#diana bishop tiny sunshine murder daughter

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Favorite Season 1 Bishmont Moments [1/?]: Matthew’s Insecurities

You may not like what you see. —A Discovery of Witches 1.05

How Matthew responds to Diana’s care, acceptance and protective instincts is amazing. “I’ve never felt so protective over anyone,” he said back in Oxford, trying to understand his own feelings and meaning I’ve never loved anyone like this. Here, after letting himself be so vulnerable, he is met with this: Diana being intensely, violently protective over him, which means she must feel at least part of what he is feeling—maybe she really does love him back the way he loves her—and that? That is some heady, heady stuff for someone with Matthew’s doubts and fears.

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I’m not saying that I’m distracted by the fit of Matthew’s shirt here. But I’m not not saying that either. 

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Favorite Season 1 Bishmont Moments [2/?]: The soap bubble of uncomplicated happiness

I love the way Diana turns to look at him as they are walking down the stairs, how she draws him forward a little faster in her giddy excitement. How, even though they are already holding hands, she caresses the back of his wrist with her palm because she can, because she hasn’t been wrong this whole time about what’s between them, and because she just really really wants to touch him. And like such a dork, Diana’s mind jumps from her heart being so happy to William Harvey’s discovery of the heart as a pump and it turns out that, oh hey, her amazing vampire boyfriend actually met him. This she has to hear.

And I love Matthew’s reactions. How pleased he is that his demur just makes her want the story even more. How having Diana’s passion and curiosity and happiness focused on him is so thrilling—equally terrifying and marvelous. And the way Matthew gives a shivery, full-body sway of delight when she brushes up against him and responds to her admiring attention by smiling like that. 

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The Cathedral (1908), Auguste Rodin A Discovery of Witches 1.05 (2018), dir. Alice Troughton, cine. Christophe Nuyens

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[It begins with obsession and knitwear; it begins with meta and fabrics; it begins with… the emotional semiotics of costuming. In this multi-part series, @burberrycanary and @village-skeptic exhaustively contextualize significant pieces of clothing from A Discovery of Witches.]

Matthew’s Blue Sweater of Soft Vampire Caring

[Part 2 of ?]

Ah, the blue sweater that cemented my love for the cozy knitwear featured week after week on A Discovery of Witches—and for the costuming department who made Matthew Clairmont look so deliciously touchable while also signaling a central (though initially hidden) aspect of who he is as a character. Knitwear that is easy on the eyes and emotionally resonant?

Get you a show that can do both.

Very early in the season, we get our first brief glimpse of this particular sweater—a dark blue crew neck that Matthew wears on the drive from Oxford to Scotland. At Hamish’s country home, he hopes to re-establish the control he feels slipping away whenever he is near Diana—this witch who makes him want too many things he can’t possibly have.

Unexpectedly, Hamish is waiting for Matthew. The blunt, ribbing exchange that follows—you didn’t need to be here and by the way your new decor is tacky from Matthew; and the oh so you’re fucking up another complicated situation of your own making, what else is new from Hamish—instantly establishes the degree of trust, honesty and understanding between these two unlikely friends. This egalitarian intimacy is very different from what we’ve seen from Matthew so far, who has been secretive, ruthless, closed off and obsessive. But as we see the mutual care and respect within this valued long-standing relationship, we understand that this openness is part of who Matthew feels he can be with someone he loves and trusts.

One hunt to ease his frustrations and one grudging promise to stay away from Diana until he can control himself later, Matthew returns to Oxford only to find that Diana has sought him out and, well, there go all his good intentions. His self-control will have to hold.

After a couple of impromptu dates and a magic-fueled confrontation with Peter Knox that leaves Diana wrung out and exhausted, we get to the swoony, heartfelt scene that puts the soft in Blue Sweater of Soft Vampire Caring. Matthew wearing this sweater in this scene is a pointed change from what we’ve seen of him in relation to Diana so far and signals the emotional shifts that are threatening to change the whole course of his immortal life.

So it’s equally fitting that this critical turning point comes with a pointed (and dreamy) change in costume. In the previous scene, also within Diana’s rooms, Matthew is wearing one of his Very Dark Teal Button Ups of Internal Turmoil when Marcus confronts him about making terrible, emotionally-driven decisions that would only take things from bad to worse—in Matthew’s characteristic trainwreck fashion of, yes, fucking up complicated situations and then dragging everyone else down with him.

But, rather than carrying out his ill-conceived plan, which would upset the fragile thousand-year-old truce between the species, Matthew listens to Marcus and then openly admits what is driving his over-reaction: these overwhelming feelings of protectiveness towards Diana that have blindsided him. 

At some point over the ten hours that Diana sleeps, Matthew changes out of his button down and into the Blue Sweater of Soft Vampire Caring.

And what a sweater it is: perfectly slim fitted, so touchably soft and a gorgeous shade of deep saturated blue. Put anyone in this sort of sweater and they’d be appealing. But on Matthew? The effect is irresistible.

Once Diana wakes, Matthew acknowledges the scope of her powers with frank admiration but cautions that without training she cannot protect herself from the magical and institutional power that Knox has at his disposal. Despite disagreeing with her, he never negates her abilities.

Matthew instead says he’ll take her to his family home in France. The way he kneels before her transforms dialogue that could be controlling into an offer—almost a plea—to let him help her. He explains that being on vampire land should keep her safe from witches, and his reasoning is just sound enough to provide a fig leaf for the psychological and emotional motivations that are driving him to take her home.

And then, wow, this kiss.

Matthew first touches her hair under the guise of (ineffectually) tucking a loose strand behind her ear and then makes slow careful eye contact, establishing the nonverbal consent we see over and over as part of their intimate moments. (Soft caring vampires care about consent!)

And check out the slow, passionate, dreamy tilt of his head, followed by his response to Diana kissing him back, which returns them to a more centered axis in the frame. During this amazing kiss, we see that Matthew has at last stopped kidding himself that any of this is still about his research or the manuscript.

He wants Diana. He wants to see her safe and happy. He wants to be the person who makes her feel protected and loved. And throughout the rest of the season we see this sweater again in moments when he expresses devoted, respectful care for the people in his life who he loves most.

When supporting and comforting Diana after she survives Satu’s attack:

When creating a safe space for Diana to process her feelings after she learns of the dire choice her parents made to protect her, combined with his reassurance that there was never anything wrong with her:

When passing on one of the pieces of his legacy that he values most to Marcus, while showing a degree of emotional openness that we have not seen the two share before:

And when, dying, he tells Diana that he has been searching for her for his entire millennium-and-a-half long life:

Matthew is very selective in who he allows to see this soft, caring, emotionally giving part of himself. But for those few who get to?

Enjoy hugging this gorgeous blue sweater, you lucky characters, you.

[burberrycanary]

Put this on. You’re cold. —A Discovery of Witches 1.02

Diana’s top 5 outfits. Thanks for the ask, @sullypants​! <333

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Der Kuss (1908), Gustav Klimt A Discovery of Witches 1.08 (2018), dir. Sarah Walker, cine. Petra Korner

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Beata Beatrix (c.1864–70), Dante Gabriel Rossetti A Discovery of Witches 1.08 (2018), dir. Sarah Walker, cine. Petra Korner

Love, transformation and death.

[burberrycanary]

👻💍

👻- 2 or 3 sentences from something you haven’t posted yet

She knows he’ll be able to hear.

He’ll hear the lap of the water against the sides of the tub, the way her heartbeat changes and the breathy exhales that he has always wanted to draw from her even when he had been conflicted about so much else.

Diana touches herself under the water. The motion sends ripples out across the surface.

He could be anywhere in the house and hear this.

—from The Careful Boundaries We Draw and Erase (ADOW, Bishmont)

💍- your most underrated story

This is a tough question since I’ve recently gotten lost in a maze of writing fic that I know no audience exists for just because I like Matthew Goode in some obscure role. (So these stories are equally obscure but rated about as they deserve.)

So I’ll go with Amor Fati, which is a fluffy fix-it to explain in Watsonian terms why on earth Matthew and Diana go horseback riding. ADOW has moments where ticking off genre boxes feels very Doylist—genre is as genre does, and this is ADOW performing one of its most throwback romance genre tropes just ‘cause.

As much as I like how the horseback riding scene is shot (and it is beautiful) and adore the sexualized breathing mixed into the audio track and Matthew’s joy in seeing Diana happy, which you can pry from my cold dead hands—it’s all lovely stuff—but seriously, show. What the fuck?

Diana is at the start of destroying a career she’s spent her entire adult life building; she’s on the run from people who want to coerce or hurt or kill her; she has pressing things she needs to deal with. But, no, hey. Let’s go horseback riding. Some part of me was haunted by the need for an in-universe and character-based explanation that connects this genre-driven moment back to the specific story being told with these characters.

I called this story Amor Fati, to love one’s fate, because both Matthew and Diana here are struggling to accept these fated changes that are irrevocably transforming their lives, love and magic, which come with such risks and costs.

Rakasa butts up against Diana’s shoulder with a snicker and Diana presses her forehead against the horse, whispering hypnotic reassurance in the same soft voice. “Shh, yeah, I know, I know. You weren’t made for a pen.”

&

Diana doesn’t take the step back that he expects, which means that he should. He should, but he doesn’t.

But it was also a way for me to nudge this conventional genre moment within ADOW’s storyline towards something that made emotional and psychological sense to me for the characters in this situation, rather than being a half eyeroll, half guilty pleasure moment I accepted as simply fated within the genre.

So I think this fic was me solving a pain-point for myself (and for @village-skeptic) that most people don’t view as being a problem in the first place :)

But hey mutual pining and UST are two great tastes that always taste great together and are at the heart of Amor Fati.

Thank you for the asks!

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