#I have always defended this role of his I’m so glad those haters are their words

[christophernolan]

Where are the people who hated Matt Smith from the moment his casting was announced?? There’s no better man for this role. He has the rang, the power, the way he carries himself with this character. He’s a masterclass, he’s charismatic, and he knows what this character demands.

[elenatria]

Hi dear! I've been a Hemsworth fan for years, and recently the negativity from some of the fans are driving me crazy. I just want to say, I agree with everything u said about Chris, everything. That's exactly how I see Chris as a person and his friendship with Tom. Just lots of love from me, glad to have u in this fandom. x

Awww hi! ^^ Thank you for your nice words, great to meet you.

/p>

Now listen, you have to know I’m not a long-time fan of Chris’. To tell you the truth I started appreciating his looks and presence only after I saw The Dark World. Then, that same year, I read the synopsis of THIS DAMNED FILM and I was sold.

Took me some months to actually see “Rush” but what the hell did I just see. Bromance and rivalry, wtf honestly, there should be more films like that. And his performance was stellar.

Then it took me some more years to see the “Team:Thor” clips and Ragnarok and well, he’s not just gorgeous okay? Now we all know. I’ve said this before, he’s a modern-day Marilyn Monroe, he’s too good-looking for his own good because it takes a lot of struggle from his part to convince people he’s not just a bombshell, a “dumb blonde”. Surely he’s a sex symbol (just like Marilyn) but people need to see beyond his surfer good looks and appreciate his comedic genius (just like Marilyn).

I do believe Chris is here to stay. Sure, not all his films are memorable or successful but I think he has that kind of quality and actor’s instinct that will keep him relevant for years. I hope he gets more roles than Thor, not that I don’t love Thor to bits, but I do believe Chris will be successful in other parts as well, and he’ll make more characters iconic. He’ll make us love them. He’s friends with at least two great directors, Ron Howard and Taika Waititi, so there you go. That’s a blessing for any actor because those friendships might secure him some great parts and scripts in the future.

Now the other thing you should know about me is that it never occurred to me I’d be here defending him (just like I never thought I’d be writing Hiddlesworth ficlets and headcanons instead of Thorki but oh well that’s another story). He doesn’t need defending. He’s Chris Hemsworth.

But what does need defending is my good taste, my dashboard, my aesthetics. My wish to keep my mind free of toxicity and hate.

Don’t expect the fans to respect Chris, they hated him all along. They hated him from the minute the film was named “Thor”. They hated him from the minute Thor was the rightful heir to the throne. They hated Chris because he was too laid back for them to bear. They’ll hate him when he does something right and they’ll hate him when he does something wrong. 

Hate is limitless. Hate takes no effort. Hate comes for free. 

So you see, as a Chris Hemsworth fan you’ll be getting waves of hate, whether it’s for Ragnarok because it was the film that he deserved, or for Thor surviving instead of Loki, or because of him cancelling appearances in Shanghai and Seattle. Of course I won’t discriminate between Loki fans who hate Thor/Chris and Chris fans who think they own him - they’re both just as entitled and toxic. 

But no matter where the hate comes from, it just shows you how easily a fandom can be ruined.

Don’t let them. These people know nothing but spite, jealousy and hate. 

You know better.

So, word to the wise: do not visit the tags. Do NOT. I know we have a right to have a clean Chris Hemsworth tag blah blah blah but this is a jungle and you can’t expect respect or justice from entitled haters. I stopped visiting the tags long ago.

Follow the blogs you like and let them find all the content you need. Make your own content. But do not go to the tags, I repeat, do NOT go to the tags.

And the minute you see a blog you follow posting Chris hate, scram. Opinions are like a-holes in here, we all have one. 

Just because a blog is popular doesn’t mean they’re right, doesn’t mean you have to believe their headcanon for Chris. Make your own headcanons about him, post them, find like-minded people. Haters are not the majority. Haters are just louder than the rest. Don’t let them fool you.

Enjoy your tumblr experience and always remember: Chris is here to stay.

P.S.: are you really in London? Do say hi if you spot him, he’s coming your way. ;-)

[silentauroriamthereal]

I hate Mary Morsan too

When I first saw this, I thought about just saying something like, “yay, high five!”, but then I reconsidered. Expressing hate for any woman, even a fictional one, is always a bit troubling for me. I truly am a feminist to the core of my being, and as someone who is known for writing the character of Mary as I truly see her in the canon, I’m already uncomfortably aware that people see me as a Mary hater. Johnlock shippers have been getting this since 2014 now: if you hate Mary, it’s only because she gets in the way of your ship, and the Johnlockers hate all of the female characters in Sherlock.

The second is patently untrue. That said, I’ll allow that Moffat and Gatiss are notoriously poor at writing female characters. (This has been well covered in many articles.) They, Moffat in particular, have a troubling way of aligning the concepts of female power with abuse (Irene uses sex to extort people for the terrorist she works for, Mary shoots people when they threaten to show her for the assassin and criminal that she is, even Molly and Mrs Hudson resort to violence in so-called moments of “strength” - Molly with her slapping and Mrs Hudson pulling a gun and handcuffs on Sherlock before having a bunch of men throw him into the trunk of her car). Moffat and Gatiss have an issue when it comes to writing a well-rounded, believable female character whose entire purpose doesn’t revolve around the male main character(s) and doesn’t come off as… well, a man trying to write a woman. That said, filling things out and making them work is also part of the joy of writing fanfic, and I, along with many other Johnlock writers, have definitely done my best to do that. I’ve even given several women on Sherlock their own stand-alone stories, told from their points of view, even Mary! If you’re curious: 

Janine POV: The Green Carnations

Mary POV: Moving on/Making do (split between Mary and John’s POVs), Stand-in, Want (split between Sherlock, John, and Mary’s POVs)

Molly POV: The Red Roses, The Clouded Eye (split between Molly and Sherlock’s POV)

Sally Donovan & Mrs Hudson POV (first and last sections of Inappropriate)

Irene (not her POV, but definitely featuring her): From the Bottom of the Well

I’ve done my best to round these women out and give them credit where credit is due, whether or not I personally like them. I didn’t make them two-dimensional. And I didn’t write them the same every time (for those whose POVs I wrote more than once), either! Molly in The Red Roses is vulnerable, strong, self-sacrificing, and brave. Molly in The Clouded Eye is manipulable, jealous, possessive, yet (I hope) still understandable, pitiable. The point, ultimately, is the same as with any character: to be able to see their complexities, their depth, and to observe their actions objectively. 

People wanted so badly to like Mary. They wanted to love the strong woman that John Watson chose to marry. I didn’t see any hate leading up to series 3 at all, neither toward the character of Mary Morstan, nor toward the person who played her. I saw open-mindedness and a wiliingness to take her into the collective fandom heart. For me, I was always wary, I’ll admit. I thought from the start that it was a mistake to take such a miniscule role from the original canon and make it such a big deal. I thought then that Moffat and Gatiss were trying to stomp out the Johnlock ship and rumours of their queer-baiting. Surely if John got married, we couldn’t possibly see it as gay anymore, right??? I saw their choice of actor as a deliberate attempt to parry the natural chemistry Benedict and Martin have onscreen, and I thought then that it was an overly desperate attempt. I maintain that to this day: I think it backfired. But that generosity of spirit was there toward Mary, even after series 3, for the most part. I saw many, mahy Johnlockers try to include Mary as part of a newly-formed OT3. I saw them identifying with Mary, trying their very best to love her. 

Many of them still may. I don’t. For me, feminism means being seen as a human being first, and if a person’s experience as that type of human being has meant some kind of persecution or prejudice or abuse, it helps understand their actions. But not to excuse them. It doesn’t make it okay to murder people if you manage to look cute while doing it. It doesn’t make it okay if you did it to protect your own interests. That’s just selfishness, and defending it isn’t feminism. That’s just making excuses. Mary is a person who, in some unexplained backstory, chose a career wherein she kills and gets paid for it. She worked, to quote her, for the highest bidder. It wasn’t something she did out of a moral position, for love of country, for self-defense, for a cause, however just, as a cog in some great war machine. She didn’t do it do defend people she loved, or innocent bystanders, or children, or people too weak to defend themselves. She didn’t do it for some satisfying and long-deserved vengeance: she did it for money. Tawdry, dirty, blood money. And then she built a mountain of deceit, fed it to a man who was grieving, his trust broken and all but lost, and sold him a house of lies. And when his clever best friend discovered her, she shot him in cold blood, threatened him while under the influence, and hunted him down like an animal to put an end to him. 

Pardon me if I don’t find that “cute” or “strong” or anything I feel like modelling myself after, anything I would want young women or my own nieces to look up to and admire. 

I’ve talked about this before, but Mary is also extremely problematic in terms of blurring where the moral centre of Sherlock and John is. The thesis of the show has always been that Sherlock and John are damaged, problematic people, but ultimately good men. Ultimately, they’re on the side of the angels. Mary isn’t. Mary is on the side of the terrorists. She’s on the side of whoever will pay her the most to be on their side. In a way, that’s almost worse. Sherlock may “flirt” with Moriarty or Irene (though I always saw it as pretty one-sided on the latter) in the same way that he flirts with danger, with addiction, with obsessive behaviour, but he would never align himself with any of them. He may admire a clever plan, but his far greater fascination and draw is to the plain goodness of John Watson, extraordinary in its very ordinariness, yet it’s hardly ordinary, either. John can pull off making it look ordinary, but for someone who’s been through what he’s been through, it’s amazing that he IS still, ultimately, despite his own problematic behaviour, a good man. He and Sherlock both are, and it’s what they admire in each other, calling one another things like the best and the bravest and the kindest. That’s what they both seek, temporary fascinations with the devil they face every day in their line of work notwithstanding. Mary and Irene are both faces of this evil that Sherlock and John oppose. It’s the way things are: Sherlock and John are on the side of the angels. Mary and Irene work for the terrorists. Having Sherlock and John align themselves with Mary is incredibly problematic. 

I maintain that everything about Mary Morstan was a mistake. It was a mistake to bring her onto the show, a mistake to try to make her 1000% more interesting than she ever was in the original canon, and certainly a mistake to have had John go back to her, to have had him and Sherlock put themselves on her side, to have made themselves accomplices to her crimes by the very act of helping bury her past. It was a mistake to then not see her arc through the way it began, her irritating ghost appearances bearing no resemblance to her canonical behaviour, and her proprietary brokerage of Sherlock and John’s friendship completely out of place and undeserved. 

So yeah: in a response that’s probably 5,000 times longer than you were hoping for (apologies!), it takes a lot to make me admit that I hate another woman, even a purely fictional one. But Moffat and Gatiss succeeded on this one. I do hate Mary Morstan. I hate her because she’s an unrepentant murderer and liar, a narcissist whose only motivations are what she wants and feels would be good for her, and did everything in her power to tear Sherlock and John apart, and failing that, to outright kill Sherlock or manipulate him into killing himself. I see absolutely nothing admirable about this character and am just so glad she’s off the show. I wish she’d never been there in the first place. 

[its-a-queer-thing]

Season 7 Deleted Scenes!

First and foremost, i'm freaking out. 

I'm delighted that they originally did address him going with Mickey, and I want to break this down because I feel like Ian haters are probably going to have a field day with this. 

Video

Notice the way he's trying to be so dismissive about his experience. As though he's trying to convince himself that what he was doing was stupid, but when I look in his eyes I do not see that feeling there. I see an emotional wall that we see basically anytime something doesn’t work out. Both families in the show have a habit of dismissing what doesn't work out as stupid or unnecessary or otherwise undesirable so that they can put themselves above the hurt that disappointment inflicts. And I think that's what he is doing here. 

Ian has never really expressed how he feels about Mickey to Lip. Through the whole show, the only exception is when he talked about Mickey getting married and blurts everything he is thinking and feeling clearly without thinking about who he’s talking to... but look at what happened when he did that. Lip dismissed how Ian was feeling and dismissed any validity in Ian's feelings about Mickey. He told him to go fuck someone new, remember? He wasn't concerned about Mickey’s safety after Ian told Lip what happened with Terry, wasn't concerned about Ian’s feelings for Mickey... He just told him to get over it. Any time that Lip talks down about Mickey, Ian never defends him and I've maintained to this day that the reason is he doesn't want to start that argument because he knows it's going to get ugly if he ever does try to defend Mickey. I think Ian just always told himself that he knows the truth about Mickey and that’s all that matters. This situation is no different. 

When Lip asks why he didn't do it, Ian immediately looks hopeful that maybe Lip supports him for once. He looks hopeful that maybe someone will agree that he made a mistake in not going with him across the border. Of course that is way too much to hope for with Lip, and Ian quickly realizes that mistake when Lip says of course he shouldn’t have gone with him, that he was surprised he didn’t finish out the trip. But notice that Ian second guessed. He probably had been battling this since Mickey took off without him. I saw it when he was on the busride home, and was disappointed that it wasn’t addressed from there... But it was!

Now notice Ian’s smile as Lip is making fun of how pale he is and what he would have had to do to survive down there, and Ian almost looks fond at the thought. Like he would have been glad to do that because that was the last of his worries at that moment. I think that Ian also smiled fondly because Mickey teased him about burning up like a mother fucker (even though Mickey is kinda paler than Ian???), and also because he can see it. I think Lip being so descriptive about what he would have to do down there for his skin is putting an image in Ian’s head and to me he almost looks longing, like he would have been completely satisfied with doing all of that if it meant being there with him.

  I don’t think that I need to say anything about Lip’s line about Ian going “loco” with Mickey around... But I’ll say it anyway and I swear I’ll try to make it quick. We all know that the only reason it appears Ian went crazy when Mickey was around was because Ian was manic before anyone realized that he was manic. Of course I would love to remind Lip that Mickey wasn't the one shoving narcotics down his throat or up his nose, he wasn't the one who got Ian a job at gay gentlemen's club, and Mickey wasn't the one who told him to steal a helicopter. Mickey wasn't the one who told him to steal his baby, Mickey wasn't the one who told him to steal suitcases, he wasn't the one who told him to do basically any of the things that Ian did when he was manic. I don't blame him for those things and neither does Mickey, because he was unmedicated and out of control of his actions. It's just really damn annoying that everyone puts the blame on Mickey when Ian’s life goes wrong, as though Ian played absolutely no role in it (and might I add that nothing in Ian's life really went wrong before he was manic due to Mickey, either. Mickey didn't really affect his life except giving him someone his own age to hang out with and have sex with. He was punched by Terry, but I think that's pretty minor compared to everything that Mickey suffered Pre 3x666 indirectly due to Ian. Getting shot twice, going to Juvie twice, being outed twice...) I’d also like to add that of course it would look like Ian went crazy whenever Mickey was around because NO ONE ELSE WAS AROUND IAN WHEN HE WAS MANIC SO OF COURSE IT LOOKS LIKE THAT WHEN MICKEY IS THE ONLY ONE AROUND HIM!!!! *deep. breath* 

i'm going to go ahead and wrap up because I feel like this argument is obvious, and add it to the list of times that Lip tore Mickey down for absolutely no reason. 

At the very end of the deleted scene, after Ian very excitedly relayed that the sex with Mickey was "fucking fantastic" (of course we all knew that... ;) ), Lip says he's glad Ian came back, and as the scene ends, Ian doesn't look so sure. The clip I have looks minorly incomplete so I don’t know if that was definitely the end of the deleted scene, but that teeny glimpse we do get definitely doesn’t look like Ian is super happy to be home.

  My overall thoughts on the scene are that I am very resentful that they cut this, even moreso than the 5x01 deleted scene, but I think they did it because they knew the direction they were going to take with Ian chasing Trevor, at least in the beginning. And I think they included it on the DVD, i'm assuming that's where this person who uploaded the scene got it from, because they want to bait Gallavich fans into watching season 8. I think they want us to see that look on Ian's face, and hear the way that Ian loved his time with Mickey, and hold on. And I don't know if I'm delighted or disgusted, it depends on where they go with season 8, I guess. 

I want to know your thoughts, reblog, comment, send me asks, but I want to know what everyone else thinks about this. I think this is a really important scene that they excluded from season 7, and I'm very frustrated by that.

[kaelinaloveslomaris]

Hi, I’ve been visiting your blog recently after I read “Allegiance”. I’m really enjoying the story and seeing how it will end. I love that you love Luke! There’s something I’ve been meaning to get off my chest for a while.

It really hurts me when people say that the saga is about Anakin. Perhaps if the prequels were better I’d agree.  As it is, I don’t give a shit about Anakin. It’s Vader who’s interesting. I’m happy to dispense with the prequels altogether. Whatever emotional impact they have is dependant on the original trilogy. The original trilogy stands on it’s own.

For me, the OT primarily the story of Luke becoming a Jedi, and redeeming his father in the process. I’ve seen Luke-haters try to diminish him with “ It’s all about Anakin”. Even George Lucas seems to throw his own original hero character under the bus. People disparage Luke because he’s not “cool” like Han. He’s not bloody meant to be! I’ve seen people criticise his lightsaber skills and sneer at his Jedi abilities when compared with other famous Jedi. I think they totally miss that what makes him a great Jedi is his compassion, and his ability to bring out the best in people. His bravest moments in the films involve him renouncing violence/ the dark side. I think that makes him an unusual hero despite the archetypal aspects of his character. He will always be the hero of the saga to me,  Anakin be damned.

I know Luke fans love his redemption of Vader. I also love his redemption of Han!  Luke throws Han disappointed looks with those baby blue eyes, and Mr “I look out for number 1” becomes someone who voluntarily enters a deadly space battle and charges blindly into a blizzard!

I disagree that Luke should be unmarried. He has so much love to give. He missed out on a relationship with his father. I think it makes narrative and poetic sense for Luke to have all the attachments that the old Jedi and his father couldn’t.

That’s the end of my vent! Thank you for your blog. I really appreciate it as a Luke fan.

Kaelina here:

I'm glad you're enjoying Allegiance.

I agree that the original trilogy can stand on its own. It did for years before the prequels were made. I'm not going to argue with that. I'm also not going to argue against Luke being the main character of the OT. He definitely was, and if the OT was all that there was to Star Wars, then he would be the MC of the whole story. But it is difficult for him to be the main character of the saga when he hadn't even been born yet for the first (chronologically) three movies. If you look at the movies I-VI as one big story, it follows Anakin/Vader from his beginnings through his time as a Jedi, his fall, his time as a Sith, and his redemption. The second half of that is definitely through the eyes of Luke, and Luke is the MC for the second half of the story. It is about Luke's journey to become a Jedi and help save the Galaxy. But it's also about him playing a huge role in the larger, overarching story about Anakin/Vader. Saying this in no way diminishes his importance, or diminishes his role as the main character of the OT. It's just saying that if you view all of I-VI as one story, then Luke’s lens is what's used to tell the second half of it.

I also want to say that Anakin and Vader are the same person. I am also far more interested in him during his time as Vader and his relationship with Luke than before his fall and his relationships with Padmé and Obi-Wan. But you can't really say that you don't care at all about Anakin if you're going to claim interest in Vader. Vader is Anakin. Anakin's experiences shaped who Vader became.

And I will defend Luke against anyone who tries to tear him down. He embodied what the Jedi were supposed to be, what Anakin defined in AOTC as the essential Jedi trait: compassion. Yes, Anakin was trying to justify his romantic attachment to Padmé and used it as a cheesy pick-up line, but he was expressing a very accurate sentiment. The core of who Luke is is unconditional love for others, and it's that love that saves his father and the Galaxy.

As far as Luke remaining unmarried goes, if he wants to get married, good for him, go for it. He rejects the old Jedi's views on non-attachment as far as friends and family go; he would also extend that to romantic relationships. I just tend to view him as aro-ace, and completely uninterested in that kind of a relationship. That's why I don't see him ever getting married. Not because he shouldn't be able to or somehow doesn't deserve it, but rather because I don't see him being interested in it.

And I say all of this with the understanding that everyone is entitled to their own interpretations and opinions. These are just mine.