other, more often than not in Lily's Just Chatting streams. In fact, I wouldn't put it past those two to be the ones talking in Yvonne's "I got a cat" video and the most popular clip from that was Sykkuno eating a sandwhich which is titled "SUSKKUNO")

The first recent example that came to mind was Lily and Michael's birthday stream.

It happens around 23:00

In other news Sykkuno and Lily's friendship is underrated and I don't understand how y'all sleep on it.

My parting words are Parasocial Relationships suck. Okay, good night.

[ask-some-koopas]

*sees luds from under the bed* heh reading Am i right?

Ludwig: Oh, hey. You're right, I'm hiding in case someone decides to pull pranks or something.

*slides the book*

Ludwig: There. This is the cover of the book, the eyes used to glow in the dark, but not anymore, because it's a little old now. "Only darkness" remains as one of my favorite books from my collection.

Story? After seeing how many people are found dead every morning, a guy starts to investigate who is the responsible of said deaths, only to find out that is a vampire the one who murders people... when darkness is the only company people have. The end is not happy, just to tell you.

It's a pretty interesting story, maybe after this one I'll be reading one with... less blood.

Thanks for visiting!

[littlefreelibrarynocostl]

The book I am currently reading The Invention of Jane Harrison by Mary Beard. I’m fascinated by Hope Mirrlees, and her relationship with Jane Harrison was one of the ingredients of her life. They collaborated on a book of translated Russian tales, and Harrison’s theories seem integral both to Paris, Mirrlees’s modernist poem and to Lud-in-the-Mist. I’m loving watching Mary Beard deconstruct and re-examine ideas about what biography is in this short but brilliant book. Also Pandora’s Jar: Women in the Greek Myths by Natalie Haynes. I’m reading it slowly and with delight, an essay at a time, rejoicing in the easy erudition and the way she upends what I thought I knew and gives me something much more interesting in its place.

The book that changed my life The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. It’s brilliant, much more brilliant than I knew when I read it for the first time. I would not be the writer I am without Wolfe’s friendship, or without taking his lesson that you should write to be reread with increased pleasure by a smart reader.

The book I wish I’d written Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees. It’s the great English fantasy novel, about the prosaic land next to the wilderness of Faerie. It’s a history and a murder mystery, and it’s about family and dissatisfaction, and about fairy fruit, which, as with all good fantasy, stands both for itself and for poetry, and sexuality, and the things that leave us changed forever.

The last book that made me laugh Round the Horne Scripts by Marty Feldman and Barry Took. Où sont les neiges d’antan, Mr Horne? That’s your actual philosophical French.

The book that influenced my writing The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by CS Lewis. I read it when I was six, and fell in love with Narnia and with the magical story and most of all with the auctorial voice. Lewis seemed to be having a wonderful time writing, confiding in and treating the readers as if they were smart friends. It was the first time I was ever aware that there was a person behind the words. It made me want to write. It made me want to do that magic trick.

The last book that made me cry Reading Diana Wynne Jones’s Dogsbody to my daughter Maddy, some 15 years ago. I got to the book’s end and we both had very wet faces.

The book I couldn’t finish Titania Has a Mother by Caryl Brahms and SJ Simon. I love much of their work, so was thrilled recently to find a book of theirs I didn’t know about. And a fairytale book at that. Let’s just say it was of its time and hadn’t aged well.

The book I’m ashamed not to have read Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy. I’ve read extracts from it and loved them. It’s a novel I approve of and keep meaning to read. I just haven’t read it.

The book I give as a gift A Humument by Tom Phillips. A Victorian novel, with pages painted over and into, messages and thoughts revealed and illuminated. It was always the book I gave people, hoping that even a few of them would read it and delight in it as I do.

The book I’d most like to be remembered for You don’t get to choose. Probably, you don’t get to be remembered, either. But most of my favourite authors are now unfashionable and forgotten, and I’d be happy to join their company, if every now and again someone found one of my books in a dusty pile and took comfort in it.

My earliest reading memory A book about a little mermaid looking for other mermaids, and the inside front cover art from a Noddy book.

My comfort read Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light feels like a place I can go where the people know me and will have to take me in, in a novel of people become gods.

********* 

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Feel free to order used books whenever possible! Off The Shelf STL and BetterWorldBooks are two of my favorite Amazon MarketPlace sellers for used books.

[writersstareoutwindows]

Book recommendations?

Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees - a proto-fantasy book from the 1920′s about a town that shares its border with Fairyland, but has banned all mention of Fairyland. It’s got esoteric ancient Greek religion, it’s got a murder mystery, it’s got a Pied Piper scene in which every teen girl in town goes mad and runs away to Fairyland, it’s got parallels between fairies and the dead, and it stars a middle-aged man who’s just kind of going through it. Hope Mirrlees was a modernist poet and never wrote anything like Lud-in-the-Mist ever again and I am still baffled and delighted that such a book exists.

[queenofthefullmoon]

An exhaustive list of Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin bosses I would or would not date

The Last Giant

Listen… The Last Giant has No Face. I like dating people who have faces. Also, his arms detach and he’s like, at least 10 meters taller than me, so I think that would be a hazard. I think he’s more in need of a friend than a romantic partner. I’d gladly sit down with him and discuss his feelings, but we are not meant to date.

The Pursuer

The Pursuer is great because he’s just so… Rotund. He’s shaped like a friend. Or maybe… More than a friend… He’s got a biggass sword that glows blue, which is great if you need to get up at night to get water or a snack, and a big shield he can use to protect you from the hot Drangleic sun when you’re on a date. You never have to worry about losing him because HE WILL FIND YOU. I think he’s a catch.

Dragonrider

He almost didn’t make it in the list of bosses I would date, but encountering him so often made me have a soft spot for him. Plus he’s a little bit round and I’ve gotta say. Rotundness is where it’s at. He’s fun to fight so I feel like you could have some fun jousts together and then chill… And go, like, I don’t know, ride dragons*? Fun couple activities.

*although dragonrider is his name I’m not sure we saw any dragonrider ride a dragon so this is a shot in the dark

Old Dragonslayer

The Old Dragonslayer has a very sexy armor, I’ll give him that, but he 1. Has a furry mask (a terrible fashion faux pas that I cannot forgive) 2. Is just sitting in the Cathedral of Blue while a DRAGON is outside, unslayed, which says something about the quality of his work. I had to kill the dragon myself, while the Old Dragonslayer was sitting around… Being old, I guess. Not for me.

Flexile Sentry

DISGUSTING AND WRONG.

Ruin Sentinel

The Ruin Sentinels are arguably the sexiest armor bosses in all of Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin. Something about these long lads and their eldritch identities and behaviors just tickles me the right way. The shape of their helmets looks a little bit like a turtle which gives them just enough cuteness while not taking away from the fact that I’m absolutely terrified of them and that they are in fact very scary (which is good). They’re also very tall which means they can carry me around and make me feel tall too. Definitely a good thing in a partner.

Belfry Gargoyles

I wouldn’t date the Belfry Gargoyles, but I’d be friends with them. I feel like they’d be fun at a sleepover. Girl’s night! Girl’s night!

Lost Sinner

I’d date the Lost Sinner. It might be a little bit controversial because yes she is a little bit nasty, I’m aware of that, but I think she just needs a little bit of company. I don’t want to change her, I love her right like she is, but if she wants me to teach her how to shower, I might just do it! I am a little bit biased because she’s got a big sword that looks really cool? Perhaps.

Executioner’s Chariot

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

Skeleton Lords

I think the Skeleton Lords are neat but I don’t really see myself dating them. Firstly, I’m not a skeleton fucker, so that puts a little bit of distance between us (given that they are in fact skeletons). They also have an army of skeleton children, which I’m just not ready to raise. I’m trying to find a date, not to become a skeleton mom. I feel like we’d be great friends though, I’d probably invite them over so they can practice their standup routine at my house while they leave their 30 skeletons children with the babysitter and we can like drink wine or something.

Covetous Demon

I would not date the Covetous Demon, but I would keep him as a mean dog in my yard to discourage my enemies from entering my property.

Baneful Queen Mytha

I’d be all here for the sniddies if Mytha kept her head on her neck but alas she is headless. 

Smelter Demon

Mh… Yes. He’s big and large and he’s got horns. He could put me up on his shoulder and walk around and I’d be warm up there. Sounds like nothing but a good time.

Old Iron King

Ngghghhh….. I wanna say no but he is Ripped… Absolutely jacked! I’m also a hoe for horns and wings! What can I say. Call me out if I ever make fun of scalies again? (im gonna do that like in a few paragraphs anyway)

Scorpioness Najka

Given the fact that her own fiancé, made miserable by her, asks you to murder her, I don’t think Najka is a fine romantic partner. In addition to that, even though I was here for sniddies, scorpions are scary and gross me out, so no, I would not date Scorpioness Najka.

The Duke’s Dear Freja

She’ll remain dear to the Duke only and she is NOT invited in my yard.

Royal Rat Authority

Wouldn’t date the big rat that makes all of the rules, but similarly to the Covetous Demon, having him on my property to scare people away would be pretty neat.

Prowling Magus and The Congregation

Prowling Magus has a SICK aesthetic I can absolutely get behind (« look at my cool sorcerer boyfriend wearing his goat helmet ») and I’ve stated before I Am a Hoe for horns so we could have something going on.

The Congregation is however BANNED from this house so since they’re probably his buddies that would most likely be a point of tension. Ultimately it might be better for me to keep a platonic relationship with Prowling Magus, as I do not want hollows to crawl on my floor when he invites his friends over.

The Rotten

Oh no lol

Looking Glass Knight

NNNYES absolutely I would date the Looking Glass Knight. He’s not only really cool looking and a Very Dramatic Man (standing in the rain when you meet him… the scenery… the atmosphere… he knows how to make an entrance), but he’d also be a great person to bring with you for a night out.

Exhibit A: he’s really fucking tall and scary which would dissuade anyone from approaching you uninvited

Exhibit B : he carries a FULL BODY mirror around everywhere which means you can fix your hair and/or makeup at any time without needing a shitty pocket mirror or going to the bathroom

Exhibit C : if you need help he can summon a limitless amount of people through his mirror

Just a great partner all around.

Demon of Song

Ohhhhhh noooooo Lord nooooooooooooooo please! Please spare me

Velstadt, the Royal Aegis

Velstadt is very loyal (a real man for following Vendrick all the way to the Undead Crypt) and he’s also very tall, very large, very strong, and very stylish (see the scales cape he wears). I would’ve put him at the top of the date list, but he’s no dating material — he’s husband material. A little downside is that he might put his job before me but I get it. It’s career before everything. I will not limit my husband’s ambitions.

King Vendrick

Vendrick is taken by an eldritch entity and still very much in love with her despite the fact that she destroyed his kingdom and brought the entire civilization down and also caused him to become a war criminal and kill a pacific race of giants all on his own like a big boy so I’m not very interested in him.

Guardian Dragon & Ancient Dragon

I’m putting them together because they essentially boil down to the same thing : I’d offer them a home but I wouldn’t date them. The Guardian Dragon can stay outside and be feral with everyone else that I put in the yard, while the Ancient Dragon can have his own room and like is invited for tea sometimes, but that’s all.

Giant Lord

See Last Giant

Throne Defender & Watcher

I’m a little bit torn on this one because I’m experiencing bisexual panic. We’ve got cool large dude with a beard ; cool slender lady that jumps around everywhere ; they could both beat me up and they both look hot, help me. However, I have to say if I had to pick I’d got with the Throne Watcher because she is hot and looks slightly cooler. I’ve always wanted a very tall wife who could suplex me into the sun, which she could do in a heartbeat.

On the other hand, they do look like a power couple that I’d love to have for dinner and I’d hate to break them up while there are so many fish in the sea and they look so great with each other.

Nashandra

Human Nashandra looks pretty and soft, however anyone who witnessed my first blind playthrough of Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin will tell you that she did not have me fooled and I was very wary of her from the beginning. Anyone who has witnessed my first fight with her looking very skeletal will also tell you that I screamed « WHAT IS THAT » for at least 5 minutes, so that probably gives you an idea of if I’d date her or not.

Also, her weapon of choice is a scythe, which looks cool, but is very unpractical, and just for this fatal mistake, she becomes undatable.

Darklurker

Wings… Four arms = twice the hugs… Cool hood… Yes…

Elana the Squalid Queen

She’s nasty and told me I was undeserving of the mire, which is pretty mean of her. Even if she thinks it, she could at least be nice about it. I would not date her.

Sinh the Slumbering Dragon

Sinh is BANNED from this house because he’s not just feral, he’s RABID and POISONOUS and if I let him live in the yard he could poison my entire property and I do not want that.

Fume Knight

Alas! The Fume Knight looks really cool and has a pretty sexy armor, but tales say that he was infatuated with another woman (whether he met her when she was already an Ashen Idol or not remains a mystery but I’m no one to judge his taste in women). I respect people’s crushes so I will let him be in love with whoever he fancies and they may come over for dinner, as long as they behave.

Aava, Lud and Zallen, the King’s pet

They are very welcome to live in the yard. They may come inside the house, but they are not allowed on the couch.

Burnt Ivory King

No… He loved his wife very much… I’d invite them over for dinner and MAYBE try to seduce one of his knights (they have sexy armors, what can I say).

Aldia, Scholar of the First Sin

Aldia is a weird dude and I wouldn’t feel safe around him. I think he’d probably kidnap me while I’m asleep and go do some experiments on me in his cursed mansion. It’s a no from me chief. Not to mention the fact that he’s a… tree?

Afflicted Graverobber, Ancient Soldier Varg, and Cerah the Old Explorer

I wouldn’t date them, even though their armors are pretty sexy, simply because they seem like a good group of friends and I wouldn’t feel comfortable inserting myself in the group. I think I’d even be too shy to befriend them, but if they wanna come by my house and have a good time, they’re welcome to do so.

Blue Smelter Demon

See Smelter Demon, but with more vigor because this one is blue.

Sir Alonne

Yeah… he’s got the eldritch factor that I like in the Ruin Sentinels while also seeming more human and he’s also a pretty stylish man. I feel like he’s one of the strongest contestants in the game and he wouldn’t mind my long nose, as he’s got one himself. Pretty sexy armor and he is a man of honor. Definitely a yes.

[victorianwhitechapel]

Pinchin Street torso

Birth date: (1849~1859) Killed and found (age): Ca. September 8th 1889, September 10th 1889 (30~40)

Complexion: Dark  Eyes colour: ?  Hair colour:  Brown dark Height: 5’3” (160 cm) Occupation: Factory worker, prostitute 

Clothes at the time of murder/discovery: Old chemise ?

Resting place: East London Cemetery, Grange park, Plaistow, Essex.

***

On Wednesday 10 September 1889, at 5:15am, Police Constable William Pennett found the headless and legless torso of an unidentified woman under a railway arch at Pinchin Street, Whitechapel. The body, heavily decomposed, was covered by an old chemise that was 37in. in length, common material, and stitched, but certainly not by an experienced needlewoman. It had evidently been home-made by a poor person.

Immediately, the PC summoned assistance and when Inspector Charles Pinhorn, H Division, arrived shortly after 5:30am two constables were already there.

As an instance of the organisation of the police in the district since the recent Whitechapel murders, a special telegraphic signal had been arranged by which the fact of such a crime as the present one could be promptly conveyed to other police-stations. Shortly before six o'clock on Tuesday morning Scotland-yard received this message: "Whitechapel again"; and in the space of a few minutes they were able to telegraph all over the metropolitan police district the following message: "At 5.40 a.m. trunk of a woman found under the arches in Pinchin-street, E. Age about 40. Height, 5 ft. 3 in.; hair dark brown. No clothing, except chemise very much torn and bloodstained. Both elbows discoloured, as if from habitual leaning on them. Post-mortem marks around waist, apparently caused by a rope." Immediately upon the circulation of this telegram, the Thames Police, under Detective-Inspector Regan, and Chief-Inspector Henry Moore, displayed the utmost vigilance. Assisted by Sergeants Moore, Francis, Howard, Davis, and Scott, these officers at once got their various craft on the river and boarded all the vessels at the mouth of the Thames and in the Docks. The operation of searching these vessels had not concluded until a late hour in the evening, and so far as the investigation had gone the captains of the various vessels were able to give satisfactory accounts as to their crews.

A little before 6:00 am, Doctor Percy John Clark (or Clarke) was summoned. In this presence, the body was lifted on to an ambulance and taken to the St. George's mortuary by constables. He there re-examined the body: it was “that of a woman of stoutish build, dark complexion, about 5ft. 3in. in height, and between 30 and 40 years of age”. Both legs had been skilfully separated, and none of the abdominal organs were missing. He also thought that “the body had been dead at least 24 hours” but could had also been taken place some four days previously. Doctor George Bagster Phillips, the Divisional Surgeon, first examined the body at 6:00am the day the remains were found.

In the meantime communications, giving full particulars, were sent to Scotland-yard, and the Chief Commissioner James Monro, the Chief Constable of the district Colonel Bolton James Alfred Monsell, Superintendent Donald Sutherland Swanson, Detective Inspector Miller, Superintendent Thomas Arnold of the H Division, and local Inspector Edmund John James Reid all visited the scene of the discovery and made inquiries as to the matter. Later investigations by Sergeants William Thick and Stephen White along with Sergeant George Godley came across some bloodstained clothing in Batty Street (just off Commercial Street in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets), but little or nothing was made of it.

Later in the day Detective Inspector John Bennett Tonbridge, who had charge of Elizabeth Jackson’s case a short time ago, went to the mortuary and saw the remains. Mr. Clarke, the City Police surgeon Dr. Gordon Brown, and two other medical gentlemen who have had experience in previous cases of this nature shortly after made a more careful examination of the remains. It was noticed that the trunk displayed green patches; the flesh otherwise was white. The doctors, from their investigations, concluded that the cuts and wounds had been inflicted in a left-hand manner. The cut severing the head from the body was skilfully done, there being no hacking or clumsy dissection noticeable. Furthermore, a saw had been used to sever the bones in such a way as to leave no doubt that the person responsible for the dismemberment possessed a good knowledge of anatomy. There were no signs about the hands which would indicate that the woman had been used to hard work, and so far as could be seen there had been no attempt to obliterate a mark on one of the fingers, apparently caused by a ring. It was believed from certain indications that the deceased had never been a mother, but she might have been pregnant. The body was well-nourished and cared for.

In consequence of the similarity of the mode of dismemberment pursued in this case and those of the recent Elizabeth Jackson and Rainham mysteries; the officers engaged in those cases were consulted, and their general opinion was that the resemblance in the cases were very remarkable.

The next morning, Friday 11 September 1889, Dr. Phillips further examined the body in the presence of Dr. Brown and Dr. Charles A. Hibberd (or Hebbert). Dr Phillips was particularly reticent, even to the police authorities, as to the precise result of his examination of the trunk, but it was stated that the cause of death had not yet been thoroughly established. Both Dr Clark, Dr Phillips assistant, and Dr. Hibberd gave the height of the Pinchin victim as 5ft 3in (160 cm).

Three men were arrested, including Michael Keating and Richard Hawke, who were found sleeping under nearby arches. They were later cleared of the crime.

The estimated date of death was given as September 8, 1889, the one-year anniversary of Annie Chapman's murder; a fact which did not escape Chief Commissioner Monro's seven page report that was forwarded to the Home Office. Monro then went on to explain that, "...This street is close to Berner Street which was the scene of one of the previous Whitechapel murders [that of Elizabeth Stride]. It is not a very narrow street, but is lonely at night, & is patrolled every half hour by a constable on beat. The arch where the body was found abuts on the pavement. The constable discovered the body some what after 20 minutes past five on the morning of Tuesday [10th September 1889]...He is positive that when he passed the spot about five the body was not there...It may therefore be assumed that the body was placed where it was found some time between 5 & 5.30 am...Although the body was placed in the arch on Tuesday morning, the murder - (and although there is not yet before me proof of the cause of death, I assume that there has been a murder) was not committed there nor then. There was almost no blood in the arch, and the state of the body itself showed that death took place about 36 hours or more previously. This, then enables me to say that the woman was made away with probably on Sunday night, the 8th September. This was the date on which one of the previous Whitechapel murders [that of Annie Chapman] was committed ...". Monro entered into a detailed comparison of this murder with the previous Whitechapel atrocities in the case of the Pinchin Street victim, there was nothing to show that death was caused by the throat having been cut., in this latest case there was no mutilation "other than dismemberment". Previous victims had suffered evisceration, but the Pinchin Street victim most certainly hadn't. In several of the previous cases there had been removal of certain parts of the body, whereas with the Pinchin Street victim "There is no removal of any portion of the organs of generation or intestines..." . The killing of the Pinchin Street victim had may committed indoors, "...probably in the lodging of the murderer...", Monro went on to stress that "...there is no sign of frenzied mutilation of the body [as in Mary Jane Kelly's case, also committed indoors], but of deliberate & skilful dismemberment with a view to removal...". Monro then went on to point out that "These are all very striking departures from the practice of the Whitechapel murderer, and if the body had been found elsewhere that in Whitechapel the supposition that death had been caused by the Ripper would probably not have been entertained..." In conclusion, Monro stated that, " I am inclined to the belief that, taking one thing with another, this is not the work of the Whitechapel murderer...".

An interesting extract from the London edition of the ‘New York Herald' claimed that a man named John Cleary informed the night editor on the night of September 7 that there was a murder in Back Church Lane (from which runs Pinchin Street). Later, a statement was taken from a John Arnold, a newsvendor of Charing Cross, saying he was John Cleary. He continued to say that after leaving the King Lud pub, he had been told by a soldier in Fleet Street, "Hurry up with your papers. Another horrible murder in Backchurch Lane." He then went to the Herald to share his findings. The soldier he described as between 35 and 36 years of age, 5ft 6ins, fair complexion and moustache, and he carried a parcel. No one by this description was ever taken into custody concerning the murder.

Several names soon arose in the press as the identity of the woman, but they found later being alive and the identity of the body was never identified.

On Wednesday morning September 11th 1889, the Inquest was opened at the St. George's Vestry Hall, Cable-street, St-George's-in-the-East, Mr. Wynne Edwin Baxter opened the inquiry. Detective-Inspector Reid and Inspector Moore, of the Criminal Investigation Department, watched the case on behalf of the Chief Commissioner of Police.

The ‘Northern Daily Telegraph', on Monday, September 16th, 1889, published: “What may prove an important discovery in connection with the recent murder in Whitechapel was made on Saturday night. A fireman named Etherden was standing on a floating fire-station near Charing Cross, when he noticed something floating by. On reaching, he found that it was a brown paper parcel, which contained a chemise covered with blood. The parcel was handed over to the police at Scotland Yard...”.

The second and last day of the Inquest was Tuesday, September 24th, 1889. The jury at once returned the now familiar verdict of "Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown."

On 5th October 1889 the remains were laid to rest in the East London Cemetery, Grange park, Plaistow, Essex, in the public grave no. 16185 – 45 square, received from the St. George Mortuary. The remains were sealed in a tin container and preserved in spirits. The tin container was then enclosed in a black wooden box. The metal plate that adorned the case in which they were interred carried the simple inscription, "This case contains the body of a woman (unknown) found in Pinchin Street St Georges-in-the-East 10th Septr./89". This public grave had later been re-used and is not longer extant.

***

TO KNOW MORE:

Wikipedia

Casebook website – Casebook forums – Casebook press report – Inquest (from Casebook)

JTR Forums – JTR Forums – possible identity

Jack The Ripper 1888

The Jack the Ripper Tour

The Jack the Ripper Walk

Jack The Ripper Tour - Murder morning in Whitechapel  – Jack the Ripper Tour - Is there a Murder gang? – Jack the Ripper Tour - The Whitechapel Murderer: A Discovery

Whitechapel Jack

BEGG, Paul (2013): Jack The Ripper. The Facts.

BEGG, Paul; FIDO, Martin & SKINNER, Keith (1996): The Jack The Ripper A – Z.

BELL, Neil R. A. (2014): Capturing Jack the Ripper: In the Boots if a Bobby in Victorian England.

CLAK, Robert (2015): The Pinchin Street Torso, in Ripperologist NUM 143, April.

EDDLESTON, John J. (2001): Jack the Ripper: An Encyclopedia.

EVANS, Stewart P. & RUMBELOW, Donald (2006). Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates.

GORDON, R. Michael (2015): The Thames Torso Murders of Victorian London.

MACNAGHTEN, Sir Melville L. (1914): Days of My Years.

SKINNER Keith & EVANS, Stewart (2013). The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook.

TROW, Meirion James (2011): The Thames Torso Murders. 

[electricbluetempest]

An Experiment Gone Wrong - 2

An investigation feat. the parents Luds and I made for Werner

They gave the list of suspects to the policeman bee, who let them tag along for questioning. The three of them decided to question the cyclops first, and found him in the broken temple at rugged ridge.

“Now what do you trespassers want?” The cyclops said angrily to the three of them, aimed mostly at the Robot.

The policeman bee produced a few photos of the crime scene and the victims. “Two men were murdered yesterday and you’ve been listed as a suspect. Someone entered a church while their wedding was going on and shot both men. Do you know anything about this?”

The cyclops laughed mockingly. “You really think I’d go down to the city for any reason? I can’t even fit in a church! And really, you think I shot them? Look at my hands! They’re too big to hold a gun or pull a trigger!”

“Well, that sounds solid. You’re clean.”

The three left Rugged Ridge, puzzling over who they should question next. Someone at the station found the address for Werner’s parents, and Forkington’s restaurant was finally open.

“We’re going to Werner’s parents first.” The policeman bee started.

The three of them rang the doorbell as a woman answered. “Good morning, what’s bring you here.”

“Are you the mother of Werner Werman?”

“Yes I am, why?”

“Your son was murdered yesterday.”

Cynthia gasped, she rushed to her husband, who’s sitting on the table, reading a newspaper. “Freddy! Werner’s dead!”

“Murdered!” The man rushed to the front door and asked Sally and the policeman a question. “What happened? Was he murdered by his boyfriend?"

“No sir, his fiancé  was first to get killed before he did.” The policeman bee responded. He told the whole story of the wedding being interrupted by the shooter.

“Mein gott...that’s awful.”

“And we’re questioning you to ask if you had any involvement in the crime. Your blatant homophobia makes you look like a prime suspect right now.”

Frederick sputtered. “I know this looks bad, but it wasn’t me! Werner hasn’t spoken to us in years, I didn’t even know he was engaged! ...To a man.”

Sally and the policeman looked to each other, nodding their heads. “You’re clean, Sir.”

The two left the house, heading to Fork’s restaurant that just opened for today. Sally pushed the door to sat down near the counter.

“This is Fork’s Restaurant, how can we help you?”

“We need to talk to your manager.” The employee agreed to bring Sally and the policeman bee to the manager’s desk.

The two sat down as Forkington started. “Is there anything you need from me?”

“Wait, don’t tell me. This is about Werner and Alfred’s wedding yesterday, isn’t it?”

“It is, sir.”

“Look, Werner might have been a rude customer, but I would never kill a guy! I banned him for life, that’s punishment enough. What sick freak kills someone at his wedding?”

“And you don’t have any other leads?”

“Nothing else, madam.”

“Thanks for the information, Sir.”

“Am I innocent?”

“We crossed you out.”

The two went out of the restaurant with the robot waiting outside. 

“ANY LUCK?”

“Not yet, but we have one more suspect to investigate.” The group headed to the front of the casino. Sally stood at the door to knock.

“Good afternoon, Madam. How can we help you?”

“We need to talk to Mr. Devil. Do you know where his office is?”

“Right this way.” King Dice lead the group into the Devil’s office. “Sir, there is someone needing to have a talk with you.”

“Let em’ in.”

Sally hoped the Devil wouldn’t recognize her, she sold her soul when she was still relatively young. Thankfully he didn’t, and the two of them entered the cigar-smoke-filled office with questions.

“Yesterday morning two men were murdered in a church during their wedding. We’ve asked around town to try and get answers, figure out who could have done such a terrible thing. And if there’s someone who’s an expert on terrible things, it’s you.”

The Devil puffed on his cigar as he looked through the case photos. “Well, it wasn’t me. I can’t set foot in a church.”

Sally was starting to feel annoyed and desperate. All their leads were heading to dead ends.

“But...”

“What do you mean but?”

Sally began to sweat. There is no one else she can suspect about the murder yesterday. She stood up and saw something from the Devil’s drawer. It’s a small gun.

“Excuse me, but what’s that inside your drawer?”

“See, I’ve gotten tired of waiting for my debtors to come back. So I decided to take matters into my own hands.”

The Devil placed the gun on the table and started to load it.

“When I saw that Werner Werman was getting married, I saw an opportunity. He’d have let his guard down, too focused on his big day to realize he was in danger. I couldn’t go there myself, so I sent a minion to do it. The idiot missed the first time and killed the husband, but hey. Sometimes you gotta break a couple eggs, right?”

The Devil cocked the gun and pointed it at Sally.

“But thank you for making this easier for me, Mrs. Stageplay.”

Oh no, he did recognize her...

[green-violin-bow]

Hawksmoor, BBC Sherlock and historiographic metafiction

First:

This piece is not of academic quality or rigour. I left university eight years ago; I studied literature in two languages and did well at it. Nevertheless I am no longer in academia and have not written an essay since then. My sources are partial, dependent on what I can get access to through my local library, through academic friends, or what I choose to pay for on JSTOR. I work full-time and have put no time into e.g. referencing (always my least favourite part of essays).

Although I personally hold out hope for unambiguous Johnlock still, I would not class this as a ‘meta’ arguing that it will certainly happen. This is a reading, undertaken for my own satisfaction and interest, jumping off from the inclusion of ‘Hawksmoor’ as a password in one scene of The Six Thatchers. I do not particularly mean to suggest that Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat are deliberately playing with/off literary criticism. They may well be holding two (or more) time periods in tension, however, in a way that I choose to explore through the lens of the literary tools described here. I do not seek to challenge or disprove other fan theories.

I am no television/film studies scholar. There are probably layers and layers of nuance and meaning that I’m missing because I simply have no frame of theoretical reference in that field (and one of the primary ‘texts’ we are talking about here is, after all, a television show). The abundance of television and film references discovered by Sherlock fans have made it clear that the show’s creators deliberately allude to other visual media within modern Sherlock all the time. I believe my approach here is valid because Hawksmoor, a literary text, is pointed to in the show, and because ACD canon itself was a literary text. But I want to flag up this important way in which my analysis is deficient.

I tagged a few people in this but I’m aware this is more of a musing/essay than a traditional ‘meta’ so don’t worry about reading/responding if it’s not your thing!

The Six Thatchers

In The Six Thatchers, Sherlock visits Craig the hacker, to borrow his dog Toby. On the left of our screen (taking up an entire wall of Craig’s house, realistically enough…) are lines of code, in the centre of which is written ‘Hawksmoor17’.

I was interested in finding out more about this. I decided my first port of call would be the ‘detective novel’ Hawksmoor, by Peter Ackroyd.

Peter Ackroyd

Peter Ackroyd is a historian and author, who has written a huge array of fiction and non-fiction, including:

London: The Biography (non-fiction)

Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day (non-fiction)

The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde (an imagining of the diary Oscar Wilde might have written in exile in Paris)

Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem (novel, presenting the diary of a murderer)

Hawksmoor (novel)

In his work London is present, constantly, a character in itself, woven into the very fabric of the story as irrevocably as it is into the mythos of Sherlock Holmes.

Hawksmoor

In brief, Hawksmoor is a postmodern detective story, running in two timelines. Each timeline focuses on a main character: in 1711, the London architect Nicholas Dyer; two hundred and fifty years later, in the 1980s, Nicholas Hawksmoor, a detective, responsible for investigating a series of murders carried out near the churches built by Dyer.

Ackroyd plays with the ‘real history’ of London throughout, muddling and confusing the past with fictional events, with conspiracy and rumour.

There was a real London architect named Nicholas Hawksmoor who worked alongside Christopher Wren in eighteenth-century London to design some of its most famous buildings. He also designed six churches. Ackroyd chooses to change the eighteenth-century architect’s name to Nicholas Dyer, and to make Nicholas Hawksmoor the twentieth-century fictional detective instead – a deliberate muddling together of timelines and of ‘facts’.

Ackroyd had drawn inspiration for Hawksmoor from Iain Sinclair’s poem, ‘Nicholas Hawksmoor: His Churches’ (Lud Heat, 1975). This poem suggests that the architectural design of Hawksmoor’s churches is consistent with him having been a Satanist.

As well as changing the historical figure Hawksmoor’s last name to Dyer, Ackroyd adds a church, ‘Little St Hugh’. Seven, in total.

The architect Dyer writes his own story, in the first person and in eighteenth-century style.

Only in Part Two of the novel does Nicholas Hawksmoor – a fictional detective with a real man’s name – appear, to investigate the three murders that have so far happened in 1980s London. Written in the third person, the reader is nonetheless invited into Hawksmoor’s thoughts, his point of view.

As the novel proceeds, Ackroyd employs literary devices so that the stories – separated, apparently, by so much time – begin to blur. In particular, the architect Dyer and the detective Hawksmoor are linked. For instance, both men experience a kind of loss of self, a “dislocation of identity”, upon staring into a convex mirror (Ahearn, 2000, DOI: 10.1215/0041462X-2000-1001).

The cumulative effect of all the parallels is that the reader starts to lose any sense of temporal separation between the time periods; starts to see Dyer and Hawksmoor as almost the same person; to suspect each of them of being the murderer and the detective at the same time. The parallels between the time periods “escape any effort at organization and create a mental fusion between past and present” so that “fiction and history fuse so thoroughly that an abolition of time, space, and person is […] inflicted on the reader” (Ahearn, 2000).

Importantly, I believe, Hawksmoor again and again “tries to reconstruct the timing of the crimes, but this is from the start impossible” (Ahearn, 2000). This is a rather familiar feeling to Sherlock Holmes fans.

At the end of the book, Dyer and Hawksmoor come together in the church, take hands across time, or perhaps out of time. They become aware of one another. Their perspectives dissolve and seem to merge into one person, into a new style of narration not like either of them: “when he put out his hand and touched him he shuddered. But do not say that he touched him, say that they touched him. And when they looked at the space between them, they wept” (Ackroyd, 1985).

Historiographic metafiction

Hawksmoor is a postmodern detective story. It has been classified by critics as a work of ‘historiographic metafiction’. As a detective story, it lacks the most familiar feature – a detective who is able to sort and order the events and facts, before finally drawing together all the threads to present a coherent, satisfying and plot-hole-free conclusion. In other words, a solution to the mystery.

So what is ‘metafiction’? Waugh defines it as “a term given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality” (1984).

In Hawksmoor, Ackroyd uses a popular literary form (the detective story) to unsettle our understanding of fiction, reality and history. An Agatha Christie detective novel (for example) relies on an accepted, understood structure, where the reader has definite expectations of what the outcome will be; as such, Christie’s novels “provide collective pleasure and release of tension through the comforting total affirmation of accepted stereotypes” (Waugh, 1984). In metafiction, however, there is often no traditionally predictable, neat, satisfying ending: accepted stereotypes are disturbed rather than affirmed. The application of rationality and logic to the clues gets the detective no closer to solving the crime. Readerly expectation (“the triumph of justice and the restoration of order” [Waugh, 1984]) is thwarted.

Hutcheon coined the term ‘historiographic metafiction’, fiction where “narrative representation – fictive and historical – comes under […] subversive scrutiny […] by having its historical and socio-political grounding sit uneasily alongside its self-reflexivity” (Hutcheon, 2002). It is a kind of fiction that explicitly points out the text-dependent nature of what we know as ‘history’: “How do we know the past today? Through its discourses, through its texts – that is, through the traces of its historical events: the archival materials, the documents, the narratives of witnesses…and historians” (Hutcheon, 2002).

Whereas a ‘historical novel’ will present an account of the past which purports to be true, a ‘historiographic metafiction’ has a combination of:

deliberate, self-reflexive foregrounding of the difficulty of telling ‘the whole story’ or ‘the whole truth’ especially due to the limitations of the narrative voice;

internal metadiscourse about language revealing the fictional nature of the text;

an attempt to explain the present by way of the past, simultaneously giving a (partial) account of both;

disturbed chronology in the narrative structure, representing the determining presence of the past in the present;

‘connection’ of the historical period structurally to the novel’s present;

a self-consciously incomplete and provisional account of ‘what really happened’ e.g. via ‘holes’ in the [hi]story which cannot be resolved by either narrator or reader (Widdowson, 2006, DOI: 10.1080/09502360600828984).

The above points are certainly true of Hawksmoor. The reader of Sherlock Holmes will find some of them very familiar – for example, Watson’s self-conscious in-world changing of dates, names and places; and the impossible-to-resolve timeline. The audience of BBC Sherlock will also find these features very recognisable, especially from Series 4 of the programme.

I’d like to examine BBC Sherlock itself as a ‘historiographic metafiction’: a ‘text’ which self-consciously holds the past and present fictional events of Sherlock Holmes’ life in tension, not merely as another adaptation of the source text, but as a way of destabilising the accepted ‘[hi]story’ and mythos of Sherlock Holmes.

The Great Game

The Sherlockian fandom is well-known for its practice of ‘The Great Game’:

“Holmesian Speculation (also known as The Sherlockian game, the Holmesian game, the Great Game or simply the Game) is the practice of expanding upon the original Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle by imagining a backstory, history, family or other information for Holmes and Watson, often attempting to resolve anomalies and clarify implied details about Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. It treats Holmes and Watson as real people and uses aspects of the canonical stories combined with the history of the era of the tales' composition to construct fanciful biographies of the pair.” [x]

There are a number of interesting features about the Great Game. It:

pretends that Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were real people;

ignores or explains away the real author Arthur Conan Doyle’s existence;

attempts to use ‘real’ historical facts (texts…) to resolve gaps in a fictional text;

in turn, produces additional (meta)fictional texts, often presented as ‘fact’ in journals set up for the purpose;

in so doing, adds constantly to the (meta)fictional destabilisation of chronology and holes in the story, as different, competing ‘versions’ are added by a multitude of authors.

The Sherlock Holmes fandom, as it attempts to elucidate ‘what really happened’, only destabilises the original (hi)story further – drawing attention, over and over again, to the gaps and inconsistencies in the original canon tales.

I would argue that the Sherlock fandom has been engaged, for over a century, in an act of collective historiographic metafiction.

The writers of BBC Sherlock are aware of themselves as fans, and of the wider Sherlockian fandom. They paid tribute to Holmesian Speculation in the episode title of Series 1 Episode 3. The title – ‘The Great Game’ – is a signal, an early marker of postmodernity in BBC Sherlock, a sign that the Sherlockian fandom will not be absent from this metafiction.

Implicating the reader/audience

There is an interesting moment in Hawksmoor where Detective Chief Superintendent Nicholas Hawksmoor goes to investigate the murder of a young boy near the church of St-George’s-in-the-East. The body is beside “a partly ruined building which had the words M SE M OF still visible above its entrance” (Ackroyd, 1985).

As Lee says, the “missing letter is "U," ("you") the reader” (1990).

Elsewhere in the book, Hawksmoor receives a note instructing him “DON’T FORGET … THE UNIVERSAL ARCHITECT” alongside a “sketch of a man kneeling with a white disc placed against his right eye” (Ackroyd, 1985).

Lee suggests that this drawing refers to “detective fiction’s transcendental signifier” Sherlock Holmes, and that the “Universal Architect, here, can only be the reader, since it is he or she who is in possession of all the histories: the historically verifiable past, the eighteenth-century text and the text accumulated through reading”. Thus, the reader is “doubly implicated not only as a repository of the past, but also as a co-creator of artifact and artifice” (Lee, 1990). In the Sherlock Holmes fandom, this is more true than in almost any other; co-creators indeed.

The missing ‘U’ in Hawksmoor can be clearly linked to the daubed ‘YOU’ in ‘The Abominable Bride’, a sign that, from that point on, BBC Sherlock will be clearly and mercilessly implicating its audience; putting the Sherlockian fandom back in the story, where it has always belonged. This includes the writers and creators of BBC Sherlock.

I also think there is reason to link the ‘YOU’ daubed on the wall to another piece of graffiti in BBC Sherlock – the yellow smiley face in 221b. An all-seeing, ever-present audience within Sherlock and John’s very home.

It is often repeated that Arthur Conan Doyle only continued to write Sherlock Holmes stories out of financial necessity and due to public demand; that he was bored and exasperated by his creation. The Sherlock Holmes fandom is (possibly apocryphally) known as having worn black armbands in the street in mourning for the fictional detective when Conan Doyle attempted to kill him off in The Final Problem.

The Sherlock Holmes fandom has long been considered importunate and unruly. As Stephen Fry puts it in his foreword to The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes: “Holmes has been bent and twisted into every genre imaginable and unimaginable: graphic novels, manga, science fiction, time travel, erotica, literary novels, animation, horror stories, comic books, gaming and more. Junior Sherlocks, animal Sherlocks, spoofs called Sheer Luck and Schlock; you think it up, and you’ll find it’s been done before. There is no indignity that has not been heaped upon the sage and super-sleuth of Baker Street” (2017).

And yet, with every new adaptation, there is a tendency to regard it as a blank slate, in direct conversation with the canon of Arthur Conan Doyle. There is a tendency to forget the changes that fandom itself has wrought on the figure of Sherlock Holmes – a weight of stereotype and expectation which warps the character to a pre-fit mould in every incarnation. As Fry says, Holmes:

“rises up, higher and higher with each passing decade, untarnished and unequalled. Because, I suppose, we need him, more and more, a figure of authority that is benign, rational, soothing, omniscient, capable and insightful. In a world, and in daily lives, so patently devoid of almost all those marvellous qualities, how welcome that is, and how grateful we are, for its presence in our lives. So grateful, that we won’t really accept that Sherlock Holmes could ever be classed as ‘make believe’. Between fact and fiction is a space where legend dwells. It is where Holmes and Watson will always live” (2017).

This is the traditional understanding of Sherlock Holmes and its fandom, and is highly reminiscent of the voiceover by Mary Morstan in Series 4 Episode 3, ‘The Final Problem’: “I know who you really are. A junkie who solves crimes to get high, and the doctor who never came home from the war. Well, you listen to me: who you really are, it doesn’t matter. It’s all about the legend, the stories, the adventures. There is a last refuge for the desperate, the unloved, the persecuted. There is a final court of appeal for everyone. When life gets too strange, too impossible, too frightening, there is always one last hope. When all else fails, there are two men sitting arguing in a scruffy flat like they’ve always been there, and they always will. The best and wisest men I have ever known – Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson.” [transcript by Ariane Devere]

The conception of Sherlock Holmes as “a figure of authority that is benign, rational, soothing, omniscient, capable and insightful” shows what we, the reader, want: a traditional detective story, with an all-knowing detective, who uses rationality and logic to assess the clues and brings us smoothly, at last, to a solution which reasserts the order of things; where justice is done and society is made safe once again.

BBC Sherlock, however, resists these comforting fictions. The detective unravels, becoming more emotional, more human as the story progresses. Mysteries go unsolved. The narrator gets more unreliable with every episode. Characters inhabit strange states, seemingly alive or dead as the story demands. The ‘rules’ of traditional detective fiction are flouted left, right and centre.

Viewed as a historiographic metafiction, BBC Sherlock aims to hold up the historical text (ACD canon) against the modern one (BBC Sherlock) in such a way as to slough away a century of extra-canonical fan speculation and addition, and give a new reading to canon.

‘Writing back’: re-visionary fiction

I would now like to look at Peter Widdowson’s journal article, ‘Writing back’: Contemporary re-visionary fiction’ (DOI: 10.1080/09502360600828984). He argues that there is a “radically subversive sub-set of contemporary ‘historiographic metafiction’” which, while being “acutely self-conscious about their metafictional intertextuality and dialectical connection with the past”, ‘write back’ to “formative narratives that have been central to the textual construction of dominant historical worldviews”.

Widdowson explains that his term ‘re-visionary’: “deploys a tactical slippage between the verb to revise (from the Latin ‘revisere’: ‘to look at again’) – ‘to examine and correct; to make a new, improved version of; to study anew’; and the verb to re-vision – to see in another light; to re-envision or perceive differently; and thus potentially to recast and re-evaluate (‘the original’)” (2006). He points out that this is closest to Rich’s approach to feminist criticism: “We need to know the writing of the past, and know it differently than we have ever known it; not to pass on a tradition but to break its hold over us” (Rich, 1975).

This act of ‘knowing it differently’ can also be achieved by “the creative act of ‘re-writing’ past fictional texts in order to defamiliarize them and the ways in which they have been conventionally read within the cultural structures of patriarchal and imperial/colonial dominance” (Widdowson, 2006).

Widdowson lays out what he regards as the defining characteristics of re-visionary fiction, first negatively by what it is not:

Re-visionary fiction does not simply take an earlier work as its source for writing;

It is not simply modern adaptation – instead it challenges the source text;

It is not parody – whereas parody takes a pre-existing work and reveals its particular stylistic traits and ideological premises by exaggerating them in order to render it absurd or to satirise the ‘follies of its time’, a re-visionary work seeks to bring into view “those discourses in [the source text] suppressed or obscured by historically naturalising readings. The contemporary version attempts, as it were, to replace the pre-text with itself, at once to negate the pre-text’s cultural power and to ‘correct’ the way we read it in the present” (Widdowson, 2006).

As to what re-visionary fiction is:

First, it challenges the accepted authority of the original. “[S]uch novels invariably ‘write back’ to canonic texts of the English tradition – those classics that retain a high profile of admiration and popularity in our literary heritage – and re-write them ‘against the grain’ (that is, in defamiliarising, and hence unsettling, ways)”. This means that “a hitherto one-way form of written exchange, where the reader could only passively receive the message handed down by a classic text, has now become a two-way correspondence in which the recipient answers or replies to – even answers back to – the version of things as originally delineated. In other words, it represents a challenge to any writing that purports to be ‘telling things as they really are’, and which has been believed and admired over time for doing exactly that.”

Second, it keeps a constant tension between the source and the new text. A re-visionary fiction will “keep the pre-text in clear view, so that the original is not just the invisible ‘source’ of a new modern version but is a constantly invoked intertext for it and is constantly in dialogue with it: the reader, in other words, is forced at all points to recall how the pre-text had it and how the re-vision reinflects this.”

Third, it enables us to read the source text with new eyes, free of established preconceptions. Re-visionary fictions “not only produce a different, autonomous new work by rewriting the original, but also denaturalise that original by exposing the discourses in it which we no longer see because we have perhaps learnt to read it in restricted and conventional ways. That is, they recast the pre-text as itself a ‘new’ text to be read newly – enabling us to ‘see’ a different one to the one we thought we knew as [Sherlock Holmes] – thus arguably releasing them from one type of reading and repossessing them in another.” The new text ‘speaks’ “the unspeakable of the pre-text by very exactly invoking the original and hinting at its silences or fabrications.”

Fourth, it forces the reader to consider the two texts together at all times: “our very consciousness of reading a contemporary version of a past work ensures that such an oscillation takes place, with the reader, as it were, holding the two texts simultaneously in mind. This may cause us to see parallels and contrasts, continuities and discontinuities, between the period of the original text’s production and that of the modern work.”

Fifth, they “alert the reader to the ways past fiction writes its view of things into history, and how unstable such apparently truthful accounts from the past may be”, making clear that the original text, though canon, was also just a text and should not necessarily govern our perceptions and understanding forever.

Sixth, “re-visionary novels almost invariably have a clear cultural-political thrust. That is why the majority of them align themselves with feminist and/or postcolonialist criticism in demanding that past texts’ complicity in oppression – either as subliminally inscribed within them or as an effect of their place and function as canonic icons in cultural politics – be revised and re-visioned as part of the process of restoring a voice, a history and an identity to those hitherto exploited, marginalized and silenced by dominant interests and ideologies.”

That last point, I think, should also apply to queer re-visionings of source texts (and indeed, Widdowson uses the example of Will Self’s Dorian: An Imitation re-visioning Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray in his article).

We can view BBC Sherlock as a re-visionary fiction which aims to ‘speak’ “the unspeakable of the pre-text by […] hinting at its silences or fabrications.”

BBC Sherlock as re-visionary fiction

Not only does BBC Sherlock have to hold itself up against the original canon of Arthur Conan Doyle; there is also a century of accumulated speculation and creation by an extremely active and resourceful fandom to contend with.

I think that BBC Sherlock asks us to re-vision ACD canon, but has a few sly jabs at the Sherlock Holmes fandom (including the writers themselves) along the way. Let’s look at some concrete examples:

John Watson’s wife:

In BBC Sherlock, the woman we know as Mary Morstan has no fixed identity. Her name is taken from a dead baby; she is not originally British; she is an ex-mercenary and killer; she is variously motherly, friendly and threatening; she shoots Sherlock in the heart – or does she save his life? In Series 4, her characterisation is more unstable than ever. She is a romantic heroine, a ruthless killer, a selfless mother, a consummate actress, a wronged woman, a martyr, an ever-present ghost, and the embodiment of John’s conscience. She is also the manifestation of the Sherlock Holmes fandom’s speculation about John Watson’s wife: did he have one wife, or six? Was she an orphan, or was she at her mother’s? When did she die? How did she die?

Ultimately, however, if you hold BBC Sherlock up against ACD canon, it highlights the fact that so many Sherlockians have tried to compensate for: in order to reconcile the irregularities in Mrs Watson’s story as narrated by Watson, she would need to be a secret agent actively hiding her identity. Examining BBC Sherlock against ACD canon makes us apply Occam’s Razor – the idea that the simplest explanation will always be best. John Watson’s wife was only written into the story because homophobia was so pervasive at the time that ACD was writing that his characters – and by extension he himself – would have been suspected of ‘deviance’ if there had not been a layer of plausible deniability in the shape of a wife.

And there you have it: the central problem of Mary Morstan/Watson, in both ACD canon and BBC Sherlock – she shoots Sherlock in the heart – or does she save his life? Look at ACD canon again. Does Mary Morstan’s engagement to John Watson hurt Sherlock Holmes, to the point that he replies, at the end of SIGN, “For me, …there still remains the cocaine-bottle”? Or does Mary Watson save his life? In the nineteenth century, suspicion of a romance between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson could have meant imprisonment or even hanging; many men suspected or accused of same-sex relationships chose suicide rather than total disgrace. Mary Watson’s presence provides Holmes and Watson with a lifesaving alibi.

Let’s have a look at this against the criteria for a ‘re-visionary fiction’:

Challenges the idea that Watson ‘told things as they really were’ – instead, it introduces the idea that Watson deliberately obscured the facts of his and Holmes’ partnership

Keeps the pre-text Mary Morstan constantly in view – a startling contrast, which rather effectively comments on the position of both women and queer people in the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries

Enables us to abandon our “restricted and conventional ways” of reading the original – if it makes no sense for Mrs Watson to have existed in ACD canon, then the reader must radically reconsider Holmes and Watson’s relationship; no longer ‘just’ a friendship, but a lifetime’s commitment, as close and loving as a marriage. BBC Sherlock encourages this re-visioning by setting Mary up as a rival to Sherlock; by having her attempt to get rid of him; by highlighting that she both kills and saves him. It re-casts Sherlock Holmes as the dominant romance of John Watson’s life, in every version.

It causes us to see parallels and contrasts between the two time periods: the societal homophobia that made Mrs Watson a necessity in ACD canon has largely gone in modern Britain. But BBC Sherlock hints at a profoundly closeted bisexual John Watson who strives after a ‘normal’ wife who “wasn’t meant to be like that”. The continued presence of a Mrs Watson very effectively shows us that societal attitudes are not as profoundly different as we may think.

BBC Sherlock shows us how the existence of a Mrs Watson has been written not only into the [hi]story of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, but into the fabric of society: Sherlock Holmes is a great man, but God forbid he should also be a happy, human man, in a loving relationship with another man. The cultural script has been written: the great figures are either straight, or they are nothing. There is always a wife.

As discussed above, the presence of Mrs Watson is also important politically and culturally. It draws attention to the total lack of agency for nineteenth-century women, and to the restrictive narratives imposed on female characters in today’s culture. It makes terribly clear the extent and dangerousness of the homophobia in nineteenth-century Britain. It highlights the fact that there are still countries today where people are forced to hide their sexualities for fear of being imprisoned or killed.

 The Watson baby:

In BBC Sherlock, the woman we know as Mary Morstan is revealed to be pregnant on the Watsons’ wedding day. In ACD canon, Watson never mentions a child from his marriage. In Holmesian speculation, plenty of children have been suggested for Watson, especially since it is often posited that he must have had more than one marriage (that Watson might be infertile is not something the proponents of the ‘Three Continents Watson’ school of thought often like to suggest).

As a re-visionary fiction, then, BBC Sherlock forces us to examine the source text: in a time when reliable contraceptive methods were virtually non-existent, why did John Watson and his wife never have a child?

The options, broadly, are:

Mrs Watson was infertile (if Watson only had one wife)

Watson was infertile (if he had more than one wife)

They didn’t have sex, either due to ignorance (but Watson was a doctor…) or reluctance

Mrs Watson only ‘existed’ because societal homophobia made her a necessity (see above).

 John Watson:

In Series 4 of BBC Sherlock, John behaves in an unrecognisable manner: he beats Sherlock bloody, so that his eye is still bloodshot some little time later. This is said to be due to the pain of losing his wife, and the fact that her death is Sherlock’s ‘fault’.

Viewed as re-visionary fiction, as metafiction, BBC Sherlock here satirises the idea of the ‘deutero-Watson’ which has existed since Ronald Knox wrote his Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes. It also, however, critically examines the fact that, in ACD canon, there are (at least) ‘two Watsons’: one, the narrator, seemingly the most reliable and loyal of fellows, straight (in all senses) and true, good in a fight; and a second, the ‘true’ John Watson behind the narration, the man we discern when we look beyond the surface of the tales. A man who is devoted, above all, to Holmes; prepared to adopt Holmes’ habit of ‘compounding a felony’ to follow the idea of justice as opposed to law; prepared, in fact, to break the law if Holmes thinks it right; prepared to abandon his wife at a moment’s notice, when Holmes calls; prepared to alter all kinds of details in his stories to protect their participants. (Also, presumably, a bit of a joke about the accidental ‘dual personality’ that ACD gave his Watson by naming him James and John on different occasions.)

Looking at ACD canon through the lens of BBC Sherlock, the entirely unreliable nature of Watson as a narrator comes to light, but the enduring feature of his stories – his love for, and loyalty to Holmes – provides the obvious answer to why he should be so unreliable. Watson may be ‘two people’, but he lies, he breaks the law, he abandons his wife and his patients for only one person: Holmes.

Ultimately, the reader understands that they have been lied to, because the truth would have been impossible to tell at the time ACD was writing. Famously, the final story in the Sherlock Holmes canon, The Adventure of the Retired Colourman, ends with the words, “some day the true story may be told.”

If BBC Sherlock is seen as re-visionary fiction, Series 4 of the programme becomes a representation of the artificiality of the construct that we think of as BBC Sherlock and – viewed through its lens – ACD canon becomes visible as an equally artificial construct, filtered through the writings of an unreliable narrator and governed by the societal and cultural imperatives and prejudices of its time.

Every trick has been employed in Series 4 to highlight its artificiality: lack of coherent structure, temporal uncertainty, incoherent character arcs, introduction of a deus ex machina character, fluctuations of genre, and members of the crew actually appearing on screen. Just as in Hawksmoor, the ‘case’ of Series 4 defies solution. BBC Sherlock and Hawksmoor are both postmodern detective fictions. We have been told that this is ‘a show about a detective, not a detective show’. The form of the show, like the form of the traditional detective novel, leads us to expect a neat, tidy ending, explained carefully by an all-knowing figure of authority. The makers of BBC Sherlock, however, have done everything they can to pantomime a lack of care for, or understanding of, their own show. They have simultaneously inserted themselves into the story (Mark/Mycroft; giving varying accounts of when/how Series 4 was written; lying and saying that they lie) and withdrawn the ‘grand narrative’, the fiction of the omniscient narrator.

Why?

For over a century, ACD canon has been read in the same way: as the most archetypally logical detective story available to us. The fact that the canon is a huge mess of inconsistencies, requiring the collective effort of thousands of people to pick away at, is typically explained by the idea of an omniscient but uncaring storyteller: Arthur Conan Doyle.

This is particularly ironic for a fandom which supposedly wishes to disavow the existence of an author at all.

And yet, the problem is, if you don’t slip into extra-universe speculations on ACD’s attitude to Sherlock Holmes, you have to face head-on the conclusion that Watson is a very, very unreliable narrator indeed.

And you have to face why.

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