Disclaimer: None of the included fandoms are my own work, naturally - and neither is the cover image, which is taken from CGP Grey's marvelous video "Someone Dead Ruined My Life… Again". (Which is about how I feel about some of these, actually.)
1.
Writing (Bible)
It isn't that he has to consider his answer. That part is obvious: they're challenging him to defy the Empire for the sake of the Law, so he'll do the same to them. Simplicity itself.
But that only answers the intention behind their challenge; the words of it go much deeper. Moses commanded us to stone; what sayest thou? Soon, he will answer that too – and every atom of his humanity trembles at the thought.
So, to steady himself, he bends over and scribbles in the dust – meaningless, a mere purchase of time, a senseless jumble of noughts…
And crosses.
Correction: The idea here, it will be seen, is that Jesus's Crucifixion, being a perfect compensation for sin, rendered all future shedding of blood for sin superfluous, which is how capital punishment could be prescribed in the Mosaic Law and yet condemned by Catholic doctrine. An ingeniously elegant explanation, if I do say so myself - but it depends on capital punishment actually being condemned by Catholic doctrine, which, I have since learned (thanks to the late Avery Dulles, may he rest in peace), is in fact the precise opposite of the truth. Apparently there is a profession of faith, prescribed by Pope Innocent III in 1210 as a precondition of reconciliation for certain Spanish heretics, which specifically states that it is not intrinsically sinful "to exercise a judgment of blood". (Thank you, Our Sunday Visitor, for straight-up lying to me about this all those years.) So, yes, onto the pile this drabble goes.