#this started out as a joke about how i sometimes have very coherent analysis about him and sometimes i can only go hrgrhrghrgr

[average-hua-cheng-fan]

on hua cheng's morality and self esteem

on my first read of the book, i was actually convinced that hua cheng was this amoral asshole but that's just what he WANTS you to think. hua cheng actually cares a lot about ghost city (founded to combat the injustice of ghost persecution btw), he just downplays his achievements in front of xie lian because he doesn't want to 'trick' him into liking him. he also sees any accomplishments as a direct result of dianxia's influence so it would be wrong to take credit for them. perhaps hundreds of years of playing the part of the terrible calamity skewed his perception of himself even further.

in his introduction in heaven, they say how he would "Sometimes... carry out a massacre in cold blood, and sometimes he would do odd acts of kindness" (page 157, book 1) which makes me wonder what heaven defines as "cold blood." he visibly dislikes the man who bet his daughter's life and mentions killing several tyrants. in creating e'ming, he nearly destroyed himself in order to save those mortals. on the casino in ghost city, "If I don’t control a place like this, then someone else will. I’d rather that person be me." (page 107, book 2.) he has a very strong sense of justice that he hides under 3 million layers of arrogance.

xie lian gets the ability to tell if he is lying early in the book and sees him for who he really is. they're very similar in that they have this drive to do good in the world but think about it and go about it in very different ways. hua cheng even mentions that it doesn't matter how you go about saving the common people, and that xie lian over-complicates what is right and wrong and should do what he wants... but he wouldn't turn that logic on himself :/

anyway

**this is my reading btw if anybody wants to have a discussion im 100% down

[marbrnv]

Writer's block

or is it?

I just can't do it. I can't. I know exactly what to write, I have made extensive notes, I have every aspect covered, but I can't put it into fucking words, let alone coherent sentences that make sense together and deliver the point. I just can't. I'm sitting here and I want to scream. And cry. And punch something.

At the same time, I can't NOT write it. It's been way too long, my advisors are waiting for this goddamn chapter. A month ago I told them I'm wrapping it up, I have the bulk written, but there are a few sections that I really struggle with. Yeah, ok, not untrue. I don't know why I struggle with them, those aren't even my own research sections - just context analysis based on the scholarship that's already there. Why is this so difficult? How can I feel like I know what to write, but at the same time like I don't have a faintest idea?

I thought to myself, ok, it's just a minor section, write it like a usual course paper, 2-3 thousand words, I've done that a hundred times, piece of cake. I didn't care if it made perfect sense, I just had to write it, so I did. I didn't frankly care about the grade that I'd get - at a doctoral level you need to really mess up to produce a B quality paper. We know our shit at that point. And even if it's not great, in the end it always does make sense. But now when it's my dissertation (god, that damn word!), I feel like the same total amateur undergrad with the only difference being that back then I did not have the awareness of being an amateur. When you're 20, every word you write seems like a stroke of genius to you. At least it did to me; but judging by 99.5 percent of my students, this is not uncommon. And you savor it - even if years down the road you shrug at the thought that you could write something so stupid.

In some less grave cases, giving it a little cry helps. This is only partly a joke. But in situations like this one today, not even tears come out. Total and complete paralysis. Texted my phd-student friends from my program to ask if this is what experience sometimes, too. Their answers were king of vague. Yes, no, not the same way.

That made me realize how little we, the grad students, share about the actual pain of doing what we do. The constant, excruciating self-doubt, very often no or very little support because nobody can really relate, especially if your family and friends have nothing to do with academia (my case), and especially if you come from abroad (also my case; don't even get me started on writing as an esl). Nobody takes you seriously, you're just an overgrown student, you don't really make a living (even though I think it's wild that we get paid anything at all for just reading a bunch of obscure stuff and writing some even more obscure stuff for 5-6-7 years). You're kind of at the very bottom. Nobody says it like that, but it does very much feel like it. Not the greatest motivator.

And among ourselves, we kind of play it cool, don't we. We joke and complain about the "hard" things - getting grants, doing research in archives around the world, connecting the dots of our narrative, editing - but not that. Not the fact that most of the time you feel like a child that was left alone in a crowded place, not knowing how they got there or how to get home. Standing there, holding a stupid pink cotton candy in one hand and thinking this is it, now you live on the streets.

Jesus Christ, will this ever get easier.

[theyarebothgunshot]

jib 7 breakdown and analysis 

a little while ago i said that i am open to requests for making analysis posts when it comes to cockles panels and just cockles in general, and i got quite a few responses. the first person who asked me was my lovely tea anon, and the panel in question is jib 2016 aka jib 7. 

first of all i want to give you my take on the overall vibe, and then second of all i will get into the details and link to certain timestamps in the video. 

standard disclaimer: i am not gonna be linking to every single thing i talk about, but i will try my best to link to the moments that stand out to me the most. my recommendation would be to watch the panel in its entirety alongside my comments. i have read long posts about this panel before, so not everything in this post is gonna be original or said for the first time ever, simply because there is a good chance that information has stuck in my mind and has subconsciously formed my view of this panel. this is also in no way, shape or form gonna be coherent, unfortunately. i’m just gonna hope that the cockles hivemind will be able to make sense of this regardless. love and light. and lastly, this is all in good fun, so don’t come at me if you think this is too out there please and thank you.

the overall vibe that this panel gives me is that jensen and misha are a unity at this point. they are in sync with each other, and this whole panel is very relaxed and in good spirits. there is also the fact that their outfits match very well. and with jensen ross ackles involved, that cannot be a coincidence, so i love that a lot. 

another thing that i cannot ignore is that it’s also a very sexual panel, with a lot of double meanings and innuendos and remarks that can be read as sexual if you are as pervy as me. 

now let’s get into the specifics. 

although i am sure this is not going to be news for any of you, i feel like a little background knowledge is in order. before this panel, misha had had a panel that day with j*red. the mishalecki panel was really fucking funny and filled with sexual innuendos. 

between these two panels, it appears that there was a break in which they all had nothing to do (i am basing this off other people’s experiences and reports that i have read in the past, as i unfortunately wasn’t there myself).

considering how this panel goes, i think there is a good chance that jensen and misha just had sex beforehand. and based on both of their demeanors, one could draw certain conclusions about who did what (i honestly don’t like talking about who tops and who bottoms because who gives a shit and things are rarely that black and white, but all i’m gonna say is that even though jensen has joked about his asshole before, jensen and misha clearly said switch rights).

from the very first second. the VERY FIRST SECOND. jensen is sauntering on stage like he is thee man. then the crowd is cheering ‘one more time’, and jensen looks at misha, starts cheering too, and makes a movement that is bordering on obscene before waving it away. conclusion: ‘one more time’ could also mean ‘one more round of hot steaming sex’ and he still had sex on the brains, so that was what he was thinking about. 

ahhh, the intricate ritual [1m34s] of greeting each other on stage as if you haven’t spoken to each other all day, even though you probably just had sex….. jensen ackles, i wanna study you. i wonder what the deal is with that. does he just like to pay misha extra attention on stage? does he revel in the fact that he knows that fans like this sort of interaction? can he just not help himself? questions that keep me up at night. 

also, there is just SOMETHING about the way jensen says ‘i’m doing well how are you?’ it’s almost flustered? borderline shy? and then he goes on to say that he did an impression of misha earlier, in a manner that’s just so flirty. idk guys. it’s flirty. kindergarten flirty, but flirty nonetheless.

misha, of course, immediately turns his entire body towards him. almost as if they both already forgot there is an audience in front of them. then he just gets closer and closer to jensen, for no reason whatsoever except for the pure magnetic pull they have on each other. pray4misha.

i think it is a testament to how in sync they are that misha immediately realises that jensen mentioned bicycle touring during his ‘impression of misha’, and i love the moment where jensen puts on an accent (something that misha normally does) and goes ‘is like sport’ and misha laughs and goes ‘is very similar to sport’ and they both lose it. idk, i feel like that might be a sort of inside joke to them as well. 

this might be slightly reaching, but hear me out: right away, jensen goes: ‘oh by the way, sore?’ why would he say ‘by the way’? what is he thinking about when he says that? is it about ‘is very similar to sport’? because i could totally see them having sex and refering to it as ‘well that’s kind of like a sport’, as an inside joke. it works. i’m just saying!!! 

look. i know this back and forth has been discussed to death. we all know that the implication is that jensen fucked misha and misha is kind of stunned that jensen actually goes there. so stunned that he repeats it: ‘sore? am i sore?’ almost as if to stall a bit in his response. yikes. 

i think that it’s fair to say that this is something jensen enjoys doing: riling misha up on stage. because a lot of the time, misha has the upper hand on stage (probably also in the bedroom but that’s another conversation), but sometimes. sometimes jensen just can’t help but throw a lil oil onto the fire. (see also: underbear panel, throwing himself on stage to get straddled, etc). 

misha goes on to say that ‘after the panel with j*red’ he is quite sore. you can take that at face value, and think ‘oh so he is joking around that the panel with j*red made him sore haha’ or you can see a little bit of the truth shine through: literally after that panel, something happened that made him sore. it’s always easier to lie when you are bending the truth.

i actually can’t believe i never connected the dots before, but when misha deflects and says ‘oh you’re talking about the bike riding’ jensen is quick to say: ‘oh no i was talking about what just happened’ but instead of pointing at the stage (which is where the previous panel took place) he is gesturing to backstage. i mean…. way to feed into my ‘they just had sex backstage’ theory, jackles. thanks for that. 

i cannot get over the way jensen is looking at misha throughout this whole ordeal, but especially when he goes ‘you heard it here first, folks’ and misha walks up to him. THAT FACE. fuck him. he’s so gone. 

sidenote: i have never wished to be able to read lips as much as i have since i have stumbled upon these two morons, because i WISH i could see what misha is mouthing to jensen. i know there is some spec that he might have said ‘i am a little bit’ (aka he is a little bit sore) and i could see that, but i just want to know for sure. and even though i have seen people state that jensen would have already known about the panel with j*red, i think it’s possible misha hadn’t filled jensen in yet, seeing as they probably were doing something other than talking. 

let me take this moment to tell y’all about one of my jenmish theories, and that is: i think that jensen sometimes is overprotective of misha and that can come across as jealousy when it’s actually just worry. and i think this panel is a good example of that.

misha says [4m25s] that in italy they call come influence and jensen just. straight up looks at misha like ‘what the fuck did you do, what mess did you get yourself into this time?’ this is another reason why i believe he actually didn’t know about what happened during that panel yet: the reaction looks very authentic. you see his eyes shift from one side to the other and back again, as he is trying to process it. and honestly when you look at misha, his face goes through this journey of ‘this is funny’ to ‘shit is this maybe going a bit too far?’ and ending on ‘okay wrap it up wrap it up’. this is further solidified by the fact that jensen starts to mime digging a grave (aka ‘digging your own grave’).

misha tries to ‘change the subject’ by saying cas is the bottom in the implied relationship with sam and jensen immediately brings it back to sports. see what i meant when i said that they are tying sex and sports together? here jackles goes again, doing exactly that. for no reason whatsoever. (except to once again proof my point). 

WHY [5m50s] do they both burst out laughing at ‘tight end’ why why why i don’t wanna know but why why also quick reminder of ‘are you sore at all’ help i am just. EVERY DAY they are making me perceive things and connect dots and i do not like it. anyways i’m not saying that this is all very graphic stuff about their sex lives but i’m also not not saying it, you feel? jensen’s face says it all tbh. on a more wholesome note: i love the fact that they basically wanted to say ‘we should take questions’ at the same time. again: in sync. 

when the first person to ask a question said ‘this is a serious question’ misha goes to explain to jensen that that was a joke during his panel with j*red, another reason to believe that he hadn’t told jensen about the panel yet. jensen’s face there…. heart eyes motherfucker. 

i really don’t see enough people talk about the ‘safe word’ [6m38s] bit. jensen is the one to bring it up ‘so we should probably establish a safe word at this point. mine is keep going.’ misha laughs, and then realises what jensen has said, and (here comes my dom/sub truthing) teases jensen by saying ‘what is your safe word?’ to which jensen replies ‘keep going’ but LOOK at jensen’s face after he says that. he shakes his head with a little smirk and looks at misha with such a knowing look in his eyes that says ‘you fucker you know damn well what my safe word is’ and he actually does a double take and immediately rolls his eyes at himself after that. it’s all very quick but it’s far from subtle and i am here for it. 

i fucking love this next part because when the person says ‘a real story about the real jensen and the real misha’ they both are just like ‘yes okay’ but as soon as they say ‘that you have never told anyone before’ jensen just looks down and moves his head as if to say ‘what the hell am i supposed to come up with then’ lmao it’s really funny, and they end it with: ‘to know you a little bit better’ and guys (gn) i beg of you to look at the way they look at each other here. [7m24s] jensen is just like ‘help wtf should we say to this’ and misha just smiles down at him fondly like ‘sigh our fans really want us to talk about our relationship and as much as we would love to share stuff we just can’t’.

when misha says ‘we have to dust off some of those stories that we usually try not to tell other people’, something comes to mind: the ‘3 least ordered items on the menu’ story, that jensen shared a year after this at honcon. i honestly think that maybe they started to talk about what else they could share with the public, after this panel, because they get similar questions like this one all the time. either that or jensen just thought about what he felt comfortable sharing, without talking to misha about it, and decided to tell that story. 

i also absolutely love when they say ‘this is a serious question’ at the same time. AGAIN: IN SYNC!!!

‘i actually have a voice for you’ jensen can you please tell me why this sounds flirty and charming while you are actually about to make fun of your husband? i hate you (no i don’t) the fact that misha immediately knows what will happen, says a lot.

then jensen says: ‘dust off an old story for uhh..’ and burst out laughing. i swear to god i’d give my left pinkie to know what came to mind and what he whispered into misha’s ear. and i’m left handed. but i think we can all agree that whatever jensen said, it was something sexual, seeing as misha goes ‘nope’. those fuckers (affectionate).

something that i have mentioned in the past is that jensen always sort of ‘jokey’ goes ‘oh shit’ whenever misha says he’ll share something personal/private about them. i mean. jensen, it would be less sus if you didn’t respond. just giving you some pointers here, bro. because misha almost never shares something strange, it’s actually your reaction that makes me go ‘hmmmm.’ this time he even gets kind of elaborate breathing?? [10m27s]

oh to be a fly in clif’s car… honestly, the things clif must have heard and witnessed lmao. he clearly knows what is up between them (has made enough remarks about thinking that misha would be the bottom and that misha on his knees was nothing new for me to see that he absolutely knows.) 

this isn’t really important when it comes to cockles but they talk a bit about j*red’s internet dispute with at&t and jensen goes ‘oh they know’ gesturing to the audience. so clearly, jensen is well aware of the fact that fandom gets involved whenever something happens online with any one of them. just. thought that is an interesting fact. just in general. also love how i can tell that they both think j*reds crusades are bullshit (as they should). 

there is something really cute [14m13s] about the way misha goes ‘do you want your apple juice?’ and jensen goes ‘yeah!’ it sounds so domestic and mundane and i just. god i love them so much. 

i know we talk about jensen’s heart eyes a lot. but y’all. look [14m52s] at misha right here. he’s SO in love.

the thing that strikes me about jensen putting on ‘that voice’ for misha is that misha is honestly not bothered by it at all, but i think if the shoe was on the other foot, jensen would definitely be bothered. i don’t know what conclusion to draw from that but i just thought that is interesting. i always laugh at that bit, though, they seem to have so much fun.

i REALLY wanna know how jensen got from ‘will you dance for us?’ to ‘no but i’ll tell you what, misha and i will write a song for you real quickly.’ it’s such a fast transition that i am tempted to think that this was something he had been thinking about for a while now. he just wanted his mish to sing a song. and that warms my heart.

if you think i will ever get over how soft jensen is here… ‘you’re smart, you think on your feet, you make brilliant videos, put them on facebook, write amazing texts (*coughs* poems) and tweets and stuff, go ahead. spit out some lyrics, big guy.’ there is not one single thing about this that i do not adore. an ode to misha!!!! so casually!!! fuck. it might be true that if you want jensen to do something, you get misha to ask him, but it’s certainly also true the other way around.

the way jensen just. stares [19m02s] at misha, trying to get inspired by him, trying to feel out what cords to play. yeah. the way misha stands up but instinctively turns to jensen when he starts to sing. yeah. and then during the remainder of the song, he keeps on turning to jensen even though he faces the audience. and jensen loved it all. it’s so sweet. idk why but it just is. jensen just wanted his babe to thrive and get the love he deserves. 

aaaand in comes the dom shake [20m37s]. we love to see it. jensen just keeps on looking at mish. almost gets lost in it. touches his inner thigh (one of his habits, which he does a lot around misha or when talking about misha). 

i think it’s very interesting that jensen’s reaction [22m11s] to the question if he thinks dean will ever find a way to have a romantic relationship and to find himself in between normal and supernatural, is to immediately looks at misha. like? what was the reason? did he expect misha to answer a question that wasn’t about cas but about dean? did he think he should maybe answer it in a destiel-like manner? was he worried that the fan was hoping for a destiel-like answer and was he looking at misha to gauge what he thought was a smart way to respond? so many questions. 

i think it’s pretty interesting that jensen was very aware of the fact that people did not wanna see dean end up with a huntress lmao. he absolutely was aware of so many fandom things.

when jensen said that misha just crossed the line [23m40s], it’s another example of how jensen is ultra aware of what misha says and how it could get him into trouble and by the sounds of it, misha knows that as well but he just can’t always stop himself in time. from what we can see, he often realises just after he has already said something (when it is already too late).

listen. the fact that misha says ‘when harry met sally’ BEFORE the question was even finished, and jensen LAUGHS, like??? that panel was 5 years ago at that point. it clearly made a lot of impact on the both of them (jeez i wonder why, could it be because misha faked an orgasm and jensen got excited? hmm. who knows.) 

i think the dance portion is so fucking hilarious i’m wheeeezing. literally. they are just moving randomly AND YET THEY STILL SORT OF ARE IN SYNC? amazing.

you wanna know what i find really cute? the fact that jensen has such a soft spot for the resume off. part of me thinks it’s because they had a resume off in both 2012 and 2013. 

and jib 2012 took place during the famously rumored break up period. i wouldn’t be surprised if jib 2013 was that much more special to him because they finally got to make it right again. don’t look at me i’m getting emotional (on that note…… i might wanna write something about the break up period at some point. but idk. i mean. it’s a lot to delve into especially since i wasn’t in the fandom back then but. it compels me. we’ll see i guess.)

okay i know i keep saying this but they are SO in sync, as soon as they talk about photo ops and jensen goes ‘and to dab a little salt in the wound’ misha knows what he is gonna say, and they stand up together to demonstrate what happened. AND they both go ‘that’s not the punchline’ they are husbands. 

misha and jensen have both “twirled away laughing” in the EXACT same manner during this panel: misha when jensen starts to read the script, and jensen right here when misha says ‘what’s it like to be in a successful long running show’. they are mirrors. listen. listen. i know my mind is in the gutter a LOT of the time but like. uhm. there is this moment where they recall a woman saying in the photo op to ‘eat it’ (the string candy she gave to them) and misha says ‘and so we did’ and jensen looks at misha and it is SUCH an incriminating look i mean i don’t wanna be that person but 5 bucks he was thinking about eating misha out i am JUST SAYING. LITERALLY LOOK AT HIS FACE. [28m55s]

misha teases [7m02s] jensen by saying ‘what did you do? did you actually do it on purpose orrrr’ and i think it was to make jensen elaborate on it. which i think is a fucking good way to pull that off when it comes to jensen. cause jensen doesn’t like to brag, which misha knows, so by making that joke he is essentially trying to get jackles to tell the audience more about what he did, without him feeling like he is boasting about himself. and misha looks so pleased when jensen starts talking.

fuck i literally had to pause just now because. jensen says: ‘one of the characteristics of dean that i love to play is that he can bottle those fears up, stash them away, and just go. and uhm… sometimes i wish i could do that.’

this is actually making me a bit emotional because. he took his time saying this. it was a very deliberate move. he wasn’t sorry he said anything or regretted it. he wanted to get that out there. and i just. it makes so much sense if what we all think is actually true. he wishes he could just ignore all his fears and go for it. and it’s not hard to imagine what ‘it’ could be: coming out. whether that be just about his relationship with misha or being attracted to more than women in general, just in any way shape or form. it’s poignant. and misha turns away, but you can see him sigh a little bit. 

the whole bit about “apple juice” is just very cute and i enjoy it a lot. one thing i will say though is that i can kind of spot two tells of jensen: the way his face scrunches up when he is telling a lie that he thinks is clever, and the way he always leaves his chair to pour a drink when a question becomes difficult/hard/too funny to face head on. he has done both of those things time and time again, during panels with misha. just an observation. 

there is this little moment [10m13s] where misha tells the story about how he used to make apple cider with worms and dirt in it and in the end he goes ‘anyways. new england apple cider everyone. highly recommend.’ and jensen echoes that, ‘highly recommend. yeah.’ and of course that could just be a way to joke around and play along with misha but i’d like to think that he has visited misha and they had some apple cider together. just because i like the thought and i can, so. 

how CUTE is it that jensen remembers ‘i’ll just wait here then’, a line cas spoke 7 years prior to that panel, in a scene jensen wasn’t even in. i love it.

jensen slowly shaking his head when misha says ‘fuck’ and apologizing for it has SUCH major ‘excuse my husband’ energy. i love it.

‘i’ve got an idea’ [14m13s] ‘what? let’s do it’ misha imMEDIATELY regretted that lmaooo they are always so aware of double meanings and yet they cannot seem to help themselves. we love to see it. 

can you BELIEVE jensen ‘dance monkey dance’ ackles OFFERED to shamelessly promote a movie they have nothing to do with??? jensen, who hates the fact that they have to play some sort of show on stage, actually wanted to do that with misha??? i’m just- something something if you want jensen to do anything ask misha, but apparently also: if you want jensen to do something get misha involved and he’ll love it. 

and then he has the audacity to say ‘over to the wheel of love.’ i mean. i can’t.

(i don’t necessarily understand what is happening btw but that’s okay, because it leads to champagne. which is fun.)

okay so again apologies for my mind being in the gutter but jensen’s face [16m33s] when he says he is going to explain what [the champagne] tastes like……. hm. help. 

 honestly i just love the whole champagne bit because i love it whenever they get so playful on stage, and them “presenting” the bottle and going all ‘we know what we’re talking about’ ‘we’re kind of connaisseurs’ and the whole english accent bit. say it with me…. in sync. 

jensen popping a champagne bottle is something that can be so personal…. (i’m touch starved and going crazy, leave me alone)

i absolutely love the fact that jensen notices that misha is miming taking off his pants and misha immediately runs to him to explain and jensen just goes full on protective husband mode (YET AGAIN) ‘i turn my back for 2 minutes’ lmao it’s just such old married couple behavior. an old married couple that is horny and deranged, but still. 

i’ve seen the gifset of this moment [24m52s] many a times but i still think it’s so intimate. the way misha looks at jensen and walks backwards with him, for no fucking reason at all. sigh. misha’s hand clenches a little, and honestly i think he would have wanted to reach out to jensen in that moment. pat his arm or his back. and something happens a little while later that only proves my point even more…

that caress [60m5s] is probably one of the most intimate gestures i’ve seen between them. it’s so familiar. so natural. it says a lot.

and that’s the end of the panel. all in all i have to say that i enjoyed rewatching this panel with the analysis goggles on, because it’s really a very different experience and i picked up on a lot more than i did when i watched it just for fun. i think this is one of my favorite panels of theirs (at least until my next analysis lmao) because of the fact that they are so in sync with each other, which goes to show that their relationship was in such a good place (mind you i am only using past tense because i am describing a past panel, not because i think they’re not in a good place right now). this was a lot of fun folks, if you actually read all of this, god bles, you’re the best. see you next time!

[imagining-in-the-margins]

Here to Misbehave (Pt. 4 | S.R.)

Summary: Spencer and Reader go on their first date. Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader Category: Smut (NSFW 18+) Content Warning: Adults w/ Age Gap (10yr), exhibitionism, masturbation, fingering, spanking, penetrative sex, Prof/Student fantasy Word Count: 8.3k

MASTERLIST | Series Masterlist

—————————————————

When I was younger, I hated going to museums. Granted, I'd only ever really had the opportunity to go during school field trips. The crackling, barely coherent ramblings of a stranger through a loudspeaker had never been my idea of fun.

In fact, I'd been to that exact museum before. But the present time was a little different. That time, I was enthralled with the objects on the other side of the glass. With wide eyes and childlike wonder revived, I was hanging on every word out of Spencer's mouth.

I knew the guy was probably a genius, but I had no idea how much of a genius he was until he was recounting the entire history of civilization like he'd been reading straight from an encyclopedia. He looked like a hilarious mix of proud and embarrassed when he finally admitted his IQ. Meanwhile, I had to admit that I not only had no fuckin' clue what my IQ was, I was certain it was significantly lower than his. 

He didn't seem to mind.

In a way, I thought it was strange when he told me he wanted to bring me to a place like that. After all, I'd told him I wanted to learn more about him. I figured a museum would teach me about everything else, not him.

But seeing him in this environment told me more about him than I ever could have imagined. I learned about his avid love for the most trivial facts, the way his inflection changed when he got excited, and that despite reading probably hundreds of thousands of books, his hunger for knowledge was still very much alive and well.

Most of all, I learned that Spencer Reid was unlike any man I'd ever seen before.

It was a bad idea. Because when we finally made our way out of the final exhibit, I didn't want to leave. Not even close. If you'd told my mother I spent several hours in a museum and didn't want to leave, she'd never believe you.

"Hey, so..." I started, pausing outside the gift shop on our way out. "It's almost 5. Did you want to grab dinner before we head back? I have worked up quite the appetite listening to you for the past 4 hours."

"Has it really been that long?" he asked incredulously before glancing down at his watch wrapped over his shirt.

I tried very hard, and failed, to suppress a giggle at the habit.

"I'm honestly surprised you still have spit left in your mouth," I joked as I swayed closer to him, almost enough to touch him.

"Ha ha, very funny," he replied. A slight pout formed on his face. I almost enjoyed the swapped roles; it wasn't often that he was the one who looked so forlorn.

"Come on, I'm joking!" I laughed before slipping my arm around his and pulling him closer to me.

Spencer glanced down in surprise, staring at my chest that was now fully pressed against his arm. Although, the way he looked at me was nothing compared to the response he'd given after I showed up in a pleated skirt that better belonged on a Catholic schoolgirl.

But I mean, like I'd said, I used to go there on school trips. It was only fair.

"I love listening to you talk, Spencer. You know that."

The speed with which he looked away when I finished talking was enough to tell me that I had said the wrong thing. His goofy, playful demeanor vanished so quickly, I'd almost gotten whiplash. He didn't remove his arm, instead clearing his throat and pulling out a brochure from his pocket to look at nearby places to eat.

A bit reserved, he asked if I was interested in one of the closer casual restaurants, to which I agreed. At that point, I removed myself from his side and was only a little surprised to see the way his body immediately relaxed.

I wanted to believe he just didn't like to be touched, which I was certain was true, but he was behaving differently with me than he had before. We'd touched in public before, a lot more than that, and we'd known each other a lot less!

But of course, that was probably why. The closer we got, the farther away he felt.

The walk to the restaurant was slightly awkward, so after a moment I decided to break the silence.

"You said you grew up in Vegas, right?"

"Yeah, until I moved to go to school," he explained, looking around at the surroundings of the D.C. crowds winding down rather than turning his attention back to me. 

At least I was finally learning more about him.

"Where did you go?"

"Caltech."

He was keeping his answers short, but I feel like he might still be a little embarrassed at my little jab at the museum. That was fine, I knew ways to make him talk. I clasped my hands behind me as I walked by his side, still tempted to touch him somehow, however ill advised.

"Was it hard being away from your family? That's a few hours away, isn't it?"

He laughed awkwardly, a sure sign that I'd forgotten that him and I come from different worlds.

"Well, I was barely 13, so... My mom was kind of legally obligated to follow me."

He was so cute, and he definitely wasn't aware of it.

"Right, sorry, forgot about the genius thing for a minute. Don't know how."

The smile he returned was genuine, which helped my guilt for bothering him yet again. But in my defense, it was easy to do when he was a literal genius and I was barely scraping by half the time.

As we arrived, we were seated in a booth near the back of the restaurant. I offered him the booth with a view of the door because I'd figured he would want it. He gave me a strange side glance at my assumption, like I was hiding something from him that would grant me the knowledge that it would be more comfortable for him to be able to see the door.

I didn't want to talk about how I knew that, though.

Instead, I asked, "Do you like it here? In Virginia?"

He nodded as he flipped open the menu, speaking almost scripted answers absentmindedly, "I do, but mostly because it's been so long that everyone I know is here."

I'd already been here before, so I didn't bother looking at the menu. Naturally, he'd only required a few seconds to read it. When he made eye contact again, I spoke through my thoughts.

"You said you're a profiler for the..."

"Behavioral Analysis Unit."

His tone was a mix of pride and nerves, which immediately made me nervous.

"I haven't looked it up yet because I'm scared about what I might find. What do you guys do, exactly?"

The server brought us drinks just in time to pause his answer, which he seemed to appreciate. I figured it was either a tough job to explain, or he didn't want to share that part of his life with me just yet (or, potentially, ever). 

Spencer lowered his voice like he usually did when he talked about work.

"We profile the behavior of serial killers. Sometimes for research, but mostly to assist local police in catching them."

"Oh..." I started, stopping mid-sip of my drink. It was a lot to take in at once. "So... yeah, I'm glad I didn't google it."

He scrunched his mouth in that unsure way, like he wanted to explain to me how he really felt about his job. Something in the bags under his eyes told me he hasn't talked about this in a long time. At least, not like he should. But he didn't talk about it. He looked away, opting to say nothing at all.

"Doesn't it get to you?" I pushed, trying to offer him the platform to talk about the thing that no doubt consumes most of his life.

"Does what get to me?" His voice sounded so far away.

"Spencer, when I met you, you were whisked away at the crack of dawn to go talk about serial killers. On a weekend. The second time you showed up at my place after clearly not having slept, I'm guessing straight from work..."

His eyes narrowed as I spoke, like I was talking from a tightrope that I could plummet off any second. He seemed scared that I would speak something into existence he wasn't ready to face himself.

"You're surrounded by evil all the time. You're responsible for learning, recognizing, and manipulating evil. That can't be easy."

Spencer's eyes were glazed over in a way I couldn't describe. He seemed defensive, steeled, and absolutely terrified. He wouldn't look me in the eyes, opting instead to stare down at the menu in front of him.

He shrugged as he halfheartedly concluded, "I guess that's one way to look at it. We also get to see a lot of good."

"Yeah..." I nodded solemnly, recognizing the dismissive thoughts from my own experience.

He was downplaying the great likelihood of traumatic memories he carried, as if he could will away the damage. Like it would stop existing if he could convince himself it wasn't that bad.

I wondered what had happened to him on the job for him to already have forgotten that things didn't have to be the worst possible to matter. That he still deserved better. That hurt does not require permission.

I couldn't stop myself, needing to see how he reacted when I continued, "But which do you see more of?"

I never got my answer. The server once again saved him from a conversation that got away from him. The presence of a third, impartial person shifted the mood back to what it was in the museum. I wondered how much was an act, both back then and in that moment.

Deciding it best not to dwell on the thought, I tried to forget about the darkness brewing in those coffee colored eyes. Once our orders were in, he turned his attention to the cocktail menu still laying in the middle of the table with a smile.

"I'm almost surprised you didn't try to order alcohol," he half-joked.

I leaned forward on the table, bringing a hand up to my mouth and whispering, "I heard there might be an undercover fed here, so, never can be too safe."

The bubbly, childish laugh that followed renewed my faith in him. He had that kind of infectious laugh that made you forget that badness existed at all. Once our ruckus had died down, he looked at me with the softness that had drawn me to him in the first place.

"You're cute."

When the words registered in my mind, I couldn't believe I'd heard them. The way his expression changed shortly after the words left his mouth told me he hadn't meant to say them aloud. But their effect on me was not at all stifled by his momentary lapse in judgment.

I'd wondered if it was getting hotter in the building, or if it was just my nerves getting the best of me. But it wasn't bothering Spencer, who was about to down yet another cup of coffee in front of him. I cleared my throat, trying to not look like a schoolgirl whose crush had just checked 'yes' on a note asking if he liked me.

Pointing to the mug in front of him, I joked, "How do you sleep?"

"Honestly? I usually don't."

That was the goofy overly literal dork I wanted to see more of.

"I can think of one way to wear you out," I suggested, lifting my leg to press the top of my foot against his leg under the booth.

He raised his eyebrows, giving a simple glance down to acknowledge the contact. Then his eyes were back on me, staring deeply with a hunger that would not be satisfied by whatever dish they brought out to us.

"I can think of several."

Humming cheerfully, I continued to run my foot up and down his leg. My cheeks flushed with my growing desire that I'd managed to put off for several hours. I was honestly shocked that I'd spent the whole day with this man, and only then thought about sleeping with him.

"It's too bad we can't," I pouted. "My roommate is back in town. Not sure she'd appreciate all the noise."

That time as my foot drew up his leg, he shifted in his seat so that his legs moved closer to me, extending the contact for a few seconds longer.

"Not to mention, I don't think you'd like to deal with several 20-year-olds."

The way he behaved whenever I pointed out my age was endlessly entertaining. That time, though, he seemed significantly less bothered.

"One is already borderline for me," he teased back.

I gasped, clutching at my chest as I batted my eyelashes just dramatically enough to showcase my pride.

"You flatter me, Dr. Reid."

He almost choked on his coffee as he stifled a chuckle, putting it down as he shook his head.

"Only you would take that as a compliment."

Recognizing this repartee as the foreplay it had always accompanied, I leaned forward on my elbows towards him. He immediately mirrored the movement, putting our faces much closer to each other than they'd been all day.

"What can I say? I enjoy being a challenge."

"Yes, you do." He hadn't even thought about it, responding almost instantaneously, suggesting once more that he could actually read my mind.

"How are you so good at that?" I kept the question vague on purpose.

He didn't fall for it.

"I'm good at a lot of things. Which are you referring to?"

What a cocky bastard. A very handsome, ridiculously sexy, dork of a bastard.

But he wasn't the only one at the table that knew how to get someone hot and bothered.

"Your humility is my favorite part, Dr. Reid." I stuck my tongue out at the end of the sentiment, a cheeky grin that reflected on him just as quickly.

"Quoting me? That's bold."

Deciding it had been too long since I had touched him, I lifted my hand to press a single finger against his chest as I taunted, "You aren't the only person with a good memory."

He leaned back at this point, backing away from my finger and the heated exchange.

"I don't have a good memory. I have an eidetic memory."

He had been very proud of that fact earlier when I asked him why the hell he was able to list off every single word from a museum display we'd seen an hour earlier. I'd asked him if it was the same as a photographic memory, and he'd gone on a rant about the pejorative connotations of the term. I wasn't going to go down that rabbit hole again today.

Instead, I took the same hand that had touched him moments before, curling all but one finger into a fist.

"So you'll be able to remember this forever?" I cooed as I held up my middle finger.

"I'll just file that away with the most important memories, like birthdays and the works of Arthur Conan Doyle," he sighed in response, graciously admitting defeat.

I was not brave enough to tell him I had no idea who that was, but I was sure I'd learn one day. That one, I thought, was probably safe to google. While he filed away my crude gesture, I filed away yet another fun fact to surprise him with later.

"You are, by far, the most interesting person I've ever met," I implored, to which he immediately shot back, "I could say the same about you. And I regularly talk to serial killers."

Touché, Dr. Reid.

"I'm flattered," was the last word I got in edgewise before our food arrived.

The rest of our time in the restaurant went very similarly, with teasing comments that built the sexual tension that was already too big for this tiny room. Our legs never stopped touching throughout the entire meal. Maybe that was why, when it was finally time to leave, we both felt a strange mixture of excited and sad. Once we were no longer behind the booth, it was back to pretending like we weren't constantly trying not to pounce on the other.

The walk to the metro was equal parts long and tense. At one point I'd swayed closer to him than I intended, and our sides brushed up against one another. Unlike before in the museum, he hadn't moved away. I couldn't believe something so minuscule could made me so happy.

The metro was more crowded than I'd anticipated. The fact that the station is underground was usually enough to make me feel a little claustrophobic, but the number of people bustling around me felt especially overwhelming. I couldn't help but chastise myself for having worn a skirt, considering the stark number of perverted men in places like these.

Spencer's touch woke me from my reverie. His arm had wrapped around my lower back with such unassuming delicacy, I'd hardly registered it at first. He was looking down at me with concern covering his features as he asked, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, sorry, there's a lot of people here."

I had one hand holding my skirt down against my leg, the other crossed over my chest.

"Makes me nervous," I further explained.

"Can I help?"

Even though he was offering, I could tell the crowds bothered him just as much. Thankfully, his presence was enough for me.

"You already are."

There was something so calming about his presence that was hard to explain. It wasn't his ability to physically protect me, considering he didn't  have his weapon with him most of the time I was with him. It wasn't his emotional availability (or lack thereof). It was more like he  exuded some chemical that made me docile. It was hard to explain.

I just liked him, okay?

When our train pulled in it was relatively crowded, but we managed to grab two seats near the back of a car. I sighed in relief as I plopped down into the plastic chair, happy to finally be able to rest my legs.

With Spencer on the aisle seat and us on our way back to Franconia Springfield Station, I let myself relax. My head dropped down onto his shoulder without much thought, and my entire body slumped over with it.

"How am I supposed to stay awake for this when you're so comfy?" I mumbled, looking down at the hem of my pleated skirt as I fiddled with it.

"That certainly sounds like quite the predicament," he said in what I assume was jest.

He sat up, bumping my head off his shoulder for a moment. I interpreted it to be a subtle way of telling me not to do it, but once he had shrugged off his cardigan, he looked at me like he was confused I hadn't resumed the position.

Armed with a simper, I cuddled up even closer this time, wrapping my arms around his and resting my cheek against his shoulder. I wasn't sure why he had gotten so open to touch, but I wasn't going to complain. 

He didn't say anything when he draped his cardigan over my lap, covering my knees peeking out from under my skirt. A nice gesture, I thought as my body instinctively gravitated towards him. It wasn't until I closed my eyes that the pieces started to come together.

I was on the metro, in a skirt, with Spencer Reid's hand slowly but surely inching up my thigh.

My eyes shot open, and I tensed my grip around his arm. It was the only thing I did to betray my otherwise composed and unassuming position.

His breath was hot on my ear as he leaned over to me and began to whisper, "Do you know the idea that people fall asleep after sex is less true for women than men? Many speculate it's because women are just neglected in bed, but that's not quite it."

I didn't dare respond, hardly trusting myself to breathe as his hand continued to move closer to me.

"Both sexes do release the same chemicals during orgasm. Oxytocin to stimulate smooth muscle contraction and initiate the need to bond, prolactin to relieve arousal and signal satiation, and the leftover gamma aminobutyric acid, dopamine, and serotonin..."

I couldn't understand how he'd managed to make the lecture sound sexy, but I was too lost in the sound of his voice to bother thinking about it then.

"Still, women are less likely to fall asleep. Sure, they typically exert less physical energy during sex, but what about those women like you with a penchant for going for a ride?"

A woozy, lovesick smile spread across my face at the reference to our first encounter.

"Those women might still stay awake for longer and may actually be more invigorated after reaching climax. And it's all thanks to their naturally lessened refractory period."

I nodded dumbly, gasping lightly once I felt his fingers make contact through the flimsy cotton of my underwear.

"Which might sound like a curse. But it's not. It means that those lucky women can reach multiple orgasms in succession. Some partners just aren't willing to put in that kind of effort," he continued, tracing a finger up and down my folds through the fabric.

"But I'm not one of them."

His words were strong, and I buried my face into his shoulder, trying not to alert the entire car what was happening underneath his cardigan.

"I would much rather watch you come undone. Again, and again, and again. I want to make sure that when I'm done with you, you can't keep your eyes open."

My breath was getting quicker, and I let out a small squeak against his shirt as he pressed down on the bundle of nerves at my center, drawing circles around it.

"That being said, if you need something to keep you awake, I do have a solution. But if you make a single noise, I will stop."

I had to bite down hard on my bottom lip to prevent any noise from slipping out. My legs were wavering between opening and closing as I tried to keep them apart. I could feel how damp I was getting. My hips were moving with a mind of their own, rocking toward his hand. It took all of my concentration not to give us away.

I choked on my breath as a sly finger snuck into the side of my underwear, allowing entrance to the others that followed.

"Shhh," he hushed, pressing a soft kiss on the top of my head. Underneath my skirt, though, he was much less chaste. Slipping two fingers into my heat, I could have sworn I heard him laugh from above me.

I didn't dare look at him, nervous that the moment I did, I would lose all control.

"I had no idea it would be so easy to get you to follow directions. Are you that worried you might get caught?"

He could feel my heartbeat against his arm. He must have been able to, because I was suffocating against his arm. My hands clenched around him like he was the only lifeline in an ocean of pleasure.

"Imagine what they would think if they knew what you let me do to you. What you beg me to do to you."

My legs were beginning to tremble around him as he stroked me from the inside. All I could feel was him. His hands, his breath, his words.

"Is that why you wore this skirt? A naughty little schoolgirl fantasizing about an older man touching you like this?"

He quickened the pace of thrusting into me, his words getting more insistent as the train was almost empty now, closing in on our stop.

"Is it everything you thought it would be? No. Can't be. You wish there was something else of mine in between your legs."

I couldn't explain how, but my climax snuck up on me. When it happened, it smashed into me like a wave crashing onto the shore. I gasped for breath against his arm, and he thankfully took mercy on me. Despite definitely making a noise, he continued his motions, palming at the crest of my folds to give me one last boost of stimulation.

I shook around him, my thighs tightening onto his arm as I finally found release. I could hear the announcement calling for our station, but it felt worlds away. Still, Spencer pulled his hand out from underneath our pile of clothes, wiping the evidence of our escapade against the inside of my skirt before also removing his arm from underneath my tight grip.

"Son of a bitch," I puffed, relaxing all my muscles at once as I tried to retain control over my pulse. I could barely think straight.

"You're welcome," he beamed, as if he hadn't just gone full dominant as he finger fucked me on the metro.

I didn't understand how the hell he expected me to get up and walk off like nothing happene, but somehow, I managed. I stood with wobbly legs and a flustered state of mind until he linked his arm with mine and led me off the car and into the station. I clung to the assistance, grateful that he was once again taking pity on me.

However, it felt like it wouldn't last long. Once we'd gotten to his car, he helped me in before climbing into the driver's seat. It was silent for a moment, like he wanted me to ask him a question that I wasn't willing to ask.

I didn't want the night to be over, but if he asked me if I was ready to go home, I'd have to say yes. After all, it wasn't proper form to invite myself to his apartment. Especially with how weird he got whenever I got close to him.

"Do you want me to take you home?"

The pity was gone.

I didn't think before I spoke, immediately responding as a joke, "Not unless it's yours."

The silence was back.

Oops.

I realized that I'd spoken out loud at the same time he delivered his response; I was going to stop him, but he was too quick.

"My place it is, then."

I couldn't help but smile, my cheeks burning as I asked quietly, like my volume might change his mind, "Really?"

"Sure, why not?"

I didn't have an answer. We didn't talk for a moment, enjoying the contented silence as I texted my roommate to tell her that I was going to be late home, if I came at all. I was hoping for the latter. Once that was sent off, I returned my gaze to the man paying almost full attention to the road.

"You know, I have to get you back for what you did back there."

He smirked, not breaking away from the road as he replied, "I did you a favor."

"A cruel favor," I whined, turning in my chair as I buckled my seat belt so I could get closer to him.

"No such thing," he corrected, although I think we both knew there very well could be such a thing.

"Uh-huh."

I watched him for a moment, trying to decide the best way to get back at him. I could always try the most relevant payback...

He didn't even notice my hand reaching out until it was already sliding up his thigh at a rapid pace.

"What are you doing?" he asked, as if it weren't already obvious.

"Getting you back," I snickered as I finally made it up his leg, palming the quickly forming erection under his pants.

"I'm driving!" His voice was so high pitched it was heartwarming. It was like our roles had switched, even just for a second.

"I'm not stopping you from driving!"

Obviously trying to compose himself, he grabbed my wrist and held it in the air and out of reach of him.

"Unless you want to crash this car, you'd better wait until we get back to my place."

It was a valid warning, but not one I wanted to hear.

"Spoil sport."

"At least you're alive!"

It was back to the sexual tension from before in the restaurant. I wanted to touch him, and I was guessing based on the visible tent in his pants, he wanted me. So, I got to thinking, and I figured that if I wasn't allowed to touch him, that only left one other person.

"... What are you doing?"

It was a valid question. He'd glanced over to see my hand traveling up my own skirt as I parted my legs just enough to maneuver beneath my underwear.

"Nothing," I hummed, now looking at him with half-lidded eyes as I rocked forward onto my hand.

"That's cruel." He sounded so devastated to see that I was doing what he couldn't, despite the fact he had his hand in this exact spot not that long ago.

My fingers dipped between my folds, collecting the remnants of the orgasm he had given me as I crooned, "What? You said I couldn't touch you while you're driving. I'm not touching you. You're welcome."

I opened my eyes just enough to see the way he tightened his grip on the steering wheel while trying not to look at me. Couldn't drive distracted. That was the entire reason why I was touching myself and not him.

"Unless, of course, you do consider this part of me as your property. In which case, I'm not going to stop, anyway," I snickered. 

Rewarding myself with a soft moan, I tried to prolong the experience the best I could. It was hard when every couple of seconds he would look over at me. I hadn't thought that I would find his anger that attractive, but there I was, coming apart at the seams already based on nothing but a look. 

He was thoroughly unamused, which only egged me on, honestly. I didn't care if I was being overdramatic as I touched myself, I wanted him to think about what he was missing. Which was why I didn't stop myself from moaning. Pants and gasps echoed throughout the car as I picked up my pace.

"I hope you're ready for the consequences of this very poorly thought out decision."

On the contrary, Spencer. I had very clearly thought it through. I was thinking it so clearly I could picture his hands where mine were, among other parts of him.

Thinking about how to dig an even deeper hole for myself, I found the perfect mechanism.

"Mmm, Professor Reid," I cried, recognizing that it would either infuriate him or bring him a great sense of pride. I was fine with either.

I closed my eyes so I could better envision the fantasy that was actually just a memory. For now. With my eyes closed, I couldn't tell much of what was going on outside of my touch, trying to ignore the man beside me as best as I could. I wanted him to suffer.

Spencer, however, had other plans. With both eyes still on the road, his hand had found its way to my legs, where it shot up to join mine. He removed my hand quickly and replaced it with his own.

There was no subtlety or warm up this time. Without any hesitation, he dipped a finger into my heat just to remove it and begin rubbing harsh circles over my clit. I couldn't stop the yell that resulted, and seconds later I came undone against him.

As soon as the spasming stopped, he removed his hand, not speaking a word or even looking at me. I'd realized at that point that he'd only finished me off because he hadn't wanted to grant me the satisfaction of doing it myself. He was asserting that yes, in some sense, he viewed this as a part of his property.

I was oddly okay with that.

"Is the silent treatment my punishment?" I asked with a pout after a few moments of nothing.

He laughed bitterly back, finally looking at me for a moment before vaguely replying, "No. Your punishment will be much more fun for me."

I had to admit the implication that the silent treatment wasn't fun for him was flattering, at least. I was glad to hear that he enjoyed talking to me as much as I enjoyed listening to him talk.

But for the moment, I was sort of exhausted. Not in the way that would make me fall asleep, but in the I-just-had-two-orgasms-let-me-recoup way. Even though we enjoyed talking, those moments were refreshing in their own way. The best kind of connections were the ones that could always be maintained, even in the quiet.

Despite it not being my punishment, Spencer remained fairly quiet the rest of the way home. I wondered if part of that was due to him brewing a plan for what would happen when we got there.

God, I hoped so.

As we pulled up to the nondescript building, I had to admit I was a bit disappointed to find Spencer didn't live in some whimsical fantasy like I'd always envisioned. The building looked like every other one. But, at the same time, I couldn't want to see the inside. If I had to bet, there would be a lot of books and a stark lack of computers.

Walking into Apt #23, I was only a little surprised by what I saw. The warm green tones of his walls were complimented by red and brown accents, and my theory was quickly proven correct.

"Whoa," I mumbled under my breath, "It's like a library."

"You must go to some pretty small libraries, then."

I rolled my eyes. Like his usual attempts at humility, Spencer failed horribly.

I spun around on my heels to face him, but at the same time as I heard the lock flip into place, I felt his hand around my arm. Spencer's movements were quick as he gripped tightly on my wrist and pulled me towards what I could only assume was his bedroom.

Weirdly, I was still trying to take in my surroundings rather than focus on fucking him. It made sense, I figured. I had already experienced two orgasms today, whereas he had none.

Oops. Guess I really was a spoiled brat.

But seriously—I was in his apartment! I wanted to snoop, dammit!

Spencer wasn't going to give me an opportunity, though. He'd even made a point of shutting the door to his room once we were inside. Something told me he would keep a close eye on me as long as he could. That was probably deserved, considering that within the first few hours of interacting with him, I had answered a call from his boss.

In my defense, it had been fucking hilarious.

He led me to stand in front of him, and out of instinct and habit, I moved forward to kiss him. I never made it to his lips, though. Spencer pushed me aside toward the bed, and I laughed as I leaned over it, making a point of flipping up the back of my skirt.

"I've been bad, Professor," I giggled, turning to glance back at him from the position I had happily assumed without being told.

He had that dark fire in his eyes that usually came before a storm.

He looked like he was ready to break me. I was ready to be broken.

"Are you going to teach me another biology lesson?"

When his hands touched me, they were as tender as ever. He caressed my hips where I had turned the skirt up, hooking his fingers around the waistband of the underwear and casually removing them.

"No, I'm afraid not."

He sounded delighted despite the words he spoke.

"This will be a very different kind of lesson."

Oh, I realized all at once.

"A lesson in discipline?" I inquired, swaying my hips underneath his hands and waiting for confirmation.

The loss of his hand on one side caused anticipation to build. I could hear the sound of blood rushing in my ears.

It was hard to tell which happened first. Instantaneously, his hand came down hard on the soft skin of my backside as he responded, "Yes."

The adrenaline that coursed through my veins in response shook any feelings of fatigue I might have sustained throughout the day. I welcomed his body heat against my back as he leaned forward against me, and used his weight to press me down into his bed.

"Unless you've changed your mind."

"No!" I shouted back much too forcefully before gripping onto the sheets in front of me. "I deserve to be punished, Professor Reid."

He withdrew from me and, within seconds, brought his hand down on me again, that time striking the other side. The snapping sound of the contact was enough to elicit a response. I clamped my legs together and gave a soft mewl. Appreciating my vocal response, the next two hits came in rapid succession. I could feel the warmth building in the skin, the breeze from the motions acted as a buffer for the delicious sting.

He roughly grabbed both cheeks in front of him, for no reason other than wanting to. I groaned at the sensation of the tender flesh being handled, which only led him to release one to smack it once more. He followed with the other, appreciating the balance required of this particular punishment. I wasn't going to stop him. I was happy to continue. But something told me that he was breaching the point of comfort in his own conscience.

He was always so worried he would break me. I couldn't say it wasn't endearing. That didn't stop him from giving each side one more forceful blow, however, which earned him a mangled cry from deep in my chest. His body was against mine again, one of his hands reaching around to tilt my head up, despite not being able to see him. I was beginning to think he just enjoyed manipulating my body at will. To see how far I would let him.

"I think you're starting to get it, (y/n)."

"Yes," I responded, not caring if it didn't make much sense in response.

Despite the fact he'd already finished me twice today, I somehow already wanted him again. Maybe it was the allure of finally being able to fuck him in his own bed, or maybe it was the desire to see him fall apart as a reminder that I'm not the only one desperate for the other's touch.

So quickly he returned to the gentle, barely there traces along my skin.

"Punishment looks good on you," he praised, and something about the way he said it filled me with pride.

"You look good on me, too, sir," I slurred as he continued to draw feathery markings on the abused skin. He chuckled, finally moving up along my back before I interrupted his thoughts and appreciation once more.

"Fuck me," I begged. I wanted him and didn't care how I got it. "Let me help you feel good."

The hands that had inflicted pain moments ago were now gently massaging my shoulders through my top. I sighed, relaxing further into his touch. So easily I had become complacent to his desire. I let him do whatever he wanted, trusting that he would never do anything to truly, honestly hurt me. 

"Something tells me you're more interested in making yourself feel good," he asserted — quite correctly.

"Can't we have both?"

His silence told me he was considering my words. I knew that he didn't want to, since that would ruin the whole idea that this was a punishment in the first place. Then again, I didn't think he was fully committed to that idea anyway.

Dragging his hands once more down the plane of my back, he stopped to grip my hips and shift me backwards until I was pressed against him.

"You're lucky you look so fucking cute in that skirt," he growled.

I felt dizzy again already, drowning in the way his bed smelled like him.

"Mmm, I wore it just for you," I admitted, rubbing myself gently against his crotch now pressing into my bottom.

"Smart girl," he responded.

It felt like I was in a dream, to be there with him like that. For a long time, I'd thought I'd never see him again, let alone be laying on his bed.

I could hear him stripping behind me, and I peeked over my shoulder with a modest smile.

Time was not moving fast enough, I thought, but it was also moving too fast. Because as badly as I wanted him to ravish me, I was afraid what would happen when it was over.

I couldn't think about that in that moment, though.

Once he reached into his nightstand, I giggled with anticipation. He raised his eyebrows at me, unable to contain his own laughter.

"Oh, you're happy with yourself, huh?"

"A little bit, yeah."

When he returned to me, his hands were still gentle as they pushed my skirt back up where it had fallen. He revealed my body to himself, and I didn't have to be able to see it to know that my arousal spread down my inner thighs. I had, after all, already had two orgasms before now thanks to the man behind me.

"I'm also pretty happy with you," he whispered as he leaned over me.

With no warning, he fully entered me with one swift thrust. I whimpered at the feeling of him hitting against angered skin, mixed with the pleasure of being full once again. I clutched at the sheets and wished that they were him, wishing that I could somehow be even closer to him than I already was. 

"We'll see if you still feel like smiling after I'm done with you."

It was the last thing he said before he began to ruthlessly pound into me. I struggled to scream as loudly as I wanted to, but I couldn't make any noise at all. My body seemed to have relented all control to him within seconds; I didn't put up a single battle. Although his grasp held me in place, I still attempted to cant my hips forward to allow him better access.

My chest and face were warm with friction from rubbing against the bed, and my knuckles were blanched from the force exerted to try and remain grounded. Each movement seemed so purposeful, much like the way he thrashed at my skin with his hand.

"Fuck me," were the first words I managed to string together.

With one forceful thrust, he held me down on him as all the moans I couldn't make previously came pouring out of me. I thought I might actually cry from how overstimulated the day was  becoming. Seemingly reading my mind, Spencer pulled out of me entirely. I tried to reorient myself, but he stopped me. Using one hand to grab hold of my arm, he flipped me onto my back beneath him.

I hadn't even realized I was still wearing basically all of my clothes until he had to force my skirt back up again. Missing him between my legs, I began to crave him everywhere else, too. I struggled to pull my shirt over my head.

Spencer didn't stop me, just watching while he playfully rubbed his arousal at my entrance.

"Please, sir," I pleaded once I was finally able to lift my legs. I wrapped them around his hips and pulled him closer to me without letting him slip into me just yet.

"Just as impatient and needy as ever, (y/n)."

I chewed on my bottom lip, looking up at him with the puppy dog eyes that had always worked on him up to that point. It must have worked again, because he was sinking back into me before I knew it. My arms spread out across the bed, holding onto whatever I could reach as he set another brutal pace.

Our bodies melding together in a chaotic fusion of skin and fluids, I let myself get lost in the bliss of Spencer Reid laying claim to my body. I threw my head back, my eyes clamped shut as one of his hands came up to caress one of my breasts through my lacy bra.

"With undergarments like this, I have to wonder if you planned this all, young lady," he teased, no doubt referring to the matching underwear now discarded on the floor.

I opened my eyes to meet his, and for a second I was left breathless at the sight of him pumping into me. How I managed to say anything at all is a miracle.

"Never a plan, sir. But always a pleasure."

A flirtatious sparkle in his eyes, he slowed down as he pressed, "Did you wear them for someone else, then?"

The way I arched my back caused him to push even further into me, and I had to pause to moan before I continued.

"Are you jealous?"

His hips snapped forward, producing a simultaneously jolt of pain and pleasure. His voice was breathy as he tried to hold himself together while speaking, "Should I be?"

Our eye contact caused tension so powerful that I was certain it was palpable. A devilish grin and a bit of a snicker was the provocation he needed to drive into me harder once again. I didn't even try to suppress the noises he elicited from me, tightening my grip around him with my legs.

"Take me," I whispered under my breath, almost hoping that he wouldn't hear me.

I couldn't tell if he did, but his hand switched sides of my chest, and our faces grew closer together.

"I'm yours," I slurred. I truthfully hadn't thought about the words when I gifted them to him, but he clearly took note of them. That time, it was his moan that filled the air in the room, and I had never felt so excited by one of his responses. I chased after the feeling, locking eyes with him as both his hands grabbed my hips to begin the race to the finish.

"I'm yours, Spencer."

I didn't stop to wonder if I could play this off as part of the fantasy. I mean, it was part of my fantasy; the fantasy of being his, and him being mine.

He didn't object to my words then, either, and he had definitely heard me that time.

I smiled, barely noticing that he'd placed his fingers back on my heat, swiping frantically at my clit until I lost all composure underneath him. My hips rocked at no apparent rhythm, and distorted versions of his name broke through my mouth.

I hadn't even come down yet when he rammed into me with full force, bottoming out once again. I felt his cock twitch inside of me, followed by my muscles pulling everything out of him that they could.

The view of his satisfied face through my lust-filled daze was angelic. It appeared that he saw the same in me, but I couldn't be sure. Just as quickly as the moment had come, it had passed, his arms giving in to his weight as he collapsed onto my chest.

His hair tickled my collarbones, and I laughed at how incredibly out of shape he was. Especially for an FBI Agent. Even if he did go on the field often, I figured the resident dork didn't need to be totally ripped, anyway.

And, hey, he was strong enough to treat me like a ragdoll, so who was I to judge?

"Tired?" I asked, taking a shaky hand to his head, playing with the soft brown curls damp from sweat.

"You aren't?" he slurred, his words smothered against my skin.

"I am fucking exhausted."

That time, we both laughed. He was clearly pleased that, despite any perceived weakness, he was still able to thoroughly wear me out. When he moved to leave me, I dropped my legs. I was surprised I had managed to hold them until then, honestly.

He fixed his hair that had fallen in his eyes first, and I smiled at the peculiar priority. It was cute, though.

"Do you have to take me home?"

I tried not to let the disappointment bleed into my voice, but it did. He tried not to notice. He didn't answer as he cleaned himself up, and I sat up to look at him — once the world stopped spinning, anyway.

"No."

The butterflies spiraled out of control, spreading through every inch of my soul. I must have been beaming, because he looked so very nervous.

"Thanks."

His response came in the form of an unsure smile, followed by a genuine appreciation.

I briefly wondered if he realized just how transparent he was, but then decided I didn't want to think about it. I excused myself to clean up before bed, taking a long moment to rub my skin with aloe from under the cabinet, only to realize that I had basically nothing clean to wear. I rolled my eyes at the situation, wondering how many red flags it would set off for me to ask Spencer for some of his clothes.

I could just be naked. He seemed to like me that way.

I padded back into the room, expecting him to be waiting up for me. He wasn't. Spencer had passed out on the bed before he even had a chance to get under the covers. I stood at the door for a moment, trying to appreciate the value of this quiet moment while I still could.

Stripping off my clothes as quiet as possible, I was careful not to wake him. However, that also meant I couldn't climb under the covers, either.

It isn't exactly snooping if I'm looking for something innocent, right? That's what I had to tell myself, regardless. Because I was not going to freeze my ass off over a hookup's paranoia. Glancing at the dresser, I almost convinced myself it wouldn't be an invasion of privacy to open it. Luckily, I didn't have to. Directly next to it was a hamper of clean, folded laundry, with a pair of boxer shorts and a t-shirt on top. While disappointed that I had lost my excuse, I was grateful I had stripped myself of the choice.

He deserved better than me trying to pry into his life like that.

Slipping into his clothes, I stopped to hug myself in the soft fabric. With him asleep, I felt comfortable taking a moment to revel in the position he'd allowed me to exist in. I was in his apartment, in his clothes, and I would soon be back in his arms.

For now.

I chased the inevitable end out of my thoughts, slinking onto the bed and shimmying over to him until his hands found me in his unconscious state. I faced him, my hands pressing softly against his chest to feel his heart happily working under my touch.

His eyes fluttered open for a second, just long enough to see the wonder in my own. A smile crept along his cheeks, and he wrapped a lazy arm around my waist.

I wondered if he recognized his own clothes, or if he even realized this was real. Then again, the alternative was him assuming that it'd all been a dream... and it was a pleasant one, it seemed. 

"I'm happy," he confirmed in a hushed tone.

My heart almost stopped, and I peeked up at him, inching up so I could better see his face. His breathing evened back out as I felt the way he relaxed, quickly retreating back to the comfortable embrace of sleep.

"About what?" I whispered back.

Our legs twined together, and a soft sigh left his lips. I waited with bated breath  for his response, although I don't think I could have ever been prepared for what followed.

"I'm happy that you're mine."

... What?

 —————————————————

| Part 5 |

[doshmanziari]

Architectural Criticism in 2021/2022 || Part 1.5

Before writing a fuller continuation of my previous essay on architectural criticism, I’m inserting a mini-essay that focuses on a particular piece of criticism. Let me be clear: I don’t see Kate Wagner, the person behind @mcmansionhell, as an enemy; I’m just using one of her articles as an example because I had, in my essay, already linked two articles of hers (more accurately, one article and an image from another), and I’d rather elaborate on what I mean when I write “...a vapid buildup to a politically convenient takeaway” than bring in an entirely different item. Wagner, in my view, represents a sort of destabilizing criticism that takes pleasure in tackling “dry” subject matter with breathless, Meme-heavy sarcasm. I find the tone off-putting, but I appreciate it as one attempt to invigorate and broaden the audiences of architectural appraisal. My issue is that by now the joke has overestimated its capacity for judgmental clarity. Really anything can be made fun of if you’re determined enough, and the more of an unquestioning audience you have the easier it is to believe everything you say is true or coherent.

The image was from this 2018 Vox article: “Betsy DeVos’ summer home deserves a special place in McMansion Hell” (a title likely devised by the editor; given the other residences Wagner has lambasted, I would be surprised if she truly believes this is among the worst). My observations won’t make sense unless anyone who is reading this reads her article as well, so please do that if you’d like to follow along. It should take only a couple of minutes.

What I’d first draw readers’ attention to is that Wagner spends the first four paragraphs on the United States’ beyond-vast inequality of wealth. Two of these paragraphs are the article’s largest, and the article is twelve-paragraphs-long, meaning that 1/3 of it is devoted to establishing a socio-economic context -- at least, that is the pretense. Once Wagner writes “...getting paid to make fun of DeVos’s tacky seaside decor is one of few ways to both feed myself and make myself feel better”, it is clear that her personal intent is a kind of vengeful mocking, and that her intent for readers is to prime them to associatively, knee-jerkingly despise anything which could come next with flat-affect “lmao”s. It’s hardly irrelevant to mention economic realities when examining luxury items (and what else is a mansion?), but Wagner’s subsequent analysis is not really architectural or even artistic: it is rather about looking at several photographs of a building, knowing who lives there and hating that person (and also imagining that they were responsible for all design decisions), and then mocking this-and-that in whatever ways one can devise. These grievances are understandable, but understandable grievances do not automatically lead to perceptive criticism.

Please look (perhaps again) at the first image. Note that only four, maybe, of the fourteen details Wagner chooses to focus on -- “no wry comment needed”, “these look like playdoh stamps”, “when you love consistency”, and “oh my god is this a shutter” -- approach anything vaguely resembling coherent criticism; and the other four images fare even worse (with the exception of the highlighting of an apparently absurd interior balcony). The rest are inane attempts at saying anything at all. Writing “hell portal” by an upper porch area may be funny for a moment, but what does it actually express? Well, nothing, except the author’s own irritation which will find whatever it can to announce its contemptuous sarcasm. Wagner’s captions will land only to the degree that the reader is humorously sympathetic.

The aforementioned remarks, excepting the one about the embedded chubby Tuscan columns’ Play-Doh-likeness, suggest that the worst thing a building can do is be formally heterogeneous. The implicative corollary here is that good architecture is eminently justifiable in all of its parts -- consistent, unified, rational. This is as fine a personal belief as anything else, but when it is wielded as dogma against architecture which has no interest in being a Petit Trianon it can only reveal its intellectual self-limitations. Wagner writes that “there is a difference between architectural complexity and a mess”, yet what that difference may be is hand-waved away. We just have to believe that thirteen different windows styles is too much. What’s the threshold? Does it depend on the size of the building? The types of styles used? Who knows.

Now of course bad architecture exists, and sometimes the failure indeed points to deficient editorial acumen; for architecture, like any other art, is as much about what’s included as what’s excluded. But in saying so little about the shingle style itself, Wagner seems to have given no thought to readers concluding that all shingle style houses are freakish -- more specifically, concluding that this freakishness is a damning transgression, and that no self-respecting, punching-up class-warrior would ever be caught dead sincerely enjoying their geometric, “exquisite corpse” escapades. In fact, the freakish tendencies of shingle style houses are just what make them such great fun to see, visit, or reside in. Wagner’s article, as far as I can tell, omits this possibility. When she writes, “Betsy likely went with this style because it is very popular in New England and in coastal enclaves of the rich and famous in general”, one is being pushed to presume that the only probable reason the shingle style exists or could be preferred over another style is to signal élite solidarity.

The photograph right above is of Kragsyde, a Massachusetts shingle style mansion, designed by the US-Northeast-oriented firm of Peabody & Stearns, completed in the 1880s. It was demolished almost a century ago, but the few exterior images of it which remain are, I think, fascinating -- maybe most of all for its enormous archway, possibly a porte-cochère, which has a thin, overextending keystone bizarrely driven into the top like a nail puncturing a petrified rainbow. I bring the building up because Wagner gives us no reason to consider why Kragsyde may have been a genuine architectonic accomplishment and not merely an oversized farce of contiguous pretensions. To the layperson hot off of the Vox piece, there may be no artistic difference between it and DeVos’ place, except that perhaps Kragsyde has a more consistent fenestrative application (would that make it better? if so, why?).

I appreciate that only so much can be said when you’re limited to less than a thousand words, especially when the issue is “complicated” (as the byline for Vox’s First-person series advertises). But the problem I keep coming back to is how DeVos’ mansion is treated as a stand-in for DeVos herself. This makes any architectural critique, no matter how pressed it is for size, flimsily presentist: its durability starts and ends with how alive the architecture’s resident(s) and political presence are. On some emotional level, this is pretty sensible: if we despise monarchical institution, we can find a sort of loophole to enjoying Versailles palace on the basis of it no longer being the residence of royalty. Our awe over its decadence and scope is intersectionally “admissible” on the basis of its having become a UNESCO World Heritage site. Similarly, one can imagine DeVos’ mansion being appreciated in a hundred years (should it still exist then) because the passage of time will have rendered DeVos’ person a historical fact, and perhaps more separable, and then tolerable, in that regard -- even if the building remains private.

But if architecture is, as a craft, critically whittled down to nothing more or less than inorganic expressions of social disparities, with every aesthetic decision a reflection of politically explicable taste, then we must assume that a great deal of the world’s most remarkable architecture is equally ridiculous and despicable, since so much of it was born out of great privilege and required specialized resources. I doubt Wagner actually believes this, because it would betray the entire premise of her McMansion Hell project, which is to demonstrate how so many modern day mansions are deeply unpleasant mounds of visual illiteracy, and cannot hold even a stump of a candle to the luminously learned and eclectic talents of prior great architects such as Mackintosh, Norman Shaw, Lutyens, or Ledoux. So what’s the takeaway here? As far as I can tell, it’s simply that if you hate Betsy DeVos, and if you care about class, you should hate her house too. And I do not think that that is architectural criticism.

[fandom-will-be-my-fall]

Spill your heart out about Walter.

Okay so I basically got this question in what, January?? but I’m answering it now since I just rewatched the movie and have inspiration, sorry for the late reply Anon

Okay so, to start off this post with some keyboard smashing because that my primary go-to for expressing my emotions

sgklhfsgjksdlgdghkjlgjhOHUFLUSKHDGSLIDRGKJGKFSDHGlhjglksdhkglshglllllfa. knjcthxiudhusmnvsoidhéytbvonjyxclkkvbr. haeylicfvshdkgikc

HANDSOME BOY. HANDSOME. ‘NUFF SAID.

I could legit stare all day at his beautiful face… look at him. Enchanting sky blue eyes… fluffy, wavy brown hair, cute round cheeks, lovely smile… those hidden freckles that you can hardly spot and only in certain screenshots but nevertheless they’re there to raise the cuteness factor… ALSO HIS LASHES. MAYBE IT’S NATURAL?? MAYBE IT’S MAYBELLINE?? WE SHALL NEVER KNOW

Here you may be able to spot the freckles if you squint hard enough. I have 77 screenshots but this is the best example I could find.

Secondly… well, he’s a sticc. A short sticc at that (though still slightly taller than me bc I’m smol), but a sticc regardless! And that seems to be the most attractive cartoon body type for me. Don’t judge me, I just have a thing for twinks, I’m… twinksexual or whatever.

Look at him! He would fit through my doorcrack.

(Maaaybe the reason for me liking sticcs so much is partially the fact that I like the idea of a boyfriend I can protect and support, physically and emotionally. I’m mad at the universe for not letting me scoop him up in my arms bridal style and smooch the HECK outta him.)

I’ve encountered a few posts that claimed he’s got cake but, come on. That concept has canonically been proven to be false, even by Lance. This man is flat and you can pry this opinion off my cold, dead hands.

Speaking of hands! I like his big ol hands. Nice shape. They look soft. I wanna hold them.

According to a DVD commentary, and the visual facts, he has no shoulders whatsoever. Back in Venice Killian was able to restrain him effortlessly with only one foot on his chest, even as he kept struggling ans squirming and generally put in as much effort as he possibly could. Before then, he claimed the database was the first thing he has ever caught in his life.

Conclusion, our boi’s very much NOT athletic. Which makes sense for a scientist, braining all day and stuff, and because he probably barely even eats, or sleeps which are by the way both pretty concerning implications but anyway.

STOP BEATING UP THIS POOR FRAGILE LAD FOR GOD’S SAKE. Makes me want to protect him even more. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but you get what I mean.

Now, on to the actual reason I’m so head over heels for him, a.k.a his personality.

He is one of the sweetest, kindest, purest boy characters I have ever seen in fiction, if not THE number one himself. (All my other cinnamon roll crushes are, or have been a villain at some point and WILL resort to violence if provoked.) Look at him, his pacifism… is unbreakable. He’s dead set on making the world a better place, by peaceful ways, and helping humanity. If that’s not a quality to be cherished then IDK what is.

And he’s just such a refreshing character. He likes pink, K-dramas, glitter, kittens, things that aren’t traditionally “masculine” (but is never made fun of those things in particular in the movie) and I love that. Nothing’s sexier than a man who’s, despite society’s shitty standards, openly and unashamedly himself!

His femininity is, if anything, just another turn-on. (This didn’t intend to sound sexual… but oh well.) I love his little hand gestures and mannerisms, dorky ramblings, the way he says “yep” popping the “p” at the end, all the small yet significant traits that were incorporated into his character. Bless you, SiD creators, bless you.

Have I said that he’s a genius?? Which is pretty obvious but c’mon, he graduated at 15!! He can modify human genes!! He successfully turned a man into a pigeon on the first try!! (The serum wasn’t the first prototype but we can assume he didn’t experiment on living humans with the previous ones.) And he’s still just 20!! Like what is that if not hella fucking impressive???!??

His inventions, to the untrained eye, may seem “stupid” or “childish” but alas! The observer couldn’t be more wrong! Because despite the odd designs and themes they’re all highly effective, as we have witnessed in the battle against Killian. And he is extremely creative for coming up with such ideas! Told you he’s brilliant!!

Which makes me all the sadder about how much they underappreciated him at the agency. In his words, nobody ever listened to him, or gave him a chance. They just left him and his “weird” ideas next to the men’s bathroom and called it a day. How could they be so blind? Didn’t they see the potential in his inventions? Oh well. Maybe I’m just being a smartass bc I have more knowledge, living outside that universe. But I’m totally right.

And I was honestly ready to throw hands with Lance for hurting the boi even further. (I’d stand no chance whatsoever, but still.)

Oh no baby please don’t cry.

He did cry in that scene though… you could see a tear rolling down his cheek and if it wasn’t for the machine beeping… He did have a pretty rough day afterall. But HEY, if we dwell on it too much the scene loses its comedic effect!! A guy gets sad over a stupid soap opera, har har har!! Now let’s move on, keep it fast and snappy for the kids, don’t let them overthink it!! Can’t have any emotional breakdowns onscreen. Keep it lighthearted y’know. Then let’s kill a random side character and have our dear protagonist almost die twice.

(Well jokes on you Blue Sky! I’m no kid, but a devoted fangirl who can and will overthink any material of my fictional faves at any given opportunity.)

You know what else I love about him though?? His love for animals!! And pigeons, especially Lovey!! He loves her so much, gives her gluten free breadcrumbs, nuzzles her, the first thing he does when he finds out Lance can talk to the pigeons is ask if she loves him too!! Like… That’s so pure and wholesome.

This here. THIS RIGHT HERE. BROTP forever.

(Not gonna lie, I used to be crazy for pigeons for like, an entire year or something. Not as in looking up all the facts there are about pigeons as I do nowadays with cartoons, but I’d feed them regularly and write my little observations on their behaviors. Did you know they sometimes scratch their neck with their leggies like dogs do?)

I think I’ve summed up mostly everything I love about this nerd. Oh wait, almost forgot the sass!! I love how sassy and smug he can be sometimes, in like, a really harmless way but it’s still a very nice characteristic.

Since I’ve ran out of coherent things to say, here’s an incomplete list of things I want to do to Walter Beckett. Put at the end of this post so those of you who were only here for the analysis part and not the selfshippy gushing don’t have to read further:

kiss he

like seriously

just kiss he a whole lot

cover his whole face in kisses

one kiss for each of his freckles. a finishing kiss onto the tip of his nose. then repeat the cycle

hug him. hug him like the world is ending. hug him so tight he can barely breathe

then ofc let go and apologize bc I would never hurt him on purpose

cuddle him

hold him close, let him lay his head on my chest

run my fingers through his hair

listen to his breathing

discover that he’s fallen asleep on me and smile fondly, then soon drift off to sleep myself so we can wake up entangled in eachother the next morning

fuck he

pin him to a wall and snog he

make him go cherry red

fluster he

compliment him. praise him. appreciate him. he’s a prince, a hero, an angel, a wonderful human being and he needs to know this

feed pigeons together

listen to his scientific ramblings and bird facts

write him love letters and give them to him. maybe read it aloud myself if I’m feeling brave so I can see his reaction in real time

serenade he

be the love of his life, and have him be mine

just… soft things, man

cook something for this malnourished sticc

make him small handmade gifts

they’re nothing like his gadgets but I tried

draw he

have him be my muse in general

not like he isn’t now but it would be lovely if he was real too

carry him bridal style

be the feral cryptid that lurks in his house when he isn’t around

sing along to cheesy pop-song together really badly

watch cheesy rom coms

flirt with eachother clumsily until we’re both laughing at our awkwardness

or, alternatively, shower him with compliments until he literally cannot handle it

have sleepovers together

give him hand kisses

be of emotional support

[lolohe12]

Bad at Words (a TodoDeku fanfic)

I’m not sure how someone so observant can be so dense. Izuku Midoriya, ranked fourth in our class, and the most emotionally intelligent person I know; is somehow completely blind when it comes to romantic interest. I suppose I can’t blame him too much; it did take me far too long to see that Yaoyarozu was hitting on me. But I’ve never been good at emotions, and Midoriya...Well Midoriya is so empathetic I’m surprised that isn’t his quirk. And yet, none of my actions are getting through to him. I supposed he’d just realized after the attack in Hosu that I always wanted to be there for him. Or that I cared enough to risk my life to save Bakugou, who I frankly don’t even like, just to make him feel better! But Midoriya would risk his life for anyone; so of course he didn’t see either of those as a declaration of romantic feelings!

There was a point where I didn’t even think to worry about this. No need for love or sex. I had no desire of any kind regarding another person. But looking at him as he sits there, playing games, laughing with our classmates, it opens something within me. Something I never thought I could feel... Something that even if I thought I could feel, I never thought I deserved! But Midoriya, he makes me feel like someone worthy of loving...even if it might not be his love in the end.

I’ve been dreading for so long having to start this talk, but I guess I have no choice. Unless, of course, I want to push down these emotions till I die; which is always an option... I’m not even sure if I was joking about that. No, I can’t just keep pushing it down, but I have no idea what to say to him... Oh well, I suppose I could at least try. 

I walk over to him. He’s playing a game with Iida and Uraraka. His face so focused on the cards in his hand, I kind of feel bad disturbing him. But he recognizes my presence before I could even speak.

“Hey Todoroki! How are you?” Midoriya says so joyfully, so full of warmth. It still confuses me as to how he can be so kind to absolutely everyone.  

“Midoriya, can we talk?” I say softly, hoping not to make a big deal about this. Especially not in front of Iida and Uraraka. 

“Of course, Todoroki, what do you want to talk about?” Midoriya perks up with his usual bright smile. Somehow it still always seems to catch me off guard.  

“I’d prefer this to be a more...private conversation.” I say plainly, trying to hide my nerves, hoping I’m not blushing right now.

“Oh sure! But can I finish this game first, though?” Midoriya looks at the cards in his hand, then at Iida and Uraraka. “It would be rude to leave when we’re almost done!” He has always been the considerate one. 

“Yes, of course. I didn’t mean to interrupt you.” I was about to head to the couch to read for a bit, until I was interrupted by overly peppy sounding Uraraka.  

“No, go ahead Deku, we can play later!” She piped up and looked at Iida, as if asking for confirmation. 

“Indeed, this is the perfect excuse for a lunch break!” Iida stands up straight with a reassuring look. 

“If you guys are sure…” Midoriya says, mild concern in his eyes. 

“It’s fine, Deku!” Uraraka smiled brightly at us.

“We are fine, Midoriya, please enjoy your conversation with Todoroki!” Iida smiles as well and pushes in his chair.

“Okay, we’ll see you later, and we can finish our game!” Midoriya looks so determined, like the mere idea of not finishing the game would dishonor him somehow. 

“Go!” Uraraka urges him, and at the moment I’m very thankful for her slightly abrasive self.

“My room okay with you?” Midoriya gets up and smiles at me before pushing in his chair. 

“That’s fine.” While I’m not entirely thrilled at the prospect of being surrounded by the visage of my teacher/the father figure of the person I’m interested in, maybe I can at least use them as an excuse for being distracted if I can’t look Midoriya in the eye during this. We wave goodbye to our classmates and head over to his room.

Once there I take a moment to reacquaint myself with the space: the bright colored All Might bed sheets, the collection of journals filled to the brim with in depth hero analysis, the practically hundreds of figurines, only rivaled by the number of notes scattered about the room. Every single detail is absolutely vivid with Midoriya’s spirit. It’s intimidating to say the least. Midoriya’s face turns a light shade of pink, and he starts to pick up some of the papers off the floor. 

“I’m sorry about all this, Todoroki, I could have sworn I cleaned up this morning!” He frantically picks up his pace. “Of course I didn’t really expect anyone to come visit my room today.” He places the papers on his desk. “So I guess it probably slipped my mind!” he proceeds to straighten up his bed sheets.

“Midoriya, you’re rambling again.” I say matter as factly, hoping to get him to calm down. 

“Sorry! Would you like to sit down? You could sit on my bed, or use my computer chair or…” His gaze darts around the room as if unsure of how to handle the situation.

“I’ll be fine here, thank you” I sit down on the floor, staring up at the person before me. I try to keep calm as possible. If I look too uncomfortable, Midoriya will go deeper into his worry mode. And then I’ll be too distracted trying to calm him to think my words through. Though it’s already hard to focus watching him desperately try to sit comfortably on his bed. 

“So what was it you wanted to talk about, Todoroki?” Midoriya asks, finally settling on sitting propped up on his legs, with a determined look on his face.

“Ah yes...I wanted to know how to become better at words.” His determined face falls, and turns to one of slight confusion.

“Oh I see...I’m not sure I’m really the one to ask about this.” His voice shakes nervously. “I’m not really the best at talking myself. Like you said, I ramble...A lot. And whenever a girl gets too close, I start to stutter uncontrollably! Then I get even less coherent in my ramblings... It almost feels like I swallowed my own brain and I’m trying to push it back out through my tongue!“  He’s spiraling again, getting more visually panicked by the sentence. “Like I’m doing now…” His cheeks turn bright pink, and his head falls in his hands. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk to Asu...Tsu about this? She’s much better at talking to people than I am!” I shake my head.

“You may not be the most graceful in your word choice, no.” I sigh, once again words have failed me, and my desire to communicate intent. “But I asked you because of your ability to connect to people with your words, not your ability to speak them with poise.“ His eyes widened at this.

“Do you really think so?” Midoriya sounded stunned. “That I have some way of words?”

“Midoriya...If you haven’t realized, your words are the only reason I’m here right now,” I say practically in disbelief; does he really have so little regard for himself that he can’t tell the effect he has on people? 

“But Todoroki, you’re fine with words! I mean, you were able to say something as meaningful as that to me just now, weren’t you?” Midoriya smiles encouragingly.  

“I think you’re sadly mistaken...” I shake my head. “My words were clear but my intentions were lost to you...as they often are.” I stare solemnly at the floor.

“Huh? ” Midoriya questions.

“When I confided to you and Iida about my fear of a hand crushing curse, you thought I was joking.” I say desperately trying to convey what needs to be understood; my eyes zeroing in on his scarred up hand. The hand he broke every bone in trying to get me to see my own self worth! 

“Yeah, I’m still very sorry about that, Todoroki!” Midoriya laughs nervously and grabs onto his scarred up hand. He might have noticed me staring. “It’s just, neither of us thought you did anything wrong. So it was hard to take that as a serious issue.” He sighs embarrassed and gives me a nervous smile.

“When you were in the hospital, after the training camp attack, I tried to empathize with your feelings. I tried to understand your distraught feelings over how Bakugou was missing, and all I ended up doing was upsetting you further by saying the wrong thing.” As the concern on Midoriya’s face grows, it hits me just how drained I feel because of my slew of verbal failures.   

“Todoroki...” Midoriya’s voice is soft and comforting.

“I want you to understand how much I worry about hurting you!” I blurt out a bit too loud, and regret it immediately. “The thought of physically hurting you scares me...” His expression looks pained and wide eyed. “...and the thought of scaring you away with my words is horrifying!” Midoriya comes down from his bed and sits at my side on the floor.

“But Todoroki, friends accidentally hurt each other sometimes.” Midoriya is calm and his voice is soothing. “You don’t really have to worry about how to speak better to me if that’s all you’re worried about. I’m not going anywhere.” He grasps my hand softly, and squeezes gently. His calluses and scars feel odd against my skin; not in a bad way, just odd.  

“But you never have…” I stare deeply in his eyes. “You have never hurt me, Midoriya.” Please Midoriya, please know what I mean. 

“But in the tournament I...I pried so deeply into your personal life!” He solemnly removes his hand from mine. Midoriya looks so sad-- this must be corrected!

“You cut me to my core and set everything free!” I cut him off, and just stared into his confused gaze  “It was...something…” Damn, I wish I knew how to say what I want to say. “I can’t say it wasn't painful, but you didn’t hurt me!” His gaze still looks confused, but now tinged with pain. I grasp his hands, so calloused and scarred, yet so beautiful. “I...Midoriya…” all words escape me. I feel like my voice and brain have been stolen from me. I can feel my eyes brimming with tears. “Todoroki? What’s wrong?” All the pain in Midoriya’s eyes turns to concern...for me. Because of me… I can feel the tears start to fall down my cheeks  “Todoroki you’re crying!” I see the concern turn to panic on his face. The stress and fear is getting too much to bear, my control of my quirk is slipping. I feel flames and ice bursting from me and lingering on my shoulders like weights. “Todoroki, tell me what’s wrong!” Midoriya begs of me. I want to explain all this away, but I can’t do it...not the way I want to! But looking at Midoriya through tear stained eyes, I know I might have to anyway.

“I’m...I’ve fallen in love with you!” My breathing is heavy, my flames extinguish, my ice melts, but the tears persist. 

“Todoroki? Y-You’re in love w-with m-m-me?” As he stutters those words, my heart starts to pound heavily in my chest; as if it wants to remind me of the weight of what I just said.

“I didn’t want to be, I didn’t even realize what it was at first…” I wipe the frozen tears from my right side, letting the heat take care of the ones on the left. “But the longer we’d been friends the more I realized what it was.” I gaze into Midoriya’s eyes. “When I realized, I tried showing you how I felt through actions, but you never realized my intent…” I can’t read his expression; it’s too lost in thought. “I understand if you don’t feel the same way, but I had to tell you…” I can’t help but fear his response. I brace myself for rejection.  

“I’m so sorry, Todoroki.” Midoriya pulls me into a tight hug. It’s warm and soothing as my heart sinks in my chest. It’s just like Midoriya to soften a blow like this with kindness.

“I understand, I will respect your disinterest… Just please allow me to keep being your friend.” It’s over. At least I know I can start to move on. Midoriya then lets go of me and puts his hands on my shoulders, gripped tightly. He looks right into my eyes with an impenetrable gaze.

“I’m not disinterested though!” I look at him confused. It feels as if my heart has stopped. “I’m just sorry I didn’t notice what you meant by your actions! I’m sorry you went through all that pain over me! But I’m not sorry you love me!” He pulls me tight into another hug, this time squeezing tighter. He rests his head on my shoulder, his cheek almost pressed to mine. “Whenever I thought someone like you could possibly like someone like me, I convinced myself I was overthinking everything.” I’m at a loss for words, frozen in his arms. “I love you, Todoroki.” 

“Shoto…If you mean that, please call me Shoto.” I hesitantly said softly into his ear, unsure of what else I could do in that moment.

“Then you have to call me Izuku.” As Izuku gently laughs out these words, everything feels a little lighter. I pull back slightly to look him in the eyes.

“I love you, Izuku.” I smile at him before pulling back into the hug. I wrap my arms so tightly around him, holding onto him as if I were holding onto this very moment in time.

“I love you too, Shoto,” he whispered sweetly in my ear. And with those words, Izuku Midoriya managed to once again (and probably not for the last time), change my world for the better.

[dimples-of-discontent]

Thoughts on “Destiel is Real.”

So, I’ve been relatively scarce of late (except for when I went bonkers with reblogging deadly Cockles content...which I think I blacked out from b/c it was like being waaayyyy too high and it’s all their fault) because, if y’all don’t know, I have stage 4 breast cancer and am in chemo. I’m tolerating it really well but it takes a surprising amount of time, actually, especially since I’m still working 80% time and also living alone so doing house stuff etc. 

This is all to say that I’m weighing in on things belatedly a lot. Like, I do still want to analyze the Cockles JIB panel as a whole b/c, oh my, was there a lot there. But today I will settle for this piece of it. I apologize if this is reduplicating what smart folks said elsewhere right when it happened. I was also off Twitter to avoid having it bring me down so I might just be really unaware. But as soon as this moment happened I was like, “oh man we’re gonna argue about this for like 84 years.” So here’s my small contribution on what this reminded me of.

To me, listening to Jensen and watching him engage the crowd, inspired a lot of anxiety b/c it did definitely seem like he was pissed off. I just couldn’t tell with what or who, especially given firsthand context from some folks in the room like @bluestar86​ who wrote this account: https://twitter.com/bluestar861/status/1130255687290937344?s=21 about the general positivity Jensen and Misha had shown earlier (which is why Misha mentioned the shirt) and how the energy in the room was almost entirely positive. I totally believe that. But it didn’t reconcile easily with what I felt I saw from Jensen.

Until I remembered SDCC 2011. The one where Misha had been fired and all of them knew but none of the fans do. I wrote a long meta on that panel that I’m actually super happy with so maybe check it out? Anyway, this is how I described some of the dynamics:

The way everyone is sitting at this table isolates Sera and the body language from Jared and Jensen is openly hostile. Jensen especially pushes himself as far away as possible, defensively crosses his arms, leans away, doesn’t make any eye contact. Jared is also pissed and is functionally shielding Misha with his body while he does the first Cas question. Both of them are very protective and Jensen is more than a little hostile. They also both keep egging the audience on in their love for Cas/Misha, as when Jensen shouts “YEAH!” in affirmation of audience shrieks about the character. They want to show Sera what a piss poor decision it was to take Misha away from the fans…and from them. Whatever else you see happening these are some amazing friends.  

So, we had a remarkably angry Jensen at this panel and he was angry specifically because the network had made what he considered--both professionally and personally--to be a fucking terrible decision. But he couldn’t say that. He’s got NDAs and stuff to worry about. So instead he settled, among other things, from egging the audience on to show how much they loved and wanted more Castiel. 

Now I’m not saying the correlation is 1-1 with Destiel. But I am suggesting a thought experiment where something similar could be going on. And by “something similar” I mean “Jensen has inside knowledge about a thing the network has decided that he thinks is fucking stupid and that will hurt the fandom.” Like, oh for example, they’re not moving Destiel out of the subtext.

Additional fuel for this fire. Many have speculated that it’s network president Mark Pedowitz who’s the blocker. Jensen, earlier in the panel, asks the audience to applaud Pedowitz. That’s weird and he’s never done it before. True, Jared was talking about how Pedowitz says that they set examples for other shows and that Pedowitz is complimenting them on it so it was at least that in part. But Jensen is MASTERFUL at throwing shade while appearing to be doing the correct, professional thing. Witness his comments about Bob Singer and last year’s S13 finale. He’s done it with Eugenie and Sera too and probably others I don’t know about. Having the audience applaud Pedowitz if he knows something negative about Pedowitz--something the audience won’t like and that will actively hurt many of them--has a major bite of irony that I feel Jensen is perfectly capable of trying to engineer. (Or maybe there hasn’t been a final decision but he knows it doesn’t look good and why. Don’t lose hope! This is just speculation and a thought experiment.)

I’m going to put the JIB analysis under a cut, since it’s long and has lots of images. It ends with “The most similar behavior I saw was Jensen angrily getting the audience to cheer for something, even doing the same hand-raising gesture. In 2011 it was Castiel (”Go on! Show Sera how much you love the character she killled!”) and this time it was Destiel (”Go on! Show the network how much you love the ship they won’t textualize!”). That’s what made me think, initially, that he may know something about plans for Destiel that a) makes him mad, b) that he considers a bad decision by the network, c) that he thinks that audience will be hurt by.”

Anyway,

If you watch the JIB panel (starting about 12 mins in) you see, first, that Jensen wants Misha not to bring it up. He raises his hand at Misha which I first thought was him being like “shhhhhh don’t bring that up!” but which on repeat viewing I think was him actually just trying to get Misha to shut up so he could literally try to understand what she was saying. Once the audience reacts to Misha’s comment these are their faces:

Jared is absolutely looking at Misha like, “dude, why did you have to go and do that? You just threw a live grenade onstage.” Jensen is hamming it up gesturing at the audience to scream louder. 

Jared changes his face to “well, when you’re right, you’re right! What are you gonna do.”

Here’s Jensen. He’s looking grumpy. Now, is it fake grumpy, a recognized and favored persona that he has. Or is it actually grumpy? Or is it both”

I think it’s both. But I also think he looks sad. And concerned. Like, on behalf of the audience not for him. Now you can say I’m projecting if you want--this is all total rampant speculation--but look at his eyes. I think he’s upset that he has to talk about this at all (since he knows a little about the fandom conflict it sets off) but there’s something else. 

He pauses for a good, long time looking at the audience responding. And according to Saz and others the response was HUGELY POSITIVE! So why does he then announce into the mic with a grumpy fake laugh and what I honestly have to call sarcasm, “Destiel is real!” 

Note that Misha is not worried by this. If Jensen were actually legitimately furious I think Misha would look a little worried. But instead he looks amused and curious about where this is going.

This is Jensen asking “Is it?” for the first time. He looks intentionally confused - that’s the bit he’s doing. 

Here’s Jensen after the audience starts to audibly yell “Nooooo!!” His face says “WHAAAAAAT!?”

People then yell “yes” to drown them out and he asks, “Where?”

Second “where?”. Maybe he’s trying to get them to say “subtext” - a word the cast has great familiarity with and which was used in “Fan Fiction” and which they can joke around a lot about. That’s my guess. Maybe he has a subtext joke set up he wants to do with Misha. (Remember his tweet to Misha during “Fan Fiction: “you keep your subtext to yourself. I’m not that kind of girl. Wait...”)

They don’t - at least not clearly. Someone in the front row says, “Nowhere.” Misha says, “Help” (after mouthing something at someone in the audience that is probably “I’m sorry about this.” Jensen checks on Misha BUT disregards the fact that he’s looking over at the question-asker (who didn’t even ASK a Destiel question, just wear a shirt she liked) and asks “Where?” AGAIN.

Misha then takes things in hand and reaches out to tell Jensen, “don’t get into a fight with these people.” Jared is making a “Yikes!” face at the person in the first row who is continually yelling “Nowhere!”. 

Jensen does sit down, but he’s mad. He’s really tense and it takes him a while to shake it off. 

Who’s he tense with? The most obvious answer is the audience but let’s consider a couple things. 1) The audience was giving a mixed answer, including and sometimes more loudly the “Nowhere!” that you would think Jensen would want to hear IF he were angry/tense about the “Destiel is real” shirt or the audience’s support of it. 2) He was demanding consensus and an answer to where it was real EITHER to have them say “nowhere”--which they did so why not just stop?--OR to get them to say something like “subtext” to lead them into either a question or a bit about it.

So why keep pushing? Hoping to change the answer? Hoping to find consensus? Or maybe just hoping to get them to make a lot of noise about it for a long time (at which he succeeded). Now, Jensen is famously inconsistent about Destiel and also famously different onstage, especially for J2 audiences...though this, the most Holy Gay panel of all the panels, isn’t a place he’d shy away from, e.g. “What would Dean and Cas do on a trip to Rome? Everything I think of right now is inappropriate.” 

Which brings us back to “who’s he tense with”? Could it be only part of the audience? Which part? The part yelling “nowhere” or the part yelling whatever positive things they were yelling? I’m going to hypothesize, based on a LOT of other stuff that I’ve written about, that he’s annoyed with the negative folks spoiling it for everyone with their “nowheres” and is trying to get the positive folks to drown them out and give him a good answer he can run with. 

The fact that nothing coherent emerges is actually what gets him annoyed. And, by extension, the volume and persistence of that small part of the audience, which lets people like Pedowitz shoot down the idea of textual Destiel as something the viewers “don’t want,” annoys the living shit out of him because he sees the viewers all the time and knows that a majority of them either are ok with or actively want textual Destiel.  I imagine him thinking something along the lines of, “Why can’t these nice people just have what they want? It’s b/c of assholes like you.”

He definitely lets his emotions get the better of him. He was already not in the best place, thanks to circumstances I hope to write about later but which boil down to having his special panel with Misha (that he was visibly psyched for from the moment he got onstage, “I always have so much fun with you!”) taken away because he got some awkward wood from being choked and straddled. So with that grumpiness he was primed not to make the best decisions. He gets aggressive and confrontational when he’s pissed, which is a thing I don’t love about him, even though it’s very easy to see why, and maybe this was just his battleground of choice. 

To get back to the thought experiment about whether this is like SDCC 2011, though, I think it could be. I think it’s far more complex, given all the discourse surrounding Destiel and Jensen’s own sexuality. (Here’s a post I wrote in response to a question about Jensen and Destiel and bi!Dean that asked whether I thought he experienced them as about himself and Misha.) It’s tough, b/c each piece of evidence could go both ways (ha). Either mentioning Pedowitz for applause is excellent shade or total sincerity. Either Jensen is mad at the pro-Destiel audience and trying to get them to admit that they’re wrong, or he’s mad at the antis and trying to get them drowned out. 

The most similar behavior I saw was Jensen angrily getting the audience to cheer for something, even doing the same hand-raising gesture. In 2011 it was Castiel (”Go on! Show Sera how much you love the character she killled!”) and this time it was Destiel (”Go on! Show the network how much you love the ship they won’t textualize!”). That’s what made me think, initially, that he may know something about plans for Destiel that a) makes him mad, b) that he considers a bad decision by the network, c) that he thinks that audience will be hurt by.

Given his shift in attitude overall and the mood of the room as described by attendees, it seems plausible to me that his engagement was a performance, using the audience, of what it is the viewers ACTUALLY want. But it could also just have been a grouchy Jensen taking it out on an old, familiar punching bag - the topic he never wants to discuss onstage - Destiel.

[holden-norgorov]

A seriously angry recap of all the things I hated in the finale.

Because I had to write down all the disappointment and outrage that I have inside, otherwise it will consume me until I die. I had to give vent to everything that disgusted me in a less-detatched, more personal way than the unemotional one my objective thoughts usually are expressed with. If you want to read highly pissed-off complaints for healing purposes, this is your post. 

Implying that discovering that your mother is also your step-sister is a more validating reason to commit murder than being yourself a victim of physical and psychological abuses for years during your childhood. Offensive, short-sighted, self-erasing. By suggesting that Wolfgang killed his father and uncle out of this revelation, the writers nullified the character’s self-worth, depth and integrity.

“I’m not worth it”. “Wolfgang, you are!” It turned out he wasn’t worth it at all because things didn’t change. Nobody had any kind of conversation and the result was that Kala was portrayed as happy staying in the loveless, unhealthy marriage she was already in and that Wolfgang kept being the “lover” who wasn’t worth being chosen. Rajan became suddenly so important that an entire two-seasonal storyline of the most epic love story of all time had to be thrown out of the window just to please him? Who the fuck cared about him? He was selfish and sexist for two seasons, and a lame, uninteresting character with no personality beyond being a kiss-ass.

Capheus being a clown for all the episode irritated the fuck out of me. He had always been particularly joyful, but 1) not at this ridiculous, over-the-top level, and especially 2) not under these circumstances. This is war. They are all risking their lives and could be found and killed in any seconds. He is risking his whole political career and has left all his loved ones home alone. One of his clustermates is imprisoned in a BPO facility and likely being tortured. This is possibly the worst you could get: this episode was not meant to feature lighthearted, careless people joking around and being idiotic. His behavior is completely inappropriate and disrespectful of the situation. Someone with a brain, in those circumstances, would have slapped him in the face. What the fuck.

Nomanita getting an entire scene exclusively used to provide a last-minute backstory capable of justifying Lana’s selfish decision of taking Paris from Kalagang and giving it to them out of nowhere and with no apparent reason. I am so mad about this, it almost seems deliberate from Lana. Paris was a turning point for Kalagang, a pivotal moment that represented their first and only chance in all the show to be finally happy and together. Nomanita already had it all. Nomanita have always been the healthiest, happiest couple. They could have married literally anywhere else and it would have changed nothing in their relationship, because they had already had 24 episodes of domestic and happy moments. Why Paris of all cities? This was an intentional betrayal to Kalagang fans and storyline.

Lito’s freak-out about the carbs is beyond any fucking comment. It vividly looks like they all are on camping, or taking a funny, enjoyable trip. The writers should be ashamed of themselves for cheapening such a beautiful show and such wonderful characters with stupid moments like this and so many others (such as: Nomi’s coffee moment, Wolfgang jokingly pointing the rocket launcher on Capheus, Rajan asking Kala to teach him to use a gun as if they were not in a dangerous, life-or-death situation but just having fun, Puck with Sun’s hair and so on: there are a lot).

Sun and Mun being OOC as fuck and acting as if they were old acquaintances was just ridiculous and forced to an exponential level. This is entirely the writers’ fault and has nothing to do with time constraints, because the writing was just cheap and the characters unrecognizable. They had only met twice before this phone call (and both times by mistake). Sun here was weirdly intimate and emotively open despite having been closed and guarded of her interiority for two seasons sometimes even with her other selves. Mun was the very definition of cringe. “I think those two words might have made getting shot worth it.” Give me a fucking break. Who are these people? And don’t even get me started on the inconsistency with the line “I am not very good with words” that goes directly against the very reason why Sun was interested in him in the first place (i.e. the passionate way he talked about her to her teacher and the cautious but accurate analysis he provided of her psychology while fighting in the graveyard). Here they were odd and extremely cliché to the point of contrasting with their very essence.

Capheus greeting Rajan in that way was so wrong and insulting both to attentive viewers and to all the people in this world unable to obtain proper medications for themselves or their loved ones. It disregarded and destroyed everything about Capheus’ character and almost made me vomit. Rajan embodied all the socially powerful people directly responsible for Shiro’s improved sickness that almost caused her death in S1. Rajan’s unethical business was the very reason why Capheus had to be involved with Silas Kabaka in the first place, resulting in all his S1 storyline that almost led him to his death. Do any of you remember Capheus and Kala’s expressions when Rajan revealed this? Both of them had never been so hurt and incredulous during all the show. Capheus’ blind forgiveness of someone who was the ultimate reason of one entire season of his suffering and fighting for survival left me utterly speechless and offended. The writers turned all of this into a joke, especially considering Capheus storyline in S2: he had decided to politically represent his country, his own people, exactly because of the injustices they had to face on a daily basis because of poverty and unfair hierarchy. Welcoming Rajan, the symbol of this hierarchy that basically made his whole life a living hell, in that way was incredibly unbelievable. I was seriously shocked by this.

Kala’s behavior when Rajan arrives in Paris can be explained only in two ways: a) either she was on drugs all the time, which means she was capable of making them using her knowledge as chemist and then taking them because she was so desperate for Wolfgang that she wanted to be high, or b) she was just under a love spell. These are the only explanations to the way she behaves here; in both cases, she clearly wasn’t herself. Logic, continuity and coherence were all non-existent. The facts: Kala had made promises to Wolfgang both in 2x10 and 2x11 and the only reason why she hadn’t explained things to Rajan yet was that he had shut her off and sent her away without giving her the opportunity to do so. But her mind was crystal-clear and she was finally ready (in fact, her entire storyline had been built in order to make her brave enough to finally make this decision). But in here, she betrayed every promise she had made to Wolfgang and basically became a lying coward, erasing all the character development she had been through. She acted as a bitch. This confrontation was unavoidable at this point. She let Rajan believe that the real problem in their marriage was her nature as a sensate, which actually has never been a source of conflict at all (she didn’t want to marry Rajan even before realizing what she was). I wanted to slap her for how she acted in this whole episode. She also really felt under a love spell because for 23 episodes she had never spontaneously kissed Rajan before out of sincere will. In 1x02, Rajan kissed her and she didn’t even return the kiss (the only reason why she didn’t break it was that they were at their engagement party and it would have been highly inappropriate); in 2x01 she kissed him out of pity and guilt because she felt responsible for breaking his dick and ruining their honeymoon. And that was it. So, witnessing her starting a kiss to a man she spent two seasons being uncomfortable with (especially physically) and feeling objectified by felt really wrong and unexpected and utterly unreasonable. She seriously looked like she was on drugs, I was in disbelief.

Aunt Kirsty overtaking a whole team of BPO soldiers supposedly using her unknown superpower ninja abilities was so ridiculous and cheap that it was like the writers themselves wanted to prove us that they could do everything they wanted and ruin all the show’s credibility as they pleased. Seriously what the fuck was that. Sense8 became a cartoon for kids and we didn’t know? God.

The complete lack of Wolfgang’s PTSD was absolutely unforgivable and unrealistic. We are talking about a man who spent all of his life building several walls to protect himself from the outside, trying to keep everyone at distance exactly because of the traumas he experienced since childhood that he couldn’t recover from. He has always been emotionally secretive and unavailable to everyone except Kala (and she took two seasons of serious efforts to make him finally open up and expose himself). He was tortured daily several times when he was under BPO’s captivity: he had and needed to show both physical and psychological scars in the aftermath. PTSD was a natural response that inevitably had to happen and be shown both for credibility and for a matter of character’s coherence and integrity. Wolfgang being rescued from this severely traumatizing condition and not showing the slightest consequence of it was beyond idiotic. And worse: from that moment he actually started acting more carefree and behaving in the exact opposite way than the one that should logically be expected from someone with his personality going through an experience like that. He started joking around and taking everything lightly and in a more emotionally invested way than he had ever done even before this imprisonment. It was like watching a fairy tale of stupid bullshit. What a fucking mess.

Rajan’s evident privileged treatment from the writers was so obvious and cheap that it ended up being nausea-inducing. He was literally everywhere and for no reason at all since he had no abilities. In the club, he is the only sapiens being close to the physical exchange. Why on this planet should this be safe or acceptable or even convenient since he is incapable of doing anything? Every other non-sensate was far away, even members of the Cluster such as Lito who could have been useful through sharing. Instead Rajan was on the front. Ok. And the idea that Wolfgang, a taciturn man who spent two seasons being jealous of Rajan, would spontaneously approach him and thank him for doing absolutely nothing is hilarious. Rajan didn’t save Wolfgang. Kala was the one who intervened to prevent Lila from shooting him. Rajan stepped in only to save Kala and was able to steal Lila’s gun just because she was already being attacked. And as soon as that happened, she took the gun back because Rajan obviously didn’t have a clue on what he was doing (which is acceptable, because he just wasn’t suitable for that situation: the mistake was including him there in the first place). Daniela herself had been previously shown to be comfortable in using a gun. Why not exposing her to the physical place of the exchange instead of Rajan? I seriously don’t get it. Which advantage could Rajan provide to the situation? The writers were so transparent. The same can be said with the Napoli’s scene. Rajan is the only sapiens entering the camorra building without any reason or combat skill. WHY. Not only he is untrained and incapable, but he also doesn’t even know the plan (Kala has to explain it to him while already inside and targeted by enemies!). It’s like they did everything in their power to include Rajan everywhere and let him be some kind of saver or hero that he clearly is not. The writing was insulting. Rajan mistakes a taser for a gun but then uses that same taser to save Kala’s life? How stupid do the writers think we are, exactly? Not to mention that Wolfgang being unable to treat Kala’s stomach wound was completely OOC, but then again, Kala and Wolfgang were both RAPED as characters in every way possible in this episode. Wolfgang was able to canonically treat a much worse wound when Felix was almost killed despite being in evident pain. This was all ridiculous. And what about Lila shooting Kala in the stomach? In this very episode she was able to shoot dead five people at a great distance without even trying when stealing Whispers. She was a hired gun, and here Kala was literally in front of her. Nothing in this scene makes the slightest sense, I swear.

The scene where Will asked where Sun was, as if he wasn’t able to mentally connect with her was absurd. And Nomi actually taking five minutes to visit her was just a cheap way for the Sun x Mun exchange to happen and was incoherent. “I found Sun” doesn’t make sense because they are telepathically connected and Nomi shouldn’t need to find her. Cheapness for everyone.

Kala spontaneously kissing Rajan again when she finally has the occasion to physically be with the love of her life after he was tortured and nearly killed is probably the most absurd and embarrassing moment I have ever seen in television. It’s beyond any rational comment at this point. I was about to throw something at my screen. And Wolfgang accepting this despite probably believing that Kala and Rajan had already talked things through was incoherent, unthinkable and hysterical. WHO-ARE-THESE-CHARACTERS. This moment destroyed me more than I can convey with words. It was a betrayal to two seasons of marvelous Kalagang growth and development. I could ramble about how much I hate this moment for pages, but I already wrote a post about it and it would be better for me not to stop too much on this because it literally broke my heart and enraged me more than anything else ever did. Kala and Wolfgang were entirely different characters.

Jonas and the Mother talking like walking encyclopedias contrast so heavily with the cheap writing of the episode that their scenes end up being really laughable and impossible to be taken seriously.

The song sequence was completely useless, pure fanservice garbage that stole real usable time that was very much needed since many storylines were left entirely open without justifications. The “What’s Up” moment in 1x04 became iconic because it conveyed a precise message that was the core of all the show, was a set up for everything that came after and had also the purpose to show the ability of each character to connect all together for the first time. Instead, the song sequence in this episode was obviously insert only because the first one really gained a huge success in the fandom and they simply wanted to reply it for fanservice purposes. But this was entirely pointless and the very definition of a waste of time. The characters felt very much like the actors themselves goofing around, and there were also completely avoidable coherence mistakes (Felix and Rajan on the train) that cheapened the already-compromised credibility of it all. The editing of all the episode was bad, especially in this scene.

Other time gets wasted showing characters eating pizza without a tie to the plot or anything at all. Were the writers deliberately trying to make the worst choices possible? They basically did everything wrong and handled the time horribly.

I already talked about the bullet scene, but Kala being able to visit Wolfgang while unconscious was another cheap mistake. I’m particularly angry because for 23 episodes Sense8 was able to be almost flawless in coherence, but this episode is just a giant mess. This moment is OOC and simply wrong on every aspect, and who wrote it surely must have been a stranger to the show.

The last half-hour of the Special is so weird. It’s like the writers suddenly forgot that the main characters are sensates. Will asking Kala what she wants was another ridiculous moment that was so incoherent with their scene in 2x08 that I seriously considered this to be an intentional way for the writers to let us know that they willingly fucked up with Kalagang. The main peculiarity of their interaction in 2x08 was that Will was able to read Kala’s emotions without asking and state out loud what she was afraid to admit to herself: that she loved someone else. Their interaction in 2x08 was based on clarifying that Kala was not suffering from a feeling indecision but a morality struggle, and that Will exactly knew what she wanted. Their moment in 2x12 disregards everything about it. Will acts like he doesn’t already know what she feels and asks her questions as if he couldn’t read her emotions, and Kala is supposed to show signs of romantic indecisiveness despite her troubles were never feelings-related? In 2x08 Kala couldn’t stop talking haphazardly (as she always does when concerned about something) and here she just silently shrugs? This moment is beyond laughable and goes against everything established before, and the characters are frankly unrecognizable.

It’s unbelievable the idea that two whole seasons of perfect Kalagang development led to a conclusion where Kala holds hands with Rajan and Wolfgang sits behind them as a complete stranger. It feels like a nightmare. I am homicidal about this. They really destroyed them, both as a couple and individual characters.

 Amanita clearly states in 1x07 that she is afraid of and hates fireworks because they symbolize war and are a failure. So why is she perfectly happy here when they are used during her own wedding? It wasn’t that hard not to be OOC. The writers really wanted to discredit the canon in every way, I’m incredulous.

The conclusive physical, actual orgy which includes also non-sensate characters sends a horrible message. First, it goes completely against the symbolical meaning of the previous orgies (which were meant to show the sensates’ ability to share sexual arousal every time someone in the Cluster was having actual sex; it was nothing physical or carnal but purely abstract and metaphorical). Second, it’s highly offensive to asexual people, because sex is conceived here as the highest expression of love and the only way to resolve untouched confrontations (instead of having actual conversations). Third, it provides sexual erasure to Lito (canonically gay), Nomi (canonically lesbian) and Kala (canonically demisexual). Fourth, it goes against the well-praised theme of inclusivity and diversity of the show because everyone at the end turns out to be the same (pansexual), thus erasing every single representation provided in the previous episodes. Fifth, it portrays an unfair and insulting view on how sexuality actually works. The idea of a man — whose entire storyline is built around the fact that he is completely, exclusively gay and couldn’t manage to even fake a relationship with a woman — willing to have sex out of the blue with someone of the opposite sex is gross and actually sick. Sexuality is highly intimate and personal: it’s not about open-mindedness, but about self-comfort. It’s disrespectful to think that a gay man would be okay to get laid with a woman, because he just is by nature not comfortable in that situation. I am a straight guy and I could never picture myself with another man, it would make me unhealthily uncomfortable with myself. This applies to everyone’s very own sexuality. The same can be said for Kala, who here is depicted as a promiscuous woman willing to share her body with the very same man who she couldn’t bring herself to feel comfortable with for two seasons. Kala was a very moral person described as demi-sexual and she could only be comfortable in a sexual scenario with Wolfgang because they are sensates and their level of trust and connection is unparalleled. If Wolfgang and Kala hadn’t been sensates inside each other’s heads and feelings, Kala would have never slept with him: she needed that kind of intimacy and closeness to open up sexually. The Kala who pulls Rajan down and gets almost hungry of being used as a sex object here is not the usual Kala from the first 23 episodes, it’s another character entirely who sends a conservative and sexist unacceptable message.

Wolfgang’s sudden bisexuality is not representation, nor something to be proud of: it’s just an offensive, out-of-nowhere twist created only for shock value. One of the first traits that we understand about him in the show is that in order to avoid opening up emotionally, he constantly sleeps around with women only. This is canonically confirmed in two occasions: first, in 1x04, when he and Felix talk about their teenager adventures, nothing is mentioned about them being open to relationships with other boys (and if Wolfgang had been bisexual, it would have surely been pointed out in this moment); second, in 2x01, we canonically see him picking up girls using a date-app which features women only. This highly indicates that he is not into men, because if he was, he wouldn’t hide it at all. Also, if he had really been sexually attracted to men, he would have surely fallen for Felix because of how close they are, and this didn’t happen. This is not to say that sexuality is permanent or unaffected by change. But if Wolfgang’s character arc had really been about a sexuality struggle, an appropriate path of self-discovery should have been shown and developed carefully. People just don’t wake up and decide to change sexual orientation out of the blue. These things require internal process and self-questioning. This sudden twist is a joke to people who really have to face a complex self-examination in order to understand whether their sexuality is changing or evolving.  

Wolfgang touching Rajan’s lips before kissing him is a slap on the face of Kalagang’s fans because that was THEIR intimate gesture, and theirs alone. 

Wolfgang and Rajan barely know each other. Wolfgang would NEVER perform that private gesture with anyone but Kala, and the idea that he would make love to her with her husband included is pure nuts. This was the ultimate bullshit from the writers who managed to annihilate everything about Kalagang. It’s almost as if Lana had personal reasons to sabotage them in every way possible, because the result is just too heavy-handed and transparent not to be intentional. I seriously hope that she didn’t feel the need to ruin them just because they are a straight couple, because that would make her discriminatory and petty as fuck. This moment was seriously unwatchable and unbearable. I don’t have the proper words to describe the utter disgust I really experienced.  

[crushimaginesandsuch]

#1 Script Notes

Okay, so this is my first published imagine. Yay. It’s a bit long, but I felt like cutting some exposition might make it rushed. Um, i can’t think of anything else really to say. So enjoy lol. By the way, it should be clear in the story, but this takes place after the closing performance of a play. 

I sighed, closing the door behind me. I was exhausted from carrying so many set pieces down the stairs and into the basement storage. Sometimes striking the set was harder than the show itself. I wiped the dust off my hands and onto my jeans as I walked back to the dressing room.   

“Are you going to the cast dinner?” F/N was wiping down the room’s counters, eyes narrowed as she scrubbed at a dried spot of foundation. 

“Yup,” I smiled at her as I grabbed my script and rehearsal bag, “someone has to make sure you idiots don’t get banned from all Denny’s in the nation.” Milling around the small dressing room was the rest of the female cast, all gathering their bags and finishing cleaning. 

F/N chuckled and shook her head. “True, true.” She smirked at me, finishing zipping up her backpack. “Though I think you might be motivated by something else...”

“Or someone else.” F/N/2 winked at me. 

“Oh God, stop it. It’s not like that!” I blushed at their chuckled responses. 

“C’mon, Y/N. You and C/N’s characters barely talk to each other directly and yet somehow you two have managed to make it seem like they’re constantly flirting.” 

I rolled my eyes. C/N and I were not flirting with each other. I’d barely said two words to him outside of when our characters spoke. If the cast weren’t so small, I’d doubt he even knew who I was. However, that didn’t stop me from finding his easy charm and natural talent for comedy way too attractive for my own good. 

“Not true!” At this point, the rest of the girls had joined the conversation. And they were all chuckling and nodding their heads. I felt my already red face heat up even more and ducked my head. “Okay, fine. But any flirting is just because the script is written like that,” I defended myself. 

No one answered, and I glanced up to find some very amused faces. 

“Y/N, the show is about a struggling family and how they deal with the terminal illness of the youngest daughter.” 

I hadn’t thought it possible, but I somehow blushed even harder.

In the already crowded restaurant, our table was by far the loudest. On one end, C/N and a few of the other guys were laughing about some dirty joke I’d avoided listening to. On the other, F/N and some others were speculating what the next show would be, and with me in the middle, were some of the guys and girls discussing the run of the show. Definitely the typical cast dinner. 

“I feel like the audience last weekend was more receptive to everything. I mean, did you hear that one guy sobbing?” 

I chuckled as F/N/3 attempted to imitate the man’s cries. Hands convering his eyes, he moaned into his sleeves. I repressed a laugh when I saw the faces of a nearby table, watching as F/N/3 put on his show. 

“I think that was mostly Y/N’s monologue at the end, though.” 

I glanced up from my plate to see C/N had shifted his chair closer to the middle of the table. He’d apparently joined the conversation and wore a carefree smile on his face. 

He continued, his eyes catching mine. “She was really raw and genuine with it. You could see how much pain her character was in and you wanted to do anything to make it stop.” He paused, popping a fry in his mouth before leaning back in his chair. His eyes left mine and glanced to the rest of our group. “Have to admit I was tearing up backstage.” 

A few laughs passed around the table, but I was still thinking about what he’d said and what it meant. It had to be a good sign he took the time to compliment me when he hadn’t already been in the conversation. But he hadn’t talked to me directly. Hadn’t even verbally acknowledged my presence. That couldn’t have been a good thing. 

He turned back to the conversation at the end of the table. Which, apparently, had gravitated toward how F/N/4 couldn’t get a girlfriend. 

The dinner went on and, while I couldn’t get my mind off what he said and what he might have meant, C/N didn’t even glance in my direction. 

Maybe it hadn’t meant anything at all. Maybe C/N was just bored with the immature sex jokes and laments about being single and did whatever he could to get out of it. Maybe he was just a nice person. Maybe the monologue had actually sucked, and that was his subtly aggressive way of putting me down.

I sighed, my fingers reaching up to massage my temple. Between closing the show, strike, and a way too deep analysis of C/N comment, I’d grown quite the monster of a headache. 

“Hey, are you oka”-- 

I didn’t hear the rest of the question or look up to see who was asking before F/N stood on her seat, and held her script up. 

“Everyone get out your pen and hold on to your butts cause it’s script signing time!” She laughed, dropping back into her seat and passing her script down. 

Okay, that was a good sign. I knew from experience signing scripts usually meant the end of the night. One final, sentimental token of “bye, I don’t completely hate you”. 

Or something like that. 

Either way, I knew I’d be home soon. 

I pulled my script out and passed it down the table, taking the scripts as they were passed to me and doing my best to put something kind and somewhat witty in each. 

When C/N’s reached me, I stared at the cover for way too long before giving up and writing the cliche “Had such a great time in this show! Good job.” I took a bit longer to sign my name with complete accuracy, wishing I’d had cute, girly handwriting. Instead, I’d always had a rushed scrawl. 

It felt like forever by the time I’d gotten my script back and people were leaving. I didn’t bother to read the notes, by that point my head was pounding and I felt like I might faint. 

I hurriedly tried to hug everyone goodbye, but C/N had disappeared somewhere. After a moment of looking around, an extra painful ache hit me and I figured it best to get into my car and take some aspirin sooner than later. Besides, I didn’t want to have to try and form coherent sentences and leave an embarrassing memory til next season. 

“Feel better, Y/N. I love you! Call me if you need anything.” F/N wrapped me in a tight hug before I left, rushing to my car. 

I downed some aspirin and leaned my head against the back of the seat, praying it would work sooner than later. I was in no condition to drive. 

A moment later, my phone buzzed. F/N had texted me. 

F/N- you should probably check your script signatures ;) someone told me they’d be interesting......

Confused, I grabbed my script from my bag and flipped it open. My friends had written some really sweet things. But in the bottom corner, written in light pencil as if trying to hide, was C/N’s note. 

“You’re really amazing and talented, Y/N. I wish I’d gotten to know you better. Find me after the dinner.” 

I gasped, my head lifting up. He was probably still inside, I could find him, if I wanted. 

But turned out, I didn’t have to. 

I saw C/N jogging towards my car, a few cast members pooling at the door to the restaurant. They paid him no mind, hugging each other and saying goodbye. Well, all but F/N who was staring with a small smirk on her face. 

“Y/N, hey.” He smiled as he reached my window. 

“Hi,” I answered. I felt a blush rise and prayed it wasn’t too noticeable. 

“Are you feeling okay? I asked F/N and she said that you had a bad headache.”

Oh. “I... I’m fine, thanks. I took some aspirin so it’s not as bad.” 

He’d only come out to be polite, hadn’t he. Maybe someone had written the note in as a joke. F/N or one of the guys. It was a cruel prank, so probably someone I’m not close with. 

I bit my lip, trying to figure out who would’ve written it. And how I was so transparently into him. 

“Did you, uh,” C/N ran a hand through his hair. “Did you see my note?”

“That was you?” I felt a small, hopeful smile lift my lips. 

“Yeah, yeah. Did I not sign it? Crap, sorry”--

He started to get flustered, I could tell. And my heart swelled at the thought he might actually be as nervous to talk to me as I was to talk to him. 

“No, you did. I was just a little confused.” He nodded, still visibly shaken. “It, um, it doesn’t matter, though.” I let out a short laugh. 

He chuckled a little, nodding. 

“So, um. I wanted to know if you’d like to go out with me sometime?” He asked, glancing up from the ground to meet my eyes. 

My small smile had grown to a grin, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. 

“Yes, definitely. I’d love that.” I nodded as I let out a breath. 

“Okay, awesome. Thanks.” The smile on C/N’s face was equal to mine as he opened my car door. “Do you mind if I drive you home? Aspirin or not, I’d feel better if you could rest.” 

“That’d be great, thanks.”

Let me know what you think, follow, and like! More to come very soon. 

[possiblyimbiassed]

What happened to Sherlock? Part II – Re-living memories

What is it actually that we witness in the TV show Sherlock? Is it Sherlock’s and John’s ‘reality’? Is it John Watson’s perspective, as in ACD canon? Or is it something entirely different? After S4 many viewers – including hard-core fans – lost their faith in BBC Sherlock. The characters we had learned to love (or hate) were ‘failing’ in S4: Sherlock seemed to have stopped solving crimes, John had turned into a violent wreck, ‘Mary’ the Assassin was suddenly a hero and there was not a trace of anything similar to a coherent plot line. In many ways this series seemed to have reduced the whole show into a caricature of its former self, and not much hope has been given that we can expect some change in the future.

But everything is relative, as Einstein might have said. :)  What we expected of S4 was based on what the show had been to us up until then. So to comprehend what we’re actually looking at in S4, we need to first analyse what we were actually seeing in the first three series of the show – at least up until TSoT.

Picture source (X) 

This meta series is an attempt to look at BBC Sherlock with a ‘scientific’ approach; to set up hypotheses and predictions, test them and thereby try to solve the puzzles presented to us, the audience, by the show.  The methods I’m trying to use here are explained in the introduction. For this particular meta I’m also using a Word-transcript of John’s blog, where I have been able to use the program’s word count to compare the length of different blog-posts.

Hypothesis #1 was this: John’s blog is the most truthful account of the actual events. I did a couple of predictions and compared them to my observations.  My conclusion was that yes, this hypothesis does hold water. Which doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s true, but there is some evidence for it, and I haven’t seen it de-bunked just yet. So in the continuing analyses I’ll assume that Hypothesis #1 is true, that the blog is indeed more reliable than the TV show, at least when it comes to retelling the actual events (but not when it comes to John’s opinion of what’s going on in other people’s heads).

And now we get to the next hypothesis to explore, #2:

Hypothesis #2: The show up until John’s wedding is Sherlock re-living their story together in his MP, after reading John’s blog.

John’s blog is, in my opinion, rather straightforward in its description of John’s and Sherlock’s ‘adventures’. But as such, you could also argue that it is a bit dull; the blog does not quite live up to the ACD canon level of describing the events – far from it in fact. The John Watson that got published in The Strand Magazine used a lot more romantic and sometimes almost poetic language. 

In this meta I intend to go through the TV show Sherlock from ASiP to TSoT, and analyse the perspective that the episodes are written from. I will stop at TSoT, though, since I see many clear differences between the show up until this episode and HLV. But that difference will be handled in a future meta about Hypothesis #4 (see the full list in the introduction, scroll down to the bottom)

This is a loooong meta, but please bear with me, because I do believe this is important. You’ll find most of it under the cut.

First of all, I want to give full credits for hypothesis #2 to @raggedyblue, who presented this idea to me in a comment to another thread, where we were discussing how reliable certain scenes in the show are. When I read it, suddenly it felt like some important pieces were falling into place, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

Here is an excerpt from it: 

“We are in Sherlock’s MP and we see his version of history from the beginning, because he was doped and started re-reading John’s blog. Because he is a romantic bastard after all. Then he was taken away, lost his control, and now he’s looking  to return. In the show we never see any “real” scene. We’re in the funny, old Sherlock’s head. He’s reliving the facts up to where he was present, the wedding, and then he’s going ahead, trying to solve the situation in his head”.

But before this, the idea of us being in Sherlock’s ‘Extended Mind Palace from start’ had also been suggested by @kateis-cakeis, for example in this meta. Together with @ebaeschnbliah and @sherlockshadow, @kateis-cakeis has for example discovered that the Pilot is a complete mirror to ASiP! More about that in a moment. @sherlockshadow also makes a good and logical case for ‘EMP from start’ in this meta. Update: Thanks to @ebaeschnbliah, I also got the opportunity to read this interesting meta from @fandeadgloves, which makes a good case for why the whole show is probably seen from Sherlock’s POV.

Review vs analysis

But how do we know these ideas are not just wishful thinking? As I said in the beginning, it’s easy to get the impression after S4 that this whole show is something of a joke – if you take it at face value. If you believed it would be presented very much like ACD canon, albeit in modern England, you might have felt as disappointed as the guy who made this review video. And I think this is very important, because he is far from the only voice saying this. In fact I’d suspect that a majority of viewers might agree with many points he makes.

This guy has composed a long (almost 2 hours!) review of BBC Sherlock - the whole of it - and he makes a lot of interesting observations. Like for example the often overly dramatic music, the over-dramatized scenes, the excess of sound effects, but also that there’s a lot of plot holes. And he brings up all kinds of ‘baiting’ of the audience and the manipulative writing style with cliff hangers that never pay off. And – most importantly I think – the fact that the viewers are never given enough information to be able to actually solve the crime cases with their own brains; we’re forever left to just marvel at Sherlock’s greatness. So it’s obvious that he has indeed watched the show – and most probably done an amazing job collecting stuff for the review. 

But he also seems to automatically assume that the purpose of BBC Sherlock is to show the crime case solving that Sherlock Holmes does, very much the same way as in ACD canon, and in most of the following adaptations, only this time in a modern environment. He assumes that this is a modern detective story, rather than a story about a detective. 

But to me this feels a bit like reading John Watson’s blog, where Sherlock asks: “What about the analysis, John?”

I think Sherlock has a point here. The thing is that John, while good at finding clues, he never, as far as I can recall, really tries to analyse or deduce something. Except in TAB’s Victorian setting, which is definitely happening inside Sherlock’s head,

and in TLD, where a ghost starts to deduce things for him). John is mostly far too busy making assumptions and jumping to conclusions about people’s motives, at least on the blog: 

But this guy who made the video even recommends us to not analyse the details of the show too much! (at 49:51 minutes into the video). He is bitterly disappointed (and many with him, I imagine – I’ve seen a lot of criticism where people dismiss the whole show as ‘badly written’) that the show doesn’t give us more episodes where we can follow Sherlock Holmes’ deductive reasoning to solve crime cases. But at the same time, his own video is full of assumptions about the show-makers’ motives (very much like John’s assumptions about Sherlock’s motives), and he utterly refuses to use Sherlock’s method of deduction and logical reasoning himself, while looking at the show as a whole. 

Isn’t this a bit contradictory? Because if you find this many inconsistencies and crazy things in a show about a detective, I think you should ask yourself “why is this? What could the writers possibly have wanted to convey? What is actually going on here?” And then you go through each of these observations and try to figure this out, you try to make sense of them, preferably also trying to think ‘outside of the box’.

Example: According to this guy’s video the Pilot is far ‘better’ made than ASiP, for a series of reasons – most of them based on opinions about how a ‘good’ show should be constructed. But there’s no deeper comparative analysis between them that tries to find out why these episodes are so different and maybe suggest an alternative explanation. The judgment is done, end of story.

On the other hand, this video made by @kateis-cakeis  (also referring to @sherlockshadow and @ebaeschnbliah) is also about the Pilot and ASiP, but the focus is on the data, and what patterns can be seen. They do suggest an explanation, but it’s presented as a theory, not a final conclusion. They have gone through a long series of similar scenes in both episodes, one by one, and found out that they are (almost) perfect mirrors to each other. People and objects that are positioned at one side in the Pilot is placed at the other side in ASiP, and so on. They’ve found a very distinct pattern that is difficult to explain away as coincidence. That’s a scientific approach; you use detailed analysis and deduction rather than jump to conclusions based on assumptions. You look at the pieces of the puzzle and try to figure out how they can fit together, and you use your own (and your peers’) creativity doing it. You may not reach a definitive answer right away, but you will have collected sufficient data to have a much better foundation for your future conclusions. And once you publish your thoughts, others can use your data to do their own analysis, and so on.

So what does this mirror analysis tell us? Well, most of all I think it shows that this show can’t be just about the crime cases; there’s something else going on here - otherwise the show makers wouldn’t have arranged details in this manner. So maybe we have to look for answers about this show elsewhere than in the actual crime solving. Because if the crime cases are the important puzzles to solve, why are we looking at a series of therapy sessions involving the main characters, that are mirrored already in Pilot/ASiP and have an increasingly iconic setup throughout the show? What has that to do with crime solving?

I think it’s logical, though; we can’t follow Sherlock’s deductions about the cases because that’s not what we’re supposed to solve - that’s Sherlock’s job!! But we can use deduction to figure out what’s on Sherlock’s mind, why he and John need therapy. But then we have to think outside the box and imagine that we really are inside Sherlock’s head instead of our own.

You could argue, of course, that TV audiences shouldn’t have to be (almost) scientists or psychologists to be able to enjoy a show. But maybe we don’t have to be, maybe we just need to learn Sherlock’s method. There are so ridiculously many TV shows that don’t require a single thought “outside of the box” from its viewers. So why shouldn’t this one, which is the story about a genius detective, at least require some brain gymnastics from its viewers? Something new, not just the usual stuff?

OK, enough of ranting and opinions for a while – let’s start the actual analysis!

Testing process, fueled by more observations:

So – just like last time we’ll make some testable predictions, but this time regarding the TV show (compared to the blog), to see if we can figure this out. This time I suggest four predictions to test.

Prediction 1. If Hypothesis #2 is correct, then there might be some indications in the show that Sherlock has been reading John’s blog - reading it carefully. 

Observations:

Sherlock has made comments to John’s blogposts for a long time, but not in a particularly interested way; it took him two months before he discovered the first posts John made about their “adventures” together:

But here it says that he has ‘glanced over it’, which seems to mean that he hasn’t read it more thoroughly. He seems to be more focused on the form and grammar of John’s blogposts than on the actual content, and his comments are mostly rather brief.

In the show, he seems to express (or fake? ;) ) a certain indifference towards what John is actually writing.

Maybe Sherlock can’t seem to bother too much with such trivialities as making a good blogpost (actually I suspect he’s more interested in hanging over John’s shoulder.. ;) )?

And he doesn’t seem to notice how much the blog means to John.

But he does get annoyed when John is presenting him in ways that don’t please him.

But there are two occasions when Sherlock definitely has shown interest in John’s blog - and none of them are covered by the TV show. The first one was when he ‘went through’ the blog searching for someone who could help him with a case (Death by Twitter is the blog title) by opening a closed facebook account. And he found “theimprobableone” (Moriarty?), who apparently then helped to solve the case.

And the second occasion is directly after the wedding, when he hacks the blog under the pretext of uploading wedding photos: 

But he also adds a whole post about ‘sex holidays’, boredom and death and a string of comments at the course of two-three days. This time he really does seem to have nothing else to do than to read John’s blog and try to get some attention from its followers. I’ve written a meta about what I believe Sherlock’s messages meant here. John himself is on honeymoon, tells Sherlock to shut up and never writes a word about the wedding once it’s over, neither does he seem to appreciate Sherlock’s wedding photos, since he doesn’t even mention them. One might wonder why - wasn’t this supposed to be one of the happiest events in John’s life? Wouldn’t he even want to write a single line about it on his own blog? 

There are quite a lot of talk about memories in BBC Sherlock; @sarahthecoat has made a useful list of books and other kinds of memory storage devices here. Memories indeed seems to be one of the recurring themes in this show, which also is a factor in backing up Hypothesis #2, I believe. And the blog as such is perhaps one of the most important memory devices, since John has given a thorough account of his and Sherlock’s life together - it’s like a public diary over their relationship. So let’s do an imaginative experiment - here’s a possible scenario that would fit with Prediction #1 for Hypothesis #2: 

Let’s say that while John is on honeymoon for several days, probably about a week, Sherlock is at home in 221B - heartbroken, lonely and depressed. He has lost John forever (at least that’s what he believes), but he doesn’t quite understand what went wrong between them. He has quit working; he can’t really focus on anything else than John for the moment. And in his solitude, he begins to re-read John’s whole blog during this week, because he needs to know. He is not yet willing to engage with his own feelings for John, but in order to try and figure out ‘objectively’ what happened, he enters his mind palace and starts re-running the scenes from his memories, based on John’s blog entries. And this is the show as we see it from the beginning.

A wild idea, right? Is there really any evidence in the TV show to back up this scenario, to tell us that Sherlock was reading John’s blog during this time? Well, yes, I think there is. Apart from the ones presented above, I also think the show tells us about this specifically, it’s just that we see it after it happened, played out in an imaginative universe inside Sherlock’s mind palace: 

Exhibit A: In TAB, which I’m going to assume almost entirely happens in Sherlock’s imagination (see lots of evidence for this in EMP theory), Mycroft talks about Sherlock’s recent OD and his history of drug use and then says this:

This is Mycroft saying this - on a subtextual level believed to represent Sherlock’s brain, and on a meta level he represents Mark Gattiss, the storyteller.

But if (at least) the second part of HLV also happens in Sherlock’s MP, then there is no Sherlock murdering Magnussen, consequently no prison for Sherlock, right? Thus MP!Mycroft is referring to something else - and what might that be? I think he’s referring to Sherlock locking himself up in 221B for a week in solitary confinement, starting to re-read John’s blog and re-living all his memories with John - including the most heart-breaking ones. 

Exhibit B:  Before this moment in TAB, when Sherlock has just woke up from his gay Victorian fever dream OD and starts babbling about Emilia Ricoletti, ‘Mary’ grabs his iPhone and says:

And if this scene also happens inside Sherlock’s head (EMP theory again), this evidence from MP!Mary points in the same direction: yes - Sherlock has been reading up on John’s blog, the story of how they met and of how they lived together at 221B. And with this, assuming EMP theory is correct about TAB being mind palace, I think Prediction #1 actually passes the test, and we can go on and make a second prediction. 

Prediction 2. If Hypothesis #2 is correct, then some irregular patterns in the blog might have influenced Sherlock’s memory when he read it, and these irregularities would consequently also be reflected in the show. (If the show, on the other hand, shows us the ‘reality’, there would be no such corresponding pattern = 0 hypothesis). 

Observations: Let’s compare the blog posts with their representation in the TV show. 

Some of the more lengthy and thoroughly described blogposts are A Study in Pink (1742 words), The Blind Banker (1084), The Great Game (2323) and The Hounds of Baskerville (1373). Each of these has a whole episode in the show. I would also venture to say that they are all among the episodes with the most coherent plot-lines, easy to follow and not interrupted by much weirdness.

ASiB, on the other hand, is an episode that is partly divided into a series of flashbacks showing different cases that Sherlock and John worked with. The blog covers them as The Geek Interpreter (690 words), The Speckled Blonde (632), The Aluminium Crutch (1080) and The Six Thatchers (614). All these minor blogposts are shown very briefly in the show, more like news flashes, and The Six Thatchers isn’t shown at all (the events in the blogpost differ a bit from the later episode in S4, but the main structure is the same). 

The actual main plot-line of the episode is covered by the very short blogposts Sherlock Holmes Baffled, By Royal Appointment, Christmas, Happy New Year, Actually Happy New Year and The Woman. The title ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’ doesn’t even exist on John’s blog (maybe it’s Sherlock’s invention?)! And as we know, ASiB has a lot of weird scenes in it, with spinning images, Sherlock being drugged, a dream scenario with Irene Adler, a mystic sitting John who is not really there, a plane full of dead people, quick leaps between different places, The Woman attending a client, Moriarty blowing a rasberry like a child, etc, etc. None of these things are covered by the blogposts.

And - strangely enough - the mysterious Boomerang case did apparently not merit its own blogpost - I wonder if Sherlock even told John the solution to this case? It would have been a great story, and there was no secrets connected to it! But the only thing John says about it is: “So there I am, dealing with a mysterious death in the middle of the countryside when suddenly I'm whisked away in a helicopter and taken to Buckingham Palace”. And the whole dead-people-on-a-plane sequence did not make it into the blog (John blames this on ‘national secrecy’ of course).

On the other hand we have TRF, which has a long, exciting and very distinct plot line in the show, but all the blog says about it is this:

And then he adds that Sherlock saved two childrens’ lives, and that’s it. John has good reasons not wanting to talk about it, though, since Sherlock supposedly committed suicide after this. 

It’s definitely also worth noticing that apparently Moriarty both hacked the blog and broke into 221 B at some point between THoB and TRF, since he uploaded a video showing this on the blog. Jim pays attention to the following objects in 221B: 

Lot’s of notes:

Headphones on the bison head:

Abundance of books:

That Sherlock is emotional:

And - last but not least - Skulls!! I see you Arwel Wyn Jones

Jim’s break-in and blog-hacking is never addressed in the show, but I think it’s quite interesting that all these things seem to be recurring themes later in the show - including the fact that Moriarty shows up at 221B (I’ll get back to this is a later meta). I do regard this as more evidence for Hypothesis #2; if Sherlock has been reading up on John’s blog and is re-living the memories, Jim’s observations might have got stuck in his head for future reference.

Anyway, after TRF we have three short blogposts about cases that Sherlock had solved before TRF; The Deadly Tealights (410 words), Death by Twitter (452) and Murder at 'The Orient Express' (449). Non of them is mentioned in the TV show. The Inexplicable Matchbox (297), however, is briefly accounted for by Sherlock in his Best Man speech in TSoT. 

And then there is Many Happy Returns - 470 words on the blog. It’s short in the show as well, but at least a little longer than most of the other renditions of John’s shorter blog cases. The hiatus was long, however, so it makes sense that the TV show would show us at least some things from Sherlock’s doing in the mean time. Which John would know nothing about, of course. ;)

In TEH, when Sherlock comes back, the show has this irregular plot line again, with a series of different cases and even more weirdness than ASiB. At first we see Anderson’s ridiculously romanticized (and heteronormative) idea of what happened to Sherlock at the Fall, and Lestrade dismissing it. Then Sherlock is captured and viciously tortured in Serbia, but when he comes back to London directly after, he seems fine and healthy; just a bit of shaving and he’s ready to play jokes on John. Which ends with more violence. 

The time line is tricky to follow and the plot line is unfocused; when exactly was John kidnapped? How many cases did Sherlock solve before John saw fit to visit him? What was the whole terrorist plot actually about? And there’s a very strange interlude with Anderson questioning Sherlock about how he survived, at the same time as a terrorist bomb is about to explode in a subway wagon with John and Sherlock in it. 

But the interesting thing is that the show’s twists and turns are fairly consistent with the blogpost The Empty Hearse (828 words), which starts with “Where do I even begin?”. The post is all jumbled up and mixed with a lot of John’s feelings - many of them expressing anger, disbelief and a deep resentment towards Sherlock. And back is the ‘psychopath’ talk, which John had tuned down considerably during the hiatus. (How can he even publish such rubbish as if he were writing an interesting account of a huge case of national security they solved together? And after everything he had said in Sherlock’s defense? I’m appalled, and tempted to agree with Sherlock’s blog comment “I see you haven't spent the last two years working on your writing technique”).

Finally, TSoT. John’s blog posts don’t cover the wedding at all, which would be logical if John only used the blog to describe the crime cases. But he obviously doesn’t, so wouldn’t this be something John would be happy to describe? His own wedding?? And he would definitely have time, seeing as he’s letting Sherlock do most of the wedding planning and preparations! But there’s nothing, and the Stag Do seems to be censored even in Sherlock’s brain by John: “We'd just returned from a quiet, civilised evening in the pub when our latest client arrived at Baker Street”. Not even the show shows us this picture. ;) (promo X)

As we all know, however, the wedding stretches over a whole TV episode, much of which is telling us what Sherlock relates in his Best Man speech; he gives fairly brief accounts of a series of cases, and he has John’s blog open on his iPhone as support: The Poison Giant (695 words), Happily Ever After (577), The Elephant in the Room (150 words; censored) and The Hollow Client (396). Two cases he actually solves on site, though: The Bloody Guardsman (496 words) and The Mayfly Man (286). We also see a certain amount of weirdness, where time is sometimes played fast forwards (the dinner), and Sherlock has a long session in his mind palace shaped as a court room.

And, as the last post before the blog stops updating, there’s Sherlock’s own hacker post with the title of the actual episode: The Sign of Three (312 words).

Just one more thing about the wedding: what’s important is not just the stuff that’s in the show - it’s also what’s not in the show: the actual wedding! And I suspect we have a clue about that here:

We don’t see the actual wedding ceremony when John Hamish Watson makes his marital vows to Mary Elisabeth Morstan and puts a ring on her finger. Not even a flash of it! Sherlock does post some wedding photos in his one and only post on John’s blog, but none of them depicts the actual wedding ceremony. If the show would be ‘realistic’, wouldn’t this be just as important to show? Well, not if we’re inside Sherlock’s head, and the last thing in the world he wants to think about is precisely this moment...

So, do we have a general pattern here? Yes, in fact we do, I believe. The pattern is that when John describes a case at length and in detail on his blog, the corresponding episode in the TV show is also relatively lengthy and coherent. But when there are shorter case stories written, these events tend to merely get quick flashbacks in the show, if at all mentioned. And for ASiB, TEH and TSoT the main course of events gets split up into a series of different posts on the blog, while in the TV show they appear like a chain of events, full of suspiciously weird scenes.

My conclusion from this is that the show does vary according to the patterns on John’s blog. Which speaks in favour of the idea that we’re in Sherlock’s mind as he’s looking back on his days with John. It’s as if he adopts his brain activity to the blog pattern.

So, let’s move on to the next prediction:

Prediction 3. If Hypothesis #2 is correct, then there might be some tell-tale signs that we’re in Sherlock’s EMP, even if it’s not spelled out. 

The concept of Sherlock’s mind palace (MP) is explained by John to Dr Stapleton in THoB, at Baskerville’s military lab:

I think his MP is pretty thoroughly shown in the scenes that follow John’s explanation, in a manner that we then can recognize in the rest of the show. The usual ‘advertising’ of when Sherlock is in his MP is that texts and images appear on our screen and we can hear sound effects, and all this seems to have nothing to do with in-show ‘reality’. The contours get blurry and (sometimes rainbow-like) light patterns appear. And the whole scene is spinning.  

It’s just that sometimes these tell-tale signs occur separately even when it’s not obvious that Sherlock actually goes into his MP. The topic is treated in this meta, which has a lot of interesting contributions from different people in the additions. @gosherlocked pointed out, for example, that John and ‘Mary’s wedding photo was also a spinning scene - and that’s not supposed to be in MP, if the show is meant to depict ‘reality’, is it? And in fact, in this meta by @kateis-cakeis, we can see that there were spinning scenes already in ASiP - the very first episode.

I think @monikakrasnorada’s meta series “Hiding in plain sight” (8 parts in total) about the evolution of Sherlock’s mind palace is a very helpful tool for trying to sort out MP issues.  @monikakrasnorada points out, for example, that some scenes in TRF appear to be ‘stealth’ mind palace; it seems like we are indeed in Sherlock’s head, even though this has not been clearly ‘advertised’ by less subtle hints such as deduction text flowing over the filming etc.

In fact, if we start to count the number of occasions where rainbow-like, blurry lights are showing on-screen, or where text is flowing over the screen, I think we’ll have to stay here for quite a while. It’s just that we may have assumed a) that these are ‘just’ artistic expressions from the show-makers and b) that every rainbow is ‘only’ meant as a hint about gay feelings. But those readings don’t actually contradict the possibility that we might be inside Sherlock’s head, do they? 

But couldn’t we perhaps be in John’s MP (or mind cupboard or whatever)? Theoretically yes, but some reasoning and evidence contradicts this:

1. We have never seen any sign that John uses something similar to a MP – ever, neither does he ever mention this. On the other hand, there’s plenty of evidence that this is Sherlock’s method of using his brain, and John outright explains this in THoB.

2. There are scenes in the show that John couldn’t possibly know about. Like Sherlock solving cases in Tibet, New Dehli and Germany in MHR, when he was supposed to be dead. And Anderson being on his track. The blog post Many Happy Returns is about John stating that he has to put all these things about Sherlock behind him and move on. Dramatic crime cases in different parts of the world does not fit in with this. 

3. But the times when we see John alone are in situations where Sherlock could, with his MP and extraordinary brain power of imagination, deduce what John might have said and done. And unlike John, Sherlock has his friend’s thoughts and feelings right there on the blog, as a prompt to start his deductions and imaginations from.

So, I do believe that enough evidence is presented here for Prediction #3 to pass the test.

So, here is my fourth - and last - prediction for Hypothesis #2:

Prediction 4. If Hypothesis #2 is correct, then the TV show will have a more emotional, dramatic and exaggerated account of the events than the blog.

For one thing, there is certainly way more emotions swirling around in someone’s mind than what you can read from blog posts.You probably don’t want to publish the same amount of and intensity of feelings that you can register inside yourself. And now it has been established in S4 that Sherlock is actually very emotional (Mrs Hudson in TLD) and was an ‘emotional child’ when he was very young (Mycroft in TFP). We also know from the very first episode that Sherlock is a real Drama Queen, and he admits repeatedly in HLV and TAB that he never could resist a touch of Drama. 

But he would not tell John about his own feelings regarding the events, would he? It’s very rare to see Sherlock express feelings in the show - especially feelings regarding people. That’s precisely Sherlock’s biggest problem: he tries to repress Sentiment to a point where he appears to be a sociopath to others. So if we’re seeing the show from John’s POV he must have imagined Sherlock having a lot of emotions. Which would be inconsistent with his own judgments about Sherlock in the blog. 

Like I said in my meta about Hypothesis #1: many things in this show seem exaggerated in comparison to John’s blog. Things are not exactly romanticized, but rather dramatized and more ‘fanciful’, given a ‘splash of colour’, overly dramatic music etc. And some things seems so cut out of an action movie that I doubt they’re even supposed to be ‘real’.

Observations: Let’s look at some examples from the show of overly dramatic or exaggerated events that aren’t even mentioned in the blog - or if they are mentioned they’re not described.

I already pointed out in my last meta the rooftop hunt in ASiP as not consistent with John’s description in the blog.

TBB: While John is doing something annoyingly mundane - quarreling with a machine at the supermarket (just the kind of ordinary things Sherlock seems to avoid with all his might) - Sherlock is in a thrilling life-or-death fight in 221B. A masked criminal dressed entirely in robes and scarves is attacking an un-armed Sherlock with a sword. 

Some dramatic, oriental music is playing all over these scenes - even the supermarket one. But Sherlock takes the attacker on single-handedly and knocks him out completely in a matter of seconds. Strangely, by the time John is back from the supermarket, the unconscious man is already gone and Sherlock pretends nothing has happened. Nonchalantly, he offers John his credit card and sends him off on a second shopping-round - now with money. Not a word to John about the fight; why? 

Why do I constantly get the impression that Sherlock has watched too many of John’s action movies? (and horror movies, judging by S4). ‘Bond night’ was something John introduced him to already about the time of TBB, according to the blog. And after that we get ASiB, with Bond references that are never mentioned on the blog: Bond Air and flight 007. The exaggerated treatment of the cruel CIA agent who was dropped more than once from a 2nd floor window and survived is also an example of weirdness (covered in my  Hypothesis #1 meta)

And there’s more in ASiB that isn’t on the blog; Moriarty blowing a raspberry at a text he just sent, as if he could see it flying away? Who has the most lively imagination - Jim or Sherlock? And the Flight of the Dead audience - a Boeing 747 full of dead people that never took off. 

Not technically impossible, of course. But to keep so many dead bodies from their loved ones without any of those finding out? No media headlines about a huge number of mysteriously missing corpses? One single leak would have been enough to destroy the whole operation. A bit risky to come from Mycroft with the Brains, isn’t it?

The silly little things, like the café conversation between John and Mycroft; the fact that Mycroft says 'it would take Sherlock Holmes to fool me’ is suspicious. Why would Mycroft suddenly recognize his little brother as being his intellectual superior in any sense? Wishful thinking, Sherlock! ;) And then the event in Karachi; did Sherlock travel there without John even noticing? Why is the sequence transmitted with disturbances, like it was for a broadcasting, and who would send it and why? And the most ridiculous of them all, yet another case of ‘Sherlock the action-hero’: He manages to fight a whole gang of heavily armed terrorists single-handedly, with a sword? This doesn’t even seem like Sherlock’s memory - it’s pure fantasy!

Then there’s TRF and Moriarty’s weird visit at 221 B. Sherlock is not present at the final session of Jim’s trial, and yet is he reciting verbatim what’s being said by the judge. Perhaps not impossible but quite unlikely. When John calls Sherlock after the trial to say than Jim was found ‘not guilty’, Jim is already on his way to Baker street; Sherlock’s kettle has just boiled when he arrives (takes about 3 minutes). 

Now we’re talking impossible, though; how did he manage to get there so quickly? A London ambulance, according to Sherlock, takes 8 minutes to arrive (HLV), but Moriarty is there in 3? And why such a hurry? He was in custody - didn’t he at least need to ‘check out’ first? Weird. And of course, TRF is not covered by the blog, since John didn’t want to talk about it. 

When Sherlock comes back in TEH, we get this irregular plot line again, with even more weirdness than ASiB. Sherlock being captured in Serbia might of course have happened, but what we see is a rather unlikely scenario, and absolutely none of it is mentioned in the blog. The weirdness consists in a) that the young Serbian guard is wearing an old Red Army uniform from WWII rather than a modern Serbian one, 

b) that Mycroft would treat his tortured brother like a piece of trash, even when the torturer was gone, and c) that Sherlock got his back whipped, but shortly afterwards we see him being shaved lying on it. Is this Superman?

And then he’s immediately fit to go play a joke on John. Yeah, right... 

A more possible scenario I could think of (and this is mere speculation, but I still think it fits) is that Sherlock was suffering emotionally; it was torture to him to know that John had ‘found someone’ and was going to move on. Because that’s how John described it on the blogpost Many Happy Returns, which maybe Sherlock could read from where he was. It’s only a month between the MHR blogpost and the TEH blogpost. Which means that it took a relatively short time for Sherlock to finish whatever he was doing and return to London, once he learned that John was moving on. Love is a vicious motivator, I guess...

So, I think we’ve gathered enough examples now to say that yes, Prediction #4 passes the test; there is a pattern of overly dramatized and exaggerated events on the show compared to the blog. 

All in all, after all these tests, I think that Hypothesis #2 holds water; The show as we know it up until John’s wedding might very well be Sherlock re-living their story together in his MP, after reading John’s blog.

Another thing that occurred to me is something I believe @kateis-cakeis has said (don’t remember where - sorry): In ASiP (but not in the Pilot) Sherlock says to Lestrade: “But they take the poison themselves; they chew, swallow the pills themselves. There are clear signs. Even you lot couldn’t miss  them”. But no-one has yet told him that the victims had eaten pills, rather than having been injected with the poison or swallowed some liquid. How could he know? Well, if he was recollecting his memories, after confronting the serial killer he would already know, wouldn’t he?

In one of the comments about the last installment, @sagestreet pointed out a series of things that speaks in favour of this hypothesis (for which he invented the name ‘possibly-raggedy theory’ :) ) One of them was that this idea combines the EMP theories with a late entering into Sherlock’s extended mind palace (HLV) with those of an early entering (Pilot EMP), and also explains some POV inconsistencies. Another point was this:

“And, for any viewer who might feel uncomfortable with the idea that we’ve been in Sherlock’s head all along, your theory would also provide a nice little consolation: We would have seen everything play out from Sherlock’s POV, but it would still be close enough to reality to not make people completely freak out. I mean, it would be Sherlock’s recollection (and, at times, overdramatization) of the actual events, which as you argue, quite convincingly, would only be recorded in the blog.  But it would still be ‘close enough’. (I can totally see Mofftiss doing something like this, by the way.)” 

Well, it sounds about right to me. Possibly I’m biassed. ;)

The next installment will be about Hypothesis #3: The weirder scenes from ASiB to TSoT means Sherlock is influenced by drugs.

Tagging some people who might be interested: @ebaeschnbliah @sarahthecoat @sagestreet @tjlcisthenewsexy @88thparallel @fellshish @darlingtonsubstitution @gosherlocked @mrskolesouniverse @sectoralheterochromiairidum @csi-baker-street-babes @meta-lock

[haljathefangirlcat]

still thinking about that “we Have To Talk about how quips are ruining fandom by destroying meta and turning all fic into shitposts” post @ms-demeanor wrote a great rebuttal to, and about the other posts she wrote about it and about the You’re Doing Fandom Wrong attitude in it, and about the notes on those posts. not gonna reblog or reply to any of those because my thoughts are admittedly kind of random and jumping from place to place and probably OT to the point of the discussion, but you know. still thinking.

so, uh. not trying to start wank or anything but enjoy the ranting that got way out of hand under the cut.

so, like... that one “we can’t just block everyone who quips and shitposts because some of these people also write actual meta but then they unfortunately go back to Not Engaging With Canon by writing quippy shitpost-y stuff” line, or however it was actually phrased? besides the blatant entitlement with the “you have to fandom ONLY in ways I like, I can’t just engage with the part of the content you create that I’m interested in and scroll past the rest” thing (which kinda reminds me of the whole “you can’t CNTW on some of your fics, I should be able to read ALL of your fics” thing, in a way) and the ”I refuse to curate my fandom experience and I’ll make it some stranger’s problem” thing (which... reminds me of a few other things, but tbf it has probably been around since the very first days of fandom), what if someone doesn’t even see meta and quips/shitposts as fundamentally different and mutually exclusive approaches to fandom? what if they see them as just two ways to be interested in a specific fandom and interact with it, and maybe even closely linked together, so going from one to another is actually very, very easy for them? hell, what if they (gasp!) even mix quips and meta together sometimes?

I have a few posts about what I think Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese might have been doing with mythological references and themes in Dark, and about what I got from the series finale. some are meme-like, phrased in a joking tone, probably even shitpost-y? another one is literally just a gifset plus me having intense Feels in the tags, and the last one is an edit of the kind I’ve seen people complain about as “those cringey unoriginal tumblr aesthetics that all look the same” in at least a couple of occasions. does that automatically mean I only wanted to “win” at fandom (with my hard-earned prize being... a handful of notes in a fandom that’s not even that big compared to others) and that I haven’t actually spent probably way too much time thinking about the significance of Martha’s Ariadne play as a commentary on character interactions/plot/narrative themes (and honestly still do from time to time), or that I don’t occasionally read the captions under other people’s gifsets and suddenly feel very much enlightened about why the Ariadne play mentions the myth of the Flood of all things? that I didn’t start reading posts and comments and reviews and theories about the series finale as soon as I finished watching it? that, just because I didn’t write 10K+ words of Perfectly Serious Seriousness about all that stuff, I simply refused to Engage With The Text? 

... and if I said that I feel a little irrationally self-conscious at the idea of writing down all of my (often rambling, sometimes jumbled) thoughts about a series that to me actually does feel very deep and complex, so adding memes and humor to that or finding different means to put my ideas out there makes me feel more comfortable expressing myself while also taking off the (admittedly made-up) pressure of having to write a whole coherent essay where I have to find a clear and explicit way to explain where every single thought comes from and how it leads to the next like I’m gonna get graded on it? or that a lot of those thoughts stem from memories of spending five years of high school translating and analysing ancient Greek poetry and reading and watching and discussing every available interpretation and reinterpretation of it from Nietzsche to Vernant to Dürrenmatt to Christa Wolf to Pasolini to a lot of others and from certain things in Dark violently hurtling me back to those times without even asking for permission, so a part of my self-consciousness is actually “I probably don’t actually know/remember enough about this to base a whole in-depth analysis on it even though I do think there’s something there” and another part is “shit I’m too lazy to dig through all of my old textbooks and homework and additional readings to hunt for the thing I feel the desperate need to reference or figure out who might have said it, so no extended explanation here either”? I guess in the end it would all boil down to “there’s an amount of effort and physical and mental energy I’m willing to put into fandom but I also have limits to stop something that makes me feel happy from becoming a chore”, which. considering the whole “you have to put all your resources into constantly pouring out 100% serious meta and nothing else because that’s what I like, no deviations allowed” thing? yeah, I can see saying stuff like that would still make me a blight upon fandom. and/or Not Engaging.

which, I realize, it’s a thing I keep coming back to. but that’s because I really, really, really hate it? seriously, what even counts as Engaging With The Text correctly? not shitposts, and not quips either, apparently. Regardless of the fact that humor and crack have existed in fandom since forever and that it’s actually not uncommon AT ALL for them to be born out of looking at canon from different angles, pointing out whatever the fan in question finds surreal/strange/implausible/convoluted/awkward/just kinda funny about it. 

also, not canon divergence/what if fics motivated not by a desire to “fix” something that made us feel bad when it happened in canon but by a desire to actually fix what we felt was objectively a poor writing choice from the author, because we shouldn’t Engage by analysing the text to criticize it or to think over how and why certain aspects of it don’t work for us or how we think the structure of the text itself could be modified or even improved, we should Engage by... writing meta and/or writing canon-compliant fics with perhaps a little allowance for slightly-to-the-left-of-canon-compliant missing moments fics, I guess? 

from what I’ve gathered from reading other fandom discussion some time ago, AUs are also out, especially Modern/No Powers AUs, because those are always just an excuse to slap your fave’s name on your OC/disguise your original fiction as fanfic to get comments/ignore all that’s interesting about canon to write yet another dumb syrupy high school or coffee shop AU, even if I’m honestly not sure what kind of AUs people are even reading to never get to the “there’s no supernatural threat so let’s focus entirely on the fucked-up family dynamics and blatant mental issues in a world where you can’t just ignore them by marrying off your daughter or sending your son to be someone’s squire” AUs or the “this is pretty much what happens in canon but adding new dimensions and different outlooks on the themes by moving everything to a new context” AUs. seriously, I could rec you a pretty great “this guy would be a horrible father and treat his children horribly in any world, it’s not just the feudal society around him, it’s him as a person” AU and that’s literally just the first thing that came to my mind. but, hey, maybe Engaging is only engaging with the canon plot and setting and nothing else, what do I know.

... fuck, thinking about it, I’m not even sure if by “not shitpost and not quips” I should even mean humor/crack? because it’s not like the OP was clear about it in any way? maybe it’s just all that’s weird and tropey and not-canon-compliant? I can see the “everybody gathers in the main character’s stuff to smoke weed and weird shit happens” fic I got a chuckle out of some time ago being one of the dreaded tumblr-born shitpost fics that are supposedly ruining fandom by ensuring that fans stop thinking (?), but what about the “everything is the same but this one character is a catboy, not for any particular reason but just because” fic I’m currently following and loving? people have been joking and shitposting about catboys a lot on tumblr lately (I distinctly remember that the last catboy joke to pop up on my dash was the “I’m your catboy gf and I’m stuck in a wall” one...) and finding an always-a-catboy!AU initially got an amused smile out of me, so is the mere premise enough to make the fic just a joke/just taking a trope and running off with it/just part of a shallow trend? even when the author literally goes “oh shit just realized this is all a metaphor for neuodivergence and masking” in the story notes? unless writing a character who’s never explicitly stated to be neurodivergent in canon as a being literally or metaphorically neurodivergent in your fic is always shallow projecting or posturing issuefic... instead of, y’know, looking closely at the text and Engaging with it by interpreting it that way....

I feel all this ranting/venting might end up plunging into Why We Slash discussion territory now, so I better stop here.

anyway, in short, good to know I’ve been in fandom for years yet I’ve always been just a Fake Fan who Can’t Think and is constantly Doing It Wrong (by Not Being Transformative Enough, possibly). gonna do my best to stay exactly like that in the future <3

[isroselalondebisexual]

What do you think Jade Lalonde, Rose Harley, and Dave Egbert would be like? I've already seen some analysis on John Strider so i don't wanna force you into rehasing anything ^^;

Jade Lalonde, my girl Jade raised by a Permissive parent, probably wouldn’t look toooooooo terribly different from canon Jade. Her interests are well financed, and she’s a good self-motivator, which is probably good because showing off her achievements to a drunken parent isn’t going to get the same response as a coherent parent. Of course, Mom is super proud of her brilliant daughter, and of COURSE she loves her super duper dearly and thinks Jade is the most intelligent girl alive, but it can get a little frustrating for Jade to explain her interests, and then ten minutes later realize her mom hasn’t retained a word. This Jade’s gonna be more acclimated to frustration and broken expectations, which is gonna manifest itself in two ways. She’s not gonna respond much at all when she’s disappointed, sometimes by really major things that she SHOULD get pissed off about, or she’s going to blow the fuck up over seemingly minor shit that most people would be able to brush off. But it’s more about the principle of the thing than the actual expectation that got broken, y’know? Probably gonna be sneakier than canon Jade, able to manipulate the situation to get her mom to actually DO stuff she needs her to, whether that be through passive aggression or batting her eyelids or setting up a situation so her mom “conveniently” will be reminded of certain things, and that’s gonna carry over into her other relationships as well, entirely unintentionally at first, that’s just sorta how she’s used to operating. Her role, then, as the Witch of Light, combined with that naturally honed ability to manipulate the situation with intelligence and a calculated amount of luck, is going to be one that comes naturally to her, and she’s going to be a HELLRAISER. She’s going to be UNPARALLELED. There will be no imp nor ogre nor time travelling demon who spits destruction from his maw that will be able to stand against her. She’s here, she’s brilliant, and she and her friends will be catching no unlucky breaks because she is the one whose will Luck bends to.

Rose Harley, raised by a dog and some chess people, alone on an island. Probably gets pretty entrenched in her know it all bossy phase pretty quick, but is less sure of herself. Doesn’t get a lot of positive feedback aside from her dog and some chess people who she’s pretty sure she’s smarter than, but that makes human interaction even harder for her, and she’s never really been good at interpersonal stuff to begin with. Lots of false confidence, I think, but suffers from impostor syndrome pretty badly. She WANTS to belong in the group, she really really wants to be involved and included and someone who BELONGS there, but can’t shake the nagging feeling that everyone else is a regular human being and she’s. Weird. And not in a good way. Gonna be more anxious than her canon counterpart, I think. Her favorite books she’s read 1000 times over and she’s got SUPER in-depth thoughts and analysis for the stuff she takes interest in, a very very brilliant girl who is never sure when “sharing” becomes “oversharing” and when “odd in a fun way” becomes “Rose that’s creepy.” Her role as the Seer of Space goes along well with being awake on Prospit prior to the Game even starting, as she has dealt with visions of the future all her life. Unfortunately, since space is all-encompassing, she’s not seeing what is fortuitous, or what WILL happen, or even what SHOULD happen, she’s seeing what happens in pretty much any timeline anywhere and it’s her task to sit down, think about what she’s Seen, and parse together whether they should or shouldn’t take that path. Her honed analytical skills will be pushed to their limits and brought to task over and over again, but through her smarts and what she has Foreseen, she is able to direct their group and conduct them in such a way that the new universe is spawned and they are able to win. The fact that she is SO CRUCIAL to their success helps her feel more like part of the group, but presents a NEW problem of wondering if maybe now they’re just pretending to be interested in her for her abilities. Her big hurdle is allowing herself to see that she is loved and wanted, and she truly does belong with them.

Dave Egbert is a kinda nerdy dude, he takes his camera with him everywhere and is always taking selfies or posting stuff to his instagram and did you hear? I heard someone say he has a collection of like, roadkill or something. Dave absolutely has a collection of dead shit. Also cicada shells that show up on the trees and bushes, because hey man cicada shells are cool. He’s super into his dumb nerd shit like video games and even reads that dumb gamebro magazine that he damn well KNOWS is dumb but he likes it and he’s not embarrassed about his interests! He knows the stuff he likes isn’t cool and doesn’t try to pass it off as cool, he just enjoys himself and fuck the haters. He ADORES his dad, was definitely one of those kids that began crying the MOMENT his dad dropped him off at daycare or smth, very attached but also complains about him sometimes, because kids complain about their parents, especially since Dad Egbert is the type of dude to walk up in front of his kid’s friends and use the embarrassing toddler nicknames like “sport” or “squirt” or smth and Dave’s friends are like “lmao your dad actually calls you ‘sport’ I thought that only happened in movies” and Dad also has like, a wallet full of Dave’s pictures and Dave is just like “daaaaaad” but also heck yes he was an ADORABLE baby so he sorta thrives off the attention. Has the biggest, dumbest crush on John imaginable. Dad found out Dave was queer not because Dave came out, but because Dave is just SO OBVIOUS about his stupid giant big dumb crush on John and Dad just sorta… quietly accepted this about his son and tries to be a good parent however he can. He’s not the most well-educated about queer stuff but he always tries his best to be respectful and that goes doubly now that he knows his kid isn’t straight. Dave having a supportive parent is a very good concept and one I am wholly behind in literally every way. His role as Knight of Breath is the defender of freedom, which probably means he must first liberate his consorts from his denizen, and then has to go a step further to protect his friends, probably from their own neuroses. Jade thinks she has to leap through all these mental hoops, but she doesn’t, Rose thinks she has to PROVE her worth, that she’s valuable, but Dave would love his sister even if she couldn’t do anything for them, John has been trapped in this toxically masculine, angry place for years and Dave can help him out of there, help him find peace and acceptance even within himself, Dave can pry back the dark gunk that’s been coating John’s soul and let him breathe freely, possibly for the first time in his life.

John Strider, we’ve touched on so I’ll just go over briefly here, but I like to keep these asks done in sets and now that I’ve set a pattern I’m not breaking it. John would end up one of those nasty, nasty, angry bullies. Bro is toxic, abusive, hypermasculine, and unpredictable, which means John winds up angry, lashing out, and hypermasculine as well. He goes way too far, way too often, and doesn’t apologize, total jock stereotype from oldtimey movies and shit, strong and athletic and attractive and just plain mean. Acts like he’s hot shit because whenever he’s at home he’s painfully reminded that he is small, and weak, and can’t actually do anything. Dave is his bro and he likes him plenty but he makes a lot of mean spirited gay jokes to start, probably as a cover for his own identity crisis that he has buried so deep deep down inside him you’re gonna need a shovel to unbury that shit, and is oblivious to Dave’s crush on him. Has a soft spot for Jade, who is kinda the only person who can get John to talk about his feelings frankly and honestly, and probably has a crush on Rose because he thinks that that’s what he’s supposed to do. She’s a girl, she’s his friend, that’s how heterosexuality works, right? His role as Heir of Time, I’m afraid, would be a deeply unpleasant one. What would likely happen is he directs the alpha timeline by having his offshoot timeline selves merge with his alpha self, like what Rose did from Davesprite’s timeline back in canon. But instead of just, like, ONE offshoot timeline self merging with the whole, it’s every single dead John. Every single time his friends die, he dies, every time something goes wrong, he gets to Experience that. He gets to have those memories seared into his brain, one with himself, one with every timeline that has ever existed, and it only further cements his belief that life is cruel, and uncaring, and doesn’t give a single solitary shit about him, or his loved ones, because he does love them. He’s broken inside, all warped and twisted wrong, but he does love them. It is only, and I do mean ONLY, once he and Dave manage to have their heart-to-heart, once John allows Dave in, that John is able to slowly pry out of the dark and hurting place that has stifled his soul for so long. Not to be stupidly, ridiculously cliche, but it is love that frees him, and the love between the two of them that helps him heal. John Strider and Dave Egbert would be a nigh-inevitable otp like that’s just the way this AU would work out my dudes.

*sticks m leggy out* I love getting long winded and these are fun, please share your thoughts with me my dudes. 

[caringessay194]

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[goodguyjean]

@mirandafandomette Yup! In this booklet that comes with an Armin figure, it says that “Jean dislikes that Armin is always together with Eren.” As we’ve already talked about on chat (but I haven’t talked about it on my blog before, so I’m gonna use this comment as a jumping off point, thank you lol), this booklet’s canon status vis-à-vis the manga is questionable, but I think it’s a defensible interpretation to say that Jean is at least slightly jealous of Armin and Eren’s relationship in the manga. However, I think Jean primarily dislikes their closeness because he thinks Armin underestimates his own skills as compared to Eren’s. And Jean is right, in a way, as we know from the Trost arc–Armin is surprised at the faith that Eren and Mikasa have in his abilities, worried that he’s primarily been a burden to them. The way I read it in the manga, it seems that Jean wants to be close to Armin himself, but in a way that he feels is more genuine and equal than the manner in which Eren and Armin relate. (I’m not taking a stab at Eren and Armin’s actual friendship here, only attempting to explain Jean’s initial understanding of it!)

The rest of my analysis is under the cut because I’m long-winded and I like pictures ^^’

To begin, I’m pretty sure the booklet is making a direct reference to the following scene from chapter 23:

Now, I know these panels have caused a lot of discourse, and I’m probably getting myself into hot water by bringing them up, but I feel like I eventually have to address them as a Jean/Jearmin fan (just like I inevitably had to talk about chapter 53 …), so here goes nothing. 

This scene poses a lot of difficulty of interpretation because it’s translated slightly differently each time I see it. This screen grab is from the official English translation of the manga, and it seems to be riding a pretty hard line between Jean calling Armin a sycophant who depends on a guy when he doesn’t need to, and Jean essentially saying, “No homo, like you and Eren, but you’re a pretty legit dude.” “Creeped out” and “fawn” are quite ambiguous words, and (according to a friend who reads Japanese) they’re reflecting a similar ambiguity in the original text, although most of that polysemy is apparently generated by Jean using “rude conjugations”. The gist of her reading is that she can’t definitively say Jean’s language is homophobic, but she also can’t rule it out as a possible meaning. However, the English dub of the anime (and my friend confirmed that the Japanese is the same in the anime and the manga for this scene) translates Jean’s comment as, “It always bothered me how you clung to Eren like a security blanket, but I always knew you were brilliant.” I think, based on the second half of Jean’s statement here and after consulting with my friend, that this is an equally defensible interpretation of Jean’s words. His line “I always thought you were capable” implies that his first comment is mostly about Armin relying on Eren when he really doesn’t need to; Armin is very capable on his own, and Jean sees this about him. And Armin’s response almost seems to affirm Jean’s assessment because, according to my friend, he’s also using rude speech forms! He rises to the occasion and meets Jean banter for banter. In the words of my Japanese consultant (who, I should say, doesn’t read or watch Attack on Titan), “Wow, they’re really going at each other!” 

So, keeping all of these difficulties about the language in mind, how should we interpret this scene? I’ve seen several different readings of it, but I don’t think I’ve seen one that totally captures all the nuances at play here, so I’m going to try my hand at it. Jean is saying that he is disturbed a capable or “brilliant” soldier such as Armin would waste his time on a guy like Eren–so this comment is kind of a dig at Eren too. At this point, Jean just doesn’t get Armin and Eren’s friendship, and suggests that Eren doesn’t deserve Armin’s attention. He expresses himself in strong language, in a way that implies there is something extreme about Armin’s devotion to Eren. In the manga translation there’s an implication of a romantic interest on Armin’s part, and in the anime translation Jean suggests that Armin’s reliance on Eren is childish. I prefer the anime translation in this case because I think it also speaks to a broader criticism of Eren that Jean has: that he’s not thinking of the way his choices hold back his childhood friends, who are both more capable than Eren in someways. 

Chapter 3. 

When this critique is turned on Armin for following Eren instead of Eren for leading a friend astray, the accusation becomes that he is hero-worshiping Eren at his own expense. I recognize that “no homo” is still a possible valence of this moment, but I think that doesn’t account for the full meaning of the sentence: even though you devote your efforts to Eren’s causes, your capabilities actually exceed his. Whether or not we fully agree with Jean’s assessment, that appears to be the sentiment behind his words.

There’s further context for interpreting this moment to be found in Reiner’s reaction to Jean and Armin’s exchange. 

Throughout this whole conversation, Reiner has been commenting on how supposedly selfish Jean Kirstein has suddenly starting thinking about others and acting like the member of a team. Here we get a rare personal reflection from Reiner on the change in Jean, seemingly triggered by his conversation to Armin: “Jean really is different.” Given Reiner’s response here, I think we should read Jean’s comment to be intended as a compliment, even if it comes out in a really backhanded and problematic way. Does that absolve Jean of his rudeness? No. But it gets at the core meaning of his words: he respects Armin despite the fact that he’s a confidant of Eren, Jean’s ideological rival. And in order to have come to such an opinion of Armin, Jean had to be observing him. Jean has revealed to Reiner that he has been paying more attention to his comrades than he previously let on, that he actually has respect for some of them, and that he’s willing to assist them when they need it, even at great personal risk (ex: the whole “distract the Female Titan” plan they’re about to execute). 

And perhaps we can read some jealousy in this moment too. Jean thinks Armin is too capable to be relying so much on Eren. I think, based on later scenes of Jean and Armin’s burgeoning friendship–a development which is spurred by Jean continually seeking Armin out to debate morality and strategy–that we can interpret Jean as jealous of Eren having such a talented friend, although I think it would go too far to say that Jean wants Armin to “fawn” over him like he thinks Armin “fawns” over Eren (even for a shipper like myself, I don’t think Jean would want a romantic relationship where there was a lot of fawning; it might feel disingenuous to him). Jean admires both Armin and Mikasa, and doesn’t seem to want to become their Eren so much as he wants to build his own kind of relationships with them. He sees their relationship to Eren as unequal somehow, with Eren under-appreciating their talents and support, and thoughtlessly leading them into serious danger.  So I believe he is jealous of their closeness, but not wishing for them to see him exactly as they see Eren.

As a final thought to wrap up these ramblings, Jean also seems to have a peculiar way of expressing affection for Armin where he jokingly insults him. We see him speak this way to Armin at least twice more, once at the beginning of their friendship and again when they are closer.

Chapter 33.

Chapter 82. 

Although Jean seems comfortable openly expressing his admiration for Mikasa, he tends to qualify his praise of Armin’s brains with tongue-in-cheek digs at his intelligence. This is probably due to their genders; while Jean does appear to be comfortable showing more physical affection to Armin than his other male friends, he struggles sometimes with open verbal affection. And so they have this repartee, their own particular way of communicating within their friendship that does, indeed, differ from the way Eren and Armin interact. Although there is clearly mutual affection between them (and Jean takes such care of Armin’s emotions, but that’s a subject for another post), there’s also a semi-ironic lack of “fawning”–Jean’s admiration and care for Armin is palpable, but he jokes that he’s not fawning, nope, not even a little bit! We can see here that Armin understands his meaning from the way he smiles … and Armin must feel some guilt about how he’s about to sacrifice himself for a victory at Shiganshina.

Okay, so to try to tie all of these seemingly disparate observations together into a coherent conclusion: Jean initially dislikes Eren and Armin’s closeness because he feels it undermines Armin’s own talents; he probably feels jealousy over the fact that someone like Eren has such a capable friend like Armin, even if he doesn’t want to have the same kind of friendship with Armin as Eren does; his distaste for “fawning” (even if we do want to interpret it as a homophobic dig) does not necessarily mean that his attraction to Armin does not have the potential to be romantic, only that he distrusts elaborate expressions of affection and possibly has some internalized homophobia; and that this scene fits into a pattern of Jean expressing his respect and admiration for Armin with ironic insults.

[magicianjay]

Magic Kaito, chapter 4 commentary.

I love both the anime and the MK special adaptations of this chapter, and overall this chapter is definitely in my top 4 favourite chapters of MK. I would have said top 3, but I really fell in love with the Robo-Kaito chapter last time. (RIP, murderous robot. You're missed.)

Kaito cutting the glass out of the window there reminds me of the scene with him cutting glass out in Nonchalant Lupin (the MK prototype), except that here Kaito is looking so smug. I love it. The art quality is already so much better.

THAT GRIN. Kaito seems to be turning into his own caricatures of Kid. Serious manga illness, very tragic story.

I do like that his watch can double as a bright light to stun people.

I've read various things in fanfics where they mention that Kaito wears a subtle face mask or make-up as Kid to slightly alter the shape of his face so he can't be recognised, but although it would make sense, it's obviously not the reality going by this chapter. MK is a silly manga, and it's operating in the space in-between poking fun at paper thin costumes and then promptly forgetting all about it later on at the author's convenience. In a different series I'm not sure that Nakamori would have recognised Kaito in the first place.

Anyway, Nakamori's skills as a detective would have to be dire indeed if he hadn't recognised Kaito, so thank goodness he could.

The scene added into the 1412 anime featuring Kaito eating dinner with Nakamori family after that heist was a great addition, in my opinion. I loved Nakamori's suspicious staring at him, and the spluttering when Aoko covered the right side of Kaito's face.

Aoko is such a sweetheart. She's so protective of Kaito that she was willing to take the inevitable massive embarrassment of asking him on a date. And she gets straight to the point, making it sound like a demand. Her body language and her tone convey her determination very well.

So Kaito reacts by needing Aoko to repeat what she said at least once, then asking if it's a joke, then by insulting her but blushing intensely...And, although it's clear that he was just spitting that insult out because the situation was awkward, it's just as clear that Aoko believed it.

It's really too bad. The way that Aoko and Kaito interact with each other sometimes involves banter and insults and maximum tsundere, and that is the kind of insult they would fling at each other, but some of it hits Aoko right in the self-esteem issues.

Aoko and Kaito's dynamic varies a lot. They don't always bicker, but when they do, sometimes that's just their own way of playing and having fun together, and I like that they feel comfortable enough with each other to play rough and be a bratty duo with a lot of back and forth.

But some of the time they're quarrelling more seriously, or genuinely being jerks, or they're falling into a pattern of squabbling from force of habit, and although they seem to forget about it or forgive each other pretty quickly (or to get even quickly, as with Aoko and the fish in chapter one)  their insults do seem to sting each other, and they also sometimes seem to sting in ways that weren't even intended. For example, Kaito in chapter one was bothered by Aoko's slight to his magic, and by extension to his dad's magic, even though Aoko probably never intended the latter.  And in the current scene I don't think for a moment that Kaito would really want Aoko to think she's ugly. Same as Aoko in a later chapter wouldn't want Kaito to really feel like a cockroach of a human being, even though she did compare him to a cockroach.

So Aoko thinks that she's unattractive and that nobody would want to date her. That bites. An alternative interpretation would be that she just thinks that's solely Kaito's view, and she's resigned to that, and this upsets her because of course, who wants their BFF/love interest to think that about them? That makes sense, but I'm not sure if that could explain everything. She's too quick so accept what he said there as the truth, and then there's also some stuff later on in the series, specifically in the skiing chapter, where she definitely has other self-esteem issues too. I'm interested in this, so I'll try to keep an eye out for anything further that points either way.

Kaito starts taking Aoko's request seriously once she gets teary, so there are good odds that he thought she was just messing with him before and her reaction just then finally convinced him of her sincerity. Or could be that she was so cute there he couldn't say no. Though I can't say that tears suit Aoko at all...

Kaito: so flustered about this that he can't even look Aoko in the face as he says yes, and has to look away shyly. At this point that he doesn't know what Aoko's ulterior motive is, so yeah, he's saying yes to being asked on what he thinks is a real date.

Aoko is so pleased that she's achieved victory in her quest, and her reaction is incredibly cute. Also: way to go, Aoko, in getting Kaito to agree BEFORE she set the day so that he couldn't back out. I don't know if she planned that in advance or on the spot, but either way it was crafty.

I'm really impressed by Aoko in this scene, for how hard she went for her target and how she didn't let her embarrassment get in her way. And this is no minor hurdle, because if Aoko and Kaito already had enough nerve and maturity to risk this kind of embarrassment and potential mockery and rejection from each other for just their own sake, they might already have been a couple by now. But Aoko was able to get over it straight away because she was so desperate to prove Kaito's innocence and protect him from the danger of being suspected. Now that's a great and loyal friend.

This whole scene is all pretty weird given that last chapter Robo-Kaito confessed to Aoko, so she shouldn't even be thinking that Kaito would refuse her in the first place, let alone think that he believes nobody would want to date her, but oh well, this manga is not a marvel of coherent continuity.

It's also strange that Keiko is surprised and baffled at the idea of Aoko and Kaito maybe dating, when last chapter she was throwing a party for them with a “congratulations on your wedding!” sign...

Well, either it's a classroom of trolls, or we just need to keep mourning the series' continuity. Maybe both.

Threat to BFF: detected. Aoko looks so apprehensive there, when just a moment or two before she was laughing and playfully elbowing her dad.

Nakamori's reaction to seeing Kaito's face isn't entirely consistent with his behaviour later in the series. Chapter 1, he's overjoyed that the Kaitou Kid he spent so long chasing isn't dead after all. Here, he sees Kaito's face and instantly believes that he must be Kid. But later on when Hakuba's analysis says that the Kid is a high school boy, Nakamori won't believe a word of it because it's impossible for Kid to be that young.

Maybe we could rationalise it and say that the evidence from Nakamori's own eyes was too strong for him to be able to ignore it, and that after Kaito tricking him later on in this chapter, Nakamori was able to resume happily latching on to the idea of Kid being the same person all along. But for someone who's deeply invested in Kid being someone older, Nakamori certainly took the idea of it being Kaito calmly.

One thing I like is that Nakamori never doubts that Kaito's bright enough to pull off being Kid. Seeing his face and knowing Kaito's a magician is enough for him here. I doubt Gosho actually intended to make this kind of point, but I can't help comparing this to Hakuba's initial dismissal of Kaito as just an idiot. Nakamori never thinks Kaito's stupid!  Of course, he's had the advantage of knowing Kaito for a long time.

I like the way that Aoko's face was shadowed there, leading into the next panel where...

Aoko actually flips out once she realises Nakamori is serious. She thought quickly, too, with that lie.

If Nakamori were to ever catch Kid and send him to prison, I have no doubts his home life would become an instant living hell. Not that Aoko wouldn't be angry at Kaito too, but Nakamori should  not ever be wanting to be the guy responsible for jailing him. It'd wreck their family. I would like to pretend that his stunned expression there is a feeling of impending doom, but he's just shocked by Aoko's vehemence.

The 1412 anime adaptation of this scene is a real disappointment because it doesn't show Aoko dramatically stomping her foot on the table. Aoko got shortchanged there. If you've got a dynamic character who does things like that, why on earth would you swap it out for a scene where she just stands there?

That feeling when a panel or two ago you were passionately defending your friend's innocence and moral fibre, and then they get caught being shifty as hell. And Kaito even admits to those girls that he's the culprit, and has the nerve to blame them...like he did in chapter 1 when he blamed Aoko for falling for his magic trick.

Kaito goes around at school unrepentently picking locks, playing magic tricks and pranks, using a card gun, and occasionally laying on charm very thickly and manipulatively, plus he's also placed disguises on people at least once. He might as well go around holding a Hi! I'm the Kaitou Kid! sign.

The prototype Kaito in Nonchalant Lupin actually was well-known at his school for being a master of disguise, but I have to wonder whether MK Kaito ever made a habit of it. On the one hand, it would be ridiculously suspicious. On the other hand, Kaito already is ridiculously suspicious, and early-series MK is nuts. If Gosho ever did intend for Kaito to have a history of going wild with disguises before he was Kid, he's unlikely to ever show it now.

Aoko looks so down while she's waiting for Kaito to arrive and he's late. I wonder if she was running over suspicions in her head? At the least, she had to be wondering if he wasn't going to show up and her plan to clear him would fail.

I'd like to know why Kaito was late. Was he staring at his wardrobe and trying to pick out the best and coolest outfit he could? Because, uh...if he was, it didn't work. Or maybe he was preparing for the heist. Or maybe he was freaking out about the possibility of Aoko working out that he's Kid.

Nakamori would be happy to know that he's being taken this seriously!

Damn, Kaito, those tsundere levels are off the charts. When I got into MK I scoured the internet for everything I could find about the series, and it was so weird how often Aoko got called a tsundere and yet many people didn't say the same about Kaito. And yet just look at this guy.

I wonder how many shipfics with Kaito in just take their ideas from Kaito's characterisation in Detective Conan and play up the whole suave thief angle while forgetting how much of that is an act and what a dorky tsundere he really is?

I'm not saying Aoko isn't tsundere too. She is! Their tsundere levels are feeding off each other in some kind of ouroboros.

Aoko smiling and dragging Kaito off suddenly by the arm is the cutest thing. She looks so happy in those panels.

But the date does not go well. It's interesting because if you look at Aoko and Kaito's respective behaviour on the date so far in isolation, without knowing what the characters are like, you'd think that Aoko was behaving perfectly normally and Kaito was being a jerk. To be fair, Kaito IS being a jerk. But what wouldn't be immediately apparent is that Aoko is being wildly out of character.

Up until this point in the date, she's just been putting up with Kaito being a jerk to her, and responding to that in a subdued way, going "Oh..." looking uncomfortable and embarrassed. That's not the usual Aoko! So why was she acting this way? The most likely interpretation is that she's trying to act the way that she thinks a stereotypical girl on a date "should" act - being all tolerant and forcing positivity and enthusiasm about everything, and going all "kyaaa!" in the haunted house. This was a strange and deeply awkward situation for her, since after all, she did invite Kaito out on a date-date even if it was actually a trick to clear his name. Maybe the fact the date was a trick was even what made her feel she had to act this way. How could she even act like her normal self in this situation? Her motive was to determinedly Be On A Date with Kaito to establish his innocence. So she tried as hard as she could to be the image she had of a girl on a date.

But Kaito was not having any of this. He took the jerk route of dealing with Aoko's out-of-character behaviour, definitely, but credit where credit is due, he was not happy with Aoko acting all fake and stereotypical-girl-on-a-date, and wanted to spend time with an uninhibited Aoko who felt free to be herself. He could have, y'know, just said this straight away without first being as disagreeable as possible in order to make his point, but oh well.

And so then Aoko finally relaxes and they start being brats having fun together and have a great day. It's cute! Their date doesn't look like a stereotypical date, but why should they have to conform to a stereotype which doesn't fit them? Which was probably Kaito's point.

Aoko clocks Kaito here, and it's much the same in the MK specials, but in the 1412 anime it's replaced with a forehead flick, and Kaito doesn't run after her or shake his own fist or anything in response. I wonder why? I would guess that the 1412 anime wanted to take out violence, but then...this is the same anime which changed things in ep 1 so that Kaito actually got hit by the furniture Aoko threw, unlike in the manga. Maybe it was just because the anime ended that scene on a pretty frame with Aoko happily running ahead and Kaito standing still, and you can't have both that and a scene with a grumpy just-punched Kaito running right after Aoko and complaining like the specials did. I'd say the MK specials adapted it better here, but the 1412 scene was so pretty that I like both versions.

Kaito looks so shifty there as he tries to make his exit.

And Aoko has come prepared with handcuffs. Presumably she nicked them from her dad. Theft: it's okay if it's for a good cause. She may have been thinking to herself that she trusts Kaito, but she still brought cuffs to make sure, rather than taking it on faith. Well...given her conflicted expressions earlier and the way he looked suspicious in class, she must have had some level of suspicion of him of her own. But if she didn't keep Kaito with her the whole time, she wouldn't be able to prove to Nakamori that he couldn't be Kid, so it makes perfect sense anyway.

I like the way that she doesn't explain it to him! She apologises and tells him to stay put a while longer, and looks very, very slightly awkward as she does that, but then she moves on to talking about the film and acting as if suddenly handcuffing yourself to your date is totally normal and requires no further comment. It really does seem as if she doesn't expect Kaito to kick up a fuss. Now I want to know about all the pre-canon shenannigans that Aoko's pulled in this friendship. It's hard to look at this scene and think that surprises only go from Kaito to Aoko.

In the manga here, Kaito had a convenient detachable arm that he tricked Aoko into putting the cuff on, and it's the same in the MK specials, but in the 1412 anime, he just frees his arm from the cuff. The inflatable Kaito-doll is made less completely ridiculous-looking in the anime, as compared to the jelly monster lookalike from the manga and specials.

Kaitou Kid: the very image of phantom thievery at its finest, stealthiest and most elegant. Nobody will notice him as he sneaks away to the crime scene!

Jii is not in the manga for this chapter, but he's added in to both of the adaptations. In the specials, he shows up in a car to pick Kaito up from the theme park (and the car breaks down on the way back), and in 1412, he's in the cinema in the seat behind the Kaito-doll and moving it a bit.

Nakamori de-hatting Kid count: #01. Good luck.

I love Kaito for his Aoko disguise there. Great way to put Nakamori off his trail and explain why he saw Kaito before. It's also interesting in retrospect because of a scene later on in the series where another character may or may not have used a similar trick on Kaito.

The MK specials version of this scene messed it up badly, in my opinion, by making the person Kid is shockingly disguised as be Inspector Nakamori himself, then cycling through various other people before reaching the Aoko disguise. Regardless, the Aoko voice actresses in both anime adaptations did a great job of mimicking Kid.

Dear god, Aoko, you were originally created as a detective character but you're fooled by inflatable jelly Kaito.

If we ever needed proof that Kaito's judgement has always been suspect, here we have him deciding to save time by riding on the side of a rollercoaster. And if we ever needed proof that this is a gag manga, here we have him surviving being hit on the head and falling off the coaster from a great height...

(There's always the alternative interpretation that he survives because he's secretly actually Robo-Kaito version 2. I love Magic Kaito so, so much for being a canon where things like that could be plausible.)

Kaito got really jumpy there when he heard Nakamori's voice over the TV, huh. At little moments like this when somebody (or just their voice) is behind him when he wasn't expecting it, he panics. Maybe he usually feels confident he won't be caught, and I'm sure he's not the type to ever lose sleep worrying, but he certainly is nervous when he's surprised.

Aoko's relief there about Kaito being just Kaito after all is interesting and I'll get back to that in a minute.

(I switched to the other scanlations for this one panel, since I think it has the better translation for this bit.)

It's sweet how touched Kaito was by Aoko's attempt to prove his innocence. She really did try her best for him, so it's nice that her effort actually was understood and appreciated. Too bad for her that her trust was misplaced, but still.

I would have liked to include the manga panel for the bit directly after this too, but I think the anime subtitles for this were clearer than either of the two scanlated versions I have available, so I'll just quote from that.

Aoko: Here. I got you your favorite ice cream.

Kaito: Don't do stuff like that. It's not like you!

Aoko: Even if it's unusual, I'm still me.

Doesn't that apply very neatly to Kaito being Kid?

The main themes surrounding Aoko and Kaito's interactions in this chapter seemed to be ones of identity and fear of change. They essentially have similar worries about each other.

Aoko was worried that Kaito was hiding something, and wasn't the Kaito she was used to, and was relieved when she'd "proved" that he was still himself. Kaito wanted Aoko to be herself, but then at the end he took it too far, to the point where he was constraining her instead by insisting on the status quo, and she had to correct him.

This ended up being a chapter about how you should be true to yourself and shouldn't force yourself to be someone you're not just because you feel it's what's expected of you, but how you're still the same person even if you don't always act the same way.

Kaito definitely paid attention to Aoko saying she was still herself. I think he found it reassuring – that they could change or their dynamic could alter without them losing the other one. Regardless, that seems to be what encouraged him to say that ridiculously cheesy "But ice cream is sweet" line after Aoko said he was being as cold as ice cream.

Given what the Robo-Kaito said last chapter about how he had the urge to give Aoko the cold shoulder because he loves her, it's nice to see the real Kaito managing to get over being cold, just for a few seconds.

The 1412 anime did a good thing in having Chikage laughing uproariously and mocking the hell out of Kaito over that ultra-cheesy line! (Since Aoko told her about it.) A line like that should not go unlaughed at.