#look at him all happy for mark gatiss

[catabasis]

he lost but he's having the time of his life (and he's won in our hearts)

[ineffablenlghtingales]

So it starts off with Aziraphale driving back from Edinburgh in Crowley’s Bentley. He keeps passing this random hitchhiker and is eventually forced to stop.

It turns out to be Shax. (She's weird, I don't really like her). She tells Aziraphale that she is taking over Crowley’s job, and she wants to know where Gabriel is. Aziraphale denies any knowledge of this, but he lets the truth slip by accident.

Then we get fantastic flashbacks to 1941 (remember Crowley scrambling into the church and rescuing his angel? Then the bomb going off?) Also, hello Mark Gatiss and co as zombie Nazis.

The Nazis are registered by the demon Furfur. (His hair gets an honorable mention. He sort of reminded of some undead German composer and eww creepy is an understatement with that guy).

Furfur grants the three Nazis a temporary license to be able to go back to Earth as zombies for 24 hours to gather proof of Crowley's cooperation with Aziraphale. If they can prove Crowley and Aziraphale are working together, then they will be granted freedom from damnation. To help them with this, Furfur hands them a miracle blocker.

Then begins the silliness of Azi insisting and really trying very hard to work the magician gig. Crowley and he arrive at a theatre and Crowley makes a delivery of alcohol? But all the bottles are broken because well-p, he was right next to a bomb that went off, whoops. The poor old woman who made the order is not happy, complaining that the magician who was supposed to perform that night won't come. Azi decides to take his place.

The two of them step into a magic shop for inspiration for some phantasmic trick to pull off. Aziraphale is looking for a showstopper and comes across the bullet catch trick. The shop owner discourages Aziraphale from purchasing the trick bc Aziraphale has shown just how much of a hand he has for real magic tricks (sarcasm, to clarify).

Okay and the bit where Crowley sits there, watching Aziraphale practice and pretends to be an old man waiting to be impressed. Oh my god, David. I was laughing. But I really loved the bit where Crowley tells him that if he's going to be performing at West End, then it must mean that he's good enough for it (or something like that, to paraphrase. Demon's trying to encourage his angel. I love it.)

At the West End, Aziraphale nervously takes to the stage. (Then I got to thinking about the miracle blocker. Did the two of them intend to pull of the trick with a miracle? Like Crowley'd fire the gun but somehow miracle it to not actually discorporate Aziraphale or whatever?) Anyway if they did, those hopes are dashed because Furfur initiates the miracle blocker, meaning Aziraphale’s first magic trick fails spectacularly.

Also I died when Aziraphale calls out in the crowd, asking for anyone with experience with a gun. ALL the young men in the crowd raise their hands, Crowley does not. I could hear him saying "Nope. Angel, no. I'm going to be honest with you, I don't have experience with a gun. No, no. no." The angel picks a volunteer at random, choosing Crowley out of the crowd.

The poor boys! Crowley goes up on stage, and they greet each other, saying behind their smiles, "My miracles aren't working!"

The trick is a success, Crowley fires and misses Aziraphale’s head. I love how, in the midst of the success, Crowley's basically like "No paperwork! :D" Where as Aziraphale's like "Yes! We did it!" Haha is the paperwork for discorporation really that bad??? They celebrate afterward in their dressing room. Furfur confronts them, showing Crowley the evidence that he’s just snapped the two together.

Crowley denies the allegations, saying it is just a coincidence. Again, Mr. Dramatic just doesn't give a shit and decides to take a nap on the couch. Aziraphale asks to look at the photograph and genius that he is, secretly switch the picture with a flyer.

Back in the present day, Shax is determined to lead an army and attack Aziraphale’s bookshop to kidnap Gabriel. Beelzebub agrees with Shax’s plan and she now has permission to get Gabriel by any means necessary.

Meanwhile, in London, Aziraphale and Crowley reunite, and the demon tells Azi his attempt to make Maggie and Nina fall in love failed, so now it's up to Azi to play matchmaker.

I loved, loved, loved this episode.

[scotianostra]

Happy birthday Scottish television writer and producer Steven Moffat.

Born in Paisley on November 18th 1961, Moffat attended Camphill High School before going on to Glasgow University where he was involved with the student television station, GUST (Glasgow University Student Television). He gained an MA in English and became a teacher for over three years at Cowdenknowes High School, Greenock.

During his years teaching Moffat wrote a couple of plays, one of which, War Zones was performed at Glasgow’s Mayfest and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. His big break came when his dad, a primary school headmaster, met TV producers filming the Harry Secombe show Highway at his school, he told them about an idea for a show about a school newspaper, the producers asked for a sample script and he insisted his son Steven write it. Producer Sandra Hastie said that it was “the best ever first script” that she had read. The show, Press Gang ran for 43 episodes over 5 series an gave us the likes of Dexter Fletcher and Julia Sawalha. Steven has never looked back.

He is perhaps best known now for his work with Dr Who, his two-part story The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances for series one of BBC One’s revival of Doctor Who (starring Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper) won him much acclaim, including the award for ‘Television Moment of the Year’ and the first of three HUGO Awards. He has since went on to write numerous episodes and has been showrunner, lead writer and executive producer from 2009 right through until this year.

Mofat still finds time for other work, the feature screenplay for the Golden Globe-nominated Tintin, commissioned by Steven Spielberg via Spielberg’s company Dreamworks, Sherlock, a multi-award-winning, contemporary take on the Arthur Conan Doyle classic, was created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, he also wrote and was an Executive Producer of Jekyll, a six-part comedic thriller starring James Nesbitt.

Steven Maffat’’s latest project teamed him up once more with David Tennant, Inside man is a decent, if far fetched show, it’s entertaining enough, but I just think it could have been better. I much preferred The Devil's Hour, which he produced through his production company Hartswood Films, another Doctor, Peter Capaldi, plays a really dark character in this Amazon original, all 6 episodes are on Prime.

Steven teamed up with Karen Gillan once more in the excellent mini series Douglas Is Cancelled, which aired on ITV earlier this years.

Fans of Sherlock will be interested to know that Sue Vertue, who produced the show said recently “we love that show and there is a future for it”. And on Dr Who, by this Christmas, he will have written more episodes of the show than any writer. Recently he made a brilliant comment about the sci-fi series "Doctor Who is the single greatest TV format ever devised," he said. "YOU CAN SACK ANYONE! It is a starring role. And you can switch out the star. What other show can do that?… They all want to come back. Everyone who's ever played Doctor Who thinks they're the real one. That creates a problem in the David Tennant family circle."

[queerholmcs]

okay. you know the drill. i do need to elaborate on some of these, moreso than is allowed within the character limit of the polls; see the read more at the bottom of the post. yes it gets a bit long, i'm sorry, i'm not normal about this show, we've established this.

stop making me watch this. this is indecent. this is not suitable for public television. please get a room.

they all know sherlock and they know that he's insane. where they go wrong is in assuming that john must then be the sane one of the pair of them. (save mycroft; see number five.)

'here, use mine' as the obvious opener. but then we also get the bit where john returns to baker street and sherlock's like 'oh haha yeah i called you across town to ask you to send a text' and john gives him the most exasperated, reluctant look before giving sherlock his phone (heart). because at this point, there is no other option. (i won't say more. essays have already been written on the matter.)

the way a point is made to demonstrate sherlock's deliberate ignorance of molly's attempts at flirting. and john's painfully awkward attempts to hit on mycroft's PA. contrasted with their every moment on screen together. 'we can't giggle, it's a crime scene!' SHUT UP.

where do i start with this one. (mycroft is my favourite. i'm not sorry.) he puts so much effort into this stupid little trick and john completely holds his own against him. he's also the only one to see that john is also not sane and that as much as sherlock is going to be some sort of influence on john, john is going to do the same to sherlock. 'might we expect a happy announcement by the end of the week?' → 'i can see from your left hand that's not going to happen' → 'time to choose a side.' hello??????? thank goodness mark gatiss mycroft holmes is here to spell things out for us.

it all starts when john says 'i looked you up on the internet last night' (weird move, it has to be said) and then doesn't immediately praise sherlock's blog. but then he also doesn't tell sherlock to piss off for deducing him and airing his family secrets like that? and from that point on, every remotely clever thing sherlock says, he looks to john for his response. ('do you know you do that out loud?' 'sorry, i'll shut up.' 'no, it's... fine.') i maintain that he only points out anderson and donovan's little affair to show off for john.

look. do i even have to say anything here. we establish that everyone sherlock interacts with thinks he's gay. we establish that john and sherlock are both unattached and that girlfriends definitely aren't sherlock's area and that it's fine to have a boyfriend, by the way, john thinks this is fine, just if you wondered, he's also unattached and it's fine if girls aren't your cup of tea and have we mentioned they're both unattached? and they have what is about the most intimate eye contact ever for far too long while doing so.

chance or chess? play the game. engage with the story. read between the lines. is it a bluff? or a double bluff? or a triple bluff? play the game. (mention the game one more time. i dare you. shut up.)

this is in both the physical and the metaphorical sense. they have no concept of personal space, either of them, and it is a bit awkward for everyone else in the room who's forced to watch them make bedroom eyes at each other. on the metaphorical side—john is the first to say 'actually, it's not obvious, so get on with it and share your thoughts with the class, would you?' and '...bit not good, yeah. maybe be slightly more sensitive to people's emotions, there.' and 'you're so full of it. you absolutely do guess, admit it, i can tell when you're lying.' lestrade watches them interact for all of ten minutes and then declares that, though he's known sherlock for five years, he still doesn't know sherlock nearly as well as john does.

who is he? well, he's with sherlock. it's sherlock holmes and doctor watson. they're a set. (do not separate!) they go together, they are defined by each other, they balance each other far too perfectly to ever be removed again. welcome to The Dynamic. you'll never know peace again. (or is that just me?)

[fuckyeahmarkgatiss]

The recent Times article on Mark & Ian

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mark-gatiss-and-ian-hallard-i-asked-him-to-marry-me-the-afternoon-we-met-339v55jw2

The article is behind a paywall but I still had some access so here you all are!

Mark Gatiss & Ian Hallard: ‘I proposed on the afternoon we met.’

The League of Gentleman star and his actor husband on dating at the dawn of the internet and coming out to their parents.

Mark

Ian and I met online back in 1999, long before Grindr, when online dating still had a certain stigma attached to it. “Poor you! You can’t find anyone in the real world, so you have to go scrabbling around on the internet.” I didn’t tell my family how we’d met for several years.

You also have to remember that gay men didn’t necessarily go on dates in search of eternal happiness. Dates were fun and exciting. So, when we met in the glamorous surroundings of Finsbury Park Tube station and went back to my flat, I didn’t think it was anything serious. But it was. Ian loves to tell people that I asked him to marry me that afternoon. With hindsight I think I was probably joking, but I certainly had high hopes: “Maybe he’s ‘the one’.”

Having said that, it did take a while to get used to the idea of being a couple. All my previous relationships had sort of … fizzled out. With Ian it was the opposite; we seemed to grow closer and closer. We’ve even collaborated on several projects and I’m directing his first play at the moment [the Abba-inspired The Way Old Friends Do, which Ian wrote and stars in], but there’s never been any sense of rivalry. We get asked if it’s difficult living and working together, but why would it be a problem to spend time with the person you love?

I grew up in a working-class town near Durham, my dad worked at the pit. Telling people you were gay in that situation wasn’t easy. I came out to my friends when I was 15 and there were a few comments at school, but I was never bullied. The real problem for me in the Seventies and early Eighties was that I had no idea what to do about being gay.

Apart from the occasional storyline in [the drama series] Play for Today, the only gay men on TV were John Inman and Larry Grayson. I play Larry in the new TV drama Nolly [about Noele Gordon, a star of the soap Crossroads] and understand why John and Larry were regarded as torchbearers. But some gay activists in the Seventies saw them as the enemy: screamingly gay, but at the same time a sort of neutered Saturday-night camp.

Somehow I managed to put off telling my parents to the point where my mam was the one who brought it up. I was home from university and she simply asked me. It was a huge relief. I said, “Hadn’t we better tell Dad?” Mam looked at me. “Oh no! It’ll kill him.” So we didn’t.

A couple of weeks later I was talking to Mam on the phone and she said, “I told your dad. Ooh, we had some snow overnight.” Initially I thought that had saved me from having to talk to him about it, but it had just been popped at the back of a drawer.

Dad struggled at first, but considering his background it could have been a lot worse. Although it was a bit awkward when he met Ian, we never had “issues”. Sadly we lost him in 2021. The weird thing is that as he got older he became much more tolerant. Even after he lost Mam — his loneliness seemed to soothe his prejudices. He understood that love is where it falls.

It sounds like a complete cliché to say, “We make each other laugh all the time,” but it’s absolutely true. Our shared sense of humour has become the glue that has bonded us. Ian’s definitely more together than me when it comes to admin, and I’m pretty sure he did most of the organising when we had our civil partnership in 2008. The main problem is that, left to our own devices, we can be as bad as each other. We make all these grand plans, then we decide to take Bob [the labrador] for a walk instead.

Ian and I did have a brief period of broodiness, then we quickly realised that neither of us was responsible enough, so we got a dog. The ideal scenario would be that a fully formed, well-educated, extremely polite grown-up knocks on our door and declares that they are the fruit of my overeager teenage loins. We get to be parents without the hard work!

The couple in 1999, the year they met

Ian

Remember when Stelios from easyJet started his internet cafés? Without Stelios I wouldn’t have met Mark. I didn’t have the internet at my flat in London, so I would go to a Stelios café every day to check emails and log on to gay.com. Back then online dating didn’t involve pictures; it was just messages and a phone call. When Mark and I finally clapped eyes on each other, there was that awful moment of tension, trying to decide if we fancied each other. If not, I guess we would have headed off on our separate ways.

Mark was only the second man I’d made contact with online and the first one I’d met. I did sort of recognise him because The League of Gentlemen had been on telly, but I hadn’t actually seen it. That was probably a good thing. Had I been a massive fan, I’m not sure things would have worked out.

Mark’s career has taken a different trajectory to mine. He has been involved in a lot of high-profile projects and around the time of Sherlock [Gatiss was co-creator, co-writer and appeared as Holmes’s brother, Mycroft] things did go a bit crazy. That one-sided success can cause havoc in a relationship, especially with actors — lots of arguments and jealousy. Some relationships seem to thrive on that constant drama. Not us! I’ve never seen Mark have an argument with anyone. He’s unfailingly polite to the point of diffidence.

I hit my teens when TV was full of adverts about Aids — huge icebergs, tombstones. My parents were your typical easy-going, middle-class Brummies. There was no hint of homophobia but, in that climate, you can see why they might be concerned about having a gay son. What kind of future did I have? I was either going to die of Aids or kill myself out of loneliness and depression.

When I eventually told them I’d met someone and talked about bringing him home to meet them, they were very happy. I told them he was in this fantastic programme called The League of Gentlemen and proudly told them it had won a Bafta. Unfortunately they decided to watch it. They saw this collection of psychopaths and monsters and thought, “What’s he got himself involved with? Is it a cult?” Mum rang me up and said, “Please tell me it’s not him who plays that weirdo Mickey.” I paused for a second and then said, “Yes, Mum, that’s the man I’m going to marry.”

The Way Old Friends Do, Lyceum, Sheffield, Tue-Sat; Park Theatre, London N4, Mar 15-Apr 15; and touring until Jun 10; thewayoldfriendsdo.com

Strange habits

Mark on Ian

He’s incapable of keeping his side of the bed tidy. I call his pile of dirty clothes “the Bedroom Monster”

Ian on Mark

He worries about us travelling in the same car in case something happens to us both and Bob becomes an orphan

[never-forget-viva-la-pluto]

GOOD OMENS S2 SPOILERS!!!

This season of good omens is so good. List to follow:

"He's not allowed to stop the execution of 3 children bc the system that agreed to kill them has a permit" like that is the best satire I've heard since Shakespeare

Non stop foreshadowing of Beezlebub X Gabriel. Like it's so obvious so early on. Flies near him, him not wanting to kill them, it hurts to remember, you're perfect.

Aziraphel crying when he thinks he's a demon after lying is such a great first stake in the heart of solidifying that he thinks Crowley is still an angel and won't accept him as he is. More to that, it is so good at showing how that all stems from his own internalized fear. A very queer experience mirrored here...purity something something. Mr. Fell is afraid of falling.

Crowly is very cunty this season. The posts are right

AZ drives like crowley

AZ writing in his diary about his and crowleys dates like a teen girl. Bonus that it's a date to a graveyard to look at a picture of his old boss and they end up in a diseased alley and help a wee lesbian steal a corps. And still writing about it like it was a super cute date solely bc his crush got drunk and acted a fool. Same place for the Beezlebub Gabe date extra bonus

They let Tennant be scottish!

Crowley having a night rider moment

Aziraphel being genuinely in love with humanity and holding the jar close to himself in grief at the doctor's has me emotional. He really does have too much love for one tiny little angel.

Crowley having the time of his life making those two humans fall in love. He loves mischief but he hates harm. He loves to see humans happy and he only shows it when he's alone

Aziraphels debut as a Magician!

Aterik is gender envy. Don't argue with me

Mark Gatiss zombie. No I am not lying not even a little.

Crowley fell for AZ when he gave away the sword but he falls farther every time AZ does a little more good. The way he said " thank you for getting me off the hook back there" was so flirtatious and the smile when AZ knocks over shit in the Magic shop. Hats off the both actors

Old man crowley

Lmao crowley seeing the miracles don't work and deciding to speed read how not to kill his boyfriend XD

The shaky breathing as crowley aims the rifle. There is more tension in that scene than most horror I've seen.

AZIRAPALALALA

Lmao the car is a puppy

Shax being a bad bitch and not underestimating Aziraphels love for his bookshop. 10k demons is called for when sieging that place.

AZ getting things done while crowley fucks around in the back or vise versus is a common scene dynamic

AZ quoting DW trivia like tennant does.

This whole season is about how they realize how much they love each other and having a crisis about it while hell and heaven interrupt with issues regarding 1 John ham

The long running joke in the show is that all the angel's pretend they know a lot about humans as a show of power

Much more miracles and it's awesome.

Not even the seamstress is straight

Azs shop changing into a ball was so distracting to crowley that he momentarily forgot about the army of demons coming for them

John hamm fluffy coat

Crowley reading terms and agreements comes in handy several times

"Happy anniversary, love" I'm screaming and crying I am so full. This season said OK please make this queer friendly. "You're a good lad" "not either" my trans ass is so happy

Also this season is still so ace even though they kiss it still feels very ace energy to me. Maybe it's just the lack of sexualized anything, or maybe it's the variety of body's that so rarely get shown on TV.

Crowleys heaven sneak

"Stay back"

One demon popped like a bubble. There was a sound effect and everything

The bad guys always say things that fucking hurt. They always have the right thing that cut to the core of the characters soft spots

Halo removal should be in more of the fanfics actually that scene was baller

If you watch as all the heaven and hell fight AZ cannot stop staring at crowley

Crowley fixing the bookshop so it stays the same, while AZ changes it. Symbolism something parallels something

Sheen's delivery of the news to crowley was so well done. It's joyful, yet the second he has to tell crowley you can see the hesitation. He doesn't even believe what he's saying. It starts to hurt and he doesn't know why. But hes already agreed. He needed to hear the girls talk more than crowley did and it shows.no notes

ENDING THE SEASON W THE RADIO SINGING THE ENDING FROM S1 WAS PERFECT

Can't wait for S 3 !!!!!

[gudsouplady]

Watching Christopher Robin for the first time (2018) (spoilers)

• The introduction to the film is absolutely brilliant like a children’s book

• I love the adaptations of the live action Winnie the Pooh characters (they look like stuffed toys which is adorable)

• Eyeore’s voice is so ominous it’s amazing

• The rabbit and the owl argue like an old married couple which is quite hilarious

• The cake looked so delicious it didn’t deserve to be demolished so violently :(

• the scenery in this film is so beautiful alongside the emotional dialogue between Pooh and Christopher (both compliment each other so well )

• Why is Christopher going to boarding school ? They’re depicted as being miserable in every movie that mentions them ( Are they that bad ??? )

• HE LEFT THE DRAWINGS BEHIND :(

• Was drawing during class that bad that there was punishment ??

• His dad died ( but he was mean so I guess it’s not that bad)

• Piglet being Pooh’s therapist is so cute ☺️ (second best friendship in this film)

• MARK GATISS,PETER CAPALDI AND SIMON FARNABY ARE IN THIS FILM (3 absolutely brilliant actors)

• Evelyn is so pretty 🤩

• Evelyn x Christopher (power couple)

• NOOOO Christopher got shipped off to war when Evelyn was pregnant

• Evelyn named the baby madeleine

• I’m happy Christopher and Madeline met :) (but they seemed tense)

• Christopher aged poorly tbh and Evelyn aged better

• YOU CAN’T SHUT YOUR FAMILY OUT LIKE THAT, CHRISTOPHER (Physically and emotionally)

• I LOVE THE SUITCASE KNOCKING OVER (best moment with absolutely no plot relation)

• Mark Gatiss acting as an authority figure is brilliant (Mycroft Holmes and Giles)

• Madeline is a smart girl with an imagination similar to her father

• Madeline is fed up with her dad and she should be, her dad literally shuts her away and expects her to to study all the time but she’s got to have her childhood whilst she still has it

• Madeline’s note got ruined :(

• POOH WITHOUT HONEY AND HIS BESTIES (poor guy)

• The door between One hundred acre wood and London reminds me of the door between the real world and the other world in the Coraline universe

• POOH REUNITED WITH CHRISTOPHER :) (Second best friendship in this film)

• I DON’T LIKE THE NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOUR

• Pooh hugs Christopher but he move away :(

• Christopher breaks his promises

• I hate that Christopher loses his temper Every 5 seconds

• POOH’S NOT HUMAN SO HE CAN’T RELATE TO CHRISTOPHER

• Don’t leave Pooh alone 😖

• Pooh has some fast legs

• Christopher deserved to get concussed and good luck to him finding his way back to London

• Eyeore is so cute he doesn’t need to got down the waterfall and get flung up into the air

• Piglet is the only one who thinks things through

• Do the animals in one hundred acre. Wood not age ????

• Christopher and Eyeore are a comedic duo

• THEY FOUND POOH :) (EMOTIONAL HEART TO HEART) 😢😢

• THEY SLEPT NEXT TO EACH OTHER (Pooh and Christopher)

• Tigger is underrated :)

• Roo asks all the correct questions

• THE BALLON ON THE BENCH 🩷

• Evelyn and Madeline are so mad at you Christopher, They don’t want to see you

• Evelyn is the best mother 🏆

• THE HUNDRED ACRE WOOD GANG ARE ICONIC AND READY YO SAVE CHRISTOPHER

• HE’S PLAYING THE “SAY WHAT YOU SEE GAME ” LIKE WHAT POOH DOES 💛

• Madeline is a great tennis player 🎾

• THE GANG MET MADELINE AND SHE HAS A RIGHT TO BE SCARED !!!

• Tigger spawns in gracefully with a music number which is amazing 😁

• Pooh : I don’t know south (Me in geography)

• IF YOU LEAVE A CHILD ALONE EVEYLN, THEY’RE GOING TO RUN OFF

• Madeline can control the gang better than Christopher

• Madeline is so reckless and responsible at the Same time

• Does tigger not know what he looks like ????

• Madeline is like an escape master

• THE MOST INTENSE BUSINESS MEETING

• the van driver doesn’t know about the suitcase hanging by a thread (literally) that fell off their van

• Christopher trying to explain everything is so serious and funny at the same time

• The office worker trying to conclude that Christopher is insane is so dumb

• NOOO SHE FELL DOWN THE STAIRS REALISING THE PAPERS ALL OVER LONDON

• Christopher is being a good father and husband (took him long enough)

• Get roasted Giles !!!

• Everyone reunited at one hundred acre wood

• Pooh and his honey 🍯

• THE ENDING IS SO BEAUTIFUL (Pooh and Christopher have the best friendship in this movie)

I give this film a 9.5 out of ten because I wanted to see a bit more of Madeline and Evelyn

[theultimatenonbinarynerd]

May 2024 Reading Stats

The Calender

🍉🍉Before I start this calendar I want to start a disclaimer and remind people about what's happening in 🍉🍉 Country and that Disney and Marvel should be held accountable. Therefore I will not be recommending The Disney Novel or Marvel Comic. Disney and Marvel need to divest from Is**el for me to fully recommended and show them physically on camera. Please buy Marvel and Disney books second hand if you must have them.🍉🍉

What a month it has been, with how much I've read this month I'm definitely dubbing it the gay month. June should really be the Gay Month but it sadly won't be so I'm glad I made May that month. Starting with the beginning of the month. My reading pattern is that my last read of the month will very clearly dip into the next one but it doesn't bother me. Pageboy was very easy to finish and whilst I got everyone's criticisms I thought they were exaggerated. It's a really good Trans Memoir but not the best. This Arab Is Queer is something I had for my Readalong for Palestine I'm doing and although no one took part I go alot out of this collection and it was a 5 star all the way. Only took 2 days to finish in May and I'm happy about that.

After finishing the 8th Doctor Adventures first season, I decided to dip into the main range and listen to the first too and they were pretty great in my book. The Sirens Of Time was easy to listen to whilst I did an oc sketch and it felt very much like the Classic Who version of Day Of The Doctor. 5,6 and 7 had amazing chemistry together so even though it's the very first audio your bound to gain some laughs. Phantasmagoria is probably one of the best Mark Gatiss content I have consumed and it was very spooky. It was supernatural with that ever loving Doctor Who sci-fi charm that you know and love. Will definitely pop in to more of the main range in the future. I'm only listening to 8s for now.

Cabin At The End Of The World, loved the book but towards the end I didn't enjoy it as much. Let's just say I hate ambiguity, I also hated the audiobook narrator so I had to read along in a quicker speed which was quite the challenge. So as a result it was quicker than my usual 300 + page reads. Welcome To St Hell was another one of my most anticipated reads and it highly delivered. It took a measly Ten Days which was an achievement itself as without chapters it was hard to split up my read as I'm certainly not the finish in one day type of reader. Still though for my first graphic novel it was very very good.

My side reads for this month exactly were very different. One was terrible for its last very transphobic and ableist story and the other was a very educational jam-packed nonfiction about the situation in Palestine and how simple it is thanks to brainwashing. In the end as good as the other two stories were Happs gave me massive brain rot. Fnaf fans are way too forgiving to Scott. On Palestine was great forever to the point I want to give it to my friend to help him understand the situation. I was able to get through it quickly and absorb alot. It was a good recommendation.

Finally my reads tipping into June. Yep no not until Marvel and Disney divest. I feel okay talking about Star Wars cos alot of authors are anti-israel and anti-zionist. If Daniel José Older gets fired I'm going to be done with them too. J.Elle is a really good writer though and I'm definitely gonna look at more of her books.

June's Stats

Wow just wow. May's stats were like a lightning bolt. I did a lot of reading this month and I expect stats like this will be ever so common in the glorious summer stats. So let's break these chunky stats down.

I read 8 books including 6 physical books/graphic novels and 2 Big Finish audios. That's just chock a block impressive and I'm very proud of myself as that's my highest number yet. As pages that too was my highest yet with 1,477 pages which is 489 pages up from last May. Interesting I also only read 3 books in May last year. So this is a very positive sign at how my reading journey is evolving. And of course my highest hours stats with 3.6 hours logged. I dipped into longer big finish audios this month so it makes a lot of sense.

Up next Genres. When I said this was a very gay month I mean it. I read many genres this month; LGTBQIA+, Science Fiction, Memoir, Horror, Young Adult, Thriller, Politics, History, Graphic Novel and Essays but coming on top with a whopping 4 reads was LGTBQIA+. It makes sense I have a lot of lgtbq+ representation on my tbr and this just happens to be a lucky month where I've gotten through quite a few. It also for the first time topped Science Fiction which is not an easy feet to do trust me. In joint second place with only 2 reads was Science Fiction, Horror and Memoir. I'm so glad that I was finally able to get to have a reading month with more diversity in genre. Let's see what June brings.

Mainly reads is still the same for now. I love my adventurous, dark and mysterious books as well as my medium paced books that are under 300 pages.

Again for moods for the first time in forever Reflective comes at top. The moods this month Reflective, Dark, Informative, Mysterious, Funny, Emotional, Adventurous, Tense And Inspiring. As a result of reading a lot of nonfiction this month I was finally able to tip away from my usual adventurous mood. All the nonfiction reads I had were very indeed thought provoking and reflective. In joint second place was emotional and dark which ie expected as I love books that hit me hard in the heart.

Star ratings were all over the place this month it was a very mixed bag month some amazing, some average, some terrible. My overall star rating for the month was 4.22 a minor improvement from May last year where the average rating was 4.17. There's always next May to get the average score up as long as I pick good books. We had two five star reads in This Arab Is Queer and Welcome To St Hell which was well deserved in my opinion. For the first time ever two 4.75 star novels in Phantasmagoria and On Palestine they were close to being 5 star but not quite there for me. Again two four stars in Pageboy and The Sirens Of Time. One 3.75 star thanks to the icky ending and rushed past and of course one 2.5 star novel that deserves the rating. It'll be interesting to see how June's stats compare against this.

May's Reads/Listens

A jam packed reading month indeed. This Arab Is Queer was an incredible Anthology that heavily educated me and sheeded any internalised bigotry over queer arab folk. It was also a very thought provoking and powerful collection of essays it really helped reshaped alot of the views I've had. The Sirens Of Time was a delightful timey whimey multi-doctor story that basically is the classic who version of Day Of The Doctor. Peter Davison, Colin Baker And Sylvester had amazing chemistry, I definitely want to look into more of the main range now.

Pageboy was definitely overhated it did not deserve all the hate and disappointment in my opinion. Its really not that bad at all. I think people are just fustrated about the non linear and him talking about his experiences prior to his transition but I felt like it was a hundred percent nesscary. Trans experiences aren't linear and Elliot did his absolute best trying to show that in his memoir. Phantasmagoria was a really good Big Finish listen and I heavily enjoyed it. Its one of my favourite project of Mark Gatiss's that I have ever seen, he's an absolutely fantastic writer, I don't care what people say I love his stories. This was a really cool supernatural story with Five and Turlough, the twists were generally shocking and it was a fun ride. Highly recommend giving Phantasmagoria a listen if you haven't done.

The Cabin At The End Of The World was better than the movie until a heavy tragic ending that differed from the movie and absorbed the bury your gays trope like a bubble. I love how Wen's povs were actually written in the style of a six year old girl. It was disturbing yess but made this story way too bury your gays trope than it already is. Might be controversial but that's my whole opinion. I also felt like the message contradicted itself is it about the desperation of religions cults or it a positive normalising gay families and about how gay love it powerful enough to save the work. On Palestine is the best book tok recommendation that I have ever been given. I wanted to fully understand the g-side happening in Palestine and all three authors summed it up perfectly. It was also interesting to learn about Propaganda and how its seeded into Israeli youth from a young age. It also heavily talks about the US and other countries and why they ally with Israel, its not what you may think. Props to Noam, Ilam and Frank for their hard work and important discussions.

Finally Happs and Welcome To St Hell. One of these two is 💩 and the other is 10/10. Yeah it's not Happs. What were Scott and team thinking, I know it might not have been intentional but Transphobia is Transphobia regardless wether or not intentional. It made me feel violated and sick and spoil my enjoyment of the other two stories in the collection. It was horror but not in a good way. Welcome To St Hell was my first graphic novel and it slapped. This was another one of my impulse purchases and I'm so glad I did indeed buy it. Terfs tried to review bomb it but I don't give a flying f** about their opinion. The Art was beautiful and I loved that Lewis didn't primarily feed into the Trans trauma trope and tell a sad story. Also The panels where he narrated and talked to his past self had me in tears of laughter cos as a semi masc Nonbinary person I found it so relatable. It's also really educational. A five star that I highly recommend.

Conclusion

A very very good reading month and it might not be a big deal to everyone else but I'm really proud of myself for what I've achieved, I literally think since I first got back into reading its an absolute record for me. Maybe it's a sign I should go out more but honestly I'm not fussed and couldn't care any less.

Big Finish for the future we're tipping into The Charley Arc as I want to listen to more 8 and one 12 and 11 multi Doctor short trip. Crazy thing is though with my audhd brain I already have next years listens planned. Expect a lot and I mean a lot of Big Finish reviews that might just be paced from Storygraph but who cares.

My next five reads as of this blog are Race To Crashpoint Tower, Jamie, A Test Of Courage, War Of The Worlds and Doctor Who: The Deviant Strain. Very excited to see how the rest of the year goes and I'm absolutely loving the lovely templates I've got from @LEEBEE_READS. So much more to come and I really love looking back and reflecting on my reader tastes.

Have a happy Pride Month everyone 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️

-Melody-

They/Them

[elizadoolittlethings]

MG - Smug But Honest

Happy Gatiss Wednesday

Olivier Awards Gatiss

Mark Gatiss from The League of Gentlemen at the Laurence Olivier Awards 2001 ceremony, in central London. (Photo by Michael Crabtree - PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images)

source: gettyimages

[asherlockstudy]

Writing Series 4:

Ananda Abbington & Martin Freeman: *having problems in their marriage*

Moftiss: So guys guess what we based Series 4 on

.

Moftiss reading Doyle canon: Mary Watson. Mary Watson is the key character.

.

Mark Gatiss: I am gonna be the only straight guy in this show.

.

Amanda Abbington: It's nice to come to work, it gets stuff off of your mind.

Moftiss: It would be terrible if art imitated life.

.

Moftiss: So in the end, in order to redeem John, we will have him think about fucking Sherlock through a projection of his late wife Mary, whose death has traumatized him, all while texting Sherlock's sister whom he met randomly.

Martin Freeman: Are you sure this is going to redeem him?

Moftiss: Yeah

MF: I am so glad this is the last series

.

Martin Freeman: Look, I can't see that pompous prick again in my life, get over with Sherlock quickly.

Moftiss: Our choices have consequences.

MF: What do you mean?

Moftiss: We recently realised you would be perfect as a villain.

MF: ...... I play Dr Watson.

Moftiss: Your point being?

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Moftiss: Moriarty's character was way more successful than we expected.

Andrew Scott: This is awesome, guys! So what's in for me in the new one?

Moftiss: First things first, how's your chooing game

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Steven Moffat: What if the viewers can tell that Redbeard was a boy who was drowned 1 hour before Sherlock figures it out?

Mark Gatiss: Impossible, Eurus is TOO clever.

.

Benedict Cumberbatch: So who initiates the Johnlock scene? Martin or me?

Moftiss: Amanda

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Andrew Scott: So will it be explained that I was madly in love with Sherlock and was obsessed with him and couldn't live with the thought of him being with John instead of me?

Moftiss: It will be explained... but in a sisterly kind of way

.

Show: *starts filming*

Moftiss: STOP!

Moftiss: We should add a Mary scene here.

.

Mary Watson: This show is not about Sherlock and John as humans, it is strictly about the cases.

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Also Mary Watson: Ma bois

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Mark Gatiss: Wait!!!

Steven Moffat: What?

MG: Did you add a quote here about Eurus being an era-defining genius, beyond Newton?

SM: Shit, I almost forgot.

.

Mary, from the heaven of assassins: You may kiss the groom.

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Benedict Cumberbatch: So will I have the ending line? Or maybe Martin?

Moftiss: ...Amanda

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Rupert Graves: Hey guys I have been enamoured with Molly Hooper since Series 2. I wonder if that will lead anywhere?

Mark Gatiss: What would you say about taking care of Mycroft?

RG: I'm sorry?

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Louise Brealey: Will Molly ever move on? For real?

Moftiss, bringing a coffin to the set: Oh haven't you heard?

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Martin Freeman, reading the TLD conversation script: Okay have you figured out anything yet?

Benedict Cumberbatch, next to him, doing the same: ...No

MF: I guess I 'll just rely on intuition then

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Martin Freeman: Okay why did the Woman know when Sherlock's birthday was but John didn't

Moftiss: Just say the fucking line

MF: ............. Happy Birthday

.

Andrew Scott, visiting the TLD set: Did Martin replace me in the role?

Moftiss: Okay have you practiced your clock sounds or are you wasting our time here being the smartass?

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Una Stubbs: Okay but why do I call Mycroft a reptile?

Moftiss: Just say the fucking line... Mrs Stubbs.

.

[possiblyimbiassed]

The lying liars who lie

Years and years late to the party, I’ve finally gotten my hands on all the DVDs of BBC Sherlock, and I thought it would be fun to watch the extra material carefully, one piece after another, and also listen to at least some of the show makers’ commentary of the episodes. But at this point, after S4 where DVDs seemed to be a constant lying device in general, I tend to look at them with a bit more suspicious eyes...

I still love the show of course, but now that I’ve taken this deep dive into all the special features, I find them a truly hard thing to try to wrap my head around. Even this long after the fact, I’m amazed by the amount of shameless, self-congratulatory BS in the DVDs, where the people involved can’t have enough of complimenting each other and their show, while they skillfully avoid to discuss anything actually meaningful about the plot line. ;) For example, Moffat claims in the S2 DVD that “In fact, you’ll never see a more obsessively authentic version of Sherlock Holmes than this one”. But if we follow their light-hearted commentary, which basically takes the show at face value, I’d call that not just hyperbole, but an outright lie. If you want to see the ‘authentic’ stories from ACD’s work in this show, you’ll definitely need to go much deeper into the subtext and meta levels - neither of which are mentioned on these DVDs of course. Here’s my own (rather subjective) ‘review’ of the whole thing, trying to pinpoint why I view most of the commentary of the show from its own makers as an advanced art of deception. 

(My musings under the cut)

Series 1 - a wealth of extra material

First of all - as many of you probably knew already - the whole of the Unaired Pilot is added to the DVD of S1. In the extra material about the making of the series, they (Sue Vertue, Mofftiss and others) talk about what things they changed between the Pilot and ASiP, claiming that many changes were necessary improvements once they knew that they had a whole series and a lot more time at their disposal. 

Which I can perfectly understand and agree with in general. But I think what’s missing in their discussions is more interesting than what’s actually there (”Mind the gap” ;) ). Things that I would expect from the show makers when they go to the trouble of comparing the pilot version with the aired product. There’s not a word, for example, about the fact that they added both Mycroft and Moriarty to the story in ASiP - two characters who later turn out to play major roles and appear in almost every other episode until the end of TFP. Or about the choice that one of the screenwriters would play Mycroft. 

Neither do they discuss why they chose to relocate the place where Sherlock was challenged by the cabbie from 221B to Roland Kerr’s School of Further Education. Instead they focus on the details, like for example the new design of the interior of 221B.

Not to mention the fact that almost every scene in the Pilot is mirrored in ASiP (as pointed out long ago by @kateis-cakeis X), but at Angelo’s in the Pilot Sherlock follows the events with the cabbie while looking in an actual mirror. I even noticed that in the Pilot the cabbie is offering Sherlock dark-coloured bottles with the pills in them, while in ASiP those bottles are transparent, as if the cabbie is offering Sherlock to play Black or White in the chess game that he is simulating. What’s with all these mirrors, though? Not a word on the DVD... ;)

Now, even though these rather remarkable choices are neglected together with a great bunch of minor ones, I still think that the most interesting fact about all this is that they actually included the whole pilot version within this DVD, which is sold by the franchise. Why even do this, when it raises far more questions than it answers? The only logical reason I can come up with is that they’re laying out a track of little hints that anyone with a deep enough interest in the show to actually buy the DVDs can try to follow. And it seems to me that lying by omission is one of the first steps in the long line of cryptic and misleading author comments on this show. But at the same time, they clearly want the fans to have access to it all, even the abandoned version.

Moving on to Series 2, time for bigger lies 

In the extra material of this DVD Benedict himself describes how his character "faces one of his deadliest enemies in the shape of Love, and it comes in the form of Irene Adler, who is this extraordinary dominatrix [insert here a bunch of superlatives regarding Adler]...”. And then we see how Adler whips Sherlock with a riding crop (without any kind of consent, I have to add) while he’s lying on the floor, and we have Lara Pulver telling us how it was to have a go at Benedict on set. So Holmes whips dead bodies and Adler whips living; seems like a match made in hell! :))

Gatiss claims, grinning with his whole face, that “they’re clearly, absolutely made for each other”. OK, so I think we can see Sherlock being intellectually impressed by Adler, and even trying to protect her from Mycroft, and we can see John acting jealously. We can also see her being dressed and styled as a perfect, female mirror of Sherlock. But I’m still at a loss what all this has to do with love on Sherlock’s part? Especially since he’s not even responding in any fashion to her various attempts at seducing him. 

And there’s more: Paul McGuigan, the director of ASiB, claims that the scene where Sherlock has a conversation with Adler inside his Mind Palace about the crime case with the car that backfires "is a part of a kind of love story, if you like...” No, I don’t. Maybe it’s just me, but if their aim really was to convey to their audience a love story between Sherlock and The Woman, I think they failed miserably. All I see is a guy ’mansplaining’ to a clever woman how to use her brain, while she’s trying to flirt with him by expressing her admiration (to no avail, though) and make deductions at the same time. Nothing new under the sun, really. John did the same thing repeatedly in ASiP (without making own deductions) and got far more attention from Sherlock, but I’ve never heard any of the show makers call that ”a love story”. But by ’lie-splaining’ the scene with Irene to the audience, they try to manipulate us all to see it as such...

In all the direct commentary of this episode, where Steven, Mark, Sue, Benedict and Lara are present, I get the impression that every time they even touch on the relationship between Sherlock and John, they hurry to add the term “friendship” or “man love” or similar words in case they forgot them at first, avoiding even the tiniest possibility that there could be anything more going on between them. They even explain that when Irene calls them “a couple” she does not mean anything romantic. This whole approach feels almost paranoic in the midst of all the laid-back jokes and light-hearted talk about the filming. It’s as if a sort of restrictive, heteronormative filter or blanket is being constantly applied, to teach the audience the ‘no homo’ lesson of it all. And the more I listen to this, the more tiresome it becomes.

In the commentary Moffat does reveal an interesting detail, though: that the ‘Flight of the Dead’ in ASiB was inspired by a cut out scene in the Bond movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service. To me this is just one more reason to question the ‘authentic’ quality of this scene, as opposed to possibly taking place in Sherlock’s Mind Palace. But I digress... 

Listening to the commentary in general, it’s like it’s aimed to distract the attention from what’s going on at the screen rather than highlight it and try to explain their intentions. They do mention that Irene didn’t actually ‘beat’ Sherlock in the end of ASiB, but there’s no explanation of this obvious deviation from canon, where Adler does indeed fool Holmes, taking advantage of his prejudices.

The rest of the extra material of S2 is mostly about technical stuff, special effects and such, and also about filming techniques and Benedict’s delivery of fast deductions. But the part I really do love is the one where Andrew Scott talks about how much he enjoyed playing the scene where Moriarty dances before breaking into the Crown Jewels. That’s one of my favorite scenes of he whole show. :) Also, the takeaway message from this DVD is Moffat’s words at the end: 

“These are still the formative years of Sherlock Holmes, and the most important thing about this series is not that it’s updated; it’s the fact that those two men are still young and they’re still at the beginning of what they don’t yet know is gonna be a lifelong partnership”. 

And then comes Series 3... 

...and its extra material, with the most blatant attempts at deception so far, I believe. At this point Sherlock is called a “psychopath” by both the show’s characters, John’s blog, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as if it were true, which is a big deviation from ACD canon. That simply doesn’t happen there; while Holmes is sometimes described as eccentric, no one in the books is ever claiming that Sherlock Holmes has some kind of mental illness leaning towards cruelty and egotism - not even his enemies say this about him. In the show, however, they begin in ASiP with making him torture a dying man for information (something that is not included in the Pilot). And in S3, where they avoid discussing the reason why they turned Mary Morstan into a ruthless assassin, this major shift is glossed over by the fact that in the same episode (HLV) they also turn Sherlock into a murderer, who cold-bloodedly blows the brains out of a blackmailer for threatening to make said assassin’s crimes public. 

But without ever getting into the “why” of it all, the cast and crew seem overly happy and smiling describing these rather morbid choices as something positive; “fantastic”, "fresh and new” and "amazing” are their choice of words. Benedict claims that Mary, who has literally shot and almost killed Sherlock in HLV, is now "a new best friend of Sherlock’s”. Amanda claims that Mary “is protecting John” when she shoots Sherlock in the chest. Now they’re both psychopaths, and poor little John is forced to stomach them both because he’s addicted to danger. In Amanda’s words, Mary also “kind of gets in between the two of them, but she wants them to be together as well”.  Which is a load of BS considering that Mary tries to kill the protagonist of the story.

Lars Mikkelsen thinks it’s “such a good script” because “you’re mislead as an audience”. But he never gets the chance to expand on what the misleading actually contains, because then Mofftiss cut in to express how much they love playing with “what ifs”. As if this whole mega-budget project of a show were just a big experimental playground without any actual story to tell. 

Benedict repeats his line from HLV that Magnussen “preys on people who are different” and Moffat also says he “exploits people who are different”. Which is really confusing, considering what we can see Magnussen actually do in the show. Lady Smallwood and John Garvie are two well-established, powerful governmental politicians whom Magnussen blackmails by finding their respective pressure points. In Garvie’s case his pressure point seems to be alcohol problems in his past, but according to media he’s later arrested on charges of corruption. Lady Smallwood is blackmailed on the basis of her husband having sent compromising letters to a minor many years ago, in spite of later claiming that he thought she was older and stopped when he found out the truth. And then Magnussen is blackmailing an assassin who recently threatened to execute him but shot Sherlock Holmes instead, in order to try to get at Sherlock’s brother Mycroft, another powerful governmental figure. 

But what does media seeking out dirt on certain people in power and their families have to do with “people who are different”? Despicable as the method may be, isn’t this unfortunately how political power play usually works in our society? Or are TPTB somehow a repressed minority group now? Unless this whole “people who are different” accusation is actually about something entirely different, something that none of the show makers even cares to mention... ;)

In these DVDs, none of the involved persons is ever discussing the change of roles with regards to canon, though, or the (lack of) logics in this turn of events, or even a hint about the narrative motivation behind them. It’s all about the great Drama, the extraordinary visual effects and the aim to endlessly “surprise the audience”. Which is fine by me to a certain extent, but when this is all that’s being said, it feels extremely superficial, as if the audience is merely seen as a bunch of consumers that have to be triggered more and more by horror, special effects and cliff hangers to be able to appreciate the show. (“Warm paste” indeed, like Gatiss has later criticized some viewers of wanting...) While the "why”; the idea behind this surrealistic adaptation, made by self-proclaimed fanboys of ACD, is not even touched upon. Around this, the silence is total and therefore totally confusing.

Maybe I shouldn’t even go into Series 4...

...but why not, since I’ve already started? :) 

First of all, there’s a lot of extra material on this DVD and I particularly love the parts about the music and composing and Arwel Wyn Jones’ work with the design and build-up of John’s and Mary’s flat and the interior of 221B. Those bits are truly enjoyable. What I could live without, though, is the leading commentary that kind of instructs us, the audience, how we should interpret the show. 

Benedict is on it again on this DVD, telling us that in TST they picked up where they left off in S3 and “It’s a very happy unit of three people that then become four.” Why does he feel the need to make this statement, considering how S3 ended? Actually, if there’s anything I totally fail to see in S4, it’s happiness. The banter between the three  of them may seem entertaining for a while, but who could have a relaxed, warm relationship with someone who tried and almost succeeded to kill you less than a year ago? Without any sign of remorse? Now there’s a dark tone of discomfort and mean jokes that feels forced and not even a bit happy to me. 

But Martin tells us how excited John and Mary are about starting a family and Amanda mentions how much they’re looking forward to the baby. Again and again it’s repeated, as though trying to rub it in: “they’re in a good place, they’re a loving, married couple”. Yeah, right - a child that (judging by TSoT) wasn’t at all planned and now with an assassin for a mother... Twice we see the new parents complain that their daughter has the mark of Satan on her forehead and debate which horror movie she’s from. The clichéd hypocrisy of it all is sickening, and I’m willing to bet that it’s really meant to be. ;) 

But Gatiss chimes in, deciding for us all that the christening of Rosie is “a funny scene” and “they’re enjoying each other, enjoying being on adventures as a three”.

An interesting detail is that Gatiss also tells us that the working name of this episode was “The Adventure of the Melting power Ranger”. So this little blue guy was that important? :) And - even more interesting - is when he says: “Cake is now the code for violent death”. So how should we interpret Sherlock, John and Molly going out to have cake in TLD then, on Sherlock’s (supposed) birthday? 

These might be jokes, though, but when they tell us that Sue cries every time she sees Mary’s death I strongly believe they must be joking. How could anyone feel truly moved by this overly sentimental long monologue where far more efforts are put into reacting to Mary’s speech than saving her life? And John’s mooing like a cow, is that also moving? :)

One thing Martin says about TLD that actually disgusts me is regarding the morgue scene where John assaults Sherlock and Sherlock lets it happen: “From there, really, their relationship can only sort of rebuild, that’s the absolute worst it can get”. As if outright physical abuse would be something that makes you want to rebuild a relationship? Wow - just wow... How far can they go with this crap?

Anyway, when we finally arrive at the absurdity of TFP and Sherlock’s ‘secret sister’, everything is of course discussed as if she actually does exist on the given premises, and everything she does is ‘real’, no matter how impossible it would be in real life. The abandonment of any attempt to have the story line make logical sense is skillfully covered up by more distraction with fascinating technicalities of the film making process. This is where Gatiss makes his now almost classic statement that after Sherlock and John jump out of the window at 221B when a grenade explodes there, it’s just “Boop! And they’re fine.” 

Of course there’s no serious attempt at explaining this logically. Except perhaps Gatiss claiming that they both landed on Speedy’s awning - whatever good that would do to them, since the awning is leaning downwards, but never mind... But we never even saw that happen, did we? A great deal of time is then dedicated to show all the precautions to have Martin and Ben jumping safely at low level onto a madras supported by empty cardboard boxes.

Sian Brooke did say something interesting about Sherrinford, however, that got me thinking. She said that Eurus “wants revenge for the years and years that she has been held captive” there, isolated, and that in TFP the Holmes children are now “lab rats” and “it’s an experiment”. On a meta level, I think we can indeed see this episode - and maybe the whole show - as a kind of experiment, but maybe we, the audience, are also lab rats? Since Sherrinford is slightly shaped like a film camera (not commented in the extra material, of course), it leads my thought to all the adaptations through the years and years where Holmes and Watson have not been allowed to be together. A whole century when Sherlock Holmes has been held captive, restricted by the very same sort of heteronormative filter that all this extra material imposes; it’s like Sherrinford, isn’t it? Which gives all the more meaning to Moriarty’s arrival to the island, accompanied by Freddy Mercury’s “I want to break free”...

I think I’ll let the final words in this little exposé come from Mark Gatiss in The Writers’ Chat (my bolding):

“Moriarty is a fascinating thing in that in our sea of ongoing lies, one thing we’ve genuinely been completely consistent about is telling people he’s dead. But no-one believes it! And it’s a rather brilliant thing.”  Again - self-congratulatory statements. But instead of providing some actual evidence of the death of this character, who has kept popping up in almost every episode since his supposed demise, they think that the more a confirmed liar repeats something, the truer it gets? And the more we’re supposed to believe them? Well, all we can do is wait and see. :)

Tagging some people who might be interested: 

@raggedyblue​ @ebaeschnbliah​ @sarahthecoat​ @gosherlocked​ @lukessense​ @sagestreet​ @thepersianslipper​

My earlier meta on a similar topic (X)

[scotianostra]

Happy birthday Scottish television writer and producer Steven Moffat.

Born in Paisley on November 18th 1961,  Moffat attended Camphill High School before going on to Glasgow University where he was involved with the student television station, GUST (Glasgow University Student Television). He gained an MA in English and became a teacher for over three years at Cowdenknowes High School, Greenock.

During his years teaching Moffat wrote a couple of plays, one of which, War Zones was performed at Glasgow’s Mayfest and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. His big break came when his dad, a primary school headmaster, met TV producers filming the Harry Secombe show Highway at his school, he told them about an idea for a show about a school newspaper, the producers asked for a sample script and he insisted his son Steven write it. Producer Sandra Hastie said that it was “the best ever first script” that she had read. The show, Press Gang ran for 43 episodes over 5 series an gave us the likes of Dexter Fletcher and Julia Sawalha. Steven has never looked back.

He is perhaps best known now for his work with Dr Who, his two-part story The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances for series one of BBC One’s revival of Doctor Who (starring Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper) won him much acclaim, including the award for ‘Television Moment of the Year’ and the first of three HUGO Awards. He has since went on to write numerous episodes and has been showrunner, lead writer and executive producer from 2009 right through until this year.

Mofat still finds time for other work, the feature screenplay for the Golden Globe-nominated Tintin, commissioned by Steven Spielberg via Spielberg’s company Dreamworks, Sherlock, a multi-award-winning, contemporary take on the Arthur Conan Doyle classic, was created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, he also wrote and was an Executive Producer of Jekyll, a six-part comedic thriller starring James Nesbitt.

Steven Maffat’’s latest project teamed him up once more with David Tennant, Inside man is a decent, if far fetched show, it’s entertaining enough, but I just think it could have been better. I much preferred   The Devil's Hour, which he produced  through his production company Hartswood Films, another Doctor, Peter Capaldi, plays a really dark character in this Amazon original, all 6 episodes are on Prime now.

Next up for Steven is a stage play in London's West End At The Criterion Theatre The Unfriend, is described as “A Riotous Dark Comedy” it’s run begins on January 15th  

[simplyclary]

Winnie The Pooh: Childhood Characters In Reality

Do you remember these iconic characters from your childhood? Did you have plushies of at least 3 of these characters? Did you feel a sense of nostalgia when these characters re-appeared in a live action movie? If your answers to all these questions are yes, well good to know as I have the same experience as you. If your answer is the opposite, well, then let me introduce them to you.

These characters in the picture above are the characters from the fictional world of the Hundred-Acre Wood. They are known as Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo and Rabbit. As simple as these characters may look like, they give me a sense of nostalgia as I spent most of my childhood days with them, and even now, being 21 years old, I still feel like a child everytime I see them. I felt like I really knew their characters, but surprisingly, there are still a lot of things that I don't know about them. It surprised me when I read a post that stated that each character represented a specific mental disorders. Below, I will tell you what mental disorder each character and my personal representations of them.

Winnie The Pooh- Winnie the Pooh or simply Pooh is a cute yellow bear who always wears a red shirt that almost looks like a crop top. His yellow color comes from his favorite food which is honey. Now, while Pooh can be the cutest bear one has ever laid eyes on, he represents the "Impulsive Eating Disorder". This is his representation as he is always seen to eat nothing but honey, which he is seen to have an obsession for. My interpretation, on the other hand, is a bit different because I think that Pooh represents the innocence of a child. Seen as to give some "wisdom" to his friends sometimes, Pooh is a character that while still having a lot to learn in life just like an innocent child, he can be seen to persevere to learn about these things.

Piglet- Piglet, by the name, is a small pig that represents the "General Anxiety Disorder". This is his representation because he is seen to be scared during situations and always fears to leap into action, even when it's not that scary. In my mind, Piglet represents the shyness of a child, especially an introverted one. Fearing to what the future holds, one tends to be shy and introverted when to uncertain situations. I see much of myself in Piglet, as I am a shy and introverted girl growing up so I really relate to him as a young girl and sometimes, even now.

Tigger- Tigger, as stated, is a tiger who has a tail with a spring that he uses to bounce around the place. As energetic as he is, he represents the "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder". Tigger is the perfect representation for this disorder as he can never be seen sitting still and always wants to do other things. My thoughts on Tigger is that he represents energy and excitement of someone, especially when an exciting day is nearing. While Tigger's energy seems to be like someone who just downed 10 cups of Starbucks coffee, it can also be noted that with this energy, he is happy and filled with serotonin that could lift up anybody's day, which makes him one of the happiest characters of childhood.

Eeyore- Eeyore is a blue donkey who can be considered as the exact opposite of Tigger. While Tigger is one of the happiest characters, Eeyore is one of the saddest characters, which makes him the perfect representation for "Depressive Disorder". Eeyore is a character with such a negative and bleak view in life and he can never be seen to be positive and happy. My representation for him is the sadness of people. While this may be similar to his actual representation, it means differently. My representation simply means that while one can be sad and negative at times, it will not last forever.

Kanga- Kanga is a character who is the mother of little joey Roo. While her motherly traits can make her seem like the best mother in the world, she apparently represents the "Social Anxiety Disorder". This can be categorized because of her overprotectiveness for her youngling and never letting Roo make decisions on his own. My representation for her is the love and care that mothers possess towards their children. As a "mom friend" in my friend group, I could relate to her as I always care for the well-beings of my friends. I can also be protective at times, just like a mom.

Roo- Roo, the young joey of Kanga, is a character who represents the "Autism Spectrum Disorder". He is categorized under this representation because he lacks awareness to danger and can be seen to always be comfortably sitting in his mom's pouch. In my own opinion, he represents the excitement and youthfulness spirit of children. Of course, being a youngling himself, he is seen to always be excited about something. One is not a child forever, so enjoy youth while it lasts because the adult life is harder than it looks.

Rabbit- Rabbit, in all honesty, is not really my cup of tea. He is seen to be this strict character who is therefore, the perfect representation for "Obsessive Compulsive Disorder" or OCD. He is always seen to want everything in order and nothing is messed up. In my own opinion, he simply represents the want of people to be organized and clean. Especially during times of outbreaks, people want nothing dirty and messy as it can attract germs and viruses. While Rabbit is not everyone's favorite character, he can also be a perfect representation of strict parents and teachers who want everything in place for the benefit of others.

And of course, let us not forget the only human character in the story, Christopher Robin. Christopher represents the disorder of "Schizophrenia". He represents this because he basically sees himself in a place that is not real. In my own interpretation, he represents the imagination of a child. Children in their youth desires to go places, both fictional and real, and they will do everything to achieve that goal or to at least make that experience real. Children playing pretend and dressing up is a big indication of their imagination coming into play.

There we go, here are the actual representations and my own personal representations. It is important to note that at times, our favorite characters may represent ourselves, our values and our characteristics. In a way, these characters are not only representations, but also reflections. Fiction indeed reflects reality.

Experience the nostalgia once again by watching Disney's Christopher Robin starring Ewan McGregor, Hayley Atwell, Mark Gatiss and of course, your favorite characters from the fictional place of Hundred-Acre Wood.

[mottlemoth]

I want to try to write a Mystrade but I find it daunting. I’m afraid to write a short story that won’t be worth anyone’s time to read and a long story is beyond my abilities. Do you have suggestions for how I start or what I would even write about. Where do you get your inspiration? Much love for your stories.

Welcome to Mystrade, secret person ❤️ I’m hoping other writers will join in and offer you reassurance and advice, too. I can only give you my own thoughts about writing, but I can promise that you’re very, very welcome here. There’s always room on the good ship Mystrade for one more.

I often worry that what I’m working on won’t be worth anyone’s time to read. When I’m writing something I’ve never really done before, I worry my readers will think I’ve lost my mind. When I’m writing familiar themes or ideas that I’ve used in the past, I worry everyone will roll their eyes and think, “Ugh, more of the same.” It’s very normal to be daunted by writing. To ease those nerves, I find it helps to keep drawing your focus gently and patiently back to you. What do you want to write? What do you want to bring to life? You can create anything by writing, and it’s important to write for yourself first and foremost. Write about the things you think are interesting, cool, fun and exciting.

Whenever my fears rise up, I ask myself, “Would I read this? Would I enjoy this story if someone else had written it?” 

If the answer is yes, then it’s worth the time ❤️

Sometimes I’ll scribble tiny things in my notebook just for me - a few sentences showing a single moment. Maybe how Greg smells when Mycroft first hugs him, or what Mycroft would buy Greg for his birthday, or a line of dialogue I can hear in Greg’s voice. I’ll write a few words of them in the supermarket together, trying to decide what to cook for dinner. I write things that feel fun to me, or comforting, or exciting in some way. My first story was East End Boy, and it happened because I just wanted to write about Greg being picked up from work and taken in secret to a posh hotel for Mycroft. I didn’t know how long the story would be when I wrote chapter one. I didn’t know where it would all go. Though I was nervous as hell posting the first chapter, I told myself I could always just delete it if anyone got angry. Nobody did, so I kept on adding scenes that I wanted to see.

At the moment, I’m writing a short story because my friend @paialovespie and I got excited about a new picture of Rupert Graves. We were chatting about it and decided he looks kinda jealous and annoyed. I thought it would be fun to write, so that’s what I’m doing with my weekend ❤️

If you’re ever stuck for ideas, imagine that you’ve been given a limitless budget by a film studio. You’ve got a professional camera crew, all the props and costumes you could ever dream of, and Mark Gatiss and Rupert Graves have signed their contracts. They’ll act out any story you want to show. All you have to do is decide what you’re filming.

This has become a long post, but I hope at least some of it’s been useful.

If there’s one thing to take away, it’s that you are perfectly allowed to write anything and everything you want. You’re allowed to write it exactly how you want. There will always, always be someone out there who thinks your ideas are neat - after all, you think they’re cool. So why can’t someone else? Write as if there’s someone scrolling through the Mystrade AO3 tag right now, wishing for a story just like the one in your head.

If you’re totally blanking on ideas, I made a prompt generator a while ago. A few folks over the years have told me they found it helpful. It might prompt a few sparks for you too ❤️

Happy writing! x

[roominthecastle]

“I want something to eat, a bit of company. || I do sometimes wonder what it is that you actually want.”

The way Claes plays Dracula throughout -- including as an old man -- is that immense power is done as presumption. And the presumption come across as, “I don’t have to take you seriously. I can swat you like a fly anytime I like but for now, you‘re amusing me so let’s just carry on chatting.” And then at a certain point he doesn’t care anymore and just goes, “F**k it.” He’s just not bothering [with pretenses] anymore. That flippancy becomes menacing and sadistic. It’s a demonstration that he really doesn’t regard anybody as a threat. That’s quite difficult to deal with. And if he’s gonna kill you, he’d quite like to have a nice chat with you first. And when that’s done, he’ll snap your neck.

Dracula likes the Duchess. We had to cut it for time but there was a lovely bit where he says he couldn’t bear the idea of her going to England and living on benefits or some such. He didn’t like that idea, he was offended by it. It is sort of sentimental but it doesn’t mean he is kind. He is sentimental in the sense that, as we find out, he has met her before when she was 18 and he killed her mother. And then he finds her again and gives her a good death -- he joins those two things up. To him, in a way, it’s like “Oh, I remember that, it was last week.” but in the intervening time she’s aged 70 years. But he takes her for one last dance. She wouldn’t necessarily agree that’s a good death but in his point of view, there are all these little mayflies around him clinging to their pointless lives far past their value: “What difference does it make if I kill you today or tomorrow. You die anyway.” He has genuine affection and appreciation for all her memories and the life she’s led. So he enjoys her company and then drinks her blood.

At some level, he feels condemned to life but he does attempt to entertain himself all the time and he’s capable of valuing entertainment. For instance, he never just jumps Agatha. At any point. He never does. He could just grab her but he’d rather have a chat first. He seizes any moment of stimulation and interest and excitement. But there are some sort of Groundhog Day things going on. Early stages we talked about, just as a sort of backstory, that maybe Dracula spent a century being good just to see what it’s like. Maybe – because he talks to Harker about it – he tried suicide but it doesn’t work. Maybe he absolutely reached the end thinking, “I can’t do this anymore.” but “oh God, I can’t die.” And then you make the decision to go on but then that must be fueled by something different: “I need more of me.” And then it becomes an obsession, it becomes a mission, and over centuries you forget where you came from. And so you forget that actually the sunlight is fine. It all becomes an armour of shame.

Dracula is obsessed with survival. Lucy is nihilistic. That’s a flavor he’s never really tasted before and he sort of envies the ability to be okay with death, which he isn’t. He certainly finds that flavor seductive but he wasn’t necessarily working out why. It’s Zoe/Agatha -- “Zagatha” as we call her -- who figures out the connection that binds all this together: he knows he is a warlord who’s afraid to die. And that means he is trying to hide from himself. He lives like a scuttling rat. He wouldn’t stand in the sunlight. He wouldn’t look himself in the mirror. He wants to be invited in, he does not wish to be despised. All those dreadful things he’s built around himself that aren’t even true -- they are just in him. These rules and habits become fetishes. He’s forgotten himself and what [the rules are] all about. And in a way, we tried to give this a solution.

Fear of the cross was such a technical one. Dracula knows he is debasing himself to avoid death and there is the symbol of “die for your beliefs” and he can’t. He finds it hard to look at. He watched his own sons die in battle and he couldn’t. It’s a very powerful idea, what that might do to you. This mighty man, this amazing warlord defeated the Turk and did all these amazing things but he got this curse, this contagion, and the only thing he couldn’t do was to die a proper death. He just talks the talk. This is Agatha’s revelation while she is dying herself. He wants to have the courage to die. “Zagatha” says, “You want to defeat death but the only way to defeat death is to face it without fear.” Now that’s unfortunate. The only way to defeat death is to actually die. And that’s what he does at the end. He gets his act together, he goes into battle and he dies.

We were very happy with that as an ending. Dracula is a very hard character to kill but he certainly found a resolution, let’s put it that way. It felt very moving when he was lying across “Zagatha” on the table, drinking her blood. There was a sort of full-stop-ness to “You didn’t think I’d let it hurt, did you?” It was such an iron process of not revealing that that story is happening. I think everyone who watches goes, “Hang on. Those two. Those two, there is something weird there.” But it’s not acknowledged, really, until the very end. And indeed when he says it, “After all this time, did you think I’d let it hurt?”, you know. Of course he wouldn’t. So it’s rather sweet. I like it. He finally does actually bend a little. Claes does a lovely delivery on the line “You’re in pain.” And she says, “I’m equal to it.” But she doesn’t notice that what he says is, “You’re in pain.” He’s aware of somebody else’s pain for the first time as a bad idea. And being aware of somebody else’s pain is surely the gateway drug to morality. It’s not morality itself but it’s just the beginning of “somebody else suffering? I don’t like it. At least I don’t like that person suffering.” We liked that. We are sentimental. Love can redeem anyone.

--- Dracula commentary by Mark Gatiss & Steven Moffat [x] [x] [x]

[cheuwing]

First of all: Thank you very much for your metas! I have a question about the role of Greg in tjlc. What exactly is he doing? Is he a good one or a baddy? Any space for Mystrade in tjlc?

Hello dear,

Thank you so much for your message! I was surprised to receive a question after such a long absence (a very nice surprise!). I don’t know if you’ll read my answer; hopefully it will find you well. :)

It is a very interesting question... I haven’t rewatched every single episode with a focus on Greg (I might do it later!), so feel free to take my view with a pinch of salt.

First of all: I adore Gavin Greg Lestrade! He is such an amazing, complex character in the series. I believe it is clear that Greg is on the good side. Actually, I think each character mentioned on the rooftop scene as targeted by Moriarty is explicitly good: John Watson, Mrs Hudson, Greg Lestrade. (Every other speculation is fair game, but these three are unquestionably good) The show never questions their loyalty either. Greg might be disgrunted sometimes, but he’s always there to help and support Sherlock (the “maximum back up” scene at the beginning of TSOT comes to mind). Furthermore, he is the very first one who talks about Sherlock’s side: “Sherlock Holmes is a great man, and I think one day, if we're very, very lucky, he might even be a good one.” To me, these elements prove without the shadow of a doubt that Greg is, in fact, good.

Also, according to Sherlock:

That’s all the proof I need! x)

Now, regarding Greg’s role in TJLC... My personal opinion is that he serves as a mirror. Typically, a mirror for Sherlock:

detective, keen on solving cases,

clever,

good coat, and similar clothes in general,

quits cigarettes at the same time as Sherlock (showing their matching patches in ASIP), both are seen with - unlit - cigarettes in their mouth in s3,

willing to bend the rules a little bit to solve his cases - namely by calling a “consulting detective”,

blunt and a bit ruthless (his introduction scene in which he is uncomfortable, possibly annoyed, in front of the media and deadpans “Don’t commit suicide” while Sally plays Watson’s role as social facilitator)

solving a case or saving a friend is more important than taking credit,

a bit of a drama queen (... that “maximum back up” scene comes to mind again xD),

lovely interactions with John in which they tend to be very honest and a bit arseholy (”NOT REALLY”)... (also: taking care of him and bringing Sherlock memorabilia in Many Happy Returns), a few moments of them working perfectly in sync (that action walk shot in HLV)

... among other things!

Interestingly, I think it’s fair to say that Greg is associated to John in some aspects (public servants, caring arseholes, both of them striving to guide Sherlock on the side of the angels, mindful of Sherlock’s emotions & thoughts process... Betrayed by their wives. Even on a visual level: action walk in HLV, shooting scene in THOB, in which, hilariously, even though John shoots second, he manages to catch his target => metaphors!!!)

I personally believe that Greg serves to show how a real, uncomplicated friendship with Sherlock (or John, for that matter) would work. He has no problem hugging him when he comes back (something John is unable to do, because he is overwhelmed with too many conflicting emotions... also, they’re not alone). Talking about emotions and such is easier between them too (Greg doesn’t hesitate to ask about John when Sherlock brings Molly for the case). They still bicker, argue and even play jokes on one another like John & Sherlock do (Lestrade never hesitates to film Sherlock on his phone, or to force him to wear a security blanket). Same goes between John & Lestrade: the friendship is much smoother/more wholesome than with Sherlock, because no one has to rein desire/unspoken emotions in. I mean, as @just-sort-of-happened highlighted it in this post: Greg provides a contrast to John's attraction to Sherlock.

So there you go: to me, Greg is a mirror for Sherlock and his interactions with both John & Sherlock serve as a contrast between the wholesome friendship that could be and the complicated relationship with lots of hidden desires, unspoken things and general sense of constrinct that these two have.

I also believe that Greg is a sort of mentor to them? He is the one who guides onto the right path, the one who is concerned, who is proud (his proud daddy expressions give me life), and I guess, who experiences things first (he has already worked on the cases before he presents them to Sherlock - and usually has failed -, he shoots the hound first - and fails -, he was married before John - and... you get the jist). I feel like Greg will start his grand relationship before Johnlock and in a sense, will show them the way.

As for the grand relationship in question... I love Mystrade. I really do. If it becomes canon, I’d be very happy. (Also, I could totally see Mark Gatiss thrilled to pose with Rupert Graves, his crush from Maurice, as his fictional lover ^^). Greg has been associated with John enough that I could see their relationship as a mirror for Johnlock. (and I certainly love this trope in fanfics!) I would be more than satisfied with Mystrade (also... if it happened after years of queerbaiting issues? two gay couples? with Gatiss, creator of the show, playing a character in a homosexual relationship? That could be pretty cool).

However, I have to say that I’m not really convinced it will happen in the show? It seems to me Mycroft is very much presented as an asexual character, or, at the very least, someone who doesn’t understand sex at all (the allusions with Lady Smallwood show how uncomprehending he is on the subject, and not just in a ‘gay man approached by a woman’ kind of way. Contrast with Sherlock in ASIP, being able to say ‘women are not my area’, ‘I know it’s fine’ and ‘while I’m flattered by your interest....’). In Sherlock’s mind palace, Mycroft serves as “the mind”, cold, logical, rational, in contrast to John “the heart”, emotion-focused, soft. In the Mayfly Man deduction, Mycroft insists on intricate planning, intent... whereas John focuses on sex right away. Thus, I personally see Mycroft as very remote from the concept of sexuality.

I personally see another likelier (in the context of the show) love interest for Greg: Molly Hooper. If Greg is an obvious mirror for Sherlock, Molly is an obvious mirror for John (I mean, very explicitly... And also at the wedding). There is already a history of interest between the two, at least from Greg’s part. Remember the gaping mouth at Molly’s dress at Christmas? How the camera framed them as a couple at the wedding, while Tom was obviously discarded as a serious lasting boyfriend for her? To be fully honest, I would probably be slightly annoyed at Molly’s character development if she goes out with another Sherlock mirror, but... It would make sense. She said it herself: she has a type. And I’d argue that Greg is a much more wholesome mirror for Sherlock, and he’s obviously interested in her. I think the writers already paved the road for this romance, so it seems likelier to me. I guess we will wait and see :)

To sum up => I ADORE Greg Lestrade. I hadn’t explored my thoughts on him for a long time before I received your message and had the perfect opportunity to do so. It is a joy to study his character and role in the story. To me, he is unquestionably good (like Mrs H & John). He is a fascinating mirror for Sherlock, and a great friend who shows what an uncomplicated friendship with John & Sherlock would look like. I’d definitely be happy to see Mystrade on screen (and these versions of Mycroft and Greg would certainly work well together! I think Greg would love to tease Mycroft like John does sometimes -> cue to hilarious expressions). I personally don’t think the writers would go there, but who knows? That could be very satisfying. I think a likelier mirror for Johnlock will be provided with Molly/Lestrade. Either way, Lestrade might very well be the one to show John & Sherlock the way to love. I’m curious to see how they will show it :)

Hopefully this will be a satisfying answer. Take care, dear! (And feel free to share your thoughts with me on the matter :) )