#villain mary

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hey Steph, I just re-watched TST so my brain is on Morstan mode. What do you think about Mary? Personally, I always liked her. I was a bit weary with the whole shot Sherlock thing but I have got to give her credit for being a fabulous character. Amanda did a great job portraying her, Mark and Steven did a great job writing her. -- I just wondered what your pov was because you are like a deity to this fandom, or at least to me.

Anonymous asked: Hey, I was just wondering, is it bad that I like Mary. I honestly love her character and I think she works great with John, only rivaled by my love for Johnlock. Of course I don't enjoy her shooting Sherlock but all-in-all, I think her character is great. Also, I think Amanda played her beautifully. I know that when Mary was first introduced, the character and actress got quite a bit of hate. Personally I don't get it. Maybe people are blinded by the shot... Personally I love her...

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Hey Nonnies!

Oh gosh sorry I missed these asks, I dunno why I never replied to them... I hope y'all don't mind me putting them together since they're so similar and my answer would have been the same for both anyway.

First off, thank you for your kind words, Nonny One, I hope you're still around and I hope that I'm still worthy of your love.

Secondly, if you've both been here a long time, you'll know that I was a HUGE advocate for villain Mary Pre-S4. I was the biggest Mary stan there was because I loved the direction they were taking her character. I coined the term "the mary problem" and wrote a tonne of meta about her and her potential reveal of being the main villain, possibly working with Moriarty, because quite honestly, it was the only thing that made (and still the only thing that makes) sense with the show's narrative pre-S4, AND with all the red flags Sherlock was pointing at in TAB. You can check out some of the MANY meta I wrote about her on this page here and some on the TAB meta page here. Her character was fascinating to me, and I genuinely believed that they were going to make her a villain and that the climax for S4 was going to be epic.

But then S4 actually happened. She was still a villain but now more deplorable and unlikeable than ever because Mofftiss tried SO hard to convince us she wasn't and to just ignore everything before S4. They ruined her character, just like S4 did for all the characters. I suspect some behind-the-scenes shenanigans with a petty AA went down – and this is ALL hearsay and my speculation so just take it with the teeniest grain of salt. I think it pissed me off more because they tried to redeem this irredeemable character who abandoned her husband and child and subsequently put all of them in danger. The flip was so out of left field and made NO fucking sense.

S4 is a clusterfuck of bad writing and bad ideas and plot holes.

My feelings these days about Mary are complicated right now. I like what she COULD have been, not what she inevitably became because of bitterness behind-the-scenes.

Again, my speculations and nothing more.

Cheers, Nonnies, and thank you for your questions.

[bigfatbreak]

The Charity Ball part one / part two / part three / (you are here!)

bonus! rehauled Mayura~

I wanted. something. more dynamic to draw when she was getting thrown around-

[luciferslilith7]

My brain hums with scraps of poetry and madness.

Virginia Woolf

Selected Letters

[sunderwight]

Thinking about an SV scenario where TLJ had kids before the whole Su Xiyan thing went down.

Like he was an emperor, right? And we don't actually know how old he was, though he was at least old enough that his sister's son was mostly raised to adulthood by him by the time catastrophe struck. It wouldn't have been at all strange or even improbable for him to have been married already, perhaps several times over, by the time he met Su Xiyan and actually fell in love with someone.

Obviously any known kids TLJ had would have demons queuing up to install them on the throne after he got sealed under the mountain (and others probably wanting to kill or oust them), but we could explain the perception that TLJ had no heirs with a little bit of deliberate planning or cleverness on their part. Maybe they also showed up at the ambush, saw an opportunity to escape a life they detested, and pretended to have been killed/sealed too before just walking off to go life their dream life as a theatrical performer or country doctor or fortune teller or something. Maybe there were a bunch of them and they all engaged in brutal in-fighting for the throne, except one who just took the first opportunity to fake their death and then nope'd out to the countryside. Maybe they were a hybrid like Zhuzhi Lang whom everyone discounted from the succession due to not inheriting the "good" genes, so they went and stayed with their mother's faction and dropped out of political events.

Honestly I'm kind of surprised we don't seem to have loads of Heavenly Demon OC's and self-inserts in this fandom. I bet PIDW fandom was flooded with them. Bet there were tons of "Binghe's long-lost cool older brother who gets his own massive harem and adventures and separate realms to conquer" type OCs and probably just as many "distant cousin of Luo Binghe's is a beautiful Heavenly Demon and the only woman fit to be his equal who does away with his need for the harem because she can keep up with his desires and cleanse xin mo all by herself" and etc.

God it would be so funny if Peerless Cucumber had a Heavenly Demonsona. The world's most unselfaware combination of those two types, Luo Binghe's long-lost distant male cousin who has no interest in building his own harem (seriously guys stop trying to compete!) but only wants to support Luo Binghe and offer him the companionship and compassion (brotherly, platonic!) that he truly needs and can't seem to get from all those 2D hussies he surrounds himself with.

Even funnier if the System makes Heavenly Cucumber a real character, and suddenly Shen Qingqiu is faced with his own idealized self-insert who is blatantly obsessed with Luo Binghe, obnoxiously over-powered, and living in the kind of glass closet that makes post-canon Shen Qingqiu want to crawl into a hole and die.

[xi-vz]

Spy, Writer, God

[draftmonologue]

1. Susan Sontag—As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980, 2. Phoebe Waller Bridge—Fleabag, 3. Richard Siken—Wishbone, 4. Anonymous, 5. Atonement dir. Joe Wright 6. Hot Priest Monologue—Phoebe Waller Bridge 7. Gillian Flynn—Dark Places 8. Meditation in an Emergency— Cameron Awkward-Rich , 9. Billie Eilish— idontwannabeyouanymore, 10. Stephen Adly Guirgis— The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, 11. Lioness Dewinter—Sìren Loa 12. Bernie Wrightson’s Illustration of Frankenstein’s Monster. 13. Bonnie Winterbottom—How To Get Away With Murder, 14. Sade Andria Zabala—Paper Napkin Stories, 15. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz — Love Opened a Mortal Wound, 16. Unknown 17. Miley Cyrus — Never Be Me, 18 Kim Addonizio— Wild Nights; New Poems; Pareidolia, 19. Crazy/Beautiful dir. John Stockwell, 20. I.B. Vyache, Conversations Over Sanguinaccio Dolce.

[bethanydelleman]

Writing Villains (Advice from Jane Austen)

One of the reasons that I find Jane Austen's novels so wonderful is that they have amazingly realistic villains, some that are fully fleshed out characters. Austen's biggest strength is that she gives her villains clear, logical motives. In fact, for many of her villainous characters you can turn the entire story around and see a rational story from the other side.

For example, Lucy Steele. She doesn't attack Elinor out of mindless evil, but because Edward Ferrars is her golden ticket to wealth and she knows that Edward loves Elinor. Lucy might twist the knife a little on Elinor out of sadism, but generally she attacks Elinor in an attempt to secure Edward. When it comes to other characters, Lucy is overly sweet if she wants something from them, otherwise she acts normally. As an example, she leaves Marianne alone because Marianne is not competing for Edward and also can't do anything for Lucy. Anne, Lucy's sister, likes her. Lucy has friends and family she stays with, she's a fairly well-rounded person.

You can put yourself in Lucy's shoes, you can turn the entire narrative on it's head and play it out from her perspective and it would make complete sense. You could even make Lucy sympathetic! She probably sees herself as a hardworking underdog, trying to wrest her one chance at prosperity away from the conniving Elinor Dashwood. I'm sure she thinks the pain she causes Elinor is justified.

If you can't do that with your villains, then there is a good chance they are just evil for evil's sake. I picked Lucy Steele on purpose because I hate when the entire motivation for a antagonist female character is "bitches be crazy". Bitches may be mean, but almost always for a good reason.

Even Mrs. Norris, who is probably the most cruel of Austen's female villains, can be perspective switched. Her life is about being useful to the Bertram family so she can feel important because her married status/wealth is lower than she wished. As she must always be deferential towards the Bertrams, she takes out her negative emotions on those below her, the servants and Fanny, while also showing off how good she is at "managing" those people. (And yes, she is your childhood bully)

We often hear her perspective and she clearly sees herself as a useful part of the family and a defender of Sir Thomas's wealth. She thinks she's a good person! Which is also an important point: most people doing wrong do not believe that they are doing wrong. That is what really makes a villain scary. Mrs. Norris thinks she's helping Fanny in a very twisted way by teaching Fanny her station in life. If you asked her, she'd give you a self-justified answer and she'd probably actually believe it.

Another way to do a good villain is to just make a person very selfish. Henry Crawford doesn't sit around all day laughing about how much pain he causes women, he doesn't think about it. He only thinks about the fun of flirting for himself, not the harm to others. The glimpses we get into his perspective are not cruel at all. It's the same with Willougby, he thinks only of his own pleasure and tries very hard to ignore that he has crushed Marianne and destroyed Eliza Williams. When he is forced to accept that people were hurt, he blames everyone but himself.

Wickham thinks that he's a victim, Caroline Bingley is ambitious and doesn't care who she steps on to get to the top, Mr. Elton is insulted that Emma could even dream he's a match with Harriet but he can't touch Emma so he punches down at Harriet. They all make sense, they all probably believe that their actions are justified.

Also, imagine taking the heroine/hero right out of the story, would the villain still act the same way? If Anne didn't exist, Mr. Elliot would still try to bring himself into the Elliot family because he was afraid of losing the title. If Elizabeth didn't exist, Wickham would have had another favourite in Meryton. If Fanny didn't exist, Mrs. Norris would have found some other puppy to kick. The villains don't just appear for the plot of the main characters, they have their own reasons for moving around and messing shit up.

Lastly, explaining but not excusing (though unfortunately some people will excuse anyway but that's not your fault). Mary Crawford is mercenary and doesn't seem to believe that love is even a real thing. It's pointed out several times in the novel that her defects have to do with being raised in an immoral environment and a broken home. She was taught by her aunt to marry for wealth and disregard love. Austen doesn't excuse Mary, she doesn't give her a happy ending, but she does explain how she came to be. She's not just greedy, she has been taught that wealth is the best recipe for happiness. As an adult now, it is her responsibility to question that maxim or remain a villain.

Austen wrote amazing morally grey characters and "villains" (a term I used a little liberally here, some of them probably only count as antagonists, not full blown villains). I love how real and human she made her characters, it's something I aspire to myself!

Linking my Caroline rant because it's related, people remove her motives so often and flatten her into a "bitches be crazy".

[ksantillus]

"What is wrong with you? I work my fingers to the bone trying to make you miserable and you have the insensitivity to tell me you're happy?"

I've got a few days to catch up on, and after a busy Friday where my husband and I went to an MST3k fan event at a local drive-in (we got a signed print from Joel! and saw I Accuse My Parents and Mac & Me on a big screen!) I had to draw at least one of the Mads.

[megatraven]

what if adrien's amok got broken and marinette and felix both went insane trying to bring him back and it never worked because he could only ever come back wrong. what if they decide that the only way to save him is to use the rabbit miraculous to go back and time and stop it from getting destroyed in the first place. what if doing that jeopardizes the world entirely. what if they seek it out anyway. wh-

[twistedshipper]

'October,' Mary Oliver

[aha-my-villainous-thoughts]

So our pirate dad confirmed the Widow Evelyn Higgins and Mary Bonnet pairing, and I have to finally post this Queen of Hearts wedding portrait I did of them for the Tying the Knot zine last year! (There was meant to be a nsfw companion piece but I haven't finished it yet)

Have we got a ship name yet??

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hey Steph!

I just reaaaallllyyyyy hate Mary and, although I respect everyone's views, I personally can't stand fics that portray her as a good human being and where John and Sherlock love her. Can you suggest some post season 4 fics where everyone knows Mary wasn't a good person(because she really wasn't,she was a cold blooded assassin)and don't like her?

Thanks for everything you do for us!!!

Hey Nonny!

Understandable, I know many people don't like her. I liked her character a lot because she was being built up to be a really interesting villain, and then in S4 they just... dropped the ball and made her one of the worst. S4 ruined a lot of charaters, pretty much the whole cast, in my opinion. Molly, Mycroft, Mary, John (the most egregious) and even Sherlock. Ugh.

Anyway, here are some Not-Nice Mary fics you'll enjoy, though I can't guarantee any are post-S4:

Evil / Not-Nice / Villain Mary

Jealous Mary

If anyone has any fics that they want to suggest that Nonny might enjoy more than my recs, please do!

[luciferslilith7]

I turn my pain into poetry.

@luciferslilith7

[im-not-buying-it-ether]

Speaking of Shazamo and Billy getting the Wit of Odysseus as the O in the acronym I’m just imagining Cap being even more of a little shit and pulling the same nonsense he did with much better affect (mostly bc he has the physical and godly might to get out of the bulk of the consequences Ody suffered)

Like some alien armada is causing trouble but being diplomatic first before they try the invasion tactic so, just to make them look stupid when the JL (inevitably) defeats them he introduces himself as Nobody so now this galactic conquerer dude can’t be taken seriously bc every time someone translates his rants he’s saying “Nobody” or “A Nothing” defeated him. Billy laughs so hard it actually hurts his sides powered up.

Plus, Ody is just really on his feet strategically smart which would pair well with the more large scale stuff Solomon offers, both being mortal kings who had to do things mostly mortally.

[beatsheetromanroy]

shout out to cas and mary for defying their cruel fathers in order to live an autonomous life with the man they loved (and failing?)

[year2000electronics]

june 30, 2004- june 30, 2024

happy 20 years, spider-man 2!