thoughtfullyfloatingpizza

Latest Posts by thoughtfullyfloatingpizza

Explosion of San José during Wager's Action. Wager's Action off Cartagena, oil on canvas by Samuel Scott, 1747

postcards of shipwrecks ca. 1900s-1930s

;_;

But like, what if there was an alternate universe with soulmates and when you come of age, your soulmate's name appears on your wrist. And the name 'Holmes' appears on Molly's wrist and when she meets Sherlock, she jumps to the conclusion that he's her soulmate. She's confused and hurt when he consistently rebuffs her advances. How can he be so cruel if he's her soulmate?

But plot twist--her soulmate is the other Holmes brother: Mycroft.

That sweet modest face as a reaction to "this is my brother Mycroft" 😍

Mycroft Holmes aka The Iceman

when you think starting a second fic will fix the block with the first one but you just end up with two unfinished works

When writing a character struggling with shame

Shame isn’t guilt. Guilt says I did something bad. Shame says I am something bad. It’s corrosive. It rewrites self-worth. And most of the time, it whispers, not screams.

✧ Start with silence. Characters carrying shame don’t confess it on page one. They avoid. They deflect. They joke. They become perfect. Shame thrives in secrets. Let it fester before it speaks.

✧ Show the disconnect. They don’t feel lovable, even when they are. Compliments bounce off them. Praise feels like a setup. They think kindness is a trick. Show them flinching at affection.

✧ Give it a backstory. Shame doesn’t appear from nowhere. Maybe they were told they were too much. Not enough. A mistake. Shame is always planted by someone else, then internalized. Find that origin moment and make it hurt.

✧ Let them sabotage good things. They get a healthy relationship? They run. They succeed? They downplay it. They get seen? They shut down. Shame convinces people they don’t deserve good things and they’ll act accordingly.

✧ Body language matters. Hunched shoulders. Arms crossed. Averted eyes. Shrinking into themselves. Shame has a physical posture. Write it.

✧ Watch their inner voice. Shame doesn’t sound like “I’m the worst.” It sounds like “Why would they care about me?”or “Of course I messed it up.” It’s casual. Constant. Cruel.

✧ Make healing slow and clumsy. Shame doesn’t vanish after one pep talk. It takes safe spaces. Relearning. A lot of awkward baby steps. Let your character accept one small good thing and then panic about it later.

✧ Let them rewrite their own story. Eventually, they’ll have to look at who they were and say, “Even then, I was trying. Even then, I deserved love.” Let them get there. Let it be earned. Let it feel impossible and then let it happen anyway.

I hate when the fixation starts dissipating and what was once like a super power of writing/drawing/reading gets swept away by the proverbial tornado that is real life

SEASON 1, EPISODE 3 | THE GREAT GAME (1/3)

ladies meme → favourite female character in a male-driven show

↳ Molly Hooper: Sherlock

“I don’t count. What I’m trying to say is that if there’s anything… I can do, anything you need, anything at all, you can have me. No, I just mean… I mean… If there’s anything you need. It’s fine.”

the temptation to rush fanfic endings is so incredibly strong for me that i'm in physical pain thinking about stretching this next chapter out into two more.

I think of you so often you have no idea.

James Joyce; Ulysses

practice BBC Sherlock

“Public libraries are such important, lovely places!” Yes but do you GO there. Do you STUDY there. Do you meet friends and get coffee there. Do you borrow the FREE, ZERO SUBSCRIPTION, ZERO TRACKING books, audiobooks, ebooks, and films. Have you checked out their events and schemes. Do you sign up for the low cost courses in ASL or knitting or programming or writing your CV that they probably run. Do you know they probably have myriad of schemes to help low income families. Do you hire their low cost rooms if you need them. Have you joined their social groups. Do you use the FREE COMPUTERS. Do you even know what your library is trying to offer you. Listen, the library shouldn’t just exist for you as a nice idea. That’s why more libraries shut every year

because i know what that means, looking sad when you think no one can see you.

me: I write for myself, not validation

also me after posting a fic *refreshes ao3 every five minutes*

(two things can be true)

The British Government himself is so done.

Spring Thaw

Mycroft Holmes was asked to choose between country and family. He chose country. So why now, six years later, does he find himself flying halfway across the world to attend Julia Baxter's funeral? And what will he discover there?

He remembered her smile.

The way her cheek dimpled just before her lips curved upward. Often her smile was accompanied by a laugh so infectious even he could not resist returning it. She smiled often, so it was written across his memory in indelible ink. 

The first time he saw her smile was across a conference room table in Brussels. The German delegation had made a comment obliquely insulting the intelligence of the American delegation, to which the Americans had taken offense. The French delegation had swooped in to smooth things over, with little effect.

Exasperated, he had glanced across the table at the Americans and caught her eye. 

Her cheek had dimpled and she ducked her head to hide her smile. 

He’d been enchanted.

He’d found her after, when they had taken a break for lunch. She was a junior delegate, as was he (at least on paper). He’d made a droll observation about the thin skin of her senior counterpart which had earned him another smile. Then she’d said something, and he could never remember what exactly it was (He! Mycroft Holmes had forgotten!), which had made him chuckle. The smile his chuckle induced had dazzled him.

This was a very long time ago. Twenty years, at least. Back before Sherlock had discovered drugs, when he was still a gangly young teenager much too interested in pirates than most boys his age. Back before Mycroft had known about Eurus. Back when things felt simpler and the future hopeful.

The close relationship his office had with the Americans ensured they crossed paths often over the years. He couldn’t deny that when he knew he would see her across the table from him, he felt a thrill. He treasured the looks they exchanged, the tiny eye rolls of exasperation, the little nods, and most of all, her smiles.

She was attracted to him. He’d realized that at once. It took him longer to decide if he was attracted to her too.

In the end, he decided he was.

She wasn’t a conventional beauty. Short, a bit heavier than her peers, a square jaw, liberally freckled from head to toe, and fiery hair. But her mind was sharp, and her humor even sharper.

Being together, having a relationship with any sort of stability, was impossible in their line of work. But when they did cross paths, it was inevitable that she would find her way into his bed, or he into hers. 

One night (they’d escaped a New Year’s Eve gala they’d been forced to attend in London), she'd asked him that if he had to choose, which would he pick: country or family? Uncle Rudy had died by that point and the burden of the secret of Eurus lay squarely on his shoulders. So with his sister's pale face and accusatory eyes at the forefront of his mind, he'd answered country without hesitation.

She'd hummed thoughtfully and he’d had the unpleasant, unfamiliar, sensation that he’d failed a test.

A month later the reason behind her question had been illuminated when he learned she had retired from the civil service due to “a family matter.” Her mother, he knew, had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis a few years prior.

What must it be like, he'd wondered at the time, to feel such a strong obligation to a member of one's own family? But then the next month Sherlock had overdosed for the first time and he understood.

It would have been six years ago. Six years and twenty one days ago.

Mycroft swirled his half-empty glass, the ice clinking.

He hadn't opened the folder since Anthea gave it to him.

Childish, perhaps, to avoid it. Some sort of misplaced belief that if he didn't look at it, it wouldn't be true.

But he was not a coward.

Decisively, he set his glass down and snapped the folder open.

There it was in black and white.

Julia Baxter was dead.

Continue reading here...

Lane & Joan  +  t o u c h

“… I’m terribly adrift without you…”

I was trying to be kind.

Molly Hooper

Home library of the late Richard Macksey, legendary Hopkins prof.

Mummy Holmes

I’m going to go ahead and put it out there: there’s something off about Mummy Holmes. I’ve always thought so. And the last time a character irritated me from the get-go, I was right, so I’m going to go with it. Before we met the Holmes parents, a lot of people thought that they must’ve been pretty bad, and then we met them, and we were like, “Oh, never mind.” But I’m thinking we weren’t so far off after all, at least with Mummy. 

First, the thing that is not the thing:

I’m aware of the Holmes parents mirroring Sherlock and John. This is not about that. This is specifically about Mummy Holmes’s personality. I’m not saying she’s evil or a villain or anything; I just think there’s more to her than meets the eye because some of the things she says are a little off. 

Now, the thing:

Mummy wrote The Dynamics of Combustion, which is a spin on ACD Moriarty’s The Dynamics of an Asteroid. That alone makes me think there’s something more going on with her. I don’t think she’s “the real Moriarty” or a villain or anything like that; however the fact that she's so much of a bigger character than the father tells me she’s important, at least in Redbeard aka The Other One’s death.

About Sherlock and Mycroft’s parents, Steven Moffat said:

“Any time anyone has ever speculated on the parents of Sherlock Holmes they say he must have had a cold and loveless childhood. But that’s baloney! Sherlock and Mycroft are not the kind of kids who would have resulted from cold and loveless parents. Timid, frightened children are the product of loveless homes. Adults who are completely confident and don’t mind being different from everybody else, that’s the product of a very, very loving home life. That’s the product of someone always being told, “Doesn’t matter. You don’t have to be like anybody else. You can be who you are. Just be who you are.” This is what Sherlock’s been told, possibly too often given how he turned out.” (x)

And for some reason, everyone just decided to take Moffat at his word, because it’s not like he’s ever lied about anything. Sherlock isn’t completely confident. In fact, he’s very insecure: he thinks his only value is his utility. So I think this quote is misleading at best - I don’t think Sherlock came from “a very, very loving home life.” I don’t think it was horrible - but there are situations in between “blatantly, horribly abusive” and “perfect,” and Mummy Holmes is really not very nice.

Let’s start with the big one, the scene everyone thinks is so funny:

This is all very amusing, except that it’s actually not. Smoking is bad for you and she’s their mother and wants them to be healthy. But Sherlock and Mycroft are approximately thirty-five and forty; if they want to smoke, it’s no longer her business. They’re not doing it in her house. They courteously went outside. She can tell them that she wishes they wouldn’t, that she’s worried about them, that she’ll help them quit, but she can no longer spy on them and chastise them like they’re five - which is exactly what she does. She can no longer act like they’re not “allowed to;” they’re adults: they’re allowed to do whatever they want as long as it’s within the law and not in her house.

This is similar - although definitely not as strong - to the patronizing behavior we got from Mary in TEH and TSoT - and she turned out to be a villain, so I’m not dismissing it. We’ve been reading it as amusing that these two very independent and competent men can still be reduced to children by their mother, but I don’t think we’re supposed to - because it’s really not amusing at all. Mofftisson respect Sherlock and Mycroft, so any character who doesn’t is at least a little suspect: Irene, Mary, CAM, etc.

And Sherlock’s reaction is pretty telling:

He’s so proud of himself for getting away with it. But there’s the thing: he shouldn’t have to be. That’s how a kid would react because they can't just say “Yes, I am smoking and it’s really none of your business.” But Sherlock is an adult; he can. But he apparently doesn’t think he can: the speed at which Mycroft and Sherlock turn around and have their lies ready means that this is not an infrequent occurrence; they were expecting it. At thirty-five and forty, they were expecting their mother to spy on them.

Sherlock sometimes acts like a kid, but Mycroft? The fact that he’s doing it too means this is an ingrained behavior for both of them that they can’t tell Mummy the truth because she doesn’t respect their choices.

I’m not sure Sherlock even notices this because it’s so normal for him, but Mycroft definitely does and he doesn’t like it:

MRS HUDSON: Your mother has a lot to answer for. SHERLOCK: Mm, I know. I have a list. Mycroft has a file. (x)

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