#the unnecessary amount of homoeroticism

[lokiiied]

oh my god. watching loki ep. 2 high and istg it’s like this episode was written by mark gatiss & steven moffat like- every fucking scene i can equate to a scene from sherlock and the dynamic between lokius is so johnlock coded, loki = sherlock and i now understand fully why i love lokius so much. they are everything, my otps.

[anakirui]

Do you Any Anakirui headcanon’s?

I only had some Anrui headcanon

-An would usually ask Rui to help her with her homework

-Rui would usually visit where Vivid Bad Squad perform just to see An

-An would occasionally gave Rui some Soda Candy just to make him stop from blowing up the school

-Rui almost went unconscious for seeing An picture as a baby (death by cuteness lmao)

-That one time An almost square up with the subway chef for keep putting vegetable into Rui foods even he asked them not to

Some Mizurui headcanon too

-Rui would usually check all the cameras he set all over the school in case if Mizuki plan to do the thing that they did in multiple Mizuki Angst

-Mizuki will usually ask Rui to help them with their homework

-Rui almost broke a bully teeth by shoving a can of soda into his mouth because he dare to bullying his dear Mizuki

-Rui and Mizuki would occasionally go to MMJ concert,Rui favorite idol is Haruka

-Mizuki would sometimes invite Rui to shopping with them to improve his horrible fashion taste

these are good headcanons! i especially like the one about an giving rui soda candy... maybe she also offers him ramune too, since that's his favorite drink!

as for my headcanons

-> in an's first year and rui's second year, i think rui sometimes started trouble intentionally just so an would chase after him, and then they'd get an opportunity to interact. an didn't realize this and rui felt guilty about doing this for a while, and eventually told an that he did this. she found it absolutely endearing, much to his surprise, and now much to his chagrin, he gets teased about it by her ALL the time lol

-> an and rui had to pass the Big Sister Ena Screening Test in order for ena to approve of akito dating them. initially, akito intended on keeping who he's dating a secret from ena, but she walked in on him picking out an outfit for a date, leading to him being forced to tell her due to her pushiness. this led to an easily passing the test because ena already knows her and thinks she's great. as for rui... i feel like they had beef and didn't really get along, but ena changed her mind when she learned just how important rui is to mizuki (and probably also how he's helped mafuyu).

-> every single anakirui date consists of rui wearing his usual messed up horrible taste in clothes, an wearing her normal everyday clothes, and akito getting dressed up to an unnecessary amount just because he always wants to look good on every single date (anrui think he looks attractive regardless, though)

-> rui managed to get akito to do a small show with him just once. akito did not anticipate the sheer amount of homoeroticism rui put in the writing

-> akito can't go one day without one of his hoodies or jackets being stolen by an or rui

-> an, whenever possible, clings onto akito or rui like she's a koala. koalan is real

-> sometimes, during sleepovers, rui has trouble sleeping. usually an or akito will hum rui to sleep in that case, because their voices are soothing to him

-> akito mainly shows affection via physical touch. he's also not used to saying the words "i love you" due to not hearing it much in his life. this contrasts with an and rui, who are more vocal in their affections despite being a bit awkward about it simultaneously. consequently, akito became used to being told that he's loved by them, and one day blurted it out to try and show his affection back. anrui died emotionally that day (they were so surprised and happy).

-> rui (being alloromantic) was completely confused by the sheer amount of times akito and especially an talk about their partners kohane and touya— so much so that he thought that they (anakirui) needed to add them to the (romantic) polycule. but he was then informed of the fact that anhane and akitouya are in queerplatonic relationships, so they're all a polycule in a different way... which even if rui can't relate to those kinds of feelings, he Obviously is fine with it

these are only some of them, but i hope you enjoy them!!!

[leojurand]

silly lymond ranking after the reread 🫶

6. queens' play:

this was my least favourite book in the series when i read it the first time, and unfortunately revisiting it didn't change that... it reinforced it. on reread i realized part of it is that i don't think this book is very exciting? there are some amazing, fun sequences (roof chase ofc), but overall i would say it lacks spark, if that makes sense. i think it's inevitable for me to not be head over heels in love with this novel because, especially compared to book 1, i don't think these new characters are that compelling. i don't really care about phelim; my favourite thing about oonagh is the way she's described (and man, do i not care about the fling she has with lymond...); and even though i think the robin stewart subplot is the best part of QP, i also don't have a lot of feelings about that guy specifically? great storyline, wonderful homoeroticism... still zero attachment to robin stewart.

the first time i read it i also thought there was way too much thady b stuff. i wanted francis crawford! but the second time around i appreciate it more, and i noticed that we actually get a fair amount of rare lymond pov in this book, which is very interesting.

so, this is either my least or second to last favourite dunnett novel. still really, really good!

5. the ringed castle

dorothy. i'm sure you did so much research about russia and russian ambassadors and the english court with mary and elizabeth but. did we have to read so much about all of that? i think dunnett is usually very good at showing the historical events and historical figures in an interesting way, but man. she failed here. especially with the english court and the russian ambassador, i could Not care less!! and another thing about this book that really misses the mark for me is philippa's characterization. i don't understand why she abandons kuzúm so suddenly and without a second thought. i dislike how she's so incredibly gorgeous and smart every man around her falls for her. i really don't like that she starts quoting literature in other languages so we see how very perfect she and lymond are for each other. it doesn't work for me at all.

i'm making it sound as if i hate this book lmao but that's not true!! i actually find lymond's character very compelling here. i'm not bothered by his cold behaviour towards everyone because i get it. i love the st mary's men in RC too. danny is perfect, and adam and alec are incredible here. the diccon chancellor storyline is heartbreaking and as horrible as it is i love its conclusion. and the crawford family drama... it hurts me in the best way possible.

so this novel has some things i very much appreciate, but some parts i'd want to skip in the future (spoiler alert: these mixed feelings will continue with the next entry)

4. checkmate

hoooo boy. okay so. this is (probably, maybe) the most popular book in the series. i know many would consider it dunnett's magnum opus. and i unfortunately disagree completely. not because i think this book is bad. i think in many ways it is exceptionally good. the prose here is unparalleled. in the first 70% of CM the drama is very engaging and keeps you reading and picking up the book again and again... even if, like me, you don't really care for this drama specifically. it's that well-written!! i fucking love all the francis/sybilla drama, as unnecessary as it may seem. i fucking love marthe and jerott's fucked up lavender marriage and their very different but equally complicated feelings for lymond. AND THE WRITING IS SO GOOD i have to say it again.

but this romance? not for me. i really tried on reread, but still couldn't get into it, sadly. i hate the misunderstandings... philippa thinking lymond was in love with güzel, and then with kate, and then that his feelings for her were only sexual. for someone so smart she wasn't thinking clearly at all.

i could forgive that easily, though. i can't forgive what happens to philippa at the end of part 4. just awful plot-point. even i, not a fan of philippa, think that was character assassination. i don't know why dunnett did it... i guess it was a popular thing to do in histfic, or in super dramatic stories in general. but i hate it. i don't like the part at sevigny, either. maybe most of all, i hate the ending, how rushed it was, philippa healing magically, lymond brushing off marthe's death and completely ignoring jerott because he's too busy having sex. wtf

and i would still give this book like, a 4.5/5. this is dunnett magic do not ask me about it i'm not a rational being!!!

okay, those three are the books in the series labeled with "complicated". these next three have all my love (or most of my love (looking at you TDK))

3. the game of kings

this book. THIS BOOK. you know those edits of cats crying surrounded by heart emojis. that's my every time i think or talk about GoK. i love it so, so much. it's not perfect but it's beautiful in all its flawed glory. on reread it was more noticeable that this was dunnett's first novel, simply because she gets so much better. but wow, what a debut novel! it's a little convoluted and heavy-handed, but it has so much charm and heart. at one point, more or less halfway through, it's almost impossible to put down. and, love him or hate him, francis crawford of lymond has has an insane gravitational pull. it's impossible not to want to know what's behind the mask.

in conclusion: game of kings my beloved

2. the disorderly knights

now this book. it's kind of crazy? definitely because this is the start of the gabriel duology, which is undoubtedly my favourite part in this series. TDK feels like a soap opera to me, maybe because of the insane levels of drama, maybe because the characters that get introduced in this book (jerott, gabriel, joleta) are so incredibly beautiful they almost make lymond seen like a normal guy.

and i eat it up! i love the insanity and drama! i think it's all so, so compelling. gabriel is scary in a way that very few villains i've read about are. he really feels almost invincible, despite being an ordinary human being. i love the moments where lymond loses his cool because gabriel is such a relentless antagonist. very painful, very fascinating.

most importantly, JEROTT. jerott blyth is my favourite character in this series and he's so. perfect in this book. like, he's terribly flawed (jerott don't throw that rock. jerott), but god, what a character. by far my favourite pov in the series and no one else comes close.

i have so much praise for this book i could talk about it endlessly but there's one caveat: joleta. dorothy why would you do that. why???? joleta's storyline is so uncomfortable to read. her character is so tragic, but it seems like we're supposed to hate her, and we're supposed to side with lymond when it's revealed that she... was abused by other adult men... ??? i'm so glad adam, alec, and i think jerott? do see her as a victim, and lymond as the one with all the power, but everyone else? idk. just very bad, and one of the moments where the series really feels like it was written in the 60s

but other than that. this book fucking rules

1. pawn in frankincense

i've talked about PiF so much i feel like i don't have any words left to describe it, but even if i hadn't talked about it at all i would still feel like no words can describe how much of a masterpiece this book is to me.

i've mentioned before that jerott is my favourite LC character, and he's arguably the main character in this book. he even mentions the title when talking about himself!! i'm both very surprised and not surprised at all about how unpopular jerott is among the veteran fans of the series. sure, he's very flawed and somewhat unlikable, but he is so compelling, so complex, so well-written, he's become one of my all-time favourite characters.

not only that, there are two other main/major characters in this book that also became all-time favourites: lymond and marthe. the lymond/jerott/marthe is one of the best this i've ever read and this is where it starts. literally dorothy was insane for that one.

from the very first chapter until the last one, PiF doesn't give you time to stop and breath and calm down. maybe my favourite beginning in any dunnett novel. and the fact that pawn's move isn't widely considered one of the best chapters in literary history? unbelievable

is this book perfect? no. is it still the best thing that has been written and will ever be written by a human being? yea :)

[mild-lunacy]

TFP and The Transgressive Writer's Problem

I mean... the thrilling thing about writing this one was the transgressive nature of it. It was like, well... we're not gonna have a pun in the title: it's The Final Problem. We sent a message saying: 'look out!' And really, from the moment Mycroft reveals what's inside his umbrella, you kinda go, 'oh shit!' And that was thrilling, wasn't it? It was just like, well... you know, we wanna present it as if there's absolutely no way back. And so once you've got that in your head, it sort of becomes this succession of things, and... sort of, the modular nature of the problems, and then the rug pulls of, you know, 'she's in charge', and the glass and everything.... It was just a thrill to do, because it had such a 'finale' feel to it.

-- Mark Gatiss, the BFI screening of The Final Problem.

You know, I do believe in Ivy's approach to Authorial Intent: it's effectively not there, so don't worry about the things you will never really know about. But well... sometimes the things the creators say are too interesting and enlightening to ignore. So I'm definitely still thinking about this.

This may ultimately be partly why you have posts like @marsdaydream's, claiming that much of S3 as well as Series 4 in general (and TFP in particular) defies analysis. If analysis depends on predictability-- or a certain *kind* of continuity, understood to mean that the narrative behaves within firmly established rules-- then I can see why TFP (and TSoT, certainly TAB, not to mention TLD) would all present a problem. As I said in my earlier response specifically about TFP shifting the genre, the genre of BBC Sherlock has always been a lot roomier and more flexible than people seemed to think, and we've been moving in the direction of more and more dramatic 'rug pulls' for quite a while. Still, TFP is definitely when anyone can see 'there's absolutely no way back', as Gatiss said (naturally ignoring a major, extreme retcon). This extreme shift was clearly not 'thrilling' for a lot of fans, though I think I had the intended response of edge-of-my-seat excitement at the time. But what did Gatiss really mean by TFP being 'transgressive'?

This is where I find that the context of @notagarroter's TRF to TFP mortality arc meta really helped me understand and put it in context of Sherlock's arc in general, as I did yesterday. Basically, as @notagarroter points out, there are many cues that something very different-- and disturbing-- is afoot. It's not just that reveal of what's really in Mycroft's umbrella, as Gatiss mentioned, but the fact that we're in this sterile, artificial environment away from Baker Street and London in general, and there are no typical visual cues of BBC Sherlock; there's no case, client or even texts on screen, not to mention Sherlock's classic deduction sequences. 'Vatican Cameos' probably didn't work for the first time just to further the effect, at least in part: that feeling of 'oh shit!' The entire episode opens with a horror movie-style sequence! It's clear that the narrative is trying to unsettle and discomfit the audience, leave the viewers off-kilter and open to anything. Specifically open to the idea that 'anyone might die'.

I definitely find that frame very helpful, but I think it goes deeper than that. They're not trying to just up the suspense, but to make the audience question what we think we know about these characters on a much deeper level. Both the viewers and John himself had already spent TST upending our understanding of Mary yet *again* after her sudden self-sacrifice, and people like @archipelagoarchaea quit the show because of that sudden shift. Basically, John hating Sherlock for something he didn't do, letting his issues with Mary fall by the wayside as he realized he'd been so unhappy and frustrated with his marriage while Mary took the high road and expected him to be a better man, as @ivyblossom described to me. We then spent TLD learning some uncomfortable truths about John, and a lot of the compiled fan responses to John's violence were both negative and purely disbelieving, claiming his psychological break was either simply OOC or perhaps in-character but unnecessary or unsuitable for a Sherlock Holmes story. Of course, I think both John and Sherlock's characterization has only opened up and blossomed in many ways through all this drama, as Ivy has written about so eloquently, but for many viewers, there was already 'no way back', and that's too terrifying and disorienting to enjoy, especially with beloved characters. While the alternative of gentle stasis isn't necessarily desired, and people do want some growth, I definitely think there are intended to be limits; the audience wants to be reassured of things like Sherlock Holmes won't die, or John Watson would certainly never beat him. The needs of continuity are sometimes invisibly overwritten by the concept of predictability.

I guess I really think the idea of the 'transgressive' story, and what that means and how it can possibly be done well merits sitting with and thinking about open-endedly. Assuming that Moffat and Gatiss *wanted* the audience to be disoriented and disturbed-- as narrative transgression has the unique power to accomplish-- TFP becomes a fascinating case study of the needs of the story for continuity. This, as opposed to the ends of the writers in experimenting with a diversity of structures and approaches. Finally, we have the needs of the audience for *predictability*. More to the point, as any experimental writer learns, stylistic experimentation isn't what sells. Fluff, action, smut and/or romance and above all, pure consistency is what really gets you the audience in numbers.

Obviously, a lot of us wanted to see that sort of 'rug pull' translate to canon Johnlock, and we looked forward to others' disorientation. There's certainly some schadenfreude in that. But the actual experience of extreme disorientation, especially in a long-running and well-established series, tends to not go well for most people, who seem to develop a set of expectations about the narrative the longer it continues. I remember people being very upset at the 'rug pull' endings of Lost and HIMYM, for example. I definitely think these are valid responses. While I can see both plot and characterization continuity in Series 4 in general and TFP specifically, what TFP really interrupts is the comfort of the viewers' *emotional* continuity. We just... place emotional value in certain things: it's our Baker Street, our London, and it's even our Belstaff. Questioning the foundation of the narrative we're experiencing in fiction is only slightly less traumatizing in fiction than it would be in real life, especially if you thought you had an expected and well-ordered pathway ahead, and I empathize with anyone to whom it feels like gaslighting, as in @delurkingdetective's post. To Gatiss and Moffat, it's their show they're playing around with self-indulgently, though perhaps particularly for Mark Gatiss. He enjoyed 'flirting with the homoeroticism' in the show, so he did. He never felt the need to justify himself, and you could certainly argue that's because he didn't. The writers get to write their own story their own way, and then the audience decides.

As a writer myself, I'm torn between the idea that the story needs to follow the natural process of its own logic and the demands of its characters, and the idea that you're there to shake things up. It's not that you can't 'shake things up' and remain in-character (as I'd say TFP still has done), but any experimentation with the preset 'narrative settings' can leave a sort of weirdly artificial or meta feel that the audience can pick up on. In TFP, you can get the sense that the drama has been paced awkwardly, stylized to the point that it becomes self-consciously artificial, as in @plaidadder's critique. The classic Holmesian format of the character arc driven, episodic plot style of narrative logic is inherently conservative, I think, being what @porcupine-girl has called the 'archplot' based story. Conversely, it figures that privileging the plot, the pacing or the 'thrill' of the reveal will eventually lead to stuff where the audience sees a conflict between the needs of the story and the character they saw in their minds-- and to overcome this reluctance would take more time than a fast-paced story would allow. And so, here we are: it seems like transgression was the real villain of Series 4. That's what makes it feel *fake*, basically.

Initially, I addressed this critique by saying that one essentially can't have a rational response to saying that a narrative 'feels' wrong, but perhaps that's not quite true, given you have something like Gatiss acknowledging he set out to induce this response in the viewers, more or less. In retrospect, this is why long-form structural continuity (or the 'archplot', which is at least 60% about John and Sherlock's interpersonal relationship) really is so important to follow through on explicitly rather than leaving the emotional satisfaction of resolving Sherlock's arc to implicit or hinted-at scenes between TLD and TFP. The audience would follow along with the gaps if they were explicitly pointed to first. Gatiss would probably consider this 'warm paste', but if you're writing for either a wide enough or an analytical audience-- and Sherlock fandom has both in spades-- a certain amount of warm paste might help the thrills last.