#TLD convo

[artandmartini]

Mild Venom: The Last Dance spoilers

One thing I think would’ve made TLD better even if it had the same plot and ended the same way is more reciprocal affection.

I think the biggest problem of the movie symbrock-wise is that all affectionate/romantic scenes are mostly from Venom. Eddie seems to just be tolerating Venom most of the time. They’re suppose to be ride or die at this point. They’re suppose to be best friends he said it himself! I think if more scenes showed Eddie’s love or at least fondness for Venom, then more fans would be happier with the movie.

To be clear tho, I didn’t hate the movie but I do think it’s a step down from how their relationship was previously. Obviously I wasn’t expecting it to be so explicit with loving pet names and sloppy make outs but more implied in the way the previous movies did it.

Some examples I came up with for Eddie loving venom moments (actual spoilers):

Eddie complaining to the bartender that his fun vacation time with his “friend” was interrupted when they got punted into Marvel universe instead of talking about thanos and meta humans and how annoying aliens are. I want to believe they had fun in Mexico!!

Eddie smiling (and being grateful!!!) when Venom made him a cocktail. Also he shouldn’t have a headache venom can heal him.

When Venom says “You always take me to the best places” Eddie replies with “anything for you, bud” (but make it sound like babe)

More bonding over stuff they’d do in New York. Eddie can talk about food and Venom asks if there are bad guys there and Eddie says They can be the lethal protector there

More scenes in the Casino!!! It was so short :((

They should’ve tried to cheat at cards at least to show they also have a mind bond. It could’ve been cool or funny!!

A woman trying to hit on Eddie but he gets awkward and rejects her cause “I’m here with someone”

Mrs Chen could mention Ann and Dan are married and Eddie is happy for them but implied he’s sad cause he can’t marry venom

While separated in the Area 51 lab, Eddie is significantly distressed about it and talks about feeling hollow inside or like with a missing limb

Eddie should’ve been given the option to sacrifice Venom save himself and the world. But he CHOOSES NOT TO he says “but I need him” like the trailer suggested!!!

Have Eddie explain to the scientist women what being with venom is like and how he makes him feel (like the end of the first movie). Not only is this sweet but will allow the scientists to be more sympathetic towards symbrock and explains their willingness to help them and also to bond with the other symbiotes later in the movie

Have Venom apologize for hardships he put Eddie through and have Eddie assure him he’d do it all again if given the choice

Have Eddie shed a tear (at least 1!!!) when he wakes up without venom for the last time

The rest of these are more significant changes to the movie but still in keeping with the general plot:

Venom should’ve kept the codex a secret for a while and just told Eddie the xenophage was just revenge for the symbiotes imprisoning knull or something

Eddie can tell venom is acting strange and suspects he is hiding something (like in the comics re: their pregnancy)

The codex truth is revealed after the dance with Mrs Chen when they get attacked by a xenophage but before they get separated and taken to Area 51 leading to the sacrifice venom convo

When they reunite, venom admits he kept it a secret cause he was afraid Eddie would leave him but Eddie reassures him it’s them til the end

The rest of the movie plays out the same. But I think these choices would’ve really solidified their bond. It would’ve been more painful at the end but more satisfying!!! If you wanna make angsty tragedy then go all the way don’t half ass it

They’ll also have more scenes for their RomCom/Valentine’s Edit

[m1ckeyb3rry]

Ok cue my memory loss moment part 5 I can’t tell if I sent this reply in or not before so if this is a dupe I SINCERELY APOLOGIZE hsvshshs but anyways

OMG EVERYONE CHEER!!! Guys the moment is finally upon us…another mira banger about to drop….

LMAOO fwtkac was the gateway…once you start you can’t stop its just how the Karasu rabbit hole works! Bro hollyhock is actually so good…I can’t even put it into words properly but just the whole setting giving a new depth to a diff side of otoyas characters ugh so good

True!!! I’m ngl I’m a little surprised that for marketing sake they didn’t try to throw in some like popular character bait…maybe it’s because most of the actually popular bllkers are already out and as opposed to merch I guess book sales would be a bit diff? Like fans would buy to read even if their absolute faves aren’t in but yeah…the stories were fire though LMAO new appreciation for Barou fr

And IM ON IT o7 very happy to serve the miraverse and honestly it’s good for me too because if I wanna reference something quickly I can just go command f it or if I wanna read something fast I can just read my tl LMAO I also just like having my own TL/interpretations written down just for my reference too…which is part of the reason why I also ended up TLing Hioris too even though there was a TL already out! I remember reading the TLd version that got posted and some wording kinda threw me off so I was like let me just look at this myself…LOL Also I’m kinda a lore nerd so I wanna make sure I get to see any intricacies or in between the line messages that can get lost in translation! So yeah TLDR I will most definitely be here for tabieita LNs!!!

IM CRYING they’re gonna have to scroll through our manifestations and convos just to get to the chapter like imagine the link gets passed around and the first thing people read is us screaming about mariokart in yuki’s novel or anri getting done dirty (I clicked on the links just to see what they’d have to go through and oh my god chapter 2 LMFAOOO there’s like a whole minute of scrolling worth of convo before you even reach the LN part it’s so funny)

We’re truly just built different sorry this is exclusive content gatekept by the insanely long convos we have

-Karasu anon

HAHAH this time you did in fact send this in already 😭 but it’s okay i will delete the copy!! but no worries 😋

FINISHED ROUND ONE OF PROOFREADING!! heading to monaco for my mother’s birthday dinner soon hehe but once i’m back tn i will get on round two and hopefully i’ll be able to post it by tmrw!! lowkey idk how i feel about it but at least it’ll be out in the world after i’ve been talking abt it sm 😭

you came to my inbox and showed me the ways of karasuism and i’ve never looked back since 🙏🏻 jkjk but fr though i love writing him sm now he’s so good at the one sided pining thing which i loveee in a male lead 🤩 like YESSS be absolutely sick over this girl who doesn’t even know she likes you yet YESSS 🤤💖

hollyhock otoya is so fun i love him and i cannot WAIT to write more of him and y/n…idk if you’ve heard that one tik tok sound that’s like “you belong with me” from taylor swift and then it transitions into “you belong to me” from house of balloons / glass table girls from the weeknd but that’s literally hollyhock y/n + karasu’s dynamic vs her dynamic with otoya 😭😭😭 like with karasu it’s all sweet innocent besties (they are platonic soulmates coded eventually like they end up loving each other SOO MUCH but not romantically??) vs with otoya she’s literally like “i want you to belong to me” (exact quote from chapter 2: “you wanted this ninja to belong to you”) FHDKSJSJ man atp free otoya 😰🙏🏻 but he matches y/n’s freak so well he probably doesn’t even WANT to be freed

i feel like the people who would buy light novels would buy them no matter what + they probably thought barou would be popular enough to carry it?? who knows…agreed though the stories were all rlly good (well aryu’s was a little goofy but wtvr)

LMAOOO THAT’S WHAT I WAS THINKING people will be like “why are they freaking out over mario kart??” FJSJDJS but ykw if you want to read you have to go through the trials and tribulations of our massive convos 🤩 we are elite though…carrying the bllk fandom with our translations + fics 😋

[jynzandtonic]

I think TLD is gonna give me nightmares tbh, for a lot of reasons

Namely a blonde Ben Affleck….I digress… pls keep me in your thots tonight

YO, BLOND BEN AFFLECK IS SO CURSED. *wheeze* Even more cursed than regular Ben Affleck, if that's possible.

TLD is an extremely hard watch, and I hope you take good care of yourself during and after! All my love to you xoxoxo.

[lanihaluki]

if i could be, i’d rather be me with youuuuuu

[sherlock-thoughts]

“do you have any idea how lucky you are?”

John thinks sherlock likes irene - “posh boy loves the dominatrix” - and now he’s thinking that irene likes sherlock back and thats why he says the line-

“do you have any idea how lucky you are?”

John is asking sherlock if he knows how lucky he is to have the person you like, like you back

he thought sherlock didn’t like him back and so he didn’t take his chance 

“it’s gone before you know it”

🔪🔪🔪

[saerwenindahouse-blog]

Who did John text in TST?

I know that many people think that John was actually texting with Sherlock instead of "E" in TST and, yes, I also think that's true. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. That's why I'll explain the whole "These are actually Sherlock's texts." matter and then go a subtext lever deeper. Here we go!

First of all, why would I think that it's Sherlock that John had been texting?

Well, let's look at the structure of their convo first.

There is no greeting like there normally would be. In TST, Sherlock tells us that he deletes all text messages that start with the word "Hi.". Interesting...

Also, every text message is short and straight to the point. It's really just about the information. I don't want to sound like a sexist (as I am a girl myself) but women who are freshly in love mostly don't tend to be so practical.

Then there's the content.

From the way John and "the mysterious stranger John texts with" are having their conversation we can conclude that they have met before and most likely not just once. Even though "E" and John don't look that familiar with each other to me, let's look at the facts. With a job, a baby that's constantly demanding his attention and Sherlock with his crime-solving, I don't think John's got much free-time. But he still manages to meet with "the mysterious person John texts with" without Mary getting suspicious. Of course, he could just say that he was out with Sherlock but I think Mary would still notice going by how much information she demands from Sherlock about cases in TST.

So, how does John do it?

But that isn't the most telling thing here. John asks "Night owl?" and "the mysterious stranger John texts with" answers "Vampire". I don't really think that "E" would know about John's danger addiction, do you? Well, who knows about this who isn't Mary? Hm...

All in all we can conclude that:

John has an affair with "E" and it was just texting but he wanted more and still does.

evolves to:

John has an affair with Sherlock and it was just texting but he wanted more and still does.

With that we analysed the TST canon.

But, oh boy, it goes deeper still. We can see this whole affair issue on another level entirely and the outcome is THE MOST HILARIOUS THING IN MY ENTIRE LIFE!

You see, I always wondered why they took the letter "E" for her name. (Let's put the whole Eurus matter aside here.) That's why I looked the names of other BBC Sheelock characters up und the result is just wonderful.

Mary Elizabeth Morstan.

Mary is our "E".

But, oh, it doesn't end there.

The Mary as we see her in TST (and TLD but that's not worth focusing on for now) is also a mirror. For whom? Sherlock!

Look at her curly hair, her blue blouse (blue is Sherlock's color) and her wearing a suit. The suit is the most telling thing because Sherlock has the exact same suit. Also, Mary is definitely wearing a men's suit because it ends around the first third of her thigh. Women's suits only reach to the waist.

With all these mirrors in mind, the whole affair becomes god damn hilarious! Just look:

John cheats on Mary with "E" but dumps her in the end because he is not a free man.

That changes to:

John cheats on Sherlock with Mary but dumps her in the end because he is not a free man.

Smooth, Mofftiss...

[inevitably-johnlocked]

How many Johnlock moments we have in s4? 😟

Not very many, Nonny. I don’t think people have really gone counting, mainly because a lot of people couldn’t watch S4 more than a few times through.

Not sure if you mean face-to-face (which isn’t many) or clues about Johnlock, but off the top of my head:

“Well, I like you.” in reference to John vs. Toby (subtly hinting the John is Redbeard comparison, imo) in T6T

Ghost!Mary egging John on in John’s head. (TLD)

“Oh clever boy, I’ve missed you fumbling around the place.” (TLD)

Sherlock comparing Faith to his first encounter with John, and remembering that he helped John because John was suicidal. (TLD)

The Hug and the entire “romantic entanglements” convo in TLD

“[John] is Family!”, MAYBE John’s quoting of Oscar Wilde, and parentlock during the montage in TFP, if we’re taking it all at face value. Since I think TFP may be John’s internal struggle with himself, there could possibly be more metaphorical ones.

Feel free to add more, y’all. It’s been awhile since I’ve watch the season all the way through.

[stedesdimple]

fucking had a convo about sherlock at work today, girl was eh/eh with johnlock but said she loved sherlock x irene and preferred it. i said but irene said she's gay? "oh yeah". what about after sherlock was shot, and the fact that the only reason he came back to life was for john? "oh i forgot about that". TLD was about sherlock nearly killing himself to get john back? "oh that's true". rinse and repeat ad nauseam. these are the leaps and bounds people will go through to avoid Gay. she was super respectful and nice about it all, and i admitted that they did hyper-sexualize irene in the show, but she willfully ignored everything that should've been obvious. every little thing i pointed out, she had forgotten even existed. why? because in this society, ignoring all of this evidence is easier than actually seeing it for what it is. many antis do the same thing, only they refuse to admit all of these important points in the show and instead willfully ignore them. interesting conversation to say the least. i hope i made a believer out of her because she was MUCH more open near the end of our convo. i was apologizing but she was like "don't worry i'm the EXACT same way with game of thrones".

[thewul]

Predictive Dialer

Here we are again boys and girls, I will let the rest of my resume answer for itself for now. This book is not so much an admission of guilt but to answer for the many challenges that face intelligence agencies around the world to keep the place manageable. Like I said we needed to make it tidy so lets jump right to Newscorp.

One of the first things I told many people that they themselves knew about is bringing the press industry and the media in check. Better than that to assimilate them same as we gobbled the arms industry with army intelligence agencies. And they had the stomach for it, all we needed was the money which started pouring by distributing a string of armament budgets and contracts.

It was a global rapid succession of purchases by regional branches. Newscorp accounts today for almost all of it, print, TV, and the internet. It has regional policies which its staff our staff coming from different intelligence agencies respects to the letter, we have gotten to the point where we can make someone vanish from public interest, for good. Agents do a fine work as journalists, they go to select journalism schools, journalism is a career they can pursue for years even decades and it makes for a nice cover, well paid too. They practice being synthetic and accurate from their reporting and articles they write, we know way before the public does, its all pluses.

Newscorp brought us much more peace of mind, for example it allowed different, many in fact, governments to work on solving issues rather than having an irresponsible press pour more negative public opinions over it, we now have responsible people who answer to a chain of command. Its quite soulless too, if someone has to bounce from politics, business or otherwise not only that person gets blanketed from the media globally but even its past coverage gets deprecated over time to account in a decade or two, tree even so for nothing at all. Meanwhile people have other preoccupations they moved with.

Hundreds of billions went through the banking system for this operation which was swift and ruthless. The government was now entitled to it all, I convinced it and sent it tumbling down on stock markets. Its one big bully when it wants something and I used that, they are all the same pretty much. People who didn’t buy out, well they died of the usual causes of death. Businesses kept rolling and ownerships changed.

There is something to holding a press concern that is akin to holding state power which frankly I wanted for myself, to shield myself and Nakashimura from public scrutiny to start with. Its not tomorrow I am appearing in a tabloid or in a front column branded as a mass consumption victim. It’s bad enough that I left the love of my life in some city. It’s not good enough for me, since I been with you I’m gonna sip on this drink, when I’m fucked up I should know how to pick up I’m gonna catch the rhythm while she push up against me Ooh, and she tipsy I had enough convo for 24 I peep’d you from across the room Pretty little body, dancing like GoGo But you are unforgettable I need to get you alone Why not? A fucking good time, never hurt nobody I got a little drink but it’s not Bacardi If you loved your girl then I’m so, so sorry I got to give it to her like we in a marriage Oh, like we in a hurry No, no I won’t tell nobody You’re on your level too Try'in do what lovers do. Maybe someone is reading this who knows at least there goes my effort. I know those other types are, everyone is curious as to how I framed them. I gave them what they wanted, and when they had it I was the only one who could use it.

Maybe they knew all along. I am only telling because I made it legal. I studied law, and I found out that executive powers gave all of the needed leeway inasmuch as they were in the right hands. Which you can take them from those hands if you know how even if it is better to put your people there to start with which is the way to go about it.

And then there are special powers which you are learning about. Put them with military and intelligence services cut the ball in two with politics by subtracting the press. Legal authorities can only smile at that they distributed the powers not the suits. Everything I do is constitutional.

Hey wow new material for this book and for people who purchased the book, if not you can read it online. I should start to look into a book cover. So yes there is an information war going on, and abuse of power that need to be looked into. And we are.

And it points in the direction of a strong ICANN, way more powerful than it is to protect everyone’s interests mine included. More centrally located too, yes I also work at ICANN.

We are indeed going towards producing national, meaning TLD based and regional versions of the internet, meaning firewalled. Where the different countries that are party to ICANN can themselves set their versions of ICANN’s domains database, and chose which sites or even TLD’s are served and which are not. And its a variety of issues ranging from porn to malware, satanism, racism, hate talk, immigration and visa frauds. Counterfeited goods and drugs. Its a free for all.

So we and its a large we of people who are concerned, need to address those issues because it affects the daily lives and morals of generations around the globe.

Also in our firewalled regional subnets the FDA can suspend all it wants, such an infrastructure implies that services, any services and all services that are live such as Tumblr be run regionally, meaning present in the region and not serviced from out of region based servers.

The free world is also the internet, in the wealth of knowledge that it has to offer, and the people that maybe don’t know each others, maybe never will, but keep an eye on what others are doing. 

We built this thing its all hacker stuff that you’re using everyday, you think you’re going to own it now? Hackers built your cellphone, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun its all hackers, hackers wrote the code that you think you can come bother us with.

Hackers wrote the hacker Manifesto that we go by everyday while you take the people’s money and will not even respect your constitutional duty to protect their civil rights. You say you live in the free world ain’t the free world. This is the free world.

This is the free world that tells all of you that are concerned to do your job as regards the people before you come knocking at our door. Its the free world that knows no distinction of gender or income or nationality or race, all we’re looking at all day long is the internet.

While you was after me I was maturing as a hacker, pleased to meet you I hack life in general same as I hack computers. Its what got you interested in the first place and here we are, I hack organizations, administrations, governments do you copy. I hack and I engineer, re engineer them.

People are reading this because it is valuable to them. They value the free speech of a free citizen of the free world. Unlike not being able to say what’s on your mind, hierarchy, bla bla blah hey we know you.

And your bosses, well hey its the big boys they know wassup they know what to do. That they’re not doing because the punk above them didn’t say nothing plus he can say all he wants and after that its the politicians. You’re Mr Clean living with Greasy.

All of you who don’t live for a pat on the back reading this, ie hackers, from all walks of life and from law enforcement. I know you’re out there and you know that I know. Hackers don’t live for a pat on the back, hackers don’t want to be known its years of jail if you get caught stealing state secrets if only to know what’s up fuck that pat on the back.

Fuck that pat on the back and do your jobs, say it like it is your duty as regards the rights of people to a decent life and future not to be abused online by scumbags.

This here is the free world. The indomitable world, the world that will not bow down nor cease to overcome. And we can tell all the difference in the world with what you are proposing.

The day after

And you ought too to rise up with your hacking skills see its not about tricking dummy into thinking you’re a network node or stealing SSL certificates from your nearest multinational, life is there waiting to be hacked, life itself and that means change for billions towards that which we want to build, a fair and free, open, transparent, prosperous, society. Its not what we have. We got to hack what we have into it.

Yes we’re back, freedom not an empty word, freedom is when everyone is free from the invisible chains of bondage and slavery. Society offers a vast panorama of resources that are over exploited, under exploited or plainly neglected and untapped by the people themselves who’s business it is to discover their potentialities and express them. Freedom is a vast project when everyone can fulfill their potential and express it, freedom is the expression of potential. 

And that potential has to be constructive and positive to be of value. Freedom is not what you make it, freedom is what it makes you.

[marcelock]

I was looking at the TLD transcript and in the end convo with Lady Smallwood and Mycroft, they talk about the Prime Minster and they use she, and Theresa May became PM in July 2016, so could TLD take place in January 2017 instead?

tst definitely takes place in 2015, they reference 2009 as being “6 years ago” (in addition to that being exactly when the timeline lands if you follow it) and its extremely unlikely theres an entire year between tst and tld. also, tld was only filmed in like july 2016? if even then…they probably wanted to make it seem like mycroft and lady smallwood Know whos gonna be the pm before they are ykwim (unless they just lied about it being sherlocks birthday in tld and he would have said anything to get john back and actually its like august or something) fkskfkajdkajaksj *edit they started filming for tfp and likely finished tld in june 2016

[hudders-and-hiddles]

that tld scene from ngs setlock where mrs hudson throws john a set of keys... if that isn’t a ‘go get your man’ scene--preferably after hudders has a come to jesus convo with him--i’m gonna sucker punch steven moffat in the mouth

[jynzandtonic]

bestie what did you think of the last duel!!! I haven't seen it yet and don't know whether to watch!

Overall, I think the film is well-made and has an important story to tell. It shows how self-delusional powerful men are and lays bare the oppressive and unjust power structures that dehumanize and silence women. Driver and Comer's acting is phenomenal, and as such, many scenes are incredibly difficult to watch. Viewers shouldn't take the content warnings for sexual assault/violence against women or gore lightly. It's not a 'fun' movie by any extent, but it has value.

[impliedscamp]

i want to appeal to the bbc trust, (im the one who sent you the woc in sherlock ask), and i thought to check how they hold up the bechdel test. well. S1 completely fails, S2 has a brief interaction between kate and irene about what to wear (the 'to meet sherlock' is implied so idk), in the christmas party molly also asks mrs. hudson 'how's the hip'. i didnt check S3 and S4 thoroughly but TEH passes bc of one sentence between mary and mrs hudson, HOLY SHIT TSOT DOESNT MAKE IT. SO MANY WOMEN 1/2

2/2 AND IF THEY DO TALK ITS ABOUT JOHN OR SHERLOCK. in HLV mrs H exclaims ‘mary!’ when they go in during the confrontation but i do not think that counts as a conversation. i cant remember if mary and mummy holmes have a convo. TST passes bc of norbury and 'mary’, i think tld passes. im not even gonna think about tfp bc im not interested in having another panic attack. i want to think tab passes because there’s relatively a lot of women but honestly who knows not me. like. im very tired. 

but on second though i dont know if tld passes. i dont think it does. what the fuck, and even if it does, then thats between 4 and 6 episodes that pass from the entire fucking show. thats less than half the episodes to have women interact about something thats NOT MEN

on top of everything else, it’s important to remember that the bechdel test is specifically about lesbians interactions on screen and ASIB takes a giant stinky dump all over it by having the only canonically lesbian’s storyline BE ALL ABOUT A MAN SAVING HER

women’s portrayal is definitely something that the BBC has utterly refused to address in their replies and that’s something that in 2017 just cannot stand. I was willing to put up with a lot from mofftiss when it came to women because I was expecting something groundbreaking in, well, if not L and T, at least in G and B representation

so yes, absolutely bring up these examples of how zero to no agency women have been given mainly in s4, but throughout the series before too. ESPECIALLY with the premise that they had promised in tab to do better and then. never carried through with it

[le-koko-butter-blog]

John's Erotic Self. TFP meta reading.

Introduction

I recently re-watched The Final Problem and jotted down some notes regarding things I have yet to read in other meta here on tumblr. Perhaps, they are addressed on someone's blog but I have yet to come across it. Now, I can be completely and utterly wrong. As I was writing it, it felt super duper meta but it made a lot of sense to me. Feel free to add or correct what I have written. I'm putting this out here for a discussion about the text.

In order to even read this, you have to subscribe to or entertain the idea that TFP is from John's mind bungalow perspective. If you aren't of this opinion, you'll likely think everything I am saying is nothing but embellished bullshit. I assure you, I'm being entirely sincere.

The notes follow the events as they are laid out in the episode since I wrote down bullet points as I was watching. I was going to include pictures but alas, I am lazy.

Analysis

The Final Problem displays every genre but romance and yet, in its entirety it is a romance. There was a post going around that compared the cinematic shots to other films. The dialogue and the music are also genre-specific. I was tipped off initially because of the outrageous clown sequence at the beginning. I thought that they would go through all the movie genres and end up in romance but they did the opposite. This baffled me and made me lose confidence that I knew what the hell was going on (that was just the tip of the iceberg). There was no romance, partly because all the genre switches serve a function to highlight the fact that indeed BBC Sherlock is a romance as we have always known ever since S1E1. Of course, there is a lot of meta out there already talking about how the show is perceived versus how it really is. (I suspect that that Bond article Gattiss replied to was planted just to put the idea of Bond and shitty movies into our head).

If we also extend this to John's mind, the fact that he deliberately avoids romance is pretty telling. He's afraid to even consider it in fear of its implication. I think this is the theme to the whole episode. Romance is just another word for erotic love. We tend to think of it as something naughty or bad and certainly John has this assumption but Eros as a type of love is named explicitly to separate it from the other types. We are tipped off that Eurus is a Greek name. Well so is Eros. Eros is the erotic love (hence the root word), philia is friendship, agape is like a broader kind of love, a love for humanity, that Jesus kind of love. You can easily google this if you're interested.

Eurus=John erotic self. This is not a stretch. In T6T they made the phonetic leap from ammo to amo. This seems a bit of a reach honestly since these are two common words. To me it's like bowl and bowel. Perhaps I have this impression since I live in a city that has a high population of Spanish speakers. I would also think it is somewhat common knowledge for English speakers. This is just an assumption of course. The phonetic link between Eurus and Eros is less of a stretch since the pronunciation of Eurus sounds almost the same as Eros to many of us. The actors routinely pronounced it differently since that round gutteral Euuurr sound is a bit difficult. I can't say it without mimicking her voice. 

Going forward with the idea that Eurus is John's erotic self, it's interesting to note that Eurus looks a lot like Sherlock compared to her other disguises. She has a wonderful mass of black curly hair that starkly contrasts her vibrant blue eyes. This is interesting since John has only seen her with reddish hair as the girl on the bus, light brown hair as the therapist, and coming from Sherlock's report, blonde hair when she was pretending to be Faith. 

In the initial scene at 221B, I noticed the painting of a man that is directly behind John in the living room is dark. Now, I'm sorta new to tjlc so I'm not sure if you guys decoded this already. I always thought it looked like John or a young William Shatner (The Kirk/Spock thing again?). We don't get a good look at it but it's a white man with blondish short hair. From my recollection, it's always lit. Curiously, it's dark in TFP. Perhaps, this represents John in some way. It's dark suggesting that's he's unconscious. I could be reading into it though. You all tend to be better with the sets. 

Under the assumption that Sherrinford=sherlock, one may assume that Sherrinford is a code word for Sherlock that Mycroft uses and not an actual place. And is it just me or the goddamn place looks like a penis? Anyhow, Eurus is kept secure deep in Sherrinford. Deep, deep down there is that erotic love (Eurus) at the center of John's image of Sherlock. At least, that's how I read it. Perhaps I am off.

 The next scene is in the plane. There is an empty baby seat in the aisle. The little girl looks at it briefly. I of course, think this is baby Rosie in some way. It's interesting that it's empty. I'm not sure what this symbolizes yet. Perhaps it's saying the babe ain't real or perhaps it represents the betrayal of Mary or the emptiness of John's life as a father married to Mary.

 Another interesting thing that I noticed is that throughout the episode all the deductions are freaking absurd. They sound more like the jokes that people throw at Sherlock, like did you know what college I went to by the coffee stain on my shirt? That kind of stupidity. I think that's another clue that we are in John's mind because John's isn't really able to follow Sherlock's deductions. They seem to make sense but not really. They are terribly far fetched.

 Now, you can totally disagree with me on this next point. But I believe the violin playing=sex. As soon as Sherlock plays his own song, Eurus interprets it instantly as sex even though the song sounds absolutely nothing like sex. It's rather somber. But we should recognize it as Irene's theme. John in TLD mocked Sherlock asking him if they had random sexual rendezvous. He's suspicious and massively jealous that Sherlock has had sex with Irene.

Eurus says something so interesting in this scene. She says something along the line that "The man who sees through everything, doesn't see it." In the dream world it's the glass. This of course, is laughable to us as the audience but just for second, think what it means symbolically. She keeps directing him to it, but he can't see it. Sherlock's super observant but for some reason he can't tell that John wants him, can't tell that the glass isn't really there. Oddly enough, the company is elephant glass. John is aware that he desires Sherlock and can't believe that Sherlock who can read other people so easily can't see this.

This little exchange between them is fascinating to me because there is an element of philosophy here that isn't totally ridiculous like the stuff we've heard from her before. My personal favorite is the whole shitey lot is "happiness is a pop song, sadness is poem." Like ok, what next level emo shit is that? The dialogue that I find interesting is when Sherlock mentions that her playing is beautiful. She says she doesn't know if it's beautiful, only that it's right. Sherlock then replies that they are often the same thing. Eurus immediately answers then what's the point of beauty? So to Sherlock, all things beautiful are right. However, Eurus doesn't believe that they are the same thing. Some things are beautiful and wrong. Now, John recognizes the beauty in Sherlock (this sounds corny but it is after all, a necessity to romance) but at this point John thinks his desire for Sherlock is wrong. It isn't right. He's beautiful but it isn't morally right.

Much has been said about the awful rape lines and I agree with what has been posited by other bloggers that John is further demonizing his sexuality since John is likely bisexual. 

Simultaneously, John, Mycroft, and the governor are sitting in the dude's office talking about Eurus' mind control. I think besides the obvious genre level stupidity that we see in many Hollywood films, I think for the meta, it is saying that giving Eurus your attention will compromise you, meaning giving attention to your dark sexual thoughts compromises oneself, and subsequently makes one dangerous and out of control. It's not uncommon for people to link sexual desire with the inability to control oneself. I think this further demonizes John's desire. The only practical solution is to ignore it altogether. They really don't have the option though since Eurus won't be ignored any longer.

Going back to the convo between Sherlock and his sister, John further demonizes his sexuality, turning something beautiful into something horrible. Eurus mentions Sherlock's laugh. She says it's her favorite thing. John must love the sound of Sherlock's laughter. She talks about making him laugh all night and it makes you wonder if Sherlock and John stayed up all night laughing and John all the while was extremely sexually aroused by him. This seems almost like it would be a tender moment between Eurus and Sherlock but Eurus (/John) immediately switches this to screaming. John thinks his desire would harm Sherlock in some way.

But it doesn't really matter because again, Eurus is taking over the prison and John is losing his ability to control his desire although he fights it. When Eurus finally attacks Sherlock she screams for everyone to come in and stop her from killing Sherlock. John is evidently fighting with himself.

Finally Moriarty (the manifestation of all evil gayness) shows up. What's interesting is the Queen song. People have already talked about the song's themes and what it says about coming out and embracing your sexuality. But Moriarty, the evil gay takes out the earbuds right before the word 'love.' John is still unable to see that these desires can be connected to love. His homosexual desire can in no way be connected to love. This is why all the villains in the episode are queer coded because John villain codes all queerness. One thing that strikes me is how Sherlock is interestingly less flamboyant in this episode. Like this is the same guy who used the phase "alarming shade of pink" and z-snapped as he screamed to some rando at the bar that he knew ash.  

But anyway! Back to TFP. In the flashback, the glass is clearly there when Moriarty meets Eurus. Her reflection can easily be seen. I wonder what the glass is supposed to symbolize. I wonder if it's some form of truth. The glass is not there when Eurus, John's erotic self is visited by Sherlock because there really is nothing separating them but it's present when Moriarty shows up. Moriarty and Eurus although supposedly want each other, they actually, in truth don't touch. This is perhaps a stretch. I'm just theorizing here. This just may have to do with the fact that Eurus doesn't think to take over the prison until Moriarty shows up. Not that that makes sense or anything. The surface plot of TFP makes little sense.

A random aside: Eurus mentions a so called brother of Moriarty and says he's as stationmaster. I wonder if in John's mind he is thinking of Culverton Smith.

The killing of the Governor's wife instance is really interesting because I honestly believe that it's about Mary. She is the wife after all. John curiously, is unable to kill the guy. I thought he would be able to honestly, since he is soldier and has killed people and really only a fool would think not executing the guy would not end up in the wife's death as well. But what's significant for John is he can't go against his moral code (this is brought up a couple times in the ep). He can't go against it even if it results in causalities such as the wife's death. You can certainly guess what option he'd make in those stupid hypothetical train games. 

Mary is brought up and the Gov asks what he would do to bring her back. John doesn't answer. What are we supposed to deduce about what really happened to Mary? I don't know if I'm looking at this too deeply but Mary's death and John's involvement is freaking fishy (that wasn't an aquarium pun btw). Also later on the 3 Garidebbs room, John shouts that his "priorities got a woman killed." Hmmm....

 Now to the Garrideb scene: There is red paint on the walls. I hope its paint and not blood. Mycroft mentions that it is still fresh. This reminds me of the text in T6T, "fresh paint to hide a smell."  There's a huge window with an ocean in the background. I think it's already been established that water is feeling. This isn't unique to the show. That's actually a rather old belief. That's why the water zodiac signs, Pisces, Cancer, and Scorpio are thought to be ruled by their emotions. The deductions Sherlock and Mycroft here again make no sense. At least to me they don't. They deduce that the guy had laser eye surgery because of his nice clothing. This is absurd. Again, John doesn't quite understand the route of Sherlock's thinking.  

 The Garrideb story is literally and figuratively dangling in front of the viewer under the clear assumption they would know the significance of this story to Doyle's canon and yet, they gloss over it. I think they were trying to rip the heart out of everything and make it just a cold, boring case with forced stakes.

Afterwards, John is furious and Sherlock turns to him and says "Don't let Eurus distract you. Soldiers today." The soldiers thing comes off super bro, no homo and I think in a way it's meant to. John was an actual soldier. Largely being a soldier is about "duty," selflessness, and suppression for the greater good-well, supposedly. If John thinks of his desire for Sherlock as selfish and bad, he would naturally repress it under the guise of being a soldier. If you remember at Sherlock's grave in TRF, one of the most heartbreaking and powerful things John does is straighten up and stand like a soldier. You could see him crumbling underneath this futile attempt at control.

They then enter the next room and discuss the little girl on the plane. They agree that they have to get the girl to crash or land in the sea. Again, the sea and water are symbols for emotion. Later we find out that the little girl is Eurus. Eurus is John. So, it is really John that has to land in the water. He has no other choice. The only thing is whether or not Sherlock will save him or doom him.  

Next to the infamous "I love you" scene. I sincerely believe the coffin is clearly John's. The headroom shouldn't be unnecessary so why does Sherlock cut off a couple of inches? Maybe I don't understand coffins. He deduces that it's Molly because she's unmarried, practical about death, and alone...Why can't this be Irene Adler? There is no real logic in the deduction to be Molly. Most of what he says from the coffin before Mycroft looks at the lid is downright dumb speculation honestly. He assumes that it's cheap and therefore the person is unloved. One can easily say their family was poor. But anyways, it's a dream and John believes that Sherlock pulls shit out of thin air. All that really matters is that Molly is a mirror for John. She's loved Sherlock forever or at least John thinks so. The first time he meets Sherlock, Molly comes in with coffee and Sherlock remarks cruelly that her lips are too small. John could tell that Molly liked Sherlock. Molly to me comes off super ooc. She's usually rather mousey but she's somewhat forward and aggressive in TFP. She has more traits of John than she normally has. I think what's important is that she's always loved him and John has always loved Sherlock. All the ASIP reminders as well as Sherlock running up the stairs at Lauristan Gardens in HLV's mind palace to get back to John the first time he left him suggests that the two were in love at first sight. (I would love to discuss this further but I feel that someone already wrote meta on this).

 However, like John, Molly needs Sherlock to say it first. People have already discussed this, John in addition, is super emotional in this scene. Of course, he cares for Molly but he just looks downright dejected especially after the confession.

 "Saved Molly Hooper?" This line rings awful and trite. But they are utilizing the themes of genre and all it's cliches. I think what this line is actually saying about John is that he is afraid of love, he thinks it will destroy him no matter how it happens, through his own death or through the heartbreak that Sherlock doesn't really love him, that even if Sherlock says it to him, it'd be forced and empty. He thinks he's meaningless to Sherlock the way Molly thought she was meaningless to Sherlock in TRF. Again, the discussion of John's lack of self-worth has been largely discussed.

 A random aside. Molly's message machine: Dead Center of Town? Is that a morgue joke? The timer is also really incorrect and suggestive of a dream. I may be wrong about this but that last 30 seconds felt super long.

 The next scene is where Sherlock has to shoot one of them. Mycroft's words are of course how John sees himself especially in relation to Sherlock who he practically worships. He thinks he's a "stupid little man, little scrap of ordinariness," and that Sherlock can easily "find another". Again people talked about this before in other posts.

 What's interesting and also infuriating about this scene is that John doesn't actually do anything. Throughout the episode he merely gets dragged along.  His inaction is glaring when Sherlock puts a gun to himself and John doesn't intervene. This is his dream and he can't control his subconscious. Again, he thinks Eurus (his desire) is an unstoppable threat to Sherlock.

 Also, I kinda like this scene despite John's silence because it shows how underneath all his annoyance with Mycroft, John thinks he is a good guy.

The music as well, sounds straight up like a Bond movie during this scene. I'm not familiar with Bond but it sounds like the stuff they have playing during the trailers.

After they all hilariously get darted, Sherlock wakes up in that room with the cut up pictures on the wall of Sherlock and Mycroft's child selves. Escaping from his confines, Sherlock literally breaks down the four walls. Others have stated that not only is this a call back to the queen music video but this is metaphorical to what the episode and the creators are doing, breaking  down the so called 4th wall and interacting with the audience.

Meanwhile, John is in a deep well, chained to the bottom submerged in water. Again water is feeling, water is love. John is chained to the bottom drowning in his love but Sherlock can't reach him. It's hidden in some place no one knows where, no one but Eurus. So the key to saving John from the well is Eurus, the key to saving John from drowning in his love for Sherlock is reconciling with John's erotic self. In less fancy terms, if John doesn't have sex with Sherlock he will figuratively drown in his overwhelming love for him. This show is so over the top dramatic in its romance that I am inclined to believe it is actually a 15 year old gay boy's modern angst filled Sherlock AU. But I'm all for it, it's so damned romantic I can hardly think about it before my mind explodes. This is also why the rope which is actually a chain btw saves him even though he was chained to the bottom of the well. Because the thing that John thought was oppressing him, the thing he thought was evil, his erotic desire is actually the thing that saves him. How fucking sexy is that?

Meanwhile, Sherlock confronts his crazy Charlie Manson sister. She threatens him to solve the final problem (Find redbeard through the song). Meanwhile the plane is shaking around the same time that the well is filing in with water. The scenes are shot back to back, connecting them, solidifying that the little girl is John. They are both crying for help.

Sherlock then realizes that Redbeard is actually Victor. We can tell by looking at the little kid that that kid is John. So, Redbeard=Victor=John. But Sherlock can't get to him until he reconciles with Eurus. Interestingly, Eurus compares herself to no one. She felt like she was no one. She was neglected, ignored. But in order to save John, Sherlock needs to connect to Eurus. It's the like most anti-no homo thing ever. There's no platonic blah blah. Connecting John's desire and John's love are essential for his survival. In fact, all of them are the same thing. They are all John. It is worth noting that everything is John but everything is about Sherlock.

Again, when we have the flashbacks of Victor, Eurus is talking about the deep water, how Sherlock always finds himself here. The deep water though, in my opinion is almost always John expressing his love for Sherlock.  We get a flashback of the pool and the Reichenbach falls. At the pool in the Great Game, John with a chest full of explosives attempts to sacrifice himself for Sherlock. Sherlock is startled by this and it's probably the first time that Sherlock knew that John cared for him. During The Abominable Bride, John shows up at the Reichenbach falls and saves Sherlock. Interestingly, the dark blue water from the aquarium bounces off Sherlock's face in the close up with the black back drop sequence suggesting perhaps that John protected Sherlock again at the aquarium. Maybe this has something to do with Mary again?

The song was addressed in an earlier post where someone impressively decoded it, realizing that the "I'm lost without your love" was added by Sherlock because just before you thought it couldn't get insanely more romantic, it had to go another mile. I still don't understand what the "seek my room." part is supposed to mean. Maybe it refers to something literal in the real world or perhaps it's sexually suggestive.  What's super important though is that Sherlock knows at this moment that the little girl in the plane is Eurus. This is essential to solving the final problem and saving John Watson. The little girl is the link between the different sides of John, the "friend" part of him, the Redbeard/Victor John and the "erotic" Eurus John. The girl is the both of them. The plane metaphor is where the literal falling in love thing comes in to play. John is falling in love and has been but he's so afraid of landing. He's so afraid of what it would do to him. He thinks it ends in death. He needs Sherlock to coax him through the landing. Cause yes, again it just gets even more fucking romantic.

 When Sherlock delivers the line "Open your eyes," it brought shivers down my spine. I bet money that is super prominent in the 4th episode.

He keeps saying, "this time get it right." It's referring to her killing Victor but it harkens again back to what is probably a bitch load of regrets John has, especially in marrying Mary and never acting on his feelings for Sherlock.

Then there is the Greg scene and the corny great guy, good guy thing that references ASIP. It just shows again what John thinks of Sherlock. This echoes again the "who you think I am is who I want to be" speech in TLD. Sherlock had always wanted to be the hero John thinks he is. In this scene, we see that John sincerely thinks that he already is this guy.

The whole "Emotional Context" thing is also important. Eurus kept bringing this up throughout the episode. John says to Sherlock in this scene that Sherlock gave her what she needed, emotional context and then says, "It is what it is." (The fkn johnlock line).  What John needed to realize what that the emotional context is central in accepting his erotic self. He needed to realize that his love for Sherlock is not impure just because he desires him. That in fact, a central part of that love is the desire. Consider as well that Sherrinford is surrounded by a huge ocean, a symbol of John's deep love for Sherlock.

The ending is weird as hell. There's a long violin duet between Sherlock and Eurus. I wonder what song they are playing. It sounds gothic as all hell. He plays a part, she repeats it, and then they play in concert together. Often people link love making to music. It sounds weird and gross since it's his sister but it's not really his sister.

Then there is the dreaded Mary speech. She is completely wrong about Sherlock and John. Someone said that Mary is heteronormativity and I agree. John thinks that he should be this straight guy who gets married and has babies, who occasionally gets to go on adventures with his bro. I'm not sure why they decided to end it this way. Maybe it's because the show is showing everything that it isn't, starting with the obvious genre switch, the ooc-ness, and the massive amount of plotholes. It appears like a shitty horror/action flick when in fact, it's actually a romance. All the characters are ooc but they really are presenting certain aspects of the characters (mostly different elements of john), and the plotholes are actually carefully laid out either to aid the genre switch or to add a physical image in the episode of feelings and thoughts (the chain for example).  Once you think it's symbolic and from John's Mind Bungalow, everything actually has it's place.

 Oh and the fucking dummy...what the hell, I feel like that's a symbol for me. After watching the episode over I can't believe I took it's seriously. It's actually so ridiculous that I'm shocked I took it at face value. I actually laughed a lot the second time around. That whole "Which one is pain" statement was so downright dumb and reminiscent of shitty teen horror flicks that I feel I should immediately have been alerted. But I was too invested in Johnlock that I just wanted them to kiss. I didn't want to think. I didn't care about the plot honestly.

On a final note, the Mary monologue also represents what history has done to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, kept them imprisoned in this little box, forcing them from realizing who they ACTUALLY are which of course, is gay lovers. ^_-

 If you come across this, please share with other interested meta writers who might have something to add or correct me on. Most of what I've written are musings. I still think I need to watch all 3 episodes in order again to flesh out my ideas but I thought some of y'all might be interested. 

[teaandforeshadowing]

Hi! What do you think, if the kiss doesn't happen in TFP, can we be sure the show was queerbaiting afterall, or is there a chance that it's saved for season 5? Why was everyone so sure it was going to happen in season 4 in the first place?

As far as I’m concerned, it’s only “queerbaiting” if John and/or Sherlock become romantically involved with women before the show ends and completely ignore their emotional development from TLD.

You have to keep in mind that they don’t actually have to kiss for their relationship to be “canon” - all we technically need is explicit confirmation that they aren’t interested in anyone else (which is basically what their convo in TLD was about....). Unfortunately for us, hetero-normative society will refuse to acknowledge their relationship UNTIL they kiss (and maybe not even then??), but I have confidence in the creators that whatever they have up their sleeves will blow any doubts out of the water.

My biggest argument against queerbaiting: There are so many queer people behind it’s creation, there is no way that they would willingly create such bad representation for themselves.

[jwalkeroftld]

Having a great convo with Sam His Hop right now on US radio #J.Walker #CHH #Gospel #Rap #UK #Christian #Quotes #Bible #Wisdom #HipHop #Quoteoftheday #TLD