#there was one quote ''he refuses to see what his mind has deduced because he wants to trust so badly" and my mind would not let that go JKH

[ind1c0lite]

something about desperately wanting to trust

#ace attorney #apollo justice ace attorney #ace attorney dual destinies #klavier gavin #kristoph gavin #apollo justice #athena cykes #indys art #so you know that one post talking about klavier I reblogged a few days ago well it really stuck with me hjkhl #there was one quote ''he refuses to see what his mind has deduced because he wants to trust so badly" and my mind would not let that go JKH #and couldnt help but notice that apollo does something VERY similar with athena in DD #obviously very different between athena and kristoph but idk theres something about going against your better judgement because you care- #and want to trust people you care abt despite everything #very fun and cool

[stellocchia]

This is part 4 of the Comprehensive Analysis of c!Tommy and c!Dream’s relationship during the Exile Arc

Part 1 -  Part 2 -  Part 3

We’re here once more just to suffer... though be fair I did decide to do this to myself, so I can’t really complain there...

As always under the cut we will be exclusively be talking about the characters unless stated otherwise and we will be talking about some serious topics, so keep that in mind

We’re starting this off with the infamous Beach Party stream: Tommy Is Left ALONE at his Exile Party with Dream

Now, quick introduction to this vod, since we find out about some details later on: no-one, aside from Dream, shows up because Dream destroyed the invitations and also Ghostbur won’t be around any longer because Dream sent him away (knowing fully well that that could have killed him since he already heard directly from Ghostbur that rain melted him). 

Basically at this point Dream is taking a step further into the manipulation process by not only making everyone else believe that Tommy didn’t want to see them but by also physically ensure they’d believe that. Also Tommy doesn’t start this one drowning either (perhaps because he was in high spirits the day prior?)

*creeper blows up* “Shit shit shit shit (...) I’m stupid I’m stupid I deserve that I deserve that. No no no no I didn’t I didn’t, today is gonna be a good day, today is gonna be a big day” (first response to anything negative has become taking on the blame, which we see later on with the Community House situation)

“Will Tubbo be there? Maybe! Myabe he will! Maybe he will!” (Tommy still very much missing his best friend)

“He [Tubbo] did boot me out... no no! you know what? I’m in the mood to reconcile!” (a big trait of Tommy’s has always been his loyalty to people, no matter how much they hurt him)

“It was definitely 8 pm GMT, 8 pm G-” *Dream joins the game* *Tommy pauses for a few moments on the Nether bridge completely still and then turns back* (I want to point out that the reaction any time Dream joined was one of absolute fear, for good reasons of course)

One thing that I’ve noticed is that Dream rarely comes from the Nether when visiting Tommy, opting instead for the objectively longer route through the water, which honestly seems to reinforce something he said early on, which was basically that even with the longer route it doesn’t take much effort to visit, and yet Dream is the only one willing to make that effort.

“Hello!” “H-hello?” “Hi!” “Hi ho-” “Where is everyone else?” “Oh... I don’t- I don’t know...” “I’m running a little late, I’m sorry” 

Considering that we know that Dream was in fact the one who sabotaged the invites, therefore meaning he knew fully well that nobody would be there, does the fact that he came late seem like he really wanted Tommy to stew in his own loneliness for a while to anyone else? You know, to properly break his spirit. Also Tommy immediately after this goes to take off his armour (Tommy Slippers included) and weapons, but this is the one time Dream lets him keep it (which, once again, he’ll use as a point against him later on). 

“Wilbur sent out the invites, didn’t he?” “Yeah, yeah no he sent them to everybody. He actually told Tubbo to his- like, he told him, he didn’t even need to give him an invite” “Really?!” “Yeah” (just want to point out that this is in fact not gaslighting, as some people seemed to think at the time, but it is still manipulation)

“I’m sure they said they’d be here by the day-” *watching the sun go down* “Time...” “I- I thought I was late so I’m surprised people aren’t here, but...” (turns out Dream was around 15 minutes late supposedly)

Tommy at this point takes out the cake, but he doesn’t eat any. I do think this is a good time to point out that the further we are into the exile the less we actually see Tommy eating (sometimes he straight up throws away any food he has in the inventory). He also sleeps less and less (or, at least, rests less, after all sleeping doesn’t necessarily mean being well rested afterwards) which we can deduce both from his comments on the subject and his rapidly deteriorating state. 

“Dream, no-one’s here” “I don’t know why... guess I’m most surprised Tubbo isn’t ‘cause he said he was gonna be, but-” (once again harping on to the retoric that Tubbo specifically willingly abandoned Tommy)

“I figured, I mean I figured you’d probably care the least if I was here so I just- I didn’t mind being a little bit late because everyone else would be here, but...” (once again the idea here is: “even if I was late I still came, no-one else did”)

“No-one cares about me anymore!” “That’s not true...” “No-one cares about me!” *Tommy takes his armour off again* “Tommy...” “No-one cares- no-one cares about me!” *Tommy destroys the rest of the cake* “No no no *sigh*” “No-one cares, do they? No-one showed up to my party... and it was the one thing, THE ONE THING they had to do for me after exiling me and fucking me over and not one of them came with me. And... none of them care about me anymore... ‘cause I’m not in L’manburg anymore, ‘cause I’m not with- ‘cause I’m not the vice-president”

Okay, that was a long quote, but 2 things I want to point out here: Tommy had about half of his health here, he refused to eat, take of his armour and marched towards the Nether, which is again him acting with no regard for his own self-preservation. And also there is a bit of Wilbur retoric sprinkled in there, with the whole “people only care about you when you have power” mentality. That’s exactly what Wilbur tried to convince him of in the Pogtopia era and it looks like he’s seeing a confirmation of this through the party. 

“If no-one is gonna put in any effort to come and see me, than I’ll make the effort harder to come and see me then, alright?” 

At this point Tommy has borrowed Dream’s netherite pickaxe and he proceeds to destroy a chunk of the bridge he’s made in the Nether, swapping it out for a one block wide wooden bridge. Of course, it goes without saying that he is not acting rationally, he is hurt and angry at the moment and he wants to convince himself that if others don’t care about him then he won’t care about them, which is why he starts lashing out more after this. And this is the result of Dream’s direct actions by the way.

“What is everyone saying about Tubbo’s compass? What is that? What is it? Explain to me” “I- uh I’m pretty sure that he burned it or something... or he lost it, something like that” “Wha...?” “He doesn’t have it anymore”

Tommy, up until now, didn’t even fully believed that Tubbo had a compass, but with the official confirmation of it being paired with Tubbo possibly willingly burn it, it’s the last straw for Tommy who decides to do the same. Though he doesn’t end up actually burning it, he does goes to take it out of the enderchest and bring it to the Nether. I do want to point out that Tubbo did not, in fact, either loose it or burn it willingly. It was blown up by accident in a creeper explosion.

*Tommy holding his compass over a sea of lava* “He burnt it? On purpose?” “I- I think so” “You know what, wou know what? Y- you know what?!” “Why don’t you- why don’t you sleep on it Tommy? Just wait don’t do anything, you know? Anything you can’t take back and then...” “I don’t sleep anymore Dream...”

Pretty sad scene... also a confirmation of what we said before about Tommy sleeping less and less. Also I’m not entirely sure why Dream was suddenly against Tommy burning the compass when he didn’t seem to be at the start, though it could be because Tommy was so obviously hesitant about it, so he probably wouldn’t have done it either way. Which means that it was a good moment to get friendship points. 

*Tommy standing in front of the portal in the main Nether hub* “I just want to go home... please can I go home...?” “Uhm, do you wanna see the Christmas tree for, like, 10 seconds?” “Can I stay?” “You can’t stay, but you can go look at it, I’ll let you out-” “Why can’t I stay?” “It’s not like they want you anyway Tommy” “wha...?” “Tommy, no-one showed up to your party and everyone was invited. Do you want to see the Christmas tree?” “I’ll just go back...”

This is the one single scene that is capable of making me emotional every single time. Just Tommy’s broken and small voice throughout it is something else... also Dream’s absolutely smug tone in all of it. But, the one thing, aside from the great acting, that I want to point out in all of this is how the reason for why Tommy can’t go back now has shifted from Dream killing him if he does to his old friends not wanting him around any longer. This way Dream gets to fully play the part of the magnanimous friend who still cares while everyone else is depicted as the enemy. Also I do find it interesting that in this scene Dream keeps insisting quite a bit for Tommy to go see the tree (in contrast to the first time where he refused for him to go back even for a few seconds), which almost looks like him testing how effective his conditioning was.

“That guy is gonna kill me, the little guy” *pointing at a baby piglin* “Oh” *Dream proceeds to get rid of it* (Tommy is by now basically dependent on Dream for his own safety)

“Do you need food?” “*sigh* No” (Tommy is literally on 3 hearts with 3 1/2 hunger bars and he is still refusing to eat)

They spend quite a bit of time after this by playing with Dream’s riptide trident and later also with the throwing one. Also Tommy changes his “girlfriend” hot girl for HOTTER girl (because I know you all deeply care for this kind of updates)

“I actually didn’t have a trident before and it took forever to come here, so I got a trident to come here quickly” “Oh thank you! You obviously care about me Dream” (Tommy feeling compelled to thank Dream for literally anything paired with Dream constantly showing off how much effort he is willing to put in)

“Let’s make a guest tent, let’s make a guest tent!” “That’s a... great idea” “In case any guest wanna- I mean maybe even- maybe you- we’ll make it here. It- it needs to be close to me because I’m- I’m really missing contact” (on top of everything else, Tommy was also canonically touch starved)

Dream and Tommy also make a guest tent together (and it’s implied a few times that maybe Dream will use it) before playing with tridents a bit more when it starts raining. Also Tommy builds a cobblestone smartphone were he keeps snapchat streaks with girls (this goes in the list of sentences I never thought I’d type). 

“Hey thanks for letting me keep my armour today” “You’re welcome” “It was nice of you” “I just thought it’d be good for the party and everything” “I’m sorry it wasn’t that much of a party in the end” “Eh, we make it a party together, so” “Yeah”

So, once more I want to point out a couple of things: there is no reason, aside from Dream’s conditioning, for Tommy to feel grateful that Dream didn’t take away his means to defend himself, nor is there any reason for Tommy to be the one apologizing for the party turning out the way it did. But also one other thing I want to point out is Dream’s insistence over them having fun together, which he keeps saying even later on during the prison visits. And I want to point that out because I do really think that Dream believes that or that he, at the very least, does try to convince himself of it. I’m still not entirely sure on that point, but, by now, I’m fairly sure that Dream really does believe that him and Tommy are his warped and toxic version of what “friends” would be...

“I should have died and then- and then I didn’t! I should have died...” (suicidal thoughts)

*Tommy reaching the maximum height with the trident* “I’m alone...” (just a very famous scene here, but also keeping to the theme of loneliness even when other people are around, in this case Dream)

“Just- just build a guest tent Dream! You’re probably gonna be the one who stays in the most so... since you’re my guest” 

*Dream standing inside the guest tent* “I’m in- I’m in my tent my tent” (the implications I mentioned before)

“Maybe I’m just gonna stay here, maybe I’m just gonna live here instead” (referring always to the guest tent and Logstedshire)

This all ends with Dream gifting Tommy the throwing trident (which he then puts in his enderchest) and Tommy also gains a zombie head from their mob hunting.

“Let me keep the other trident please” “What the one that you can throw?” “Yeah” “Okay Tommy, I’ll let you keep it” “Really?” “Yeah, as a gift, a beach party gift. You can remember our bonding experience from today” “Awww, thank you” (this is the conversation as a frame of reference)

“Listen Dream, what do we do now, then? If no-one is gonna come and visit me, what do I do?” “Nah, I’m visiting you!” (Dream really is convinced to me as much the center of Tommy’s universe as he is of his, huh?)

“Dream, as much as I’m feeling happy, I’m not. I’m not Dream. Where do we go from here?” “Uhm, I think that you will come around to liking it here, and you’ll build up your own ‘empire’ here, and you’ll be happy and maybe they’ll come and visit you- like you said! You said the thing about all, like, power right? You have no power and now they don’t visit you, maybe you’ll be- you’ll be back in power and then they’ll...” “I’ll always be exiled” “Yeah but that doesn’t mean you can’t become powerful, you can become powerful away from- away from them”

This is the closing conversation, that ends with Tommy entering the sea and disconnecting once he is on only one bubble of air left. Which, by the way, is a case of Tommy dissociating, which we know because he always later seems confused when logging in and finding himself in the water (meaning the confrontation with Jack at the hotel wasn’t the first case of him dissociating).

Also, while Dream is spewing all of this stuff about how “Tommy can still be powerful here” it’s obvious that that’s not the case. Tommy is not allowed armour or weapons and he is basically not allowed any allies (what with Dream sending Ghostbur away, intercepting Ranboo’s mail and making sure to keep away from Tommy as much as possible). Tommy is quite literally stuck in a position of powerlessness that he cannot escape from with someone who actually enjoys having him at his weakest.

I’ll leave it here for today, because this was literally one of the most intense streams so I had quite a lot to say and this became so damn long... I’ll probably condense the next two together.

#dreamwastaken #tommyinnit #dream smp #character analysis #relationship analysis #tw abuse #tw suicide #tw manipulation #exile arc #c!dream #long post #my post #this seriously came out really fucking long #oh well #pretty sure you guys are used to that from me by now!

[seths-wife]

Theory: why is Seth Twiright the demon of wrath? What's his backstory?

Note: this theory tries its best to be as objective as possible in explaining and deducing facts basing on only what is known in the novels and not basing on personal preferences and sensibilities, just cold gathering of the facts and trying to draw plausible conclusion. That doesn't mean i'm right, necessarily.

Index:

1) Demon of wrath or demon of pride? (Biblical references and discordance of themes).

2) Was Seth a victim of abuse? (Can we draw this conclusion basing only on what we know?)

3) That one comic by Ichika

4) Conclusion

Chapter 1: demon of wrath or demon of pride?

Seth is a really peculiar character: the sin he's represented by doesn't seem to be...displaying that much, contrary to those of the other demons in this series.

Gilles is clearly lustful (basing on the catholic religion definition of it, at least) seen his high sex drive.

Vlad is not really explained but he's a cook so he must be obsessed with food (joke), also his interactions with Banica seem to suggest a morbid curiosity of his to try new foods for hedonistic pleasure, no matter if it's immoral and illegal to eat those.

Marie Annette is a really prideful human/demon seen her few lines in the entire series, like "bow down to me" without any legitimate reason.

Eve...well...on another theory about that...

Rahab is clearly envious when also other people get what she has, seen that she's basically the ec version of Ayano Aishi and a big stereotypical yandere, at least in one part of the narrative.

Salem (does he even exist? (joke)) is an economist so he must be obsessed with money and gathering earthly and perishing goods. (joke)

I won't talk about Adam Moonlit as the demon of greed here as it's for another topic.

But Seth? When in the series does he show unrighteous wrath? Do we see him get angry outbursts and go around beating up and killing people because he's angry at them?

No.

On the contrary, in the whole series Seth seems to be pretty calculating and cold, and he doesn't seem to be really excessively troubled by any behavior or at least he doesn't really show a strong vengeful attitude towards them.

Yes, he might get on bad mood when his plans don't succeed as he expected to, but he never goes like "you'll pay for ruining my plan" or something. He proceeds with his plans, trying to adjust the latters in order to fit the new situation.

Actually, sometimes he seems to find amusing and funny when people try to kill him and unmask (pun or not lol) him for his evil bahaviour, like when Adam tried to kill him and the latter was surprised he couldn't succeed since Seth outsmarted him, or Gammon when he confronted him about brainwashing Miroku.

It's as if Seth finds funny when people are frustrated because of him, it soothes his ever-roaring mind and boredom.

For months, i've thought that Seth should have been the demon of pride because of his attitude in the crime novel and because it fit him better as for the Biblical references:

We see multiple instances in the crime novel that Seth likes himself very much: he loves the fact that he consideres himself to be the best scientist in the country™ as he uses this bunch of words everytime he introduces himself (both as Horus and as himself), also he considers himself to be very handsome to the point he doesn't want to change his face because it would be "such a terrible crime" (i mean, i also think he's hot but Seth, calm down, what the hell...).

But his pride doesn't end with him flaunting his intelligence and hotness.

There are also other instances of Seth's pride that are even more remarkable.

Like for example, the whole matter of Seth making artificial humans (so called "ghoul children") mimicking the creation of the "gods" in the series. This can be considered a matter of pride, as he wants to act as the "gods", he thinks he's able to be on par of them.

Well lol, gods...i always found pretty unrealistic how we got from human scientists with high tech from almost omnipotent beings that can cast lightening wherever they want, make ladies pregnant and instill thoughts and visions in people in a single arc while being trapped inside of a spaceship. This always provoked some strong cognitive dissonance within me, this sounds like a stretched, inappropriate and unrealistic even if they have big tech. That's why i call them "gods wannabe". They're still humans playing God after all.

But that's besides the point.

Even more remarkable is this other line, right after quoting the achievements of other "gods" in the series:

"In that case—

I am the god who creates “evil”.

Seth is literally and explicitly placing himself in the place of the gods, considering himself to be a god on par of the pillar ones in the series.

And this is very coherent basing on the fact he should be the parallel of the Biblical serpent, the demon who thought he was on par of God and fell because of pride.

So it would have had much more sense to have Seth as the demon of pride.

So when and why is seth the demon of wrath since in the series it looks more like he's the demon of pride?

His motive? Not really...Seth doesn't seem to act because of some sort of anger as his main motivation is to "follow his h.e.r.s nature and make himself 'new friends' (his own definition of friends)".

Then i think we have no choice than look at his backstory and see if we can spot some unrighteous anger there.

Chapter 2: is Seth a victim of abuse and angry at his mother?

The vast majority of the theories around about the reasons of Seth's evil are based off the fact that Seth might have gone through motherly abuse that provoked him some childhood traumas back when he was a little white and red mask.

Those assertions are usually backed up by pieces of the short story "Outlaw and lychgate".

Let's look at them.

The most quoted line about this issue is:

“My, and what sort of dish is that?”

“It’s not really much of a dish. You just splash some curry powder and ketchup on a sausage. My old ma used to make it for me a lot when I was a child.”

“Just like mom used to make, hm. That sounds quite nice. My mother never did any home cooking for me.“

Well...from this particular line, fans have begun to speculate than maybe his mother starved him or refused to cook for him.

But is it necessarily the case? It can be a possible interpretation but we don't know how masks work in this series or whether or not they need to eat, especially since they don't have a mouth or a digestive system of some sort.

It can also be that Seth was just curious about food in the line upwards since as a mask maybe he could not experience food, given that he couldn't physically eat when he was a mask.

This doesn't necessarily refer to an abusive situation of a mother refusing to provide food and care for her son.

There is also another instance in which Seth spoke about his mother.

"I often hear strangers tell me that they can’t tell what I’m thinking.

Even my own mother said so, before she died.

That’s why, to get her to understand at least a little bit, I shot her in the forehead.

To this day I still remember how stopped moving, her mask cracked in two.

That was the first murder I committed."

Ok, the fact that his mother "didn't understand him" could have been because of various reasons:

1) maybe she didn't try to understand him and neglected him.

2) maybe Seth became too different from his mother since he contracted hers and she couldn't understand and relate to him anymore even if she tried to.

3) Seth is just too cryptic or changes his mind too fast (probably because of his boredom) when it comes to expressing his true intentions or having certain intentions therefore people have big trouble understand him.

I would go for 3 since Seth also explained that not only his mother didn't understand him but also various other characters, so it's not necessarily true that Seth's mother just refused to listen and understand him, it could have been that Seth was too cryptic or that she couldn't relate to a her.

Anyways, we don't have a lot of info about this but i don't think it is correct to see a mysterious passage in just one possible way.

And also i wouldn't like for Seth to be "he's evil because mommy wasn't nice therefore he's angry and wants to make everyone like him and destroy everything uwu" because:

1) that's a really misused trope.

2) it doesn't properly explain why Seth did what he did in the crime novel, it's clear that there has to be an even deeper motivation that made him do those horrific things: abuse is too much of a simplistic and lazy motivation given his role.

Also there is no specific mention of anger and resentment even if there could be.

So where can we see that Seth is angry?

Chapter 3: that one Ichika comic.

Let's look at this one comic.

It is kinda difficult to understand what it means but the face resembles Seth's human form a bit and also this comic shows a theme of anger against the human creators of the first period since the comic seems to be talking about the second one "in this world where everything is an extension" (the second period is a virtual parallel reality to the first one in the series).

Seth seems to be pretty aware of the first period.

I think so because Kiril (his clone) at one point gained back the memories of his original.

Who? Seth? Pale? (That twist complicated things a whole lot).

I will go for Seth since in the series he's always referred to as the original talking about his "clones".

Kiril with Seth's memories came up with "Vocaloid, huh?!", showing awareness of the knowledge of vocaloid (since the first period is similar to the real world in the series) but i don't think this is an info Kiril learnt on his own but he took from Seth's memories since he was a researcher of parallel worlds and wouldn't have been out of place for Seth to learn about the first period.

So, given that Seth is the one of the comic and he's talking about the humans of the first period, he seems to be angry at the fact he was born to be an her (let's remember the humans of the first period started the her problem for their own personal gain) and in the society of the second period he's seen as a problem because of that.

Therefore Seth in his anger invites people to blame the creators instead of him since he doesn't think to have a free will and has no other choice than being evil because of those humans who "made him this way".

Funny how the same topic is faced with Irina and Levia in the duel. And funny how Levia in this series seems to also be a victim of her own pulsions and can't really be a moral authority in this, again, gods wannabe. They have their morals inspired by their originals who made their avatars who have tainted them with a virus, so they can't create, define or judge good and evil themselves.

So funny.

Chapter 4: conclusions.

So i think this is a plausible reason Seth might be the demon of wrath. But still, i wonder how it is that Seth is happy later on to follow those pulsions he thinks he can't control (given by humans) and doesn't try to fight back the instincts.

Maybe he accepted and got happy with his disease or he just resigned that that was his destiny thinking that he had no choice.

I don't know if i will make anymore theories after this, since i want to go on and make content for something else.

#evillious chronicles #evillious #seth twiright

[longitudinalwaveme]

Longitudinalwaveme Reviews Some More Old Comics (and One New One), Part 2

Batman #321, “Dreadful Birthday, Dear Joker...!” 

The story opens with Commissioner Gordon receiving an invitation to the Joker’s birthday party. “Black tie optional, funny hats mandatory”. A few seconds later, everyone in police headquarters doubles over laughing, the victims of Joker’s, well, Joker gas. 

Batman is on the scene only a few seconds later, and starts punching out Joker’s goons. Unfortunately, by the time he’s finished doing this, both Joker and Commissioner Gordon have disappeared. 

Eminently Quotable Joker: “Ah---the Batman! What an expected surprise! And what a waste of a perfectly good window! Couldn’t you have used the door?” 

As Joker leaves in his Jokermobile, the police officers tell Batman that the Joker also captured Robin earlier that day (by pretending to be a woman with car problems!) 

Meanwhile, Selina Kyle, Lucius Fox, and Alfred are talking when the Joker bursts in and kidnaps them as well. Notably, Selina mentions that she’s been having terrible headaches. 

Selina Kyle wakes up in a room with Batman; the other kidnapees wake up in the Joker’s “Ha-Hacienda” on his “victim-go-round”. 

Eminently Quotable Joker: “Tomorrow is my birthday, and by way of celebration, I intend to eliminate all you who’ve crossed me, while all of Gotham watches! It’s not exactly the catcher’s mitt I really wanted...but it’s a pretty fair second place! HAHAHAHAHAHA!” 

Hawkman stars in a Hostess cupcake ad! 

The Joker murders one of his own henchman with his “BANG!” flag gun for not laughing at his joke. 

Eminently Quotable Joker (in response to Robin saying “You’re out of your mind!”): “Gloriously so! Isn’t it wonderful?” 

In order to get his audience, the Joker put an ad in the newspaper that states that the “Harlequin Baking Company” will be inviting all of Gotham to  sample its wares at the Seaside Coliseum. AND IT WORKS, because everyone in Gotham has the IQ of turnips. A bazillion people come to the Coliseum to get free food. 

Joker dramatically reveals himself to everyone and explains that he’s going to blow up all the people he hates with a giant cake bomb. Then Batman arrives and offers himself in exchange for the other hostages. This goes exactly how you’d expect it to go, but Batman manages Batman his way out of the trap, saving both himself and all of his friends. 

Joker runs away and jumps into a boat. Batman follows him, they fight for a bit, and then the Joker apparently blows himself up. But he’s not dead, because nothing can kill the Joker. Batman even says so. 

This would’ve made a great episode of B:TAS. 

Batman #322, “Chaos--Coming and Going!” 

And now for something completely different! 

Catwoman looks at a bunch of old newspaper clippings of herself, as the comic hints fairly subtly that she might be unwell (just as her headaches last issue did). 

Meanwhile, a van is delivering issues of the tabloid The Gotham Guardian...when a thrown bundle of newspapers is intercepted by a boomerang! Captain Boomerang is in Gotham City! 

The two men in the van react by promptly trying to run Digger over....only for him to slice their van in half with a boomerang!

Digger yells at them to tell their boss that this was only a warning: the mysterious boss owes him a million dollars, and he wants it in 24 hours or else. 

Then Batman shows up out of nowhere and he and Boomerang get into a fight. Digger distracts Batman by using his exploding boomerang to damage a nearby building. This causes some rubble to fall on one of the drivers. Batman goes to rescue him, and Digger vanishes. 

Green Arrow stars in a Hostess fruit pie ad! 

Batman talks to Alfred about Captain Boomerang, telling him to ask Lucius Fox to find out who owns the Guardian, since he’s probably Boomerang’s next target. He also refuses to call the Flash in for help. “The night I can’t handle a punk like Boomerang is the night I hang up my cowl!” 

Catwoman goes to a doctor and it’s confirmed that she is, in fact, dying. She has less than a month to live and the only cure is some Egyptian herbs that have been lost to time. 

Meanwhile, Captain Boomerang lets us know that he hates Gotham. “Lor’, but I hate this cronky town! I never would’ve come her from Central City if it wasn’t for my million quid!” 

Apparently, Captain Boomerang set up a retirment fund for himself and is ticked off that has money was subsequently stolen. 

“It’s really rum--downright ironic! The one time I play the game by their rules--and it’s me who gets taken for a sucker! Well, nobody crosses “Digger” Harkness--and gets away with it intact!” That’s our Digger! 

Also, he has a giant boomerang hidden under a tarp. 

Catwoman goes to the museum to see a display about cats...and conveniently, some ancient Egyptian medicinal herbs are there. Catwoman determines to take them so she can save herself. 

Batman asks the most Irish Irishman to ever walk the pages of the comic book about where he might be able to find Captain Boomerang, but he hasn’t heard anything. Then Alfred calls Batman and tells him that Lucius has discovered that the Gotham Guardian is owned by a corporation which serves as a front for a guy named Gregorian Falstaff. 

The man in question is eating dinner at a hotel when he is rudely interrupted by Captain Boomerang, who knocks out Falstaff’s bodyguard and demands his money. Falstaff plays dumb, claiming that the whole thing was an unfortunate accident and offering to write him a check. Boomerang insists that it’s cash or nothing (since he doesn’t trust Falstaff). Then Batman shows up, and Digger throws a smoke bomb boomerang that distracts Batman long enough for him to knock him out with another boomerang. 

“You gave it a fair dinkum try, cobber-but fair ain’t enough when  you’re dealin’ with the likes of me!’” Didgeridoo! Crikey! Steve Irwin! Can you tell I’m Australian yet? 

Selina Kyle tries to call Bruce but can’t get ahold of him, so she decides to take matters into her own hands and pulls out her Catwoman costume. 

When Batman comes to, he’s been tied to the giant boomerang. 

“Nothin’ permanent, mate--you’re simply tied to my giant rocket-powered boomerang! Only Flash’s super-speed saved him from the original--and without super-powers you’ll never escape this improved version!” So...which one of the giant boomerangs you used to launch the Flash into space are we talking about here, Digger? Because there’ve been at least four at this point. 

Boomerang launches the boomerang into the air and it explodes. Digger is naturally convinced that he’s killed Batman, only for Batman to promptly prove him wrong by showing up alive and well. “Nobody could possibly survive a flight on my Doomerang!” Oh, Digger...

Batman explains that he survived by “maneuvering my bonds toward the Doomerang’s rocket-jets--and the ignition-flames freed me! Then I simply slipped away under the cover of all that smoke before the Doomerang took off!” I love that Batman also calls the thing a Doomerang (with a totally straight face, mind you.) 

Then Digger throws a boomerang at Batman at the same time Batman throws a Batarang at him. But because Batman is Batman, he wins the boomerang duel and knocks Digger out. Way to take away Digger’s only accomplishment there, Batman. It’s like if Superman won any of his races against the Flash. 

Batman decides to investigate Falstaff. 

Meanwhile, at the museum, someone who looks like Catwoman is stealing one of the exhibits....

Flash #286, “The Color Schemes of the Rainbow Raider”

This issue introduces the greatest villain of all time...the dreaded Rainbow Raider! 

After a long day at work, Barry Allen is heading home...only for an alarm to go off at the Centrex Art Museum! Barry has to promptly go into action as the Flash as Barry thinks about how tired he is. Apparently, his new police chief, Darryl Frye, has made him work overtime three times in one week alone. 

Suddenly, a rainbow appears, bewildering Barry, as it hasn’t rained for the past week. Barry runs inside the museum to find the guards crying inexplicably. Barry deduces that the thief has been altering their emotions and realizes that this is probably not one of his established Rogues. 

Sure enough, he soon comes face-to-face with the Rainbow Raider!

“Welcome, Flash! I didn’t think you and I would be meeting so soon...but sooner or later we were bound to clash! Allow me to introduce myself! I am the Rainbow Raider---the most colorful criminal this city’s ever seen!” Oh, Roy. You’re so amazingly silly, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Roy shoots a beam of blue light at Barry, who somehow deduces that this was what enabled him to mess with the emotions of the guards. Barry dodges the blast of blue light, but it hit and knocked out by a blast of black light. 

The police are suitably baffled by the Rainbow Raider, who, incidentally, signed his crime scene with “The Rainbow Raider was here!” That’s amazing. 

Meanwhile, the Flash runs home, for the Rainbow Raider has...uh....sucked all of the color out of his body! Somehow! Wha? 

Meanwhile, in a mobile trailer, Roy is gloating to himself. “Now I know I’m ready for the big leagues--on a par with seasoned criminals like Captain Cold and Mirror Master!” Uh...sure, Roy. 

Batman and Catman star in a Hostess cupcake ad! 

“Roy G. Bivolo is compelled by higher motivations--like art appreciation!” 

Roy reveals that he suffers from achromotopsia, a rare form of colorblindness that means he sees the world entirely in greyscale. This fact apparently scuppered his burgeoning artistic career, because the art critics of Central City have never heard of black-and-white artwork even though it totally exists. 

Also, Roy’s dad was apparently a, quote, “leading world-renowned optometrist”, and he tried to create goggles that would allow Roy to see color. He passed away shortly after Roy turned 21; having finished the googles just days before. 

When Roy tested them a few weeks later, he found that they hadn’t cured his colorblindness...but that they could shoot out “bands of multi-colored solid light particles that I could literally “ride” through the sky”. Roy then uses his father’s notes to unlock even more abilities with his goggles. Eventually, his mother also passed away, and Roy decided to turn to crime. 

“Since I was robbed of a brilliant art career as a painter--I think it’s only fitting that I rob others....rob them of the pleasure they’ve derived all these years from priceless works of art I myself have never been able to enjoy! If I can’t see them in all their glory---then neither will anyone else!” Roy...that’s insane. 

Barry Allen fails in his attempt to flirt with Fiona Webb, then exposits about pseudoscience. “The color black appears black because it absorbs the light waves of all other colors...without reflecting them! Those black beams the Rainbow Raider enveloped me with must’ve had a similar effect--saturating my body with radiation that prevents me from reflecting any and all light-waves...leaving me totally colorless!” SCIENCE! 

Barry uses makeup and hair day to make himself look normal. As a result, he’s 20 minutes late to work and gets chewed out by his boss. 

Also: “The unnatural inner-vibrations from this color drain are steadily sapping more and more energy from my molecules by the minute!” More SCIENCE! 

Barry is about to get to work when he hears about the opening of the Skytop Art Gallery. Assuming that this would be an ideal target for the Rainbow Raider, he goes into action as the Flash. 

Roy has created a distraction by using his emotional manipulation powers to get all of the art patrons to fight each other while he escapes. Barry runs up a building and onto Rainbow Raider’s rainbow...whereupon Raider shoots a blinding light at him, causin him to slip off the rainbow and almost fall to his doom. Luckily, his ability to vibrate through anything saves his life, as he manages to vibrate through a green car he was about to land on. 

Barry then finds that he’s turned totally green. ‘I must’ve been vibrating on the precise wavelength of the color green when I passed through this heap--somehow allowing me to regain my capacity to absorb green light-waves!” SCIENCE! He then starts running through vehicles of other colors to regain his capacity to absorb those light-waves, too. Since Raider is colorblind, he can’t figure out what the Flash is up to. 

When Raider takes one last blast at the Flash, the effects restore him to normal, and Flash is able to make quick work of the Rainbow Raider. 

I love the Rainbow Raider so much.

#flash comics #batman comics #dc comics

[norahastuff]

A little late watching this week’s episode but I was so impressed, I’m going to talk about it anyway. Fair warning, this got longer than I intended it to.

This is Us has a reputation as an overly treacly kind of show, and for the most part that couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s a smart nuanced portrait of flawed characters, the relationships between them and how the effects of trauma can reverberate throughout the years. However, there have been times where the show has leaned into that preconception many have of it as a sappy show and when I heard the concept for this episode, “What if Jack had lived?” I’m not going to lie, I thought the show was going to go down that road. I needn’t have worried - they know what they’re doing. 

No this wasn’t a tear jerking whitewashed episode about how great everything would have been if Jack never died, it was a deep dive into Randall, his anxieties and mental issues. The things he’s spent his whole suppressing and refusing to acknowledge. The Big 3 have all for so long blamed a lot of their problems on losing Jack, but for lack of a better way to phrase this, that was a convenient excuse. Obviously I’m not saying losing a parent is convenient or anything of course, but that it is understandable. It’s a concrete thing that you can point at and hold onto. A tangible reason for feeling bad, for things going wrong. You lose someone you love and it hurts. There’s no grey area there. To use a quote from Bojack Horseman “My mother is dead and everything is worse now.”

(Ironically in that case there was a lot of grey area but I won’t get into that in a This is Us post...but do yourself a favour and watch Free Churro - I’ve never gotten over that episode.)

It’s easy to understand the pain when it comes from losing your father. But what about if things are more complicated than that? That moment when the therapist - Pamela Adlon is such perfect casting by the way - calls bullshit on Randall’s Norman Rockwell style sanitised version of his life. Where he saves one father, solves his other father’s addiction problems and also cures his stomach cancer. No more Daddy issues means Randall would have no underlying issues to address (Crazy Ex Gf reference intended) and happy endings all around.

But that’s not how life works. Our pain and our issues tend to be a lot more complicated than that, and usually stem from many different factors. And for the most part, most of those factors are not under our control, and no matter how hard we try, they never will be. Not being able to accept that is and always has been Randall’s biggest problem. It’s frustrating as hell, but completely and utterly realistic that even though his therapist has pointed that out to him and he acknowledges that it may be true, he’s not going to change his entire sense of self overnight. One enlightening therapy session is not going to suddenly make him do a 180 on how he’s handled his thoughts and feelings his whole life.

So Randall does something very wrong. It’s wrong for Rebecca yes, but it’s also very much wrong for him. His therapist helps him to admit that he hasn’t addressed the resentment he still feels towards Rebecca. That while he made it seem like he’d moved on, he really just buried the pain he felt after that betrayal. He needs to talk to her about this. He should deal with these feelings with her.

We know what Randall should do. Dr. Leigh knows what he should do. Hell for a split second I think even Randall knows what he should do, but he doesn’t. He instead does what he’s been doing his whole life and clings tightly to the need to control things. Having an unpredictable confrontation with Rebecca where he has no idea if it would change things, make him feel any better at all or just destroy their relationship or...honestly I’m sure the many many possible roads a conversation about something so tangled and complicated, filled with love, lies, pain, good will and betrayal have all occurred to Randall. Hell he explores two of them in his what if? scenarios. Best case, he forgives her early, they remain close, he deduces she has Alzheimers early and saves her. Worst case, he resents her, falls out of her life and doesn’t return till her disease has progressed too far. Either way, it’s still about him and what he can do for her. It’s his job to fix it and he’s the only one who can.  Just like Jack he’s a black and white kind of guy, he doesn’t do well with the grey areas. 

So Randall decides not to talk to Rebecca about William. No instead he chooses to use these unresolved feelings to try and control the situation. It’s easier for him to wrap his mind around. And he can justify it by saying he’s doing it to save his mother’s life. But Randall you can’t control other people, and even if you can, even if you have the power to - like you do with Rebecca right now - you shouldn’t. 

It’s complicated. Randall’s doing the wrong thing but he somehow simultaneously has the right and wrong motivation and intentions. I understand that he wants to save her but also he wants to control the situation. He can’t let things just play out...he needs to be a driving force. Oh Randall, don’t you know what they say about the road to hell?

This was one of the best written episodes of the show, and yes it made me feel a lot of things frustration, pain, sadness and unease among them, but not because of bad or lazy storytelling - the opposite actually. It feels completely natural and almost inevitable but I will say I don’t think I’ve ever felt as uneasy and on edge watching this show as I did when Randall started his phone call to Rebecca with “Mom I’ve been a good son” because you could tell exactly what Randall was about to do. Something he could never take back. But those last few seconds of the episode, I truly felt like my heart had dropped

Randall: I've been a good son, Mom. I've been a good son, and I've never asked you for anything. But I am asking you for this now. And I need you to say it. You are going to St. Louis. You are going to do this clinical trial.

Rebecca (Whispering): Okay. ( Shudders ) I will go to St. Louis, and I will do the trial.

This show man.

Couple of other things

- I just want to reiterate how much I love Pamela Adlon and how perfect she is as Dr. Leigh. Every moment was so good but to pick a random moment the one after Randall apologises for insulting her “cheap” shoes she dismisses him saying “Oh please, I live for this stuff.” Adlon’s delivery was gold.

- Beth talking about Watchmen “It took six episodes, but it finally makes sense.” I’m sure there’s no meta relevance of that to this show at all...(spoiler alert: there is)

- Kevin. Goddamn Kevin and Randall have a lot to sort through. In Randall’s worst case scenario, Kevin was the perfect son. He went into the family business with Jack, he helped Rebecca with the cooking. Jack gives a toast at Kevin’s wedding and tells a story about Kevin when he was 11 years old. He’s the centre of the family, as becomes clear when he loses his patience with Randall avoiding any family get together. 

In Randall’s best case scenario, Jack gives a toast about 11 year old Randall at Randall’s wedding. Kevin doesn’t really play much of a part. In fact the only thing Randall really says to Kevin throughout the whole scenario is the very first line when Kevin asks if they lost everything in the fire 

“You’re lucky you weren’t there.”

There’s a lot to be said about how Randall’s relationship to Kevin is also mired in his control issues. For a while now, Kevin’s been the only one who Randall could go to when he was losing control, the only one he was able to let see him that way. They’ve grown a lot closer, have been there for each other and done a lot of work on their relationship. The things is, Kevin’s also done a lot of work on himself. Those underlying issues that Randall isn’t addressing, Kevin has been forcing himself to deal with his own for a while now. As a result Kevin has become a stable presence, a rock that Rebecca and the family can lean on and rely on right now. For so long that was Randall’s job. Unfairly or not, he was Rebecca’s rock, and losing that at a time like this, where he also might be losing Rebecca, it’s bringing to the surface a lot of the resentment Randall still feels towards Kevin.

“You’re lucky you weren’t there.”

I have more to say on this but I’m going to wait and see where the finale is going to leave them. Plus this post is already way too long. 

This episode really got to me.

#this is us #randall pearson #rebecca pearson #kevin pearson #just posting this for my own sanity at this point #my thoughts #this is us spoilers #long post for ts

[excorcismic]

ALRIGHT SO HERE’S THE DEAL ; if misa is my first favorite death note character , this angy kid right here is my second - i adore mello to pieces and he’s very close to misa in terms of how much i love him , but ultimately does she remain queen . but ! the cool thing is that in the series they never actually interact ( the closest being mello spying on her for a brief period of time ) which means i could play my two blonde fashion icons and voila , here they are . so here’s the gist on mello in canon & alucard and most importantly the plots i am digging bc my muse for him rn ?? is off the charts . LESGO !

IN A CANON NUTSHELL ( HUGE DEATH NOTE SPOILERS ) : So Mello’s introduced during the latter half of Death Note ( or maybe it’s more the final third but either way there’s a part where it significantly breaks in two ) - or , the very end of the first half , takes center stage during the second . He’s from the original home of the detective L , an orphanage of gifted children known as Whammy’s House - and essentially , the goal of the children is to maybe one day live up to L , one person taking his place . Mello !! Is one of the candidates . But he has a permanent chip on his shoulder since Near - the other candidate - always managed to beat him at everything . So when Light Yagami gets his way & L dies , Near and Mello are told that L didn’t choose a successor between them . When the idea that they work together to do just that is brought up , Near ( who honestly really liked Mello ) is like ‘hey! let’s do it’ and Mello ( still angy that Near is always right in front of him ) is like ‘FUCK you I’m gonna catch Kira myself’ and leaves the orphanage . Five years later , he works with the mafia , even getting his hands on a Death Note & with the help of a shinigami ( that he scared the living piss out of ) concludes that a rule that states a human will die if they haven’t written in the notebook in thirteen days is fake . He also like , blackmails the president and orchestrates an explosion that Soichiro Yagami dies after but he gets a wicked ass scar afterwards so it’s okay . Now working with L’s third potential successor , Matt , he spies on Misa Amane and makes connections between the second L ( Light Yagami ) & Kira , deduces that Kiyomi Takada is an accomplice , and kidnaps her to try and expose Kira as Light Yagami - but . . . he dies in the process , and so does Matt . The cool thing is though his discoveries led to Near’s breakthrough in the Kira case ( as he and Near met one last time , where he gives Mello the photo he has here in Alucard ) and Mello kind of gets the last laugh post-mortem . And also a kind of neat thing , his last appearance is as the narrator in the Death Note prequel , the Los Angeles BB murder cases - I’m gonna quote the whole thing in my eventual intro but ! It’s an awesome book and Mello is an awesome narrator . ( dn spoilers end here tyvm )

IN AN ALUCARD NUTSHELL - So Mihael Keehl ( his real name in canon , mind you ) is a twenty year-old runaway from the foster system - also sometimes lived in an orphanage but when he wasn’t , the constant tossing around because of his rebellious tendencies wrecked him . He isn’t employed , not does he actually have an actual home - living in a beat down truck most of the time if he can’t get a motel / hotel room for a night or a few . He makes basic expenses and fills his basic needs by doing odd jobs in exchange for money or favors - stuff like ‘if I do this for you for x amount of days or I get this for you you’ll pay for my phone bill for the next two months’ and that stuff . Basic arrangements . And he knows he can like , maybe try to commit to a job or a home but he’s actually . . . way too fucking scared of being tied down or in a worse situation that’s somehow more stable so the nomad life is kind of what he sticks with . But he’s homeless & it’s not good for him . At all . He’ll never flat-out admit that though which is why he calls himself a drifter . His main reason for being on his own , and refusing any extensive help from anyone outside of these favors , is because he has a point to prove - because that inferiority complex kicks in because the other kids he grew up against are doing amazing things and he wants to do better , and not receive any large amount of help . He just ,,, doesn’t understand he’s not doin’ any good for himself .

BUT OOOOOOOH YOU WANNA PLOT WITH MELLO SO BAD OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

so the biggest connection in the sense that it’s the most open , i mentioned that mello mainly pays for his own expenses ( or more so , gets other people to pay for them ) by doing favors or small jobs in exchange for either money or other forms of payment . so obviously , people he has these arrangements with - they can range from anything , mello is extremely smart ( a thing that comes up is that he has a shit ton of wasted potential ) in the books , technology , the streets and has a bunch of small talents he’s picked up over the years of living on his own ( saving money , sewing and mending / caring for clothes how else is he gonna keep that amazing fashion , cooking with very little ingredients , cleaning with little tools , fixing the kinks / souping up automobiles , ahem sexual stuff , tutoring , sometimes even mild illegal shit , you name it . ) so he can offer these talents / skills / etc . to other people who could use them ( most of the time repeatedly ) and in exchange , the other muses will pay him in cash or by doing things like paying his phone bill , car insurance , health insurance , food / groceries , hotel/motel room for a few nights , or even just offering him a place to use the shower or bathroom or even a bed for certain days of the week . This can also lead to many of the other plots I have listed here in the sense it’s a start , and it can happen with anyone , anywhere , for any reason .

literally the thing w/ mel is that he knows no limits and will do anything for anyone and is hardheaded as fuck about it because he’s got a point to prove and things to do and he won’t waste time refusing but the moment you offer your help in exchange for nothing or you’re trying to hold his hand a little too much and he catches on , the arrangement’s over and you’ll be lucky to see him again .

okay so uh . in that sense ?? maybe ppl who kind of helped him out and he did like . one thing for them and once he got his payment for that one thing he kinda bounced n they never heard from him again for whatever reason . nothing against them but he rly isn’t gonna make a habit of staying in one place for too long . 

obviously , those people that really think he’s gotta give up the ghost of trying to survive like this bc it’s wearing on his health & he doesn’t wanna admit it . and he’s tried shaking them off but he won’t leave and sometimes he’s forced to give into the help they offer but tries making them take a payment back .

old peers that felt whatever way about him back then but feel pity for his wasted potential ( at the moment ) , bc this dude was like . . . a straight-a student and was rly good at a bunch of things and now he’s living the way he is . whatever they wanna do and however they felt about him and how he interacted with them back then Differs but . there’s kind of like ‘damn u live like this’ now . gimme some kids who had crushes on him , kids he was rivals with , kids he got into fights with and maybe socked in the jaw a few times , kids who always admired him , kids who hated his guts - it always comes down to what life is like now vs. what life was like then .

i’d like some friends who were formed from the favors - and maybe they’ve stopped whatever they had with him but they still regularly hang out or something , maybe offer a place to stay for the night . 

just in general ?? people who keep their home open for him and whether he takes them up on their offer on a rare basis .

pls some folks trick him into accepting their help like leave him basket of chocolate candy and trap him or something like just . make it ‘wait what’ deal bc they all know he’s stubborn .

also uh . he’s been arrested for minor offenses a few times so some ppl who’ve bailed him out pls and he’s tryna repay him back .

mentor figures . mentor figures pls he’s trying not to accept their mentor-y guidance from .

so maybe the hero  . . . maybe the one person who was like the l to mello of alucard ( maybe even the Man himself ) that he just . looked up to forever and probably still does .

. . . favor idea ?? maybe he’s a stand-in boyfriend or date for events or somethin’ like mello kinda has that bad boy reputation but maybe he dated them for show on their whim at some point or they have that kinda thing ‘pls pretend to my boyfriend and i’ll let u use my shower every weekend for the next month’ or so .

also , one night stands or friends with benefits he uses only for the bathroom / a place to sleep . folks he’s dated for a period bc he did feel something and therefore he had them as an outlet but then broke up with them ( most likely ?? he was the one who ended it bc he has never known love stability & got spooked on it ending and just - did it on his own accord before he could further get hurt BUT THAT NEVER WORKS and he has hella commitement issues ) and tried to shrug it off as ‘ just another fling ’ even tho he’s highkey sad over it . ppl he’s slept with and then disappears with only a ‘thank you’ note as the evidence he was there . and do they accept it ?? are they pissed over it ?? that is up to You but it’s probably gotten around that mihael keehl has never had a stable relationship and never , ever stays . 

lots of ppl he probs has the above two arrangements or scenarios with bc again , gotta get shit done somehow .

enemies . . . he has an endless grudge with for some reason like maybe they screwed him over , 

i want . . . folks he can eventually get soft with and maybe actually seek that comfort in even tho u gotta chip at the five thousand concrete walls to get to that stage . i want to see him become better and that’s an ultimate goal for him in alucard ( even though it’s gonna be a bit more difficult with his memories returning ) to get better , commit to something , accept stability and get his life on a better track .

and yes , that includes an eventual ship ! really it can build off of any of these dynamics just . give me sneaking in through windows late at night , soft words and gentle kisses and protective hugs and please stay i know you never stay but please stay with me and the thought that maybe he should leave but he doesn’t and they wake up with him after a night and he’s still there and maybe there’s a scare he left like he always does but he made chocolate chip pancakes and he feels safe & alright which is . . . a rare occasion in his messy ass life . maybe something like friends to lovers , fwb to lovers , an old flame , anything this could be fun to do !! end goal though , i’d like something on the softer side that’s healthy and loving because that’s really what he needs . 

( some notes tho bc he’s only twenty i’ll sayyyy max i’ll do the more romantic / spicier stuff with in that aspect is . . . 23 - 24 ?? bc he’s almost 21 like if we put the fact we’re in october into account and his birthday is december 13th that isn’t too far away so . That’s That . he’s also pan as fuck . )

BUT , yes . the main connections / plots there are what i can think of . ik a lot of these are so wordy and i’m sorry bt as always ! i will take literally anything i love plots and i think with what i have for mello there is so much potential in what we can do here .

and as always . give me other death note characters . near or matt specifically would fucking make me cry and i’m here for it .

#dhq.plots #░ ★ abt . ❛ ɪ·ᴅ ʀᴀᴛʜᴇʀ ɢᴏ ᴛᴏ ʜᴇʟʟ ᴛʜᴀɴ ʙᴇ ɪɴ ᴘᴜʀɢᴀᴛᴏʀʏ / mello #homelessness tw

[ahsien-saffari1-blog]

Love’s not Rocket Science

Prompt/Inspiration: The idea of Logan trying to ask Patton out using the advice he gave Thomas in the video ‘Alone on Valentine’s day’, “Do you like food?”

Genre: Fluff (I think that’s what it would be considered under)

Pairing(s): Romantic Logicality, (Hinted) Prinxiety

Word Count: 2448

Warnings: None that I can think off? There’s like one curse word in it? Remus is mentioned in passing.

A/N: This is my first time writing a SS short and I hope you enjoy!

You are Here | First Chapter (Logicality)

Second Chapter Pt1 (Prinxiety)

Second Chapter Pt2 (Prinxiety)

-

“Just go over to him and ask him out, it’s not rocket science Logan.” Roman said over the Skype call as he admired his freshly painted nails, not really paying much attention to Logan. 

Though in all honestly Roman was somewhat enjoying this, after all, this was one of the few times he'd ever seen Logan lose his 'robot nerd composure' as he liked to call it. It proved that he was in fact, still a human with emotions. 

"Patton's really nice and you know that, so it’s not like he’s going to suddenly hate you or anything. I mean, to my knowledge he has yet to hate anyone he has hung out with.”

Logan paused in his pacing and looked over at Roman, appearing very exacerbated.

“I can do rocket science, Roman!” He exclaimed, running his hands through his hair. “Rocket science is easy! Love however is an unsolvable enigma that the best approach to is impossible to deduce!” Romans eyes widened in surprise at Logan’s obvious panic.

“And how can you know that for sure?! Do you have data and examples you can provide me as proof? Maybe I’ll be the first exception!” Roman raised his hands up in surrender and in a display of shushing.

“Woah, calm down there Nerd." Logan glared at Roman through the camera.

“Okay, okay, fine,” Roman said, sitting up straighter and giving Logan more of his attention, “How about you just stop overthinking this all and do whatever you think will work best. Because firstly, Patton meeting my brother would probably be the first exception." 

Logan couldn't really deny that fact based on what he'd heard and seen about Roman's brother.

"Secondly, you’ve shot down all of the ideas I’ve offered you. So how about you just introduce yourself, ask about a common interest you two have, and then ask him out for dinner or something.” 

“That’s because the majority of your ideas are illogical and impractical! Patton is not a damsel in distress and there are no villains or ‘dragons’ in real life that I could save him from. I refuse to just run up to him and quote in quote 'sweep him off his feet'. And-” 

Logan’s rant was cut short by the sound of sudden loud shouting outside of Romans room - said Prince having swiveled his chair around to look towards his door. Logan was only able to catch a bit of what was being said, or more precisely, screamed.

“REMUS PRINCE YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE LEFT FOR BOARDING SCHOOL TODAY WHAT THE HELL-” Roman’s expression had gone a bit pale as well as frustrated, teeth grit as he looked back over to Logan.

“Look I’m gonna have to cut this short, but I better see you talking to Patton tomorrow or-” 

“ROMAN GET YOUR ASS OUT HERE RIGHT NOW YOU WERE MEANT TO BE HIS TRANSPORTATION AND-!” Logan saw the panic flashing over Romans face before the call was disconnected and Logan was left standing in front of his computer, all alone with his own thoughts and panic over how he was going to deal with his predicament.

-

Logan let out a dull sigh as he entered the school, his normal, cool and cold composure back. The only difference in this morning was the fact that he had arrived later than usual to school and because of this, Roman had managed to beat him to his locker - which was directly next to Logan’s.

Roman looked over at Logan and flashed his usually charming grin causing Logan to roll his eyes.

“Greetings Roman.” Logan opened his locker - making sure to hide his locker combination from Roman’s sight.

“What’s with the late arrival, Nerd?” When Logan didn’t answer immediately Roman looked over at him and pressed further at the sight of how tired he looked.

“Woah there, were you up all night stressing about asking him out?!" There was clear disbelief in his tone, "I mean, did you even get any sleep last night?”

Logan looked over at him with an irritated but dull expression.

“You are well aware of my current situation and difficulty with," He grimaced momentarily as he got out the next word, "Emotions, Roman.” 

He began switching out his notebooks, “And no, I only got a total of three hours and seventeen minutes of sleep.” 

Roman frowned at this before her flashed his signature smile again and slapped Logan on the back causing Logan to have to grab onto the edge of his locker to remain upright.

“Well besides all that, you’re still going to ask him out today, right?” Logan shot him an annoyed look, wondering what he had been thinking when he had shared the fact that he had had a crush on Patton with this drama queen, and sighed, doing his best to appear unaffected.

“I am unsure.” He swapped out his history textbook for his AP Calculus one.

Roman crossed his arms, and gave Logan a hard stare. Logan chose to ignore Roman’s stare and closed his locker before picking up his backpack and zipping it up.

“If you don’t ask him out today I’m going to go tell him myself.” Roman suddenly said causing Logan to drop his backpack and freeze.

“Roman, I forbid you from-”

“The only way you can stop me is by telling him yourself and asking him to be your valentine.” Roman said with a smirk, crossing his arms. 

Logan pursed his lips, looking like he wanted to strangle Roman then and there before he sighed - seemingly deflating - and bent down to pick up his bag.

“Fine, I’ll do so when an opportune moment arises.” He slipped his bag over his shoulders before adjusting his glasses, “Is that satisfactory enough for you?”

Roman looked about to contradict him before he seemed to spot something behind Logan and instead grinned and said, “Yes, that sounds perfect.” 

Logan’s brow raised slightly at Roman’s sudden agreement, but he brushed it off.

“Good.” Logan stepped away from the lockers and turned in the direction of his first class - the direction Roman had been looking.

“Than I shall be-” He cut himself off when he finally realized why Roman had suddenly grinned and conceded.

Patton had just turned the corner and was coming their way, chatting adamantly about something - and waving his hands about a ton - to Virgil who had a small, but exhausted smile on his face as well as a cup of coffee in one hand.

"Seems like your 'opportune moment' has just presented itself bookworm." Logan looked over his shoulder at Roman and shot him a glare, Roman just flashed him a s**t eating grin.

Logan cleared his throat and said quietly, his monotone tone having returned, "He is clearly in the middle of a conversation, it would be rude to-"

"Either go over to him now or I'll shout at him to come here." If looks could kill Roman would have been dead at that moment. But of course, looks could not kill in this reality, so Logan opened his mouth again to retort. 

However before he could, a loud sigh left Roman and he suddenly sprinted over to Patton and Virgil - making it look like Roman was going to them with a very important matter -, and put Logan's mind into a state of blank-minded panic.

He took in a slightly shaky breath, indirectly watching the three of them, waiting with a new sort of dread in his stomach for Patton to look over at him due to whatever foolishness Roman was surely spouting.

But instead of that happening, much to Logan’s surprise, the interaction ended with Roman walking away with - a very reluctant looking - Virgil, who was grumbling as Roman acted extremely, extra.

"Well I'm sorry Panic at the Everywhere, it's not my fault that someone stole my black eyeliner, and that I assumed you would have some on you based upon the level of shade under your eyes." Logan heard a bit of Roman’s ranting as they passed him and blinked in surprise when Roman shot him a wink and made a shoulder motion back towards Patton. 

He stood their dumbfounded for a moment before he shook his head and taking a deep breath, looked back over in the direction of Patton who was now opening his locker across the hall.

Logan, his posture stiff as a board, headed over to him and stopped precisely half a locker away from Patton before clearing his throat. Patton turned in his direction before letting out a small, adorable, squeak - Logan assumed in surprise -, cheeks reddening slightly as he smiled brightly at him.

"Why hello there Logan! Uh, how are you doing today?" Logan did his best to return Patton's smile, though it was a very professional and slightly uncomfortable one. He wasn't too surprised that Patton knew his name since he seemed to know everyone and Logan had tutored Patton for a while in the previous semester. 

"Hello Patton," Patton seemed to brighten at this, "I'm, uh, doing well." He cleared his throat again.

"You remembered my name!" Patton said, smile bigger than before.

"Yes, of course I would," Logan froze for a second, realizing his admittance, before quickly adding, "I tutored you in Physics last semester after all." Patton's smile seemed to fall slightly when he added that before Patton laughed, lightly smacking his forehead.

"Duh, silly me." Logan did his best to smile again in return. He fidgeted a bit before finally bringing his hands to rest clasped behind him.

'Natural. Common interest. Request. Dinner.' He repeated in his head. 

"Do you like food?" Logan suddenly said, tone more robotic than previously.

Patton paused - having been taking a brightly colored notebook out of his locker - and looked at him a bit confused.

"Um, I guess?" Patton smiled, a bit unsure, adding on by saying, "Cookies are my favorite food.” 

Logan chose to forgo the fact - for now - that Patton’s favorite food was a very unhealthy choice, but rather than finding a more natural bridge between that and his next question, such as stating his own favorite food, he jumped straight to his next point.

“Do you like romantic outings?” Logan asked, internally dealing with mild panic as he spoke, though his way of dealing with this was pretty much externally shut down - more than usual at least - outwardly. 

Patton opened his mouth slightly, but didn’t seem to be able to say anything at first as he looked at Logan in complete puzzlement - which didn’t help Logan in the slightest.

“Well, I, uh,” Patton stammered a bit before he laughed and rubbed the back of his neck, “Yah, I suppose I do? But why-” 

Patton was cut off by Logan somewhat frantically, but still robotically blurting out, “I can provide both of those things, so therefore would you be my date?” 

Logan actually closed his eyes as he got the last part out, internally dying. After he’d yet to get a response though, he slowly opened his eyes, expecting Patton to either look disgusted or apologetic.

Instead, he found a slow grin growing on Patton’s face - whose cheeks were quite red, though based on the heat he felt on his own cheeks Logan assumed his were slightly red himself. Patton, now bouncing a bit on his feet, laughed - a sound that Logan had come to rather like now rather than find annoying - and nodded.

“I’d love to be your valentine date, Logan.” He said brightly, “What time were you thinking?” 

Logan, who had apparently managed to fail to think this far ahead, didn’t immediately answer, his brain still reeling. He was still trying to catch up to the fact that Patton had actually said yes and that he needed to now form a coherent response in return. 

Patton seemed to catch onto this and spoke up again, wanting to help him out.

“How about, uh, 5:30?” Patton paused again before adding on with, “At that coffee shop with the sandwiches that’s a block away from the school?” 

Logan blinked at this, but after a second, cleared his throat and re-composed himself before giving a shaky nod.

“Yes, that sounds like an optimal time and place.” Patton just smiled at this and Logan adjusted his glasses.

“Okay then!” Patton said as he finished putting his notebook into his bag before zipping it up and slinging it over one shoulder “It’s a date!” 

“Yes, good.” Logan repeated again, before he noticed that quite a lot of other students had begun heading through the halls rather quickly, indicating classes were to start soon, “I will leave you to get to your classes now.” 

With that Logan quickly turned away from Patton before realizing his class was in the other direction, and turning back around to walk past Patton.

--- Extra Little Bit ---

Virgil’s hoodie was practically completely hiding his face at this point as he and Roman ducked back around the corner before Logan could see them.

“That was one of the most painful interactions I’ve ever seen.” He muttered in a low voice, pulling even tighter on his hoodie strings so that his hood scrunched around his face.

“He didn’t even use any of my advice!” Roman exclaimed quietly.

“Yah, well I bet all your advice was stupid.” Virgil muttered earning an offended scoff from Roman. “But I guess at least it worked out.” 

“True, though I still think it would have gone better if he’d actually attempted to express any emotion. There was no drama or intensity in his confession!” Virgil groaned at this as he finally pushed his hood up out of his face.

“There was literally a million ways that that could have gone smoother for him, Roman. And I doubt any of your ideas are within those possibilities.” Virgil took a sip of his coffee and sighed as he looked at it, “It’s a good thing Patton already liked him.”

Roman huffed before switching subjects and saying with crossed arms, “I still need to borrow your eyeliner by the way.” Virgil looked at him like he was crazy and turned so that his satchel was out of Roman’s reach.

“The day I let you use my makeup Princey will either be the day that I find true love or the day that Patton actually convinces me that I’m going to heaven instead of hell.” Virgil gave Roman a pointed look, taking another sip of his coffee - still looking completely exhausted and dead inside - and added with a smirk, “And that’s never going to happen.”

#sanders sides fanfic #logicality #logan sanders #patton sanders #roman sanders #virgil sanders #ts logan #ts patton #ts roman #ts virgil #prinxiety #remus sanders #ts remus #fanfic #fan fiction #sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction

[mysterylover123]

BNHA Rewatch: Episode 29 “Hero Killer Stain vs UA Students”

mysterylover123

This is a great episode.

So imagine you’ve never heard of BNHA and only heard a synopsis of this episode. Notice how you can figure out a lot about Midoriya’s character, just by learning how he manages to find Iida? By observing what kind of person he is, utilizing his knowledge of the Hero Killer’s tendencies, and deducing via process of elimination where he is. You get it. Smart, a little reckless, observant and self-sacrificing. That, my friend, is good writing. 

Endeavor’s introduction here is so jarring the first time you see it. He’s introduced the same way Midoriya is introduced when he finds Iida and Stain later on - saving the day at the last minute, saying he’s got this, and that he’s here as a hero. It’s this eerie contrast to the Endeavor in the audience’s mind, the monster who seems to justify Stain’s philosophy with his douchebaggery. 

Tomura asking AFO for Nomu like a kid asking a parent for more toys lol.

“Ingenium is the name of a hero who will defeat you” Iida takes up his brother’s mantle...and is instantly defeated. For those playing the Major Theme Home game, this is the Imitation one. Blind Imitation in BNHA=Instant Death Ticket. And interestingly enough, Stain embodies this concept as well. Stain is someone who thinks everyone should imitate All Might’s style of heroism and nothing else. He enforces blind imitation. 

Yeesh. That looks painful.

So trying to piece together why Stain thought Tensei was a fake hero is odd, since he’s such a standup guy. Iida’s flashback has Tensei revealing that he feels dependent on his sidekicks, and perhaps that’s the idea here: just like Tensei, Iida needs Todoroki and Midoriya’s support, but one of the series’ components of a great hero (eg All Might) is someone who can stand on their own. At the same time, Stain is kinda, you know, wrong, so it’s possible the series is not refuting the power of friendship with this, but rather advocating for it.

Stain’s rebuke to Tenya also speaks about the other half of being a great hero - prioritizing rescue - that the series advocates. Iida is so fixated on killing Stain, he didn’t even notice that Stain was about to murder the pro-hero Native (presumably for being a fake hero who commits cultural appropriation), a mistake that Midoriya immediately counteracts when he arrives and notices Native, realizing he has to stick around to protect both Native and Iida. 

Speaking of...

Deku is so sugoi. Seriously this entrance is one of the most badass moments in the series to me. It’s like, boom, give Deku a couple days working on his quirk, and he goes from a shy kid who’s scared to use his powers to a tough, confident badass who just buzzes in, bouncing off the walls, and socks a professional villain in the face. 

OMG THIS OST. I don’t know what it’s called. Someone tell me what it’s called, this is one of my favorite OSTs in the series. 

Stain recognizes him. Villain Love at First Sight! (I’m kidding, but seriously, I like how Stain actually respects Midoriya. It’s totally in character and makes perfect sense. It’s probably my favorite thing about Stain, actually - the way he can spot a true hero-in-training when he sees one).

Deku’s on such a winning streak lately. Just...looking great, being great, doing great things. 

Stain’s eyes are, according to Deku ‘those of a fanatic’, compared to Tomura’s (there’s that Motivation theme again). Interestingly enough, Deku and Stain are both ‘fanatics’ about the same thing. Stain is a foil, an evil counterpart of Deku. The person he could’ve been if he allowed his idolization of All Might to take him too far. 

Iida tells Deku to basically leave him there to die. Deku’s response is so good that I just have to post it (the dub version here): “If you really believe that, then why are you trying to become a hero in the first place?...All Might was right, though. Meddling where you don’t need to is the essence of being a hero!”

I’m with you, Stain. I’m with you.

So we get this fight. While Deku’s taken out quickly, his strategy is still pretty cool. It’s so fun to watch him fight. Full Cowl is one of my favorite fight styles in anime. 

Deku does so amazing he’s so smart. Damn but Stain still gets him. Nonetheless, Stain isn’t about to kill his new Hero Crush, Symbol of Peace 2.0, so he leaves him struggling and goes to kill his Current Archnemesis, Ingenium 2.0. Only to be interrupted by...

SQUEEE!!!! Also, the Tododeku is strong with this one. Sending messages like this isn’t Deku’s style, Shoto says. Aw!

Deku gives us a friendly reminder that he’s Smart beyond Smart as he’s already put together the Hero Killer’s quirk and how it works. Marry me Deku. 

Ew Stain no licking Shoto that’s Deku’s job.

Iida is yelling about how Shoto needs to let him kill Stain. (I’m reminded of a scene from Angel: “He’s my lead, he’s my lead, what are we, on the schoolyard here?) Anyway, the animation on Shoto fighting here is jaw-dropping, seeing him swap between hot and cold...wow...

The nature of Stain’s quirk is just flat-out brilliant. He freezes people in place, reflecting his own mindset of how people can’t just change, how he refuses to accept Iida’s change. And according to Blood Type Personality theory, his quirk is most effective against the types of people he hates the most (B) and least against those he likes the most (O). O being closest type to his image of a perfect hero (BTW, Blood Type in Japanese dating culture also corresponds with romantic compatibility. For my main ship: O/A (Izuku/Katsuki) is considered an ideal match. Score!)

But speaking of ships, Tododeku negotiate how to work together to fight Stain and it’s super cute. Shoto then has a long flashback scored to another mindblowingly good OST about how Deku completely changed his life and made it so he could deal with his shit and talk to his mom and it’s so precious and sweet. (For the record, they’re both Type O.)

Also Shoto thinking about his trek to his old man’s internship is so well-timed for me today. SPOILERS Chapter 242 ends with him offering to let Wonder Duo intern with his dad and him. Holy Crap. They sure have come a long way.

OMG Sub and Dub this line is so good: “Set your eyes on what you want to become”/”Become the hero he wanted you to be!” I can’t decide which I like better. Todoroki you master of epic speeches you. 

I’d say this is the best of the Stain episodes. Overall, it’s just so strong. Great pacing, acting, animation, story, everything. The OST is incredible all the way through, the character development is just a joy to behold. Everything is all around amazing. Another really-high up there one. Season 2 is just a masterwork. 

BKDK Corner

Iida: His moves, like Bakugou’s! Everyone can see it. (Though as an aside - I think Deku  just might be faster). Also in the eternal home game of “Win and Rescue” heroes, Izuku is a true hero to Stain because he will put others first, but a true hero also needs to be able to win a fight on their own if they want to do so. Izuku isn’t quite there yet, but he’s taken an important first step. By learning from the Embodiment of Victory. 

Best Girl of the Ep: Unnamed blonde pro lady!

RANKER: Top 5 Favorite Midoriya Quotes

5.  “My body moved before I could think.” Episode 2/Chapter 1. 

4. “It’s your power, isn’t it?”Episode 23/Chapter 39

3. “To the same degree as all of your terrible traits, your sheer amazingness at everything you do was so brilliant to me, it was blinding.” Episode 61/Chapter 119

2. “Meddling where you don’t need to is the essence of being a hero.” Episode 29/Chapter 152

1. “A hero’s job is to risk his life, to turn his lip service into a reality!” Episode 42/Chapter 75.

#my hero academia #season 2 episode 16 #hero killer stain vs ua students #midoriya izuku #tenya iida #shoto todoroki #katsudeku #hero killer stain #this one's an epic one #lots of squee #lots of really exciting moments #and a lot of tododeku #i decided not to tag it #since i'm only tagging BKDK in these recaps #but still #the tododeku is strong with this one

[javocjovian]

It’s A Farcical Life, SPN Kink Bingo

Title: It’s A Farcical Life Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17444402/chapters/49087283 Square Filled: Sam Wesson Ship: Sabriel (Sam Wesson x Gabriel) Rating: E Tags: Sam Wesson, Dean Smith, Gabriel is a little shit, Humor, Smut, Office Kink Summary: Sandover Bridge & Iron Inc. is under attack by a mysterious prankster. After a bizarre incident involving Dean Smith and some very suspiciouis pornography, office worker Sam Wesson thinks he’s found the culprit: that stupid, sexy janitor. Who would’ve guessed? Word Count: 3496

Created for @spnkinkbingo

Quote:

Beyond the shiny elevator doors wasn’t a small, cramped space ready to take Sam back to the seventeenth floor, but what looked like an expansive, private office that stretched well beyond the confines of the elevator shaft. Sam’s mouth went dry. His eyes flew to the lights above the door, checking to see if he hadn’t accidentally walked into someone’s office, but the frame was all there, clearly showing that the elevator was stopped on his floor and waiting for him to board.

Gif made by @crispychrissy

It's a Farcical Life

An elevator jostled up to the seventeenth floor of an office building, filled with early morning workers wearing everything from suits to polo's. As the doors opened, a hum of idle chatter filled the small space, punctuated by a ringing phone here and there. The polo-wearers trudged out, travel mugs and folders in hand.

The neatly organized maze of cubicles was full of afternoon workers, answering phones and typing reports, all expect one stringy looking young man who was watching his neighbor with a look of utter delight on his face.

“Have you tried turning it off and on again?” His neighbor asked. He was a tall man with long hair tucked behind his ears, speaking into his headset. He tapped his pencil against the desk, trying to ignore the eavesdropper, until... “You… you did what?” The man cleared his throat, glancing incredulously at his neighbor, who leaned forward excitedly. “You…” He closed his eyes and, with an incredible amount of skill, forced all of the annoyance out of his voice. “Well, once you’ve removed all of the… peanut butter… from the CD tray, you’ll want to take it to your nearest repair shop.”

The stringy young man threw his head back in a fit of silent laughter.

“No, your warranty won’t cover it.”

After a few forceful farewells, the man hung up and looked reluctantly at his neighbor.

“Oh, my god.” The neighbor picked his head up off the desk where he had been buried in laughter, “How? How do you always get the best calls? It’s a gift, Sam!”

Sam couldn’t help but smile at the sight of his neighbor’s face, red with laughter. “She uh… she read a tip online about cleaning discs with peanut butter.”

The man dissolved into laughter once again, and Sam grinned sheepishly.

“Yeah well, I’m getting tired of these prank calls,” Sam said. “I can’t believe you haven’t had one yet.”

“You think that one was a prank?”

“Ian,” Sam gave him a look, “Who puts peanut butter on CDs?”

“Idiots,” Ian said. "The world is full of them, Sam.”

Sam couldn’t argue that. Over the past month, Sandover Bridge & Iron Inc. had dealt with a wave of sabotage and practical jokes: pranks calls, things exploding in the microwave, printers breaking, copiers printing out butts, and more. The strange thing was, no one could catch the culprit.

Some workers, like Ian, welcomed the chaos and interruption of their usually orderly and drab work environment. Others, like the Director of Sales and Marketing, Dean Smith, didn’t find it very amusing. The other day his lunch had been stolen and replaced with a slice of pie, a clear attack on his latest, low-carb, “green energy” diet.

Sam Wesson was caught somewhere in the middle. The pranks were hilarious, he thought, but he seemed to be targeted more than others, not that anyone paid this any mind, however, except for Ian.

Ian wasn’t much consolation, though. Ever since Sam got a prank call from someone who thought they were calling a naughty hot-line and refused to believe Sam wasn’t playing hard to get, Ian began following Sam around like a live audience, eager to bare witness to his next mishap.

Ian’s patience paid off shortly after the peanut butter incident that afternoon, when Mr. Smith called Sam to his office sounding harassed. There was an accusatory note in his voice that Ian could hear from the receiver. He gave Sam an ‘oh shit’ expression that barely disguised his glee, and watched Sam get up looking annoyed.

“If his CD tray isn’t working...” Ian called after him.

Sam ignored him.

Mr. Smith’s office was a few floors up, so Sam headed towards the elevator. As the doors slid open and he stepped inside, the monotonous instrumental music Sam had become deaf to had been replaced with what could only be described as 80’s porn music.

Sam exchanged an awkward smile with the janitor who was the only other person in the elevator and watched the doors slide closed.

During a particularly sultry saxophone solo, he couldn’t help but notice the janitor looking at him. Sam gave him another forced smile, wishing the elevator would hurry up or that someone would fix the music already. It seemed to be taking much longer than usual.

“So uh...” Sam said, anything to break the tension, “You must have your hands full with this prankster running around here.” He gestured vaguely to the speaker above them.

The janitor smiled serenely, “It’s no trouble. I like my job, Sammy.” He winked at him.

Sam was taken aback. Not because he knew his name - Sam's department wore nametags, to everyone's chagrin - but how many janitors liked their job that much? He gave the man an awkward head tilt and looked away again. The elevator was definitely taking too long, and was it just him or was the music getting louder?

When the door dinged and opened, Sam strode off. The realization that Sam had never run into the janitor at this time of day was swept away when he heard shouting from Mr. Smith’s room. The door was open, and a man in a suit was backing away quickly. He gave Sam a fleeting, ‘good-luck’ look as he passed. Sam swallowed.

He knocked on the door-frame to be polite and waited.

Mr. Smith was standing behind his desk looking exhausted and angry, but when he beckoned Sam inside, Sam knew at once that he wasn’t the object of Mr. Smith’s frustration. His computer looked like it had been moved around, and Sam noticed several things had been unplugged.

“Is something wrong, sir?” Sam asked curiously.

“You could say that,” Mr. Smith took a breath. He made to sit down behind his desk, caught a glance at the monitor, then sat on the edge of his desk instead. “You’re uh… Sam Wesson, right? The tech guy?” There was something strange about him. He seemed uncomfortable.

“Yes, Mr. Smith.”

“Call me Dean.” Dean said. “Sam, you can fix computers, right? That’s your job?”

“Mostly, yeah,” Sam chanced a glance at the CD tray despite himself. It was not full of peanut butter.

“Good, good,” Dean cleared his throat, now clearly avoiding looking at his screen’s display which was facing away from Sam. “That prankster, whoever he is, he’s been causing trouble for you guys too, I’m sure.”

“Oh yeah,” Sam scoffed.

Dean smiled slightly, “Well. He’s just finished his latest masterpiece up here. And I... need you to fix it.”

Sam tried to peek at the monitor screen, but it was pointed resolutely towards the large windows. “I uh, I’ll have to see it,” he smiled bravely.

Dean frowned, “Really? You can’t just… tell me how to do it?”

“Well I… you called me up here, sir,” Sam said, confused. “If I could just...”

Dean held out a hand as Sam tried to move towards the monitor. “Okay. First of all, I wasn’t… I mean it’s not...”

Sam’s brow came together.

Dean sighed resignedly, looked Sam in the eye, then stepped aside like a man resigned to the worst. Sam slowly stepped around the desk, looked at the screen, and did a double take.

“Yeah, uh...” Dean said awkwardly, “It was just like it when I came in. I wasn’t… I’m not...” Dean laughed anxiously, “And obviously I can’t make it go away.”

Sam stared at the screen. He realized now why there were cords pulled out of the back. Hardcore gay porn was playing mutely on Dean’s screen. It looked like it had been locked on full-screen and full-volume, which surely had blasted throughout the entire floor until Mr. Smith pulled the speaker cords.

“Don’t watch it!” Dean stared at Sam incredulously.

“Uh, right...” Sam fumbled, holding back a laugh. Okay, maybe the prankster was alright after all. He settled down to get to work, but as he neared the screen he realized something. “Wait a minute…” Sam squinted at the video, “Doesn’t that guy look like the new intern? Ha, it totally does. What’s his name? Cas...” Sam stopped immediately at the look on Dean’s face.

“Are you going to narrate the pornography frozen on my screen or fix the problem, Wesson?”

Sam lowered his head, “Sorry.” But he was sure Dean’s face reddened.

It took Sam a few minutes, but he deduced that the only way to fix the problem was to reboot the computer. Dean didn’t look relieved, however. If anything, he looked more reluctant.

“You can’t just… restart it from there?”

“No,” Sam said, “It’s not responding to anything. I’ll have to unplug it. I’ve never seen this before. The video’s obviously playing but… what?” Sam stood up to look at Dean, “What’s wrong?”

Dean looked exhausted again, and slightly uneasy. “Alright, well, you’re gonna think this is crazy, but… I already tried that.”

Sam sighed. He didn’t understand what Dean meant but he was sure, like always, that in his quest to fix the problem, the computer illiterate Dean Smith somehow made it worse. They’d have to call in for repairs with his luck. But then Sam realized that Dean was staring at the cords pulled out from the wall.

Sam stared blankly at them before he realized what he was looking at. In a flash of realization, he looked back to the video playing on the screen. In an instant, the screen shut off.

Dean nearly jumped.

Sam was frozen in place, struck dumb. “Dean… that computer wasn’t plugged in.”

“I know.”

“How did it...”

“I don’t know!”

Sam and Dean stared at each other. For a while they didn’t speak. It felt like there was something in the room with them, weighing down their voices and making it impossible to move. But when nothing else happened, Sam approached the computer. He had the impression that Dean would gladly pretend this had never happened, so Sam took a steadying breath and rebooted it.

Sam and Dean held their breath, half expecting some girl crawling out of a well to appear on the screen. But the computer started up just fine, and slowly their fear turned to embarrassment and relief. Dean’s personal log-in screen appeared and Sam stepped aside. Dean sank into his chair and numbly entered his password. Still, they didn’t speak.

Finally, when everything on Dean’s screen seemed to be free of porn or creepy ghost girls, Dean said, “Sit down.”

Confused but happy to follow his lead, Sam sat down. Dean took a thermos out of somewhere and grabbed two small glasses from his desk. He poured some both a shot of thick, green smoothie.

“Green shots. They’re great for the immune system, brain function, and hopefully the taste will take our minds off of...” Dean didn’t really want to finish that sentence, so he rose his in cheers and gulped it down.

Sam grimaced, but did the same. He nearly gagged. True to Dean’s word, the taste was so terrible that he forgot all about haunted pornos.

“Ugh!”

“I know,” Dean smiled bracingly, “Oh but it’ll keep you young.”

Sam licked his teeth, trying to get the taste off.

Dean chuckled to himself, and Sam couldn’t help but smile. If anyone had told him that morning that Sam would be sitting in Dean Smith’s office trading health shake shots, Sam would’ve called them crazy. And yet, Sam must have been crazy one, because the scare he and Mr. Smith shared made him feel strangely calm – like he was home.

After a few moments of contented silence, Dean frowned at his screen.

“What?” Sam asked reflexively.

“No, nothing. It’s just, I got a weird email,” Dean sighed and leaned forward, “Just another prank, probably.”

This was no news to Sam, who was inspecting the small glass Dean had given him.

“Hm,” Dean said, “Do you know anyone named Mr. Freeley?”

“No.”

Dean rolled his eyes, “Whoever this guy is, he’s a freak.”

“What’s the email say?” Sam asked curiously.

Dean hesitated, but then decided they’d shared enough in the past ten minutes to share this, too. “’You’ll never catch me, because causing trouble is what I do, and I love my job.’” Dean huffed, “Everyone will probably be getting this email in five minutes. You watch. Actually, why don’t you head back downstairs and warn everyone to trash it. Don’t even open it. We can’t indulge these… Sam?” But by the time Dean looked up, Sam had gotten to his feet and was headed out the door.

“Okay,” Dean said to himself, then poured another green shot.

Sam was rushing back down the hallway towards the elevator, his head buzzing and his hand groping the spot where his nametag should have been pinned on that morning had Sam not left it at his desk.

“It’s no trouble. I love my job.”

Sam knew there was something weird about that guy. He had never seen a janitor here this early before. What were the odds? And how did he know his name?

Sam pressed the elevator button repeatedly. He’d find the janitor again and confront him. If he was the prankster, then maybe he was behind the ghost computer, too. The idea made his heart sink, but his adrenaline spike. He wondered where the janitorial closest were. Would he be there?

The elevator doors dinged open and it took Sam several long seconds to come back to Earth and realize what he was seeing.

Beyond the shiny metal doors wasn’t a small, cramped space ready to take Sam back to the seventeenth floor, but what looked like an expansive, private office that stretched well beyond the confines of the elevator shaft. Sam’s mouth went dry. His eyes flew to the lights above the door, checking to see if he hadn’t accidentally walked into someone’s office, but the frame was all there, clearly showing that the elevator was stopped on his floor and waiting for him to board.

Sam stared into the elevator. The doors remained open and expectant, humming slightly. Sam looked around the hallway, took a deep breath, and stepped inside.

The elevator doors closed behind him and vanished into a rich, mahogany, office wall. Sam looked around and saw a familiar face eyeing him over the top of a polished office desk.

“You?” Sam gawked.

The janitor-now-office-manager smiled and snapped his fingers.

It felt like Sam had been hit over the head with something. He blinked, shaking his head like a dog, and suddenly, it was like a haze had lifted. Sam’s eyes sharpened and he stared at the smirking face and sharp suited…

“Gabriel!”

“Bingo!” Gabriel beamed, “You got me!”

Sam looked around like he was seeing his surroundings for the first time. Then he looked down at his polo tucked into his khaki pants and muttered, “Oh, no...”

“Oh yes!” Gabriel stood up proudly, “You did it! You solved my puzzle!”

Sam glared at him, “Really? Gabriel? You throw me into… into… Office Space and...”

“Hey, now...” Gabriel wagged a finger at him, “I did you a favor.”

Sam eyed him skeptically, but Gabriel didn’t mind. He stepped around his large desk and Sam had to admit, he looked good in a suit. Gabriel winked at him.

“All this?” He gestured around the room as he approached Sam, “All this is for you, Sam. I made this farce to teach you an important lesson. I know all about that fight you had with Dean the other day, and I thought to myself, with this alternate reality I could show them the error of their ways. I could show them that hunting is their true calling. That they were meant to fight side by side! Brothers in arms! You boys were born to play these roles, and you’ll find yourselves in it every time!”

Sam couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He stood there, torn between shock at Gabriel’s thoughtfulness and his insanity.

“But then I thought, ‘Nah. Only a real dick would do that.” Gabriel stopped just short of Sam, grinning wickedly, “I’ll just fuck with them instead.’”

Sam shook his head in disbelief and looked away, a reluctant smile tugging at his lips.

“Ah – there we go."

“You’re an asshole,” Sam laughed darkly.

“You love me,” Gabriel grinned.

Sam squared his jaw and looked Gabriel in the eye, then leaned over and kissed him. Gabriel's grin softened.

"You know, I thought all this trickster stuff would stop if I agreed to date you," Sam muttered.

"You thought wrong," Gabriel smiled.

Sam smiled back, "Yeah alright. Let's get Dean and get out of here."

Gabriel rose a brow. "You sure? Cuz…" He loosened his tie and lowered his voice, "I've always wanted to bang my secretary."

Sam flushed, but grinned all the same, "Oh, I'm your secretary now?"

"Oh yeah," Gabriel put an arm around him and pulled him into a suave kiss, "And those reports are way overdue Mr. Wesson. Looks like you're going to have to stay overtime."

Sam bit back a laugh and kissed Gabriel. They maneuvered blindly to the large, shining desk, knocking things over along the way. Gabriel pushed everything off it unceremoniously and hoisted Sam onto the edge.

Sam opened the kiss, letting Gabriel feel him up. Sam was taller, but Gabriel could have thrown him across the room if he wanted to, and Sam loved it. As he lowered his head to kiss down Gabriel's neck, he heard Gabriel pick up the phone hanging off the side of the desk.

"Gloria, cancel my appointments for the rest of the day."

Sam took the phone out of his hand and threw it. Gabriel chuckled.

"Wait… wait," Sam paused, looking suddenly concerned.

Gabriel stopped at once.

"What about Dean? Isn’t he still trapped in here?"

Gabriel sighed. "Dean is fine, trust me. He can be Dean Smith for a little while longer. Besides, I've got another great prank headed his way."

Sam looked skeptical, so Gabriel went on.

"Someone ordered a stripper for a bachelorette party and gave them Dean's office address by mistake."

Sam laughed. Gabriel took that as approval and resumed kissing him.

Within minutes, Sam's khakis and belt were on the floor. Gabriel's shirt was undone, his dress pants were around his thighs, and he was screwing Mr. Wesson on the desk.

Gabriel panted, his slicked back hair askew, as Sam groaned his approval with each thrust. Sweating, he started to take off his polo, but Gabriel placed a hand firmly on his chest.

"Leave it on," he winked.

Sam would have laughed, but a well aimed thrust to his prostate had Sam arching up and moaning instead.

"Oh fuck, right there, Gabe!" Sam grunted, fucking Gabriel back.

"Oh," Gabriel crooned, "Someone's angling for a promotion."

Sam smiled breathlessly, precum wetting the hem of his polo. The office was filled with the sounds of sex as Gabriel ravaged him on the desk, not caring if the whole office building could hear them. Sam tried to grab hold of something, anything, but only succeeded in trashing the office further by knocking a lamp over.

"Oh, Mr. Wesson, that's coming out of your paycheck," Gabriel panted playfully. He leaned down and took Sam's hand, holding it above his head, and kissed him deeply. Sam's eyes fluttered shut, his breath hitched, and Gabriel knew it was all over.

Sam came all over his polo, gasping in a silent fit of ecstasy. The sight flooded Gabriel with arousal, and the way Sam was rhythmically seizing up around Gabriel's cock had him coming shortly after.

Gabriel groaned and slowed down, making love to Sam through their shared bliss. Sam pulled him close, kissing him as they rocked back and forth, milking out the last of their orgasms.

Finally they lay still, panting in the middle of Gabriel's ruined office. Gabriel pulled out, letting his cum seep out of Sam's ass and onto his desk.

Sam pulled him into a weak hug, making him lay atop him. Gabriel didn't mind one bit.

"Great work today, Wesson," Gabriel smiled, sweeping hair out of his face, "Keep that up and you can be my secretary full time."

Sam smiled lazily, "Mm, I don't know. My archangel boyfriend might get jealous."

"Good point," Gabriel beamed at him, "Wouldn't want to piss off that handsome son-of-a-gun."

Sam chuckled. Gabriel kissed him again, then got up and began collecting their clothes.

Sam sat up and watched, his hair a mess and his eyes hazy with satisfaction, "So, why ‘Sam Wesson'? I mean, you could have just dropped us into TV land again, but instead you made this whole universe."

Gabriel shrugged, tossing Sam his pants. "What can I say? I have a thing for blue-collar, civilian Sammy. Plus, now I can say I've screwed Sam Winchester in three different universes," he added thoughtfully.

Sam shook his head and chuckled, then paused, "Wait, three?"

Gabriel gave him a guilty, roguish look, then said quickly, "Come on, let's go save your brother."

#spnkinkbingo #supernatural #fanfiction #fanfic #sabriel #Sam Winchester #Sam Wesson #archangel gabriel #sarasaurusrex #mywriting

[slytherinliththorne]

HPHM 50 questions MC challlenge

Original by @hogwartsmysterystory. This was so well done and I coulnd’t resist filling it out!!!

1. What’s their full name and what does it mean? Ailith Thorne Rosas, “Ailith” means seasoned warrior, noble battle or simply warrior according to the internet

2. What house are they in and why do they belong there?

Slytherin!! The main reason she’s there is because of her resourcefulness, she has a way to figure out almost any given situation with her fast thinking and cunning nature. She is also very ambitious, always aiming high but a little to insecure to act on those ambitions.

3. What’s their patronus? Why?

Their patronus is an occamy because pottermore said so.

4. What’s their animagus form?

Answered here

5. Describe their parents. Who are they?

Daniel Thorne is a pureblood wizard whose family moved from England to Mexico a few generations before; he is absolutely fascinated with muggle technology and tries to learn as much as possible about it.

Perla Rosas García is a muggle born and raised in Mexico; she understands very little about the wizarding world but is very supportive of her husband and children.

6. Do they have any pets?

No, but Lith would like to have a cat.

7. Who are their best friends at Hogwarts?

Rowan Khanna is definitely her best friend, but her partner in crime is Tulip. She is very close with Charlie too.

8. Is there anyone at Hogwarts that they can’t stand?

At first, Merula. As both grow older Lith sees her more as somewhat annoying but not a bad person.

9. Favourite teachers?

Professor Kettleburn, she finds his eccentricity hilarious and appreciates when he compliments her sketches of magical creatures.

10. Least favourite teachers?

SNAPE

11. What’s their boggart?

Herself, being humiliated and abandoned by her closed ones.

12. What would they see in the Mirror of Erised?

She would see herself, covered in paint or chalk and smiling.

13. What are their talents? Mundane or magical.

Singing

Drawing

Memorizing useless data

14. Best school subjects?

Answered here

15. Worst school subjects?

Answered here

16. Do they take any electives?

Apparition and study of ancient runes

17. Are they in any extra curricular activites?

Nope

18. What would their life as a muggle be like?

Lith would be that weird art kid at the back of the class, the one who’s obsessed with manga or comics.

19. Can they see thestrals? If so, who did they see die?

She can, both Lith and Jacob were present when their grandfather died so they can see thestrals. Jacob is a little bit disgusted by them but Lith likes them.

20. Do they have any magical abilities save for legilimency/being an animagus? (Seer, occlumency, werewolf, parselmouth, ect)

Occlumency.

21. What will they do with their lives once they graduate?

She will probably become an artist or a curse-breaker or a dragonologist or- there are just too many good options. However, she doesn’t want a desk job AT ALL

22. Who is their main love interest at Hogwarts?

Talbott Winger

23. What is their opinion of muggles?

Having a muggle parent made her associate with muggles her entire life, she even went to a muggle elementary school before Hogwarts, so she firmly believes muggles and wizards are equals.

24. What’s their favourite shop at Hogsmeade / Diagon Alley?

Honeydukes and Ollivanders

25. Do they play Quidditch? What’s their position?

Nah, she isn’t a big fan of sports in general.

26. Where do they live?

Lith’s home is back at Mexico.

27. If they couldn’t go to Hogwarts, what wizarding school would they like to attend?

Ilvermorny.

28. What’s their Ilvermorny house?

Horned Serpent.

29. What’s their wand type? What does it symbolize about them?

Partial answer here. “Dogwood wands are quirky and mischievous; they have playful natures and insist upon partners who can provide them with scope for excitement and fun. It would be quite wrong, however, to deduce from this that dogwood wands are not capable of serious magic when called upon to do so; they have been known to perform outstanding spells under difficult conditions, and when paired with a suitably clever and ingenious witch or wizard, can produce dazzling enchantments. An interesting foible of many dogwood wands is that they refuse to perform non-verbal spells and they are often rather noisy.” (J.K. Rowling) This doesn´t mean she is mischievous; it rather reflects her playfulness. However, she doesn’t let others see that side of her easily.

30. What’s been their biggest challenge at Hogwarts yet?

Having to deal with all the negative attention she got when first arriving at Hogwarts. She doesn’t like being the center of attention.

31. What’s their birthday / Zodiac sign?

Sagittarius, december 10.

32. What’s their Myer-Briggs personality type? (Don’t know what that is? Take the test for your character here! https://www.16personalities.com/)

INTP!!!

33. What’s their alignment?

Likes to think she is chaotic neutral but sometimes will act like chaotic good.

34. What’s their theme song?

Birds by Imagine Dragons or Stand out fit in by One Ok Rock.

35. What outfit do they normally wear?

Jeans and hoodies, something comfortable.

36. 5 positive traits?

She is kind, open minded, clever, creative and resourceful.

37. 5 neutral traits?

Gets bored easily, oversharing or a mystery, daydreams a lot, always playing with her hands, nervous.

38. 5 negative traits?

She can be way too honest, not filtering her words; overthinking 24/7, anxiety and Lith are old friends, drops projects and tends to hurt people feelings without meaning or noticing it.

39. How did they react when they reunited with Jacob?

Hasn’t reached that part yet.

40. What do they think of when conjuring a patronus?

She thinks of the first time she flew in her animagus form, she felt so free up there, like nothing could judge her.

41. What is their house like?

An organized mess, small but cozy.

42. What do they do during the summer?

Write to her friends, but mostly stay at home watching movies or sketching.

43. What will they look like as an adult? Will their appearance change drastically? 

Not really, she just got a few ear piercings with jewels the color of the houses (to represent the friendships she made) and a few tattoos here and there, not too noticeable. She would start tying her hair too. I actually did a doodle of older Lith last week so here it is

44. How old would you expect them to live, given the extended lifespans of wizards?

Who knows, she doesn’t want to get too old tho.

45. What quote best defines them?

“She always did like tales of adventure-stories full of brightness and darkness. She could tell you the names of all King Arthur's knights, and she knew everything about Beowulf and Grendel, the ancient gods and the not-quite-so-ancient heroes. She liked pirate stories, too, but most of all she loved books that had at least a knight or a dragon or a fairy in them. She was always on the dragon's side by the way.”  ― Cornelia Funke, Inkheart

46. What’s their favorite magical creature?

Occamy or thestrals, but has a soft spot for snifflers too.

47. What was their opinion of Patricia Rakepick? 

At first, she didn’t care about her, but when Rakepick got to that part of her speech about prohibiting students search the Vaults without her permission she was furious, “how dare this stranger tell me what to do?”

48. What would be their Dungeons and Dragons class? If you’re unfamiliar with D&D - would they be a healer, thief, warrior or mage in a fantasy world? 

A mage, maybe…?

49. What’s been your favorite side quest so far? 

So far, the animagus side quest, then again, I couldn’t complete two first year side quests and the only second year side quest.

50. What would their Amortentia potion smell like? 

To her, it would smell like hot chocolate, books and oil painting.

#hphm #hogwarts mystery #harry potter hogwarts mystery #jacob's sibling #slytherin!mc #lith thorne

[ettadunham]

A Buffy rewatch 6x08 Tabula Rasa

aka i don’t think this is going to work either

Welcome to this dailyish text post series where I will rewatch an episode of Buffy and go on an impromptu rant about it for an hour. Is it about one hyperspecific thing or twenty observations? 10 or 3k words? You don’t know! I don’t know!!! In this house we don’t know things.

And today’s episode outs itself as a product of early 00s television as Michelle Branch performs in-universe to create a sad music montage, concluding an ep that’s otherwise generally remembered for its comedic beats.

Tabula Rasa is the episode that I alluded to most with Something Blue way back in season 4 – so I actually went back to that post before sitting down to write this, to fully appreciate that connection. Apparently I closed that rant saying “we’re here to do a Buffy rewatch, not to have fun”, and that’s the same energy you can expect here.

I mean, I love the silliness in Tabula Rasa, don’t get me wrong. The insane assumptions the characters make after the memory spell, based on stuff like Giles and Spike’s accent, Willow wearing Xander’s jacket, and Anya and Giles nodding off beside each other, lead to all kinds of hilarities. Just as it’s nice to see all the things that still stay the same, and what the characters do get right – like Buffy and Dawn realizing that they’re sisters as a result of their natural banter, or Willow and Tara’s sexual tension seeping through despite everything.

But the most interesting scenes for me remain to be the ones preceding that. Specifically, the talk the gang has about the revelations regarding Buffy’s resurrection at Xander and Anya’s place.

It’s just so juicy, guys, down to its smallest details. It starts with Anya wondering if Buffy walked on clouds or had a harp in heaven, and Willow just kind of looks on with dead eyes, and Xander upon prompting says something dismissive like “you have many good qualities”.

Tara though? Tara’s quick to validate Anya, saying that it’s not stupid to think about what it’s been like for Buffy, but there are many heavenly dimensions, and they just don’t know.

God, I love Tara. Did I mention that already? I think I may have been too subtle about it the last 40 times.

I LOVE TARA.

There, that felt right.

Afterwards, we get a surprising amount of self-reflection from Willow. I say “surprising”, because it’s then followed with another insane plan of “let’s wipe my friend’s memory with magic to make this go away”, so clearly, Willow needs some additional work in that department.

WILLOW:  And we took her away from that. We wrecked it for her. XANDER:  We didn’t wreck. We didn’t know. WILLOW:  We didn’t wanna know. We were so selfish. I was so selfish.

I love this, because not only is the narrative confirming what as a viewer I already deduced, it also reaffirms a quality in Willow that’s easy to look over at this stage of her character arc. Her self-awareness.

Xander is a mostly emotion-driven character. He rarely if ever interrogates his own motives, just goes with what his gut tells him is right. In this case, his go-to approach is to simplify, and focus on what feels important. Buffy’s alive, and he’s happy that she’s alive. The rest they’ll just need to work on.

Willow is pretty much the exact opposite of that. For better or worse, she needs to justify all her actions to herself, and she’s ready to beat herself up over any perceived imperfection.

Or find a quick solution to her problems that stops her from feeling any pain or guilt about it...

Tara is of course the one that gets to the heart of it all, by saying that they need to stop obsessing over what’s been already done, and just focus on helping Buffy. (To quote myself from literally 2 seconds ago: “I love Tara”.) Anya’s quick to agree with her, and Xander supports it too by saying that they just need to spend more time with Buffy.

Willow though instead has the insane idea to just wipe Buffy’s memory, because “video clubs won’t fix this”. But she can. She can fix it. Fix the world. She can make it go poof. And that’ll make her stop feeling horrible about it too.

Tara, whom I love, obviously gets upset at that. And Xander and Anya at this point just… leave. Which, you know, I get it, things are starting to get personal and they can read the room, but also…  This sort of leads to a pattern for me of the Scoobies not really holding each other responsible this season. The argument that Tara and Willow are about to have is about Willow’s approach to magic and the world and people around her. This isn’t only affecting their relationship, as the episode itself will point out.

So, ideally I feel like Xander and Anya should’ve said something too. But then again, maybe they haven’t yet truly considered the implications of what Willow was suggesting at this point, as opposed to Tara, who just found out that Willow used the same spell on her.

Remember all that self-awareness that I mentioned with Willow? Well, that goes right out the window the minute she’s confronted with something that she’s already justified in her mind. Tara specifically uses the phrase that Willow “violated her mind”, and tells her that she’s just helping herself at this point. Fixing things to her liking, including Tara herself.

Which Willow completely fails to internalize, because justifying her actions to herself is so much easier. Instead she focuses on her own fears of abandonment. (“Are you saying you’re gonna leave me?”)

With the ultimatum Tara gives to Willow about not using magic for a week, this is also perhaps our first sign that we’re heading into the direction of a magical addiction metaphor this season. I will probably talk about that more later on, but for now, I’ll just say that while the substance abuse comparison will mostly fail and muck up the original idea behind Willow’s misuse of magic, it does work to a certain degree. It’s ultimately an addiction to power.

And then there’s Giles. I pretty much already said what I wanted to say about Giles leaving with the last episode, and he’s only confirming what I already suspected there, so I’m not really going to reiterate that. In short: I get it, but it’s also the wrong way to help Buffy.

This turn of events of course doesn’t really help Dawn either. No wonder that she’s super upset with Tara for leaving by the end of the episode.

Remember: not only is Dawn the child of divorced parents, her dad has also been absent for most of her life. And then her mom and sister died, and she basically became the foster kid of this ragtag group of young adults (ft. Giles), with Tara and Willow acting as primary parenting figures.

So yeah. I feel super bad for Tara in that moment when Dawn pulls away. You can see how hard this is for Tara, but she refuses to stay in a toxic environment. But I can’t blame Dawn for being a 15-year-old with her own set of abandonment issues either, especially as she’s unaware of the context.

Meanwhile somewhere in town Buffy is making the opposite choice. This time in my rewatch, I was especially hit with seeing Buffy’s reaction after regaining her memories. During the fight, she’s all quippy as Joan, but she checks out the moment the spell is broken. I can’t help but wonder how it was probably even harder for her to have those memories rushing back after forgetting about them.

So Buffy continues her hook-up routine with Spike in order to feel something. And Spike is already being a sleazy manipulative asshole about it, with lines like “I know what kind of girl you really are”.

But then again, Spike is a vampire without a soul. We can’t really expect more from him, and neither does Buffy. That’s kind of the point, sadly enough.

Oh, and of course we’re ending the episode with Michelle Branch performing in the Bronze. Which is very early 00s of her, but strangely enough, I can’t really remember any musician of the same recognition playing before on the show. Even though the Bronze – much like the P3 club on Charmed – serves as the perfect set-up for that.

Goodbye to you all, I guess.

#buffy rewatch 2k19 #btvs #btvs talk

[phantom-le6]

Film Re-Review - Star Trek: Nemesis

As I’m very much feeling a case of Trek fatigue at the moment, and because I’ve been neglecting other projects to focus on completing these reviews, I’ve decided to make this weekend a quick two-for-one posting weekend, and I present my re-review for the fourth and final TNG movie.  For those now following me on Tumblr who don’t see my posts on Facebook regarding these reviews, just to let you know this won’t be the last bit of Trek I do. I did Deep Space Nine years ago when I used to post my reviews on Facebook, and while I’m not aiming to repost those reviews, I am planning to review the Voyager series after I take a break with some non-Trek films and the Batman animated series.  Also, in the very short term I’ll be making up lost time on some novel prep, so if my posts are bit infrequent for a little while, don’t worry.  Now, with that bit of house-keeping out of the way, let’s have a look at Nemesis.

Plot (as given by Wikipedia):

During a session of the Romulan Imperial Senate, the military offers the plans to join forces with the Reman military and invade the Federation, but the Praetor refuses. As such a green thalaron radiation mist is released into the room by the military and everyone is killed. Meanwhile, the crew of the USS Enterprise-E prepares to bid farewell to long time first officer Commander William Riker and Counselor Deanna Troi, who are soon to be married on Betazed. En route, they discover a positronic energy reading on a planet in the Kolaran system near the Romulan Neutral Zone. Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Lieutenant Commander Worf, and Lieutenant Commander Data land on Kolarus III and discover the remnants of an android resembling Data. When the android is reassembled it reveals its name is B-4, and the crew deduce he is a less advanced earlier version of Data.

 Vice Admiral Kathryn Janeway orders the crew to conduct a diplomatic mission to Romulus. Janeway informs Picard that the Romulan government has undergone a military coup and is now controlled by a Reman named Shinzon, saying he wants peace with the Federation and to bring freedom to Remus. This is a surprising development as the Romulans had regarded Remans as an undesirable caste used principally as slave labour and shock troops during the Dominion War, due to their long history of prejudice.

 Upon their arrival on Romulus, the crew learns that Shinzon is actually a clone of Picard, following a secret experiment conducted by the Romulans to take Picard's place in Starfleet as a spy; however, he and the project were abandoned after a political change in the Romulan government left him cast away to Remus as a slave. It is there that he meets his Reman brethren and effects his rise to power. It was also on Remus where Shinzon constructed his flagship, a heavily armed warship named Scimitar, with a completely undetectable cloaking device, an arsenal of weapons, and virtually impregnable shields.

 Though the diplomatic mission seems to go smoothly, the crew discovers that the Scimitar is emitting low levels of extremely dangerous thalaron radiation (the same radiation used to assassinate the Romulan senate), several unauthorized computer accesses take place aboard the Enterprise, and Troi is mentally attacked by Shinzon while she is having sex with Riker. Shinzon captures Picard for reasons he does not make clear, though later Dr Beverly Crusher informs Picard that Shinzon is slowly dying from the accelerated ageing from his cloning process, and thus needs Picard's blood to live. Shinzon also transports B-4 aboard the Scimitar, revealing that Shinzon was behind the placing of B-4 on Kolarus III in order to lure Picard to Romulus. However, the B-4 Shinzon transported is actually Data posing as B-4 — he rescues Picard and they make their escape back to their ship. Realizing that the Scimitar is a weaponized thalaron emitter with enough power to destroy all life forms in a fleet of ships as well as an entire planet, Data deduces that Shinzon is using the warship to conquer the Federation and destroy Earth.

 The Enterprise races back towards Federation space, but is soon ambushed by the Scimitar, disabling the Enterprise's warp drive in the process. In the ensuing assault, the Enterprise is outmatched. Two Romulan warbirds arrive and assist in the assault, but Shinzon destroys one warbird and disables the other. Refocusing his attention on Picard, Shinzon further damages the Enterprise.

 Refusing to surrender, Picard uses his heavily damaged ship to ram the Scimitar, causing moderate damage including disabling the disrupter banks. Shinzon then initializes the Scimitar's thalaron weapon in a desperate attempt to take the Enterprise down with him. Picard boards the vessel alone and faces Shinzon. Unable to prevent the weapon's activation, Picard kills Shinzon by impaling him through the abdomen with part of a metallic support strut. Data arrives with a single-use personal transporter, using it to quickly beam the captain back to the Enterprise before destroying the ship at the cost of his life, shutting down the weapon in the process.

 While the severely damaged Enterprise is under repair in a space dock in Earth orbit, Picard bids farewell to newly promoted Captain Riker who is off to command the USS Titan, to begin a true peace negotiation mission with Romulus. Picard then meets with android B-4, whereupon he discovers that Data had succeeded in copying the engrams of his neural net into B-4's positronic matrix not long before his death.

Review:

Having re-watched Nemesis, and then looking back at how I reviewed it originally when I was considering these films just as a film series, I can’t say my feeling about this instalment in the franchise has really changed much.  It’s not the best TNG film, but I think some of the negative rep it has gained isn’t deserved.  Only some, mind; I have to agree that the film was a bit too dark in places, especially the ‘psychic rape’ scene Troi is subjected to mid-film.  Not only was that excessively dark in the film that had little light to it, but the show had already done this kind of thing before, albeit more metaphorically.  It wasn’t necessary and spoke to the fact that the director Stuart Baird was the wrong choice.  Frakes, or failing him another Trek actor-turned-director like Stewart or Burton, should have been at the helm.  Baird’s poor performance as director proves that Trek is best handled ‘in-house’ when it comes to behind the camera talent.

 Now as to what makes Nemesis good, I’m going to begin by quoting a couple of paragraphs from my original review;

“So, what is it that makes Nemesis a good film? Well, aside from quality action and special effects, the plot examines issues relevant in modern society, which of course is what the best of Trek always does.  In this case, Picard and Data are confronted by would-be duplicates of themselves in the characters of Shinzon and B-4, and this brings up the issue of whether or not we’re seeing two of each character or four separate characters. In essence, Picard facing his clone is a metaphor for our current-day issue of whether cloning is acceptable, whether such a science robs us of our individuality or not.

 Of course, the answer is it doesn’t – as Data points out in one scene, B-4 and Shinzon lack the desire to better themselves possessed by Picard and Data.  For all their similarities, too much about the circumstances in which each character was created and raised is different for them to be the same, and the same applies to any clone.  If you cloned an adult, that clone would have to go through their own childhood, and the difference in environment, from the people in their life to the culture they’re exposed to, would be too different from what the DNA donor experienced growing up, and consequently you would end up with a new, different individual. Cloning may produce a genetic replica of someone, but it can never replicate someone in their entirety, can never copy that which makes any one person truly unique.”

 The film also brings a lot of closure to the TNG franchise, which is strange considering a fifth TNG film was supposed to be in development at the same time Nemesis was in production.  Riker’s promoted and off on the Titan with Troi, Data sacrifices himself, and I can’t really see B4 as a substitute Data, nor Riker serving under Picard now that they’re the same rank.  To do a fifth film with just the TNG cast, you’d have to demote Riker and either not use Data at all or pull off some last-minute cross-time beam-out on Data.  However, it seems that the fifth film might have included more alumni from the spin-off shows, and that’s an idea that I think could have worked.  In fact, at some point I really want to try and write my own version of such a story, because I think Trek hasn’t really capitalised on its own cross-over potential much down the years.

 In terms of Data’s part in the story, I think he gets a good ending to his story within the world of Trek.  Self-sacrifice for friends, family, duty and the service of a worthy cause are one of the defining attributes of humanity, and given that Data has always been about exploring the human condition, it is fitting that he goes out in the most human way imaginable.  However, some aspects of his story are somewhat flawed in terms of continuity.  First, we find a random brother of Data’s and what does the crew do?  Do they stop and think ‘hang on, we don’t know anything about this android, let’s give it a real work over’?  No, they just reassemble it, which in the series was exactly how the crew was almost destroyed by Data’s other brother Lore.  Picard’s crew must have a flat line for a learning curve to have not learned the error of their ways by now.

 Second, this film makes absolutely no reference to Data’s emotion chip, something all of the past three movies did to some extent. In Generations it was a key plot point, and in First Contact, while in Insurrection it got one mention before presenting a point of inconsistency in Spiner’s performance as Data.  In this film, it’s neither heard from nor seen, and it seems annoying that Data’s final appearance essentially regresses him to an earlier point in his evolution as a character.  Even more disappointing is that he never got to return to any concepts that failed in the series because he lacked the emotion chip.  A proper Data romance of some kind would have been nice to see in the TNG films before he was killed off, for example.

 On the plus side, the film doesn’t lack in terms of the quality of its guest cast; you’ve got Whoopi Goldbery and Wil Weaton giving their final performances as Guinan and Wesley Crusher, for starters, as well as Kathryn Janeway from Voyager making an appearance.  Add to that a brief appearance by Alan Dale and the inclusions of such notable actors as Tom Hardy (then at the start of his acting career), Ron Perlman (he of Hellboy and Blade II fame, among other things) and Dina Meyer (who I mainly know from Starship Troopers and guest-appearances on Friends and NCIS), and it’s a decent compliment to line up alongside the main TNG cast.

 However, all the great casting in the world and all the wonderful issue exploration that is the heart of good Trek can fully redeem Nemesis.  Leaving aside outside factors like releasing alongside the fourth of the Brosnan Bond films and the second Harry Potter and Lord of The Rings films, the film is mostly undone by writing flaws and a bad choice of director.  I also think it’s strange that instead of putting the failure of Nemesis down to all of this, the powers-that-be further linked in the poor performance of prequel series Enterprise and the previous TNG film to conclude it was a case of ‘franchise fatigue’.  With the correct writers and directors, and if Trek had moved forward with its shows instead trying to regress backwards with a pre-Kirk series, not to mention a better choice of release date, more Trek could easily have been done and accepted gladly.  This wasn’t franchise fatigue; it was creative blunders plain and simple.  For me, Nemesis scored 8 out of 10 originally, and while I am inclined to mark it down this time, I only do so to 7 out of 10.

[armeniaitn]

The Pashinyan Chapter Must Close

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/politics/the-pashinyan-chapter-must-close-28524-01-07-2020/

The Pashinyan Chapter Must Close

The failure to impose a new framework for the settlement of the Karabakh (Artsakh) negotiation, while diplomatic pressures to resolve the Karabakh conflict are getting more insistent, is not masked by self-serving statements. The excuse this time is easier to spot: Azeri President Ilham Aliyev. Pashinyan is directly calling on the “people” of Azerbaijan to blame Aliyev.

Prime Minister Pashinyan’s approach to “neutralize” former President Robert Kocharyan and the Constitutional Court illustrate to what extent his mode of governance has little to do with legality. Advisory opinions have been requested from the European Court of Human Rights (on the government’s alleged retroactive application of the law aimed at convicting Kocharyan for the attempt to forcibly overthrow the regime) and the Venice Commission (on the legality of the amendments aimed at putting an end to the mandate of some judges of the Constitutional Court). Despite strong pressure from the Armenian government, the conclusions of those consultations are not sufficiently assertive in the way the Armenian government hoped; hence, the latter is taking radical measures even before the Armenian judges in office can use these opinions to form their decisions. This explains the rush by the authorities to have a single party in parliament adopt (it has the quorum necessary to do so) a law with immediate effects to change the composition of the Constitutional Court, depriving the Armenian president of its power to promulgate the law for the occasion, bypassing the control of constitutionality of the said law, and not respecting the due administrative process to notify the concerned justices. Realizing the latter mistake, the Parliament hastily adopted new amendments on June 30, but this time the President indicated to the Parliament Speaker that he will not sign the adopted amendments.

All these unimaginable and open violations of the constitution deepen the crisis and show the mediocrity of the ruling executives. It is an incredibly humiliating situation for Armenia vis-à-vis foreign observers and a weakening of foreign policy, where democracy is a component of Armenia’s diplomatic sales pitch.

Pashinyan has adopted paranoia: he no longer has confidence in anyone, and his circle is narrowing steadily. We are witnessing an incredible turnover among the department heads, ministers, Army staff officers and ambassadors. And his cabinet is not spared, either. Nobody knows whether all those executives are sacked because of corruption or because of alleged sympathies towards former ruling circles. The circle of trust is almost reduced to the family, and the latter intervenes more and more in Armenian public life.

Parliamentary democracy no longer exists. The majority party does not accept any challenge or discussion of bills or criticism of the government and they have enough members to adopt any desired law without the participation of minority opposition blocs. The opposition parties have boycotted the Parliament for the laws amending the Constitution and the Parliament has become a notary for the Executive.

There is an open attempt to silence the Prosperous Armenia party (BHK), thanks to legal proceedings initiated first against one of Gagik Tsarukyan’s commercial lieutenants, then against that latter when he dared to demand the resignation of the prime minister. The coincidence of the proceedings has not escaped anyone. Since this is not enough, the prime minister has started threatening all political forces who may be tempted to challenge his power in the future or who criticize his policy in the management of the health crisis.

The Republican Party has been the first target, and more surprisingly the ARF has become the victim of a rant strangely reminiscent of that of President Levon Ter Petrossian 28 years ago, from an era that was thought to be over. Furthermore, the speech reveals inconsistent: the ARF is quoted as being nothing and with no political future, and promised to end up in the dustbin of history, on one hand, but obviously still influential enough to justify an all-out attack.

The Role of the Diaspora

The diaspora has relapsed into passivity. The same people, cautious at the idea of supporting the peaceful protests against Sargsyan two years ago, are now in the opposite camp: they turn a blind eye to the excesses of Pashinyan. Let’s not talk about those who have a very partisan conception of human rights and freedoms. We can no longer hear them. Others openly express their partiality: the deaths of March 1, 2008 would require the conviction and the incarceration of a head of state but the three police officers killed by the commandos of “Sasna Tsrer” do not deserve to be tried and imprisoned.

But the most important element of the analysis lies elsewhere. The Armenian nation is attacked on several fronts by Turkey as never before. These threats are serious because Turkey operates in freewheeling manner, without brakes. Its neo-Ottoman ambitions are unsurprisingly verified. Turkey has managed to impose its will on both the United States and Russia, after having humiliated Europe and NATO. It intervenes militarily in several countries in defiance of international law (it is not the only country in this case). The Kurds are the first victims of this approach.

Regarding the treatment of Armenians, the strategy is twofold. First, Turkey intends to intensify its official activities against the international recognition campaigns of the Armenian Genocide in order to improve its image. The recent announcement of a new operative structure for this purpose is nothing new. Such structures have existed since the 1960s, often in discreet or even secret form. What is new, however, is the institutionalization of the structure and the mobilization of substantial academic and legal resources for its operation.

The second front is that of Karabakh. Turkish support for Azerbaijan has taken on a new tone, in line with its policy of military intervention and its desire for political unity with the Turkish peoples of Central Asia. Turkey has made it clear that if Azerbaijan takes military action to regain its claimed territory, then Turkey will support it. The proven links between Turkey and certain branches of Muslim fundamentalism, including certain jihadist groups (the new leader of Daesh is Turkmen), may pose serious risks.

Hence we come to the link with the internal situation of Armenia. It is trivial to say that the internal division weakens the diplomatic and military defense of Armenia. What the diaspora does not see or refuses to see, in particular when it relates to its structures acting for Armenian affairs (recognition of the Genocide, penalization of Genocide denial, independence of Artsakh, etc.) is that all these actions will never succeed without the Armenian state and its diplomacy acting in unison and in communion with the diaspora. Today, this consciousness and awareness are not yet a reality, neither in Armenia nor in the diaspora. The current accepted scope of the Armenian Cause by the Armenian State is limited to support for diplomatic action in favor of international recognition of the Genocide. It is not specific to Pashinyan, but nothing changed for the better since he came to power.

I have advocated since the beginning of the 2010s a radical change of strategy concerning the Armenian Cause. There is no doubt in my mind that the resolution of certain components of the Armenian Cause, in particular the question of collective reparations for the Armenian Genocide and the settlement of dispute between Turkey and the Armenians, relies exclusively upon the Republic of Armenia. There is no solution without the leadership and active participation of the Armenian state in the resolution of these problems. Turkey and its supporters clearly agree with this viewpoint.

Contrary to popular belief, the diaspora is less essential for the resolution of these questions but more useful for the institutional and economic strengthening of the Armenian State, in particular through its representative or lobbying structures. The diaspora is a unique asset that very few states possess. One fact is certain: the fate of these two entities is mutually dependent.

That is why I consider it a priority to solve the domestic political crisis and consolidate the state around a pan-Armenian policy. The more time elapses, the more chances for reparation claims vanish. For two years there has been no discussion with the diaspora about all those strategic issues and we must deduce from this that there is no interest. The only campaigning relates to the call upon the diaspora to provide economic and financial support to Armenia, but without any trade-offs on the political plane. This is the retrograde policy of old times.

A recent editorial in a French Armenian online publication wonders whether the diaspora should interfere in the political life of the Republic of Armenia. The partiality of the reasoning proved that, by failing to tackle this question globally, the intention is precisely to prevent voices speaking for or against Pashinyan. Meanwhile, an earlier editorial in the same paper unhesitatingly advocated the pursuit of the revolution!

Considering the interdependent fate of Armenia and the diaspora, we need to make sure the rule of law governs Armenia, regardless of whoever or whichever party is in power, since the advancement of major issues relating to the Armenian question depends on the will and policy of the Armenian State. I propose that specific duties are conferred upon the diaspora to intervene in Armenia’s domestic politics to put an end to this self-destructive situation, which at the same time paralyzes pan-Armenian affairs.

Paris, 30 June 2020

Read original article here.

#Armenia #Armenians #Artsakh #Karabakh #Politics

[possiblyimbiassed]

Everything in S4 has happened before - did you make a list?

The wheel turns and there’s really nothing new under the sun… It struck me that just about everything we see in Series 4 of BBC Sherlock, seems to have happened before, in one form or another. Which I believe is strong evidence for EMP theory (or at least something similar). I’m sure several people have already commented on this, but I’ll try to write down a whole list of what I’ve found this far – feel free to add to it!

Events in The Six Thatchers

1. Sherlock (in a Secret Service meeting about how to cover up him shooting Magnussen): “I am taking it seriously; what makes you think I’m not taking it seriously?” 

Earlier event: In TEH, the Gothic fan in Anderson’s Holmes fan club, theorizing that Sherlock and Moriarty are attracted to each other: “I do take it seriously. I don’t think we should wear hats.”

2. Sherlock is brought back to London to figure out how Moriarty can be transmitting his “Miss me?” message on every screen in the country. Sherlock’s plan is to sit and wait for Jim’s “spider web” to quiver, rather than trying to find Moriarty himself. 

Earlier event: In TEH Sherlock was brought back to London to foil a terrorist attack on the city. At first, he was just waiting for one of his markers (“rats”) to make a move.

3. In one case, Sherlock is in 221B, holding a plastic bag with ice and a human thumb in it. 

Earlier event: In ASiB Mrs Hudson discovers a plastic bag in the fridge of 221B, containing human thumbs.

4. In “The Circus Torso” Sherlock mentions tattoos on dead bodies. 

Earlier event: In TBB (where a Chinese circus is involved) there are bodies with Black Lotus tattoos on their heels.

5. In “The Duplicate Man” we get the following quote: “How could Dennis Parkinson be at two places at the same time? And murdered in one of them?” Before John manages to say anything, Sherlock tells him: “It’s never twins, John.” 

Earlier event: In TAB (Victorian times inside Sherlock’s mind) we have Watson saying about Emilia Ricoletti: “But she can’t have been in two places at the same time, can she?”  Watson asks why it couldn’t have been twins, and Holmes answers “Because it’s never twins.”

6. And also (reality check!) there’s John hammering down all their cases into his blog as usual, with titles and all. Quite some time must indeed be passing when John is frequently transmitting blog posts, because in between them he even becomes a father! Lestrade refers twice to John going to publish his blog about the Six Thatcher case, thereby making him, Greg, look incompetent and undeserving of the credits. 

Except there are two great big flaws in this: a) John is only seen writing on a picture file (.jpg), not a real blog prompt and b) There are no new blog entries on the official www.johnwatsonblog.co.uk  since John’s wedding in TSoT. Not one. The last one from that time is written by Sherlock himself, complaining about John’s and ‘Mary’s’ “sex holiday”. John’s last blog post was from the Mayfly Man case at the time of his stag night, shortly before the wedding.

7. Charlie Welsborough’s car blows up with his dead body inside. 

Earlier event: In TGG a hostage was covered in explosives and placed in a car, waiting for it to blow up.

8. Sherlock is ‘deducing’ a client’s case, telling him that his wife is a secret spy who will drug the US president with an injection in the neck.

Earlier event: In TEH John was drugged with an injection in his neck.

9. Sherlock is solving a case about a client who has a heart failure causing him amnesia. 

Earlier event: In HLV Sherlock’s heart stops temporarily. Judging by TLD, something weird has happened with Sherlock’s memory in S4.

10. Six busts of Margaret Thatcher are being smashed to pieces, which is the focus case of this episode. 

Earlier events: The whole case is described long before on John’s blog with the same title, with smashed Thatcher figures and with basically very similar events. Maggie Thatcher was also a password to secret info in THoB.

11. Craig the Hacker talks about “Ostalgia” and “Cold War memorabilia”; how some people in Germany long for the old communist era. 

Earlier event: In TEH, when Sherlock was tortured in Serbia, we saw uniforms that looked a lot more like Red Army uniforms from the past, than modern Serbian military uniforms:

12. ‘Mary’ calls Sherlock a ‘Dragon Slayer’ when he meets her in his secret bolt hole.

Earlier events: In TRF Moriarty talked on a video screen about Sherlock as a knight slaying dragons. In HLV Mycroft claimed that Sherlock sees himself as a Dragon Slayer.

13. ‘Mary’ is revealed as one of four freelancing assassins in A.G.R.A. who had been hired for an operation in Tbilisi, Georgia. 

Earlier event: In TRF, according to Mycroft, Moriarty had assigned “four top international assassins” relocated to within “spitting distance” of 221B.

14. ‘Mary’ uses a poisoned letter to drug Sherlock; he gets affected when he inhales the vapor from the paper. Then he sees a childhood memory when he was playing pirates with his dog.

Earlier event: In THoB the murderer uses an aerosol perceived as fog to drug his victims with a substance that works fear-inducing and produce hallucinations when they inhale it:

15. Sherlock goes on an international tour to chase after ‘Mary’. 

Earlier event: In MHR Sherlock goes on an international tour to several countries to chase after Moriarty’s remaining criminal network, after faking his own death in TRF.

16. ’Mary’ dies from a bullet wound in the abdomen, with John at her side.

Earlier event: In HLV Sherlock was very close to dying from a bullet wound in the abdomen, with John at his side.

17. By smashing a Thatcher bust Sherlock gets hold of a memory stick with the acronym A.G.R.A. on it, which contains secret information.

Earlier events: in TGG Sherlock finds the lost memory stick with the top secret Bruce Partington Plans.  In John’s blog case ‘The Six Thatchers’, a knife with Beppo’s initials on it was found inside one of the Thatcher figures.

18. There’s a scene with a swimming pool where Sherlock and the assassin Ajay are fighting over a memory stick.

Earlier event: in TGG there was a scene with the swimming pool (where Carl Powers had been murdered) and Sherlock, Moriarty and John were fighting over a memory stick.

19. There are several scenes from the London Aquarium where sharks swim around in bluish water.

Earlier event: In HLV Sherlock described Charles Augustus Magnussen as a ‘shark’ with a ‘dead eyes stare’, and he was referencing to the London Aquarium.

20. There are shattering glass transitions between scenes in TST.

Earlier events: John described in his blog post The Six Thatchers how he heard glass shatter when Beppo broke in. Glass shattering (a mirror) was also used to reveal a ghost trick in Sherlock’s Mind Palace in TAB:

21. John refuses to see Sherlock for quite a while, after blaming him for ‘Mary’s’ death, which hurts Sherlock badly. 

Earlier event: In TEH John refused to see Sherlock for some time in TEH, after Sherlock came back and told John thad he had faked his suicide. Sherlock seemed very sad about this.

Events in The Lying Detective

22. John visits a therapist for his problems with grief and depression. (And a depressed Sherlock suddenly visits John’s old therapist Ella in TST for his problems with John). 

Earlier events: Already in ASiP John went to his therapist Ella for depression, and then he visited her again for his problems with grief over Sherlock in TRF.

23. Sherlock is waving a gun quite carelessly, shoots the wall in 221B and seems to be in a lot of distress. 

Earlier events: In TGG Sherlock shot the wall in 221B and later carelessly scratched his head with a gun in the pool scene, where John had just shown willing to sacrifice his life for Sherlock:

24. In 221B Sherlock manages to catch the cup of tea that Mrs Hudson has made for him but drops from shock, before it hits the floor. 

Earlier event: In TBB Sherlock managed to catch the teapot that Soo Lin Yao was tending to in the museum but dropped from shock when Sherlock entered, before it hit the floor.

25. Sherlock is walking the streets of London at night together with Faith, who likes him and thinks he’s “nicer”. By walking with her, he hopes to prevent her from committing suicide, since Sherlock has deduced that she is alone and is carrying a gun in her handbag. Faith is also walking with a cane, which reminds Sherlock of John.

Earlier event: In ASiP Sherlock was running through the streets (and rooftops) of London at night together with John, who seemed to like him and admire him. By running together, trying to solve an exciting crime case, John’s psychosomatic limp was cured and he no longer needed his cane after that. (And John, who was depressed, was probably also prevented from committing suicide).

26. Sherlock predicts the future repeatedly; for some odd reason he knows two weeks in advance that John will get a new therapist and that John will want Molly to examine Sherlock, and he knows exactly where and when it all will happen, in spite of being kidnapped and brought there in handcuffs in the boot of Mrs Hudson’s sports car. 

Earlier event: In ASiP Sherlock tried to convince John that he could predict the fortune cookies in chinese restaurants, but John didn’t buy it.

27. John disarms, assaults and beats the sh*t out of Sherlock when Sherlock is high, frightened and starts waving a scalpel. (It’s a completely horrible, abusive scene, where John is uncontrollably violent, but the event is treated like it was Sherlock’s own fault, as if he somehow deserved the beating. Which is truly disturbing).

Earlier events: In TEH John punched Sherlock in the face three times after Sherlock revealed that he had faked his death and tried to joke about it. In HLV John disarmed and sprained a ‘junkie’ (Bill Wiggins) who was waving a knife, using far more violence than the situation craved.

28. In the hospital, Culverton Smith tries to strangle Sherlock, but John comes to his rescue and fights down Culverton. 

Earlier event: In TGG The Golem tried to strangle Sherlock at the planetarium, but John came to his rescue and bravely tried to fight down the much bigger Golem. 

29. John seems furiously jealous when Sherlock receives a text message from Irene Adler, who is using a provocative personalized ring tone. 

Earlier event: John seemed very jealous already in ASiB when Irene Adler was texting Sherlock, using the same provocative ringtone. He even kept track of the number of messages Sherlock received.

30. Sherlock puts on the deerstalker before leaving 221B because he thinks that’s what people expect from him.  

Earlier event: In TEH Sherlock put on the deerstalker before leaving 221B to talk to the press, because he thought that’s what people expected him to do:

Events in The Final Problem

31. A little girl is on board an airplane full of unconscious people, and she cannot make her Mom wake up. 

Earlier event: In ASIB a little girl (the same actor as in TFP!) and her sister claimed that they weren’t allowed to see their Granddad when he was dead. And then Sherlock was confronted with Mycroft’s plan to fool the terrorists: an airplane full of dead people (among them is the girl’s Granddad).

32. Sherlock’s flat at 221B Baker Street is blown up by an exploding drone (yet surprisingly intact at the end of the episode). 

Earlier event: In TGG Sherlock’s flat was damaged by an explosion in the opposite house (the apartments at the centre of the explosion seemed totally destroyed). The whole thing was set up by Moriarty.

33. By using disguises and deception, Sherlock, John and Mycroft enter Sherrinford; a highly secured governmental establishment. 

Earlier event: In THoB Sherlock and John, aided by Mycroft’s key card and claiming to be supervising officers, enter Baskerville; a highly secured military establishment:

34. Euros, and later Sherlock, john and Mycroft, are kept in an isolated cell at Sherrinford. 

Earlier events: in THoB James Moriarty is kept in an isolated cell and interrogated (tortured, as it seems). In HLV, he shows up in a padded cell and a straight jacket in Sherlock’s Mind Palace after Sherlock has been shot.

35. Euros uses Sherlock, John and Mycroft, without their consent, for her frightening psychosocial experiments. 

Earlier event: In THoB Sherlock uses John – without his consent - for a frightening experiment on a hallucinogenic drug.

36. First experiment: Euros forces Sherlock to ask John to shoot the Governor of Serrinford, in order to save the Governor’s wife. John at first seems ready to do it, but he can’t manage it in the end. And it was all useless anyway: the Governor killed himself and his wife was shot anyway.

Earlier event: In ASiP Sherlock (unknowingly) made John shoot the serial murderer Jeff Hope, in order to save Sherlock from committing suicide with poison, in his gambling with the murderer just to prove himself clever. The whole thing could have been stopped if Sherlock just had handed Hope over to the police.

37. Second experiment: When Sherlock focuses on solving the crime of the three Garridebs and points out which of them is the guilty part, in order to save the two innocent Garridebs, Euros ends up killing them all anyway. 

Earlier event: In TGG, when Sherlock wasted time, concentrating on solving the case of Connie Prince’s poisoning and get one step ahead of the murderer, rather than thinking of the victim’s prolonged suffering (he thought he’d help the old blind lady best in this way), the hostage and a bunch of other innocent people got killed by Moriarty anyway.

38. Third experiment: Euros forces Sherlock to make Molly reveal her love for him, which hurts her deeply, making Sherlock feel horrible afterwards. And it was all for nothing, since Euros later revealed that Molly’s life wasn’t in danger.

Earlier event: In ASiB Sherlock deduced out loud Molly’s attempt to dress up for a love interest and mocked her in a cruel way. When he realized that her love interest was he, Sherlock, he felt guilty and apologized:

39. Fourth experiment: Euros tries to force Sherlock to shoot either his best friend (love of his life) or his brother. Moriarty reveals that “Holmes killing Holmes” is indeed his end goal. But instead Sherlock chooses to kill himself, which makes Euros abort the experiment. 

Earlier event: In TRF Moriarty tried to force Sherlock to jump from Bart’s hospital’s rooftop and kill himself. Instead, with the help of his homeless network and Molly, Sherlock faked his death. Which later had disastrous consequences on John.

40. Sherlock is shot with Euros’ tranquilizers and falls backwards into unconsciousness. 

Earlier event: In HLV Sherlock was shot with ‘Mary’s bullet and fell backwards into unconsciousness.

41. John is trapped inside a well with a rising water level, but Sherlock manages to break a code from the perpetrator and rescue him. Strangely, already in TLD Sherlock is complaining to John: “I’m at the bottom of a pit and I’m still falling, and I’m never climbing out”.

Earlier event: In TEH John was trapped inside a pile of wood, which was being set on fire, but Sherlock managed to break a code from the perpetrator and rescue him. 

So far, I’ve found over 40 events that have similarities in earlier episodes. I’m sure this list could go on and on. These are far too many repetitions of the same, or very similar, events for them to be mere coincidences.  (perhaps someone could find out some really unique events of Series 4 and do a statistic significance test on the relative proportions).

Some people have written this off as bad or lazy screenwriting. But I think this could only be true to a certain extent, because otherwise we would have found a similar amount of repetitions in the earlier series. And to me there’s no way – absolutely no possibility – that the authors would repeat a case like The Six Thatchers, which has been thoroughly described on John’s blog several years earlier, with no intention of the fans noticing this. It seems very deliberate to me.

Conclusion – the only one that makes sense to me about Series 4 (and most probably the last half of HLV as well) - is: IT’S FAKE. The whole of Series 4 is happening inside Sherlock’s head; Sherlock is re-hashing a series of memories from his life together with John and combining them in new ways, just like a human brain does when it’s dreaming. Some of these inner experiences seem to produce emotional and/or moral growth in Sherlock. It might be EMP, simulations, delirium, drug-induced hallucinations or whatever. But Series 4 just can’t be real; it happens in Sherlock’s head.

So, basically: Sherlock needs to wake up to a Series 5 and help throw out all the demons that are keeping him and John apart. ;)

#emp theory #johnlock #series 4 is fake #recurring dreams #TJLC #mind palace

[mbtizone]

Prince Charming/David Nolan (Once Upon a Time): ESFJ

Dominant Extroverted Feeling [Fe]: David is fiercely protective of his loved ones. He cares about being helpful and doing the right thing. David wants to be of service to others. He’s warm, affirming, honorable, and supportive. David wants to do what is best for everyone, whether it’s the citizens of Storybrooke or his people in the Enchanted Forest. David is okay with fighting and killing if it’s for the greater good. The only way to stop the Evil Queen is to kill her! Think of all the damage she could inflict on more innocent people if we allow her to live! David hates to upset people and will typically lie to them to avoid hurting their feelings. He doesn’t want Kathryn to feel bad, so he lied about remembering their dog. The first time he leaves Kathryn, he tells Mary Margaret he did it because pretending would be the most hurtful thing he could do to her. She deserves to be with someone who doesn’t have to fake their affections. When he ends their relationship for the second time, David lies to her about why he’s leaving her to spare her the pain of knowing he fell for another woman. However, as Mary Margaret points out, his desire to not hurt anyone results in everyone getting hurt. He doesn’t tell Henry that Jefferson can’t help them because he doesn’t want to disappoint him. When David’s mother wants him to marry for a dowry that could save their farm, he refuses to do it because he wants to marry for love. However, when King George tells him he must marry to save the entire kingdom, David agrees because he can’t allow that many people to suffer – it’s selfish. It was one thing when it was just his family’s farm on the line, but he can’t stand idly by when he can do something to help such a large number of people. Not only is he willing to sacrifice his chance of ever finding true love – he even agrees to never see his own mother again in order to help his people. When David is ordered not to go into battle, he does so anyway because people are dying! David is usually good at sensing how those around him are feeling – even though she doesn’t say it, he knows Mary Margaret wants to be with him. He can feel it. He’s appalled when King George gives him a crown (a gift from King Midas) because it could “feed the kingdom for an entire winter” with it.

Auxiliary Introverted Sensing [Si]: After waking up from his coma, David decides he wants to leave his wife to be with Mary Margaret, and goes through with it, until Regina gives him false memories of his life with Kathryn. When he “remembers” her, he decides he must honor the commitment he made and go back to her. Even though he doesn’t feel the love he once supposedly had for her, he remembers feeling that way, and so he feels staying with her is the right thing to do. David believes that he can replicate past successes by using the same techniques. He used a bird to find Snow once, so he’ll just do that again. When Emma and Snow get stuck in another realm, he asks Mother Superior if he can use a tree to cross from Storybrooke to the Enchanted Forest, because that was how they got Emma to this world in the first place, so it could work again! In his quest to get them back, David goes to Mr. Gold and asks him for something like the ring he had given once given him to find Snow. David’s first response is rarely to come up with a new way of doing things – he trusts the methods that he knows have worked for him before. David believes he and Snow will always find each other – because they always have. Each time they’re separated is no different than the last. They always make it back to each other. David is certain that Snow will be in the Netherworld because she made it there once before, so if he goes there to find her, he knows she’ll be there again. Once the first curse is broken, David wants to return to the Enchanted Forest. He wants to go back home and carry a sword again! He longs for the way things used to be. Snow, on the other hand, is content to stay in Storybrooke because home is wherever her family is. It’s hard for David to come around where Regina is concerned because of everything she’s done in the past. While Snow and Emma are willing to start anew and want to give Regina the chance to redeem herself, David believes that she’ll revert to her old ways sooner or later because that’s who she is. She’s ruined their lives every chance she’s ever had, and that’s what she will continue to do! It’s hard for David to deny physical evidence and, instead of thinking of alternate possibilities (someone must’ve framed Mary Margaret for Kathryn’s murder), he begins to doubt her when confronted with what seemed like solid proof (“It was your jewelry box, your fingerprints, knife in your apartment”). David is old-fashioned and traditional and is comfortable with the old way of doing things (such as using torches). When the curse is broken and everybody tries to flee Storybrooke, David is able to keep them there by empathizing (Fe). He gets why people would choose to leave and just forget all of their unhappy memories – but your memories make you who you are! The good ones and the bad ones! For David, all of life’s moments are worth living. David tries to learn from his mistakes and use the knowledge he gains from his past experiences to make better decisions in the present. He made the mistake of failing to believe in Mary Margaret when everyone thought she was guilty of murder so he’s not going to do that again with Ruby. Instead, he stands by her and protects her. When Ruby sees Regina going into Archie’s office on the night he supposedly died, David believes that Regina is responsible. Ruby isn’t lying because he knows Ruby and she wouldn’t make something like that up, but all of his experiences with Regina have been negative, so Regina must be the one who’s lying.

Tertiary Extroverted Intuition [Ne]: Although it’s not his main approach, David can be good at connecting dots and is able to make the occasional intuitive leap. When he finds out from Red that Snow intended to stop his wedding, David realizes that King George must’ve intervened and caused her to change her mind somehow. When David brainstorms, it’s not just for fun – he wants to come up with ideas so he can use them to create plans to defeat whatever he finds himself up against. David tends to maintain an optimistic view of the future – he typically believes that things will work out favorably for himself and his loved ones. He volunteers to be put under a sleeping curse because he’s sure that Snow will make it back to wake him from it. Even though Mr. Gold cautions him by telling him he may never wake up, David has no doubt that Snow will break the curse. David has faith in the people he loves and believes in them no matter what.

Inferior Introverted Thinking [Ti]: Because David leads with his heart, it’s difficult for him to make logical, detached decisions. He always believes that he’ll be able to come up with a solution to whatever problems he and his loved ones face. If his original plan is foiled, David usually believes that he’ll be able to find another way to get the job done, though sometimes he has moments of doubt. When the hat is destroyed, he doesn’t know how he’ll be able to find another way to travel between worlds. In stressful situations, David can come to harsh conclusions (we must execute the Queen for the safety of our people!) He’s also able to deduce that Albert killed Billy in order to pin it on Ruby, knowing that David would come to her defense. He wanted to take power away from David by getting the town to turn against him for protecting Ruby. When David analyzes problems, he can struggle to come to the correct conclusion. When Mary Margaret is framed for Kathryn’s “murder,” he begins to question her innocence because all of the evidence pointed to her. He later does this again when Cora tries to frame Regina for Archie’s “murder.” He struggles to see beyond the alleged “facts” of a situation.

Enneagram: 1w2 2w1 6w5 So/Sx

Quotes:

Prince Charming: I say we fight! Jiminy: Fighting is a bad idea. Giving into one’s dark side never accomplishes anything. Prince Charming: Then how many wars has a clear conscience won? We need to take the Queen out before she can inflict her curse. Doc: Can we even trust Rumplestiltskin? Prince Charming: I’ve sent my men into the forest. The animals are abuzz with the Queen’s plan. This is going to happen unless we do something. Snow: There’s no point. The future is written. Prince Charming: No. I refuse to believe that. Good can’t just lose. Snow: Maybe it can. Prince Charming: No. No, not as long as we have each other. If you believe him about the curse, then you must believe him about our child. She will be the saviour.

David: I’m trying to remember this place. It’s like… It’s like I woke up in some strange land. Mary Margaret: Is there anything coming back? What about when you’re with her? You remembered your dog. David: Yeah, I lied. Mary Margaret: You did? David: She’s so loving and I didn’t want to disappoint her. But none of it feels right. You know, a dog named Ajax? Who would name their dog that? None of it makes sense. None of it… None of it feels real.

Ruth: He has a daughter. She’s ready for marriage. He thinks the two of you would make a great couple. Prince Charming: Mother… Ruth: I know, I know. I hate myself for even bringing it up. Prince Charming: Let me guess – she has a dowry that will save the farm? Ruth: We are running out of options. Prince Charming: Mother, please. As poor as we are, love is one thing I can afford. I will find a way to save this farm, but I won’t do it by marrying for riches. When I marry, I want it to be because I choose to spend the rest of my life with someone I love. Ruth: When are you going to learn? You can’t have everything.

[The dragon, who is still in the cave, roars. Flames are seen at the cave’s entrance. The knights are heard screaming.] Prince Charming: They need our help. [Prince Charming tries to run to the cave, but is held back by the two knights.] Knight: We stay here. Our orders are clear. Prince Charming: People are dying!

Prince Charming: Midas wants to unite the kingdoms. By marrying me to his daughter. Ruth: What? Prince Charming: It makes the grain merchant’s dowry look like sheep dung. Ruth: No. You were right to turn down that offer, as you must this one, too. Every day you’ve been gone, has shown me it was shameful of me to ever encourage you otherwise. Your freedom to choose is more important than anything. I’ll give up the farm. Prince Charming: No. Ruth: They can’t force you. Prince Charming: Yes, they can. Because of our ruse, Midas can never really know who I am, which… Ruth: We can’t ever see each other again. Prince Charming: Yes. Ruth: Then don’t do it – run away. Prince Charming: I can’t. They will kill you. Ruth: I lose you either way. At least I’ll know you’ll be happy. Prince Charming: I already accepted Midas’ offer. I didn’t come here for advice, mother. I came here to say goodbye. There was too much at stake. I couldn’t let the kingdom suffer on my account. I couldn’t let them hurt you. You know, you were right about one thing – can’t have everything.

David: So, I heard you resigned from the hospital. Was it me? Cause of what I told you, about how I felt about you… Oh, come on – don’t tell me it’s one sided. Mary Margaret: You’re married. It should be no side. David: Should be doesn’t matter. Whoever married Kathryn, it’s not me. I didn’t choose her. I’m choosing you. I know you feel it – I can tell.

Mary Margaret: Tell me you didn’t leave your wife because of me? I do not want to destroy your marriage. David: You’re not. It’s me. I don’t want to hurt her either, but the most hurtful thing to Kathryn would be me pretending. she needs someone to feel about her the way I feel about you. Mary Margaret: I’m really trying hard to stay away from you. To do the right thing. David: Why is that the right thing? Mary Margaret: Because you already have a life. David: With someone I didn’t choose. The man who chose that life, whoever married Kathryn, is gone. Mary Margaret: You really have to leave me alone.

David: You came. Mary Margaret: You sound surprised. In fact, you almost sound a bit disappointed. David: I remember. Mary Margaret: Kathryn? David: Everything. Mary Margaret: And you love her. David: I don’t know. But I know I did. I remember how I felt and I think I have to honor that. Mary Margaret: And everything that you said to me- David: Is true. I do have feelings for you – intense feelings. Feelings I don’t quite understand. Mary Margaret: And you’re going back to her. David: It’s the right thing to do. Mary Margaret: The right thing to do, was not to lead me on. David: I know. Mary Margaret: So, you’ve made your choice. David: I’m sorry- Mary Margaret: That’s okay. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.

King George: Your absence is felt. It is, after all, in your honor. I thought this might rouse you from your chamber. [He pulls the lid off of the box, revealing a crown.] Prince Charming: You could feed the kingdom for an entire winter with that crown. King George: It’s a gift – from King Midas. For you to wear as you marry his daughter. Once that is done, our new prosperity will allow us to feed the kingdom for all eternity. Show some enthusiasm. Prince Charming: Enthusiasm wasn’t part of the deal. The wedding’s in two days. I’ve honored your wishes. King George: But I want your heart – not just your honour. Prince Charming: My heart shall belong to Abigail. King George: You think I’m a fool, don’t you? Your heart can’t belong to Abigail when it’s held by another woman. And don’t deny it. I know that look. Who is she? Prince Charming: I met her on a journey. We haven’t seen each other since, but… She stayed with me. King George: Forget her. Prince Charming: You speak as if that’s so easy. King George: Nobility was not meant to be easy. All this wealth, the power we hold over other men’s lives – do you think that comes at no cost? Prince Charming: I asked for none of it. King George: You were chosen to be my son. Plucked from poverty, wanting for nothing. Be thankful for that. Prince Charming: It wasn’t charity, Father. It was the only way to save your kingdom.

Mary Margaret: No, David. It’s too painful. David: It doesn’t have to be. We don’t know if Kathryn’s pregnant. Mary Margaret: It doesn’t matter. You chose her. David: I know, but I still have feelings for you. Mary Margaret: You can’t have both. David: But I do have both. I know… I know it doesn’t make sense, but it’s like I have these two conflicting lives. Memories of feelings for her and real feelings for you. Mary Margaret: Who’s to say which is real? David: I can’t get you out of my head.

Kathryn: David? David, come take a look. I found a whole bunch of great apartment options. I have no idea which neighbourhood to look at, but… Have you ever been to Boston? David: No. No, I’ve never been. Kathryn: Maybe we should ask the Sheriff, Emma. She’s from there. She could probably help- David: Kathryn. I can’t go to Boston with you. Kathryn: Can’t? Or won’t? David: I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry. I… I don’t know what to say. Kathryn: Try the truth. David, is there something going on that I don’t know about? David: No. No, something happened. I don’t know what it is, but there is something that’s preventing me from connecting. And it’s not fair to you to let that screw up your life. You’re right – you need a fresh start. It’s just not with me.

Mary Margaret: Who did this? David: I don’t know. I’m sorry. I don’t know how any of this happened. Mary Margaret: You don’t know? Really? David: Mary Margaret, I can’t control what other people do. Mary Margaret: No, but you can control what you do. And you lied. And, now, everyone is calling me a tramp. David: Who told her? Mary Margaret: That is exactly the wrong question. The real question is, why didn’t you do what we discussed? Why didn’t you tell her? David: I thought we could spare her feelings. Mary Margaret: Right – you thought. Not we – you. And we discussed this. David: I didn’t want anyone to get hurt. Mary Margaret: Now everyone is hurt. We had an understanding. We had an agreement. But you not only lied to her, you lied to me.

Red: She’s gone. She never came back after she went to find you. Prince Charming: Then I’ll find her. I will always find her. And I will convince her that we belong together. I will always fight for her, no matter what comes between us. Red: It won’t be much of a fight. Prince Charming: What are you talking about? Red: Snow wants to be with you more than anything. Prince Charming: Don’t mock me. Snow told me that we can’t be together because she doesn’t love me. Red: She left here to break up your wedding, because she’s in love with you. Unless, something changed her mind along the way… Prince Charming: Not something – someone.

Abigail: There is legend of a lake – Lake Nostos. Its waters are said to have magical properties, that can return to you something that was once lost. Prince Charming: And, yet, you haven’t tried it? Abigail: Of course I have. But the lake is guarded by a ghastly creature that drowns its victims. No one who’s ever faced it has lived to return. Prince Charming: Don’t give up hope just yet. I will face this guardian and return with the water that will undo this wretched curse. Abigail: None have succeeded. Prince Charming: None have my fearless bravery. Abigail: Or fearless disregard for their own safety. Prince Charming: Either way, one of us should have our happiness. Abigail: And if you die, neither of us will. Prince Charming: No, not true. Don’t you understand? If I succeed, you will be reunited with Frederick and your misery ends. If I fail, the misery that ends will be mine.

Frederick: I am forever indebted to you. Prince Charming: Well, pay me back by walking down the aisle with someone you truly belong with. And, perhaps, giving me a horse and supplies for a journey as well? Frederick: Done. Abigail: Thank you. So much. Where will you go? Prince Charming: To find Snow White. Abigail: You are going after her. Prince Charming: True love isn’t easy, but it must be fought for. Because once you find it, it can never be replaced. Abigail: How will you know where to find her? Prince Charming: Well, a bird helped me track her down once. Hopefully, it can again.

Snow: What do you think you’re doing? Why would you do this? Prince Charming: Well, because… You said you appreciate… Action more than words. So, now… You’re going to get both. I love you, Snow. Snow: But, I don’t love you. I don’t even remember you. Prince Charming: Well, I don’t care. The only thing I care about is that you don’t forget who you really are. I would rather die than let you fill your heart with darkness. Snow: You would really die for me? Prince Charming: Does it look like I’m making this up? Snow: No one’s ever done anything like this for me before. No one’s ever been willing to die for me. Prince Charming: No one you can remember.

David: Mary Margaret. Mary Margaret: David. David: Emma said we could have a few minutes alone. I wanted to tell you, that Dr. Hopper helped me remember what happened during my blackouts. Mary Margaret: And? David: Uh, I… I only, um, got pieces of the memory, but… We were in the woods, and I kept saying, ‘don’t do it’. Mary Margaret: Don’t do what? David: Don’t kill her. That’s what I kept saying. Mary Margaret: Kathryn? You think you remember me wanting to kill Kathryn? David: Can you explain why I have that memory? Mary Margaret: David? Are you asking me if I had something to do with Kathryn’s murder? David: The Sheriff found a heart in our spot. It was in your jewelry box. The weapon was found in your apartment. And I have these… These memories. So, yes, I’m asking. Mary Margaret: When your phone records came back, when I found you wandering in the woods, when everyone thought you killed Kathryn, I stood by you. I never once doubted you. And, now that everything is pointing to me, you actually think I am capable of that kind of evil? Get. Out.

David: Please wait. Look, I’ll leave if you want. I… I just think we need to talk. Mary Margaret: So, talk. David: I need to apologize. Mary Margaret: Yes, you do. Keep going. David: I didn’t believe you. I didn’t stand with you. Mary Margaret: You know, I will never forget that moment… The moment the world sort of blows you backwards, and the one person you thought would always be there to catch you… He isn’t there. David: Look at what was going on. It was your jewelry box, your fingerprints, knife in your apartment- Mary Margaret: It was a setup. David: And a really good one. I’m human. I fell for it. I’m sorry, but… We have to move forward. Mary Margaret: But we can’t. It’s like something in this world doesn’t want us together. David: Like what? Dark forces? Mary Margaret: Maybe. I don’t know, but it’s like something just keeps pouring poison between us. And what I don’t want, is to have all of those good memories… Replaced by moments like that. When I looked at you, and I saw that you didn’t believe me… David: No. I know. I am so sorry. Mary Margaret: I know. I know. David: But, I love you. Mary Margaret: And that… Is what makes it all so sad.

Emma: Then, we have a problem. David: No, we don’t. Regina does. Regina: What? Mary Margaret: David? Emma: You want to let her die? David: Why not? Then it goes away and then, we’re safe. Regina: That’s quite the example you’re setting for your daughter, there. David: No, you don’t get to judge us.

David: Torches – for when it comes back. I know it’s old fashioned, but so am I.

David: Could there be a tree on this side? The way we sent Emma through as a baby. Maybe I could go after them that way. Mother Superior: It’s possible, but without fairy dust to guide us here… No, it’s hopeless.

David: Okay. You had a little girl’s tea set in your car and a stuffed rabbit toy, so I’m thinking you have a daughter you love. Well, I do, too. And a wife. And they’re out there somewhere. In the Enchanted Forest, or a void, I don’t even know. But I’m going to get them back.

David: If you cross that line, you’re going to be lost. Everyone who loves you will lose you. But there’s something worse – you’ll lose yourself. Look, I get wanting to leave here, I do. And I get that it’s easier to let go of bad memories, but… Even bad memories are part of us. David, Storybrooke David, was – is – weak, confused. And he hurt the woman I love. I wouldn’t give up being Charming just to be him, but, you know what? I wouldn’t make the other trade, either. Because that David reminds me, not only of who I lost, but of who I want to be. My weaknesses, and my strengths. David, and the Prince. I am both – just like you. You are both. The town is both. We are both. Stay here, and every choice is open to you. Live in the woods if you want. Hell, live in a shoe if you want. Or eat frozen burritos and write software. Let’s open Granny’s and the school. And get back to work. I will protect you. She won’t be able to hurt any of us. Not as long as I’m alive. Not as long as we all come together. As we did before. As we shall do again.

Henry: I’m not coming with you. But I… I thought we were going to find Jefferson? David: I already did. Henry: What? Is he going to help us? David: No. No, Henry, he’s not. Henry: But why didn’t you tell me you talked to him? David: Because I didn’t want to disappoint you. I know you want to find your mom, but Jefferson can’t help us. I need to find a way to restore the hat.

David: It had to be something else, Ruby. Ruby: No, I did this! We both know it. David: No. A few months ago, everyone thought Mary Margaret was guilty of murder. She needed someone to believe in her. I didn’t do that. I am not going to make the same mistake with you! Ruby: Mary Margaret never killed anyone. I have. David: I know who you really are, Ruby. Even if you’ve lost sight of it.

David: You’ll be safe in here tonight. Ruby: Thank you, David. David: Thank me in the morning. By then, I’ll have found whoever really killed Billy. Albert: You already have. That thing. That she-wolf. David: Get out. Whatever issues you have with me, don’t involve her. There’s no proof Ruby had anything to do with what happened. Albert: It seems to me, that you’re allowing your emotions to cloud your judgment. Ruby: Leave him alone. Albert: Protecting your friend at the peril of everyone else. I knew you’d slip up, shepherd. It was only a matter of time. David: What do you want? Albert: Justice. Hand that over to me, and let the town decide her fate. David: Never. I know exactly what kind of justice you have in mind. Albert: This town is bigger than you think. I start telling people that you’re putting their lives in danger to protect your own interests? You’ll have a mutiny on your hands. David: Yeah, we’ll see. You want her, you have to go through me.

Granny: This way. The trunk. [David pops the truck. Inside, everything appears to be normal. However, underneath, they find Ruby’s hood and a hatchet in the spare tire compartment.] David: The wolf didn’t kill Billy. Granny: Ruby’s hood. David: So she’d be forced to change back into a wolf. So whoever killed Billy could pin the murder on her. Granny: Who would want to hurt my Ruby? David smashes in the driver’s side window and finds the registration.] David: This isn’t about Ruby. It’s about me. Spencer. Granny: King George? David: He needed a reason to wrestle power away from me, so he created one. [A wolf is heard howling in the distance.] Granny: She’s out. David: The mob. They’re going to kill her.

David: He may never see his mother or grandmother again. How am I going to break that news to him? Ruby: You won’t have to. David: Travel between worlds is as hard as it comes. Fairy dust on its own isn’t enough. It took an entire curse to get us here in the first place. Without the hat… Ruby: You’ll find another way. David: You don’t know that. Ruby: But I know you. And I know you’ll never give up until you do. And David? You’re not going to be doing this alone. David: Thank you.

Regina: Aurora is gone. Why do we need to send Henry back to that fiery inferno with no one there to receive our message? David: Because someone will be there. Regina: Who? David: Snow. Regina: Well, that’s an awfully big assumption. David: No. No, it’s not. She was there once before. She can go back. She can find a way. She will – I know it. And I’ll be waiting. Regina: You’re going to this Netherworld? David: I faced you. How bad could it be? Mr. Gold: It’s not as simple as that. You can’t get there. You haven’t been under a sleeping curse. David: Well, then put me under one. Mr. Gold: If we do that, there’s a chance you might never wake up. David: Sure I will. When I see her, she’ll kiss me, and I’ll be fine. Now, put me under. I’ve spent far too much time looking for my wife. It is time to bring her home.

David: It’s going to be alright. Henry: How do you know? David: Well… How did you know Emma would save you after you ate the turnover? Henry: I… I believed in her. David: The way Snow and I believed she’d come back to break the curse. That’s the kind of faith that runs in our family.

Prince Charming: Then only one thing is certain – as long as the Queen lives, the kingdom is in danger. Snow: Are you saying… Prince Charming: Yes. We must kill the Queen. Thank you all. Snow: You sure this is what we must do? Prince Charming: What choice do we have? As long as she draws breath, she will come after us – after you. Snow: There’s always a choice. You stopped me from killing her once, took an arrow to save her. Why is this different? Prince Charming: I took that arrow to save your life, not hers. That was an assassination. This is an execution. If we don’t stop her now, there’s no telling what she’ll live to do.

Prince Charming: Snow, I thought we agreed what had to be done. Instead, you show the Queen mercy? She doesn’t deserve it. You heard her. She’s completely unrepentant. Snow: What I heard, was a woman who didn’t want to appear weak in her final moments. Prince Charming: I’ve seen her kill, I’ve seen her terrorize. Every moment I’ve seen of her, has been one of evil. Snow: Exactly. That you’ve seen. But I knew her before. I knew her when she was good. She saved my life when I was a little girl. Prince Charming: That was years ago. Snow: She changed before. Why can’t she change back? Prince Charming: You can’t be serious. You want to rehabilitate the Queen? Snow: Maybe showing her mercy is the first step. Prince Charming: But, if you fail, the entire safety of the kingdom is at stake. We cannot take that risk. Snow: You’re so sure of her black soul? Sure enough to kill? Because there’s no going back from killing. Prince Charming: If you think this is the right thing to do, then it’s what we shall do. But know that your path is one that we cannot come back from either.

Regina: Oh, it’s now against the law to get into an argument with someone? David: It is if you go to their office later that night and kill them. Regina: Archie’s dead? David: Stop it, Regina. Ruby saw you going into his office last night. Regina: Then she’s lying. I was home all evening. After everything I’ve done to change, to win Henry back, why would I toss it all away now? And, if I did and I was going to kill Archie, you would never know it. The fact that he’s dead and you caught me shows sloppiness. David: You’ve been caught before. Come on, Emma. Who do you think’s lying – Ruby, or her? She’s incapable of change, no matter how many times we’ve given her the chance. Why should this time be any different?

Emma: I promise we’ll find whoever really did this. David: Isn’t it time you admit we already have? Regina had a fight with Archie, Ruby saw her outside last night, and now, her file is empty. That’s… That’s a lot of evidence. Emma: Maybe that’s the point. David: What do you mean? Emma: Well, I don’t know how it is in fairy tale land, but in the real world, it’s usually hard to find evidence. But this has been way too easy. Unless, someone wants us to find evidence.

Mary Margaret: I really liked this one. David: I don’t know. The yard looks kind of small. Mary Margaret: You going to say that about every house we look at? David: I grew up on a farm. Mary Margaret: This isn’t about the houses, is it? David: We buried a friend this morning, Mary Margaret, and it made me realize… I don’t want to die here. Mary Margaret: But our home, David? It doesn’t exist anymore. The ogres are back. Cora’s in power. David: Which is exactly why we need to return. To make things right – to fight. Mary Margaret: I’m tired of fighting! That’s all we’ve ever done. We have a chance here – a chance to be together. David: But what if we don’t belong here? Isn’t it worth it to fight for what we really want? Mary Margaret: Unless, we don’t want the same thing.

Mary Margaret: You like the holster, huh? David: I miss carrying a sword.

Leroy: So what’s the plan? David: Lead the giant away from here, so he can’t hurt anyone. Mary Margaret: Wait. If we keep heading in this direction, we’re going to hit the town line. David: Okay, new plan. Mary Margaret: What are you doing? David: Giving him what he wants. Anton! How about we make a deal? Anton: I don’t make deals with humans. David: Just hear me out. I’ll surrender myself to you, if you spare the lives of everyone in Storybrooke. Mary Margaret: David, you can’t do this. David: If I don’t, the whole town will suffer. I can’t allow that. Well, what do you say?

David: Sometimes I wonder how things would’ve turned out if I had been the one raised by King George instead of my brother. You know, would I have been…corrupt like him? Mary Margaret: Never. David: Same blood ran through our veins. Mary Margaret: Mm, but your hearts are different. You may not believe it, but trust me – I know you, Charming. I had a lot of fun today. David: Fun? Mary Margaret: Uh-huh. David: Almost getting killed is fun? Mary Margaret: Yeah. I missed our adventures. David: Me, too. It was kind of fun. You know, we could do this all the time. When the beans grow, we could go back. Everyone could go home. Mary Margaret: I don’t know. David: What don’t you know? Mary Margaret: Home is where our family is. And that’s here. I don’t know if Emma would come with us, and I am not going to be separated from her again.

David: You know, you gotta look for the moments. Emma: Moments. David: Yes. Life is made up of moments – good ones, bad ones, but they’re all worth living. Emma: Well, I seem to be a magnet for the bad ones. David: Well, then all the more reason to look for the good moments in between the bad ones. Emma: And you think having lunch with Neal will be a good moment? David: I don’t know. Does he eat with his mouth open?

David: Why didn’t you tell me? Mary Margaret: Because telling you makes things real, and I needed to believe it wasn’t; that I could find a way to stop it, that redemption was possible. David: It is. Look at August. Mary Margaret: But it cost him… everything. David: You are not him, Mary Margaret, and you sure as hell aren’t Regina. Which means, those are not the only two options. We’ll find another way. I know it. Mary Margaret: What makes you so sure? [he places her hand over her heart] David: This does. And I know it better than anyone.

Prince Charming: Snow, I can explain. Snow: So it’s true. You planted the sword in that stone. Prince Charming: I did. Snow: So you took me on an adventure to find a magical sword because… Prince Charming: You needed to believe in something I already knew. Snow: So when I stood up to Regina– Prince Charming: You did that on your own. You had it inside you that entire time. You just…needed some help to realize that. Snow: But you didn’t. [Charming shakes his head. Snow White kisses him]

Prince Charming/David Nolan (Once Upon a Time): ESFJ was originally published on MBTI Zone

#David Nolan #Once Upon a Time #OUAT #ESFJ #enneagram 1 #Type 1 #1w2 2w1 6w5 #So/Sx #mbti #mbti types #mbti personality types #fictionalcharactermbti #fictionmbti #tv mbti #enneagram #enneatypes #enneagram type

[dynamics-of-an-asteroid]

You said you collect pastiches where Holmes and Moriarty work together - do you have a list? Because that’s very relevant to my interests.

Some of the ones that I can remember poking through my collection:

The Professor Moriarty series by Michael Kurland - I’m pretty sure the whole reason I got into seeking stories where Holmes and Moriarty work together is because of this series. This Moriarty is one of my favorites, the dynamic between he and Holmes is equal parts hilarious and witty yet heartfelt and profound, and the cases aren’t too shabby either. Almost all of the stories in this series focus on them teaming up, but I’ll post a sample from “The Great Game”:

Sherlock Holmes looked incredulously at Moriarty. “A kite?” “Just so. A large kite.” It was two in the morning. Madeleine and Jenny Vernet had gone to their well-earned sleep, leaving Moriarty, Holmes, Watson, and the prince and princess sitting around the table in Prince Ariste’s railroad car drinking tea and discussing the impending rescue of the Barnetts. Professor Moriarty had a plan. Sherlock Holmes was not amused. “A man-carrying kite?” “It’s been done before,” the professor commented dryly. “By whom?” “By me.”

“I have some experience using a kite of a modified Burmese design, constructed for me in London by Prince Tseng Li-chang. In addition to his usual trade of creating Chinese antiquities for the European market, the prince aids me in the construction of astronomical devices. We found that a tethered kite can be quite stable for long periods of time. Usually I loft special dryplate cameras, or recording manometers and thermometers, but on occasion I have permitted a man to go up.”

“It must be quite exciting,” Princess Diane commented.

“So I believe,” Moriarty said. “As the kites will bear the weight of only a very light person, I have never been able to make the experiment myself.”

“Yes, but in the middle of the night?” the prince asked. “Isn’t it considerably more dangerous in the dark?”

“Many of my experiments have been conducted in the middle of the night,” Moriarty explained. “Most of them are designed to further my astronomical research, although a few have had other purposes. Some things cannot easily be accomplished in daylight.”

Holmes gave the table a resounding slap. “Well, I’m damned!” he said. “The Tainsburn and Belaugh Mint robbery—that’s how it was done!”

Everyone turned to look at him, and Holmes explained: “it was a year ago February, I believe. I was called in to investigate a robbery at the Tainsburn and Belaugh Mint, a private company that engraves and prints the currency of many small countries that don’t possess the facilities for such precise and delicate work themselves. On this night four specially constructed trunks full of Maldavian currency had been prepared for shipping the following morning. Someone—some gang—broke in during the night and made off with all four trunks, taking currency to the value of about two million pounds.”

“I remember that, Holmes,” Watson said. “It was one of your few failures, I believe.”

Holmes glared at Watson silently for a moment, and then went on: “You will also remember, old friend, that the Scotland Yard refused to act on my suggestion. I cannot affirm that the case would have been solved if they had, but as they did not, I take no responsibility for their failure.”

Watson wrinkled his brow. “Your suggestion? Oh, yes, I remember. When Inspector Lestrade asked you what you thought of the robbery, you replied: ‘I call your attention to the footsteps on the roof.’ ”

“Indeed.” Holmes turned to the others. “You must understand that the building housing the mint is, of necessity, a fortress. Six stories high, and standing alone on its block. All the windows are barred and, at night, securely locked from the inside. The trunks were taken out through a side door which was kept secure by dropping steel bars into slots on the inside. There was no possible way to open it from the outside as it had neither handle nor key. Nonetheless it lay open the next morning and the trunks were gone. The night watchman was found trussed up on the floor of the manager’s office. He claimed that he had been struck on the head from behind while he was making his rounds.”

“The footsteps on the roof?” Princess Diane asked.

“I discovered the marks of some footsteps in the dust on the roof—marks that must have been made on the day of the robbery as there was a heavy rainfall the night before which would have removed them.”

Princess Diane raised an inquiring hand. “Why was there dust on the roof, so soon after a heavy rain?”

“It’s London, your highness. There is dust on everything within hours of its being cleaned. Some attribute it to the coal fires burning in every hearth.”

“And Scotland Yard failed to act on your information?” Prince Ariste asked.

“Inspector Lestrade arrested the night watchman. He said the footsteps could have been made by anyone. I pointed out to him that they began abruptly in the middle of the roof, as though someone had dropped from the sky, and went straight to the roof door.”

“That’s right, Holmes,” Watson averred. “I remember. Lestrade said that if you wanted to go crawling about on the roof looking for footsteps, that was all right with him, as long as you left him alone to do his job.”

Holmes pointed his forefinger at Moriarty. “There was no way anyone could have climbed up to the roof,” he said. “I thought of a balloon, remembering that you have a fondness for balloons, but a balloon couldn’t be controlled that finely. Besides, a balloon large enough to carry a man would surely have been seen. But a kite! That never occurred to me.”

“I remember Lestrade’s remarks were particularly pointed when you said that you detected the hand of Professor Moriarty in the crime,” Watson added. “‘When has there been a crime in which you didn’t see the hand of Professor Moriarty?’ he asked you. And perhaps with some justification.”

“You and Lestrade do me an injustice, Watson,” Holmes said, leaning back in his chair and tucking the interlaced fingers of his hands under his chin. “I don’t see the hand of my friend the professor in every crime. Only in those which elude solution and show a degree of cunning way beyond that of the average criminal.”

Moriarty chuckled a hard-edged chuckle. “Confess it, Holmes,” he said, “whenever you walk down a country lane, you see my minions crouching beneath every bush.”

The two men glared at each other. Prince Ariste raised his hand as though inserting a barrier between them. “As pleasant as these reminiscences must be for both of you,” he said, “we do have something of rather pressing importance to discuss.”

My Life And Crimes by Michael Hardwick - Holmes and Moriarty are recruited by Mycroft to be spies for the Queen to see what the Germans are up to, so they spend a majority of the whole book working with each other in some way. Parts of the dialogue can get repetitious and uninspired (they are literally quoting canon word for word sometimes), but it’s filled with some great original moments and it’s almost worth it for those because they totally embody that enemies to lovers trope without even realizing it istg.

“But to get back to our reason for being here, have you thought hard whether there might not be something, however small, to show for our failed mission?’  

I had to admit that for most of the wretched night in the cell my mind had been busy with recriminations, based largely on hypothetical assumptions, in which he himself figured. Since then, I had been too occupied for constructive thought.

‘In any case,’ I admitted, ‘what could there be? I know where the laboratory is situated inside the Schloss, but I had virtually deduced that in advance. I have only a vague recollection of its appearance and its contents.’

Tell me,’ he urged. ‘Focus your memory’s eye and think hard. Any detail whatsoever.’

Haltingly, I dragged back what detail I could from those few seconds’ perception within the room. Since our mission began I had naturally read up what little I could find about the production of electricity, and seen diagrams of some of the quite rudimentary apparatus used for experiments. It had enabled me to recognize the zinc plates with their polished brass rods and spheres, together with the copper-coated Leyden jars and their wiring, as constituting an oscillatory circuit. 

Moriarty shook his head. ‘Formulae are the apparatus I understand,’ he said gloomily. ‘The great composers did not require to work at the keyboard to create even the most striking and complex of their effects: they did it in their minds, and with pencil and pad. That is the way I work, too. If a thing is capable of being formularized, it can be made to work.’ 

‘There was what I took to be an antenna,’ I added, groping on. ‘Just an arm attached horizontally to an upright rod, with various wires attached.’

'Well, we had taken it for granted that they were looking for means of sending waves directionally. That is where the antenna would come in, so it tells us nothing in itself. The room was at the top of the Schloss, no doubt at the rear, where there would be an uninterrupted field over open country.’ 

I hesitated, closing my eyes for some moments as I strove to recapture what I had seen. Suddenly my searching gaze seemed to lift away from the dimly-remembered details, to take in the room itself. It traversed it, as my first glance must have done, upon the opening of the door and the switching on of the light.

I opened my eyes again and stared at Moriarty, who was watching me, hunched in his seat, his head resting against the cushion and for once almost still.

'No,’ I said. 'No. There was no uninterrupted field. The room had no windows.’

He shot forward almost with a spring, the nervous movement of his neck reasserting itself immediately.

'You are sure?’ he demanded. 'No windows at all? They were not merely closed or concealed?’

It was my turn to shake my head, and firmly. 'Where a window had been there were metal sheets. I can visualize them quite plainly on every wall, in fact. Sheets of metal, covering the greater surface of every wall.’

Slowly, on Moriarty’s countenance, there appeared once more that cunning, closed-mouth smile which, together with his oscillations, had led me in the past to term him reptilian.

'Mr Holmes,’ he said, and his eyes gleamed with rekindled enthusiasm; 'You saw precisely what we needed to see. Our mission has been successful.’

Lock and Key: The Initiation by Ridley Pearson - Definitely the strangest book I have on my list, it features 14-year old Holmes (Lock) and Moriarty (Key aka James Keynes Moriarty) going to Baskerville Academy as roommates in modern times. Their story is told by the latter’s sister Moria who tracks Moriarty’s fateful decent in to wickedness and the beginnings of the Holmes/Moriarty rivalry. Chalk full of somewhat embarrassing pop culture references and an American Moriarty from Boston, Massachusetts (with Baskerville Academy located in Connecticut), I almost didn’t include it on this list because it was so far out there (to be fair, I think it’s for tweens). But Shrlock is so adorably persistent in trying to make James his friend that I couldn’t resist:

“Nothing more than the art of observation, I promise.”

“A real charmer with the ladies, I’ll bet you are.”

“You are projecting hostility toward me because you feel inadequate. You mustn’t! I’m quite certain you possess a good number of skills and abilities in your own right. That I have no interest in lacrosse or team sports in particular is a matter of personal preference. I prefer to swim and run track, where I don’t have to rely upon the poor performance of others.”

“Of all my luck,” James mumbled.

“I am quite adept at detecting sarcasm, James. I might remind you: opposites attract. I would estimate there’s a high probability we will establish a keen and lasting friendship.”

“I wouldn’t count on it.”

“But I must. The alternative is unthinkable.”

“I suppose I don’t have any choice but to hear it,” James said, bordering on nasty.

“Isn’t it obvious? If not dear friends, then, given our differences, sworn enemies. I don’t think that would suit either of us.” The boy smiled, his pointed face and big ears reminiscent of a Russian wolfhound. “Certainly not me.”

“Sworn enemies, eh?” James made a point of making it sound as if he found this an attractive possible.

and of course when he needs him to help solve this family mystery

Sherlock returned with two pair of white cotton gloves used by altar boys to clean the chapel silver and handbells. “Why are you being nice to me?” Sherlock asked.

“You’re annoying, but you’re helpful. I need you.”

Sherlock nodded.

“I believe what you told me in the tunnel. I’m on a mission, here, Holmes. It may or may not include you. For now it does. That’s me being honest, in case you don’t recognize it.”

Sherlock laughed aloud.

“How … why do you think … how can you always be so sure of yourself?” James sounded at once both impressed and upset.

“I lay no claim to anything found,” Sherlock said. “The clues were intended for you, James, not me. They end here. Now. Through that door.”

“Okay, then. Let’s get this over with.”

Failing to find a latch to open the wall panel, Sherlock stepped back to examine it from a distance. His frustration palpable, James commented again that he was ready for “it to be over.”

“Sadly, my boy,” Sherlock said, “I sense it’s only just beginning.”

“How do we open it?”

Sherlock moved the wrought-iron candle stand aside and placed his weight onto the toe of his shoe. He had to point his toe like a dancer in order to deliver his weight only onto the keystone. It moved down under the pressure. The wood panel sprang open. The size of a narrow door.

“That was a lucky guess,” James said.

“An educated guess, but yes. Tread carefully, my friend,” cautioned Sherlock. “We’ve arrived to the end of the road, and sometimes that takes the shape of a cliff.”

Inside the cloistered space, hundreds of metal organ pipes stood like soldiers from short to tall. Row after row of them. Stair-step landings provided access to the rows of pipes on either side. The only light came through acoustic fabric panels that during services allowed the organ music to reach the chapel’s interior. A quick look around failed to reveal much of anything.

“Maybe more of a dead end than a cliff,” said James.

“Look for a key or tree branches carved into one of the wind boxes or perhaps the pipes. I’ll take this side, you take that.”

“More clues?” James groaned.

“They didn’t make it easy for you.”

“Me? I doubt that.”

“Yes, you, James. Legacy. The family Moriarty.”

Less than a minute passed. “It felt better when I hated you,” James said.

Lock and Mori (series) by Heather Petty - It’s a Sheriarty teenlock modern au with a genderswapped Moriarty. Do not go in to this series thinking that means this is going to be a cutesy YA novel to relax with. It’s not. It’s very dark and very grim with very few light spots, one of which being their budding relationship as a couple oddly enough, but even that is still every bit as angsty and doomed as you should expect from a Holmes/Moriarty pair. I am emotionally compromised because I’ve read this series and I don’t appreciate it j/k i love it fuck me up

He seemed twitchy as we walked. He kept taking turns staring at the path ahead and down at my hand. This left me feeling more than a little self-conscious about my bloody hand of all things. I kept wondering what he was seeing, what scar or smudge or chip in my polish would give him insight into my heritage, personality, or personal grooming habits.

About the time I expected him to declare that I had eaten salmon last Wednesday and would become an ardent Catholic in my seventies, I decided that this “observe and judge” quirk was his most irritating quality. I sighed and was just about to ask him what on earth was so damned fascinating about my hand when he reached across the gap between us and took it in his. He instantly calmed, and, despite my surprise, I felt my own inner tension soothe as well. I even smiled a bit. There was something wretchedly endearing about Sherlock’s manner. Even when he was irritating.

He, of course, had no idea what to do with my hand once he held it, and quickly returned to his twitchy ways. Luckily, I had only a few steps left to tolerate his grasping and swinging until we reached the window outside the café, where boats could be rented. All the while, I was determined not to acknowledge the familiarity I felt when we were together. I sometimes wasn’t sure if I was compensating for his awkwardness, or if this strange boy actually made me feel … whatever it was that makes one feel at home with a stranger. Like I’d known him forever. As payback for this inner treachery, I made him struggle for almost a full minute with trying to remove his ID and money from his wallet one-handed before letting go of his hand, a thought that clearly hadn’t occurred to him.

Our boat was a blue fiberglass thing with a light wood floor, two blue benches, and orange oars. Number 28.

“Any thoughts on our case?” he asked, once we were out on the water. I, in fact, had many, but I covered with, “You first.”

“How shall we start our little game?”

“I’m not sure I want to play yet.”

His eyes practically lit up with the news. “Oh, well. I can’t blame you for being intimidated, having so much less experience with these things.”

“Oh? Solved a lot of crimes, have you?”

That was evidently the exact right thing to say. I hated how much he was enjoying this. “I meant with deductive reasoning. The crime is incidental to the puzzle.”

“Our schoolmate’s father is dead, but, yes—incidental.”

He shrugged off my sarcasm. “Still, I’ll understand if—”

I knew what he was doing. He couldn’t have been more obvious, and still I interrupted his smug ridiculousness with, “You worry about you. I’ll worry about me.”

I watched as his lip twitched, but he managed to suppress whatever expression might have escaped.

“I thought you weren’t going to play.”

“I’m not.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I thought you should know there’s to be a memorial. Tomorrow at two. I’m invited.”

He couldn’t have known it was a lie, no matter how high his brows raised after I’d said it. “You may tag along if you’d like.”

I was pretty sure that his next expression was mocking, but he only said, “How kind of you.”

“So …” I looked out over the lake and watched the swans for a bit.

“We should probably get started.”

“And how would we do that?” I tried to act bored, and then added, “Were I to decide to play along. Which I haven’t yet.”

“As you said.”

My expression dared him to comment further. He did not. He was perhaps wiser than first impressions would indicate.

“We should probably recognize up front that this will likely be some sort of mundane puzzle.”

“Why?”

“Because most puzzles are horribly mundane.”

“Then why bother?”

“Because until we have the data to prove otherwise, there is still the possibility that it will fascinate.”

“And what’s so fascinating about a stabbing in the park? I’m sure they happen all the time.”

I knew the answer, of course. I knew it before he smirked and leaned in closer than I would have preferred. I could have mouthed the words as he spoke them.

“His hands were in his pockets.”

The one clue that shouldn’t have meant anything, yet meant everything, because it didn’t make any sense at all. “It’s impossible.” I’d spoken aloud unintentionally, and couldn’t seem to stop once I’d started. “There must be some alternative explanation. Perhaps the killer put his hands back in his pockets after the fact. It has to be something like that.”

“Why in the world would he do it? There’s no reason.”

“But it has to be,” I countered. “There isn’t a single scenario where a person being attacked would leave his hands in his pockets.”

“If the killer was very close before he pulled out the knife, maybe Patel didn’t see it.”

“After he was stabbed, then. It takes less than a second to rip your hands from your pockets. He would have tried to cover the wound. It’s in our nature to do it, even when we’re too late to stop the knife and it’s useless to stop the bleeding. We try. Until our last breath, we try.”

Sherlock studied my face. Again. But I wasn’t willing to leave my train of thought, not even to indulge my irritation. 

“It’s impossible. I mean, the man would have to have been dead almost the second the knife entered his body, and … oh.” I let the scene play out once more in my mind, the same that had played as I looked at the tarp-covered body that night in the park. At the blood on the tree, which had been at the man’s back. At the umbrella, which hadn’t been his at all. “If it pierced through to mark the tree, it wasn’t a knife.”

“A sword, then? But if you don’t buy him hiding a knife until the last minute, how exactly would he hide the length of a sword?”

“Perhaps along the handle of—”

Sherlock’s brow cleared before I could finish my thought, and he stood up, swaying the boat rather dangerously. “The umbrella!” he cried out. Half the lake was staring at us by the time I pulled him back down to his bench. 

“We’re brilliant at this.”

Moriarty Meets His Match by Anna Castle - An origins story of sorts for how their rivalry came about, but it’s not necessarily leading up to the Holmes and Moriarty you know in the canon because it seeks to muddy a lot of those assumptions. Kind of like the Kurland series it plays around with the idea that you hear pretty much everything about Moriarty from Holmes and Watson, so what if he wasn’t exactly the villain you were told he was? It’s not my favorite, but it’s interesting and includes this adorable scene:

“And now we come to the main business of the evening,” he said. “We have collected little evidence thus far, but may still profitably review what we have. We are investigating a death; therefore, we should properly begin with the body. Watson, would you oblige us with a review of the coroner’s report?”

“Certainly.” Watson took a folder from the table and opened it. “I received this late this afternoon. Quick work for that busy office, but when a peer of the realm has his head blown off at a public event, pressure is brought to bear.”

Holmes and Moriarty both chuckled at the inadvertent pun but quickly cut themselves off. Death was no laughing matter. Watson didn’t seem to notice.

and of course working together

The coach arrived punctually. Moriarty climbed in and greeted his fellow travelers. As they clattered across the metropolis, Holmes entertained them with a running account of the precincts through which they passed. His knowledge of London rivaled that of a senior cabman, if one with a morbid fascination for the more unsavory aspects of urban life.

Watson laughed out loud after one anecdote drew a frown on Moriarty’s face. “You must forgive my friend, Professor. His knowledge is profound, but narrowly focused. He can give you the details of every murder committed in a given parish while never mentioning the more salubrious fact that a famous poet once lived there as well.

Holmes smiled equably. “Poetry will not help me bring a murderer to justice.”

“You are a specialist,” Moriarty said. “It’s only natural to view the world in terms of your domain of expertise.”

“You see, Watson? Some men comprehend my singularity of attention.”

They arrived at length in Millwall, a respectable working-class neighborhood east of the Isle of Dogs. Holmes informed them that the area was favored by artisans and engineers whose skills were in demand in the nearby dockyards. The coachman stopped before a trim house at the end of a side road. They descended and Watson paid the driver. Holmes collected a large box from the boot. “What’s left of the engine,” he said. Moriarty hastened to grab the other handle and they carried it between them up the path.

Watson knocked on the green front door. It was opened after a short wait by a small girl clutching a toy train by one wheel. Her severe expression suggested they had interrupted her in some vital repair.

Moriarty observed a wrench in her other hand and smiled. Truly the daughter of an engineer.

Watson introduced himself and told her they had come by invitation to speak with her father.

“I know that,” she answered tartly. Without another word, she led them in single file straight through the house, out the back door, and across the garden to a workshop where smoke rose from a tall chimney. Its wide double doors stood open. The girl gestured toward her father, who stood on the threshold, and returned to the house.

“Welcome, gentlemen! I’m Ross Bruffin. Forgive me for not offering you my hand.” He raised his arms to display his bandages. His wrists and palms were well wrapped, leaving only his fingertips free. He ushered them into the workshop, directing them to set the box on a scarred worktable in the full light of the open doors.

The shop was crowded with tools, spare parts, and engines of various kinds in various stages of construction, but all seemed logically organized. Wrenches hung on one wall in order of size, gears on another with similar precision. Tall cabinets with labeled drawers undoubtedly held an assortment of bolts, screws, and other fittings. Two young assistants sat by the fireplace at the back, cleaning machine parts with greasy rags. Moriarty noticed the bright red hair spilling out from under their caps; Bruffin’s sons, no doubt, learning their father’s trade.

Holmes performed the introductions. Bruffin cocked his head at Moriarty with a quizzical smile.

“You’re the gentleman from the Patent Office.”

Holmes chuckled. “Professor Moriarty is assisting me in my inquiries. He has been present at all the critical junctures and knows a fair bit about engines, so I recruited him as an expert consultant.”

All the critical junctures? How many had there been? Moriarty said, “I’m happy to help in any way I can.” He wanted a conclusive explanation of how that engine could have failed so dramatically. He’d replayed his actions in his mind, attaching the indicator again and again. Each bolt, each valve, each narrow pipe. Could he have tightened the wrong thing or loosened something else? He thought not, but couldn’t bring himself to certainty.

Bruffin grinned nervously, plucking at the bandage on his left hand. “I do hope we can sort this to the company’s satisfaction, Mr. Holmes. This was a big chance for me. Lord Nettlefield and Mr. Teaberry even allowed me to purchase a share in the profits. I had so much confidence in my engine, I’m afraid I rather —” He broke off with a glance toward the lads at the rear of the shop.

The implication was clear: Bruffin had risked the family fortunes on this venture and faced hard times if his engine were proved to be at fault. Holmes rubbed his hands together briskly. “Then the sooner we get to the bottom of this business, the better. Certain knowledge is better than anxious doubt, eh, Professor?”

Why ask him specifically? Moriarty knew his doubts would not appear on his face. He had learned to maintain a stoic countenance at his father’s knee and had been renowned for it in college. On the other hand, both Sherlock Holmes and Mrs. Gould seemed able to read him like a freshly printed newspaper.

“Is that my engine, then?” Bruffin waved at the box on the table. “Or what’s left of it?”

“It is,” Holmes said. “And we can examine the remains in detail if you wish. But first, I wonder if you could identify this piece. I found it on the floor near the table. It doesn’t seem to match the other materials.”

He held out a flat circle of burnished black metal about three inches in diameter. Bruffin took it gingerly from his hand and turned it to view both sides. “This was certainly not part of my engine.” He frowned, drawing down the points of his red moustache nearly to his collar. “This is steel, to be sure, but it’s hammered, not cast.”

“Hammered?” Moriarty held out his hand for the piece and took it to the threshold of the door to inspect it in full light. “By gad, you’re right! Look, you can see the faint impress of the tool. Barely visible when viewed straight on.”

He handed it to Watson, who performed the same visual tests. “Could it be from someone’s belt buckle?” Watson asked. “Or a lady’s reticule?”

“Too large,” Holmes said. “And note the small holes around the edge. They wouldn’t serve either of those purposes.” He retrieved the piece of metal and held it up for them all to see.

“D’ye know,” Bruffin said, “that wee bit looks about the same size and shape of my sensor plate.” He went to the box and fumbled at the lid with his bandaged hands. He called to the back of the shop. “Could you lend me a hand, dearest?”

The taller boy came forward to assist him. As he approached, Moriarty realized with a start that the lad was in actuality a pretty young woman wearing coveralls and a rough cap. The spray of freckles on her cheeks were smudged with grease. She smiled shyly at the men and dropped an awkward curtsy as her husband introduced her. “My wife, Effie.”

Holmes affected to be unsurprised, but Watson crowed with delight. “The perfect helpmate for an engineer!” He tipped his hat to her. “May I be so fortunate in my future spouse!” Moriarty had a vision of Mrs. Gould sitting beside him in the evening, sharpening pencils while he worked out a mathematical proof. He shook the fanciful image from his head. She would be bored to tears and nagging to go to the theater. He had always known himself to be a bachelor born.

The Bruffins opened the box and removed its contents together, sorting pieces neatly across the tabletop as they went. Holmes watched the process with his usual intense focus. When they finished, Mrs. Bruffin went back to her work. Her husband turned to his guests and said, “It’s as I feared, Mr. Holmes. My plate’s not here. Someone must have switched it out.”

“Great Caesar,” Moriarty said, “that explains it!” Relief coursed through him like a tonic.

Holmes’s head snapped around. “Explains what, Professor?”

Moriarty raised his eyebrows at Bruffin, who answered. “You see, Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson, the sensor plate is one of the crucial safety elements on a steam engine. It must be thin and flexible so it can rise up with increasing pressure and sink down when the pressure is relieved. If too much pressure builds up under it, the plate rises far enough to trigger a safety valve, which releases the excess steam.”

“Thus preventing an explosion.” Holmes’s eyes shone with excitement. 

“This plate in my hand is too thick, I’ll wager.” He tested it with his strong fingers. “Yes, it’s quite rigid. Devilishly clever, Watson.

This piece of iron could not have found its way into so critical a position by accident.” He flourished the piece of steel. “When I find the source of this false plate, gentlemen, have no doubt that I shall find our saboteur.”

And related but if anyone can find this one, I’ll be eternally grateful because I haven’t read it but I want to:

Simms, Bartlett D. ”`Elements! My Dear Moriarty’“ Baker Street Chronicle, 2, No. 2 (March-April 1982), 4-6.

Holmes and Moriarty join forces in this unlikely tale to solve the mystery behind an unknown element.

#I know there's more but I have so many pdf files on here with dozens of stories that I can't find them all off hand #I suppose this can go under #(extended reading) #submission #(''my collection of M's is a fine one'')