are you ready for the story?

ioweyouafall:

jmoriartyx:

ioweyouafall:

steven moffat, mark gatiss, and andrew scott have all now confirmed the fact of moriarty’s death. can we please stop speculation to the contrary? they’re not going through this effort to ‘trick’ us as i’ve seen suggested a dozen times now. they’re making the fact of it clear because they’re constantly flooded with people begging for a return and magazines are frequently feeding into the ‘MAYBE HE FAKED HIS DEATH TOO’ in misleading ways. 

moriarty’s suicide was a significant turning point for both his character and the series at large. as moffat has said, the development of the show will be stunted if they undo all that ‘the reichenbach fall’ established for the sake of a fan-pleasing twist:

‘Moriarty was great because he was a surprise. Every time you bring him back he won’t be as big a surprise,’ he told Le Village and Reviewer.fr.

‘We need to find new villains, we need to find new ideas, otherwise the show doesn’t keep growing.’ (x)

similarly, when andrew scott was asked about potential future appearances for moriarty, he talked about feeling ‘protective’ over the potential cheapening of the character through overuse:

How much do you use Moriarty, and much do you protect him? I’m starting to feel very protective of that. I think his power is that he’s not overused, but then you want to have some fun with him as well. I think the balance of that in series two is nice. (x)

speculation on the possibility of moriarty’s faked death is frustrating for the creators and fans alike because it shows a refusal to acknowledge the masterful writing and acting that went into moriarty’s character arc throughout series one and two, particularly during the reichenbach rooftop scene. his suicide is important, the boredom and stasis he finds in life is important, and this is essential to not only his character but to sherlock’s as well. 

stop being selfish. this isn’t about your ship. it isn’t about seeing more andrew scott on your tv screen. it’s about respecting a gorgeously crafted character and the surprising turn his arc took. 

#everything that made moriarty’s scenes in trf so powerful would be ruined if they took the ‘faked death’ route #and it’s just…pretty fucking clear at this point that he died? #he shot himself through the mouth #(even a blank would have killed him at that range) #we saw the growing puddle of blood with bits of brain in it #people say ‘if sherlock faked his death moriarty can too’ #but look at how drastically differently their two deaths are filmed #sherlock’s includes strategic omissions and edits that moriarty’s does not #either way - moriarty explicitly says the final problem was ‘staying alive’ #he went up there to die.

#fandom PSA #i also think - given the deconstructive nature of the rooftop scene and TRF in general - bringing him back would be SO regressive #for the character and for the show as a whole #a show that pulled that shit would ultimately end with sherlock ‘properly’ winning #with moriarty ‘properly’ losing #and sherlock is not that show #i can’t understand why anyone would want that show

oh, ABSOLUTELY. that’s why i say that moriarty having faked his death would probably render TRF entirely useless as an episode. all of moriarty’s power comes from his deconstructive capacity. his dismantling of the typical win/lose structure of the game that has fueled SO MUCH of the show’s violence (see: irene and ASIB) is SO FUCKING IMPORTANT. it’s why the fandom’s imagining of moriarty as this cliche villain who faked his death just to return again and shock us all actually pisses me off on a moral level. there is a horrifying violence to sherlock’s exaltation of the game, and moriarty’s subversion of its central win/lose logic disrupts that ENTIRELY and will (hopefully, likely, necessarily) serve as a crucial step in helping sherlock become a ‘warmer, more heroic version of himself’ (to - blech - quote moffat.) 

ioweyouafall:

steven moffat, mark gatiss, and andrew scott have all now confirmed the fact of moriarty’s death. can we please stop speculation to the contrary? they’re not going through this effort to ‘trick’ us as i’ve seen suggested a dozen times now. they’re making the fact of it clear because they’re constantly flooded with people begging for a return and magazines are frequently feeding into the ‘MAYBE HE FAKED HIS DEATH TOO’ in misleading ways. 

moriarty’s suicide was a significant turning point for both his character and the series at large. as moffat has said, the development of the show will be stunted if they undo all that ‘the reichenbach fall’ established for the sake of a fan-pleasing twist:

‘Moriarty was great because he was a surprise. Every time you bring him back he won’t be as big a surprise,’ he told Le Village and Reviewer.fr.

‘We need to find new villains, we need to find new ideas, otherwise the show doesn’t keep growing.’ (x)

similarly, when andrew scott was asked about potential future appearances for moriarty, he talked about feeling ‘protective’ over the potential cheapening of the character through overuse:

How much do you use Moriarty, and much do you protect him? I’m starting to feel very protective of that. I think his power is that he’s not overused, but then you want to have some fun with him as well. I think the balance of that in series two is nice. (x)

speculation on the possibility of moriarty’s faked death is frustrating for the creators and fans alike because it shows a refusal to acknowledge the masterful writing and acting that went into moriarty’s character arc throughout series one and two, particularly during the reichenbach rooftop scene. his suicide is important, the boredom and stasis he finds in life is important, and this is essential to not only his character but to sherlock’s as well. 

stop being selfish. this isn’t about your ship. it isn’t about seeing more andrew scott on your tv screen. it’s about respecting a gorgeously crafted character and the surprising turn his arc took. 

#everything that made moriarty’s scenes in trf so powerful would be ruined if they took the ‘faked death’ route #and it’s just…pretty fucking clear at this point that he died? #he shot himself through the mouth #(even a blank would have killed him at that range) #we saw the growing puddle of blood with bits of brain in it #people say ‘if sherlock faked his death moriarty can too’ #but look at how drastically differently their two deaths are filmed #sherlock’s includes strategic omissions and edits that moriarty’s does not #either way - moriarty explicitly says the final problem was ‘staying alive’ #he went up there to die.

bagelbutts:

I threw a wish in the well

Don’t ask me I’ll never tell

I looked to you as it fell

High Noon - (mirrorverse) “And you know what? One day, showing up just won’t be enough. One day, we’ll be standing around a body and Sherlock Holmes will be the one that put it there.”

This Heart Between Us Could Start a War - Mycroft called it loneliness, but then, what did Mycroft know anyway.

Phone Sex - It’s just when Sherlock is contemplating doing something, anything, to keep himself occupied, that the phone rings.

i’m being born again (you may call it suicide) - (genderswap) jennifer moriarty spends a lot of time alone. she doesn’t mind; it’s not a problem. she likes being alone; she likes her own company.

Inhibitor/Catalyst - (“There is no bigger picture. There are only moments. What do you want from this one? Do you want to play?”) Oh god, yes.

Five Ways Moriarty Could Have Answered His Question - Sherlock tasted like flies caught in amber, and when the resin melted, it flowed like honey down his throat. 

this is not a love story - Sherlock, Moriarty, and the empty space between them. This is the closest they get to love.

Experience - Moriarty has chased Sherlock for too long and too hard and he looks at Sherlock as if. As if he’d like to cut him open and dissect him. Sherlock understands the impulse.

Vicissitude - Jim takes it upon himself to reinvent the mirror, to strip Sherlock bare and cover him in the brushstrokes of flowering bruises to prove to him, once and for all, that he is nothing less than what he is, nothing less than a masterpiece.

Missed the milestone but that’s a really big number! Thanks for putting up with an entire blog specifically designated for the purpose of obsessive Sherlock reblogging, guys. You’re all really sexy.

ioweyouafall:

imthestoryteller:

oh, boy. making this rebloggable and under read more because tldr and lol i ranted a bit, and tw: rape in fics

Read More

all of this. i think the core problem with the fandom’s imagining of sherlock/moriarty is that they have 0 comprehension of how moriarty’s character canonically works. they’ve grown so fond of their fanon version of him that’s a mindless, blood-bathing sadist that they overlook his character establishment on the series itself. this is a man who, in his ongoing mission to ‘destroy’ sherlock, never once laid so much as a finger on him. (the first time moriarty touches him is during the handshake/hold — and that’s a tender and intimate touch, not a violent one. not even REMOTELY a violent one.) his career as a consulting criminal was defined by absence and lack of direct contact. this is something explicitly stated numerous times throughout TGG. HE. DOES. NOT. GET. HIS. HANDS. DIRTY. i can assure you he’d find absolutely no pleasure in watching someone slaughtered before him. he’d find that as despairingly boring as everything else, and by no means would he ever do anything of the sort himself. what would be the point? there’s nothing clever or distracting about murder or torture. the fun for him comes through the orchestrating of the details, the construction of the puzzle, and, most significantly, through the expectation that sherlock holmes will be there to work his way through moriarty’s artful handiwork. 

with a misunderstanding of moriarty’s character comes a misunderstanding of sherlock’s, and a misunderstanding of the complexities of their relationship. when people imagine moriarty as this demonic sadistic psychopath, they’re doing so because it makes sense for them to slot him into the conventional mold of the villain. and in doing so, they reify their imagining of sherlock as the romantic hero. they simply ignore the fact that sherlock has, more than once, stated that he is not a hero. more alarmingly, they ignore the central themes of TRF and all the work it put into deconstructing the hero/villain binary that gives readily comprehensible meanings to fairytale-esque fiction. sherlock’s life is not a fairy tale, and when you imagine him as the vulnerable hero terrified of the big bad evil moriarty, you completely miss this point, and bysodoing miss the point of EVERYTHING ABOUT THE SHOW AND THE CHARACTERS WITHIN IT. why do you think the turning point of the rooftop confrontation is sherlock’s declaration that he is not, and never has been, an ‘angel’? why does said confrontation find resolution in moriarty’s ‘you’re me’? why does all of this happen within the thematic context of a deconstructed fairy tale? BECAUSE THE SIMPLICITY OF THE GOOD/EVIL OPPOSITION IS HERE DESTROYED BY SHERLOCK AND MORIARTY BOTH. no good, no evil, no hero, no villain, just two brilliant, damaged, and isolated human beings who have found comfort in one another since they found each other through carl powers. this is why talk of thanks and blessings and owing passes between them. it’s about sharing and ethics and consent AND EVERYTHING ABOUT THE FANON IMAGINING OF SHERLOCK/MORIARTY AS VIOLENT AND SADISTIC AND NON-CONSENSUAL IGNORES THIS.

the ‘guilt’ of shipping sherlock/moriarty emerges from this series of misconceptions. if the fandom would tear themselves away from their beloved and reductive fairy tale character tropes, they’d see that sherlock and moriarty have far and away the most balanced and mutually respectful power dynamic on the series. no one else receives the unconditional respect from sherlock that moriarty does — no one else, not ever. and moriarty does nothing to sherlock that sherlock does not happily consent to. RESPECT. ETHICS. CONSENT. the great irony is that sherlock/moriarty is probably the least violent of any of the relationship dynamics seen on the show. 

I would very, very much like the entire Sherlock fandom to read this.