#Not My Circus

[szynkaaa]

04. In Which They Have Language Lessons Together

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“What are those symbols you are writing above?” A bored monkey king was lounged in a chair next to me, his eyes following my hands gripping my fountain pen and scribbling things into a book that Shen Monkey gave me. Or rather, he was going to throw it away, and I decided to take it. It first started out with just being curious to see how books were made in ye olde ancient China, and then turned to slightly horrified when I realized, I can’t read half of the text inside.  

I usually pride myself with being able to understand and speak Chinese fluently. Informal Chinese, but better than nothing. My reading skills were also good enough to be able to read Chinese boys love web novels at three am in the dark, on the bed sideways with autor-otate turned off on the phone.  

The unfortunate reality was that I learned how to read simplified Chinese, which in my world was adapted less than 100 years ago from my time. That means while I was able to recognize some words and characters, a lot of I was not able to read the full text and understand the context.  

It’s like having learned French for a year on-and-off and when you open up The Little Prince in French, you are only able to understand every third word or less. Sometimes you understood the sentence context, other times there were just too many unfamiliar vocabularies for me to make any sense of what it was trying to say.  

Not being able to read a text in a language that I was familiar gave me a sense of loss of control, and there was nothing less I liked than not being in control of things in my life.  

So that was something I needed to rectify, and unfortunately for my favorite monkey, you were tasked with helping me learn how to read some words. And you seemed to be very happy when I approached you and asked you to help me. I haven’t seen much of you lately, as you were busy discussing with your generals and rebuilding Mount Huaguo, making sure it was habitable again, so I supposed you jumped at the first chance to be able to spend more time with me.  

Might have also heard you yelling ‘Clear my schedule for the next few days’ to your advisors, who did not look very happy about it but did not argue further with you.  

So here we are now, sitting outside in a nice forest clearing close to the waterfall, with books and papers and ink and brushes scattered across the table. You plucked a few of your fur, chewed on them and then blew them out to turn them into furniture.  

Very practical to have a walking and talking IKEA store with me.  

The ‘symbols’ you’re asking about are the Pinyin I was writing above the Chinese. “Those are Latin letters,” I explained “back in my world, we use Pinyin as a way to write down how Chinese characters sound, and have a standardized system. It uses Latin letters, because it also helps foreigners to learn Chinese.” The explanation was a very dumbed down one, but I hoped it was enough for you to understand the gist of it. “By writing it down above the characters I don’t recognize, I will know now how this word is pronounced. So the next step will be memorizing and hopefully next time I see the same character in another text, I can point at it and go ‘Hey, I know this because Old Sun taught me this’”.  

Your tail perked up at me calling you Old Sun, and you grinned. “So this is why you want my help. Do not fret, with your Monkey King as your teacher, you will be able to read every text in the mortal realm.” You boasted, tail now swinging left and right.  

My hair fell over my face, the long strand dipping into the clay tray that was holding the black ink. I grimaced at the ink staining the tip of my hair, and tucked the strand over my ear. My hair has goes a bit over my shoulder now. I was mostly used to short hair, but you liked to play with my longer hair, so I haven’t gotten around to cut it yet.  

“Latin letters...” you repeated what I said, and then pointed at the Pinyin again, “Is this the writing system used when you speak ‘English’?”  

I had to bite back a laugh, remembering your very confused face the first time you heard me cussing and cursing out loud in English at a yaoguai, because sometimes it was better they didn’t understand what my filthy mouth was saying.  

“Yeah, it's that. There are many other languages that use the same writing system.” More hair fell into my face, but you reacted fast this time and put the tray of ink color away before my hair could dip into it again. I gathered my hair in my hands and tucked it under my hanfu, hoping they will stay there.  

“Chinese and English... Impressive, my cherry blossom speaks knows two languages.” You said, a grin across your face, like you were very proud about the fact that I was multilingual.  

“Four.” I corrected you, and took a sip from my tea. You raised your eyebrow, even more impressed now. “Except three of them are virtually useless here, and I am struggling to read basic text here.” I added, pointing at said text book in front of me.  

My hair fell forward once again, and you could tell that I was getting frustrated by having to constantly pull my hair back somehow.  

“Why do you not use the hairpin gifted to you by the zodiac villagers.” You asked, there was a bit of bite in that question. The hairpin you were referring to was a birthday present from the villagers, given to me when I was seeking shelter there and hiding away from you for a few weeks. I think a part of you was also hurt that you missed my birthday when I was avoiding you, and I insisted that it was alright, and you didn’t have to get me anything.  

“I don’t know how to use it.” I replied, thinking back about the hairpin sitting on my vanity, unused.  

You remained silent at first, so I went back to studying and copying characters I was unfamiliar with, repeating the Pinyin silently trying to memorize it, when is saw from the corner of my eye how you picked Jingubang out of your ear. I looked up again, your golden staff now the size of a hairpin in your hand.  

“Face me and do not move.” You commanded.  

I did as you asked, putting my pen down and shuffled in my chair to be facing you. My heart was starting to pick up speed, my gut predicting what is coming next.  

You leaned forward, close to my face. With Jingubang in one hand, you used your free hand to gather my hair, and then moved both hands back to twist it a few times around your staff. In a few seconds, my hair out of my face, and tied up neatly around Jingubang.  

You then leaned back, and had a big proud smile on your face. “There, now you do not have to worry about the ink staining your whole black hair back.” You said, referring also to our time on the road when I temporarily tried to dye my hair black.  

My face heated up, and I carefully reached a hand to the back of my head to feel your masterwork, fingers running over Jingubang. There was something very precious and special knowing that he transformed his trusty golden staff into the size of a hairpin and then tied my hair up for me...  

“Thank you.” I said sincerely, and without thinking much, I quickly moved my head forward and planted a kiss on the cheek-part of your face that was covered in fur. The result was instant: The tip of your ears was turning red and a big red blush began to blossom on your face. Oh, how I loved seeing you blush, and even more when it was me who caused it.  

With the speed your tail was waggling, one would think you were trying to dust the floor.  

“Do you wanna know how to write your name in Pinyin?”

  

[xoslvn]

“That better not be my circus,” I say as I glance upon something that is not only my circus, but also contains my monkeys….

[0gh0stexe0]

Those monkeys are just visiting my circus, officer. I swear they aren’t mine.

[lwlrence]

[theuniversalscat]

🙏

[burningfeathersx]

Class war, class war, class war, class war~

[frnko-mars]

walks into the cooler at my job

see this

walks out

[gingershnek]

Me: (Chilling in my circus with my monkeys) 👀

You: (panicking because your monkeys are going crazy) 💀

Me: 😑

[szynkaaa]

03. In Which a Stinky Monkey Needs a Bath

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... And one time, while traveling through the New West, you were not in the greatest mood. 

You were walking couple of paces ahead of me, gripping your staff tightly, and I was trying my best to keep up with you. It wasn’t easy, with the snow reaching my knees. Least with you wading through it at the front, all I had to do was walking into the trail you left behind. 

Normally, you’d walk next to me. It’s mostly to make sure that nothing was attacking me from behind when you were walking too far ahead, but then at some point I think you started to enjoy my company. It was also easier for you to shove me aside into safety in case we got ambushed. Better have bruises from the impact than a massive gnarly gash across the back.  

Another tell-sign that you were miffed: You walked with you shoulder all tensed up, and your tail was poised up higher than usual moving slowly left and right.  

If I had to take a wild guess, I’d say it might have something to do with the really weird looking monkey (that looked like it hasn’t bathed in decades and could use a full bottle of body lotion), wearing read loose pants and a mask as a necklace around his neck. We first spotted him sitting on a roof top of an abandoned building surrounded by frozen corpses.  

He was eating a fruit before he heard us coming. It didn’t seem like that monkey appreciated us interrupting his meal time – he looked fairly annoyed. His black soulless eyes swept over me, looking more and more annoyed, but then the mood instantly shifted when his eyes landed on you. Black orbs widened up in surprise, something akin to fear flashed across his face and finally settled what seems to be smugness? The monkey let out a hiss before casually dropping his fruit from the roof down onto one of the frozen corpses and hey what do you know, one of my worst nightmares came true: it came alive.  

Loud cracking sound echoed through the howling wind, the frozen corpse moving its limbs that have not been used in a long time, and grabbed for the weapon close to it, before coming swinging at us with a loud roar.  

Thankfully, you already dashed ahead to beat the living (or un-living?) crap out of the frozen corpse before it could even hit any of us.  

All I could think in that moment while watching the other monkey running away on his four was ‘Damn. There are more frozen corpses ahead of us and I haven’t had any coffee for a long time to deal with this crap�� and ‘fuck me sideways, this is like every horror scenario coming true and I did not fucking sign up for this’, and ‘dear god please just let this day end a warm hot spring would be really nice right now’.  

And I was right. I warm hot spring would be really fucking nice right now because someone had to chase after the crusty looking monkey – while beating up all the frozen corpses on the chase. Very nice of you to make sure I didn’t have to deal with them, it still would have been nice if you could have waited for me, was what I was thinking while running through the snow and against the wind to catch up with you.  

By the time I caught up with you, I broke up in sweat, and was panting slightly. I don’t really consider myself badly out of shape – I think I’m pretty fit for my age. But running through knee high snow, with the wind blowing against you and also wearing thick winter clothes that I bartered from a village we passed by, it made the jog up a bit more challenging than usual.  

And now I’m sweating and really hoping that the sweat won’t cool off too fast on my body and hopefully I won’t catch a cold in this miserable weather-  

The wind blew into my direction, carrying a hefty stank with it; rotten egg sewers system stank mixed with a lactose intolerant person who forgot to take their lactose pills and decided to go for that boba tea anyway because you only live once (could not be me).  

I immediately clamped my gloved hand over the lower half of my face, squinting through the howling wind to see where the fuck that smell came from.  

Pop quiz time!  

Question 1: Where did the stank come from 

Your monkey (not the crusty looking one) somehow managed to find a hot spring. The stronger the sulfur rotten egg smell, the better the mineral in the water is for your skin. 

One of the frozen corpses he beat up turned out to be a hollow shell, and upon breaking it releases a horrible gas that smells like rotten eggs.  

The very crusty looking monkey that looks like he should be buried 20 feet deep you are fighting right now keeps flashing you his behind and farting on your monkey. 

Question 2: What do you do in this situation.  

Take cover, stay out of this fight, do not get involved.  

One up the crust monkey. His farts are smelly? Well guess what maybe the Destined One’s even worse with his vegetarian diet. 

Throw a well-aimed snowball to help out your comrade. 

Question 3: When was the last time you told your loved ones ‘I love you’ before you got spirited away? 

Very recently, you always say ‘I love you’ to them at the end of a conversation like it’s the last one. Life is short and you never know what will happen. 

You don’t remember. You barely talk to your ‘loved’ ones anymore, life keeping you busy. Your last conversations were shallow catch up, and you realize that you have slowly pushed all the people in your life away and now you regret not playing a more active part in their lives anymore. 

This is all just a bad dream. Soon you will wake up, surrounded by your loved ones and that is when you tell them that you love them and you are glad to be able to see their faces again.  

And BOY did I wish the answer to question three was c, and I bet you, the Destined One, wished the same thing because you looked like you were fighting for your life (and fresh oxygen) against the monkey.  

He truly had the audacity to be flashing his thankfully covered butt at you several times and let out stinky farts, and I was wondering why the hell were you not dodging it. Or at least it looked like you were trying to, but failing miserably.  

Part of me had to respect the crusty monkey for being able to let out farts on command.  

If it wasn’t for the frequent fart attacks, I’d say you were holding up pretty well in the fight. But I can also see that with each fart-attack, you were getting more and more agitated, your attacks and moves becoming more frantic an un-coordinated. Who could blame you, if it was me, I’d also getting pissed and just want to whack everything wildly around me.  

I was lucky that the crusty monkey has not decided to attack me, and decided mayhap I should help you out a bit lest you die of being stank up, and I don’t think anyone would want that written on their grave.  

The Destined One, died by fart. You were loved and you will be missed.  

Spotting a small rock at my feet, I crouched down and started to roll it around in the snow, until it was fully covered and then getting bigger and bigger. Then I picked up the freshly made snowball, threw it in the air and caught it with my hand to test the weight. Not too light, but also not too heavy. Good enough to give someone a good smack.  

I looked back up again to see how you were faring in the battle – crusty monkey stuck his sword to the ground and was using it as a pole to swing around in a circle, kicking you back in the process. You tumbled back a few times, fell into the snow. 

As you got up to shake off the snow, and the crusty monkey laughing at you, I took this chance to aim and throw the snowball as hard as I can at the farting monkey. The snowball breezed through the air, hitting the crusty monkey square on the side of his face as he was busy laughing at you. It didn’t really do any damage enough, but it was enough to distract him. He turned his head into the direction of where the snowball came from, while his hand moving to grip his sword. That was enough time for you to adjust your grip on your staff and charge at him with a battle yell. One jump, you moved your free hand to grip your stuff, lift it up above your head and then went to smack the other monkey.  

He stumbled back couple of paces, before growling at you, and then decided that this was a fight he cannot win and disappeared in a wind of black dust.  

Coward.  

I came out of my hiding place, standing next to you, watching after the black dust wind flying off into the distance. 

And then another waft of wind blew into my direction. 

“Oh God, you need a bath, Kiwi.”, I groaned out, covering my nose and again and waving my free hand in front of my face in hopes to make the bad smell disappear.  

And I suppose you did not appreciate that comment.  

So not were you only pissed because of getting constantly farted, your travel companion – me – made a not-so-nice-remark about your current predicament, after you made sure you killed all the frozen corpses and fought the crusty monkey off.  

Seeing you walking in front of me with your tail showing that you were angry... I really was a shitty companion sometimes, was I?  

Just I was about to open my mouth to apologize to you, you suddenly stopped walking and I almost walked into you. Puzzled, I wanted to ask what happened and if there was something dangerous in front of us, but then I saw you turning your head up, your nose started sniffling something in the air. I copied you, but I couldn’t really smell anything out of the ordinary beside the cold winter air.  

You followed your nose, and seeing as I have nowhere better to go, I followed wherever your nose was taking you. It soon led us to an abandoned run-down shack. Not the first time we have come across during our travel, and we have used countless of those as a temporary shelter. The closer we got to the shelter, the more I can smell it in the air: rotten egg. 

Please don’t tell me this is the shelter of the crusty monkey and you are here for a round two-  

Instead of going inside the shelter, you walked around it. You briefly paused, and turned around to see if I was still following you. And then you nodded your head forward, in a follow-me gesture. So that probably means you were not going into another stinky fight.  

Curious now, I followed you. The rotten egg smell hung stronger in the air, followed by some steam, and I felt how the temperature in the air was getting warmer too, until you I saw what it was that caught your nose. 

A hot spring.  

I couldn’t believe our luck, this god-forsaken cold place really had a hot spring! Steam was rising from the water, fogging up the area. The giant rock pieces places around the spring indicates that the placement was deliberate – perhaps someone used to live here and made good use of the spring?  

“Alright game plan,” I announced, clapping my hands together and then pointed at you “You. Strip off your clothes-” your eyebrows raised up high “and just leave them in the corner over there. I’ll wash them for you while you’re washing up yourself in the hot spring.” My type A personality is coming out. Having something that vaguely resembles a plan made me feel good, it gave me the illusion that I was in control in a situation outside my control. 

As I was giving you instructions, I fumbled in my bag for the bar of soap I purchased in our last village and threw it at you, which you caught with just one hand. You moved it up to your nose to smell it.  

“And after you’re done, it’s my turn to wash up. See if you can find anything to eat while I’m cleaning myself up. Don’t give me that look, he farted on your clothes. You can’t wash yourself up and then put the smelly clothes back on! We can set up a fire and let them dry overnight.”  

I looked at you expectantly with my hands on my hips. You let out a sigh, realizing that this is not a fight you want to fight and I was right (for once), so you started to unstrap the leg and arm and shoulder armor pieces off first.  

I nodded, a triumphant grin on my face. “Alright, I’ll see if there is anything inside this shelter and then come back for your dirty clothes.” 

After accidentally walking on you in your birth suit for the fourth time, I have gotten used to seeing you butt-naked. I didn’t have much problem with nudity in general. When you live in a city with few nudist beaches, and pedal past by it on a bike in summer, you get used to see all kinds of different body shapes and forms and at some point, they all just blur together. Plus... not that I will ever admit it to your face, but you were kind of nice to look at? 

I also don’t think that you had a big problem with me seeing you naked. If anything, I think after the third time I walked in on you, a wide smug grin spread across the face, your eyes twinkling. I would even say, you enjoyed that I was admiring the view. I still decided to give you the courtesy of some privacy while you were taking off your clothes for your well-deserved bath.  

The funny thing though was that you get flustered seeing me naked. That one time, I wasn’t even fully naked, I was walking around topless with a bra on, trying to look for an ointment Xu Dog oh-so-nicely made for me to put it on my wounds. When you looked up to see what I was doing, and I turned around to ask if you had seen it somewhere, your eyes where wide open and your face red, staring at the amount of skin I was showing. When I was about to ask you if you have seen the ointment somewhere, you got up without a word and left the cave. Your ears were also burning red, and for the rest of the day you couldn’t look me in the eyes.  

And the next time, because the freaking desert was freaking hot and at that point I didn’t care if I’ll get badly sunburnt, I was about to take off my hanfu overcoat. You turned around to see what the rustling was about, and as you saw me slipping my arm off the sleeves, ready to walk around in my bra. My actions made you stop in your track, and your face started to burn up again. You grabbed the collars of my hanfu, pushed my arm back into the sleeves and then made sure that my hanfu coat was neatly tucked and properly worn.  

Since then, I have been more conscious about my nudity around you. It never felt like you were shaming me for it though. If anything, I think you were just flustered? Your tail would be hanging low but waggling back and forth – a sign that you were happy or excited. Or maybe both. 

Your tail told a different story than your actions.  

I shed off my own heavy coat and took off my gloves to make it easier to search for some things in my bag. There was one last mandarin fruit sitting at the bottom of my bag – frozen by now due to the freezing temperature, but if I let it sit close to the hot spring, maybe the steam will thaw it up again. 

I peeked outside and saw the pile of clothes neatly folded up in the spot I pointed at, your armor pieces also neatly laid out next to them. You were already sitting in the hot spring, arms spread out and along with your head, resting on a rock. The tension in your shoulders were gone, finally relaxed after wandering for the whole day and fighting countless of enemies. You were sitting with your back towards me. 

The back of your head really looked like a kiwi fruit. 

Your ears perked up when I started to move towards you, but you didn’t move your head to look at me.  

Placing the mandarin on the ground, I then took off my boots, followed by the socks. The socks I stuffed into my boots, and then I proceeded to roll up my pants until they reached mid-thigh. You finally turned your head around to see what I was doing, and then whipped around to stare at my oh-so-naked legs with wide-saucer eyes, your face flushing red again. Could be the steam, could be my legs, who knows. 

And it’s not like my legs were in their best shape. The skin around it looked like cracked desert surface, desperately in need of a good moisturizer. Shaving my legs was also a luxury I could not afford here – not that it should matter to you anyway. You are fully covered in fur, so that makes you to be the last person on earth allowed to judge the hairy state of my legs.  

Like on clockwork, I noticed the water surface beginning to move faster – probably caused by your tail underwater waggling.  

“Scooch over.” I said, this time not caring that you were flustered from seeing some skin, and then moved to sit on the rock close to where you were, carefully dipping one toe in to test the temperature.  

Heaven, it was heaven. 

I then sunk my whole leg into the water, soon followed by my second leg, just sitting at the edge enjoying the heat. I cannot wait for you to be done with your bath so I could clean myself too.  

You’ve turned your head away to look the over way, the tips of your ear bright red, but your body remained close to where I was sitting. 

It was kind of endearing how the sight of my skin made you flustered liked this. 

Remembering I had a mandarin to thaw and snack on, I reached for it on the ground and then placed it on top of your head.  

“There, now you look like a capybara taking a bath in a hot spring.” I said, grinning.  

Your hand grabbed for the mandarin I placed on the top of your head, and you turned around to look at my quizzically.  

I suppose you wouldn’t know what a capybara is, since they originally come from South America. I tried my best to explain to you what a capybara looks like, using my hands gesturing to the shape of the animal. 

To this date, you still didn’t know what a capybara looks like (but you appreciated me trying to explain it to you).  

“Can you put the mandarin in the hot spring for a few seconds so it thaws?” I asked, and you nodded, doing as I asked you to.  

After a minute or so, the mandarin was warm, and you poked a hole with your long thumb nail at the top of the fruit, and then started peeling it. You started to peel one side from the top to the bottom, then moved to the next section, until you were left with a flower shaped mandarin peel. Plucking it off and putting it aside, you then split the fruit in half, reaching it towards me. 

I flashed you a thankful smile, and just as I was about to grab for it, you quickly moved your hand back, enough that I couldn’t reach for the piece anymore. My hand, mid frozen at the spot where my half of the fruit was before. You were looking at my stony faced, but your brown eyes were glittering with mischief.  

Look who decided to be a piece of shit now. 

Pursing my lips and looking at you, I slowly reached out my hand again for the fruit, not breaking eye contact.  

I thought I was fast by swiping down to grab it, but you anticipated it and moved your hand even further back again. This time, your face broke into a grin, mirth written all over it.  

I wanted to be annoyed at you, but your smile was infectious and I felt my own lips turning up. Fine, this is how you want to play it huh? I leaned forward, determined to get my well-deserved dose of vitamin C, and you moved your arm further back, out of my reach.  

I rested my hand on one of the rocks, stretching out my own arm. Unluckily, the rock my hand was one came loose and slipped under me, and I lost my balance. I was not able to find ahold of something else to grab on, and felt how my entire body was falling forward.  

At the same time, the grin dropped from your face and you started to panic too. You were also moving, your arms now reaching out to catch me, but it was too late: In a desperate attempt to grab onto something, anything, my two arms wrapped around your neck and your arms around my torso.  

And then I dragged us both underwater. 

Let it be known to the entire New West that the last thing I shouted before going underwater was “My mandarin!” 

The smell of sulfur was the last thing I smelt before water filled up my nose, the burning sensation sitting up high. A pair of strong arms that were already wrapped around my torso then pulled me up, I gasped for air. My hair was clinging to my face now, my clothes soaked. Using my wet sleeves to wipe my eyes, I then opened them, only to be staring at your worried gaze, still holding me around my torso. 

I coughed again, rasped my throat. “I’m- I’m okay.”  

Your shoulders sacked in relief, your tail swinging left and right, splashing the water around it.  

You... were always looking out for me, and making sure that I was okay. Remembering how earlier today I hurt your feelings with that bath comment, I realized that now might be the best time to apologize.  

“I’m sorry what I said about you needing a bath.” I started, and your tail stopped moving, you looked at me intensely. “It was a shitty thing of me to say after you fought against him. If it wasn’t for you, I would not be standing here.”  

Your eyebrows softened, and you moved your right hand up to my shoulder, squeezing it three times reassuringly - ‘we are good, everything is ok’. 

A heavy weight fell off my shoulders and I smiled. Running a hand through my wet hair, I spotted the soap bar sitting on a rock. 

“Well, since I’m inside the hot spring, might as well take a bath now.” I reached my hand into the water to untie my belt, which got me the desired reaction out of you – a little payback was in order. 

You let go of me, as if I was burning your hands, and then turned around and waded as fast as you could towards the edge, and pulled yourself up, stalking away.  

I watched your retreating form, your tails waggling left and right. I didn’t want you to have the last ‘word’ though, so I bit my cheeks before shouting after your retreating form: “You have a really nice ass!” 

You slammed the door to the run-down shelter shut and I threw my head back, laughing.  

✦✦✦ ✦✦✦ ✦✦✦ ✦✦✦

My apartment came with a separate shower and a bathtub. I never used the bathtub for its intended use (it was an over glorified laundry basket for the longest time), until now. Now I take weekly baths in it, sometimes also three times a week.  

You loved taking baths together. You would claim that a king needs a pair of hands to help him clean the fur – and plenty other monkeys would kill to be in that position. The pout on your lips never stopped not being cute whenever I would shoot back with a ‘well, then why don’t you get the other monkeys to help you wash up then’. But you also knew that I would always give in in the end and help you wash up and then dry and comb your fur. In return, you did the same thing for me: scrubbing the spots in the back that were hard for me to reach, washing my hair, and then make me sit between your legs while you combed through them.  

Now I take my baths alone.  

[pouletpourri]

I have a feeling their friendship mostly consisted of them being idiots together

[thequeeninyellowlace]

SAME SAME SAME

i feel like a lot of discourse around identities could just be boiled down to “you could not pay me to care about this”

[mychemicallyimballancedromance]

If i keep telling myself "not my circus not my monkeys" maybe it will become true

[miscelaneous-spiders]

*deep sigh*

It's not my circus. I'm just one of the monkeys.

[smallpwbbles]

Gangle was crashing out that whole episode, good for her.

[ladysnowfaerie]

As someone who observed the fandom from a distance, I would probably answer: "Yes", and go back to frolicking.

I never watched BBC Sherlock or engaged in the fandom and being into original Sherlock Holmes in the year 2024 feels like frolicking in a meadow that’s grown up over a battlefield. Occasionally a war weary veteran with shadows in their eyes will find me. “Don’t you know what happened in this place?” they ask me. “I literally don’t,” I reply, and go back to drawing guys from 1895.

[izzybluebell]

guys....it's alright.....i gave her a horsey....