#also its sherlock n co day!!!!

[xia0ming56]

Its my bday!!!🎉🎉🎉 naturally this means @zxcantdrawmen drew me the best worst bday gift ever

[paradimeart]

UPRIGHT: Sudden change, upheaval, chaos, revelation, awakening

[b4kuch1n]

thank u for the well wishes! I got better but it did Something to my brain so I've been Experiencing Happenstances. but I'm gettin there!

haha! bit ill

[topsyturvy-turtely]

Fluffbruary with turtely

(missed days edition)

Day 18

[day 17] [day 19]

prompts: recovery | flight | film by @fluffbruary

fandom: BBC Sherlock

will be uploaded to "That Stuff Called Fluff" on Ao3!

A/N: this is more hurt/comfort than fluff i hope that's okay. entirely inspired by this post. also: this is long! be prepared!

♥︎♡♥︎♡♥︎♡♥︎♡♥︎♡♥︎♡♥︎♡♥︎♡♥︎♡♥︎♡♥︎♡♥︎♡

John Watson, the flight attendant on the aircraft from LHR, United Kingdom to PAR, France, noticed the nervous passenger at first glance. Sweat damping curly dark brown hair, fingers twitching, eyes already looking for emergency exit signs.

John greeted him with a friendly smile and directed him down the aisle where he could find his seat.

As soon as the passenger sat in his seat (21D), his legs started bouncing. John memorized the seat number just in case.

And the case was as soon as they had taken off. The passenger's face had turned extremely pale and his breathing became faster and faster. His knuckles turning white, because he gripped the seatrests so tightly.

John couldn't take it anymore. He walked over to the man. "Good morning, sir. May I ask if this is your first time flying?", he questioned.

The man barely gave him a look, stared straight ahead and shook his head tightly. "Don't like planes much. Please don't lecture me how 'the risk of dying in a car crash is far higher than in a flight crash', I know that." The passenger grumbled through his teeth. "People just seem to neglect the fact that IN CASE you crash with an aero plane, you fall from the sky, approximately from around 33.000 to 42.000 feet. The impact this would cause to a human body is-"

"Alright. You seem pretty damn smart for having half a panic attack there.", John said, something about the man letting him drop the mask of politeness he usually wore as a steward.

"It's called aviatophobia."

John smiled. "They say calling the fear by its name takes away its scariness."

"I wouldn't necessarily agree." The passenger argued, his legs still bouncing and his eyes still haunted.

John bandied looks with Sarah, his co-worker, who gave him a thumbs up. So John crossed his legs and let himself glide to the floor. He held out his hand. "Haven't introduced myself yet, have I? John Watson. What's your name, if I may ask?"

"Sherlock Holmes.", the man replied, taking John's hand in his own. Finally he looked, no - studied - John's person. The anxious passenger had an incredible face. Unique. Eyes changing colors every time he laid them on another object of interest. High cheekbones. Lips, perfectly shaped. It was an angular face, not fitting into any beauty standards and yet remarkably gorgeous. Briefly John wondered what those lips would taste like, but he quickly pushed this thought away. "It's nice to meet you, Mr. Holmes."

The passenger still held his hand in his and looked intensely into his eyes. "Sherlock will do."

John nodded, "Alright, Sherlock." The flight attendant liked how that name on the one hand rolled off his tongue but on the other hand had a hard ending. In some way, it suited the man in front of him. "What are you doing in Paris, at this time of year?", It was the middle of the winter, but the snow seemed to refuse to agree with that and stayed in the comfort of the clouds.

"Sightseeing.", Sherlock simply replied, and looked away.

John scoffed, "Yeah, right", he said.

The passenger's head whipped around. "Why are you laughing?"

"A bloke like you sightseeing? You are wearing too expensive of a suit for that. And why would you take the plane if you clearly have a fear of flying? The train connects pretty conveniently nowadays. It doesn't make sense. It has to be something urgent."

Sherlock's intense eyes glared at him again, and John felt a bit hot. This guy had some effect on him... if he wasn't in this situation of him being a flight attendant trying to prevent a passenger from panicking, and they were in a pub or something... John would probably even take his chances.

"Not as stupid as I thought you'd be.", the other man stated.

John laughed at the directness of his conversational partner. "Well, I'd hope they wouldn't give a doctor's degree to complete idiots."

Sherlock cocked his head slightly, the initial anxiousness obviously slowly fading. "What does a man with a doctor degree do on board of an airplane?"

"Oh, it's a long story..."

"Elaborate. I insist."

The two man continued talking like this. Sherlock in his seat, John on the floor, their hands intertwined. Sherlock occasionally gripping John's hand tighter when turbulences occurred, John casually explaining how it came to those. Sherlock seemed to know most of it already, but apparently John's voice seemed to calm him down. After a while, John had to walk through with a cart to offer beverages to all passengers. When he was done, John had hoped Sherlock would have kept the calm from their conversation, but apparently the fear had come to the surface again.

John didn't think for long; He grabbed two cups of coffee and headed back to his problem child, who was his favorite passenger at the same time. Together they drank their coffees, Sherlock holding on to John for dear life and they shared more about their life, anecdotes and thoughts. John felt bad about it, but he was almost glad Sherlock suffered from aviatophobia, because otherwise, he probably would never have gotten to exchange words with the fascinating man.

When 1 hour and 15 minutes have passed, they finally landed. Reluctantly, John had to take a seat away from Sherlock and the other passengers to stay safe. He kept clenching his fist, when suddenly a voice caught his attention. "He'll be alright. Stop worrying." It was Sarah.

"I know. But I am... worried.", John said, embarrassed about already feeling attached to the almost-stranger.

"You know what I think you should do?", Sarah asked. John opened his mouth but was interrupted, "Give him your number. And don't give me your 'But I am not gay' bullshit, either. We both know that's not quite true. Trust me. I know that look on your face. Give. him. your. number. Or I will.", She casually said but John knew she was right.

For a minute he sat there in awkward silence but finally his heart won over his head and he frantically searched for a piece of paper and pen.

Before the seat belt sign turned off, John used the opportunity to slip Sherlock his little note. He already walked away when he turned around and saw Sherlock's confusion in his face. The man pointed at himself and mouthed 'Me?'

John nodded enthusiastically and mouthed, 'Yes, of course. You.' back. To make sure there was no doubt he made fist, stuck his pinky and thumb out and shook his hand close to his ear, 'Call me'.

When everyone had left the plane, John's phone dinged.

John? SH

Attendant. JW

Did you seriously think I addressed anyone other but you with my note? JW

Funny. SH

Needed to be sure. SH

Well, be assured then ;) JW

Call me. Hopefully we'll get to know each other in a more comfortable atmosphere. JW

Wouldn't want to miss it. SH

Good. Me neither. JW

Call you later? SH

Oh, god. Yes. JW

♥︎♡♥︎♡♥︎♡♥︎♡♥︎♡♥︎♡♥︎♡♥︎♡♥︎♡♥︎♡♥︎♡♥︎♡

A/N: endings are hard :( feedback is so so precious to me! please don't hesitate to give constructive criticism or anything else, as a matter of fact. love you! thanks for reading! *throws badly cut out paper hearts at you*

tag list! (tell me if you wanna be added or removed💚) @justanobsessedpan @helloliriels @fluffbyday-smutbynight @inevitably-johnlocked @hisfavouritejumper @rhasima @forfucksakejohn @ohlooktheresabee @turbulenttrouble @so-youre-unattached-like-me @totallysilvergirl @peanitbear @train-mossman @loki-lock @smulderscobie @timberva @grace-in-the-wilderness @chinike @pansherlock @the-smol-bean-libby-blog @jawnn-watson @whatnext2020 @escapingthereality @missdeliadili @kettykika78 @musingsofmyown @7-percent @speedymoviesbyscience @astudyin221b @francj15 @almosttinycowboy @ladylindaaa @we-r-loonies @mxster-jocale @sherlockcorner @noahspector @our-stars-graveside @jobooksncoffee @baker-street-blog @psychosociogentleman @quickslvxr @macgyvershe @myladylyssa @johnlock2708 @battledress @a-victorian-girl @dreamerofthemeadow @oetkb12 @ohnoesnotagain @mutedsilence

[ginnsbaker]

Wow this chapter was such a rollercoaster

First the video reader deleting it instead of using it against vision i was very interested to see which route you went with this cos on one hand vision should be punished for violating someone’s privacy that way but at the same time reader just doesn’t want to see it. I also wonder what readers paycheck looks like cos 800k is insane.

One of my favourite parts of the book wandas therapy. “Wandas resilience is a force to be reckoned with” damn right it is. Im glad calliope told her she’s a victim because what happened wasn’t okay and her feelings are valid because they absolutely are. This therapy session seemed one of the harder ones for wanda and i quite like it because it shows how recovery isn’t a straight line.

with the running club reader’s jealousy was not very discreet i mean the whole game thing as well trying to show her up then injuring yourself in the process💀(is it bad i kinda thought Valkyrie had something to do with reader not being picked to run in the marathon) and then Valkyrie pushing wanda to drink pissed me off i was screaming for reader to step in but oh my god they fumbled it. They didn’t have to say it like that man. Wanda’s struggles are personal she didn’t have to air it out to everyone its not fair to her when shes been putting in the effort to get help. Then what was said outside. I could’ve slapped y/n.

Sparky had me so scared i hate in booke and shows and movies when anything happens to a dog its so sad.

Now the juicy part

“It becomes perfectly clear to you that you love her and you never stopped. Not even then.” THANK YOU SHERLOCK YOU ARE THE LAST PERSON TO REALISE THIS. And then the kiss. Wow. I kinda expected it but im still shocked by it cos reader cheated. And poor wanda. “A hint of worry appears in wanda’s deep emerald eyes” she tried to stop it from happening and then the “this isn’t right” “you’re better than me” that just broke my heart. She can’t forgive herself (yet - i really hope she does one day). It just shows her growth because at the start she probably would’ve ran with it but now she’s put a stop to it even though it was probably so hard for her because shes still in love. Im worried yelena or nat are gonna label wanda a home wrecker even though she didn’t actually do anything in this case like i hope she doesn’t get treated poorly for reader’s decision.

Then yelena finding out. Reader was honest and told her immediately. And yelena reacted about as well as I expected her to. But and i hope I don’t sound like a bad person for this but i really agree with that other anon when they said what did she expect. I know that doesn’t excuse reader’s actions and im not trying to or invalidate yelenas feelings because her reaction is very natural. Im trying to say she jumped into this relationship with someone who was very emotionally unavailable. Someone who had a tragic end to a 10 year relationship and who didn’t have therapy to process that end. I think yelena was so obsessed with being with reader because of their past that it clouded her judgement to an extent (i say to an extent because she was cautious of wanda the whole time so she wasn’t completely blinded)

This brings me to the final thing something I could’ve addressed earlier but got way more complicated after the kiss. Natasha. Shes gonna kill y/n. Or wanda. Or both? Reader calling her earlier was sad because friendship breakups hurt so bad. At that point there was hope for fixing their friendship but i’m not so sure now because of that kiss. It sucks for reader it really does losing your best friend is one of the worst pains you can feel. I don’t feel reader’s completely at fault, for the cheating yes but I don’t think they should’ve been in that relationship to begin with. Yelena pursued them knowing what she was getting into and idk i kinda hope nat considers that part of it before she decides to cut reader out her life or something. Which is hard because yelena is her sister but she seems to forget reade is also her best friend ik its different for some people to some family is the most important to some its friends to some its both so its complicated.

Sometimes two souls are so intertwined that no matter the circumstances they just gravitate towards each other and there’s nothing any external forces (in this case yelena) can do about it. The heart wants what the heart wants.

Im eagerly awaiting chapter 17 i have been since you said reader would find out and oh my god seeing how this one went I absolutely can’t wait

-🧃

Hey there!

The 800k will partly be covered by R's insurance. I looked into it and basically they have insurance for that? like, it doesn't exist in my country so i went with that. probably R will be charged a participation fee though, im not sure

For the marathon lottery, it really is a lottery when you join any of the world major marathon events (london, new york, tokyo, berlin, chicago and boston) with only boston that is purely by qualification time to join. so val had nothing to do with reader not being picked in the lottery.

This is the same scene where I initially intended the dog to die, but I couldn't bring myself to. Sparky will be fine, no more scares from this point onward

Yelena - yes, i agree with you even though i feel bad about it. i keep saying this but ive literally been in yelena's shoes, our difference is just i decided not to pursue the person. a year later, i learned that this person cheated on the girl she dated after me. so i dodged a bullet on that one. i always had a feeling that i was just second choice.

Wanda is so strong in this chapter but she's not going to magically turn into someone with the most self control in this story, but it's not going to be bad either..

Natasha is a bit indifferent to Wanda because she knows reader had the choice to stay away if she really wanted to. but anyway, i can't say much without spoiling some details

Whew that was long! but thank you so much for taking the time to give me your observations. I treasure each of them!

[studyinspectrum]

Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders, by Larry Millett, published 1998

i decided to go back to Mr. Millett's little Minnesota Holmes universe. i'm honestly glad i did. this is the sequel to Sherlock Holmes and The Red Demon, so it'd be wise to read my review on that book if you want some context. or don't. i'm not your dad.

this book in particular focuses around the Winter Carnival, an event that has occurred yearly in St. Paul, Minnesota since 1886. the event has often featured an "Ice Palace" which was a tourist destination for the city since then. to be honest, this book has made me interested in visiting the Winter Carnival some time in the future as i've lived around the Twin Cities for the past several years. i've visited a similar event in Duluth, Minnesota that focused around Christmas lights demonstrations and that was a lot of fun despite walking around in a huge park in sub freezing temperatures.

i'll preface the content warnings for this book as thus: i know there's a lot. i got to a point where i was recording them as i was consuming the book because there are a lot. HOWEVER, i think that this book actually tends to the subject matter in a humane way, and treating them with the respect it deserves. stuff gets heavy, it gets rough, but there is genuine closure and care taken when addressing these subjects, which is something i didn't really get in the previous book. the content warnings for Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders are as follows: murder, post mortem decapitation, veiled descriptions of date rape drugs, veiled descriptions of rape, suicidal tendencies, suicide attempts, blackmail, historic use of the "N" word, crossdressing but in the way that people are weird about it but not in an overtly transphobic kind of way, police corruption, slur for Italian people, and a dog is brutalized to death

the return: the sequel 2

i finished this book in july 2022, shortly after i had finished writing my review of the Red Demon. i said that i didn't really enjoy the red demon, but writing that review spurred me on to try to start on this book. in my preface i said i did actually enjoy this book, but i might attribute it to the sequel phenomenon, in which because a sequel doesn't has to justify its premise or existence people generally receive it more favorably and the creators can jump quicker to the story without having to provide exposition on certain topics.

alike to my review of the Red Demon, i read this book over 2 years ago so the details about it are fuzzy, so i put the audiobook on 2.5x speed and let it run during my work day. this book is a niche of a niche so no one's cared to make a sparknotes version of what happened in the book and my summary isn't really sparknotes quality either, but i'm just trying to get the plot across.

2.5x speed summary

Holmes and Watson actually start their journey going to Chicago, solving a case that Watson doesn't delve into in the narrative but are called to St. Paul by James. J Hill to help solve the disappearance of Jonathan Upton, the son of one of the city's richest families, on the eve of his wedding. His wedding was to take place inside of the Ice Palace, a literal castle built out of blocks of ice for the St. Paul Winter carnival.

when they tour the carnival, they see a strikingly beautiful sculpture of a woman who appears sorrowful and find it's sculptor, an Italian man named Dante. they compliment him on his sculpture but Dante won't say what inspired it.

they encounter Millet's blorbo OC of a character, Shadwell Rafferty, an Irishman and tavern owner that also fancies himself as a criminal investigator. together the three of them look into the Ice Palace, the last place Upton was seen and they discover a cloudy block of ice where all of the other blocks that make up the Ice Palace are practically clear. upon dislodging it from its place, they discover the severed head of Jonathan Upton.

Holmes and Watson try to interview some people, and come up with a couple of suspects: Upton's father George Upton (who was ornery about his son's death and disappearance but seemed to care less after his body was found), his fiancé Laura Forbes (who sold back her wedding dress the day after he disappeared), and a previous suitor of his fiancé and chief builder of the Ice Palace Michael Riley (who worked for him and seemed to be bitter that Upton took Laura from him).

Frederick Forbes, a friend of Upton, comes to Holmes and Watson with a pasted together letter stating he's in danger and reveals that Upton received a letter several days before his own disappearance. Forbes fears for his life.

Holmes, Watson, and Rafferty break into Upton's house and find his diary where he admits to getting in with the "wrong" crowd at a club he frequented, the Muskrat Club, where he began raping virginal women that were drugged as to not remember anything, brought to him by an associate he called "Spider". Upton regretted these actions and when he tried to break away from these people and these activities, he was blackmailed ruthlessly by these people and Upton was considering suicide.

Not long later, Upton's father is discovered murdered and body stowed in a mound of snow near the Ice Palace. at the same time, Laura Forbes and Michael Riley are discovered to have married and were planning to elope to New York, but Riley was arrested for the murder of Upton. Laura reveals that she knew that Upton was raping women and didn't want to marry him and Riley wanted to reveal what he was doing but it had put him on bad terms with the Muskrat Club and whoever was organizing their assault upon women, whoever that was. what also unfolds from here is that $10,000 were embezzled from the carnival funds and the chief detective, Connor, seems to be involved in the situation, someone who has a poor rapport with Rafferty and verbally assaulted Holmes earlier.

a crossdressing racketeerer named Bouquet seems to work for the "Spider" and gets involved in the case as well, seeming to be the direct threat on Frederick Forbes' life. Rafferty's dog is killed by someone who tried to search Rafferty's home for Upton's diary and Rafferty goes berserk, it takes Holmes, the barhand, and Watson's sedatives to calm him down.

Holmes tries to lay a plan to catch Bouquet by using Forbes as live bait, but Holmes, Watson, and Rafferty get separated when Forbes gets narrowly stabbed. Holmes and Bouquet have a confrontation over the frozen river and Holmes falls through, but is saved by catching hold of a Muskrat home.

Riley breaks out of jail but it looks like an inside job, Laura is kidnapped and discovered in the Muskrat Club, but was merely drugged.

Holmes, Watson, and Rafferty go to the Ice Palace on the last night guessing that the "Spider" will try to wrap up everything here. Bouquet and the "Spider" do arrive, but the three are too late to stop the "Spider" for shooting Bouquet after pretending to give him $5000. The "Spider" taunts the detectives, stating that they could never pin him for anything that happened with the Ice Palace murders since they would only ever trust his word and the word of the head detective that's in his pocket over some foreigners and an Irishman. all the clues do not point to him and there was no proof.

the "Spider" goes to leave, his name not having been revealed during all of this but Watson says he knows who he is. a last moment to gloat, the "Spider" reveals that it was him that brutalized Rafferty's dog and in a moment of rage Rafferty shoots a shotgun shot at him, but it seems to miss and hits the ice keystone of an arch of the melting Ice Palace and it falls on the one who organized it all: Frederick Forbes.

the rest of the book is spent with Holmes unraveling why everything happened the way it did to the people involved, and Frederick Forbes seemed to have gambling debts and unsavory tastes in how to engage with women so he tried to steal money from the carnival fund since Upton had a hand in the construction, and used the blackmail he had against Upton to allow the theft, but that doesn't explain the murder.

Upton was actually murdered by Dante, the sculptor of that ice sculpture of the sorrowful woman. Dante had a daughter that after visiting St. Paul found herself pregnant, as a victim of the assault done on her at the Muskrat Club and by Upton. his daughter killed herself, unable to take the grief of discovering she had been raped and the incurring pregnancy. Dante killed Upton, used his excuse as working in the Ice Palace as his reason for being there after hours, stored his head in one of the molds for making ice bricks, then carted his body off to the city dump where the rest of the waste material from the Ice Palace construction was taken. Dante mailed his confession to Holmes and disappeared.

so two crimes intersecting at a single point, the murder and death of Upton is the cause of it all.

more about the Winter Carnival

the Winter Carnival is the oldest winter festival in the US, having been established in 1886. a notable aspect of the Winter Carnival was the construction of the Ice Palace, which by its name you can probably guess was a large building made entirely made of ice. Other ice sculptures were featured, as well as demonstrations and participation from the local Sioux people.

due to the historically low temperatures of Minnesota allowed for the creation of ice blocks that were then placed as bricks. i was actually able to find a picture of what the ice palace of 1896 looked like when Holmes and Watson visited:

the archway that is featured in the photo there i believe depicts the icebrick keystone with which Forbes met his fate. it's neat to have the actual visual that Millet probably worked off of in order to build the scene of the Winter Carnival.

there's a plethora of information about the history of the Winter Carnival on the website too if you'd like to read up on the history of the carnival or see photos of the event more recent history.

an analysis

disconnected from the actual content of the story, the narration done by Steve Hendrickson is fucking good. this guy can do a million and one accents and within the first 5 chapters he does an American accent, an English Accent, an Irish accent, a Swedish accent, and an Italian accent. what a champ.

additionally, being in downtown St. Paul quite often these days it's fun to hear the directions being given by characters and know exactly what streets they're going down and what places they're going. a lot of the buildings in St. Paul are pretty old and seem to attempt to be maintained as best as they can be, leading to a lot of old brickwork everywhere so it's very likely that the streets look very similar too.

this book deals with a lot more unsavory topics but everything is approached with a level of care that i felt was missing in the Red Demon. Holmes' characterization feels a little more consistent and the mystery itself is really well structured in my opinion. i especially love the reoccurring encounter with Dante's ice sculpture and the descriptions of the melting Ice Palace.

unlike House of Silk, where the organizer of the events walks away basically scott free, the fact that Forbes actually dies at the end of this book as a means of catharsis feels very very good. the detectives lost, to both the burden of proof and personal attachment/anger, but it was what led to the conclusion of the case in a way that was actually satisfying.

overall, i think this is a good Sherlock Holmes pastiche. i'm not even mad i had to listen to the book a second time in order to remember all the happened. i enjoyed it, even if it were on 2.5x speed (i would've done 3x just so i could get through it faster but that speed was actually unintelligible. 1.5x speed is my normal audiobook)

if i had any complaint about the book, its that Watson takes a real back seat to everything. he's more or less a camera in which he perceives Holmes and Rafferty, and has the most importance when he stabs Rafferty with a sedative and when he saves Holmes from the freezing river. beyond that, he doesn't do much, which is a crime of a lot of Holmesian media that i can't just hold Millet to.

reviews

what do other people think? i blasted myself with reviews hoping that ANYONE on goodreads had a summary i could just use to remind myself of what happened but the general feel is similar to that of the Red Demon, people appreciate this pastiche for its historical accuracy and especially that of Minnesota, but also people fucking hated it because either they find Millet's characterization bad or dropped it when the dog died.

From Goodreads user Jennifer:

Written in the style of Conan Doyle, it is easy to slip into believing that this indeed, is another epistle from Dr. Watson, as described by Conan Doyle. This book takes place in St. Paul, Holmes being summoned to help solve the mystery of the missing bridegroom. Murder takes place, threats, and intrigue abound. Some of the subject matter is disturbing (the rape of young women) but it figures prominently into the situation and while distasteful is important. All in all, I enjoyed this book and will seek out the next in the series. I did not figure out who the murderer was, but felt it made sense in the end.

from Goodreads user Stasia Higgins:

Stopped at chapter 21. […] Holmes is reduced to a mere investigator as opposed to someone who deduces facts out of trivial details. He never knows something without someone directly telling him. Rafferty was fine. Less annoying than anticipated, but I’d still rather Sherlock Holmes be the main investigator in the Sherlock Holmes story. I found the author’s introduction of a much more serious motive (gang rape) to be poorly handled. And finally, the dog dies.

from Storygraph user truegrit:

If you like well researched historical fiction and Sherlock Holmes stories, here ya go.

i disagree with the idea that the "gang rape" was poorly handled, it's a rough subject no doubt but the characters in the situation upon learning about it deal with it maturely and treat it with the horror that it deserves. it's completely unlike House of Silk where it's not used as a shocking element of the case that the entire story hinges around, it's an aspect of the case that indicates how serious and difficult it was and why it was so covered up by those involved. believe me when i say it's not dealt with poorly, i don't know what that person is talking about.

there's also a couple of reviews that mention dropping the book after Rafferty's dog was killed. the dog dies offscreen and it's given the moment of tragedy and sadness that it disturbs, yet people called it "gratuitous". before that point in the book a man's head is found decapitated in a block of ice and a body frozen in a snowbank. and yet its the dog's death that causes you to drop the book? everyone has their own limits to the type of content that they can endure but to regard the death of the dog worse than that of humans in the book feels… bad in my opinion. i have empathy problems of my own, but it displays to me a warped sense of empathy that the death of a dog, who is just as fictional as the dead characters in the book and is as much a literary mode of delivering a story, is treated as if its a real animal death. sorry if this is a digression but it felt important to bring it up.

i realized in a couple of my other reviews as i repost them, i gave a rating out of 5 on how i felt about it, but i think i'm going to do away with that, and especially since i fell off with doing it anyway and go on a system of "do i recommend this or not" and i say, yeah! i do recommend it if you like Sherlock Holmes pastiches and historical fiction. it's a neat mystery.

play adaptation???

usually a pastiche doesn't get it's own transformative adaptation into another medium, but The Ice Palace Murders gets a unique place among pastiches that it did get one.

there was a short run of the play adaptation at Park Square Theater in St. Paul in 2015 with the man that narrates the audiobook, Steve Hendrickson, in the role of Sherlock Holmes himself. Hendrickson is also a local to Minnesota which is why Millet and him have collaborated on narrating all of the Sherlock Holmes in Minnesota books.

The one who adapted the book to play form, Jeffery Hatcher, is also from Minnesota and even had to fill in the role of Hendrickson's Holmes for a few shows when Hendrickson fell ill.

it's really interesting to read about though, how there's such a vibrant love for Sherlock Holmes in the state i live in and its fun knowing im not the only one.

but i mean, also there's the largest collection of Sherlock Holmes materials at the University of Minnesota. i want to go so badly to see it but i've not had the opportunity and the last time i checked they didn't allow visitors but i might try and see if i can get in….

[imbellarosa]

Let’s Talk Calm-ly about Two Loves

OR: When you’re a grown man who writes stories for a living, you definitely wrote your own weird bedtime story, too. 

The TLDR here is that H has taken one specific listener around the globe, notably to Tokyo and Jamaica. He quotes an old Victorian Poet who was an awful human but who’s lasting legacy is the phrase “a love that dare not speak its name” which is - you guessed it - a reference to queer love. He also is super excited to spend what seems like the foreseeable future with this listener and has bought a little house with a garden of daisies with them and it’s very sweet and domestic. Anyways this is a wild time and it’s all under a cut because it’s...really a lot. 

Anyways I think the people I owe thank yous this times around to are @queenlokibeth​ who had to listen to me scream about this for a while, Astrid, who screamed with me when this came out, and “M” who convinced me to finally get to work in this fandom. And, of course, all of the lovely people tagged below who’s work I used to build my argument. 

1.) Who Wrote “Dream With Me”? 

Well, not H, or so the story goes. Two other people (Steve Cleverly and Sanj Sen) did! I mean, right, okay, for a while I was like...that seems like an odd choice for a man who didn’t want to hand Two Ghosts over to his own band because it seemed too personal. He wrote on every song in both albums’ he’s released thus far, because he seems to be passionate about telling the stories he wants to tell (even if he won’t tell you explicitly what they’re about). But for a while, I was totally going with the flow there, and the rest of this analysis would still stand: the writer of this story definitely referenced a poem by Lord Alfred Douglas and Harry’s own songs. 

However, I then read this fun quote from the Co-founder and CEO of Calm: 

“Well,” he said, “The the Harry Styles one is interesting because that came purely from Harry Styles himself...we took the approach of creating a sort of musical epic poem – he doesn’t sing, it’s spoken with poetry, but there’s a sort of musical sound bed to it and it’s pulling on things and themes that Harry’s fans really adore about him and associate with him. So his story was driven really by him – we really created a concept around him.” 

-  Chris Advansun, July 7th, 2020 via @hlupdate​

And I thought, hmmm. This does not sound like a project that he was not involved in creating. From this point on (July, 7th 2020), I began to think of it as a three way co-collaboration between him and the other two authors. But this confused me a bit, because there was largely a nonreaction from the fandom. I was waiting for an actual transcript, because I always fall asleep to these meditation stories, but it was being referenced to as some sort of Y/N fic, which was...honestly not what I expected, but also not implausible, thanks to the ~lovely~ image this man has had since the age of sixteen. But also, twitter seemed to be concerned by other things at the moment, and no one was analyzing the story. . 

In fact, I messaged a friend the day that this story dropped, because it had been kind of a shit show day on Twitter. Rumors were sort of flying about everyone and everything: had Liam shaved his head? Was he engaged? Had he and Maya broken up? Were Zayn and Gigi engaged? Had they broken up? Did Niall have a girlfriend? (this one was true lol). Were Elounor engaged? Were they pregnant? Had they broken up??? My personal fav was the bald Liam rumor, which he promptly put to rest in LP Act 1 by...having a huge mane of hair. 

So then I thought - huh. Why has today looked like this? I’m not saying that there aren’t days that twitter goes wild because of boredom, because there definitely is - the articles about secret meetings in Italy that are coming out this week (8/12/2020) are proof positive. So that definitely does happen, but it doesn’t usually happen on the days that there’s a lot of content. And maybe I’ve just been starved for content in this fandom, but I would consider a 40 minute video quite a bit of content. 

Then the transcript dropped. I’m using two as references - this one on Wattpad and also @carl-and-pearl ‘s version here (thank you so much for the transcript!!). We’re going to get into a more detailed description of what’s going on in the story, but the first thing I recognized immediately is that it was first person POV. I knew that going in, based on the number of Y/N jokes going around on twitter. Then I read it aloud, and I realized that it read like a letter. Like an experience specific to the writer and the reader. And while that’s not super uncommon to write about an experience from the author’s POV - I listen to a podcast called Nothing Much Happens: bedtime stories for adults which has a similar concept - I thought it was odd that they were trying to include both the author and the listener. I completely understood why the y/n jokes were pertinent. But at the same time, it felt like something had snagged in my mind - like a particularly annoying splinter. 

The conversations I was having around this story - completely based on the content, concept, and my own instinct - was that this story contained specific references to one person. I thought that it did read like a love letter, and that most identifying features would have been taken out, but the essence remained. Which, once I thought about it, was something that H excelled at doing. Think about Sunflower Vol 6 and Adore You and Canyon Moon and even Watermelon Sugar and Golden.  Ask yourself, What do I know about the person they are about? They have skin that browns, they have a secret, they have mesmerizing eyes, they’re willing to dance in the kitchen with him (to dancehall), they have a belly, they’ve been through hard times, they’re witty, they have an accent, and they have lips. I know - super specific right?

So the splinter grew into a thorn - what was I missing? And then - when I was looking for something completely different - I stumbled upon this old interview Harry did with Zach Sang and the Gang Show back in 2017.  For context, he was being asked about Sweet Creature. As you can imagine, it’s hard for people to believe he wrote such a beautiful love song when he hadn’t ever really had a long term relationship (two hearts in one home?? Who did you move in with, you can imagine them asking. When did you have time?). So what did he have to say about this?

"In my opinion,” he explained, “I think most songs are written for one listener. Maybe there's one thing in there that only they'll notice about them.... It's so much easier to say something in a song than it is to say it to someone and I think it's really amazing to be able to communicate through that and be able to wrap up everything that you want to say in three and a half minutes and say it in a song."

- HS, May 3 2017

By this time, please believe that I was screeching. Seeing this felt like he put into words the exact feeling I had about “Dream With Me”. It felt like a nod to someone that I didn’t know, which made the story hard to listen to, tbh. Although, I will say that when I did finally listen to it, it knocked me out and gave me odd dreams so. Once was enough for me haha! 

So my new operating theory is exactly what Advansun said: I think that H was the primary writer/the driving force behind the story. Because of the references I’m about to run through, because it feels like the way he tells stories, and because they admitted to him being more involved than they originally claimed. That’s going to be how I write the rest of the analysis - under the impression that H had a direct hand in the story that was being put forth. However, I think that the analysis itself would stand whether or not he wrote any of it. It would just be a more tenuous reflection of him than I believe it to be. 

2.) How Do I Love Thee? In Two Ways. 

Before I jump into the story, let’s talk a little about the poem that I want to compare it to: Two Loves, by Lord Alfred Douglas.  Let’s be clear this is not at all a defense of who Bosie was - he was a terrible person, particularly in his later years, when he’d converted to Catholicism and turned his back on his younger self, and his partner, Oscar Wilde. He was violently anti-Semitic, and turned his back on his own community. I want to get this out of the way because I very much believe that we should examine artists for who they are. That is, after all, what I am trying to do here. 

But his poem Two Loves has often been used - much to his disappointment, I’m sure - as an exploration of queer love in Victorian times. A line that I will be exploring more deeply in a second was in fact used against Oscar Wilde in his trail for indecency . He attempted - unsuccessfully - to explain it away, but it was too blatantly about their relationship for even the British Victorian society to ignore. I really, really recommend a read of this poem, because it is - despite it’s author - a good piece of work, which explores the themes of shame and love and longing between two men in that time. 

I’m going to start with my own background, as someone who’s analyzed fandoms before. I first came across this poem in the Sherlock fandom, with this analysis by @the-7-percent-solution​, when I was running in that fandom, and she explains the poem brilliantly in just a few lines. I’m going to take a little longer to run through it, but if you want a concise explanation and a brilliant meta, I encourage you to run to their blog and check it out. That fandom taught me most everything I know about catching symbols and recurring themes and “clueing for looks” and I love it desperately, still. 

But we’re here to talk about this fandom, so on with the poem! Essentially, the poem outlines a dream the speaker had: In his dream, he’s standing in a field with flowers - beautiful ones of all kind - and he meets this young man with clear blue eyes and bright red lips and they kiss a bit and have a picnic, and it’s all lovely. If you think I’m kidding, I’m really not. Please, read it for yourself. 

Anyways, after they did they did the whole picnic thing, the speaker and his date go on a walk in this field, where they come across two figures. The first is described as, 

“...fair and blooming, and a sweet refrain Came from his lips; he sang of pretty maids And joyous love of comely girl and boy, His eyes were bright, and 'mid the dancing blades Of golden grass his feet did trip for joy; And in his hand he held an ivory lute With strings of gold that were as maidens' hair, And sang with voice as tuneful as a flute, And round his neck three chains of roses were.” 

- Two Loves, 1894

The speaker, however, was drawn to the second figure: 

“He was full sad and sweet, and his large eyes Were strange with wondrous brightness, staring wide With gazing; and he sighed with many sighs That moved me, and his cheeks were wan and white Like pallid lilies, and his lips were red Like poppies, and his hands he clenched tight, And yet again unclenched, and his head Was wreathed with moon-flowers pale as lips of death. A purple robe he wore, o'erwrought in gold With the device of a great snake, whose breath Was fiery flame..”

- Two Loves, 1984

Of course, the speaker immediately asks the second man who he is. The second man says, “My name is Love”. The first man corrects him quickly: 

“ He lieth, for his name is Shame, But I am Love, and I was wont to be Alone in this fair garden, till he came Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame.”

-Two Loves, 1984

The second man sighs and acquiesces, “Have thy will. I am the love that dare not speak its name.” 

It was, of course, this last line that really gave the meaning of the poem away. It was the line that was put to Oscar Wilde as proof of a romantic relationship, it was the line that went down in history as a way to refer to queer love, and it was the line that first stuck out to me when I was reading “Dream With Me”. 

The reading here is clearly that “Love” is the love that is acceptable to society - easy, sweet, and cherished. “Shame” is the love that happens in secret - beautiful, alluring to the speaker, passionate, anxious ( as can be seen in the clenching and unclenching of his hands), and proud. He refuses to call himself as anything but what he is. The first man may call him Shame, but he refuses the name, and instead, offers a qualifier to his own descriptor. He is still love, he is just the love that can’t be spoken about. 

3.) Walking in Golden Fields of Sunflowers

Now let’s talk about “Dream With Me”. I’m ignoring the first few stanzas (from the line “Have you ever wondered” to “What the two of us can find”.) because those are pretty standard introductory paragraphs to a guided meditation. So we start with the line “Let’s travel now to moonlit valleys...”. 

I’m going to do the same thing I did with “Two Loves” first. I am going to describe literally, in general terms, what happens in the story. Warning, I change pronouns from “they” to “you” because the whole thing confuses me, but note that I’m always talking about the speaker and the listener: 

So after doing the standard intro, the speaker and the listener take a walk through the woods enjoying nature, particularly the grass, the trees, and the blue sky above. You’re already clearly in love. Then you’re magically on a raft, with cherry blossoms all around you. If you want a good visual for that, here’s a site that has pictures from a boat rental in Tokyo where you can snuggle on a raft in the  Chidorigafuchi moat. And then suddenly it starts raining, and they (you) watch the rain for a hot second, and then the scene magically shifts again, and you’re under a porch (although I guess it could be the boat rental’s porch. They do usually have covered areas). 

Kind of furthering that theory, they then lounge by the shoreline, skipping stones and hanging out, looking at the snow capped mountains. In case you’re curious, because at this point I sure was, you can see mountains from certain areas in the city of Tokyo. 

Anyways, then it’s snowing, and you’re magically in a cabin, just chilling by the fire, and you fall asleep again. You wake up somewhere else.

Where are you now? Well, you’re on a tropical island filled with palm trees. As an American, my mind immediately jumps to the Caribbean, but I suppose it could absolutely be in the Mediterranean as well. The island has white beaches, mangroves, a turquoise ocean, and a gorgeous, peaceful atmosphere. 

If you’re curious as to what a mangrove looks like - and I certainly was - they are a group of trees and shrubs that live in the coastal intertidal zone and Jamaica is doing a massive restoration project involving primary school children to regrow this vital part of their ecosystem. More interestingly, there currently exist no mangrove forests in the Mediterranean, so my initial feeling that this scene would take place in the Caribbean was correct. On that note - again, because I was curious - Jamaica has gorgeous white sand beaches with turquoise oceans. 

But I’ve gone off topic again! After you’re minds are “in tune” once more (trying to find a heartbeat, anyone?), you reappear in a meadow, with beautiful flowers of all kind, where you are now walking hand in hand through a field of sunflowers, which give the feeling a “warm and golden hue”. Then you come across a little farmhouse with daisies poking out (clearly I have no way of locating this anywhere in the world, but I assume that the UK has both sunflowers and daisies). It’s an empty house which was loved and left because of the passage of time, which inspires my favorite line in the poem: “ The thought of passing time inspires/A feeling that grows stronger”. It’s just...really sweet to me. 

So, of course, they do what anyone would do when they come across an empty farmhouse, they go inside. And there, they begin to fall asleep, reflecting on all they have just seen, referencing other scenes of the poem: “ Moonlit valleys, Burdened forests, Gazing at the ocean. Summer meadows, Tranquil sunsets steeped in emotion”. 

The next few stanzas are just going to be copy-pasted, and then I’ll go into them a bit, but this is the end of the poem, so they’re the final reflections;

“The tenderness we feel When we are close Two minds as one Surrounds us and connects us But we’ve only just begun.

For now we dream together Of all there is to follow. And know that sleep will keep us safe From now until tomorrow.

Maybe all the memories That we’ve gathered here tonight Are all dreams now remembered Or wishes in plain sight.

No matter what They’re with us now. For this night and forever. And every time we close our eyes They’re yours and mine to treasure.” 

- HS, Dream With Me, via @carl-and-pearl​

And that’s it! The literal story, in short, is that you started in a forest, then went to Tokyo (maybe) and then Jamaica (perhaps) and then back to a field of sunflowers and daisies in the UK (which is also a guess, it could be Italy or France or Idaho for all I know, but let’s call it an educated guess). 

4.) My Dream Journal

So now that we know what happens in the story, how do we interpret this? Well, There are a few lines in the poem that I want to draw your attention to: the first takes place in the first part of this story, when you’re still in the forest. This is, I must say, the most direct reference to Two Loves in the whole poem/song/story. Both works are describing a walk in the woods with your loved one, and, in a fun reference in the middle of the story, Dream With Me says

The shimmering reflection Shows us smiling from above. But what we think But dare not speak is L-O-V-E love.

-Dream With Me, 2020

Remember that line I mentioned before? I am the love that dare not speak its name. Right, so that’s almost a direct quote. It also has a really fun nod to “I Would” (Would he say he’s in L-O-V-E?/Well if it was me then I would), but I digress. 

This first part of the narrative, I feel, really sets up what the rest of it will look and feel like, in the same way that “Golden” sets the tone for Fine Line. (You didn’t think I was going to make a post about Harry and NOT mention Golden, did you?? If you did, I’m disappointed!!). So  let’s take a look at what’s happening, and the language he’s using to describe it. 

One of the best things about this poem is how vivid it feels. Of course, I’m about to argue that it’s vivid because it was based in reality, but let’s talk about the sheer amount of detail he uses to describe the place he’s walking through. The valley (canyon lmao) is moonlit, the grass and the leaves make mosaics of green, you’re walking by the heather (the symbolism of heather is good luck, admiration, and protection), the sepia sunlight breaks through the trees. 

You know what it kind of sounds like? Sweet Creature. You’re about to roll your eyes at me! I can feel it! But listen, okay?  

“Sweet creature Running through the garden Oh, where nothing bothered us But we're still young I always think about you and how we don't speak enough”

Which, to be honest, sounds like what they’re doing. They’re walking through the garden in the sun, not daring to speak about the Love that he (they both) feel, and instead refering to it in veiled Victorian terms. 

And then we head to Tokyo! I know that you’re about to ask me why I think it’s Tokyo versus...idk, anywhere else? Well, for one, he went to Tokyo (to let it go) publicly in 2019. He was there for a few months, and there are some great pictures of that time: 

Look! Here he is with his club owner friend and his dog, and a fun red bandanna! But let’s be honest, the dog really steals the show here. But wait! there’s more! More dog content, too!

This was on Jan 31st, 2019, and he’s taking the dog for a walk! Very cute! If nothing else, he spent a lot of time with dogs in Tokyo! And the city fits the description of the story. So I feel rather comfortable with my interpretation that this first date is a memory of this trip - or another - to Tokyo. 

So what did “you both”do in Tokyo? Well, chill on a raft while the cherry blossoms flutter around you, clearly. You also refocused your purpose. What did he do in Tokyo in 2019? Well, he took time to think about and write songs for the album he was about to go record. Kind of like refocusing on what’s next, right? And then, in the story when “you both” had time to think amongst the lake and the water and the rain and the moon, and you’d come to the conclusions you needed to, you left. What did he do when he did the things he needed to? Well, he left, too. 

And where did he go? Well, in real life, I suppose he went to do his job. But, in the story, you’re meant to be falling deeper and deeper into sleep, so it’s sort of like traveling backwards, you see? Like counting down to one. So you end up on this island with turquoise ocean and mangrove forests. I’m calling this Jamaica. Why? Well, the description fits, for one, down to the four types of mangroves that exists within its ecosystem. 

And - probably the biggest reason - I can place him there, too. Here’s him in 2017:

I added this picture because the water around him....looks rather turquoise, doesn’t it? Kind of like he’s enjoying his time on a tropical island by the beach?? Oh, and here’s another one!: 

The red bandanna makes a comeback! 

So what are you doing in Jamaica, according to the story? Well, you’re hanging out, basically. Enjoying the beach and each other, of course!  What else? To be exact, “[Your] thoughts dovetail and unify/ In tune two minds together”. I’m so glad that you’re tuned like an old guitar now! Congrats! Really happy for you! 

What was he doing in Jamaica three years ago? Why, he was recording his first album, or so the story goes. I’ll tell you something: finding press for that album was literally the most difficult part of this whole analysis. I got a fair bit of the tattoo roulette with Kendall Jenner, and some things about Carolina, but the interview with Zach Sang took me like an hour and a half to find again to link. The fact that a lot of it has been buried is...not great, for posterity purposes. He’s going to want that one day. 

But I’ve gotten off track again! We gotta go back and finish our story, right? What happens now? Well, this does: 

hahahaha okay, I’m really sorry, but I had to. I’m not, actually, making it up though! According to the story: 

“ As minutes turn to hours We drift off somewhere new. And visualize a stairway To a door we now walk through”

- Dream With Me, 2020

So maybe Louis was just...demonstrating for you. 

Anyways! Where do you walk out to? A golden field full of sunflowers. You walk for a minute, then come across an old house with daisies popping up out of the garden. And that’s where the story ends. I guess you’ve made that farmhouse feel like home. 

Now to the little reflection he does on the outro. The lines I want to bring your attention are: “The tenderness we feel when we are close two minds as one surrounds us and connects us but we’ve only just begun” and “Maybe all the memories that we’ve gathered here tonight are all dreams now remembered or wishes in plain sight.”

Let’s talk about the first sentence first. In the context of finding a home that could be a shared home, and a future, this is very much an “end of the story, beginning of our lives” sort of thing. You’re back from all over, and it’s time to settle down, and see what’s next. 

And now the second sentence. I think this is the one that really drives my point about this story being a collection of memories he has - that’s what he calls it. The story is “gathered memories” that might also be called “remembered dreams” (think of how people say of vacations, “oh it was a dream!”) or you might call it “wishes in plain sight”. This feels in line with the rest of the story. In this stanza, he’s sort of letting you in a bit. If I’ve read this right - and I really think that I have - he’s giving the larger context for the story. It’s a collection of memories he’s had with someone he loves. 

5.) Cool! Can you prove it? 

I mean, I’d argue that if you read this far, I have proved it, but let’s make some more links, shall we? This was called a “muscial epic” that was “driven by him”. I’d argue that if I know my Victorian literature (thank you, Sherlock!), then he definitely does. Then there’s the fact that he quoted it, so. That did happen. And he knows what it means. And even if he didn’t, there were two other people on the story. Someone was more than capable of catching that one, and the fact that they didn’t speaks to intent. They want you to think of that phrase when you read this poem. They want you to think of that walk in the woods while you’re going on this one. 

And, as for my assumption that this is for and about one person, well. Think about it. He said that he writes his songs for a single listener. I’m not saying it’s the same listener each time, let’s get that right, but it is always just for one person. With that, and with the assumption that he’s been involved in the writing of this story, I’d say that the same rule applies. He went with someone to Japan and Jamaica (J^2 haha). And, if I had to guess, it was the same person. 

Why, you ask? Well, for one, if that weren’t the case, then this poem would no longer be for one listener, it would be for multiple. And, for another, imagine how awkward it would be to listen to it with his current partner and have to explain “oh, yeah that was the super romantic vacation I took with someone else” . And, I suppose that because I think that attitude of “refocusing” and “dovetailing” and “tuning” and getting excited about imagining all of the tomorrows with your partner speaks to a long term relationship breathing easily, you know? 

I’m also going to argue that describing the aura around the house as “golden” was intentional, especially when paired with the location - in the middle of a field of sunflowers. Those are both direct references to his songs. And those two songs are particularly linked by the number 28. The third song that features 28 is Fine Line the song, but that’s a different story. Anywho! “Golden”’s bridge just repeats the word ‘golden’ twenty eight times (if you go here , you can count the bridge) and “Sunflower Vol. 6″ ends the song with 28 “boops” (believe me, I wish I was making this up. I’m not.). So then, once again, you’ve linked a story to two already linked songs. 

And, even if you don’t buy the intentional repetition, they’re linked another way, aren’t they? The color scheme and the sun symbol. Sunflowers were named because of their sun-like appearance. They turn to face it. They symbolize loyalty and adoration. And then, of course, the sun is - say it with me - golden. And it - like the person in golden - waits in the sky, beautiful and dangerous and constant. And here that symbol is, in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. At home. 

This whole story feels like you’re taking the time to find that heartbeat that you think you might have lost, and sort of coming back to a space where you understand that this is what you want, now and forever. It feels like finding a home that could be yours forever, and it feels like walking through some of the moments that remind him of that. 

It really is rather lovely, if you think about it, especially since he has a tendency to attribute “home” to people rather than place, in his songs. So it’s like. Going all around the world and always being at home. 

[toutallyahoe]

Reasons Being A Human Being ~ Jim Moriarty (Sherlock)

Requested By Gifted To: CN, my darling, my sun and star, my heart, my lifeline <3

A/N: my gift for a special darling in my life who wanted a fluffy one shot for this psychopath uwu <3

also... HAPPY AU BECAUSE THE OBSESSION SERIES OF JIM BEING HIS NORMAL PSYCHOPATHIC SELF IS MAKING [NAME] DEPRESSED THERE AND WE NEED THAT BOI TO CUT SOME SLACK

─────────────────

Jim Moriarty was not a very empathetic or even a humane human being. In fact, many could say that Jim Moriarty was a monster in disguise of a human being.

Jim was a manipulative, cunning and untrustworthy person you will ever met. He had blood on his hands, both metaphorically and literally, in such a young age. He had after all killed his old bully in his early teens which was rather very... terrifying for him to do but it shows how he was someone not to mess with.

Jim was a vile person. In fact, he can be a devil.

You can see that Jim Moriarty isn't really... a very sane man. In fact, Sherlock Holmes can attest to that statement. The consulting detective had to deal with Jim Moriarty's boredom and schemes for months now.

But Jim has a bit of humanity left inside him which if someone would hear would scoff of that thought. But he does. And someone can attest to that.

And that very someone was [Name] [Last name], the lovable lover of the said psychopath.

[Name] [Last name] was Jim Moriarty's dear lover. A very loyal and caring man who was ignorant at Jim's true colours at first. In fact, he didn't even knew Jim Moriarty existed as he was dating Jim Moore.

But after almost two years of them dating and being together, Jim had told him who he really was. Maybe it was the guilt, maybe he just really wanted mutual trust with his [Hair color] haired lover. But either way, he had told who he really was.

That day changed Jim Moriarty's life. The once illusion of Jim Moore was broken and Jim Moriarty shined.

[Name] was really shocked and heartbroken at first but after some time, he had accepted that Jim Moore was Jim Moriarty. And they still stayed together.

Each day the two are together, [Name] would always noticed how his dear Jim was more humane than what others can say. And the [Hair color] haired man documented it.

Reasons on Jim Moriarty being a human being (by [Name] [Last name] & (was forced to co-write) Sebastian Moran):

He can feel jealousy

"[Name]? [Name] [Last name]?" A soft voice had called out to the [Hair color] haired man who looked up from his phone to the voice who called him. A surprised looked plastered on his face as he saw who it was that called him.

"Belle...?" [Name] can said as the said female nodded her head. A squeal left her red lips.

"It is you!" Belle had said as she happily approached the [Hair color] haired man who had put his phone on the table and stood up from his seat as he wrapped his arms around the female when she was near.

"Oh, how I missed you love!" Belle had said as she hugged [Name] aswell. A chuckle leaving [Name]'s lips. The two parted as they both looked at each other up and down.

"It's been so long!" Belle had commented as she smiled. [Name] nodding his head as a grin on his lips. "Been what? Years?" She said.

"I think its been two years," the [Hair color] haired had said. Belle looked surprise for a moment as she then teasingly grinned.

"And you kept track?" She laughed. "Still the sappy [Name] I know," she teased as [Name] rolled his eyes and scoffed but he then laughed and shake his head.

"Like you're one to talk miss Belle amor," he said as the blond female giggled. Belle jokingly punches [Name]'s shoulders as the man laughed.

"Awe, still [Name] I knew," she said as [Name] sent a smile to her. "So, what are you doing here? Still sulking babe?" Belle had tease as [Name] rolled his eyes and offered her to sit on the table he was occupying awhile ago.

"When have I ever sulk, Belle?" [Name] had ask as he sat on his chair again as the blonde female sat opposite to him. The [Hair color] haired man saw Belle's mouth open to retort when he sent her a playful glare. "That wasn't a question," he has grunted as the female laughed at him.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," she laughed as [Name] sighed.

"But really, what are you doing here? Didn't expect to see you again... especially in this place like this," Belle stated as [Name] sent a quick look to his watch on his wrist as he sighed.

"Just waiting," he vaguely said as the female rosed a brow at his answer. Plopping her arms on the surface of the table as she leaned over. A smirk on her red lips.

"Oh?" She sent [Name] a mischievous look which made the man rolled his eyes but chuckled. "Mr. [Last name] in a date? Oo, goodie!" Belle teased.

"Well, yes," the [Hair color] haired man had agreed as Belle for a moment sent him a surprised look but back to her teasing smile.

"Who's the lucky girl? Do I know her?" Belle had asked, there was a hint of distaste in her tone but the [Hair color] haired man didn't seemed to notice as she heard him laugh. The female saw [Name] rubbed the back of his neck as he sent her a shy grin.

"Well, funny thing is... I'm not really..." [Name] trailed off as he looked at behind the female. His face lit up when he saw someone coming in the coffee shop.

"Ah, Jim!" [Name] had called as he rosed up from his seat and raised a hand to wave while the said man he had called pulled down his sunglasses and smiled at him. Returning the other's wave as he strutted with confidence that Belle immediately noticed. The blonde female raised a brow when she saw the new man, Jim, hugged [Name] tightly when he neared as she heard him said the man's name.

"Hello there darling, did you wait long?" Jim had asked as [Name] shake his head. A soft smile on the [Hair color] haired man's lips as they parted from the hug.

"Kinda... but Belle accompanied me," with the mention of a female, Jim had frowned for a second as he looked at where [Name] had gestured. There sat a blond female on looked at him with a raised brow but sent him a smile.

"Oh? You must be the famous Belle Darnley, yes?" Jim had asked as he offered his hand for Belle to take and shake. The female did with a bit of hesitation that didn't escaped Jim's calculating eyes disguise as false cheerfulness. "Pleasure to meet you," he had said.

"Um, pleasures all mine mister..." Belle trailed off as Jim took his hand away with a laugh.

"Jim. Just call me Jim," Jim had said. A smile on his face but it didn't reached his face as [Name] smiled and put his hand on Jim's shoulder.

"How about you sit Jim, while I'll order, yes?" [Name] had suggested as the dark haired man turned to give him a small grin.

"Of course, the usual alright darling?" Jim had stated as he patted the [Hair color] haired man's cheek, initiating the man to chuckle and hold his hand for a moment until he turned to look at Belle who had been silently watching the two interact.

"What about you Belle? What do you want, its on me," [Name] happily said as he let go of Jim's hand as the blonde female blinked for a second as he sent [Name] a smile. "Or is it that you're still with your diet thing?" [Name] teased as she sent him a pout.

"I am perfectly fine on ordering for myself thank you very much," Belle had pouted as she then grinned. "But if you're being generous... cup of oolong tea and a slice of blood orange tart babe," she had said. Jim narrowed his eyes with the last word of her order. [Name] nodded his head as he turned and walked towards the register of the café.

Both Jim and Belle had watched him as he walked away and when the two saw him getting in line, they looked away. Belle tapping her red manicured nails on the surface of the table as Jim seemed to picked up [Name]'s forgotten phone on the table and began to tap on it. Belle assume he was opening the phone and doing whatever he was doing there.

The blonde female frowned a bit as she did not know the two's relationship. She noticed that [Name] and Jim seemed to be close. Very close with how Jim seemed to interact with [Name] and even be let to use the [Hair color] haired man's phone. Well, technically left his phone on the tabletop and Jim just decided to use it. It still doesn't stop Belle to assume something much more with the two's relationship. Like, they are more than friends.

"So... uh... Jim," Belle started as the said man didn't seem to pay mind to her as he continued to tap and swipe on the phone. His disinterest made her frown a bit. "What is you're relationship with [Name]?" Belle had asked as Jim seemed to pause for a second then typed again on the phone.

Sighing, the female wanted to pester the other more when Jim looked up and Belle was surprised to see him have large grin plastered on his lips.

"And why are you asking dear?" The dark haired man asked as he put down the phone and plopped his elbows on the table. His hands holding each other as his chin rested on his hand. That grin still not leaving his lips and it honeslty made Belle shiver. There was something not right with the man in front of her. He screamed danger for some odd reason but the blonde female disgarded the warning signs her mind is screaming to her as she narrowed her eyes and frowned at him.

"Because I want to know," Belle had stated. Her bold asnwer made the dark haired man chuckle. A gentle smile on Jim's lips as his eyes soften, making Belle be surprised for a moment with his expression.

"Well, you see dear..." Jim trailed off as he closed his eyes. The smile still plastered on his face. "He is mine," he stated.

Belle felt herself freeze when Jim opened his eyes. The dark haired man is glaring at her rather darkly. Those eyes held a calculating look that made the female feel fear. Who was this man?!?

"Please do not try to establish a your relationship back with him, okay dear?" His tone was sickly sweet that made Belle shiver. It was fake. So fake. "Or else..." The blonde female gulped as she felt her voice was somehow gone. There was a lump on her throat and she cant speak up. She wanted too as no one should speak to her that way. She was, after all, Belle Beatrice Darnley.

"Because you can't spell diet without die in it," Jim had purred and it made the female dreaded his words. Was he threatening her?

And as if he was listening to her thoughts, Jim chuckle and shake his head as he put his hands down on the table. "Oh, no dear... I am promising."

The glare he was sending her made Belle want to just run away from him. It was terrifying. Those dark eyes looked so dead and also scary. That creepy grin on his face also added to the female's horror.

"Sorry for the wait you two! The line was awfully long today," [Name] had laughed as he placed the tray where his and the two's order is on. Belle was rather happy for [Name]'s presence as he had sat down as Jim had scooted a bit for him to sit. [Name]'s disturbance made Jim's murderous look away from Belle as he turned to the [Hair color] haired man and softly smiled.

"Thank you darling," Jim had said as be took his own order. A cup of black tea and apple pie as [Name] took his aswell which was an earl grey tea and a slice of oreo cheesecake.

[Name] seemed to notice Belle not touching her order off the tray. Tilting his head and he sent the female a confused look. "Belle, you alright?" [Name] asked as the blonde female hesitantly nodded her head. Forcing a smile on her lips as she briefly sent Jim a look, only to see the dark haired man giving her a glate and mouthing something that made the blonde female terrified beyond imagine.

"Y-yes! Why won't I be?" Belle nervously laughed as she took her order off the tray and shakily drank her tea as [Name] sent her an unimpressived look that means he did not believe her but he just nodded his head and let the subject down. Instead, the [Hair color] haired man turned his attention to Jim who was he had caught trying to take a piece of his cheesecake.

"Jim! Mind you're own food!" [Name] whine as the dark haired chuckled as he successfully took a piece of the cheesecake and ate it quickly. Sending [Name] a grin as he innocently shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't knwo what you're talking about darling," Jim weakly defended himself as [Name] whine again about how he should mind his own food. The two plafully banter as Belle who had silently watched the scene bit her bottom lip.

She was scare-- no, she was terrified. What Jim mouthed to her was:

"Speak no evil or you'll die with the devil," as he had his thumb ran crossed his neck like he was slitting it. An obvious threat to keep her mouth shut or she'll die.

He loves kisses

[Name] was smiling softly as he lovingly watch the dark haired man reading a book beside him. The two were sitting in a cousy couch of the livingroom of their shared home. The television was on as [Name] watching a movie before he looked and admiring the man beside him. His arms pulling Jim closer to him as the dark haired paused his reading to look at [Name] with a raised brow.

"What?" Jim asked. The dark haired man only saw [Name] still having that smile on his lips. "You alright, darling?" He asked.

[Name] nodded his head as he placed a soft kiss on Jim's forehead. The dark haired man couldn't help but smile at his actions as he leaned more close to the other and place a kiss on the other's lips.

The kiss was soft and sweet. A bit innocent which was rather ironic as one of the two was very dangerous and was anything but innocent, yet the kiss they convey was simple and innocent. Full of love to the other.

"I love you," [Name] had said as they parted from the kiss. The other man merely chuckle as he decided to give a quick kiss again to the other.

"Love you too, darling," Jim had purred as he softly sighed and placed his head on the other's shoulder. Feeling [Name]'s arms pull him closer as Jim read again on his books.

He loves hugs

"Darling?" Jim called as he opened the door to his shared home with the [Hair color] haired man. Closing the door as he went inside, Jim took off his black coat and placed it on the coat rack. There was a scent in the air that made Jim hum in content.

"I'm home," he sang as looked around and tried to find the other man.

"I'm in the kitchen dear!" He heard [Name] had shouted as the dark haired went to where he was. As Jim arrived, he stopped at the doorway of the kitchen and leaned to the side as he crossed his arms onto his chest. An amused smile on his lips as his eyes watched [Name]'s figure who was cooking. Explaining the aroma that the dark haired man had smelled when he opened the front door seconds ago.

[Name]'s back was turned to face Jim's as he was cooking something really nice. He was barefooted which Jim immediately noticed as he also wore a grey shirt and sweatpants as he cooked.

"My, you cooking for me? I have such a lovely househusband," Jim had teased as he heard the [Hair color] haired man chuckle and turned his head and sent Jim a grin.

"Of course, just for you dear," [Name] pipe as he flip the bacon he was cooking. Jim giggled as he decided to walk towards the other man. Immediately wrapping his arms around the [Hair color] haired man's body when he had neared. Placing his head in [Name]'s back as the latter hummed.

"Missed me that much, dear?" [Name] had chuckled as Jim let out a hum.

"You have no idea, darling," Jim muttered as the [Hair color] haired softly smile at his words.

The two stayed silent for a minute or so as Jim continued to embrace [Name] while the other continued to cook. Making sure the bacon wont get burnt.

"Bacon for lunch?" Jim had asked when he had peaked at [Name]'s shoulders. The man cooking merely chuckled at his question.

"Why not?" [Name] had said. Taking the bacon off the pan with a spatula and onto the plate that was placed on the counter beside the stove. Turning off the stove then as he slowly faced Jim who loosened his hold on him for him to move.

"Well, I miss you too dear," [Name] had said to Jim's words awhile ago as he wrapped his arms around Jim's body. Tightly hugging the dark haired man as he then placed a soft kiss on Jim's forehead.

"Now, come on," [Name] had said as he unwrapped his arms off Jim's form and was about to turn to grabbed the plate filled with bacon to go to tha table to have some lunch with his lover when Jim still had not let go of him. Instead, the dark haired man hugged him tighter and put his head on [Name]'s chest, listening to the other man's heartbeat.

Jim's actions made [Name] raise a brow as he looked at the dark haired man. "You can let me go now, dear," he had said as Jim did not paid mind to what he said.

"Jim?" [Name] softly called out to the dark haired man as Jim held him tight.

"Can we stay like this for a moment?" [Name] heard Jim muttered as a soft smile formed on the [Hair color] haired man's lips. Wrapping his arms back around Jim's form as he held the man tight.

"Of course, dear," he had softly muttered.

He loves [Name]

"[Name]!" Jim whined as he saw the [Hair color] haired man just innocently smiled at him. The two were outside, walking in St. James' Park. Trying to enjoy the two's day with walking outside for some fresh air. No evil schemes (Jim said it will be tomorrow). No consulting detective to deduce the latest crimes or to figure out who this "live ine pet" that Jim Moriarty have. No other criminals asking for help to the dark haired man.

Just the two spending time with each other's presence in the lovely park.

"Jim!" [Name] imitated Jim's tone as the said man sent him a pout and a soft glare. Causing him to chukle a bit.

"Don't tease darling," Jim had pouted as [Name] laughed and gently placed both his hands on the dark haired man's cheeks and booping his nose on Jim's. Initiating a bunny kiss which made a smile threatening to form on the dark haired man's lips.

"Stop being so cute darling," Jim had softly whine as [Name] laughed and shake his head at Jim's words. Loving looking at the dark haired man in the eyes as he grinned.

"Says the one who is being adorable with pouting," [Name] retorted as Jim rolled his eyes but smiled.

"I love you darling," Jim had said as [Name] smiled at him. Softly kissing Jim's lips as he then muttered his reply.

"I love you too dear," [Name] had said as he wrapped his arms around Jim's while the other did aswell. Jim wrapping his arms on [Name]'s neck as he hugged the other tightly. Fully content with each other's embrace.

[feel199x]

street racer!lee minho, gods of olympus! au

⚡ chapters: I II III IV V VI  masterlist

⚡  a/n: there’s like. So Much Sexual Tension that i didn’t intend and its not gonna go anywhere,,, im sorry but Minho’s hoe spirit possessed me while i wrote this chapter

⚡ warnings: sexual tension?? does that count??

⚡ song rec: angel of small death & the codeine scene

Minho hadn’t called you on the bus ride home, nor did he show up at your apartment the night. He didn’t call you the following nights either. He was, however making your life a fuck ton harder. For three full days, it had been pouring. The first day you had made the mistake of riding in the rain, figuring it would’ve cleared up by the afternoon. But it hadn’t. You had to get to an afternoon class, but you had no spare money to afford riding the bus every day to work. Being a broke college student was difficult, but not everyone could make their weight in money with illicit activities. You didn’t really mind the rain as long as you were inside. The pattering of raindrops against your window was comforting, and it helped calm your nerves as you studied, even if the person causing it was an asshole. You hadn’t blocked Minho’s number, not yet anyway, but figured that he had probably ghosted you anyway- so it didn’t matter.

Besides, you never paid much attention to boys, anyway. Your studies were more important to you, and you literally could not afford to lose the scholarships you busted your ass in high school to get. You knew college would be hard, but you had no idea it would be this difficult. None of these questions made sense- but you needed to study. You never struggled this much with Criminology concepts, but you found yourself rereading the same parts over and over, it wasn’t clicking. It was two am now, and you had a class at eight, ten, noon, and then a shift at the bakery- where you were filling in for a co-worker who had gotten sick. You weren’t even planning on falling asleep, but you woke up from your alarm, wiping drool from your lip as you got up.

This was just your life, it could be worse. You could be in a lot more debt, and your mental health could plummet- but it hadn’t, not yet. You knew if you kept pushing yourself like this than he would eventually crash and burn, but whatever. At least you would go out in a burning glory. You shook your head at the thought, mentally scolding yourself. Recovery didn’t work if you weren’t constantly checking yourself- as annoying as it was, it worked. You promised yourself and made a reminder on your phone to take a day off this week. You needed to relax, or next thing you know you would find yourself attached to your bed, glued to it with tears and a sweaty sadness.

You walked into the lecture hall, being the first one as you always were because you made it a point to actually ask for help. But the professor and his regular t.a wasn’t there.

“Are you lost?” He smiled and laughed as if you had said something funny. You grew anxious and insecure, it wouldn’t be the first time people had teased you like that. “No, not at all,” he said, “I’m the new teacher’s assistant.” You eyed him suspiciously, “What happened to the last one?” He pulled up his sleeves, and you felt embarrassed as he revealed his veiny arms. He twirled his pen and smiled again at you.

“He’s under a new teacher, now.”

“Who?”

“Mr. Park.”

“That’s a convenient answer.”

“It’s the convenient truth.”

“What’s your name?”

“Chan, darl-”

“Oh, fuck off.”

He crossed his arms, slightly surprised at your boldness. “Pardon?” You groaned, gripping your school supplies. “You’re one of those high and mighty gods, right? You and Minho can fuck right off.” He eased into the desk chair, chuckling to himself. “He’s already messed up, huh? I promised I wouldn’t interfere, but-”

“You also could’ve lied about your name.”

“Slip of the tongue. I doubt you wouldn’t figure it out, anyway.”

“What do you want?”

“To help.”

“With what? I’m done with Minho.”

“But you like him.”

“So? Doesn’t mean he’s not an asshole. I’m not here to teach him how to love, what kind of outdated shit is that? I don’t care that you’re a god, and I don’t care that he’s a god. Means fuck all to me.”

“Ah, you’re smart. Athena took well in creating you. But, it is fated. You’ll teach him one way or another.”

“Chan?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t give a shit.”

You probably could’ve reviewed the material with Chan, and maybe he was a nice guy- but you didn’t want to deal with anyone that was even slightly supernatural. You weren’t even going to look at your horoscope. You just wanted to graduated and take the bar exam, hell, maybe even try for a spot at a place with higher level cases. But one thing you were not about to do was about to do is let yourself slip into a game of cat and mouse, you were here to study. If you needed to take a break, you would- but “taking a break” didn’t mean worrying about a boy. If you wanted to worry, you would take the practice bar exam again.

You found the professor calling on you an absurd amount of times, and you shot Chan a death glare. He winked at you, a stupid smirk on his face and shrugged. You heard peers murmur, but Chan just looked amused, even winking at some of them. Were all gods like this? If Chan, the leader of the gods was this chaotic, how would you deal? Being the one you thought you’d like the most, you were severely disappointed. You flew out of your seat as the class ended, but found yourself caught in a sea of eager college students- you were so close to making your way out of the lecture hall doors when your professor called you.

“____, I’m sorry about being late this morning, but I had an incident with my car. I still have to solve the issue, but Chan can stay after. He said you were struggling with theory? I’ve provided a practice exam for you to Chan. Please don’t leave until you’ve got a passing grade.” He left unceremoniously, bidding a polite goodbye as he walked the both of you to a college library.

“I’m not struggling with theory.”

“You’ll start to. You have a bad habit of not knowing your limits.”

“Thanks, Sherlock.”

You sat a table in the back, a room reserved for group studies. “I have another class soon.”

“It’s taken care of, love. I’m going to get some coffee, please don’t go.”

You sighed, you had to finish the practice test after Chan explained the material, and it was unrealistic to think you’d be able to get to your second class. You could use a break anyway, it’s not like missing one creative writing class would kill you. Not physically anyway.

“Here you go,” he plopped a cup on the table, along with a pastry bag, “you should eat.”

“Are you actually going to help me study?”

“Sure, but I think we should talk about Minho first.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

He shut your textbook gently and pulled it away from you. “There’s a lot to talk about. I know Minho can be the worst, but there’s a lot more to him. I know it’s hard, but you’re going to have to trust me.” You wrapped your hands around the coffee cup, the warmth spreading to your hands. The rain was still pouring if it continued the town would flood. You didn’t understand why Minho was being so intense, maybe you shouldn’t have snapped but it wasn’t like he was a saint either.

“Why should I trust you?”

“I’m the one who sent him down here- well, with some pressure from the fates but still. I promise I’m the sanest up there, well second to Woojin.”

“Then why isn’t Woojin here?”

“He’s solving some other matters.”

“Like?”

“Ah, I can’t tell you that. But we’re moving away from the point. Just talk to Minho, honestly, once.”

“Already tried.”

“I know, but hopefully, I can help.”

“W-?”

Chan snapped his fingers, shooting you a somewhat apologetic look but turned to Minho looking smug. “What do you want?” You laughed, crossing your arms and leaning back into the cushioned seat. “Do you have something you want to say?” he snapped, “Oh wait, you already had your tantrum in the most expensive restaurant in town.” You knew better than to provoke Minho in this state, he knew what words that to use to hurt- and if he got any angrier, he would lose control. You weren’t laughing at him in the first place rather than yourself for getting into this situation. But whatever, Minho took it personally and even though you were tired of always being the bigger person- someone had to be. You didn’t even glare at him, you uncrossed your arms let them lay on top of your legs.

“Minho, be respectful.”

“Why are you even here? Fuck off.”

“I’m still your leader Minho, watch your tone. If you didn’t want to be found, you should’ve made an effort.”

Minho pulled away, sinking into the seat and tapped his fingers on the wooden table, settling to glare at you instead. “I thought you were letting me go back to Olympus.” You pulled your books into your lap, knuckles turning white from your grip. “I should go,” you nodded at Chan, “it was nice to meet you, Chan.” He shook his head, and as you tried to open the door, you found that it was just conveniently jammed. “Look, I don’t wanna do this but you guys need to talk it out,” he started, “And the sexual tension is killing me, Jesus.” You turned, taking your hand off of the knob. You let your bag fall to the side and slid back down to the seat, watching as the campus paths filled with large puddles of water. “Look, Minho, I’m sorry if I embarrassed you. But you were flirting with a waiter, and not to mention you let me get arrested.”

“Is that seriously what this is about? What are you, five?”

“You’re not exactly known for being loyal, Minho.”

“You’re supposed to be a mediator!”

“I’m mediating you being a bitch boy.”

“I am not! That’s bold coming from someone-”

“Can I leave?” you didn’t mean to interrupt, okay you did- whatever Minho was about to say was probably something personal, “I have a class and I need to get there early.” Minho scoffed at you and you sighed.

“Okay, what? What’s your fucking problem?”

“I took you to the best restaurant in town, and you threw a tantrum.”

You laughed in disbelief, leaning over the table and looked at him.”The sexual tension is like, literally suffocating me,” Chan said loudly, “I’m still here, you know, I’m asphyxiating.” Both of you ignored him, breaths hitched with the attention fixated on each other, suddenly infatuated with the tension in the room. “You flirt because you’re insecure. You thought I’d get bored, so you tried to prove that you’re available, bitch boy.” You weren’t sure it came from, the compulsion that came over you. A ripple of surprise washed over, but he quickly retaliated. Minho’s face as he leaned forward, pushing you back. “You’re just scared you can’t handle me. True, you don’t wanna fix me- but you’re scared that you’re not as exciting as my past lovers.” You were staring at each other now, both of you hauntingly relaxed but maintaining an aura of intimidation around one another. “I don’t need to be exciting, you’re just obsessed with me because I put you in your well-deserved place. You’ve been kept in a bubble all this time. It just gives you the hots when someone doesn’t worship the ground you walk on.” He licked his lips and smiled, “Actually, I think you’re the one who needs to be put in place. You’re too arrogant. You need to learn that I’m god from Olympus, babe- I deserve to be worshipped.” You leaned closer, your breath hot on his face as he watched, lips millimeters away from his but you brushed your lips against his ear instead, whispering lowly as the hair on his neck rose, “Over my dead body, babe.”

He spoke again as you moved back to leave, his finger ran across your lip and you refused to give him the satisfaction of moving away. “If you think you’re so high and mighty then race me,” he tilted his head and brought his lips close to yours, “I mean, if you’re not scared, babe.” You placed your thumb on his chin, tilting it up. This wasn’t like you, but you’d be damned if he was going to win this little show-off. Your nose and forehead were pressed against his as you spoke lowly, “You’re the one who should be scared, babe.”

[bugheadfamily]

Bughead Family Discord Member Spotlight

This week the spotlight is on Cat ( @shibbycat ), our newest admin! Click the read more link below to get to know our member!

Spotlight by Mila, @jughead-jones | Graphic by Katie, @betty-cooper

Cat | @shibbycat

Name: Cat 

Age: I’m old enough to own a Sega Genesis bought in a store the year it was released, and yes. I still play it. 

Location: Northern Italy for the time being, but I’m prone to moving quite bit. 

Any other languages aside from English people can contact you in?: I can do some conversational Spanish, and I can have Eric (my husband) tell me what you’re saying in Russian.

Favourite Riverdale characters and ships?: What gave you the impression that I like Riverdale or its ships? JK. Shockingly, I’m all about that Bughead. ALL about it. I care about most of the characters & their successes/failures… with Betty, Jughead, Veronica & Cheryl in the lead. 

Favourite moments from S1 & S2?: Wow. Talk about a Sophie’s Choice. Here goes nothing. I legit yelled at my screen during The Look in 1x02, “omG. IT’S HAPPENING.” My childhood ship was exhumed. Best day. The dynamic between Jughead & FP in 1x07 rang particularly true to me. I also took away that Jughead talks about Jellybean like she’s his kid, not his sister. It guts me every single time. The end bit where Betty & Jughead walk away together really demonstrated how close they already were as a couple. Bonus for that being the scene where it clicks with Archie his two best friends were 5000% together, & their friendships was never going to be the same. It’s a small moment but I love it. Picking one thing from Season 2??? Co-Presidents. The absolute equality in their relationship was so perfectly on point here for me. The support and respect for one another was on display in blinking neon lights. WAIT. The hospital scene. I can’t leave it off. Jughead “I’ll never stop loving you” Jones almost gets murdered & only feels bad about not being there for Betty. All that matters to Betty is Jughead getting better. Plus, down-the-face kisses. I can’t with these two. 

What are your hopes for S3?: I’m really hoping to see more of a focus on the friendships. I want to see them all work together in general & specifically, to defeat Hiram. We got to see an entire season of Hiram doing nothing but succeeding in his various nefarious causes & successfully pitting Bughead/Varchie against one another. Seeing his takedown at the hands of those whose lives & relationships he thought destroyed as they’re instead working together? Yes. Very yes. I’m of course beyond stoked for the Bughead Detective Agency & them working/growing together in their relationship & lives. Some actual fun times would be great to see. Yano, ones that don’t end in someone getting murdered or going to jail.

Other fandoms you’re into?: Besides Riverdale, I only exist in lurker status (thanks anxiety!) for fandoms, but I lurk(ed) super hard in Harry Potter (Except that I’ve totally written terrible HP fic. Really happy no one’s going to read this to know that), Reylo, Doctor Who, & Sherlock.

What are some of your favourite movies/TV?: Besides the obvious, just about everything Disney touches owns my pocketbook, dedication & continued attention. Parks & Rec, The Office (both UK & US), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gilmore Girls, Doctor Who, Star Trek: TNG, & Sherlock are all shows I can watch on repeat. I’m not even going to start on non-Disney movies, because I’ll be here all day.

Favourite books?: This is literally the most difficult question to answer, because books are life. I’m going to keep it brief & say “Harry Potter.” They changed my life, they saved my life, & they’re always there to welcome me home.

Favourite bands/musicians?: Favorites are so hard. I like a little something from most genres of music, but I can never turn off classic Elton John, BSB (I had full plans to marry Kevin as an 11 year old), Linkin Park, John Williams, Lady GaGa, Guns n Roses, The Killers, or Queen. Big picture wise, I’m particularly attached to Classic Rock, practically anything 80s, late 90s/early 2000s pop (I still know all the choreo to Bye Bye Bye & Oops... I Did It Again), The Great American Songbook, classical music, popular songs converted classical arrangements, and I’m a sucker for 1960s/70s R&B/soul. Long story short, I make a lot of playlists. 

If you could live in any fictional world which one would you choose and why?: Harry Potter for sure. Wands which choose you. Broomsticks which get released like new car models. Owls which deliver mail anywhere. Portkeys/Apparating/Brooms/Floo powder making travel dirt cheap/free. Butterbeer & Pumpkin Juice. If it’s not clear, I’m really into Harry Potter. OH. I also did a HP LARP a few years ago in a Polish castle, & it was the greatest thing EVER. 

Favourite food?: Oh food. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Seriously. I travel around just to eat. Limiting to one kind? Mexican food. I could eat it everyday. 

Favourite season?: Fall/winter. First of all, I like to wear a GRIP of layers. I’m also a big fan of being lazy & putting a beanie on over my unstyled (often unbrushed) hair. I’m also VERY into Halloween & Christmas. I decorate for both with gusto. Christmas goes up in my house the same day it does at Disneyland: 10 November. I’m also obsessed with Christmas Markets. So many quality Halloween/Christmas films too! I have an entire list of mandatory watches every year. 

Favourite plant?: Really large sunflowers with the dark red/deep orange petals. Their seeds also demonstrate the Fibonacci sequence, and I’m a human who believes math is the most beautiful thing in the entire world. 

Favourite scent?: There’s something magical smelling about old books for me. I also really enjoy the way rain smells on dry pavement when it first starts falling.

Favourite colour?: It’s been purple ever since I learned how the Phoenicians made it when I was 9. 

Favourite animal?: Cats. All kinds & sizes...except Sphynxes. & unicorns. Are you a night owl, an early bird, or a vampire?: Night owl/early bird. The insomnia is strong with this one. 

Place you want to visit?: I’ve been lucky enough to check a lot of places off my “must see” list, but Madagascar is still a life goal. OH! & to visit every single Disney park around the world. 

Do you have pets? If you do, tell us a little about them: Ah! Something I LOVE talking about. I have 3 incredibly spoiled cat children who want to cuddle all the time. That’s right. Cat loves cats. They’re all rescues, Maine Coons, and little characters to be sure. Their names are Dorcas, Knick Knack, & Elmo. We’ve had Dorky for 10 years and Elmo & Knick Knack for 9 years. Knick Knack likes to walk on a leash & paws at the door for his walk. Dorcas plays fetch with toy mice, and Elmo likes to cuddle so hard Eric is genuinely worried I’ll be suffocated by his snuggles. 

Tell us a little about yourself?: My grandma once told me that I’ve always known exactly who I am, even as a child, and I’ve let that sense-of-self guide me (not always to greatness mind you) every day. I’m an introvert with fairly crippling anxiety & depression, and I simply don’t care who knows it. If me being upfront about it can help anyone, I’m happy to do it. I’m hypercritical of myself & what I put out into the world. Being frank, honest, and sarcastic are how I say “hello,” but I’m also a firm believer in “don’t say something rude just to say something rude.” Tact is key. Encouraging people to find their own happiness & fulfillment in life are things which bring me joy. Likewise, I’d do pretty much anything for a friend, & if there’s something I can do to help them/help someone in their journey to find happiness in life, I want to do it. Uuuummm, I laugh so hard I cry a lot, and my eyeliner runs. It always makes people think I’ve been crying for real & filled with emotions. It’s awkward. I guess I’m creative? I like woodworking, pyrography, crafting, and making nerd stuff through those mediums. 

Fun or weird fact about you?: I entered my wedding reception to “The Imperial March.” It’s safe to say I’ve been a wee bit obsessed with Star Wars for longer than my Sega Genesis is old.

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This is the ninth instalment of Bughead Family’s Member Spotlight series. Each week, a member’s url is selected through a randomizer and they will be featured in a spotlight post. In order to participate, please join the Bughead Discord (more information found here). Thank you.

[radha-the-introvert]

a l l of the unusual asks

HOO BOY HERE I GOOOO

Spotify, SoundCloud, or Pandora?  

Answer: SoundCloud all the way

is your room messy or clean? 

Answer: messy

what color are your eyes? 

Answer: Deep Brown

do you like your name? why? 

Answer: Yes. It has a interesting story behind it and it has spawned many cute nicknames!

what is your relationship status? 

Answer: Bi-myself

describe your personality in 3 words or less 

Answer: Shy helpful and lazy af

what color hair do you have? 

Answer: Black and my fringe was coloured red in april, and now they’re fading so its a copper colour

what kind of car do you drive? color? 

Answer: I don’t

where do you shop? 

Answer: Mostly from 109 F

how would you describe your style? 

Answer: Mostly colourful, indo-western stuff (if you’re asking dressing style, that is)

favorite social media account 

Answer: It’s a tie between Tumblr and Instagram

what size bed do you have? 

Answer: Double

any siblings? 

Answer: One, @ourkingofsauce which HE NEVER BOTHERS TO USE(pwease rishi pishi)

if you can live anywhere in the world where would it be? why? 

Answer: Statistically, Denmark

favorite snapchat filter? 

Answer: I …. don’t use snapchat

favorite makeup brand(s) 

Answer: Star or B&D

how many times a week do you shower? 

Answer: 7

favorite tv show? 

Answer: Sherlock before season 4 happened (I don’t watch that much tv ok)

shoe size? 

Answer: 6 (US size)

how tall are you? 

Answer: 155cms

sandals or sneakers? 

Answer: Sneakers

do you go to the gym? 

Answer: I used to, but then ovarian cyst happened

describe your dream date 

Answer: Dinner+ A long walk in the city, talking about useless stuff

how much money do you have in your wallet at the moment? 

Answer: 100-something rupees

what color socks are you wearing? 

Answer: Invisible

how many pillows do you sleep with? 

Answer: One

do you have a job? what do you do? 

Answer: Nope, I am a student

how many friends do you have? 

Answer: A lot, or zero and those guys are just being nice let and me hang out with them

whats the worst thing you have ever done? 

Answer: Buy a Chinese special McDonalds Meal

whats your favorite candle scent? 

Answer: Cinnamon

3 favorite boy names  OR 3 favorite girl names 

Answer to both: Something unisex like Akash or Sam or Riley (idk haven’t thought about it much) 

favorite actor? 

Answer: Chris Hemsworth or Aamir Khan

favorite actress? 

Answer: Priyanka Chopra

who is your celebrity crush? 

Answer: Markiplier

favorite movie? 

Answer: In no particular order-

Om Shanti Om (because it so so stereotypically Bollywood and colourful and still nicely executed)

Harishchandrachi Factory (it’s a marathi film, about the founder of bollywood. it’s very un-bollywood-ey, just a nice simple story about a middle-class marathi guy trying to do something new with his friends and family. also the soundtrack is a-maze-ing)

Katyar Kaljat Ghusli (Another marathi movie, but i feel that every person who is associated with fine or performing arts in any way should watch this. also shankar mahadevan’s music is beautiful)

Do you read a lot? whats your favorite book? 

Answer: The Silkworm in the Cormoran Strike series. And, not much these days

money or brains? 

Answer: Brains, for money(as in success/good standard of living) will follow if you are smart enough(although there is much more to this than just gaming the system, I know)

do you have a nickname? what is it? 

Answer: ahahaahahahahahahahahhah

how many times have you been to the hospital? 

Answer: Like admitted or something? only once (wow i’m healthy)

top 10 favorite songs 

Answer: In no particular order: 

Bella Belle(Electro Swing Circus) 

Bad Apple! (Touhou project) 

Kamli (The Coke Studio ver) 

Harry Potter Indian Jam Cover (Tushar Lall)  

Undertake soundtrack

Hamilton soundtrack

Night in the Woods soundtrack

Sairaat soundtrack

Katyar Kaljat Ghusli sundtrack

Oppa Toby Style (Toby Fox)

Ye Jo Des Hai Tera (A.R. Rehman)

(i know thats 11 but shut up)

do you take any medications daily?

Answer: i have weekly vitamin D pills

what is your skin type? (oily, dry, etc)

Answer: Oily

what is your biggest fear?

Answer: People thinking that i’m useless

how many kids do you want?

Amswer: two

whats your go to hair style?

Answer: I just comb my hair with my hand most of the times (back when my hair were shoulder-length; i used to wear them in a french plait)

what type of house do you live in? (big, small, etc)

Answer: A bigish 3BHK

who is your role model?

Answer: Sean McLoughlin

what was the last compliment you received?

Answer: That my hair are nice

what was the last text you sent?

Answer: “What is Busride seminar?”

how old were you when you found out santa wasn’t real?

Answer: I’m Hindu, so the concept of Santa was introduced to me as a Thing Christian people did, so I always knew santa wasn’t real

what is your dream car?

Answer: ‘87 Chevy Impala (jk i haven’t put much though into it but i’m a sucker for vintage cars and memes)

opinion on smoking?

Answer: Don’t do it, your lungs are precious

do you go to college?

Answer: Yes

what is your dream job?

Answer: good joke

would you rather live in rural areas or the suburbs?

Answer: Suburbs

do you take shampoo and conditioner bottles from hotels?

Answer: no

do you have freckles?

Answer: no

do you smile for pictures?

Answer: yes

how many pictures do you have on your phone?

Answer: A lot

have you ever peed in the woods?

Answer: ew no

do you still watch cartoons?

Answer: i rarely watch tv

do you prefer chicken nuggets from Wendy’s or McDonalds?

Answer: I’ve never been to Wendy’s, so McDonalds it is then

Favorite dipping sauce?

Answer: schezwan sauce

what do you wear to bed?

Answer: pyjamas (boohooim so i n t e r e s t i n g)

have you ever won a spelling bee?

Answer: nah

what are your hobbies?

Answer: what is a hobby?

can you draw?

Answer: kinda

do you play an instrument?

Answer: nope

what was the last concert you saw?

Answer: i dont remember. it was like in 2010 or something

tea or coffee?

Answer: 

Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts?

Answer: Starbucks

do you want to get married?

Answer: yes

what is your crush’s first and last initial?

Answer: S and R

are you going to change your last name when you get married?

Answer: Nope

what color looks best on you?

Answer: Pale yellow, pale pink or b/w

do you miss anyone right now?

Answer: my grandfather

do you sleep with your door open or closed?

Answer: open

do you believe in ghosts?

Answer: nah

what is your biggest pet peeve? 

Answer: WHEN SOME PEOPLE DON’T LIKE TO CO-OPERATE DURING GROUP PROJECTS

last person you called`

Answer: My college batchmate

favorite ice cream flavor? 

Answer: Mint Choco Chip

regular oreos or golden oreos? 

Answer: Regular. Anyone who likes golden are a freak and they know it

chocolate or rainbow sprinkles? 

Answer: Chocolate

what shirt are you wearing? 

Answer: Bright green

what is your phone background? 

Answer: I’m on pc so ima post my wallpaper

are you outgoing or shy? 

Answer: shy (i thought it was obvious)

do you like it when people play with your hair? 

Answer: Yes

do you like your neighbors? 

Answer: Yes. They are a lovely couple and they have a cute daughter who thinks that I’m her older sister (she’s 3)

do you wash your face? at night? in the morning? 

Answer: Yes, like 3-4 times a day

have you ever been high? 

Answer: Nah

have you ever been drunk? 

Answer: Nope

last thing you ate? 

Answer: Cucumber

favorite lyrics right now 

Answer: The entirety of “Wait For It”

or “hogwarts hogwarts hoggy warty hogwarts teach us something please!’

summer or winter? 

Answer: Winter

day or night? 

Answer: Day

dark, milk, or white chocolate? 

Answer: Dark

favorite month? 

Answer: October

what is your zodiac sign 

Answer: Virgo

who was the last person you cried in front of? 

Answer: My mum

im tired now

[showbizchicago]

Griffin Helmed INTO THE WOODS Extends Run At Writers Theatre

Writers Theatre, under the leadership of Artistic Director Michael Halberstam and Executive Director Kathryn M. Lipuma, adds five performances to the run of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s musical masterpiece Into the Woods, directed by Gary Griffin. Into the Woods now runs through September 29, 2019 in the Alexandra C. and John D. Nichols Theatre at 325 Tudor Court, Glencoe. Newly added performances for Into the Woods are Thursday, September 26 at 7:30pm; Friday, September 27 at 7:30pm; Saturday, September 28 at 3pm and 7:30pm; and Sunday, September 29 at 2pm.  When a childless baker and his wife set out to lift their family curse by journeying into the woods, they encounter Jack (with his beanstalk), Cinderella (and her prince) and Little Red Riding Hood (and her wolf)! These familiar characters find themselves in decidedly unfamiliar circumstances and must brave the darkness of the woods in an effort to break the curse, conquer their fears and find out if what they’ve always wished for is what they truly want.  This epic fairy tale adventure is reimagined in a newly-configured Nichols Theatre staged “in the round,” drawing audiences into a theatrical experience unlike anything previously seen at WT! With its celebrated score, stirring script and an extraordinary team of artists bringing it all to life, Into the Woods launched WT's 2019/20 Season as the musical theatre event of the season. Chicago and Broadway Director Gary Griffin (Parade) returned to stage this Tony Award-winning musical about fairy tales, family and what happens after “happily ever after.”  The cast of Into the Woods includes: Nicole Armold (Lucinda), Ben Barker (Jack), Alex Benoit (Rapunzel’s Prince), Brianna Borger (Baker’s Wife), William Brown (Mysterious Man/Cinderella’s Father), McKinley Carter (Jack’s Mother), Matt Edmonds (Steward/Wolf), Lucy Godínez (Little Red Riding Hood), Michael Halberstam (Narrator), Kelli Harrington (Cinderella’s Stepmother), Molly Hernández (Florinda), Cecilia Iole (Rapunzel), Michael Mahler (The Baker), Ryan McBride (Cinderella’s Prince), Harriet Nzinga Plumpp (Cinderella’s Mother/Granny), Mary Poole (Milky White), Ximone Rose (Cinderella), Bethany Thomas (Witch) and Jonathan Weir (Mysterious Man/Cinderella’s Father beginning 9/17). The band consists of Charlotte Rivard-Hoster (Piano-Conductor), Jeff Handley and Brandon Podjasek (Percussion) and Mike Matlock (Woodwinds.) The creative team for Into the Woods includes: Scott Davis (Scenic Designer), Mara Blumenfeld (Costume Designer), Lee Fiskness (Lighting Designer), Christopher M. LaPorte (Sound Designer), Seph Mozes (Dramaturg), Nick Moran (CFM Contractor), Sophiyaa Nayaar (Assistant Director), Sasha Smith (Intimacy & Fight Director), Geoff Button (Casting Director), Binder Casting (Casting Consultant), and Katie Klemme (Production Stage Manager). Single tickets for Into the Woods are priced $50 - $80 and are available at www.writerstheatre.org, by phone at 847-242-6000, or in person at the box office at 325 Tudor Court in Glencoe. ABOUT THE ARTISTS Gary Griffin (Director) previously directed Parade, The Detective’s Wife and Loot at Writers Theatre. Victory Gardens Theater: Fun Home, Hand to God, Never the Sinner, Appropriate. London: Pacific Overtures (Donmar Warehouse, Olivier Award, Best Musical Production and Olivier Nominee, Best Director). Broadway: Honeymoon in Vegas, The Color Purple. Off-Broadway: Saved (Playwrights Horizons); The Apple Tree, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Pardon My English, The New Moon (Encores). Regional: Antony and Cleopatra, Camelot, West Side Story (Stratford Festival); work at McCarter, Alliance, Hartford Stage, Signature, Kansas City Rep., The Muny. Chicago: Road Show, Gypsy, Sunday in the Park With George, Follies, Amadeus, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures (Chicago Shakespeare Theatre); The Merry Widow, The Mikado, Oklahoma (Lyric Opera of Chicago); 10 Joseph Jefferson Awards for Directing. Matt Deitchman (Music Director & Orchestrations) returns to Writers Theatre where he previously music directed TREVOR the musical. He previously understudied The Hunter and the Bear. Matt Deitchman is a New York based music director, orchestrator, actor, composer and multi-instrumentalist. Most recently in Chicagoland he was seen on stage at the Paramount Theatre in the world premiere of August Rush, directed by John Doyle. Other Chicago music credits include: She Loves Me, Shrek, Spring Awakening, October Sky, The King And I, HERO (Marriott Theatre), Tug of War, Road Show, Peter Pan, Madagascar, Seussical, Shrek (Chicago Shakespeare Theater), Indecent (Victory Gardens Theatre), The Wizard Of Oz (Paramount Theatre), The Man Who Murdered Sherlock Holmes (Mercury Theater Chicago), Adding Machine, Into The Woods (The Hypocrites), Wonderland…Alice’s Rock ‘n Roll Adventure (Chicago Children’s Theater), La Révolution Française (FWD Theater Project), Ragtime, 25th Annual…Spelling Bee (Griffin Theatre), Ghost Bike, She Kills Monsters (Buzz22 Chicago), The Pajama Game, Do I Hear A Waltz? (Music Theatre Company). Regional credits include: Shakespeare Theatre Co., Adirondack Theatre Festival, Asolo Repertory Theatre, Door Shakespeare. He served as a contributing orchestrator to the LETTERS TO THE PRESIDENT concert at Cooper Union in NYC. Deitchman has previously worked as a vocal coach for the Northwestern University Musical Theater department, where he received his degree in Theatre and Musical Theatre and studied acting under Mary Poole. He is a proud member of the American Federation of Musicians, American Guild of Musical Artists, and Actors’ Equity Association and is represented by Stewart Talent.  Aubrey Adams (Choreographer) returns to Writers Theatre where she previously choreographed TREVOR the musical. She is a Chicago performer as well as a Jeff Award winning choreographer. Choreography credits include: Company (Mercury Theatre), Bonnie & Clyde (Kokandy Theatre Company), Guys and Dolls (Northwestern University), 110 in the Shade, Urinetown (BoHo Theatre, Jeff Award 2017), Associate Choreographer: Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder (Porchlight Music Theatre). Assistant Choreographer: Music Man (Goodman Theatre), Shrek (Marriott Theatre), Mamma Mia and A Christmas Story (Paramount Theatre). Nicole Armold (Lucinda) Some recent Chicago credits include: Mary Poppins, Pippin, Company, Christmas Schooner (Mercury Theater), Ride the Cyclone, Sense and Sensibility (Chicago Shakespeare Theater), How to Succeed..., The Merry Widow (Music Theater Works) and Into the Woods (Metropolis). She received her BFA in Musical Theatre from the Chicago College of Performing Arts. Ben Barker (Jack) Chicago credits include Willard in Footloose, Moritz in Spring Awakening, O’Dell in October Sky (Marriott Lincolnshire Theatre), Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance, the title role in Candide (Music Theater Works), Les Misérables (Paramount Theatre) and Sweeney Todd (Porchlight Music Theatre). Regional credits include Montana Shakespeare in the Parks’ A Little Night Music, Twelfth Night, The Comedy of Errors and Richard IIIand the Palace Theater in the Dells’ A Christmas Carol. Northwestern alum. Alex Benoit (Rapunzel’s Prince) Alex spent the last four years competing overseas for Team USA as a National and World Ranked Ice Dancer. Upon retiring from Ice Dance, Alex transitioned into the world of professional acting, in the Michigan premier of Daddy Long Legs (Dio Theatre) before returning home to Chicago. Chicago Regional Credits include: Rudolpho in Matilda, Mamma Mia! (Drury Lane) and Something in the Game (American Music Theatre Project). Brianna Borger (Baker’s Wife) Chicago: Southern Gothic (World Premiere, Windy City Playhouse), The King & I (Joseph Jefferson Award Nomination - Best Actress), Into the Woods (Porchlight Music Theatre), The Christmas Schooner, The Bardy Bunch (Mercury Theatre), Billy Elliot, Bye Bye Birdie (Drury Lane) and The Three Musketeers (World Premiere, Chicago Shakespeare Theater). Regional: The Full Monty (Peninsula Players), Always... Patsy Cline, Nunsense (The Armory), Beauty & the Beast (Northern Stage), Assassins and Love's Labours Lost (Alaska Shakespeare Festival). Touring: The King & I (Broadway Asia). So very proud to be part of the Chicago theatre community, and always honored to come home to Writers Theatre. Brianna also teaches musical theatre voice and audition technique for students and professionals. William Brown (Mysterious Man/Cinderella’s Father) Bill has directed 20 productions at American Players Theatre in Spring Green, Wisconsin, including The Recruiting Officer, Three Sisters, King Lear, Travesties, The Importance of Being Earnest, All My Sons, Troilus and Cressida, The Critic, Hay Fever, The Comedy of Errors, Night of the Iguana, Antony and Cleopatra, All’s Well That Ends Well, You Never Can Tell and The Matchmaker. He directed and wrote (with Doug Frew) To Master the Art for TimeLine Theatre Company where he is an Associate Artist and most recently directed the world premiere of Susan Felder’s Wasteland. He has directed four plays at Northlight, including his own adaptation with music of She Stoops to Conquers. He directed Skylight at Court Theatre and at Indiana Rep, Around the World in Eighty Days and Fallen Angels. He is the Associate Artistic Director of Montana Shakespeare in the Parks, where he has directed and acted since 1980. He regularly teaches and directs at universities across the country, most recently Loyola University Chicago, University of Houston, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern. As an actor Brown has appeared in over a hundred productions. He appeared as Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol at Goodman Theatre where he also appeared in Light up the Sky, Sunday in the Park with George, The Misanthrope and Wings. At Court Theatre, he appeared as Falstaff in Henry IV, Jack in The Importance of Being Earnest and Almady in The Play's The Thing. He created the role of Jody in Steven Dietz’s Lonely Planet (Northlight Theatre). Brown received a Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Director for The Liar (Writers Theatre) and a Best Actor award for his portrayal of Henry Kissinger in Nixon’s Nixon (Writers Theatre).  He received a 2010 Spirit of Diversity Award from Actors’ Equity Association and was named Chicagoan of the Year for Theatre by the Chicago Tribune in 2003. McKinley Carter (Jack’s Mother) Chicago credits include Mamma Mia, Ragtime (Drury Lane Oakbrook), Macbeth (Chicago Shakespeare Theater), Blind Date, Turn of the Century, The Visit, Floyd Collins (Goodman Theatre) The Book of Will(Northlight Theatre), Fun Home (Victory Gardens Theater) The Man Who Murdered Sherlock Holmes (Mercury Theater Chicago), The Merry Widow, Carousel (Lyric Opera of Chicago), Road Show, Julius Caesar, Sunday in the Park with George (Chicago Shakespeare Theater), My Way (Theatre At the Center), Putting It Together (Porchlight Music Theatre), The Sound of Music, John and Jen (Apple Tree Theatre), James Joyce’s The Dead, Cymbeline and Pericles (Court Theatre). Matt Edmonds (Steward/Wolf) A Chicago native, Matt Edmonds has been performing in the area for about ten years. Recent work includes: Murder For Two (Marriott Lincolnshire, Milwaukee Repertory Theatre), Forever Plaid, Pump Boys & Dinettes, Big River (Theatre at the Center), Ragtime (Griffin Theatre, Jeff Award for Best Musical), Death of a Salesman, All-American (Redtwist Theatre, Jeff Nominations for Best Supporting - Play), Rent (Theo Ubique, Jeff Award for Best Musical), James and the Giant Peach (Drury Lane Oakbrook) and The Last Five Years(Metropolis Performing Arts Center). Regionally, Matt’s performed in Next to Normal (TheatreSquared) and Twelfth Night (Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival). Lucy Godínez (Little Red Riding Hood) Regional Chicago credits include Footloose (Ariel, Marriott Theater), In The Heights (Nina, Porchlight Music Theater), Legally Blonde (Serena, Paramount Theater), Hair (Jeannie, Mercury Theater Chicago), as well as the upcoming Oliver! (Nancy, Marriott Theater) this Fall. She is recent graduate of Northwestern University. Michael Halberstam (Narrator) has appeared in numerous Writers Theatre productions, including Two By Shaw, Oscar Remembered, Richard II (title role), Loot, Misalliance and for a number of years his annual one man performance of A Christmas Carol. Michael is also the Artistic Director of Writers Theatre and returns to the stage for the first time in 17 years. Previously, he spent two years at The Stratford Festival in Ontario where he performed in Timon of Athens, The Knight of the Burning Pestle (title role), Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It. Halberstam’s other Chicago acting credentials include productions with The Bailiwick, Lifeline, Oak Park Shakespeare, Live Bait, Wisdom Bridge, Court and Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Kelli Harrington (Cinderella’s Stepmother) Kelli Harrington's Chicago credits include Jeff Award-winning performances of The Light in the Piazza and Aspects of Love (Best Actress in a Musical) and Jeff nominations for The Bridges of Madison County, A Little Night Music (Best Lead Performance in a Musical), Masterclass (Best Actress in a Play) and Perfect Arrangement (Best Supporting Performance in a Play). She has performed locally with Theo Ubique Cabaret Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Marriott Lincolnshire, The Hypocrites, Porchlight Music Theatre, TimeLine, BoHo Theatre Company and Pride Films and Plays. She holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in voice from Northwestern University and has taught voice in the Musical Theatre department at the Chicago Academy for the Arts since 2000. Molly Hernández (Florinda) Favorite credits: María Elena in The Buddy Holly Story (American Blues Theater, Jeff Award), June Bennett in Into the Breeches (Northlight Theatre), Sophie DePalma in Masterclass (TimeLine Theatre), Rosabella in The Most Happy Fella (Theo Ubique, Jeff Nomination) and Julie Jordan in Carousel (Timber Lake Playhouse). In 2017 she received the Award of Excellence in Professional Theatre from the Illinois Theatre Association. Molly can be seen on Chicago P.D.(NBC) ep. 512 and APB (Fox) ep. 105. Molly is currently represented by Gray Talent Group and is a recent graduate of the Actors Gymnasium Circus School Professional Training Program. Cecilia Iole (Rapunzel) Chicago credits include Johanna in Sweeney Todd (Paramount Theatre, Theo Ubique), Master Class (TimeLine Theatre), Pirates of Penzance, Candide (Music Theatre Works) and Porchlight’s New Faces Sing Broadway Now. She has worked regionally at Clarence Brown Theatre and Rocky Mountain Repertory Theatre. She holds a BFA in Musical Theatre from the University of Arizona. Michael Mahler (The Baker) Recent credits include: Holiday Inn, Honeymoon in Vegas, City of Angels (Marriott Theatre), Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story, Little Shop of Horrors, Side Man, Hank Williams: Lost Highway, It’s a Wonderful Life: Live in Chicago (American Blues), The March (Steppenwolf Theatre), Working (Broadway in Chicago), The Fox on the Fairway, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Producers (Theatre at the Center) and The Illusion (Court). Michael is the Jeff award-winning composer/lyricist of Miracle the Musical, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Man Who Murdered Sherlock Holmes, October Sky, Hero, the upcoming Secret of My Success and others. He also contributed additional lyrics to Cameron Mackintosh’s most recent Broadway revival of Miss Saigon. Michael is currently collaborating with playwright Randall Colburn on an original musical for Writers Theatre about Jim Jones. He also served as music director of Gary Griffin’s production of Road Show at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Michael is a proud ensemble member of American Blues Theater and Actors Equity. Ryan McBride (Cinderella’s Prince) Credits include: Noises Off (Windy City Playhouse), Continuity (Goodman Theatre), Shakespeare in Love, Julius Caesar (Chicago Shakespeare Theater), West Side Story, Mamma Mia! (Paramount Theatre), Footloose (Marriott Theatre), Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Chicago Symphony Orchestra with CST), Linda, Brilliant Adventures, Fallow (Steep Theatre), Sita Ram (Lookingglass Theatre Company and Chicago Children’s Choir), Letter’s Home and Ghosts of War (Griffin Theatre Company). National Tour: Evil Dead The Musical! Regional: Hand to God (Studio Theatre, Helen Hayes Nominee). TV: Empire, Proven Innocent (FOX), Chicago Med, Chicago Justice (NBC) and The CHI (Showtime).  Mary Poole (Milky White) is a Chicago teacher who acts, past performances include London Wall, Flare Path, Stage Door (Griffin Theatre), Three Sisters (Hypocrites), The Size of the World (Red Twist), Love and Information (Remy Bumppo) and multiple old ladies at Victory Gardens, Apple Tree, Wagon Wheel, and Northwestern University, where she serves as Head of Acting and Associate Chair. Harriet Nzinga Plumpp (Cinderella’s Mother/Granny) makes her Writers Theatre debut. Harriet Nzinga Plumpp has been performing on stages professionally since she was 7 1/2 years old, starting with singing in the Chicago Children's Choir. Harriet has collaborated with Harold Prince, Frank Galati, Gary Griffin, Stephen Sondheim, Stephen Flaherty, Barbara Gaines, Tom Murray, Charles Newell, George Hern, Bob Mason, Roberta Duchak, Doug Peck, Diana Basmajian and Amber Mak at The Goodman Theater, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Court Theater, The Lyric Opera, Ravinia Festival and Paramount Theatre. You might have seen her recently soaring in the air as Glinda in Paramount Theatre's Wizard of Oz and listening intently to Matilda as Mrs. Phelps at Drury Lane Oakbrook Theater in Matilda the Musical. Ximone Rose (Cinderella), Performer & singer-songwriter. New Orleans native. University of Michigan Musical Theatre Program. Broadway: Once On This Island (Storyteller). 1st National: Beautiful (Lucille). Regional: MTW, Fulton Theatre, Old Globe. CGF Talent.  Bethany Thomas (Witch) Bethany is a Chicago-based actor and singer, most recently in the US Premiere of the one woman show Songs For Nobodies at Milwaukee Rep. Chicago credits include The Tempest (Chicago Shakespeare Theater), Porgy and Bess (Serena) at Court Theatre, Marry Me A Little, Into The Woods, Nine, In Trousers (Porchlight Music Theater)  Hair (Paramount Theatre), Fiorello! (TimeLine Theatre) also work with Second City, AboutFace Theatre, The Inconvenience, Theo Ubique, Congo Square, Drury Lane Oakbrook, Theatre at the Center, Marriott Lincolnshire, Hell In A Handbag and American Theater Company. Regional credits include Iphigenia In Aulis (Getty Villa), The Color Purple (Sofia), Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Armelia), Ragtime, Man Of La Mancha, A Christmas Carol at Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Hairspray (Motormouth Maybelle) at Skylight Music Theater and Little Shop of Horrors (Audrey II) at Geva Theatre. Bethany appeared in the second seasons of Empire (FOX) and You're So Talented (OpenTV) and is a proud recipient of a Joseph Jefferson Award, an After Dark Award and a Black Theatre Alliance Award. As a singer/songwriter, Bethany is a regular performer at The Paper Machete, The Hideout and in Steppenwolf's LookOut series. She's done concerts for WBEZ, WFMT, WTTW and the Chicago Humanities Festival, and was a featured local artist in Renee Fleming’s Chicago Voices Project at the Lyric Opera. She is one quarter of the alt-country project Jon Langford's Four Lost Souls, (self-titled album out on Bloodshot Records) and released an EP of her own music called First. Look out next year for her debut album. Jonathan Weir (Mysterious Man/Cinderella’s Father, beginning 9/17) Chicago: King Charles, Twelfth Night, The Emperors New Clothes (Chicago Shakespeare Theater), 2666, Candide, A Christmas Carol, The Visit (Goodman Theatre), Stepping Out (Steppenwolf Theatre Company), The Merry Widow starring the luminescent Renee Fleming (Lyric Opera Chicago) Billy Elliot, City of Angels, The Most Happy Fella, Gypsy, Ragtime (Drury Lane Oakbrook), Funny Girl, The First, Bye Bye Birdie and History Loves Company (Marriott Lincolnshire Theatre). Regional: Montana Shakespeare, Skylight Opera Theatre, The Shakespeare Theatre Company, Next Act Theatre and Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival. Broadway: The Lion King. Currently on leave from the North American Tour of Disney’s Aladdin, where he performs the role of Jafar since originating the role in Chicago in April 2017. Other National Tours: Jersey Boys, The Lion King and Scrooge the Musical.  AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT Post-Show Conversation: The Word Join us after every Tuesday evening performance (excluding First Week and any extension weeks) for a 15-minute discussion of the play, facilitated by a member of the WT Artistic Team. Post-Show Conversation: The Artist Join us after every Wednesday evening performance (excluding First Week and any extension weeks) for a 15-minute talk-back featuring actors from the production, facilitated by a member of the WT Artistic Team. Pre-show Conversation: Up Close Join us at 7pm in the Patron’s Lounge before every Thursday evening performance (excluding First Week and any extension weeks) for a 15-minute primer on the context and content of the play facilitated by a member of the WT Artistic Team. RIDE METRA TO WRITERS THEATRE In an effort to promote taking public transit to the Theatre, any audience member who purchases a ticket to a Writers Theatre production and rides Metra’s Union Pacific North Line to the Theatre may snap a photo of themselves on the train and post it to their social media account with a tag of @WritersTheatre (@Writers_Theatre on Instagram) and #IntotheWoodsWT, and upon showing the post at the Writers Theatre Box Office, receive $5 in cash to put toward the cost of your fare as a thank you for going green. This promotion is available for a limited time only and may end without warning. Ticket must have been paid for in advance. Not valid on comp tickets. More information available at writerstheatre.org/metra WRITERS THEATRE PARTNERS Writers Theatre is pleased to recognize BMO Harris Bank as the Season Sponsor and ComEd as the Official Lighting Sponsor of the 2019/20 Season. The Major Corporate Sponsor is Northern Trust.  The Lead Sponsor is Mary Pat Studdert and the Artists Council Sponsors are Susan and Don Belgrad and John and Francesca Edwardson. For more information about Writers Theatre’s 2019/20 partners, visit writerstheatre.org/our-supporters. ABOUT WRITERS THEATRE For more than 25 years, Writers Theatre has captivated Chicagoland audiences with inventive interpretations of classic work, a bold approach to contemporary theatre and a dedication to creating the most intimate theatrical experience possible. Under the artistic leadership of Michael Halberstam and the executive leadership of Kathryn M. Lipuma, Writers Theatre has grown to become a major Chicagoland cultural destination with a national reputation for excellence, being called the top regional theatre in the nation by The Wall Street Journal. The company, which plays to a sold-out and discerning audience of more than 60,000 patrons each season, has garnered critical praise for the consistent high quality and intimacy of its artistry—providing the finest interpretations of both classic and contemporary theatre in its two intensely intimate venues.  In February 2016, Writers Theatre opened a new, state-of-the-art facility. This established the company's first permanent home—a new theatre center in downtown Glencoe, designed by the award-winning, internationally renowned Studio Gang Architects, led by Founder and Design Principal Jeanne Gang, FAIA, in collaboration with Theatre Consultant Auerbach Pollock Friedlander. The new facility has allowed the Theatre to continue to grow to accommodate its audience, while maintaining its trademark intimacy. The new facility resonates with and complements the Theatre’s neighboring Glencoe community, adding tremendous value to Chicagoland and helping to establish the North Shore as a premier cultural destination. Find Writers Theatre on Facebook at Facebook.com/WritersTheatre, follow @WritersTheatre on Twitter or @Writers_Theatre on Instagram. For more information, visit www.writerstheatre.org. Read the full article

[impossibleleaf]

It’s opposite day in TFP, John has become the Brain and Mycroft the Heart

Let’s start with the obvious. Eurus’ little games were rigged. Mycroft was the one in the right: they should have never played the game because they never had a chance to win.

Each little game shows however how much Sherlock still had to learn and, more than that, how much out of character the John and Mycroft inside this EMP/coma/hallucination have seemingly become.

Make no mistake, these games were always about them, and it looks like Sherlock has accidentally got them switched in this episode. [EDIT]: And for very good reasons:

EURUS: “I’m particularly focussed on internal conflicts, where strategising around a largely intuitive moral code appears to create a counter-intuitive result.”

The Final Problems is nothing but internal conflicts and the efforts to maintain a mostly subjective moral code under duress. But, Eurus is about to prove something she’s intuitively deduced: strategising around a largely intuitive moral code create counter-intuitive results and we get this paradox. Under these experiments and the stress:

John (The Heart) -> The Brain, and

Mycroft (The Brain) -> The Heart.

And each one of her games will prove it plenty enough.

Game 1: Who is going to kill the governor? John or Mycroft?

Would you rather live with the guilt of killing the governor or live with the guilt of not having prevented his wife’s murder?  They’re fucked whatever choice they make. Nobody wants to kill the governor but they all more or less agree he needs to die. The question is never whether they should kill him but who would. Who will Sherlock choose to do it? Who will have the honour of killing the governor? Mycroft or John?

Surprisingly, Sherlock starts with Mycroft. The man who seemingly has no experience with killing is the one who is given the honour. That’s where the mind fuckery begins.

The Iceman, the man whose name should at least imply a certain Machiavellian approach of this is the most emotional of them all. If Mycroft is the one perceived to be the “Brain”, he still retains a strong moral compass and uses it: he will not kill. He’s close to hyperventilating, this goes against his perceived principles but he doesn’t break. He’s drawn the line and not even Sherlock can change it.

John then takes the gun and tries to rationalize it. This is the so called “Heart”, trying desperately to justify what he’s about to do. He’s a soldier, to hell what happens to him, the man in front of him has accepted his death. By killing the man, he’s saving the wife. That’s what he wants, they’re saving this man’s wife and his sacrifice is something to be proud of. This is very planned, a use of hard facts and a refusal to listen to his heart to keep going: the man with the strong moral principles is willing to throw them away and live with the guilt he’s killed an innocent man. All because he knows that’s what the governor wants: saving his wife.

In a surprising plot twist, Mycroft can’t do it because his moral compass is against murder and John is cold logic.

But even then, John can’t. John Watson is only human. He is a good man, the good doctor and no matter how much he tried to twist it, he knows he can’t do this. He has his priorities, like he says after the fact, and his priorities involve not dirtying his hands even if that ultimately got a woman killed.

Heart and Brain are in agreement: they can’t kill. The governor has to kill himself and that changes nothing. Game over. But let’s be honest for a second, had any of them taken that step, there was not only no guarantee Eurus would have kept her promise but that would have destroyed them.

Like I said, they was never going to be a solution that wouldn’t gut them. They just got the worst case scenario where nobody gets saved. It’s just our luck we got a glimpse of how their moral values fare under pressure.

Eurus, Emotion test n°1: How will Sherlock act in front of an impossible choice? Are you really not going to dirty your hands? Because there will be consequences.

Game n°2: Make use of your friends, Sherlock, I want to see you interact with them. Which one is better?

John has failed his last test and is going to make sure nobody else suffers from his hesitation. Mycroft knows that they should not be playing and decides to stay out of it.

Except tiny Eurus is on a plane. Sherlock is still dying and they must first sole this. So starts the series of deductions that is supposed to kill the Garridebs killed the victim.

For the second time, John is the one with the Machiavellian approach while Mycroft is being boringly ordinary. Mycroft snaps, he calls the game for what it is: a competition between the two of them. Which one does Sherlock like better? Who does he need to solve the case?

John lays down some hard facts: none of this matter, we play the game and to hell with what happens to us.

Ultimately, this is a team effort. John’s experience with weapons leads Sherlock to find out which Garrideb couldn’t do it. Under John’s words, Mycroft decides to bring his help to know who did. The case wouldn’t have been solved this quickly without these two. Their method is however very telling.

John does his part with what they’ve originally been given. John helps with pure facts.

Mycroft? He deduces Alex Garrideb only once he’s in front of them. Mycroft helps Sherlock with context. And with Eurus, that means emotional context.

Remember Sherlock and Mycroft playing deduction in TEH? Mycroft’s deductions were all correct but based on probability. He failed to account sentiment. He couldn’t see how a piece of clothes could ultimately reveal how its owner felt but not this time.

This time, he’s giving the first lines to link the man’s mental state with his new-found vision. He’s the one proving he’s not wearing glasses anymore even though all physical signs should point he still does. The laser-surgery has done the trick, of course that’s why he’s wearing these clothes, he’s making an effort. Sherlock finishes the deduction, “Suddenly he sees himself in a different light.” This time, Mycroft managed to take sentiment into account and that’s how Sherlock gets the final piece of the puzzle.

In front of the two Holmes’ mental prowess, John can’t stop a little compliment, in admiration of the deduction thing. Mycroft on the other hand feels disgusted by what they’re doing. They can’t do this, playing god and deciding who lives and who dies.

For the second time, John and Mycroft’s functions got switched.

In the end, this doesn’t matter.

Eurus, Emotion Test n°2: Does it make a difference if the innocents die instead of the guilty? Do you really believe there is some justice?

This is disgusting in how true what Eurus said is. A life is a life. We can protest in the number but they were given a choice and they tried vainly to protect the other twos. And yet, they’re the ones who ultimately decided to condemn Alex.

Their moral value has taken the biggest hit yet. They’ve decided a hierarchy and in trying to uphold it didn’t even manage to save one man.

Again.

Game 3: Which side are you on? How are you going to bury what “I love you” really means? Will it just be part of a game? A case? A heartfelt confession?

I admit this one is John and Mycroft light. The only active parts they have in this round is regarding mini Eurus. That’s the first time they seem in-character: John wants to believe they can save her, Mycroft is aware they cannot risk the lives of the people in the city. It’s the blink and you’ll miss it moment. Once the game starts again, they’re back to being… whatever they’ve become.

This time, Sherlock is playing solo.

John and Mycroft are merely behind him, on his shoulders, just observing. This shot strongly reminds of the imagery of the angel and the devil on your shoulders. Sherlock without looking at them needs to pick a side. But who is the angel and who is the devil?

We begin with a condition Eurus sets: no matter what, Molly can’t know why she needs to confess. Sherlock begging, explaining how much he cares for her and how her life is in danger won’t cut. Speaking from the heart won’t work. Not on its own.

That’s why the game starts with Sherlock acting, trying to seem composed and we only sees Mycroft in these moments. This tactic fails.

Now, he’s is outright lying. This time, nobody is behind him.

This backfires terribly. That’s exactly because of these lines that he’s hurt her.

When he’s panicking, we see Mycroft and John: this is the real Sherlock, the one who is desperately trying to save her life and isn’t able to act as if it’s not important.

Does he love her? Yes, but not the way Eurus suspects. She’s his friend, she matters a lot to him. He loves her enough to save her life, he’s willing to say these words and pretend they mean more if that saves her. It’s as much manipulation as truth. After all, if these words were meaningless, why was it so hard for him to say these words? He even says it twice, while both men stand behind him, a proof that this isn’t only an act.

In the end he does it. They both confess but he’s lost something important in the end.

Where is John? The two angels on his shoulders, one just vanishes the second Molly confesses. He thinks he’s won but Sherlock in his confession has unknowingly pushed John aside.

Eurus, Emotion Test n°3: Will you really turn love into a game as well?

While more metaphorical, saying these words and forcing Molly into confessing has killed any meaning it had. This is what “I love you” stands for they’ve buried. Again, they were going to lose no matter what. Love has become nothing but another tool to use in the game and by letting this play this way, Sherlock has also lost John.

Once again, the reactions of Mycroft and John are telling. Mycroft acknowledges Sherlock’s pain. He was the one who was completely horrified when Sherlock was forced into confessing. He knows Sherlock has lied to save her, he gets how hurt he is right now and he tries to be comforting even if Sherlock cuts him off.  John?

Stiff upper lip. To hell with sentiments, we must keep going, we have a game to win. Soldiers until the very end, even if Sherlock has just had a breakdown in front of him.

This is his version of kindness but it’s also very telling. He asks Sherlock to keep a clear head as if sentiments will hinder them. Emotion is viewed as the crack in the lens, the virus in the data.

Let’s stop fooling ourselves: the good doctor is desperately absent. This John is a soldier, one who has thrown his heart away and is only working with his brain. Don’t expect him to be anything but coldly logical. He has become the Brain.

Game n°4: Who would you rather kill? John or Mycroft?

Ah the impossible choice. Which one does Sherlock like better? Mycroft or John?

It doesn’t even take a second before said choice is made: Mycroft orders Sherlock to kill John and gives his reasoning. Sherlock is going to need brainpower, John amounts to nothing, they are soldiers, sentiments have no place here and John needs to die for his country.

John agrees. It doesn’t take anything but a half-hearted explanation, he agrees with the reasoning. The betrayal he’s felt moments before is gone, he is accepting this fate, like a good little soldier. How could he not in front of such clear logic? He knows he matters little and isn’t going to put a protest.

Intellectually, it makes perfect sense and John agrees to die. The Brain is okay with dying if that means a greater chance of survival. It’s however telling that Mycroft is acting.

Despite the truth of what he’s said, Mycroft has never intended to survive this game. He knows that Sherlock and he will have more chances to survive than Sherlock and John and yet he refuses to let Sherlock kills John Watson. That would destroy him after all. He ever intends to make this an easy choice. Let him becomes the villain, that way Sherlock will be able to survive the crippling guilt of fratricide.

Sentiment. Mycroft is willing to give his heart for Sherlock. His brain belongs to England but his heart? Sherlock can do whatever he wants with it.

There. There is no word for this. This is the most selfless act I’ve seen. John has become the Brain but Mycroft? Mycroft has become the Heart.

And Sherlock finally gets it right.

Halleluiah.

This isn’t a game. He needs in his life both of them. Brain and Heart. Who will he need to kill the governor? Who is the better for deductions? What about sentiment? Who will he go for comfort? Who will he kill? He refuses to make the choice. He’d rather die than tear himself apart.

He’s done it. He’s thrown the game away and won. He has managed to protect the Brain and the Heart. He doesn’t need to choose, not when they can work in unison. The Brain can become the Heart and vice-versa.

All this time, Eurus has been testing Sherlock’s relationship between John and Mycroft, the Brain and the Heart. Each time the point has been to let him pick one and cast the other aside. At the end of it, while they had seemingly lost the tests she’s set and people had died, she hadn’t managed to break their connection:

The governor? Nobody killed him.

Alex Garrideb? John and Mycroft were both vital to prove his guilt.

Molly? He managed to save her from the perceived threat when both men were behind him, because he was as much manipulating her as confessing a half-truth. Either wouldn’t have worked. He needed both.

Even when she ordered Sherlock to kill one, he found the loophole. In putting his life on the line, he saves all the three of them.

Sherlock isn’t just a great man, or a good man. He is both. Heart and Brain are deeply intertwined and making a choice would end up tearing him and destroying the other part of him.

Not even Mary’s “Who you really are doesn’t matter” can cast aside the immense growth he’s made. Not when he’s accepted all the parts of him and refuses to compromise.

[dxrkrxse]

:this is so old, but I didn’t want to leave it in my drafts so here yall go , read it or not, its there and if you liked it please let me know?? i’ve been wanting to do more of these for a while and i just didn’t know if yall would like them so yeah 

A/N: my first imagine, just felt like doing this for a while so hope you guys enjoy! Also, please pleASE PLEASE feel free to correct me if I ever get anything wrong! Description: the reader is a sabre tooth tiger trainer, and has a shitty day, and comes home to find Owen with another girl. Warning: Angst, swearing ~~~~ You were having an incredibly shitty day, and an even shittier week. Your already overdue reports began piling up, absolutely none of your girls listened to you, your co-workers were acting like cunts, and the Central American heat scalding your skin was not helping a bit. You sighed, and got in your jeep, eager to see Owen, hoping he could somehow make your day just a little bit better, like he always did. However, as you pulled up to your shared bungalow, you noticed something different. He wasn't out front fixing his bike with a beer in his hand like he usually was. Instead, you went inside and found clothes carelessly strewn across the floor, making a path leading towards your bedroom. And that's when you heard it. Small moans escaped from the other side of that God-forsaken damn door, and you felt hot, angry tears threatening to spill from your eyes. You noisily rapped your knuckles on the door, and almost immediately, the moaning and whining ceased. Out came Leah, an intern you recognized was working with Claire. She gaped at you, eyes wide and full of regret. "Oh my fuck. Shit. Y/N, I didn't even fucking know you guys were together. I'm so sorry." She said, the words tumbling out of her mouth. "No worries girl, it's not your fault. It's not you I'm mad at. But I think you'd better get your stuff quickly." You reassured her, forcing a small smile. She quickly gathered her littered clothes and hurriedly pulled them on. Before she left, she looked at you with a somewhat grateful smile, but sympathy was written all over her slightly sweaty face. And with that, the door closed, and it was just you and him. "You little bastard." You whispered harshly. You felt your heart pounding with fury. He looked at you, silently pleading for you to let him explain. "Y/N, pl-" "3 years. 3 YEARS, we've been together. FUCKING YEARS, OWEN. All those times we had together, and after every single damn thing we ever had to go through, and THIS IS WHAT I FUCKING GET?" You almost screamed, tears freely flowing down your cheeks. He visibly gulped, trying to find the right words to use. "Y/N please, I know it was a mistake bu-" You scoffed, and let out a bitter laugh. "Oh, so you knew? That's even fucking better!" You scowled, throwing your hands up in frustration. "Please, baby just listen to me, dammit! I missed you! I missed you to the point I couldn't even take it anymore! I needed you!" He desperately tried to tell you. "Don't even THINK of giving me that 'I missed you' bullshit. I'm done. I'm done with you." You snapped at him, glaring. You pushed pass the door and began rummaging through your shared closet for your things, yanking them out. Fortunately, in your blind rage, you found a big enough bag to fit your belongings. "Y/N- baby, just please do-" You spun around to face him. "NO. You don't get to 'baby' me anymore. You don't deserve to." You growled. You grabbed your bag, and headed for the door, your mind solely on the one person you knew who to go to; Claire. "I'll get the rest of my shit in the morning. Goodbye, asshole." You told him one last time, aggressively banging the door as hard as you could, and throwing your bag in the jeep.You got in and started the engine. you ran your shaking hands through your hair, as the tears kept flowing and running down your chin, dripping onto your lap. You wiped your eyes, and made your way over to Claire, everything replaying in your brain, over and over again. You knocked on the door 4 times and paused, before finishing with the final 2 taps; a special knock you and Claire made so that you both knew when it was the other. After a few moments, a very tired redhead opened the door, trying to wipe the sleep from her eyes, but stopped as soon as she heard you whimper. Instantly, she wrapped you in a hug and dragged you inside, somehow managing to close the door in the process. She sat you down on the couch and rubbed your back in an effort to comfort you. She didn't say anything, she just let you cry, knowing you needed to get it out of your system before going on. "Can you tell me what happened?" She asked you softly, as your uncontrollable sobbing gradually turned into whimpers. You exploded. Diving into the story and the gory details of it all, you saw the anger flashing in her eyes, but she never once interrupted, letting you rant until you felt somewhat better. "Now you listen to me, Y/N. No man on earth is worthy of you, if you ever spilled even one tear about him. The only crying a man should make you do is out of happiness. He doesn't deserve you." She reassured you, pulling you into her side and wrapping an arm around you. You laid your head on her shoulder and let a few more tears fall. "That's the problem though," you whispered. "I still love him." ~1 week later~ It had been one week. One week of sulking. One week of ice cream, and Netflix, and girl time with Claire. Every day, he tried to come and see you. He visited everyday you were there. You remembered on day in specific. //flashback// He banged on the door. Claire, open up! I know she's with you!" He demanded, desperately trying to open it, but with no avail. Angrily, she stomped over to the door and flung it open, just enough to see her and not you. "Listen to me, Grady. SHE DOESN'T WANT TO SEE YOUR FACE. SHE IS DONE WITH YOU. YOU BROKE HER. WHAT PART OF THAT DO YOU NOT FREAKING UNDERSTAND? NOW LEAVE." She glared, clenching the door handle with one hand and the other raised towards his shoulder to prevent him from barging in. "Please just let me talk to her at least!" He begged desperately. He struggled against her hold, trying to come in. "I STILL LOVE HER DAMMIT!" He yelled in frustration. As you were about to go to your room, you froze. Unfortunately, he saw you. "Baby, babe please, PLEASE talk to me!" He pined. Thankfully, Claire, once again, came to your rescue. "No you don't have the right to call her that. You don't get to 'baby' her!" She growled, and slammed the door. You heard a sigh from the other side of it, along with a broken whisper. "I'm so sorry". // When he visited this time, you were fed up, and answered the door yourself, much to Claire's protests. "10 minutes. I will give you 10 minutes and that's it. Got it?" You told him sternly, your heart hammering away in your chest. Relief flooded his features, and he eagerly followed you to your room. As soon as the door was closed, you both sat down, the tension in the room thick enough to cut with a machete. "Talk." You ordered. He took a deep breath. "What I did was a mistake. And I know that. I regret it more every day, each day becoming more unbearable compared to the last." He paused before going on. "I never got to see you anymore. Even when you were home, you were either too busy working on your reports, or too tired from working with the girls. Either way, I felt you slipping away. I couldn't handle it. The loneliness. Everything, just piling up, until I couldn't take it. I thought I was losing you, day by fucking day. I missed you so damn much. And because of it, I did something incredibly fucking stupi-" You snorted. "Well no fucking shit huh, Sherlock." You muttered. He flinched. Good, you thought. Deserves to feel like shit after the pain he caused me. He sighed, and ran his hand through his curly, dirty blonde locks. "I- I just needed you." He breathed out. Your features softened. Slowly and hesitantly, you reached over and placed your hand on his overly scruffy cheek, causing him to look at you. "You could have told me, you know I'd drop anything for you." You whispered gently. He looked down again, sighing. "I know, and I'm so, incredibly sorry." He murmured quietly, barely over a whisper. You sighed, letting out a breath you didn't even know you were holding. "I know. Thank you." You told him. He looked up at you, his emerald green eyes meeting your own Y/E/C ones. He understood. He knew it's not okay, and that you would need time. But it was the best he could hope for. You gave him a small smile, and his eyes briefly flicked to your lips, before looking back at you, as if asking if it's okay. Biting your lip softly, he took it as a yes, and gently pressed his lips to yours. You kissed back, with one hand resting on his cheek. You both pulled back, and rested your foreheads on each other's. " I love you." He whispered. Hesitantly, you said it back, before wrapping him in a hug, inhaling his earthy, ruggedness. You missed this. You missed him. You may not be okay now, but you knew you will be. As long as he was by your side, everything would turn out okay.

[kayla1993-world]

2021 looks to be an exciting year for movies, especially because it will finally see the release of several notable projects that have been stuck development hell. At first glance, development hell is a dark creative abyss that pulls down eagerly-awaited movies and TV shows into an unknown future - shifting around scripts, directors and studios, and frustrating legions of faithful and hungry film fans in the process. Thankfully, some highly-anticipated films have finally escaped development hell, and are scheduled for a 2021 release.

Whether it's Mad Max: Fury Road or the new Guns n' Roses album, development hell is frustrating for fans and creators alike. And the irritation doesn't stop there: indeed, completed movies with a bumpy production history have rarely turned out questionably perfect (see: Alien Vs. Predator, and  John Carter). But despite the term's obviously negative connotations, snags in the creative process can be extremely beneficial to a project. It signals that a studio is unwilling to flippantly rush the film for the sake of filling a tentpole release date, and instead takes reasonable care in finding the right talent to breathe life into an important creative venture. More time on a project typically means more care taken in the thought process.

There are movies that have been gestating for ten years or more that will finally be getting their big pay-off in 2021. Whether they'll sink or swim is anyone's guess, but anticipation is naturally rife -- these films have been a long time coming.

1.  Pinocchio -- The upcoming Pinocchio is Guillermo Del Toro's long-awaited adaptation of the classic children's novel, popularized by Disney's 1940 animated film. Del Toro's project has had a awkward path towards principle production, having been cancelled in 2017 after Del Toro failed to acquire funding for his allegedly darker interpretation of the whimsical tale, which apparently retains its European setting but switches the 19th century setting for Mussolini's Italy. Del Toro has repeatedly called Pinocchio his passion project, claiming a "deep, personal connection" to the character.

After stagnating for over a year, Netflix came to Del Toro's creative aid on his career high from 2017's  The Shape of Water. Along with the Jim Henson Company, Pinocchio will finally materialize with co-director Mark Gustafson in tow. Gustafson's talents as animation director are essential for the film's stop-motion animation -- a unique, surreal style that could potentially be a nice change of pace from today's vapid, CG-overload fantasy tales. Incidentally, Disney's live-action Pinocchio is moving ahead. A release date is not yet set, and the film may be delayed while Del Toro completes Nightmare Alley, but production is progressing nicely with stars Ewan McGregor, Tilda Swinton and Christoph Waltz already on board. A 2021 release date on Netflix seems probable.

2.  Uncharted -- Naughty Dog's hugely successful video game franchise Uncharted is somewhat notorious for failing to muster a film adaptation. Talk of a movie featuring treasure hunter Nathan Drake dates back to 2009, after the success of Uncharted 2, and the project has since sifted through an array of directors. David O’Russell, Neil Burger, Seth Gordon, Shawn Levy, Dan Trachtenberg and Travis Knight have all taken a shot at prepping Sony's eagerly anticipated blockbuster, but each director fled the Uncharted project for undisclosed reasons.

But the future seemingly grows brighter for Drake and company. In what is now an Uncharted origin story, Tom Holland has been cast as a young Nathan, and Mark Wahlberg, in a surprising turnaround, is now on board as Drake's mentor Sully (Wahlberg signed on as Drake in O’Russell's version, that was also to feature Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci). Antonio Banderas has also joined the roster of actors. They will be led by Venom director Ruben Fleischer, who took over from Knight in January, which (yet again) delayed the movie from its previous December 2020 release date, replacing Masters of the Universe on Sony's release schedule in the process. Assuming Fleischer doesn't join his predecessors in walking away from Uncharted, the movie is set for release on March 5th 2021.

3.  Space jam 2 -- The original Space Jam appealed to sports and classic cartoon fans alike, and its $230 million worldwide gross put a sequel on the cards almost immediately. However, plans for Space Jam 2 were scrapped in favor of 2003's Looney Tunes: Back in Action , which is currently Bugs, Daffy and friends' last effort on the silver screen. A sustained interest in the '90s classic has lead to a variety of stalled sequels in recent years. These featured the Tunesquad in different games with different sports celebrities, including golf with Tiger Woods and skateboarding with Tony Hawk.

The upcoming Space Jam 2  sequel is evidently a much more back-to-basics approach. NBA champion LeBron James is set to replace Michael Jordan as the Tunes' captain with director Malcom D. Lee filling Joe Pytka's boots as captain of production. Ryan Coogler even features in a Producer role. Actors Don Cheadle and Sonequa Martin-Green have joined the returning Looney Tunes favourites, who are sure to give the "Monstars" an exciting and madcap rematch.

4.  The batman -- Batman's next solo outing, The Batman , has swerved drastically since the DCEU culminated in 2017's horifically mismanaged Justice League . Initially intended to be directed and co-written by then-incumbent star, Ben Affleck, he left The Batman project in 2017 and recently citied a "loss of interest" in the character.

After briefly dropping out, Matt Reeves is back to oversee yet another reboot of the dark knight legend. Little is known of the narrative, except it will not incorporate the Affleck script, nor be connected to the virtually extinct DCEU. Reeves' ideas are intriguing: he has described it as a more detective-oriented story that takes inspiration from the graphic novel The Long Halloween. The caped crusader definitely has his work cut out in this picture, with Catwoman, The Penguin and The Riddler rounding out the movie's rogue's gallery.

Robert Pattinson was surprisingly Reeves' top choice for the role, and the actor's youthful appearance suggests it will center on Batman's early days. A rough, makeshift costume revealed in February supported this idea; more recently, images of The Batman's Batmobile were revealed. Assisted by Andy Serkis' Alfred, The Batman takes to the streets June 25th 2021.

5.  Sherlock Holmes 3 -- Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law are expected to reprise their roles as Holmes and Dr Watson respectively in the upcoming Sherlock Holmes 3 . The series that has long stalled squarely thanks to Downey Jr.'s MCU commitments, portraying Tony Stark aka Iron Man. Fans may have had three seasons of the BBC's Sherlock to get their fix, but certainly, some are eager to see Downey Jr.'s appealing performance as the Victorian detective once again, particularly after a decade-long absence.  Originally scheduled for December 2020, suspiciously, Sherlock Holmes 3  was delayed for an entire year.

Guy Ritchie directed the original 2009 film as well as its sequel, A Game of Shadows, but has vacated the chair for a potential third film. Hot from Elton John biopic Rocketman, British director Dexter Fletcher will replace him and has noted the inevitability that his sequel will be different to Ritchie's interpretation of the franchise.

Delays have been happening in the screenplay department for Sherlock Holmes 3. Chris Brancato is the latest writer hired to pen a script, after original's screenwriters Drew Pearce and James Coyne each turned in inadequate drafts of their own. Law has stated he and the filmmakers want the film to "be better" than the predecessors, so are understandably cautious about releasing a less-than brilliant "threequel." As the Sherlock Holmes 3 cast gears up, there's still time to perfect everything before its December 2021 release.

6.  Avatar 2 -- If anyone can believe it, Avatar was released more than a decade ago in 2009. Even before the movie's billion-dollar success, James Cameron had a rich vision and universe all laid out, which multiple sequels designed for him to draw from. Initially, Cameron envisioned Pandora and its surrounding worlds to be explored in a total of three sequels, with Avatar 2 finally releasing in December... of 2014.

Cut to seven years and multiple delays later, and there's not been a poster, trailer or much public interest to maintain faith in the continuation of the Na'vi story. But Cameron has evidently been working very hard. Development on the  Avatar sequels, although exhaustively drawn out, has never officially halted; Cameron has blamed an "involved writing process" for the Avatar sequels' setbacks, and even has hired some much-needed help in the form of four additional screenwriters, including Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver.

Always the pioneer, Cameron has also focused his efforts on helping the motion capture and 3D technology that made the original film so ground-breaking, although will not use the controversial HFR. Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang will be back on Pandora on December 17th, 2021.

7.  Indiana Jones -- After the release of 2008's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull , Harrison Ford said that he'd love to do Indiana Jones 5 , if it didn't take "another 20 years" to be released. Well, half of that time has passed, and the quickest the sequel will be released is likely 2021.

Similar to Avatar, Indy 5's mid-2010s release date was replaced by a blowing tumbleweed. In the 12 long years since Crystal Skull, and some back and forth over the sequel's script, director Steven Spielberg has ultimately left the project. This is and isn't surprising. His mixed feelings about the fourth film seemingly indicated that he wanted to close off the series with a more satisfactory story, but his commitment to various projects over the past decade strongly suggested he was dragging his feet on helming the film.

Ford has always been game to return, and Spielberg is expected to join Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall in a Producer capability. There is no word that David Koepp's script is finalised, but production is clearly moving along, as evidenced by Lucasfilm's hasty recruitment of Logan director, James Mangold. Ford himself expects to start shooting Indy 5  in two months.

It's known that the film will not kill off Indy, nor will it integrate Shia LaBeouf's Mutt Williams; however it remains a mystery what Indy's quest will be. Ford has been deliberately vague, only hinting at where the character will go, promising a "resolve" to Indy's story. Given Ford's age and that the series was intended as five films, it's only natural that everything concludes here -- although the ever-eager Disney will inevitably pursue the reboot path in due time. Director and script troubles notwithstanding, Indiana Jones 5 will likely join the other development hell movies to be released in 2021.

[vulkanmag-blog]

OLIVIA VINALL

New Post has been published on https://vulkanmagazine.com/content/olivia-vinall/

OLIVIA VINALL

OLIVIA VINALL

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SHIRT: COS

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SHIRT: Brandy Melville

OLIVIA VINALL

Interviewed & Edited by: Jaimee Jakobczak, IG @ThisIsJaimee

Olivia Vinall is perhaps best known for her work in live theatre in productions like National THeatre Live: Othello where she played Desdemona. She was cast as both lead characters in the TV mini-series The Women in White, based of the 1859 novel of the same name, and upcoming you can see her as Hermine in the historical drama Where Hands Touch which premiers sunday on BBC One.

You’ll be appearing in The Woman in White. What do you find most compelling about period dramas? 

I think it is the combination of immersing yourself in the lives of people from a bygone time and seeing and feeling how their struggles are relatable and universal, how little things actually change and how we are all connected, no matter how much time separates us. They can hold a mirror up to past mistakes and hopefully show us how to break the cycle and live a more progressive life. As an actress it is wonderful to be in an environment completely different to your own and investigate how people once lived and how the fundamental struggles of being human haven’t changed.

Who is Laura Fairlie & what does she add to the story? 

Laura Fairlie is an orphan who lives with her half sister and best friend Marian at her Uncle’s estate. Both of their fathers and their mother have died and Laura’s Uncle is now her guardian. Laura’s father left her with money which she will have access to when she turns 18 (whereas her sister Marian has none.) Unlike her sister she has never travelled and lived most of her life at Limmeridge and had a very isolated upbringing. She sees the world in a very particular way as she has kind of synesthesia which makes her sensitive and distances her from others perspectives. The story unfolds around the pressures for women to survive and live in a certain way in accordance to the men around them who so often have the control to dictate how their lives must be because of the lack of their own economic power at the time.

The original novel was written in 1859 and has had several adaptations since then. What makes this adaption special?

To be honest I have never seen any of the other adaptations, but what felt particularly special working on this is the way our director Carl Tibbetts has approached it. He was clear from the beginning he didn’t want to just think of it as a period drama so as to distance ourselves from it as a time gone by but to see it for what it is, brutal, haunting, deceptive… He wanted to approach it as a psychological thriller in the vain of Rosemary’s Baby or Repulsion which immediately had my interest. I think the way it is shot by the brilliant Eben Bolter, our DOP, is very exciting; they created together a visual way of really quite forensically looking into the minds of each of the characters through extreme closeups and exploring perspective.

In the series, you will be portraying two characters, that of Laura as mentioned already, and the Woman in White herself. Was it always set out that one actress would play both parts?

This is the first time they have used the same actress to play both parts and is what drew me to the project. The drama unfolds around the two looking alike enough to be confused as the other and so I hope it will make it more realistic for an audience. It was brilliant to explore the two, inside and out and develop with the design team the ways to find variety visually - which meant I spent many months of this year with bleached eyebrows which was interesting..

I imagine it is challenging to jump between roles, what are some you faced in this production?

One of the most memorable days of the shoot for me was when the two characters meet. I worked with a body double to mirror my moves for each. It was just the two characters meeting you felt so fully part of the creation of that moment and scene. It was a wonderful challenge to be in one mindset looking at a character whose head you are also inside of. It was challenging though as I had to film all one character first and also at the same time be deciding how the other would react physically to this so that the body double could do the moves which I then had to stick to when we turned around, so it became almost like a dance and being the choreographer.

In what way do you think the production is better served by having one actress play both roles?

Their visual similarities are so intrinsic to the plot that I hope it will serve the story and an audience's understanding and enjoyment. I want an audience to see the two women in the way the other characters do and follow their confusion and bemusement and believe it that as much as possible without thinking ‘ Oh what they look nothing alike ‘ or ‘ obviously they’re different people!’ - though we’ll have to wait and see!

It’s considered to be one of the first (and best) true mystery novels. Do you have a favourite mystery novel or mystery writer you follow?

When I first read it before the project started I had no idea how much I would enjoy it and honestly it is a brilliant novel, I could hardly put it down and was swept along with the story and mystery from the opening pages. My great-grandpa Brian Flynn wrote over 50 detective / mystery novels so they’ve always grabbed my attention. Though when I was little I used to think he was Sherlock Holmes and would tell everyone at school that’s who my great-grandpa was.

How was working with director Carl Tibbetts? I loved his work on Black Mirror.

It was brilliant. I’m a big fan of Black Mirror too and after meeting him initially and after he described how he wanted to approach the story and his influences I was so keen to be involved. He suggested a few films for me to watch that were references for him, or part of his visual mood board, like Rosemary’s Baby and Repulsion and I watched them all back to back and they completely got under my skin. I think he doesn’t want to shirk away from the reality of the darkness of the story and terror of the situations that occur; they are key to the novel and I think Carl is a fantastic director to bring them out.

You’ll also be portraying Hermine in the film Where Hands Touch. What is Hermine’s involvement?

Hermine is a German girl whose family have been taken to a concentration camp and she has become separated from them with the knowledge that they have been killed in the incinerators. She has been selected to work at the labour camp and not killed immediately because of her age and health and so is forced to work along with the rest of the women who have been kept alive for this reason. Bonds between individuals would happen quickly as it was a means of survival if you could get each other food or keep each other warm, you needed allies and she finds one in Lena.

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DRESS: Zara

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SWEATER: Brandy Melville

In what ways would you say the film highlights struggles that we are still facing as a society today?  

Any research into this period and the reality of the happenings is completely harrowing and distressing. I think it is important to educate ourselves and confront ourselves with what humans are capable of so that nothing like it ever, ever occurs again. I think many of these feelings are still around in our world and it is unbelievable to me. It makes me aware how important it is to try and live each moment from a place of kindness and empathy and knowing that we are all human, with no hierarchy and to see what positive things we could achieve by working together not against one another.

What might you say to those who, in 2017, still don’t believe people can love whomever they wish?

Life is so short, so fleeting, so intangible. Who is anyone to say or dictate how any other human or being can or cannot live. What could be more wonderful and powerful than love, why not live your life with open hearts and minds and celebrate and enjoy its beauty while you can. What does hate and intolerance really bring you? That or f*ck off.

What is it you love most about live theatre?

Being in a moment, in the same space and air as a group of people who collectively are with you on a journey over a few hours. Feeling that energy and having a very real very alive experience, to feel that response in the moment, for me there is nothing quite like it.

Can we expect you’ll be making your return to the stage soon?

I hope so, though I’m really enjoying exploring the world of film and also creating the feeling of live theatre in that process. So much of stage work is the imagination, making yourself and an audience believe you are in a certain time or place or environment whereas actually being on a heath, in the sun or rain, smelling the sea while you film, being on incredibly designed sets where every detail transports you into that world… it’s a real joy.

What is one thing currently outstanding that you hope to accomplish in your lifetime?

To run a theatre company

What advice might you give young girls heading out for their first audition?

Don’t listen to anyone who tries to stereotype you or put you in a box. Ignore the people who say ‘ oh we have plenty of.. blah blah blonde blue pink green actresses’...you are you, that is what you bring and no one can ever define you or compare you. Have the courage of your convictions and stick to your beliefs. Value the process.

Which historical figure would you be most interested in portraying in the future?

I’ve always loved silent movies, especially Charlie Chaplin’s and think Lillian Gish’s life was so interesting. She performed in theatre, movies and television and was the same age as film as they both came into the world in 1893. She said in an interview, “I didn't care about being a beauty, I wanted to be an actress. When I was in the movies, I didn't care what I looked like, except for that image up there on the screen. I wanted to create beauty when it was necessary; that's an inner thing. But if all you have is a facade, it isn't interesting.” I’d be interested in exploring what life was like for her.

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SHIRT: COS

Credits

PHOTOGRAPHER: Joseph Sinclair MAKEUP ARTIST:: Lauren Kay HAIR STYLIST: The London Barber