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#also... hey... maybe instead of enabling stuff that has toxic relationship stuff in it like giving it 3 movies... maybe ya shouldn’t do that
mouse-fantoms · 3 years
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*screams in at least make it make sense*
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Numbers don’t be adding up here
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canary3d-obsessed · 4 years
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Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 08 first part
(Masterpost) (Other Canary goodness)
Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!
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Rabbits
The Jiang kids have some quality time with the rabbits. Initially Jiang Cheng says it’s wrong for gentlemen to hold rabbits, which is definitely in no way related to gay-rabbit-god symbolism, but changes his mind when he discovers how fun men rabbits are to cuddle. 
Jiang Yanli says, in a moment with zero foreshadowing, that if they take one rabbit away from the others, it will miss its family and be lonely. Also if a rabbit were to watch from the rooftop while a mean enemy rabbit poured wine on the corpses of its parents, that would be extra upsetting. For a rabbit. So let’s leave all the rabbits where they are. Check. 
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Speaking of cute fluffy creatures that are upset, we see this distressed look on Wei Wuxian’s face kinda often when he’s talking with Jiang Cheng.  
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There are some sibilng relationships where you will always do anything to help each other because you survived a shitty childhood together, but as adults you find you don’t actually share values, and that your interactions are kinda toxic -- for both of you. This seems like one of those. 
Even though he’s younger, Jiang Cheng is in the role of the elder sibling who is being abused by the parents, and is handing the abuse on down the line to the “younger” sibling, in the form of constant criticism and casual hittings. Wei Wuxian isn’t actually younger, but he is lower ranked because he’s not a blood relation, and he gets plenty of parental abuse as well. It’s...not a healthy family. 
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(more after the cut!) 
Lan Wangji has been lurking nearby during this conversation, and after the Jiangs leave, he looks at the rabbits and says farewell.  He clearly means farewell to Wei Wuxian, or else he has a really unhealthy level of yearning being directed toward the rabbits. At least, for a vegetarian.
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Uninvited Gusu Guest
Lan Xichen is meditating, and because the Director of Photography loves us, we get a bunch of nice closeups of his exquisite face. He hears a noise thing and tells Wen Chao to come in, which results in a dire bird scream and Wen Chao’s muddy feet intruding on his day. Why did Wen Chao bring the bird with him? He’s trying to be sneaky, right? So...ok whatever.
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Wen Chao acts like a dirtbag and menacingly reminds Lan Xichen that his didi just hit the road all by himself. Lan Xichen gets so upset he curls his fingers slightly. His beautiful, beautiful fingers.
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Is it slapping time yet?
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Road Tripping
Fortunately for the Lan brothers, Lan Wangji isn’t going to be alone for long. Wei Wuxian is determined to follow him, and where friend-maker Wei Wuxian goes, an assortment of other helpful cultivators will soon follow. 
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Wei Wuxian leaves a note to say “I’m running away from home with the hot boy I met in summer school” and signs it with a smiley face, the dork. Jiang Cheng is angry, as usual; Yanli has confidence in Wei Wuxian, as usual, and Jiang Fengmian is autocratic and doesn’t explain what he’s thinking, as usual. JF is aware of the Yin Iron, however, so he may understand that WWX will be useful in protecting it on the road.  
Lan Wangji has changed his hair, upgraded his crown, and put on the most absurdly beautiful outfit of the entire show to go on a solo road trip totally without any hot infuriating boys. 
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Quick, Lan Wangji, catch this callback to that time you rejected my advances back in Gusu! This time Lan Wangji catches the offered fruit and keeps it, presumably to consume furtively when he wakes in the dead of night, restless with unslaked thirst for Wei Ying. Or, you know, to have with his lunch while they’re riding on the boat. 
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This is a level of synchronized walking-with-shoulder-contact that would make the Guardian boys proud. Lan Wangji is all touchy feely now that he’s out from under the eyes at Cloud Recesses. 
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He also has upped his troll game, actually smirking after he says “boring” to Wei Wuxian’s declaration of I’m-gonna-come-along-you-can’t-stop-me. 
He also...doesn’t seem angry? Like, he is still seriously on edge, but it feels like he left the boiling rage at home.  Lan Xichen is right; having a friend IS good for Lan Wangji. And for whatever reason, Lan Wangji is ready, now, to accept Wei Wuxian’s friendship.
We Rate Birds
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Wen Chao has the weirdest fucking pet. This bird has a resentful energy problem, obvs, but it also seems to be invisible except for resentful energy, but it leaves random feathers behind at places, and then when Wei Wuxian kills it, it’s a regular bird corpse with a little smoke. “Imbued with Yin Iron energy” seems to be the explanation. But Nie Huaisang said they see a lot of these in their neck of the woods. Did he mean “just a regular bird” and didn’t notice the billowing black visual FX? Either way I want to see a nest full of baby dire Yin birds, I bet they’re hideous cute. 
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Wen Qing has a new outfit and an elegant fiery golden crown. There’s probably some plot stuff happening here. Wen blah blah Yin Iron blah blah. She’s so pretty. I love her ears and her cool double hair parting. The girls’ hairlines are always nice and soft, presumably because they get to wear their own front hair instead of a lacefront like the boys are glued to stuck with. 
I Call it Bondage
After the fun they had in the ice cave, it’s only fair that Wei Wuxian gets to have a turn tying up Lan Wangji. 
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One of the fun things in clipping The Untamed is that the show’s editors generally didn't drop any frames when they intercut the various scenes, meaning that some longer shots can be spliced back together by removing the other camera portions, as with these two string-pulling bits.
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Lan Wangji totally lets Wei Wuxian put a leash on him, quickly declaring it boring and taking control of it, pulling Wei Wuxian along behind him. 
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Incidentally, at this stage about half of Wei Wuxian’s talisman’s are blue. After he loses his core, they are 100% red, but nobody notices that. Well, maybe Nie Huaisang does because he notices a LOT, but nobody says anything. 
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After they play around in the field for a bit, Lan Wangji’s magic bag of plot advancement goes off, sending them to Flower Town. 
He’s Leaving Home Bye Bye
Meanwhile, at Lotus Pier, we get a nice view of the rooftops. I’d hate to be the guy whose job it is to hang up bells and tassels at any of these places. 
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Jiang Cheng sneaks out to go join his brother’s road trip. He gets caught, because his idea of sneaking is to walk out the front door in broad daylight and leave the door open behind him. 
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Jiang Yanli tells him to go ahead, though and he scampers off to have...the last carefree fun of his entire life, actually. Sigh. 
Flower Town
Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji go to Tanzhou and immediately run into Nie Huaisang, because sure, why not. China’s not very big.
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Lan Wangji’s startle response
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Wei Wuxian’s startle response
Nie-Xiong and Wei-Xiong are delighted to see each other, once Wei Wuxian explains that Lan Wangji isn’t there to bust them. 
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While Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang squee over each other, Lan Wangji ...tries to deal with that. His reaction is probably a mix of jealousy and social anxiety. This town has got to be overwhelming for him after the order and quiet of Cloud Recesses; he even admits--aloud!--that it’s too crowded for him at one point. Add in his boyfriend’s travel partner’s number one enabler, and it’s not a comfortable situation.
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Oh great now they’re going to want me to get high and make out with them, ugh
However, with Lan Wangji in the mix, the Nie-Wei dynamic shifts away from mischief making, and they very quickly become a friend trio sharing a serious purpose. When Wei Wuxian, in his second life, refers to NHS as “that old friend of ours” when talking to LWJ, he’s not wrong. Nie Huaisang and Lan Wangji become friends during this trip, and arguably remain friends, within the limits of Nie Huaisang’s revenge remit. 
From one point of view, Nie Huaisang is grown-up Lan Wangji’s very best friend (not counting his eventual husband). Everyone in the cultivation world knows what Lan Wangji’s heart desires most, after Nightless City, and Nie Huaisang gives it to him. By, uh, manipulating a crazy guy into ritual suicide. Hey, no gift is perfect.
Continued in Next Post! Soon!
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kinncman · 3 years
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A LIST OF PLOTLESS TOWN RP-FRIENDLY CHARACTER IDEAS & CONNECTIONS INSPIRED BY MOVIES! (PART 2)
once again, you can obviously spin any of this in any way (platonic, romantic, familial) etc, and not all of these are the exact plots of the movies they are referencing so pls don’t @ me i am but a lowly translator of ideas.
click here for part one.
content warnings for: drugs, food, hospital, light implications to a toxic former relationship
THE LAKE HOUSE // basically, the lake house except nobody is a ghost and everyone is from the same year <3 muse a is an architect who has been living in The House they built. for reasons utp, they are forced to sell it. muse b is the buyer. muse a can’t let go of the house so even though the title has been transferred to muse b, they keep making excuses to visit The House.
LIGHT SLEEPER // muse a is a former drug addict whose job is delivering drugs to high-profile clients. muse b is their ex and also a former drug addict, with whom their relationship fell out bc of the drug abuse. they coincidentally meet again in a hospital when muse a visits a regular client of their boss who OD’d and muse b’s mother is in for chemo/other intense procedures. muse a and muse b reconnect. they both confess that they are now clean and sober. muse b doesn’t believe muse a since muse a admits that they still work for their old boss, but muse a insists that they haven’t used in years. muse b, on the other hand, is a successful business person who’s really cleaned up their act and is nothing like the person muse a knew before (i.e. a Mess TM). despite the feelings that they hold towards muse b, muse a knows that they should keep their distance since they are the reason that muse b started using in the first place and they wouldn’t want to throw any progress away. HOWEVER, fate seems to keep bringing them together in the most inconvenient places and when they least expect it the most; they allow themselves to indulge in old habits (sex, not drugs) even tho they know they’re totally bad for each other. just when they’re starting to become regular fixtures in each other’s lives again, muse b disappears for weeks on end. as it turns out, they were the one who was never clean and sober to begin with.
PHANTOM THREAD // muse a is a highly-renowned fashion designer / artist / photographer who meets muse b and decides that they want them to be their muse (after already having had a string of former muses). being invisible all their life, muse b accepts this new role— however, to muse a’s dismay, they are nothing like any muse they’ve had before in that instead of having their muse wrapped around their finger, muse b has them wrapped around theirs. great for exploring shifting power dynamics!
GRAY MATTERS // (originally a familial and queer relationship but hey whatever floats your boat) muse a and muse b are siblings (or best friends could work, too). muse a gets engaged to muse c and muse b is their maid-of-honor / best man. because muse c and muse b are the two most important people in muse a’s lives, muse a makes them spend the week before the wedding together bUT OOPS muse b realizes that they have feelings for muse c and they share a drunken kiss which muse c instantly forgets about in the morning??? which is #awkward because 1) MUSE C IS MUSE A’S SPOUSE-TO-BE and 2) MUSE B NEVER REALIZED THAT THEY’RE NOT STRAIGHT. so now they’re trying to deal with coming to terms with this newfound attraction that never thought they could have with the same sex on top of trying to decide whether or not to remind muse c of what they did that one night (since they seem to have zERO recollection) and come clean to their sibling / best friend.
LONG SHOT // muse a works for muse b, who is a very powerful exec / influential artist / whatever. muse a is very much infatuated by muse b, who thinks that they are way out of muse a’s league. muse a reveals that muse b used to come over to muse a’s house to babysit them (because lbr, even tho the the age gap might not be that much, a 14 yr-old will be paid to watch over a 10 yr old). what happens from there?
VELVET BUZZSAW // muse a and muse b are rival art curators / music producers who claim that they are the ones who have rightfully ‘discovered’ muse c. muse a and muse b then go through great lengths to try and win muse c to sign over to them. muse c has no plans of defecting to either sides but decide to string them along for the perks (and for the attention). great for exploring a kooky triad of frenemies or a polyship.
PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE // muse a is a painter / filmmaker / photographer who is tasked with relaunching muse b’s career. muse a thinks that muse b is a brat. muse b thinks that muse a is full of themself. 
I’M HUNGRY, I’M COLD // you might wanna try and watch it here first, it’s v short! muse a and muse b are best friends who’ve been on the lam for a long time (for reasons utp) and are now broke bc they blew up all their funds on life’s little pleasures. maybe they start conning people? maybe they try to get a dozen dead-end jobs at once that they suck at so they keep going back to square one? either way, they must decide whether or not they should finally face the music and go home. or maybe they just need to find the means (and a reason) to stay in their current town, and fast. 
BABETTE’S FEAST // muse a is formerly the head chef of a michelin-star awarded restaurant who is now working as something else. muse b had one unforgettable (for sentimental purposes, reasons utp) meal in said restaurant which, unbeknownst to them, was cooked by muse a. the two meet in the current setting, several years later, and become friends / lovers / etc, with muse b sparking muse a’s interest in cooking once again. muse a cooks The Meal™️ for muse b, not knowing what it means to them, and muse b finally recognizes who muse a is as they are flooded by memories of that night they first tasted the dish.
CIGARETTES & COFFEE // muse a and muse b are newlyweds who are in town for their honeymoon. however, things go awry on day 1 when muse a blows it all on some stupid, petty thing (in the original, they blew it on a game of craps in a casino when they’ve neVER played craps before and muse b is fuckin LIVID it’s just hilarious and sad) and their relationship is immediately put to the test when they have to figure out how to scrape money to get home (but also maybe kind of fall in love with the place??? and decide to start their family there??? idk) 
SUCCESSION (this is a tv show but this particular dynamic is just too damn good not to include) with a little bit of THE PANIC IN  NEEDLE PARK // muse a and muse b come from rivaling families (for whatever business, but they gotta be high profile). they meet while theyre trying to be lowkey doing ~~normal people stuff and instantly click despite their families’ tumultuous history, but have to keep their relationship (platonic or otherwise) away from the public eye to avoid raising suspicion from the critics. they think they can help each other’s recoveries by being in each other’s company but all they do is enable each other, further destroying not only their lives, but their families’ reputations as well. 
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apprentice-nylah · 5 years
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Now that’s I’ve unlocked Nadia’s reverse ending, I’m going to to a first impression and recap post about it. I’ve read about the general gist of what happens and I’ll tell you right now, I already know I’m going to hate it. But hey, that’s what reverse/”bad” endings are in otome games and I don’t really get everyone being like “omg the reverse endings are so bad.” Like duh? That’s the point? 
I unlocked the upright ending first and that recap post can be found here. 
I do talk about this ending a little in comparison to the upright ending, so there are spoilers for the upright ending in this first thoughts. Just a heads up if you haven’t read anything about and don’t want to be spoiled for it. 
- ok, like I said, I know I’m going to hate this, and may end up hating Nadia in this specific crossroad in her route, but damnit I want to experience it for myself and maybe cry myself to sleep tonight. 
- Ok I know that killing Lucio probably shouldn’t be considered a good thing, but honestly when he begs her to wait and she’s just like “why should I” my monkey brain that really doesn’t like Lucio is just like DO IT DO IT
- oh so Lucio though he was becoming the Devil, not one of his lackeys?
- yes, that. that sounds like an idiotic idea, even for lucio. Like did he really think that would work?
- yep, there’s that “if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself” thought process that’s so destructive for Nadia
- uhm.. i mean to be honest in the reverse ending, the apprentice encourages stuff like that so “he got what he deserved.” I guess
- bind the devil. yeah that seems like.. not a great idea
- honestly, I’m not going to lie, after all the choices I’ve had to make to get the reverse ending, it’s so hard conceptually for me to believe that Nadia still loves the apprentice in that ending, though intellectually I know she does (knowing what she does at the end of the route doesn’t help this either)
- yeah Nadia becoming the devil. A part of me thinks that’s incredibly hot, but at the same time, it’s just so bad. Especially after the upright ending
- I do wonder if she became an Arcana, what would happen to her connection to the High Priestess
- So weird for Valerius to be the voice of reason lmao
- ugh. my upright ending brain wants to say “there’s always a choice.” but I suppose playing in character to this ending ”I’ll support you.”
- “let me help, please.” 
- ugh yeah, I already hate it
- I’M THE FOOL baby. 
- again, unconditional loyalty and trust without knowing what is to come... especially given what got us here, I’m super sketched out by that, even knowing what’s to come 
- “let me prove it to you.” o dear, what have I gotten myself into
- While I’m obsessed with sweet, loving Nadia, dominating Nadia is still like... so hot
- “anything you want.” 
- to be honest, its like, they’re playing “if Nadia becomes the Devil, you’ll never see her again.” but then “after everything is over, she’ll give you the world and more.” and those two things just seem.... wrong
- “to be yours.” 
- But. Nadia finally marking the apprentice is sexy
- walking on water. that’s... cute.
- oh. the dogs and they look... pissssssed
- oh no. the high priestess. I’M NOT READY
- yeah, i’m going to hate this
- seeing them fight makes my heart hurt
- also, Nadia saying she’s the only one she can trust is also just sad, because it implies that she feels like she can’t trust the apprentice either, especially when in the upright ending, she relies on the apprentice a lot
- “you’re not foolish” (even tho u fucking are Nadia)
- ugh, letting valdamar and vulgora attack the palace, especially after kicking their asses in the upright ending again, feels bad man. 
- “don’t give up now” though i know this is fucking real
- seeing her bitter at her sisters is also so sad. because we know they genuinely love her lots
- ugh ok i knew that was coming and its still so bad
honestly, that wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. People actually made it sound like offering up the apprentice came out of the blue and she was betraying the apprentice without any rhyme or reason. While I still hate it, I think I kind of understand what she’s doing. 
Like, I honestly hate the toxicity of her relationship with the apprentice if you get the reverse ending. Because if you get it (like you make the choices you have to make to get it), it basically implies you’ve been enabling her rather bad habits and frankly, some self-destructive behavior. Yeah, there are domination parts that are really hot for me, but at the same time, the idea that she’s so isolated and alone that while she says she loves the apprentice, she still treats them like kind of a possession is just sad. Again, especially in the upright ending where the two are engaged and are on equal footing with one another and they’re just so in love and Nadia seems happy. Whereas the reverse ending, she just seems frustrated and angry all the time. 
Anyway, like I said at the beginning, I really don’t get people who are like “omg the reverse ending is so bad.” It’s considered the “bad” ending for a reason. It’s arguably not necessarily bad, but it does certainly amplify Nadia’s bad/less desirable traits, instead of boosting her positive ones like in the upright ending. 
I also don’t really feel hatred towards Nadia for this. I know I was reading some people saying be prepared to maybe hate Nadia after her reverse ending for what she does at the end, selling the apprentice out to the Devil. But again, we don’t know what her plan is. If she indeed has one. And she has been saying she does. 
What I think I hate more about it is that she’s actually so hyper-fixated on what she feels is saving the world by becoming the Devil herself, that she forgets the people in the real world she has to protect. And also knowing in the upright ending that there is another way. That becoming the Devil isn’t “the only way” it just makes her train of thought less realistic, though, given the context, it makes sense why she thinks this way. Idk, it’s just hard to square the two when you’ve played them both. To be honest, if you have a choice, I’d recommend playing through the reverse ending before the upright ending. Because having the upright ending context then playing through the reverse ending just makes every decision in the reverse ending seem actually stupid. 
Idk. the upright ending is certainly far superior as far as Nadia stans go, but I do think that the reverse ending does have some valuable insight to Nadia’s character and some of the Arcana lore and is worth trying to obtain and play through. 
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withacorkscrew-blog · 7 years
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Sherlock: The Lying Detective
**Sherlock analysis/spoilers below**
In which some people don’t understand what makes villains villainous, what makes characters human, and the difference between love and disaster (or style and substance). 
And in which, again, “some people” does not refer to Sherlock Holmes (mostly).
Also ft. the id!fic I very specifically asked to not ever see, and sadness. 
Starting with the easiest bits, going towards the hardest. 
Does this give us an arc? The return of Billy. The return of Irene Adler. Appearances by Mrs Hudson and Molly and Lestrade and Lady Smallwood. Redbeard, too. The return of a whole bundle of visual motifs: Sherlock’s case wall, Sherlock’s violence towards his case wall, an almost replica of the shot following Irene Adler’s drugging of Sherlock, Sherlock’s deduction with the window and the attendant visual affects, Sherlock’s juvenile wit with the Bollocks map, Benedict Cumberbatch seeming to infuse a certain amount of joy into the role again during Sherlock’s breakdown...a lot of old favorites returned to the show this week, and it felt good. In the moment. But, at least to this point, those pieces don’t feel like they fit together. The underlying logic that would unite them isn’t there. It could be! What if Billy had given Sherlock some of the memory drug? Or what if Mrs Hudson and Billy were in cahoots to get Sherlock the least damaging drugs since, as she points out, her husband was a drug dealer? What if more of the characters interacted with each other? Or did more than their professions, since we get Molly doctoring and Lestrade detectiving, and none of the cohesive human interactions that make the characters feel like more than props? But none of that happened. Maybe the next episode will create that, but at this point It isn't betting odds imo. Not impossible, but not looking great,
Do Mofftiss understand what makes villains villainous? Culverton could have been brilliant political allegory and a psychologically haunting villain. The idea that power creates opportunities for deadly, consequence-free callousness couldn’t be more timely for either European or US audiences. The idea of a rich, powerful man who takes joy in removing people’s agency, who will discard their lives for fun, and who gets away with joking about it on TV...well. The problem is that Mofftiss don’t understand the psychology of marginalization and precarity well enough to understand why that’s a horrific scenario, what’s at stake, how it feels to face down a power that can hold your life in its hands and decide what to do with you based on a whim. They’re closer to being that power than being subject to it (and that’s one reason why this story would’ve been better told in someone else’s hands). That terror is what would’ve made Culverton work. Instead, we get close-ups of his teeth which, like Magnusson’s face-licking, were affectively gross, but not worth more emotionally then a perfunctory wince, and that does more to tell us more how Mofftiss feel about ugly people than it does to establish investment in this nemesis or Sherlock’s victory over him. Reducing him to a fallible, clownish, one-off villain is a waste, and the lack of understanding is telling and terrible.
Did Mofftiss mean to write the TV equivalent of id!fic? Powerful middle-aged white men who make veiled confessions on TV can get away with murder. Are they even trying for subtlety? I mean, I figured that was just my own reading, but then the back to back “It’s amazing what people will ignore if you’re rich and powerful,” and “With this, I could crack America.” The TARDIS-esque hospital room wallpaper and quick shot to aliens on Culverton’s lot didn’t do much to put me off either. I can no longer tell whether this is self-aware wink-wink nudge-nudging, a total lack of self-awareness, or subconscious leakage. But has anyone checked their airing cupboards?
Do Mofftiss understand what people mean about strong women? Cue maniacal laughter, because we already know the answer. It’s just particularly disappointing in this moment, when these twists could have been really fucking cool. Mrs Hudson is a confident badass and there’s a Holmes sister? That would be brilliant! If it was done brilliantly! So...it isn’t. As much fun as I had watching Mrs Hudson - and it was a lot, until the unease set in - it was so far out of left field I almost hurt my neck trying to look for its source. This is the same Mrs Hudson who jumps at loud noises and cries while being tortured by Americans and can’t tolerate being yelled at by Mycroft - and she’s dodging gunshots and strategically dropping things to handcuff violent drug addicts and convincing the lads downstairs to stuff them in the boot of her sports car? I bought that she might hide a phone in her robe, that sort of matter of fact bravery. I bought her deduction to Mycroft and that she would kick Mycroft’s men out to preserve John’s privacy and emotional space. I’ve long bought that she was exceptional in a number of ways. But put all that in a classic mid-life-crisis-mobile and add a dose of violence, and I’m not sure whether I’m looking at a Mrs Hudson or a retired Bond Girl. I am pretty sure this isn’t the Mrs Hudson we’ve seen before. And Euros...the first thing we learn about her is that she uses her appearance to deceive. The Holmes brothers work on intellect and emotion. The Holmes sister? Straight to feminine wiles. Her first big reveal doesn’t center around her mind; it revolves around the audience watching her recreate a seduction and begin to undress. It’s as though Mofftiss can’t conceive of “strong women” beyond the femme fatale trope and that’s really limited. To say the least. I want to know what Mrs Hudson listens to on the radio and why. I want to know how Molly decides what to make for lunch and what it was like for her to realize who her boyfriend Jim was. I want to know how Irene Adler learned to adminster tranquilizers. I want to know how Donovan felt about Sherlock’s death and how it is for her working with Lestrade and Anderson. I want women with interior lives, with interests and motivations and relationships that don’t revolve around men. Kind of like all the ones I know in real life. 
Who are these people? I’m losing track. John is becoming a superspy, thanks to his internal marylogue, and making some very Sherlock-esque deductions, especially with that happy birthday at the end. He also can’t forgive Sherlock, even though he forgave him a faked death and a two-year-long disappearance, but still has chats with Mycroft (who he has to tell to stop calling?), and is hallucinating his dead wife, who he never really seemed to like very much, and also, in the midst of that, completely rolls with the fact that yet another person who he thought was dead is not actually? Sherlock was abstracted and  distant in the last episode, and in this one he’s half killing himself to provoke John into rescuing him and giving mini-speeches about how death affects people and confessing that he’s afraid of dying and admitting that he texts Irene Adler back and talking about how he has the terrible feeling that we might all be human and holding John in a soft embrace? Mycroft is calling John all the time and flirting with Lady Smallwood and letting information about Sherrinford/Euros slip out accidentally? Lestrade is unconcerned with Sherlock’s well-being? Mrs Hudson is treating central London like Thunder Road? Who are these characters, and where did they come from? And who will they be next week? 
John and Sherlock - what? This meta going around suggests that John has become abusive. Watching the episode, I wondered if Sherlock had. He self-harms as a form of manipulation, he tests John’s loyalty in all sorts of ways, he makes unilateral decisions about what’s in John’s best interest even when that puts John in danger, he puts responsibility for his well-being on John’s shoulders, he condescends to and belittles John regularly, he lies to him, hides things from him, he faked his own death for two years and abandoned him while there were dozens of other people who knew...while the aforelinked meta makes some great points, Sherlock’s behavior isn’t exactly healthy. My point here is not that Sherlock is the abuser, though. My point is that their relationship is deeply, dangerously toxic, and I’m not sure how, or whether, I can keep rooting for it as either a romance or a friendship. My instinct in watching their interactions is that these are two people who have been so deeply hurt by each other that there’s no coming back, no real possibility of trust and good faith. That doesn’t mean there isn’t also love there, or that there couldn’t also be forgiveness, or that there can’t be moments of connection based on their shared history, in which they try to keep being the sources of support and understanding that they once were to each other. I don’t think, for instance, that their hug was unrealistic. But I also don’t think it was a moment of great support and reconciliation so much as a moment of convenience and/or last resort because, as Mary points out, they don’t have other options. That’s not love, platonic or romantic; that’s codependence. And I can’t imagine a scenario in which they would still be able to have a genuinely healthy relationship. For that matter, I can’t imagine a scenario in which they would be able to have a relationship that’s anything other than mutual enabling. If there’s anything to grant here, it’s that they might both want to be in an mutually enabling emotional conflagration; they’ve both got self-destructive streaks a mile wide, and this way they get all the pain and someone else to blame for it, and humans are complicated. And hey, who knows who they’ll be next week? But it’s not a thing I, personally, can hope to see more of. It’s not a thing I want to watch. It’s not a thing that makes me care for the characters or their relationship. With my last reserves of caring about either of them, I no longer want Sherlock and John to be together, in any capacity. I want them at a good distance, preferably with therapists who aren’t villainous family members in disguise. 
And then there’s the show’s treatment of their feelings for one another, which I am too tired on too many levels to even touch with a damn bargepole.
Where does this leave things? If John and Sherlock - their relationship, their teamwork as partners in crime-solving, their interactions - are the heart of the show (which I think they are), and John and Sherlock have both become so destructive to themselves and each other that their relationship, in any capacity, is one I want to see continue - what’s left? 
This episode gives an answer: flash. There were moments that were genuinely exhilarating. Seeing Mrs Hudson play the badass, the reveal of a Holmes sister, the recurrence of ‘Miss Me,’ Benedict Cumberbatch’s joyfully unhinged drug-addled attempts at case-solving...it was exciting to watch. Stylish, quick, colorful. Empty. And a bit sad. This show was great because it was tight and interesting, because the characters were relatable, because viewers’ attention was rewarded. It was never the flash that made it. When the flash is most of what’s left...that’s not much. 
tl;dr:  :( 
Things to watch:
They’ve introduced a technology that can alter memories; on a show based on deduction and intellect that could be an exceptionally powerful plot device. Was it a one-off, or will they manage to make use of it? And if so, will it be as a weapon, or as someone’s choice? And who gets to decide? Or has it already been used?
See also, the trailer for The Final Problem: “Every choice you’ve ever made, every path you’ve ever taken, the man you are today, is your memory of Euros.” “Your memory of” is an interesting choice of wording, especially since the memory is neither so strong nor so recent that (an admittedly drug-addled but still very observant) Sherlock could recognize her in multiple disguises and on multiple occasions.
Potentially related, Sherlock is intrigued by what drugs do to his mind. Will that become a profitable line of inquiry?  
We keep seeing Redbeard, and it’s clear that that’s important. Is Rebeard an abstract representation of something? Did Euros kill Redbeard? Or is there some parallel there - Sherlock was told they both were sent to live on a farm? Sherlock has confused (or been made confused) one with the other? 
When Sherlock and Mary get shot, we see the bullet in slow motion. When Euros shot, we saw a wisp of smoke, but no bullet. Was it a blank? 
Sherlock not having recognized Euros will probs be a thing too, so therefore a thing to watch, idk.
The female detective who appeared briefly in TST, only to disappear again - was that a character who will recur, sloppy continuity/disposable women, or Euros?
What or who is Sherrinford? Another sibling? A location? A code name? 
What the hell was going on in the Holmes household? 
We still don’t know who sent Mary’s CD. Who? Or is this a continuity issue? Or is the explanation that Mary already knew it was going to happen, which I would roll my eyes v heartily about? 
Who will all of the characters be next week? (It’s an adventure!) 
Random thought: There was a person of color in this episode!  Just pointing it out because that doesn’t always happen. As is, of course, to be expected in contemporary London, where everyone is white. Good times, good times. In addition to all the words spilled on this show’s sexism, perhaps we should dedicate some to this show’s casual racist erasure.
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Notes from the Underbelly
On my introversion...Well, first off, I feel I must insert the disclaimer that I am treating this blog as parts of my autobiographic manuscript, a loner’s manifesto of sorts. Four years ago, I had a blog here and a surprising amount of followers. Today, I don’t care if anyone sees this, well maybe one or two daring souls because feedback is sometimes nice. I will have to learn how to correct my typos and add flair later but for now, it’s 2 am and I’m on what I call, “manic menstruation mode,” it’s where I can’t sleep and often have rapid cycling thoughts, sometimes scribomania (example being here). 
I recently realized a month ago that I am avoidant of people. I hide if I hear my neighbors opening their door at the same time or walking down the hall. There is an urgency in me to not be seen. I think it stemmed from hiding from my Father during his famous rages. He was one for emotional cannibalism and I was trimmed of all the fat I could give. The image of young Jenny from Forest Gump (minus the molesty part) was me. There was no incest but what took it’s place was an emotional predatory incest (a family that fed on itself). I was always on the lookout, always dodging, always in trouble and made like a tree, with no sudden moves. 
I realized that I’m hiding from the world because it was ingrained in me that I was not safe in it. I must be a cataclysmic, walking catastrophe with orbs of negative energy encircling my aura. Well, at least that what the education my Father ushered into my life. I try to connect if it’s that I feel that I should not receive attention or acknowledgement because I reside in the shadows where I was appointed. My neighbors to the left of me violate a lot of the home association’s rules and the main lady of the house would bug eyed gawk at me. She has a mole on her chin that most would depict on a witch. She scared me once in the laundry room when she appeared, silent as desertion, glaring and moving her head in an orbital half rotation, like adjusting the aperture on your camera she zoomed in on me and freaked me the fuck out. The whole family walks as if you live in their dominion. The Dad would pollute his cigarettes like confetti and leave openings for non residents to sneak into the property (I live parallel to an alley with a lot of drug activity and schizo’s doing tae kwon do to the wind and banshee shouting their ails). One day the lady’s granddaughter left a non sensical note on my door and I showed it to the lady. She then ordered the girl in, with no time off for redeemed behavior (little girl vandalizes and has a booming boy voice that’s never ends). That was when the family backed off from me, because now they figured, I had something on them, confirmed. All their suspicious, hyper vigilant paranoid gazes now stopped but after all that, I still avoid seeing them again and I race to the elevator every time a neighbor parks at the same time I do. I’m a single person, surrounding by these rule breaking thugs who stuff immigrant family members in their house like a Christmas stocking and ride the Welfare system, with continuos hand outs and pay a rent of 1/4 of mine for a 2-3 bedroom because they have a family size of +1 !!!
Anyway, this plays into my attachment style too. I have a “pre-occupied,” attachment style. I’m not sure what that means. I interpret it to mean that I usually see myself through the eyes of someone else (my therapist calls this co-dependent). I’m also a therapist and say, no, while I do have co-dependent traits, I don’t enable behaviors and don’t exist for other people, even though the servitude I was force nominated into (with being caretaker to my Mom who is in a toxic masculinity relationship, to which it became physically abusive) would tell you otherwise. Maybe I was primed this way and it gives me a special skill set to work and serve the underserved and wounded but since career takes up the same amount or more of your sleep life, wouldn’t that be a set up for someone like me to date and attract client like material? Don’t get me wrong, I’m a consumer to mental health myself. I would like to eliminate the use of the word, “disorder,” and replace it with something more accurate like, “Hey, change your neuroplasticity and you’re good to go!” or deficit, deviate _x_ amount of degrees to left on negative side of spectrum (well there’s that word, negative). I don’t know, I can only speak for myself and it does’t sit well with me to be, “disordered.” It reminds me of musical chairs, fun game sifting and shifting and sorting through a line up of people, till the seat is pulled from under you and now you have added the disorder, when the system involved chaos. 
Either way, this is not to identify myself as a victim. I noticed that when people leave (like in a job) and they were one of the many people that I could connect with on a deeper level, I suffer the loss. I actually mourn them. The landscape changes and suddenly, my job becomes something I’m reporting to instead of engaging in. I don’t take well to change but change has it’s way of making you adapt, whether you’re ready to or not. This is another reason I hide. The people that instilled life in me took off and so I feel abandoned for something better and I feel empty, not as filled as when they graced the campus with their presence. I work on de-personalizing things and de-sensitizing myself. I’m afraid I don’t have it down to a science yet. I operate in two extremes, 1) You’re in my line of view or 2) You’re not. I guess that can sound arrogant, cold or detached but I’m none of those things. On the contrary, if I like you, I can exude too much, I can be too giving and attentive and devote and it can be off-putting. Once I have tried in relationships to the point of where the person amputated my feelings for them, I can’t come back. For example, if I give people, “another shot and then another... well one of us ends up metaphorically dead.” As in my romantic relationships. Once I tired and gave it my all and the person activates on the cycle of insanity (dong the same thing over and over, expecting different results), I may still love them but it’s an altered love, a frugal one that used to see the as a full and bright picture and now they are dimmed and dusty. I don’t like this in me. Like a Borderline, I can idealize and devalue a person. It just goes back to my boundary and limit setting. If I’ve put in too much effort an practically carried the relationship, I might build resentment so week one of, “trying to work things out, a.k.a the end times,” might have me making up excuses for their behavior, softening up their unaccountability and putting in the work to land at solutions. Week 2 or 3 rolls around and I lose interest (thanks AD/HD) and feel almost taken advantage of, victimized because my efforts were not enough to prevent the relationship from suffering. I attribute this thinking pattern to the role my Mom put me in. From the age of 14 to 17, she vented and justified my Dad’s abusive behavior, I would sing her praises and raise her self esteem to where it should have been, only to her going straight back to him after all the work I put in (yes, I was parentified). Here was a women, eldest of 8 children who incessantly complained of a robbed childhood, doing the same to her daughter. SO yes! I have issues with trusting women because like my Mother, many girls who confided in me repeated similar patterns and I just dropped the drama entirely. I hide from girls now. I was raised with two brothers. My older brother raised me and I raised my younger one because t.v. took precedence to everything for my Dad who was supposed to be watching us while his wife worked two jobs to sustain her suburban life with her material possessions. 
Because my older brother was funny, drew, liked Legos, He-Man, GI Joe, Thundercats and all things cool, I confided in him. I even jumped in his bed when I couldn’t sleep (Star Wars sheets). I idolized him. He was protective over me (we had neighbor boys and I had the biggest crush on the one that was his best friend). The one that was my age came off as a sissy and was babied by his Mom who wanted a girl but stopped attempted after 3 boys. I loved my older brother. People thought we were twins, like, “Escape to Witch Mountain.” He was alpha. He had the toys, he had the baseball cards to trade and the Lacoste shirts to tote. The boys flocked to him and I was in there with that cluster. Boys haze you. I was hazed into being accepted into their group and they would give me the girl figurines even though I really liked Boba Fett. I had to watch some chubster get to play with him, while I got Scarlett or Teela (of whom my brother ironed off her tits for some reason). In this sense, I became alpha, as a female within groups of alpha men or what they would coin, “One of the boys.”
My younger brother, consequently had the misfortune of having to succumb to being beta (being 8 years younger than my older brother). Now, my younger brother could kick my older brother’s ass. He’s like cross fit craze buff and he emerged as a strong, silent type. A lot of my care giving and maternal side comes from my interactions with my kid bro. Subsequently, this rolled into my relationships too. I am in the middle, always, odd one out. I can be with an alpha but they can be the meathead variety or I can go for a nerd beta, who’s muscles are literally atrophying and complain when a grocery bag is a scotch over 10 lbs. Ideally, a glance would be both, right? We are supposed to exercise our female and males sides but how often do you come across that in society? So what am I attracted to? Anomalies, misfits, people at a house party not wanting to be there as much as I don’t, rebels, freedom fighters, civil justice warriors, hippies, etc. That is just the personality base, there is the looks factor and intellect and humor and ability to be emotionally intelligent and literate. Yeh, basically, a unicorn. Interestingly, I feel like a unicorn so I’m sure my tribe is out there. A lot of posers and people passing off things as, “love,” “honesty,” etc. So, I acquiesce. I stay in a fortitude of solitude. I don’t see it as hiding, and not necessarily avoidant. I see it as, I gave you air time, you gave me an impression and vice versa. I only dip/duck when someone has hurt me or shown themselves to be someone I can’t respect. Even then, I’m polite. The conundrum I’m in is that I don’t like to be so visible but sometimes, I want to be seen and sometimes it can be one right person and sometimes any contact can fill in and it’s right. I do feel exposed and I guess I feel the world is not a safe place. I’m trying to connect the dots between my fear and what lies underneath it. Like an introvert, being around people depletes my energy and then I have to recover on my own. Sometimes it’s because they are takers and sometimes I just need to raise my vibrations around people I am grounded with (that’s about 3 people I know and one lives in Sonoma, the other 2 came to mind but are probably best left in the past) so that leaves me and this is why I am a lone wolf. I have a low threshold/tolerance for bullshit and I read energies and see behavior and experience it and well, I instead flee and that’s my way of dealing with it. 
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