#DOING THINGS LATE OR DISAPPOINTINGLY INFLICTS

[magdalenadaniels]

THE LOST LAMB CHARACTER STUDY

FULL NAME: Magdalena Ameena Daniels BIRTH-DATE: May 12th, 1993 AGE: Twenty-seven  STAR-SIGN: Taurus GENDER IDENTITY: Cisfemale (she/her) ORIENTATION: Closeted homosexual/homoromantic OCCUPATION: Church Pianist/Organist TRIGGERS: Death, suicide, alcoholism, hints of homophobia, NSFW

The Beginning…

Lights flickered in the bathroom of the Daniels’ household. A storm was swirling outside the concrete walls of the home as the screams of a woman vibrated over the thunder that in itself, demanded to be heard. With a final cry from the new mother came the first of many from the first and only child brought into the world by Adam and Ameena Daniels.

“It’s a girl!” The father chirped, pulling their blessing into his arms.

But something wasn’t right. Whereas Adam’s eyes welled up with tears of joy, Ameena’s eyes glazed over and stared up at the trembling popcorn ceiling. The tub that was filled with warm water was now crimson, tainted with the blood of a beautiful daughter, wife and mother. Turns out that the newborn child wasn’t the only soul to wail into the night as the lights continued to flicker before going out completely.

Seven Years Later…

“I love you mommy.”

A little girl’s voice echoed through the empty cemetery, her small hands resting a bouquet of daisies against a tombstone marked with the name Ameena Daniels. She tugged at the hand of her father to kneel down with her in prayer. He obliged, pulling a cross from beneath his shirt and holding it between cupped hands.

“Father of all, we pray to you for Ameena, and for all those whom we love but see no longer. Grant to them eternal rest. Let light perpetual shine upon them. May his soul and the souls of all the departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.” He prayed, pressing chapped lips to the rosary before the girl next to him began her own prayer.

“In your hands, O’ Lord, we humbly entrust our Ameena. In this life you embraced her with your tender love; deliver her now from every evil and bid her eternal rest. Welcome my mommy into paradise where there will be no pain, but peace and joy with your Son and the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen.”

“Amen.” He repeated before putting the rosary back beneath his shirt. “Come now, Magdalena. We mustn’t be late to supper with grandma. We’ll be back next Sunday, okay?”

“Okay, daddy.” She quipped, getting up and taking his hand again to make their way back to the car.

Nine Years Later…

“Shh… You’re going to get us caught!” Magdalena whispered in between kisses shared in a closet during her church’s youth group. Her hands wandered over their bare shoulders as kisses were peppered down her neck and to her chest. Her pale blue button up that was a part of her uniform was undone, halfway hanging off her slender frame.

“No one comes back here, Lena. It’s okay.” The voice replied, but they didn’t whisper. They had no secrets to hide. Their lips returned to Lena’s, young and greedy hands finding their way to places they shouldn’t be.

She felt like she was on cloud nine. She knew the sins she was committing as she slid completely out of her shirt, pulling off her rosary and letting it drop to the ground. She lifted herself up onto a table, it creaking loudly in protest as she hiked up her skirt and wrapped her legs around her lover’s waist. Hands then found themselves in unholy places for two teenagers. In the same breath that she moaned a familiar name, the closet door creaked open and the light cast a yellow glow over the two of them.

“Father!” Lena gasped, quickly scrambling out from underneath the other teenager to grab her shirt in order to protect what modesty she had left.

Adam stood in the doorway, taking in a deep breath before leaning down to pick up the rosary that had been his wife’s. He gave it to her recently on her sixteenth birthday. Magdalena stared at her father in fear, holding a hand out for the jewelry to be returned. In no moment’s hesitation, he shoved it into his own pocket before grabbing his daughter by the arm and pulling her from the closet.

“Get yourself cleaned up and meet me in the car.” His eyes burned holes into her soul. Holes deeper and hotter than any scorched before. As she hurried out of the room, Adam turned back to the other teen now quickly putting what clothes that had come off back onto their body. “As for you, Elizabeth–” He paused to take a deep breath. “I will be having a word with your parents. You will not taint my daughter and I will make sure of that.” He didn’t give the girl a chance to respond before turning away and slamming the closet door behind him.

Three Years Later…

It had been a year and a half since Magdalena decided to leave her hometown and go off to college. It had been something her father disapproved of and was the source of a lot of arguments. As heavy bass thumped through the walls of the college fraternity, she could remember the day the left like it was yesterday.

“If you leave, you are not welcome back here, Magdalena.” Her father stood between her and the front door.

She dropped her suitcase, going up to her father with a sneer painted across her face. “Why would I ever come back here? So I can join the stupid church and be daddy’s little girl– just too perfect to be full of so much sin? To speak words of love just to underline them with hate?” She shook her head as she went to grab her keys. “I hope I never see this town again. I hope I never see the people in it.”

Adam furrowed his brows in frustration. “This is not you!” He boomed, reaching out for her hand as he started to whisper the same prayer she heard every single time she made a mistake. Dear God, let my daughter repent her sins, but with about 100 more meaningless words.

Lena jerked away, picking her things back up. “Shut up! Do you think He hears you? Do you think He cares? A God that does what He does in this world is no God in my eyes. I don’t need your prayers. Now, let me go.” She pushed past him, yanking the door open and walking out.

“You’ll end up going to Hell, Lena! I am only trying to protect you!”

She laughed, making it to her car and tossing her things into the back. “Fuck you!” Were the last words she spoke to her father before leaving and they haven’t spoken since.

Now she sits between some guy and his girlfriend, sharing sloppy kisses and sips of vodka from plastic cups. Her breath could start a fire if you placed a match before it. She giggled as she pulled away pick up her now ringing phone. When she saw it was her father, she declined the call only to pull herself in closer to the girl next to her. It was then that her phone rang again, his face popping up to taunt her, and again, she ignored it. That was until about three more calls later. She got up, excusing herself to the backyard to answer her phone.

“Stop calling me! I told you I don’t want to ta–”

She was cut of by the muffled voice of her uncle. They had found her father in the church bathroom, a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He said that he left a note and told her when his funeral would be and before she hung up he said, “Just pray that your father makes it to his rightful destination. He was a good man. Pray he doesn’t end up going to Hell.”

Six Days Later…

The ivory casket lowered into freshly dug dirt. She could smell the Earth as it wafted through her senses. Her teeth clenched as they released the straps used to put her father in the ground. It was as if an iron rod were sliding down her throat, the overwhelming sensation of guilt burning all the way down into the pit of her stomach. She remembered when she was caught in the church closet and how the holes he stared into her were the worst at the time. Funny how she didn’t even know that on a scale that was only a five and this, well, you know how people save their tens. Tears threatened to leave her eyes, but she quickly slid on her over-sized sunglasses to hide the emotion.

“Now, if anyone would like to say a few words.” The pastor ended his prayer with the invitations, eyes looking in her direction. “Lena?”

It took her a moment, but she shook her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this.” Her voice cracked as she pushed her way through the small crowd of people. All she wanted to do was get away from the guilt that swam through her mind. It had all come to head and for the frist time, Magdalena truly felt that her father’s suicide had been her own doing. She was callous and cruel. She was disobedient and full of sin. He couldn't live with the thought of his ruined daughter and there was no one to blame but herself. 

Dearest Magdalena,

      I am so sorry to have failed you as a father. I failed in saving your mother, I failed at saving myself and most disappointingly, I failed saving you. Forgive me for this final, damning sin and just know that I will forever and always love you. Don’t pray for me. It is too late. However, it is not too late for you. Please save yourself like I never could. Goodbye my beautiful.

The words were memorized. Of course they were memorized. They could never not be permanently etched into brain and as they repeated themselves over and over again, she found herself at the local Gas ‘N Dash, slipping a couple mini bottles of Stoli into her dress pockets and her bra. She was careful not to let anyone see before grabbing a bottle of water and making her way to the checkout. No one would question a grieving daughter whose father just ended his life in the town church.

She stepped outside after making her purchase and opened her water only to dump it out on the ground. A puddle formed around her feet until the plastic was empty. Then, she quickly got into her car, removing all the stolen bottles of liquor of refilling the bottle. Her car floor was littered with empty bottles and smelled of vodka and bile. It has been like this for so long that she didn’t even notice how bad it had gotten. All she could think about was the burn of the alcohol in her throat as she put the bottle to her lips and took a long drink. 

The Rest… 

It had been a week since Magdalena had been kicked out of school. Her grades had plummeted, she had too many absences and when she did show up to class it was either hungover or still intoxicated. The last straw was bringing a bottle of vodka to class, without switching it over to a water bottle first. She had all her things packed and the only place left to go was to her uncle’s house back in Wheeler, Indiana. He already had everything ready for her to go and somehow managed to convince her to go to AA meeting.

To her disbelief, the meetings worked and she was able to sober up with the support of her uncle. Then, she started going back to church on Wednesday… then, on Sundays and by the time she was twenty-three she was converted back to her religion and born anew.

She spent the next three years trying to become independent. She landed a job with the church, saving up enough money to move out on her own and finally be the adult she was meant to be. Her life was finally on the right track and she was doing a great job at keeping her demons hidden.

That was until Cassie went missing.

She had already felt herself slipping when all the chaos started, but upon hearing the news, something inside her snapped. She found herself going back to that place she was in after her father’s funeral, driving towards the place where it all started. She only went to get some coffee, too afraid to sleep. Then a mini bottle of Stoli caught her attention and the next thing she knew she was dropping the bottle and multiple other small items on the counter, hoping and praying the cashier didn’t notice and, from what she knows, they didn’t realize what she was doing.

#the stories we tell || character study #suicide tw #alcoholism tw #homophobia mention #death tw

[green-violin-bow]

Eurus’ psychic powers and Mark Gatiss

I completely get that everyone is bruised and feeling pretty broken right now. I’m not having the best time myself but following this great post from @darlingtonsubstitution​ yesterday, there’s just such a glaring underlying clash in TFP that I need to write it out (yes, I hear your bitter laughter. Which one, you say). Please ignore this if it’ll just piss you off right now, I get it -- I really do.

As darlington said, brilliantly, one of the strangest aspects of The Final Problem is that it

“is a dismissal of everything that came before; and it is a rejection of the idea that is quintessentially Sherlock Holmes: rationality. Mofftiss created a character in Eurus that is of the supernatural, an all-knowing entity that single-handedly destroyed the sense of reality; not only within the show’s fictional sphere, but it broke through the fourth wall and took ours down with it.”

Whereas Hope in ASIP seemed to have mysterious powers when he said “I’m gonna talk to yer ... and then you’re gonna kill yourself” (x) but it then (disappointingly to Sherlock) turned out that he was just threatening people with a fake gun, Sherlock unquestioningly accepts in TFP that Eurus has the bizarre psychic power to rewrite others’ memories and, simply through talking to them, to control their behaviour utterly from that point forwards.

This is utterly contradictory of both Conan Doyle’s Holmes and the Sherlock we know.

Sherlock is consistently dismissive of supernatural beings. We all know his comments in the TSoT best man’s speech; but the writers felt the need to have him reassert in The Six Thatchers, “God is a ludicrous fiction dreamt up by inadequates who abnegate all responsibility to an invisible magic friend.” (x)

Interesting wording, “an invisible magic friend”, especially since Faith/Eurus is ‘invisible’ to Mycroft, watching through a drone, during Sherlock’s nighttime ramble with her around London in TLD. Also interesting that the word ‘magic’ is specifically used. Magic has for hundreds of years been framed as the very opposite of godliness, by the Church. ‘Magic’ would apply much more closely to someone who, say, has total mind-control powers after just five minutes of conversation alone with someone.

I’d now like to come to the link with something that Mark Gatiss has said before. I realise that this is straying into the realm of authorial intent, but honestly, TFP is so off the wall, so strange and incomprehensible to me, that I need to try and dig further into that. Again, completely understand if people don’t want to read that right now.

I have to be honest: I really, really don’t want to believe that Mark Gatiss, someone whose work I’ve admired since age 11, had the ability to write something this shoddy. I’ve thought harshly of him over the past couple of days. I don’t enjoy doing so. I’m not even touching specifically on the queerbaiting right now, because it hurts too much to think about. Declaration of bias done.

Listening to the Infinite Monkey Cage Christmas podcast, which Mark was part of this year, I found this interesting snippet:

ROBIN INCE: Mark, I wanted to ask you because I believe you have some interest in Sherlock Holmes, and looking at the objective versus the subjective, and Conan Doyle of course famously creates a detective who, with his use of empiricism, manages to make remarkable deductions. And yet Conan Doyle as a human being, he’s interested in the Cottingley Fairies and later with spiritualism. That kind of – the clash of creating a character who would seem to dismiss most of, or many of, Conan Doyle’s later beliefs. Why do you think that is, that those two things could exist so vibrantly in his mind?

MARK GATISS: He was an amazing man and a great mind and a great heart, a brilliant, brilliant writer but also just an incredible sort of enthusiast for so many things. He did everything in his life; he was a sort of, you know, a war correspondent, a spy, an adventurer, he was a whaler, all kinds of things. And the really interesting thing is that his spiritualism, which came quite late after the death of his son – which is usually the way these things happen – he allowed Professor Challenger to become a spiritualist, but never Sherlock Holmes. And despite the fact he disparaged Sherlock Holmes for his entire career (he could never really understand why people liked him more than anything else), he never let Sherlock become a believer, which I’m rather proud of for him. But I don’t know, I don’t know how you can – I suppose you can distance yourself from your fictional creations, and also whatever you believe in yourself, you don’t actually have to inflict on everything you create.

I really, really recommend actually listening to it, hearing the tone of his voice. You can download the episode freely at this link -- listen from about 28:20.

Listen to Mark’s voice when he says “which I’m rather proud of for him.” He is totally, one hundred percent sincere, and I think rather moved.

Why on earth, then, would Mark allow Sherlock to unquestioningly accept that Eurus is magic? This is actually a betrayal of one of Mark’s heroes and a reversal of something that Conan Doyle did, something which Mark really admires him for.

I’m terribly sorry, but I’m afraid my conclusion is the old ‘something is really fucky here’ again. As @warmth-and-constancy and @deducingbbcsherlock have been saying, I don’t know whether this means the creators went into hulk-smash mode on TFP because they want to let us know that this was never their intent all along, or whether they’re just setting us the usual puzzles for hiatus, but this is not right. Sherlock would never believe that, and I don’t think Mark would make him believe that.

As @deducingbbcsherlock said in this post,

“I’m not interested in defending Mofftiss or making excuses; that’s not what this is about. I think Jonathan Franzen is a massive douche but I don’t doubt he cares deeply about his characters. I don’t doubt Mofftiss does, too.”

This is an aspect of Sherlock Holmes’ character, in every ’verse, that I just don’t believe they’d mess up. What, if anything, that means for Johnlock I have no idea. I’ve now been so thoroughly gaslit on whether I just ‘read too much into’ their relationship that I can’t find the mental or emotional strength to try and argue anything on that point.

@just-sort-of-happened because of your meta about the creators telling us something’s up through TFP; @monikakrasnorada @jenna221b @heimishtheidealhusband for your decoder ring post @impatient14 @multifandom-madnesss @shawleyleres (just tagging people I think I’ve seen still interested in meta-ing at the moment? PLEASE ignore if you’re just not wanting to right now, I get it.) Thank you so much to Ariane Devere for the transcripts, as always.

#sherlock meta #tfprob #the final problem #eurus holmes #rationality #spiritualism #arthur conan doyle #acd canon