#this is a shot at all these insane theories about fourth wing that only make sense if you didn’t pay attention

[buckysmischief]

Whenever I publish a book I’ma need y’all to do me a solid and shut down people who make ridiculous theories for the sake of views

[anthonyed]

The Kennedy Question (SamBucky)

There's a... hypothesis. It's circulating around their tower and Sam just got to make sure. He needs a theory and for that, he needs data.

It's pretty straight forward actually. He just has to ask the right question to the right person.

He spots his subject - already on his fifth cup of coffee, sweat dampened hair tied up in a half-bun and he's unnaturally happy. Good. Doesn't matter why he's happy but the point is he is. Which means, this is the right time to strike.

Flexing his biceps for an extra load of umph, Sam tilts his chin up and walks towards their resident centenarians.

"Hiya, Sam," Steve greets, face split into a smile, clearly happy that his moody half is looking cheery today.

"Hiya," Sam waves, pulling up a chair next to his target.

Half an egg and a sip of orange juice later, Sam looks at Steve who's whistling a tune, doing dishes and decides this is the right time to strike.

He turns to his target. And he fires the shot.

"Did you kill John F. Kennedy?"

He'd carefully lowered his voice so Steve wouldn't hear it over the running water and it works. Of course it works. Sam has hung out with Steve and Co. for a very long time, he knows how to gossip behind super-soldiers back by now.

All of his preps pointed towards positive results. A warranted reply. Except of course, Sam forgot to consider the fact that Barnes likes to be an ass around him just for the sake of it.

Hence, the reply he receives is: "You focus on stuffing your face or you're gonna be next."

-

The thing is, it's not a clear yes or no. It's not enough to confirm or reject the hypothesis. The very mystery of it drives Sam insane.

-

"Did you -," he ducks, blocking a jab. Hops to the left, avoiding a kick. Bloody Barnes is out for his blood.

But Sam knows how to handle him.

He gets the guy in a headlock the very next second after Steve yelled "Bucky, chill out!"

"Did you kill him?"

Barnes tries to elbow but Sam knows his stuff, oooh, he knows his stuff bloody well. He'd trained the lot - teenagers running wild with hormone committing truancies and petty crimes, all the prison breakers - name them, Sam has got all under his wing.

He fucking knows his stuffs. So, it's no surprise to anyone but Barnes when he gets the man on his knees. Head-lock still standing and the momentary shock gives Sam the chance to ask again, "Did you?"

Barnes coughs, splutters and taps on his hand so Sam loosens his grip. "What you gonna do? Report it?" He snarls, spitting fire like he actually believed Sam would.

The sheer absurdity of that doubt makes Sam let go of him; drop him like a hot-pocket. "The fuck would I do that for?"

Barnes, red-faced and sweat slick skin, hair falling over his face, glowers at Sam.

Sam stares at him right back. Dunno what he's asking/searching, but Sam's not afraid. He meets that glare with his own steady stare.

"You honestly think I'd sell you out." He states. Doesn't ask. Because that isn't a question.

He doesn't know what to think that Barnes thought of him that way.

"Wouldn't have helped Steve save you, if that was the case, you know."

-

"Why d'ya wanna know?" Barnes asks.

He was the only one in the communal floor when Sam had walked in; channel surfing and Sam had nabbed the remote to his disgruntled protest before settling on Animal Planet. Humans are exhausting for a Tuesday evening.

Now, after half an hour of watching Giant Squid hunting with no Giant Squid sighting, Barnes ends the silence with a frankly, vague as fuck question.

Sam squints at him for a good minute before it clicks and he straightens up in his seat. "Curiosity?" He shrugs.

Barnes looks at him flatly.

Sam glances at the screen, still no Giant Squid (just making sure), then back at Barnes. "Really, I just want to know. Barton's been spreading rumours."

Barnes doesn't say it, but it's there. The universal 'stupid Barton' look that everyone in the tower has at least once, worn.

"Tell me about it," Sam chuckles, slumping in his side of the couch. Barnes is not gonna give an answer. At least not today. That much is certain so, Sam returns to the screen.

A while after, the commentators are getting hyped up, the background music is building in anticipation and they're about to do the big reveal when the channel switches to a bunch of blonde bimbos.

"Barnes!" Sam aims a kick because there is no other way -

Barnes is predictably, two seats away, smirking into his hoodie and clicks away at the buttons.

"I'm spiking your dinner with ghost pepper. You won't know until it hits you - Oooh, you're so gonna regret this. I fucking hate you!"

-

Sam does yoga. It's for his mental health. Dealing with Veterans and delinquents need constant maintenance of his mind palace and he gives that through yoga.

Sometimes, he does it alone but usually it's with Wanda and Vision. Tends to get incredibly awkward sometimes (who knew Androids have sexual frustrations) but hey, it gets the job done.

Occasionally, Dr Banner joins them. Rarely, he drags Tony along just to make the man suffer for promised science experiments or whatever it is geniuses do. Natasha has her sessions after them, something about "Not needing all these stupidity for my clarity", whatever, prissy ass she-assassin.

Steve, Steve's pal and Barton don't do it. They just don't. (Steve once mentioned something about biceps getting in his way or another and Sam stopped paying attention. Barton is just a lazy human.)

Thus why, Sam gawks when he sees Steve's pal, the other Steve or more specifically, Bucky Barnes in a dog pose next to Wanda.

First thought; what the fuck?

Second thought; nice ass.

Third thought; the fucking fuck is that fuck - what!?

Fourth thought; "That's my spot."

Two heads turn to Sam, one head's body waves while another grins.

"Hi, Sam," Wanda beams.

"Hullo, Sam," Vision stops waving only when Sam waves back.

But Sam's eyes are still fixed on that nice pair of ass no!

"That's my spot." He points at where Barnes is ignoring him; flowing through his Surya Namaskar like he was born doing it until he stands, facing Sam and he looks straight into Sam's eyes.

There's something dangerous glinting in them and Sam wastes too many seconds distracting his thoughts from how fucking gorgeous that flow was that he only realises, once Barnes is already in Savasana, just what that glint was about.

"Fuck you, Barnes," he spits, walking towards him, not a pause as he steps onto the mat, then right on top of Barnes's stupid hard chest and over to the other side of Wanda.

Vision graciously makes room for Sam and no. Sam is not letting Bucky fucking Barnes ruin his mind-palace maintenance today.

-

Sam doesn't hate the guy. He honestly doesn't. He just, doesn't know the guy that well.

So, when he sees Barnes fidgeting under the island counter, long sleeves drawn out to bury his fingers while Steve and Tony lash out at each other in the kitchen (no privacy respect, those two. No, never. Almost everyone knows about that by now but Barnes, maybe cause he's still new here.) Sam gently elbows at his side and jerks his head towards the exit.

"They're always like that," he tells the guy solemnly. Hot aroma of coffee wafting in the air and Sam breathes it in deeply.

"Always?"

"Uh, huh."

He takes a sip of his cappuccino, watching Barnes stare at his black coffee gloomily.

Ten seconds later, Barnes asks, "If Stark hates Steve, then why is he letting him live in his place?" Letting me live in his place? Is the unasked question.

Sam takes a long sip before he replies. "Stark doesn't hate Steve," he observes the way Barnes' forehead wrinkle into a frown before it quickly flattened out. Erasing evidence. From everywhere except his eyes.

Sam doesn't know how he knows that nor is he going to analyse said matter, so he distracts himself by elaborating his answer.

"Stark never hated Steve. As a matter of fact, I think Stark likes Steve a little too much for his convenience."

This time, the frown stays and deepens. Sam grabs a napkin and shreds a strip out of its edge.

"You mean, he fancies Stevie?" Barnes mumbles his question towards his untouched coffee. Face contorting fifty ways different and Sam curses himself for even saying a thing in the first place. He can preach to many but he's not having the gay rights talk with a homophobic. That's where he officially draws his line.

To his surprise however, Barnes starts laughing.

It starts as a snort then grows into a chuckle and later a full-blown beautiful laughter. Fuck, dammit, Sam has got to stop thinking like that of this man.

But the steam from his still hot cappuccino swirling under the dim light of the cafe with its dark red background and velvety purple overthrows and cushions and Barnes in the mainframe with all those in the backdrop -

He's beautiful. There is no denying it. Happiness looks gorgeous on everyone and it especially looks stunning on Bucky Barnes.

"Never thought I'd see a day someone go ape-shit over Stevie, but here I am," Barnes chuckles, crinkled eyes, glazed with mirth swirling and molten grey. He's fucking gorgeous and Sam's heart restarts with a new rhythm.

Indeed, "Here you are."

-

Sam sits, and he thinks. 

All he ever wanted was an answer to a simple question. That’s it. He didn’t ask for the moon or dream of fucking Captain America like Tony Stark and yet here he is. Four months after his first time asking the question; from not knowing the guy at all to somehow tolerating him and surprise, surprise, now he’s in a sticky crush situation with the guy. 

Hell, no wonder Tony is the way he is with Steve. This whole crushing on super-soldiers is frustrating as fuck and Sam hates it.

In fact, he doesn’t even deserve it.

All he wanted was an answer. To a single simple question. Sam refuses to pine after Bucky Barnes for the price of solving Kennedy’s murder. He’s better than that. He can solve the mystery without selling his heart. 

Sam decides this is the final straw and he isn’t having it anymore. He’s going to end it all.

-

“Did you or did you not kill John F. Kennedy?”

“Good afternoon to you too, Sammie,” Bucky Barnes grins, black hoodie and black pants, sitting cross-legged on the couch as he tosses an unopened bag of chips for Sam to catch. “Mario kart or are you finally brave enough to play The Last of Us Part 2?”

“Don’t call me that,” Sam grumbles, marching his way to the empty spot next to Barnes and plopping down. “It’s not about bravery. The reviews aren’t so good -,”

“I read them all. General opinion is still positive. You better hurry up, I’m running out of ways to stop Barton from spoiling it.”

The thought that Barnes is waiting for Sam to start on something is disconcerting. In a warm, fuzzy, heart palpitating way. So, Sam pops the chips’ bag open and stuffs a handful into his mouth in an attempt to drown out the feels with an obnoxiously loud CRUNCH.

“Is that why you throttled him last night?”

“No,” Barnes drawls lazily, leaning into Sam’s space to fish out a chip and pops it into his mouth. “That’s because he ate the last brownie.”

“Bruce’s?”

Barnes nods, wiping his finger over his pants and continuing to fiddle with the remote. 

“Fair enough,” Sam declares. Then an idea pops up. “I’ll play that game if you answer my question.”

Barnes seems to know which one. His shoulders tense, squaring up and he seems to curl inwards, shrinking into his hoodie and Sam hates himself for causing this. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he blurts out. Anything to draw Barnes out of that state.

Shamefully, he wonders if this is what they meant by ‘simping’. God, he’s weak for this man and that’s ridiculously unfair.

Regardless, his words seem to work their miracle because Barnes relaxes, shoulders sagging and Sam feels his own tension bleed. The silence stretches uncomfortably for a while until all Sam could think is to not flex his fingers because that would crinkle the plastic bag and it would be loud and that would win the Guinness World Awkward Award. 

Then, Barnes speaks. He’s still facing away, at the TV, and he scratches the back of his head through the hoodie as he asks quietly, “Can I ask you a question in return?”

Sam blinks. He minces his reflexive ‘You just asked’ and shrugs, “Sure.”

Exactly thirteen heartbeats after, Barnes asks, “Do you fancy men, Sammie?”

Sam’s throat goes dry. Something clenches in his chest, warning him about his own thoughts in the Cafe about not willing to explaining gay-rights to a homophobic. But he also remembers Barnes’ reaction to finding out Tony liking Steve like that. Especially Barnes’ laughter.

“Yeah,” Sam says, “I like both women and men.”

“A bisexual,” Barnes nods into his hoodie. As if he’s recalling something he read only yesterday. He probably is. 

Sam pulls in a breath and sinks into his seat. He pulls out a chip and pops it into his mouth. “Anything else?”

He’s not ready when Barnes turns towards him. He’s mid-munch, chips still sharp shards that poke at his tongue when he meets grey eyes full of intent. But he swallows them anyway. Barnes’ unabashed and fearless, staring straight into Sam’s eyes as he pops the question that makes Sam’s palms and soles tickle. 

“Do you wanna step out with me?”

Sam is 100% sure he croaks when he opens his mouth to say, “I’ll only say yes if you tell me whether you killed Kennedy or not.”

Barnes’ lips wobble and he ducks his head. Shoulders shaking when he looks up again with a beatific grin split across his face; gorgeous fucker. And he answers, “I don’t know, I don’t remember.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Sam mutters, already grabbing him by his nape and he pulls him in to kiss that gorgeous happiness on his face. “Don’t care.” Another kiss, “Who cares?” Another “Dude’s dead anyway.” 

Barnes laughs, head tipping back, body leaning to fall and Sam goes down with him gladly.

[robotspiderrampage]

Letter to Rebecca Moseley

Ashbury, 19 July 1887

To: Rebecca Moseley, 1 Old King’s Way, Caladon

Rebecca, 

I hope this letter finds you well, and I also hope that you remember how to read this. I have also enclosed a similar message for your father.

[The rest of this message is encoded in a series of pictographs, essentially Wingdings.]

Dearest sister, I apologize for the coded message. Though I personally have no more need for subterfuge, I’m sure that Dad would appreciate the gesture, given the sensitive nature of some of the things I plan to tell you.

I’m sure that at this point, you’re aware that I’m alive. I survived the crash of the Zephyr. I’m sorry for any grief I may have caused you before word got back to you. You were the only person who knew I’d left on the Zephyr initially, and I’m sure it wasn’t easy dealing with the aftermath when it crashed. I should have written you, but unfortunately, circumstances prevented me. 

You see, the crash of the Zephyr was just the beginning of the convoluted mess that I find myself finally nearing the end of. I found myself thrown unwillingly into a plot so inconceivable that you’ll probably think me mad if I tried to tell you all of it. But, given that this may very well be my last communication with you, I feel that I can risk you judging me as mentally infirm in addition to being physically infirm.

The Zephyr didn’t crash from mechanical failure. It was shot down in an effort to kill one of the passengers: a dwarf named Stennar Rockcutter. The reasoning behind this treacherous murder plot is even stranger. You see, Stennar was a member of the Black Mountain clan of dwarves, a clan that disappeared 60 years ago after Gilbert Bates revealed mechanical plans for his patented steam engine based on their own to the public. The cause of the clan's disappearance? Abduction. A group of Dark Elves (elves who defected from the main body of elves after the Age of Legends), masquerading as emissaries from Quintarra, lied to the leader of the dwarves, stating that Bates’ inventions had led to the destruction of uncountable elven forests and that the Black Mountain Clan was responsible for the damage, as they had given Bates the plans. They demanded that the clan be banished to the Isle of Despair, a prison island off the coast of Ashbury. As it happens, the Clan wasn’t banished to the Isle. They were banished to the Void. Yes, that Void. The same one that people tend to go to when they die, according to the Panarii. You know, the funny humans in robes that we used to see scurrying around Caladon? Those Panarii. I’ll be touching on the topic of the Panarii again in a moment. They’re pretty important to this story. Anyway, the dwarves were banished to the Void so that they could build some sort of device to break an individual stuck in the Void out. The individual in question? None other than Arronax, the villain of the Panarii holy book. See? I told you I’d get back to the Panarii. It turns out that the Panarii actually prophesied Arronax’s escape, and in their prophecy it was stated that their god, the elf sorcerer Nasrudin, would return and fight him, defeating him once and for all.

At this point, you’re obviously thinking two separate thoughts. First, that I’m insane and spinning conspiracy theories. This… is a fair assumption. Second, you’re probably wondering what any of this has to do with me, and why I didn’t just come home after the crash. I thought endlessly about doing just that over the last two years. The problem was that I and the other survivors of the crash were erroneously identified as the reincarnation of Nasrudin. A young Panarii monk, Virgil, told us that because we had survived the fiery crash unscathed, that we had been “reborn on wings of fire”, just as the prophecy stated for Nasrudin. We tried to debate the validity of that statement, but Virgil's mentor, the Elder Joachim, agreed with him. Even the Dark Elves seemed to think of us as a new potential threat, as well, sending waves of assassins after us from the moment we clawed our way out of the wreckage. Admittedly, in their case, they probably considered us a problem due to our brief conversation with Stennar before he passed on from the injuries he’d sustained in the crash. From that point on, my fellow survivors and I have had no other option than to unravel the plot that I spun you above in an effort to figure out why everyone either thought we were a god, asked us to handle a difficult but relevant situation, or wanted us dead, all the while avoiding contact with our loved ones out of fear of you being used against us. However, as we worked to untangle the twisted knots of intrigue, we found even more complications. 

First, the Dark Elves had been led to believe that the Device that they had kidnapped the Black Mountain clan to build would be used to break Arronax out of the Void. It turns out that Arronax was never in the Void at all! He lives, alive and well, off the coast. Now, before you exclaim “but wait!”, don’t worry. He’s not the bastion of evil that the Panarii made him out to be. We met him. He’s just a sad old man struggling with daddy issues. Magick was able to extend his life to the present day. You may ask why the Device was built, then. It seems that Kerghan, the terrible necromancer that had been banished to the Void for crimes against sentient-kind in the Age of Legends, managed to trick the Dark Elves into thinking that he was their idol, Arronax. The Device exists to break him out. It uses the souls of the dead stuck in the Void to power itself.

 Second, the Device is ripping holes into our world. We’ve encountered many such rips and they allow the terrible creatures of the Void, demons, beasts and the like, to enter our world. The rips also destabilise reality, and if the current trend continues, there may be enough to end reality as we know it. 

Third, the monk that originally clued us in to the Panarii prophecy has far more to do with the situation than even he initially realized. He left us a year ago, angry and depressed from the stress of the quest and of us, and ended up in one of the rifts… and therefore the Void itself. He encountered the Device, but since he was alive when he did so, it couldn’t use his soul for power. Instead it shattered it. The shards were able to retain sentience and some were able to escape. Saint Mannox, the man who wrote the Panarii holy text, and therefore the prophecy that pulled us into this mess, was one such shard. The Panarii elder who mentored Virgil and encouraged him to stick with us was another. All of them seem dedicated to engineering our involvement in these rather unbelievable events. 

Fourth, it seems that the only way to stop the world ending and possibly save poor Virgil from the Device is to get into the Void and stop Kerghan. We have plans to do just that. Hopefully we’ll succeed, but there’s a very low chance that we’ll make it back out alive even if we do.

Rebecca, I’ve done and seen so much on this journey… and I don’t just mean the absolutely hairy series of unfortunate events that I just laid out for you. I roamed the continent. I got engaged and then (sadly) broke his heart. (Which, by the way, my ex-fiance is apparently in Caladon now. My companion, Thaddeus, mentioned to him that I have siblings, so… I’m sorry if you have a random new suitor.) I stood up to Councilman  Babcock and (accidentally) made a rude gesture at him while dressed as you (which you probably heard about and I’m sorry if that hurt your reputation, though I know you and you probably thought it was hilarious). I was arrested half a dozen times. I met the king of the dwarves and the leader of the elves. 

Best of all, I made friends. Real, live friends that aren’t related to me. Against all odds, I managed to fall in with a group of weird, funny, awful, lovely outcasts and… I have friends.Thaddeus, the human, is a fellow technologer, a practitioner of medicine, and possibly one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. He can be awkward and naive and frustrating occasionally, but mostly he’s just unflappably kind and the most loyal friend I could ask for. He’s known about Tarant as the Pervert of Tarant, but don’t listen to a word of it. He wouldn’t know a set of genitals if it bit him, He’s certainly no Pervert. Waltera is a quirky halfling who loves both love and other people’s stuff.  Utvald was a half-ogre that traveled with us for a short time before settling in Tarant. Last we saw him, he was in a rather dangerous situation. I hope he’s okay. Pog the Garringsburg’s half-ogre joined us for a while, too. He seemed quite smitten with me, but he eventually found acceptance at the University in Tarant. Wolf is a Dark Elf (!!!) who defected from the rest. She’s exceedingly odd, constantly nude, and occasionally a danger to herself and others, but I find her more pleasant than I may let on. Her sister Zan also travels with us, and she’s the calm, rational counterpart to her sister. She and I are of a like mind on many matters and I appreciate her greatly. Straf is… well he’s Straf. He was an elf, but thanks to a series of magickal shenanigans, he’s now some horrible salt golem/dragon hybrid. Don’t ask how. I really can’t explain it. He’s an awful person, a loudmouth, a bigot, and quite possibly the worst person I’ve ever met… But he’s also loyal and has saved my life more times than either of us would care to admit. Magnus, a dwarf, is intelligent, a fine craftsman of armor and weapons. He’s kind and just the right level of sarcastic and is also quite handsome, if I do say so myself. And last, though certainly not least, was our dear friend, Virgil. He was sweet, kind, and never missed an opportunity to be helpful. He could be surprisingly strong-willed when he wanted to be. He wanted to rise above his childhood of pain and poverty and make a difference in this world. Unfortunately, we pushed him to the breaking point. I miss him keenly, Rebecca. I hope we can save him.

Lastly, before I sign off on this letter, I have some news involving our father, Doc, and the reason I left. I’m sure, given all the other nattering on that I’ve done in this letter, that you thought I’d forgotten my goal. I didn’t. I found out exactly what happened to Doc. He’s still alive, Rebecca. Dad didn’t kill him, and he didn’t die of natural causes. He’s alive. Dad had to fake his death to protect him. It seems that Dad is the exact opposite of what I thought he was. He’s not a callous businessman exploiting a race of people for his own benefit. He’s helping them. He’s saving the half-ogres from the other gnomes. The Industrial Council is forcibly breeding half-ogres for use as unpaid labor. Dad knows and has been quietly trying to stop them. I met with him a few weeks ago and discovered the truth, after I had located and destroyed the facilities at one of the breeding colonies. Dad kept everything from us because he wasn’t sure he could trust anyone, including his own children. That made me angry, at first. After all, I had been pretty open with him about my views on the subject of half-ogre subjugation. Yet, he let me run off into danger that he was apparently fully aware of, given how much he knows about my exploits. I thought it was short-sighted or selfish. I thought maybe he was just doing it for the glory. But the more I think about things, the more I realize that that’s not the case at all. He didn’t think he could trust us. He put the needs of the many, many half-ogres over the needs of us. Yes, he let me amble off into danger. I might have been hurt or killed, but honestly, if I’d proven untrustworthy and he had told me, I could have doomed hundreds, possibly thousands of half-ogres. As much as it hurts, he was probably right. Their safety outweighs mine. This realization makes what’s to come in my own quest more bearable. I’m willing to walk into the Void if it helps save everyone else. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

But, sis, I do have one need of my own to fulfill before I go. We have to acquire one last thing before we’ll be able to take on Kerghan in the Void, but once we get it, we’ll head to Roseborough to be sent to the Void. It’d like to see you before I leave. If you head to the Roseborough Inn after you get this letter, we may be able to see each other before I go. If you don’t wish to do so, then I understand, though.

Love, Dyna

[visiontothedark]

I don’t at all want to falsely raise anyone’s hopes, but

the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that there has to be a fourth episode.  I know that’s a conspiracy nutter, off-the-deep-end thing to say, I know that.  But once you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.  It’s literally the only theory that fits all the data.

- “Sherlock’s in love, but with who?”  fucking good question that they never answered

- “help us make television history” how exactly have they made history? maybe you could argue that they made Holmesian history by giving Sherlock a sister (though even that’s a stretch), but television history?

- “groundbreaking, insane wish fulfillment” WHEN?!  WHAT GROUNDBREAKING THING HAPPENED?!

- “love conquers all” love for your random sociopathic mystery sister yeah okay whatevs

- EMP or extended dream (or possibly the drugging of our narrators, though that seems less and less likely the more I think about it) are the only theories that really explain all the gaping plotholes and impossibilities that TPTB are refusing to address

- what was the point of Sherlock hacking Twitter?  why bring up that particular case?

- how did the same people who wrote the previous 3 seasons + TAB go from being two of the best TV writers we’ve ever known to being carelessly sloppy and abjectly lazy seemingly overnight?

- how could someone like Mark Gatiss, who’s gone on and on about the importance of queer representation–who’s contributed so much to London’s Switchboard, and has become a gay beacon of hope in the film industry–all of a sudden do a complete 180 and betray his own community by completely ignoring the Johnlock arc that’s been built into the show since the unaired pilot?  Moftiss aren’t idiots; they know exactly that this is the story they’ve been writing.  would they really queerbait us like this?  is that in character of them?

- speaking of characters, why was every single one OOC so much during this series?

- if not for the Johnlock arc, why tell us to pay so much attention to the subtext?

- why the radio silence on social media following TFP?

- why would The Princess Bride parallels suddenly just…stop?

- Arwel never knew what the elephants meant?  is that even possible at this point in the game?

- why did TPTB more or less advertise the episode leak?  why not make people sign NDAs at the screening three days before the public release?

- why else would everyone involved, including the actors, keep insisting that this series is the best one yet?  did they all succumb to temporary insanity at the same time?  was there something in the water at Cardiff?

- where was the 26 page dialogue?  what scene did Martin need to film alone while everyone else was at SDCC?  what happened to the John and Mary restaurant scene?

- TFP made no sense.  I’m sorry, but even if you liked it, you have to admit that it was all over the place and almost completely detached from the rest of the series.  a secret sister with mind-control powers that Sherlock wiped from his memory who can make glass come and go at will and escaped prison but still needed Moriarty brought to her and who made an entire building with fake walls in the space of a couple hours just for Sherlock to spend two minutes in and who paints ceramic dog bowls in her free time and apparently slung John over her shoulder before climbing down a well and chaining him to the bottom with chains that can magically disappear with the power of brotherly love?  Sherlock temporarily forgetting that glass reflects shit?  paintings that cry blood?  random clowns coming out of nowhere?  Mycroft not realizing that to open doors in your house all you need to do are fucking unlock them?  drones carrying patience bombs?  surviving the explosion without injury and somehow appearing in a boat in the middle of the ocean out of nowhere?  why did they even need to sneak into Sherrinford in the first place, when Mycroft was apparently calling the shots all along; he even��stole the director’s office almost immediately after his “I’m not really a fisherman” reveal.  and Mycroft, in a fisherman costume?  do they deliver coffins to top-secret island prison asylums now?  why throw away the three Garridebs, one of Moftiss’s favorite ACD stories, when they could have chosen any three names?  “you were always the grownup Sherlock”? what’s with all the tranquilizers?  why was Greg the one to respond at the end of the episode?  asylum escapees aren’t his division. how did they even get to the Holmes house in the first place in that amount of time?  and where exactly did Mycroft disappear to when John was being tossed into a well and Sherlock was running around a fake cemetery with a Victorian lantern to light his path like he was fucking Elizabeth Bennet traipsing around a field at dawn?  and a fake cemetery?  what?  do you want me to keep going?

- “everyone gives up after three”  why three?  why that particular number?  I’m genuinely asking here–was that a coincidence or did they deliberately pick it for a reason?

- I realize that this has happened before with different shows on accident, but why are some official websites suddenly advertising a fourth episode that will air on the 22nd?

- Moffat just said in an interview that electing Trump was possibly one of the worst decisions in human history.  you know what would make television fucking history?  advertising a secret gay episode during his inauguration coverage–something everyone will be watching–so that instead of allowing a right wing conservative to have the world’s attention, it’s instead redirected to a liberal, LGBTQ positive, groundbreaking show.  what a giant “fuck you” that would be towards homophobes who are cheering Trump and Pence on.  could you imagine how many new Sherlock fans that would garner?  how much the BBC could gain from that?  how much the queer community could gain from that?

- “oh yeah TPLOSH that was great, great job writing a confirmed homosexual Holmes who takes drugs to repress his love for Watson, Thank you Billy Thank you Wilder, yeah we steal lines from that movie all the time and included the name Gabrielle Ashdown in T6T and tucked a flower behind John’s ear, we’re going to fix what Wilder always regretted never doing.”  two minutes later “what?  Johnlock?  don’t be ridiculous, that’s not the story we’re telling, we don't even like that movie.” lying liars who lie

- “we’re going to fix something that we think everyone else has gotten wrong”  what exactly have they fixed?  if there’s a possibility that this is the last season, this is sort of your last chance mate

- is “grumpy bisexual” even a stereotype outside of John?  if it is I’ve never heard of it, and I’m bi, so…

- “well, John Watson, get the hell on with it”  why that build up only to give John like four lines total during TFP

- literally, what was the entire point of TAB?  Sherlock realized that he always needed John to defeat the villain, and yet he ignored Vatican Cameos without second thought?  why is he regressing back to his series one attitude of “I work alone”?

- even if they planned on doing EMP and/or Johnlock in order to fix TFP’s mess, would they really risk waiting another three or four years?  unless they air it this coming week, their ratings next series will plummet because of the bad taste they left in people’s mouths

- “I think I’m going to write a poem in response to a critic accusing me of making Sherlock too James-Bondy” followed by TFP, one of the most ridiculously James-Bondy things I’ve ever seen?  they jumped from an exploding building for fucks sake

- why did they make Mary follow so closely to ACD’s Moran if to not confirm her as a villain?

- WHAT WAS IN JOHN’S LETTER!!!

- do they really expect us to believe that Rosie’s a real, living baby?  who are these people who are volunteering to raise John’s child for him while he’s out being bros with the Holmes boys?  John’s friends all hate him, why would they agree to do that?

- the final problem was Eurus?  the final problem was Redbeard?  the final problem was saving an imaginary child from an imaginary plane?  what exactly was this “final problem” supposed to be?

- what exactly did Mark mean when he said there might be too many endings?  what was with the cheeky wink?

- again, HOW WAS ANY OF THIS GROUNDBREAKING, INSANE WISH-FULFILLING, TELEVISION HISTORY?!

Again, I don’t want to falsely raise anyone’s hopes; to be perfectly honest, I’ve been desperately trying to talk myself out of believing in a secret fourth episode since TFP aired, because I don’t want to be crushed again like I was after seeing TFP.  But at this point, I don’t know what else to think.

I can’t think of anything else that makes sense.