#I just want these discussions to be coherent

[aliteralsemicolon]

Thinking about how Spencer takes care of you when you're too exhausted to take care of yourself.

He walks into your bedroom to find you on the brink of sleep, carelessly curled up on your end of the bed and his brows raise in slight concern as he scans you. You couldn't even be bothered to change out of your day clothes. He chuckles lightly at the sight, as he makes his way to you.

"Baby?" He gently calls to you, rubbing your calf with his hand as he takes a seat next to your legs. You're unable to respond to the sound of his voice despite hearing it. He tries again, this time kneeling on the floor next to your head.

"Angel?" His fingers lightly brush through your hair as he whispers near your ear.

"Hmm?" You reply hazily.

You wait for him to speak so you can go back to sleep but all that follows is silence. He resumes his motions in your hair and it keeps you aware of his presence. He's waiting for you to gain some more consciousness. You rub your eyes, fluttering them open and Spencer's quick to guide your hand away from your face.

Right. Your makeup.

"What's up?" You mumble, stifling a yawn.

"I know you're tired, and I'm sorry for having to wake you up," he tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear. "but you do know why it's bad for you to fall asleep like this?"

This is a topic the two of you have discussed before. You're usually quite meticulous about removing your makeup before bed, but you're also no stranger to nights when you can't find any energy to do so.

"Mhm. Clogged pores, risk of infections, bacteria spread, discomfort…" You trail off, summarising his extensive research.

Getting you up and off this bed is a losing battle tonight and Spencer graciously accepts defeat, sporting an endeared grin.

"Can I at least help you get comfortable? Would it be alright if I took these off for you?" He tugs at your top and waits for your response. You nod, letting out a barely audible hum.

Spencer moves off the floor and begins to remove your clothing. "You're gonna have to help me just a little bit, Angel. Lift your hips for me."

You blindly follow his commands, wanting to get it over with so that he can relax and you can go back to sleep. He doesn't relax, though. As he rids you of the last of your clothing, he mentally fights himself on letting you sleep with your make-up. There are so many risks involved, but hygiene aside, Spencer knows that if you wake up with your pillow stained– or God forbid…a pimple– you're going to be beyond pissed with yourself.

The sudden dip in the mattress slightly startles you, as a cool feeling drags against your cheek and you whine.

"Shhhh, sorry, it's just me." Spencer coos.

"What're you doing?" You groan, squeezing your eyes shut, still in a sleepy haze.

"Just wiping off your makeup, sweet girl. You're going to thank me tomorrow." His finger hooks under your chin and he soothingly rubs his thumb just under your lips.

"Spence…" You begin whining but you're unable to pronounce anything else coherently.

He can tell you're slightly irritated, but he doesn't mind. He knows that it's the exhaustion talking.

"I know, I know." He sympathises with his continually gentle tone. "I'm almost done. You're being so good for me right now."

Your lips pout, but you don't complain any further, his words calming you. By the time he's finished ridding your face of cosmetic residue, you're knocked out again. Light snores can be heard from you. He chuckles to himself at the sight of you. So peaceful. So adorable. He leans in closer and plants a firm, lingering kiss on your forehead before he disappears to get ready for bed himself.

"Spence?"

He turns around at your groggy voice, still half asleep. "Yes?"

"Thank you."

"Anytime, my pretty girl."

[utilitycaster]

something that struck me from some of the really good tags on this post (specifically the "tall kings") one is that most arguments against the gods or for the benefit of Predathos rely on real-world metaphors that just...don't really fit very well, and it might just be that this isn't something for which one can draw a real world metaphor, but might actually have to conceive a world that is fundamentally different than ours. The gods aren't tall kings; "destroying the throne" does not mean a coup. It means their deaths; and yes, to state the obvious a coup against a monarchy frequently involves assassinating the monarch, but it's telling that the language is carefully skirting around that. You cannot destroy the throne or remove the crown or have the gods step down in any peaceful manner; both the Matron and Arch Heart agree this only happens if the threat of Predathos is unleashed.

And Predathos. Setting aside the connotations of assigning the idea of wild deer to sentient beings, the "reintroduction of the natural predator" metaphor collapses on several points. The first is that equating "became deities, who, as the post linked above points out and per general lore, are explicitly not able to run rampant anymore". The second is that Predathos is not a wolf that once lived on Exandria but is just as foreign to the world as the gods themselves. While I reject the metaphor entirely for the initial reasons stated, it is worth keeping in mind that if you do need it as a scaffolding on which to hang foreign concepts, Predathos is less the wolf population and more a family of tigers or cheetahs: just as much an invasive species, with an impact on the environment

I think these are two major issues that need to be addressed in any conversation:

Predathos has been adopted and mythologized by several party members who are actually much more concerned about the titans, who are dead. Killing the gods will not bring back the titans. I feel this metaphor is sort of falling into that same trap; this is not a return of something native to this world.

On some level, while I understand the use of real-world metaphors to comprehend a fantasy world from a lens of familiarity - I do this as well! - I think if we cannot have a discussion that starts with "what if Predathos is in fact the embodiment of a cosmic, unending, merciless hunger that cannot be changed and cannot be swayed and can only be sealed, killed, or given free rein" we cannot have a discussion at all. I think it's necessary to acknowledge we're talking about a game that gives you a space to explore an idea as if it were physical, and which might not be able to be told within the bounds of real-world experience.

This of course also doesn't address the ongoing issue of "whether or not Bells Hells actions towards Predathos and the outcome ends up being in the moral right, the road to get here was structurally unsound and the party did not go in with the intent of doing anything specific whatsoever and indeed faltered for the most part when asked by the main villain what they wanted." Again, I don't care if Bells Hells are heroes or villains or something in between, but they don't seem to be anything or have any shared intention as a group, which I've discussed already here. But if you do want to argue that releasing Predathos could be good, I think it's necessary to have a coherent argument there, and be able to address "what if it's really fucking bad" if we're moving into the realm of the speculative. "What if this change that comes at the end of mass death might be better for the world but I have no proof" is not a very convincing argument. It is, in fact, one of the only ones Bells Hells has made a compelling case against.

[obviously-im-a-boyo]

i- bro, bro. bro. i cannot. im doing bullet points because otherwise i fear ill lose all sense of coherency.

• censorship is a slippery slope. allowing it in any capacity opens the door for it to be pushed. this is why books like 1984 and fahrenheit 451 are so important for everyone to read, and, ironically, why those books get banned as forms of (guess what) censorship.

• having problems with individual proshippers or the proship community doesnt change what the word proship means.

• being anti harassment is, yes, fundamental to being proship. "proshippers" who harass others arent proshippers, theyre assholes who are misusing the ideaological label of proship. being proship/profiction is built upon "live and let live" and fighting against censorship and harassment.

• "and thats only how people who are proship define it" ?? yeah so the proship community at large might know a thing or two about their own ideaological label. following an idealogy in good faith (minding the assholes who use the term in bad faith to defend their assholery) means you probably know what that ideaology is about.

• "people can dislike something without saying it needs to be banned" congrats! thats what being proship/profiction is. not all proshippers enjoy all types of dark fiction, not do they necessarily support its creation by liking or engaging with it. they just agree it shouldnt be banned/censored. youve just roundabouted your way back to being proship??

• adding an example to the prev. point: im a proshipper. i dont enjoy all dark fiction, in particular i get grossed out by loli and shota fiction. i disengage with it, i block people who use those tags, and i dont leave positive support on lolishota works. however, i am still proship, because i am against the banning/censorship of that fictional content, and i believe it has a right to exist even if i keep myself away from it.

• the proship community does address a lot of nuance, like when discussing things like the slendermen stabbing case. fiction can affect reality, but the person affected is still responsible for any crimes they decide to commit. lolishota content might be consumed by a pedophile who intends to offend, but the lolishota content cant be blamed if that pedophile offends. the real person is blamed for their actions. this is just a recycle of the "viDeOgAmEs cAuSe viOlEnCe" or "rAp mUsiC cAuSeS viOlEnCe" arguments that have been disproven time and time again.

• the proship community not "addressing nuance" from what i typically see, is in regards to harassment and censorship. obviously we agree that harassment is never okay. theres no nuance to be had, harassment is always wrong. the part i fear you disagree with me on, is that censorship is ALSO always wrong. which is a rant millions of people before me have gone on, and illustrated, such as in books like the ones i mentioned previously that have been banned in many places (in an act of deep dramatic irony, proving their points about censorship)

• being anti censorship is what being proship means at its core. if youre anti censorship, you arent anti proship. thats simply not what these words mean, and its a big reason why proshippers have started calling antis "censorshippers" to highlight their fundamental pro censorship ideals. since being pro censorship is what the clash is between proshippers and antis.

• "and to act like dark themes, kink, and wanting to protect fandom fun and creative freedom is proship ideals is just. no." youre... kidding right? do you really just not understand what it means to be proship/profiction? particularly the "dark themes" bit. what dark themes are you referring to? which dark themes are "okay" and which ones make you a proshipper? id love to see where youre drawing that line because i bet itll reveal your hypocracy even more.

• conclusion: OP doesnt know what proship means, or what being an anti means, or what idealogies are.

You can be against the proship community and be anti-harassment.

You can be against the proship community and be pro-kink.

You can be against the proship community like dark themes in fiction.

You can be anti-proship and want fandom spaces to be safe and allow for creative freedom.

[thefirstknife]

I wasn't aware of the discussions around Eramis being that rancid, personally (although I tend not to look at online discussion around media in general, thanks to how skin-deep at best much of it tends to be).

But the way you've talked about it makes me wonder how much of the people complaining about Eramis's character development are coming at it from a dislike of the idea of that redemption being a thing at all- the perspective that Doing Bad Things makes someone A Bad Person who can no longer be A Good Person, essentially. Seems like that mentality has grown... if not more common, at least louder, over time.

(Although your comment about not seeing why they'd 'pull a shocking twist for the sake of pulling a shocking twist to spite the audience' is a little funny in a sad way, considering how many people seem to think "outwit the audience and surprise them" is more important than "tell a coherent story as well as possible", even changing things if a twist is leaked, even if whatever they change it to makes no damn sense.)

It's really bad out there and it's strange for the exact reason you listed, because the same communities have previously entertained redemption ideas about characters like Calus and even Clovis; characters who have never expressed any wish to change or any beliefs that they may be in the wrong, no regrets and no remorse for what they've done.

So I can't even figure out if this with Eramis is about not wanting redemption stories. I think it's more about Eramis herself; not only is she a female character, but she's very largely and easily misunderstood. A lot of people's interaction with Beyond Light was... not entirely invested (a lot of the community was at the time mad about vaulting and hated everything new on principle), and her other storylines are in seasonal content that's gone now and that was almost universally hated; she was brought back in Plunder and then reappeared briefly in Defiance. A lot of people approached her from the get-go as "just some villain we will kill in the campaign" and then that didn't happen and these people were confused because they never paid any attention to her story. And then by the end of it, it just kinda slipped them by.

I don't know honestly. I may be overthinking it, but I definitely think that a lack of understanding of her story plays a huge role. Whether that's because they missed her story or just didn't pay attention to it or just had no interest in it - and nobody online they interact with offered any insight into her character (lore youtube) - they just don't get what's the fuss and they don't care about her. Some might say this is because the game didn't make people want to care, but I simply disagree. While I enjoy Eliksni stories, they're by far not at the top of my list of favourite things in Destiny so I don't have any special attachment to Eliksni characters, I didn't know Eramis before BL and I was never a diehard fan of her, but I understood her story and what they wanted to do with her for the past 4 years.

And I was happy that she got her character arc completed as was intended. I saw where it was going and this solution is the only one that made sense to me. So I don't think the whole "the game didn't make me care enough because it was badly set up" really holds water. The game can't put thoughts into your brain, sometimes you have to actually think about characters for yourself. Like, we shouldn't have to be spoon-fed that hard. Her arc and the setup was clear and it was written into the game's story, a lot of it even outside of lore books ("It was just in the lore books!" is a major complaint a lot of the time, and one I personally find baffling. You're in the Lore Books The Game. If you don't like lore being in lore books, you're in the wrong place).

We could honestly discuss this to no end, and everyone who dislikes Eramis or the conclusion to her story would probably have a different reason for it, or there would at least be a couple of them, not wanting redemption included. Could also be a combination - not understanding her story will lead a lot of people to think that her being redeemed makes no sense and that it wasn't supposed to happen.

I think it's also a case of people having a really hard time understanding that a character can be our ally while still hating our guts. I've seen plenty of comments from people saying they're annoyed about Eramis constantly being antagonistic towards us. This is baffling to me, because again, it makes sense that she doesn't like us. And it would be bizarre if all Eliksni were now suddenly fans of humanity like a hivemind. Some will never like us. This is good. They will still help us because there's bigger fish to fry, but they don't have to like us.

Eramis was a delight this episode to me and she was a really interesting character. She wasn't a huge deal overall and some of her story was fairly on the sidelines, but she was a very unique "villain" and antagonist to us since she was introduced and I think that her character arc was very well done all things considered. This amount of resistance and dislike for her from the wider community is something I simply can't see as anything other than a lack of understanding of the story (personal reasons and stuff like "I get it, I just don't really care that much" not included).

[sweetlullabyebye]

Charles' thing is that he wants to feel alive and that's part of the reason why he decided to never move on to the afterlife right? Meanwhile Edwin thinks Charles will move on and that he'll be alone again because 'he isn't good with people'.

But then when the Night Nurse shows up a second time Charles is ready to go wherever -including Hell- as long as Edwin shouldn't have to go back there, meanwhile Edwin refuses that they be split up, and both are okay with being sent together to the Lost and Found Department to be sorted out later as long as they're together-

[velociraptorsaurusrex]

forgive me if this exact posts exists somewhere already I feel like it certainly could. but the thing about dtamhd is that the fantasy of removing the heart is not actually “violent.” he removes a man’s heart but does it with no great force; the man does not die or even react; there is a stillness and peace and even gentleness to that scene. I just do not believe Dennis engages with this fantasy on the level of “violence.”

by the same token Dennis does not see remaking & strictly controlling & criticizing the self as “violent” — he sees these things through a clinical lens, with a sense of cold necessity, and even with that gentleness — it’s what needs to be done, and it’s a kindness to do it. he additionally does not truly have a “beauty is pain/suffering” mindset because he perceives the control, restriction, & criticality, again, not as violence — but in this case a more neutral type of “effort.” he believes successfully performing this “effort” begets the “reward” of beauty/perfection.

in conclusion I ultimately do not believe dtamhd serves as definite evidence that Dennis relishes in the fantasy of or materially desires violence, because in his mind it is not “violence” the way we perceive it.

[luxaofhesperides]

Listen. I love the dcxdp crossover. It’s a lot of fun! There’s so much that can be done for this crossover, with all the characters and settings and the many plots that can spring up from them. But as much as I love writing for it and sharing my fics with the community, there’s been a significant uptick in things that are rubbing me the wrong way. Some of these things have to do with canon vs fanon, but others are more about the shifting culture of the community.

(keep in mind that I only see things on Tumblr and am not in any discords, so my experience will be different from others bc I have a more limited experience with the wider community)

(putting it all under a read more bc its long)

Let’s start off with a look at what we’re doing as a group:

Building off of completed fics on tumblr: I always thought the etiquette is to not build off of a completed work without permission. Someone had an idea and executed it, then shared it with us. It should end there. If you want to add to it, contact the author first and see if it’s something they’re fine with; some will say no, some will say yes, some will say yes but be sure to credit them for the original fic. A lot of what I’m seeing is a completed fic gets added on to in a way that completely takes it away from the original idea. Having experienced this myself (on a requested prompt from someone else, no less), I found it kind of rude. Maybe it’s just me, but a completed fic is not a prompt request or something open for building up another story around. It’s already completed. Leave the story as is and let the author know you liked it.

Expecting others to write for you: the prompts are what build this crossover fandom, in my eyes. Prompts are posted and people create something around them, either as a group by adding onto what other people are saying, or as individual fics that one person wrote. Now I’m seeing people throw out prompts that are basically fic outlines, then begging others to write something for it. Like, those prompts are already written! They have very specific details! Why not write it yourself? You’re already halfway there, you can just write the thing you want to see and post it. It’s not about being ‘good’ or ‘bad’ at writing, it’s about crafting an idea to share to the world. Why ask others to write it for you when you’ve already practically done it?

But also, you are not owed fic. This might just be general fandom burn out talking, but being a fic author who has been treated like a machine? It sucks. I love writing, but I share what I write because what I wrote made me happy and I wanted to share that with others. I’m not a content creating machine who has to pump out fic after fic for other people’s entertainment. I just want to share what I love and having people pop up in my notifs only going “write more/tag me/sequel?/etc” is tiring. I get that it’s coming from a place of love bc you liked the fic enough to want to see more, but please actually talk about what I’ve already written instead of going “update? More? MORE????”

Hostility to DC canon: I get that DC canon is a mess, but it still is a canon and has a lot of cool stuff! I’m seeing a lot of posts recently about how dpxdc people refuse to engage with the comics, and I need to let yall know that this is not a new thing. DC fans also refuse to engage with the comics (it’s mostly batfam) and it’s very easy to tell who has and who hasnt ready batfam related stuff bc the fanon is incredibly wrong about characterisation and what happened in comics. But that’s for a different post.

I’m seeing both sides of the argument (this is for fun, reading comics isn’t required, don’t like don’t read vs it’s tiring seeing people butcher my favorite characters into ocs with their name/face, I want to share my love for comics but there’s so much pushback, it shouldn’t be weird to expect people engaging with a media to have actually engaged with that media). And I think you should engage with comics! DP is a unique case in which fanon is for the most part better and more interesting than the original show (also death to the author/butch hartman), but DC comics shouldn’t be engaged with in that way. If you like the characters you see in dpxdc, you should read about them in comics! The whole point of a fandom is that you’re a fan of the original media. That’s why you’re engaging with it in this way, writing within the world and characters and canon.

I don’t know how people write for fandoms when they’re not familiar with the source material. I wanted to write dcxdp so I started rewatching DP. I’m reading comics. I want to know the characters and their stories so I can have a foundation to write from, and also to better understand the media so I can share my love for it. The refusal to engage with source material while engaging with its fandom is so strange to me.

Also dc fans who love the comics are great! In my experience, they’re very kind and willing to help you jump into comics! Don’t know where to start? Pick a character or team and follow them! Want a reading guide? We’ve got TONS. want thoughts on a specific character or comic run? Just ask!

Now to more specific points about what I’m seeing in dcxdp works:

Mischaracterized batfam: this is a group of people who are disasters and have complicated relationships with each other. They’re kind, wonderful people who bring out the best and worst in each other. Why is Batman always adopting people. Why is this a running joke with the batfam. I get it being a joke the first few times, but I’ve seen it so often and done like it’s accurate characterization that I just. I can’t. I leave that fic immediately. I can’t do it anymore. Batman is paranoid and tried very hard to keep kids away from him/away from being a vigilante. Unfortunately all the kids he got are stubborn and smart so he was doomed from the beginning.

Superman and Kon: you guys are pretty much only pulling from Young Justice Animated which I think is a terrible adaptation, but that’s my own taste. But seriously. Clark is kind. That’s an important part of his character! He’s the strongest man in the world and he’s kind. He was also dead when Kon first appeared as a experiment from CADMUS in Hawaii. They’re not father-son, but they are family and they do care for each other, once they get to know each other. Also Kon is not an angry broody boy, he’s funny! And annoying! pls read kon comics guys, i promise youll like his actual character

Chronos??? Guys. Chronos is not a god in DC canon. He is in Greek mythology, but in DC he’s a Captain Atom villain and he’s literally just a guy who got obsessed with having perfect timing. He’s themed around clocks. He has nothing to do with time travel or time gods. The Speedforce is Time, basically, and it is not human. It is an eldritch being beyond our comprehension that can eat people. If it chooses to have a human form, it’s going to choose to look like Bart. Please read Flash stuff, it’s interesting!

Lazarus Pit Madness lasts like 5 minutes in canon. Jason having it, and being affected by it for years, is a purely fanon thing from the dc side. Not going to say anything more on this because it goes into Jason Todd discourse.

Repetition: I’m sorry but I’m tired of seeing the same things over and over. I barely see anything out of the dcxdp tags thats new and fun to engage with. Everything is the same variation of “Danny helps Pit Mad Jason”, “Bruce insta-adopts Danny”, “Superman is mean to clones”, etc etc. Think of any popular dcxdp trope and that’s all you’ll see. I get why these are fun and popular, but the way it’s being engaged with now? It literally makes me exit Tumblr and put my phone down.

Not every prompt has to go down the same routes as the other prompts. Please explore more options, branch out, twist those tropes around to do something new with them. And also stop going onto other people’s fics and saying “what about [dcxdp trope]? Cant wait to see [dcxdp trope]! You should have [dcxdp] trope.” If I didn’t include it, it’s not included for a reason. There are hundreds of other fics that write specifically about those exact tropes. Read those, or write your own. (im being super bitter here but please just let me write what i want to write without trying to pull the story into another direction for a trope you like. Im writing for me, but sharing it for you. Not every fic needs those tropes in them.)

Tumblr specific things: this is less about the content and more about general posting etiquette. Please put long posts under a read more. If it’s more then three paragraphs, consider adding a read more if there is significantly MORE than three paragraphs. Tag appropriately. Content warnings and trigger warnings should be at the very top of the post and in the tags so they can be properly blocked. If you’re posting fic/prompt, please double check your spelling and fix any typos you find because posts that are filled with excessive typos are difficult to read.

There’s probably a lot more to talk about, but just getting this much out is tiring and, frankly, I don’t want to think on it any more today. If you reply/add comments, I won’t get to them in a while bc I will be writing ghostlights and yhk fic to lift my mood :)

[mtt-burger-emporium]

thinking about chara and the implications of the line "chara hated humanity. why, they never said..." like ok i KNOW something was happening at home. chara baby you didn't deserve that shit i'm so glad you fell down a thousand feet in a cave hole and right into the arms of people who would keep you fed roof over your head and would never raise their hand against you. "eradicate humanity" you're 10 years old how about eradicating your shitfucked surface fam by calling cps first

[thatscarletflycatcher]

I might be interested in that “Sherlock writers/producers power trip” stuff 👀

Calling it a power trip was a bit dramatic of me XD but I do think the creators of Sherlock had a... weird relationship with the character of John Watson. He gets two different and incongruous characterizations, and I don't understand the rationale behind it.

The most clear example of this for me is how this changes between the Unaired Pilot and A Study in Pink. The Watson of the UP is self assured, practical, intelligent, competent, moral (if somewhat grim and with a veneer of darkness lurking beneath the surface) and mature. The Watson of ASIP is insecure, impractical, rather dumb, extremely loyal to a person he just met for no reason, a failure of a petticoat chaser, and essentially an adrenaline junkie. And these are two versions of the same story.

On the UP, the first meeting between Sherlock and Watson is marked by Watson's curiosity and earnest admiration about Sherlock's deductions; the same scene in ASIP shows us Watson being taken aback by Sherlock's behavior. When they are at the scene of the crime and Sherlock asks Watson if he's aware that he's speaking his appreciative remarks out loud, UP Watson just calmly asks if that bothers Sherlock; ASIP!Watson hurries to apologize. And in general he hesitates, apologizes and feels out of place much more across the latter version.

In the UP, what "cures" Watson's limp is that he notices that something has gone wrong with Sherlock's attempt at dealing with the cabbie, and he jumps to go help/save him. Watson is a doctor, his vocation in life is centered around helping and saving people; his psychological symptoms are caused by a sense of purposelessness, as he's been discharged after being wounded, and lives on a military pension. Now that he has met Sherlock and realized the ways in which Sherlock is self-destructive, he has found new purpose. ASIP, by replacing this for a foot-chase, replaces this element of characterization (intelligence, moral fiber, decisiveness) with... John is just an adrenaline junkie -and doubles down upon this through Mycroft words, and by removing from the ending scene the lines where Sherlock calls Watson "my doctor", and Watson tells Lestrade off by reminding him that Sherlock must eat if he is to be useful in future. In both versions we have the set-up of the gun Watson keeps in his drawer (that he may come to use to kill himself) and the payoff (that he ends up using to save Sherlock's life); but whereas in the UP it is of a piece with the characterization I mentioned above, in ASIP it feels like a leftover they couldn't remove because it was so deeply baked into the plot.

The framing of Watson's killing of the cabbie is also different between UP and ASIP: in the UP, we only see Watson leaving the restaurant, then the cabbie dying, and "realize" with Sherlock who the shooter was. It is implied that he guessed where the cabbie was taking Sherlock, called the police, made a detour to pick up his gun, and then headed to Baker Street where he chose the vantage point of a house across the street, from which he watched the cabbie and Sherlock, and waited till the last possible moment to shoot, in case bloodshed could be avoided. This shows that he can keep a very cool head under pressure, that he underwent military training and it stuck, and that he is moral and practical, grounded and efficient.

ASIP!Watson picked up his gun after his interview with Mycroft -the implication that he means to use it as protection/defense for Sherlock and himself from... MI5/6. Now that does give some credence to Mycroft's insult that Watson is brave, but bravery is what people say when they mean stupidity. You were in the army, Watson! You should know better! (the Mycroft subplot also includes two painfully awkward attempts at hitting on one of Mycroft's underlings, a woman clearly much younger than him. As I was saying, Watson loses maturity between the UP and ASIP). Watson then only follows Sherlock and the cabbie because of the phone setup that had been previously solved by Sherlock (so no application of intelligence here), does not think of calling the police, and then we watch him desperately searching for the room where Sherlock and the cabbie are, then when he casually lands on the room across that one, he screams Sherlock's name to the top of his lungs, and as he is not heard, he ends up shooting the cabbie as a last desperate effort. No planning here, no cold head, and some very stupid decisions (had the cabbie been armed for real, and he had stumbled into the room or been heard, chances are one or the two would have ended up injured or dead).

I think the contrast between the two versions of this other scene showcases this really well:

ASIP: Sherlock: are you alright? Watson: Yes, of course I'm alright. Sherlock: you just killed a man. Watson: Yes, I... That's true, innit? (pause) but he wasn't a very nice man.

UP: Sherlock: you are alright? Watson: of course I'm alright. Sherlock: you have just killed a man. Watson: I've seen men die before -good men, friends of mine-; 'thought I'd never sleep again. I'll sleep fine tonight.

The unaired pilot plays more with setting up a "dark side" to Watson; his profession as doctor makes him mainly caring and helpful, but it can also make him clinical and detached at points; I don't think it is a coincidence that Donovan tells Watson to take his distance from Sherlock because "One day just showing up won’t be enough. One day we’ll be standing round a body and Sherlock Holmes will be the one who put it there", but by the end of the episode the police is standing around on a crime scene for which the killer was... Watson. This last thing, again, carries over into ASIP because it couldn't be taken out without breaking the plot, but has been removed from the rest of Watson's characterization in the episode. Mind you, I don't think "exploring the dark side of John Watson's personality and maybe turning him into a villain or a conflicted antihero" is a good idea, but it was set up in one, discarded, and not replaced in the other.

I could write another post with the differences in the characterization of Sherlock between the two tellings of the story, but exploring that here would make this answer way much longer than it needs to be. I'll summarize it by saying that UP Sherlock is written to have some complementarities with UP Watson: Sherlock is rather juvenile/childish, too focused on "the game" to take care of himself, assess risks or evaluate how his behavior affects others. He has a hard time understanding the feelings of others, and that coupled with an enjoyment of tricks and disguises and games is what makes him difficult for other people to deal with. Basically, Sherlock is very intelligent in a rather theoretical, detached way, whereas Watson is a grounding presence because he's full of common, practical sense. ASIP Sherlock is... an asshole. It's not that he doesn't understand the emotions of others, he despises them. It's not that he's reckless, it's that he's super cool and dangerous (and suddenly is a master of combat what). He's basically a sort of pop culture übermensch?

The ASIP characterization for both characters dominates series 1 and 2 of Sherlock, and develops through two main dynamics: one is the "Watson as a silly wife in a bad 1950s sitcom", that is particularly intense and weird in The Blind Banker (which, in all fairness, was not written by mofftiss).

The first Sherlock-John scene in TBB is a juxtaposition between Sherlock having a skilled fight at the flat, while Watson is failing miserably at... checking out groceries. The following scene is poor silly woman Watson with her his silly little homemaking problems cannot understand the huge work and problems her husband Sherlock tackles when she's not looking. Watson is worried about having money to pay the necessities, Sherlock cannot be bothered to mind such pedestrian things.

This depiction of Watson as """"feminine"""" (derogatory) pops up here and then. He gets kidnapped three times for just being... careless (again, doctor, yes, but war veteran and human being that has been kidnapped before). It may not sound like A LOT, but when you consider the whole series is just 14 episodes, of which one is a short and another happens exclusively inside Sherlock's head... well...

Magnussen literally calls Watson Sherlock's damsel in distress in His Last Vow. His feelings upon discovering Sherlock is alive in The Empty Hearse are treated as over-reaction by Sherlock, Mary and the narrative. In general the whole Mary arc is filled with this sense that Mary and Sherlock relate to each other and understand each other and cooperate with each other on a level that Watson can't reach, and he's therefore relegated most of the time to a figure to be protected from both truth and evildoers, and then to give Rosie to, because man carrying a baby emasculating or something? (Sherlock's single interaction with Rosie is about his trying to reason with her, but he never touches or holds her, and she virtually disappears as a being once Mary dies).

This concept of Sherlock as idealized pop culture übermensch and Watson as a failure of a man takes the rest of the time a strange tone of aggressiveness, not only in the occasions in which Watson beats up Sherlock (A Scandal in Bohemia, TEH, The Lying Detective), but in smaller ways in Watson's pointed acting like he's not interested in the case or in explanations... and his dating women for apparently no other reason that to try and stick it to Sherlock (which makes it extra out of nowhere when he's not only so deeply affected by Sherlock's death, but that he tells to his grave "I was so alone and I owe you so much". Wait, what? You've spent most of your time being annoyed and feeling threatened by this guy).

Watson's relationships with women is also part of the weirdness of his characterization. He dates several of them one after the other in what seems an effort to show Sherlock that at least in this he's more competent than him; he doesn't seem to really care considering he mixes up their names and neglects them. However, the series also wants to make him also a very awkward and poor flirt with no standards (like trying to get the therapist in The Hounds of Baskerville, starting an emotional affair with a woman who just smiled at him on the bus, gets very mad at a tabloid calling him confirmed bachelor), and that the women that DO actually get into stable relationships with him think him beneath them one way or another (the series makes a pointed joke about how his girlfriend in The Great Game won't have sex with him or make him breakfast, Mary uses him first as a cover and then calls herself the best thing that happened to him as a joke while he's very seriously trying to propose to her). It rounds up again to that subtle "not man enough - feminine" undercurrent.

Then there's Watson's general incompetence. On my first draft of this answer I had written a list, episode by episode, of all the times Watson is being sent on wild goose chases, makes mistakes that no one with his background should, stumbles upon clues by sheer dumb luck, is generally useless, and his ideas are treated as extremely dumb, but it was very long and boring. So here are the ones I found to be the most notorious examples:

In TBB, he does not comment that left-handed people do in fact learn to shoot with their right hand (he is himself a left handed person who does that as established in ASIP); on that same episode he daftly stands by with a paint can and gets caught by the police and can't say anything to defend himself despite the high unlikeness of his being.... a street artist (his worrying about the charges is, again, framed as silly.)

He leaves the witness they need and who is in danger, alone, so he can go "help Sherlock" (which meant just... running out of the scene so she could get killed).

Watson's date is better than him at the brawl that happens at the circus somehow. He cannot tell a delivery guy from a ninja and gets kidnapped. He's scared witless because an old lady is pointing a gun at him (HE'S AN AFGHANISTAN VETERAN).

In TGG, Watson has kept the gun with which he killed the cabbie (against UP, and also, you know, incriminating evidence). Watson, a doctor whose CV specifies surgery, is jumpscared and upset by a head in the fridge.

In ASIB, he doesn't even know how to punch properly. The guy who is an ace with a gun in ASIP, is reduced and held at gunpoint like nothing here, and contributes nothing while badass Sherlock and Irene kick the goons asses. Falls for a dumb seduction trick because he's an idiot. Cannot tell apart real shock from Mrs Hudson just pretending.

In The Sign of the Three, Sherlock realizes Mary is pregnant before Watson, WHO IS A DOCTOR does.

These characterizations I have been talking about are very dominant through series 1 and 2, but then something curious happens on s3: without any warning or connection, the series starts acting like the characterizations of the UP have been the show's characterizations all along.

It begins with Sherlock's characterization; he's back and itching to see Watson, not realizing that he would have moved on in two years. Mycroft tries to warn him to break the news softly to him, but Sherlock doesn't understand; all he can think about is what a lark it will be to show up out of nowhere! There's no real meanness in it, just childish joy. This goes on through TsotT, with his anxieties about his speech, his difficulty to prepare and deliver it and following through the ceremonies, his surprise and emotion at being chosen as best man and called Watson's best friend, his promise to keep Mary safe and his efforts to save Watson in s4, and even his realization about Eurus' emotional needs in the series finale.

Not that the original ASIP characterization doesn't show up here and there again and again, through things like Sherlock's edgy comments about religion, his complete distraction and lack of attention at Rosie's baptism, his mysoginy and use of Jeaninne in HLV, etc.

Same happens with Watson. The narrative keeps doing its mockery thing, and will lay VERY THICK the whole "Watson is just an adrenaline junkie" with Mary's secret and how Watson married her because he's attracted to danger and that makes it all his fault somehow... it will also show Watson being bored by his job at the surgery. BUT the main storyline of the Sherlock-Watson relationship only makes sense through the UP characterization. It is, in fact, spelled out loud in TsotT: Sherlock solves puzzles, Watson saves lives. The back-cases of the episode show Watson being intelligent, competent, and helpful, specially as a doctor. Sherlock believes that he's been saved by Watson through their friendship. The case at the end is solved through both Watson's saving of lives and Sherlock's solving of puzzles (we are even shown that Watson has another friend! who is also a recluse!). Watson is at peace in his relationship with Harriet. We are even shown that Watson is secretly drinking more alcohol during his bachelor bender, to not disappoint Sherlock's calculations about his alcohol tolerance, and so "ruin" his fun and the work he put on it.

This goes on through HLV as well; Watson gets some PTSD flashbacks, then manages firmly and competently the "rescue" of Isaiah Whitley, and even shows some of that colder and a tad cruel side that was hinted in the UP. He has authority enough to make Mycroft leave when he tells him to. He's in on the plan to reveal Mary's past as a spy, and even later on is the one to suggest Sherlock puts a tracker on her before she drugs him and leaves, which shows both practicality and foresight. He even jokes with Lestrade about Sherlock being like a baby!

Even though The Abominable Bride only happens in Sherlock's mind and therefore doesn't really count towards Watson's characterization, it is worth noticing that in it Watson is so much more involved in monitoring and containing Sherlock's drug problem than he has proven to be till that point (sure, Watson got Molly to test him in HLV, but nothing came of it, and the treatment of the matter in TLD is even worse).

The only way to make some sense of The Six Thatchers and TLD, Watson-wise, is to play along with this idea of Watson as supremely practical, competent, and mature. His being rather checked out about Mary (he spends the whole morning (9 hours) of what seems to be one of his free days just proving with a balloon that Sherlock doesn't need him, while his wife is dealing with a very young baby, for example), and his emotional affair are to be understood not as part and parcel of the character we've seen through series 1 and 2, but as a moment of weakness of the character they say he is in s3.

It's not just the only way to understand not only his intense guilt, but the way the narrative tries to present the infidelity as "well, it is what it is, we are all human" down to Sherlock telling Watson that even Watson is human. That's not what Watson actually is, though, through most of the series. He's a callous, violent, horny idiot, which the narrative calls human, and that's the resolution of the opening scene of TLD about things being wrong and being able of calling them wrong. They are just what they are and we are all human.

The finale is all about Sherlock and Eurus, and so Watson's development ends here.

And the thing is, that I would have liked to see much more of the potential the characterizations in UP showed. That would have been an interesting dynamic. I think the casting of Martin Freeman for Watson was great, and that he elevates whatever he's in (yes, even The Hobbit movies), but was ultimately wasted, and for what?

Maybe it is that the BBC demanded those changes to bring in a lighter tone and comedic relief. Maybe they really wanted a sort of loose remix of House M.D. (which is what the Sherlock-Watson dynamic is most of the time in this show) instead of the Sherlock Holmes adaptation Mofftiss wanted to make. Maybe only after the show became wildly popular they were allowed to do what they wanted that way. But it was too little, too late, and mixed in with a steep decline of the quality of the writing of everything else.

Even within the limits of that generous reading of what happened, it is still stories they wrote and signed, where what could have been a compelling character with many interesting things to explore, from an actually accurate portrayal of PTSD (and not the "actually it is civilian life that is giving him PTSD because he's an adrenaline junkie, surprise!), and a war injury and physical disability being taken seriously, to his grounding role in Sherlock's life, a development of his deductive abilities, a more equal and complex relationship with Mary... we got an idiot whose function in the plot most of the time was narrative punchbag and high contrast to Sherlock's übermensch.

And that's such a pity.

[cultivating-wildflowers]

📒

[lycanr0t]

voxval to me isnt "they love each other and are soo sweet and fluffy" and it isnt "they don't care about each other/are just using each other"

its love and caring being messy and cruel. its that they may care but that doesnt make them good people, doesnt change their willingness to hurt each other. its love being expressed via a power struggle, via hurting each other but having each others back. its the "i trust you not to kill me" AND the "you will die by my hands only"

intense and conflicting and at every turn fucked up but not uncaring per se, theyre not indifferent they CARE it's just that caring when youre an awful person whose concept of caring is cruel and fucked up can be. well. cruel and fucked up

[fictionadventurer]

Of course the sequel to Out of the Tomb would be a vocation story. Tanza's let go of sin and embraced virtue. Naturally, the next part of her story would involve her figuring out what she's going to do with her particular gifts and interests. Especially if what she should do doesn't necessarily line up with what she'd want to do if given the choice. With all the crazy political stuff bringing in questions of duty and image and danger, it's the perfect fit. I can't believe I didn't figure it out before.

[wildshapedruid]

reminder that we should keep researching and staying up to date on new dogwhistles and propaganda because it's occurring to me that there's been posts related to current events that were very popular and that I've reblogged myself in the past where I've missed the fine print because I wasnt actively keeping up to date and staying aware and, understandably, have lost friends and mutuals. because it's literally no one's job to babysit you at all times, and you gotta put the work in yourself when it comes to being an ally to anybody, especially jewish people. you can't expect people to always hold your hand. and to my jewish mutuals and followers I want you to know I intend to do better because making you feel unsafe on my blog is the last thing I want.

[aro-attorneys]

This year and last year at the anime convention I have to see someone with HP merch in any form in addition to pride pins (including trans ones) and I have to wonder. Do they know? How do you not know. If you are involved enough in HP to cosplay or make pins for it, how do you avoid the controversy? Did no one tell you? Did you not see it anywhere? Or did you ignore it when you were told. Do you ignore the bigotry hole that JKR dug herself into? How can you with clear conscience and still wear your pride pins like that? Still sell both your trans pride pin right next to your pin that says 'potterhead'?

[notveryshrugemoji]

I called out of work today and UGH it was a good decision I am back in bed. I might go to the gym later hahahaah

[kurthorton-moving]

if u have. Tropes or vibes or anything u wanna see in ocs hmu bc i am Making More