I feel like I haven't updated this in forever. Sorry everyone. I've just been feeling a little uninspired lately...

I guess I should warn you that this contains spoilers for "He's Dead, She's Dead" and "Poof! You're Dead," but if you haven't seen them by now, I would be worried about you.


Rhabdophobia - The fear of magic.


Detective Kate Beckett distinctly remembers the first magic trick her grandfather had ever shown her.

She had been three years old at the time. Her mom and dad had gone away for a long weekend getaway for some "much needed adult time." Little Katie Beckett hadn't questioned it. After all, when her parents went away on vacation she always got to spend time with her grandparents, who she loved very much.

It had been raining most of the weekend and her toddler-self had just been itching to get outside after being cooped up inside for so long. Her grandparents lived near a huge park. It was one of the reasons she was always so happy to go to her grandparent's house.

So as soon as the rain cleared and there was a steady stream of sunlight for a good amount of time, her grandfather put her rain boots on her and put on his own jacket, took her hand, and led her into the park for some much needed outdoor time before her grandmother finished dinner (and Katie certainly didn't want to miss that because she was making macaroni and cheese; her favorite).

She had been outside playing on the playground for about ten minutes when Katie unthinkingly slid down the slide. She saw the puddle at the bottom on the way down and slid right into it, unable to stop herself. There were some other kids on the playground as well and she had been so embarrassed. A little boy playing around the monkey bars had pointed at her and laughed, and she had run over to her grandfather who had been talking with one of his neighbors with tears in her eyes. He immediately focused all of his attention on her. He knelt down and tried to get her to explain what had happened, but she just kept biting her lip and shaking her head. It hurt him to see his only granddaughter so upset, so he did the only thing he could think of to make her smile. He whispered her name to get her attention, reached his hand up his sleeve, and pulled out a bouquet of fake flowers.

From that day on, she had been enchanted by magic. She had always been a very logical child (she knew that Santa wasn't real because they didn't have a chimney), but what he had shown her defied everything her mind thought it understood. She was fascinated. Every time she spent time with her grandfather, he always made sure he had a new trick to show her. After seeing how amazed she was by his tricks, he began taking her to his favorite magic shop every Sunday. As Kate entered her early teens, she had initially pretended that she was too old for magic tricks, but she secretly was still amazed by the sleight of hand. The highlight of seeing her grandparents was always her grandfather's magic tricks.

And then her grandfather died.

She missed him instantly. In an effort to keep his memory alive, she tried to learn everything she could about magic. She kept going to their magic shop a few times a month; tried to learn new tricks on her own. Magic made her feel like her grandfather had never left. He was always near her in magic.

She began to share her tricks with her parents, showing off the things she had taught herself. They laughed when she messed up, smiled when she did it right, and there were many a night when she left them completely confounded as to how she had done it.

And then her mother was murdered.

Suddenly, magic didn't seem as wonderful as it once had. Magic didn't make her smile the way it had before. Magic wasn't going to brighten the lives of the people around her.

No sleight of hand was going to bring her mother back from the dead.

No magic word was going to make her father put down the bottle.

There was no miraculous escape from the ever-present pain that had wound its way around her heart.

In Kate Beckett's world, the magic had disappeared.

She stopped going to the magic shop that her grandfather used to take her to every week. The books about magic she used to check out of the library were replaced by textbooks about criminal psychology and the justice system. Everything in Kate's new world could be explained. Everything had a logical explanation as to why and how it happened. She dedicated her life to facts and reason.

Magic had no place in her life anymore.

And then Richard Castle walked into her life with his theories of alien abductions and psychics predicting their own murders and an everyday fascination for all of the things logic couldn't explain and Kate found herself once again surrounded by magic. When she was around Richard Castle, magic didn't seem like such an extraordinary thing to believe in. He made her feel that maybe she could still have her world of evidence and purpose, but she'd add a new moon of wonder and magic that would make an appearance every once in a while.

And then she'd realize just how ridiculous that idea was. A homicide detective cannot believe in magic. A detective must rely on what is in front of them, not what may exist just beyond their reach.

The simple truth was a detective gave up magic when they took up their badge.

Kate Beckett was no exception.

However, she knew that her aversion of magic went beyond the call of duty.

In order to believe in magic, you had to have hope.

She couldn't allow herself to hope again.

For a magic trick to be successful, the illusionist must convince their audience that something wonderful was about to occur. If the audience didn't harbor some deep-seeded desire to see something incredible somewhere in the depths of their soul, any attempt at creating a spectacular illusion would be futile. When you allowed yourself to hope for something you were putting your faith in another being.

In Kate's experience, that could only lead to heartbreak in the end.

Hope wasn't enough to get her father out of the bottle.

Hope wasn't enough to get up every morning and go on with life as if nothing had happened.

Hope wasn't going find the people who wanted her mother dead.

Hope is what you have when you are too indolent to act. Hope is nothing but a fleeting wish that always ends in disappointment.

The only way to move on is to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward. You don't get anywhere by standing in the middle of the road, hoping that one day you'll finally be able to move.

Results come from action, not hope.

Life goes on through hard work and determination, not magic.

If she wanted to move on with her life, she couldn't rely on hope and magic to do it. Kate found herself faced with the truth that her three-year-old self never would've believed and her grandfather would've rejected vehemently:

Magic just isn't enough to save you.


I sound like such a miserably, cynical, human being, hahahaha
As always; Love it? Hate it? Let me know what you think (: