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TASKMASTER’S INTROS: ↳ Sian Gibson

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Taskmaster S08E03

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in every single Lynley/Havers fic i’ve read, is see the idea that Barbara was in love first, maybe even from very early on, and carefully hid her feelings for years. I agree that that’s very plausible, especially since it’s the first time she’s had such a close relationship with anyone – and especially since that was true, not because of a genuine disinterest in people, or an emotional incapacity to connect with people, but because of furious defensiveness and deliberate self-isolation out of shame over her circumstances. And i do see plenty of evidence to support that reading.

But I do think there’s room for another reading, too. I’ve gotten up to S4 E1 in my rewatch now, and I honestly thought it seemed like Lynley was noticeably enchanted and utterly charmed by her, while Barbara was completely oblivious to it. And while this is a controversial thing to say, I don’t think she thinks of him in romantic terms at all. Buried feelings or not, it’s simply not part of her consciousness to think of Lynley in anything but in the context of friend and partner, or that he could think of her any other way. Or that anybody else could give it even a moment’s thought either, for that matter. It just doesn’t occur to her. If it had occurred to her, she would have put up a great, scrupulous protest to the multiple, successive way that Lynley puts her right in the middle of things with Helen. Barbara’s deep and easily triggered reaction of resisting trespass in regards to her personal life/personal issues would have driven her into real outrage if it had occurred to her at all that she was being put in the middle.

I don’t know if that apparent indifference or obliviousness was because Barbara has decided that love and romance are For Other People, Nothing To Do With Her, so there’s no point in examining her subconscious feelings, or if her feelings really are friendship and partnership based. But the whole issue, her own feelings (if they exist), and Lynley’s startlingly-obvious-to-everyone-but-him infatuation, does not seem to be on her radar. Not just decided it was too impossible, not just deciding that in spite of her feelings, his awful behavior towards Helen didn’t make the risk worth it, but that she hasn’t consciously considered the concept at all. At least that’s the sense that I got.

I mean. you really could read it either way. But I really think it would be an interesting narrative if it was Lynley was the one who was openly interested and in love and lolloping along after her like some kind of outsized, besotted and melancholy hound, while Barbara is largely baffled and tolerant…. but eventually warms to the idea.

Maybe i’ve just been reading too much Wimsey lately, but that really appeals to me. And i think there’s a lot in canon* to support it.

#lynley x havers

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@ clive: can you stop sleeping with people who are not martha costello? thank you

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take me back to the start

Coldplay - The Scientist

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I do believe that (tv show verse) Tom loved Barbara within like 6 months of working together, while having no conscious perception that the intensity of his fascination with her meant anything other than 'hmm, my work partner is an interesting complicated person isn't she, of course i want to spend 95% of my time with her. for interesting work reasons, certainly' and that Barbara was like 'so you're a little intense, please go play with Helen instead, I don't understand why you're crowding me, I am a sexless and emotionally disastrous object, obviously you don't see me as a woman you see a puzzle and I don't see why you're always under foot, if you're acting insane it must be because you love Helen so much,' and she maybe had some lonely, abandoned feeling twinges when Tom and Helen left on honeymoon -- which led to that whole seaside mild stalking disaster. But Barbara did save his (and Haddiyah's) life at great expense to her career! And that maayy have given Tom a little nudge in the feelings realization department, though not really, and then Barbara almost resigned thinking Tommy wanted her demoted, (when really he'd advocated for demotion over firing her completely, which were the only options) and he put 'Barbara is leaving and Helen is pregnant' on the same level of 'upsetting and unwanted change' in A Traitor To Memory, but he still doesn't seem to Get It.

Meanwhile Helen clearly has realized some things, with the "It would be one thing if you were having an affair with her" line, feeling unwanted and inferior in Tommy's priorities to work and his partnership with Barbara -- she must see that when Barbara's there to talk to she fades into a kind of background idea for Tommy, he's really kind of awful to her and he was throughout their relationship, I've never understood why she agreed to marry the guy giving her the yo-yo treatment like that!

But I do think that Tom sticking by Barbara's side after the shooting rather than following Helen, who clearly told him where she'd be if he'd really wanted to reconcile and grieve together and rebuild, that decision and that sense of his own priorities must have finally shaken something loose for him because he spends s4 and onward following Barbara around with big adoring eyes and seems fairly aware that he has some big non-platonic-work-partnerly feelings for her, though he seems to see himself as too much of a mess and an emotional liability to do anything about it, especially considering Barbara's volatile and easily wounded nature. He knows he can't just casually treat Barbara like he did Helen (and thankfully seems aware he shouldn't have treated Helen like that either) so he just wanders around in limbo between guilt and longing.

and I'd kill for an AU thru s3 and 4 where Helen confronts Tommy about his feelings for Barbara directly instead of hinting, forcing things out into the open. It would have been in character for her as a profiler and psychologist, the only reason she didn't is probably because EG is wildly against Lynley/Havers in a romantic sense so Helen was written without significant awareness of the top spin the BBC writers and Nathaniel Parker and Sharon Small were putting on the central relationship 😩

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WATASHI NO OYOME-KUN (2023) — episode 7

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WATASHI NO OYOME-KUN (2023) — episode 8

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did not see this coming 🤣🤣🤣🤣

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WATASHI NO OYOME-KUN (2023) — episode 2

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Then, in the end, what do you want from me?

WATASHI NO OYOME KUN Episode 5, sub credit: DramaClub

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Ultimate Ship Challenge ✳ 1/5 Heartwarming Scenes

↳ You don’t need a king. Any knight can make another knight. I’ll prove it.

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— Sarah Ruhl, Eurydice

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Ultimate Ship Challenge ✳ 1/5 Power of Trust Scenes

↳ You would fight beside him? I would. I trust you with my life. If you trust him with yours, we should let him stay.