#he’s a little more adjusted to that reality in s4 (though not completely)

[cowlovely]

there are so many character things that i really want them to delve into in st5, but i feel like the whole season is gonna be SO plot focused since it’s the last one and stakes are so high. fear!

#ivy.txt #stranger things #especially because like. i don’t even know how much of the character stuff is on the duffers’ radar #like i! desperately want some character work for mike in s5! #i would love to maybe come back to the painting….like he’s been agonizing over it because something feels off but he can’t exactly #figure out what…and then he has this gut wrenching realization that he’s NOT the heart of the group anymore #he’s not the same person he was when he was 12 and he’s not sure exactly when that happened #i want to see him mourn his childhood a little!! #i kinda want like…the inverse of what we see with will in s3? #will was clinging so hard onto childhood and had his breakdown about it and then he kinda. started to move on a bit! #he’s a little more adjusted to that reality in s4 (though not completely) #whereas i feel like mike was in such a hurry to grow up and be taken seriously. that he didn’t really realize everything he’d lost/given up #and like!!! that’s just mike!! that’s not even touching on stuff i want to see explored with steve or nancy or robin or whoever else #i just. genuinely don’t think we’re gonna cover it all! #i think the best i can hope for is that we at least touch on SOME of it y’know? 😭

[ramblingaboutglee]

Do you have an opinion about Blaine’s character and how they changed him each season?

If this blog has proved anything, it’s that I can ramble, so here we go. 

Watching Glee independently of fandom was... weird. There are a lot of times I delved into fandom after and saw some plot point that I’d loved and found a perfect culmination, actually considered out-of-character or some such. From what I can tell, S2 was such a huge point in-fandom and with fanfic that the fan interpretations of a lot of characters ended up superceding the characters as they were on the show (take Will Schuester getting retconned to Journey superfan in one episode, when in S1 Journey was sung because of its association to Finn when Will wasn’t leading the group, so the show was clearly aware of what I assume are fandom jokes esp in regard to Will not listening to the kids and willing to play it up, and it did seem to happen at a few points). 

All that to say, with Klaine being as big as it was, I feel like Blaine got hit with that harder than most? How much was writers responding to some fandom-takes, how much was the televised version of the character departing from the fanon iteration, and how much was retconning is hard to say.

So, to go season by season. 

Whoops sorry, yeah this is going on for a while. 

Originally... Blaine didn’t really have much of a character? Season 2 was very bare-bones on the character front, they’d shifted the show’s focus to what was almost a sketch comedy at times so everyone was just one or two traits ramped up to insanity with little cohesion, Blaine existed solely in relation to Kurt, and he was ‘advice-giving gay kid, who’s less experienced than he lets on.’ (Like, he’s less sure of even his sexuality than Kurt). That was it. But I imagine this was also the time fanfic solidified him in a lot of people’s minds, when a lot of it wasn’t reflective of who Blaine was on the show? Especially with his minimal arc being presenting himself as more wise and knowing than Kurt, when at the end of the day this turned out to basically be an act/how he presents himself, and him being just as capable of misreading situations (Gap attack) as anyone. But if you read fic when you’d only seen him in his element with all the Warblers at his back and none of the layers being peeled back, I can see that messing with perception of him.

Season 3 defined him more clearly as a hopless romantic and a dreamer, both making more sense of his character, and fitting in with the themes of the show. The optimist who sometimes does questionable things in the name of that optimism, but trusts that things will work out well. Cliche views of sex, overcoming odds, romance... Which justifies his previous characterisation, though cracks start to show as he adjusts from being a big deal in the Warblers, to The New Kid. This carries on to season 4, where he faces he consequences of those aspirations, and acknowledges that switching schools for a guy is, well, a romantic idea in a storybook but kinda ends poorly in reality, following on from his alienation as well when the New Directions aren’t as in-sync with him as the Warblers were. Cue Blaine going from basically the head of a gay cult show choir in a private school with strict no bullying policies, in regular contact with his boyfriend, to alone in a homophobic less well-to-do school. He made the decision out of cheerful, unrealistic idealism, and it ended up the way it inevitably would. 

Which is when the meta element comes in again. Blaine is definitely acting different in season 4, but he’s also existing in a different context. For me, at least, it felt like natural development? He’s the hopeless romantic who feels like he can’t relate to his boyfriend, because Kurt’s graduated high school and moved to NY, Kurt has a completely different life and set of life experiences to Blaine. Heck, the fact Kurt ends up in an open relationship in S4, while the end of his dynamic with Blaine was down to him sleeping with someone else says a lot. Post high school, Kurt’s development is necessarily supercharged because that’s just how life goes once you’re out away from home for the first time, S4 was admittedly too overstretched to fully justify it all, but the fact that the NY cast had to adjust to a massively different context was one of the conflicts of the season. Blaine, meanwhile, is still in McKinley. Still in Lima. Unsurprisingly, he lags behind, and feels that pressure. 

Season 5 I guess is where we get weird? 5B, at least the New York stretch, follows on from the above well - post-graduation, Blaine is still the romantic, still tries for things with Kurt, and they definitely chafe a little to begin with when they try to completely jump into living together fresh after barely having gotten back together, and it clicks as a good follow-up to where they were. They have to get to know who one another are now, after massive transitional points in their lives. 

5A is, okay, tricky. The proposal fits who Blaine was - the same guy that swapped schools for Kurt, the impulsive romantic - but after, Blaine gets a gimmick every week, but then every episode of 5A was a different gimmick every week (then again, the same can be said for S2 where Blaine originated so hey) so it’s hard to say much about character. You have him befriending Tina and Sam, with all the crushes there, some stuff I am not touching, but it sticks out as well that Blaine does tend to stick with what’s familiar to him. But yeah, this is the bit where it feels like Glee dropping consistency for set pieces and jokes. 

S6 then sweeps in to conclude the arc. Obviously a big recurring element of Glee was characters finding themselves, deciding who they are and what they want to be, and Blaine gets matched with Rachel in this regard - he ostensibly gets a big success, but it doesn’t last, and he’s back doing nothing with no lodestone. So he does the same thing she does, and returns to his high school for the familiar atmosphere - and picks the school where he felt the most comfortable. One arc later, and his big song with Kurt for the finale includes the line “The daydream believer and the homecoming queen,” and I’m just assuming there are, like, a hundred klaine fics with that exact title.

Okay so, after all that. I don’t feel like Blaine necessarily changes at his core? At least for me, the arc’s easy to trace out - he’s a dreamer, a romantic, an optimist, who figures problems are easy to solve and that things will work out the way they do in daydreams. Reality challenges that at a few points, it hits him hard, and he loses both his Warbler-fame and Kurt and does start to spiral as Glee characters are wont to do. He definitely develops, but the core seems pretty consistent. 

Glee is really consistent with making characters question what it is they want, and whether it’ll make them happy. Like, basically every character has to go through that arc and come to their own answers. Rachel has her Broadway dreams and ends up struggling with the reality, Quinn has basically everything in regards to what she perceives as the ‘proper’ way to live her life, Kurt has his Broadway dreams especially with the limited roles for his range of voice... For Blaine, his dreams hit a similar beat, coming with the storybook idea as to how his relationship will go, solving someone’s problems with a few words (with Karofsky - a failure), being the wise mentor, grand romantic gestures that end up being bad ideas... 

Though I guess the oddities stick out more, with S2 and 5A as seasons with different focuses meaning you’re getting the same character in functionally a different genre which is always messy, and the vibe I get that fandom had a solid conception of who Blaine ought to be, before the end of S2? 

This was probably too long a reply, but hey. 

Overall, my opinion of Blaine is... relatively neutral? Which is no reflection on him - as much as I can make jokes about a lot of dynamics, I’m most attached to the characters after graduation just because, well, I watched the show as an adult. Unavoidably, they’re the ones I find more relatable. So barring characters with really solid inherent hooks (so, Quinn) I can enjoy the high school drama, but none of the characters immediately stand out to me - so Blaine works at a disadvantage with less than a full season’s length graduated. (Equally, to be honest, the seasons where Blaine felt like more of a presence, 2 and 5, were also my least favourite seasons, which definitely isn’t down to him but it does hurt his character, for me). I like his arc, Klaine is obviously fun, I like their dynamic as exes awkwardly navigating one another too sorry. He isn’t someone I hugely thought about because out-of-fandom he was a fairly secondary-to-tertiary character a lot of the time, but I like his development and he has some good arcs. I like how he goes full circle, from playing the part of a mentor in S2, to actually gaining the experience and confidence to fill that role by the end. 

Thanks for the ask! And, er, sorry

#Glee #Blaine Anderson #Klaine #Glee meta #Ask

[citrinekay]

What are you predictions for season 3, and what would you like to see happen? Anything particular in terms of Holden and Bills character development?

Oh, good question! I’ll try to answer this as to what I *realistically* want to happen, not what my fanfiction brain wants lol

Predictions: 

The big question mark at the end of S2 is obviously Bill and Nancy’s relationship. I don’t see them reconciling, and I find it far more interesting for them to follow just how a divorce would affect Bill personally and also Brian’s future. I’m sure everything with Brian’s situation would complicate a divorce and custody agreements. I’d also just like to see more development of Brian in general since he represents that foundational aspect of the show which is nature vs. nurture. Are killers born or made? And at what point in a person’s development can an intervention be made to stop them from progressing into something worse? I think him being taken out of that nuclear family environment and thrown into the emotional instability of his parents separating would really increase that pressure. At the same time, this might be a wake-up call for Bill. He might not be able to save his marriage, but it might persuade him to try harder to be a better/ more involved father to Brian. (Not that he doesn’t already love his son, but he openly admits to Nancy in 1x7 that he has trouble connecting emotionally to Brian.)

As far as the BSU is concerned, I think they were really angling towards bringing Jim Barney into the team in S2 so I would love to see more of him! There’s a whole chapter in the Mindhunter book about Agent Jud Ray (who I believe Jim is based on) and how he was one of the first black agent in the department. Wendy’s initial conclusion about his race interfering with the study was obviously proven wrong in the Pierce interview when Jim makes more headway in the conversation than Holden. Atlanta was the big case that really launched the BSU in real life as well, and I imagine they will be much busier between interviews and requests for consults so they’ll need additional help in S3 to keep on track with the study! 

Cases I’d like to see them work on the show: The Trailside Killer (irl, John Douglas predicted that the killer would have a severe stutter! That chapter of the Mindhunter book was so fascinating to me because he explains how he got to that conclusion and makes it sound very simple when in reality it takes someone who is extremely skilled at studying behavior to predict such a thing. I can just imagine Holden laying that out in his profile and all the locals going 😮😮😮) Robert Hansen (he abducted prostitutes in Alaska, took them out into the wilderness, and hunted them like wild game with a rifle. The police actually got his name from a victim who survived and it turned into more of a cat-and-mouse game to actually prove he was the real killer rather than a whodunit!)  Larry Gene Bell (he killed a young woman named Shari Faye Smith and then proceeded to call her family and torment them for days before revealing that she really was dead.) These are all detailed in the Mindhunter book, which I totally recommend if you like the show and are interested in the psychology of profiling. I would also love to see them at some point get into the Green River Killer, but I think that would come later perhaps in a possible S4 or S5. That was the case during which John Douglas fell ill with encephalitis that nearly killed him and almost ended his career with the FBI. I can see them leading in that direction with Holden’s panic attacks and his disillusionment with his own beliefs/techniques, but I think a gradual build-up towards something so drastic would make it even more interesting!

As far as character development is concerned:

Holden: For him to question his techniques! We see the parallel of the dirty shirtsleeve in the end of 2x9 that hearkens back to 1x1 in which he’s questioning their procedures so I think it’s a natural conclusion that he might be wondering whether he is doing the right things or following the right logic. I would also like for them to go more into the panic disorder storyline (which they completely dropped after like 2x3 😐) Another moment I found interesting from the Mindhunter book was that Douglas was both censured and given a commendation within months of each other for different things that happened with the Atlanta case. He admitted it made him question his role within the FBI and whether or not they actually valued his work - a point which comes up again later with the Green River Killer and his encephalitis. Basically, he was so overworked (almost 150 cases at one time) that he was stressed out to the point of illness. Holden started out with that “blue flamer” mentality and I would love to see that broken down and turned on it’s head a bit. Of course, it goes without saying that I want him and Bill to fix their relationship and be close friends again. I know them arguing is good for tension and drama, but I miss the days when they shared good-natured banter and worked together seamlessly 😞

Bill: like I mentioned above, his family situation is going to be a trial by fire. He’s been married for a long time, and says that he doesn’t know what he would do without Nancy. How would he work through the divorce? How would he adjust to bachelor life? How would the stress of that situation affect him in his work? I can see a lot of repressed feelings, anger, and sadness in his future :( He isn’t one to talk about his personal issues at work or complain when it’s becoming too much. I would love to see his friendship with Wendy continue to be a lifeline to him during a difficult period. And obviously, for him to repair his relationship with Holden. 

Wendy: For her to get back with Kay!!! She’s such a pro at studying human behavior, but Kay was right in the break-up scene - Wendy’s issue was with herself, not Kay. She judged Kay for the kind of person she has to be to her ex and her son, but is also keeping her identity as a lesbian separate from her work. She needs to work on herself a little bit before she can revisit that relationship. Even though she was out in Boston, I think she still has issues with her sexual identity that she needs to resolve and find peace with. I’d also like to get more backstory on her. We know virtually nothing about her aside from her past in Boston. It would be pretty cool to see her back in interviews, too. I’m not sure if Ted would be down with that or how it would happen, but I loved the two interviews we got with her. She’s so brilliant, I want to see her in action more often 💕

aughh sorry this got so long!! lol I could literally go on forever, but I’ll stop right here. Thanks for the ask 💕

#I could write a 3k word essay on holden alone lol #mindhunter #Anonymous

[spiftynifty]

VLD Rewatch: Season 3

For a half-of-a-half season, season 3 packs quite a bit in and sets up a lot of plot. This shouldn't be surprising; Voltron was laid out as three 26-ep seasons, with each season bringing a new big bad and new theme. Season 3 is our beginning of the Lotor arc and there's a lot of setup and... a lot to unpack here.

For those who are still in "can't do it" mode about rewatching the series (which is fair), here's a quick summary to catch you up:

Shiro has been missing for (it's kind of implied) months. Without Shiro, Voltron and the group are fractured, especially with Keith's deep grief over losing Shiro preventing the recruitment a new Paladin.

Ultimately, Keith takes up the mantle of the Black Lion, Lance moves to Red, and Allura gets Blue. The group is clumsy and outmatched by Lotor and his generals who are definitely Up to Something. Keith tries to play leader and it's a bad look when he's making decisions via grief escapism. The team gets briefly trapped on a foggy wifi-less planet, discovers a bizarro alt-reality where Alteans rule the universe and Shiro is Swedish and doesn't mind Slav, and trails after Lotor and Co who have made off with the reality-breaking comet from Svavland.

Meanwhile Shiro escapes the Galra again, catches up with Voltron, shares a couple lowlit intimate moments with Keith while also awkwardly undermining his authority and jeopardizing the safety of the team, but no one suspects a thing.

Oh and there's a flashback episode about the OG paladins that I'll be honest I skipped since it turns out literally nothing that happened in the past is relevant to the present day and our only major revelations are that we (and Haggar) learn that she was once Honerva, Zarkon her husband was once kinda adorable, and turning evil swaps out your voice actor. Oh and Honerva had a cat who may or may not be as old as Haggar and potentially still kicking around.

Let's talk about season 3.

There's good and bad to be had with this season. Originally when I began my rewatch of the show I wanted to do it as though I were watching the season for the first time. Season 1 and 2 made that astonishingly easy; of all the seasons they seem the most confident about what the show is and what it's going for. Season 1 is for the mild setup and world building, season 2 is for the character building, relationship building, lion building, and problem resolving. Season 2 is arguably the show's strongest season overall so it's a tough act to follow. Season 3... makes an effort.

The good of this season is really good. Keith's grief over losing Shiro surprised and moved me the first time I saw the season and I was impressed with how long they held onto it given the show's habit of moving on pretty quick. Keith's grief holds the team back and endangers it; his early insistence on going after Lotor felt like a way to channel his anguish and maybe get a little revenge for his loss. Keith got one of his most significant character boosts in season 2, and following it through in this season sets up a complicated Keith that we will see for seasons to come.

The other good is Lotor. Lotor is handsome and charismatic and devastatingly cunning and is a polar opposite to his Saturday-morning-cartoon-villain dad. Zarkon was threatening, but Lotor is INTERESTING and his "wait and see" approach makes us the audience want to wait and see what he's up to. His band of generals are intriguing and colorful and I love the variation of their designs and personalities.

And of course, we can't talk about the good stuff in season 3 without discussing Shiro and Keith's relationship. Season 2 gave us some really fantastic growth and moments and entire episodes between them, but Season 3 brought a new level of intimacy that definitely bumped it up a notch. From the slow-moving reunion and closeups of only Shiro and Keith's faces, to their quiet moments alone in dimly lit rooms. This season gave us "as many times as it takes", which remains one of the most beautiful little exchanges between the pair in the whole series. The jury is still out on whether or not Sheith was a hopeful intention by the creatives on this show or just an incredibly happy accident, but looking at some of the decisions made in 3x05 and 3x06 especially lean more to the former. These scenes are more bittersweet now knowing how it all ends up.

There is a lot of setup for future things in general, and this is where it becomes difficult to separate what is in s3 with what will be by the end of s6 (and beyond) because some things we just can't unknow. It was really interesting to see how things that made me very hyped after this season now take on a bit of a disappointing and even bitter flavor because some roads really don't go anywhere. Lotor's mysterious plans for instance, only seem to get more mysterious, as do his allegiances. He spends most of this season clearly toying with the Paladins, clearly prepared to destroy them or let them destroy themselves, but later he sides with them and the Paladins seem pretty quick to forgive this and assume he's a good guy now. Lotor's "side" is never clearly established since his goals never are. The Lotor in s3 is interesting by virtue of the assumption that we will eventually learn all his secrets. But we never do, and that definitely for me taints him as a character.

Speaking of some mixed character motivations, s4 reveals that Narti was either a spy for Haggar the whole time or that Kova was, or both, and yet in season 3 Haggar sends a goon off to spy on Lotor. Even in Haggar's private moments she seems unsure of what Lotor is up to so this later reveal that she was aware the whole time is an odd one and still left very vague.

Similarly, major problems arise with Shiro in s3 but only via the hindsight of s4-6. Everything about the way Shiro is brought back into the fold in season 3 is highly suspicious. From a narrative standpoint I want to say it begins with Sven as foreshadowing, an alternate-reality Shiro who looks JUST LIKE SHIRO but is NOT SHIRO. Unfortunately I think this was less of an audience wink and more of an excuse to nod to the original Sven. But Shiro's Journey opens with scientists doing tests on him, Shiro's pupils dilating to the sound of camera lens adjustments, and Shiro literally seeing a dead-eyed copy of himself on a slab. The words "Operation Kuron" are repeated at least three times as the Galra let him escape. When Shiro meets the two aliens on the ice planet and they accuse him of being a traitor, Shiro protests, "I'm not a--" and never finishes. He does pilot logs into a Galra Cruiser as he tails Voltron. And that's just in one episode.

The next episode has him repeatedly undermining Keith's newfound leadership position (a position Shiro repeatedly encouraged Keith into in s1/2 to Keith's great reluctance), to the point of talking over him and shouting at him. He dismisses the safety of the team for the sake of the mission; something that goes expressly against the team Voltron way of doing things (Kolivan details this in s4) and is completely against Shiro's nature. It felt manipulative to me the first time and it still feels off when at the end of this he privately tells Keith "I'm sorry I had to step in back there", referring to Keith's failure (which was not a failure) and then in the next breath "you're good at this." This was the topic of many a heated debate when the episode came out but from my end there is just no way to see that the man presented here is Shiro and not an insidious clone.

There's a term for this that I forget where the storyteller essentially gaslights the audience for no real reason. Ultimately we will come to know that this is Shiro. A little more short-tempered but ultimately a good boy and not the potentially fully aware evil clone that season 3 hints at. It's bad writing; and the reason that it's bad writing is that the audience is privy to very little more than the characters are when it comes to Kuron and yet the characters are not in the slightest bit suspicious about the behaviour that we the audience sees as suspect. We end up gaslighting ourselves because of bad writing, only to learn that we were right the whole time. And genuinely, speaking as someone who loves all Shiros dearly, Kuron is a whole walking writing disaster. But more on that as we get further into the season.

I don't love the episode, but the Comet episode is a surprisingly adult-oriented one and presents an interesting flip to things and an intriguing hypothesis that I wish had been explored better, or longer, or something. As I've said 100x before, Galra aren't an inherently evil race; they're the result of a 10,000 yr universe takeover. This episode suggests that Alteans are no better, and the broader implications of this are massive and should have offered a much bigger fundamental shift in the characters and the way they viewed this war. In particular Allura, who previously immediately turned against Keith the moment his heritage was revealed, despite having become good friends with him. Her learning that her own people aren't immune to "absolute power corrupts absolutely" is a moment that is not given any real weight or consequence . This is a letdown especially since this potentially weightier-themed episode was self-aware enough of that weight to be the only episode outside of the Voldemort season to show imagery maybe a little too old for its younger audience (the repeated shot of the mummified Altean scientist).

From a production standpoint I noticed a lot of little things. There were a number of hookup issues; some hilariously drawn bg characters, some compositing that worked and some that decidedly didn't. Some of the editing was a little rough in places and some of the timing of things felt very off. There were some jokes that ran long and didn't land and threw the pacing off or stole time from other things. The editing on the Comet episode was particularly off and the characters were visually difficult to track at times. Also, there is definitely a different/longer version of the "As many times as it takes" scene even if it only exists in script or maybe board form. All of the Shiros in that scene were drawn by Ryu, who was often tapped for revisions (particularly for Shiro and Lotor). But the Keith in that scene is not a Ryu Keith; and Keith's "Well--" in "If you're feeling up to it" sounds like two lines spliced together. Ryu's fingerprints are all over 3x06 in interesting places; I definitely spotted his artwork in at least one shot of the Galra post leader and I think a Zethrid. He drew a few of the short haired Shiros as well. I think this episode underwent a number of changes; I remember too that Lance exclaiming "you're looking better" was originally Keith's line. At the same time we get little nice superfluous animations like the foreground gecko. Just a lot of inconsistencies.

Overall it's still an alright season but knowing what's coming means I just don't love this season the way I used to. The little moments that rock still rock but a lot of plot pawns were pushed forward that were ultimately just discarded. I can't wait to see if finishing the next 3 seasons will retroactively bump this season back up to where it once was in my heart. 

#voltron #vld #vld rewatch

[possiblyimbiassed]

What happened to Sherlock? Part V – Bizarre Scenarios

I think it’s time for another monster post in my meta series. :) I might have said that I’d try to make it shorter this time, but somehow I got carried away... ;). Which is not that surprising, actually, since today’s topic is something I could go on and on about; there’s an infinity of stuff to explore in the show from this perspective. Anyway, you can find the earlier parts of my series below:

Introduction - The game is on (explains the method of analysis) Part I - Blog vs TV-show Part II - Re-living memories Part III - Drugs and weirdness Part IV – Heartbreak and coma (1) Part IV – Heartbreak and coma (2)

So, this fifth installment (out of nine in total) will explore the idea of Sherlock’s brain running a kind of simulations - basically a series of hypothetic ‘what if’ scenarios - at least from HLV and forwards. And it builds upon the conclusions from these earlier metas, namely that this show is seen entirely from Sherlock’s perspective; that we’re inside the great detective’s mind from Day 1. 

But since I believe Sherlock is in coma from HLV and onwards (see Part IV), he can’t quite distinguish these scenarios from ‘reality’. So, here goes the next hypothesis:

Hypothesis #5: Almost everything we see happen in HLV, TAB and S4 is Sherlock ‘running scenarios’ in his mind, based on a mix of his earlier memories and movies he has watched.

To test this, I think I might first need to explain some things about the concept of ‘running scenarios’, as far as I know from real life. 

Predictive modeling

At work, I’m involved in a kind of data modeling that makes me think of Sherlock’s brain. The general principle is this: You collect a set of data of a certain type (in my case it’s geographic data), you run your data set through a computer algorithm, in which some limiting values are defined, and as result you get a predicted outcome of the phenomenon you’re studying. In my case the result is a digital map that shows the most probable geographical distribution of the phenomenon. The resulting map scenario is based upon someone’s expert knowledge of the subject matter, which is integrated into the computer algorithm and used by the model. In short: you use your data sets to run the model to make predictions - scenarios.

But how can you know that your predictions are accurate? Well, you can never expect them to be entirely accurate, since the modeling is always a theoretical simplification of reality. But you can always try to validate the predictions by comparing them to real-world observations of the phenomenon in question. If a great majority of the real-world observations fall within your plotted map, then you can regard the prediction as useful; otherwise you must collect new data, re-adjust the model and try again.

Now, let’s compare this predictive modeling method to John’s and Sherlock’s conversation in TLD (all quotes from the show in this meta come from Ariane deVere’s invaluable transcripts. Bolding is always mine, though):

JOHN: Wednesday morning I booked today’s session. Now, today is Friday. So two weeks ago – two weeks before you were abducted at gunpoint and brought here against your will, over a week before I even thought of coming here - you knew exactly where you’d need to be picked up for lunch?

SHERLOCK: Really? I correctly anticipated the responses of people I know well to scenarios I devised. Can’t everyone do that?

Well, no Sherlock; we really can’t, and neither can you in this case - at least not in ‘real life’! I think John’s disbelief is totally justified; there are so many ‘feasible variables’ involved in this operation – people and things and events that uncontrollably vary in time and space – and so many assumptions based upon each other, that it would be absolutely impossible for Sherlock to predict the future with this kind of accuracy. He might get a general idea of where and when he could probably find John, yes; perhaps he could even narrow it down to a matter of days and miles, if he had enough circumstantial data. 

But he could never know the exact time and place of John’s appointment with another person two weeks in advance - when even John himself hadn’t decided it yet - merely by deductive reasoning. Neither could he possibly know that in this very instant it would occur to Mrs Hudson to abduct him and directly after it would occur to John to have Molly Hooper examine Sherlock, instead of simply doing it himself. Even a weather forecast is extremely insecure in details two weeks in advance (x, x), and the meteorologists have powerful computer programs and mathematical models at their disposal, while Sherlock in this case would have only his own brain.

But I believe here is where Sherlock leaves us one of the most important clues in the whole show about his methods and about what’s actually going on in S4; he talks about himself having ‘devised scenarios’. So maybe this is what he has been doing all along, since the last time he entered his Mind Palace!

But what kind of scenarios is he referring to? And why does he even want to set up these scenarios? I mean, if he were using predictions and scenarios, it would seem that he’s working on solving some kind of problem, right? Or at least that he’s studying some interesting phenomenon. But the only ‘problem’ we’re told about in TLD is that he wants John’s help to catch a serial killer. So why not just send a message to John and ask for his assistance with the case? Why ‘devise’ an elaborate dramatic scenario involving Mrs Hudson, Molly and John’s new therapist; none of which has anything to do with the crime case? The answer might be that Sherlock is actually working on quite another case than ‘Culverton Smith the Serial Killer’: his own personal case, trying to find out what went wrong between him and John in order to save John Watson.

In any case, Sherlock cannot make this TLD prediction with 100% accuracy; it doesn’t matter how well he knows people, that just isn’t possible. At least not in the ‘real’ world where there are too many things that can go wrong just by chance. Sherlock may like to think that he has every little detail under control, but he’s only human after all, like everybody else. Which means that these scenarios are most probably taking place inside Sherlock’s head. And his predicted outcome about John in TLD is a fine example of this. Inside his brain, Sherlock can control most of the parameters and not much is left to chance, so the model works there, broadly speaking. But IRL it wouldn’t.

Assumption upon assumption

Now, an important aspect of predictive modeling is that you need to make certain assumptions to run your scenarios; a sort of simplification of reality. But the problem is that the more assumptions you pile up, one upon the other, without reality checks in between, the more uncertain your results will be. An assumption based on another assumption will always be more insecure than the first one, right? Sherlock’s problem here might be precisely the lack of contact with reality; he needs to validate his scenarios with observations from real life. Otherwise the modeling will be more and more biased and the results more and more twisted. But I believe it’s shown clearly in S4 that there is no new input of RL data, since everything seems to have already happened before in one form or another. And the consequence of this is that Sherlock’s scenarios keep getting more and more unbelievable, derailing into their almost complete logical collapse in TFP, where so many absurd and impossible things happen that the plot loses all kinds of credibility. In short, I think TFP is the final result of Sherlock’s permanent bias.

Heteronormative bias

Let’s say that one of Sherlock’s assumptions is biased in some direction, that it’s somehow influenced by his own emotions (Sentiment; the fly in the ointment, the crack in the lens, etc, etc). With the chain of scenarios described above, the error will multiply with each new similar assumption, and the results of his mental experiments will end up not making much sense at all, just like TFP. One of the most significant biases/errors I believe Sherlock commits, is that he totally excludes ‘Johnlock’ from the equation; he doesn’t take into account even the possibility of John being in love with him or the possibility of the two of them ever becoming a couple. He consequently interprets any sign of affection from John as either directed at someone else (a woman of course) -

- or as a misguided hero-worship of an unworthy character -

- probably linked to John’s adrenaline dependence -

- which John surely will sooner or later grow out of.

This may have to do with Sherlock’s lack of self-esteem and/or fear of emotions, but it’s a heteronormative bias and it’s severe, since it stops him from seeing the problem clearly, which might make him miss the solution entirely. And as long as heteronormativity and homophobia aren’t on Sherlock’s conscious checklist of possible problems to deal with, I’m afraid he won’t discover this bias. And since Sherlock makes this assumption again and again, without ever testing its opposite and without reality checks, he ends up with narrow-minded, absurd and dystopic results from his modeling, which ultimately don’t bring happiness to anyone. Sherlock has an amazing brain capacity, but I think he gets ‘lost in the sky’, high above everyone else, as the little girl on the plane (Eurus) explains in TFP. I’ll try to explore this idea with my own little prediction testing below.

Prediction #1: When Sherlock is in coma there will be no more entirely new events that seem realistic

If Sherlock is unconscious, his brain might still keep on working on his eternal scenarios based on memories, even though it has no new input data from the external world to process. The events would now all be based on things Sherlock has heard or experienced or imagined before he entered his comatose state. Which means they will all feel a bit familiar, unless they are pure fanciful fabrications - often absurd or surrealistic - which is basically what happens in a dream state (and perhaps more so if it’s drug-induced).

And yes, I think we can see this expected pattern quite clearly, with a remarkable difference between the events up until TSoT on one hand, and in HLV and onwards on the other.

In TSoT some rather ‘ordinary’ things happen that are not uncommon events IRL, but we haven’t actually seen most of them in the show before: there’s a bank robbery, a wedding reception, a bride, a church, a (real) priest, a photographer. There’s also Sherlock writing a speech, folding serviettes and planning a party, there’s a ‘stag do’ and Sherlock gets drunk and vomits. Sherlock deduces that John’s newly wed wife is pregnant.

And we could also apply this test to all the episodes before TSoT, looking for ‘novel’, non-repetitive and still believable events (I don’t count ASiP, though, since it’s the very first episode thus cannot be repetitive):

TBB: Coherent crime case; smugglers use secret codes, run a circus and one of the acrobats can climb high buildings. John (innocently) gets an ASBO for graffiti.

TGG: A series of crime cases with hostages threatened to be blown up, including John. Poison murders and strangling.

ASiB: Weird crime case with a manipulative dominatrix. Mrs Hudson is attacked. Sherlock still solves it in a believable way. He is rude to his guests at a Christmas party.

THoB: A fairly believable crime story involving a shift of environment to Dartmoor, a client who is being ‘gas-lighted’ by the criminal of the case, and a military laboratory.

TRF: Child kidnapping case, a boarding school. A trial. Extensive media coverage of (Sherlock as) a celebrity, who becomes a murder suspect but fakes his own suicide. 

TEH: Sherlock returns from the ‘dead’ and carries on crime solving but has problems with John. John is now engaged, which is also new.

In HLV, on the other hand, most of the believable things are repetitive; John beats someone up (ASiB, TRF, TEH), someone gets shot (ASiP, TBB, ASiB, THoB), Sherlock and John visit a high and/or fancy building (TBB, ASiB, THoB, TEH), they celebrate Christmas (ASiB), Mrs Hudson’s past is discussed (ASiP, TSoT), 221B is searched for drugs (ASiP, ASiB), John seems jealous of a woman whom he thinks Sherlock is attracted to (ASiB), Sherlock and Mycroft smoke cigarettes together (ASiB), we see their parents (TEH), there’s a memory stick thrown away without anyone checking it out (TGG) and there are helicopters about (ASiB, TEH, TSoT).

The only completely new scenes in HLV either seem unbelievable or have to do with Sherlock openly using drugs; suddenly he is high in a drug den, his blood is analysed for drugs, he gets an IV drug drip and he drugs his whole family at Christmas. Among the unbelievable stuff: Sherlock is shot in the chest by John’s wife but miraculously survives. John’s wife turns out to be a ninja assassin (which is also repetitive, only with a new twist; assassins appeared in TBB, TGG and TRF and in TBB they climbed high buildings). Sherlock blows someone’s head off and becomes a murderer.  And don’t get me started again about the absurdity of John forgiving someone who tried to kill Sherlock. But none of the most unbelievable and horrifying of these events are canon consistent; ACD’s Mary Morstan never shoots anyone, Holmes is never shot, Holmes never kills anyone and Watson never ‘forgives’ anyone who has attacked Holmes. Sherlock’s drug use is canon, though, so I don’t think it’s too farfetched to believe that much of this is simply crack fantasies.

The repetitive scenes then continue in TAB and throughout the whole of S4, while the lack of realism escalates all the way up to TFP. I made a whole list of repeated scenes here  (and there are even more in the additions to that meta).

Prediction #2: If Sherlock is running scenarios, there will be indications that this is his typical method of solving puzzles

The word ‘scenario’ is very similar to the word ‘scene’, isn’t it? And we know both from canon and the show that Sherlock Holmes likes a touch of Drama and loves to disguise himself in the most peculiar ways. In one of the parts of TAB that we know for sure is taking place within Sherlock’s Mind Palace, a very obvious stage is shown as part of his method of figuring out what happened with the Abominable Bride:

I certainly don’t intend to take any credits for the scenario idea since other people presented it already long ago. Like, for example, @loudest-subtext-in-tv (LSiT), who pointed it out directly after S4 aired.  Or @raggedyblue, whose meta about The Mind Theatre, where it’s all beautifully laid-out, is brilliant in its straightforward reasoning. And, of course, the whole EMP theory developed by @gosherlocked, @the-7-percent-solution and @monikakrasnorada,  is a great foundation for the idea that what we see in S4 are indeed concoctions made up inside Sherlock’s mind. Already in 2016, before S4, @gosherlocked pointed out a series of inconsistencies as evidence that HLV is at least partly taking place inside Sherlock’s EMP. In their comment to this post, I think @tetragon4 said something interesting about how to interpret HLV and TAB as being EMP:

“Now, this is not about what I, or for that matter, what the fandom prefers. The question is: Do HLV and TAB support the theory? This is a difficult one to answer. Sure, there are inconsistencies like the camera/lighting, Mycroft’s cravat, or Mary’s pose. One swallow, though, does not make a summer. As such, what EMP theory needs is an in-depth analysis of the two episodes. Until then, it is too early to speculate based on unrelated inconsistencies. It is necessary to prove the existence of common inconsistencies running through the scenes after the supposed entrance into EMP”.

And I agree; it doesn’t really matter how we, the audience, feel about the idea of much of this show happening inside Sherlock’s head – the important thing is where the evidence takes us. So, @tetragon4’s suggestion is partly similar to what I’ll try to do with the next prediction: search HLV, piece by piece, for inconsistencies telling us that what we see might actually be Sherlock’s brain running a series of simulations or theoretical ‘what if’ scenarios.

As @raggedyblue demonstrates in their meta linked above, it’s repeatedly shown in ACD Canon that Holmes’ method of investigation is based on imagination. When Holmes explains his methods to Watson, he often mentions the importance of putting himself in the other person’s place to explore how they must have reasoned. For example in this quote from The Sign of Four:   “I then put myself in the place of Small and looked at it as a man of his capacity would. He would probably consider that to send back the launch or to keep it at a wharf would make pursuit easy if the police did happen to get on his track. How, then, could he conceal the launch and yet have her at hand when wanted? I wondered what I should do myself if I were in his shoes. I could only think of one way of doing it”. In TSoT Sherlock very clearly puts himself in James Sholto’s place, to try to convince him to not commit suicide:

Holmes also frequently uses himself as an actor while solving crime cases, usually to fool the suspects. For example, Watson tells us in A Scandal in Bohemia (SCAN), at a point in the story where Holmes disguised himself as a clergyman before appearing at Irene Adler’s home (which is also exactly what he does in ASiB):  “It was not merely that Holmes changed his costume. His expression, his manner, his very soul seemed to vary with every fresh part that he assumed. The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when he became a specialist in crime”.

So yes; as demonstrated above, I think we can safely say that putting up scenarios in his head, as well as using ‘actors’ – including himself - are definitely important methods in Sherlock Holmes’ puzzle-solving.

Prediction #3: If Hypothesis #5 is true, we might find an initial ‘question’, some ‘inspiration’ and a ‘result’ for each scenario Sherlock is running.

As I’ve said before, I imagine that Sherlock’s extraordinary brain keeps working even when his body is unconscious, fighting for survival and trying to solve problems. I think he’s running a series of “what if” simulations, and they’re all about John Watson. I also think there are enough repetitive moments and enough movie references in this show to give ample material to Sherlock’s Mind Theatre, where he can stage very elaborate, dramatic scenarios, complete with actors, detailed premises and props.

To test Prediction #3 I’ll try to run through most of the scenes from HLV, in order to check if the statement above might be valid. For each of the scenarios, I’ll try to detect possible initial questions, which Sherlock might want to explore with the simulation in his Mind Theatre. I’ll also suggest possible elements from movies and/or Sherlock’s own memories that might have inspired the scenarios. Finally I’ll try to explain which results I think we can see in the show from each of Sherlock’s mind experiments. But I’ll also take the opportunity to discuss evidence that indicate it’s indeed just a mental scenario or - in some cases - speculate on possible alternative explanations.

HLV, Scenario 1: What will happen when John gets bored of his ordinary life with ‘Mary’? Inspiration: I think Sherlock’s memory of John beating him up after his return from the dead in TEH, his memory of John punching him in the face by Sherlock’s own request and provocation in ASiB, and John hitting the Chief Inspector when the Police arrested Sherlock in TRF; all this is making him think of John as potentially violent. Also, Sherlock deduced already in ASiP that John is attracted to danger.

[running, running the simulation, staged with ‘actors’ that either represent John or Sherlock or the challenges they are up to…]

Result: After some time of ordinary, married life, John can’t stand it anymore; he does something dangerous (because he’s an adrenaline junkie) and ends up hurting someone else doing it: he violently disarms Billy Wiggins and sprains his arm. Then he leaves Billy lying with his sprained arm and goes on to look for his neighbour’s drug addict son.

Discussion: But would John Watson really break into a drug den and single-handedly beat up the junkie who was guarding it, basically because he was bored? And how likely is it that he would then tell him “I’m a doctor, I know how to sprain people”? We’ve never seen John refer to his medical profession that horrible way, have we? (But we did hear him tell Sherlock in ASiB that he was a soldier and killed people). And would it be likely that the ‘gate-keeper’ (surrounded by hearts-and green tiles from 221B; is the eye there to make us pay attention?), who didn’t hesitate to draw knife on the intruder, would just lie there without even trying to run after him and at least warn the people in there? 

I suspect that a slightly exaggerated characterization of John starts here and later escalates, because drugs and Sentiment bias Sherlock’s mind. Sherlock’s capability of “correctly anticipating responses of people I know well” might begin to get altered already here.

HLV, Scenario 2: What will happen if John finds out that Sherlock has taken drugs? Inspiration: Already in ASiP John hears from the police that Sherlock is a drug user, and Sherlock doesn’t deny it. And in ASiB John conspires with Mycroft and Mrs Hudson to search 221B for any secret drug deposit of Sherlock’s. So both these events should be stored in Sherlock’s memory.

[Not so much running needed…]

Result: John gets furious with Sherlock and takes him to hospital; not for caretaking but simply for drug tests. He berates Sherlock for not having told him about his drug problems. Molly slaps him for ‘betraying his friends’ by throwing away his talent on drugs.

And John then joins forces with Mycroft and phones him immediately to have 221B searched for drugs. Discussion: This behaviour is not very ‘doctory’ or even humane of either John or Molly, though, is it? Sherlock is a close friend of theirs, whom both of them love, and he has just spent the night high in a drug den. But neither of them even tries to examine him, even though Molly obviously gets a positive result from the urine test. Instead, the whole scene is full of critique and punishment. And his brother Mycroft, who ‘constantly worries’ about Sherlock, now lets strangers into Sherlock’s flat to search it, and all he does is express contempt for Sherlock’s life style. I think this shows the influence of Sherlock’s self-loathing in the simulation – a pattern that will be repeated all the way through TAB and S4. Guilt. Sentiment. Drugs.

HLV, Scenario 3: What will happen if John finds out that Sherlock has a relationship with someone else (a woman, to boot)? Inspiration: Sherlock didn’t actually know Janine, but he might have noticed that John interrupted his dancing practice with her already at the wedding. And since she seemed a bit interested in Sherlock she would be the nearest candidate for this little test, where Sherlock could invent a good alibi for being with her: a crime case. But most of all, I think this experiment stems from Sherlock’s broken heart and jealous emotions; he subconsciously wants to get back at John for leaving him and marrying a woman.

[running, running the simulation…]

Result: John gets jealous and angry with Sherlock, but he tries to keep his face straight (pun intended); he won’t confess anything to Sherlock. 

Discussion: Here I believe Sherlock is indeed on to something, but he doesn’t see it clearly and consciously because of his bias. Bad characterization of Janine, also, who didn’t before seem stupid enough to wait in the bed of a supposed boyfriend who is away the whole night without telling why and doesn’t want to sleep with her anyway. Drugs. Sentiment. Underestimating women’s brain capacity (one of Sherlock’s biggest flaws I’d say; possibly originating in his contempt (=fear) of Sentiment).

Scenario 4: What will happen if Sherlock Holmes openly invites Media (CAM) to an interview? Inspiration: We already saw how the press treated Sherlock and John in TRF (for more analysis about this, see my meta about media’s role in BBC Sherlock and the additions to it) so Sherlock does have experience to fall back on here.

[running, running…]

Result: Media (CAM) own them now; they intimidate both Sherlock and John and try to find their pressure points.

They disarm John, ‘piss in Sherlock’s fireplace’ (violate his integrity), show contempt for their life-style and insinuate things about Sherlock’s traumatic past (Redbeard). And Sherlock can do basically nothing to defend himself.

Discussion: CAM’s supposed mental filing of information, and his use of a Mind Palace, seems suspiciously similar to Sherlock’s own methods of storing observations and deducing people based on it. (Look at the font, by the way; it’s written in Courier, just like a manuscript for a news article or a play or a film...). And I think Sherlock’s behaviour in this scene is weird, to say the least; why would he accept CAM’s armed thugs body searching him and John in his own house? Why would he let them intimidate Mrs Hudson (especially considering what he did to the CIA guy in ASiB)? And why would a brain like Sherlock’s immediately swallow CAM’s rather obvious bait with the letters? The depiction of John is a little strange too: how can he walk around, sit down, etc. seemingly without discomfort, when he has a big tyre lever stuck down his trousers? ;) Seeing this as a scenario in Sherlock’s head makes far more sense to me - probably influenced by drugs and (sexual) Sentiment.

Scenario 5: What will happen if John finds out Sherlock is capable of pretending a relationship with someone just for a case? Inspiration: This is Sherlock’s MO after all, even in ACD canon; he loves to play roles for a case. And he does tend to underestimate women. But maybe it’s just a bit exaggerated here? ;)

[very short model running this time…]

Result: John thinks (for the umpteenth time) that Sherlock is a psychopath, but he does not see the likeness with his own marriage based on lies; not even when Sherlock hints about it.

Discussion: Again, bad characterization of Janine, who I think wouldn’t be stupid enough to let Sherlock into CAM tower knowing fully well that CAM is present. Drugs. Underestimating women.

Scenario 6: What will happen if Sherlock ‘takes one more step’? Inspiration: There’s a plethora of action movies and games with ninja assassins and spies, and the black-clad ninjas often climb buildings and walls on their missions. So ‘Mary’s gear and behaviour at CAM tower wouldn’t be particularly hard for Sherlock to dream up; especially since there has been a lot of assassins in this show already to use as inspiration.

But I also believe there might be a particular movie inspiring Sherlock for the whole Shooting Drama scenario with ‘Mary’: “Selena” from 1997. This film, starring Jennifer Lopez, is entirely based on a real life story about the famous Tejano singer Selena, who was murdered by her (supposed) friend Yolanda Saldívar. As I explained in this addition to a post from @elldotsee, the name “Yolanda” is repeated 4 times in the scene in TEH where Sherlock meets ‘Mary’ for the first time. Yolanda shot Selena in the shoulder, and she died of blood loss on her way to the hospital. According to Wikipedia (my bolding), "The defense attorney argued the shooting was accidental, but the prosecution pointed out that Saldívar, a trained nurse, did not call 911 or try to help Selena after she was shot."

So let’s compare this movie with the events in HLV. I don’t think the actual shooting is included in the film, but this is Selena being taken to hospital:

And here is Sherlock being taken to hospital:

The stretcher is pretty similar, which could of course be a coincidence. But look at Selena (as played by J.Lo, who by the way received a Golden Globe nomination for this film):

Aren’t these images a little bit too similar for a mere coincidence? And since Sherlock is exceptionally into crime cases, I think it’s not unlikely that he might have found interest in this movie based on a famous IRL crime case…

[scenario running time is very short at first, but then the simulation goes on and on and on…]

Result: When Sherlock takes the step, ‘Mary’ (= heteronormativity) – who is now suddenly a full-feathered ninja assassin - literally tries to kill Sherlock, which might feel just the same to him in the suicidal state I believe he is in at this point (X). But then he realizes that John will ‘cry buckets and buckets’, and that John’s life will definitely be in danger. So he struggles to stay alive.

Discussion: I think this whole debacle is basically about Sherlock’s heart-break after ‘Marry Watson’, interpreted as a shot to the heart. While the real reason for his critical state might be an overdose of drugs, his mind translates this to a shooting Drama. This doesn’t necessarily mean that ‘Mary’ is a nice person, but I do believe the ninja bit is exaggerated. To ‘take one more step’ might in this case have meant a possible step towards a same-sex relationship with John. But Sherlock doesn’t consciously recognize this possibility, so in this scenario it’s depicted as if he takes one more step towards disarming ‘Mary’ (which would metaphorically be almost the same thing, if ’Mary’ stands for the hetero norm). In my sub-textual reading, this is also about heteronormativity (=’Mary’) firming its grip on Media  (=CAM). But Sherlock isn’t ready to realize this just yet, so he blames Love (=Lady Smallwood) due to his fear of emotions. In a textual reading, however, this could also mean that Sherlock has deduced that Media has some sh*t on ‘Mary’ which might indirectly threaten John. In either case, he still tries to stop ‘Mary’ from killing CAM. 

On the surface, Sherlock probably believes that ‘John is in danger’ is connected to the risk of ‘Mary’ getting desperate and trying to kill John too. But his subconscious might indeed realize that John would be suicidal too if he lost Sherlock again. And now we’re even ‘officially’ inside Sherlock’s mind palace, so we know - most of the time at least - that the characters that now show up (Jim alive and kept in a padded cell, Molly slapping Sherlock to make him focus, Mycroft giving advice etc.) aren’t actually ‘real’. 

Scenario 7: What will happen if Sherlock ‘tells John’ [the truth]?

Inspiration: Sherlock and John have a long history of not telling each other important stuff, especially Sherlock. So this threat from ‘Mary’, when Sherlock is hospitalized, might be well-founded in his own fear of talking about issues involving strong emotions. 

We’re not told exactly what Sherlock can’t tell John, but I assume she means ‘the Truth’. In this scenario Sherlock depicts it as ‘Mary’ not wanting her husband to know about her shady assassin past. 

[running, running, looong running, involving Sherlock not only telling, but showing John the truth about ‘Mary’…]

Result: As anyone might have predicted, John gets devastated; he's out of his mind with repressed anger. 

But the scenario continues in 221B, where John directs his fury not only at ‘Mary’, but - strangely - also at Sherlock, the reason for which is left unclear. Is it for not telling John this before? Is it a ‘shoot-the-messenger’ sort of rant? In any case, John’s focus seems to be that it now turns out he’s saddled with two psychopaths instead of just the one (Sherlock). In his anger, John starts yelling at Sherlock and even threatening him, while Sherlock – on the brink of another heart collapse - keeps making excuses for ‘Mary’, claiming that she actually saved his life (!) by not going for a head shot, and he claims (with a lame piece of evidence that wouldn’t hold water in any decent court room) that ‘Mary’ actually called the ambulance for him.

Discussion: But why is the focus of John’s reaction on ‘Mary’s’ lying rather than her shooting and almost killing Sherlock? Why isn’t his friend’s life the most important thing here? I think this characterization of John in Sherlock’s scenario is horribly biased and entirely absurd; Dr. Watson would NEVER treat his beloved friend this way - wasting time ranting on ‘Mary’ for lying, while Sherlock was dying from a re-opened shot wound. Especially judging by John’s reaction when he thought Sherlock was dead in TRF. 

The real explanation for this whole ‘don’t-tell-John’ business might rather be quite mundane, but highly dramatized in Sherlock’s Mind Theatre. I believe that telling John ‘the Truth’ might mean, in Sherlock’s subconscious, telling him how he really feels about him. The thought of which is still horrifying to Sherlock. But since Sherlock isn’t in touch with his own feelings yet, this is what his drug-addled brain comes up with instead. Heteronormative bias. Drugs. Sentiment.

I could also think of another possible incriminating fact appearing in Sherlock’s subconscious: What happens if Sherlock tells John about his earlier deduction that John’s wife is pregnant with someone else’s child? This seems to fit with ‘Mary’s excuse for shooting Sherlock instead of accepting his help on the ‘case’ with CAM’s blackmail: “Because John can’t ever know that I lied to him. It would break him and I would lose him forever”. 

I’ll try to explore this idea in a future meta about ‘Mary’s lies. But it could also be that ‘Mary’ is a stand-in for Sherlock in this scene; if murder is a metaphor for falling in love, Sherlock might believe that he would lose John forever if he told John the truth about his real feelings for him. 

Scenario 8: What will happen with John’s marriage, now that he knows about ‘Mary’s secret? Inspiration: This scenario is so absurd that I strongly suspect it’s not based upon Sherlock’s real memories of John (which would be irrelevant anyway, since they have never before experienced a situation like this). It could of course be based upon lots of romantic, stereotype movies where two lovers reconcile in a tearful embrace. 

But it could also be reflecting some childhood event (perhaps at Christmas) in Sherlock’s own family, where his parents agree to gloss over their problems, whatever they might have been, instead of dealing with them. One possibility is suggested in the final part of @sagestreet’s entirely brilliant Follow-the-dogs meta series: that ‘Redbeard’ is basically about Sherlock’s Dad having had a love affair with a man while at the same time being homophobic about it, which has created a trauma in Sherlock. And this also has an important bearing on ACD on a meta level. (I absolutely love this theory! @sagestreet calls it ‘speculation’, but I think he’s rather ‘connecting the sub-textual dots’ hinted at in the whole series to deduce Sherlock’s possible childhood trauma).

[running, running, loong running, involving a distorted time line interlaced with the previous scenario and Sherlock acting as an odd sort of matchmaker, trying to find excuses for ‘Mary’ and doing something very uncharacteristic: inviting John and ‘Mary’ to celebrate Christmas with his own family…]

Result: John doesn’t talk to ‘Mary’ for a long time, but after Sherlock’s persuasion he decides to grudgingly ‘forgive’ her and keeps living together with her, cowed under her dominance and not even knowing her real name. But John’s sense of ‘family duty’ kicks in here, and makes him stay with ‘Mary’ and father the kid. A ‘nice’ and ‘Christmassy’ solution based on lies and, as John says about Sherlock’s parents: “A fine example of married life”.

Discussion: I’ve always wondered what’s so ‘fine’ about Sherlock’s parents’ relationship, though; that Mummy Holmes keeps criticizing her husband in front of others and tells him he’s not even allowed to be humming to himself? That Daddy Holmes made her give up her entire mathematical career ‘for children’? Is this Sherlock’s past family Christmas trauma playing in here? In any case I think it’s a completely awful characterization, that John Watson would ever forgive someone who tried to kill Sherlock and be willing to start a family with them – especially if this person doesn’t show even a shred of remorse over the whole thing. And what does the idea that Sherlock would be willing to drug down his whole family represent? The frustration of a child exposed to his parents’ constant bickering? I don’t know, but drugs and Sentiment - devastating Sentiment – are most likely playing in here.

Scenario 9: What will happen if Media - CAM - start prying into ‘Mary’ Watson’s doings? Inspiration: On the surface, this is about ‘Mary’s secret past; a truly fantastical story about the crimes of a façade-climbing ninja assassin, which CAM threatens to reveal. A veritable ‘Bond adventure’ it would be; a dramatic action movie. But is there perhaps some ‘mundane’ and therefor more likely topic that Media usually loves to speculate about (because it makes lots of money)? Yes I think there is: ‘scandals’; particularly those involving celebrities and their love life. And Sherlock must be painfully aware of this since what happened in TRF:

Imagine what a field day the press would have, for example, speculating about ‘Mary’ cheating on earlier ‘confirmed bachelor’ but now ‘happily married’ John Watson! Imagine what they would make of him not actually being the father of her child, and what this could mean regarding his association with the famous Sherlock Holmes? It would be TRF all over again - but worse this time; the ‘beard’, the ‘façade’ would fall. For the record: I think the main reason why Sherlock stayed away from John for two years was because in TRF media had started speculating about John’s and Sherlock’s relationship and thereby John’s sexual orientation, which John seemed to take very badly. So this scenario could be far more based on Sherlock’s memories of TRF than anything else.

[running, running, looong running of the model this time…]

Result: Media - CAM in Sherlock’s scenarios - now have a leverage on them all; ‘Mary’s secret revealed publicly (whether ‘assassin’ or ‘cheater’) would harm John, which would harm Sherlock, which would harm Mycroft (by association) and might ultimately harm the whole country. Yes - Sherlock is a real drama queen! ;) So the only solution he sees is to kill CAM immediately. In fact, he’d do anything to stop this exposure of John in media.

Discussion: In TSoT, I think Sherlock’s subconscious makes three devastating deductions regarding John (subconscious because in two of these cases he emphasizes that this was one more deduction than he was expecting, and in the other one he drops his glass from the impact of the realization):

1) That a ‘recently divorced doctor’ has ‘erectile dysfunction’. But this might actually be about John, if Sherlock’s subconscious picked up that John might have a bit of a bedroom problem with his newly wed wife.

2) That John is a Mayfly Man; he has been dating a string of lovers to cover up something else. This, together with 1., could make Sherlock suspect that even John’s whole marriage is a cover-up, a façade; these two guys aren’t really into each other, but the marriage protects John from being ‘outed’.   3) That ‘Mary’ is pregnant, which seems to be complete news to John. But if he - a doctor - has no idea he’s going to father a child, one possible explanation of this might be that the baby is actually not John’s. Which would further support deduction 1) and 2) above.

So maybe CAM’s leverage was actually what Sherlock was thinking about in Leinster Gardens? What if ‘Mary’s words here are representing Sherlock’s own fear of what would happen if John’s relationship is exposed in media? 

(Also on a meta level I think this might be important: the threat of media exposure of a gay couple in Victorian times has affected the whole characterization of Sherlock Holmes for over a century). Sherlock thinks his contact with John and his career is over (as in TRF), so he can just as well start killing people (from media, preferably ;) ). And here we have some more awful characterization - this time of Sherlock himself; suddenly he has become a murderer – a bit improper for a famous detective supposed to solve crimes, not committing them, don’t you think? And, on the whole, he acts like an idiot, making blunders that cause him to lose his cases etc. It’s the Sentiment bias again - lots and lots of it, complete with – perhaps life-long - anger, self-loathing and frustration. Poor Sherlock.

Scenario 10: What will happen with Sherlock after he flips out and kills Magnussen? Inspiration: Casablanca, a truly iconic movie from WWII. End scene where Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) and Rick (Humphrey Bogart) bid each other a tearful farewell at the Moroccan airport, from where Ilsa is fleeing the country with her spouse. It’s a ‘forbidden’ romance, and there are no outspoken confessions or declarations between them, no kiss; they hide their true feelings, even though they are very clearly understood. Ilsa will travel to security, Rick will stay in danger, serving his country, and Ilsa will not know if he’s dead or alive. Romantic overload.

Result: After a brief ‘solitary confinement’ in prison (a week, we learn in TAB - suspiciously close to the time I believe John and ‘Mary’ were on honeymoon after the wedding), Mycroft sends him in a private jet to a certain death in Eastern Europe, serving his country. Sherlock takes farewell of John at the tarmac and leaves him in ‘Mary’s hands. He’s about to tell John something important (like a love declaration), but changes his mind and jokes the whole thing away. They shake hands and Sherlock flies off, crying, probably thinking he’s seen John for the last time. But since the issue of Moriarty isn’t resolved yet, Sherlock Holmes is called back…

Discussion: This is so obviously a rip-off from Casablanca’s ending, and such a sentimental and overly-dramatic ending of S3 that if I didn’t believe Sherlock was in a drug-induced comatose state, I’d hold him (or Moffat) responsible for succumbing his modeling to ‘the fly in the ointment’. :)) 

Awful characterization of Mycroft though; why would Sherlock’s over-protective brother have him killed rather than imprisoned? But, most importantly: What are Sherlock’s results after HLV? 

In summary, I think Sherlock’s most important conclusions after this episode are a bit depressing: 1. That John’s relationship with ‘Mary’ isn’t a very happy one, but 2. that Sherlock can’t take any ‘steps’ towards John and he can’t ‘tell’ him anything; the façade must still be kept up at any cost because 3. Media is a serious threat against them and ‘outing’ John would break him and Sherlock would lose him forever.

These scenarios I’ve suggested for HLV to test Prediction #3 may seem a bit farfetched and speculative, and the evidence may not be particularly strong for some of them, while I think they could work for others. But at least all of them make more sense to me character-wise than the presented, face-value reading. Please consider the absurdity of the alternative we’re actually given in HLV: 

That the wife of one of the protagonists is actually a façade-climbing ninja assassin who tries to kill the main character and gets away with it, without showing a shred of remorse. 

That Doctor John Watson would yell threats at his beloved best friend when he’s collapsing from a re-opened shot wound, instead of trying to help him. 

That John Watson would forgive someone – whose name he doesn’t even know - who shot and  almost killed his best friend, and then go on to raise a child with them. 

That Sherlock would let a drug-addict drug down his whole family, including a pregnant woman, at their Christmas dinner.

That the main character – the famous detective Sherlock Holmes – would become a murderer who ‘solves’ a tricky case by blowing the un-armed blackmailer’s brains out with a gun.

That his over-protective brother Mycroft would send him to a certain death in Eastern Europe rather than put him behind bars.

I intend to go on exploring this ‘scenario-running’ for the four remaining episodes, including TAB. But this meta is already ridiculously long, so instead I’ll have to use my following two installments to do this:

Hypothesis # 6: In the show’s ‘reality’, Sherlock is slowly dying, which also has implications on a meta level, and

Hypothesis # 7: By TFP Sherlock has managed to figure out some essential things about John and the importance of staying alive, and he has managed to get in touch with his own repressed emotions.

Because if Sherlock is going to find out how to save John Watson, I believe he still has a lot of things to figure out; in HLV he isn’t ready yet. ;)

Tagging some people who might be interested:

@raggedyblue @ebaeschnbliah @sarahthecoat @gosherlocked @fellshish @sagestreet @tendergingergirl @loveismyrevolution @sherlockshadow @darlingtonsubstitution @tjlcisthenewsexy @devoursjohnlock  @kateis-cakeis @csi-baker-street-babes @sectoralheterochromiairidum @mrskolesouniverse @murphysmom67 @elldotsee

#HLV is Sherlock running scenarios in his MP

[marshmallow-fireside-keith]

Pregnant Keith Fic Catalogue

(Mobile Edition)

About this list:

This list is meant to be an exhaustive, one-stop-shop for those looking for pregnant Keith (in the Sheith pairing, for now. I am open to other pairings if people would like this) fics. This is NOT a recc list. This is a catalogue. The works on this list are not sorted by taste, nor user, nor bias. Like a library catalogue, every fic (that I have been made aware of/ found) that contains the premise ‘pregnant Keith’ in some fashion is included. This list took hours sorting through multiple tags, so that you, the reader do not have to. If a fic is missing, please let me know, as this is meant to be an updated post. The ONLY reason it would be missing would be me not finding it, messing up, or not knowing about it. Any and all fics are welcome here, as long as they meet the basic content requirement of pregnant Keith.

If you see your fic on here and want it taken down, or edited, please also let me know!

Thank you all! Let me know if you’d like an Omega Keith version of this. That will take considerably longer, but if y’all want it, I’m happy to put it together.

Current as of: July 9, 2018

Omega-Zero by PackThePack @packthepack

It’s not easy, feeling like a stranger on your own body. It is confusing and throat-tying. It makes you want to crawl out of your skin, while wanting to crawl inside as much as possible. Small enough so you would almost disappear. It is hazy and cold, and it is shallow. The feeling of being left alone with yourself without a way to escape was no tender company. But right now it was the only company Keith had.

The Moon Hangs Low by newtype @?

While traveling with the Blade of Marmora recovering Zarkon's former territory, Keith reaches the cusp of Galran maturity as soon-to-be fertile omega. Concerned for his well-being, Ulaz sends Shiro with Keith to an isolated sanctuary bathhouse to observe his heats. Accepting the offer, the two finally find themselves with the privacy they've been long waiting for.

Skip the Pleasentries by FullmetalReborn @omggiogiothings​

Staring at the cow on the other end of the pregnancy test, giving him a creepy smile with white luscious hair, (Pidge had some damn weird tastes but the saint actually went to purchase them for him so he couldn't complain) makes him want to strangle past him. Pidge sat down by his starfished body and looked at the stick (‘I peed on it. Please don't put it so close to your face.’) “Looks like you have a little gremlin.”

Within These Final Hours by orphan_account

Okay so, I've been writing this for the past three weeks and now that it's done I can finally start posting and writing my OTHER Voltron fic. As someone who has watched the old Voltron series, I was both excited and slightly unnerved when I heard the show was being remade. Remakes tend to be pretty awful... But thankfully, this one is pretty damn awesome. The second season is making me nervous though...Swear if anything happens to Shiro, I'm gonna lose it.

Anyway, I'll post chapters twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Pretty standard Omega!Verse fic, as well as some Galra!Kieth stuff... But yeah, I can't promise any specific time, probably going to be around noon usually - Chicago time zone -, but I just finished proofreading chapter one - with some slight revision - and I decided to post it now. But here, take this sin, there will be smut in later chapters. This entire fic will be completely posted by the 20th.

I should have the next one finished and I can start posting a new fic. I hope you guys enjoy, constructive criticism is welcomed but please be kind with your words. I tend to react badly to cruel words.

I am also in dire need of a beta! If anyone is interested, please contact me at [email protected]

Thanks everyone, I'm excited to finally start sharing my works. Remember, I am but a smol 16 year old, so my writing style is sill in development. I am by no means a professional and I do not intend on chasing a profession in this field. This is for fun and I would like to keep it that way.

Bearing by Jibbly @jibblyuniverse

Maybe the pressure of being leader of Voltron is getting to him.

All of these thoughts are in the back of his mind, when Kolivan calls for help.

His resources are thinning out, and he asks for a lion. Keith offers himself instead. Much to the surprise of the team. Shiro standing in the center of the control deck with a look of disappointment in his eyes.

Kolivan hesitates, before agreeing to letting Keith come to train at the Blade of Mamora.

Day Eleven: Peridot by bandgeek1stbassclarinet

Peridots are traditionally given to celebrate 16 years of marriage.

He can't bake, but he'd be a hell of a dad. by Golden_Asp @?

Keith and Shiro have been trying for a baby since returning to Earth. Maybe this heat will be the one that it finally happens.

ABO AU, post saving the universe.

Lonely Star by keithyourpal @keithyourpal

Takashi's death brings Ryou and Keith together, and in the following year they help each other make peace and rebuild their lives--until Keith goes missing.

Two Plus Twins by NoNotThat

Prequel to Twins Plus One!

Shiro and Keith are going to be parents and Shiro has to deal with mood swings first hand.

Akira by Tay (erentitanjaeger) @?

Shiro returns home to his mate and one-day old child.

Cursed by Al_D_Baran @?  

Keith investigates to find the Beast that terrorises his husband's lordship.

Miracles and Blessings by Gootbuttheichou@?

My Sheithlentines gift for Pinfuyu/XuanPinku!

If the Silence Takes You by keithyourpal@keithyourpal

Sven recovers after helping Team Voltron secure the trans-reality comet. Desperate to get back into the line of duty, his recklessness leads to his capture by the Alteans.

You Fight with a Galra Soldier by laterie @babe-in-red

Keith is not able to fight, but Shiro certainly is.

The Reasons I Scream at Night by ThirteenSocks @safeautistickeith

Shiro is a veteran returning from a year in captivity and trying to piece his life back together. Keith is an immigrant from the stars. They meet at the café Keith works at. But no sooner have they fallen in love does Shiro accidentally get Keith pregnant.

Between Shiro dealing with his PTSD and Keith with his adjusting to the new culture, the two find they must lean on each other to navigate having a baby on the way.

But life is never so simple, as their pasts come back to haunt them, and the war everyone thought was over was only just beginning.

Arc: Sine: Chapter 1-29 Complete

Arc: Cosine: Chapter 31-?

Reasons .5 by ThirteenSocks @safeautistickeith

Shiro curved his left palm around the jut of a hip. His thumb nearly reaches halfway across the small back, the rest of his fingers getting brushed a heavy cock that bounces with his thrusts. He took another risk that ”mentally present” him would soon enough chastise himself for. He threaded metals fingers through the base of Keith’s thick, silky braid, and jerked back. Keith cried out again. Using the new leverage, Shiro drew him back like a bow; hauling his hips upwards as far as they would go, and creating the dip in his back by the grip on his hair.

Strip Me of Shame by laterie @babe-in-red

"Don't do this to me."

Keith’s anger launched a disaster. His need to find the answers is rising to the point, where Shiro is losing his control over the Red Paladin and their lives. A whole new universe is opening for Keith. Will he find his real home?

Aurulent by drrkrbbt @?

An "accident" in the middle of the night turns a lot more interesting than Keith had expected.

The Long Way Back by fio @?

As a gladiator, and now Champion, Shiro has given up hope of ever returning to Earth. But when his captors deliver his 'prize'—an omega, a descendant of both Galran and Altean blood used by the Galra to breed with the strongest aliens they capture—he's offered a chance to escape.

There's just one catch: Shiro has to get him pregnant to do it.

Happy Accidents by ShirosRedKnight (SweetFanfics) @shirosredknight

Keith’s never understood the term ‘happy accident’. It’s too much of an oxymoron because how can an accident be happy? It just didn’t seem possible.

But that was before now.

Weekend at Pidge’s by chocolatemoosey @chocolatemoosey​

Keith took Shiro gently by the jaw and pulled him into a kiss, “She’s fine. Hunk and Lance are there with her – between the three of them, I think things are gonna be okay.”

Meanwhile, at the other paladins' house: “THINGS ARE DEFINITELY NOT OKAY."

Pidge, Lance, and Hunk have offered to watch Keith and Shiro's toddler for a night while the couple celebrates their anniversary. Add a hostage situation to the mix and things go about as well as expected.

Inherit the Stars by Masrrkan @souais

It's time that Keith moved on with life, one that was full of happiness, his husband, and his son.

(Fic was originally posted before s5. So no Lotor or Matt. This is canon divergent past s4 and doesn't fully mesh with the current story in the show.)

A Single Step by bouquetofwhoopsiedaisies @bouquetofwhoopsiedaises

After the war with the Galra Empire finished, Keith and Shiro settled down on a nice planet together and started a small, happy family. Then, their daughter was kidnapped, and they spent years searching for her. When they find her, she is scared and volatile, a feral creature that needs to be taught how to trust again. Luckily, her dads are ready to help her every step of the way, even if those steps are slow to come. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Gredelin by AccordionOwl @accordionowl

A story about how Shiro and Keith deepening their relationship and Keith realizing something about his galra heritage as things starts to happen to his body.

The Beast That Eats Its Tail by kittypox @kittypox

Retiring from the coalition is easier said than done, even in Keith's condition. Even with his mighty alpha mate protecting him, he somehow still manages to get caught in the midst of the coalition's war with the rebel group, The Hand of Krell. Time is not on the coalition's side as they struggle to squash the power vacuum and discover how the paladins are linked to the mysterious beast the rebels worship. Keith does not know what this 'Beast That eats It Tail' is and why the rebels are so keen on feeding him to it, but he does not intend on finding out.

Leaving It All Behind bykittypox @kittypox

There are reasons to turn from war. Settled in his stomach, Keith finds his one reason to not only turn from the war effort, but to abandon Voltron and his mate.

#sheith #voltron #keith #pregnant keith #omega keith #pregnant keith fic catalogue #pkfc #pkfc mobile #fics #writing

[alexiablackbriar13]

Hope you don't mind me sending this to you but I was thinking about Oliver and the possibilities of him having an eating disorder after the island, and it got me thinking about Felicity being raised by a single mother and probably not knowing when her next meal is going to be. How do you think they would react if they realised they had similar disorders but for different reasons and how they would help each other through it.

I don’t mind you sending me this at ALL. In fact, I would love to answer this. I’m not exactly an expert on eating disorders, so if I get anything wrong and anything is medically inaccurate, I apologise in advice. I realise I might get hate for this, but to be honest, the fact that somebody even trusted me enough to ask for my opinion on this counteracts that. This is going to be a long post, ya’ll. Sit down and strap in.

TW: Eating Disorder and Medical Disorder Discussion.

The chances of Oliver having an eating disorder after the island are extremely high. I wrote about it in my fic ‘Re-adjustment Period’. I’ll summarise what I said there here though.

During his five years in hell, Oliver would have hardly eaten at all. Even during his time in Hong Kong and in Russia. On the island, when he did eat, it would have been little and not often, as game was hard to hunt on the island, as shown in the flashbacks. They would have eaten rare unseasoned meat and hard, barely-cooked roots, and whatever berries and edible plants they could possibly find. His stomach would have shrunk in order to cope with that. In Hong Kong, ARGUS would only have fed him as much as he would have needed to survive to make him weak and reduce his chances of escape. In Russia, in the Bratva, mobs often starve their candidates to prove their hardiness. Coming back to Starling City and suddenly having a three-course gourmet meal stuck under his nose would have been a massive shock to Oliver’s system, so much so that half a plate of food would have caused him to have cramps, or throw up. Artificial preservatives, sugar, spices and herbs would have also been a massive problem. Oliver’s stomach after shrinking and being accustomed to his island diet would have rejected all of them, not used to processing them. That’s the reality of it.

I imagine Oliver has a medical disorder concerning eating that’s resulted in an OSFED. An ‘Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder’. His symptoms and the cause of his eating disorder don’t fit the specified ones. Essentially, I imagine Oliver would have avoided eating unless absolutely necessary, not because he didn’t want to eat, but because so often he’d throw up and end up feeling sick due to his incapability to digest civilian food. He’d want to avoid that because it would make him much weaker and less capable out in the field as the Hood. He would probably eat very little, organic foods with no real substance to them, and not very often. High protein to keep up his energy levels and muscle mass. He’d probably have a deficiency of some vitamins and minerals, especially after the island. So Oliver’s eating disorder is mainly been based on a medical disorder rather that psychological.

I feel like Felicity’s possible eating disorder would be similar to Anorexia Nervosa, but once again not very similar, meaning she has an OSFED too - due to unavailability of food resulting in minor starvation, rather than just not eating. Not having very much food in the house most probably resulted in Felicity not eating very often, but when she did eat, in a large amount. As a result of that, her body would have adapted to take in as many nutrients and minerals as possible when she did eat so she would have begun taking in too many of them once on a stable, regular diet in Starling - which once again would result in her being sick.

Not knowing when her next meal would be would also have a psychological effect on Felicity, most likely resulting in a compulsive food hoarding disorder. I’ve met a lot of people with this kind of disorder due to working out in the local community - essentially, because these people have very low incomes and rely on dry and canned food donations from shelters and food banks, they hoard the food and avoid eating it as much as possible until they know it’s unavoidable and they have to eat it, otherwise they’ll end up passing out or dying. I feel like that would be Felicity - terrified of running out of the food that she and Donna have, so only eating it when absolutely necessary.

As for how I think that Oliver and Felicity would react to finding out each other have eating disorders. Well:

I think that Felicity would already suspect Oliver having an eating disorder. She’s around Oliver so much (okay, not in Season 1, but in Season 2, 3, 4, 5, she definitely is) she would have noticed something going on with him. Hanging around in the Arrow cave and bunker with him, working as his assistant at QC and LIVING with him - she would have definitely noticed SOMETHING going on with Oliver’s infrequent eating habits. I don’t think she would have confronted Oliver about it though - she’s more the helping out subtly type. I imagine she would have very subtly encouraged him to eat more by taking up a hobby like cooking and baking; maybe getting take out and encouraging Oliver to join her in eating it. Stocking up the Arrow cave/bunker fridge with food and telling the others - loudly - about it so that Oliver is aware that food is constantly available. Looking after him and helping him recover without Oliver even realising what she’s doing to help him.

As for Oliver finding out about Felicity’s eating disorder… I imagine that would happen during their road trip, post-S3 and pre-S4. He would have found out when cooking and baking for her that she’s incredibly careful around food. Probably would have been most visible when going to the supermarkets and farmer’s markets, with Felicity being antsy and nervous about what type of food they’re getting.

Confrontation wise… something small. Something personal and not very dramatic. Perhaps Oliver skipping breakfast and lunch because otherwise, he’d be too full, and Felicity asking quietly how long he’s been struggling with eating for. Maybe Felicity insisting on buying several canned vegetables and Oliver questioning hesitantly if she’s had trouble with buying food in the past. It could be that both of them reveal it to each other at the same time, because after a rich meal after going out for dinner, they both end up throwing up in the bathroom late into the night afterwards.

So yes. After finding out about each other’s eating disorders, I imagine both of them would try and help each other as much as possible. There wouldn’t be therapist visits, but there would be a lot of self-help. Oliver would cook small, bland meals for them both for a while. Felicity would do research on what the best foods and diets are for people suffering from medical eating disorders. Oliver would take that research into account and slowly reintroduce them back to a regular eating schedule and regular foods. Felicity would limit herself to taking inventory of their food stock only once a week, as that’s how often they go shopping for groceries.

It’s the small things, but those are the ones that count. And together, Oliver and Felicity would aid each other in recovery. Maybe not complete recovery, but they would both get better with each other’s support. Sometimes all you need is to know that you’re not alone – and with the strong connection those two have, they would get through rehabilitation and heal mentally.

#queued #arrow #arrow headcanons #olicity #tw: eating disorders #anonymous replies