Cymeteria

heresluck:

The pinup girl looks/poses aren’t usually my thing, but apparently Naya Rivera’s hotness trumps everything. Damn.

(Source: acheleheya)

(Source: vanilleandchocolate)

(Source: stabmeintheneck)

cyruspotnoodle:

Irene Adler is wrapped in layers of defenses, layers we see peeled away throughout the episode. At first glance, she is a cool, confident escort who prefers playing dominatrix with high society submissives. She has agency and autonomy—and judging from her personal effects, a very engaged clientele. And then she reveals the first of several aspects of herself, through a call to the British government—it’s the power, the thrill of making people beg for mercy, that gets her off. 

The best escorts are the ones who make their clients believe that the act is real during the act while maintaining that professional distance outside of it. And so of course Irene is a fantastic actress, calculating and brilliant at reading people—the signs of desire, their kinks, etc—which is why she plays off Sherlock so well. Because while he may not be particularly sexual, he knows the body, knows what happens when a person is excited or intrigued by something because he’s been there. When Irene begins to play him for Moriarty and the flight number, she inadvertently allows herself to enjoy the game too much. 

Because what she feels for Sherlock is not sexual—she’s a lesbian and it’s not going to be about sex, it’s deeper than sex and that frightens her—after all, she may enjoy dominating male clients, but it’s part of the act rather than her true self. While she acts the damsel falling in love with Sherlock, the act becomes a bit too true for her, affects her physiological responses to chemistry and ultimately brings about her downfall.

Disguises reflect our true selves, according to Irene. She disguises her confusion and insecurity with confusion and insecurity—she needs protection, so she acts as if she needs Sherlock’s help to get that protection. And she does need his help, in the end. And in the end, it might seem like the answer is found with Sherlock’s words to Irene as he unlocks her phone:

This is your heart and you should never let it rule your head. You could have chosen any random number and walked out with everything you worked for. But you just couldn’t resist it, could you? I’ve always assumed that love is a dangerous disadvantage. Thank you for the final proof.

But in the end, love seems to be a great advantage—love, or some form of it, is what saves Irene from being executed. She says that she wants to be sure that certain people will be on hand for her when she needs them, and Sherlock is. In some small way, she still finishes ahead of him because she dared to let her heart rule her head for once in her life.

The episode is constructed as a power play between Sherlock and Irene as much as it is between Irene and the British government. It’s no coincidence that Irene begs for mercy twice—she is a dominatrix, she is not one to submit. I have problems with the way that her sexuality was ultimately used to her disadvantage—the dominant woman forced into submission and rewarded for doing so is all kinds of squicky—and I think that some fans are quick to say that there is nothing wrong with her treatment. That said, Irene Adler is the most complex character comma female that Steven Moffat has written, and she only handled a gun once.

(Source: orbitingasupernova)