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danydragons21 · 2 years ago

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TSTS Chapter 31

The Shadows that Sing - an Elriel fanfic

Read it on ao3 here.

Chapter 31: Air

The heady scent of fresh flowers hit her the second her feet touched solid ground.

Blinking, she took in her surroundings. They were standing in the center of the forest clearing at Rosehall - the one rimmed with Night Roses. The last time she was here, it had been during the day, and the flowers were nothing more than translucent buds tucked into their own petals. Now, beneath the shimmering starlight, they were magnificent to behold.

“Oh my,” Elain breathed despite herself. The Night Roses were more lovely than she could’ve imagined; pearly white with a spectacular silver sheen, they seemed to glow of their own accord. There was no wind to speak of, but Elain could have sworn that the blooms swayed slightly, dancing to a melody only they could hear.

“Do you like them?” Azriel asked, his voice smooth and quiet.

“Like them?” she laughed lightly. “They’re exceptional.” Slowly, as if she might disturb a sleeping creature, she walked forward, studying the petals closely. Though aware that one should never touch the flowers with bare hands - the oils on fingers did not bode well for such delicate blossoms - she still had to fight the desire; they looked so soft, so lovely. But she knew some things were better left untouched.

She stepped away and faced Azriel. He was watching her from a distance with a carefully impassive expression.

“Thank you,” she said. “For taking me here. For showing me.”

“I told you that I’d bring you back to see them at night.”

She nodded, not sure what to say to that.

“Thank you for coming here with me,” he said after a moment. “I know that I do not deserve your time -”

“Don’t do that.” She held up a hand. “I told you I would hear you out, and you deserve the chance to explain. But please don’t…victimize yourself.”

He winced. “You’re right.” Clearing his throat, he started again. “I brought you here because this place brings me unparalleled comfort. It’s always been a sort of solace for me. A haven of serenity and solitude.” He paused. “Did you know that you’re the only person I’ve ever taken here?”

Despite herself, Elain’s heart jumped in her chest. “Not even Rhys and Cassian?”

He shook his head. “Not even them.”

It took all of the strength inside of her not to react to that.

“The first time I brought you here, I told you a bit about my past. About my mother’s past.” A pause. “But there is more to the story. I’d like to share it with you now, if you’re willing to hear.”

Unsure what this had to do with their recent fight but equally unwilling to pretend she wasn’t intrigued, Elain simply replied, “Okay.”

Perhaps someone who knew Azriel less would not have noticed the miniscule change in his countenance, but she knew this male - for better or for worse, she knew him - and she saw the way he steeled himself. The way his jaw set and eyes darkened and shoulders tensed, like he was preparing for battle. Whatever he was about to say was not going to be easy. For him to say - and for her to hear.

He took a deep breath. “Five years after they cut out my mother’s tongue,” he began, and the explicit and graphic statement had Elain inhaling sharply, even though she’d heard it before. But the blunt way he said it, so unexpectedly, so matter-of-factly… the abject horror of it all struck her anew.

“Five years after that, I had my first leave from Illyrian training camp. By then, Rhys and Cas and I had gotten exceptionally close. Close enough to go to the ends of the earth and back to defend each other; close enough to where we’d shared our deepest and darkest secrets with each other.

“Cassian told us about his bastard upbringing and the way the townspeople mistreated his mother. Rhys told us about how cruel his father was, how he feared for his mother and his sister’s safety in his absence.

“And I told them about my childhood. I told them about the cellar and the darkness and the lonely, freezing nights. About my father, step-mother and half-brothers. I even told them about what they did to my mother,” he said.

Maybe she was imagining it, but the temperature around them seemed to have dropped significantly; a chill raced down her spine.

Azriel cracked his neck in agitation. “By the time we got our first leave from camp, we’d already devised a plan. First, Cassian would go to his old village to free his mother from the hellhole she was in, with us following closely behind to ensure no trouble befell them.

“Unfortunately, we arrived much too late.”

“What do you mean?” she asked with trepidation.

“Cassian’s mother had been killed years before, apparently,” Azriel said, and there was no mistaking the tremor in his voice; the way his vocal cords clenched together in an attempt to stem the emotion. “Shortly after he was shipped off to training, we later discovered. There wasn’t even a body for him to visit. To give a proper send off. To say goodbye to.”

Cassian’s warm, friendly face swam in her mind. She had no idea such tragedy lay in his past. Had certainly never heard this story before. A fat tear dripped from her eye, and she was not surprised to find her hands were shaking.

“You can imagine how he reacted,” Azriel said.

Elain just stared at him. Yes, she could imagine. Gods, could she ever. But still, she needed to hear it straight from him.

Azriel met her eyes, a steely hardness glinting in his own. “Cassian did not leave many survivors. Nor did Rhys and I, by the time we arrived to help.

“And right after that, while we were still covered in blood, while the bodies of our victims were still warm,” he said in a forcibly blank voice, “we moved on to the second part of the plan. But this part of the plan was not about Cassian’s vengeance. No. It was about mine .

He took a deep, unsteady breath. “Originally, the plan was to bring them all to justice. To take them to Rhys’ father, tell him the details of my childhood spent in the cellar, and let the High Lord of the Night Court bestow a suitable punishment.”

“And you trusted Rhys’ father to deliver that justice?” From what Feyre had told her, the previous High Lord had not been a kind male.

“Rhys’ father was a cruel and sadistic prick, but he was also intelligent - and I think he could tell, even then, that Rhys’ powers would far outweigh his own. We were counting on him being too calculated and strategic to deny Rhys and his ‘dangerous’ friends what was a fair enough request. I had been abused. We simply wanted my abusers to be punished accordingly.”

“But the truth was, we couldn’t entirely rely on the High Lord to punish them properly. And by the time we left Cassian’s village…that sort of uncertainty was simply unacceptable.”

Her blood went cold.

“When we arrived at my father’s house, there was no chance of containing our anger. Least of all mine.” His voice was quiet and yet his words were spoken with aching clarity. “They were dead within minutes,” he said, closing his eyes for an expanded moment before opening them again, a dull sort of acceptance raging in the hazel depths. “All of them. My father. My step-mother. My half-brothers. All it took was minutes,” he repeated, his shadows a tempest around him.

He was watching her closely, carefully, as if he expected her to gasp or clap a hand over her mouth. Perhaps he was looking for any indication of fear or disgust or revulsion upon her face - looking for any reason to stop telling his story.

But he would not find one, not with her. Never with her. She simply kept on listening, her expression neutral, her eyes wide and her attention rapt.

It gave him enough courage to continue on.

“I watched as they suffered. Watched as the life drained from each of them. Then we threw their bodies onto a pyre. That was my idea, of course; a twisted way of paying them back for my hands, though by that time they were long dead and couldn’t feel the pain - but gods, it felt good, all the same. It felt good to know that I could do that to them, even in death. That the power and control was mine entirely.

“Perhaps the worst part of it all is that I’ve never regretted it. Not once. Not for a single moment. It’s not because I believe I was righteous in my decision - I was a child then but I am grown now, and I know that vengeance so vicious can only sow more seeds of violence.

“It’s because I wasn’t alone in what I did. My brothers were by my side during it all. They committed those terrible acts, too; the blood that stains my hands is splattered across them, just the same. And if we are together in something, no matter if it is right or wrong, then it is all going to be okay.

“I tell you all this not to scare you or remind you what horrors I’m capable of,” he said quietly, “but to try and somehow explain to you that Cassian is more than a friend to me. He is more than a brother. He is deeper than blood. We share not just friendship but centuries of joys, sorrows and sins. Of being each other’s true and chosen family. He’s seen me at my worst and I have seen him at his.

“That is why…that is why I was so distraught when I thought I might lose him forever. I was spiraling. It felt like that day all over again, like there was this uncontrollable rage rising within me, and I was helpless against it. It was terrifying. It was humbling . I thought I was losing him forever, and I thought it was all my fault,” he croaked out.

Emotion welled in her eyes, and she couldn’t help but turn away and hope he wouldn’t see. She understood what he was telling her, of course. What wouldn’t she do to protect Feyre or Nesta? What sorrow would overwhelm her if she lost Nyx? Deep empathy pulled at her gut.

She looked back at him. Took in his dark, handsome visage; the vulnerability etched upon his face so rare, so precious. What if something were to happen to him ? Fear and something far more dangerous clutched at her heart.

Yes, she understood all too well how he’d been feeling. And yet there was still so much hurt in her heart over it.

There were always reasons for actions, but that doesn’t mean those reasons were excuses . As obviously devastated as Azriel had been, it was certainly no excuse for the way he’d so callously insulted her. She was worth so much more than that.

She opened her mouth to tell him all of that, but Azriel hurriedly spoke before she could.

“I know none of this excuses what I said to you.” Well, he stole the words right out of her mouth. “I know that. Within seconds of you walking away from me in the den that day, I realized that l’d fucked up monumentally. Not only had I hurt you…but I’d also pushed away one of the only people in the world that I trust completely.”

Trust . Just hearing that word drip from his perfectly curved lips threatened to chip away at her mask of icy apathy.

“I realized something else important too.” He took a step closer. “Something I should have realized a long time ago.”

“What did you realize?” she asked, her voice blessedly steady despite the visceral way her body reacted to the increased nearness of his own.

He stepped forward again. “I realized that you are my family now, too,” he said. “That you are someone I trust not with my secrets but with my life . Someone who I depend on. Who I…,” he swallowed, courage threatening to desert him - but he was not a cowardly male, goddamnit, he was Azriel, Shadowsinger, Spymaster; he was all they called him and more. But more than all of that, he was brave.

And no one made him braver than the female standing before him.

“Who I care about more than I can adequately convey,” he said, not even thinking twice about how his voice shook slightly.

Elain’s face of forced indifference crumbled entirely. “Oh, Az,” she murmured.

Striding forward, a fervent, burning look on his face, he cupped her face in his hands. “You are my family, Elain,” he said fiercely. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you. There is no limit to the lengths I would go to protect you. And if something were to happen to you, I would be just as distraught. Just as broken. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I hear you.”

“But do you understand?” he asked. There was an intensity in his expression that was utterly bewitching.

“Yes,” she said, interlacing her fingers with his own, captivated by his gaze. "I do."

And she did. He wasn’t saying he loved her. He wasn’t defining their relationship or calling her his girlfriend or providing any clarity to the secret things they did to each other in the dark.

But he was telling her he cared about her. He was calling her his family . She knew how much that word meant to him, and she knew the courage it took to open up like this to her. This male, who frustrated and confounded her as much as he made her entire world spin, who struggled with emotions that had been pushed down for longer than she could possibly comprehend, had gone out of his comfort zone to give her comfort.

For now, that would have to be enough.

“I’m so incredibly sorry for what I said. For taking my anger and stress out on you when you did absolutely nothing wrong. Gods, I’m just so fucking sorry,” he said unevenly.

“I know,” she whispered back. “I know you are.”

Azriel leaned his forehead against her own. “Do you forgive me?”

She did not hesitate. “Yes. Of course I do.” Elain had never been one to hold onto grudges. It was simply not in her nature.

With a mix between a relieved groan and a heavy, rattling sigh, he let his arms fall to her sides. Then he wrapped her up in his embrace. They stayed that way for a long moment.

Then Elain leaned back, a serious look on her face. “But if you ever talk to me like that again, I swear to the gods, I’ll be done. I deserve so much more than how you treated me. Do you understand?”

He nodded solemnly. Earnestly. “Yes. I won’t ever say shit like that to you again,” he swore.

She nodded back. They were still wound around each other tightly, knotted together like ancient roots. Azriel’s firm, hot muscles tensed as she lifted a hand to cup the back of his neck. Her fingers lightly traced the bargain tattoo there.

A deep, rattling sigh escaped his lungs. “I missed you,” he murmured. “So damn much.”

“I missed you too,” she replied honestly, still caressing his nape.

He burrowed his face into her neck, inhaling deeply. Then his lips began to lightly trace the contours of her collarbone. Instinctively, her body squirmed beneath him, and she let out a breathy, desperate moan.

Their scents shifted in tandem, growing heady and sultry as desire overwhelmed them both.

“You keep making those noises and I won’t be able to control myself,” he said, raising his head and staring at her with dark eyes.

“Why would I want you to control yourself?” she asked, thrusting her hips into his. The evidence of his lust pressed against where she wanted - no, needed - him the most.

Azriel let out a deep, virile noise. He grabbed her hand and cupped it over his throbbing length.

“You want it?” he asked hotly, lips tracing the arch of her ear. “You want it right here, right now?”

“Please,” she said.

“Hells,” he rasped. Then, with graceful and enviable ease, he scooped her fully into his arms and laid her gently on the forest floor. He crawled over her, wings arching magnificently behind him.

They did not bother undressing; they did not consider that it might be too soon after such an emotionally-charged reconciliation to rush into sex. It had not even been a week since they’d last been together, but for the frantic way they clutched and pulled at each other, it may as well have been a year, a century, a lifetime. They were moving only on instinct.

Azriel shoved up her skirt, his breath uneven. She returned the favor by unbuckling his pants and pulling out his throbbing length wiggling out of her own underthings.

To her surprise, he held out a hand. “Mine,” he said in a tone that left no room for disobedience. Hand shaking, she passed over the silken garment. When he pocketed it, her face turned so red she thought she might just burst into flames.

Azriel’s cool, long fingers traced her cheekbone. “It never fails to amuse me how bashful and innocent you can get,” he murmured, “seeing as you’re the most irresistible, fuckable female I’ve ever met.” He tapped his hot member against her sensitive, slick center. She was absolutely soaking, and he couldn’t contain his groan at how good she felt beneath him.

Elain whimpered in response, her legs instinctively hooking themselves around his back. Then her heel brushed against his wing. It was an accidental, feathery touch that had him shuddering uncontrollably. He’d never wanted someone - anything - so badly. He wanted her like he wanted air.

“Fuck, what are you doing to me,” he moaned against her neck, hips still moving forward in a desperate, choppy thrust, the tip of his length sliding along her slippery folds.

“Az,” she panted, and now her hands were gripping his ass, pulling him toward her best she could.

“Yes, baby?”

“Need you,” she gasped out. “ Now .”

That was all he needed to hear. A second later, he was pushing inside of her, deep and hard.

It was unlike any other coupling they’d experienced before. From the second he was inside of her, there was no talking. There was no registering the world around them. There was only Azriel and Elain and what they were when they were together; something grandiose and mythological; something greater than the sum of its parts.

***

Azriel was buckling his belt when a shadow curled up to his ear.

The twins need to speak with you, the shadow said, Urgently .

Alarm shot through him. The twins knew better than to throw words like urgently around so casually. If they said it, they meant it.

Elain was watching him with narrowed eyes. “What is it?” she asked, clocking his concerned expression. As usual, she looked utterly delectable post-sex; her cheeks were rosy, her eyes were bright and her hair was adorably tousled. Though he had half a mind to throw her back on the ground for round two, he somehow managed to wield the iota of willpower that remained inside him.

“Nuala and Cerridwen have an urgent report,” he said. “Do you mind if they meet us here?”

She shook her head. “Of course not. Do you mind if I hear what they have to say?”

“Of course not,” he echoed. His gaze flicked down quickly, the corner of his lip turning up. “You might want to readjust your dress, though,” he said. His sultry grin grew wider as Elain blushed. As soon as she had laced up her gown, sadly covering her perfect tits, he gave his shadow the go-ahead to call for the twins.

They arrived seconds later, materializing in the darkness like they’d been there all along.

“Greetings, Spymaster,” the twins said in unison, their voices melding together like smoke, both wearing impassive expressions. Then they noticed Elain, and the nonchalance transformed into excitement.

“Elain!” Nuala said happily. She stepped forward into the shadows and appeared directly in front of Elain before bestowing a bone-crushing hug on her. “We didn’t know you would be here, too!”

“Thanks for the heads up,” Cerridwen said to Azriel with a dirty glance before embracing Elain as well.

He rolled his eyes. The twins loved blaming him for things he had no control over.

“What’s the urgent matter you needed to discuss with me?” he asked, getting right down to it.

“We have important information for you. For both of you, actually,” Nuala said.

“What information?”

“Do you remember how weeks ago, you asked us to find out why the Autumn Court soldiers were in contact with a recently-deceased Blood Oracle named Lady Margota?”

Azriel felt Elain look at him in surprise, but he kept his gaze focused on the twins.

“Yes. And?” he urged them on.

“Well, our network of spies has obviously had trouble tracking the Autumn Court soldiers. So we decided to try a different approach. We began focusing on finding Blood Oracles instead.”

Cerridwen took over. “A week ago, we found one living on a nearly-deserted isle on the Eastern coast of Prythian. A male named Corleys. He was rather unamused by our presence the first few days, but with a little… persuasion , we managed to get him to open up.” Nuala grinned wickedly.

“And open up he did,” continued Cerridwen. “He told us that months ago, Autumn Court soldiers found him. That they threatened him with punishments worse than death if he did not acquiesce to their demands.”

“And what were the demands?” Azriel asked.

“First, he was to tell them everything he knew about the history of the Blood Oracles. Where they originated from, how many were left, and where they resided. He told them all that he knew - and, of course, he told us all he knew, as well. Specifically that the Blood Oracles derived from an ancient tribe of Fae that has been extinct for centuries, and only a handful of Blood Oracles remain today.”

Nuala cut in. “The Autumn Court soldiers told Corleys that he was not to repeat his knowledge to anyone else. And then they told him that, if a young Fae female that possessed the rare power of fortune-telling was to come knocking at his door in search of information, and if she, he was to contact the Autumn Court immediately.”

“We are still working to locate any other living Blood Oracles and confirm that they too were visited by the Autumn Court, but we think it’s safe to assume that this is the same warning Lady Margota received.”

Azriel clenched his fists. Yes, he imagined that the warning was the same across the board.

“How would they know that Elain was to visit a Blood Oracle?” he asked through his teeth.

“We’re still trying to figure that out.”

With a growl of frustration, Azriel turned away. He wasn’t upset with the twins; of course he wasn’t. They had done very well in retrieving this important information. But there were gaping chasms in the story that he still could not fill; missing links that he didn’t understand. And until he fully understood, he could not properly protect anyone. Could not protect her .

“What was the name of the Fae tribe the Blood Oracles descended from?” Elain asked.

Something in her voice had him freezing in place.

“I believe he called them Celians,” Nuala responded.

If Elain’s sharply inhaled breath didn’t tell him what he needed to know, the way she refused to meet his eye would have.

“You’ve heard of these people before,” Azriel said.

She nodded numbly. “That night in the Mortal Manor library,” she said, “I was searching for something I’d seen in a vision earlier that day. A vision that showed Vassa writing something in a book. When I went to the library myself that evening, I located the book - it was something about royal lineages in the mortal world - and scribbled on a page was the word -”

“Celians,” Azriel finished for her. She dipped her head in affirmation.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, doing his best to keep his anger out of his tone, but it was an impossible task: how could she keep something so important from him?

She shot him an accusatory look. “My apologies for getting distracted shortly thereafter,” she said, raising a delicate eyebrow. Suddenly, he recalled what had happened when he found her in the library that night.

He immediately shut his mouth.

Across the clearing, the twins exchanged a meaningful glance.

Oh, Gods above. Did they know ? He knew he’d done a masterful job of hiding his and Elain’s scent post-sex - it was instinct for him to do it now - but the twins didn’t need hard evidence to discover secrets. There was a reason they were his best spies.

“Vassa must know about all of this,” Elain said, the disappointment and disbelief in her voice pulling him from his worries. “She knows about the Celians, and the Blood Oracles, and how they all connect to-” she stopped abruptly. “Isira!” she said.

“Bless you,” Nuala said.

“No, Isira ,” Elain repeated urgently, her doe eyes bright and wide. “The Flame-Keeper from the Day Court.”

“The what? ” Azriel, Nuala and Cerridwen’s voices sounded together.

Elain smiled sheepishly. “I suppose there’s a lot I need to fill you in on,” she said, and then she was off, recounting her short but adventure-packed trip to the Day Court, the others interjecting sporadically:

“A secret bookshelf? How have I been a spy for three centuries and yet I’ve never found a secret bookshelf?” Cerridwen pouted.

“And you just waltzed into the room? The glowing room where an unknown presence lay beyond the door?” Azriel asked darkly.

“Lucien is Lord Helion’s son ?” Nuala gasped.

Elain nodded seriously. “Yes. But you cannot tell anyone. It was a surprise to Helion as well, and I don’t think they’ve spoken since, so who knows what’s going to happen. But Lucien would be in danger if Beron were to ever find out.”

“Us spies happen to be rather good at keeping secrets,” said Cerridwen.

“Let’s hope so.” She took a deep breath. “Right before I left Helion’s office, Isira told me I needed to talk to the Queen,” Elain said. “She must be referring to Vassa.”

“I would assume so. There aren’t many other queens in your circle of friends,” Azriel said.

Choosing to ignore his teasing tone, she said, “I mean, I need to confront her, right? Need to convince her that it’s time she tells me everything she knows, whether she wants to or not?”

“What if it goes badly, though?” Nuala argued. “What if Vassa is secretly in kahoots with Koschei and this is all a part of an elaborate plan to ensnare you?”

Azriel shook his head at the same time Elain said, “She is not working with Koschei.”

“How do you know?” Cerridwen asked quietly. “You don’t want to believe the worst in your friend, but people do terrible things when they are afraid.”

“It’s not about what I want to or don’t want to believe,” Elain shot back. “It’s about what I know. I’ve lived with this woman for months now. I’ve become her confidant. Her companion. There are things she is keeping from me, yes - and I’m sure that fear is a factor in why she is doing so - but there is no way in hells that she is helping that monster. I would sooner cut off my hair than believe that.”

A thoughtful quiet met her declaration. “Don’t cut your hair,” Nuala said finally. “I don’t know if you could pull off a bob.”

“I could pull off any hairstyle I wanted,” Elain said, “but noted.”

Azriel, who’d been oddly quiet, let out a low chuckle. The twins looked at him like he’d sprouted a second head.

He cleared his throat. “Vassa cares about Elain. And she would die before helping Koschei. It’s probable that she hates him more than we do.”

The twins inclined their heads in tandem. “The two of you know best,” Nuala said simply.

“But I don’t know if it’s time for you to confront her yet,” he continued, directing his words to Elain. “Remember, the ball is approaching. We need the ball to happen. We’ve been planning a trap for Koschei for months, and it might be our only chance to defeat him. Forcing Vassa to share information she isn’t ready to share could backfire - and we can’t risk that.”

“So what should Elain's next move be?” Cerridwen asked.

“To do what she’s been doing all along,” Azriel said. “Lay low. Keep alert. Be her friend. If she tells you of her own accord, fantastic. But we can’t postpone the attack plan against Koschei any longer. Not if we want to end his reign of terror and ensure our safety once and for all.”

Ensure your safety, he wanted to say to Elain, but he knew she wouldn’t take kindly to being called out like that. She’d say he was babying her in front of the twins, or she’d accuse him of thinking she was weak. He knew she wasn’t weak, of course. In fact, he knew she was stronger than most. But he also knew that the mere idea of losing Elain had begun to infiltrate his thoughts day and night, and the sooner the threat of Koschei was eliminated entirely, the sooner he could breathe properly again.

“So I just keep pretending to be her friend?

“Are you pretending?” he asked.

Elain averted her gaze, a deep swallow working down her throat. It was an answer in and of itself.

She rubbed her eyes. "This plan sure better work," she said tiredly.

“Well, I don't know about that, but I do know one thing for sure,” Cerridwen said.

“What’s that?” Elain questioned.

“If Azriel’s going to stuff your panties in his pocket, he should learn to do it more stealthily,” Nuala finished for her sister.

Indeed, peeking out of the front pocket of Azriel’s pants were Elain’s silky pink undergarments, lacy hem and all.

Before either Az or Elain could do more than gape soundlessly, the twins vanished entirely, though not without one last, knowing smirk.

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possiblyimbiassed · 6 years ago

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What happened to Sherlock? Part VIII - The Sign of the Hetero Norm (1)

Why does Mary Morstan play such a prominent role in BBC Sherlock?

I’m surely not the only one asking myself this; while she’s barely mentioned in canon after marrying Watson, she’s all over the place from TEH and onwards in Mofftiss’ adaptation. And when I recently read this excellent fic by @discordantwords, a couple of things dawned on me, that I think have been brewing in my mind for quite some time. Which brings me to the long promised continuation of my marathon meta series about what I think we’re actually seeing in this show. Because the entire point of Mary Morstan seems to be to prevent Sherlock and John from getting together in a romantic relationship - a story of hetero norm. This eighth installment will explore the ‘case’ of little Rosie, and the role she and her mother plays in this show.

This far I’ve published an intro and seven installments, each with corresponding attempts to test my hypotheses:

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

Part VII - The Importance of Being Earnest (1)

Part VII - The Importance of Being Earnest (2)

This installment will also be parted in two, and the second half can be found here (X). Many of the screen caps from BBC Sherlock in this meta are from Kissthemgoodbye.net - thanks! And thanks also to Ariane DeVere for the incredibly useful transcripts!

My next hypotheses is, in and off itself, a clear and straightforward prediction that can be explicitly verified or falsified once we finally get to S5, so it will be extra fun to see what happens with it in future:

Hypothesis #8: John is not the father of Mary’s baby

(Disclaimer: My suspicion here only concerns John’s biological offspring. It would still be possible that John, and perhaps also Sherlock, might father the child - if it exists - by adoption. It does not exclude a metaphorical reading where the baby represents, for example, Sherlock’s and John’s relationship. I also want to stress that this hypothesis is an attempt at logical reasoning based on observations in the show and in ACD canon; it’s not meant to be ‘gossipy’ and has nothing to do with whether I would actually like to see this happen or not - that’s a whole other story. ;) )

This hypothesis has been brewing in my mind for quite some time now, but I don’t think it’s just a hunch; there are actually a series of reasons that have made me come to this conclusion.

(Continued under the cut)

But first of all: can we debunk my hypothesis at this stage in the story, by testing it ‘scientifically’? Well, not really, since the show doesn’t provide any reliable evidence that confirms John as Rosie’s biological father. Not even IRL would this have been possible without a DNA-test (or without physical circumstances that would have made any other option impossible). And the only thing that the show tells us about human DNA-tests is that not even this procedure is 100% reliable, as shown in ASIB:

JOHN: You were dead on a slab. It was definitely you. IRENE: DNA-tests are only as good as the records you keep. JOHN: And I bet you know the record-keeper. IRENE: I know what he likes, and I needed to disappear.

DNA is brought up in TGG (Ian Monkford’s blood) and again in TST (the identification of Charlie Wellsborough’s body), but since John’s fatherhood is never questioned in the show, little Rosie is never tested, as far as we know. The remaining evidence that speaks for John being the father is circumstantial: that John and Mary obviously must have been living together at the approximate time of conception. And that they both act as if they’re both Rosie’s parents.

So I guess that in order to get any further with this, I’ll have to start at the other end, analysing the characters and see if I can find evidence that support my hypothesis - on a textual level as well as metaphorically and on the meta level.

Mary’s function in the story

I think we can safely say that Mary is the most controversial character of BBC Sherlock. Some viewers love her, others hate her, but I can’t recall anyone claiming to feel indifferent towards her. Mofftiss have indeed managed to push forward a character who is hardly even visible in canon, once she’s married to Watson. In BBC Sherlock, however, Mary totally dominates the show from HLV and onwards. Her appearances may have been increasing in numbers and length already from her introduction in TEH. But from the point where John wakes up in HLV, there isn’t a single case where she’s not somehow involved. Up until TFP, everything is about ’Mary’. And even then, once we might have believed we’d got rid of the ghost of this hijacking protagonist, she comes back, only to once again take over the narrative with a weird and basically inexplicable voiceover. She seems like some kind of obsession; a brain ghost stuck on someone’s mind.

This is rather different from ACD canon, where Mary Morstan has extremely few lines as soon as she’s no longer a client, but Watson’s wife. Personally I find it hard to see the lovable aspect of this character in BBC Sherlock, since she constantly shifts appearance, behaviour and motivation; it’s almost impossible to pin down who she actually is. Which makes me convinced that Mary is not meant to be a real, believable character that we can relate to as such - at least not all the time. And maybe that goes for canon as well.

But what then is the purpose of her, what’s Mary’s actual function in the narrative, looking at the subtext? I think there’s basically three of them, and by no means mutually exclusive:

1. Mary is a metaphor for heteronormativity and its power over people when they internalise it

2. Mary is a façade or ‘beard’, where a straight marriage is established to cover up a story of a gay relationship

3. Mary is a mirror for Sherlock; by substituting himself with a female spouse for John, Sherlock can be with John ‘by proxy’, trying to figure out John without having to face his own real problem: reveal his emotions and risk failure.

As soon as Mary firmly puts her foot in the show, it all becomes a spectacle, a demonstration of how to keep up a straight facade at any cost. After TSoT, no-one ever assumes John and Sherlock are a romantic couple; Mary is the ultimate ’proof’ that John is indeed straight. Which is of course illogical, because why would a bi person stop being it because they married someone, no matter of which sex? Mary admits it herself by telling Sherlock that ”neither of us was the first, you know”. And Sherlock complains that John is dancing around Sholto ”like a puppet” even after the wedding ceremony. But in all the episodes after TSoT, John is happily freed from people’s assumptions regarding his sexual orientation. Gone are all the gay jokes, and John Watson is miraculously ‘cured’.

I think this is perfectly illustrated in the fic by @discordantwords that I mentioned above. The plot follows logically on TFP, as things would be if everything we’ve seen from HLV and onwards is actually meant to be ‘true’. Mary is now dead and John lives alone with little Rosie. For a case, in order to get close to the suspects, Sherlock is planning to fake his own wedding with Janine Hawkins, and John is feeling jealous and excluded – especially when he finds out that one of the murders that Sherlock is investigating had involved a wedding of a gay couple:

"Why all of this, then?" he asked. He tipped his head towards the kitchen, where Janine was fiddling with the kettle. "I could have just—wouldn't it have been easier for us to just—?"

"You're not gay," Sherlock said.

"Well," John paused. "No." He cleared his throat, looked back at the wall. "But everyone already thinks we're a couple. Wouldn't be that much of a stretch, really. For a case."

"No one has thought that for quite some time."

This fanfic rings perfectly true to me, considering S4 on the surface level; John and Sherlock appearing as a couple wouldn’t work after John’s own wedding in TSoT. Because gone is now every allusion to John being anything else than straight. Gone is also John’s admiration for Sherlock; from HLV and on, he hardly ever even speaks about Sherlock in a positive way. (Which also makes me wonder: was ‘The Fall’ also about Sherlock feeling he had fallen from John’s pedestal of admiration?). For the rest of the show, it’s only Sherlock whom we see suffering from (presumably) gay pining. It’s only in Sherlock’s Victorian imagination that Moriarty tells them to ’elope’ together, while John in TLD is shown to be exclusively fixed on his dead wife.

On the surface, Sherlock seems to support John’s relationship with Mary, while I’m sure he is actually suffering deeply. But I think, metaphorically, that Sherlock is acting like some kind of self-sacrificing Christ figure. (Don’t forget Irene’s words from ASiB: “I think you’re damaged, delusional and believe in a higher power. In your case, it’s yourself”). He bears the ‘cross’ of torture by seeing John with someone else, until he can’t stand it any more and trashes himself on drugs. This is what we see at the beginning of TEH, John holding hands with a woman in front of Sherlock’s grave:

Why can’t we see Mary’s face already here? I think it’s because this is from Sherlock’s POV; he’s either seeing or imagining them from behind. She might have a hidden face but a familiar shape because by the time Sherlock is recalling this, he already knows what Mary looks like. But at this point in time, maybe he didn’t? In any case, it must be devastating for Sherlock to see or imagine John with someone else, when he should be there to mourn him, Sherlock.

Thinking about John with Mary, Sherlock can’t even sleep. He is tortured on a cross and dies for all our ’sins’, doesn’t he? On the meta level Sherlock Holmes sacrifices his life, he extinguishes his true self, in the name of heteronormativity. So that John can have his straight marriage, even if it’s dysfunctional. But our worst ’sin’ as an audience, I believe - our ultimate mistake - is to buy into this narrative without questioning it. That’s literally letting the hetero norm rule.

King David the Adulterer

Mary’s ex-boyfriend David is introduced in TSoT, but after this episode he never shows up again. But this seems very random to me; why is David even there, and why is he depicted as some kind of rival to John? What is his narrative purpose? David is often blurred out in the scenes, but he is definitely present during the whole wedding reception, where his role is to be an usher (showing people their places/seats). David gives the impression to be single, since he attends Mary’s wedding without any partner as company.

Sherlock, who meets David alone at 221B during the wedding planning, deduces that he still seems to have an intimate relationship with Mary. Only recently I discovered this meta from 2014 called The Baby Problem by @abitnotgood, which brings up pretty much exactly the same suspicions I have had for quite some time now. The main points are the following:

Mary was dating David for 2 of the totally 5 years she had been undercover with the false name Mary.

They’re still close enough friends for David to attend the wedding, which might indicate their breakup was unwanted from one or both parts.

Mary’s reactions during the wedding reception indicates that she still cares for David.

Sherlock finds out that David has “offered to be her shoulder to cry on no less than three occasions.”

David sits at the same table as most other major characters, which indicates that he’s important.

David doesn’t look particularly happy while toasting for the bride and groom.

To these I could also add that Sherlock gets so suspicious about David that he threatens him with keeping a close eye on his whereabouts with Mary. From a story telling POV, when a character is suspected by the main character who is a genius detective, there should actually be some reason for this - shouldn’t it?

So who is David? Does he appear anywhere in canon? I actually think he does. In ACD’s short story The Crooked Man (CROO), the name David plays a symbolical role. The story is about a (supposed) murder of a middle-aged military officer, colonel James Barclay. It’s a classical Sherlock Holmes mystery with a door locked from the inside and the key missing. The death seems to originate from a domestic quarrel between the colonel and his wife. (Which is particularly interesting considering the Watsons’ ‘domestic’ in HLV).

Turns out the colonel died of fright when he saw his old rival Henry Wood, whom he had betrayed in the war and deliberately left to be captured by the enemy. Henry was repeatedly tortured and crippled and held prisoner for many years, until he could escape back to London and a coincidence brought his old love interest in his way, who was now married to the colonel. (Hmm... tortured by the enemy. Been away. Love interest married. Does this seem like anyone we know? ;) ). Henry was “the crooked man” of the story, who was bereft of his loved one because of James.

But the name David was mystically uttered by Colonel Barclay’s wife while quarreling with her husband - why? Holmes claimed it was a biblical reference to the drama of king David, Batsheba and Uriah. King David committed adultery with the beautiful Bathsheba, who was married to his soldier Uriah. Bathsheba got pregnant after sleeping with David, while Uriah was out fighting a war. David tried to cover up that fact by sending Uriah home, but Uriah refused to leave his comrades. Then David betrayed his rival Uriah the same way James betrayed Henry: by deliberately leaving him exposed to the enemy. The only difference was that Uriah died on the battlefield, while Henry was caught and crippled. Which leads us almost inevitably to Captain John Watson - he is a soldier who was crippled by the enemy too, wasn’t he? ;)

What about Rosie?

Although Mary is dominating the show from TEH and forwards, John’s and Mary’s daughter - little Rosie - is subjected to the opposite treatment; she has very little screen time, and we never learn about a single character trait of hers. In ACD canon the Watsons never had a child, as far as I know. And – even in Victorian times – I believe it would have seemed strange with the Doctor spending so much of his free time (besides work) together with Holmes, obviously neglecting his family duties. So since Mofftiss have introduced a totally new ingredient to their adaptation - a time-consuming baby - one would think this has to have a clear purpose, right? I would have expected Rosie to play a part of her own, someone the audience could relate to just like the other characters, if only still a baby.

But instead, Rosie is seen most of all as an obstacle. Mary is balancing her while discussing a case with Sherlock. Rosie is handed over to John like a sack of potatoes when the family goes on to solve a case with Sherlock; she doesn’t make a sound and we don’t even see her little face. We see John change Rosie’s diaper once (basically to show that he has a toy daisy behind his ear, which is apparently a good flirting device), and then we see Sherlock trying to babysit her at 221B, getting hit in the eye by her toy. We also hear her cry in the background once, and see Molly hold her once. And that’s about it.

When Sherlock texts them from the London Aquarium at the end of TST, Mary and John debate which of them is going to have to stay with the baby, but finally both of them show up at the Aquarium – without Rosie. And this happens not long after Mary has taken a ‘little trip’ around Eurasia ending up in Morocco and John and Sherlock going after her – little Rosie staying at home. Which means weeks without any of her parents. If S4 were real, I’d feel truly sorry for little Rosie.

In TLD, Rosie is more absent than her dead mother! While Mary haunts the episode, all we hear about the baby is John’s tremendous guilt for neglecting and abandoning her (which he manages to do completely). John does seem to have enough spare time and energy to go on another case with Sherlock, though, in the middle of his therapy session. At the end of TLD, all is supposedly fine again with Rosie (until John gets shot with a tranquiliser), but we never get to see it. But then in TFP John goes on a long journey with Sherlock to a far away island, and not a word about Rosie. She’s not even present when John receives Mary’s DVD at home. At the end she’s suddenly there again, though, without any comment.

Based on this, it doesn’t seem farfetched to ask if this little character is even supposed to be real. There’s a subtle hint in TLD which could point in this skeptic direction:

Sherlock: “And, of course, I hadn’t really anticipated that I’d hallucinated meeting his daughter.” “Still a bit troubled by the daughter. Did seem very real, and she gave me information I couldn’t have acquired elsewhere.”

John: “But she wasn’t ever here?”

An earlier quote from TGG could also question John’s fatherhood: ”Of course he’s not the boy’s father - look at the turnups on his jeans!” (Sherlock while watching telly with John in TGG, right after the fourth ‘pip’).

And - of course - if S4 is all imaginary, only happening in Sherlock’s head, Rosie would probably not even have been born yet.

There are also some more subtle hints about Rosie’s narrative function: John’s guilt about cheating on Mary in TLD is connected to the baby. John specifically mentions that he was “cheating” on Mary while she was taking care of Rosie: JOHN (to Ghost!Mary): “We texted constantly. You wanna know when? Every time you left the room, that’s when. When you were feeding our daughter; when you were stopping her from crying – that’s when.” This does make the (otherwise rather exaggerated) texting affair sound a bit more damning for John, doesn’t it? ;) If this is all taking place inside Sherlock’s head, it might rather reflect one of Sherlock’s (possibly) major excuses to himself for not confessing his true feelings to John; it might (once the baby is born) disrupt a whole family and affect an innocent little child.

John and Mary’s relationship

The other day I took to re-watch this little piece of extra material from S4: statements by Martin Freeman and Amanda Abbington about John’s and Mary’s relationship (X). Every time I see this video I’m just laughing so hard. Please don’t miss how Martin is struggling to keep a straight face without smiling, after claiming “they’ve been through stuff already in S3 that would test any couple.” (Yep. Like the discovery that Mary is actually a contract killer who shot his best friend and hasn’t even revealed her real name to John). Or how Amanda avoids looking at the camera when she’s lying talking about Mary’s feelings towards John, closing her eyes and shaking her head. Great acting! :)

I mean, this cannot even be intended to fool anyone; I think this is meant to signal to the audience that the marriage we’re seeing is a dishonest, superficial construction made up of empty words. It’s very similar to the scene in HLV where Sherlock tells John about his ‘relationship’ with Janine. Platitudes like “we’re in a good place” are not only included, but also called out in the very same dialogue. John: “You got that from a book!” Sherlock: “Everyone got that from a book!”. In the video clip, overly sweet violin music is playing when Martin and Amanda talk about their characters’ supposed deep love for each other, but this is mixed up with sitcom-like scenes where this love is made very hard to believe in, like Mary about to give birth in the car and roaring to her husband to pull over, or John telling Mary that he simply intends to forget about a recent past where she very nearly murdered his best friend.

John’s marriage actually seems terrible from start; he can’t even keep himself off Sherlock’s blog comments during his own honeymoon. Which I believe is canon consistent; in ACD’s stories Mary Morstan even encourages Watson to never leave Holmes’ side. And the bad marriage is also confirmed in HLV by Wiggins’ and Sherlock’s deductions about John’s cycling to work and keeping his shirts ‘folded and ready to leave’ at any moment.

But what’s Mary’s position in this? Let’s say, as a mental experiment, that she knows from start about John’s feelings for Sherlock. Why would she want to be together with, and even go on to marry, a man who is obviously in love with someone else? Well, while I don’t buy the facade-climbing Ninja!Mary who tries to kill Sherlock in HLV, she could still be dishonest in her approach to John. She could still be on some sort of mission related to Sherlock, where her role simply is to get in between John and Sherlock, while she actually is together with someone else (and even carrying that someone’s child). Her aim could be to hurt Sherlock as much as possible, for a specific reason.

As far as I see in TEH, Mary seems suspiciously eager to befriend Sherlock. Instead of behaving like one would expect from someone in love who just got their special moment ruined by a rival; with anger or at least annoyance, and of course supporting the beloved - Mary immediately sides with Sherlock.

And she seems to side with him most of all on an intellectual level, taking part in his explanations of how he managed to fake his death.

“Oh, he would have needed a confidant...”

So - what can we deduce about Mary?

If everything we see in the show after TSoT only has happened inside Sherlock’s head (as I’ve tried to make a case for in this meta series), from this follows logically that in Sherlock’s ‘reality’, there is no Assasin!Mary, no SecretAgent!Mary, no Martyr!Mary and - of course - no Ghost!Mary. Because up until the wedding, Mary seemed to be just an ordinary woman. The character’s appearance from HLV and onwards would all be fabrications of Sherlock’s drug-influenced mind, albeit loaded with a lot of metaphorical meaning from his subconscious.

But Mary still seems to exist on some level, doesn’t she? She is referred to by John on his blog, talked about by other people on the blog (including Sherlock), and she even makes comments on it on no less than ten occasions. On the blog, John is clear about getting married to Mary. And after Sherlock’s final blog post ‘The Sign of Three’, it also gets obvious that Mary is now pregnant.

And – most importantly – if S4 is all-fake, this also means that in Sherlock’s ‘reality’, Mary’s drama-loaded death in TST never happened. Mary is still alive! So if Mary is a ‘façade’, a ‘beard’ and/or a mirror for Sherlock on a meta- and sub-textual level, who is she on the textual level? Well, I think there are some clues in the show, and also a lot of subtext material in ACD canon to draw from, which might have been developed into actual story line in the show.

And this will bring us to the second half of this meta, which you can find here (X).

Tagging some people who might be interested: @raggedyblue @ebaeschnbliah @sarahthecoat @gosherlocked @loveismyrevolution @sagestreet @tjlcisthenewsexy @elldotsee @88thparallel @devoursjohnlock @sherlock-overflow-error @yeah-oh-shit

#who is mary?

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solrosan · 5 years ago

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WIP folder

So I was tagged by @sal-si-puedes and @tastymoves! Thank you both <3

rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. send me an ask with the title that most intrigues you and interests you and i’ll post a little snippet of it or tell you something about it!

Soooo here’s the thing... I’ve never understood how people have WIP folders… This is how my folder structure looks with just my unfinished project displayed (the bold ones are folders, the non-bold are fics):

Sherlock

Asexual

Calleth you cometh I

Calleth you cometh II

Calleth you cometh III

Communities are trycky things

Demi

Getting it wrong 2

Mails

Molly - 2

Molly knows she

Molly is a sexual

Sherlock pulled out the

Daniel

Joyces nya kille

Your father

EDNOS

Mary (this is a folder with 9 WIPs)

Missing scenes (this is a folder with 87 WIPs)

An unexpected grief washed over John as he read the short forum entry

Chips

Christmas dinner III

Christmas dinner - Aftermath

Hemsk hemsk

John och Greg

John dabbed the cut

John och mat

Mail till Sally

Ravi Shah

Sai28

Shopping

Nobelpriset

2017

2018

2019

2020

SMS

Telegram II

Terrorist attack

XXIV - feltextat

XXV - notes

XXV - TST

Advent

ALM

Anthea 1985

Before

Coming home - Mummy and Daddy

Coming home - Mycroft

Danger Night

Fail Sherlock kisses

Hartcroft

He jumped out of the back of the ambulance in front of the A

Kiss

Lies by Omission

Mary Black Widow

Playing the world's tiniest violin (this is my first fanfic!!!)

Sherthea Long

Sherthea Undercover

Shertea

SJL Sex

The Library at the Holmes Manor

Upsetting Mummy

Kingsman

Galahad and Percival

Merlin with an ED after Harry’s death

Merlin’s ED

Prince Gary

Bodyguard Roxy

Christmas shopping for Tilde

Eggsy at Livrustkammaren

Eggsy in a dress

Eggsy’s death II

EoaL: missing scenes

Five times

Thank you, Harry

Two 21 gun salute

QX galan

Queensman

For Mango

Loss (Queensman)

Tailoring

THE MF END

Anthea & Lancelot

Bald men are hot

Belgravia

Brandon comes out

Consensul

Daisy Drabbles

Drabble docs

Eggsy/Q -- Q POV

Grandmother

Harry on PrEP

Ignorance -- “Are you doing okay”

Ignorance Kills

K99

Kilt

Kingpressure

Letters

Love a spy

Merlin soulmate AU

Minns du hur snön föll?

OK :)

Queer Eye

Roxy bryter ryggen

Roxy comes out

Sexy toys AU

Sharon and Roxy

Sin

Smut

Spark Joy

Tuesday evening

Witches

The Old Guard

Drabble doc

Drawing Quynh

Having faith?

Joe drawing Nicky

Tattoo AU drabbles

What can I say? That Drabble doc thing is something that the Kingsman fandom forced me to do XD Damn, the bunnies got away from me there and I caught way too few. (Honestly, a lot of those (like Sex toy AU, Smut, Spark Joy and Kilt are also drabble docs…)

By this point I’m to tired to tag anyone... I’m so sorry...

#ask meme #fanfiction

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whiterubys · 7 years ago

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what up dudes. (im sorry im never doing another greeting again) over the past couple months/years I’ve been reading a HELL of a lot of Newtmas fanfiction, and I would like to recommend some of my favorites here!!

a lot of these are by friends of mine in tmr fandom who are all extremely talented writers and you guys should definitely check them out:) also, feel free to add on if you wish!

(my personal favorites are bolded)

*mature or higher rating **possible trigger warnings

Enchanting Your Heart by Ramennn_Noodles: Harry Potter au, written by my extremely talented best friend who is the best person and writer in the whole world ok go read this.

Recovery is an Ocean** by Tori_Scribbles: a post tdc fic (Newt lives!) which is heartbreaking yet very beautiful (also includes some Sonya/Harriet)

literally anything by Tattered_Dreams. such an incredible writer. honestly she’s one of my top 2 fanfic writers. my favorite of hers is Shared Spaces*.

Where You Lead by KathSilver: a sort of tdc fix it fic?? hard to explain. read it to find out!! absolutely fantastic. part of a rapidly-updating ongoing series:)

The Glade Airport Boys by Tisaniere: sosoosososo underrated. just discovered this one and its probably my favorite tmr fic ever. the Gladers live in an abandoned airport, where they have to raid the town of Maze to survive. incredible read.

Talk Me Home by comebacknow: a 6-month gap fic, ongoing, and literally the purest ever. Thomas loves Them Muscles™

your lips, my lips; apocalypse by zapfinoo: another 6-month gap fic (I am just full of surprises), unfinished but ongoing and I think there’s an aesthetic moodboard around here somewhere based off of it? anyway. newtmas pureness with a sprinkle of angst.

Strings by lokidiabolus: a classic newtmas fic. most people have read this one (if you havent go do it, and if you have, reread it:)). modern newtmas au, Minho and Teresa hook Thomas up with an anonymous stranger and,,, well. you’ll see:)

Killing Me To Love You** by Ky_Bentley: a much heavier fic, deals with depression and other heavy topics. however, if that kind of thing wont trigger you, I would definitely say you should give this a read! Ky is a great greeeeat writer, and very very creative.

(I need to stop gushing about my friends and do this list Anne FOCUS)

The Brightside by Ky_Bentley: a genderfluid Newt! he can basically transform himself into a girl, Newelle, and back to Newt at will, and the concept for this is amazing and based on how much we’ve talked on Discord ab it, you guys are gonna wanna be here for this one!!

If the Glove Fits by Oynx_of_Octavia: newtmas cinderella au. nuff said.

Therapy Dogs and Comic Books by newtedison: the cutest shit ive ever seen. literally. its so adorable and pure. their pining is on Jim and Pam’s level BUT the payoff is so worth it. plus, Newt has a cute ass dog.

Online by lokidiabolus: another classic. Thomas and Newt are gamers that meet online through a game called TERA, and its honestly adorable. lots of involvement of the other Gladers too.

Ink, Skin and Flower Crowns by Miss_Psychotic: a tattoo shop/flower shop au and generally precious. check it out.

First in Love Loses by lokidiabolus: (real talk had NO IDEA how much i read this author until I made this) I LOVE THIS ONE SO MUCH. fake marriage au. hilarious. adorable. perfect. anything you could ever dream of ever.

something to talk about** by tarantism and thominewt: yet another classic. really really sad and really heavy, but definitely a must read. Newt dies and Thomas learns to cope with the loss. modern au.

i'll meet you where the page proclaims the end by zapfinoo: another fix it oneshot. immediately after tdc, Newt lives, Newtmas in Safe Haven goodness.

The Gamer and Vlogger by PaintAPicture: havent read this one yet but it was recommended to me by a friend! Thomas is a vlogger, and Newt is a gamer. youtube goodness.

Videos on the Internet* by StarNightingle: another one i havent read (im running out of fics ok), but it involves stripper Newt!! explicit!!

what’s real we have to squint to see by sungyeowl: Thomas works at a museum, and Newt is a snobby intern. give this one a read!!

imagine it’s a warning sign by nowayout: hurt/comfort oneshot that takes place during that beautifully gay deleted scene from tst. adorable. lots of handholding. but kinda sad.

meet me where the starts collide by nowayout: another cute oneshot. newtmas!!!!! slow!!!! dancing!!!!!!!

thanks for coming to my newtmas talk:)) if you would like to add onto this, go for it!!

authors: if you’d like any of your fics removed from this list, please let me know.

#otp: thanks tommy #anne speaks #newtmas fanfic #newtmas fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfic #newtmas fic recs #thank you Lina and Des for helping me out with this!!#tmr newt #tmr thomas #the maze runner #the scorch trials #tdc #the death cure #fic recs #tmr fam

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marta-bee · 7 years ago

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This is intended more as a love-letter to Sherlock S3, than a criticism of Sherlock S4, so please take it in that vein. :-) (But equally please be aware of the possibility of a not-wholly-positive impression from S4, and scroll on past if you prefer.)

I was reading @silentauroriamthereal‘s really interesting analysis of the “Watson domestic” in His Last Vow. My summary (but do read it for yourself) : defenders of Mary often point to Sherlock’s forgiveness of her as an argument for why we the reader should absolve her, too; but Sherlock is much less motivated by whether we can really trust Mary than what’s good for John. Protecting John and enabling John’s happiness, along with solving the case (which doesn’t apply here) has consistently motivated pretty much every decision he’s made across three series; and with a heart about to give out on him, Sherlock was trying to manage God’s understandable, justified but also unsafe-to-express rage at that evening’s revelations. He was trying to make sure John survived Sherlock’s impending cardiac episode, when Sherlock wouldn’t actually be able to do anything to help him.

I’m not saying that’s the only possible analysis. I will say it makes sense of a heck of a lot about HLV, including the imbalance between Sherlock’s “John Watson is definitely in danger” revelation in his mind palace and his urging John to reconcile with “that wife.” It also doesn’t necessarily require Mary to be evil, just dangerous and acting as an antagonist. Good antagonists can have their own motivations and their own agency (the best usually do in my experience!), and not every antagonist need be a villain.

Whatever your stance on Mary and Sherlock’s “forgiveness” of her, though: what really caught my attention about SA’s analysis here is how well she captures the psychological drama of HLV generally. Good God, those characters! You have Sherlock returning from his own private war, still physically busted up and certainly bearing some definite psychological wounds, justified for faking his own death in one sense (he was saving John and the others) but not in another (he engaged Moriarty without proper planning (I’d argue) and so allowed himself to be painted into that corner). Like so many returning veterans he expected the world to have frozen at the moment he left it, and be ready for him to slip back into it; though of course it couldn’t work that way. Then you have John, who of course has moved on and has his own entanglements which flow both from Mary being his “type” and deeply-ingrained societal cues about masculinity and respectability, and rejecting the rootless, “bohemian” life he had with Sherlock that burned him so badly. (You see this so clearly in his blog entries surrounding TEH, where he uses Sherlock’s transcendent intellect and perceived lack of human connection and emotive self to let him off the hook.)

And then there’s Mary. Mary, who was dishonest and denying John's agency in an entirely different way, who through her status as a woman almost against both their wills ensnares him in a pregnancy and all the familial duties that entails for a man like John, who is perhaps inexcusably criminal, perhaps excusably so, but still a force to be reckoned with. There’s this simply delicious parallel between the lies she told and the ones Sherlock did. There’s so much potential for such a really glorious analogy there.

This without getting into the Gay Stuff (TM): the romantic connection between John and Sherlock and the Jolto and Sherlock/Janine mirrors, the tension between John, Sherlock, and Mary coexisting in some sense versus “we can’t all dance,” the natural tension (and I’ll admit this was my first hope, that they’d go there, when I first heard S3 would involve John’s wedding) between Mary and Sherlock operating in entirely different spheres of John’s life, made possible by Victorian sexism, and those separate spheres not really being compatible with modern expectations of marriage. I still want to read (or write) a fic that takes seriously how a modern Mary would make her peace with a John who was always haring after Sherlock, disappearing for days at a time and with so little notice. And of course there’s the flip side of this dynamic: in a modern setting at least, John seems to demand emotional monogamy from Sherlock while he is free to maintain competing relationships with Sherlock and Mary. Just look at his first confusion and then outright betrayal, that Sherlock would do with Janine precisely what he’d done with Mary.

Clearly I have a lot of thoughts here. My point is that Sherlock S3, and His Last Vow in particular, easily has the most potential for character-driven drama of probably anything I’ve ever seen on TV. There’s such potential for payoff.

And I think that’s what makes the tail end of HLV and S4 even moreso, more than a bit painful. It’s not the frustration of my TJLC hopes and dreams (though, yes, there is that as well). It’s Mary, really. It’s not that I want to hate her, want her to be awful; rather, it’s that I feel like I never really got to know her; her character seemed such a cocktail, and I’m still not clear which of the many versions Mofftiss present of her is meant to be the “real” one. Which mean that all of those fascinating questions I had surrounding her in S3, they never really take a definite form, let alone offer a resolution of any kind. So she dies, and I’m left more confused than impacted. Clearly Sherlock an John mourn her deeply (and that’s so beautifully told - that lonely image of John drinking in his flat’s hallway!), but it’s not something I’ve really been able to access, personally, because I don’t feel like I understood Mary or her death.

That’s a recurrent problem with S4 -- it’s Schrodinger’s storytelling, both here and not-here, meaning that any answer it had to all those questions I had from S3 are really only answered in what I choose to bring to the table. Which I can do, I’m a fanfic writer so of course I could play with these characters and take them in whatever direction made for the best story. But as a consumer, it feels like that’s not really my job in this mode; and as a fanfic writer it does feel like the foundation's not entirely there. Which is sad, because as I said: So. Much. Potential.

And I grieve for Mary’s character (if not her death), and am dissatisfied with it, for much the same reason. It’s not that I disliked her or wanted her to be pure unadulterated evil. But I did want her to be something, and if she is that, I’m not entirely sure I know what it is. Or at least what Mofftiss meant for her to be.

For the record, TST actually comes reasonably close to my preferred vision of Mary’s character: a military assassin, possibly with a history of branching out for private clients, not itself inexcusably immoral and not all that different from John and Sherlock in their way, but certainly the kind of thing that would need accounting for and certainly something John should have learned about before they married if only because her past put his future at risk through their association.

Give me super-sekrit black opps Mary who has to balance her own safety against John’s wellbeing (and maybe even his life), who’s not inexcusable but equally whose choices and past put her intractably on the other side of the final showdown with John and Sherlock. Bonus points if Mycroft Knows and/or (*gasps*) is complicit.

#Sherlock holmes #mary morstan #bbc sherlock #Sherlock meta #Sherlock wank #not really but being a bit cautious here

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silentauroriamthereal · 8 years ago

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Hey SA I've just seen you reblogged a post about goodbyes in the show and I so would like to know your opnion on this. Do you think the cane scene was in character for John? Tbh I think his character was very OOC in S4 but I'd like to know your opinion on this. Yours are the only fanfic I read post-s4 I really trust you with my heart. Thank you!

Okay, just as a disclaimer, because I really, really don’t want anyone to think the opposite here, I absolutely love John Watson. Please don’t be confused about that. That said, he’s got some massive issues.

Unfortunately, I do see the cane scene as in character, but I’m also one of those annoying people that would say that there’s a huge range of what could be considered “in character” for every human, you know? I’m just as much myself when I’m being a total dick as when I’m being the best version of myself. One end of the spectrum is not truer than the other. John is just as much John when he’s doing that soft, gentle, tender gaze, like at Sherlock and Mrs Hudson in ASIB as he is when he’s physically hurting Sherlock. Unfortunately, they chose to draw out the ugliest aspects of John’s personality in series 4, showcasing his damage far more than his heroism and the beautiful soul that he also is underneath those trust issues and unspent, ultimately inward-pointing anger and guilt and sense of inadequacy. Walking out when things get difficult is very much consistent with his behaviour from series 1 forward: look at his little domestic with Sherlock in TGG: Sherlock is being insulting and difficult, and instead of trying to talk through it or ask deeper questions, or even just argue it out, John gets up and leaves.

I would say that it’s canon that he also left Mary after she shot Sherlock. I don’t see how anyone could possibly have maintained “months of silence” while occupying the same space. It just isn’t possible. For a few weeks, maybe, but months of genuine silence? No way. John wasn’t there. To his credit, and this is a big thing, John doesn’t stay mad. His capacity to handle things blowing up in his face is rather limited, but give him time and he’ll go back and give it another go. It took him 24 hours after Sherlock returned. Even when he thought the bearded old man was Sherlock playing a prank, he was laughing in spite of himself and clearly, overtly disappointed when it turned out not to be Sherlock. So he went back. The fact that it took him six months to return to Mary says a lot in terms of how reluctant he was to do it. I hate that he did it, but I get that the weight of his sworn word and the impending arrival of his child were the sole driving factors there, rather than love for Mary herself. His extreme reluctance and over promise of continuing anger during that scene hardly made for a cozy little reunion scene (I once saw an interview where Gatiss referred to it as “so tender and moving” or some crap like that, but that’s a rage post for another day!). The point is, given time to sort himself out, John goes back. He goes back to therapy even when he thinks it isn’t working. For all that Mrs Hudson had to bully him into it (he wasn’t ready and that wasn’t right!), John did finally agree to see and treat Sherlock. He would have gone back. That’s as much in his character as his preponderance for leaving is.

Furthermore, while it’s ugly that he leaves, I also find it entirely understandable. This is someone who has a history of familial issues, estranged from everyone except a sister, with whom he shares a barely-tolerated relationship. He was in an active war zone: say no more. His superior officer, on whom he clearly had at least a bit of a hero complex for (and I personally don’t see anything else there, but that’s also plenty!), let him down and shut him out. Life had already betrayed John over and over and over again by the point that he met Sherlock. And Sherlock, for all of his intellectual brilliance, had never allowed himself to have a relationship so close that he might actually want to consider the other person’s feelings. He was clumsy and a slow learner and I think it took him a long time to see that John’s feelings needed better care than he was equipped to understand or give at the time. Their shared sense of inappropriate humour always had that edge to it, and while John is mentally healthy, I think he loves it (and I think that that’s why, when Sherlock faltered in the restaurant upon seeing John again and hastily revised his ill-conceived plan, that he turned to the one thing he thought he could rely on, this shared humour) but when he’s having one of his bad times, it cuts sharply. I think that he understands the genuine affection behind it, and when Sherlock said everything he said in his wedding speech, I think he was honestly shocked to hear it expressed so directly. He does know how much Sherlock thinks of him, how much he relies on him, and that any light jokes to the contrary are genuinely jokes. With Mary, on the other hand, they weren’t actually jokes and he knew it. They’ve always had communication problems, ones that lead to living out what they want from each other in the worst ways possible, but the love behind it is a real thing. Their actions only hurt each other so badly because of that very yearning there, one that neither of them seems able to express, or willing to take the risk to express. It’s a truly damaged relationship and they’ve both been damaged by it. As someone who absolutely believes in their love, and in the capacity for them to love hugely, deeply, and without reserve, it hurts to say that. Nevertheless, I do believe that with all of my being.

I’ve joked that my new “kink” since series 4 is getting them both some therapy. I’ve written more therapy in stories since Christmas than ever before! Since series 4 started airing, I’ve written These Four Walls & Exile (after TST), Where My Demons Hide (John goes back to Ella), Now That the Dust Has Settled (We Can See the Stars), and A Satellite Out of Orbit (told from Ella’s POV in which she sees Sherlock during TLD), (after TLD), and then after TFP: A Case for Domestic Propinquity, Hell Hath No Fury (John goes back to Ella), From the Bottom of the Well (John goes back to Ella), Bridging the Ravine & Set in Stone (which take place at a resort for same-sex couples needing group and one-on-one relationship counselling). I think they need help. I also think that one of them could finally come to his senses and realise one day that they need to talk, and talk properly. I take back what I said about my biggest canon frustration being the way John leaves Sherlock: it’s definitely Moftiss never having once allowed them to have a direct, honest, and complete conversation. (Sometimes direct, sometimes honest, but never complete!) I think that they could get there on their own. It’s possible. It just hasn’t happened yet.

That said, remember this: in opera we always say that the opera never takes place on the day that nothing happened. Remember all of those other days we aren’t shown: we can safely assume that alllll of those other days, and these are the majority by far, they lived together, cooking and taking out the trash and taking turns in the bathroom (that model of house would rarely have had a third bathroom on the third storey; that’s where the servants would have lived and they’d have used an outdoor privy at the time when this model of house was built, and the other bathroom would be in Mrs Hudson’s suite). They’d have taken cases and gone for midnight dinners at the Chinese restaurant on the corner and laughed at all of the wrong times and provoked speculation from anyone and everyone who ever saw them together. They’d have complained about their respective siblings and been a little nicer to each other every time one or the other was having a bad day. Think of Sherlock buying John beer after things with Sarah ended, according to John’s blog. Think of John, on his honeymoon, yet unable to just stop communicating regularly with Sherlock. They’re a damaged team, but nonetheless a team. Think of Sherlock knowing John so well that he could even predict that John would choose to leave him again, and how. They know each other in ways that no one else ever will, and I stand by that.

I hope that helps? :)

#sherlock #john watson #johnlock #they're so damaged but there's still hope #unrepentant shipper here #lilbeelocked

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whysayhound-blog · 8 years ago

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So, I watched season 4 again

Here is what I think is suspicious: (I know many things have been repeatedly pointed out before by other people as well, but another perspective is always interesting, to me anyway)

TST

In the beginning when watching the Magnussen tape: “That´s not what happened.”

-”It is now.”

The whole series 4 does not open up or explain or even hint as to what really happened at the shooting of Magnussen.

Sherlock: “Of course it was me. Who else?”

He is not too happy he has been made to look like he shot Magnussen.

When meeting AJAY, Mary says: “I will kill you too” (and the horns in Mary´s shadow while AJAY´s shadow had been looking like an angel, I know you have noticed before) So basically MAry did betray them. The question is, is she a threat to John as well and if so in what way? Why else would Sherlock be so keen on staying close?

When John and Mary get the texts from Sherlock, it is obvious that both know what´s up but there are major differences in their knowledge as to what is gonna happen. Mary´s message reads as a villain message: curtain, act, plapla, like the one he sent to Jim Moriarty.

When Sherlock meets Norbury, he says: “Never could resist the touch of the dramatic”. He says it in TAB in the scene with the gong which turns out to be MP.

The cat lady/Norbury looks to me as if she could be Mary mirror, easily. Sherlock tells her, “-...when you knew you were cleverer than most of the people in the room.” Exactly the same what she told Mary after she had shot him. The whole scene is full of references to past episodes.

And finally, her leg? Who dies in that kind of weird position. Am I wrong? Death cramp, idk? And who the hell sobs and tells beautiful speeches for like two minutes at least and dies at the proper moment when everything is so well said. So... theatrical.

Also, why do we never get to see what was in the letter John wrote to Sherlock? There is definitely more to come, assuming Moftiss hasn´t gone totally mental.

Oh yeah, and the 13th... Confirmed.

TLD

Oh yeah, more John mirrors, walking cane, and Faith writing a letter, her father taking the letter away. After which we see Mary luring John, controlling him. Some people were discussing whether Mary was drugging them both with the same drug Faith´s father used. If anyone knows a link to it, maybe tell me? It was a good theory.

More questions- why is Mary dressed so.. masculine? when she wasn´t most of the time previously. A bit similar to Sherlock. And why is the beginning of the episode lured to make it seem like the curly haired someone next to John in bed was... idk.. Sherlock?

Not in the topic but hell yeah, kudos to them for putting the Killer Orangutan created by the original creator Poein the episode. That was so wicked. One amongst other reasons why I still can´t believe Moftiss has given up or don´t know much about Sherlock Holmes. They do.

TFP

And now on to this hot mess. Many other people have good plausible theories about this episode but for me, it was so painful to watch, I could not make much sense of it. Even if many things seem like good clues and so.. even when the explanations explain this episode, it was still... so bad? Like nothing could make it better for me. I explain why... Have you read a book/story where there is a lot going on and we are dragged into the story and in the end it turns out it was all a dream? Like writing workshops and recommendations usually list that plot twist as one of the worst? If the only good explanation to this mess is true, it´s still bad writing. We, the audience feel cheated either way. Unless they made it deliberately so. To prove what? Maybe to make us whine about the show, and highlight the main problems? To drag us really into the whole thing. To offer us the real Conan Doyle fan experience? (when he killed off Sherlock, got hit with a handbag and had to bring him back? hiatus my old friend lol)This is why I am inclined to believe that one:

We see a fourth wall break in the very same episode. Sherlock pushing the wall and coming out of the house. Also, John breaks the fourth wall in TST looking directly at the camera. These ARE NOT mistakes or coincidences. The universe is rarely so lazy. If they really wanted to create real hysteria, well done, genius.

Also, Checkov´s gun?

Oscar Wilde, 1895 and Queen in the very same episode. What are you trying to tell us, eh?

Other bad things- why is Eurus allowed a fucking violin? Ok, she bewitched everyone with her eyes lol

Glass reflects?

Sherlock ignoring Vatican cameos?

....to be continued

Basically, if this was a fanfic written by someone unknown, people would be throwing tomatoes and cabbages at the writer. Oh, wait, they did.

#sherlock #season 4 #The Final Problem #the six thatchers #the lying detective #moftiss #theories #put ya tinhat on

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notagarroter · 8 years ago

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The Eternal Problem: A Meditation on Mortality in Sherlock S4

When asked about S4 during the promotional lead-up, Moftiss repeatedly said this new series would be about one thing: consequences. Now that we stand on the other side of S4, what do we think they meant? It obviously wasn't legal consequences for shooting Magnussen, or physical consequences of overdosing on drugs.

In this meta, I argue that TAB and S4 are above all about the moral, metaphysical, and narrative consequences of Sherlock faking his death during the Reichenbach Fall—an act which continues to reverberate through the story two series later, both for the characters and, significantly, for the writers.

Reichenbach Revisited

First, a little review session: What exactly was the "final problem"?

Ah. Here we are at last—you and me, Sherlock, and our problem—the final problem. Stayin’ alive! It’s so boring, isn’t it? It’s just ... staying.

We got an answer, but it was hard to grasp without a larger context. How is staying alive a problem? It is only in the context of Series 4 that the full meaning and extent of Moriarty's final problem starts to become apparent.

Moriarty was sick of staying alive, and he wanted Sherlock to feel the same way. It wasn't enough for Moriarty merely to kill Sherlock (which he could have done at any point on that rooftop)—he needed Sherlock to welcome death, just as he did.

Moriarty tried to give Sherlock the perfect motivation and opportunity to kill himself. He went to great pains to threaten Sherlock's best friends, so Sherlock could honorably sacrifice himself for their safety. Moriarty even stepped first into the breach, hopeful that Sherlock would follow him. But Sherlock refused his offer, and wiggled his way out of this pre-ordained death. He survived the fall and persisted in staying alive.

Appointment in Samarra

When does the path we walk on lock around our feet? When does the road become a river with only one destination?

The sinister story of The Appointment in Samarra is introduced early in Series 4, and referenced repeatedly in the first episode. Some found this heavy-handed, but it was vital to underline the significance of this fable, because this is the heart of our story -- not just The Six Thatchers, not just Series 4, but the entirety of Sherlock since The Reichenbach Fall.

What happens when someone misses their appointment with Death? Does Death show up at some other moment to claim what it is owed? Or does it pass them by completely?

When Sherlock returns from his faked death, he seems to be at least considering the latter possibility.

You know my methods, John. I am known to be indestructible.

As time passes, Sherlock appears to be testing his hypothesis by actively courting death. Mary threatens to shoot him if he steps forward, and he does. He accepts Mycroft's promise of a "certain death" assignment in lieu of a prison sentence. He overdoses on the plane in TAB, enough to potentially kill him.

It is during this drug-fueled fantasy that Sherlock starts to wonder why Moriarty was drawn to kill himself, and he himself flirts briefly with the temptations of death.

Dead is the new sexy.

But in the end, Sherlock doesn't die.

Between you and me, John, I always survive a fall.

He can fall and fall and fall, and he will never land.

Arthur Conan Doyle and the Fandom Problem

The meta-story about Sherlock Holmes's death and rebirth is so often repeated that it has taken on the quality of myth: Doyle hated Sherlock Holmes, he was sick of writing him, so he decided to kill him off once and for all. He even titled his story The Final Problem, for good measure.

We all know what happened next: the fans, to put it mildly, objected. The stories of people dressing in mourning clothes over a fictional character's death may well be apocryphal, but they are nevertheless an important part of how we understand Sherlock Holmes. The fans wouldn't let him die, so Doyle was forced to bring him back from the dead.

Doyle never tried to kill Holmes again, and when he died, other writers took on the project, and in the past hundred years, Sherlock has never stopped being revived.

"There can be no grave for Sherlock Holmes," Vincent Starrett tells us in that famous quotation. It's meant to be reassuring, heart-warming even, but looked at a certain way, it takes on the aura of a threat.

The Final Problem

This, then, becomes The Final Problem, both for Sherlock and for Moftiss. How do you end Sherlock? How do you make him mortal again? Now we see how right Moriarty was: the problem is, in merely "staying alive", Sherlock Holmes becomes inert, stagnant, boring. We don't need him to die, but the audience needs to feel at least that he can die, or all the tension and drama go out of the narrative.

As S4 opens, Sherlock has now walked away from three certain-death situations, and he's a bit giddy.

I’m just glad to be alive!!!

But even as Sherlock is gleefully tweeting and solving crimes and petting dogs, living life to the fullest, there's a pall over the episode. He doesn't quite trust his good luck—surely Samarra can't be avoided forever. So when will it catch up to him?

At last, it seems like it's going to.

But Mary gets in the way, sacrificing herself to save Sherlock, and thus perhaps fulfilling her own missed appointment.

At this point, Sherlock starts to realize the downsides to his invulnerability: it only protects him, not those he loves. Nothing he did could protect Mary, because she was destined to die before him.

Premonition and Predestination

What we call premonition is just movement of the web. If you could attenuate to every strand of quivering data, the future would be entirely calculable, as inevitable as mathematics.

As TST highlights, Appointment in Samarra isn't just about death, it's also about destiny. According to the story, no matter how far you run, you're always exactly where you were meant to be.

Series 4 takes up the idea of predestination repeatedly. In TST, Sherlock appears to be having premonitions—a dalliance with the supernatural almost unheard of in the entire Sherlock Holmes mythos. Sherlock claims to Mary that, given enough information, he can even predict the roll of a dice. This thread is taken up again in The Lying Detective, in which Sherlock is suddenly able to predict (with plausibility-defying accuracy) exactly where everyone will be and what they will do at any given moment.

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

This preoccupation with predestination serves the narrative, while simultaneously serving as a commentary on the narrative itself. Predestination is a handy metaphor for what it feels like to rewrite someone else's story. BBC Sherlock is fanfic, and in theory it can go wherever it wants, make any changes the writers desire. But even as they make the story their own, we know there are some things Moftiss won't change: the Big Plot Points from ACD they feel obligated to respect. So yes, in a very literal sense, it was predetermined over a hundred years ago that Mary had to die.

Nothing’s certain; nothing’s written.

But Mary is wrong—her death was indeed written before, and so it had to be written again. Nothing Sherlock did was going to change that. He doesn't need to attenuate to a zillion strands of data, he only needs to follow one to its inevitable conclusion: the narrative. The path that has locked around his feet. Watson in TAB says he always knows when he's in a story; Sherlock is starting to notice the signs as well.

If this is the case, nothing Sherlock does can seriously put his own life at risk. He's the hero, so the narrative will always protect him. But while at the beginning of S4, this idea seemed to thrill him, in TLD he has become much more ambivalent. He cautions "Faith" against suicide, but he also thinks admiringly about Mary sacrificing herself to save him. He goes on a life-threatening drug binge, but doesn't take the idea of his death seriously, despite Molly's chiding. He tells Smith that he doesn't want to die, but he does want Smith to kill him. It's not that he wants to die—he wants to be mortal.

“Taking your own life.” Interesting expression. Taking it from who? Oh, once it’s over, it’s not you who’ll miss it. Your own death is something that happens to everybody else. Your life is not your own.

This is an anti-suicide speech, but in this context it's also kind of a lament. Sherlock does not own his life. Nor do Moftiss. Nor even does Doyle. The fans do—he can only die at their behest, and they will never let that happen.

Meanwhile, Moftiss are expressing the same anxieties about the fate of the narrative. If Sherlock can't die, how do you build to a satisfying, meaningful ending? The show can't go on forever, but its narrative can't be killed, either. The twists get twistier, the cliff-hangers ever more dramatic, the stakes grow higher and higher, but how can any of it ever be resolved?

Samarra, Revisited

The Final Problem is their answer to this question. In interviews since the airing, Moftiss have claimed the key word for the episode was "transgression": TFP goes out of its way to break all the rules of Sherlock. There are no loving shots of London, no text messages floating on the screen. 221b gets blown up, and the rest of the episode takes place in a very blank, artificial, alien environment—more like a stage set than the lived-in world we've come to know. There's no case, no client. Even the Belstaff is missing for much of the episode.

As a result, many fans thought that with TFP, the show had finally gone off the rails—that somehow the writers forgot how to write an episode of Sherlock. But this shift in aesthetic and narrative mode was entirely by design. The writers were deliberately upending everything we know and love about Sherlock in an attempt to convince us that anything was possible, that anyone might die. Even Mycroft. Maybe even Sherlock.

And so, it is in this context that Sherlock makes one last attempt to find Samarra.

As is only appropriate, it is Moriarty who (from beyond the grave) once again suggests this option.

And here we are, at the end of the line. Holmes killing Holmes. This is where I get off.

Up until this point, it seems like Sherlock is planning to kill Mycroft, but here he changes course. It's probably not the locomotive double-entendres that spark his epiphany, so it must be the line "Holmes killing Holmes." Eurus tells us that Jim Moriarty thought Sherlock would make this choice, meaning kill Mycroft. But that doesn't really make sense. When he was alive, Jim never said anything about wanting Sherlock to kill his brother. What Moriarty always wanted was for Sherlock to kill himself.

Of course. That’s the point of this.

Suddenly Sherlock realizes that Moriarty's original plan for him is the only way out of his current situation.

And so he "remembers the Governor", who did the one thing Sherlock couldn't do: he killed himself to save someone he loves. Never mind that it doesn't work—that was his appointment in Samarra, and in doing it he atoned for his earlier misdeeds and became a good man. Sherlock missed his appointment, but thanks to Moriarty's hints, he realizes he has a chance to do it over, make it right this time. He must fulfill his destiny and sacrifice himself to save his friends.

Except he can't. It's what Moriarty wanted, his final gift to Sherlock, the solution to their "problem". But Eurus/the narrative/the fans won't let it happen, and Sherlock is saved once again.

The Eternal Problem

And so the Final Problem remains unsolved, as it always will. The episode wraps up with a kind of coda—not so much an ending as a promise/threat of endless repetition. Again and again, we see Sherlock walk the path to his sister's cell. The flat at 221b Baker Street, which was so dramatically exploded earlier in the episode, is recreated with finicky, almost neurotic precision.

And a montage accompanied by Mary's voice-over reassures us that all our favorite characters will continue on ad infinitum. The idea is comforting and horrifying all at once.

Fans have made much of Lestrade's full-circle assertion that Sherlock is now a "good man", and Moffat has confirmed that the point of the show was to humanize Sherlock.

But this isn't really accurate. From the very first episode, Sherlock was always a deeply human character—that is to say, he was flawed. He was complex. He did good things for bad reasons, and bad things for good reasons. He tried and failed. He was vulnerable and sensitive. He was vain and petty and occasionally cruel, but he was also at times unfathomably kind and empathetic. He inspired loathing in some, but great loyalty and devotion in those who knew him best. He was playful, funny, unpredictable. If he hadn't been all those things—if he had truly been a cold, emotionless machine—he would have been a horrible bore to watch.

The progress of Sherlock Holmes, then, is not from great man to good man, but from a man—a mortal man with weaknesses and flaws—to a mythic hero who is perfectly strong, perfectly wise, perfectly compassionate.

Who you really are, it doesn’t matter. It’s all about the legend, the stories, the adventures. When all else fails, there are two men sitting arguing in a scruffy flat, like they’ve always been there and they always will.

Sherlock Holmes will go on forever, in fanfic and pastiche, in other adaptations, and maybe even under Moftiss's pen. This is how the story is ended, how the "final" problem is solved. Not by killing Sherlock, but by at last submitting to his true, unalterable destiny: Sherlock is fated (or doomed?) to spend all eternity "in a romantic chamber of the heart: in a nostalgic country of the mind: where it is always 1895."

#meta #sherlock meta #sherlock #S4 #the final problem #original post #1000

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