#mystery AND problem solved give me money

[twistedappletree]

Look, I just think we as a fandom have not considered an alternative Hansry ending where Jitka is a lesbian, her and Hans are in a lavender marriage and have agreed to let each other do whatever the hell they please when it comes to lovers. Jitka gets to pursue all the beautiful lady knights and court damsels while Henry and Hans continue being grossly in love disaster bisexuals who go on way too many hunting trips. Everyone respects each other, nobody’s unhappy because they’re all getting what they want and nobody outside of their relationship can sabotage it because they’re all in agreement with the situation and can just laugh in their faces while being absolutely, unapologetically queer.

[fishnapple]

People's assumptions about you

This reading is about the assumptions people in general have about you. Which might not be true to how you really are.

This is a general reading meant for multiple people. Take only what resonates and leave out the rest.

Your feedback is much appreciated. If you find the reading resonated with you, leave a comment, I’d love to know 🎐

About me | Masterpost

Book a reading with me - KO-FI (→ personal reading)

LILAC

• You have a quiet, mysterious vibe that makes people think you have been through a lot. This kind of being experienced creates a sense of knowing, like nothing can faze you, you have seen enough, the good, the bad, everything in between about life.

• They also assume you wield your power well, you're used to it and you can use it to seduce people or to deter them from getting closer. There's a contradictory feeling about you, on one hand, you seem intense and seductive, on another, you're aloof and impartial. So people think that you just like to appear attractive for the sake of being attractive, not to attract anything or anyone in particular.

• Those who are lucky enough to get into your inner circle will be treated differently, with generous care and intuitive understanding.

• They could think you're from a religious background. Or someone with mixed races and have a diverse religious background.

• They could assume you come from money or are well taken care of.

• You seem to be good at learning, fast thinker, intelligent. No matter how you actually think about your intelligence, people will assume you're smart and don't have trouble solving problems. Maybe you talk fast, have knowledge about a wide variety of subjects or people usually see you learning, researching something, especially about some niche or taboo subjects. This also contributes to your mysterious aura.

• Some could assume you like casual relationships. You revel in social interactions, you can chat anyone up and have some friendly banters with them. You enjoy hanging out with people but you don't want to be involved too deeply with anyone. Your goal in interactions with people is usually to learn something new, to satiate your curiosity. Again, the thought of getting close to you, being considered more special than the rest by you, is a great ego boost to some people.

• You're good at hiding your more unsavoury side. People generally think you're calm and worry-free but some will have a little suspicion that you're hiding your negativity, it's like they can't believe there's actually anyone who has no worry or problem. Especially if you're being anxious about the future, feeling lonely or lost, you won't show it. The people who suspect about this will likely want to dig deep to get to see your problems.

GRAPEFRUIT

• You have a brilliant aura that makes people automatically assume you have it easy in life. Like someone who has been treated so well by life that they are so positive and lighthearted.

• Enthusiastic and mischievous, people will assume you're younger than your actual age.

• You have no problem convincing someone, pulling someone to your side purely by talking and debating. People can see your cleverness and humour clearly.

• People think you have a fast lifestyle, always on the move, rarely at home, never sitting still, don't settle down. They assume you have an extensive travel backlog. Some will want to give you advice about settling down, having a stable family life. Maybe they think you're too young or have too many things going on for you to consider those topics seriously, but you will, in the future.

• Based on your cheerful or carefree demeanour, some will guess you are not well disciplined or are spoiled. They think your upbringing was a little loose and lacked proper guidance, resulting in a freestyle way of living.

• Maybe the way you dress or the things you use will make people think you're careless about money or have a lot to spare. You like shopping, hoarding material possessions and are just generous with your money in general.

• Some could assume you're too easy-going and simple-minded, despite your expression of cleverness, like someone who is easy to be taken advantage of, gullible. Some would want to protect you because of that, others would want to take advantage of that.

• You seem to be well liked and have no trouble getting a date. If you're single, they will just assume that you probably don't want to commit, prefer to stay single by choice, if you want to, people would jump at the chance to date you.

• Some would think you prefer older people for friendship and connections in general, you like to be spoiled and taken care of. But they also can sense that you treasure your friendships greatly, those who can stick to you through thick and thin will be revered and respected by you.

• Some can see you easily getting stressed, over exerting or are afflicted with some illness frequently. They might think to themselves that's the consequences of living a fast life, or you're going through some stressful situations that you don't want to talk about.

PEAR

• Maybe your reputation precedes you. People could form assumptions of you based on what they heard about you, not necessarily from interactions with you. They think that you're really a go-getter, ambitious, if not sometimes ruthless. You act on your impulses and zero in your targets, you get what you want, one way or another. They could feel that being the target of your gaze would equal to being a prey. You could give off a no-nonsense and efficient vibe that won't tolerate misbehaviour and disrespect.

• But they also feel that you put great value on friendship and community bonds. You would be a great leader, a pioneer, a protector of your group.

• The thing is, not many assumptions about your are correct. People could hear or see one aspect of you and proceed to make up a whole story about you. You could be a favourite topic in gossip. Some would put you on a pedestal and can't see you do anything wrong, while some would be so ready to find any dirt about you to make you seem less than ideal.

• Some would assume you have unique dreams that you want to achieve. Those that normal people won't understand or sympathise with. You're on your own road, doing your own things. People think you're really daring, you won't sit contentedly with what you're having, you're not afraid to upset the status quo. If you find a new inspiration, a new objective, you will be ready to pack your bag and get up and go, leaving behind everything you have achieved. In a less dramatic sense, people sense that you have the ability to let go, to search for a new horizon without attachment to the past.

• Speaking of the past, some would think that you're a nostalgic person. Some hobbies and favourite things of yours are those of the past. You might still keep doing or enjoying something that you had done when you were a child. Childhood could be your soft spot, the one thing that you guard so fiercely.

• They feel that you come from a traditional family with parents in their traditional roles. And somehow, you don't want to follow their footsteps, you want to rebel, to challenge that system. You might want to stay single and independent, focusing on yourself rather than family and partnership.

• If you ever get into a partnership, people think that would involve some deals and terms, something beneficial that is worthwhile of your effort. You approach every partnership like a business one, negotiating the terms, striking a deal, exchanging of values.

CHERRY

• People think you're in a purging period. You're not satisfied with your current life and the direction it's going. It's like you've reached a plateau, you need to find a new direction, a new way of living your life. And people think you're really brave for that intention, you're not afraid to discard unnecessary things, old thinking patterns, limited beliefs. You're willing to give yourself a makeover. Fears seem to not faze you at all, there seem to be no emotional turmoil. You act with your instincts and your heart's desire, charging forward.

• But people don't think you're a flaky, changeable person. You only change when your life demands it, your ultimate goal is stability and a stronger foundation.

• On the topic of instincts, some people feel you're really spontaneous in love. You fall in love easily, suddenly, with the naivete of a child. You love being in love, you don't take into consideration other practical matters surrounding a relationship, you just jump in for the pure bliss of romance.

• They would guess that you're usually the one doing the pursuing and confessing first. There could be a pattern in the people you're attracted to or a pattern in your relationships. Some would think, quietly, that you might be not aware of some deeper aspects within yourself, manifesting as these patterns. Like a certain part of you is repressed or neglected, so you seek that part in the other person.

• But in general, people think you have a lot of love to give. Your brave heart is undeniable.

• Other than romance, people also think that you're artistic and creative. Your ideas are unique and refreshing, some could be a little too grand, too far reaching. Some could guess that your job involves this kind of artistic talent.

• The way you act makes some feel that you're being sheltered by the people around you, like a precious child being protected by the community. But there's no envy or negative emotion here, they just observe that and can understand by themselves why you're like that. There's a honesty, a purity of thoughts in the way you express yourself and the way you share with people. They think you deserve that kind of good treatment.

• Also, due to that perceived honesty, some would feel comfortable confiding in you, they trust that you would keep their secrets for them.

GOLD

• The first thing people would assume about you is that you love hanging out with people, socialising, and having superficial fun with anyone you come across. You seem lighthearted like an excited kid in the middle of a carnival, wanting to see everything, to taste everything.

• People also think you like to shine, to feel seen and applauded. You're gregarious and seem to have no difficulty being yourself in front of a crowd. A bright confidence. Some would assume you like to be in a crowd because you like the attention. But most just assume you're friendly and have an extrovert nature.

• A few would try to guess the base of your desire to mingle with people. They think you're lonely or are sad about something, and you want to soothe that feeling by being with people, seeking the warmth of others. But most people don't seem to think too deeply about your nature, some would even find it hard to believe you're having some emotional turmoil inside.

• Some with a more suspicious nature might think you like to use joke and sarcasm to mask your insecurities and the difficulties you're having in your life. They think you're running away from the problems, trying to stay positive while a future disaster is pressing on your nerves. They think you need to change something or to be more brave in taking a new endeavour. It's not malicious though, they want to help and support you because they think you have potential.

• Right now, you seem to be pretty settled down with your life, doing things routinely, repeating days after days, like a drill. Some think that you're running in circles, wasting your time by immersing in the mundane details of other people's lives while refusing to look further for your own life. Or they assume your work requires that kind of lifestyle. You seem like a busybee, moving, talking constantly.

• People would assume based on your outgoing nature and the carefree way you show yourself, you have an active and passionate sex life. Your sexuality might be the question lots of people have in mind. Some would assume you can be quite dominant and aggressive in bed.

HONEY

• The assumptions about you would change a lot with time. Each period of your life will be accompanied by different assumptions from people. Could be that with each period, you are in a different environment with different types of people. So their values and beliefs would be different. Consequently, their assumptions about you and everything around them in general would be different. But the common point between these assumptions is that, they usually don't reflect your true self very well, people would likely be surprised when they get closer to you.

• At first glance, they assume that you're very passionate and full of ardour. You're optimistic and like to believe in a bright future, regardless of your current situation.

• People would think that you're a relationship person. Another group also has a passionate and confident air about them when it comes to love and romance, but yours is softer and feels more mature. People think you don't chase love, but by being so intensely you, you attract love wherever you go.

• They would assume that being love by you would be an unforgettable experience, the kind of love that is so pure and nurturing, where you can put your heart out into the open. Some people would fall for your perceived ability to love. Your potential of being a lover.

• Right now, you seem to focus more on securing material comfort and building a foundation for yourself rather than focusing on relationships. You can be perceived as a very hardworking person, to the point of being a workaholic. The people who want to approach you think you don't have time for them. You completely committed yourself to your work and study. Determined to be stable and thriving.

• Money and material possessions might be a source of comfort for you. They think you would try everything to achieve that, even using some tricks or personal talents to help you get ahead. Nothing too serious or negative though, they just feel that you have a knack for completing tasks faster, skillful and flexible.

• If someone knows more about your upbringing and the traditional values surrounding it, they would assume that the you right now is rebelling against those values. It's like you've reinvented yourself anew, away from the old values that no longer resonate with you. You could have been disillusioned by them, a naive believer. But now you stand on your own, find and build your own set of values. You could change your jobs, your studies, your living places because of that.

[koolades-world]

Headcanons of the obey me brothers with a GN!MC who doesn't have much money and can rarely buy things they likes?

hi! sure thing!

i think i might've done something similar to this, but even if i have, i'll do it anyways!

enjoy <3

Mc who doesn't have a lot of money

Lucifer

his brothers get an allowance

but you? you get the special treatment

he gives you your own card with access to his account

anything you could possible want and need, he promises to cover for you. and don't even think about paying him back!

Mammon

he's guaranteed spoiling you

if you look at something for too long, suddenly it's sitting on your bed

he can scale it back a little if you ask him to

but sometimes, he just sees something he knows you'll just love and can't help himself

Levi

if you even remotely express interest in a new game coming out

mysteriously, it'll come into your possession along with game merch

however, he always comes up with a new excuse each time on why he had it

you could try to ask him; if you want him to be red for the rest of the night haha

Satan

anything you could ever want, he will get

he's got connections practically everywhere

of course, if what you want is a day with him, he can get you that too

anything to see you smile <3

Asmo

he makes sure you're invited to every party he throws

however, if that's not your thing

he's got fancy dinners with your name on it!

he wants you to feel spoiled !

Beel

if you ever need to vent to him, he's there to listen

and. of course, he's going to help you solve your problems

who would he be if he didn't?

whatever he can do to make you feel better, he will

Belphie

to him, the luxury is in the little things

so, he makes sure you have those things that make everyday life just that little bit better

if you're not convinced though, he's going to get you to test drive his premium pillows and blankets

you're more than welcome to test them for the next week if you'd like. he wouldn't mind

[worth-the-chaos]

Adventures in Babysitting Masterlist (ongoing)

Series Summary: As Dustin’s babysitter, you encounter the perils of the Upside Down as you try desperately to rid Hawkins of the evil lurking just below the surface. However, you’re not alone; you have the gaggle of kids as well as the one and only Steve Harrington by your side as you risk your lives attempting to solve the mysteries of your once quiet rural town | steve harrington x fem!reader (message me to be added to the taglist!)

Chapter summaries and links below the cut!

SEASON 1

Part 1 - You haven’t been babysitting Dustin for very long. Underestimating his tendencies for rebellious behavior, you realize too late that he’s snuck out, with your dire search for the boy leading you to the last place you wanted to be: Steve Harrington’s house. | Word Count: 6.5k

SEASON 2

Part 2 - With the events of last fall in the past, you attempt to move on, still working on your academics and babysitting Dustin. You and Steve have drifted since your encounter with the otherworldly, but he begins to make more active efforts to talk to you, making sure you have an invite to Tina’s big Halloween party. | Word Count: 6.3k

Part 3 - Billy is still hitting on you, Steve’s still mad, and Dustin’s still a pain in the ass to babysit. When he tells you and Steve that there’s a massive problem of upside down proportions, the two of you have no choice but to drop everything to help the boy, reprising your roles as badasses who eradicate the supernatural in Hawkins. | Word Count: 7.0k

Part 4 - Looking for Dart isn’t easy, but it gives you and Steve a lot of time to have a heart to heart, as you slowly start to realize your feelings for one another. | Word Count: 6.5k

Part 5 - The situation with the demogorgons gets increasingly more dire, leading you to the Byers’ house to wrangle four kids that can’t listen to save their lives (literally) while everyone tries desperately to save Will and the world. | Word Count: 8.9k

SEASON 3

Part 6 - It’s summer, and you and Steve are working at Scoops Ahoy so that you can make money while Dustin is at summer camp. The lines between friends and something more continue to blur as your relationship with Steve gets more intimate, allowing doubt to creep in…and the Russians are invading Hawkins. | Word Count: 6.4k

Part 7 - You continue attempting to translate the code, commencing your operation to determine the nature of Russian involvement in Hawkins. Robin and Dustin continue their attempts to push the two of you together, tired of the mutual pining…oh and Erica has enough sass to probably take out an entire Russian army. | Word Count: 5.9k

Part 8 - Well, the five of you do get in that secret room, but the problem is you can’t quite find a way out. Tensions rise as you realize the gravity of the situation, the forced proximity revealing hard feelings between you and Steve. | Word Count: 7.2k

Part 9 - Held captive by the Russians, tensions rise and as you and Steve attempt to navigate communicating in a drugged up haze, your feelings for each other become even more apparent. | Word Count: 7.4k

Part 10 - The Russian invasion and the upside down begin to merge as you meet up with the rest of the crew. You are in the fight of your lives as you scramble to try to stop the monstrous creature from the upside down before it destroys you. | Word Count: 5.8k

SEASON 4

Part 11 - Steve and you are finally officially dating, the kids are finally in high school and no longer need any sort of official babysitting, and life is overall pretty damn good. You try to push aside the unease settling in your chest, but how long can you ignore it before it manifests into something much worse than you could possibly imagine? | Word Count: 6.7k

Part 12 - The evil that you thought you had gotten rid of is still very much lurking within Hawkins. You, your boyfriend, and your friends race against time to try and find Eddie before it’s too late. | Word Count: 6.5k

Part 13 - As you all attempt to connect the dots of the gruesome murders occurring around your small but sinister town, secrets start to spill when Steve realizes you’ve been keeping things from him. | Word Count: 7.2k

Part 14 - Nancy and Robin take a shot in the dark and Steve tries to protect you from the supernatural. When the darkness comes to get you, will his love be enough to protect you? | Word Count: 6.0k

Part 15 - Racing against the clock, you and your friends desperately attempt to connect the dots before it’s too late. Your efforts bring both progress and peril as you and your boyfriend dive headfirst into life-threatening scenarios in order to save each other. | Word Count: 8.8k

Part 16 - For all your encounters with the Upside Down you hadn’t had to deal with it directly. Now, in a fight in foreign territory, you and your friends must struggle to find your way back to the Hawkins that you are familiar with. | Word Count: 9.7k

Part 17 - After finding out more information about Vecna, you and your friends prepare for the worst, and tensions rise as you mentally prepare for the possibility of a future without you in it. | Word Count: 7.7k

Part 18 - You venture into the Upside Down once again in an attempt to find Vecna and stop him in his tracks before he can bring about the end of the world as you know it. With Steve and your friends by your side, you fight against time to get to Vecna before he can get to you. | Word Count: 7.2k

SEASON 5

Coming soon!

BLURBS

Steve takes care of your injuries | Word Count: 2.2k

[gardenschedule]

What Happened In India?

(or around that time...)

Before

Shortly before we were due to leave for India John spent the weekend with Derek Taylor, a former journalist who had become the Beatles' press spokesman and a good friend to us all. He, his wife Joan and their five children lived in a big country house where they seemed incredibly contented. When he came home after that weekend John put his arms around me and said, 'Let's have loads more kids, Cyn, and be really happy' Despite my increasingly strong feeling that John was slipping away from me, it seemed at moments like that as though nothing had changed. John was off drugs and seemed almost like his old self. 'We can make it work, Cyn,' he said. 'When we're in India we'll have time for us and everything will be fine.' I hoped he was right.

John (Cynthia Lennon)

Cyn hoped that Rishikesh would afford seclusion, privacy and an opportunity for her and John to rediscover each other and to revive their marriage. ‘Impossible hopes,’ she said sadly. ‘John said to me just before we went to India that he wanted us to have more children. Well that came out of the blue, I can tell you. I was really surprised, as he’d never said a word about that before.

Lesley-Ann Jones - The Search for John Lennon

Cynthia: “It was a time for us all to drop out for a while. The years of fame and fortune had taken their toll on our nerves and minds. John and I both felt closer. There seemed to be a greater possibility of our finding a solution to personal difficulties. If our trip to India wasn’t going to solve our emotional problems, then nothing would.”

The Beatles Off the Record (Keith Badman)

That letter made it crystal clear that they [John and Yoko] had been in contact. How well had they got to know one another? I tackled John, who told me she'd written many times, both letters and cards, but said, 'She's crackers, just a weirdo artist who wants me to sponsor her. Another nutter wanting money for all that avant-garde bullshit. It's not important.' I had no way of knowing whether he was telling me the truth. He sounded genuine, but a sixth sense told me there was more to this than he was admitting. I tried to put it to the back of my mind. We were going to India, and I wanted that to be a special time for us.

John (Cynthia Lennon)

John panicked at the accumulating threats from the Princess of Darkness. That was when he decided to go to India with Cynthia to put some distance between himself and Yoko. If he stayed away long enough, he could hope Yoko would just go away. Maybe she’d go back to America, or vanish in a puff of smoke. Her scissors act might go horribly wrong, or while she was bagged up one day the Royal Mail might frank the bag and deliver it to anywhere but India. Yes, a long trip to the ashram, where he could meditate and learn how to be calm and in control, give up drugs and spend romantic moments with Cynthia and glue his crumbling marriage back together, seemed opportune.

Magical Mystery Tours My Life with The Beatles by Tony Bramwell

“I don’t like the unhappiness she [Yoko] caused. She was horrible. John wanted to avoid her at first. He said, ‘Get rid of the bloody woman!’ But after India, he saw her differently — perhaps filtered through an exotic mindset.”

Tony Bramwell - the band’s ex-road manager

During

“The pressure of being the Beatles had driven a wedge between them individually and that had all percolated in the months leading up to their visit to Rishikesh,” he said. “Once they got there, and they unburdened themselves from all of that, they reconnected with their songwriting and their creativity. It just flowed forth.”

Bob Spitz to the New York Times

 “I was in a room for five days meditating,” said Lennon in The Beatles Anthology. “I wrote hundreds of songs. I couldn’t sleep and I was hallucinating like crazy, having dreams where you could smell. I’d do a few hours and they you’d trip off, three- or four-hour stretches. It was just a way of getting there, and you could go on amazing trips.” Cynthia Lennon said in Bob Spitz’s book The Beatles that for John, nothing else mattered when it came to mediation, adding “John and George were [finally] in their element [at the ashram]. They threw themselves totally into the Maharishi’s teachings, were happy, relaxed and above all found a piece of mind that had been denied them for so long.”

The Beatles in India: 16 Things You Didn’t Know

I was right in the Maharishi’s camp writing “I wanna die” you know. I’m So Tired and Yer Blues where they were pretty sort of realistic, you know, they were about me

Lennon Remembers

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da was born on the steps of one of the low slung cottages where the entourage lived. One day, remembers Saltzman, he was passing by the cottage when he saw Lennon and McCartney sitting on the front steps and strumming the tune on their acoustic guitars. He ran back, picked up the camera and took pictures of the two with a pensive-looking Starr sitting on the side, from outside a wicket gate. Saltzman remembers the two were singing the first two lines of the song "over and over again, going fast and slow, having fun". "That's the riff we have," McCartney told Saltzman, "but no words yet".

filmmaker Paul Saltzman

Jenny Boyd, Patti’s sister “I sat with John a lot, since he didn’t feel well, either from terrible jet lag, and insomnia. He would stay up late; unable to sleep, and write the songs that would later appear on The Beatles’ White Album. When I was at my lowest, he made a drawing of a turbaned Sikh genie holding a big snake and intoning, ‘By the power within, and the power without, I cast your tonsil lighthouse out!’ Sometimes, late at night, I can still hear John singing those sad songs he wrote during those evenings, like ‘I’m So Tired.’”

The Beatles Off the Record (Keith Badman)

John “I went to the Maharishi and, regardless of what I was supposed to be doing, I did write some of my best songs while I was there. It was a nice scene. Nice and secure and everybody was always smiling. The experience was worth it if only for the songs that came out. It could have been the desert or Ben Nevis. The funny thing about the Maharishi camp was that, although it was very beautiful and I was meditating about eight hours a day, I was writing the most miserable songs on earth, like ‘I’m So Tired’ and ‘Yer Blues.’”

The Beatles Off the Record (Keith Badman)

Meanwhile, I was not having the second honeymoon I'd hoped for. John was becoming increasingly cold and aloof towards me. He would get up early and leave our room. He spoke to me very little, and after a week or two he announced that he wanted to move into a separate room to give himself more space. From then on he virtually ignored me, both in private and in public. If the others noticed they didn't say so. I did my best to understand, begging him to explain what was wrong. He fobbed me off, telling me that it was just the effect of the meditation. 'I can't feel normal doing all this stuff,' He said. 'I'm trying to get myself together. It's nothing to do with you. Give me a break.' What I didn't know was that each morning he rushed down to the post office to see if he had a letter from Yoko. She was writing to him almost daily. When I learnt this later I felt very hurt.

John (Cynthia Lennon)

And because the Beatles didn’t know anything about ashrams and they haven’t seen anything before because they went for Maharishi, not for the ashram. Maharishi didn’t allow men to stay with their wives. John was delighted with the idea. He loved it, actually. I think it made Cynthia very unhappy. She wanted to stay with John, everybody had his own problems. My great interest was with John. I was very happy because I found John much healthier. The color in his face was different and he was happier and he took the whole thing very seriously, and he was trying hard and he was so excited when I arrived because perhaps I was part of the reason he was there.

Magic Alex in All You Need Is Love – Peter Brown & Steven Gaines

We all went through a depression after Maharishi and Brian died; it wasn’t really to do with Maharishi, it was just that period. I was really going through the “What’s it all about?” type thing – this songwriting is nothing, it’s pointless, and I’m no good, I’m not talented, and I’m shitty, and I couldn’t do anything but be a Beatle. What am I going to do about it? It lasted nearly two years and I was still in it during Pepper. I know Paul wasn’t at the time; he was feeling full of confidence, and I was going through murder during those periods. I was just about coming out of it around Maharishi, even though Brian had died – that knocked us back again. Well, it knocked me back.

John Lennon, interview w/ Barry Miles, (partially) unpublished. (September 23rd, 1969)

By spending two months in deep meditation in India, John brought his deepest problems to the surface but he was unable to resolve them: the contradiction between his family life and his life as a rock star with all the drugs and groupies was too great. Had he stayed with the Maharishi until the end of the course, he might have avoided some of the pain, but by terminating the instruction abruptly, he was left hanging in thin air. During the weeks at the camp, he had been receiving daily letters from Yoko, though nothing sexual had yet happened between them. He was very attracted by her but he felt tremendous guilt about breaking up his marriage: doing to Julian what his own parents had done to him, repeating the pattern.

Many Years From Now - Barry Miles

He [Mick Jagger] told me with amusement that the real reason why the Beatles left the Maharishi was that he made a pass at one of them: “They’re simple north-country lads; they’re terribly uptight about all that.” Am still not sure if I believe this story.

“The Sixties,” the second volume of Christopher Isherwood’s diaries

After

And I was slowly putting myself together after Maharishi, bit by bit over a two year period. I destroyed me ego and I didn’t believe I could do anything. I let Paul do what he want and say, them all of them do what they want, I was just nothing, I was shit. And then Derek tripped me out at his house after he got back from LA, and he sort of said you’re all right and pointed out which songs I’d written, and ‘you wrote this and you said this, you are intelligent, don’t be frightened’. And then next week I went down with Yoko and tripped out again and she filled me completely to realize I was me and it was alright.

Lennon Remembers

So much had changed since I’d last seen the Beatles just a few months previously. They had come back from their trip to India completely different people. They had once been fastidious and fashionable; now they were scruffy and unkempt. They had once been witty and full of humor; now they were solemn and prickly. They had once been bonded together as lifelong friends; now they resented one another’s company. They had once been lighthearted and fun to be around. Now they were angry.

Here, There and Everywhere - Geoff Emerick, Howard Massey

The rage that was bubbling inside John was the most obvious sign that something was seriously wrong. There was new tension between John and Paul, and even between John and Ringo, in addition to the often strained relationship that Paul had with George and the resentment that Ringo sometimes exhibited when Paul coached him too much on drum parts. In fact, the only two Beatles who seemed to get along during the White Album sessions were John and George. Perhaps that came from the experience they had shared at the ashram—after all, they were the two who had stuck it out, staying on long after Ringo and Paul had gone back home. Maybe they felt deserted by their bandmates, or betrayed. The undercurrents between the four Beatles were so complex at that point, it gave me a headache just thinking about it.

Here, There and Everywhere - Geoff Emerick, Howard Massey

Our first night back in the studio began, as usual, with small talk and catching up. “So how was India?” I asked. “India was okay, I guess… apart from that nasty little Maharishi,” John replied, venomously. Harrison looked deflated, as if it were a conversation they’d had many times before. With a deep sigh, he tried to calm his agitated bandmate. “Oh come on, he wasn’t that bad,” he interjected, earning a withering glance. Lennon’s bitterness and anger seemed almost palpable. Ringo tried deflecting things with a little humor. “It reminded me of a Butlins holiday camp, only the bloody food wasn’t as good,” he said with a wink. I glanced in Paul’s direction. He was staring straight ahead, expressionless and weary. He didn’t have much to say about India that day, or any other. I sensed at that moment that something fundamental in them had changed. They were searching for something, but they didn’t know quite what it was; they had journeyed to India looking for answers, and they were disappointed that they hadn’t found them there… but it seemed to me that they didn’t even know the questions.

Here, There and Everywhere - Geoff Emerick, Howard Massey

“By all accounts, John had hit an all-time low [after India]. “John was in a rage because God had forsaken him,” George recalled. “Then he went and completely reversed himself. He turned from being positive to being totally negative.” According to Pete Shotton, who was spending time with John at Weybridge, there was an overriding feeling of humiliation—from the Maharishi, from the Apple Boutique shambles, from his deteriorating marriage, from what he felt was his shrinking position in the Beatles. “He was more fucked up than I’d even seen him,” Shotton remembers. “It seemed like everything was going to the dogs. He’d been desperately grasping [at] straws, as far as I was concerned, and there wasn’t even a straw there.”

the beatles: the biography, bob spitz

JOHN: How can two women split up four strong men? It’s impossible. You know, The Beatles were disintegrating slowly after Brian Epstein died, it was a slow death, and it was happening. It was evident in Let It Be – uh, although Linda and Yoko were evident then, but they weren’t when it started, I don’t think. It was evident in – in India, when George and I stayed there and Paul and Ringo left.

October, 1971 (St Regis Hotel, New York)

There was little need for me to repeat my instructions. As soon as we got there, it was obvious that things were not hunky-dory with the Beatles. Their recent month-long meditation retreat with the Maharishi didn’t seem to have helped their relationships very much, and the estrangement was definitely having an effect on their work. I don’t think any actual recording got done that night. Paul, George and Ringo were rehearsing some new songs, trying different ways of playing and singing them. Meanwhile, John spent most of his time sitting on the floor next to Yoko, chatting privately with her as she stroked his hair. He seemed no more involved in the proceedings than me and Lawrence, who watched the uncomfortable tension building from the other side of the studio. “Hey John.” Paul turned around to face him at one point. “Are you in this band or what?”

Leslie Cavendish, The Cutting Edge: The Story of the Beatles’ Hairdresser Who Defined an Era

Back at Kenwood John continued to be distant towards me. Now that we were away from the others and the charms of India, I felt increasingly afraid and depressed. John and I were back in the same bed, but the warmth and passion we had shared for so long were absent. John seemed barely to notice me. He was little better with Julian and was more likely to snap at him than give him a hug. There was just one moment of real warmth between us and that was, ironically, when John confessed to me that he had been unfaithful. We were in the kitchen when he said, out of the blue, 'There have been other women, you know, Cyn.'

John (Cynthia Lennon)

On the flight back from India, he had gotten very drunk and, for some reason, decided to confess all his affairs to Cynthia. Brutally, he ticked off a very long list, which included groupies, models, prostitutes, the wives and girlfriends of his and Cynthia’s friends and, possibly cruelest of all, Cynthia’s own girlfriends. Cynthia felt totally betrayed.

Magical Mystery Tours My Life with The Beatles by Tony Bramwell

The shattering of his faith in the Maharishi, meanwhile, had left John spiritually adrift once more; his instinctive response was to return with a vengeance to his former drug habits. (Like the other Beatles, John had totally abstained from alcohol and drugs while in India.) In retrospect, it's easy to see how wide open John was, at this particular juncture, to anything—or anybody—that might conceivably lift him out of his rut.

The Beatles, Lennon, and me - Pete Shotton

PAUL: I gave myself a set period, and then if it was gonna be something we really had to go back for, I was thinking of going back. But at the end of my month I was quite happy and I thought… this’ll do me. This is fine. If I want to get into it heavy, I can do it anywhere. That’s one of the nice things about it, you don’t have to go to church to do it, you can do it in your own room. So I was quite happy.

RINGO: I left just a little disillusioned, and John was a little disillusioned when he came back, and Paul was. [pause] George just loved it.

1993 rough cut of the Anthology series

Although Paul was the first to leave [India] disillusioned, John left in the mind of, ‘OK, well, we tried, we surrendered to God but it wasn’t God, it was Maharishi and this God thing is proving itself to be a total fallacy’ - and then went back to being The Beatles.

I left Rishikesh with John. Alex [Madras] had been the naughty boy who’d stirred everything up. John went in a rage because God had forsaken him (although it was nothing to do with God, really). Then he went and completely reversed himself. He turned from being positive to being totally negative.

I went to South India […] and everything that happened to me went wrong to the point that I felt, like John and Alex, that the Maharishi had put the heeby-jeebies in me.

George Harrison, c/o Derek Taylor, Fifty Years Adrift. (1984)

JOHN: I’ve got no regrets at all, ‘cause it was a groove and I had some great experiences meditating eight hours a day—some amazing things, some amazing trips— it was great. And I still meditate off and on. George is doing it regularly. And I believe implicitly in the whole bit. It’s just that it’s difficult to continue it. I lost the rosy glasses. And I’m like that. I’m very idealistic. So I can’t really manage my exercises when I’ve lost that. I mean, I don’t want to be a boxer so much. It’s just that a few things happened, or didn’t happen. I don’t know, but something happened. It was sort of like a click and we just left and I don’t know what went on. It’s too near—I don’t really know what happened.

John Lennon, interview w/ Jonathan Cott for Rolling Stone: The first Rolling Stone interview. (November 23rd, 1968)

Cynthia Lennon “John had taken acid once more and enthused, ‘Cyn, it was great. Christ Cyn, we’ve got to have lots more children. We’ve got to have a big family around us.’ At this point, I burst into tears … All I could blurt out was that, in no way, could I see us as he did. I was so disturbed by John’s outburst, that I even suggested that Yoko Ono was the woman for him. John protested at my crazy suggestion and suggested that I was being ridiculous. Although life went on as usual, my fears grew and I felt nervous and depressed. John was aware of my depression and suggested that, as he had to work for long hours in the recording studios for a few weeks, I should accompany Jenny, Donovan, Gyspy and Alexis on a holiday to Greece. The very thought of sun and sea really brightened my outlook.”

The Beatles Off the Record (Keith Badman)

During the spring of 1968, John was as confused, lonely, and unhappy as I'd seen him in years. Though his relationship with the other Beatles was still free of serious strain, he was seeing increasingly less of Paul and George, both of whom were now pursuing independent lives and interests of their own.

In My Life, Pete Shotton

The resentment might have been coming from a different place. With his marital problems still unsettled and Cynthia gallivanting around Greece, drugs continued to govern John’s fitful moods. He dosed himself continuously with LSD, tweaking its random effect with any spare pills he happened to find lying around the house. In the right company, it plunged John into a deep, unfathomable trance that altered between indecipherable rambling and deadpan silences. At Weybridge, into which Pete Shotton had moved in order to keep his friend company, he stayed up nights, tripping and battling wave after wave of incendiary rage. One night, after the usual snack of hallucinogens, Shotton says he noticed John moving his arms around very slowly in a circle. “I said, ‘What are you doing?’ ” recalls Pete, “but John couldn’t explain it. He said, ‘I can’t stop. There’s something making me do this. I can’t help myself.’ ” Tears followed, uncontrollable rivers of tears, intermingled with hideous laughter. When Shotton tried to comfort him, John resisted. “I’m not crying,” he insisted peevishly, wiping his eyes with the back of a hand. Suddenly John declared that he was Jesus Christ, back from the grave. “He was convinced of it,” Pete recalls, “saying… ‘This is it, at last—I know who I am.’ ” The next day the Messiah convened an emergency meeting at Apple to announce his identity to the other Beatles. Unimpressed, they said: “Yeah, all right then. What shall we do now?” After someone suggested lunch, the matter was dropped.

That night at Weybridge, in the middle of another drug-induced reverie, the TV flickered off, whereupon John, already chastened and in a self-abasing mood, asked Pete if it was okay if he invited a woman to the house. Shotton, who had no intention of staying up another night with his friend, was relieved. “Well, I think I’ll call up Yoko,” John said.

The Beatles – Bob Spitz

What happened that night can only be left to the imagination, but since it patently wasn’t the coming together of two virgins for the very first time, did Yoko do her hypnotism thing, as some of John’s friends thought she had, or did she have a powerful new drug in her arsenal? Nobody really believed that John fell in love overnight, because why hadn’t he done so before? He’d been kicking Yoko in and out of his life for over a year. Mostly, he had given the impression that he resented and despised her. So it must have been something pretty potent that made John fall headlong out of his casual affair with her into a mad obsession. Perhaps it was that he really was mentally ill and like many schizoid personalities, got religious mania. If he really did believe that he was Jesus, Yoko would probably have convinced him she was the Virgin Mary. A virgin at any rate. John was shortly to tell the world that they spent the night at the top of the house in his bloodred music room, recording the Two Virgins tape. They say that a moose in heat can waken the dead and achieve the impossible with his bellows. John and Yoko spent the night screaming.

Magical Mystery Tours My Life with The Beatles by Tony Bramwell

Whatever her reasoning, Cynthia remained determined to see the marriage through [after finding John and Yoko together]. Convinced that John still needed her, she returned to Kenwood, mollified by his apparent denial that anything improper had occurred. “For a while, everything was wonderful,” she recalled. “We could speak more openly and honestly with each other, and there really was a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.”

But the tunnel was short, and the light soon faded. Within weeks their life together had disintegrated into a revolving state of solicitude and withdrawal, resignation and despondence. Following a stretch when John became disturbingly incommunicative, Cynthia packed once again, escaping on still another vacation to Pesaro, Italy, with her mother, Julian, and a favorite aunt and uncle.

The Beatles – Bob Spitz

No sooner were they back from India, than Jane returned to her work at the Bristol Old Vic, and Paul launched into what was probably the most relaxed time of his life. He opened wide the doors of Cavendish Avenue and the groupies, who had camped as faithfully outside as they had in Wimpole Street during the years that Paul had lived there with the Asher family, were astonished to find they were now invited in. Not only were they invited into the house, but also into Paul’s bed. Whenever I went up to see Paul, the house was filled with giggling, half-naked girls, cooking meals, walking Martha, or glued to the phone for hours on end, calling the world.

Magical Mystery Tours My Life with The Beatles by Tony Bramwell

It came as a welcome relief that John and Paul, along with Neil Aspinall, planned a quick trip to New York on May 11, where several press events had been scheduled to announce Apple Records in the States. Friends agreed that getting John away might do him a world of good; being alone, with just Paul to steady him, might have a calming influence. But Paul was grappling with his own set of anxieties. “We wanted a grand launch,” Paul said, “but I had a strange feeling and was very nervous.” Drugs, he later admitted, may have been at the root of his problem; there was a lot of dope-smoking before takeoff and even during the transatlantic flight. But Jane Asher also helped spike Paul’s mood. The grudging engagement between Beatle and actress had been ticklish at best. But since traveling together in India and a subsequent ten-day trip to Scotland, Jane’s eccentricities rankled. Paul was having serious second thoughts about the relationship, which had reached a kind of critical, now-or-never stage.

Between John’s attitude and Paul’s paranoia, the Beatles were a PR nightmare. “It was a mad, bad week in New York,” recalled Derek Taylor, who met the two Beatles there to chaperone a round of press conferences, followed by interviews. Taylor had fashioned himself into a debonair drug aficionado since the Beatles first dosed him at Brian Epstein’s housewarming party, and now he and John gorged themselves on speed and a “mild and extremely benign hallucinogen” called Purple Holiday, courtesy of their New York chauffeur. The effect of it came through in the interviews. John was gallingly withdrawn and dismissive, Paul unusually distracted—which made them come off as two rich, snooty rock stars peddling another product.

The Beatles – Bob Spitz

“WHITE: ‘Not Guilty’, on George Harrison, written during the sessions for the Beatles’ White Album, was a pointed barb at your old bandmates. GEORGE: It was me getting pissed off at Lennon and McCartney for the grief I was catching during the making of the White Album. I said I wasn’t guilty of getting in the way of their careers. I said I wasn’t guilty of leading them astray in our all going to Rishikesh to see the Maharishi. I was sticking up for myself, and the song came off strong enough to be saved and utilized.”

George Harrison, interview w/ Timothy White for Musician: The quiet Beatle finally talks… about everything. (November, 1987)

+ a couple of extra things

A quick timeline

December 25 Paul and Jane announced that they were engaged to be married.

February 15 George, Patti, John and Cynthia flew from London Airport to India.

February 19 Paul, Jane, Ringo and Maureen flew from London Airport to India.

March 26 Paul, Jane and Neil Aspinall flew back to England from Rishikesh, leaving George and Patti, John and Cynthia and “Magic” Alex who had come out to join them.

April 12 John and Cynthia, George and Patti and “Magic” Alex left in a hurry from Rishikesh, India, after “Magic” Alex convinced John and George that the Maharishi was using his position to gain sexual favours from at least one of the female meditators.

May 11 John and Paul, accompanied by “Magic” Alex, Neil Aspinall, Mal Evans, Ron Kass and Derek Taylor, flew to New York to launch Apple in the US.

May 15 Accompanied by Linda, Nat Weiss drove John, Paul and “Magic” Alex to the airport for their flight back to London.

May 19 With Cynthia taking a short holiday, John called Yoko Ono and invited her out to Kenwood. They made a random sound tape, which was later issued as Two Virgins with the notorious sleeve showing them both naked.

May 26 Cynthia returned home from a brief holiday in Greece, to discover Yoko Ono in residence with John.

May 31 Abbey Road. The White Album sessions. Work continued on ‘Revolution 1’ and the last six minutes was removed to form the basis of the chaotic ‘Revolution 9’. Yoko screamed on the track, her first appearance on a Beatles recording.

June 4 Paul began seeing Francie Schwartz.

June 22-23 On this day Paul McCartney addressed a sales conference attended by executives from Capitol Records, where he announced that all future Beatles records would be released through the group’s Apple Records label. The day after they fell in love in Los Angeles, Paul McCartney and Linda Eastman spent much of the day together at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where he was staying as part of an Apple promotional trip.

July 20 Jane Asher, appearing on Simon Dee’s BBC Television show Dee Time, said that her engagement to Paul was off – but that it was not she that had broken it. She told Dee that they had been engaged for seven months, after knowing each other for five years. (She had arrived back at Cavendish Avenue one day to find Paul in bed with a girl named Francie Schwartz.)

The Beatles Diary Volume 1 The Beatles Years (Barry Miles) & https://www.beatlesbible.com/

A comment from Heydullblog, which I find interesting and think sums up how insufficient & unsatisfying most explanations are for how John changed during this period:

Michael Gerber November 25, 2021 at 4:31 pm

What, in all that, makes you HATE Cyn, and divorce her in the most abrupt and vicious way, even attempting to get her to commit adultery so you can give her (and your own son) as little as possible? Why not a quick and amiable divorce from a woman who, let’s be honest, knew she was getting cheated on pretty constantly since 1961.

What, in all that, makes you HATE Paul McCartney, who has been your closest professional collaborator since 1957, and engage in a five-year campaign to smear and demean him in the press? Why do you insist your millions of fans choose you or him? Why not simply pause the group, and everybody goes solo and remains friends, as was predicted at the end of touring?

What makes you DETERMINED to bust up your rock group, the most popular group in the world, the source of all your fame, money, and power?

What makes you pick Yoko Ono IN PARTICULAR out of all the groupies, hangers-on, and even sensible appropriate partners within your current circle? Eighteen months ago you were attracted to Maureen Cleave, Sonny Freeman, Alma Cogan, etc — pretty much the type of women you always picked — but now, you pick a conceptual artist offering total submersion into someone else’s ego?

And what makes you spend the rest of your life pretending all this was the greatest thing ever, the fullest flowering of your genius?

It’s not that John Lennon looked around at his life in early 1968 and thought, “I don’t want this anymore. This isn’t for me.” It’s that he lashed out incredibly fiercely, in every direction, made no distinction between friend and foe, demonstrated a huge amount of resentment and bitterness towards the very people who it would seem had helped him the most, and spent literally the rest of his short life at least arguably LESS happy than he’d been before. He didn’t dump his wife for the nanny and live happily ever after; he started a process of picking things up and throwing them away with great force that, if he’d been that way in 1957, would’ve kept any of his genius from ever emerging.

He changed, fundamentally, in a short time. Why?

Midlife crises happen, they are to be expected, but this one gets more singular the more you look at it. And the thing about post-India Lennon is how he’s no more happy, no more productive, no more self-aware, no more comfortable in his own skin, than pre-India Lennon. What does the guy in August 1980 have to be angry about? Really? It was only after I reached middle-age and went through my own version of crisis (crises) that I thought, “How strange.”

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

All In 8

No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon/dubcon, age gap, power imbalance, low self esteem, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: you meet a mysterious man on a night out with your sister. (petite!reader)

based on the winning option for this poll

Characters: casino owner!Bucky Barnes

Note: Hellllllooooo 😁

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

The next morning comes too soon and with too little sleep. Despite your efforts, you couldn’t lay still long enough to get much rest. Every time you sunk into the shallows of sleep, you were just as quickly awoken by visions of the unknown. You don’t know anything beyond the time at which you’ll set off to your fate; nine o’clock. 

You don’t need an alarm. You're already awake and alert. You sit up and rub your temples until the thumping dulls. You can’t entirely shake the pulsing thrum.  

You drag yourself to your feet and cross to your dresser. You open each drawer, sifting through the contents with disappointment. You don’t have anything that nice. You pick out your nicest jeans and a halter top Roxie gave you. You’ll be sweating your bum off in the denim but you don’t have many skirts or even shorts. 

You can hear your mother getting ready for her own day of work. Of actual work. You wait until she’s done to claim the bathroom. She’s off only a couple minutes after, calling out a goodbye and I love you that you return in a higher pitch than you mean to. 

You dress and tidy yourself up as best you can. Your bedtime shower did little to help you sleep but at least it saves you a step. You spritz yourself with strawberry body spray and try to smile at your reflection as you put your toothbrush back.

Sigh. Did Bucky really call you sexy? 

It’s not even eight. Lots of time to wallow in anxiety and self-doubt. You pace around the front room, ready to go, but not really. You have your purse with the fringe and your least-worn flats. They pinch around your toes but they’re cute; pink loafers with a little leather rose on each. 

You cradle your phone then squeeze it hard enough to make it light up. Only a few minutes. Or not. You hear a car outside and peer through the curtain. You recognise the vehicle. Shoot, time to go. Oh, god, what are you doing? 

You lock the door behind you and turn to face the gallows. Each step is filled with sand, your legs are heavy and your feet clunky. As you near, Merv appears to open the door for you. You’re surprised but not to find Bucky waiting within. 

As you slide onto the seat, he watches you and rumbles out a silty, ‘morning, doll.’ You aren’t ready. You don’t know why but you thought the drive would give you time to toss away the last of your caution but you’re clinging to it like a raft. You feel entirely powerless. More than you ever have. 

What he promises, money; you always assumed it would give you more control, that it would solve all your problems, but it’s really just a new set of problems. You settle onto the seat as the door closes and buckle your seat belt, focusing on the simple task. He stretches his arm over the back of the seat as you lean against it and his heat seethes into you. 

“Good morning,” you force out at last. 

“That’s a cute shirt,” he purrs as his hand wanders down to tickle your bare shoulder, your nude bra strap showing garishly. “Would look better without this.” He touches the strap and you make a noise. “But I can wait for that, doll.” 

You stare forward. The divider between you and the front seat is up. You are completely alone. You feel your heart about to swell and split. 

“I’ll admit, I was up late last night,” his arms shifts slightly as he leans forward. You only notice then the scent of coffee and two cups in the holders behind the console. “Got a pick-me-up to start the day. Gotta be awake for you, doll.” 

He takes one of the cups and you realise, he means to offer it to you. You feel too bad to tell him you’re not much for coffee. “It’s called a blue dream tea latte? I think it’s blueberry or something. I saw it in some ad online. Sounded like something you’d like.” 

“Oh, thanks, er, it does?” You murmur. You’d seen the same promotion on Pinterest. It’s a rather strange coincidence that he’d think of you. “I... I’ve never tried a tea latte.” 

“Doll, I’m gonna give you lots of things you never had, take you places you never been,” he flutters his fingers across your neck as he retracts his arm. He grabs the other cup and groans as he sits back, blowing over the plastic lid. “So tell me,” his arms presses against yours. He seems so big sitting so close, “where’ somewhere you always wanted to go?” 

“Er, I don’t...” your eyes drift over as Merv drives lazily through your neighbourhood, “know. I never... thought about it.” 

“Anything you always wanted to do? Skydiving? Wait, yeah, you don’t like being high up. Makes sense, being so close to the ground, huh?” He chuckles and leans into you playfully, “you an outdoorsy type? You like hiking?” 

“Um, I don’t know, I think... I like walking in the park sometimes,” you hold the cup with both hands, letting the warmth flow into your cold veins. You can smell the blueberry and you instinctively take wife through the slot of the lid. 

“Mm, don’t worry, we’ll figure it out, doll,” he assures you and sips again, swallowing thickly before he lets out a thigh. “I think you’ll like what I got planned, even if you don’t know what you want. I’ve always been good at figuring that out, you know?” 

“Oh?” 

He laughs again, “you’re so cute, doll.” He looks over at you, “how’s the latte? Did I do good?” 

Your eyes nearly cross as you stare at the cup. You bring it up carefully and take a dainty sip. You almost moan at the creamy but sweet taste. You pull the lid away and dab your lips with the back of your hand, turning to give him a wide-eyed look. 

“It’s delicious,” you smile. 

He grins and tilts his head, “see, doll, you don’t even gotta say it. I know exactly what you need.” 

You’re breathless. Something about his tone, his words, mingles and coils around your throat. It’s like one of those old Wattpad fantasies you devoured in your teen years, those escapist dreams of having everything taken care of and not having to think, and yet, it’s too real. You take another drink to keep busy. 

“After our first stop, we’ll eat,” he says, “that okay? You’re not ravenous?” 

His words make you flinch. You blink and shake your head, “I’m okay.” 

“Sounds good, doll,” he relaxes and once more extends his arms over your shoulders, this time hugging you closer.  

He turns his head and nuzzles you, making you squirm. You’re rigid, paralysed by the proximity. You’ve never been this close with anyone. He still feels like a stranger. 

“Mmm, strawberries,” he growls, “I like that.” 

You giggle and barely keep a hold of your cup. You really can’t understand it. You never had interest from anyone. You didn’t even really have friends in school. Sometimes, you even think Roxie hates you, and your mom, well, she loves you because you have to. You just can’t comprehend what he sees. 

“Thanks...” you wisp. 

“No, thank you, doll,” he drawls, “for making my morning brighter.” 

🃏

You doubt Bucky does anything in half-measures. Merv pulls up to another upscale building and you can’t help but gape out at the white brick facade. Everything is so big and fancy and better than you. You’re so out of place in his world that you can’t but wait for the moment he decides to kick you out of it. 

The white-haired driver gets out to open the door. As you step out, your loafer slips off your heel and your foot slides down the curb. You trip outward, bracing yourself for impact, but don’t hit the ground. A hand wraps around your arm and pulls you back onto the seat. You cringe, happy at least that Bucky can’t see your face as he clings to you. 

“You okay, doll?” He asks, “you hurt yourself?” 

“No, no,” you wriggle in his grasp, “I’m fine. It was just... stupid.” 

“Not stupid, good thing I was here to catch you, huh?” He reluctantly releases you, a caress along the back of your arm, “now you be careful. You need me to get out and carry you--” 

“No, no!” You grab the car and push yourself out, fixing your shoe as you get your bearings. “Really, I’m okay.” 

He chuckles and follows. It he laughing at you? You turn to face him as he steps up on the curb. It’s easy when he’s sitting to forget how small you really are. 

“All good, doll, I just can’t have you getting banged up,” he says as he gestures you across the wide sidewalk. 

You peer back as Merv shuts the door and Bucky brings his hand to your lower back, just like that woman at the casino. His gentle touch sends a chill up your back despite the beaming heat from above. 

“Promise, you’re gonna love this.”  

He urges you on to the front doors. They are made of iron, twisted in the middle, and two long handles curlicue in the middle. He stops and presses the little silver button along the side, a buzz muffled within. You wait, fidgeting, and presses his palm firmly to your back. You still yourself and clutch your bag tighter. 

The interior doors, dark walnut, open inward and a woman appears within with a particularly snobbish look. She’s tall with straight shoulders and a Chanel style suit. She unlocks the iron doors and opens the right one. She eyes Bucky past her hooked nose as she lifts it higher. 

“Mr. Barnes,” she greets. 

“Meredith,” he returns, “thanks for having me.” 

“Only for you,” she assures as her eyes fall upon you, “you’ve brought...” 

“Someone very special. A connoisseur like yourself,” he insists, curtailing whatever she thought to remark. 

“Yes, certainly she would be,” the woman accepts with a sniff and steps back, “please, come in. Should I have Charlene make tea?” 

“I don’t think we will require it. Doll?” He pauses as he confirms with you. 

You shake your head, “no thank you.” 

“Very well, follow me, then,” she spins and struts away.  

Bucky nudges you inside first, following through the narrow door. As he comes up parallel to you, a shadow appears to close the doors behind him. The whole experience is eerie. What is going on? 

You follow the woman, Meredith, up the wooden stairs with a rose-printed runner along the center of the steps. At the top, you smell the definitive scent of books. She directs you into a room, opening the door but standing back to let you through. Bucky nods and thanks her one last time. 

“You know the rules, Barnes,” she warns. 

“Been a while...” he mutters. 

“You remember,” she rebukes. 

He laughs and pulls the door shut as she retreats, her heels clicking through the wall until they taper off to nothing. A record player drones from the corner and the window lets in the yellow sunshine, adding to the illumination of glass-shaded lamps. You peer around, as curious as you are confused. 

Bucky brushes by you, knuckles rubbing against your waist, and he approaches the antique table at the center. Several stacks of books sit neatly piled atop it. You approach sheepishly and read the spines. You recognise the titles though you’ve never read any of them. As you think, you realise that these are the same books you have on your reading app. How could he know? 

Your mouth falls open as you keep your hands folded together. You don’t dare to touch anything. It all seems so nice and likely expensive. And with how Meredith spoke, you’re certain she wouldn’t appreciate you putting anything out of place. 

“She’s a book collector. I came here a few years back to buy some first editions for my sister,” he picks up a book. 

“How...” you bend to read further down a stack. 

“A lot you can learn about a person online,” he flutters through the pages, “isn’t there?” 

You look at him and blanch. 

“I know you Googled me. Everyone does,” he snickers, “it’s fine. Comes with the territory. But you...” he snaps the book shut and comes around the table, holding it out to you, “all I found were some books and a few pictures of a cat.” 

You take the book and stare at the cover. Those pictures were old. Kai died at the end of high school. You run your hand over the embossed title; Middlemarch. You remember adding it after binging and old British series. 

“My cat. She’s gone now,” you shrug. 

“Sorry to hear that, doll,” he says. “I might know someone who can cheer you up, though.” 

“It’s... fine. She was a good cat,” you shrug. 

“Hm, yeah, but a friend, all the same,” he says, “so, you want it?” 

“What?” You peek at the book again. 

“All of them? I can have them packed and sent to your house.” 

“Huh?” Your eyes nearly bulge out of your skull, “my mom...” 

“Ah, it’s fine, we can sneak em in,” he assures. 

“No, no, I couldn’t... it’s too much. Very nice but... must be... a lot.” 

“It is, doll. Meredith gave me a damn headache tryna get in here on short notice but I did it,” he leans a hand on the table and hooks one foot over the other. “You gotta at least pick one thing to walk out of here with.” 

“Oh, I... I wasn’t meaning... I didn’t mean to be ungrateful,” you rub your thumbs along the edges of the book, “sorry.” 

“It’s fine. I know you’re not, doll. You’re... adjusting. I’m doing my best not to scare ya away but you gotta bite the carrot a little here,” he says, “so grab a few and we’ll go have some breakfast.” 

“I...” you look between him and the table. You have no doubt that he went to a lot of effort for this. For you. You can’t just throw it back in his face. “Thank you, it’s...” you turn to face the table and lean in to see more of the books. You let yourself smile, “it’s wonderful. No one’s ever... except mom...” 

“Get used to it, doll,” he steps closer, his hand once more on your back, “with a smile like that, I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing it.” 

[gingerteafairy]

𝐜𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧'𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 + 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐬 masterlist

𝐣𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐞: 𝐜𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭

Your story with Jonathan began with the classic forbidden cliché: a psychiatrist falling for his patient. You didn't know you were being analyzed since you met him in the lab, but as he took notes on your characteristics, he began to fall for your complexity, your twisted way of being. He constantly showered you with gifts and specific compliments that he knew would get to you, keeping you attached to him. Despite being manipulative, Jonathan is unstable and needy, relying on you far more than you rely on him. He’s clingy, possessive, and jealous, often interrupting your routine just to pull you into a room and inhale your scent, soon convincing you to move into his apartment so he could continue his addiction.

𝐧𝐞𝐢𝐥 𝐥𝐞𝐰𝐢𝐬: 𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩

Neil is definitely unconventional. You would have a deep and consistent relationship with him for a while, where you were Neil’s first choice to show a new film. Though he was a devoted cinephile, he would never belittle you for your movie choices, even submitting to watching silly mainstream films like Camp Rock, which he affectionately dubbed a "C-rank movie," a typical pun. Though he never formally asked you to be his girlfriend, he would cry in the middle of the night at the thought that one day you might leave him for some hot brainless gym blonde.

𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐧𝐲 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫: 𝐡𝐮𝐬𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐝

Miller is quiet, to the point of being terrifying in how mysterious he is, but he notices every tiny detail about you. At some point, you stopped asking him about what he did, and he was grateful for that, comforting you with a “don’t worry, leave the problems to me.” Despite all the pampering and affection, Lenny saw you as a strong woman, someone who couldn't be broken by any jewel, and that was incredibly important to him in order for you to be his. His bodyguards would watch you 24/7, with the exception of the bathroom and dressing up time, which was strictly off-limits.

𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐭 𝐟𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐫: 𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐝

Vulnerable, almost pathetic in some ways, forced to marry you by his father, the condition to inherit the company being that he would start a family. Being an emotional person, Robert would soon fall in love with you through your time together, learning that not everything could be solved with money. Still, he’d irritate you to no end, giving you $1,000 “to clear your head somewhere.” He would regret it later and buy you something to try to make up for it. Small steps.

𝐣𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐧𝐞𝐫: 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝

Jackson Rippner is dominant to the core, naturally drawn to a submissive girl, whether innocent or entirely attracted to that kind of thing. Being with him felt like walking a tightrope, a thrill for someone addicted to adrenaline. Public displays of affection and embarrassing situations in public places were common, as he used his charm to escape countless situations. Yet, inside his sick mind, he felt something human for you, attaching it to some cannibal analogy to not relate to simply love. It was too committed for him.

𝐫𝐚𝐲𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐞𝐨: 𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐮𝐚𝐥

Raymond keeps track of everything, including friendships, where he keeps track even more due to their frivolous nature. Every encounter is calculated. With you, however, it seemed different—rare moments, of course—and he would dare to spend a few more hours in your company, talking about stress and sharing some human warmth in this messed-up, superficial world.

𝐣𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐜𝐡: 𝐛𝐨𝐲𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝

Jonathan Breech is a case apart. He would treat you as the reason for his life, as you gave him a reason to live after his father’s death. At times, he would catch himself saying self-deprecating things in front of you, but you would quickly reprimand him. He would be upset if you said anything bad about yourself since he saw you as perfect in every way. After the near-death experience, he would want to live life on the edge with you, getting into situations that were sometimes dangerous. That was the most fun part.

[tarotwithavi]

Why do people fall for you?

A short reading on why do people fall for you beautiful ❤

Piles : 1-2-3

This is a general reading so take what resonates and leave the rest.

Please read : I'm going through a rough time and I'm in dire need of money. So I would be grateful if you would purchase a reading from me.

Masterlist

Paid services

Pile 1

Hello pile 1 so the first message I'm getting is that people fall for you because they see you as someone who can bring more prosperity and abundance into their life  . People see you as a lucky charm and you  give off the vibes of someone who is very fulfilled and has a lot to give. People fall for you because they see you as someone who is always learning and has a lot of knowledge on various topics. They are also for you because of your authenticity and of your uniqueness. I am also getting that people fall for you because they see you as someone who is very outgoing and fun loving and they also fall for you because they see potential in you that you are someone who is going to succeed in life. People also fall for the way you represent yourself , you may have a very unique clothing style or the way you dress up is very unique or the type of makeup you use or the type of hair color you have. You might have something very unique about you that people fall for instantly. I am also getting that people fall for you because they see you as a star. They see you as someone who is going to bring a lot of happiness into their life. You might have people who are very attached to you because of this and I am also getting that some people want to suck your positive energy so please protect yourself. Another thing I am picking up on here is that people fall for your intelligence and your personality . You might have people who want to be with you or who want to be YOU. you might have people who always copy your style or the way you talk or even the way you walk. People fall for you because they see you as someone who is very mysterious and they can't put you in a certain box and that is always bothering them because you are someone that can't be put under a certain criteria.

Masterlist

Pile 2

Hello pile two, the first message I'm getting is that people fall for you because they see you as someone who is just like them, they fall for you because they see certain parts of themselves in you and they fall for you because you match their energy and their vibes . People also fall for you because they think that being with you will solve most of their problems. They also think that having a relationship with you or just being in your circle will balance out their life. I am getting that you might be famous or popular among the opposite gender because you are very attractive. Your Energy is very attractive to people and your energy might Trigger some people who are having problems in their life , because people see you as someone who has everything sorted out in their life and has no problems or difficulties in their life. This might be a random message for you but I am seeing that a person is lying to you and is using your assets in a wrong way. They might lie to you about being broke or something but they are using you so be careful of this person. Okay so I am getting that people fall for you because they see you as someone who rose from the ashes, they see you as someone who has overcome a lot of difficulties in their life and has become a better person. People admire this about you. You have the ability to make the best out of every situation. You might have been through a great transformation or even a glow up and people are falling in love with my pile 2 . People fall for you because they see you as a perfect candidate for a relationship or even marriage. They see you as a perfect wifey/husband material. People have seen you transform from having nothing to having everything they ever wished for.

Masterlist

Pile 3

Oh my god Pile 3 you have such nice energy. I am getting that you are very nice and by this, I mean extremely nice. You have helped people when they were going through the worst stages in their life and you have stayed with them all the time they were going through that situation and have helped them to become a better person . People fall for you because they see you as someone who is not going to leave them for money or anything like that . They see you as someone who is going to stay with them for the rest of their lives and they see you as someone whom they can trust with all their heart. I am also getting that people see you as someone who is not lusting after material things but rather after an emotionally fulfilling relationship. I'm getting that for some of you , you have a person who is very much in love with you and this person might be a virgo or water sign. They might have gone through a recent break up but they will contact you soon. People fall for you because they see you as a shoulder to cry on, they see you as someone who is very trustworthy and loyal. people fall for you because you give off very pleasant energy. People fall for you because they think that they won't have any regrets over trusting you as a person and I'm also getting that you bring out a lot of positive emotions in people. You might have people saying that "oh I have never felt this emotion" Or "you have no idea what you're doing to me" . I am also getting that you might have people who are already in a relationship crushing over you because they sort of regret that they didn't have a relationship with you or that you are not their current partner. They wish that you would be their current partner .

Masterlist

[apollabarnes]

fluffebruary day 16: au: didn't know they were dating

all right, so this is a little thing based off of this post that i made last week. i love tracker, and tommy is definitely a guy who would spend his life running around the country solving other people's problems.

@bucktommyfluffebruary

"All right, so I'm thinking — uh, am I interrupting?" Tommy looked up from his laptop. "You could knock, you know." "It's an Airstream, what's the point? Are you on Grindr?" Evan asked, peering suspiciously at the computer. "At the kitchen table?" "Hey!" Howie's voice came through the laptop speakers, offended. "I'm right here, you know." Evan leaned in front of Tommy, waving at Howie and Maddie. "Well it's hard to tell, he is shirtless. You know, I think my sister and my brother-in-law have seen you shirtless more than I have." "Gross," Maddie wrinkled her nose. "Too much information, Buck."

"What are you doing here, Evan?" Tommy asked. "I thought you were still in Washington."

"I — Maddie, are you done with him?" Evan asked, resting his hand on the back of the breakfast nook. Tommy could smell his cologne.

"Just wrapped up, bye, have a good night, tell me nothing about it." Maddie closed the video chat, leaving Tommy blinking at a blank screen.

"What are you doing in Portland, Evan?" Tommy repeated, turning to look up at him.

Evan blinked when they were suddenly face to face, looking away and closing Tommy's laptop. "I was meeting with a new client. Nailed the account. Now I'm thinking we need to celebrate. Come on, time to go out and have dinner. You're paying."

"You're the one who just got a new client. Sounds like you're coming into some money, why do you need mine?" Tommy asked, smiling wryly.

"The person celebrating doesn't pay," Evan reminded Tommy. "Come on, our reservation is at eight. We better get moving."

"You made a reservation without checking that I was free?"

"You dodge plans if we give you advance warning. I know you just finished your case, come on. We're taking my car."

"I can drive myself," Tommy protested.

"And mysteriously miss the turn for the restaurant and head straight out of town? Yeah." Evan laughed. "Grab your wallet, get in the car."

"Really, that's it?" Tommy asked, sliding out from the booth and forcing Evan to take a step back. He arched an eyebrow.

Evan paused, his gaze lingering on Tommy's left shoulder. "You're right, it's a no shirt no shoes no service place, you should put some clothes on."

"A little privacy?" Tommy prodded. Maybe if he could get Evan out of the trailer he could make a run for it anyway.

Evan crossed his arms over his chest. "The Airstream is all windows, Tommy, and it's just a shirt. Stop being a baby."

"Fine."

"Oh good, you're still alive."

Tommy blinked at Howie over his coffee, yawning. "Yes? Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well. Buck." The video call shook as Howie laughed at him.

Tommy laughed too, shaking his head. "He got a new client, he took me to dinner and made me pay."

"And how often does Buck do that?" Howie asked, looking up from the file he was reading.

"Just show up?" Tommy shrugged. "When I need a lawyer or when he's nearby, I guess."

"Right." Howie paused. "When was the last time he showed up? Before last night?"

"Uh." Tommy frowned, tapping his keyboard as he thought. "Spokane?"

"That was last week. What about before then?"

"Butte."

"Tommy. Have you seen Buck every week?"

"I… that sounds about right."

"Tommy," Howie sighed. "You've seen Buck once a week for the last month. At least. You realize you've been dating him, right? Please tell me you, Mister-I-can-find-anything, found that clue."

"Howie, we—"

"Slept together last year, yeah, I know," Howie rolled his eyes. "I heard about it in great detail. Too much detail, really."

Goddamnit, Evan. Tommy flushed and looked down at the table, tapping his fingers against his mug. "Right. Evan's still mad that I—"

"Left before he woke up, yeah. Heard that part too."

Tommy's head made contact with the table. God, he really hoped Evan had left out a few details, or he wouldn't be able to look Howie and Maddie in the eyes for a month.

"He's been on dates. In front of me."

"Who, Natalia?" Howie cackled. "She is very much not interested in him like that. Okay, different question. When's the last time you hooked up with anyone?"

"Why are we talking about my sex life?" Tommy wondered aloud, to distract from the fact that he had to think about it. "I guess it was that deputy in Jersey."

"Eight months ago?!" Howie's eyes bugged out.

"Well, yeah, Evan showed up and he had a lead, so…"

Howie sighed so deeply Tommy could see his eyes roll. "You've been dating my brother-in-law for eight months and you didn't have a clue. I should up the percentage for my services."

"Tommy, take Buck out to dinner and apologize for last year and then hopefully the two of you do something that will break your dry spell that neither of you will ever tell me about. I don't want to know."

[bookshelf-in-progress]

I know you've retold these before, but if you want to do one in the form of a flash fiction... My request would be The Goose Girl or Twelve Dancing Princesses.

I've pondered over a few possibilities for this prompt. This morning, I came up with an idea for a Twelve Dancing Princesses retelling that had me bolting out of bed to start writing. I don't know how to end the story, but I like the setup, so for the sake of sharing something, I thought I'd at least share what I have here.

*

The Unseen Soldier

Edmund slipped through the city streets, nimbly dodging around the people who couldn't see him. His pay jingled in his pocket--a gift from a generous shoemaker who'd been grateful for the invisible help--but no one heard. No one looked his way. No one ever did.

At the corner sat a ragged beggar child. Edmund was careful with his money now--he could never be sure of getting more--but he dropped the largest of his coins in her tin cup. She looked up--astonished at the miracle, confused when she couldn't see her benefactor--but didn't meet his gaze.

Edmund always noticed beggars now, after the one who'd cursed him. He'd been young and thoughtless then, newly released from the army with a pocket full of pay. A night in the tavern--celebrating the war's end--ate of most of it, and he stumbled into the streets at sunrise wondering how on earth he could make his money last.

He'd stumbled over the beggar woman, then pretended he didn't hear when she asked for a coin. He had none to spare; he had to look after himself.

Then she proved herself a fairy in disguise and pronounced his doom.

Because you have made yourself blind to the needs of others, this is your curse: to wander the world unseen until you give yourself entire to another.

An unbreakable curse, he'd found--a princess might marry a man sight unseen, but people of his own class liked to see their husbands before they wed.

So he wandered, scrounging where he could (never stealing--a fairy who cursed a man for ignoring a beggar would undoubtedly do much worse to a thief), sometimes doing odd jobs for men willing to arrange his hire and payment by letter. Doing unseen good where possible--at first in the hope that he might be observed by another fairy who'd reward him by lifting the curse, but then because he could--he could see the invisible problems, and give his help without shaming those who received it.

A hardscrabble, desperate life. Sometimes a satisfying one. But--more and more as the years went on--unbearably, unspeakably lonely.

The sun rose higher. The crowds increased. Edmund slipped into the doorway of an abandoned shop and considered waiting out the morning rush. Then he noticed that the entire crowd was drifting in one direction.

This was too much for an invisible man to resist. Edmund drifted at the rear of the crowd until the mass of people pooled around a fountain in the middle of a city square, where stood a royal messenger making a proclamation.

So declared the king: his daughters were wearing through their shoes every night, though the doors of their bedchamber were locked and bolted. The princes set upon the problem had all failed to solve the mystery. So the king decreed that any man who, in three nights' time, could solve the mystery of where the princesses went at night, could have his choice of one to wed.

The crowd gasped. Murmured. Chattered. Shared gossip and rumor. Wondered who'd be daft enough to take the challenge--princess or no, the men who'd tried to solve the mystery before had died.

But at the edge of the crowd, unseen by all, Edmund smiled.

He'd found the way to break his curse.

[ghostinthegallery]

Taking a break from complaining about necron treatment to complain about Tyranid treatment! Because the fact that nids don't have their own books/lore/characters is bonkers to me. "Oooooh, they're too vast and alien to comprehend blah blah blah giving them characters undermines the mystery and horror..." NO! COWARDS! You want to sit there and tell me no author in the history of science fiction has ever effectively written from the POV of the alien? The inhuman? Made it both chilling and sympathetic? Never???

Gee it sure would be nice if Games Workshop had ever worked with a Hugo Award-winning author who had previously written a series including the POVs of hyper-evolved intelligent alien spiders. And it would be even better if that author had already written a book about Genestealers and so likely understood tyranid lore. OH NO WHERE SHALL WE FIND SUCH AN INDIVIDUAL???

Oh hey look it's Adrian Tchaikovsky! Author of the fantastic 40k book Day of Ascension. Go! Give him a pile of money to solve the Tyranid lore problem. Robert Rath and Nate Crowley fixed necrons, this clearly can be done. Hive tyrants and lictors already have enough individual personality to become characters in their own rights. Deathleaper exists. This is so, so doable.

There, solved the problem. I expect my copy of the new Tyranid novel in the mail. You're welcome

[blackmoonlightexpress]

A Guide on Ashes of Love (for TTEOTM fans)

For TTEOTM fans debating whether to watch Ashes of Love (or struggling with how long it is), I highly recommend that you CHECK IT OUT and STICK WITH IT!

Why? A lot of people think that it's Luo Yunxi at his best looks-wise. It's the role that made him a household name and really defined the ethereal white-robed male god in Chinese pop culture. Runyu has much more screentime than is typical for a second male lead. And while it has a lot of filler, it also has some of the best scenes, lines, music, cinematography, and fight choreography among xianxias.

Now, there are problems with the drama... especially in retrospect, the two biggest are: (1) It's infamous for stretching 36 episodes into 63 because mo' episodes, mo' money. On the bright side, this gave the drama a bigger budget to play with, hence grander sets, better CGI, nicer costumes. (2) The naive female lead and love trumps all plot now feel dated and perhaps even problematic. However, Yang Zi is a compelling actress and there's enough politics to keep mature viewers around.

So here's a guide to the 63 episodes, for those who want the "lay of the land". You can decide for yourself what to watch or skip. Naturally it's hard to avoid spoilers, but I've kept them mild.

Episodes 1-5: Jinmi travels to the heavenly realm (Bloat Score: 3/5)

This is mainly Jinmi meeting different characters and having fun in the heavenly realm. You can speed watch as it's light on plot. Runyu only appears for 1-2 scenes per episode, but his fight scenes are beautiful (EP1-35m, EP3-27m, EP5-37m)!

Episodes 6-8: The four leads travel to the Demon Realm (Bloat Score: 2/5) 

This part is pretty action-packed. Jinmi surprises everyone with her powers. Blossoming romance between the leads. Runyu has a more consistent presence. Would watch at normal speed.

Episodes 9-17: The two brothers compete for Jinmi while uncovering her true identity (Bloat Score: 1/5) 

The plot really picks up here as you start to get hooked on solving the mystery of Jinmi's identity and affairs of the past generation. I particularly liked the mini climaxes in Ep 12 and 15.

Episodes 18-34: Jinmi & Xufeng undergoes human trial + Runyu's backstory (Bloat Score: 4/5) 

This is the plot within the plot that was not in the source novel and has no reason to exist other than to increase runtime and give viewers more romance between the leads. If you didn't like the dream arc in TTEOTM, this will be even worse. Lucky for us they've also fleshed out Runyu's backstory and perspective in Ep 29-32, where viewers started rooting for Runyu instead.

Episode 35-45: Jinmi decides who to marry as the brothers head to epic showdown (Bloat Score: 2/5) 

The drama takes a more serious tone here, with more angst, tragedy, and power play. Runyu sheds his innocence and fights for his own corner. You also get to see him confess his love to Jinmi in one of my favorite scenes in Ep 37.

Episode 46-59: The aftermath aka a big stew of tears, blood-spitting, regret, hurt (Bloat Score: 4/5) 

Frankly I found this part painful to watch and repetitive. I can't recall what happens other than it builds up to another epic fight between the brothers Helen of Troy style. Runyu is at his darkest and there are a few TTJ-like obsessive love scenes between him and Jinmi (EP50-19m, EP56-28m, EP57-15m, EP58-25m)

Episodes 60-63 The Ending (Bloat Score: 2/5) 

A pretty satisfying ending. The big battle itself takes place in Ep 61, so there are 2 full episodes to resolve things between the characters and give them a proper ending. Runyu's final scene is done very well and always gives me the goosebumps (EP63-39m)

Also, there are lots of scenes of the third couple (demon princess and her bodyguard) spliced throughout. If it doesn't do anything for you, just skip - it has no impact to the main plot.

Have fun watching!

[memeapple2]

Aqua teen hunger force starters :^)

"YOU DARE DISRESPECT THE WORDS OF THE MIGHTY JIMMY!"

"You look at them and tell me there's a god!"

"I'm an adult and I deserve an adult glass"

"You don't own space, so stop actin like you do!"

"Okay have a crappy weekend I hope your house burns down."

"It don't matter. None of this matters."

"I'm just sayin' that if you continue rippin' off my idea, my unique graphics, someone's face is gonna get ripped off. And that ain't a threat, that's a guarantee."

"GENTLEMEN BEHOLDI HAVE LOST WEIGHT!"

"I am 30 or 40 years old I do not need this!"

"Its a groovy time for a movie time!"

"Hell, no, I pay no bills. I pay you no mind!"

"That says the bibble."

"Well, I'm just glad you finally learned some responsibility. In the most ass way possible."

"Are you the guy who keeps telling me to "Beware"? 'Cause I'll tell you where to be! Outta my sight!"

"God has allowed me to live another day and I'm gonna make it everyone's problem."

"DIDN'T I TELL YOU TO SUCK IT!? I DON'T HEAR NO GLUG GLUG GLUG!!"

“I’m gonna start dropping F-bombs. Listen to this: Fart you, fart head.”

“I don’t have any real dolls, I prefer to use my infinite imagination… cause I ain’t got no damn money.”

“We do whatever we want, to whomever we want, at all times.”

“It’s not Dracula, it’s just a damn school bus!”

“Hey, which one of y’all left the door open? And tore it off the hinges, and threw it in the yard?”

“You better run, boy! And bring back some chocolate syrup, too. Or your fate is sealed.”

"Where you should have a brain there's just a cavity that keeps you afloat. Isn't THAT something to be really proud of."

"Oh no, so what you're saying is this is a mystery and we have to go solve it, right? I scheduled this day off over two weeks ago. I made a memo."

"You're about to not have a mouth! And I mean it! I'LL RIP IT OFF!"

"You think you're gonna live forever, but you won't. Someone'll kill ya. Someone'll kill ya with a knife."

"Teeth are for gay people. That's why fairies come and get them."

"He needs his brain or else he's just going to float around saying 'do what now.'"

"Well, that was fun. I'm gonna take a nap now, and then I think I'm gonna call, uh, some hospitals."

"It is the Broodwich, forged in darkness from wheat harvested in Hell's half-acre, baked by Beelzebub, slathered with mayonnaise beaten from the evil eggs of dark chicken forced into sauce by the hands of a one-eyed madman, cheese boiled from the rancid teat of a fanged cow, layered with six-hundred and sixty-six separate meats from an animal which has maggots for blood!"

"I must say... bacon aside, this is the best damn sandwich I've ever had in my life."

"Hell no! That sumbitch had an axe!"

"Why do you disappoint me?? Second by second, you waste my time."

"The only reason God doesn't erase you from the face of the earth is beacuse you amuse him somehow!"

GOD YOU SUCK AT BASKETBALL!"

"GO BACK TO YOUR MAMA!"

"LORDY LORDY LOOK WHO'S TURNING 4040!"

"This cord was plugged into my house and your house was glowing like the freaking sun! So I put two and two together there... and decided that you're pissing me off!"

"Now, I am not a violent person. But I would kill somebody, in front of they own grandmother, for a ten-speed."

"The blood bank is an evil pyramid scheme perpetrated by Dracula and his night slaves."

"Only us adults can say hell, damn, bitch, and ass. So get your helling, damn ass over to that bitching, damn room dammit!"

"This will only hurt for a second... but damn will it hurt."

"Well I'm in business. Business of kicking your ass, and let me tell ya, business is booming. I'm open for business, business of giving you the business... up your butt. Business is good."

"People like me. Because I force them to. With violence."

"you can't tell me im drunk, thats between me and god"

"Yeah, I keep the blinds closed, so it's kinda disorienting. But you know, I don't want the government in my business."

"Now why don't you go back to the time before Christ, AKA next door."

"You are the gayest monster since gay came to gaytown."

"You're lucky I'm thoughtful enough to throw my anger at the media, and not your buttocks!"

[antebunny]

as a huge fan of the original ACD canon, I desperately want to hear your elaboration about why you don't like BBC's Sherlock :D

hi OP I hope you're ready for a monster essay in response because that's what I ended up with!

For ease of reading I've divided up my answer into four sections: 1) explaining Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock with historical context, 2) analyzing BBC Sherlock/Moffat's Sherlock using a cross-section of Watsonian and Doylist techniques and sheer spite, 3) my thoughts on Johnlock, 4) comparing & contrasting Doyle's Sherlock with Moffat's Sherlock. Disclaimer: I'm not a historian, although I do I have some understanding of the history of detective fiction. Mostly I'm just an avid reader/fan.

Part I: Original Sherlock

To start with! I will talk about the characterization of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. Here's something which people who have never read the stories don't seem to know: Sherlock is kind.

He's not particularly nice, I'll give you that. He tends to think he's the smartest person in the room, and you know what? He almost always is. He has plenty of dry and sarcastic comments for the London police, for clients who don't bring any evidence, etc. But he goes out of his way to be kind. My favorite example of this is the Boscombe Valley Mystery.

The Boscombe Valley Mystery is far from my favorite Sherlock story in terms of mystery-solving, but one of the best in terms of characterizing Sherlock. To summarize: two wealthy, widower landowners, John and Charles, are next-door neighbors with one kid each–John, a daughter named Alice and Charles, a son named James.

Sherlock gets called in when Charles is found murdered, and everyone suspects James of doing it. Of course, it's not that easy. It turns out that twenty years ago, John was a highway robber in Australia, and he robbed Charles but left him alive. John then left the life of crime, started a family and settled in England a wealthy man. Then Charles moved in next door, recognized John, and proceeded to blackmail him for money, land, etc. This escalated until eventually Charles demanded Alice's hand in marriage for his son James. John refuses, and eventually kills Charles to protect Alice and to free himself from Charles' blackmailing/tyranny.

(The problem is that James is actually a decent person, and he and Alice are secretly in love, but there's also a bar maid involved and it's complicated and not relevant. Anyways).

Of course, Sherlock being Sherlock, he figures out that John is the murderer. But here's the thing: he defends John. He doesn't turn John (or his signed confession) over to the authorities. In fact, Sherlock goes to court to protect James by arguing that there's not enough evidence to find him guilty. Sherlock catches a murderer, goes "you know what? He was kind of right tho" and looks away.

Do you understand how radical this is for Victorian England? This is the 1890s. People still believe in God over gravity. The idea that a criminal isn't a criminal for life? That a highway robber can turn over a new leaf? That a murderer can be in the right? [Now would be a good time for a source] Like this is so new, I can't think of a way to translate it to the 21st century.

And it's key to who Sherlock is. He puts his reputation on the line for this case. He says that he didn't manage to solve this case, even though he did. His professional pride and reputation is worth less to him than protecting John, a MURDERER, and James, his son who admittedly is a nice guy whose worst crime is making dumb decisions in college (see: the bar maid).

Because here's the thing about Sherlock's "professional pride:" it's not "I'm the smartest person" or "I'm always right." Sherlock genuinely believes in his deduction method, not as a superpower which he alone possesses, but as a tool which anyone can use if they apply themselves. Which brings me to my second example: Irene Adler.

If you (general audience) only know Irene Adler from BBC Sherlock, I'm gonna ask you to forget all of that right now. Arthur Conan Doyle's Irene Adler is an American opera singer who used to be in a relationship with the future King of Bohemia. The king asks for Sherlock's help retrieving an incriminating photograph that Irene Adler has threatened to send to the king's future wife (a Scandinavian princess) and her family. (Irene Adler is currently in England, getting married to some guy named Norton).

Sherlock promptly gets outsmarted by Irene Adler. She leaves for America with Norton and the photograph, though she promises not to use it against the King of Bohemia, and keeps her promise. Because here's the thing about Irene Adler: she's not a criminal. She's not a bad guy in any way. She doesn't blackmail the king. She had a fling with the King of Bohemia, eventually moved on with her life and married Norton. When Sherlock came sniffing around for her private property, which she was under no obligation to return/give up, she got the hell out of England.

Despite this, Irene Adler is often framed not only as a criminal but also as Sherlock's love interest in adaptations. (And I'm not even talking about BBC Sherlock, trust me, we'll get to that). I think this is due to a fundamental failure or refusal to understand the nature of Sherlock's interest in Irene Adler. He explicitly states that he is not romantically attracted to her. (And neither is she to him). He is impressed by her intellect. It is rare enough for Sherlock to be outsmarted; I think Irene Adler may be the only example in the original stories where the person/group who outsmarted Sherlock was not a career criminal or other type of evil-doer (such as the KKK, in The Five Orange Pips, yes that KKK).

For all intents and purposes, Irene Adler is an ordinary woman, trying to do an ordinary thing (get married to Some Guy), who just so happens to get one over Sherlock in a case where he is arguably in the wrong. That is what makes her so special. Sherlock believes that his deduction methods can be implemented by anybody, but here's somebody, actually implementing them! And she was trained as an opera singer, not as a detective or some such field! And she's not using it to systematically murder or blackmail or anything else, she just wants to live her best life away from this Bohemian nonsense!

Sherlock is excited when someone outsmarts him. And it is so rare for there to be no horrific crime taking away from that excitement.

In summary: Sherlock Holmes is a perfectly well-mannered English gentleman (the social class, not polite descriptor) with shockingly progressive morals for the 1890s, a need for brain puzzles and adventures, and a non-debilitating addiction to crack cocaine.

Some other notes about original Sherlock before I move on to the next section:

Sherlock indirectly caused someone's death in The Adventure of the Speckled Band, and does not feel at all broken up about it. Honestly? I respect that.

Doyle was not perfect. Irene Adler was smart "for her sex." All of the stories mentioned above contain examples of foreigners importing struggles to England. Violent Americans from Five Orange Pips, armed robberies from Australia in Boscombe Valley, loose(?) Bohemians(???) in A Scandal in Bohemia, a mercenary and violent "doctor" from Calcutta (though English by birth) in Speckled Band, etc. I could go on. And I am sure that he made some claims later proved to be scientifically inaccurate.

Aside from Doyle's biases, the Sherlock Holmes stories are also prone to the same real-world changes as any other famous series. Doyle famously killed off Sherlock only to bring him back due to the public outrage. The many, many short stories vary quite a bit in quality, and a little in consistency. Sometimes you just have to throw your hands up and go with the Doylist (heh) reading. We'll get back to this.

Sherlock would not be caught dead in Buckingham Palace wearing only a bedsheet. He often disguises himself in the short stories, as a grandfatherly figure, faking a Cockney accent, as all a manner of (typically older, and therefore less threatening) men. Part of his strength as a detective is his awareness of social circles and the workings of society. He uses it to his advantage, he doesn't provoke public scandal.

He's a private person. He didn't ask to be famous, or to be memorialized as a genius, and again, he doesn't go around looking for adoration or outrage.

Sherlock scorns romance, yes, but not in an internalized aphobia, "I'm suppressing my emotions/desire for the sake of The Case" kind of way, but in an "I'm the only reasonable person here, the rest of you are just weird" kind of way. We'll get back to that one.

Sherlock did have Moods. He also did drugs. But drugs didn't have the social context of drugs now.

Sherlock was superhumanly strong, for no particular reason? There's one story where someone threatens him (in his own flat, no less!) and he remains very polite and unflustered by it. Once the man leaves, he picks up the metal poker that the man bent and straightens it.

Honestly the disguises and the hand-to-hand combat made original Sherlock so OP. I'm not projecting modern values onto old characters, you are. Send Tweet.

Doyle was a spiritualist?!?!?! Like a committed believer in ghosts. Like so committed it ruined his friendship with Houdini. Yes, Harry Houdini. This is not relevant, I'm just impressed that an author so spiritual could write a character so famously and firmly rational.

Okay that's the important bits for original Sherlock. I could easily double the length of that section, but I hope it's clear enough now why I consider original Sherlock to be Very Cool and Interesting.

Part II: BBC Sherlock

Boy oh boy oh boy oh boy. Where to start with this one. Well, here's hbomberguy's 2-hour video essay on why BBC Sherlock is trash, to start. It's been a long time since I watched it but I recall it focusing more on its creator, Steven Moffat (and what that man did to Doctor Who as well, God sometimes I just lay awake thinking about every precious thing Moffat was allowed to put his slimy hands on). So I will attempt to focus on a few key things I don't remember hearing in that video essay.

First: The Trope of the Autistic Genius. I'm sure you (general audience) have seen this in some form of media: a socially awkward or unaware character, perhaps outright on the autism spectrum, perhaps just Weird™ who is a genius in a particular field. It's related to the Idiot Savant trope, thanks TV tropes, and portrayals range from a cute fictional romance with an autistic lawyer in Extraordinary Attorney Woo to the somewhat real-to-life story of John Nash, a real mathematician who made incredible contributions to the field of economics and also had incredibly difficult personal relationships due to his schizophrenia.

For some reason, Moffat decided to use this trope for Sherlock Holmes. I say "some reason" but it's pretty clear why: Sherlock is a genius. And there's a long tradition of "genius as a curse" characters where their intelligence comes at a cost: their ease of relationships with other people. Sometimes this is an explicit curse where the character traded power/intelligence/money etc. for the ability to feel (romantic) love (see: Howl's Moving Castle the movie). For the autistic genius, usually the price of their ability to grasp concepts (usually math or some type of science) beyond the understanding of Mere Mortals is their ability to understand people and social cues.

The thing is, the way Moffat does this with Sherlock makes no damn sense. He's a detective. His whole ass job is to understand social cues, human behavior, motivations and generally what makes people tick. There's probably a good way to make Sherlock autistic. However, the way Moffat does it creates this inherent contradiction, where Sherlock swings wildly from totally missing social cues to perfectly understanding people's desire and motivations. Make it make sense. Make up your mind. Is your Sherlock a tortured genius who cannot understand or relate to normal Molly Hooper, or is he a brilliant detective who Gets how people work? You (Moffat) can't have it both ways. It doesn't make any sense.

Second: the Reading People as Superpower thing. Moffat fully subscribes to the idea that you (general) can just look at somebody and deduce their whole backstory. This one pisses me off personally because it leaks to real life all the damn time. The phone charger is probably the most infamous example of why this doesn't work. (Fun fact, if the area around your phone charger is scratched from you repeatedly failing to plug it in, that doesn't mean you are an alcoholic!)

But it occurs both in BBC Sherlock and IRL. Usually IRL people are nice enough to only say out loud something that they think is positive. But here's the thing: they're almost never right. I've had nice little old ladies tell me "I can see that you are XYZ type of person" in the most well-meaning of ways and be completely off the mark. Not a single person who has guessed my race (out loud) has gotten it right. But I'm not just saying "don't make assumptions for the big things like race/sexuality/religion etc." I'm saying, we all make those assumptions when we first meet someone, whether we like it or not. But we have a choice whether to act on those assumptions. Reading people is not a fun thing smart people do in media, it's a common thing all of us do despite not having a higher chance of being correct than Moffat was with the phone charger thing.

The "you can read into anything because there's secret meanings behind everything" that BBC Sherlock encouraged led to one of the funniest and most pathetic phenomena in fandom: The Secret Good Sherlock finale. There's a good 1.5 hour video essay about it and how a portion of BBC Sherlock fans deluded themselves into thinking that the horrible, horrible ending of BBC Sherlock couldn't be real, and that there was a real finale coming if you just followed the clues where Johnlock was canon (more on that later). Because they just couldn't accept that this show which portrayed itself as so clever and Moffat as a 4D chess-master always fifteen steps ahead, was just Not Good.

(Side note: I missed all of the BBC Sherlock fandom experience despite watching the show, because I watched the show with my family. We all knew Doyle, you see; my father read those stories to my siblings and I as bedtime stories when I was little. I still remember his reading cadence and the character voices that he did. So when we heard about BBC Sherlock, we thought "hey, we know that guy!" and settled in to watch it as a family. I distinctly remember thinking that it was…fine? Like, just okay. But nothing about it was better than the original, and I would how much worse it was years later).

Third: Sherlock is just weirdly mean? All the time? In BBC Sherlock. I can only assume this is some sort of power trip fantasy, where the author self-insert (we'll come back to that) Sherlock is the most perfect boy who is always right and correct and so much smarter than everyone else that he just doesn't have to put up with their stupidity.

Like many of the gripes I have with BBC Sherlock, what I hate the most is how Moffat's portrayal seems to have influenced the general public's perception of who Sherlock is. Would this type of Victorian Sherlock exist without the type of arrogant monologuing that Moffat favored? I mean, maybe. I can't prove it. I just feel like they're related. (To be clear, I like Sherlock in that scene. I just think it's inconsistent with original Sherlock's interactions with the police, but to be fair, original Sherlock didn't have a little sister in jail for murder).

Fourth, IRENE ADLER MY BELOVED I WILL AVENGE YOU ONE DAY I SWEAR.

So Steven Moffat cannot for the life of him write a female character I'd feel bad for him if it wasn't so painful to watch in Doctor Who, Sherlock, and basically everything else he's ever done. Moffat, like many adaptors of Sherlock, was dead-set on making Irene Adler a femme fatale. She's not only a criminal, she's also sexy and very weirdly interested in Sherlock (again, the author self-insert strikes again. All the women must be interested in me I mean my most perfect boy!)

I am far from the only person who noticed this. Here's a Reddit post which calls Irene Adler out for basically sexually harassing BBC Sherlock throughout that episode. I don't disagree with the substance but I disagree with the reading. That post takes a Watsonian approach: Irene Adler repeatedly expresses sexual interest in Sherlock, who does not reciprocate. Despite this, the characters around him assume he reciprocates and at the end of the episode his brother Mycroft blames his nonexistent/unconfirmed interest in Irene Adler as the reason why she got one over him. When he does his dramatic "I am Sherlocked" reveal, he is saying 1) that he's really not interested, 2) that she didn't get one over him, and 3) that her emotional/sexual investment(?) in him is why she lost.

Here's the Doylist reading: Moffat's fantasy is the sexiest/coolest woman (Irene Adler) chasing after his author self-insert (Sherlock) who remains coolly aloof despite her advances, because he's cool. Everyone else's assertions that he's secretly interested stems from society's need to smash two dolls together and say "now kith" regardless of what the dolls in question are saying. At the end of the episode Sherlock makes the points that I made above, yes, but Moffat's also reaffirming that no one is allowed to outsmart his most special, most perfect boy (/self-insert), not even the character that CANONICALLY OUTSMARTED HIM. (Although to reiterate: original Irene Adler was not a criminal, did not blackmail anyone, and was not interested in Sherlock. Also she was American lmao).

There's one key scene (which I loathe with all my heart) that demonstrates how Moffat sees Irene Adler, and that's her introduction scene. Why? Because she walks in naked. Why? Because that way Sherlock cAn'T rEaD hEr. (Which brings us back to point #2, Reading People as Superpower).

This is mind-bogglingly, mind-bafflingly stupid. If Irene Adler really wanted Sherlock to """"not be able to read her"""" she should've just stolen the clothes of the first woman she saw that was her size. Or men's clothes, not her size, and not hers. That way any traces of character left on the clothes (i.e. coffee stains, hems worn down from constant worrying, cat fur, etc.) would've belonged to someone else, thus throwing Sherlock off even more.

And it's not like the body lacks marks unique to the person. Jesus Christ. Surgeries leave scars, as do accidents and injuries. Birthmarks, bite marks, stretch marks, scar marks, people drawing reminders or hearts on themselves with sharpies, tattoos, the list goes on and on and on and on and on. Bodies are not blank canvases.

There is no good Watsonian reading for why Irene Adler walks in naked. There is only a Doylist reading: Moffat thought it'd be hot for his femme fatale to meet his self-insert butt-ass naked. That is why I disagree with the Reddit post I linked which I assume you (general audience) read. Irene Adler's actions don't make sense when framed as "she's smart but obsessed with Sherlock despite never having met him before." I mean, it's possible? But it makes her far less intelligent from the very start than the show tells you she is. Her actions only make sense when framed as "Moffat thought it would be hot." (Dear Moffat: it's not).

Fifth, and finally: The Big Bad. This is not Moffat-specific: the need to have one main villain, to have everything in a series building to the big showdown with the Big Bad exists all over the place. Episodes are getting longer and longer while seasons get shorter and shorter. Sherlock, originally a series of short stories (with some long-form stories, my favorites <3 thrown in the mix), is perfect for the 30-45 minute 12-16 episode seasons. Instead it got…BBC Sherlock. With Moriarty as The Big Bad. Who Irene Adler is working for? For some reason? And has come back to life maybe? It's dumb. Bring back my case-of-the-week type stories :(

There are plenty more gripes I could list about BBC Sherlock, but those are the main ones. This is already getting much longer than I intended, so onto part three: my thoughts on Johnlock.

Part III: Do I ship Johnlock?

No.

Part IV: Just kidding!

Well, I don't not ship them. A friend asked me recently if I shipped them, and I thought about it for a minute and eventually said: "Honestly? I am so thoroughly neutral about them."

You could convince me of Johnlock. However, I remain unconvinced by the vast majority, if not all, of BBC Johnlock. It essentially feels like a derivative form of a derivative and vastly inferior form of the real Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Basically: the Johnlock that you (general BBC Johnlock shipper) are a fan of are just two people who happen to share names with the characters I know as the great detective Sherlock Holmes and the good doctor John Watson. But they're not actually Holmes and Watson, thus what you're shipping isn't even "real" Johnlock.

There are two parts of Johnlock's dynamic that I think are missing from the broader conversation (which is not to say that they're not talked about, just that they should be talked about more).

First, we're back to Watsonian vs Doylist readings, this time with the origin of the term in mind! (My literary analyst heart cackles in delight). You see, the Doylist reason for Watson's existence is to chronicle Sherlock's adventures. Genius characters are near-impossible to write from their perspective. The mystery and ingenuity vastly improves when explained by Sherlock to Watson after the fact. We, the audience, need John Watson to exist for the stories to be enjoyable. He is a plot device.

Now, I'm not saying that because John Watson exists for plot purposes, we can't consider the emotional connection between him and his flatmate. The Watsonian reading, according to Johnlock shippers, is that Sherlock and John live together because they are gayandinlove.

Which brings me to part two of their dynamic: the QPR-ness of it all. I think there's a lack of conversation about anything between "straight" and "gayandinlove" when there's so much gray area to discuss. Johnlock, in both the original and in my preferred version, strike me as a very comfortable queer-platonic relationship. It feels wrong for Sherlock to have a wife, husband, boyfriend, lover, etc. because it is so contradictory to who Sherlock is. I just can't picture him engaging in any modern or Victorian-era dating or courtship ritual. And not just because he explicitly derides and expresses his lack of interest in romance in the originals. After all, it's impossible to separate Sherlock's bachelorhood from the part where it was obviously impossible for him to marry a man in the 1890s; the institution of marriage simply didn't mean then what it does now. He certainly never and would never speak about sex, or his sexual preferences. I am sure they were assumed to be Good And Heterosexual. Which isn't to say that Victorian times were less queer than modern times. Doyle's contemporary, the Irish poet Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was very famously (/infamously) gay. The author Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) is also rumored to have cheated on his wife with her brother/his publisher.

No, I've always seen Sherlock as aroace just because…he comes across as very aroace? I don't know how to explain it other than "read it and tell me I'm wrong." And Johnlock always came across as very comfortable to me. Like there was a total lack of yearning. Don't get me wrong, I totally understand projecting into characters, so if you (general Johnlock shipper) add yearning to your Johnlock I'm not criticizing you. (And no, I'm not getting into Mary Morstan and her differing characterizations because then we'd really be here all day).

I also don't subscribe to the idea that Sherlock is aromantic because of his genius, his detective career, or his suppression of natural instincts in favor of the aforementioned reasons. It's aphobic and it's not how Sherlock works. The man is not judging himself for his lack of interest, he's judging you (aphobe) for thinking there's some deeper cause or something wrong with him for not being interested in romance.

And I can't fathom him engaging in sex except as an intellectual exercise. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I always thought BBC Sherlock was so weird about the concept of being gay. I mean, there were gay jokes galore but They Were Not Gay and Moriarty was gay-coded but John was definitely not into Sherlock and Sherlock was not gay but he wasn't into Irene Adler either, but that didn't make him asexual either, just…a genius?? Apparently??? Like he's straight but he's also too smart to be fooled by Irene Adler's wily wily feminine wiles. Like Straight 2.0 where they make you pay more for the same product with ads this time.

Which finally brings me to the last section: comparing original Sherlock and BBC Sherlock!

Part IV: We all know where this is going

Honestly most of this section has written itself already.

Original Sherlock Holmes was remarkably progressive for its times; BBC Sherlock was somehow less progressive despite being made centuries later. Its portrayal of women was somehow worse than the thing written in the 1890s. I'm a big believer in judging things with historical and social context in mind, which makes original Sherlock all the more astounding, and BBC Sherlock all the more regressive.

Original Sherlock Holmes was an excitable bloodhound who believed in his rational method and was genuinely delighted when he met his match. He was irritable and moody and indirectly killed a man with no remorse. BBC Sherlock is an arrogant, self-obsessed jerk who constantly belittled and mocked the intelligence and achievements of others. He, despite not understanding people, popularized the "you wear that sweater to remind you of your dead mother. You feel lost without her and are seeking a substitute in Macys Mother's Day line products" type of armchair psychoanalysis.

Original Sherlock loves a good case but sees his clients as human, at the end of the day. BBC Sherlock cannot stand to be wrong.

Original Sherlock and John are companions, comfortably; not normal/regular friends, though I would never say "more" than friends. Maybe, in a modern era, they'd be romantic partners of some sort, maybe not; I don't really care. BBC Sherlock and John are…friends but you gotta believe Moffat when he tells you that they are Definitely Not Gay. Like Not At All. Not Even A Little.

In conclusion: I loathe BBC Sherlock with all my heart. It is an insult to the legacy of Sherlock Holmes. A regression in the face of how radical Arthur Conan Doyle was. i genuinely feel sorry for all the people who have watched that show but never read the originals because they have no idea who Sherlock is, and original Sherlock is so damn cool.

[uminekowhentheyreact]

That and he also hates all of you

Honestly seeing who raised them they turned out surprisingly functional.

At least we know shit-talking Rudolph is an all generations affair, well deserved though.

I mean her mother does the best with what she has been given.

I know the game wants me to be disgusted at their greed and disrespect for their family patriarch ( or at least that's the impression i have so far) Eva may be the most personally cruel of the trio but has the most sympathetic reason to want money, to help her husband keep the company HE made. Rudolph isn't particularly cruel but he just fucked around and got in trouble.

Rosa doesn't seem interested in getting a particularly big share, just wants to make sure the other siblings don't push her out of getting one at all.

Meanwhile kraus has been essentially and repeatedly been gambling with millions, with said gambles failing.

The original deal was practically ideal in all honesty, with all the siblings getting a share to fix their problems while Krauss still gets the majority of the inheritance.

Less 'Trusted' and more 'wanted'

There's exactly one spot of empty space for BEATRICE left.

Unless she's somehow Maria's girldad.

If maria could read this story she would have died 400 words ago from hitting her face to much.

Battler you surprise me with how often you reach the right conclusion through the wrong path.

WOOOO MORE CHEST METAPHORS.

Because she's an actual witch

Ok following this logic the only person they can blame is Jessica right? the gal who also just happened to leave the room? they'll probably justify that since after Kraus she's the next air to be the family head, but what they fail to consider is that Kinzo hates all of them.

oooooooh batleeeeeerrrr, you wanna solve this mystery sooooo baaadlyyyyy ~ ⏱️⏱️⏱️

Theres like 40% chance one of them will die by morning light.

Hey don't spoil!

No he might actually be right.

Does he do this often..?

If this game turns into a dating sim halfway through because of this paragraph I'm giving it a 10/10.

I don't have a way to show it through image format, but "communication" being said in English surprised me.

[creepedverse]

Give us Arthur info dump

Personal Journal (tw for animal death!)

Entry 003, XX/XX/2008

Haaaaaah. Farnbury… What a place! I expected to be shell shocked when I got here, honestly! But, underneath the starry sky… I feel at home. I guess I’m home when I’m in the trees, no matter which direction I find myself! ^^ But, there are some differences compared to New York. For starters, it’s not as cold! I love the cold weather, so I never complained at home, but now in February, I feel overdressed! I also… I made friends!! Two of them!! Can you believe it!? Of course I can believe it, me! They’re both so… just wow!

I was just setting up my camp for the night when I met him! My first ever friend!! (Better late than never!) He seemed startled to see me out there, but I think he relaxed once he realized I wasn’t like a bear or something! (Even though being a bear would be super cool!) He was very quiet, and I started to fill the space by talking! I… I usually find it hard to start conversations, but talking to him came so easy! He just listened, and that was nice. I guess that’s what friends do! Anyways, that’s how we first met! Ever since then, I’ve been running into him here and there! He actually works at the diner I go to for breakfast! He’s probably used to my order by now, since I always get the same thing! (Pancakes, short stack, and coffee) His name is Tommie! And I think that name suits him marvelously! He is very much a Tommie! ^^

I made my second friend just recently! Here I am, braving the wilderness in hopes of solving the mystery surrounding the farnbury entity, but… well… this is taking longer than I thought it would! When I found that cursed picture online, it only took me two weeks to contain the entity! Bam! Done! No more silly dog! But… this entity seems… different. It’s… stronger than most. I have some theories about it, but I’ll detail them in my proper investigation journal. Anyways! Where was I? Right! It’s taking a long time to get to the bottom of this thing! So, I soon found myself almost out of money. And so, that means I needed a job! The only problem is that… well… no one wants to hire a guy living out of a tent! Except for one person! Bonnibel… Bonnie! My beautiful Bonnie! She saved me from total, utter despair!! Heh… okay that’s dramatic! But! She hired me to work at her antique shop! And I’m so proud to say we get along swimmingly! She’s so gentle and kind and doesn’t yell at me if I miscalculate change! Actually, now that I think about it… this is my first proper job! Huh! How epic!!!

Bonnie has a truly beautiful ability. She can see ghosts! What are the odds of her befriending me!? She’s surrounded by the paranormal, and I hope she’ll let me help if anything troublesome bothers her. I have a whole section in my notes dedicated to banishing spirits! I hope she can rely on me… She actually… She told me a ghost follows me. A small hare… hopping wherever I go. I… um…

Well I guess if I’m telling this journal everything, I’ll tell it everything. When I first encountered the farnbury entity, I lost control of myself for a second. The entity seemed to try and get in my head. It completely mixed my thoughts around, I couldn’t make out up or down, left or right. I started freaking out, in the woods, all alone. My tics started going haywire! I couldn’t control my body anymore and I just… spazzed. (I guess my high school peers were spot on with that nickname.) I ended up falling down a steeper-than-average hill. I must’ve hit my head because when I woke up, it was daylight. I was fine again. However… on my way down the hill, I… crushed… a rabbit. I felt so awful! The poor little thing! I started to panic! Luckily, my brother had taught me well, and I managed to calm my breathing (and my tears!) and took care of the rabbit by giving it a small burial. I didn’t really have any tools on hand, so I used what I could to make a little grave. I must’ve looked like I was going to faint when Bonnie told me she saw a hare with me! But, how I’ll choose to interpret it is that the rabbit is looking after me. After all, I think he knows it was an accident (I hope he knows!) Maybe he’s hopping around after me to keep me out of trouble! I’ll choose to look on the bright side!

In all my years, I’ve endured countless jabs and bullying and that one fight before I left high school. I can’t help but admit that I was losing hope I’d ever make actual friends… But… Here in Farnbury, things are different. I made friends. I have friends. And I will do anything to protect them, and any other future friends I might make. I will figure this entity out, nullify it, and invite Tommie and Bonnie to travel the whole country with me when I’m done!!!