#And the second part was me noticing the fourth episode was going to be Circus themed and me getting my hopes up to see my fave(s)

[analyzingadventure]

Okay so I had a weird Ghost Game related dream last night and, well this post has nothing to do with that dream but that dream gave me A Thought and I’ve been overthinking it severely and losing my got damn mind and I need to get it out of my system so let’s go

Do Digimon Breathe???

And, apologies in advance, this is not a well-constructed post, it’s just a series of bizarre questions with no real answers because I am just 100% overthinking this and it’s really not that deep

Also, this is not based on any specific franchise entry, I’m overthinking this from the POV of like, null lore/the general concept of Digimon

Is there "air" in the Digital World, or is "air" just empty space?

As we all know (I hope), the empty space that surrounds us in our beloved really real human world isn’t truly empty, it’s filled with various gasses that we interact with (along with some other things). But in a Digital World, where everything is constructed out of data, is there anything “there” in the empty space? Is there like, data that’s programmed to behave like air in our world, or is that space no different from the void of space??

   A Digital World is meant to exist on a computer server (usually Yggdrasil’s but not always), and computers only have so much data they can store, so like. One could wonder if it’d make sense for there to be “air data”, taking up valuable resources on the computer... (That said, the deeper you go into the logistics of this, the more video game-y this discussion will get, which might not be ideal)

If there isn't "air"-data that's similar to oxygen, should the DW be a lethal place for humans?

Like?? Does a human converted into data still require oxygen?? How does the human body react to being converted into data, do you continue functioning just the same as before or does shit get weird??

Honestly that’s its own separate discussion of its own and if go into that now we’ll be here forever (like does a data human’s heart still beat? Do they still grow new cells and do their old cells continue to die? Can you grow older in the Digital World or will you stay in an unchanging statis? If you get wounded, will your wound heal? Like, Rei from V-Tamer was able to walk in the Digital World despite being disabled (her disability didn’t get “cured”, just being in the DW somehow bypassed it)--- if a human dies in the Digital World, will their body decay???), but still. If there is “oxygen data” in the DW, sure, humans could probably breathe it in and it’d probably function in their data-fied lungs just like molecule oxygen would in their atom-based lungs. But if there’s no oxygen data?? Would you just suffocate?? Should you just suffocate?? Or, once you’re data, would you become immune to suffocation?? And if you did, would you also be immune to like, drowning??

Are Digimon required to breathe in "air"? Like, can Digimon suffocate?

Like. Why would you be programmed to need “air”. Also, the DW existed before Digimon did, so before the first Digimon was born, there was a world for it to exist in (be it DW Proper or just the Net Ocean). If my memory doesn’t fail me, all we know about The First Digimon is that it was a Virus, which doesn’t really tell us much, and it’s likely that Digimon is extinct. But whatever it was, either it was a Digimon that didn’t require “air data” to survive and thus lived in a Digital World where there didn’t have to be air. Or. If it DID need air, then the DW must’ve had air from the very begining, otherwise, it would suffocate. This observation does not help answer my question in any direction at all, it’s just a thought.

If Digimon overall do need air, are there exceptions?

Like could robotic/undead/ghost/etc Digimon not need air at all? Because they’re not “alive” the same way “flesh” Digimon are? Or would they need air too because regardless of how their bodies are constructed, that construction is just how the DigiCore has decided to dress itself up like and won’t reflect the Digimon’s actual physical needs? (Also answering such age old questions like “how does a robot Digimon poop”)    And on the opposite side of the spectrum, could there be like, certain Digimon that require air at all times, like a Meramon for example? Like if you yeeted a Meramon into a true airless void, would its flames die out? And if that did happen, would it kill the Meramon?

If Digimon do breathe, how do they do it?

Digimon can see even if they have no eyes/their eyes are covered. Digimon can speak even if they have no mouths, or even if they don't move their mouths. Digimon can fly even without wings, or without flapping them. Digimon can smell things even if they don't have (visible) noses. So if a Digimon doesn't have a nose, does it need to breathe?    Like I’m saying that because many Digimon really don't have noses (at least not visible/easily recognizabe ones). Do they require a specific "organ" to absorb/ingest "air", or like. Can they just absorb it all through their skin? By just having most of their body surrounded by air? Is there like a universal rule there or is it a case-by-case thing? If they could absorb air through anywhere on their skin, is there a limit there? Like if you put an Angemon in water, would it need to have its head above water to not "drown", or could it still breathe through its hands or feet if it kept just one above the surface?     Okay so in the past I’ve joked about Tamers’ take on the DW (in good spirit), and how when Adventure is like “water is real and water is wet”, while Tamers is like “water isn’t real and so it’s not wet if you believe so”, when the Big Brain way to interpret water is “water applies the Status Effect ‘Wet’ to whatever touches it“    So could drowning maybe follow that kind of logic? Maybe it doesn't matter if a Digimon can breathe or not, maybe water just has the effect of "takes damage/dies if submerged for longer than X minutes" on Digimon, unless a one has a passive ability of "breathing underwater" (or like "immune to drowning" or something)? (The same logic applying to like, an empty void, or a pool of lava)

If Digimon don't breathe, can they become out-of-breath?

Or would "out-of-breath" be essentially the same as "tired", but visualized slightly differently? (Remember the comment about the questionable applicability of of video game logic I made earlier? Well here we again)    Are Digimon "animated" the same way a video game character might be? Would they have idle animations, movement animations, attack animations etc etc? And if they do, are they animated to breathe regardless of if they actually need to do so?

Do Digimon understand humans need to breathe?

If a Digimon observes a human breathing, would it understand what that was? That it’s crucial for a human to survive? Do Digimon know what a heartbeat is?

[aion-rsa]

Sailor Moon Eternal Brings Long-Time Fans’ Dreams to Life on Netflix

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This Sailor Moon Eternal review contains NO spoilers! Read on with confidence.

Back in 2016, the final episode of Sailor Moon Crystal closed out the manga’s “Infinity” arc and in its last moments teased what every fan was hoping for next, something we’d all been deprived of for far too long… a faithful adaptation of the manga’s fourth arc, entitled “Dream.”

The premise of “Dream” is that on the day of the solar eclipse, the Dead Moon Circus, an ancient enemy of Silver Millennium (the Moon Kingdom) appears in Tokyo. Their leader, a withered hag named Zirconia, sends her minions to locate the Silver Crystal—big surprise—as well as a new MacGuffin called the Golden Crystal. This is so her mistress, Nehelenia, can step up as the rightful ruler, or so she claims, of both Silver Millennium and Earth. Around this time, a Pegasus appears to Chibi-usa, asking for her help in defeating Nehelenia. The Sailor Guardians, all freshly minted high school students, step up to face this new threat, only to be hit where it hurts when the agents of the Dead Moon get inside their heads, triggering their deepest fears in order to take them down.

“Dream” was where the manga, having just hit its stride in the previous arc, really started to go for the gold in terms of character development and mythology. The Sailor Moon team was finally complete, and we got to explore the hopes and fears of each character. We saw flashes of Silver Millennium that not only built upon the backstory we first saw back in the “Dark Kingdom” arc, but gave that backstory further depth and new context. 

We even learned more about Elysion, the Earth realm to which Prince Endymion was heir. All that and Chibi-usa got a love interest who was more than just a generational Xerox of her father; Helios was a completely different character from Mamoru with his own distinct personality, motives, and backstory. “Dream” was, for many fans, where the story of Sailor Moon went from awesome to enthralling.

And then Sailor Moon SuperS, its anime adaptation… was not.

Look, SuperS had a lot going for it. I think it gets more hate than it really deserves, but a lot of that is because it took so many liberties with the story and omitted so much of what made “Dream” great (most notably the return of the Outers), which rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Not to mention the tonal whiplash of going from the bittersweet darkness of the previous season to something a lot more lighthearted and comedic outside of a few key episodes.

Which is really just a long-winded way of saying that Netflix’s Sailor Moon Eternal was a long time coming, and fans were hungry for it. It’s legitimately good with a few very minor caveats, and it’s now available on Netflix.

The change in medium works fine. The cliffhanger that Part 1 ends on plays out a little differently from how it does in the manga, but everything is still there, just rearranged to make Part 1 a satisfying movie unto itself, which I wholly approve of. And due to the nature of the earlier acts of the arc, Part 1 feels somewhat episodic. Shuffling a few scenes around might have made it a stronger adaptation and a more cinematic experience, but it was faithful to the source material, which is what the fans wanted, so it gets points for that.

There was a shift in the extent of the localization. Sailor Moon Crystal’s English dub eliminated a lot of the Japanese language elements like honorifics, and while I understand that to a point, hearing Usagi call Mamoru “Mamo” always struck my ears a little wrong and took me out of the moment. In the Sailor Moon Eternal films, that problem no longer exists, and hearing Stephanie Sheh (Usagi) and Robbie Daymond (Mamoru) call each other “Mamo-chan” and “Usako” felt so natural that I didn’t even notice they were doing it for, like, the first 40 minutes. Which is as it should be.

Overall, the Viz dub cast does a great job, having really settled into their roles, and it’s also nice seeing John Eric Bentley, Michael Yurchak, and Erik Scott Kimerer showing their range by adjusting their performances to match the differences in the Amazon Trio’s manga counterparts. Oh, and the music is pretty good too, better in Part 2 than Part 1, but not by a very wide margin.

As for the story, were cuts made? Obviously. All you have to do is look at the total running time to see that. But to be honest, it’s not really anything anyone but the most fundamentalist fans will miss; all the beats are there: the character development, the power-ups, the villains, the cats’ human forms, the Amazoness’ entire storyline, Chibi-usa’s entire storyline, and (thank you, God) Mamoru’s entire storyline—something he desperately could have used in the later seasons of the ’90s anime, where he had been reduced to the most boring and unengaging love interest since Raoul from Phantom of the Opera. It’s all there, folks, and if you loved the manga, you’re going to love Sailor Moon Eternal. If you’re unfamiliar with the manga, but have been digging Crystal, you’re going to love it. And if you prefer the ’90s anime to the manga… you’re still probably going to enjoy it a great deal.

Oh, and do yourself a favor and watch the closing credits to both movies. Part 1 features a cover of “Watashitachi ni Naritakute,” the first ending theme for SuperS as well as a post-credits scene that teases Part 2, and Part 2 has a cover of “Rashiku Ikimasho,” the second ending theme for Supers. I was hoping for a post-credits scene for Part 2 that might tease an adaptation of Stars, but sadly… no such luck, so we’re going to have to live with that suspense a little longer. I’m guessing an adaptation of the final arc of the manga is going to be predicated on how well Eternal does, but hopefully, we won’t have to wait until 2026 to see it.

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Overall, I give Sailor Moon Eternal, Parts 1 & 2 the seal of approval. You’re going to have fun and feel that Sailor Moon love where it hits you best, so make a double-feature night of it, pop some popcorn, and dream a little dream.

The post Sailor Moon Eternal Brings Long-Time Fans’ Dreams to Life on Netflix appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[theastrophilearchitect]

WandaVision series review part 3.

You'd think I'd have learnt my lesson now--save the damn draft before you switch tabs to find the tags you want to add. But I haven't. Clearly.

The last two weeks I've posted parts 1 and 2 of my WandaVision review, because, even though by the time this goes up, WandaVision will have ended nearly a month ago, it's still all I can think about. Part 1 contained my initial thoughts and episodes 1-3 breakdown; part 2 contained episodes 4-6 breakdown, and this part will contain my episodes 6-9 breakdown and my final thoughts.

Episode Seven: ‘Breaking the Fourth Wall’ This episode was released on February 19th, with a runtime of still 37 minutes, following a 2000s-style sitcom format heavily influenced by Modern Family. 

Cue the recap, and we open to Wanda waking up in an empty bed. We then cut to an interview-style scene which I assume is based off Modern Family or another sitcom, like the interviews intermingled with reality TV, but there’s nothing to really pick apart; it’s just entertaining. The twins then run into Wanda’s bedroom and tell her their ‘game is freaking out’, and we see their controllers change over and over with that scarlet-TV texture. Billy comments that his head is noisy, an echo of the power shown in episode six, similar to Wanda’s own.

Interview-Wanda then says as punishment for expanding the borders, she plans on taking ‘a quarantine-style stay-cation’, which, written probably in 2019, did not age well. She goes downstairs to make milk, and it transforms between a carton and a bottle. These object shifts may be implying as Wanda expands the borders, she loses more and more control of even the things right beside her--the Hex is falling apart.

Cut to Hayward and SWORD setting up a new camp beside the new border of the Hex, but further back than before, likely to give them more time to move if it happens again.

Vision then wakes up in the circus the original SWORD camp was turned into, and, looking like his synthezoid self, is assumed to be a clown. He then sees Darcy, dressed as an escape artist, but she doesn’t remember him, clearly under Wanda’s control.

Wanda asks the twins if they’ve seen Vision, they ask if she wants them to look for him, and she replies, ‘If he doesn’t want to be here, there’s nothing I can do about it.’ It seems like she’s trying to defer her guilt at what she’s down to the townspeople. The twins then ask about Pietro--’Do not believe anything that man said. He is not your uncle.’ We saw Wanda blast him into a haystack towards the end of the last episode, but now he’s simply vanished. Wanda then laughs that she has none of the answers they expect her to, and makes some nihilistic comments. She uses her magic to open the door to a knock, and enter Agnes, who takes the kids next door to give Wanda some alone time. The furniture then begins to shift into pieces from the other decades, but Wanda fixes it.

Cut to Jimmy and Monica in a military vehicle they stole in the last episode, and Jimmy explains in Darcy’s hacking, she found a secret project called Cataract, to bring Vision back online--to fix the Vision. But it failed, until Wanda brought him back, which was why Hayward was so focused on Vision over Wanda in the Hex. They then meet some non-SWORD military people, who unveil a higher-grade vehicle, presumably for Monica to attempt to safely re-enter the Hex.

God, I love seeing Darcy in this show. She was the only good thing about the first two Thor movies. So Vision zaps Darcy, and she wakes up. They steal a circus vehicle--a transformed SWORD vehicle--and Vision asks her some questions about the Hex she doesn’t actually know the answers to.

The tension really builds in this episode, simply as it cuts between characters in much shorter intervals than in previous ones. We watch a montage of things in Wanda’s house shifting, then cut to an interview, where she explains that she doesn’t know what’s happening. Then, the person behind the camera asks, ‘Do you think maybe this is what you deserve?’ The voice doesn’t sound familiar, but knowing who the interviewer is, I can hear it. Wanda questions this because the interviewer isn’t supposed to talk, then cut to this episode’s advert.

This is for a drug called Nexus--’A unique anti-depressant that works to anchor you back to your reality. Or the reality of your choice.’ ‘Nexus. Because the world doesn’t revolve around you. Or does it?’ As someone who hasn’t actually read any comics, this information is very second-hand, but a Nexus Being in the comics is a powerful being with the power to alter reality and time--essentially in possession of the Infinity Stones’ powers without possessing the Stones themselves. This brings with it the implication that is what Wanda is--more than just a girl who got powers from the Mind Stone, but Nexus Beings aren’t elaborated on in the rest of the show.

Cut to Agnes and the twins; Billy says he likes it there, because Agnes’s mind is quiet, which is compared to Wanda. I want to explain the implications of this, but I’ve been trying to only spoil things as I get to them, so I’m going to keep my mouth shut, or rather... what’s the keyboard equivalent? God knows. Anyway, Agnes tells them not to worry about Wanda, because ‘she’s supermom’, which, you know, is a fun superhero thing.

Cut back to Monica, who prepares some kind of suit to re-enter the Hex. She gets in, and drives toward the barrier, but when the wheels meet it, they fail to pass, and begin to drive up the barrier, flipping Monica onto her back. The vehicle begins to rewrite itself and break apart; Monica manages to clamber out of a trapdoor in the roof. Jimmy prepares a medical thing, and the barrier spits out the vehicle. Monica turns back, drops her helmet, and plunges into the barrier, and presses through. Her body warps, we hear echoes of Captain Marvel, we hear Carol’s quote about Maria being given the toughest kid, and her body reforms, her eyes light up blue, and she passes all the way through, eyes still glowing, and we see a shots of her warped vision, almost as though she can see energy or EM radiation.

Darcy tries to explain why Wanda killed Vision to him, and though the road is empty, a traffic light is red. As it turns green, roadworkers approach, impeding them and preventing Vision from returning to central Westview. 

Monica enters Wanda’s house, who threatens her, and lifts her telekinetically out onto the street, where she is watched by the neighbours. Wanda drops Monica to the ground, but she pulls a superhero landing, with blue lights for effect--her DNA has been rewritten by the Hex’s borders for the third time, and it’s clearly unlocked something. Wanda continues to threaten her, and Monica says to do it--’Don’t let [Hayward] make you the villain,’ to which Wanda replies, ‘Maybe I already am.’ Which is fair, but then villains never think they’re the bad guys.

Agnes watches them from a window. Monica tries to talk Wanda down, then Agnes comes outside, tells Monica to leave, and takes her inside. The people haven’t questioned Wanda’s magic, or Monica’s apparent new powers, which merely shows the extent of Wanda’s control. It’s also interesting that Monica didn’t fall under her control again when she re-entered the Hex.

Cut to Vision and Darcy, the roadworks clear away, but someone with a stop sign and a queue of crossing children continue to block their way. Vision phases through the van’s roof, and flies away.

Wanda notices the kids’ show on Agnes’s TV, and the half-eaten food on the coffee table, and realises the twins are missing. She asks, and Agnes tells her they’re probably in the basement, where Wanda then obviously goes. The basement walls are covered in branches, made of stone, and there is no reply when Wanda calls for the twins. She then enters an ancient chamber, walls engraved with runes, and a spellbook on the side.

Agnes comes downstairs, stroking Senor Scratchy, the rabbit Wanda and Vision used in their magic act way back in episode two, and says, ‘You didn’t think you were the only magical girl in town, did you?’ Agnes shuts the door with a twist of her hand and some purple sparks.

‘The name’s Agatha Harkness. Lovely to finally meet you, dear.’

Purple fogs Wanda’s eyes, and cue the best moment in the entire series: Agatha All Along. This musical number essentially shows that Agatha has been behind everything that’s gone wrong for Wanda, aside from SWORD, obviously, and is such a good song. Go listen to it. Now. Immediately. Go. 

We see her screw up the magic show, send Pietro to the door, and we see her sitting behind the interview camera.

‘And I killed Sparky, too.’ Insert maniacal laughter, and cue the credits.

We sit through to the split between the animated credits and typical black and white scrolling ones, and this episode has an mid-credits scene. I checked for one the first few episodes, then gave up, and I can’t remember what it was that made me find this one, if it was just letting the credits play, or feeling the odd urge to check, or what.

We watch Monica try to find a way into Agatha’s house. She pulls open basement doors, then--’Snooper’s gonna snoop.’ Fake Pietro stands behind her, dressed in a beanie, hair no longer mostly white as per Quicksilver’s design.

This is my second-favourite episode overall, first being episode 8, and contains the biggest switch since episode 4. We meet the big bad, since Marvel is literally incapable of writing a story in which the climax isn’t between the hero and a villain with their exact same powers. (WandaVision takes this to the extreme, but that would be a spoiler.)

Episode Eight: ‘Previously On’ Released February 26th, Marvel blessed us with an episode 46 minutes long! At last! This was the second episode to completely break the sitcom format (first being episode 4, obviously), which leaves us in 2000s-themed Westview, but without a laugh track or any other sitcom elements.

We open with a recap, including Jimmy Woo’s explanation of Wanda and Pietro’s origins pre-Avengers from what I believe was episode 5. Or was it 4? Probably 4, because it was really soon after Hayward was introduced, in episode 4. Yes. Let’s go with that. 

This episode opens in Salem, Massachusetts, 1693, and we watch Agatha dragged to and magically tied to a stake, to be killed for betraying her coven of witches, by practising dark magic, but she denies it. She then relents and admits it, begs for help to control it, but the witches blast some kind of blue magic at her, which Agatha turns violet, and absorbs, killing the witches wielding it. The witch she calls mother, who also seems to be the leader of the coven, blasts her with magic after the others are dead, and as she does so, a kind of crown of the same blue light glows around her head (something I would neither notice nor question if I had not yet watched the series the whole way through). Agatha absorbs her magic and kills her, too. She steals a necklace from her mother, flies away, and we cut back to present.

Wanda tries to penetrate Agatha’s mind, but she tells her her thoughts were never available--a repeat of Billy calling her mind ‘quiet’ in episode 7, but I’m not actually sure the point of this, aside from limiting information available to both Wanda and the audience. Wanda’s Sokovian accent also returns in this scene. She tries to use her magic, but Agnes puts her in magical binds and explains that the runes in the walls mean ‘only the witch who cast the runes can use her magic’. Agatha also explains how she possessed fake Pietro--Fietro--not so she could control his mind, but so she could see through his eyes and ears.

Agatha questions how Wanda cast so many spells to control so many people, so many objects and locations all at once, when she had no magical training, which confuses Wanda because she doesn’t use incantations the way Agatha does; her magic is more through willpower and intention. 

Agatha then brings Wanda through a door, in an attempt to comprehend how she did it, and it leads them to an old, one-room living space in Sokovia--Wanda’s childhood, before her parents died. They prepare for a TV night, and their father invites young Wanda to pick, showing her a box containing various sitcoms--Bewitched, Malcolm in the Middle, I love Lucy, Who’s the Boss?, The Addams Family etc.--many of which acted as the basis for episodes of WandaVision, but she chooses The Dick Van Dyke Show. This love of sitcoms, the ideation in comparison to the Cold War outside, is where Wanda’s subconscious choice of making Westview into one--her version of a paradise for herself and Vision.

Then a bomb goes off outside, killing their parents and leaving Wanda and Pietro in rubble. A bomb lands before them, Stark Industries written on the side, but their television is behind it, and Dick Van Dyke still plays. 

Cut back to present Wanda and Agatha; Wanda says the bomb was defective, but they were trapped for two days, and Agatha implies it not going off was Wanda’s doing, believing her to be a witch like herself.

They move onto a HYDRA testing chamber, where teenage volunteer-Wanda stands near the sceptre from The Avengers, the one Thanos gave to Loki, the one containing the Mind Stone. She moves toward it, and the sceptre’s blue orb breaks from the handle; floats towards her. She touches it, and it bursts, revealing the yellow Mind Stone inside, and letting out a kind of wind blast. In the light, Wanda sees a silhouette reminiscent of the original Scarlet Witch design.

They take Wanda to isolation, and we watch some scientist replay the tape from the testing chamber, but in the footage, the orb doesn’t move; she moves to the room’s centre, then it cuts to her lying on the ground.

Agatha concludes that the Mind Stone amplified a dormant power, and they move to a memory of the Avengers compound post-Avengers: Age of Ultron. Past-Wanda is grieving for Pietro, Vision enters her room, and she invites him to sit. They discuss the comedy on her TV, then he asks if she wants to talk about her grief, and she describes it as ‘this wave washing over [her], again and again. It knocks [her] down, and when [she tries] to stand up, it just comes for [her] again.’ Vision tries to reassure her, then says the thing that everyone’s been quoting but hit me hard: ‘But what is grief, if not love persevering?’

Agatha asks present-Wanda what happened when there was no-one there to pull her back from the dark, and when Wanda refuses, she presses. They shift into the SWORD compound, where past-Wanda approaches the desk demanding to be given Vision’s body post-Avengers: Endgame. This is the point from the CCTV Hayward showed Monica, Darcy, and Jimmy, claiming Wanda stole Vision’s body.

The receptionist calls somebody, and sends her down the hall, and I can’t help but notice that in her grief, in her hoodie and jeans, her hair is perfectly curled. She goes to Hayward’s office, who takes her into a windowed chamber, beneath which she can see mechanics/engineers doing something to Vision’s body, colour faded and parts broken up. The eyes in his severed head are white, and Wanda is upset, but Hayward questions why she wants to bury him, when she has the power to ‘bring [her] soulmate back online.’ But Wanda says she can’t do it, like when she refused to bring back Sparky, and Hayward tells her his materials are too valuable to just be buried, but offers her the chance to say goodbye. He tells her Vision isn’t hers, and she shatters the glass; lowers herself into the room.

Hayward calls off the guards who raise their guns at her. She lifts her power to his head, where the mind stone was: ‘I can’t feel you,’ reminiscent of the I just feel you, in Avengers: Infinity War, when the Stone bothered him in the night in Scotland. And she leaves, without the body, proving to the audience that Hayward is a liar.

Wanda drives to Westview, real Westview, where she watches the people go about their regular lives, but they seem sad. They all seem sad. She drives to a plot, the outline of a house marked by a concrete foundation, holding a piece of paper from an envelope in the car. She unfolds it to find a plan for the house: To grow old in. -V. Wanda breaks down in what is presumably the plot she turned into their house in the Hex, and her power explodes from her, in huge gusts we’ve never seen. The house forms itself, then it goes further, transforming the town and turning it to monochrome in preparation for WandaVision episode one.

Streams of power turn gold in the air, and form the silhouette of a body, which solidifies into Vision, black and white Vision, dressed in 50s clothes. Wanda remains in colour, in her regular clothes, then she turns to monochrome, to her 50s outfit, and Vision greets her. And despite the seriousness of this scene I can’t get over the damn bullet bra. 

And the pair sit down to watch the television, then the surroundings shift, and we see present-Wanda in her 2000s living room, but in a set, with empty seats for a live audience before her. Agatha claps from them, then vanishes. We hear the twins yell, and Wanda comes outside to find Agatha magically garrotting them, dressed in full-witchy attire.

Agatha describes Wanda as ‘a being capable of spontaneous creation’, calls it chaos magic--’And that makes you the Scarlet Witch.’ I feel like I ought to say roll credits, only that’s not even the name of the show. Before WandaVision’s title was officially announced, I remember seeing speculation that it would simply be called Vision and the Scarlet Witch, like Falcon and the Winter Soldier. 

The credits roll, and, halfway through, we cut to Hayward and SWORD outside the Hex. Hayward goes into a tent, describes all their hard work at something, ‘but all we needed was a little energy directly from the source;’ and we’re shown the missile Wanda dragged out of the Hex in episode 5, glowing red. Someone flips a switch, and we watch lights turn on in a glass chamber, containing Vision, rendered in pure white, who wakes up. Another Vision, made from the original, and yet before this episode, due to the constant thing about twins, people were speculating there were two Wandas. Wrong character, right idea.

This is my favourite episode in the show: it’s magical, and it makes everything make so much more sense. We see that the Hex’s creation was an accident, but Wanda was ‘making it up as [she went] along,’ like the theme song in, I believe, episode 5. I just love origin stories.

Episode Nine: ‘The Series Finale’ This finale was released on March 5th, with a grand total of 49 minutes of runtime, and, epic as it was, I found it to be rather disappointing, following a fairly typical Marvel formula, compared to the originality of the rest of the series. Granted, parts of this episode in particular were shot in 2020, so they didn’t quite go as planned, but still. The CGI is excellent though.

We open to exactly where we left off; Wanda frees the twins and sends them inside, then sends a blast at Agatha, who absorbs it-- ‘I take power from the undeserving. It’s kinda my thing’--and Wanda’s hand begins to blacken. Agatha offers her Westview in return for her magic, which Wanda obviously doesn’t accept. White Vision lands behind her, and she goes to him, confused. He places his hands on her face, but presses, trying to crack her skull, and it becomes clear he is doing Hayward’s bidding.

In sweeps Wanda’s Westview-Vision (who we’ll call Red Vision) and blasts White Vision away. The two swoop off together for their own fight, Wanda flies after Agatha, and we see Monica locked in a messy living room with Fietro, where she has presumably been since the end of episode 7.

The Visions fight each other, in that classic Marvel way of pitting the hero against a villain with an identical skillset (I’m looking at you, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, and basically every other movie. Seriously, Marvel needs to make more villains like Loki, instead of introducing them at the start of a film and having them somehow taken out of the equation by the end). It’s a cool sequence, as they phase through each other and plummet up and down. I love flying sequences.

At SWORD, Jimmy calls out Hayward, saying he won’t be able to cover this out, but Hayward says Wanda stopped her show, so there’s no evidence, and there’ll only be one Vision by the end, who people will assume Wanda resurrected. But Jimmy says he has called some friends from Quantico--whatever that is--to expose Hayward, who handcuffs him, but Jimmy is a magician, so he frees himself and actually calls somebody to apprehend Hayward.

Wanda arrives in the town square, to no sign of Agatha, and is then blasted to the ground by her from behind. Agatha summons a book we saw in her basement: ‘The Scarlet Witch is not born, she is formed. She has no coven, no need for incantation. [Her] power exceeds that of the Sorcerer Supreme’--Doctor Strange--’It’s [her] destiny to destroy the world.’ But Wanda denies that she is a witch. Agatha casts a spell on Dottie from episode 2, apparently bringing her back to consciousness. She tells Wanda her name is Sarah, and begs her to let her bring her daughter out of her room. Wanda accuses Agatha, who replies, ‘She’s your meat puppet. I just cut her strings.’ I just love that line, for some reason.

Agatha casts another spell, and everyone in the square returns to their senses, approaches and surrounds Wanda. 

Monica finds a document in the room with Fietro, that says his name is Ralph Bohner. This was incredibly unsatisfying to me--it’s interesting that Fietro is actually the Ralph Agnes constantly mentioned, but nothing else comes of this, and, as of the end of the series, Pietro and his changed face are simply an elaborate boner joke. I wish his face had some kind of relevance as of now, but it may become relevant in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, because that’s obviously where we’re really going to delve into the multiverse, and it features Wanda, so it would make sense.

Monica pins down Ralph and tears a string of beads from his neck, which glowed purple; the thing allowing Agatha to control him.

In the twins’ room, Billy has a vision (heh) of what is happening with Wanda, and they run outside.

The people around Wanda bombard her with their real stories, their real problems. ‘When you let us sleep, we have your nightmares.’ She yells that she’s kept these people safe, but they beg to be freed, and the noise builds, until Wanda screams, with a burst of power that toes ropes around their necks, suffocating them, but she stops it. Mrs Hart begs her, ‘If you won’t let us go, just let us die.’ Agatha taunts her that heroes don’t torture people, and she sends out a blast of power, that highlights the Hex’s border crimson, and it begins to break apart. She tells them all to leave now.

His white counterpart blasts Red vision to the ground, near Wanda but he begins to break apart. The twins arrive, and begin to break apart, tied to the Hex. It looks weirdly like a LEGO advert, but Wanda recloses to Hex to save them. You know, what? I’m still not sure why it’s hexagonal. I wouldn’t question it being round, or quadrilateral, but hexagonal seems too intentional.

Agatha blasts the family with magic, and Wanda shields them, but Agatha absorbs the power. SWORD vehicles roll into the square, hayward in one, having apparently managed to cross the border before Wanda closed it again. White Vision rolls into the scene and slams Red Vision through the walls of and into a library, and Red stops White attacking him by explaining that he is not the true Vision, because he’s just Wanda’s version.

Wanda flies up, again after Agatha, while the twins use their powers to take away SWORD’s guns, and Hayward comes out with a pistol, which he fires at them, but Monica, having freed herself from Ralph, blocks the bullets. They ripple through her body, and pass through, but fall to the ground as her eyes glow orange. As Hayward drives back, then revs up to apparently run them over, Darcy, in the circus van, slams his vehicle into the side of a building.

We cut to the Vision’s pondering the Ship of Theseus--a philosophical thought experiment. If the Ship of Theseus has one of its planks replaced, it remains the Ship of Theseus. But, if all the planks are replaced over time, is it still the same ship? And what if the old planks are reassembled into another ship; which is then the true ship? This is a metaphor for the two Vision’s--White being the reassembly of the old planks, and Red being the replaced.

Red Vision proposes that the true ship is the one touched by Theseus himself, with the wear and tear, suggesting White Vision is the true one, because he has the memories Red doesn’t; the one touched by Wanda. White Vision claims he does not have the memories, but Red tells him his data banks are not so easily wiped--they’re there, just withheld. White allows Red to do his zappy thing, and the memories of everything Vision went through pre-WandaVision comes back to him. White says he is the true Vision, and flies away through the roof.

Meanwhile, Wanda sneaks up behind Agnes and does the nightmare-mind thing she did to the Avengers at the beginning of Avengers: Age of Ultron, sending her mind to the stake at the opening of episode 8. The desiccated witches rise, but instead turn on Wanda, calling her a witch, again, and again. The witches wrest Wanda onto the stake instead, but a red crown, like the blue on Agatha’s mother in episode 8, materialises on her head, formed of the same light as her magic. It’s really jarring at this point that she’s still in a hoodie and sweatpants.

Wanda blasts away the other witches, and they emerge from the nightmare, back to Westview. She and Agatha rise, blast magic at one another, and Wanda’s hands blacken further as Agatha absorbs more and more. She sends a blast at one of Westview’s walls, and a spot ripples in the middle of each. 

Wanda’s face seems to age, like the witches of Agatha’s coven, and Agatha absorbs streams of magic, until Wanda has none left. She gives her some depressing lecture, then tries to blast Wanda out of the sky, but it doesn’t work. Her hands begin to blacken, and Wanda’s face youthens, then the camera pans to reveal runes on Westview’s walls, like those in the basement, now disabling Agatha’s magic. Little confused how Wanda stayed flying when Agatha took her power, and how Agatha now stays flying.

The red crown reappears on Wanda’s head, her eyes glow, she reabsorbs her power from Agatha, and, as she does, she changes. Her hair comes down, and she becomes the silhouette she saw in the Mind Stone at HYDRA, finally getting a Scarlet Witch costume, and it is epic. 

They return to the ground, and Wanda uses her powers to put Agatha under the control she had the other residents under, to turn her into the Nosy Neighbour once and for all. Wanda leaves Agatha alive, so she could return in future instalments,.

Wanda, Red Vision, and the twins return to their home, and the Hex’s border contracts, until it covers only their street. They put the boys to bed, and Vision begins, ‘Your mother and I...’, and, when I first watched this, I really thought he was going to say ‘...are getting a divorce,’ but he simply finishes, ‘...are very proud of you both.’

Wanda says that ‘a family is forever,’ clearly already in mourning for the children she’s about to lose. They finish up, the border continues contracting, and Wanda turns off the lamps in the living room, though Vision turns one on, to say goodbye. As the border progresses towards them, Vision asks what he is, and says some literal and romantic crap; they kiss, talk a little, and he breaks apart as the border reaches them, and the house returns to the empty plot it once was.

Wanda is left standing exactly how she was before she formed the Hex, same hair, same clothes, puts up her hood, and walks into town. where the people glare as she approaches Monica, who says, ‘They’ll never know what you sacrificed for them.’  They have a classic series-wrap-up conversation, then Wanda shifts into her Scarlet Witch outfit, and flies away.

Mid-credits scene; we see Jimmy just after the debrief, Hayward is put in handcuffs, and Monica is called into the theatre, where she meets someone wearing a police badge, who shifts into a skrull. The skrull says a friend of Monica’s mother’s would like to meet with her, presumably Talos, and when Monica asks where, she just points up. 

And an end-credits scene opens in a pan shot, zooming to a cabin by a lake in the woods, where Wanda, dressed in sweats, sits on the porch with a mug. We follow her inside as the kettle whistles, but the camera continues into the bedroom, where her astral form sits, dressed as the Scarlet Witch, with the Darkhold, the book Agatha had. When we see Doctor Strange astral-project, his body falls unconscious, and this truly proves the Scarlet Witch is more powerful than the Sorcerer Supreme, as aforementioned.

This series really solidified my love for Wanda and Vision--Wanda, who I liked before, but mostly because of her powers than her character, which lacked development, and Vision, who I kinda hated because of his moral-high-ground bullshit, but who I now love--brought back fan favourites Darcy Lewis and Jimmy Woo, and set up Monica’s future plotlines. In truth, I liked Agatha better before she went full-witch mode, but she was an enjoyable villain. Hayward, on the other hand, was someone easy to hate, but not to such a level it was fun to hate him.

Every episode kept me on my feet, and every week I screamed I couldn’t wait for another. Part of my love for this was because we’d had no MCU content since July 2019, with Spider-Man: Far From Home, but it was just such excellent storytelling. Though the climax was a little disappointing, it was still more entertaining than most action sequences, where things happen so quickly I just zone out, and the visuals were incredible. I loved the sitcoms, and the differentiation at the end. Episode 4 was the perfect time to finally give us some form of explanation.

Basically, watch this damn show. Though I’d be surprised if you got this far without watching it. Watch it, make everyone else watch it, and, writers, take notes. The best stories are the ones with excellent characters and an excellent plot, and WandaVision mastered it.

[fleurmatisse]

seer episode ii: jon v the circus pt 1

tw for (mild) gore, skin picking, references to self harm, and a canonical clown

it starts with calliope music and ends with an evil clown. as these things do.

(check reblogs for links to part one and ao3 and rb that version please)

jon hears calliope music all the time. it’s distant, almost unnoticeable, but it’s there and he’s noticed, and it is slowly driving him insane. he thinks it might be getting louder, or it could just be that the apartment is quieter now that georgie has moved out. 

he goes to work and he hears the music. he comes home, and still it follows him. he doesn’t go many other places; maybe that’s why he can’t seem to shake it from his ears—it knows where he’s going to be and waits.

it’s ridiculous. he knows it’s ridiculous. but it’d gotten so bad the other day he’d asked sasha if she heard it. she’d cocked her head and listened for a few seconds and looked surprised before she said, “you know, i think i caught a few notes. must be a circus in town somewhere. you know calliopes can be heard from miles away?”

jon didn’t know this, but he tries to take that as the explanation, even if when he has a free moment he looks it up and there are no circuses in town.

when he starts dreaming the music—no longer just a calliope but a whole orchestra playing jaunty, taunting music—he knows it’s not just in his head. it all feels too real to just be his imagination, even if his imagination does run away with him some days.

he’s certain he could never imagine the feeling of peeling off his own skin so clearly. the sensation sticks with him for the rest of the day. when he catches himself picking at an old scar on his jaw he nearly has a panic attack.

he has the dream again, and again, until finally he’s no longer the performer but the audience, a single person in a gallery of stone, flashlight aimed at the stage and the man standing in its spotlight. he calls out and the man on stage grins, too wide, too toothy, not nearly enough skin on his cheeks. he wakes up screaming and he’s almost glad georgie isn’t there to be woken up with him.

he thinks, after that first sighting of him, that he recognized the man on the stage. after the fourth time he’s positive he knows who it is, and for the first time he seeks out tim stoker on his own.

tim is not hard to find, seeing as he comes by the library every other day to pick up sasha for lunch (the alternating days sasha goes to the publishing house to retrieve him), and he seems delighted when jon intercepts him on his way through the building.

“you don’t have a mysterious and yet completely real reason to be in your office right now?” he says after jon asks to speak to him.

“is your brother a fan of theater?” jon replies, too tired to try to stick to social conventions. his skin has been crawling all day, and he’s managed to open a spot just beside his nose that stings when he moves any part of his face. 

tim makes a face like he isn’t sure if jon is joking. “not really. and if you’re planning to ask him out, i hate to break it to you, but danny is straight.”

jon huffs, shaking his head. “no, that’s not—i don’t want to date him; i keep having dreams about him.”

tim’s expression grows more skeptical. “right...and what happens in these dreams? do i even want to know?”

“he tears the skin off his face while you watch,” jon says. “i think he’s in danger.”

“and that has something to do with the theater.”

“it happens in a theater. it feels like it’s underground or—buried? it’s hard to describe.”

“okay. so my brother is going to find an underground theater to tear his face off in front of me? that doesn’t really sound like him. or any sane person, really.”

“i know that,” jon snaps. this was a stupid idea. he’d kind of started to like tim, and now tim was going to think he was insane forever. “forget i said anything.”

tim catches his arm before he can escape. “you really think something’s going to happen to danny?”

jon studies him for a second, searching for a sign he’s being mocked. tim just looks concerned. jon resigns himself to losing tim’s friendship as he extricates his wrist from tim’s grip and says, “i think he’s going to die. maybe worse.”

tim lets him go this time. 

jon has the dream again, and again, and again 

tim calls him in the middle of the night. “you were right.”

jon sits up in bed. “is danny—”

“he’s alive.” tim laughs. it’s a hollow, wet kind of laugh. “he’s—i followed him. have you ever heard of urbex?”

jon can hear an ambulance. “no, i haven’t. tim—”

“the royal opera house. that’s the theater. it’s not underground, though, not sure where you got that one.”

the ambulance is getting louder. 

“tim, are you okay? is that ambulance coming to you?”

“oh, i’m fine. the ambulance is for danny.” tim laughs again, and it’s a sound jon never wants to hear repeated. “he was cutting into his face when i found him. i had to drag him out here, and now he’s not waking up. he’s breathing, though, so at least he’s not, you know.”

the siren drowns out anything else tim might have said before it cuts off abruptly and unfamiliar voices start talking. tim tells them he found danny with a straight razor and how long he’s been unconscious, that he didn’t see anything that might’ve caused that. jon gets out of bed while he talks, puts on the first semi-acceptable clothes he finds, and when tim starts talking to him again, he’s carrying his shoes to the front door. he gets tim to tell him what hospital they’re taking danny to and promises to meet him there.

[impatient14]

TST + LYD= TAB

I re-watched TAB today and I had my entire ass handed to me. Like literally. My eyes were on the screen watching, but my ass was being force fed into my hands by Mofftiss and their utter brilliance.

I thought there were parallels to TAB in TST but I was wrong. There aren’t parallels. There is a fucking road map with a bright neon sign flashing, “Look Here! See what we did? Aren’t we FUCKING CLEVER!” Yes, Mofftiss, I know you’re clever. calm the fuck down already. 

Yeah, so this is going to be me screaming at the top of my lungs for the next few minutes. Be kind and indulge a tired bi, would you? I’ll do it in list format again to keep it organized and I’ll recount the episode in order. I’m not going to included things that parallel other episodes to TAB. Things like Sherlock recognizing Mary’s perfume, Moriarty and Sherlock’s repetitive dialogue from TGG, or the bit about John bringing his revolver to unlikely situations. There is a lot of meta about that already. This is just TAB to TST and some conjecture about TAB and TLD.

1.) The first true feature of interest (look Mofftiss I can be clever too!) in TAB as it relates to Series 4 is when Sherlock recounts his latest case to Mrs. Hudson, when he and John return to Baker Street at the begining of the episode. The case involved a dismembered country squire, in which they were unable to find the legs but Sherlock brings at least one (my money is on the head) body part home with him in his luggage that John carries. In TST one of the first cases recounted is the Circus Torso, in which a limbless body is found in luggage. 

2.) Mary is introduced in disguise right as the title flashes beneath her. She is literally The Abominable Bride. (I know this doesnt relate to TST. I’m just being petty. It will probably happen again.)

3.) “I don’t mind you leaving, my darling, I mind you leaving me behind.” Mary begins her letter to John in TST with, My Darling, which is such an odd phrase to use as a 30 something women in 2014. 

4.) “The Stage is set. The Curtain Rises. We are Ready to begin.” Sherlock says this to himself right before the case truly begins. This bit is probably one of the biggest fucking punches in the face and I wish I could save it for later but it was at the beginning of the episode and I said I’d do it in order. At the end of TST Sherlock texts Mary, The curtain Rises. The last act. Its not over.-SH Well, I guess we can all go home now…right? I mean, to me at least, this is huge. The “play” that Sherlock began to run through in his mind began in TAB, and the shooting of “Mary” was the begining of the last act. We will finish the last act in TLD. More on what the last act actually is composed of later…but I’ll give you a hint: mUAh!

5.) “Sometimes to solve a case, one must solve another.” This line comes directly after Sherlock yells at the Watsons to quit bickering. Then, after Watson inquires about the case, Sherlock tells him its an old case. Very old. On the surface, this looks like its just present day Sherlock peeking through to give the audience a clue as to what is going on, but it is also a reference to what is going to happen in TST. Sherlock uses an old case in TST to solve a new one. The Six Thatchers is a case that Sherlock solved during the events of A Scandal in Belgravia. He solved it years ago. Its very old. 

6.) This one is more of a theme than an actual direct parallel but its important to mention. Mrs. Hudson complains multiple times about being a “plot device” and seems to feel very unappreciated in TAB. In TST she can’t take a picture properly and she is used as a plot device to help Sherlock be a better person with the whole “Norbury” code. The fact that this entire episode revolves around the theme of not taking women for granted or underestimating them (ahem, “Mary”), I think we can expect to see a lot more from Mrs. H soon. Good or Bad.

7.) Lestrade comes in to present the case to them, just as he does in TST. Except in TAB he is afraid, not embarrassed like SHerlock strangely deduced at first, where as in TST Lestrade does seem to be embarrassed about the fact that he can’t do his job and he can’t even take credit for someone else doing his job for him. Also, throughout TAB people are praising John for his stories in The Strand, and Lestrade brings up John’s blog in TST an alarming number of times.

8.) In TAB Sherlock wanted Lestrade to describe Emelia’s face to him, talking about the mouth in particular and in TST Sherlock drawed attention to MT’s mouth and claimed that maybe it was her face that made the vandal smash her bust.

9.) “Till death us do part, twice in this case.” I think Sherlock’s line here could be interpreted two ways. It could be referencing the fact that Sherlock has “died” twice and forced to part from John twice. Or it could be alluding to something that has yet to come. “Mary” dies in TST, but it is widely believed that she faked it somehow- just as Emelia did. If she then dies again (for real this time), Sherlock’s line would apply to her as well. 

10.) “Secret Twin?” “Planned from the moment of conception? How breathtaking prescient of her!” It hasn’t been revealed yet, but Mary is definitely a twin or triplet. I wrote a thing on that here. They have also alluded to a long game being played. EDIT TO ADD: More and more evidence is coming out to support Mary being at the very least a sibling of Sherlock’s, if not his twin sister. 

11.) When Sherlock breaks TAB character and says “How could HE do it,” John corrects him, with “She. You mean how could she do it.” Yes, he is talking about Emelia, but the writers are also making sure we remember there is a female villain that we need to keep an eye on and she will be doing something that confounds Sherlock. Like tricking him into liking her and making her is #2 BFF. EDIT to ADD:@wssh-watson pointed out that Sherlock also calls the dead son in TST a daughter instead of son when he meets with the parents for the first time. 

12.)Lestrade tells Sherlock of the five people that died since the first murder, making it six total. In TST there are five people who have six total busts.

13.)Sherlock talks to an empty chair in TAB. He talks to an empty chair with a balloon floating in it in TST.

14.)The Watson’s have an unhappy and unfulfilling marriage is a theme in both episodes.

15.) Sherlock goes to see Mycroft in TAB twice, just as he does in TST. The first time both versions of Mycoft talk about understanding humans/human nature. The second time both versions of Mycroft discuss the true matter at hand with Sherlock. In TAB its Moriarty and in TST it’s Mary. He challenges his brother in both scenes and teases him for his emotional attachments.

16.) We also get this line from Mycroft “It is no easy thing for a great mind to contemplate an even greater one.” In the moment, we think he is talking about himself and how he is smarter than Sherlock and Sherlock is jealous, but just before the line Mycroft was telling Sherlock about someone named Adams who killed out of “murderous jealousy.” From Sherlock’s rapid deduction of Mrs. Norbury, we can deduce that this line is significant to TST’s “Mary” as well.

17.) I’m not going to get to far into this because there is a lot of interpretations, but Mycroft’s “tick tock” in TAB and the sound of a clock ticking in TST a couple times throughout the episode is a clear indication that we should be paying attention to time. That something isn’t right about time and its passage. 

18.) In TAB Lady Carmichael thinks the situation with her husband, “Maybe a matter for a priest. In TST “Mary” refers to her child as the anti-christ. See twin meta above for more info on that. 

19.) Another 5=death reference with the 5 pips in TAB. Yes, this is a TGG reference, but the person who held the fifth Thatcher bust was the only one who was murdered. Generally in BBC’s Sherlock, the number 5 means death.

20.) Eustace is a Mary Mirror.  He says, “She’s come for me, she’s found me out” in TAB and the bride tells him he is going to die. AJ tells Sherlock he’s coming for “Mary” and that she is a dead woman walking in TST. 

21.)  During the nighttime stake out in TAB, Sherlock says something interesting. He says he would expect John’s line of questioning from a Viennese Alienist, but not from him. A Viennese alienist is a psychoanalyst. A therapist. Sherlock goes to see Ella at the end of TST. We also hear Redbeard in this scene.

22.) In TAB, Sherlock tells Watson to “Stay here” but he doesn’t listen.  Lady C however is witness to the murder and screams at Sherlock, “You promised you’d keep him safe! You promised!” In TAB, Sherlock tells Watson to Come to the Aquarium immediately in his text message, but John he doesn’t listen because he stays back to find a sitter for the baby. He misses the shooting again, but this time its him, not his mirror, that yells at Sherlock, “You made a vow!”

So that’s the end of The Six Thatchers. 

But, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, thats not the end of TAB. The Abominable bride continues and The final act has just begun in the fourth series. The play will resume in The Lying Detective and then end, leaving (hopefully) at least half an hour to deal with Sherlock waking up and relaying important information about Mary to John.

As for how TAB will relate to The Lying Detective, I can only make a few guesses.

Here they are:

Almost immediately after Sir Eustace is stabbed in TAB we get Sherlock taking drugs. He is high and imagines Moriarty in his flat. They have a conversation with a lot of parallels to other episodes and then Moriarty challenges Sherlock about what he is doing. 

“Doesn’t this remind you of another case? What was that case? There’s nothing new under the sun. What was that case? Its on the tip of my tongue, its on the tip…”(insert gun blowjob here)

I know Moriarty is referencing his own case and how Sherlock is using Emelia to solve it, but there is nothing new under the sun. The Six Thatchers is a case that was already solved too. I think we’ll see Sherlock remembering some of the original TST case in an hallucination after being drugged in TLD. This situation will lead him down the path to Culverton Smith and that case plays out.

Supposedly back in present time, in TAB Sherlock then gives Mycroft a white pieces of paper with a list of the drugs he has taken on it. I think we can expect for there to be more white pieces of paper with drugs on them in TLD, but I also think he will return to life or wake up around this time as well. After or during the Culverton Smith case, when he realizes it isn’t real either. 

Then Sherlock and John will talk, just as they do in Baker Street after Sherlock wakes up from his drugged out state in TAB. Watson tells him he is happy to play the fool for him, but that Sherlock needs to hold himself to higher standard. Its a pep-talk of sorts. I think this is a possible situation for the real John and Sherlock after Sherlock wakes up. Sherlock will be down on himself for not seeing it (Mary) and John will chastise him for his reckless behavior but ultimately make him feel better.

Then in TAB we have Sherlock running down the stairs telling John that Mary is in danger. John asks him if he is fit as Sherlock suddenly is overtaken with a pain in his chest (gunshot wound) and Sherlock responds, “For Mary? OF course. Never doubt that Watson, Never that.”  I think this is a clever word play. He says she is in danger, but he doesn’t say what the danger is. In reality, Sherlock is the danger and when John asks him if he’s sure he’s up to it, Sherlock is like, “Bitch da fuq? That ho shot me!”

In TAB they then go off to meet Mary and they do the whole secret society thing where we learn how awesome women are and how stupid boys are for not appreciating them. I think here is where “Mary” in TLD will get a good speech about being underestimated and feeling proud at how clever she is and blah blah blah. TAB’s Sherlock even compliments Mary’s cleverness. Ultimately, the bitch goes down. We might get a three Garridebs moment, but I don’t see any evidence for that in TAB.

Soo…what’s left in TAB?

Waterfall. There’s always two of us. Mentions of marriage. Sherlock allows himself to fall. Hell he straight up jumps. He knows John will be there to catch him.

I think that means at the end of TLD we will get a love confession/kiss out of these two. They will kiss and be happy and Baker Street will be wonderful for all of three seconds before The Final Problem begins, where they will have to fight like hell to stay together.

Thanks for making it this far. It was a long one!

@monikakrasnorada @isitandwonder @gosherlocked @tjlcisthenewsexy @loudest-subtext-in-tv @yan-yae @ebaeschnbliah @may-shepard

[helloarmchairphilosopher]

Writer's works in progress

I saw that someone else had written up their wip-s, so maybe writing up mine will make me GET ON WITH IT and help me write more on one (or more) of them. 1) 1938 Brooklyn Murder mystery: in which a Ripper (any killer with a knife is always dubbed a Ripper by the press, it's a thing) stalks the young men of the queer/gay community of Brooklyn. One by one young men die and the cops either can't or won't do anything about a few dead [slur]; the mob doesn't care either; war looms in Europe; the Mayor is trying to clean up the city before the World's Fair; the dynamics of the queer community itself is changing as men and women who previously might not have considered themselves part of it are thrown in with it, with new laws meant to manage a moral society; and two men, in exactly that predicament, are watching their friends dying at the hands of the Ripper and hoping they're not next, while dealing with feelings for each other. (The historian in me has run amok.) 2) The Sweater Curse: (Bagginshield) In which hobbits consider it bad luck to make crocheted or knitted garments for themselves (a sign that one has no kin) because sweaters are made and given between first and second degree blood relatives (parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren, aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews). Other kinds of garments are given freely. If a sweater is given to an unrelated person it is considered a proposal. In which dwarves make their own crocheted or knitted garments for themselves (a sign of their craft-skill and self-sufficiency). Other kinds of garments are bought and sold freely. If a sweater is offered as a gift to another person it is befuddling at best and an insult at worst. The Sweater Curse in our world says that if a person, usually a woman, starts to make a sweater for their significant other, usually a man, before they are married, the relationship will end. The fic I'd imagined had a happy ending - with Thorin thinking that Bilbo had been making the sweater for himself. "You loveable dunce, did you never notice I'd keep borrowing Kíli to size it correctly for you? I'd be swimming in it!" 3) transman Phil Coulson fic. I'm not trans, so I'd have to tread carefully here. My real aim is feminism and femininity. A male Coulson has leeway in a manner that a female Coulson would not. A male Coulson is not told that he is missing out on the essential manly quality of being a father and a husband; he is not automatically assumed, on walking into a room, to be the secretary or the assistant. Women always have to be twice as good to be perceived as half as competent, and then (often) they're told not to be a b*tch about it. But all this from the point of Clint Barton, who is kind of clueless, and who really loves Phil (I kind of love this ship and like the rest of the fandom I'm not really sure why), means that he just sees grade-A badass Phil Coulson. Full stop. No edits. No matter what is, or isn't, in his past, in his pants, in his medical file, or what his parents used to call him. 4) Werewolf romance novel Tall dark and handsome (TM) is the antagonist who is stalking and eating people. He's a creep who plays into rape culture and preys on young women who think that his bad boy vibe cover up anything other than a black heart. The protagonist is a smart and kick-ass young woman with a shiny degree and huge student loans working below her talents, as a barman, which is how she knows of the antagonist and his creepiness. She has a friend, her landlady's daughter, who is close to her age. (Yay for passing the Bechdel test? I'd better, after actually meeting Alison Bechdel.) The love interest is this sandy blonde dorky guy, a drifter who works construction and throws darts at the bar. When people start getting chewed up he's the prime suspect, and even our protagonist doesn't know what to think - but only until our antagonist tries to take a bite out of her, and he intervenes, as a werewolf. And from there it's your usual. I got sick of the werewolf books with creepy rape culture overtones and not passing the Bechdel test and thought, I could do better. 5) a Clint Barton/Darcy Lewis fanfic, in which she helps patch him up after Loki's mind control. In the comics, Clint had a pretty messed up childhood. Circus, dad who beat him, taught to shoot by a man who beat him and then used him first as a thief and then as a killer (or so I loosely understand; and I'd be using a variation on that in the fic, anyway). He would have had to have therapy for it at SHIELD just to be functional as an agent around people. But Loki's mind control messed with all that, breaking the locks and self-management he'd had for so long. He'd have major depressive episodes and PTSD following it. And Darcy, being a civilian, might not be the best person to bring him out, but she was there for Thor and the Destroyer. She saw some shit. And who knows what she had in her childhood. (I do, because I created it, but I'm the author and I can do what I like.) What was done by Loki cannot be undone, but what was done before Loki could, just maybe, be done over again, more painstakingly and with greater care, like walking around the glass shards of a broken vase. 6) a Fíli/fem!Bilbo fic: in which a pregnant Bilbo runs from the Mountain. (Thorin died of his wounds, but Fíli and Kíli survived.) Bilbo, in whatever feminized spelling of one's choosing, won't, can't, stay. The memories of battle, of being shaken like a rat over the gates of Erebor, are too fresh and too raw. The halls reek of dragon and she hears Smaug's eerie deep voice creeping in the shadows. No, she cannot stay. She must go somewhere green. A month, a year, five years, forever, she must go somewhere clean and cleansed. And Fíli, her One, can't go. She knows this. And she, even though she's his One, can't stay. Magic lover's nonsense and whatever, there's reality you have to deal with, and sometimes reality means PTSD and dragon stink. So they argue, the night after his coronation. She is due to leave the next day with Gandalf and it'll be the last time - it's emotionally fraught. He's mad and she's mad, because they both *want* it to be different. In my mind's eye I saw the argument, in the indirect result: his name was Frerin. And, of course, that can't be let alone, since as the eldest son of a king, half-hobbit or no, he is heir apparent to a throne, and a birthright. Tolkien wrote that dwarf populations at the end of the end of the Third Age and into the Fourth dwindled until the race itself failed - meaning that there were too few women having too few children. This is obvious enough from what we see in the appendices. A king having a son hidden from him and raised by a non-dwarf woman, even if she is his mother? A scandal, the fanon assumes, and I presume with it. 7) a Bucky Barnes in slightly more efficient and effective hiding fic. There's that photo going around of Sebastian Stan from the set of his latest movie and he has this big mustache, and jeez if Bucky looked like that, some people commented, and not all 90s Grunge, he might have escaped a lot better, since the photo Zemo circulated assumed that Bucky looked like a hobo. Personally I don't see Bucky growing that mustache (looking like Howard Stark, who he assassinated, would give him a heart attack). Nor do I see him as a teacher, of math or otherwise, as the original post suggested; he'd never pass the background check. But there's another picture of Sebastian Stan I saw that was also relatively recent (but before any of the photos from the set of I, Tonya) with a full beard, and if he'd grown that out, if Bucky had grown that out, maybe he might have looked like Norm Abram back when he was younger. So, maybe a carpenter. It's a sin to hide that beautiful jawline, but effective. Bucky would get away from HYDRA and SHIELD both, just by staying off the radar and not looking like what they expect. He could even use his real name - there are 4,207 other James Barnes-es in the US, what would make him special? There are only 27 Clint Bartons. One borrowed social security number, one rented house, anywhere would do but I was thinking Santa Fe (because I've been there and can describe it, it's cool enough in part of the year he can wear long sleeves outside and the rest of the year there's air conditioning and he can wear long sleeves inside to cover the arm, and because it's a tourist town, people with money to spend on his carpentry work). From my notes, in particular: He checks in at the spots the Smithsonian mentioned. Red Hook, Dumbo, Coney Island. Those spots in Brooklyn that are supposed to have had that towheaded little captain America to be and his sidekick to become running amok in the 1920s. Some pieces fit. Bits of bitty Steve fit in, here and here, slotting back into Bucky's memory. Steve is a huge, pun intended, part of who he once was. To have made Bucky forget Steve, no wonder he forgot himself - - or was it the other way around, that Bucky forgot himself because he forgot Steve? 8) nonfiction, Torah commentary, starting with Genesis (Bereshit). 9) nonfiction, the history (I've been working on for five years) of the Hasidic movement during the Holocaust. Various dynasties and their rebbes, and the rebbes' successors, and the survival of the Hasidim and the Hasidut - how it worked, where it happened, how it happened; but from there, which members of the rabbinical families did not survive? Why? What attempts were made to save them? When attempts were made, who was given first preference and what stated reason, if any, was given? These are questions that have not yet been answered. And I have limited access to Hasidim, by language and by culture. These are not questions anyone would ever give me a straight answer to, of course. I have strong suspicions. Nothing more. The demographics of death - these are records we do have - say a lot. And the final chapters of the book, or the last volume, or the next book, also needs to be written: the rise to power of the other Hasidic dynasties, the massive shift in power away from Poilisher-Yidish culture elsewhere due to the near destruction of that community. Lubavitch, Bobov, Satmar, Belz, and Ger - only the last is Poilisher-Yidish. Before the war the largest Hasidic dynasties were to be found in Poland: Ger, Aleksandr, and Radomsk. There's a lot here no one else has done. I suppose it falls to me. So, I have many things to work on. I have lots to choose from. If only my brain would ACTUALLY LET ME DO IT, DAMMIT.