#text and subtext

[jurph]

I think if you look at all of Joss's shows & movies, you can find his self-insert in every one of them, and Joss spent the better part of a decade "telling on himself" in the text through those guys. Day in, day out, writing these characters who were (ostensibly) "treating women right" even though they didn't really understand them. (But then note how much of Joss goes into his villains, too, like Loki, who is So Clever With Words that he can call her a "mewling quim" in a PG-13 movie and get away with almost calling her a cunt, on screen. Oh, that's the writer getting away with it--)

He's always always always telling on himself, because he knew that his behavior was predatory, and every time his heroes or villains are on screen talking about what's the right way to behave, they're always saying that sometimes, if you're really important enough and charming enough and trying to do good things, it's okay to be secretly monstrous... or even to be proud about some of the monstrous parts of yourself.

--all of which is to say, his level of self-awareness as he wrote those pieces? It would probably take a couple years of therapy to get to the bottom of that particular mystery.

I feel like I’m going to go to my grave without figuring out if Dr. Horrible is deliberately a condemnation of the geek-flavored version of toxic masculinity that would, years later, play a significant part in the resurgence of open white nationalism and the like in America, or if Joss Whedon is just a dumbass who wrote an extended callout post for himself on accident

[sinverse]

finally watching supernatural (yes, in the year 2024) and god you destiel girls weren’t lying huh

they really ARE that gay

[drulalovescas]

We've come a long LONG way

And so did Jensen to be honest

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

i vote that next year instead of reading Dracula we do a Jeeves & Wooster Book Club. those two never got the rabid tumblr shipping fandom they deserved (disqualified for the sheer technicality of being published a century too soon). we must correct this injustice

[saltedbirdcat]

The way the costume department deliberately gave Elphaba this style so it looks like Glinda did her hair so they’d match I’m going to combust

[snailpass]

finished the Book of Bill

[vaguely-concerned]

I still can't believe that bioware has morrigan tell you a whole story about how as a kid she came upon a girl she thought was so beautiful that it rocked her entire world and awakened new and bewildering longings in her (longings which by their very existence angered and perturbed her mother)... and then they have the temerity to ask me to believe she's straight

[sarahthecoat]

good one to re read!

i have a feeling that if/when s5 comes out, the beginning of the first episode will give us all even worse whiplash than the opening of s2 or s3, where all those thing we obsessed over during hiatus and thought "this HAS to be addressed" just... weren't.

except they will be, just not the way we expected.

part of me is just hoping i live long enough to see it, and that it's even more surprising and wonderful than i could imagine, and part of me is dreading how many fans will (again) rage-quit because it isn't what they expected. when in so many ways the whole show has been about being unexpected. with mixed results, i grant you.

time will tell.

Culverton Smith & the Golem

So, if the five pips in TGG correspond to the five (planned) series of ‘Sherlock’, then we have to talk about characters used as foils:

The Golem kills people by squeezing the life out of them with his hands. So does Culverton Smith.

The Golem is a giant (like in a fairy tale). Culverton is a dwarf (like in a fairy tale…well, he’s shorter than a Hobbit, at least:) ).

…Aaaaand John struggles with both the Golem and Culverton to save Sherlock’s life.

Oh, nice teeth, by the way…

The Golem is an assassin. Culverton is a serial killer.

The Golem has to hide, constantly, because his appearance alone would give him away. Culverton Smith hides ‘in plain sight’.

The Golem/fake painting case is the 4th (!) pip in TGG. The Culverton/fake series is SERIES 4!

(Please excuse the TAB screenshot. TGG didn’t have actual orange pips, just acoustic ones. Hence this shot.)

The 4th pip in TGG starts out with John being angry at Sherlock. TLD starts with John and Sherlock having ended their friendship because John is angry with Sherlock.

Is there more? Yes, there’s loads more under the cut…

The 4th pip starts with John blaming Sherlock for the death of the blind woman. TLD is about John blaming Sherlock for Mary’s ‘death’ - Mary…the, erm, shortsighted woman.

When the 4th pip case in TGG starts, John basically thinks Sherlock is an unfeeling sociopath who doesn’t care for what happened to the blind woman. Sherlock even says, “Oh, you’re angry with me, so you won’t help. Not much cop, this caring lark.” Which is pretty much the plot of the first half of TLD when you think about it. 

Basically this is all still about, “Don’t make people into heroes, John. Heroes don’t exist, and if they did, I wouldn’t be one of them.” (Transcript from Ariane de Vere).

The fourth pip in TGG is all about s4!

“This whole case has a distinctly Czech feeling about it. Is that where this leads?” Sherlock asks Ms Wenceslas. And then s4 is all about that East (!) wind coming.

Also, women as baddies…

Oh, no, hang on! There’s one villain missing…There, I’ve fixed it for you:

Anyway, where was I?…Ah, yes…

The 4th pip is s4 in a nutshell! The whole of series 4!

When Alex Woodbridge, a character mirroring Sherlock, is found, he had been submerged under water for a long time. Series 4 is all about, “Deep waters, Sherlock, all your life. In all your dreams.” (Note that this could support EMP theory or some sort of s4-is-all-a-dream theory.)

In TGG, the 4th pip has John say about the Golem, “It’s a horror story, isn’t it?” And series 4 is a horror story! Both to us, the viewers, who were literally horrified by it and because of it’s blatant use of horror film tropes.

(Seriously, I could have gone with any screenshot from s4. I picked The-Ring!Eurus from TFP. But references to the horror genre started in TST already.)

The 4th pip in TGG is series 4 in a nutshell.

Remember what Sherlock told Ms Wenceslas:

“It’s a fake. It has to be. It’s the only possible explanation.” And then “It is a fake. I don’t know why, but there’s something wrong with it. There has to be.” And then we (collectively) as a fandom went nuts after TFP aired, trying to prove that TFP was a fake because it just HAD TO BE!

(Was that Anderson in TEH? Oh, I though that was us after watching TFP…)

By the way, the scene on the left is also where Sherlock tells Ms Wenceslas, “The art of disguise is knowing how to hide in plain sight.” This is literally what Culverton Smith is doing in s4. (It is also arguably what Mofftiss are doing with us as they hide the fact that s4 is fake as hell.)

And what is the clue to the painting being a fake? The supernova!

The painting in the 4th pip case is a fake because there’s a supernova, a ‘dying star’ in it. And TFP is fake because it’s all about a dying John (Sherlock’s dying star). 

(For those who subscribe to EMP theory, the whole of s4 is fake and Sherlock’s the one who’s doing the dying.)

The hostage in the 4th pip case is a child, and that kid is notably absent for most of the story, except for a disembodied voice at the very end of the case. Just a voice on the phone. The child at the very end of s4 (on the plane in TFP) is just a voice and not real. 

(Bonus: John’s daughter is in an odd Schrödinger’s cat-like state of being-there-yet-also-being-non-existent-absent throughout s4. Is she even real?)

Other people have already pointed out how the countdown in the 4th pip case stops at exactly the same number as the countdown in TFP when Sherlock tries to shoot himself.

And how does the 4th pip case end in TGG? How does it all segue into the 5th pip? With Sherlock and John in a half-destroyed Baker Street flat. Sounds like the end of TFP, no?

From there it transitions smoothly into the 5th pip case. Ergo, THERE WILL BE A S5! You know it, I know it, and they know it, too.

Mark Gatiss’s whole song and dance about s4 possibly being the last series is a lie. And the ‘finale’ (TFP) is a fake ending.

And judging by the 5th pip in TGG, a future series 5 (or possibly ‘The Lost Special, if it does indeed exist) will be about John dying. It will be about John being in mortal danger.

Judging by the 5th pip, they will then both end up in mortal danger very quickly…

…and Moriarty will somehow be involved.

Because Jim hasn’t really been in touch lately, has he? I mean, he hasn’t been in series 4…just like he hasn’t been during the 4th pip case in TGG, where John and Sherlock even commented on the fact that the bomber was strangely silent until eventually they got that call at the very end, but even there it was a child’s voice, not Jim’s. 

Just like series 4 which is all about that fake child that binds John and Mary together. Moriarty doesn’t even need to be there. The child is the gun; just like amo (love) is the ammunition.

Note that right before the 4th pip case transitions into the 5th pip case, Sherlock is questioning someone’s paternity here, “Look at the turn-ups on his jeans!”

My guess is that John’s fake child will be a major theme in s5 (or possibly in the ‘The Lost Special’, if that thing exists.)

Also, note how the 4th pip case in TGG ends in an exercise in keeping up the heterosexual façade. John takes off to go see his girlfriend, and Sherlock lies to him by pretending that, yes, he will eat that risotto in the fridge when we, indeed, know that he won’t have sex eat anything and will be lonely.

Well, and how does s4 end? With the heterosexual façade preserved. John is still the grieving widower with his child and that ring on his finger, a straight widower who comes to visit Uncle Sherlock, and Sherlock pretends that these visits are enough for him and that, yeah, everything’s hunky-dory, never been better.

That closing montage at the end of s4 (TFP) is as fake as Sherlock’s lie at the end of the 4th pip case, just as the 5th pip case is about to start.

This s4 montage is as fake as their ‘happy’ goodbye in TGG when John stalks off to go to his very, very female girlfriend and Sherlock is absolutely, not at all, in no way lying about eating that risotto in the fridge.

We all know what will happen during the 5th pip case: *Boom*

Also: “Jim from IT. Hi!”

Also: Sherlock’s (and Jim’s) past is going to get dragged up from ‘under the water’ of the swimming pool.

Aaaand: Sherlock and John are going to talk about ripping each other’s clothes off.

So, technically we know what s5 (and/or ‘The Lost Special’) will be all about, yes?

The rest is fake. Like John’s heterosexual façade at the end of the 4th pip case in TGG. Fake. Like when they assume ‘the bomber’ will now leave them alone and Sherlock will just eat that risotto in the fridge all alone in his cold flat.

Why are Mofftiss doing this?

Well, in their defence, I think they’re not doing it to piss off their fanbase. They’re taking the piss out of the media and the casual viewers. They knew their fans would be too clever to fall for this ruse.

They even told us so, using the voice of Ms Wenceslas during the 4th pip case in TGG:

“I mean, really: brushwork immaculate, could fool anyone… Well, nearly anyone.” Mofftiss never intended to make us angry. They weren’t making fun of us. They were making fun of all the media outlets and casual viewers out there, of the fools that could be fooled. Not us. They knew we would be cleverer than that. “…Could fool anyone…well nearly anyone…”

Because in the end, they fooled (nearly) everyone by using Culverton Smith’s strategy, not the Golem’s.

In s1 the subtext was still hidden in the way the Golem tried to hide himself. The subtext could only be found by the Homeless Network (us!). 

In s4 the subtext is so blatantly in-your-face that they’re using Culverton’s strategy; they’re hiding their intentions ‘in plain sight’.

The difference between the Homeless Network (us!) and the media that are watching Culverton’s ‘in-plain-sight’ routine is that the Homeless Network is clever and recognises a Golem when it sees one in the dark. The media are stupid, and they don’t recognise a Culverton even when he’s hidden ‘in plain sight’ right in front of them.

My meta about the sculptures and paintings on “Sherlock” can be found: HERE.

All screencaps in this posts came from here. (Except for the s4 promo pic, which is, of course, the cover of the s4 DVD.)

Transcripts from Ariane deVere.

[professional-rat-eater]

Kinda insane that in the show that is rooted firmly in its use of the unreliable narrator trope, it seems all too common that:

1. People believe Armand had to have turned Daniel out of spite just because Louis said so.

2. Armand was lying about Lestat being attracted to him, a character who is known for being alluring and attractive.

I wonder what the common denominator between those two things are? So anything anyone says about Armand is true, but everything Armand says is automatically a lie? Okay, sure.

I guess it bothers me because Assad is so beautiful and he nails how charming and seductive Armand is meant to be. Why are people so determined to deny that characters in-universe might find him attractive? No one had an issue believing it in the books. He also captured the fragility and very real vulnerability Armand exhibits in fleeting moments. He’s such a gorgeous character and it sucks to see people overlook Assad’s work.

If you came away from season 2 thinking Armand is a “moustache-twirling villain” as I believe Assad(?) put it, whose every action is rooted in callousness and pure evil, you are watching the wrong show. There are much worse characters than him and even they are layered and complex.

Yes, Armand is evil. Yes, he did terrible things. Yes, he lies often. But he is not the Big Bad a lot of people pretend he is and not every word out of his mouth is a lie. There is so much more to him and why he acts the way he does. The actors have said so, the show-runner said so, the writers said so, the books said so, the show itself said so. Read between the lines please. Or just read the actual lines. It’s not even subtext.

He’s morally grey like everyone else and he’s going to have a lot more screen time so if you insist on hating him, I’d prepare yourself for that. He and Lestat have a very real history. It’s just a little weird how people purposely mischaracterise him (and all the other characters in the process). He’d be so boring if he was the one-note villain many seem to believe he is.

[superbat-love]

Lex contemplates how he, like many others, is drawn to Bruce’s animal magnetism despite the man’s efforts to make Lex dislike him. He knows how passionate Bruce truly is behind the mask.

Then we’re shown Superman when he’s talking about Bruce’s desire.

And Lex wonders if he could fill Bruce’s hole.

[fandom-related-me]

ITS FUCKING NUTS ITS CRAZY BRUTAL EVEN I MEAN that scene in which the night nurse shows Charles his most painful moments and keeps asking why would you want to stay in this place that only hurts you? Why would you stay in a place that only beats you down when you try your best? And the answer plain and simple is showed in the flashback of his death is EDWIN. There’s nothing but Edwin who made his death sweet and as comfortable as he could, who turned a nightmare into a precious memory, what would be scary into fun and awe and what would be cold and lonely into warmth and friendship.

[sarahthecoat]

hmm. one thing i learned about Reading Subtext, over the years, is that sometimes when the surface reading doesn't make sense, it's more about the subtext than the text. ie, put the effort into digging out the subtext, rather than trying to mash the surface into something that does add up on its own. so treat each of those little ????? snags as a handle with which to peel back the surface and look at what is underneath.

Sooo in Episode 5 of S2 at the end when Crowley asks Muriel to arrest him he says that “I’m a demon with knowledge of a crime against Heaven.” Have we ever talked about this? What crime against Heaven? Sure he could be saying this so he gets “arrested” but idk….maybe it’s just the penchant to read into all the things in this season?! If he’s referring to Gabriel’s escape I wouldn’t think he’d see it as a crime per se. Especially since Crowley knows about “the something terrible” and probably understands why Gabriel had to get out. I’m just on my nth rewatch and over analyzing, but please hit me with theories and metas if you’ve got ‘em!!

[the-mpreg-guy]

every day i think about the fact that fan fiction said "yeah destiel is SUBTEXT but do you know what's canon? cockles" and then never spoke about it again

[drulalovescas]

They really pulled no punches

And Missouri was a psychic. She KNEW

[lazybakerart]

insane choices horikoshi made #too-many-to-count:

“If there’s anything that could bolster Izuku Midoriya now, it would be…” -> cut to literally izuku being rescued by and looking up at bakugou who’s never looked that pretty once in his gremlin life before now taking up the entire page

[sarahthecoat]

wow, terrific insights! yes! (but also, hurts, cos it's about holmes missing his bestie)

And here it is that I miss my Watson. By cunning questions and ejaculations of wonder he could elevate my simple art, which is but systematized common sense, into a prodigy.

HOLMES. He has done it again. This reminds me so much of the beginning of the story where he writes:

The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action which I can recall in our association. I was alone.

In both cases, the longer sentence could technically be read as criticism (or a compliment!) or irony, thus taking away some if the rawness of "I was alone" and "And here it is that I miss my Watson".

But. But then Holmes says "my Watson" (an expression he uses often!) which is so clearly indicating that they still belong together, Watson may be married but he's still Holmes's Watson, at least in Holmes's thoughts ... And although he has brought his strange new doctor friend, he could not replace his Watson or even only his unique skill set.

This is often a feature of the cases, but I also think it's weird how abruptly the story is over. Clearly, for Holmes it's Case Closed - end of narrative. But the thing that strikes me is that we don't learn anything about Dodd's reaction. Won't he be overjoyed to learn he will be reunited with his friend? (No, because there is no reunion between Holmes and Watson.) And why is there no real conclusion, only the suggestion that the symptoms might be psychosomatic?

But is it coincidence? Are there not subtle forces at work of which we know little? Are we assured that the apprehension from which this young man has no doubt suffered terribly since his exposure to its contagion may not produce a physical effect which simulates that which it fears?

This case openly suggests a psychological explanation, and sorry, I can't stop think about the Holmes/Watson mirror (Emsworth was shot in the shoulder), and how Watson is married and how Holmes is alone ... And society keeps them apart, because no matter whether they were in any kind of romantic or sexual relationship, for two bachelors to live together for so long must have been a bit suspicious (and let's not forget the "combination of events, into which I need not enter,").

This story's leitmotif is the search for a lost friend, and the whole last paragraph seems to me to speak of how internalised prejudice makes you sick. We never see the social outcast who was shunned by society because of a alleged "disease" actually return to a regular life. We don't know if it will be possible. Holmes will certainly go home alone.

Oh, I really wonder what Watson thought when he read all that.