#I was somehow Molly in the RL version

[thalialunacy]

[for the @calaisreno May Prompt-a-long, and based on a true story.]

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) 9: intimidation (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21) (22) (23) (24) (25) (26) (27) (28) (29) (30) (31)

John jerks his head up from his laptop the second he realises something alarming:

The flat is quiet.

'Sherlock.'

'Hmm?' Sherlock doesn't look up from his experiment.

'Where's Rosie?'

Sherlock raises his hand to point. 'She's right--' He finally actually raises his head. 'Oh. Dear.'

'Hell,' John curses, ignoring a shot of pain as he stands too quickly.

Sherlock's Voice of Reason tendencies are very useful here. He puts himself in front of John and forces his gaze. 'Don't let's panic. She didn't grow wings, nor is it likely she suddenly gained the physical capacity to climb a baby gate. So she's just hidden herself somewhere. She probably thinks it's a game. You search the sitting room, I'll take the loo and then the kitchen. Alright?'

John nods, and promises himself he'll show Sherlock his appreciation later. Possibly with something beyond the snatched kisses they've managed so far. 'Alright.'

Three minutes later, he hears Sherlock's long sigh. 'John.' John strides over to where the detective is standing in front of his bedroom door. 'Apparently…'

'It locks?'

'It locks.'

'What about the second loo door?'

Sherlock grimaces. 'I always keep that one locked from the inside.'

'Alright, where's your key?'

'I don't have a key for either door. Never did do.'

John leans in towards the door. 'Rosie?' he calls, trying to keep his tone calm.

'Yeah, Daddy!'

The air escapes his lungs in a great dirty whoosh. 'Oh thank Christ,' he mutters. He raises his head and turns to Sherlock. 'Can you go see if--'

Sherlock's already halfway out the kitchen door, calling back, 'I'm sure she'll have one.'

But Mrs Hudson does not, in fact, have one, she tells John once she's come upstairs, wringing her hands as best she can with her wrist in a soft cast. 'I'm sorry! I'll call a locksmith straight away.'

'Nonsense,' Sherlock says over her. 'My lockpicks are, unhelpfully, behind the locked door, but I bet you could get me a hairpin and a nail file, please?'

John looks at Mrs Hudson and shrugs. 'Not things I keep on hand, I'm afraid.'

'Oh, pah, you boys. I'll be back in a tic.'

'Do you think you can actually pick it?' John asks quietly as soon as he can hear her feet on the stairs.

'Erm…possibly.'

'Possibly.'

'It's quite old and disused, John.'

'And?'

'And that means rust. Decay. Mechanisms that don't work anymore.'

'Christ,' John mutters. He puts his forehead to the door again. 'Sweetheart?' he calls.

'Daddy?'

'Will you open the door for me, Rosie?'

'Ermmm, no,' she says clearly.

'God grant me patience,' he says to himself, and jerks his head up when he hears Sherlock laugh.

'Sorry,' Sherlock says, clearly not sorry at all, 'but you sound like my mother.'

'Yes, I'd imagine she needed a deep well of patience to raise you.'

'Endless. Rosamund?' he says to the door. 'Do you want to unlock that door so you can help me with an experiment?'

John eyes him, but if it works, then--

'Nope,' she replies, popping her P like a certain someone.

'She's evil,' John mutters.

'She's stubborn.'

'She gets that from you.'

'I beg your pardon,' Sherlock says, quite offended. 'I am reasonable.'

'Sure. When you're not being stubborn.'

Sherlock pivots very unsubtly. 'Ms Watson, if you unlock that door, then Mrs Hudson will bake you some of those cakes you like.'

John pushes against his shoulder. 'Her wrist is broken!' he whispers incredulously.

'We can buy some at the bakery,' Sherlock whispers back. 'She'll never know.'

'You're evil.'

'Yes, well, you let me past the threshold, so you can really only blame yourself.'

'No, thank you!' Rosie calls back.

John rolls his eyes. 'Sure, she's polite for Mrs Hudson.'

'Clever.'

'Not helpful.'

'We could try intimidation.'

'Could we, though?' John asks, bemused.

'You can be very intimidating when you like, despite your stature.'

'Thanks,' he replies dryly.

But before they can debate the merits of trying to intimidate a toddler into doing anything, Mrs Hudson re-appears with the requested items. 'Oh, I do hope you can pick it, Sherlock. I will be very disappointed in your skills otherwise, you speak so highly of them.'

John coughs a laugh into his hand. 'Thanks, Mrs H.'

Twenty minutes later, though, John's growing desperate, texting everyone in his phone to see if they have any brilliant ideas. Wondering how much it would cost to just lift the door off it's hinges.

In the end, he should have known to just ring Molly first. 'Just put me on, okay?' she says quickly. John does as requested. 'Hi, Rosie!' she says cheerfully via speakerphone.

John and Sherlock exchange a look. 'Rosie,' John says, trying to keep his tone pleasantly neutral. 'If you come out, you can talk to Aunt Molly,'

They all hold their breath.

Then the lock turns.

[❤️]

[loquaciousquark]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E138 & 139 (May 25, 2021)

Hello, you lovely people! It’s Tuesday and it’s time again for TM! Tonight’s guests: Marisha Ray & Liam O’Brien! The first picture that pops up when you google his name to check the spelling for the thousandth time is him with a shaved head, which is a wild look.

Ah! According to Dani, this is likely the last Zoom Talks! I’m so happy to hear this! They complain about Laura’s internet freezing constantly whenever she was about to say something exciting.

This episode is sponsored by The Elder Scrolls Online. As I’ve recently resumed my Skyrim run, this makes me crave it all over again.

Liam talks about having to drop everything to start the Zoom call, then having 27 minutes of technical difficulties before they could even begin recording. Augh, same hat.

Beau navigating the Astral Sea & Cognouza was empowering and unsettling. “This is the coolest! Uh oh.” It’s like seeing a new piece of RL tech come out and thinking about how it will change everything, then immediately thinking about how it’ll be abused, like deepfakes.

The first interactions with the Somnovem was overwhelming. They started fighting gnolls in a medieval towns and are now fighting interstellar beings. For Beau, it felt like talking to a really drunk friend. I actually love how she phrases this. “To me, it definitely felt like when you talk to one of your friends when they’re really drunk, and you’re like, ‘oh, I see what version of this person I have right now.’ And then you catch another version of that person on a shit day, and you’re like, ‘ah, I get it, you’re having a shit day.’ But then you catch them when they’re all put together and holding it down, and you’re like, ‘okay, you only hate yourself on the fringes.’ I get that. I found the Somnovem relatable.” Dani: “I too am just a collection of different emotions just barely hanging on by a thread.”

Marisha was able to put the pieces together of the ninefold emotions pretty quickly.

They do a whole tape-review bit after Brian mispronounces Yussa that is amazing. Aside from that, the M9 are glad they got him out of the city. It felt like a die-in-the-Matrix situation for him.

Liam kind of always suspected Matt would dangle the time-travel carrot in front of him. He honestly doesn’t know which way he’d go now. “For a long time, Caleb was like, ‘this doesn’t exist, so it doesn’t matter.’” It’ll probably be a mental coin flip if it comes down to an in-game decision.

"The dice are a CW producer,” when it comes to Beau & Yasha fighting each other.

They can’t remember another prolonged encounter bleeding into another encounter directly since Thordak/Raishan & Kevdak/the herd.

Cosplay of the Week: cattheterrible on Twitter with a beautiful Yasha.

Liam thinks Matt did a great job making it feel like a pressure cooker in terms of balancing their approaches between Lucien’s party & Cree. They’re also both very pleased that their plan with the threshold crests worked - it’s one of the few plans they’ve had across two campaigns that worked. (Honorable mentions they pull: intuit charges, Gelidon, Yenk/Vorugal from C1. “Will Friedle was a better [tactician] than all of us that entire campaign.”)

As far as the nine eyes on everyone go, “we’re all just one metaphysical garbage disposal.” Omar starts barking and they joke the dog will be SAG-eligible before Dani. Ha!

Just the idea of Aeor as a relic of history is massively important. They might die at any point, but if they live, Caleb thinks it’s so important to preserve that history Indiana-Jones-style, especially since it was obviously more advanced as a civilization.

Marisha wonders if they can bring forward the piece of Lucien that is Molly. “It’s a fractal. It’s that full molecular crystalline structure that’s repeating and recurring, and even if it’s several times removed, it still feels like part of the same thing. But maybe a different version, a different timeline of what Lucien is was more or less Molly, and can we Spiderverse the fuck out of this? Can we somehow recall that programming from whatever’s buried? [...] It’s like how moving things to your Recycling Bin doesn’t really clear them from your hard drive.”

Fanart of the Week: mellifera38 with a beautiful Lucien pre-tentacles. The card award shenanigans come complete with massive fireworks green screen display, a rainbow unicorn, a cease and desist letter, eagle wings, lasers, and a PHYSICAL CARD in his hand oh my gosh, to celebrate the final Zoom Talks.

Liam is glad Essek was there to help out with the dunamantic elements of their fights. He’s doing a lot to redeem himself. Liam is also thinking a lot about endgame, long-term repercussions of how this would affect the kingdoms.

Marisha finds the weasel being Artagan adorably traumatic and hilariously tragic. Not only was this poor weasel getting dragged to hell and back, sometimes his personality gets shoved to the side to allow Artagan in. Poor thing, ha! Liam talks about one aspect of the game is that you learn things about your character as ago and then apply it backwards; “We ragged on this weasel so hard, that Matt was like ‘fuck you guys, he’s alive because there’s a fey prince inside him’ and made it retroactive through time.” He’d noticed it for a while, but because there was no downtime in Aeor, there was never a chance to casually bring it up. Beau’s confirmation of seeing something weird about the weasel was a relief that he wasn’t crazy.

It’s a lot of pressure to be the ��face” of the party, especially considering Beau’s CHA stat is low. Now it feels like siblings deliberately pushing Lucien’s buttons, except with the full recognition you’re poking a nuclear bomb. It’s honestly been fun, though - she loves being a smartass to people she should ABSOLUTELY not be saying things to. In Caleb’s mind, Beau is the closest thing the group has to a responsible hero. Cad is a great sage, but Beau does what she thinks is the right thing that needs to be done.

They both laugh at this being Matt’s love letter to FF games. They should have been ready for the transformation and the amazing spectacle of the whole thing.

And that is that is that! Brian thanks the guests, Dani, and the crew. “We did it! We did Zoom. Thank you Marisha especially, and our amazing production team for figuring out a way for us to be able to do this from home and make all the artwork and everything so awesome. Thank you to everyone who has touched the show in some way and helped us do it from home.”

Is it Thursday yet?