Achrioptera punctipes punctipes
The most colorful phasmid in the world.
Ridiculously pretty!
Since her death in 1979, the woman who discovered what the universe is made of has not so much as received a memorial plaque. Her newspaper obituaries do not mention her greatest discovery. […] Every high school student knows that Isaac Newton discovered gravity, that Charles Darwin discovered evolution, and that Albert Einstein discovered the relativity of time. But when it comes to the composition of our universe, the textbooks simply say that the most abundant atom in the universe is hydrogen. And no one ever wonders how we know.
“
| — |
It’s not by Jeremy Knowles, though — it’s from an article by Dara Horne in Science. |
Taken 2/29/12 in the Oval Office - Live Long & Prosper!Someone emailed this to us with the subject line: “Tumblr worthy?” Yes. We would say so.
EPIC. niq niq niq do we add it to the remaster?
So I wanted to talk about some stuff. Ahahahahaha MUST BE A DAY THAT ENDS IN “Y”!
First some background, because I have been wanting to make this post for a couple days. This all starts with sophistory saying incredibly smart, bang-on things about canons with heavy slash fan followings, and then getting misinterpreted in deeply sad ways, and then replying by saying things that were even more incredibly smart and bang-on. I wanted to reblog these smart, bang-on things, but I was at work doing what I usually do at work, namely reading Tumblr on my phone, and the smart bang-on things in question were in an ask reply, and I can’t reblog ask replies from the interface on my phone. So I posted it as a quote! Which then got reblogged by a bunch of people who… maybe didn’t read the original source? Which you should do because it is absolutely right fucking on.
So anyway, sophistory, I am sorry if I have brought the collective stupid of the internet down upon you in any way, because that post was the fucking best. And since sophistory posted, I have been thinking about something that I have talked about a lot in chat with Ink and Tay and others, about the handling of John and Sherlock’s relationship in Sherlock, and specifically the “no homo” crap, and now I think it is time for me to post about it!
What aggravates me is when canons deliberately queer-bait, flirting with homoerotic tension and then laughing about it and going, “No homo!”; when they ruthlessly exploit the popularity factor of slashiness without ever allowing their central ~BROTP~ to really, actually, just for once, be textually gay - and when fandom lauds that as progressive and queer-friendly.
“
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Truth, truth, truth. sophistory (x) [gins says, “can I get a woooorrrrrrrrrrrd?”] (via fizzygins) |
OH HOT DAMN. THIS IS MY MAN.Oh god it’s Benedict on a motorcycle. Oh god. Oh dog. I. I. I CANNOT EVEN. CAN’T. HANDLE. THIS. MADNESS.
His hair is shorter, his jacket leather, but it’s the motorcycle that makes him unrecognizable. Under the helmet, the rider could be anyone. His ride is loud, unsubtle, and no one would ever dream this was a man attempting to avoid detection. An excellent disguise, so plain in sight that the only second glance leveled his way was one of appreciation or envy.
He’s accustomed to that now. It’s been difficult, but he’s taught himself to ignore, to not engage, to - most difficult of all - keep quiet and never mention the unending flood of information the world insists on pelting him with. No more interacting. Even when he recovers his helmet from the local gang of bored teenagers, he doesn’t do much more than scoff and glare. Alone is what he has, alone is the only thing he has out here, tracking down the remaining shreds of Moriarty’s network in this deceptively idyllic locale.
It’s what he has until the moment John Hamish Watson decides to take a holiday abroad.
This is the exact moment alone because loneliness.
Terror as well. The terror need not be forgotten, not when John is so close to those who would destroy him. And Sherlock as well, but he’s had more than enough time to acclimatize to this notion.
It’s possible Sherlock immediately begins to stalk his old flatmate.
It’s possible Sherlock begins to stalk him relentlessly.
On Day Two of this, Sherlock realizes this is unfeasible. Less from the noise of the bike, but more from John’s appreciative eye toward it - and him. Sherlock has followed John back to his hotel, sits on his motorcycle and quite obviously checks his own watch before looking up and down the road, clearly waiting for someone, clearly not there for John. John seems to be there for the same reason - curious - and it’s not long before John’s attention wanders to the man on the motorcycle.
The helmet is all that saves him. When John looks straight at him, when John runs his eye down Sherlock’s body with a small yet excellent smirk, the helmet is the only thing that saves them both.
Sherlock immediately swears to keep his distance from now on.
Sherlock immediately changes his mind.
Not out of sentiment - never out of sentiment, not even for John - but because the man to meet John at the hotel, the man John greets with a smile and a wave, the man who answers with a familiar “how’s the shoulder?”, that man is Colonel Sebastian Moran.
I LOVE YOU, BEN. <3
Love you too!
And now:
Sherlock can’t follow them inside, not without removing the helmet, but he can loiter. He loiters until he has a plan. He loiters a bit longer still, until he can see Moran’s back through the lobby window. Time to move.
The next day, he moves on foot. He goes to a cafe for breakfast, back to the street, and the reflection in the cafe’s window is sufficient. He knows John’s jackets, John’s walk. And after months of tracking the man, he knows the same of Moran.
Why together? Why here? John mustn’t know who that man truly is, cannot know. It is not possible for John to know. What is this, some ploy to frighten Sherlock off? A declaration that Moran knows Sherlock to be alive and wants to hold John hostage?
Indecision holds him hostage as well, watching the pair walk away, steps in sync. Military gait, unconscious on John’s part, likely deliberate for Moran. Clever use of body language, an alliance of movement. Sherlock trails them across town, through the park. They stop, hands in their pockets, shoulders close, and watch a fountain. Sherlock leans against a tree, the bark rough and grounding beneath his palms.
Moran says something. John laughs. Moran touches John’s back, his shoulder. They continue on. The touch falls down John’s back. They’re going to a museum. Public place, safer than some, though Soo Lin Yao might have said differently. Moran pays for the tickets, waving John down when the shorter man reaches into his back pocket.
Sherlock has a minimum of an hour. No longer than two, if he’s to be safe, but that should be more than enough.
He returns to where he began this morning, enters the hotel, and counts himself grateful that the hotel doesn’t have terribly difficult locks on the balconies. A quick climb up the fire escape, onto the roof, and down onto the correct balcony has him set. He’d taken a risk at the front desk, getting the correct room number, but asking to call J. Watson’s room while he was out isn’t a risk as long as the receptionist doesn’t speak to John later.
Once into the room, he looks around for only a second before he peeks back out onto the balcony and counts the windows. This should be the correct room.
Sherlock looks at the unmade bed. Maid service has yet to go through the hotel and he may or may not know for a fact when every light in every window of the hotel turned off last night. The light had turned off in this room shortly after 10:17 pm. John did not sit awake in the grips of an insomnia attack. The bed was clearly not made by John, nor has it been slept in by John, and the inevitable logical inferences taunt their way into Sherlock’s mind regardless of his consent.
He goes to the closet and finds nothing.
He goes to the lavatory and finds John’s toothbrush. Left side of the sink, bristles fanning outward. John still presses too hard.
He returns to the room proper.
He looks at the door in the room. Not the door to the hall, not the door to the lavatory. The door to the adjoining room.
He opens the door. The door directly in front of it is closed.
It is not, when Sherlock turns the handle, locked.
Sherlock opens the door, looks inside, and closes the door.
He waits until his pulse sounds steady, until he can hear something besides its rushing in his ears.
He opens the door. He enters.
He proceeds unerringly toward where John has stashed his laptop, guesses the password on the second try, and reads all of John’s pertinent emails.
He does not look at the bed. He does not look in the rubbish bin. He does not look anywhere except for precisely where he needs to look.
He already has all the information he needs.
Oh dear, you realize you cannot stop there, right? :D
I realize that, and yet I go to bed anyway. G’night, m’lovelies.
Just putting ths here to keep track of it… (yes, this is a blatant and deliberate signal that I hope you continue, why do you ask? :D )
Back at his current base - not a home, barely a place of residence, a bedsit above a small yarn shop of all things - he changes his jacket back to the leather. He opens his laptop, pulls up his emails, and types a report to Molly. He does not share his plans, that would be idiotic, but he does tell her how long she should wait before becoming worried. He reminds her how long she should wait before revealing to Mycroft the information Sherlock has stored with her. After all, if Sherlock is actually dead, the threats to his friends vanish.
It’s certainly possible this will happen. He’s about to do something moronic or something extremely clever. It all depends on John. Not atypical.
A complication arises when he exits to find the local hoodlums have once again stolen his helmet. He shouldn’t keep leaving it on the bike, keeps having more important things to think about. He has a good idea which one of the brats took it, but he doesn’t have time to retrieve it, not now, not today.
He goes on foot, at first. It’s more agile, more subtle for relocating a target. He follows them for the remainder of the day, parsing body language. When the pair go to dinner, John’s gestures take on a familiar pattern for nine minutes. When compared to Moran’s pattern of laughter, Sherlock is ninety percent certain he knows which story John was telling. It’s about them. At the end, John looks nearly happy, closer to fond than wistful. Moran grins along.
That night, there is an inexplicable series of fire alarms at John’s hotel. If they happen to coincide with every instance John’s light goes out and Moran’s does not, that is sheer coincidence. On the instance John and Moran do not exit the hotel in their jackets and pyjamas, there happens to be a real fire. Curiously, the fire begins after the alarm sounds. Faulty wiring, must be, and look at the damage it’s caused.
The next morning, John sets out on his own. His shoulders are set, his strides brisk despite the clear exhaustion in his face and form. Sherlock can tell from across and down the street that John’s jaw is tightly clenched. He follows John until the man sets out on one of the forest trails.
Sherlock returns to the carpark nearest his bedsit and straddles his motorcycle. It rumbles under him like a neglected stomach, like absolute hunger, and Sherlock is off. He has the local maps memorized, knows the roads as well as the paths, and he certainly knows where the one might meet the other.
Around the fields, through the edge of the forest, lightly uphill, he rides. Insects strike his face and his hands, bare on the handles, begin to burn cold in the wind. He’s shaking all the way though, the rumble of the bike sinking into the tremble of his bones. He finds the part in the road, rides up, and makes the mistake of looking to his left.
God.
John.
Through the trees, that familiar patch of jacket. Strides shorter now. Hands in pockets, head bowed.
He bites his lip, rumbles forward, and aims to intercept.
Holy shit. AND THEN?
Where the path touches the road, he turns the bike onto it, turns around in the process. He inches the bike forward, the tires doing their best impression of a crawl, and any second now, any second, John will look up. John will look up and see him. And perhaps John will take a step back or perhaps John will take a step forward. Perhaps John will stand absolutely motionless before closing the gap between them and giving Sherlock a sound thrashing, knocking him off the bike to the ground. Perhaps, after Sherlock is on the pavement, his palms scraped, his cheek bruised - cheek still, not the eyes or nose - John will pull the bike off him and yell a bit as he checks for concussion, hands steady. Perhaps.
In reality, when John sees him, the man keeps walking. He looks up, frowning at the motorcycle on the walking path, at the brown leather jacket riding it, and his eyes sweep over Sherlock’s face on their way to check the road. John opens his mouth, looks at Sherlock a second time, and that’s when John stops walking.
Sherlock brakes, hard. His body pushes toward the handlebars. Movement and inertia, not gravity, not magnetism, nothing to do with John. He settles back on the seat, fingers chilled and white around the handlebars. He can’t seem to stop staring at John.
“What,” John says, “is happening.”
He looks exhausted. Close to numb.
Good. Perhaps this will make it hurt less.
“In simple terms,” Sherlock replies, “there is good news and bad news.”
“All right,” John says, breathing out the words. “I think I’d like the good news first.”
Sherlock gestures at himself, a sweeping, downward flourish of impatience.
John’s face cracks. It’s meant to be a smile, begins that way, but there are teeth and tears in it. The split pulls wider, certain to become a shout.
“There were three snipers,” Sherlock interrupts. “If I didn’t jump. It was the only way out. Moriarty made certain of that.”
“You mean, stay and be shot, or jump and maybe live.” The anger doesn’t lessen, doesn’t relent. John is still approaching a boil, but as long as Sherlock gives him something to work with, John will redirect. Keep going. Keep going, get it over with now now now.
“I mean,” Sherlock corrects, impatient for John to stop being angry, “that it was jump or let them shoot you.”
“You made me fucking watch,” John growls, teeth clenched.
“Would you have believed it otherwise?”
John very nearly blinks.
“Obviously not,” Sherlock continues. “And if I weren’t dead, three snipers would have fired. Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade, not just you. Their lives are worth your grief, John.” He’s not sure he believes the last, but he knows John does.
Exhaustion, rage and wasted grief war across John’s face. Exhaustion wins. John sags. “You are an absolute….”
There’s no word for what Sherlock is. This is fine. What John’s head understands, his feet will follow. Where John goes, his heart inevitably accompanies.
Which is why it is so alarming when John stiffly turns and walks away.
“John?”
Rhythmic strides, longer than short legs should allow.
“John!”
“There’s a bench,” John snaps over his shoulder. “I need to sit down.”
“Sit on the bike!”
“No!”
Sherlock wipes at his face as John walks away, palm sliding over his mouth, fingers scraping themselves against stubble.
“But I haven’t told you the bad news yet!”
“Then I’ll really need to sit down, won’t I?” John demands.
Sherlock sighs. He stabilizes the bike, kills the engine, and dismounts. And then, for good measure, for the first time in three years, he turns up his collar and feels almost at home.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Anghel’s Ending Theme!
BEST MUSIC I’VE EVER HEARD IN AN OTOME GAME. ALL THOSE FEELINGS.
*spoilers warning*
My heart melted when I first heard it. It’s so sensitive at first as Anghel realises you’re going to fight together with him and he’s not going to be alone [you’re his first friend!], then it goes into full fury for the battle~ <3
Hatoful Boyfriend, such the crack.
