#me vs falling in love w female characters everyone hates

[valinoar]

misty is really fun when you don’t have a miserable bitch in your ear talking about how she’s insane

[blackgirlsuperherorants]

With more articulation, I'm ready to talk about why the push for Lokius simply bothers me, and this can be said for other m/m or w/w ships that fans push to be canon so hard just because they ship it.

It's the framing. The framing that if Marvel doesn't do it (or whatever the brand is), it's because homophobia, and if other fans don't like it/ship it, it's because homophobia (even if they ship other queer ships and are queer themselves.) And the biggest problem with that is that it overshadows the REAL issue of lack of queer representation on screen in mainstream nerd media, especially from big things under the Disney umbrella (Marvel and Lucasfilm/Star Wars, especially.)

It makes it bad that your ship isn't canon instead of bad that there haven't been any queer romances on screen in the MCU.

And like, as a writer myself, I find myself dissecting the stories of other media all the time. I can watch an MCU movie or series and pretty much assess what direction the story is going in by the narrative points they're hitting. I knew Sylki was basically gonna happen (even if just a kiss) because narratively, that's what the show was doing as soon as they had that "what is love" conversation on Lamentis-1. It didn't mean I liked it. But I knew it was happening.

Similarly, there's no romantic undertones to Loki and Mobius. None. For Marvel to make them a couple, it would mean they'd be doing it simply because the two present as men and it would make stans happy. And while there's something to be said for fan service, it would be annoying to watch them cram two guys together who aren't romantic in the slightest. I'd much rather see Loki meet some guy and have the same type of undertones they were giving to Sylvie and form a real bond to where the kiss feels earned and warranted. Not just put him with the nearest man because "he gay lol."

And how you guys are claiming it's being queer that makes you want this is beyond me. It's not being queer that makes you want this. I don't want queer characters that fuck everyone of whatever gender(s) they're attracted to even when it doesn't make sense for them to. I want real love stories. I mean, yeah, sometimes we can have a slut character, because that's fun, too, but that's not even what y'all think Lokius is. You seem to want them to be in love. But why? Because he's the first friend Loki made that isn't through Thor?

I hate that, too, because I hate this idea that queer people cannot have friends of their same gender without wanting to fuck them. IDK how y'all are, maybe y'all are like that, but I almost never have wanted to fuck any of my friends. The only few exceptions have been when I tried to befriend someone I had a crush on (in which case, usually the friendship can't work, really, because I have a crush on them.) I also think it's okay if you can have casual sex with friends, or if you have a friendship that develops into romance, but Jesus, do you people not have friends that you don't want to fuck? I am bi, maybe more pan (gender kind of doesn't matter to me, I guess) and I'm friends with people of all kinds of gender identities and like... I love them as people, which is why they're my friends, but I DO NOT want to fuck them. Especially my closest friend. I talked about her, before, here, but she's like my sister. The thought of fucking her is gross, to me. Not because she's gross, but because it feels incestuous.

Loki shouldn't want to fuck Mobius just because they developed a friendship. And that's very much how it's written on the series. They almost dislike each other (or Mobius is at least indifferent to Loki) and then they become friends.

That's not to mention the power dynamic that exists, there. And I know some of y'all are subs, but yeah, it's a bit gross to imply a sexual relationship with Loki's captor.

But on to Sylki. It sucks that I feel like most of y'all hate Sylki because Sylvie is a girl, and not just because it's bad in other ways. Like, the reasons Sylki is bad have less to do with "it should have been Mobius" and more to do with it being a lazy 1980s action movie plot that should have never happened. I'm not as creeped out by the selfcest (as many of you wouldn't have been if she was a he, I'm almost positive), but what's bad about it is that they couldn't have a strong female lead character without her being the love interest of the main guy. She didn't need to be, especially because she was a Loki variant, anyway. There was no need for it to have romantic undertones, and there was no need for them to kiss. It was sexist more than it was homophobic (and I can't help feeling like y'all are kind of being biphobic in this case. Maybe I'll talk about that, later, but yeah.) It was sexist bullshit. And there's valid criticism that Sylvie is underdeveloped. She's just angry and something for Loki to project affection onto.

I was also hoping they'd do a "found family" type of thing with Sylvie and Loki and let her be like the sister he never knew he needed, but no, they had to go trope and make her the love interest. It was lazy and bad and basically went "If Loki girl, main Loki want bone!"

Basically, having the main character fall for a character just because of their proximity and gender is bad and I hate it (and it would have been bad with Mobius, too, but yeah.)

Both the Mobius and the Sylvie thing also feel kind of racist, to me, because the show has prominent Black women who aren't even presented as desirable to Loki. And y'all, of course, ship him with anyone but the Women of Color. Y'all can pull true love with Mobius out of your ass, but he couldn't possibly fall for the Black women. lol.

Anyway. Not every show needs ships, and this show shouldn't have had any. I hate it. It's bad.

I guess on the biphobia front, I have heard some takes that it's not biphobic because Loki being queer in the MCU which hasn't shown any queer relationships, and Loki being the first openly queer character means they shouldn't have shown him with a woman presenting character. Which, I guess I get where you're coming from... but I have also been in fandoms for a long time and I see mostly girls saying this shit, which is what leads me to feel like it's simply jealousy. It happens all the time when a long-beloved single male character/celebrity suddenly starts dating a woman. Everyone hates it. And like, we haven't seen Loki be with ANYONE in the MCU, because mostly he's been doing villainy and his dating life hasn't been relevant. If the demigod says he's bi, he can kiss a woman. Especially a woman version of himself. Like I said, I hate it for other reasons, but pretending it's because he should have kissed Mobius is utterly delusional. He probably shouldn't have kissed anyone. Not in this series. There was no reason for any canon romance, especially because the show has a season 2 and we'll have time to see Loki develop earned, deserved romance with someone.

I'd much rather see them create a character just to be his boyfriend than have y'all push Marvel into making Lokius canon, which is a nonsense ship that only happened because Mobius is the only prominent male-presenting character before we meet the other Lokis.

My sincere wish is for people to remember that their ships are just ships and to enjoy them without getting all self-righteous about it. I TOLD y'all that Lokius wasn't gonna be canon like 4 episodes back, and here y'all are acting shocked and like Marvel took something from you. NOBODY expected y'all to ship Lokius. It's not even queerbait.

You can make clear arguments as to why Sambucky was queerbait. It's there in undertones in the actual series.

You cannot watch Loki and tell me you thought it was queerbait, unless you think men can't have conversations or hug goodbye without being romantically involved. Which means, in my opinion, that you need to learn about healthy masculinity.

Again, this is not a defense of Marvel. They DO need to let characters be queer, for real, and not just by saying " A bit of both". Like, let Loki be queer. Let Deadpool be queer. Let these queer characters be queer on screen. Yes.

But please stop making it about your ship. I'd rather see a flashback of Loki dating a guy and see him kiss someone he loved back on Asgard than watch y'all force Lokius. Because my queer rep is not about your crackship. It really isn't. And the fact that y'all keep calling us homophobic for not liking your ship REALLY needs to be addressed.

Like, when will y'all stop? I got on Stucky shippers about this shit in the past. All of us gay as hell, too, we just don't like YOUR ship. A lot of us like other queer ships. A lot of us like queer ships in other fandoms, too, and even have queer OCs. YOUR ship just ain't it. Stop forcing it. Literally, most of the ship wars between MCU fans have been queer ship vs queer ship, not really queer ship vs straight ship. Like, the number one Stucky rival ship was Stony. Not Steggy. People are not homophobic for not wanting your ship.

Sometimes it's because they ship something else.

And sometimes, like me, it's because they want something to make sense narratively and not happen for the sake of it happening. It's always better writing to have a character meetcute a new love interest than to magically turn a platonic friendship into a romantic relationship. Like, even when the characters are straight. Like, when Moesha dated Hakeem. It was just weird, even if he was kind of a great boyfriend. He was just supposed to be her friend, and people didn't really like it because it didn't fit narratively.

And that's why ships for the most part should be left to fanfiction, with the exception of a few where fans are right to call out the writers for not making it canon because it's clearly bait (like what happened to Destiel shippers. To see Lokius shippers compare themselves to THAT was so ridiculous. Destiel shippers had a decade of evidence only to be let down by a criminally unfair ending. Lokius shippers saw two men have a deep conversation once and lost their minds.)

Anyway, I'm not saying don't ship Lokius. I don't even hate it, really. I just think it obviously shouldn't be canon, and fans pretending like they were robbed of it is ridiculous. Literally, Ao3 exists for this reason. I will never see Steve fuck Sam Wilson, so I wrote it into my fanfic. I am not mad that they didn't actually date in the main MCU storyline.

[ebaeschnbliah]

CHANGING  OF  THE  GUARD

________________________________________________________________

A metaphorical reading of Sherlock BBC, The Sign of Three (and beyond)

The beginning of Sherlock BBC, The Sign of Three, really leaves no doubt what the theme of its story is about. When the eye of the camera zooms slowly in on Speedy’s and the famous black door with the number 221 in Baker Street, it seems to take it’s path right through a literal wood of pointy, black spears. Fences built of iron spears that guard the place..

It starts with a row of spears in the forground. When those get blurry, even more spears from midfield move into focus. Finally the camera reveals spears also in the background. That makes three levels of spears, one might say.

Three levels of spears stand like guardians in front of 221b Baker Street. Could those three levels symbolize the three stabbing victims of The Sign of Three? After all, each one of the three characters is depicted as guard, as protector ... and each one of them gets stabbed. 

TBC below the cut ...

Stephen Bainbridge 

He is a Private in the Household Guard of the Queen. The Grenadier Guards is an infantry regiment of the British Army. The current regiment is known as the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards … ’Every foot soldier bears the mark’  (Soo Lin, TBB). How surprising is it that the ‘East’ zooms in on Bainbridge before he gets stabbed by Jonathan Small? 

Also … the gesture of the woman is interesting. Two Vs make a W (or a M … depends on the turning). It also lets me think of Culverton Smith’s W-gesture in TLD, in the short clip with the man disguised as cock (x).

Modern Grenadier Guardsmen wear a cap badge of a "grenade fired proper" with seventeen flames (x). Foot soldiers linked to exploding grenades … what a lovely coincidence, especially regarding the ‘passions’ grenade from TFP. :)

When the changing of the guards takes place, Bainbridge is already wounded and slowly dying. He got stabbed before the changing.

The name Stephen is of Greek origin and means ‘crown’ and ‘that which surrounds’. Saint Stephen was stoned to death and is regarded as the very first Christian martyr. 

Another little detail caught my attention as well. Just a word used twice to describe a person. 

SHERLOCK: “Elite Guard.” JOHN: Forty enlisted men and officers. SHERLOCK: Why this particular Grenadier? Curious.

And in TRF Sherlock sais:

SHERLOCK: This little boy; this particular little boy ... who reads all of those spy books. What would he do? JOHN: He’d leave a sign?

Max Bruhl left a sign. Stephen Bainbridge wrote a note. Not much of a difference, I think.

Guardsmen   Max and Claudette

 James Sholto

He is a retired Major of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers and Captain John Watson’s old commanding officer. A decorated war hero but not to everyone. Something went wrong when he led a team of new recruits into battle. ‘They all died’ (just like AGRA). Major Sholto, badly wounded, was the only survivor. Press and families gave him hell. Deaththreats and hate almost turned him into a recluse, into a most unsociable man, who spends his retirement way out in the middle of nowhere.

I’m quite sure this has been mentioned before, the 5th Northumberland Regiment on Foot (’foot soldiers’ too) still uses their ancient badge … St George killing the dragon (x)   Every quiver of his beating heart

‘He destroyed us all’  …  somehow these words sound very similar to the one Sherlock uses in TFP, in a situation where he considers himself to be a soldier: ‘Five minutes. It took her just five minutes to do all of this to us. Well, not on my watch.’ 

As mentioned above, Mary’s dialogue in TST matches the description about the incident with Sholto’s recruits almost identically …  ‘something went wrong’/’but it went wrong’ … ‘I was the only one who made it our’/’they all died; he was the only survivor’. And Mary considered AGRA to be her family ... ‘we were family’. 

Major John Sholto is an original character from ACDs novel The Sign of Four. His sons are called Thaddeus and Bartholomew. The renaming of the Major’s first name - from John to James - must have been a deliberate choice. A choice which is reflected in the skip code of TEH ‘John or James Watson … saint or sinner ... James or John’, as well as in John Watson’s middle name … Hamish (Scottish for James).

Major Sholto’s room number is ‘two oh seven’. This reminds me of the ‘double oh seven’ codeword for the ‘flight of the dead’ in ASIB. Two and double …. both means 2. Sure, the number on the door reads 207 but then, it happens several times in this story, that things told and things shown are sometimes not quite the same or vis versa. 

When the wedding guests leave the church and the reception takes place, Sholto is already wounded and slowly dying. He has been stabbed before.

Sherlock investigates the cases of both guardians

Bainbridge’s note reaches him sometime during the wedding preparations. John and Sherlock arrive just in time to save Private Bainbridge’s life. The case though remains unsolved.

Without knowing it at the time, Sherlock investigates Sholto’s case during John’s stag night. They call the investigation of the ghost-man the ‘Mayfly Man’ case. It remains also unsolved.

Sherlock includes both unsolved cases into his best man speech at John’s wedding and here at last, all the puzzle pieces fall into place and Sherlock is able to solve both cases, which are closely related. As a consequence Major Sholto’s life can be saved as well. 

The person responsible for the attempts to kill Private Bainbridge and Major Sholto is:

Jonathan Small

‘Brilliant, ruthless, almost certainly a monomaniac - though, in fairness, his photographs are actually quite good’ … that’s how Sherlock describes the killer. Small’s motive is revenge. He is convinced that Major Sholto is responsible for the death of Small’s brother Peter, who had been among the killed recruits. It seems that Private Bainbridge merely had the misfortune and got randomly chosen for the rehearsal of Sholto’s murder. But ... why this particular 'foot soldier’? (I’ll come back to that question later)

Jonathan Small grins like Jim Moriarty and wears a checkered shirt like John. He is a brilliant, ruthless monomaniac and obviously also a womaniizer who has no problems to woo half a dozen women, almost at the same time, into telling him well-kept secrets. Basically … a perfect blend of Jim Moriarty and traditional John ‘three continents’ Watson. 

Like Major Sholto, Jonathan Small too is an original character from ACDs novel The Sign of Four. His name has not been changed. Only together with his female and not-canon counterpart Janine, Mary’s bridesmaid, who seems to be a lovely blend of Irene and Jim, the name chosen for the antagonist of this episode, appears to gain a special significance. 

Janine - deiminutive of Jeanne, female form of John … ‘little Johnny’

Jonathan - diminutives are Jon, Jonni ... though not related to ‘John’ regarding the meaning of the name, it can still be heard as … ‘little Jonny’  (’You can talk, Johnny-boy. Go ahead.‘ Jim, TGG)

None other than ‘little Jo(h)nny’ (the H makes the difference) is responsible for the almost murder of Private Bainbridge and Major Sholto, the first two stabbing victims of this episode. 

‘Little Johnny’ also happens to be another word for penis … the ‘meat dagger’.

Who’s the third ‘victim’ then?

Mary Elizabeth Morstan

She is a character full of surprises who starts as a simple nurse who marries John Watson in TSOT. Among Sherlock’s deduction-word-cloud in TEH the term ‘guardian’ can be found and only one episode after the ‘wedding’, Sherlock outs her as facade … his very own facade, because the Empty Houses in Leinster Gardens, on whose front walls Mary’s face is projected, are Sherlock’s property. 

Mary Elizabeth Morstan isn’t her real name either. It’s the name of a stillborn child from a gravestone in Chiswick Cementry. This connects her character to the other stillborn child of this story ... Rachel Wilson, the pink lady’s daughter from ASIP. The initials A.G.R.A. stand for Mary’s true name, she tells later … but soon this turns out to be incorrect as well. A.G.R.A. was a group of four undercover agents who worked for the British Government. Prior to her ‘retirement’ Mary had been a member of that group. Sherlock describes her as ‘super-agent with a terrifying skill set’. Based on the current status, her two first names are Rosamund Mary … the family name is still unknown (if there even is one). 

Why should Mary be the third stabbing victim?

Readers of my theories will probably know that I’m playing for a long time now with a mind palace scenario which stretches from the beginning, most likely in PILOT (or even before) to the end of S4 (x). Back then I wondered ...

Is it really so farfetched to consider the possibility that Sherlock tries to deduce and solve the mysteries and problems of his own live - and his falling in love with John - at first in his mind? Before he comes out?

Over decades - since ACD - the story of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson has been told by the famous 'unreliable narrator’. Could it be that this time - with Sherlock BBC - the world will get the true story? Finally told by Sherlock himself? By looking right into his heart and mind and soul? By showing how his brilliant mind works? How his heart and soul expand and grow?

Would TPTB do such a thing? Stay in Sherlock’s mind over the span of multiple episodes? Follow his train of thought … show his evolution … in such a way? I don’t know. But it sounds thrilling to me. (Nov 2016)

Based on those early ideas I gradually came to the conclusion that Sherlock BBC tells the story of how Sherlock Holmes deduced his own persona. He does this the same way he investigates his criminal cases … by setting up scenarios in his mind and repeating those until he has found the correct solution (The Stage is set). Investigating his own case - the pink one - in such a way, would mean that all the characters which appear on Sherlock’s ‘mind stage’ represent different aspects of himself. Some of them may be based on real life persons, most of them are probably entirely created by Sherlock’s imagination. I like to compaire this process to a ‘mind journey’ or to a long (dramatic) dialogue, Sherlock holds with himself. This propably doesn’t happen during a dream or in a state of coma, as I thought back in 2016. A lot of time and thinking has gone by since then. Nowadays I presume that a conscious thinking process would fit better with the literal character Sherlock Holmes, whose deductions are always built on facts, science, reason and logic. It would be rather OOC that a man like Holmes would base an important, life changing decision on anything else than his razor sharp mind. Anyway, it’s just one of many theories.

Mary now … ever since I noticed the lot of similarities this character shares with Sherlock (x) my view on her started to change considerably. To me she isn’t the woman anymore who comes between Sherlock and John but instead the facade Sherlock Holmes created and married to his traditional, eternal friendship with John Watson for the sole purpose, to hide his romantic feelings and his sexual desire for the friend behind this protective wall. Mary is Sherlock’s facade, his guardian, his firewall … because:

John can’t ever know that I lied to him. It would break him and I would lose him forever – and I will never let that happen. Please … understand. There is nothing in this world that I would not do to stop that happening.

In my opinion, these are Sherlock’s own words and they express his fear of what might happen to the uinque friendship he shares with John, if the friend ever discovers the true nature of his feelings for him. Sherlock would do anything to stop that happening, even if this means that he has to incarcerate his emotions inside a high-security facility, behind elephant glass and chain his sexuality with iron bonds to a wall in a padded cell, like a hound from hell.  

The ‘meat dagger’ incident

Sherlock tells the wedding guests - Major Sholto sits among them - about the unsolved Bainbridge case and asks if any of them has got a theory how that guard might have been stabbed. What kind of murderer can walk through walls, which weapon can vanish? Molly’s fiancé Tom (both characters are mirrors for John and Sherlock) assumes it could be a case of ‘attempted suicice by meat dagger’ ... something that would have been self administered. 

A lot has been written since then about the ‘meat dagger’ as a metaphor for 'penis’ …. for ‘little Johnny’.  :)

Sherlock sees only one feature of interest in the whole case … while he tried to solve the mystery, the eternal friend saved the life of the guard. And just the same happens a little while later with Major Sholto, the other guardian. It turns out that both men - both guardians - have been stabbed by the same killer … Jonathan Small … little Jonny, the meat dagger ....

There’s only one other character in this episode who has been stabbed unknowingly as well. That’s Mary. And in her case it’s indeed … ‘stabbed by meat dagger’ because Sherlock deduces her pregnancy by the end of the episode. Or expressed in computer language:  the firewall has been penetrated by the virus.

The ‘father’ might be John or David, Mary’s ex. It doesn’t matter if one views the story metaphorically where all characters represent aspects of Sherlock himself. Going by his looks, David is clearly a mirror for John, while his history regarding the constant online observation of Mary, connects him to Mycroft, the brain. David seems to be a ‘blended’ mirror like Jonathan Small (John/Jim) or Janine (Irene/Jim). A mirror who represents the ongoing interest of the brain in the feelings hidden behind the facade. 

When Sherlock marries John and Mary, he puts a guardian in front of his true feelings for the friend. He tries to ‘downgrade’ those feelings. And yet, Sherlock allows three ‘social ancounters a year’ but ‘always in John’s - the traditional friendship’s presence’. That sounds very much like the ‘calculated risk’ Mycroft takes with Eurus. Both ‘brothers’ seem to be ‘love-addicts’ in need of a fix, once in a while … when the burden of ‘holding oneself to a higher standard’, of ‘keeping oneself right’ gets too heavy … or too boring. In that case it could propably happen that one takes the frustration out on the wall … then the wall has it coming …  :)

The moment of revelation

When Sherlock is blinded by the flashlight of ‘little Jo(h)nni’s’ camera, he suddenly realizes that the cases of Bainbridge and Sholto are connected. That the stabber has to be the same person. It’s the moment when the first domino piece falls and knocks over the next, and the next, and the next …. leading to a chain reaction of revelations at the end of which Sherlock knows without any doubt that his new facade had been penetrated again … this time though by a ‘kill shot’. He’d been hit by AMO (the perfect ammonition), fired by the crack shot that is his eternal friend. The seed of love has been laid without Sherlock noticing the ‘chink in his armour’ through which Cupid’s arrow hit home. Now love has taken root behind his facade and is growing. 

The name chosen for that love is Rosamund - Rose of the world, as the dialogue in TST confirms. There’s a real rose of that name - Rosa Mundi - an old rose depicted in a work of Sandro Botticelli “Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child”. This rose is also known by the synonym ‘rosa versicolor’ - which means ‘rose of many or changing colours ... iridiscent’.

The word iridescence is derived in part from the Greek word ἶρις îris , meaning rainbow, It is the phenomenon of certain surfaces that appear to gradually change color as the angle of view or the angle of illumination changes. (X)

Sherlock - the ‘virgin’ he is called in ASIB by Jim and Irene - announces the pregnancy of Mary (I still wonder if this means that he is the 'Gabriel’ of A.G.R.A. - the angel who announces virgin Mary’s pregnancy). And during the stag night, John is labeled with ‘Madonna’. Another name for Virgin Mary. This turns the eternal friend also into the ‘virgin’, just like Sherlock and Mary. Another ‘sign of three’ one could say. 

Three virgins - three novices - who will now start a new journey on a way they have never travelled before. Sherlock will finally encounter romantic love and accept it ‘it is what it is’, the facade will ‘get retired in a pretty permanent sort of way’ as the brain blatantly puts it in TST and the traditional ‘eternal’ friendship will have to change into a romantic-sexuell relationship. A morphing together of friendship and sex - John and James - would be a quite logical consequence, I guess.

In TST the little baby is christened with the name Rosamund, a name that can be traced back to ‘rainbow’ … Rosie for short.  And rosy=pink!

‘Oh, what a night! ... I was never gonna be the same … I felt a rush like a rollin' ball of thunder spinnin' my head around n' takin' my body under’ 

No wonder this song has been chosen by the creators to accompany this scene. Overwhelmed by emotions - surprise, confusion, amazement, shock, joy, panic, uncertainty, concern, fear - Sherlock isn’t able anymore to carry on with this ‘wedding’ .... with this renewed ‘changing of the guard’. He walks away alone into the night. The case is solved. Sherlock is aware of what happened. Now he has to deal with the consequences. Should he really replace his guardian again or should he finally stop pretending, stop lying, drop the facade and confess his deepest secret?

Because if you tell them and they decide they’d rather not know, you can’t take it back. You can’t unsay it. Once you’ve opened your heart, you can’t close it again.

This confrontation, Sherlock fights with himself, becomes the centrepiece of the following episode (HLV) where Sherlock is completely torn into. One half of his being, still protected by the facade, is at war with the ... ‘other one’, the slowly increasing emotional side of him. But somewhere deep inside his mind he probably knows already that this is a war ‘he must lose’. And so Sherlock has to go deeper ...

TAB doesn’t only take Sherlock back to his literal roots. In this episode Sherlock investigates again two of the main threads of the story and ties them together through the ‘bride’ … FALL and HOUND. Mary, the facade, feels already ‘left behind’ and John, who represents Sherlock’s now fully acknowledged, tender feelings, directed at his friend ... ‘does grow up so fast’. The episode ends with Sherlock, who throws himself into a torrent of water=emotions and follows Jim Moriarty, Mr Sex, down the Reichenbach Fall … right into the emotional rollercoaster that is Series Four. 

Like the investigation in TAB, this series runs backwards as well. TST repeats the events of S2 and S3 while TLD zooms in on S1. I persume this happens because Sherlock applies an ability he describes to Dr. Watson as ... ‘reasoning backwards’:

“In solving a problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backwards. That is a very useful accomplishment, and a very easy one, but people do not practise it much. In the every-day affairs of life it is more useful to reason forwards, and so the other comes to be neglected. There are fifty who can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically…Let me see if I can make it clearer. Most people, if you describe a train of events to them, will tell you what the result would be. They can put those events together in their minds, and argue from them that something will come to pass. There are few people, however, who, if you told them a result, would be able to evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led up to that result. This power is what I mean when I talk of reasoning backwards, or analytically.”  (ACD  A Study in Scarlet, Conclusion) 

There’s one important change though, which will alter everything. Sherlock now adds baby Rosie, the pink seed of love, the AMO-factor, to his equation. As a consequence his mask, his facade - that what ‘thatched’ and guarded him - crumbles and falls. And Sherlock accepts the change … It is what it is. 

Then, in TFP, the third episode of S4, Sherlock puts the results of his deductions under the sharp lens of his emotional core, for the ultimate experiment … the final distillation … to produce at last a clear solution. Still missing is the chemical reaction that should follow the application of that solution, one might say. :)

Back to the three ‘guardians’

My husband is three people

During the wedding preparations, John tries to interst Sherlock for this curious case. John says the sentence ‘my husband is three people’ twice, interupted only by this short dialogue:

SHERLOCK: Major James Sholto. Who he? MARY: Oh, John’s old commanding officer. 

Taking John’s words ‘my husband is three people’ literally, then he is talking about his own husband … which will soon be Mary. Husband, not wife, because Mary represents an aspect of Sherlock, his facade, his cover ... his ‘thatch’. As mentioned above, when Sherlock marries John to Mary, he puts a guardian in front of his true feelings for the friend … one could also say …. he places a commander at their/his side. And this is exactly what Mary does in later episodes. She decides who mowes the lawn, chooses the name of the baby and that it is her to take John home and not vis versa. 

Husbands can be equated with facades, with commanders, with guards. All of them serve as protectors and defenders of Sherlock’s true feelings for the friend. 

Who could have been the first ‘husband’ … the first facade, the first guardian?

Neither of us were the first

This is what Mary tells Sherlock, while John welcomes his ‘privious’ commander. Is she really talking about sexuell experiences of her brand-new husband with another man, just to taunt Sherlock? Viewing the Mary-character as an aspect of Sherlock himself and not as a real wife that comes between two men, I heavily doubt this. Applying a metaphorical reading to the story, wouldn’t it be much more likely that this conversation is about their - Mary’s and Sholto’s - assigned profession. Neither of us were the first … guardian.

Mary is the husband to be, the most recently chosen facade, John’s new commanding officer, an undercover agent of the government.

Major James Sholto is John’s old commanding officer, Sherlock’s previous facade, which turned out to be not strong enough. 

The only other guard in this story is Stephen Bainbridge, Private in the Household Guard of the Queen. The foot soldier named after Saint Stephen, the first martyrer. 

And isn’t there somthing strikingly similar regarding those three guards as well as a noticeable increase in drama and strength, which so often happens when sequences are repeated on Sherlock’s mind stage?

Private Bainbridge guards the Queens Palace. The ‘East’ zoomes in on him, then he get’s stabbed by ‘little Jonny’ - the meat dagger - without noticing it. A changing of the guard takes place. Bainbridge almost dies beneath a shower of water.

Major Sholto guards the Queens country. He fights on a battlefield in the East beneath a burning hot sun. Something goes wrong and all the recruits under his command die. Badly wounded himself, Sholto has to leave the service and change into retirement. He gets stabbed by ‘little Jonny’ - the meat dagger - and almost dies.

Mary secretly works for Mycroft, the government, the ‘queen’ -  as an undercover ‘super-agent with a terrifying skill set’. Her last operation took place in the East. Something went wrong and a lot of people died. It first looked as if Mary had been the only surviver (like Sholto). She marries ‘Johnny-boy’ Watson, gets stabbed by his meat dagger, becomes pregnant and …. dies not long after ‘PINK-RAINBOW-ROSIES’ birth.

The Sign of Three is about the ‘changing of the guard’. It takes place inside Sherlock’s head. But the marriage of John and Mary, that Sherlock arranges so heartbreakingly beautiful (and so strikingly yellow), turns out to be utterly pointless. Because the bride, the husband, the new commander, the facade is already pregnant ... had been stabbed before the wedding ... before the changing of the guard. 

The Yellow Face connection

This isn’t new. It has been discussed before in this interesting meta  About Yellow Face  by @darlingtonsubstitution  (sadly the part below the cut is gone) from 2017. As mentioned in the comments there, the creators of Sherlock BBC once refered to their favourite ACD stories. Yellow Face was among them but ... they wouldn’t be able to adapt it, because of the sensitive content, they said. This isn’t quite true though, it seems. On the contrary, the colour yellow features most prominently in Sherlock BBC … and not just the colour itself. 

It starts with Sherlock’s and John’s first date at Angelo’s. The whole scene is drenched in yellow. PILOT even more than ASIP.

A secret code of ancient cyphers, sprayed in yellow paint, leads to the Yellow Dragon Circus. 

Golden cats and big ‘yellow’ felines - lions - roam the story. 

Yellow is the colour of the smiley face on the wall of the 221b living room. 

There’s an assassin who carries a yellow ladder and a yellow tool case with a gun in it. 

A bright yellow mask has been placed inside a box, alongside a train, a phone, nicotin patches and a note. 

The main colour of the wedding ... bright yellow. It’s the wedding that leads Sherlock to the revelation ... to his love deduction. 

A canary trainer, a trainer of yellow birds, turns out to be the killer. 

Norbury, the case of the Yellow Face from canon, plays a vital role in TST 

The finish of a race is marked with a bright yellow band that floats slowly to the ground while a ‘confessing’ serial killer, who is a mirror for John, passes as winner, signaling a W with his fingers, while the fingers from the ‘East’,, next to Private Bainbridge, signal a double V.

Yellow is the colour of the sun, of fire, flames and explosions.

Yellowbeard ….

But one of the most important links to Yellow Face is the following one:

JOHN: Mary, I may not be a very good man, but I think I’m a bit better than you give me credit for, most of the time. (Sherlock BBC, TST) 'I am not a very good man, Effie, but I think that I am a better one than you have given me credit for being.'  (Grant Munro, The Adventure of the Yellow Face)

This piece of dialogue connects John to Grant Munro, the husband of Effie, the woman who hides her secret child from a previous marriage behind a yellow mask. She doesn’t do it out of some dark or sinister motive as Sherlock Holmes is convinced at first. Her former marriage had been legal and she'd loved her late husband dearly. Lucy, her little girl, can truly be called a child of love. But Effie fears to reveal Lucy, because the girl is ‘different' and the mother is anxious to lose the man she loves now, because of this. She is torn into between the love for her child and the love for her husband.

She (Effie) drew a large silver locket from her bosom. 'You have never seen this open.'

'I understood that it did not open.'

She touched a spring, and the front hinged back. There was a portrait within of a man, strikingly handsome and intelligent, but bearing unmistakable signs upon his features of his African descent.  (ACD, The Yellow Face)

ACDs Yellow Face is a case without crime, without any devious betrayal. Instead, it’s about love and the fear to lose  love, because at that time in ACDs story, it’s about a love not accepted by many. 

'That is John Hebron, of Atlanta,' said the Lady (Effie), 'and a nobler man never walked the earth. I cut myself off from my race in order to wed him; but never once while he lived did I for one instant regret it. It was our misfortune that our only child took after his people rather than mine.   (ACD, The Yellow Face)

In ACDs Yellow Face, the ‘first husband’ is of ‘African descent’ … just like Private Bainbridge, who is the ‘first guardian’ - the first of the three ‘identical husbands’ - in Sherlock BBC, The Sign of Three. He is the one who represents Sherlock’s earliest facade … the guardian of the Queen’s Palace.

Just like @darlingtonsubstitution presumed more than two years ago, I’m now more convinced than ever, that Moffat and Gatiss did adapt ACDs Yellow Face and they not only included it in Sherlock BBC, they made it into the main theme of their story (beside ‘hound’, ‘fall’ and ‘scarlet/pink’). In their version though, the focus shifts from ‘unacceptable’ skin-colour to ‘unacceptable’ sexuality. 

Sherlock BBCs baby ... Rosie ... Sherlock’s baby ... represents love. And this love is pink and has been given a name that can be traced back to ‘Rainbow’. The Sign of Three tells the story of the ‘changing of the guards’ and how Sherlock finally discovers the AMO-factor that will alter his life completely.

When I discoverd Sherlock BBC for the first time (back in 2011) I was thrilled by that fascinating crime drama and its two charismatic leads. Now, after 13 episodes, it has grown into so much more than just an excellent crime drama among others. The way I read it, Sherlock BBC is a wonderful and stunning story about equality. Inside Sherlock’s mind, the great detective doesn’t only solve the greatest secret of his life. No, the actors Sherlock chooses to represent the different aspects of his persona, are as diverse as the colours of the rainbow. They are old and young, male and female, beautiful and ugly, strong and weak, rich and poor. Neither gender, sexuality nor the shade of skin colour or from which corner on this planet someone comes, is of any importance. Anyone can be a part of this Sherlock Holmes. That’s what makes this adaptation so absolutely unique to me. Sherlock himself becomes the rainbow of his own story. 

Thanks for reading to anyone who is still there. :))))  I leave you to your own deductions. And thanks @callie-ariane​ for your invaluable scripts.

December, 2019

________________________________________________________________

Episode spanning metaphorical reading of Sherlock BBC: 

From PILOT to TGG  ….      About the meaning of S1 

From ASIB to TEH  ….  The big question - what is the meaning of Reichenbach

[kuronekonerochan]

Rambles/Rant about Kdrama OSTs and old Kdramas bc I digressed

 I’ve got that one song from My Name is Kim Sam Soon stuck in my head.

I haven’t watched the drama in like 5 years and haven’t heard it again until this month when it was sampled briefly in an easter egg on Be Melodramatic and then again on the last episode (200) of Knowing Brothers/ Ask Us Anything with SuperJunior, where they played the first seconds on a game to guess the soundtrack/drama/actors (btw I did surprisingly well on mid2000s to contemporary kdramas, guessing at home). 

When I first started watching kdramas, the thing that was harder to adapt to wasn’t the language (oh the advantage of not being american or from any other country where they dub everything), I’ve been watching stuff in multiple different languages on tv since birth, in fact, everyone else in my country does. Nope, it was the fact that the background music WASN’T in the background... it was all in your face max volume, blaring over the dialogue and the characters. I swear I had to pause and rewind scenes because I was often too distracted by the music to remember to even read the subtitles. It took a while to adapt. Now I’ve embraced it (still find it funny and cringy when the ultra romantic ballad blows in), and there are some songs that become such a part of the viewing experience I can’t watch a pic of the drama without ���hearing” the OST and likewise, hear the song without remembering the drama. Hence Kim Sam Soon sexy baby making 2000s jam.

Some dramas have very iconic OST singles that are super catchy.  Some of them I don’t like but I’ve grown used to and enjoy screamsinging to (like Almost Paradise, Maria - the korean not Blondie vs., etc.), some are super cheesy, and even though I hate ballads, kind of became a guilty pleasure (like that ballad from Secret Garden). 

Some have an iconic standout song that I immediately associate with the drama, like Kill me Heal me ( Auditory Hallucinations by Jang Jae In and NaShow is my favorite piece of OST ever, and one of my favorite songs in the world). Also, W: Two Worlds, Lookout, Hwarang with that V/Jin single,Mad Dog, Abyss, Search WWW, Miss Hammurabi and Beautiful Mind (Dirt is awesome).

Some have great singles in the mix, even though I don’t like the rest of the album:Romance is a Bonus Book, Jealousy Incarnate, It’s Ok That’s Love,   Angel’s Last Mission, The Guest, Another Oh Hae Young (I didn’t even like the drama, but the cinematography and the OST was on point), 

Some are just freaking great overall, like the OST from Chicago Typewriter (my absolute favorite), The Player, Cheese in the Trap, When the Devil Calls Your Name, Descendants of the Sun and Goblin. (I’m not including instrumental, only songs, bc then Mr. Sunshine and a lot more could be on my list)

The best thing about OSTs is that it allows me to get to know A LOT of korean singers whose careers seem to be very geared towards OSTs, some of my favorites I can’t even find anything else from them except covers and OST (they are probably on those shady label basements we hear so much about...the sad part is I’m only half joking). Others have indie albums that I got to know  first through their work on soundtracks. People who have lovely voices, such as INKII (one of the basement ones and the one whose voice I love the most, seriously who is she? when is she getting an album?), Jang Jae In, Suran, Heize, SaltnPaper, Crush, Punch, U-mb5, Klang, The Black Skirts, Hyukoh, etc...plus the recurrent appearance of singles by idols from groups, with EXO idols doing it the most, either solo or in duets, or even the entire ensemble like Mamamoo. Cdramas brought me Shi Shi.

Anyways, it’s nice to have great OSTs... not so nice to get one you haven’t heard throughout in the last 5 years stuck in your head.

BTW...it’s this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfCgyW_8Goo

PS: Kim Sam Soon was weird. She herself was one foot in an independent self assertive woman and another foot in a poor pathetic doormat for the ML. Hyun Bin was the cliche rich jerk lead of the old kdramas and by contemporary standards an asshole but at the same time, kind of not that bad or overbearing (like a transition period lead between the old chaebol bastard and the contemporary supportive ML, still worse than Gong Yoo in Coffee Prince tho). But I guess my perspective is very much influenced by the “era” of the drama. It came out amidst way worse kdrama bastard leads and the peak of classic Taiwanese (WTF?! in today’s view) dramas. Remember the era of male leads backslapping female leads left and right? Forced kisses more likely than regular consensual ones? Abortions, push-down-the-stairs-”accidents” and amnesia? Ooof... looking back, dramas have really come a long way and also, how TF were those tropes valid not too long ago?  What I meant with perspective is that when I saw Kim Sam Soon all those years ago, I also watched a taiwanese drama where the male lead straight up hires people to murder the female lead (even before they meet) over an inheritance - btw this was a melodrama/comedy (if you’ve ever seen a taiwanese drama you know what I mean) and it had a happy ending. Seriously, they got married, bla ,bla ...again...wtf?! 

(Not even going to get into the whole more than likely abusive relationship, but seriously, female leads back then were a-ok with falling for people who had no problem with murder...not even getting into the fact that it was her own murder, bu even any other person? Did I mention that the murder attempt resulted in a forest fire? And I can’t remember for sure but I think someone died bc of the fire. So moral culprit of murder and environmental catastrophe? Talk about low standards. The best part was that the actor was the least intimidating thing on earth, total flower boy type, you couldn’t even believe he had the guts to do anything...)

[flying-elliska]

hi ellie! what's your top 5 tv shows? (no skam, this is kinda obvious 😂)

haha anon thank you for reminding me there were tv shows other than skam :D

- Buffy the Vampire Slayer - first series I ever went apeshit for, it brings up so many memories of saving to buy dvd boxsets and watching VHS tapes with my bestie and halloween parties and cutting snippets out of fan magazines (whoop i’m old). It’s dated and problematic now but. It’s still so Quality TM. It’s so good at using dumbass genre tropes (which are also super fun don’t get me wrong) to say super deep shit about life and love and growing up. There are a lot of parts I wish I could rewrite and maybe send different messages (Still not over Tara’s death...) but still, when I rewatch it I’m like wow, that shit was my life once upon a time. And the Vibe ! It’s still so funny and taught me the importance of using humor to support darker storylines so it doesn’t get too gloomy or self serious. And they’re doing a modern comics reboot, which I’m so gonna buy once money happens. Also we’ve gone far enough round the bend that some of their outfits are like. really cool again. And it was the actual first time I saw a lesbian couple story that was so positive and loving and celebrated. I didn’t even know I was bi at the time but it made me so happy. (and it pushed me into my witchy phase instead lmaoooooo)

- Star Trek (techically a cheat bc a lot of series in one but lmao). I became a fan like 5 years ago and still it felt like I knew it already, because it’s so engraved in our consciousness. It’s just incredible to think that people were obsessing over shit, shipping stuff, falling in love with characters, just like we do, already in the 60s. It feels so comfy to watch, and the optimistic worldview still gives me hope we can get our shit together as a species. I just go back to it periodically, it’s one of those things you know will be there forever. And some of the stories are dumb or really bad but some are just....so good and so deep...wow. My favorite has to be Deep Space Nine because I love so many of its characters and it got a bit darker and more ambitious with the overall storytelling. And I could write a political science essay about several of the plotlines. You got bad rubber lizard masks and everyone dresses like a train carpet, but also you got really deep storylines about guilt and propaganda and genocide and how to make ideals stick and nation building and the evils of blind bureaucracy and idealism vs pragmatism and !!! It’s my jam really. 

- Black Sails ! I’m still ??? that we got a show like that. It was billed yay pirates boobs beaches explosions, produced by Michael Bay ! But what we got instead was like, ok wow. First of all 4 main characters are queer, plus two polyamorous relationships, plus several side characters who aren’t straight either including one that is introduced in the last 5 min of the show. They start with this really badass scary pirate captain who has a troubled story with a woman and then half way through the second season (spoilers) they reveal that the entire backbone of the series’ story is that he was in love with a man and he is so angry at how they treated him that he’s going to war with the entire British Empire over it. It’s one of the finest examples of heterobaiting I’ve ever seen. AND his relationship with the other main character is also extremely full of longing and subtext even if they never actually go there. Plus, awesome sword fighting lesbian pirate ! And of course apart from that the story is really good and says some incredible things about stories, power, oppression, empire, freedom, how ‘monsters’ are made. I think a lot of people slept on it because the first season is kinda slow to start and has a really problematic rape storyline. But imho it’s worth powering through. And it has one of the most satisfying endings I’ve ever seen in a TV show. 

- Brooklyn Nine-nine. Ultimate comfort show and still so fucking funny - it’s arguably gotten better over time, even. Jake and Amy are one of the rare canon het couples I actually read fic for lmao. I love how all the characters are interesting in their own ways. I love how they dismantle toxic masculinity so hard, do diversity in a way that feels completely organic, and tackle some stuff that is seriously wrong with the US/cops in general from their middle of the road perspective in a way that never feels like they’re teaching you a lesson. I love that their female characters are all strong in different ways and shown to be flawed and still lovable and hilarious. I love how they portray their queer characters in such an honest way without ever reducing them to their sexuality. It’s one of these shows that actually makes being a grown up appear interesting and not boring.I love the big found family vibes. I love it so much. 

- Bonus Cheat Round because I’m incapable of choosing one last one ! Halt and Catch Fire (Lee Pace ! Amazing creative female partnership !) Doctor Who (Moffat can fuck off but some of the eps remain incredible sci-fi stories) Skam (sorry oops), Avatar/Legend of Korra, Agent Carter (mostly the 1st season tho), Pushing Daisies (Lee Pace! Super cuteness! Whyyyyyyy was it cancelled sighhhh), Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (Adorable period drama w badass female MC), Legends of Tomorrow (admire their committment to going for the most balls to the walls out there solution everytime, plus badass bis everywhere), Parks and Rec, the Good Place, Broad City, Penny Dreadful (altho I hate the ending my god), Hannibal, a Series of Unfortunate Events, the Expanse, Killing Eve (just watched, it’s amazing)... I guess I watch too much TV lol but don’t we all. 

[4hwlife]

The 4HW,Asuka and the SD Women’s roster

These subjects have been a hot topic on social media since SD last Tuesday night and everyone seams to have an opinion.Some people think what happened was wrong,some people think it might mean the title’s will be unified or that we will have an undisputed champion,some people think it will make the match better while others not so much.One thing is certain every WWE fan seem’s to have an opinion myself included.So I wanted to share my opinion and break it down int categories I feel seem to be the most important to me and the most talked about by other fans. Keep in mind this is my opinion no one has to agree with it I just felt like sharing and i’m stuck in bed with the flu.  

The four Horsewomen love them hate them every wrestling fan seems to have an opinion on them.Personally they happen to be my favorite superstars female or male.Iv’e seen some people say that they only get opportunities because they’re the horsewoman the ever “lovely” diva stans really love to use that one I disagree but hey again everyone has their own opinions.To state mine and try and prove my point i’m gonna break down the career’s of each one.I will then give my thoughts and opinion. 

Let’s start with the least problematic and in my opinion most underrated not only horsewoman but wrestler Bayley.In NXT Bayley was more loved by the NXT crowd than anyone else has ever been.She won the NXT title did a great job at putting people over lost it to Asuka and finally made it to the main roster.At first things were going great for Bayley the crowd was completely behind her much like they had been in NXT.But as good as things had been the moment Bayley won the Raw Women’s title things turned that bad that quick.For all intensive purposes 2017 should have been Bayley’s year it was not.I personally think they put the title on her way to quick which of course was not her fault.The whole thing with Bayley in NXT was that she was the underdog she was the last of the Horsewomen besides(Becky who never won the title) to win the NXT title and it really felt like she was in NXT forever before she won it.That was part of what made her NXT title run so special she was the true underdog and the crowd was behind her because of it.So Bayley wins the title against Charlotte on Raw and then snapped Charlotte’s undefeated streak and went on to defeat Sasha,Charlotte and Nia Jax at WrestleMania.After that evry thing went downhill how can anyone forget the Bayley this is your life segment with Alexa Bliss in one night they managed to kill one of the most lovable characters in the company.Then they had her lose the title in her hometown in a kendo stick match and wouldn’t let her pick up the kendo stick.After that a lot of people stopped caring about Bayley except for her die hard fan’s and she spent the rest of 2017 as a jobber.Fast forward to 2018 and it looks like we may be getting Sasha vs Bayley they teased it some then had Sasha turn on Bayley several times then Bayley finally had enough and bet the crap out of Sasha and said the infamous you ain’t shit line to Sasha.People were excited this was a different Bayley we thought we were gonna get another epic Sasha/Bayley feud but instead we got Dr.Shelby and another year of jobbing and a whole lot of six Woman tag matches with the Riott Squad.Which leads me to the present day,the first ever Woman’s tag titles and the Woman who should have been the first Woman’s champion at WM 32. 

The Legit Boss Sasha Banks.The Boss in NXT was the most best character in NXT.Sasha was a great Nxt champion she was so entertaining so extra and such a great heel.Sasha in my opinion is right there with Asuka as the best female wrestler in the WWE.Heel Sasha is my favorite Sasha she and Bayley had what I steal consider the greatest Women’s match of all time at Takeover Brooklyn an then they killed in the first ever Women’s iron Woman match.When Sasha came up to the main roster and became apart of Team B.A.D she helped bring out the best of Naomi that was when I felt Naomi became the Naomi we have today. Even Tamina was the best she had ever been.When Sasha wasn’t in a Woman’s (Diva’s at the time thank god that’s gone)match people were chanting we want Sasha.I had never seen that for a female wrestler before even with Lita at the height of her popularity.When Team B.A.D inevitably broke up I knew Sasha was gonna be champion is was just a matter of time.She was having great matches and then we found out she was gonna face Charlotte and Becky at WM 32 in a triple threat imo they had the best match that night and there is no doubt in my mind Sasha should have walked out champion no one was more hot than she was.They had the superstar shake up Paige got injured Becky and Naomi moved to Raw and we got Charlotte and Sasha I remember when Sasha won the title on Raw and she got Dana thrown out of ringside with a little Eddie Guerrero tribute it was great we went into SummerSlam and she lost the title.She then won the title back on Raw to lose it back at Hell in a Cell in her dang hometown of all places.She then one the title back from Charlotte in Charlotte I just really wanted to type Charlotte in Charlotte in a really great falls count anywhere match.We then head into Road Block I believe for an iron man match where once again Sasha/Charlotte killed it went into over time I remember Sasha had a busted nose possibly broken but still kept going and lost the title again.The fact that they hot potatoed that title like that still makes me mad and I know they did it to have the number of title reins go up for Charlotte.Sasha at least got to be in the Raw women’s title match at WM 33 that match was not one of my favorites but the Horsewomen involved had amazing entrances and Bayley got her WM moment.Sasha one the Raw Women’s title against Alexa Bliss at SummerSlam and then the moment she wen’t to defend it she lost it on Raw.Sasha and defending titles haven’t gone well thanks to WWE booking. She spent 2018 with Bayley doing six women tag matches with the Riott Squad.Finally in 2019 she seems to be back on track she made history with Bayley had a Raw women’s title match with Ronda and is going to be on the main card at mania after being stuck on the pre show with Bayley and Becky last year.I’m about to make some people angry especially Diva stans with this next part.Sasha and Bayley are the only reasons that the Women’s tag titles exist.They bothered Vince until he cracked and gave in and let them have the titles and a tag team division. That’s dedication especially given the fact that Vince changes his mind more than a Kardashian changes clothes.Okay time to move on to the most controversial Horsewoman i think you know who I mean. 

The Queen love her hate her i think for most people it’s the latter of the two everyone has something to say about her.I’m gonna put this out here right away yes Charlotte get’s more opportunities than the rest of the Women’s division because she’s Ric Flairs daughter there is no denying it.She is also a great athlete and delivers in big matches and has come along way.A lot of people say if other people got the opportunities Charlotte does they could probably deliver to and I agree certain people probably could.By the way in case you have been living under a rock she ain’t done winning titles she’s gonna pass Ric’s record.But let me say this i’m glad she is done apologizing for getting what she get’s and you don’t have to and probably want agree with me but she is that good.Let’s go back to NXT Charlotte’s first title she beat Natalya in a great match and it was only like her 3rd or 4th match.Her character was kind of bland then if i’m gonna be honest but her athleticism made up for it.When she got the call up to the main roster with Sasha and Becky we got PCB and for whatever reason they made her a baby face to me you can’t call yourself genetically superior and use the whole second nature thing and be a baby face it doesn’t work luckily she figured this out started using the Flair last name and became a heel.I know a lot of people say she’s not original she just copies her dad and woo’s.My answer to that is she’s his daughter Flair’s are natural heels Ric was the dirtiest player in the game of course she’s gonna us his catch phrases because they work. I enjoy Charlotte’s heel work she’s okay at being a baby face but being a heel is where she excels.I think it was pretty well explained what went down with the Raw Women’s title with the Sasha part so i’m gonna skip ahead to her going to SD.From the moment she arrived on SD WWE seemed to be turning her face putting her up against the welcoming committee and teaming her up with Becky and Naomi.Let’s see she was gone a little while because Ric got sick she beat Nattie for the title she beat Asuka at WM 34 and then lost the title to Carmella.Then won it back then Becky turned on her we were given one of the greatest feuds ever with them.Now 2019 Charlotte according to most people got shoehorned(I’ll go into that when we get to Becky) into the WM main event won another title breaking Trish’s record and according to most people she screwed Asuka and everyone’s afraid she will win at mania.Now onto The Man of the hour(see what I did there) 

Becky Lynch The Man. let’s be honest shall we who saw Becky Lynch going from the most underrated and overlooked Horsewoman to the main event of WrestleMANia? Okay Becky probably has had the worst booking of not only the Horsewomen but the Women’s division as a whole.When Becky was in NXT the moment she caught my attention was when she turned on Bayley and joined Sasha to create in my opinion the greatest tag team of all time Team B.A.E they then imploded and we then got the match that put Becky on the map Becky/Sasha Takeover Unstoppable that was also the night she debuted her orange hair and the steam punk look.That match is in my top 5 favorite all time matches.People that say Becky isn’t that great a wrestler go watch that match cause your clearly delusional.Becky when into that match that night everyone was team Sasha when that match was over they were singing her song she won the fans hearts and there respect that night.Not long after that she got the call up to the main roster she got put in team PCB and she had some great matches then team PCB broke up (hey Charlotte fans remember when Charlotte turned on Becky but when Charlotte got hers you conveniently forgot or ignored it) here’s something interesting Becky got added to the WM 32 match because of the fans insisting she should be in it(sound familiar we’ll get to that)I discussed this earlier they had the best match on the card imo.We got a little Team B.A.E reunion afterwords then Becky got drafted to SD.After being the only Horsewoman to not win the NXT title when she won the SD Woman’s title I think it made that much better Becky Balboa baby.Then she lost the title to Alexa (see a pattern hear) after one successful defence. after that we got La Luchadora and then she jobbed out the rest of 2016 and then 2017 and then 2018 didn’t start of great she had an ok Rumble and then was in the kick off show battle royal and then up until may when she beat Mandy and Sonya to qualify for MITB she was on a losing streak. She had a great showing at MITB the WWE finally realized the fans were behind her(btw you would think after she got added to WM 32 because the fans wanted her in the match they would now that) She finally got her push and she turned on Charlotte but the crowd cheered her which we already know but I want to point some things out.People cheered her for multiple reasons one being they including me saw where this was going trying to make Charlotte the victim at the person who had a legit reason to be angry. They in Becky’s words shoehorned Charlotte into the match at SummerSlam the second a lot of people were tired of Charlotte winning and of Charlotte in general.Another reason was it was about time Becky stood up for herself how many times had people stabbed her in the back this was a different Becky and the people weren’t buying her as the bad guy so they cheered her and booed the woo.Another reason for me personally I was happy was because I had watched her cut promos on dang quinoa on instagram in the back to stay relevant because they weren’t using her on tv.I watched her try and open a can of pinapples on instagram and was more entertained than I was with most of the other Women and tea time should have been on youtube.The difference between the Becky who lost the title to Alexa and this Becky is day and night she has said it’s because she believes in herself now and she’s done lowering herself so everyone else can have opportunities now they have to bring themselves up to be on her level.She has earned everything she is getting she did this Charlotte didn’t make Becky anymore than Becky made Charlotte so saying that makes people sound stupid.Becky saw her chance she grabbed the ball and refused to put it back down.You can say she got luck because of Nia botching for the umpteenth time.But if you go back and watch Evolution she was on a whole other level all ready.She has gotten the people emotionally invested in the main event she’s why people care.Let’s move on to the last topic of conversation shall we. 

I wanna start this off with this the idiots telling Naomi to be quiet need to shut up.She has a right to be upset and say what she’s feeling with that said.After Mania the Women need to make WWE take notice.Becky went from the kick off show to the main event so nothings impossible.As far Asuka if Asuka is as good as I know she is then she will recover from this.You can’t bury someone if they refuse to die.I’m one of those that thinks the titles should be unified so that the women can jump back and forth between brands so we can have more match possibilities.The Women main eventing mania is gonna change everything and the rest of the Women need to start taking opportunities don’t wait them.It’s on them now after mania they will be equal to the men in that aspect not everyone gets an opportunity not everyone is gonna make it to the top and a lot of Woman are gonna be stuck in catering.Some of the Women complaining i’m not naming names not all of the Women complaining shouldn’t be because they have had shots and proved they weren’t good enough.But i’m ready to see who actually walks the walk. 

Again these are my opinions and my thoughts and feelings on everything that has happened.

[d-cockroach-blog]

W, X, and Y my dude

W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom. 

      When fans woobify villain characters and demonize good characters that are simply complex and not evil. Like I hate woobifying villains so much that the surefire way to get me to hate a villain is by doing this. It’s also a disservice to the villain as a character. Demonizing good characters bothers me a heck ton because it often betrays a lack of empathy in the fandom in question.

      I also hate unnecessary sexualization of characters that in the original media they aren’t the type to be highly sexual. I’m not saying you can’t have sexual art or media, it’s when people make characters that aren’t obessesed with romance or sexual out to be sexual deviants. i.e. how Lotor is portrayed as quasi-rapist out to get the paladins or Keith as a lovey-dovey mess pining after lance’s dick.

     When obvious misconceptions/mischaracterization of characters becomes popular. 5x if said mischaracterization involves stealing traits from other characters and plastering them on another character.

     When fandom gets so obsessed with shipping that it’s everywhere and every character is shipped. Like yeah, there’s always shipping content for every ship, but when it gets to a point where shipping is the only thing fans cares about and people start hating on platonic headcanons it’s just pathetic. Like ok Helen sorry that not everyone is an omni-shipper or cares about shipping. Also when most of fandom content is about shipping to the point that it’s night impossible to find content of that relationship platonically (like I love platonic Katara+Zuko, but I think i’ve only come across like 4 fanworks in the past 4 years that involves them exclusively that is platonic)

 Now referring to media

      I hate Kyle Ron-esqe characters. Aka, characters that are clearly irredeemable schmucks with almost zero good traits paraded around (usually by the creators) as being some sort of woobie baby who is misunderstood.

     I am almost guaranteed to hate the “incorrigible flirt” kind of character. There’s no particular reason for it except the fact that most media creators make them out to be obnoxious about it.

X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom. 

     Nothing beats a solid well-written meta or analysis of a character. Like those that make you wonder if the writer is secretly one of the creators. this also applies to character exploration and incorporation of au’s etc. You can really see the love put forth by the content creator in question. so good.

     Any ‘for want of a nail’ or ‘what happened to the mouse’ aus. Especially if theyre done correctly. Like mmm chicken soup for the soul right there.

Now referring to media

     No trope will make me watch/read/play etc a piece of media faster than the “two rivals/protagonist vs. antagonist discover that they are in fact biologically or otherwise related to one another”. That is the good shit right there. Bonus points if one of the characters’ arcs is related to finding family in some way. the irony is absolutely delicious. 4x bonus points if one of the characters absolutely despises the idea of them being related, or even hates their enemy/rival even more after the reveal. 8x bonus points if the familial relationship in question has deep narrative repercussions, or the revelation explained everything.

Like ya’ll don’t understand how much I love this trope. I braved the shit-storm that is Kill la Kill just because Satsuki Kiryuuin and Ryuuko Matoi had that extremely dramatic family reveal.

   This is really basic but I love it when female characters are written with characterization nuance that is usually reserved for male characters. I’m not talking about the stereotypical ‘strong’ female character, I’m talking about fleshed-out female characters, female characters that aren’t stereotypical. That is the good. Also I love masculine-coded male characters that aren’t sexist or present toxic masculinity like yes give me that.

Y - What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)? 

     Bruh I’m pretty sure I can bullshit a story-accurate meta on Harry Potter and the characters and the 4 houses of Hogwarts even though I’ve never cracked open the books in my life.

     I am acquainted with Persona 5 somehow, and know vaguely the story and the personalities of the characters

     i couldn’t get into Gravity Falls personally but I know enough about the story and the arcs that I can write a good synopsis of the show.

[bookcoversalt]

I Fixed It For You: Throne of Glass

the main thing i did was unfuck the colors and the contrast en masse, but LETS TALK.

first of all, I’m a miracle worker.

second of all, listen, i try to keep my salt about the actual contents of the books separate from my salt about the covers of the books, but we’re making an exception today, because I loathe TOG inside & outside and we’re all just gonna have to be cool with that.

1) My main, #1, most hated element of this cover (and all the covers in the series) is how caelealananananaa (listen i can’t spell her name so i dont even try) (YES I KNOW SHE BECOMES AELIN IDC) looks like a frozen corpse. Why is she blue?????????????? I don’t demand she be a rosy-cheeked princess but honestly wtf? anyway look at how you can have a blue filter without making her look like a zombie. look how cool that is.

2) I don’t mind that her hair’s absurdly long, bc you can get away with that in illustration, but for some reason it’s smudgy and flat and weird? Like it’s just so badly painted in comparison to the detail on her outfit? I don’t want to denigrate the placement/ movement of it because it’s the only dynamic thing on this godforsaken cover but it’s weird and i went w some tamer photomanip. “but it doesn’t look as badass and edgy!” aint fuckall about caelealealnsnsnsan that’s half as badass and edgy as the illustration. a milquetoast photomanip is all she deserves so i DO NOT feel bad about this.

(By the way--this is pure speculation, but I feel like the original illustration of C was costume concept art for some unrelated project. This illustration to me doesn’t say “was commissioned for a book cover” it says someone was doing concepting for something else, it never got used, and when bloomsbury said “female assassin?” it got pulled out and purchased. there’s just SUCH a higher level of detail in her clothes than her face or hair, and this would explain the vagueness of her sword-things and also possibly why she’s barefoot and blue--this was a character that was, before it was Calealananeana. OR I MIGHT BE TOTALLY OFF BASE. BUT THE LEVEL OF DETAIL IN THE JACKET/SHIRT VS PAINTERLY NONSPECIFICITY OF HAIR/FACE IS V WEIRD TO ME. ANYWAY.)

3) Wtf is happening in the background? Why’s it that color? It looks vaguely aquatic, but the whole color scheme of the thing says “ICY/ COLD”, neither of which have any canon basis, so I replaced it with a less-ugly ~burst of magical light that also actually works with rather than against the gradients happening around the edges. speaking of the gradients happening around the edges, why are they ugly purple? It doesn’t go with any of the other colors, and I feel like if I licked this book it would taste like artificial grape. So I desaturated tf out of them.

4) Hand-in-hand with fixing the background, I generally balanced the contrast of the illustration. Also I had to give her a new photomanip face, because what’s there is so weirdly murky.

5) Got rid of that delia’s-magazine thigh gap, but more importantly, raised it. Original Caelaelalaeeanananaa’s crotch is inexplicably low, making her torso too long.

6) I GAVE HER SHOES, WHICH IS NOT A THING I SHOULD HAVE HAD TO DO

7) There’s nothing wrong with the original title, my beef is with the imagery, but I redid all the text for the sake of being Thorough. its not my best work i felt a compulsion to introduce some sans serif in there.

8) fixed whatever that little gap in her pants is below the belt. a nitpick, but honestly, it looks like her pants are falling down. you can’t assassinate people if you’re pulling up your pants.

not that would matter because she doesn’t assassinate a single damn person in this book yet she’s ~THE ASSASSIN~ how convenient that she gets to have a cool sexy title without doing anything that might make anyone uncomfortable. everyone loves a Badass Female CharacterTM until they do anything moderately morally grey, good thing we sidestepped that ha ha ha

By the by, these are the alternate covers:

The one on the left was the original paperback and from what I understand was short-lived. I understand why it wasn’t liked; it’s clearly a dead-eyed model rather than anyone who is actually going to hurt you, but for what it’s worth, the design is much more balanced and the colors MUCH better than what came after it. I debated working with the cover on the right, which I think is the UK version? but I didn’t want to force myself to look at THRIONE OF GLASS all day

like I can’t be the only person who reads this “THRIONE” right?

Anyway. Is my version a good cover? Still not really. It’s generic af, though this is at least in part because the ubiquity of TOG spawned a whole bunch of copycat covers amongst the YA fantasy crowd and now we’re overly used to looking at things like it. (I will at some point do a roundup. we’ve denigrated so many RQ knockoffs on this blog its only fair.)

here it is once again for good measure. fuck those dumb purple gradients. fuck this book. bye.

[thevhenan]

Mass Effect Andromeda Impressions/Adventures #2:

Everything under cut~

Up to getting Jaal and then finding the scientists. 

I have pictures!

I was thinking about going through the whole story in these but that is A LOT of work so I'll cut it down to the interesting bits of my journey.

First off, I want to say even though I'm playing Female Ryder people weren't kidding when they said Male Ryders VA sounded like a clone of Nolan North. HOLY SHIT. I mean, I kind of heard it in the trailers but it wasn't until I seen some gameplay I was like WTF. I mean, just give Male Ryders VA half the jobs and Nolan the others and we'll have that voice everywhere (even though Nolan is almost everywhere in the first place). Speaking of which, is it just me or this NPC an actual clone of default Scott? Just different hair. MY BROTHER IS AWAKE GUYS. 

At first I had an 'off' feeling about the Initiative/Jean Garson. It felt... kind of propaganda-y. Sanctuary in ME3 if you will. I'm hoping she won't be a villain esp. because her VA is trans but another part of me thinks in might be an interesting twist. At least thinking she might not be dead and maybe there is some sort of conspiracy there. I don't know. I get like there is more to her story.

The animations aren't nearly as bad as people acted like they were. They even have some good animations *gasp*. Of course the ones people nitpick are the only ones I've seen that are pretty bad but that's it. I also think a lot of the 'problems' stem from the eyes which is a lot less noticeable if you picked a preset that is asian/doesn't have big eyes/brown eyes. Other than that the graphics are way better and most of the animation isn't even that bad. I have faith that the longer the game is out the more that is patched. Take DA:I for example, I don't even think most of those animations needed to be patched but they did it anyway.

I like the Tempest but I think I would have preferred stairs as opposed to ladders... Ladders wouldn't have been so bad if you didn't auto climb them.  Kind of messes up the flow? The see through floor is pretty cool though although I almost had a heart attack the first time. I also like that the crew has bunk beds  and stuff, makes it feel more natural and the board they talk on is a cute touch. Also, I know we have a lift but I rarely use it because??? I don't know.

THE PYJAK IS SO CUTE AND YOU GET BANTER FROM THE CREW. 100% worth it if only for him (yes I decided that the pyjak is male). I loved how he was in one of the crews bed. Best boy ever. 

I so far really like the worlds (only been to two playable areas) they are so pretty but so far I prefer not having the Nomad.  I don't know, I like not having to worry about air/enviorment just enemies and CHARGING INTO THEM YEAHHHHHHH. Anyway, kind of wish the Nomad could climb for days like the Mako but hey, at least it doesn't take fall damage.

Some of the side quest are really fun. I think with the scanner you can do more mystery solving so it allows for a lot of options. Kind of reminds me of the Batman games in that aspect. 

I'm really interested in Alec's story which makes me infuriated because all those memory fragments are in places I can't reach. CURSE YOU GAME. My completionist ass upset. 

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the addition to the codex where it not only tells you your relationship with your crew and decisions regarding them but your more major decisions and your personality!!!! Tbh the personality system seems a little Myer Briggs to me. Like, Head vs. Heart is T vs. F and Formal vs. Informal is P vs J. I'm an INFJ so unsurprisingly I'm heart and formal. I didn't even really want her to be that formal but Idk myself seeped in? That or I just think being polite to new species and people is the way to go. I'm personally pretty formal until I know you well enough. It's more...safe?

I really like the Sudoku type puzzles. At first I didn't understand but then I was like 'oh this is sudoku'. It might be a little much for regularly doing it but you don't have to do it that much so I'm fond of it.

My opinions on companions/others currently:

Cora: I LOVE HER. Tbh I thought she'd be more cold and closed off but she's not, which is good. Of course being cold at first isn't bad either. Like, that's how I am but she's a lot warmer than I expected. She's serious but warm, I like that. I especially like the kind of inside joke between her and Ryder at the beginning about Dragons. Hey, talk about dragons when we first meet and you have yourself a friend for life. 

Liam: I figured he'd be really friendly but man, Liam is just the best. You instantly feel bonded with him (and Cora!!). I don't know why the hell people keep comparing Vetra and Jaal to Garrus when Liam is more like him than either. Hell, I knew that going in. I mean, Liam is for sure more optimistic and 'I LOVE EVERYONE' (though apparently he doesn't like Vetra very much???). Still, former cop CHECK, techie CHECK, designated bffl CHECK. Like? IS it because he's human? Okay internet. I mean in all honesty I wouldn't compare any of these new squadmates to older characters but if you had to Liam would be more like Garrus than any other. Vetra shares the sister thing with Garrus but that's literally it. Off on a tangent. Still, Liam is great and I'm such a sucker for his accent. Could hear him talk all day. Please, talk all day Liam. Narrate my life.

Vetra: OF COURSE I LOVE VETRA. She has a certain swag about her especially when you first meet her you are like SMOOTH, NICEEEE. I mean, okay I suppose you can compare it to when you first see Garrus in ME2 (but that's it okay and I'm done talking Garrus!!!). She is a little closed off and I like that. She's really cool. Unfortunately I still don't feel like I know that much about her besides she's a smuggler and cares a lot about her sister (and her sister is really cute!). Anyway, her and Jaal are leading my 'who I should romance' poll in my head. I don't know, I guess I'll decide after both their personal mission. Right now I feel like I know Jaal better even with him being closed off a bit. I also wish during one on one convos you could see her eyes better :/. It seems like in cutscenes you can but when you are just talking to her it's harder to see them. I WANT TO SEE YOUR PRETTY EYES. And sorry, I'm being weird and creepy. I'll stop.

Peebee: I like her lots. I didn't know if I'd really like her voice at first, same with Cora but once I talked to them in game I was in love. EVERYONE HAS SUCH NICE VOICES. Her voice really fits her. I like her personality a lot but she still is still pretty secretive along with Vetra. Can't wait to know more. I do think Ryder and her would get along and do get along quite well because they both love exploring. I really am into their interactions so far.

Drack: Okay, I admit I was a bit skeptical about Drack. Like look, I'm a Krogan fan but I know Grunt and Wrex and a lot of Krogan we've encountered were quite similar (the males at least) and I was hoping Drack wouldn't be just a copy. He's pretty wise and cares so much about his grandaughter. It's ridiculously sweet. And yeah, he's still pretty combat heavy but that's what I expected. Anyway, I was hoping he wasn't  just another stale stereotype and so far he's exceeding expectations so I'm happy and really like him.

Jaal: He's as great, I was a bit nervous he was over hyped but he really is great. I'm really interested in him and his culture and everything. The interaction between him and Ryder is top notch and I feel the chemistry so right now he's a front runner for me to romance. I mean, look at my favorite romances and it's really no surprise I like him. He has a mysterious type air that I'm all about and Angara have such interesting eyes! I just got him yesterday so his personality hasn't settled as much as the others but basically, he's worth the hype to me (though I do think the people wanting to f him right off the bat were a bit much but hey who am I to judge). I got to know him and I like him.

Suvi: She's so dreamy even her voice *sigh*. She kind of has a voice that has a dream like quality like Solas' voice (whether you hate him or not he has a dream like voice, you can't deny it it's likely done on purpose because the fade and such). She's also so cute and a scientist and religious. She makes me think if Josie and Leliana from Dragon Age had a baby she would their offspring. Yeah, needless to say can't wait to romance her. I'm not going to do it this round because personally  don't feel like she fits well with my character as Vetra and Jaal do but I'm for sure going to role up a cute lady to romance her. She's so happy and loves her work and exited and perfect jaodlkjaodad. Yeah, she's my type.

Gil: I REALLY like Gil. They did a good job with making likable crew omg. He reminds me of a mix between Alistair and Dorian from Dragon Age. That'S MY JAM. Having a lack of m/m romances is horrible but ya'll Gil is the shit and I don't appreciate people saying he's 'uninteresting' and 'bad romance'.  I just really like him a lot and it was so fun playing poker with him ^^. I feel bad because the codex said I 'lied' about cheating but TBH they made me do it in the first place. I wouldn't have done it if I had the choice. I didn't lie. I just didn't tell the truth. That's the thing about poker anyway, right? God, I feel bad now.

Lexi: HER VOICE YA'LL. I feel like she's the new Seth Green of the series. The celebrity that will stay through the whole series (if there is one). Also, the fact that she and Joker are not interested in the main character and like someone else. EDI for Joker and Drack for Lexi. Anyway, I like her and if I didn't like her her voice is enough. Still, she's fun to talk to so far.

Kallo: He's a cutie. I'm really happy for him. Don't know wtf there is going on with him and Gil but w/e. He's a good pilot. Not too much of an opinion yet because I don't feel like I got to know him as much unfortunately but I'm exited to learn more about his personality!

Options so far (That I can think of):

More Emotional, More Formal

Cares about Dad (took heart options when it game to Alec)

Told truth to Scott about dad, lied about Andromeda Okay to be fair though I figured we'd get it better by the time he wakes up and I don't want him to lose hope after telling him his Dad died. I want him to pull through and you pull through with hope. I didn't want to lie and I kind of wish there was a third option because I didn't want to say ‘IT'S SUPER HORRIBLE LOL’ but I didn't want to say ‘IT'S AMAZING’ either. Just like 'We hit a few bumps but we're on our way to making it better'. Maybe the truthful option said that but it didn't seem like that from the text.

Lied to Gil about cheating  (look above to see explanation)

Set up Science outpost Female Ryder is all about the science, Liam and Vetra said science and Science will help more in the long run and help the people that are already here that are suffering.

Set the guy who 'committed the murder' free This was a hard one and I forgot his name so forgive me. But bottom line, he didn't do it. Whatever his intentions were he still didn't actually commit the crime. I do think there should have been punishment but he didn't need life or be executed because of something he didn't actually do.

And that's it so far! I'll give more thoughts later.

[spotlightsaga]

Kevin Cage of @spotlightsaga reviews... The Strain (S04E02) The Blood Tax Airdate: July 23, 2017 @fxnetworks Ratings: 0.913 Million :: 0.30 18-49 Demo Share Score: 2.25/10 @thestrain-fx TVTime/FB/Twitter/Tumblr/Path/Pinterest: @SpotlightSaga **********SPOILERS BELOW********** Messy. Messy. Messy. The whole entire first half of the episode for Dutch (Ruta Gedmintas) and Setrakian (David Bradley) is a flashback, which is extremely confusing considering that the other narrative playing out involving Gus (Miguel Gomez) and his random cousin, Raul (Michael Reventar), who we've never met, not even once, is happening in the current timeline. Luckily, for Gus, Raul works at a high clearance blood farming lab at 'The Partnership' and I'm literally losing interest as I'm writing this sentence. It's crazy to think we were all so excited about the possibilities of 'The Strain' when it first premiered. It really felt boundless, a new twist on an old genre. Even more insane is that I truly believe that people actually want to like the show. About 1.5 Million Viewers tuned in to the S4 premiere, which is huge for a show that's been on cable since 2014, as very few series see actual gains in overall viewer numbers... Albeit, the gain was only 6%, but it's a rare & notable gain nonetheless. After the first episode of S4 premiered, many of us were left wondering what had become of the fate of these characters covered in this 2nd episode, the same ones that are completely absent from any scene in the premiere, besides Setrakian in a strange dream sequence. Suddenly, I wish I had never wondered or even asked. 'Time Jump' tropes can already throw a lot at you, but filling in the blanks can make it even worse. It's almost better for the writers to set the stage and insinuate bits and pieces of the lost path here & there, otherwise it becomes extremely convoluted... Let the audience think for themselves, don't dog walk them through everything, because then we're left scratching our heads, feeling confused and even a bit dumbfounded, when really it should be cut & dry. When things are supposed to be simple, but you position them in a chaotic & restricted way, it feels like you're reading a children's book that you keep having to turn back to the previous page again & again, asking yourself, 'Wait a minute... Now what just happened?!' Frankly, it's insulting. FX Networks is better than this and even this show, during its lowest of low points, have been better than this clusterfuck of an episode. The good news is that every episode of 'The Strain' moves fast as lightning... Before you can even lift up your hand to scratch your head, its over and the credits are rolling. Unfortunately for us we still have a bit more ground to cover. Dutch has been separated from Setrakian and is being farmed for breeding due to her rare and Strigoi friendly B-Positive Blood Type. One of her captive roommates is happy that she's at least safe in her bizarre, bloodletting, breeding ground, Dutch brushes off that ridiculous notion. Imagine Carol from 'The Walking Dead' being locked up with someone for some random reason and then having one of her fellow prisoners telling her, 'Well at least we're safe and breeding out new Walkers vs fighting for our lives and living in fear out there in the wild.' Dutch doesn't give 'Roommate #4' quite the look of pure disdain that Carol would return that sentiment with, but nonetheless 'Roommate #4' gets the picture and rolls out. She's weak, Dutch isn't, we get it. Thank you writers, crystal clear. If you guessed that everything was going to go wrong with Gus' plan to use his cousin for his and his ruthless crew's personal gain and then put him in danger by keeping him around his homicidal group of friends, cookies for you. The flow of the episode is such a mess at this point that I found myself flipping through IMDB to see who Directed this nonsense. Ah, J. Miles Dale. Ok, now it makes sense. Usually on a bad day 'The Strain' is still a solid '5' out of '10', but this episode is more like the bottom of a muddy, moss covered rock behind a venomous snake pit deep in the banks of the Appalachian Mountains. If you aren't familiar with Dale's Directorial Debacles, let me catch you up; Robocop: The Series (1994), F/X: The Series (97/98 - yet another needless tv adaptation), Earth: The Final Conflict (2000 - so a late series episode), Andromeda (2002-03, no we weren't aware the show even ran that long), The Skulls III (2004 - The first film was quite enough), Doc (2001-2004 w/Billy Ray Cyrus, yeah we have no idea either), Sue Thomas F.B.Eye (2002-2004 - WTF?!), Shadowhunters (2016 - Did I just hear you snort?), and every previous episode of 'The Strain' that you hated... No seriously, we looked back as we keep all of our ratings on file and the highest rating we'd given to any episodes with his name on the Director's Chair was a 4/10. Dale is not a Director, he's a producer with money and power. He's severely untalented and he's worked on some of the worst tv shows in the history of television, but he's thrown money at some decent ones... See the difference? I had to watch the episode twice, because I was so disinterested the first time, I was unable to piece together a coherent review. It was more cohesive than this episode, but it needed work. I'm a perfectionist... And I really don't like going negative, but if I have to, it's going to be in an entertaining key. Hopefully this article is far more interesting than the episode itself. Luckily we won't see Dale return to 'The Strain' until the 10th episode... But if the gravity of that reality hasn't sunk in yet, I'll give you a moment to think about it... No, go ahead, take your time. You already got it, didn't you? See, I knew it, you and me, we're on the same level. We love the #horror genre... We've loved parts of 'The Strain' and have enjoyed its lighting fast pace... We all love to hate Zach (Max Charles) and are most likely all completionists. We are going to ride S4 all the way out, we were hoping for a huge turnaround for the big series finale, but more than likely Dale has thrown a lot of money down to help sustain this project, so he's going to be directing the FINAL EPISODE. Why, God, Why? God gave us Cancer. God gave us AIDS. And God gave us J. Miles Dale. Suddenly I'm rooting for The Strigoi... And whoever they hired to write this drivel... Liz Phang, girl, what the fuck? If anyone asks, you blame it on Dale, you at least have a few good episodes of USA Network's 'Colony' under your belt. Quick 'flash review' on where we are here, mmhkay? Zach sets off a giant nuclear bomb, directly causing some sort of hazy like fog that's thick enough to allow The Strigoi to run free in the daylight, blocking the sun's harmful UV Rays... Winston Churchill did some sort of version of this in real life, wonder why people don't hate him like they hate Zach?! Everyone is fine though, forget what we know about Hiroshima and all those mutations, that stuff is happily skipped over because that might create a few more hours in the workroom for the writers (can't have that). Dutch takes lead in the B-Positive Breeding Ground, possibly showing her cards before she should play them to the 'Head of B+ Blood Type Breeding Operations', Sanjay Desai (Cas Anvar). He's still alive, who knows why, most likely to participate in ridiculous subplots like this one. Don't worry, I'm still not giving up, it's most likely due to the diligent person inside of me that can't get this far into a show and simply just stop. The most disheartening take on this whole episode, which congratulations 'The Strain', you've ensured we leave a little section for 'Worst Of' for our end of 2017 Awards (consider it a small Spotlight Saga/TV Time Community Version of the Razzies), is that the Dutch character is completely wasted. Once upon a time she was a bad ass, making sketchy decisions and given redemption arcs. Then it was made clear they had no idea what the hell to do with her next... Dutch's Fall From Grace: Unnecessary love triangle? CHECK! ✔️ Female who needs strong but damaged male character to save her? CHECK! ✔️ Almost escaping but puts another, weaker human being, Sherry -or as we referred to her earlier, Roommate #4-, (Jess Salgueiro) before her and it backfires? CHECK! ✔️ Getting her only way out doomed to a terrible fate for allowing the other useless, weak character to take her place instead? CHECK! ✔️ Its 2017. I don't know how it runs in your city, but in Miami we don't help you if we don't know you. So add 6-foot tongues in a blood sucking ancient race of #vampires that come from tiny worms that look like extremely fast moving maggots, a bustling, b-positive, baby-making, muncher snack maker, nursery prison... And then have the most intelligent & capable woman in the entire building stick the one psychologically frail woman of the group , who's already directly told her that she feels safer on the inside, into her only chance to escape... Only she doesn't even want to escape... So really this is just a way for the writers to take yet another shortcut to fuck everything up? Oh hell no! Keep with the East Coast, NYC to Miami attitude, Dutch. Walk over a bitch, before a bitch walks over you. This is a horror series, not a 'everything works out in the end' type of series. It's almost over, people. Picture me saying this next sentence with every word annunciated as if I'm asking a really difficult question very slowly in a genuine state of confusion, possibly in a massive K-Hole, or 'Stoned' for all you chemical amateurs... "I'm sure things will get better and be totally worth it by the 10th and final episode????" Inspiring confidence yet? Damn, I was sure that would work! At least we have Eph, who seems to be finding a purpose in the midst of his gloomy, dystopian, post wife and child, existential crisis. The resistance group, led by possible unnecessary romantic interest Alex Green (Angel Parker), that he stayed behind with and helped in return for supplies, conveniently has to get out of their hiding spots due to a Strigoi draining a member's blood and therefore absorbing all of his memories. Suddenly Eph can help, suddenly he wants to. It's cheesy, but Corey Stoll is very aware of that and even deliver's Eph's sudden 'back into action' style-line like a Schwarzenegger one liner from an old 80s action film with all the heart of 'one of the good ones' like Mark L Lester's 1985 'Commando'. In all fairness, barring directors like Dale from touching this show, 'The Strain' still has a chance to deliver us a semi-satisfactory ending. It's time to ham that shit up tho... Break out the Gouda Cheese, the blood red corn syrup, those creepy ass, aforementioned 6-foot muncher tongues and give Eph a whole lot more ridiculous one-liners, bomb detonators, large amounts of explosives, guns & firepower and we could still be walking out of this thing with a smile on our face yet.