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themangledsans0508 · 6 days ago

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Don't forget Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit!

Rules to follow when evaluating anything presented as facts or claimed as truth.

"Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the “facts.”

Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.

Arguments from authority carry little weight — “authorities” have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.

Spin more than one hypothesis. If there’s something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among “multiple working hypotheses,” has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.

Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours. It’s only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don’t, others will.

Quantify. If whatever it is you’re explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you’ll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses. What is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations. Of course there are truths to be sought in the many qualitative issues we are obliged to confront, but finding them is more challenging.

If there’s a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work (including the premise) — not just most of them.

Occam’s Razor. This convenient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler.

Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified. Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much. Consider the grand idea that our Universe and everything in it is just an elementary particle — an electron, say — in a much bigger Cosmos. But if we can never acquire information from outside our Universe, is not the idea incapable of disproof? You must be able to check assertions out. Inveterate skeptics must be given the chance to follow your reasoning, to duplicate your experiments and see if they get the same result."

And some of the logic phallacies:

"ad hominem — Latin for “to the man,” attacking the arguer and not the argument (e.g., The Reverend Dr. Smith is a known Biblical fundamentalist, so her objections to evolution need not be taken seriously)

argument from authority (e.g., President Richard Nixon should be re-elected because he has a secret plan to end the war in Southeast Asia — but because it was secret, there was no way for the electorate to evaluate it on its merits; the argument amounted to trusting him because he was President: a mistake, as it turned out)

argument from adverse consequences (e.g., A God meting out punishment and reward must exist, because if He didn’t, society would be much more lawless and dangerous — perhaps even ungovernable. Or: The defendant in a widely publicized murder trial must be found guilty; otherwise, it will be an encouragement for other men to murder their wives)

appeal to ignorance — the claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true, and vice versa (e.g., There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are not visiting the Earth; therefore UFOs exist — and there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe. Or: There may be seventy kazillion other worlds, but not one is known to have the moral advancement of the Earth, so we’re still central to the Universe.) This impatience with ambiguity can be criticized in the phrase: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

special pleading, often to rescue a proposition in deep rhetorical trouble (e.g., How can a merciful God condemn future generations to torment because, against orders, one woman induced one man to eat an apple? Special plead: you don’t understand the subtle Doctrine of Free Will. Or: How can there be an equally godlike Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in the same Person? Special plead: You don’t understand the Divine Mystery of the Trinity. Or: How could God permit the followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — each in their own way enjoined to heroic measures of loving kindness and compassion — to have perpetrated so much cruelty for so long? Special plead: You don’t understand Free Will again. And anyway, God moves in mysterious ways.)

begging the question, also called assuming the answer (e.g., We must institute the death penalty to discourage violent crime. But does the violent crime rate in fact fall when the death penalty is imposed? Or: The stock market fell yesterday because of a technical adjustment and profit-taking by investors — but is there any independent evidence for the causal role of “adjustment” and profit-taking; have we learned anything at all from this purported explanation?)

observational selection, also called the enumeration of favorable circumstances, or as the philosopher Francis Bacon described it, counting the hits and forgetting the misses (e.g., A state boasts of the Presidents it has produced, but is silent on its serial killers)

statistics of small numbers — a close relative of observational selection (e.g., “They say 1 out of every 5 people is Chinese. How is this possible? I know hundreds of people, and none of them is Chinese. Yours truly.” Or: “I’ve thrown three sevens in a row. Tonight I can’t lose.”)

misunderstanding of the nature of statistics (e.g., President Dwight Eisenhower expressing astonishment and alarm on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below average intelligence);

inconsistency (e.g., Prudently plan for the worst of which a potential military adversary is capable, but thriftily ignore scientific projections on environmental dangers because they’re not “proved.” Or: Attribute the declining life expectancy in the former Soviet Union to the failures of communism many years ago, but never attribute the high infant mortality rate in the United States (now highest of the major industrial nations) to the failures of capitalism. Or: Consider it reasonable for the Universe to continue to exist forever into the future, but judge absurd the possibility that it has infinite duration into the past);

non sequitur — Latin for “It doesn’t follow” (e.g., Our nation will prevail because God is great. But nearly every nation pretends this to be true; the German formulation was “Gott mit uns”). Often those falling into the non sequitur fallacy have simply failed to recognize alternative possibilities;

post hoc, ergo propter hoc — Latin for “It happened after, so it was caused by” (e.g., Jaime Cardinal Sin, Archbishop of Manila: “I know of … a 26-year-old who looks 60 because she takes [contraceptive] pills.” Or: Before women got the vote, there were no nuclear weapons)

meaningless question (e.g., What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? But if there is such a thing as an irresistible force there can be no immovable objects, and vice versa)

excluded middle, or false dichotomy — considering only the two extremes in a continuum of intermediate possibilities (e.g., “Sure, take his side; my husband’s perfect; I’m always wrong.” Or: “Either you love your country or you hate it.” Or: “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem”)

short-term vs. long-term — a subset of the excluded middle, but so important I’ve pulled it out for special attention (e.g., We can’t afford programs to feed malnourished children and educate pre-school kids. We need to urgently deal with crime on the streets. Or: Why explore space or pursue fundamental science when we have so huge a budget deficit?);

slippery slope, related to excluded middle (e.g., If we allow abortion in the first weeks of pregnancy, it will be impossible to prevent the killing of a full-term infant. Or, conversely: If the state prohibits abortion even in the ninth month, it will soon be telling us what to do with our bodies around the time of conception);

confusion of correlation and causation (e.g., A survey shows that more college graduates are homosexual than those with lesser education; therefore education makes people gay. Or: Andean earthquakes are correlated with closest approaches of the planet Uranus; therefore — despite the absence of any such correlation for the nearer, more massive planet Jupiter — the latter causes the former)

straw man — caricaturing a position to make it easier to attack (e.g., Scientists suppose that living things simply fell together by chance — a formulation that willfully ignores the central Darwinian insight, that Nature ratchets up by saving what works and discarding what doesn’t. Or — this is also a short-term/long-term fallacy — environmentalists care more for snail darters and spotted owls than they do for people)

suppressed evidence, or half-truths (e.g., An amazingly accurate and widely quoted “prophecy” of the assassination attempt on President Reagan is shown on television; but — an important detail — was it recorded before or after the event? Or: These government abuses demand revolution, even if you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs. Yes, but is this likely to be a revolution in which far more people are killed than under the previous regime? What does the experience of other revolutions suggest? Are all revolutions against oppressive regimes desirable and in the interests of the people?)

weasel words (e.g., The separation of powers of the U.S. Constitution specifies that the United States may not conduct a war without a declaration by Congress. On the other hand, Presidents are given control of foreign policy and the conduct of wars, which are potentially powerful tools for getting themselves re-elected. Presidents of either political party may therefore be tempted to arrange wars while waving the flag and calling the wars something else — “police actions,” “armed incursions,” “protective reaction strikes,” “pacification,” “safeguarding American interests,” and a wide variety of “operations,” such as “Operation Just Cause.” Euphemisms for war are one of a broad class of reinventions of language for political purposes. Talleyrand said, “An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public”)"

Don't forget these when listening to politicans or media.

#politics #united states politics #united states #us politics #fascism #liberals #news media #media #resistance #protest

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quill-of-thoth · 2 years ago

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Letters from Watson: The Adventure of the Yellow Face

Published: Febuary 1893 Set: April 1888 (Baring Gould), I literally do not know but logically 1882-1888 You know the drill: Baring Gould takes basically everything where Holmes and Watson aren't living together and dumps it somewhere in the invented 1886-1888 marriage. I counter that yes, 1889 and 1890 are getting stupidly crowded and the low number of cases that Watson writes about being in his records for 1890 in January 1892 does not necessarily mean that he did not come back later and flesh out stories he had minimal notes on. But also there's no indication whatsoever in this story that Watson is married, and while Baring-Gould appears to think that this confirms a date of 1888 (post the invented first wife, immediately before Mary Morstan) to me it opens the decade up like a starfish opening up a clam. Other simple solutions for the ongoing overcrowding of '89 and '90 are to revise the Mary Morstan and Irene Adler time frame hypothesis: perhaps Watson fudged the date of his marriage by a year in his writing, to keep his new wife somewhat insulated from having a whole book written about her extended family's strange and exotic troubles, giving us another calendar year to play with, or to suppose that Watson downplayed his involvement in Holmes' cases during the Moriarty era of 89-90 in his first few published stories, while there was a chance some of the gang was still at large. Baring Gould's timeline is shaky here, and to fully refute it we actually have to talk at more or less this time about my least favorite of the four Sherlock Holmes novels, Valley of Fear. In Baring-Gould's timeline, we've skipped it, since this reread is doing short stories only, and because Baring-Gould seems to not only invent wives but stretch out the Moriarty problem for extra years.

Valley of Fear is, like A Study in Scarlet, a novel with a huge chunk of its time spent with secondary characters in an American setting. Unlike Study, it's not very good. It was published serially from 1914 to 1915, during a huge gap (1913 to 1917) in the publication of short stories. It very likely suffered in execution from anti-union sentiment that had been growing in the 1890's and 1900's, along with a rise in international tensions preceding the first world war. It's also just a dull case to have made a novel out of. In spoiler-ridden brief: A murder in a country manor leads Holmes to uncover - mostly by interviewing the alleged murder victim - an American secret society / gang / attempt at a union that turned into more of a mob. The detecting bits are good, from Holmes' speculations about Moriarty's suspiciously expensive painting collection, to the trap he laid to catch the alleged murder victim in hiding, but the rest is, frankly, a slog, and that "rest" is half the book, without even a bookend of Holmes finishing his analysis or giving further advice to chase it. Leaving aside the moral issues of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, who were the original Bastard Cops, functioning more as a private army of strikebreakers and hired goons during the 1800's than you would expect given their more publicized role in prohibition era prosecution of organized crime, the tale of Birdy Edwards appears to be trying to lean Noir without any idea of what Noir is as a subgenre. It's also hard to follow, because characters are always trying to talk in code and drop Ominous Hints - a quick skim of the opening confirms that although some of my memories of the tedium were probably exacerbated by not having any historical context on my reread, it's still a story I would have put right back down if Birdy Edwards' introduction had occurred on the first page.

Getting back to the timeline: Although Baring Gould places Valley of Fear immediately after Blue Carbuncle (by a week and a half), and three months before Yellow Face, there's no particular indication of the year. It is not noted whether Watson is married, though one assumes it can't be too many years before Holmes and Moriarty's final confrontation. I suspect that Baring-Gould is onto something here - not that he's right about Watson having a first marriage, but that both Valley of Fear and Yellow Face easily could have occurred at any before Holmes and Watson met Mary in the summer of 1888.

This particular story doesn't even have the question of "how long was Holmes able to keep Moriarty from knowing that the most famous detective in london knows he exists?" because unlike Valley, it has no link to any crime syndicate, or indeed any crime. As an additional piece of supporting evidence, Holmes is escorting Watson on a walk in the park during this opening, something that correlates more neatly with Watson's condition after Study in Scarlet - being cooped up all winter due to chronic wound pain and desperate for the outside world, but less able to get it for himself - than with the established pattern of Watson being invited into the parlor next to the fire and being infodumped at about a case, which characterizes their meetings during Watson's marriage. With all that said I still can't pin the date down, save that Holmes has either started doing cocaine or failed to hide it from his slowly recovering roommate in the time since Study in Scarlet (presuming that Watsons description intends to imply that Holmes was, at the time of the story, a user of cocaine, and that Watson knew at that time, which isn't certain: he's writing what may be a full decade later and tends to get very general in his descriptions of Holmes' character throughout the years.) I would hazard a guess that this is somewhere between '82 and '86 - or between Holmes starting to bring Watson along on out of town cases, and the first year we have multiple cases in. Or, more accurately: when Watson is recovered enough to want to help, but not not recovered enough to start thinking about returning to his profession.

#Letters from Watson #The Adventure of the Yellow Face #alternatively you could paste the numbers 82-91 on a dart board and throw something at it #which is as far as I know Baring Gould's method for this one

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isaiahbie · 1 year ago

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Can We Believe In Miracles?

David Hume has been championed by many scholars generally critical of miracle stories. Hume suggests that one can never positively identify a miracle. His reasoning is as follows: miracles are violations of the laws of nature. Therefore, by definition miracles occur less often—and as such are less probable—than natural events. The wise man will always favor the more probable explanation over the less probable explanation. In the case of miracles, human experience is heavily in favor of natural laws over miracles. Everyone agrees that people do not normally rise from the dead, for example. As such, no matter how good the evidence may be in any particular case in favor of a “resurrection,” that evidence is canceled out by the “uniform experience of human beings” that people who have died stay dead.

However, as William Lane Craig, the American analytic philosopher, points out, Hume’s views fall prey to at best erroneous, and at worst fallacious, reasoning. For if by “uniform” Hume means that no miracles have ever occurred, he is begging the question. The only reason to believe that premise is to already assume that all reported miracles are false. If, on the other hand, “uniform” simply means “general” or “usual,” then there is no discrepancy between saying that (1) miracles generally do not occur and (2) miracles did occur in well-documented particular cases. Hume appears to be making a categorical error, confusing the processes of science and history. Let’s grant that miracles violate the laws of nature; this only means that science can tell us that miracles do not naturally happen. But that is not to say that miracles have never happened; this latter question is for history to answer on an individual basis after the careful analysis of all available evidence. “General” human experience establishes a norm, a usual pattern of events. But a norm cannot cancel out or nullify good evidence in any particular case.

There is a danger in bringing an a priori commitment to the table when evaluating historical data. For Hume, as a naturalist, he must assume—before the examination of any evidence, no matter how convincing or well-documented the eyewitness testimony—that all alleged miracles are false. This would be like going into a courtroom and, before hearing the evidence of the prosecution, saying that the defendant did not murder his wife because the probability that husbands of such and such socioeconomic status kill their wives is very low. But maybe in this particular case, there is good evidence that increases the probability that the husband murdered his wife: namely, fingerprint and DNA evidence, a motive, lack of an alibi, eyewitness testimony that confirms the husband was at home at the time of the murder, etc. So in this case, an a priori commitment actually hampers one’s ability to follow the evidence wherever the evidence leads.

It is important to note that if one believes in some sort of deity or supernatural power, there is no reason to suppose this higher being could not step in and override the natural order from time to time should he desire to do so. In other words, the possibility of miracles is a logical extension of theism. This is not to say that the theist must embrace every purported miracle at face value. Rather, miraculous claims must be evaluated on an individual basis to determine if the evidence makes plausible a natural cause or a supernatural one. The theist leaves open the possibility for divine intervention; the naturalist must close this door before any evidence is brought forward.

Around this time of year, Christians celebrate a miracle: the virgin conception of Jesus, God Incarnate. Most people are at least familiar with the story, though arguably fewer realize that the story is set in a historical time period that is subject to investigation and inquiry. A historian must approach the Gospels like he would any other historical document—namely, as a collection of first-century documents to be scrutinized for accuracy and compared to other contemporary sources. It is beyond my purpose for this article to detail how well the Gospels fare (in terms of historical reliability) when evaluated in this fashion. My main point is this: we do ourselves a disservice by arbitrarily passing over these ancient texts because the writers challenge our preconceived notion of what is real and what is not. Certainly, after careful evaluation of the Gospels themselves, we are free to remain unconvinced. But until we put in the intellectual work, we cannot claim these writers are wrong on miracles for historical reasons. Our issue with miracles is not historical in nature, but metaphysical.

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phoenixmosheh · 2 years ago

Video

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Warning:

Although we do not have any followers, we do have trolls who do not want you to see this content. (Keep making us more marketable if you want to trolls.)

This Blog has some post that have Community Labels set for Mature Audiences. If you would like to review this mature content and keep it from being hidden while you scroll. Please click the 3 dots (...) in the right-hand corner of this post and choose “content settings.” Scroll down until you see community labels and click “show” for the following categories “mature, drug and alcohol addiction, violence and sexual themes.”

Now you should have access to every post on this blog and every “story exposed” in which those who are guilty of what is being exposed, do not want you to see and so have reported. What I love about Tumblr is, they allow you to be as open as possible on your blogs which is why this platform was chosen. (if post are being reported on a blog, with no following, this should alert the audience that truths are being told. Why would anyone who isn’t even being tagged in post or invited to the blog need to report a post unless it is exposing the truth about them? Just saying...

In the future, we plan to take this content and create book; so we have many copies on several computers and a private blog coming for the shows exciting exposé finale! So do not worry about missing anything.

Private Godly Wives Blog Coming Soon:

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/godlywivesrealitytv

Check Out Our Spiritual Show & Tell Post: TRUE STORIES BEING EXPOSED...with evidence coming soon.

(Here are example links to post that are set to mature audiences)

1. A Jezebel Spirit Exposed for doing spell work on Elias ( Elias finds out the children he has been taking care of for years are not his, the jezebel spirit fakes pregnancy and paternity test)

https://www.tumblr.com/phoenixmosheh/708912007430242304/paternity-fraud-when-you-get-word-from-god-that?source=share

2. The Jezebel Spirit and her Freemason family exposed for witchcraft over Elias and their church congregation...all for the love of money. Coming Soon.

https://www.tumblr.com/phoenixmosheh/708897944154308608/3212023-its-supermoon-time-humiliating?source=share

3. Elias’ Adoptive Mother Exposed for secretly wanting to have a relationship with her son after murdering his father and mother. (4/14/23 disgusting smh.)

https://www.tumblr.com/phoenixmosheh/708892466828525568/41123-your-assassination-attempts-are?source=share

excerpt title from post:

For Elias’ Adoptive Mother: Did You Not Think I Would Save Your School Principal with no Principles a$$ a spot on this blog? (when honor thy mother and father no longer applies)...

True Story

_____________________________________________________________-

Start Here & Make Your Way Down:

The Garden of Righteousness is not the same thing as the Garden of Eden.

The Garden of Eden is Heaven...

The Garden of Righteousness is a gift (inheritance) passed down to the children of God called The Melchizedek.

The Garden of Righteousness is Planet Earth. Its take back time.

Debate me. We like logic and science too.

-Phoenix Mosheh

#phoenixmosheh

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distortedataraxia · 2 years ago

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School supplies

Dazai x Reader who has a kid

WordCount : 1 K

Warnings : sometimes, the following are mentionned ; murders, suicide and death (no , no one is dead or was murdered. )

Author note : Hello ! I wanted to try out something different, something like reader has a kid with one of the BSD characters. So I did that with this small one-shot.I'm not really proud of it, i could of wrote so much more stuff,but well - looks like all the stuff i could have written will be for another time. Tell me what you think about it - if you liked it, i could do a bunch of others one-shot like that if you'd like.You can request anytime !

Oh and quick reminder. K/n = Kid name !

Anyways I hope you enjoy ★ ~

The end of holidays were approaching - your kid soon had to go back to school. Welcome back to all theses times your child needed help with homework and Dazai made a whole theater dramatic scene for your kid to understand everytime - welcome back to all the mornings you had to drag k/n to school, welcome back to all the times you had calls and words from the teachers about your kid behaviour at school, welcome back to all the times your kid got in troubles - to all the times k/n would sleep late in your back and go to school really tired and not taking care of themself. To all the time you had to take their phone,wifi or computer away.Cheers !

Nontheless, despites all of that, you both still loved k/n for who they were, and you had a lot of fun with dazai and your kid. It's great Dazai stopped all suicidal stuff before deciding to have a kid - it was a miracle, but hey, thanks to the grand fanfiction logic it was possible - Huh, why are we talking about fanfictions right now?

But because of Dazai's knowledge about death he didn't bother to hide, k/n now like to talk about how he would kill his classmates or teachers in certain methods if it was morally right to do so. Seems totally normal - nothing concerning here ! Yup ! Yet again y/n, Cheers ! Support your kids guys !

And well.. Since it's the end of holidays, it's the start of school, wich mean... Papers... SCHOOL SUPPLIES ! Yes, you decided to finally buy school supplies 1 day before the start of school. Seems like a great plan, right?

This was going to be a day. You would of said it would be a boring day, but you can never predict theses sort of things with Dazai as your husband.

You stretched as you got out of bed and got dressed, Dazai was already awake - making breakfast... Oh no this can't be good is what you would have said but he did surprise you before with good cooking only to tell you " See y/n ? Never understimate me, i can make great stuff when i want to ! With the power of love ! " He kind of sounded like he was in a kid show or something but whatever. We are talking about Dazai here.

"Good morning 'Samu" You said with a tired voice hugging him from behind "Ah, good morning my dearest and most beautiful wife ! Did you sleep well? " He replied with a motivated and happy tone in his voice, wich made you smile and answer to his question "yes i slept well, and please stop calling me that it makes me feel like you have multiple wives" He pouted dramatically ; "Ah ! This wounds me deeply ! I didn't mean to put it that way i'm sorry ! But would you really think i'd have multiple wives when i have you ? I'm hurt you know ", you let go of the hug and said, smiling with a tired smirk "i know i know, don't worry, i love you.Now cook breakfast while i go wake up the kid, slave." He gasped dramatically and chuckled "sure sure mY oNe AnD OnLy WiFe" he mocked you lightly.

After waking up the kid and having breakfast you announced " Great, now it's time to finally go buy theses school supplies -" "Mom are you kidding me i have to call my friends today !" You got interrupted by k/n and replied "k/n sweetie, i warned you about it multiple times, you knew about it, at what time are you supposed to call them ? " K/n replied " Eheh you warned me multiple times about it, more like you warned me multiple times about YOUR MOM ! " A akward silence introduced itself after that and k/n fake coughed "anyways um is 5 pm fine ? " they said.

"Yeah, if we hurry up it should be good. " You said.

And now here were you. Totally unprepared, trying to find school supplies at home instead of buying them "K/N you got a pen of each color right?? " You yelled from afar "Yes mom ! " They yelled back from afar "oh wait no my blue pen is broken ! " They yelled from afar again "Throw it away and come back after so that i can hear you better ! " You replied in a loud voice once again. "Y/n i found the calculator me and k/n hacked to play pokemon with it ! " Your husband said to you with stars in his eyes "oh no don't give them that for school again, we don't want k/n to get in troubles again-" You replied "awww fine and here i was so proud of our kid being so sly " He replied with a dramatic sigh "y/n! A book fell in the toilets " Your kid came to you panicking ,you turned and said "Wait what-"

You spent all morning trying to find supplies in your house with k/n and asking your family if they had some. Dazai had to eventually go to work but he'd come back sometimes with stuff he bought with kunikida's money because that jerk still loved to mess with his colleague that much, you two comunicated by texts

Now , morning was over, you ate and went shopping with k/n.Everything seemed a bit more calm but k/n was constantly complaining and really wanted to hurry up.

Now that it was finally over, 4 pm, you arrived home with all of the supplies and you and your kid placed everything in their room and backpack. Wohoo ! Happy ending ! Now it was time to laze around !

Well it would of been time to laze around if you didn't make the house a mess in the morning. You also had to put a warning in the toilet doors "!! DON'T BRING YOUR BOOKS OR PHONE !! ".

So you cleaned up everything alone not bothering to ask for k/n to help today.

Oh and Dazai came back at the end of the day with a bunch of unncessary school supplies he collected throughout the day that you already bought. Well hey atleast that would be useful for next year ! Right?

You woke up to the sound of Dazai's voice and realised all of this was dream. Uh oh. Troubles are coming , today was really the day you had to get the school supplies and ASAP.

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kiefbowl · 2 years ago

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Im reading the first book of the asoiaf series now and one of the things that strikes me the most is that Dany sentences her brother to walk behind the khalasar and apparently thats completely emasculating. I get that a lot of readers might see this as merciful considering the other suggestions are cut off an ear or kill him, but it seems to me that the Dothraki are kind of a masculinity cult. (At least in the show they rape and kill with impunity and murder the wives of dead khals) Im wondering if Dany's punishment isnt actually worse. Then after the whole khalasar thinks her brother is a joke and the brother doesnt even *know* he's being mocked she asks that he be allowed to ride at the front of the column. It just seems like an affront to the whole khalasar and Im shocked at her capriciousness. Not that I have no sympathy for her. Shes a traumatized pregnant 14 year old but I think the book questions her ability to rule from quite early on. Its just hard to identify because the code of ethics in the Dothraki is very different from our own.

I'm not sure I completely follow. You're correct the Dothraki are a very patriarchal group, and their culture is built and around war and violence and rape.

"but I think the book questions her ability to rule from quite early on" this strikes me, are you eluding to the show's conclusion? I think book readers weren't necessarily surprised by Dany's "turn" in the show per se, but more it was 1. poorly set up and 2. is likely not what's going to happen in the books. If you're just reading the books now, I don't want to spoil too much for you, but the books continue to show Dany's struggle with ruling, but not so much because she is wrong or bad, but rather it's a hard position to be in. The books are pretty unambiguous in my opinion about her role as "Breaker of Chains" as being a very good thing. But GRRM is interested in character complexity, and is not interested in concluding the story by saying "Yes, magical dragon blood makes you the best ruler and monarchies are the best system." So, though Dany freeing slaves is good, she is not entirely ready to face the consequences of the political and economic fallout this causes, which is why she does what she thinks is best and tries to teach herself how to rule by facing the consequences in Meereen. It's an interesting conflict I enjoyed though some book fans were annoyed by it.

The other thing I don't want to spoil too much is that the show cut out a character completely that you will meet in book five. He is extremely important, and is probably going to be the reason Dany's got a lot of image problems when she lands in Westeros. Let's just say, if and when Dany storms King's Landing, I highly doubt it will be Cersei on the throne like in the show.

GRRM is very interested in exploring the pitfalls of monarchy as a system, and of course one of them is the idea that image and symbols are determiners of power. A King isn't just someone who has the lineage, he has to look like a King. The Gods have to reveal signs and blessings that he is the true ruler. Sigils have to show strong animals and concepts, which is why the Lannisters have lions and talk as if they're actual lions, because it becomes a sort of circular logic that the image is self evident of their truth to power. This is all to say, someone is in the story that the people might be willing to accept as their King that challenges how the people perceive Dany when she flies in on her fire breathing weapon of war.

#asoiaf

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dwellordream · 3 years ago

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“Perhaps the most degrading aspect of woman's subjection in the early modern period was a husband's right to strike his wife. A proverb recorded in 1475 allowed: ther be iii thyngs take gret betyng: a stockfish, a milston, a fedirbed, a woman. A century later, a jest tried to make the most of this mundane and unpromising subject: A certayne lytle boy seeing his father beating his mother every daye, and hearing him saye one night when he was abed, that he had forgotten to do one thing: I know what it is quoth the chyld, what sayd the father: Mary (sayd he) to beate my mother. While the merry books labored to wring humor from the thud of fist against flesh, church courts adjudicated horrific cases of male violence against women, whether maid, wife, or widow.

English law allowed husbands to beat their wives as much as they liked so long as severe injury or death did not result. On this issue the law was more conservative than church doctrine, which was firmly, though not consistently, set against wife beating. Many preacher-pamphleteers cited the Pauline precept that husband and wife were one flesh, arguing that it was wrong to seek to harm oneself. Henry Smith held that "these mad men which beat themselves should be sent to Bedlam till their madness be gone." Although the one-flesh argument erases the individual woman on the receiving end, at least it could be invoked to stay men's hands. Popular literature did not fail to register the doctrine's attractiveness to wives.

In an early Tudor example of gossips' literature, The gospelles of dystaves, women secretly gather to hear the following "gospel" preached by a wise shrew: "He that beteth his wyfe shall never have grace of our lady tyl he have pardon of his wyfe .... Mary faith it is great synne as he wolde despaire himself / for after that whiche I have herde our vicar saye it is but one body man and woman togather." Some conduct-book authors managed to find a loophole even here. William Whately's A Bride-Bush (1623) called wife beating permissible after all else failed because it could serve as a healing "corosive" to a husband's "owne flesh." In this perverse bit of sophistry, wife abuse becomes pious self-flagellation. Other godly pamphleteers urged husbands to be proactive.

Robert Snawsel's A looking glass for maried folkes (1610) told husbands they had every right to control their wives by firm discipline, "including beating and deliberate changes of mood." One extremist even offered his readers lessons in wife beating, showing how husbands could measure and justify their blows. Certainly, the church did not fully or logically enforce its own strictures. In 1618, for example, an episcopal court judge chastised a Lincolnshire vicar for beating his wife in the churchyard. The offense lay not in his beating her but in doing so on holy ground. Faced with such acts of Christian instruction, wives were told to endure with patience and thank their husbands for the correction.

Henry Bentley's The Monument of Matrones (1589) contained this prayer "to be used by the wife that hath a froward and bitter husband": O most wise and provident GOD ... if it be thy good pleasure with frowardness, bitternes, and unkindnesse, yea, the hatred and disdaine of my husband, thus to correct me for my fault, I most hartilie thanke thee for it ... and that I for my part may quietlie beare the frailtie, infirmitie, and faults of my husband, with more patience, mildnesse and modestie, than hitherto I have, so that mine example may be to the comfort and commoditie of other to doo the like. Many women refused to serve as comforting examples of patience, fighting back when attacked and crying out for help. Neighbors were their first line of defense because local authorities could not be counted on to prevent severe or mortal injury.

Gowing has shown that women under attack turned to women neighbors first and there is evidence that all members of the community expected women to risk their own safety for the well-being of other women. Some beaten women filed complaints against their husbands in church courts or (more rarely) in civil courts. Not surprisingly, women who sued men for violence usually brought other women to court as witnesses. Though many husbands bitterly resented the women neighbors who intervened, neighbors continued to act as a vigilant and moderating force. Because of the wider social conflicts wife beating engendered, the extent of a husband's right to correct his wife was a live issue in the courts and in neighborhoods.

Ballads show irate husbands grousing that their hands are tied, although they itch to pound their wives, because their wives' friends will criticize and slander them. Neighbors upbraid the harshest wife beaters with terms leveled at their sense of honor and rationality: vicious or repeated beatings could raise the cry that a man was "bedlam" or "unmanly." Being known as a wife beater could shame some men, but others ignored such pressure until either a wife's death or the law stopped them.Faced with intransigent offenders, neighbors sometimes escalated countermeasures. In a case from Bristol in 1667, a group of neighbors surrounded a notorious wife beater and threw dirt at him, creating "a loud mocking demonstration" that strongly resembled charivari.

Another example of neighborhood discipline concerns a child beater rather than a wife beater-making it a rare case because parents' right to administer beatings was seldom questioned-but it does shed light on the verbal arsenal that communities could deploy against transgressors. In 1622, neighbors of a prominent Essex citizen named Richard Turner wrote rhymes to mock him for brutally beating his daughter Anne. Among its many verses: Hye thee home Anne, Hye thee home Anne, Whippe her arse Dicke, Will have thee anon. All those that love puddinge, Come unto Parke Street, And learne the songe, Whip Her Arse Dick. As if that weren't enough, the song goes on to compare Turner to a child murderer who had just been hanged.

Written by artisans and tradespeople, the song spread from town to town through the posting of copies and constant singing so that even children came to know the song and torment Turner with it. For a time he was forced to stay indoors, hoping the "balleting" would abate. Visual culture bears evidence of the social pressures that functioned to limit male violence and to succor the abused. "Patience Baited," an emblem by George Wither, spells out collective limits on patriarchal privilege, warning that even the meekest wife will finally turn and fight.

The image shows a sheep attacking its tormentor, a young boy. The poem informs readers that anyone who mistreats a friend or spouse runs the risk of social ostracism: Thus, many times, a foolish man doth lose His faithfull friends, and justly makes them foes .... And by abusing of a patient Mate Turne dearest Love, into deadliest Hate: For any wrong may better bee excused, Than, Kindnesse, long, and willfully abused.

Male drunkenness was a leading cause of "kindnesse long and willfully abused," and jests involving domestic violence are generally alcohol-sodden. Many merry tales strongly criticize alcoholic husbands who ruin their health and pauperize their families. Pasquils Palinodia (1619) blames husbands for driving wives to other men's arms because of their own alehouse haunting and violent drunkenness, while Thomas Heywood's Philoconothista, or the Drunkard, Opened, Dissected, and Anatomized (1635) shows brawling, puking asses and goats served by an alewife who looks on with a touch of scorn. In some jests, wives seize the position of agency in the narrative, in a brief but significant moment of linguistic mastery.”

- Pamela Allen Brown, ““O such a rogue would be hang’d!” Shrews versus Wife Beaters.” in Better a Shrew than a Sheep: Women, Drama, and the Culture of Jest in Early Modern England

#pamela allen brown #history #renaissance #cw: domestic violence #tudor #elizabethan #jacobean #better a shrew than a sheep

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tuber-culosis · 4 years ago

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I've been reading through a lot of radfem blogs and posts lately. and gotta say, i'm leaning a lot towards radical feminism. And im definitely gender critical.

but one topic I want to talk about in particular is the criticism of Islam.

Which I feel is totally valid considering the current state of mainstream islam and Muslims.

Mainstream Islam (is what you see on all social media, seemingly practised by a lot of Muslims) IS sexist. And homophobic. There's no use denying it, neither do I think I'm a bad Muslim for not supposedly defending my own religion. You have to recognise the flaws in your own system to improve and progress.

Then arises the question why am I still Muslim then/ why do I still practise Islam? If I recognise the way it is practised is sexist and homophobic, which are things I'm against?

The difference lies in my belief that "mainstream Islam" is much different from the root of Islam.

Many (read: a LOT, not all) modern Muslims have been influenced by ultra conservative movements that want to return Islam to the way they believe was practised during the time of the Prophet (pbuh), ie; some centuries back. This is propagated by the ideas of Salafism and Wahhabism that frankly, prevent progress, reform or any sort of growth in Muslim communities.

I personally have witnessed this in my own country, India, where women are increasingly wearing the hijab and even full body covering purdahs, not talking to the opposite gender, men not looking a woman other than their wives in the eye, etc compared to when my mother was a child, when almost all Muslim women dressed in normal comfortable clothes and there were no much gender segregations. (Gender segregation still existed to a certain degree due to conservative Indian culture ofc)

This radicalisation led to the development of ultra conservative Muslims who enforce sexist, homophobic and separatist policies in the name of God.

They claim to want to return to "true Islam" but they add so many unnecessary rules and regulations you have to follow in order to be a "true Muslim" that are almost so impossible to follow I can vouch I have unconciously broken like 50 of them in one day maybe. These "laws" are derived from:

1. The hadith

2. Arab culture

3. Poor translation of the Quran to fit these radical ideals.

Explaining each of these in a little more detail,

1. A lot of practising Muslims might come at me for this one, but I feel that considering the hadith to be a holy source of guidance and believing everything in the Hadith when there are so many contradictions and logical fallacies, is foolish.

For those who have no clue what the hadith is, Islam basically has the Qur'an, which is, as we believe, a holy book revealed by God to the Prophet (pbuh), which acts as divine guidance on how to live life as a good person. It has rules, suggestions, and guidance to take desicions on a lot of everyday matters we face. It was a godsend (hehe pun fully intended) to women, who weren't even allowed to own property back then. Muslims believe that the Quran is guaranteed againt corruption by God, as revealed in one of the verses. Therefore, to a believer, it is THE book to consult, and the verses will never change, no matter how many years pass. There's actually a really interesting way the Quran is coded, so people can know if it has been tampered with or not, if anyone is interested. But the bottom line is, for a Muslim, the verses of Quran cannot be challenged. There are various INTERPRETATIONS of said verses, but the core Arabic text is the same.

Now there is a secondary source of guidance in the form of Hadith, which is literature that claims to record things the Prophet (pbuh) has said in his lifetime. The problem I find, along with other hadith critics, is that it was compiled much later after the death of the Prophet. Muslims argue that these hadiths were passed down in a proper recorded chain of transmitters that can assure the message hasn't been altered or tampered with. The problem is, that the standard used then was just how reliable was a person's memory and how trustworthy they were, and they did not actually judge the actual content of the hadith. So even if a hadith hypothetically said "Kill all the disbelievers", (which, fyi, it does NOT) and it had a reliable chain of recorders, it would be accepted as "sahih" (trustworthy) hadith, even though it clearly goes against the guidelines of the Quran, where it says there shall be no compulsion in religion (which implies you cannot just murder anyone who refuses to believe/ believes another religion). If one actually examined the content of this imaginary hadith, it would be easy to see it's tampered with by people with or without malicious intent (for eg, it might've actually been "You can kill the disbelievers ONLY if they attack you and will not leave you and your family alone") or some may not even remotely be the words of the Prophet, as he only followed the Quran.

Also, the integrity of the Hadith isn't guaranteed by God anywhere in the Quran. To know more about this, I suggest you read this link , and this one.

So yeah, I take hadith with a (large) grain of salt. So I will not be including them in my discussion obviously.

Now a lot of these hadith have been fabricated, as established, or reflect something that was applicable specifically in that time and setting, seeing that the Prophet was an ordinary man who couldn't predict the future or know about all the different cultures of the world.

So even if the headscarf was a part of Arabian attire, that doesn't mean it has to be assimilated into our cultures now. Just because prostitutes used to pluck all their eyebrows out to signify that they are prostitutes (sex work is forbidden in Islam, because of the negative impact on women and society), doesn't mean that women are not allowed to pluck their eyebrows now.

Following these hadith blindly without considering for a moment that hey, these might be outdated, seeing it isn't meant for all time periods like the Quran, and half of these contradict themselves, maybe we shouldn't consider this as an authority on rules in Islam. Personally, I don't believe anything is forbidden that is mentioned as such solely in the Hadith, and not in the Quran.

But the staunch belief in all of these Hadith leads to micromanaging of women, and literally everyone else. Few ridiculous examples include:

women can't pluck their eyebrows

men can't wear silk or gold, and they need to grow beards

music and dance is forbidden (seriously???)

the Prophet married a literal child of nine years (no do not try to justify it as "it was acceptable back then". According to the Qur'an it wasn't. Girls had to be mature enough to reject or agree to marriages and literal children can't do that. There is plenty of research to prove that Aisha (ra), his wife, was at the very least 19 or 20. Again a case of unreliable and maybe purposefully manipulated Hadith. Scholars and people who uphold the theory that Aisha was 9, and hence, child marriage is legal are pedophiles through and through)

I feel that if anything, hadith should be considered with the authority of historical commentary, giving us more context to the times, and should never be blindly trusted just because a lot of scholars say it is a "sahih" (trusted) hadith.

Also a main feature of Islam is that you don't need an extra priest (no offence to religions who have priests) or a scholar to tell you things and intervene with God for you. You have a holy book, your own common sense and humanity, and you pray to establish a connection with God. Scholars are secondary OPINIONS who can provide insight from their knowledge and research to people who want it, but by no means any authority on things, just like hadith.

2. Arab culture and society, especially back the times that radicals want to emulate, was heavily patriarchal. Islam gave women rights and protection, but they were still limited by the cultural norms of that era.

What these people actually want is to return society to Arabic culture in that time period. (Exhibit A: the abaya/purdah for women and khandoorah for men. exhibit B: sex-segregated spaces)

Back then, women were expected to be caretakers and mothers, and men were expected to be the strong masculine protector.

Enforcing said cultural norms into modern day Islam is ridiculous. Saying that women rarely left the house back then, hence women shouldn't leave their houses now is the same as saying there weren't phones back then, so I shouldn't use one now. Would you ever give up your phones? So how about we do the same to women's autonomy and freedom? Adapt to modern times like regular humans?

If women were meant to stay at home, and meant to just rear children, and never meant to be seen in public, and never meant to be seen by the opposite sex, as extremists say "is God's will", then why is none of this found in the Quran? Do you seriously believe that God, describe multiple times as All-forgiving and generous and kind, would ever persecute women to such a fate? If you do believe that, then maybe you need to re-examine in the nature of God that you believe in. Also if you tell me the "it's for their safety" gimmick, I will flip out. It has been proved multiple times that a woman's dressing has nothing whatsoever to do with why men rape.

Sure, Islam advocates for modesty in dressing, for both sexes. Both are called to not stare rudely (many Muslim men seem to forget that part of the verse, strangely), both are advised to dress in modest, comfortable, clean and practical attire. Never once is anything remotely like "YOU'LL GO TO HELL IF YOU EXPOSE YOUR ELBOW, WOMAN". But the way modern Muslims enforce the dress code (some even going to the lengths of saying women shouldn't wear BRIGHT COLOURED CLOTHES, so as to not attract attention!!! I'm looking at you, Mufti Menk), you'd think that God says something much worse than that. Infact God pulls out Uno reverse, and encourages us to dress as beautifully as we want, especially when visiting the mosque.

3. A lot of English translations of the Quran come from Saudi Arabia. A country famous for its conservative practise of Islam. While the original Arabic text cannot be changed, a lot of these translations include information in parantheses that add "rules" based on the above mentioned factors, that a casual reader or a new Muslim who doesn't know Arabic will consider to be authentic rules of the Quran, extrapolated from the verse, and not extra additions that are often derived from hadith. A very good example of this is the headcover verse, which you can see in this link.

Even all the hostility surrounding homosexual people has been derived from cultural influences and one set of verses. From around 6000 verses, just a single set passingly mention homosexuality. Don't you think that if it truly were such a great sin, God would have explicitly forbidden it? Also why would he create such a natural variation in sexuality and then forbid it? Why isn't it forbidden for animals then? Is all-loving God that cruel to create this natural and healthy attraction in them and then explicitly forbid it when straight people get to marry and live life in bliss? (Please don't say that "God also created pedophilia, and that's natural, so by this logic shouldn't we allow that too?" because pedophilia IS NOT HEALTHY, AT ALL. IT'S IS A DISORDER. Unlike homosexuality) I'm also not picking and choosing things to fit my lifestyle, as some might say, as I am straight, and the only reason I support the LGBT community because I have basic humanity?? And they're humans who deserve rights and joy and freedom and acceptance just like the rest of us.

There have been reformed translations of Quran which examine the verse without prior bias against LGBT people, and they have presented an alternate translation, that the verse condemns sexual assault, which happened to be homosexual in the particular story. Check out this link too, which explains how closely examining the words used could change the meaning from one thing to another.

What I attempted to prove in this extremely long post is that the practise of a religion isn't necessarily the reflection of its true nature.

There are progressive open-minded people who believe in Islam because it gives them hope and solace. People who believe because core beliefs of Islam aligned with their own views and simple logic.

NOT to say there aren't religious bigots who will totally use religion to manipulate people into oppressing themselves or other people. There are, there are a LOT of people like that who call themselves "scholars". And there are a lot of people who follow these extremely harmful regressive version of Islam without critically thinking about what they are following.

I've seen a post discussing the meaning of the word Islam, which means submission to God. It said that it implies total submission, without questioning what we believe.

That is an argument used by both religious extremists to further their beliefs, and by the opposite side, who say the religion is oppressive.

I wish to present a view that Islam itself tells us to think critically, to use our brains to question everything and anything we believe. And then to arrive at our own conclusions. And if you're a decent, kind human, those beliefs maybe align with Islam (not saying that if you're not Muslim, you're horrible, that is not what I meant at all). And if the opinion between people differs, there's always logic and reasoning behind every rule that is presented in the Quran. Don't believe me? Here's the verse that tells people not to blindly follow their parents' religion. And here's a list of verses about critical thinking.

The reason we (atleast reformist Muslims) submit to God is because we questioned it, we came to the conclusion that Hey! This is right. I can submit to my Creator by, who is basically the consciousness that created everything and is the source of all goodness, love and strength, because the rules mentioned here make sense and they privde a moral framework for me to base important desicions on. They feel right. And there is logic behind everything written in this.

I don't mean to present Islam as an all-perfect amazing religion everyone should believe and that I'm right, everyone else, especially those liberal atheists who criticise my religion are wrong and WILL BURN IN HELL. I consider Islam a perfect moral framework, and that's my business only. Anyone can follow what they want and it's none of my business. In fact there is no compulsion in religion at all, and people who say Muslim or go to hell are wrong imo.

What I intended was to paint a picture of reformist Muslims who are still out there, who follow the religion because they questioned it. And not the religion as this stringent rule book we all have to follow down to a t, micromanaging every aspect of our lives and living in perpetual fear of hell, but rather this basic moral guide that teaches us tact, compassion and justice, to bring us closer to God spiritually. I wanted to show that the majority isn't always reflective of what I think is the true core of Islam.

I feel that many practises in the name of Islam are highly questionable and should be criticized, but I also want people to know that the people who seemingly represent the religion, are not representative of the entire mass of believers. That sometimes the practises you might criticize might have nothing to do with the actual religion, atleast according to some of us. It was also for fellow Muslims who might be in the same place I was a few years ago, questioning everything I had learnt was part of my religion.

This is also NOT to undermine struggles of people forced to follow Islam and its seeming requirements like hijab. This is not to claim that nope, every Muslim is fine and ok, and we're all peaceful progressive people. In fact I wish to do the exact opposite, to show that people who enforce oppressive policies in the name of Islam aren't actually backed by the religion and neither should they be backed by other Muslims. I'm also not trying to say no one should criticize Islam. Criticism helps us grow. Criticism is necessary to uncover oppression and eradicate it. So by all means, criticize.

I'm so glad I found the subreddit r/progressive_Islam when I did because it helped me a lot, and opened me to other like-minded progressive Muslims, who actively hope to counter the negative effects of Salafism and conservatism that is overtaking Islam.

So yeah, I think I covered almost everything I wanted to talk about and here's a final link that pretty much just states my position on things.

PS idk why this thingy is in different colours it just seemed cooler and less boring to read

#religion #islamicpost #radfem #gender critical #muslim #progressive #change #critical thinking #sexism #feminism #feminist #allies #humanity #extremism #womenempowerment #freewomen #headcovering #mine

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tcm · 4 years ago

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A Lesson in the Art of Manipulation By Constance Cherise

I had previously only seen bits and pieces of GASLIGHT (‘44) but given the wide circulation of its psychological derivative “gaslighting,” I recently decided this was a film I needed to watch in its entirety. The ideal example of the methodical deconstruction of one's psyche, GASLIGHT becomes a playbook example for understanding the cues of manipulation. As an individual old enough to have had my natural portion of critical life lessons, I felt it would be a meaningful movie to share with a younger generation.

I introduced my niece to classic films years prior while she was a teenager. We’ve watched enough films together to pique her curiosity as well as gain her trust in my selections, but as life got in the way, eventually our movie time dwindled. With her now entering her 20s, GASLIGHT offered the perspective of a detached observer. While overt acts were immediately apparent, what ultimately resulted was a lesson in the recognition of intuitive prompts.

While witnessing the unraveling of the main character, Paula (Ingrid Bergman in her first Oscar-winning role), I found myself reacting to GASLIGHT in a way I rarely behave when watching classic movies – by audibly responding to the screen. However, when my niece had the same reactions, in relatively the same spots, I chalked it up to either the fact that...well... she is my niece, or this is simply the effect of this film. Love bombing control cloaked as romance, gaining trust while feeding fear, repeated lies that eventually mask themselves as the truth and a bit of jealousy to top it off, are all earmarks of a toxic union well worth discussing.

Our watching of the film eventually became a volley session. We would pause and rewind at distinct spots to point out the exact moment of engineered pivots, noting a telling reaction, sharing insightful observance or asking inquisitive questions. The warning signs are visually present, but because they begin subtly, by default, an individual who is unaware of manipulations is blind to the coming repercussions that follow. It’s something the majority of us have experienced in some form that becomes blatant only in hindsight. Most of my niece's awareness began as an uneasy “feeling,” as she was not precisely certain of what was happening that was wrong, but nonetheless something was wrong.

Naturally, the manipulation begins when Gregory (Oscar-nominated Charles Boyer) hastily discusses marriage with Paula after a two-week courtship. We assume this is Paula’s first serious relationship given the historical timeframe. While Paula is obviously enchanted, her logic has stepped in to allow herself an arm’s length distance from her lover when she decides to take a trip alone to make a proper decision. The mere fact that Gregory is wholly aware that he cannot allow Paula to be alone for fear that her greater mind might speak truth propels him to an aggressive pursuit, even though he uses no outwardly apparent aggressive tactics. Of course the resounding question to his need for expediency is...why? Innately, Paula had enough wisdom to know she required solitude to contemplate further, but through Gregory’s consuming distraction of romance, Paula’s own inner voice is overshadowed.

Eventually Gregory wields such great power over Paula that even after direct degradation, his sudden change of posture releases an abnormal overwhelming joy in his wife. One of his most nefarious gestures, outside of convincing Paula of her insanity, is in hiring the young tart housemaid, Nancy (Angela Lansbury, also Oscar nominated), who is clearly attracted to Gregory and is used as a competitive pawn to further exert command over his new wife. It wasn’t until towards the end of the film, I revealed that Nancy was the star of the television show, Murder She Wrote, which was met with the typical, “I knew she looked familiar!” The remainder of the film is a series of mental deteriorations. Given the typical response of the majority of wives in classic films when their husbands drastically falter (not in all films), I was unexpectedly surprised with the climax of GASLIGHT. While my niece thoroughly enjoyed the film, and also decided to share it with a friend, like many, she felt Gregory’s end should have been met with harsher consequences.

Truth be told, GASLIGHT can open multiple avenues of discussion, most directly an example on how not to be manipulated...or how to manipulate. It simply depends on what side of the fence you choose to be on. But the lesson that became greater while we watched the film together was capturing the imperative pinpoint moments, when without physical proof or logic that sixth sense subtly kicks in, indicating when motives are implicitly wrong or when they are decisively right.

#Gaslight #gaslighting #psychology #manipulation #Ingrid Bergman #Charles Boyer #Angela Lansbury #intuition #TCM #Turner Classic Movies #Constance Cherise

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kvetchlandia · 4 years ago

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Woody Guthrie 1913 Massacre 1941

Take a trip with me in nineteen thirteen To Calumet, Michigan in the copper country I'll take you to a place called Italian Hall And the miners are having their big Christmas ball

I'll take you in a door and up a high stairs Singing and dancing is heard ev'rywhere I'll let you shake hands with the people you see And watch the kids dance 'round the big Christmas tree.

There's talking and laughing and songs in the air And the spirit of Christmas is there ev'rywhere Before you know it you're friends with us all And you're dancing around and around in the hall

You ask about work and you ask about pay They'll tell you they make less than a dollar a day Working their copper claims, risking their lives So it's fun to spend Christmas with children and wives.

There’s talkin’ and laughin’ and songs in the air

And the spirit of Christmas is there everywhere

Before you know it, you’re friends with us all

And you’re dancing around and around in the hall.

Well, a little girl sits down by the Christmas tree lights To play the piano so you gotta keep quiet To hear all this fun, you would not realize That the copper boss thug men are milling outside

The copper boss thugs stuck their heads in the door One of them yelled and he screamed, "There's a fire" A lady she hollered, "There's no such a thing; Keep on with your party, there's no such a thing."

A few people rushed and there's only a few "It's just the thugs and the scabs fooling you." A man grabbed his daughter and he carried her down But the thugs held the door and he could not get out.

And then others followed, about a hundred or more But most everybody remained on the floor The gun thugs, they laughed at their murderous joke While the children were smothered on the stairs by the door.

Such a terrible sight I never did see We carried our children back up to their tree The scabs outside still laughed at their spree And the children that died there was seventy-three

The piano played a slow funeral tune, And the town was lit up by a cold Christmas moon The parents, they cried and the miners, they moaned, "See what your greed for money has done?"

The Calumet Massacre happened 107 years ago today, Dec. 24, 1913. The sick logic of capitalism hasn’t changed a whit since then.

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chibisarz · 4 years ago

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Azulon was Stupid

So, having just finished rewatching ATLA and reading The Search, I have a few bones to pick with old man Azulon.

TLDR: He set himself up to be murdered.

So, we know from The Search that Azulon was given some vague prophecy that a royal descendant of Roku would bring great power to his lineage. Now, logically, you would want this union to occur between your heir and Roku’s descendant. However, by this point, we know Iroh has already married/has an heir. And since the Fire Nation already had a war over sucession because of Fire Lord Chaeryu having multiple wives and heirs, doing so again was a conflict easily avoided. So, Ozai is the one who “proposes” to Ursa.

Ozai has been nothing but a useless spare heir for most of his life. He is significantly younger, anywhere from 10 to 18 years, than Iroh. Ozai has no formal military training and no military title. All he has is his anger, jealousy and resentment towards his brother to fuel his political ambitions. I’m not saying Ozai is stuid, because he’s not. He just chooses a path of cunning to get what he wants rather than more honest means. This of course didn’t mesh well with Iroh’s love of peace, tea, pai sho and playing his sungi horn in his spare time on top of rising to the rank of general on his own merit.

When the royal family received the devastating news about the loss of Lu Ten and Iroh’s “failure” to capture Ba Sing Sei, Azulon should not have been as shocked as he appeared when Ozai literally asked him to name him the heir instead. Yes, logically, Ozai could have just let things pass normally. Iroh would take the throne, Ozai would be the heir presumptive and then his children to follow. However, due to their strained relationship, it would be more safe to assume that Iroh would name Zuko as his heir, which would skip over Ozai once again. Ozai, of course, would not stand for two such failures having more distinction than him.

While I understand Azulon’s justified rage at his youngest son’s request, his reaction only serves to show Ozai is more like him than Iroh. Instead of, I don’t know, banishing Ozai for his crime, he decides it would be better to have Ozai experience the same devastation and see how he likes it. WTF? Now whether he knew if Ozai hated Zuko or not is not exactly relevant because this decision will only lead to differing paths to the same end: Azulon will die, not his grandchilden. If, and this is a BIG if, Ozai truly loved Zuko, he would obviously do anything to spare him. Now, since we know Ozai was a little too willing to get rid of his “weaker” child, the next logical step would be to name Azula to die instead. This would actually hurt Ozai more, but since, up to this point and from what we know, no female has ever been named Fire Lord, it wouldn’t have the same impact Azulon is looking for. Regardless of which child you choose however, he greatly underestimates Ursa and her role in all of this. Regardless of how she may have seen how much Azula inherited her father’s temperment, she still loved her little girl. Whichever child it was, you should NEVER expect a mother to sit idly by while her children are sent to slaughter and she can do something about it! Her name freaking means BEAR, she’s a literal mamma bear and if you mess with her cubs, you sign your death warrant!

So yes, even though Azulon was a master firebender, military genius and expanded his empire beyond Sozin’s acheivements, he couldn’t see how he brought about his own destruction. There, I got this off my chest, thank you for reading.

#atla #fire lord azulon #fire lord ozai #mother bear ursa #prince zuko #azula #azulon is stupid ozai is weak

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enouragement-blog · 4 years ago

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Paying for past mistakes

Last time, I wrote about King Solomon. This time, I’m going to talk about his son and successor Rehoboam.

He is introduced right after Solomon’s death where he decides its a good idea to pressure people who he had not earned loyalty from. I guess since his dad was wise, he tried to prove his strength since he couldn’t compete. Either way, it failed. The nation decided they didn’t need him, and one of Solomon’s rebels ended up ruling the other tribes of Israel while Rehoboam was left with Judah and Benjamin.

The story we are going to pay attention to is 1 Kings 14:21-28 (read it now. Come on. Right now). We are told about his mother, his attack from a pharaoh, and how he lost some of his father’s wealth. Obviously, Rehoboam had some big shoes to fill, and he really didn’t. But something that is extremely interesting is that his mother was an Ammonite. The Ammonites were related to the Israelites, but they didn’t follow YHWH and were frequently thorns in Israel’s side all throughout the Old Testament. But that is a long, confused history that I must skip past. So what’s my point in bringing that up? Because of the 2 gods that 1 Kings specifically says Solomon worshipped, one of them was Milcom, the god of Ammon.

Now the pieces start fitting together. This was a situation that shouldn’t have happened. Kings were not to accumulate wives according to the law, which Solomon didn’t listen to. Israelites were not to interbreed with the sinful nations that didn’t worship YHWH, which Solomon didn’t listen to. Israelites weren’t supposed to allow altars to other gods in Israel, which Solomon didn’t listen to. Israelites were not supposed to worship other gods than YHWH, which Solomon didn’t listen to. Apparently Solomon really liked this Ammonite woman, because he built her god an altar, worshipped at it, and then appointed her son as king. This was a 41 year old man. Surely Solomon knew he wasn’t fit for the job. And in 41 years he had done nothing to gain the loyalty of the people, and then his first act as king was to threaten them all. This was not a very smart son.

Another thing that we see in this passage is that Rehoboam continued his father’s evil. Not only did Solomon not repent, but even after he was punished by God he did nothing to rectify the situation that he created. I wonder if Solomon’s son losing most of the kingdom was a logical consequence of Solomon’s action (in which case God was just telling him - this is the result of what you are doing) or if it was divine punishment (in which case God insured that Rehoboam would act foolishly and incited the pharaoh to attack him. Either way, Rehoboam doesn’t appear to have learned much through the ordeal.

So if Solomon wouldn’t have gotten involved with so many women and their religions, he wouldn’t have had Rehoboam as a son, and, presumably, a better man would have become king. Obviously I’m not talking about perfection, but a pursuit of God. in 1 Kings 11:13, we are told that because of DAVID’S righteousness, God would spare Solomon’s son the loss of everything. We are also told that God only punishes to the 10th generation, but he blesses to the 1000th generation. His mercy far outweighs his judgment. Even though he warned in the law beforehand, He still was patient with them when they went astray.

Growing up in the church, I often heard people talk about generational curses. One of the things I heard was something along the lines of “I live under the curse of my past mistakes”. In other words, because of what I or my father has done in the past, I suffer punishment today. I don’t know how I feel about that. But for today, I’m not going to argue that point one way or another. I just want to point out that David, the same David that was the cause of God’s mercy to Rehoboam, lived under a punishment from what he did in 2 Samuel: adultery and murder. The point is that we have all done dumb things, and sometimes we have to pay long term for a short mistake, but beyond all that is a big question: what choice will we make today? David’s curse died with him, but his blessing reached far beyond him. Even if we are suffering for yesterday’s sins, we can still choose what to do today, for God’s glory or our own, blessing or cursing.

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mtvswatches · 5 years ago

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Wynonna Earp 3x04 No Cure For Crazy

Click here for previous recaps!

Stray thoughts

1) Did that… did that tree just fucking walk?

Is the tree possessed by Dolls or something? Why is a tree helping Wynonna and Doc?

And why is Peacemaker not working?

3) Okay, the trees are fucking bleeding and this dude just called it “a murder tree” and what the actual fuck!

4) So… the “fire” never really happened, it was just a Black Badge cover-up for the massacre. I really want to see where they go with this whole backstory they’ve given Nicole because so far? Not into it.

Nicole does make a good point of asking Waverly why she hasn’t talked to her mom yet to figure out who her parents are. She seemed quite intent on figuring it out last season, and here she has the perfect opportunity to have every answer she’s looking for, and she’s not taking it? Waverly is anything but a chicken, so I’d figured she would confront her mother head on but I guess she’s been conveniently written OOC so that the writers can keep this mystery going for a while. I hope they don’t stretch this for too long, though.

5) Why did Nicole randomly and carelessly throw the ring in the middle of the forest? Huh? That’s also kind of OOC? Wasn’t she talking about disposing of it carefully two minutes ago?

6) MORE OF THIS, PLEASE.

7) And more of this.

8) Okay, so Waverly IS going to see her mother, she just didn’t disclose that bit of information to Nicole, why? She just made this big speech about not keeping secrets from each other… or is it that she wasn’t planning on seeing her mom until Wynonna brought it up and basically set it all up for her?

And suuuure, Mama is doin’ just fine!

9) So, Wynonna couldn’t shoot Peacemaker because she ran out of bullets, which is a more logical explanation than what I was expecting. I don’t know why but I just assumed Peacemaker had magical ammo and it didn’t require reloading? Anywho, look at these two idiots flirting with each other and basically dry-humping…

10) SHIT. That was a low blow.

But how fucking adorable is it that he’d taken the time to buy - or build! - baby Alice a crib? My heart!

11) Why was their mother so intent on Waverly never finding out where she was or seeing her? And what’s going to happen when Waverly does…? There must be a reason. It seems she was trying to protect them.

12) Why are they giving me so much Doc/Wynonna in this episode? What’s going to happen? (Listen, I’ve grown up watching Joss Whedon shows, I’m conditioned to believe that happiness is followed by utter and complete destruction and mysery!)

13)

NICOLE: Can we talk? It’s about Nedley.

WYNONNA: Not again. How many more plungers do we need?

14) Wait, did I forget that Jeremy was gay or they haven’t mentioned it before? Because I’m all for it, and especially about the way it was casually brought up in conversation because it’s not Jeremy’s single defining characteristic.

15) I guess the mother-daughter reunion is happening sooner than expected, since Waverly was contacted as her last known emergency contact.

16) Jeremy is totally vibing with this Robin dude who found the murder tree and they’re making silly tree puns and it’s gay heaven, I love it.

17) Well, that couldn’t have gone any worse…

And yet, I can’t help but feel she means something else? I still feel she’s trying to protect Waverly.

Something happened when Waverly touched her, too, and then she kept saying “she’s unbound, she’s loose, kill the demon.” Waverly of course assumes her mom is referring to her as “the demon”, but I have a feeling she’s talking about an actual demon.

18) I really felt for Nedley when he admitted he’s tired of covering the supernatural shit up. Man, I hated him on the first episode of the show and now I’ve really grown to like him? And Wynonna suggested he should step aside and let Nicole take charge, and he’s actually considering it, and I’m here for Sheriff Haught.

19) Listen, I’m not usually into Gay, meet Gay, now get together because you’re the only two Gays so therefore you must be attracted to each other and date, but… I’m really liking the Jeremy/Robin interactions so far? They’re really cute!

20) And now they’re two gays who have zero idea about the woods lost in the forest and they found the stairway to heaven…

21) Mama Gibson is not messing around.

22) Ah, great, the idiots who let a dangerous convict escape have now locked Wynonna up. Marvelous.

23) Damn, Waverly keeps thinking her mother wants to kill her and that she called her a demon, but I just fucking know she’s talking about a literal demon that’s probably threatening Waverly’s life, that’s why she’s kept away from her.

24) Wait, what?

NEDLEY: Michelle didn’t go to prison because she burned down the barn. She went because her youngest daughter was in it.

Her youngest is Waverly? So did she try to set Waverly on fire? I have a hunch she’s possessed.

25) Oh, dang, Doc is hearing a baby’s cry in the woods. Of course, this is a trigger for him, he’s thinking of Alice, and he’s being lured into the woods.

26) Major Spike vibes in this scene…

27) Hm. Bulshar just tried to strike up a deal with Doc – he’ll give Doc reprieve from the knowledge of his miserable destiny if Doc does his bidding. And Doc was really contemplating accepting. Don’t be weak, Doc. Come on. There has to be a way.

28) So, this fucking corrupt guard suggests they should just off Wynonna and write it off as if Michelle murdered her own daughter when she was trying to escape. And of course, he’s a fucking revenant. It’s definitely going to be interesting to see how Wynonna gets out of this one while handcuffed and without Peacemaker…

I mean, she was fucking tasered and yet…

QUEEN.

29) Nedley, my heart. He’s so heartbroken over this.

NEDLEY: Well, I got a call to a situation at the Earp farm. By the time I got there, the barn was lit up like a torch. You... somehow you escaped. I mean, you were covered with soot, you were crying, but you were unharmed. WAVERLY: And my mother? NEDLEY: She was... locked in your daddy's patrol car. She set the fire. But she was no murderous sociopath. She was Michelle Gibson. Rodeo spitfire. The wild heart and loyal soul of Purgatory. Even the thugs and the dimwits drank to her. With her. They loved her. Look, she wasn't herself that night. She kept... she kept insisting that... that she was trying to vanquish a demon. WAVERLY: A demon she thought was... me. NEDLEY: Well, that would explain The occult nonsense that Ward saw plastered all over the barn before she lit the match. Did you believe it? That was Ward's interpretation. Look, your pop was my boss, so... And I know... I know I should've been braver. I should've defended her. But... I booked Michelle like I was told to. God, this just keeps getting worse. I've been trying to make up for it ever since. I kept watch over you. I tried to set Wynonna on the straight and narrow. That didn't work out. And when I became Sheriff, I pulled the report. I didn't want anyone seeing it.

30) Why would Wynonna let the revenant in on the fact that she got a kid? I mean, wasn’t the whole point of sending Alice away to protect her from the likes of him? I get that she used that bit of information to distract him, and yeah, she did this later…

…but maybe don’t go talking about your child out loud around the enemies?

31) Why is he coughing dirt? Is he going to get gay-buried before he can be allowed to actually gay?

32) Now Waverly is listening to her mom’s tapes with a psychiatrist or therapist or something, and yep, I’m still convinced she was possessed or something and the reason she was trying to stay away from Waverly is because she wanted to protect her. As she was talking to the therapist, she said “Shut up!” or something like that and she was clearly talking to someone else who was not there, like someone who might be in her own head or that only she can see. Someone or something that might be using her to kill her own daughter. The question is, who and why? Is it Bulshar manipulating her the same way he tried to manipulate Doc? Or is it something else altogether? And why is this something or someone so intent on killing Waves? What is she? What kind of role is she supposed to play in the grand scheme of things for this evil entity to want her dead so badly?

33) Okay, theory confirmed, Doc just heard a third, infernal voice on the tape.

34) Oh shit, is history going to repeat itself?!

Yep, there was an actual demon in serious need of a facial and makeover.

35) Bye bye Robin, I guess?

36) Who the fuck is Jolene and why is everyone acting like Stepford Wives? Is this some sort of Ted/Dawn scenario?! And why is it that, in a supernatural show, this is by far the creepiest thing I’ve seen?!

37) So, I’ve got a lot of questions. First of all, I want to know more about the murder trees. How do they come to be? Are they inhabited by serial killers? We saw the face in one of them, and they can actually walk and move around, but why do they bleed? Is it like their victim’s blood? Also, who the fuck is Jolene? I mean, I know she’s probably the demon that showed up in the barn, but what’s her deal? What does she want? I mean, she didn’t kill Waverly, and instead she’s feeding and glamouring the whole group… to do what? Where was Robin taken? Can we please not do the whole bury-your-gays trope? I expect better of this show. Will Doc accept Bulshar’s deal? Please don’t, Doc. And what is Waverly?! That’s the biggest question of all, so I’m guessing the answer will be delayed till the season finale.

That was yet another fun, exciting Wynonna Earp episode, setting up a lot of stuff for the season, I guess. And I want answers!

38) Hope you enjoyed my recap, and, as usual, if you’ve got this far, thank you for reading! If you enjoy my recaps and my blog, please consider supporting it on ko-fi. Thanks!

#Wynonna Earp #Waverly Earp #Nicole Haught #Doc Holliday #Jeremy Chetri #Wynonna Earp 3x04 #WE RECAP #recap #No Cure For Crazy #mine #WE 3x04

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theemptyquarto · 4 years ago

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Abandoned WIP

Warstan (but John got killed off before the story starts) and purely platonic Sherlock & Mary. Quite AU... John and Mary get together before Sherlock jumped off of Bart’s. Maybe a little bit of hinted unrequited Johnlock, I honestly can’t remember if I was going there with this fic. A “Mary is the new Watson” retelling of “The Adventure of the Empty House,” rated T. This was written before S3 happened and I fell in love with BBC Mary and she actually made me view BBC John as an interesting character in his own right and I rejiggered my alignments.

I’m going to rant here, just briefly, about how ACD’s Mary Morstan is probably one of the most wronged-by-their-author characters that I can think of, which is why I started writing this fic where she takes the lead.

She appears for the first time in the second-ever (authorially, not chronologically) Sherlock Holmes story, “The Sign of the Four,” and is delightful. Watson falls hard in love right away and acts like a huge dweeb about her, she’s courageous, clever, and kind. Maybe without all the panache of the later Irene Adler, but a more traditionally Victorian heroine for our more traditionally Victorian junior protagonist. Her next appearance, “The Adventure of the Crooked Man,” is significantly more tangential, but she sets the action of the story in play and is shown to be a helpful, kind figure.

And then all of a sudden Conan Doyle ships her off to visit her mother (she was established as an orphan), stops using her at all, and finally kills her off.

Not even on the page. Between books. And it’s mentioned so tangentially in two lines of “The Adventure of the Empty House” that you can easily miss it if you aren’t looking for it.

(Incidentally this sort of shit is why ACD fandom can’t agree on how many wives Watson had or who the subject of his “sad bereavement” is. The number ranges from 1-13.)

Why, Artie? Why did you do that? I mean I get if you want to park Watson back at Baker Street you probably do have to off her but you were a fairly good hack and doing it this way made you give up the opportunity to have some sort of emotional payoff in your stories. Especially since you later introduce another wife character who is in no way distinct from Mary (a niche component of ACD fandom thinks that Mary didn’t die at all and Watson “abandoning (Holmes) for a wife,” was him and Mary reconciling after an estrangement.)

Anyway. Don’t create cool characters and then kill them for no good reason. That’s my point.

_____________

The Empty Flat (Mary)

I had been widowed for three months and was rather surprised at how badly I was doing with it. The snug three-bedroom garden flat in Maida Vale had been the perfect size for a not-quite-young couple planning on children. Now it seemed vast and empty and utterly, utterly silent. When I slept, which wasn’t all that much, I did it on the sofa. Our bed still smelled faintly of his aftershave, and I couldn’t stand either to sleep there or to wash the sheets. Arthur, the blue point Siamese cat who I had bought into the marriage, would curl up on my feet and awaken me with his yowls in the morning.

To some extent I had been able to occupy my mind with work, and the requirements of my job had kept me more or less a functional adult. But the summer holidays had begun a week previous, and I was thus thrown entirely on my own resources, which were scant. What family I had left were all back in America, and the friends I had made in England seemed to have melted away since John’s death. Some days, I thought that this was due to the universal impulse to avoid reminders of mortality. Other days I decided it was more likely due to the fact that I deleted their emails and declined to answer their phone calls.

The truth, as always, was probably somewhere in the middle.

Whatever the cause, my life was empty. I ate when I remembered that I was meant to. I wore pajamas all day. I left the flat when I ran out of cat food, and at night I would turn on the tv and stare at it without paying attention until I finally sank into oblivion.

Presumably it was on one of those descents into the maelstrom of crap British late-night TV that I first took note of the murder of Ronald Adair. The dead man was vaguely familiar to me, though I had never watched any of his shows personally. He was a scion of one of those impoverished but very old-and-noble families that the English keep on out of sentiment. Showing unusual initiative for one of his class, he’d made a success of himself by appearing on a famous reality show, then on the “celebrity” version of that show, and parlaying that into one of those mysterious but apparently quite lucrative careers that consist mostly of having your picture taken.

And now, he was dead, shot in the back of the head in his own bedroom on Park Lane.

The story struck me, for some reason. John, when he’d been alive, used to take four daily papers and half a dozen weeklies, and I had not cancelled them yet. I plucked a week’s worth out of the recycling where I had tossed them, unread, and scanned through them for articles about the murder.

Ronald Adair had been alone in his bedroom, drinking neat whiskey and updating twitter, when he died. His last tweet (@JustLukeyA, “LOL C U @ Ibiza”) had been sent at 10:11 in the evening. His personal assistant had heard the sound of breaking glass, broken down the locked door that led into the bedroom, seen his body, and dialed 999 by 10:17. The bullet had been a large caliber hollow point round that had done severe damage to the back of his skull, and he had most likely died almost instantly.

The entire affair was mysterious. While the police hadn’t released any real statements, the personal assistant had been the only other person in the house at the time of the shooting, and had been released after questioning. This would suggest the shot had been fired from outside, but the window in Adair’s bedroom, while open, was on the fourth floor. There was no evidence to suggest anyone had climbed to the window, meaning that the shot had come from somewhere outside.

This made no sense at all to the gossip rags. The window faced directly over Hyde Park, and any level shot would have had to come from over a mile away. And shooting from ground level would have been impossible: the Park was open, reasonably crowded given the warmth of the summer evening, and no one had heard a thing. The American embassy was less than two hundred yards away, and even its overblown security hadn’t noted any unusual activity. Essentially, it was impossible that he could have been shot, and yet there he was.

As I read through the papers, I thought how John would have gone through them at the breakfast table to try and figure out what had happened. Although his professional interest in solving mysteries had died with Sherlock, he never lost his fascination with the more arcane sorts of crime. He would have loved this one, and I could imagine the crinkles that would form around his eyes as he would describe the possible motives, mechanisms, and solutions. It was a Sunday, and I suspected that he would have wheedled me into taking our normal long walk in the direction of the crime scene. I’d have teased him, said he was morbid, but I’d have gone, and he’d have hypothesized happily for a while.

I could so clearly imagine it, and it made me smile, despite myself. It had been difficult to like Sherlock Holmes, and very difficult to deal with the fact that their association put John into danger on a regular basis. Yet, now that they were both gone, I found myself forgiving every thoughtless insult and sleepless lonely night the detective ever gave me, since he had made John so happy.

Wishing to hang on to my happy memory, I decided, abruptly, to take the walk over to Park Lane myself, just as John and I would have done. It was past time I actually started doing things again. I would go and see where Ronald Adair had died, and I would try and solve the mystery, and I would remember John. Quickly, before I could change my mind, I showered, dressed, and left the flat.

July, in London, is one of the few times of the year when it approaches being warm enough, and it was a beautiful day. I took the long route around Kensington Park, since a straight shot would have taken me directly past St. Mary’s Hospital, where John had worked - and where his body had been taken. The trees were brilliant green, and it seemed everyone in London was sunbathing or playing football or falling in love around me.

Ronald Adair’s flat was adjacent to the Mariott, in one of the converted brick Georgian edifices that infest all of Park Lane. I had forgotten to take note of the number, but it was easily identifiable by the flowers and stuffed animals heaped up on the low fence that surrounded it. There were a fair number of gawkers, and by asking, I found which window Adair had been shot through. I was stumped, for the moment, but thinking logically, decided the best route was to see from where I could have made the shot. The busy street and the shrubbery borders of the park being ruled out, necessarily, I confined my attention to the sidewalks. I took pictures on my phone, and paced around, and tried to work out the trigonometry involved.

Then I stopped. There were half a dozen locations from which the shot could have come. It would be the hell of a task: the window was small and high, but if it were dark out and the shooter were aiming into a lit room, it would be possible. I had hunted a lot as a kid, and might have been able to make it with a rifle. John, who had been an excellent marksman, might have been able to do it with a handgun. But to do it quickly enough to avoid notice in a busy neighborhood, to do it silently? That was impossible.

All facts that were undoubtedly obvious to the police. If John had been with me, it would have been a fun little mathematical exercise. We’d have followed it with a walk home, dinner at the pub on the end of our street, and making tipsy love in the light of a summer sunset in our flat. But he wasn’t with me, and he never would be again, and the day would end as all days did, alone with the cat and the television and the dark. The whole thing was a pointless, futile exercise - a little girl’s attempt to play make-believe.

I knew, suddenly, that I was going to cry. It happened a lot, and it wasn’t an experience I wanted to share with all London, so I spun around to depart and slammed full-force into a souvenir hawker who had been just behind me. Grace has always eluded me. The pole she carried, hung with ballcaps and other tat, fell to the ground, and she gave an indignant Cockney squawk of “Oi! Watch it!” I bent to retrieve her pole and handed it back to her, mumbling, “Sorry, sorry,” and fled outright into the park, keeping my eyes firmly on the ground.

Leaving the path, I hurried through the park, not really aware of where I was going as long as it was quieter and emptier. I reached a dim copse free of children, tourists, and lovers, where I sat down, and let the tears flow.

It’s easy to see why the ancient Egyptians thought that the heart, and not the brain, was the source of love. True sadness isn’t felt in the head, it’s felt in the chest, and I could feel every choked beat of my heart as I sobbed and gasped and tried to catch my breath for what seemed like ages. But from a pragmatic point of view, I’m sure I didn’t go for long. Crying is too tiring to keep up for much time. Of course, I had come out without any tissues, so I wiped my aching eyes and puffy face on the corner of my cardigan.

At that moment, the hawker walked into the copse.

“There you are!” she called out, “Wondered where you’d got to!”

I sighed. “Look,” I said, “I’m sorry about knocking into you. It was an accident. If I’ve damaged anything I will be happy to pay-“

“Na, na, love. Just a load of rubbish. Can’t hurt it if it isn’t worth anything to start with. But I saw your face and thought you might be in some trouble.” The woman was elderly, with a mop of dyed auburn hair and a thick Docklands accent which I would love to render in text, if it didn’t look so silly. But her blue eyes were kind, and she handed me a miniature water bottle marked with “Souvenir of Hyde Park.”

“I’m – fine. I just got a little upset. Thank you.” The water was lukewarm and tasted faintly of plasticizers, but it soothed my irritated throat.

The woman seemed to take this remark as an invitation, and placing her wares on the grass, sat next to me. I have lived in London since I was twenty-five years old and I could tell what was coming. There are two main personality types among the English: the type that is intensely uncomfortable with any sort of emotion, and the type that delights in every possible expression of sentiment and wishes to hear all about it. They’re like New Yorkers in that respect.

Apparently I had found one of the latter variant.

“You get to see a bit of everything, my line of work,” she said, digging a battered packet of Silk Cut out of her pocket, “Care for one?”

I had officially quit smoking years ago, when I finished my doctorate, and stopped even having the occasional one when I started dating John, since he loathed the things. Just at that moment, though, it sounded like heaven. “Yes, thank you.”

She shook two out of the packet, and passed one to me before getting out a transparent plastic lighter. She lit hers, and then handed over the lighter. A brief breeze kicked up, and I bowed my head over the tiny flame, trying to make the cigarette catch, as she said, quietly, “Now, Mary, you need to remain calm.”

The cigarette caught, and I took that first delicious, poisonous drag, before the fact that this stranger knew my name really filtered into my mind.

I looked over, and where the woman had been, sat Sherlock Holmes.

The Sign of Four (Sherlock)

The art of disguise, as I have often remarked, is in context far more than it is in costume. Truly approximating the appearance of someone else is only possible from a distance: in ordinary situations major alterations to the face appear theatrical and attract more attention than not. If, instead, you select a character who would be entirely appropriate in the context in which he appears, you need make only minor changes to your own appearance. The observer’s mind will then do ninety per cent of your work and you will be de facto invisible. I intend to write a monograph on the topic when I have the time.

Mary Morstan may have had some subconscious understanding of this. On the occasion of our first meeting, I observed that she was wearing a carefully calibrated disguise, although I doubt she would have referred to it as such. Very high heels, but an intentionally prim and boxy suit, severe makeup and hairstyle, heavy-framed glasses. She introduced herself with a flat, middle-American accent, only slightly sharpened by years of living in London.

Just after she arrived, John walked into the flat, his arms filled with carrier bags of groceries, which he set down with great rapidity in order to shake her hand.

“Mary Morstan, my associate, John Watson. Miss Morstan,” I said, “Teaches maths at Westminster School.”

She stared at me when I said that. John, I noted, didn’t let go of her hand when her attention was distracted.

“How do you know that?” she asked.

I sighed, though in truth I always enjoy it when they ask for the reasoning.

“You’ve obviously come straight from work, meaning that you work Saturday mornings. Chalk dust on the right cuff, which is worn in a way that you only ever see with people who spend a great deal of time writing on blackboards. There are traces of red ink on the heel of your hand and a splotch near the tip of your index finger. Thus, teacher.”

As I’d expected, she dropped John’s hand to examine her own.

“You took the tube to get here, and in those shoes you probably didn’t walk far before you boarded at Westminster station: there’s construction digging up the street there and the fresh splashes of yellowish mud on your left stocking are quite distinctive. Half a dozen schools in that area, but your ensemble suggests older students and moneyed parents. Hence, Westminster School.”

The last was a gloss, as her ensemble suggested nothing of the sort. It said quite plainly “I teach older boys.” Her skirt was unfashionably long, her blouse was buttoned up to the neck, and her jacket was boxy in order to conceal her rather large breasts. Having attended an all-boys senior school, I recognized the style, and the motivation behind it. But since I was undoubtedly going to receive the ”abrasive” and “show-off” lectures after her departure, I saw no reason to add the “inappropriate” one, and simplified the matter.

“And… maths?”

I sighed again, this time sincerely. The easy ones are never any fun.

“There’s a graphics calculator in the right pocket of your overcoat.”

At that, she laughed. Giggled, really. But almost instantly, she caught herself, cleared her throat, and dropped back into the lower vocal register that she had previously affected. Everything I could ever have wished to know about Mary Morstan’s character was thus revealed in the first five minutes of our interview. Nature had given her a respectable brain and deposited it in a body that was small, blonde, and rather fluffy. Her disguise did a reasonable job of concealing this, but she would spend the rest of her life trying to make people take her seriously.

“That’s amazing,” she said, “I read in your blog, Doctor Watson-“

“John, please,” he interrupted. Oh dear.

“John. I read about this kind of analysis but it’s remarkable to see it in real life.”

“Can be a bit creepy if you’re not used to it, though,” John replied, which I thought extremely unfair, given that I had been very polite and not mentioned that her teeth demonstrated her adolescent bulimia or that her fingers and eyebrows strongly implied a mild obsessive-compulsive condition. I maintained my dignity, and said only,

“Thank you, John. State your case, Miss Morstan.”

“Right. Well. I suppose I have to go back to the beginning. My father, Thomas Morstan, was English. I was actually born in Sussex, but when I was two my parents divorced and my mother and I moved back to America. I never got to see him much, growing up, but he always kept in touch, by phone and letters, and then by email when that came around. Sent birthday gifts and that sort of thing. Ten years ago I finished grad school, and he offered to buy me a ticket to come and meet him in London. I hadn’t seen him for several years at that point and I didn’t have a job so, obviously, I said yes.”

“Mmm. Continue.”

“He’d booked us rooms at the Langham, which I thought was much too expensive for him, but he said it was a treat for my graduation.”

“What was his profession, then?”

“He started off in the Army, but he resigned his commission after the first Gulf War and joined the diplomatic service.”

“As?”

“An attaché. Just an office job, basically. Visas and helping distressed tourists and so on.”

“And his rank in the army?”

“Ah, he ended as a Lieutenant Colonel, I believe.

“Go on.”

“I flew to London, expecting him to pick me up at Heathrow, but he wasn’t there. No answer when I tried to call him. I took a cab to the Langham and asked if he’d checked in, and he had, but there was no answer when they called up to his room. Eventually they agreed to open the door – he’d had a heart attack a few years before, and I was getting very upset - and all of his things were in there, but no sign of him. I never saw him again.”

“Interesting. Did the police investigate?” John was patting her shoulder, sympathetically, which seemed excessive given that the death (and yes, it was death, almost certainly) was ten years in the past. She should have been well beyond it by this point. But upon closer observation, I could see that he was right: a slight swimminess around the eyes and the set of the jawbone indicating gritted teeth. Oedipal complex. She replied, calmly enough.

“Yes. They didn’t find anything.”

“Of course they didn’t. They never do. Did your father have any acquaintances in London?”

“Only one that they could find: a Major Sholto. He had no idea Dad was even in town.”

“Mmm. I doubt a disappearance ten years ago would incline you to seek the services of a consulting detective today. What has changed?”

Morstan cleared her throat and opened the battered leather attache case that had been sitting at her feet. From a manila folder, she removed a broadsheet page of yellowing newsprint, with a quarter-page sized advertisement in the upper right hand corner circled in red ink. The paper was the Omaha World-Herald, the date was May 4, 2004, and the advertisement simply stated:

“If Mary Morstan, daughter of Captain Thomas Morstan, will contact the address below, it will be to her advantage” followed by an email address.

“Half a dozen of my friends from high school saw this and forwarded it on to me.”

“And what did you do?”

“I sent them an email. I said I was Thomas Morstan’s daughter, that I’d relocated to London, and asked what they wanted.”

“Any reply?”

“No. And when I sent on a follow-up a few days later, it bounced. It was just Hotmail… could have been anyone. But then a few days after that, I received this in the mail.”

Reaching back into the attaché case, she pulled out a small pouch made of black jeweler’s felt. Loosening the drawstring, she tipped something small and square into her palm, and passed it over to me.

I could hear John inhale sharply through is teeth as I reached for my lens. Mary said, wryly, “Yes, that’s pretty much how I felt. It’s a three carat, blue-white, flawless diamond. Probably dug up in India, if that’s any help. It’s worth around $150,000, retail.”

“Unusual cut,” I murmured, looking at the magnified lump of crystallized charcoal, “It’s called the-“

“The old mine cut,” interrupted Mary, “Meaning it was most likely faceted sometime between 1700 and 1900. I know. After the police gave it back to me, I had it appraised at Sotheby’s.”

“You went to the police again?”

“I did.”

“Any good?”

“Not really. They hung onto it a while, but nobody reported any similar gems lost or stolen, and then they gave it back. Apparently it’s “not illegal to be given things.” So after that I was on my own. But I still didn’t feel right about it, so I had the appraisal to see if a real professional could find anything more useful.”

“Well done,” said John, heartily. He was in a fair way to make an idiot of himself over this woman, although she seemed flattered by the compliment.

“Thank you,” Mary replied, “And then, the thing is, Mr. Holmes, that it didn’t stop with this. Every year since then, on May 14, I get another one of these in my mail. I’ve changed addresses and it didn’t make a difference. Perfectly matched, very expensive diamonds. I left the rest of them in my safe deposit box: even carrying one of them around makes me edgy. And then, yesterday, there was this.”

She passed over a letter. Fine, high linen content paper, no watermark, 10-point… Trebuchet font, printed on an HP laserjet printer. It read, “Be at the third pillar from the left outside the Lyceum Theatre on Saturday, July 9 at seven o'clock. If you are distrustful, bring two friends. You are a wronged woman, and shall have justice. Do not bring police. If you do, all will be in vain. Your unknown friend.”

There was no signature or address.

“Did you keep the envelope?”

“Yes, here. And here,” she said, passing over a small heap of padded mailers sealed into plastic zip-topped bags, “Are the envelopes the diamonds came in.”

“Well, you do have the right instincts. Not much to see here, though… the letter and the last three packages had their labels off the same printer. The first four were from another. It stretches credulity to think that there are separate groups doing this so we’ll assume for the moment it was simply a matter of replacing an outdated device. The mailers can be bought anywhere. Various London postmarks… thumbprint on this one, Miss Morstan, may I see your right hand please? Thank you. Your thumbprint. I’ll put them under the microscope later but I doubt there’ll be that much to learn.”

“And you’ve no idea at all who may have sent these? No… admirers, things like that?” John asked.

She laughed at that. “Generally, when men are interested in me they go more for things like asking me to dinner rather than anonymously sending me a million dollars in gems over the course of seven years. I’m not that unapproachable.” I rolled my eyes at their stale flirtation, although I don’t believe either of them noticed it.

“But…” she continued, more hesitantly, “Mr. Holmes, do you think that there’s any possibility that these are from my father?”

John was glaring at me, and so instead of saying “Of course not. He’s been dead for ten years,” replied “I’m afraid it’s very unlikely.”

“I see,” Mary replied, quietly. She drew a deep breath and continued, “Well, regardless, I had planned to go… unless you can give me a real reason not to. If whoever it is wants to hurt me it seems like they’ve chosen a really baroque way of going about it. I mean, they already know where I live so it’s not like there’s much point in avoiding them. And I’m getting sick of this mystery.”

“There are, however, a few points of interest in it. As you are allowed to bring two friends and John is already planning on accompanying you, I believe I shall join him.”

She darted her gaze back and forth between us, smiling, “Really? You will? Both of you? Oh, thank you, thank you so much! This whole saga has just been so shady and I didn’t know anyone who’d be any help with this kind of thing. It’s such a weight off my mind. Thank you.”

She was gushing, and her voice had inevitably pitched up again. I responded calmly with, “Yes, well. Can you be here by five thirty on Saturday? And leave us your contact information.”

“Of course!”

And, writing an email address and a phone number on a sheet of scrap paper, she disappeared in a whirl of gratitude.

John rose to escort her to the door. I remained seated, and began texting.

“That, he said, picking up his carrier bags and taking them into the kitchen, “Was a very attractive woman.”

“Hadn’t noticed.”

“Really. I knew you were a human adding machine but I never thought you were actually dead. Sherlock, it’s an objective fact! She’s got a beautiful smile.”

“Very short.”

“Oh, come on. She’s an inch or two shorter than I am.”

While this statement would not actually exclude “short” from consideration, I simply raised my eyebrows and replied, “Women have developed this remarkable technology called shoes which they use when they wish to increase their height, John. She’s no more than five feet tall.”

“Yes, well, shortness is not a handicap, Sherlock. And she’s clever.”

“She’s adequate.”

“And brave. She was going to walk by herself into a threatening situation just because she wanted to find out the truth.”

“So are you. So am I, for that matter. I fail to see why it’s so much more meritorious when it’s her doing it.”

“I’m a combat-trained military reservist, and you are England’s only consulting detective. It’s our job. She’s a very small maths teacher.”

I set down the mobile and glared at him, “Mary Morstan, John, is in no need of your protection. This affair of the diamonds is a mere personal intrigue. She’ll meet with the woman and resolve it without the benefit of your attention.”

He paused from putting the potatoes in the bin and inquired, “It’s a woman sending the diamonds? You’re sure?”

In general, I don’t admit which of my deductions I’m certain of and which are (very good) guesses. Maintaining a reputation as infallible isn’t a trivial exercise. But John had repeatedly earned the truth from me, and so I said, “No, I’m not. I’m reasonably confident, given the font choice, the computer used, and the wording, that it’s a woman, and a rather melodramatic one. But there’s more – uncertainty in these things than I would like.”

John chuckled. “I should take a picture of you right now and call it ‘Sherlock Holmes admitting he might be wrong’. They’d love to have it down at the Yard. So why take the case if you don’t think there’s any mystery?”

“Oh, there is one, just not the “why is someone sending me expensive gemstones” one she came in with. Can you log on to the GRO database and look something up for me? My email address and password will get you in.”

“Sure,” he said, walking back into the sitting room and picking up his laptop, “What?”

“Deaths. Start by looking for “Sholto” in late April, early May of 2005. If that doesn’t bring up anything, look for ex-military, older, in London, same time frame.”

“Right. What are you going to do?”

I held up my mobile. “I’ve done it. I’ve sent a text to brother Mycroft.”

“Why?”

“Watson, when a man leaves a high rank role in the army to become a low-end functionary in the diplomatic service, what does that suggest?”

“Er, PTSD?”

“No. It suggests spy. I want to find out exactly what Thomas Morstan did for a living.”

A week after that, Mary Morstan arrived punctually back at Baker Street. She’d replaced the dowdy suit with trousers and a blue blouse cut low in the front, left off her glasses, and undone her severe bun to let her hair hang over her shoulders. She had chosen flat shoes this time, which was a relief, as it showed the target of all this display was John rather than me.

Six hours after that, I saw that the display had been successful. I had to physically restrain John from going to her as she was handcuffed and loaded into a black maria for the murder of Barbara Sholto. As typical of Americans, she was explaining loudly and slowly to the arresting officer that there had been a terrible misunderstanding, clearly expecting this to rectify the situation.

“John, look,” I said, sotto voce, as I pinned him to the wall of the alley, “If you go over there you’ll only be arrested too. Athelney Jones has already picked up the entire domestic staff and Theresa Sholto and would be only too happy to increase his bag. The man’s an idiot, even by the standards of the metropolitan police. We’ll text Lestrade to let him know, and the worst she’ll have is a few uncomfortable hours, but we need to be on our way if we’re going to actually catch the killer which is the only thing that will do her any good.”

Even that early, I suspected that Mary would not be as swiftly forgotten as the rest of the girlfriends.

Three days later, Mary was a free woman again. The lost crown jewels of the Russian Tsars, of which she had been offered a one-third share, were scattered along six miles of the bottom of the Thames. She had accepted this development with equanimity. As she said to John, “Even if they hadn’t been lost, it’s not like I was expecting to keep them. I’m sure there’s still some Romanovs somewhere who’d like to have them back. The whole time Teresa was telling me the story of how she got them I kept thinking “Yeah, this kind of stuff doesn’t happen in real life.””

I heard, while they were falling in love, enough of “The Things Mary Says” to gag a cat. I heard about Mary’s feelings on politics, the arts, and current events. I heard about Mary’s emotional turmoil on the discovery that her father was an intelligence agent who had taken the pay of so many competing nations and organizations that even now nobody could say who he had really worked for. And that was apart from his being a jewel thief. I heard enough recitations of her personal charm, intelligence, and integrity to gag a dog.

Not being enamored of her, I was able to observe her far more clearly. I saw that she omitted to mention during the investigation that she was already in receipt of seven perfectly-matched flawless three carat blue-white diamonds, pulled from a coronet made for some forgotten Tsarina. I saw no reason to bring it up to anyone, if she had overcome her scruples about receiving stolen property. I would rather the money have gone to John than to anyone else, and it was clear by that point that it would.

Over the next months, Mary incorporated herself into John’s life, and thus, into mine. I grew accustomed to the scent of her cosmetics in the flat’s shared w.c. (she was a disgustingly early riser and had usually gone before I woke up), and the sounds of their post-sex conversation from the upstairs bedroom (they kept the actual lovemaking quiet, out of politeness, but the after-chat was quite distinct). I drew the line, however, at allowing her to tidy the place. She didn’t understand the system and would have made a hash of it.

Ultimately, just over six months after the day she rang the bell at Baker Street, I found myself ordering a round of tequila shots at the bar of the White Lion and slipping chloral hydrate into three of them. Earlier, Mary had balanced on tiptoe to kiss my cheek and whisper in my ear “Can you please try not to let them get him too drunk?” I carried the round back to the table where a flushed and grinning but not yet weaving Watson listened as a dozen of his Army and medical school friends speculated on whether Mary would qualify him as “Four-Continents Watson” or if the actual location of the coitus mattered more than the origin of the lady in question. I passed the shot glasses around, judging that the administration of three Mickey Finns to three particular members of the party would bring the night to a graceful but early end in about an hour.

I judged, as usual, correctly. After decanting the three dazed ringleaders into a cab, the party broke up, and John and I made it back to Baker Street with only slightly more difficulty than usual. The stairs did give him some trouble, but ultimately I was able to successfully deposit him on the couch. I shook two aspirin from the bottle and handed them to him along with a glass of water. He took both uncomplainingly.

“Sherlock?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks. For whatever you did back there. I’d hate to be a mess tomorrow.”

“I looked up the duties of the best man and apparently making sure the groom is present and presentable are tops on the list.”

“And you even agreed to wear a tie!” This non sequitur amused him, and he chuckled at his own joke for a moment, before sobering (comparatively), and staring around the flat. “I’m going to miss all this.”

“No, you won’t,” I predicted, climbing the stairs to fetch the blankets off his bed.

“I will!” he insisted, “I’m happy, really happy, about Mary. She’s wonnerful. But I’ll miss this life. And you.”

“It’s not as though I’ll be dead. You’ll be ten minutes away. I’ll be sure to call you whenever I need my cases blogged.”

“I love you, mate, you know that? Even though you are- just such a prick.”

I smiled and pitched the blankets at his head. “I do. Tosser. Now go to sleep. You have a busy day ahead of you.”

He was out and snoring, wearing everything but his shoes, five minutes later. I refilled his water glass and left it on the end table.

At noon the next day I (wearing not only a tie but my entire morning suit) stood at John’s left shoulder and watched Mary Morstan walk down the aisle. I doubt she saw me: her eyes were fixed on John, who was sober, alert, and in full dress uniform, as requested. The expression of love and joy on her face obliged me to concede that, at the moment, she was in fact a very attractive woman.

I don’t think I could have given him up to anyone who loved him even a bit less.

At the reception I gave a speech which everyone said was very interesting, and drank one and a half glasses of inferior Prosecco. I watched them cut the cake, noting that the new Mrs. Watson was far more comfortable with John’s ceremonial saber than he was. She’d lost the callosities of the dedicated fencer, but the skill remained. Then, as Molly Hooper was prowling around with an eye towards dancing and my actual duties were complete, I slipped out of the hall and walked back to Baker Street.

I stopped in at the chemists and bought a packet of cigarettes, then let myself into the flat. There was a peculiar sensory illusion that it was larger and emptier than normal: nonsense, of course. John was routinely absent when I was there. The fact that the absence would now be permanent didn’t alter the actual physical size of the place.

There was always work, and heedless of my dress clothes, I went to it. Three months later, I “died.” And three years after that, I returned to a London which seemed larger and emptier than I recalled. Sensory illusion again. The softer emotions have a very negative impact upon accurate observation, and the world in general doesn’t change at all when a single person drops out of it. On an individual level, though, a single death can rip the bottom out of everything. Such was the case with Mary Watson, who I encountered on a bright August day in Park Lane. She’d lost a stone in weight, which was significant at her height, and was wearing an oversized camel-colored cardigan which I recognized with a pang as being one of Watson’s. She had, in general, the appearance of a child’s toy where the stuffing had been pulled out. I approached her, unseen, as her attention was on Ronald Adair’s flat. When she lost her composure and fled, I hesitated. Then I followed. There were two reasons for this. The first, as always, was John. I couldn’t envision a situation where he would not have come to the aid of a crying woman. In the particular case of Mary, he’d have sprinted to it.

As for the second, well… On the occasion of the case of Neville St. Claire, John had said to me that, “People in trouble come to my wife like birds to a light-house.”

And I truly had nowhere else to go. Chapter 3: The Death of Ronald Adair (Mary)

In general, I am not a fainter, and I didn’t faint then. But a grey mist swirled in front of my eyes, and when it subsided I noticed I had dropped the cigarette onto the well-clipped Hyde Park grass. I picked it up with numb, nerveless fingers. With my other hand I reached out to Sherlock and pushed on the flesh of his bicep. He was reassuringly solid.

“So I haven’t gone mad.”

“No.”

“Not dead, then?”

“Yes.”

I took a drag from the Silk Cut and asked, “Does anyone else know besides me?”

“Mycroft.”

“Of course.”

“And Molly Hooper.”

“That bitch!” I exclaimed, before I could stop myself. I wouldn’t quite have called Molly a friend. We didn’t see much of one another, but her quiet competence had gotten me through the hellscape of the funeral. I found it startlingly painful to believe that she had been concealing a secret like this- especially from John.

Sherlock quirked an eyebrow at me and said, “You’re harsher on her than on Mycroft?”

“There is nothing that I would put past one of the Holmes boys.”

He sighed, and drew on his own cigarette. The sun dipped below the treetops and set us into shadows.

“Sherlock,” I asked, eventually, “What do you want?”

“I need a gun.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ. Of course you do.”

“Mary, please-“ and he hesitated. He and I had never been more than “friendly”, and he certainly had never been inclined to ask any favors of me.

“You’re still in trouble, aren’t you?” I accused.

He hesitated again.

“Yes.”

“Right,” I said, brushing off my pants and rising, “We’ll talk. Baker Street, or our place? My place.”

“Baker Street is being watched.”

“Can we take a cab?”

“Probably.”

It was actually very impressive, how he collapsed his face into that of the Cockney souvenir hawker. He even seemed to lose several inches in height. The stage lost an excellent actor when he decided to go into detective work.

We walked in silence back to Park Lane, and took a cab (after he’d dismissed the first one that tried to stop). He sat next to me in silence, until a horrible thought overtook me, and I said, “Oh, God, has anyone told you? About-“

“Your… bereavement? Yes. I was… very sorry to hear of it.”

It was a relief. It had already happened several times: some colleague or acquaintance who I hadn’t seen in a while would, in the course of ordinary chit-chat, drop, “Oh, and how’s John doing?” into the conversation. And then I would have to watch their faces change from polite disinterest to horror and pity as I gave them the news. I would say it was the worst thing I had to do, but I had developed an entire new suite of worst things in recent months and was somewhat spoiled for choice.

We didn’t speak any further until I let us into the flat.

“Have a seat. I’ll just go get it.”

John, given that he was occasionally prone to physically violent nightmares, had always kept the Sig Sauer semi-automatic securely locked away in a box in the master bedroom closet. I retrieved it, and returned to the living room. Sherlock had installed himself in his old favorite spot on the sofa, and Arthur had climbed onto the arm next to him. They were watching each other with matching expressions of flat-eyed distaste.

“I don’t know where the key is,” I said, passing the box over.

“It’s fine,” he replied. And indeed, he materialized a lockpick from somewhere and opened it within ten seconds.

He’d removed his auburn wig, although he still had on an excellent shade of lipstick for his complexion: a glossy transparent berry-stain. It was almost the only color on his face. Whatever he’d been up to, it was doing no favors for his health. I wouldn’t have thought he could have gotten thinner or paler, barring his contracting tuberculosis or vampirism. And yet, he had managed. At some point, he’d cut his hair off close to the scalp, and it was faintly peppered with grey. Sherlock was a year or two younger than I, but at the moment I could see what he would be like as an old man.

“You know that thing’s illegal, right?” I said.

“It’s not something that’s a real concern just at the moment,” he returned, calmly.

“It should probably be cleaned. It’s not been touched since… well, I’m not sure of the last time John cleaned it.”

“It will be fine. They’re very simple instruments and Watson was always over-cautious. I didn’t clean my old one for years and it never had any problems.”

“That’s because John would secretly do it for you every few months.”

One of the small pleasures in life that everyone should get to experience at least once is to watch Sherlock Holmes’ face when he is informed that one of the normals has gotten something past him. I had to suppress a flicker of a smile at how thunderous he looked.

“Look,” I said, “Give it here and I’ll do it. The cleaning kit’s on the top shelf above the stove in the kitchen, if you’ll reach it down for me.”

I could hear him rummaging around in the cabinet as I released the clip, disconnected the slide, and popped out the spring. I laid everything down on the coffee table and accepted the kit when he returned and gave it to me. When I sighted down the barrel, I could see ample dust, and a fair bit of corrosion from the soggy English atmosphere. It only made sense, really. When Sherlock had died, John had lost any professional reason to carry a gun, and gained a strong personal reason to lock it away and leave it to rust. Dipping the cleaning swab into the wide-mouthed jar of solvent, I began passing it through the barrel.

“’In a self-defense situation, there will be many things you can’t control. The condition of your weapon is not one of them,’” I quoted.

“Did Watson say that?”

“No, though he’d have agreed with the sentiment. That was my stepfather. He was the one who taught me about shooting.”

Sherlock blinked at me. “I didn’t know you had a stepfather.”

“Like everyone else, I do actually have an objective existence apart from the parts you find interesting, Sherlock.”

I sounded bitter, but I didn’t care. I had been the one to put John back together after Sherlock’s quote-unquote death, and having him sitting calmly on my sofa irked.

“I only meant,” he replied, “That he wasn’t at your wedding.”

“He has congestive heart failure and travel is very difficult for him!” I snapped,

“Sherlock, why the hell did you do this?”

“Well, I had in fact been exposed as a fraud and-“

“Bullshit. You have been more or less cleared for two years and I’m sure your brother told you that. D.I. Lestrade had to demonstrate that you weren’t, in general, a criminal, because he wanted to keep his job. Fifty people, including me, by the by, came forward to tell stories of how you had solved cases that you couldn’t possibly have faked. The only real mystery remaining is this whole affair with Richard Brook, and frankly the best person to justify that would have been you.”

He scrubbed his hands through the bristles of his hair. “There was more.”

“So tell me.”

Sherlock sighed, and stared off into the space over my left shoulder. “When the head of an organization is removed, the organization generally remains. John Kennedy is shot, the United States persists. The death of Jim Moriarty left a thriving multinational criminal organization with a vacancy at the top for which there were numerous keen candidates. I have spent the last three years attempting to take advantage of this situation and dismantle its operations entirely.”

Something about the cold way he said “dismantle” made me think I really didn’t want to hear much about this process. I asked, “And you couldn’t have done that in your own persona?”

“No. Because- Moriarty was in many ways a remarkable man.”

The tone of this statement was pure admiration, and I rubbed my forehead where I could feel the old familiar “Sherlock” headache coming on. “How’s that?” I asked.

“I don’t want to say he founded a cult of personality, but in his immediate circle were several men who genuinely did admire him and support him in his goals, as opposed to the ordinary hangers-on who simply were in it for the profit.”

“So, his friends.”

“What?”

I sighed. “Never mind. Continue.”

#quarto's fics #warstan #Sherlock&Mary #major character death #Mary morstan #mary morstanning #ACD Mary in BBC Sherlock #which used to be a thing

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