#why is this the first arcane death I rant about there are SO MANY OTHERS

[madbard]

When Heimerdinger sacrificed himself in episode 7, did the alternate version of him also die?

We don’t see the actual moment Ekko’s alternate appears - it’s possible that he just reformed on his own. In that case, Heimerdinger’s alternate may be waking up somewhere in the better timeline as the machine fires. Still, the fact that Ekko’s alternate appeared so close to the machine suggests that he may actually have split off the main timeline Ekko’s body. Otherwise, it suggests that the alternate variants of the cast always reform close to where the main timeline variants leave their universe. Neither of these options make me optimistic for the alternate Heimerdinger’s survival.

In that case, the alternate version of Heimerdinger died quietly, years ago, and no one realized. He died in an era of peace, after a long and often difficult life. I imagine he was happy. I imagine it was quick, instantaneous, even. Too quick to feel pain or fear. Too quick to feel anything.

I hope he was satisfied.

Still, his body is gone. Powder saw him vanish, so she would have an idea of what happened - but from her perspective isn’t there still the slightest chance he is alive? If the alternates do actually reform on their own, he could have survived.

In that case, how long do you think they looked for him? How long did it take them to accept that he was actually gone? How could they ever know if the Heimerdinger who sacrificed himself for Ekko was their own, or some far-flung variant?

Through Ekko, they could figure out when the multiversal travelers arrived. Would they assume Ekko and Heimerdinger arrived at the same time? Would they try and figure out which of their memories were of their own Heimerdinger, and which belonged to the traveler?

How could they ever know? The songs he sang - were they even his? Which of them were their professor’s, and which were his variant’s?

Does it even matter? I think it does.

I think it haunts them, sometimes.

At least a little.

[multifandomloverthrowaway]

Viktor Was a Wasted Character

(But are we really surprised?)

This is my first post ever on Tumblr so please be nice! This is in no way hate towards any particular character or ship; personally I love Viktor as a character and all his ships, and that’s the main reason why I’m posting this. I also know like no LoL lore, so please bear with me. I’m just going to rant and dump my thoughts out here since I don’t really have fans in person to talk to about this, and it’s really bugging me lol!

That being said, I just watched season two, and after sitting with it’s ending, I do not think that the story told in the season is well thought out, and it can be very heavily seen in how characters are treated both in the show and in the fandom. It’s quite disheartening to see the fandom going through the peak-fandom era treatment of mlm and wlw relationships, and the overall treatment of the characters can be a little trashy. How people see Viktor can be very degrading and objectifying, and the whole ship wars and fallout with JayVik is absolutely disgusting. It makes me feel that many watchers did not fully understand Viktor’s character. And to a certain extent, the writers did not care for it either.

Viktor’s character represents what would happen if a Zaunite were able to become “successful” in the eyes of Piltover. Someone who had the intellect and ambition to supersede the conditions in Zaun and were able to compete with those raised in the “better city”. Thus, the questions of “How did they get to their place in Piltover?”, “What flaws do they have?”, “What is holding them back?”, “What is their experience in Piltover like?”, “Are they accepted?”, “Is there prejudice?”, and “What was their life in Zaun like?” are the core questions that make the character and their arc. This character is particularly important because this is the character that shows that those who are oppressed, no matter how “good” they are, will never be good enough in the eyes of the oppressor, especially if they have faults of their own. Viktor is fundamental to the message of season one Arcane. He helps to complete the story in its exploration of class, social, and political divide by personifying that “what if it could work” gap.

Viktor naturally then must be an internally strong character. Giving Viktor a disability is not just good inclusion, but also a good internal motivator. We as the audience then see that his key goal to help Zaun is not rooted in pity for a former home, but rather the cause of an injustice that he was a victim to. We see his steadfastness in going after opportunities that he thinks will benefit Zaun and humanity, and constant relentless means to get there. This is in stark contrast to his personal life. His deeply rooted sentiment that he must be alone because of his disability, along with perceptions of his disability and birthplace, are why he is a closed person only reaching for science, despite being quite empathetic. They also set up his two main conflicts:

1. He is dying with little time to finish his goal of helping Zaun and humanity

and

2. The people around him want to weaponize his creation into something that can be used against his hometown

These conflicts are where the plot fumbled the character. Firstly, we do not see any ties between him and Zaun other than his illness and that he grew up there. Where are his parents that supposedly love him so much? What is his relationship with Sky, which he supposedly cared enough for to bring out of Zaun to work with him and Jayce? His lack of well developed relationships with other characters other than Jayce hurt his character development from occurring naturally. It’s why Sky’s death doesn’t feel like anything. Despite Viktor seeing her in the realm as a metaphor to his shred of humanity left, his garden dedicated to her, her emblem on his robe, we don’t know their relationship or history in his eyes. (It should have been that they were in at least a friendship. Anything less than that would not fit Viktor’s character.) We don’t see him interact that much with Mel, despite her being his close friend’s love interest. We do not see him interact with doctors or his parents. What other real relationship does he have depicted in the show other than, well, Jayce? The only other is perhaps Singed. How do these relationships play into his self perception, and perception of humanity?

Combining his deteriorating friendship with Jayce over politics and with understanding that his work will be used against him without his credit or his voice should set Viktor up for him to make decisions that will naturally lead into his lore as we know it; to create something that allows him to fix himself and others while simultaneously corrupting him, especially in Zaun. Instead in season two we see that path taken away from him within the first Act after he is fused with magic because of Jayce. This is a pity because it makes Viktor reliant on Jayce’s decisions in a way that is outside of their parallel to the power struggle between Zaun and Piltover and thus takes away from his authority as a character - his decision to fuse himself with magic and machinery to go against Piltover needed to be a result of his decisions and actions, not of someone else and magic!

Giving that narrative decision to Jayce also leaves no organic way for Jayce to come to realize who Viktor is as a person outside of just a “partner”. This is especially apparent during the finale, in which Jayce’s love for Viktor is boiled down to “I love you for who you are”… though that undermines Viktor’s illness, why that illness exists and thus his reason to be a character, and by extension… Zaun’s struggle. And yet, Viktor dies accepting Jayce’s words, despite them undermining the reason he exists! Each time Viktor is yet again denied that choice to be what his character represents. Instead he is used as the crutch to Jayce until the end of the second season. This is also why the multidimensional time travel does not work with Viktor being the mage that gives Jayce magic; Viktor’s destiny is then settled firmly in Jayce’s hands and not his own. They are not soulmates; only one’s life depends on the other’s.

Viktor then, despite having some good foundation, never becomes the full representation that his character could be. We see no growth of his insecurities and setbacks that allow him to make the choice to become who is meant to be. Rather we see that narrative handed to another character who does not fulfill his character arc fully either.

It is no surprise to see the JayVik shippers in this case. Because Viktor is so dependent on Jayce in the narrative, there is no other natural relationship for him. This is despite the fact that Viktor’s sax orientation shouldn’t be of speculation, because in the case of the story, it doesn’t matter. Whether or not Viktor is able to have physical attraction to another person is not the core of his story nor his character. (Which is why his ace designation should not be controversial.) However, that his ability to make meaningful connections with the people in his lives, whether as friends or romantically, is. And we do not see that with any other person but Jayce, who cannot not see him as a full person due to the narrative. Viktor, at his essence, is a man whose agency has been taken from him by the narrative.

The better case in the narrative would have been to let the two part their separate ways after the death of Sky and the council attack, and let Viktor be the tragic hero he was made for. The love between each character that was to have a relationship with Viktor would have been that much more apparent, especially with Sky and Jayce. Then perhaps we would not see Viktor become the “disabled tw!nk whose real relationship could have only been with Jayce because only they truly knew and loved each other” because no. Only they didn’t. Viktor always had so much more, which included Jayce, Mel, Sky, and could have been far more! He just wasn’t given the means to explore it. And not by just the characters in Arcane. By the writers too.

[zeepz-art]

Spoilers for Arcane season 2 Episodes 1-6 ahead, tread with caution:

Also keep in mind everything I rant about here are just my current opinions and concerns, this could change after the next three episodes' release.

Ok.... first of all, never has a show made me sob as hysterically as this one has. The end of almost every episode has had me in tears so intense that I'm sitting there hiccuping oh my god. Like when Vi and Vander hugged at the end of Episode 5, or when the 'Remember Me' flashback happened GOD

The art and animation is as STUNNING as usual holy shit. This show is so beautiful and the visuals are addicting. It's all such good inspiration for fanart and just future artworks in general, it's honestly an artist's paradise and I genuinely can't believe something like this exists.

Anyway, initial gushing and ranting aside, here are some of my... gripes? concerns? about Season 2 for now.

(Please keep in mind that these opinions are not set in stone since the season isn't fully released yet but I still want to rant about them and get it all out of my system.)

Overall the season has been really really good, I am really enjoying it. But I can't help but feel SO confused. Maybe it's the fact that it seems a lot more focused on League of Legends storylines and references this time (I have no knowledge of League lore), but so many of the different plots throughout the episodes have left me so confuzzled.

For example, in Episode 6, it feels like so much happened that was so out of pocket. When Vi runs into Caitlyn, even though Cait was the one who literally left Vi to rot in a hole to continue her quest to kill Jinx, she immediately agrees to stabbing Ambessa in the back and just seems to forget entirely about what she's been doing for the past 2 and a half episodes?? It just felt like her mentorship with Ambessa, her 'relationship' with Maddie, and her obsessive search for Jinx were kind of tossed aside in favor of her and Vi making up.

Don't get me wrong, I love to see them together again, but I'm so confused as to WHY they're back together already. Not to mention Cait's reaction to seeing Jinx again is so tame in comparison to how much she seemed to despise her an episode ago.

Another Episode 6 example: Jayce... What the fuck?

I know we'll probably get context and exposition in the next few episodes as to where he's been and why he's like this, but still, it feels so strange that he went from sacrificing everything to save Viktor's life in Episode 1 and 2 only to show up and kill him in Episode 6. WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU JAYCE PLEASE I NEED TO KNOW WHY YOU ARE MURDERING YOUR POOR WET CAT BOYFRIEND

My other concern with season 2 so far, is that the pacing/storylines and plot feel really fast? it kind of feels like so many plots were crammed into season 2 that they now only last a few episodes until they finish or are forgotten? Like Isha was only there for 4-5 episodes until she died, Vander/Warwick's existence was built up across 3 episodes only for him to die really soon after he was revealed? Vi's breakup era only lasted for a few minutes in a montage? Viktor's 'Jesus' era had maybe 10 minutes of screentime? the list goes on.

I enjoyed all of these plots and storylines a LOT but I wish we got just a bit more time to appreciate them instead of getting emotional whiplash every episode. And that comes from someone who LOVES emotional whiplash.

To be fair though, none of the 'deaths' I'm talking about are necessarily confirmed yet since they're just implied until the next 3 episodes, So I do hope that at least Vander/Warwick is still alive because we barely got to dive deeper into the emotions the sisters must have experienced after seeing him again.

Anyway, Season 2 is honestly still so good it's a solid 7.5/10 for me so far. It has its flaws but it feels unfair to focus on them too much considering the season hasn't even finished its release yet. So yeah I'm really enjoying myself over here and am frothing at the mouth for the next few episodes to come out. Until then I will be curled up in the corner drawing infinite amounts of Arcane fanart to sate my endless thirst for more of this show.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk and thank you for your patience.

[wwillywonka]

two for you, if you like!

🪐 ⇢ name three good things going on in your life right now

🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

hiii thank you so much for the ask!

🪐 - i definitely have a hard time being positive so i'm always grateful to have an excuse to tell my brain to rewrite itself for a while lol.

1. made a new friend recently and we've been hanging out a lot! i've been pretty lonely post-college, and this person and i not only have so many overlapping interests but also happen to be the same ethnicity, and i genuinely don't know how we never managed to meet before this, especially considering they grew up in the next town over. it's been wonderful. we went to a record store yesterday, and i was perusing the soundtrack cds, and my friend goes, "omg i see something. how did you miss it???" and it was the fucking charlie and the chocolate factory broadway soundtrack. my beloathed. and yes i bought it. we also spent the entire car ride talking about mcspirk. really good.

2. i might be (maybe) getting a full time position (hopefully)! i don't want to jinx it, but i've been doing part time work for a bit now and it's finally looking like it might turn into something more! i'm tentatively excited.

3. overall, i am once again just so grateful for all my friends (both online and especially off) in fandom spaces and having the ability to share my love for these stories with others. the star trek fandom especially has been such a welcoming and loving place, and after years of pretty much only being obsessed with very niche things, it's been such a breath of fresh air. kissing you all, mwah!

🍬 - oh god, completely different vibe. i tend to steer clear of fandom discourse unless i feel like a story reaaally messed up (aka the way racism was handled in the newest season of doctor who...), so i don't really like to bash on characters specifically because i know what it's like to be on the receiving end of someone's hatred for your fav. most of my opinions tend to be unpopular anyway a) because my favourite characters are always the morally grey ones who i like precisely because they're controversial, and b) because so many people on this site don't understand nuance. it's just... so frustrating when people can't see beyond their need for a ship to be canon/a ship is the only reason they're interested in the story. arcane, for example, is not only incredibly nuanced, detailed, and, yes, full of morally grey characters, it exists to raise questions about politics and history that intentionally are not meant to be solved in 18 episodes because humanity has been trying to answer them for thousands of years! i agree that the writing felt rushed, but what people can't seem to grasp is that just because a story doesn't answer every one of life's questions doesn't mean it's a bad story. aaaahhh. anyway, sorry for the rant, that didn't really answer your question.

i'll say this: (arcane spoilers!!!)

i think jinx dying was a perfect way to end the story. i literally predicted way back when i first watched s1 that one of the sisters was going to die. i thought vi was going to kill jinx to be honest. it wasn't a cheap ending or a cop out; in the same way silco had to die in order for the story to move forward and for change to occur, the same goes for jinx. the cycles!!! they only end when we find the will to walk away!!!! that line has stuck with me since the finale premiered because it's so goddamn true. what if the people trying so hard to force the world into their own empire just... stopped. why can't they see that it doesn't fucking matter, that all that matters is loving one another and making sure we're all okay. like aaaahhh. change is necessary for us to move on and stop having the same arguments we've been having for thousands of years.

that being said, i don't think runeterra is going to necessarily be a better place post-jinx's death, especially because it keeps caitlyn in a respected position of power and i reaallllyyy hate how much the show makes you sympathise with her. i really don't like her... or vi... aaannnddd that's all i'll say about that because this is not an invitation for people to start yelling at me lol.

anyway!! thanks for the ask and sorry for turning it into an arcane rant lmao

[symeraid-s]

2021 Retrospective Final: Other Stuff

Movies

2021 marked the year where I finally went to the cinema again. Though I didn’t see many movies. I didn’t watch Shang-Chi, Eternals or No Way Home, though I still want to watch Spiderman. I also didn’t watch any of the Disney+ series. So, what movies did I watch?

Dune

I heard this movie adapts what is basically only the setup for the plot of the novel. But if this is the setup, then I can’t wait what the actual plot will look like. It’s simply amazing how they made a three-hour movie not feel bloated. I love how this movie feels and looks, and if the second movie keeps this up, then it might just become one of my favourite movies of all time.

The Mitchells vs. the Machines

This movie was fantastic. Watching a family overcome their problems to save the world was very satisfying and I know this may be controversial, but I prefer this movie over Spiderverse.

James Bond: No Time to Die

To quote my father: “They don’t know if they want to make Bond movies for the people that have seen every movie, or for the 20-year-olds that want some action.” The movie feels incredibly disjointed and the best thing I can say about it is that the scene with Ana de Armas rocks and she should be in more of the movie (and maybe get a girlfriend…)

House of Gucci

This is the most recent movie I have seen, but somehow, I don’t remember much of it. I remember liking Adam Driver and Lady Gaga in their performances, but all in all it felt like a very weak mafia movie. Also, they should have gotten an Italian actor to play at least the father.

Encanto

I actually haven’t watched Encanto yet, but I still want to mention it, because damn, the Soundtrack is full of Bangers. We Don’t Talk About Bruno and Surface Pressure are probably my favourites, but all other songs are just as good.

Normal Pop Music

There wasn’t a lot of pop music this year that I liked. I just really want to talk about two songs:

Ed Sheeran – Bad Habits

This song is catchy. It’s one of Ed Sheeran’s best. The biggest problem holding this song back is that it’s massively overplayed. I think I’ve heard this song like 5 times a day at work.

Imagine Dragons feat. J.I.D – Enemy

Imagine Dragons for me was always Lightning in a Bottle. Either their songs suck, or they are some of the coolest shit ever. This is on the cool side of the spectrum. I don’t think there would have been a better song fit for Arcane and this song really puts the cherry on top of an already great cake.

TV Shows

2021 marked the moment of me finally getting Netflix and with it access to a lot of stuff. Yet, I still rarely use it. I don’t even know why. It’s probably because most shows I want to watch aren’t on Netflix but rather on some other streaming services. But anyhoot:

Arcane

I’m not that interested in League of Legends. Yet, after both my colleague and my sister bugged me, I watched Arcane, and I wasn’t disappointed. Even without having played League, this show is amazing. The Animation is clean (The Micro expressions!!!), the OST is amazing, they even got MIYAVI for a scene, and the story is very well told. Also, a shout out to Ella Purnell who voices Jinx: She’s amazing.

Manner of Death

I already talked about this one, so I’ll keep it brief: It’s a wild ride from start to finish. Max and Tul have amazing chemistry and the plot is suspenseful. Whenever an episode aired, tumblr lost their minds and the next day I ranted to my co-worker, who just listened with a smile (I love him for that, thank you!). It really is a one-of-a-kind experience and if you haven’t watched it yet, please do.

The Witcher Season 2

All in all, I prefer this season over the first. It’s very well made, and Henry Cavill continues to impress as Geralt, but honestly Joey Batey as Jaskier takes the cake in this season. I loved his character so much and Burn Butcher Burn is a banger.

Zettai BL Naru Sekai vs Zettai BL Naritakunai Otoko/The Man who Defies the World of BL

This four-episode show was just way too funny. It’s about a guy realising that he’s living in a BL manga. But he doesn’t want to, so he just tries to minimalize all interactions with guys just to stay straight. This could easily be a homophobic mess, but instead it portrays the main character as supportive. It’s basically one man’s journey to overcome his own internalised homophobia and it’s just very fun and engaging to watch. A second season was announced a few weeks ago and I couldn’t be happier.

[anomaly00-archive]

Happy Storyteller Saturday from @Inky-Duchess and a Very Happy Pride💜 Rant about anything you like. About a character, a storytelling element, worldbuilding fact or anything.

Thanks for the ask @inky-duchess and oh boy do I want to just ramble on about my favorite minor character that makes one singular appearance as a corpse--that’s right, I’m talking about Titania.

Ok, so Titania is basically the catalyst of WCTD. It’s her death that causes Fenice to travel to the capital for her funeral which gives her an excuse to stay (because Dantalion over here suddenly feels really guilty at being an absentee parent to the child of the love of his life, but I digress) at the capital which, well, political stuff, intrigue, yadda yadda. Whenever I referenced Titania in earlier concepts of the story, she was always portrayed as this perfect, untouchable, beautiful being by those who loved her. Which kinda makes sense with the whole ‘don’t speak ill of the dead,’ but just taken up a few notches with Dantalion and Fenice considering Titania as their pillar of strength.

But is she really that perfect?

Titania is considered one of the best warriors of her time, even by Iskaavar standards. The Iskaavar are a group that places much emphasis on strength (any kind of strength, so physical, mental, arcane, etc.), currently led by the absolute monster of a badass, Eliskander. His skill in strategic warfare expanded the Iskaavar’s territory to triple what it used to be and cemented their uncontested control over the Valurian paths which made them unimaginably rich. And Titania is considered to be even better than that guy (like father like daughter, huh?). Hell, it’s basically historical fact at this point that Titania is the main reason why Dantalion won against his siblings’ bid for the throne. Titania helped kill every other rival. 

But as a mother? Titania barely passes. I got inspired by one of my favorite literary characters Scarlett O’Hara from Gone With the Wind. One of the other characters often insults Scarlett by saying that a cat is more motherly than her because of her disinterest in her children. But then again she was barely more than a child herself when she was pregnant and had to survive a war and really anyone would look like a bad mother when compared to Melanie Wilkes. Titania is a bit similar. She’s the kind of mother that will provide you everything you need to live a good, healthy life, all the while maintaining socially distant. She’s been independent for as long as she could remember (it’s hard not to be when you have so many siblings trying to impress your father and one of the first lessons you remember ever being taught is how to properly hold a bow), so she pretty much forgot that children need things other than food, water, and a place to sleep.

Anyway I could go way longer on Titania, but I think I’ll leave it at that for now.

[theemptyquarto]

Abandoned WIP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_____________

The Empty Flat (Mary)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At that moment, the hawker walked into the copse.  

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

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

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

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

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

Apparently I had found one of the latter variant.

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

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

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

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

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

  The Sign of Four (Sherlock)

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

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

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

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

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

“How do you know that?” she asked.

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

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

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

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

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

“And… maths?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Mmm.  Continue.”

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

“What was his profession, then?”

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

“As?”

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

“And his rank in the army?”

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

“Go on.”

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

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

“Yes.  They didn’t find anything.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And what did you do?”

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

“Any reply?”

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

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

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

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

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

“You went to the police again?”

“I did.”

“Any good?”

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

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

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

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

There was no signature or address.

“Did you keep the envelope?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Of course!”

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

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

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

“Hadn’t noticed.”

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

“Very short.”

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

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

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

“She’s adequate.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Right.  What are you going to do?”

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

“Why?”

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

“Er, PTSD?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Sherlock?”

“Yes?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So I haven’t gone mad.”

“No.”

“Not dead, then?”

“Yes.”

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

“Mycroft.”

“Of course.”

“And Molly Hooper.”

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

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

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

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

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

“I need a gun.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ.  Of course you do.”

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

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

He hesitated again.

“Yes.”

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

“Baker Street is being watched.”

“Can we take a cab?”

“Probably.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Have a seat.  I’ll just go get it.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Did Watson say that?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So tell me.”

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

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

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

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

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

“So, his friends.”

“What?”

I sighed.  “Never mind.  Continue.”

[emperorren]

Wasn’t one of your first comments after TLJ was that Snoke’s death bothered you and you couldn’t imagine SW without a major existential Force threat, and then you kind of had to convince yourself that maybe they could make this work with Hux as a usurper? Like seriously Kudos man, you saw that gap in the story for what it was, even if we didn’t know specifics at the time they HAD to bring in some kind of great Force evil. I wonder what other instinctual analyses of yours will be true in TRoS

Yes. I found these tags I wrote back in January 2018:

i do think snoke was dispatched a bit too easily for such a powerful being  (who was apparently either thousands of years old  or having a grudge for the new republic - it's not clear which version is definitive)  the fact that his body didn't dissolve makes me skeptical on the possibility of a force ghost  but maybe the dark side way to immortality is different  either way i think ix needs an element of arcane evil  hux can certainly be an antagonist but he's a bit too mundane  so yes i hope snoke or whatever his malevolent essence is comes back

and also this:

one thing for sure we'll probably get an answer to [is] 'why is the force connecting us'  like snoke is only the superficial answer to that  and kind of a red herring ultimately imo  there's something deeper and more mystical in rey and kylo colliding  and they've been hinting at it since the start  and i hope it comes to fruition (x)

and 

i'm still grumpy about the lack of eldtritch horror big bad menace

and probably many other rants I cannot find, lol. anyway: “I hope Snoke or whatever his malevolent essence is comes back”. And it did. But it wasn’t Snoke. It had never been Snoke. The fatal flaw in my reasoning was that I didn’t have enough imagination or enough trust in the writers to do WHAT THE FUCK THEY WANT as long as it fits the larger thematic heart of the story.

I knew we needed a Cosmic Threat. Because a) Kylo’s final redemption needed a catalyst to happen and b) for storytelling reasons---this is the final chapter of the entire saga, the stakes need to be higher than ever, and there needs to be something that can have Rey and Kylo’s team up in the Throne Room for breakfast in terms of sheer awesomeness. Seriously, “Rey and Kylo team up against a greater evil, the ultimate Big Bad” has always been my wet dream, how I’ve always envisioned this story to climax. And I was shocked and confused that a version of it happened in the second movie and not only it didn’t lead to Kylo’s redemption, but it also wiped the slate clean from Ultimate Big Bads with Force Powers That Can Destroy The Entire Galaxy.

So I was like, “maybe this is more similar to batb than I gave it credit for and there won’t be a real supervillain to defeat, only a mundane asshole who isn’t that important in the big picture but is still capable of posing a threat to Kylo (and Rey)”, and thought that Gaston-like figure could be Hux. But I wasn’t entirely sure about it because Hux works as antagonist in the political/military side of the story, but what about the Force plot? If you have two, TWO!!, crazy powerful force users who WILL eventually have to be on the same side, but no crazy powerful force user to defeat on the evil side, then what’s the point? The narrative would be completely unbalanced.

And I started thinking, maybe Hux starts meddling with the Force? maybe he creates a superweapon that kills the Force? Maybe he gets the KoR on his side? Maybe he finds a way to awaken an ancient cosmic evil, thinking he can harness its power one way or another and use it to dethrone Kylo and make the FO more powerful, the fool, and it backfires?

I guess I got really close to the truth while still missing it. I didn’t think of Palpatine, because I thought he was dead and gone. But I was weak and foolish. It had to be him.

[cherita]

All The New Genre TV Shows This Fall

Remember when summer TV was a dreaded wasteland of reruns you had no desire to watch, even with commercial reminders that "if you haven't seen it, it's new to you"? Fall's arrival signaled not just the start of the best season or another school year, but meant all your favorite shows would return and finally there'd be something to watch again.

The TV landscape has certainly changed since then, now that you can watch most anything on demand (or pirated in a cloud somewhere) and both streaming sites and cable channels produce some often great original shows all year long. Even so, I still look forward to fall TV with giddy anticipation — and with this being such an awesome age for genre TV and film, it's hard not to get excited at what new shows might play on post-Labor Day screens.

When it comes to this season's newbies, it's all about the paranormal and the Marvel juggernaut smashing it's way further into TV. You have an X-Men family thriller-drama starring True Blood's own Vampire Bill, along with two highly anticipated adaptations: Inhumans on ABC, and Runaways on Hulu.

On the paranormal end, you've got funny ghosts and serious ghosts, along with angels, demons, and more. There's also a new Star Trek series for the first time in a decade, and it stars the awesome Sonequa Martin-Green (formerly of The Walking Dead), but... it's only available on CBS All Access, which is like Netflix for CBS stuff.*

While I have to admit I'm not as excited about these new shows as I am for the return of Stranger Things, Mr. Robot or all out freaking war on The Walking Dead, I'll still check quite a few of them out. To help you decide, here are sneak peeks at most of this season's upcoming new genre shows (minus those that've already premiered), plus the return dates for all your old favorites...

Channel Zero: No End House | Premieres Sep 20 on SyFy

Inspired by Brian Russell’s Creepypasta tale, Channel Zero: No-End House tells the story of a young woman named Margot Sleator who visits the No-End House, a bizarre house of horrors that consists of a series of increasingly disturbing rooms. When she returns home, Margot realizes everything has changed. Starring Amy Forsyth, John Carroll Lynch, Aisha Dee, Jeff Ward.

Star Trek: Discovery | Premieres Sep 20 on CBS All Access

Star Trek, one of the most iconic and influential global television franchises, returns 50 years after it first premiered with Star Trek: Discovery. The series will feature a new ship, new characters and new missions, while embracing the same ideology and hope for the future that inspired a generation of dreamers and doers. Starring Sonequa Martin, Michelle Yeoh, Doug Jones, Anthony Rapp.

Marvel's Inhumans | Premieres Sep 29 on ABC

The highly anticipated television series Marvel's Inhumans will bring the fan-favorite comic book series and a new kind of family drama to the small screen this fall on ABC. The Inhumans, a race of superhumans with diverse and singularly unique powers, were first introduced in Marvel Comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1965. Since that time, they have grown in prominence and become some of the most popular and iconic characters in the Marvel Universe. Marvel's Inhumans will explore the never-before-told epic adventure of Black Bolt and the royal family. Starring Serinda Swan, Iwan Rheon, Anson Mount, Isabelle Cornish, Sonya Balmores.

Ghosted | Premieres Oct 1 on Fox

A former LAPD missing persons detective and fired Stanford astrophysics professor are recruited by a secret government agency called the Bureau Underground to examine unexplained paranormal activity in L.A. Starring Craig Robinson, Adam Scott, Ally Walker.

The Gifted | Premieres Oct 2 on Fox

Set in the X-Men universe, the drama unfolds in the mutant-phobic future and follows a family (led by True Blood’s Stephen Moyer and Amy Acker) who is on the run after discovering that both of their teenage kids have mutant powers.

Kevin (Probably) Saves The World | Premieres Oct 3 on ABC

Kevin Finn (Jason Ritter, Parenthood), a cluelessly self-serving person, is on a dangerous path to despair. In a downward spiral, Kevin returns home to stay with his widowed twin sister (JoAnna Garcia Swisher, Once Upon a Time) and niece. On his first night there, an unlikely celestial being named Yvette (Kimberly Hébert Gregory, HBO's Vice Principals) appears to him and presents him with a mission – to save the world. Formerly titled The Gospel of Kevin.

Ghost Wars | Premieres Oct 5 on SyFy

Set in a remote Alaskan town that has been overrun by paranormal forces, the series focuses on local outcast Roman Mercer who must overcome the town’s prejudices and his own personal demons if he’s to harness his repressed psychic powers and save everyone from the mass haunting that’s threatening to destroy them all. Starring Vincent D’Onofrio, Kim Coates, Avan Jogia, Kristin Lehman, and Meatloaf.

Superstition | Premieres Oct 6 on SyFy

Superstition follows the Hastings, a family who's owned the only funeral home and graveyard in the town of La Rochelle for as long as anyone can recall. In addition to providing services for all faiths, the family specialty is handling “afterlife care” for the unexplained deaths of folks at the hands of demonic entities, and other unworldly phenomena that have long haunted the town. The Hastings uses arcane weaponry, incredible strength, mystical alchemy skills, and a deep knowledge of the occult and ancient lore from around the world to quell the evil within the shadows of the town. Starring Mario Van Peebles , W. Earl Brown , Demetria McKinney , Diamond Dallas Page , Robinne Lee , Brad James , Morgana Van Peebles , T.C. Carter , Tatiana Lia Zappardino.

Future Man | Premieres Nov 14 on Hulu

A janitor by day/world-ranked gamer by night is tasked with preventing the extinction of humanity after mysterious visitors from the future proclaim him the key to defeating the imminent super-race invasion. Starring Josh Hutcherson, Eliza Coupe, Glenne Headly 😢, Ed Begley Jr. and executive produced by Seth Rogen.

Marvel’s Runaways | Premieres Nov 21 on Hulu

Every teenager thinks their parents are evil. What if you found out they actually were? Marvel’s Runaways is the story of six diverse teenagers who can barely stand each other but who must unite against a common foe – their parents.

the return dates for your favorite genre shows...

September

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Season 5) — Sep. 20 on ABC

Gotham (Season 4) — Sep. 21 on Fox

The Exorcist (Season 2) — Sep 29 on Fox

Z Nation (Season 4) — Sep 29 on SyFy

October

Lucifer (Season 3) — Oct 2 on Fox

Van Helsing  (Season 2) — Oct 5 on SyFy

Once Upon a Time (Season 7) — Oct 6 on ABC

Supergirl (Season 3) — Oct 9 on The CW

The Flash (Season 4) — Oct 10 on The CW

DC's Legends of Tomorrow (Season 3) — Oct 10 on The CW

The Shannara Chronicles (Season 2) — Oct 11 on Spike

Mr. Robot (Season 3) — Oct 11 on USA

Supernatural (Season 13) — Oct 12 on The CW

Arrow (Season 6) — Oct 12 on The CW

Freakish (Season 2) — Oct 21 on Hulu

The Walking Dead (Season 8) — Oct 22 on AMC

Stranger Things (Season 2) — Oct 27 on Netflix

November

Glitch (Season 2) — Nov 28 on Netflix

Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams (new anthology drama series) —  Nov TBA on Amazon Prime

*And now, a small rant coming in 3... 2... 1... WTF CBS? Why does every media company and their mom feel the need to start a subscription streaming service of their own? As I have yet to claw my way into the 1%, I'm not able or willing to shell out $6 a month for CBS content WITH COMMERCIALS STILL INCLUDED, and I'm sure as hell not going to pay $10 a month just to get it commercial free. Not even for my beloved Sasha. And I really wanted to support her new show. 

But there are too many other things you can get for $10: a Netflix subscription, a movie theater ticket (well, almost), 2 venti frappuccinos, 3 In-N-Out cheeseburgers, or anywhere from 1-10 ebooks. CBS is not movie-filled Netflix, nor is it HBO. And with my cable subscription I also get AMC, FX, and USA — all of which have better shows! So, dear media company executives: please put your pipes down, or at least kindly stop filling them with hallucinogenic substances. These aren't books we're talking about here, nobody needs nor wants all of these limited streaming services! /rant

So, how do you feel about subscription streaming services? 😂

More importantly, what shows are you looking forward to this fall, SFF genre or not?