silentauror's Blog, page 138

Me in every Teams meeting ever… like why is that button even there, lol

Me in every Teams meeting ever… like why is that button even there, lol

starstuffandalotofcoffee:bring back Georgian-era sentence structure. fuck this single clause...

starstuffandalotofcoffee:

bring back Georgian-era sentence structure. fuck this single clause Hemingway bullshit; I want to string the reader along for pages, to link, however disparate, an endless array of actions using every form of punctuation I can imagine - even those I rarely use - and generally be as incoherent as possible (though it is to be said that this is for internet and casual use, and not for increasing the impenetrability of research papers, a far less noble goal than the one I proposed).

This is literally the only way I know how to write, lol. My social media posts are like this. My damned TEXTS use semicolons. I only wish I were kidding.

So, a question about Mary inspired by your recent post. I know you hate her (I think she is horrible too), but is she a character that you love to hate? Do you think she is an interesting character? Does she fit a role she is written to play? There are

Interesting question. I would have to say no, though. For me, what makes me appreciate a character in any respect is a combination of things, such as how interesting I find them, whether or not their motivations feel clear and well-founded, consistency, continuity in writing/characterization. Sometimes other factors, like how sympathetic I find them, or how likeable or admirable I find them in spite of agreeing wholeheartedly that the character is a terrible person from every moral standpoint. Some of these things are more subjective than others. From where I’m standing, the BBC version of Mary Morstan is severely lacking in a lot of these areas, but most sorely in having well-founded motivations and consistency/continuity. I don’t find her to be a well-written character, at all. Let me break this down a bit.

1. Do I find the character likeable in spite of moral flaws (and is this important)? No, to both. There are definitely villains that I do find likeable in spite of obvious moral failings. The obvious comparison in the BBC Sherlock world would be Moriarty. He’s obvious a terrible human being - a literal terrorist - but he’s so damned charming about it that you almost can’t help but root for him, in a way. Loki in the MCU universe is rather like that. Other villains, like Benedict’s Khan, are sympathetic not because they’re charming, but they’re intelligent and have genuinely understandable motivations (the safeguarding of his crew, for instance). Does a villain have to be likeable to be a well-written villain? Absolutely not. To use two other examples in the BBC Sherlock universe, I would cite both Magnussen and Culverton Smith. Horrible men. Good consistency of writing. Not charming or sympathetic in any way, but solidly written characters. Do I love them/love to hate them? No. I just dislike them, full stop. 

2. Do I find her motivations well-founded or sympathetic? No, neither. Mary is a character who, canonically (aka this bit is not subjective to my personal opinion): 

lied about her name, background, personal history, all of it, to the man she claims to love, never apologized for it or demonstrated any manner of remorseis canonically someone who kills people and destabilizes governments (at the very least) for personal gain, never faced any consequences in terms of criminal justice or retribution for these crimes or indicated any manner of remorse for them attacked her own maid of honour - a person whom she befriended for the sole reason of gaining access to her boss’s office - and left her bleeding on the floor, never demonstrated any manner of remorse for this, eitherher motivations are weirdly unfounded. The best example of this is her choice to shoot Sherlock rather than Magnussen that night. Her initial motivation was to ensure Magnussen’s silence so that John wouldn’t find out who she really was/so that she wouldn’t be forced to face justice for her criminal history. Shooting Sherlock did nothing to ensure Magnussen’s silence. If she intended Sherlock to die, it would have ensured HIS silence, but not Magnussen’s. If she didn’t intend Sherlock to die, then I’m not sure what it accomplished, since the very first thing he did once he was physically able was to tell John - exactly what she didn’t want. And it still did nothing to ensure Magnussen’s silence. She just left that wide open and instead made the extremely overboard choice to shoot the best man at her own wedding (not hugely worse than attacking the maid of honour, but still). She could have tried appealing for his help, using compassion for John as a persuading factor. She could have tried threatening HIM at gunpoint to guarantee his ongoing silence. Instead she went straight for the heart, quite literally. Unfounded and ineffective - a really irritating combination! 

3. Do I find the character consistently written with solid continuity? NO. This is probably my biggest beef with the character. The worst, I find, is being sold a crock of horseshit about Mary having had some sort of redemption “arc”. An arc, by definition, is a shape that has a beginning, a peak, and an end. There was no lead-up to this “peak” moment of Mary suddenly discovering remorse for having shot Sherlock - that, and nothing else. There was nothing in the writing or in her characterization to support such an out-of-left-field move. There was no gradual shift in her motivations, which were consistently to that point nothing more than self-preservation, protecting her own interests: keep John in the dark so that he couldn’t make an informed decision for himself, tell any lie to keep what she wants (John, albeit an ignorant version of him), run away/protect herself. She deserted her AGRA teammates, leaving literally half of them behind to suffer torture and/or death without even confirming that they were beyond rescue, then repeated her pattern, attacking Sherlock (AGAIN) and running off to leave John and her own child behind. Her lack of remorse for any of this was consistent as well - she clearly felt wholly justified in all of these actions, that she had nothing to apologize for. That JOHN was the one in the wrong by not speaking to her for “months of silence” after she shot his best friend in the heart, that she had every right to dictate what John could or could not do, that he had no right to have a say in naming their child, that she somehow “had” to shoot Sherlock, that John and Sherlock were so much less intelligent than she was that she couldn’t have them “hanging off her gun arm” - when in fact, it was John who outsmarted her by planting the tracking device in the USB key that he already knew she would attack Sherlock over and steal. 

4. Do I find the character admirable, if not likeable? No. Mary is a coward, interested in nothing beyond what she wants. She has no noble, greater motivations than personal gain. She doesn’t care about what consequences her actions have, least of all on the man she supposedly “loves”, or on her own infant that she left behind. She commits crimes for money, not out of some need to defend the innocent, patriotic reasons (which I personally don’t subscribe to anyway, but others do), self-defense, even - just money. I find that so completely gross. Money =/= an admirable motivation, especially not when it’s gained through literal murder. I admire honesty, courage, self-sacrifice, real love, which puts the needs and wants and health of the beloved above one’s own. Mary demonstrates absolutely none of these things. She wants for herself and no one else, and I have never once swallowed this notion that she’s somehow smarter than Sherlock, Mycroft, and John combined. Not only did John himself outwit her with ease, but it felt like transparent pandering to Amanda Abbington as recompense for them writing her out of the show. And then they doubled down on it with creating some ghost version of Mary that John needs some SERIOUS therapy to deal with that actually bore no resemblance to Mary as she actually was, then gave her that gross voiceover that reasonlessly granted her credit for having created one of the greatest friendships in English literary history. That, at least, is consistent with the writers having had Mary set herself up as the broker of John and Sherlock’s friendship in TEH, which I also never bought. They didn’t need her help; John just needed time to cool down and come to understand - he couldn’t even last 24 hours without going to find Sherlock of his own accord. They didn’t need her “help” and she certainly didn’t “create” them. 

So yeah, no: I hate the character, hate the inconsistency even more, wish they had followed through with the solid villain arc they actually wrote. I don’t think that Mary is “strong” or “interesting” just because she uses violence for personal gain. I don’t think she’s a good role model or an interesting character - I just see selfishness, greed, and cowardice. 

Oh my gosh yay!!! My little story The Green Carnations just...

Oh my gosh yay!!! My little story The Green Carnations just attained its first 10,000 hits!! Now, look: on the surface, this looks like a Sherlock/Janine story, but it’s not, I swear! It’s set during and after HLV, written from Janine’s perspective and going through her journey of meeting Sherlock at the wedding, starting what she thought was a relationship with him, all the while suspecting his feelings for John, being attacked in Magnussen’s office, and everything that follows. It’s still very much a Sherlock/John story, and I really had fun writing Janine in this. :) Thanks to any of you who might have read this one and especially if you liked it, haha! Thanks for giving it a shot! :)))) 

so, i just finished reading "Against the rest of the world" in one sitting and while I'm impressed by you description of the secret intelligence service's fieldwork (I'm actually starting to suspect that you've been working for an SIS yourself but it's

Bahaha! During the two (admittedly brief) months I lived in Germany, I practically lived on the trains and I never once had one not leave on time! I guess the autumn of 2012 was unusually good that way or something?? But especially contrasted with French trains and such, where they won’t even tell you what platform it’s leaving from until 30 seconds before the train actually pulls out, it seems quite amazing, at any rate! :P 

*assumes air of mystery, ignores comment about secret services* >.>

(I’m glad you found the story so binge-worthy! Good luck on your test!) 

ceruleanmindpalace:Inksolation # 15 - CautiousSherlock had...

ceruleanmindpalace:

Inksolation # 15 - Cautious

Sherlock had been sneezing all day, so John insisted
on a mouth cover.

 

Watercolour, A5

Do not post
this on other sites/social media or use in any other way without my written
permission.

This is fantastic! The purple mask of sex, to match

aviss:One thing that pisses me off a lot is the fact that the world is not made for single people....

aviss:

One thing that pisses me off a lot is the fact that the world is not made for single people. Ignore the fact that everyone and their dogs think it’s wrong not to want a partner, I’m talking about practical things.

I’m talking about rent and mortgage in a city like London with only one salary. Yes, it’s exactly as hard as you can imagine. Not easy on a single salary unless you’re senior management level, want to commute two hours each day, or you are lucky enough to have your landlady be your best friend. Or you don’t mind living in a shoebox pretending to be a studio. Otherwise, you’ll be in a shared house.

I’m talking about holiday and travel, where either you go to hostel dorms of pay double price for a room in most hotels. And there are no packages for one, or barely any, and they are in singles holidays where the objective is not so much travel but stop being single.

I’m talking about doing shopping and producing more food waste than I’m comfortable with because everything comes in bigger portions than one person can reasonably eat. Even with freezing more than half of everything there will still be something that goes off because you were too slow to eat it if you do shopping once a week. Or you have to go shopping every couple of days and eat the same those two days.

It’s not enough to have all media telling you you’re wrong for not wanting a relationship, the entire world will try to push you into forming one by making it too expensive to be single.

This, so much. And no matter what you accomplish personally or professionally in any other way, no one will ever give you an entire house’s worth of fancy new kitchen things. Yeah, I’m salty about it.

holmezyan:The people at John and Mary’s wedding are so random…like, who the heck are...

holmezyan:

The people at John and Mary’s wedding are so random…like, who the heck are they?

Based on Sherlock’s double-sided list, they’re a whole lot of people who don’t like Mary. Lol.

Fic’s at 26,500! :)

Fic’s at 26,500! :) 

iam-koaochun:

iam-koaochun: