#which is clearly not the case with martha?? she has so much energy and love and she cares about/prioritizes a lot of things

[enobariasdistrict2]

also the way shelby was literally so understanding of and kind to martha is really important. martha's obviously a very sweet, gentle, beautiful, and kind creature, but because of her somewhat shy introverted nature (and also like the general atmosphere of high school and the fact that teenagers are a little shallow) she doesn't get the romantic attention/relationships that she desires. she's somewhat insecure and very vulnerable (which is such an understandable and almost universally relatable part of the teen girl experience), and like a lot of other heterosexual girls, she wants to be romantically desired.

and shelby sees this and doesn't belittle martha for wanting to be desired by male love interests the way most people, especially not-like-other-girls "feminists" would. shelby doesn't have the context of martha's life before the plane crash, she doesn't know why this is so important to martha, but that doesn't matter. martha is shelby's friend and a soft, good soul with many attractive qualities, and while shelby knew her for a very short period of time, she sees how special martha is. shelby kindly and enthusiastically reassures martha, promising her that she will get the romantic attraction and the desire from males that she wants - and not as a way to placate or humor her, but out of sincere fondness and from a place of genuine appreciation for martha and all that she is.

[luthienne]

Hi dear, do you have any good words on emotional courage?

hi my love, you can check out this post and this post; here are a few more:

“I know a lot about pain… and I know it is bad for people, eats away the spirit, but how about courage, what is it for if not to use when needed?”

Martha Gellhorn, Selected Letters 

“This is in the end the only kind of courage that is required of us: the courage to face the strangest, most unusual, most inexplicable experiences that can meet us.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet 

“You don’t realize it, perhaps, but you are turning these delusions and illusions of the past into criminal things. Relinquish everything. Stay in bed until you feel so shock full of energy, hope, courage that you bounce out of abed. You can only aid the world–if you still believe the world needs our individual aid–by retaining your faith in life. Your body may be weak, but I know you still have wings.”

Henry Miller, A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller

“I… want to inherit the witch in my women ancestors—the willfulness, the passion, ay, the passion where all good art comes from as women, the perseverance, the survivor skills, the courage, the strength of las mujeres bravas, peleoneras, necias, berrrinchudas. I want to be una brava, una peleonera, necia, nerrinchuda. I want to be bad if bad means I must go against society—el Papá, el Pápa, the boyfriend, lover, husband, girlfriend, comadres—and listen to my own heart, that incredible witch’s broom that will take me where I need to go.”

Sandra Cisneros, A House of My Own

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.’ Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.”

Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

“In the winter I am writing about, there was much darkness. Darkness of nature, darkness of event, darkness of the spirit. The sprawling darkness of not knowing. We speak of the light of reason. I would speak here of the darkness of the world, and the light of———. But I don’t know what to call it. Maybe hope. Maybe faith, but not a shaped faith—only, say, a gesture, or a continuum of gestures. But probably it is closer to hope, that is more active, and far messier than faith must be. Faith, as I imagine it, is tensile, and cool, and has no need of words. Hope, I know is a fighter and a screamer.”

Mary Oliver, Winter Hours: Prose, Poems, and Prose Poems

“There is always some miracle left; and though miracles do not happen, they might happen. Who knows? Perhaps our intelligence, our instinct, our senses, in spite of their daylight clearness, are leading us astray. Perhaps the one thing needful is just that unreasoning courage which follows hope’s will-o’-the-wisp as it burns…”

Jens Peter Jacobsen, Niels Lyhne

“But if the deepest loss, […] / can be, not just survived, but made into the matter / of hope, made into song, not into a hatchet / to cut off the offending parts, made into poems / then blessed be the end of things, the loss of whatever / secures us blindly and mutely to our lives.”

Julia Alvarez, The Other Side/El Otro Lado

“I run / stumbling, expectant. / Impatience is hopelessly / desperate. Hope / takes time.”

Marie Ponsot, Springing: New and Selected Poems

“How lightly we learn to hold hope, / as if it were an animal that could turn around / and bite your hand. And still we carry it / the way a mother would, carefully, / from one day to the next.”

Danusha Laméris, The Moons of August

“Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

Representative John Lewis

“Where does such a force come from? What does it mean? A voice very faint, and inside me, offers a possibility: how shall there be redemption and resurrection unless there has been a great sorrow? And isn’t struggle and rising the real work of our lives?”

Mary Oliver, Winter Hours: Prose, Poems, and Prose Poems

“Don’t forget that apparent impossibility of something is the first sign of its naturalness—in a different world, obviously.

Marina Tsvetaeva, from a letter to Anatoly Steiger

“Grieve. Have / hope.”

Jorie Graham, Swarm

John Berryman, “The Heart is Strange”

“Skin had hope, that what’s skin does. / Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.”

Naomi Shihab Nye, “Two Countries”

“I am quite troubled in the depths of my soul. But that will pass,”

George Sand, in a letter to Gustave Flaubert

“Let’s dance a little before we go home to hell.”

Muriel Rukeyser, A Muriel Rukeyser Reader

Hélène Cixous, Hyperdream (tr. Beverly Bie Brahic)

“That most moments were substantially the same did not detract at all from the possibility that the next moment might be utterly different.”

Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping

Ada Limón, “Dead Stars”

“Listen, everyone has a chance. Is it spring, is it morning? Are there trees near you, and does your own soul need comforting? Quick, then — open the door and fly on your heavy feet…”

Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems

“Get to the bottom of this intensity and have faith in what is most horrible, instead of fighting it off—it reveals itself for those who can trust it, in spite of its overwhelming and dire appearance, as a kind of initiation. By way of loss, by way of such vast and immeasurable experiences of loss, we are quite powerfully introduced to the whole.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, from a letter to Countess Alexandrine Schwerin, June 16, 1922

“…only one thing is urgently needed: to attach oneself with unconditional purpose somewhere to nature, to what is strong, striving and bright, and to move forward without guile, even if that means in the least important, daily matters. Each time we tackle something with joy, each time we open our eyes toward a yet untouched distance we transform not only this and the next moment, but we also rearrange and gradually assimilate the past inside of us.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, from a letter to Adelheid von der Marwitz, September 11, 1919

“Continue to believe that with your feeling and with your work you take part in what is the greatest. The more strongly you cultivate this belief inside of you, the more it will give rise to reality and world.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, from a letter to Elisabeth Freiin Schenk zu Schweinsberg, September 23, 1908

“…I have known with certainty that the worst things, and even despair, are only a kind of abundance and an onslaught of existence that one decision of the heart could turn into its opposite. Where things become truly difficult and unbearable, we find ourselves in a place already very close to its transformation.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, from a letter to Anita Forrer, February 14, 1920

“…he says, it will be all right.

“It is not the saying of an oracle or a prophet. They are words you might speak to a child ... and somehow I am comforted. He does not mean that it does not hurt. He does not mean that we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive.”

Madeline Miller, Circe

“Right then she knows herself even less than she knows the sea. Her courage comes from not knowing herself, but going ahead nevertheless. Not knowing yourself is inevitable, and not knowing yourself demands courage.

Clarice Lispector, Complete Stories; “The Waters of the World”

“Recovery (which includes return and renewal of health) is a re-gaining—regaining of a clear view. I do not say “seeing things as they are” and involve myself with the philosophers, though I might venture to say “seeing things as we are (or were) meant to see them”—as things apart from ourselves. We need, in any case, to clean our windows; so that the things seen clearly may be freed from the drab blur of triteness or familiarity—from possessiveness. Of all faces those of our familiares are the ones both most difficult to play fantastic tricks with, and most difficult really to see with fresh attention, perceiving their likeness and unlikeness: that they are faces, and yet unique faces.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, from his essay On Fairy-Stories

Camille Norton, Corruption: Poems

“Keep busy with survival. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.”

May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

“I have the fervour of myself for a presence / and my own spirit for light; / and my spirit with its loss / knows this; though small against the black, / small against the formless rocks, / hell must break before I am lost;”

H.D. from Collected Poems; “Eurydice”

Denise Levertov, “Epilogue”

“The days go numb, the wind / sucks the world from your senses like withered leaves. // Through the empty branches the sky remains. / It is what you have. / Be earth now, and evensong. / Be the ground lying under that sky. / Be modest now, like a thing / ripened until it is real…”

Rainer Maria Rilke, from Rilke’s Book of Hours (tr. Anita Barrows, Joanna Macy)

“I know your sorrow and I know that for the likes of us there is not ease for the heart to be had from words of reason and that in the very assurance of sorrow’s fading there is more sorrow. So I offer you only my deeply affectionate and compassionate thoughts and wish for you only that the strange thing may never fail you, whatever it is, that gives us the strength to live on and on with our wounds.”

Samuel Beckett’s words of consolation to his friend, Alan Schneider

“What matters is not to allow my whole life to be dominated by what is going on inside me. That has to be kept subordinate one way or another. What I mean is: one must not let oneself be completely disabled by just one thing, however bad; don’t let it impede the great stream of life that flows through you. I have the feeling of something secret deep inside me that no one knows about.”

Etty Hillesum, from a diary entry featured in An Interrupted Life

“You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link. / This is but half the truth. You are also as strong as your strongest link. / To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of the ocean by the frailty of its foam. / To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconstancy.”

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

“Try to keep what is beautiful to you and what you can use for today and now — You must not let things you cannot help destroy you —”

Georgia O’Keeffe, from Georgia O’Keeffe: Art and Letters

“What we love, shapely and pure, / is not to be held, / but to be believed in.”

Mary Oliver, from Evidence; “Swans”

“In time of the crises of the spirit, we are aware of all our need, our need for each other and our need for ourselves. We call up, with all the strength of summoning we have, our fullness. And then we turn; for it is a turning that we have prepared; and act. The time of turning may be very long. It may hardly exist.”

Muriel Rukeyser, from A Muriel Rukeyser Reader, “The Life of Poetry”

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” 

Howard Zinn, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress

“But don’t lose heart, dear ones—don’t lose heart. Don’t let it make you bitter. Try to understand. Try to understand. The world’s already bitter enough, we got to try to be better than the world.”

James Baldwin, from Another Country

“You do not have to be good. / You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. / You only have to let the soft animal of your body / love what it loves. / Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. / Meanwhile, the world goes on.”

Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese”

[leonajasmin-writeblr]

Find the Word

Thanks for the tag @dotr-rose-love! I was given the words drink, flower, soft and bone. I’m using the first drafts of the four parts of The Mastery that I’ve done so far (which is almost 400K), so there’s quite a few for each word. Therefore, under the cut they go! :)

I’m going to tag some people who’ve appeared on my ‘latest notes’ feed this past month: @lxpinwrites, @ariannastewart, @silentlylostwriter and @what-is-this-blog-about. Have the words mild, grow, house and/or eat appeared in any of your recent/current WIPs?

DRINK (I am prone to over-hydrating so always mention drinks haha):

“Surely you have servants who’ll get you a warm drink and a few biscuits for your pet?”

“Please, I insist you must have something to drink. Personally, I think it is too early for an alcoholic beverage, but I have juice, water and the like.”

He indicated for me to put my drink down before grasping my hands, “That’s why you’re so important.”

“No.” Sebastian went quiet, fully focused on the bubbles in his drink.

Phineas had given me three books, so, after grabbing a drink, I pulled one out of my rucksack.

“Hey, I don’t personally drink,” He said, putting his hands up, “I don’t condone it either."

I didn’t drink last night- even if I liked alcohol, a certain someone’s glare was enough of a deterrent to sit on the other side of the compartment.

Since it was only the two of us, the teacher left for a few minutes to fetch herself a drink.

“No, he wasn’t.” She said, finally sitting down. I’d gotten into my dorm. She'd followed and declined when I offered her something to drink.

Sebastian took a while to take a drink from his cup, but responded, “That’d imply he was logical.”

Miriam had been watching the two bicker as if observing a tennis match. She grabbed her drink at that point, spluttering as she swallowed wrong. The two looked at her in panic before dropping the conversation.

Martha nodded, taking a sip of her drink, “This is why I didn’t want to come now. I can’t think straight.”

“He’ll be in his eighties by now, so even if he is, he wouldn’t have much longer to live.” Uncle August answered, turning the kettle on after realising he hadn’t made himself a drink.

“I know,” Matthias smiled, stirring his drink, “When are we meeting your partner, Alex?”

“Hmm?” Rylan mumbled, “My father said that coffee is unhealthy and addictive. To wake yourself up early in the morning, you should drink hot water. I wanted at least a little flavouring, so I infused some tea leaves in. Try it.”

He laughed once, “But you don’t drink, and otherwise it’ll go to waste.”

“Let me get you a drink. Do you want to come into the dining room?”

August smiled, “If we weren’t teetotal, I’d say let’s drink to that. But we’re going to have to make do with tea.”

“Dad, what is the point of drinking tea when you have so much milk in it that you lose the taste of the actual tea? Just drink warm milk.”

“Ah, my apologies, but he only takes in interns when he requests for them. He hasn’t at the moment. Since you’ve come all this way, would you like a drink?”

There was silence before one relative piped up, “I’ll drink to that.”

“Have a drink while you’re here. I’m a little bit out of the way so save your time and energy.” 

“Thanks, Alex,” He took a long sip of his drink, “I’m so nervous though.”

Miriam snorted, “Don’t make me laugh when I’m about to drink.”

“She’s taking over, as we suspected,” He muttered, pouring himself a strong drink of alcohol, “And she’s basically told Dimitri and I that only one of us can lead the Meeting and she’s picked me.”

FLOWER:

The three of us were in the ‘roundabout room’ of the hospital. In the middle was a hexagonal flower box with some odd-colour foliage and around it were five different hallways. There were seven different floors, and we were on the bottom one.

The town looked quaint from the station, but I couldn’t pronounce its name due to not having a Phinean accent. Compared to Natli and Mindeya, it was homely looking with its flower boxes and sign pointing to a vegetable market.

He dropped me off in front of a large house before taking the horses back to his own place. It seemed more grandiose than the properties surrounding it since there were flower baskets coming out of literally every window, but it was the same size. Even the Donegall house, which was also in the centre of the city, was obviously not the property of any old person.

“Ah, but that is the beauty of flowers. She can make her room look pretty with them even though she hates the recipient. And flowers have a lot of meaning. One flower may both mean ‘I love you’ and ‘fuck you’.”

“You work in a flower shop but don’t know your flowers, silly boy. Is Miriam tall and pretty?”

“At the flower shows they have in Natli, her family decide on the winners. She picks second place now she’s the Secondary Master. She doesn’t like the idea of picking just on which she thinks are the nicest so researches quite a bit to make sure she’s actually making the best decision.”

SOFT:

“He’d have stepped up by now if that was the case. It’s been over a decade and a half since I was born.” If looks could kill, I’d be dead by now. Her voice, however, was low and soft.

Father stuck his hand out, and I was surprised about how smooth the skin was. He was only thirty-nine but his face was aged, looking way older than Dimitri’s forty-two-year-old one. But the back of his hand was soft and looked well moisturised.

"Roman says he's a Tibetan Mastiff, they're soft and protective despite their deceptive build. But cute doggies aren't a priority right now. Have you got Miriam and Caspian's scents?"

I laughed, then consciously realised he hadn't moved his hands. I hadn't put on my jacket yet so I could feel how warm and soft they were.

"Well, I'm not moving until someone from the shop floor drags me off," I said, lavishing in the beds comfiness. My one at Natli was hard although the pillows were ridiculously soft, I had to stick blankets underneath for some comfort.

Her hair was near enough white and she also had the same piercing grey eyes which her son didn't possess. She had a soft face although that was shrouded by her current expression.

I couldn't think of any way to describe the voice other than silk. While tinged with age, it was soft and smooth.

She appeared as a mixed woman, with tied back brown locks and a soft but unvirtuous expression. Roman stared as she did so.

Cyrus was interested in all types of vehicles but always had a soft spot for motorbikes. I never paid enough attention to learn anything about the specifics.

Roman nodded, beginning to catch his breath, “Luka wants my Grand Master gone at least. From what she has said, he seems to have a soft spot for Miriam, but I think it is to do with-”

This was one of the rare times he’d smile genuinely. He hid the fact he had these guys most of the time so he didn’t look like a soft-hearted man due to being a pet lover. Deep down, any furry animal was his weakness.

“You have really soft knees, Kadir.” (A/N: The character who says this is drunk, I don’t have a weird knee fetish)

“What? No!” Uncle August had a soft voice but it broke then, “He’s been doing as well as he can be, making the treacherous journey he currently is.”

I’d held Matthias and Octavia plenty of times when they were younger, so I knew how to hold her. Juliana noted it, “You’re so soft-handed, but what’s the frown for, buddy?”

“Well, why are you surprised?” His voice was uncomfortably soft, “The more experience you get, the harder the challenge is. It’s how the world works Meline, not just me.”

Rylan’s voice was surprisingly soft and soothing, and there was a brief smile on his face when I looked at him. There was actual warmth in his expression compared to the other two people in the room.

“Carlos clearly has a soft spot for you too,” Phineas said, “But then again, he seems to have one for everybody bar backstabbers.”

Seb and Uncle Jonathon were almost identical apart from age and build. Their confident but laid-back demeanour was also scarily similar. But his eyes were the same soft deep brown as August’s.

“Did he give Andrei something soft and warm to lie in? I don’t think that’s fucking likely.”

Khristoph and I swapped positions and it became clear they had almost identical faces. Soft brown eyes, long thin eyebrows and a childish look of wonder around them.

Since I was still on the floor, he went onto his knees and kissed me. It was slow, soft and exactly what I needed at that moment.

Uncle Jonathon let his curls go wild but they didn’t reach further than the top of his neck. Grandfather’s, however, were in line with his elbows, the same length as mine. They were maintained well though, and looser than any of ours. His eyes were a soft but deep brown, although they were almost shut due to his frowning.

“Considering you’re the mother of the victim, are you really in the best position to do this?” The judge asked. His voice was soft rather than Winona’s jabbing.

“Vanska,” He responded, voice soft, “Where are we?”

He looked to the door which Roman left through before turning to me, “I was in here when you were watching him. There’s still a soft spot for him in your heart, isn’t there?”

We were looking at each other again when a voice arose. It wasn’t Lawrence’s high, shrill voice, nor Roman’s soft and warm tone or Vesna’s staccato tone. This one was animalistic and growling.

Myles and Jonathon headed over to the blanket, the former looking at Miriam and the latter at Andrei. He had a soft, paternal look to him before a shadow appeared over him.

“Ludwig is surprisingly quite soft as a paternal figure. For some reason I preferred him to Martha.”

“Oh, Miriam.” She gave me her soft hazel-eyed look, “We’ll be able to make something out of this. You won’t have to live like your mother and uncle did.”

Dad was soft, but that was one thing he rarely said, “I love you too.”

Dimitri was a man with rough edges but he had soft spots for dogs and children. After all, he owned more pets than some shelters and had taken Miriam in. 

I rolled over, making a soft grunting noise.

Despite his rough appearance and supposed bluntness, Gino had a soft, tinkly laugh.

“Well, my Dad is Grand Master Schwarz. He’s a bit soft from first glance but uses his brain, not brawns. My uncle is Grand Master Ivanov. He’s the opposite.”

Her daughter had a soft and cute face in comparison to her mother’s harsher one, “Oh, alright, what’s the change?”

“Oh, okay. I know this was yours and Miriam’s discussion, but I’ll step in. Why don’t you talk with Nina and let her take charge while you work on understanding the lingo and working on your soft skills? I know a guy who lived in Anthonia who could help you.” 

BONE:

“If I had a bone in my body that was sensitive, I’d have a problem.” She said.

He'd put his hands on my shoulders so I bit down onto his forearm as hard as I could. It went deep, his bone almost visible and it was bleeding heavily. He yelped in response.

[g0dblessthefandom]

Favorite Female Characters

Tagged by @mini-oddity​. I’m too excited about this, y’all.  Rules: List ten of your favorite female characters in different fandoms and then tag ten people.

(I’m just going to be a blanket **SPOILER ALERT** for every show here, I’ll tag it just in case, but be forewarned.)

1. Xena (Xena: Warrior Princess) I got to meet Lucy in 2018, and it was basically the highlight of my life. Xena was such a HUGE influence on me as a kid, and I don’t think I ever got over the impact she made on me. Her bravery, her love for Gabrielle, her intelligence, she’s the whole package and spent almost every episode kicking dudes in the face, which is like, the dream. I think that she was very clearly a queer character also made a huge difference for me, because even though baby Frankie didn’t know it, she was gay as hell. Seeing the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle play out and that ‘love that dare not speak it’s name’ was kind of a revelation for me, even though I wouldn’t realize it for a while. 

2. Martha Jones (Doctor Who)

I think there was something so special about Martha Jones that most people didn’t see (youknowwhy.gif). She was more than just that girl who was pining away for the Doctor. She saved the world at one point just because she was willing to put everything on the line, and in some small ways it was for him, but in larger ways it was for herself. In the end she walked away because she knew that she deserved better, and she was right. She was just in general such an awesome character, and I hope that I can  be more like her one day. 

3. Dana Scully (The X-Files) 

Scully was the skeptic, but also, weirdly the believer because she was pretty serious about her faith. I remember having so many feelings about Scully and not really being able to explain them (it was the queerness, Lil’ Frankie), but in general beyond just being gorgeous she was so smart, and so good at dealing with Mulder’s BS. She would take things in stride as well, and made the most of the circumstances that left her in a worse situation than before. She was a scientist first, and so when she was elbow deep in a carcass, giving everyone answers that they didn’t know they wanted, she was in her element. I know that people are aware of the Scully effect, and I think that it’s just a testament to how much of an impact this character had on popular culture. I just loved her resolve, and every time she had a terrific storyline, I cheered. 

4. Captain Kathryn Janeway (Star Trek: Voyager)

I clearly have a thing for no nonsense red heads, so maybe there’s a type here, but also, Kathryn Janeway was an amazing character. I think if she’d been a man she would have gone down as one of the greatest Starfleet Captains of all time, but alas, sexism is a thing, and we’re in the 21st century, not the 25th. Janeway had the absolute worst situation that a captain could ask for, and she made it work somehow. In the end, she gave everything to make sure that her crew (both Maquis and Starfleet) could get home safely, and that’s what a good captain does. I first talked about this in 2007, so, yeah, you know that I mean it. Captain Janeway had to navigate a world without Starfleet, and in her own way manage to build a crew and keep a ship going through the most desperate of conditions, and I think she did an amazing job. (It’s also just a coincidence that my favorite episode is ‘Year of Hell’ where she gets to run around in a standard issue Starfleet tanktop and shoot people)

5. Santana Lopez (Glee)

If you follow my blog, it will come to no surprise to you that I flipping love Santana Lopez. Played by Naya Rivera, she’s one half of my Forever OTP: Brittana. And Santana on her own is a fantastic character. She comes out to her grandmother, and faces shame, and struggles with some life choices that she was once sure about. She goes from being this grade A butthole who’s dealing with her own problems, to caring about those people who are the closest to her, and in a way, finding her own family. It’s a really beautiful journey, and when it was given the time that it deserved on Glee, I think that the show was better for it. Of course, her being so talented didn’t hurt either. 

6. Dr. Joan Watson (Elementary)

I’m the kind of her that will pretty much appreciate a genderbent anything. When I heard that a new show was coming out about Sherlock Holmes and they were changing Watson to a woman, I was pretty excited. When I learned that it would be the love of my life Lucy Liu, I was ecstatic! Watson is very much the chocolate to Sherlock’s peanut butter, but their relationship is so good and so real that it’s just the icing on the cake (mixing a lot of food metaphors, so bear with me). She’s a scientist (doctor/surgeon) like Scully, but she’s changed careers and now she works as a sober companion (at least at the beginning of the season). Of course, the reason that she and Sherlock get along so well is because Watson is smart. Super smart. Sometimes smarter than Sherlock, and he readily admits as such. She was her own woman and she made Watson into someone who was on par with Sherlock, and a force to be reckoned with in her own right. And, of course, they were best friends. 

7. Carol Susan Jane Danvers (Captain Marvel)

I was a big fan of CM before the movie came out, so I’ll mostly talk about the comics, but Captain Marvel in every incarnation is a terrific character. I first read Civil War II with her and Tony Stark going at it, and I couldn’t help but appreciate the passion that she brought to the table. Carol Danvers is the kind of character who, right or wrong, just does what she’s going to do, and you know that her heart in the right place. In the comics, she has a relationship with Rhodey, and that makes for some interesting drama. She’s the kind of person who punches first, asks questions later, and it’s that kind of himbo energy that makes me love her. She goes all in, and god help you if you get in her way. 

8. Eleanor Shellstrop and Tahani Al-Jamil (The Good Place) Is a twofer cheating? Probably. Do I care that much? Nah, son. For the record, I do ship Cheleanor, but I love these two together in every single imaginable way. They both have their own baggage, and come from less than ideal backgrounds (Eleanor generally, and Tahani because of her family life), but they have learned and grown so much over the last four seasons and I can’t wait to see how things turn out for them. They’re also such good friends, so I really appreciate their relationship with each other. Neither really had friends in their “real” lives. (Even though Tahani pretended to) The fact that they have each other, and really care for each other, just makes both of them so much better in my opinion. I was rewatching the first season and during the episode where they both confess their feelings to Chidi, Eleanor says that she’s going to make sure that they don’t become like to women feuding over a guy, and they proceed to spend a terrific day together. That’s female friendship right there! I love this show in general, it’s definitely my favorite on TV right now, and I’m so glad that it’s on! 

9. Zoe Washburne (Firefly) I have shipped exactly three het ships in my entire life: Rick and Evie O’Connell, Eleanor and Chidi and Zoe and Wash. I dunno, it was something about their relationship that just moved me. She loved him, and she didn’t care who knew it, and they just had this terribly healthy relationship, and it was stupendous. Sans Wash, though, Zoe is an amazing character. She’s smart, she’s strong, she’s loyal, and she’s played by Gina Torres, who only seems to get more and more attractive as the years go on? Like, I’m not trying to be that person because Gina brings so much to to the table, she’s so talented and clearly intelligent and passionate, but she’s also super duper hot? Like, in the year of our lord 2020? It’s wild. She was also on the Black Lady Sketch Show and she was hilarious, so there’s that. She can do it all! Okay, but back to Zoe, I just love her character, and her relationship with the other folks on the ship. It was something awesome to see. 

10. Sister Night/Angela Abar (Watchmen TV Series) This is kind of a new addition, but I hope that doesn’t make you think any less of this amazing character. Regina King knocked my socks off in the best way imaginable, and I’m just so enthralled and obsessed with this character, I don’t even know what to do with myself. She has such AGENCY and she’s a woman who makes her own decisions and is in charge of her whole life. Dr. Manhattan fell in love with her because despite everything she put everything on the line for him, and you’ve got to appreciate that amount of determination. Of course, I love that she spent most of the show kicking racists in the head, so you know, I’ve got a type, clearly. 

Throwing out a special shout out to: Kelly and Yorkie (Black Mirror), Alex Danvers (Supergirl), Eve and Villanelle (Killing Eve), The Doctor/13 (Doctor Who), Lt. Uhura, and the thousands of other amazing, bad ass female characters that I didn’t mention. 

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So, that’s it. To continue this I’d like to tag @leigh-kelly​ @chuckleshan​ @daborgh​ @battybookworm​ @lesbeauregarded​ @ambirrdy-brittana​ @yourstreetserenade​ @itcameuponamidnightqueer​ @vikingstad1​ @stephanie-beatriz​ @skywalkerchick1138​ @mayqueen517​+ anyone who wants to do this! 

[amphtaminedreams]

Cannes Film Festival 2019: Best Dressed

Forget the Met Gala everyone, real ones know that the Cannes Film Festival is the fashion event of the year! In part because it lasts for 12 whole days so there’s more content to sit there in my pyjamas analysing but also because it’s way less hyped up and thus less likely to leave you disappointed, a fate I’ve now resigned myself to with the Met. For almost 2 weeks, the richest, most out of touch people in the world spend their days looking pretty on a red carpet and judging films; I should be grossed out, but it’s more a case of just wishing I was there. So I present to you a collection of my favourite looks! 

Winnie Harlow (left), in Jean Paul Gaultier here, was one of my stand outs this year. Yes, I remember her from America’s Next Top Model and yes, I’m going to blame the edit, because LOOK AT THAT FUCKING STANCE. I’m in awe. This is my favourite look of hers this year (mostly because of this particular moment) but it’s the first of a few I’m going to bang on about. On the right is Priyanka Chopra in Georges Hobeika, complemented by the walking accessory that is Nick Jonas.

Priyanka and Nick’s daytime looks were beautiful too (left), and if you’re not paying attention to the Cannes daytime looks YOU SHOULD. Stefanie Giesinger (right)’s outfit is sleek and crisp and effortless and everything I want to emulate but also a lot more accessible than the average red carpet look.

Similarly, here we have Izabel Goulart (left), Caroline Daur (both of the middle looks), and Chloe Sevigny (right), out and about in Cannes all looking elegant (I mentally pronounced that RuPaul saying eloquent) as fuck. I imagine a lot of these pieces cost more individually than I will ever have collectively in my bank account at one time, but there you go. I imagine they could be replicated for a lot less.

But, let’s go back to the red carpet so we can talk about Winnie Harlow again, lmao. I desperately want to know who her stylist is because her Richard Quinn dress (far left) complements her skin tone perfectly AND the accessories are PERFECT, which I’m impressed by because I feel celebrity stylists often tend to go over the top in that regard. Winnie’s Ralph and Russo look (far right) also flawed me; @ mystery stylist, I bow down. Elsa Hosk reminded us all that gloves can be subtle and looked as ethereal as ever in a white, puff sleeved Redemption dress (second to right) and the things I would do for Maya Henry’s Ralph and Russo dress (second to left) are unholy.

Of course Georges Hobeika, Zuhair Murad and Gimabattista Valli (invented the phrase Holy Trinity) dresses made an appearance, and I internally weeped as saving photos of them to my phone is the closest I’ll probably ever get to owning one. Left to right here we have Ana Beatriz Barros in Hobeika, Valery Kaufman in Zuhair Murad, Bianca Brandolini d’Adda in Giambattista Valli x H&M (more on that in a minute), and Shanina Shaik in Georges Hobeika too.

See, it was a good day for the Giambattista Valli x H&M collaboration because Kendall Jenner (far left) wore one of the dresses too, and it was probably her most iconic Cannes moment, not counting those photos of her and Bella Hadid laughing in rich on that yacht. Ultimate Victoria’s Secret model (trash company but it has given us some goddesses, let’s be real) Adriana Lima also looked phenomenal in Ester Abner, and Natasha Poly (second to left) and Josephine Skriver (far right) were born to wear Atelier Versace and Alberta Ferretti, clearly. The shade of Josephine’s lipstick is a beautiful touch.

Honestly, these were my initial 3 favourite looks of the whole festival. I’m a simple girl, I’ll pretty much lay down my life for anything blue or tulle, so obviously, Alina Baikova in Zuhair Murad (left) is one of my favourites. For the same reason, minus the blue part, I adore Araya Hargate’s Ralph and Russo dress, and CAN WE TALK ABOUT ELLE FANNING (right)!? The poor girl feinted after one of her red carpets and we could have a whole conversation about how fucked up it is that a sample size was so tight on a very slim woman that it caused her to lose consciousness, but for now, I’m just going to commend her for her services to fashion because it’s almost 1am and I need to get some bloody sleep. Regardless, the finishing touch of the flowers in the hair make this my favourite of Elle’s Cannes looks, and the dress is by Valentino.

More red carpet stand outs were, from left to right, Pixie Lott (yes, I didn’t know she was still doing her thing either but power to her, despite the fact Mama Do plays approximately 73 times a day at my work) in Yanina Couture, Madison Headrick in Ashi Studio Spring 2019 Haute Couture, and Michelle Rodriguez in Rami Kadi.

Farhana Bodi’s (far left) was stunning in a cobalt Atelier Zuhra gown, as were Hina Khan in Ziad Nakad (second to left) and Chris Lee in Gucci (far right). I kind of live for witnessing a lavender pixie cut a la vegan, marxist twitter on a stuffy red carpet, and I will also take a reprieve from this breakneck speed to congratulate DJ Kiddy Smile (second from right) for doing what Harry Styles should’ve at the Met. This is spitting in the face of toxic masculinity, men, not wearing a sheer blouse; your endless supply of pink suits can’t save you from our criticisms forever (I like Harry Styles, this is a joke, please no one hurt me).

Next we have, from left to right, Diana Penty in Nedo by Nedret Taciroglu, Elle Fanning again stepping on all our necks in Dior, and on the far right, Eva Longoria in Alberta Ferretti. Now, 3 things: firstly, I stupidly saved the 3rd photo without including a note of who she is or who her dress is by and so if anybody happens to read this and knows, HELP A GIRL OUT. Secondly, I still stan Eva Longoria for playing Gabby Solis in Desperate Housewives which is the most slept on show amongst millennials and I wanted to use this opportunity to make a passionate PSA and say EVERYONE WATCH IT so references from it (”Rex cries when he ejaculates” anyone?) can become part of our cultural zeitgeist again. Finally, Elle fucking Fanning, can you let us breathe, please? This old Hollywood inspired Dior look is so simple but probably one of my favourite looks from the whole festival because who knew it was possible to simultaneously look so glamorous and yet also so soft? It’s timeless.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that Taylor Hill makes the best dressed list twice. Obviously, she could wear a bin bag and look beautiful, but her stylist knows just how to elevate the whole angelic, other worldly being thing she has going on, and she was stunning in Ines Di Santo (left) and Fendi (middle) at the Rocketman premiere. Bella Hadid brought the same divine energy in a white, tulle Dior dress (far right).

Another one of Elle Fanning’s flawless Cannes moments was courtesy of Gucci (far left). On its own, I don’t think this dress would catch my attention as much as it did BUT the cape detailing with the red lipstick and the hair pulled back makes this outfit a stand out for me. To Elle’s right are Natalia Vodianova in Atelier Versace (second from the left), and Lea Seydoux (second from right) and Stacy Martin (far right) both in Louis Vuitton.

I’m gonna take a small break from Elle Fanning to fangirl over Guan Xiao Tong in Atelier Versace (far left). The quality of the photo I saved wouldn’t be out of place on 13 year old me’s HTC phone but I also think nothing captures how beautiful the structure of Guan Xiao’s dress was better than a semi aerial shot, and the same goes for Sririta Jensen in Michael Cinco (far right). Now back to admiring Elle Fanning, in Ryan Lo (second from left) and Vivienne Westwood (second from right).

Her daytime looks are just as good. Elle wears Marc Jacobs on the left, Miu Miu on the far right, and I have no bloody idea on the middle. If you’re reading this and you know, HMU. I promise, it’s not me being lazy; Elle.com doesn’t know either.

To go back to red carpet looks, I loved Izabel Goulart in Valentino Couture (left) looking like she just killed her husband, Dracula, after a domestic that resulted from her draining the blood of his afternoon snacks (I’m coming for your gig, Stephenie Meyer). Coco Rocha looked incredible in Elie Saab (middle); I’m surprised this was the only one of her dresses that stood out to me this year because I really like her designs. God knows I have spent far too long imagining myself in one. Lastly in this photoset, there’s Leomie Anderson in Rami Kadi (right) and, like, WOW.

Now, I’m going to whizz through these last few photosets. First is Sara Sampaio in Armani, then Alina Baikova in Zuhair Murad, Charlotte Gainsbourg in Christian Dior Haute Couture, and finally Sui He on the far right. I’m not sure who she’s wearing and Harper’s Bazaar and reverse image search is giving me dust so as always, if you’re reading and you know, hmu.

From left to right here: Stella Maxwell in Atelier Versace, Martha Hunt in Monique L’Huillier, Gayle Rankin in Delpozo and Dua Lipa in Valentino.

L-R: Madison Beer in Georges Hobeika (STUNNING, and I just read on Twitter that there was a gun pulled out at one of her concerts which is insane, and how has it become so commonplace in the states that something like that doesn’t make headline news?), Chloe Sevigny (again, I stan) in Miu Miu, and Hailey Clauson in Ralph and Russo.

L-R: Elle Fanning in Reem Acra (another fucking beautiful cape!), Elsa Hosk in Alberta Ferretti (Cannes 2019 has been GREAT advertisement for Alberta and power to her, am I right?), Jasmine Tookes in Zuhair Murad (I have LOVED this dress ever since its runway debut and there are few human beings out there who would do it more justice than Jasmine), and finally Araya Hargate again in Atelier Versace.

To finish, Eva Longoria’s sleek all camel day look is more of Alberta Ferretti doing what she does best, high fashion Twitter darling Sasha Luss’s dress is couture Chanel, and so is Margot Robbie’s. It’s the delicate touch of the plaits that I love with Margot’s look and Eva looks radiant, and both are a final reminder NOT TO SLEEP ON CANNES’ DAYTIME FASHION.

All in all, Cannes produced just as many extortionately expensive fairy princess looks as ever and, as always, I lived for it. I love dark, grungy fashion but still, the little girl in me can’t beat feathers, satin and sequins; there’s no event better suited for vicariously living out my French vanilla fantasy. 

It also brings together two of my favourite things in life: films and fashion. Call me a basic bitch, but I’m very excited for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (though I am conflicted about whether to see it in cinemas considering I just found out Leonard DiCaprio has known his current girlfriend since SHE WAS 11, like, what the fuck?), Portrait of a Lady on Fire sounds incredible, and I plan on seeing Rocketman this week.

If you read all this post all the way to the end, I hope you enjoyed it!

Lauren x

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior Home Edition May 8, 2020 – CLEMENTINE, SPACESHIP EARTH, BLUE STORY, VALLEY GIRL, ARKANSAS, HOW TO BUILD A GIRL and more!

And the summer that never was continues with no new movies in theaters unless you include a number of select drive-ins scattered across the country. There’s a lot of new stuff out this weekend, some good, some bad, but we’re getting to a point where every distributor big or small is dumping their movies to VOD in hopes of making money. But I guess that means there’s a lot more options of things to see, right?

The Virtual Oxford Film Festival continues this Friday with the virtual premieres of Steve Collins’ comedy I’ve Got Issues and the unrelated doc feature, I Am Not Alone (Note: both of these are only available for folks in Mississippi!). Also, the Hello, Gorgeous Shorts block (love the names they come up with to put these shorts together!) will debut with 8 new shorts, including Bad Assistant. You can get tickets to all of these things at the festival’s Eventive page.

For the next few days only, you can also win the Oxford Film Festival award-winning short Finding Cleveland right here for free! The film directed by Larissa Lam that follows husband Baldwin Chiu’s journey to Mississippi to investigate his roots will have its feature version, Far East Deep South, premiere as part of Oxford’s virtual festival in June.

One of the better films I watched this week (I guess that makes it this week’s “Featured Film”) is Lara Gallagher’s feature debut CLEMENTINE (Oscilloscope), a seemingly simple two-hander indie drama showcasing two fantastically talented actors in Otmara Marrero and Sydney Sweeney (HBO’s Euphoria). Marrero plays Karen, a young woman looking to get away after ending a relationship with a significantly older woman, deciding to break into her lover’s isolated lakeside home. There, she encounters Sweeney’s Lana, a mischievous younger teen of indeterminate age who Karen befriends. The two of them get closer as Karen is still in mourning for her previous relationship, but as she learns more about Lana, things clearly aren’t what they seem.

Gallagher has written a sweet and subdued character piece that at times veers into thriller territory but never goes so far across that line to take away from the drama. At the film’s core is the mystery about the two young women and their respective pasts, because we don’t even learn that much about Karen before heading to the lakeside house.

where there’s a lot of mystery about both of the young women at the story’s core, There were aspects of the movie that reminded me of the recent dramatic thriller Tape, where there’s also an aspect of sexual abuse and revenge, but it really never goes to places that might be expected. I’m a little bummed that I missed this at Tribeca last year, and part of that can be blamed on the enigmatic title which doesn’t really give a sense of what the movie is about at all. But Gallagher and her cast have done a fantastic job with a film that’s not necessarily easy to define or describe but leaves you with a warm feeling that films like this can still be made. (See Never Rarely Sometimes Always as another example of this.)

Now might be the perfect time for Matt Wolf’s new doc, SPACESHIP EARTH (Neon), which is all about the eight people who locked themselves into Biosphere II in the early ‘90s with the plans to live inside the ecologically self-contained environment for two years. Neon had two amazing scientific docs in 2019, Apollo 11 and The Biggest Little Farm, both which were in my Top 10 for the year, so imagine my disappointment when neither of them received Oscar nominations. Wolf previously directed 2013’s Teenage and last year’s Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project, the latter being a decent doc using archival footage, and Spaceship Earth mixes all of the amazing archival footage with interviews with many of the key characters. In case you weren’t familiar with Biosphere II, it was an experiment set up where 8 individuals would spend two years inside an environment that’s meant to be fully self-sufficient. Wolf’s film goes back to the start of what was essentially a theater group who put together a number of global projects before tackling Biosphere II, a project that wasn’t taken very seriously by the scientific community because there were no scientists among the group. It was seen as “ecological entertainment” by some and a cult by others, and those feelings increase when it was discovered that not everything is what it seems. When an accident causes one of the “biospherians” to have to go outside, she ends up sneaking things back into Biosphere II, which is against the rules set up by the group. It’s a fairly fascinating doc if you were around during this time but only heard about it filtered through the news and the PR, but Wolf’s film goes deep into the project and the controversy surrounding it, as well as when it inevitably goes wrong. Wolf manages to get many of those involved, including the group’s leader, John Allen, and there’s even an appearance by another figure from U.S. politics who had their own documentary just last year! This is a really strong doc that is getting a digital release and apparently, it will even be screened on the sides of some buildings, which is a cool idea in this time where there aren’t many theaters.

A relatively big hit in the UK, BLUE STORY (Paramount), the directorial feature debut of British rapper Rapman, adapted from his own YouTube series, is now available via digital download, having originally been planned to get a US theatrical release in March. It’s about the friendship of two young British teens, Timmy and Marco, from the Peckham area of London but from opposite sides of what’s become a violent street gang feud. I saw this movie way back on March 11, and I had to rewatch it more recently since I had forgotten whether I liked it or hated it. I’m probably somewhere more in between, as I thought the young leads, Stephen Odubola (Timmy) and Micheal Ward (Marco), were both terrific in a movie that generally had some storytelling and pacing issues. 

Honestly, I didn’t understand a lot of what was going on due to the heavy accents (even with the necessary subtitles), but it also didn’t really stand up to last year’s Les Miserables,  a film set in a similar setting in France, but that one  was nominated for an Oscar after being submitted by France. Besides writing and directing, Rapman also acts as the film’s ad-hoc narrator through a number of raps that gives his film a bit of a hip-hop musical feel. I’m not sure I was crazy about this decision since a lot of the time he is recapping something that we just saw take place.

The film definitely has a unique energy, as the first half alternates between youthful innocence and faux machismo, neither which generally does very much for me.   I did enjoy the film’s romantic underpinnings as it shows young love between Timmy and a classmate named Leah (Karla-Simone Spence) , but that storyline comes to an abrupt and shocking halt about 45 minutes into the movie before the story jumps forward three years into something very different.  (To be honest, the romantic aspects were handled in a far more interesting way in the recent indie Premature.) The movie does get far more dramatic and tense in this last act, while it also shows what a talented cast Rapman has put together in order for them to shift gears into the very different tone the movie then takes. It’s a jarring change, but it adds to what Rapman was trying to do in making Blue Story an almost-Shakespearean coming-of-age story set against an authentic urban landscape. I’m not 100% sure Blue Story will connect with young urban Americans in the same way as it clearly did in the UK, because the dialect and slang that pervades the film often makes it difficult to follow, but it’s quite a striking debut from the rapper/filmmaker.

Next up is VALLEY GIRL (Orion Pictures), a musical remake of Martha Coolidge’s 1983 movie that introduced many people to one Nicolas Cage. The new movie is directed by Rachel Lee Goldenberg (A Deadly Adoption, “The Mindy Project��), and it stars the wonderful Jessica Rothe (Happy Death Day) as Julie Richman, the valley girl of the title who is going to high school with her valley girl friends but becomes enamored with the punk kid Randy (Josh Whitehouse), who comes from a very different world. I’m not sure what else I can tell you about Valley Girl, since I’m under embargo on this one until Friday, so I’m not sure if I can tell you if it’s good or bad. I will say that if you like popular ‘80s groups like Modern English and others, the movie may give you a smile. It also stars Alicia Silverstone as the older Julie, telling her own daughter this story in a framing sequence, as well as Judy Greer as Julie’s mother and others, such as Mae Whitman, who can really belt it out in her role as Randy’s bandmate, “Jack.”  This is supposed to open in some of those aforementioned drive-ins, as well as being available digitally.

Getting away from this week’s musicals, Clark Duke co-wrote and stars in his feature film directorial debut, ARKANSAS (Lionsgate), based on John Brandon’s novel. I haven’t read the novel, but Clark plays a lowlife named Swin, a drug-runner along with his partner Kyle (Liam Hemsworth), both of them pretending to be park rangers. Kyle is particularly interested in learning more about their enigmatic boss, the Arkansas-based drug kingpin known only as “Frog,” but their business arrangements get more complicated.

I had a few problems with this movie, much of it coming from the relatively weak writing that comes across like it was made by someone who has watched way too many Scorsese or Tarantino movies without really understanding why those filmmakers’ movies are so brilliant. I hate to say it, because I generally like Duke as an actor, but casting himself in the role of Swin without doing much beyond growing a moustache to make himself look sleazier really didn’t much for the material. He was a very odd pairing with the rugged and tougher Hemsworth.

The best part of the film is when it flashes back to 1985 West Memphis and we meet the actual “Frog,” played by Vince Vaughn, and we see him interacting with Michael K. Williams’ “Almond,” who he betrays to take over his drug business. I liked this bit of the movie even if Vaughn’s accent wasn’t great, but then we’re back to Duke and Hemsworth in present day, and that doesn’t hold up as well. Clarke overcomplicates things by creating a non-linear narrative that jumps back and forth in time and between two storylines – again, like Pulp Fiction – but the storytelling and dialogue doesn’t do enough to make up for the confusion this cause.

Clark certainly has brought on some decent actors, such as John Malkovich and Vivica A. Fox, but making himself the focus of much of the movie compared to the far more charismatic Hemsworth, hurts the movie more than helps it. I didn’t hate Eden Brolin as Swin’s love interest, Johnna, but they really didn’t enough chemistry to make them believable as a couple.  Don’t get me wrong. I definitely commend Clark on taking on such a big project as his directorial debut, and it definitely grew on me, but it’s an erratic piece that pays tribute to far better films and that is its biggest detriment.  Originally planned for a theatrical release on May 1, Arkansas will instead hit Apple, Amazon, On Demand platforms, DVD and Blu-Ray on Tuesday.

Beanie Feldstein from last year’s Book Smart stars in Coky (“Harlots”) Giedroyc’s HOW TO BUILD A GIRL (IFC Films) as Johanna Morrigan, an ambitious 16-year-old from Wolverhampton, England who gets a job at music magazine “D&ME.” She creates an alter-ego pseudonym for herself in Dolly Wilde, and quickly learns she has to be mean in order to succeed and earn the respect of her peers as one of the UK’s most hated music journalists, even after falling in love withs (and then betraying) rock star John Kite (Alfie Allen, who also was on “Harlots”).

Based on British journalist Caitlin Moran’s 2014 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, I definitely should have liked this movie more, having been a regular reader of the Melody Maker around the time Moran would have been writing for it. The screenplay she’s co-written adapting her own book isn’t great, and everyone involved just seems to be trying too hard to be funny and failing miserably.

I guess the biggest issue, once you adjust to Beanie Feldstein’s British accent, which falls somewhere between Harry Potter and the Beatles, is that it’s hard to care about her character even a little, since she’s acting all quirky one second and then becomes a monster as the film goes along. Johanna is just annoying and when she transforms into “Dolly,” she becomes even worse.

Paddy Considine plays Johanna/Dolly’s father, who still has aspirations of being a rock star after giving birth to a huge brood of children. There’s a few other small roles from other actors like Emma Thompson, Michael Sheen and Gemma Anderton, many of them portraying Johanna’s author inspirations talking to her from her wall of idols.

How to Build a Girl is just another example of the sad state of British comedies, although there are a few shining stars like last year’s Yesterday, which was in my top 10, and this year’s Emma. This one just isn’t particularly funny, and there’s a general feeling of been-there seen-that, as it tells a fairly typical rise and fall story where Dolly’s debauchery turns into an awful human being, and it’s not like I liked her much to begin with.  She isn’t as funny as intended and then she gets awful, and it’s impossible to feel bad for her when things ultimately go wrong. Anyway, five minutes later, everything is fine.

It’s the type of autobiographical thing that a writer writes to make themselves look like some kind of hero, and it reminds me a bit of last year’s Blinded by the Light in some ways. h I know a lot of people liked the movie, but I wasn’t really a fan at all. This movie is even less funny and not particularly original, making it feel about as pretentious as the British music press became in the ‘90s. Either way, it will be available to watch at home via VOD as well as in some open drive-ins where applicable.

There are a ton more movies this week, and unfortunately, I didn’t get to fully watch many of the movies below, though I still hope to watch more of these over the next few days and may add a few more reviews.

I heard good things about Christophe Honoré’s comedy ON A MAGICAL NIGHT (Strand Releasing), particularly about Chiara Mastroiani’s performance as Maria, which won her an acting award at last year’s Cannes. She plays Maria, a woman dissatisfied with her marriage of 20 years, who moves into a hotel room across the street after getting into an argument with her husband (singer Benjamin Biolay). I haven’t gotten through it yet as it seems, like so many French movies, to be very talky, but I’ll try to get to it. It will open virtually as part of Film at Lincoln Center’s virtual cinema, following its debut at the “Rendezvous with French Cinema” series that was unfortunately cut short midway this year.

Also continuing this weekend is Cinema Tropical’s “Cinema Tropical Collection” of Brazilian films, this week’s being Caetano Gotardo’s YOUR BONES, YOUR EYES,  in which the filmmaker stars as João, a middle class São Paulo filmmaker who has long conversations and monologues with the people around him.

There are a few other docs available virtually this week, including Sasha Joseph Neulinger’s REWIND (FilmRise), a collection of home videos from 20 years ago, when his father would film family gatherings but also documenting a family secret that would lead to a media firestorm and a court battle.  The film will be available to stream and download on iTunes, Prime Video, GooglePlay and Microsoft this Friday, and then will air as part of PBS’s Independent Lens on Monday, May 11.  

The Maysles Cinema in Harlem is continuing its virtual cinema with Alex Glustrom’s MOSSVILLE: WHEN THE GREAT TREES FALL, which will be available for a 48-hour VOD rental for $12 from Thursday through April 14 with a Zoom QnA with the filmmakers on Saturday at noon Eastern. The film centers around Mossville, Louisiana, a community founded by former African-American slaves that has been overrun by petrochemical plants and toxic clouds that have forced residents from their homes. Glustrom’s film focuses on Stacey Ryan, a man who refuses to abandon his family’s land and fights for his own human rights.

Apparently, William Nicholson’s HOPE GAP (Screen Media) is getting a second chance to be seen on VOD after a rather half-hearted theatrical release on March 6. It stars  Annette Bening as Grace who is dealing with her husband of 29 years (Bill Nighy) leaving her and how that break-up affects their grown-up son (Josh O’Connor).

Following its premiere as part of the virtual Tribeca Film Festival, Emily Cohn’s sex comedy, CRSHD (Light Year), will get a virtual theatrical release in New York, LA and other regional markets. It stars Isabelle Barbier as college freshman Izzy Alden who goes with her best friends (Deeksha Ketkar, Sadie Scott) on a journey to help Izzy lose her virginity.

Also in select theaters, on demand and digital this Friday is José Magán’s The Legion (Saban Films/Paramount), starring Mickey Rourke, Bai Ling and Lee Partridge. It takes place during the invasion of Parthia where two Roman legions are brought to a standstill in Armenia’s snowy mountains where they’re dying from the cold. Their only hope against the cold and the Parthian patrols is half-roman soldier, Noreno, who must cross the mountains to find the men who can help them change the course of this losing battle.

On VOD starting Thursday is Spa Night director Andrew Ahn’s Driveways (FilmRise), starring Hong Chau from HBO’s “Watchmen” and Alexander Payne’s Downsizing as Kathy, a single mother who is travelling with her 8-year-old son Cody (Lucas Jaye) to her dead sister’s house with plans to clean and sell it. There, she befriends a Korean war vet named Del (played by the late Brian Denneny), who quickly bonds with her young son.

Also in theaters and On Demand is Tom Wright’s Walkaway Joe (Quiver Distribution), starring David Strathairn and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, a film about an unlikely friendship between a young boy and a wandering loner, who helps the boy look for his father in pool halls across the country.

STREAMING AND CABLE

This week’s Netflix offerings including the comedy special, Jerry Seinfeld: 23 Hours to Kill, presumably taped at one of his nights in residency at the Beacon Theater. The hour-long special is now available and has been said might be Seinfeld’s last special. The Michelle Obama doc, Becoming, will also be on Netflix by the time you read this. It’s the first feature length doc from Nadia Hallgren, and its produced by the Obamas, much like the recent Sundance opener, Crip Camp, and last year’s Oscar winner, American Factory.  The second season of Dead to Me also debuts on Friday as well as a number of other series.

In case you missed it earlier in the week, you can now watch last year’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker on Disney+, which means the entire nonology is now on Disney+. You can also watch a new docuseries about the making of last year’s hit, The Mandalorian, called Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian, which has Jon Favreau doing roundtables with some of the creatives with the first episode, “Directing,” now on the service and the second episode, “Legacy,” premiering on Friday.

The new Hulu animated series, Solar Opposites, will premiere on the streaming service this Friday. It’s the new series co-created by Justin Roiland and Mike McMahan (respectively the co-creator and former head writer of Rick and Morty), and it features a voice cast that includes Roiland, Thomas Middleditch, Mary Mack and Sean Giambrone with a huge line of guest voices, including Alan Tudyk, Alfred Molina, Christina Hendricks, Tiffany Haddish and many, many more!

The final film in Lionsgate’s Friday Night at the Movies will be Keanu Reeves’ John Wick, which will show for free on the Lionsgate website on Friday night starting at 9pm Eastern.

Next week, more movies not in theaters!

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

[janeofcakes]

Chapter 112

**This chapter is pretty long, but it’s lovely. So very lovely.**

(A perfect autumn evening, just at sunset. The garden is full of turning leaves and vibrant flowers. Amber Chandler, licensed celebrant, stands under the trellis with a smile on her face, ready to preside over the ceremony. She has become very well acquainted with John and Sherlock over the last few weeks. She likes to know as much as she can about the people she marries and, as a result, asked them to meet with her six times at regular intervals leading up to the wedding. John had agreed straight away, no doubt expecting such a request. Sherlock had glowered immediately, eyeing her and then John in turn.)

S: Will this be considered premarital counseling?

AC: If you like.

S: (curling his lip in disapproval) I do not believe we are in need of such counseling.

J: (quietly) Sherlock.

AC: (unfazed) Then don’t think of it that way.

S: (cocking a brow) I fail to see its relevance.

AC: Fair enough. I’d really like to get to know you both a little before I bind you together.

(Sherlock looked at John triumphantly and John had face palmed. They had obviously discussed this at length prior to the meeting.)

S: So you can inform us we were not meant to be.

AC: No. (laughing) So I can tailor the ceremony to your specific relationship and personalities. (The suspicious detective narrowed his eyes and studied her intently. She just smirked, already liking this cantankerous character.) It’s not a trick, I promise. If I do say something that seems like counseling, it isn’t going to be anything you don’t already know and you don’t have to listen. You don’t have to care. Fair enough?

S: (still very skeptical) Acceptable.

AC: Great. When are you both free next? Couple days? Afternoon work? And don’t worry. (winking at Sherlock) The ropes don’t chafe.

(It all proceeded from there. Amber learned a great deal about both men in that first conversation and every meeting after also provided a wealth of information. She liked to think the two men learned more about one another too, but never expected it of any couple she married. She truly did not lie when she told Sherlock he didn’t have to care about a word she said.)

(Amber smiles to herself as she looks out at the small crowd of people seated before her. A diverse group to be sure. Friends from the surgery, a handful from John’s army days, and a few of the Yarders. Sally Donovan being one of the most animated, judging by the grin on her face. Sarah, her husband, and their daughter Madeleine are all seated close by, beaming from ear to ear. Billy Wiggins and a small troupe of Sherlock’s homeless network, who blend in quite well with everyone else, are at hand too.

Amber’s grin broadens as her eyes hover over the guests in the front rows. Each of them holds a special place in John and Sherlock’s hearts. They are the family on which these men depend, whether they admit it or not.)

(Bertrum Smythe, Sherlock’s tailor, a man who has known him since he first moved to London and has loved him like a son from the beginning.

Mrs. Martha Hudson, the matriarch, who essentially adopted Sherlock when he moved into 221B and who did the same with John when he joined the detective. She is secretly credited with bringing them together, leading them in the right direction with her hints and suggestions, both subtle and obvious.

Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock’s older brother and general pain in his ass. While Mycroft certainly takes pleasure in annoying the younger Holmes, he honestly does do it because he worries constantly. He has considered Sherlock his responsibility and not simply his brother since the day their parents died.

Molly Hooper, friend and colleague to both men, and Mycroft’s wife. How such a sweet woman came to know these men so well is still a mystery to Amber, despite the explanations she has received. Molly’s effect on each of them speaks volumes to her quiet strength.

A short laugh slips past Amber’s lips as her eyes rest on the best men. Standing before her, nervously smiling at one another, are Greg Lestrade and Mike Stamford. Each a long-time friend to one of the grooms and both overjoyed.

Mike stands to Amber’s left. Bursting with excited energy, he can’t stay still and shuffles his feet this way and that, a grin plastered across his face. Greg, on the other hand, stands stalk still to Amber’s right. His eyes are wide, but unseeing. His face is a paper-white mask of panic.)

AC: (whispering) Greg.

(He snaps immediately from his stupor, eyes focusing on her. She leans forward a skosh and motions him over with a quick snap of her chin. He takes a step closer and leans in, an uneasy look on his face.)

AC: What is it? You lose the ring?

G: What? No. (hand settling over his chest with a gentle pat, breast pocket lying beneath) I have it.

AC: Then relax. (She smiles sweetly.) This is supposed to be a happy occasion. Let’s not bicker and argue about who killed who.

(A quiet laugh pops from his lips. Her smile broadens and she taps his shoulder lightly.)

AC: There ya go. (pausing) Look, relax. You don’t even have to do anything.

G: Right. (exhaling slowly) Right.

(Greg steps back again and relaxes his shoulders. Amber huffs a short giggle as the music changes to signal that the ceremony will start soon. Greg’s body stiffens again, brown eyes darting to Amber. She just continues smiling and shakes her head, thoroughly amused.

Jane Eaglen’s “The Dreame” drifts across the garden, elegant stringed instruments augmenting her perfectly clear soprano.

Or scorne, or pity on me take,

I must the true relation make.

I am undone tonight;

Love in a subtle dreame disguised

Hath both my heart and me surprised.

(From her seat in the front row, Molly smiles brightly and looks around wistfully. Her acute examiner’s eyes take in every detail of the scene. The full blooms on the trellis in radiant fall colors, the crimson rose petals scattered throughout the grass, the wade pool with blood orange flowers floating delicately on its waters. Sighing happily, she turns her head toward her husband, intending to kiss his lips lightly, but her brows furrow ever so slightly and head tilts in question when she sees his thoughtful frown. Taking her hand in his, he puts voice to his concerns before she can.)

M: You regret not having this. That we were married in secret.

MH: (smiling at him, love and honesty in her eyes) I regret nothing about that day. Or about you, love.

(Mycroft’s worried expression gives way to pure adoration and he squeezes her hand. She tips forward to press her lips briefly against his smile and then leans close, their arms touching.)

AC: Will you all please rise?

(Everyone stands and turns to face the isle cutting through the center of the crowd. The music changes again to a recording of Sherlock playing an abbreviated version of a piece he composed for John. The perfect notes swell victoriously and drop down to near silence, telling the very soul of their story with its glory and tragedy.)

(After a full minute, the two grooms appear in the glass doors that lead into the house. The doors flutter open as if by magic and the men step out into the garden, arm in arm. They walk slowly down the short isle, beaming at each of their friends as they pass. Bertie sniffs quietly and brushes a wet eye when Sherlock’s gaze meets his. Mrs. Hudson has been misty since “The Dreame” began and she smiles softly as her boys walk by.

When they reach the front, John and Sherlock take their places in between the best men and unlatch their arms. Everyone has turned and all eyes face Amber. She smiles kindly and begins as the music fades away.)

AC: Please be seated. (The crowd complies. She looks at the four men standing before her.) Not you, I’m afraid. You all have to tough it out.

(Mike chuckles, Greg just tries to breathe, and Sherlock rolls his eyes. John keeps smiling and exhales deeply, letting everything sink in.)

AC: When I first met John and Sherlock, I had certain expectations. I read John’s blog. We all do, whether or not we choose to admit it. (glancing at Mycroft) I like to think I had some idea of their personalities going in, and that first meeting did not prove me wrong.

Sherlock was rude and suspicious and studied me with such intensity that I felt stripped of all secrets and pretenses. Defenseless to the onslaught of deduction that was surely coming. I immediately knew that if I were to hire him for a case, I would receive nothing but the best work and a speedy conclusion.

John was stern and calm and quick to laugh. Very polite, but with a temper lurking beneath. A good soldier and a good doctor. I immediately knew I would receive only the best care, far better than even my expectations, if I was his patient.

Now, we all know these two men work well together and they are clearly best friends. The proof of both is in the blog. But what would draw them together into something more? Two men who seem polar opposites. They’ll drive each other mad, I thought. Why aren’t they insane already? It must be the sex.

(The smiles and quiet chuckles in the garden give way to real laughter when Mrs. Hudson, of all people, lets out a burst of jocularity at that. She glances around at the other guests, a hint of pink on her cheeks, but with no other indication of embarrassment.)

Mrs. H: They are quite noisy.

(Everyone laughs heartily. John tucks his chin to his chest and smiles, his cheeks crimson. Sherlock bites his lip to keep from grinning and angles his face to catch a glimpse of his groom.)

M: (in a low mischievous tone) Allow me to sound proof the building, Mrs. Hudson.

(More laughter fills the air. The grooms catch each other’s eye and smile shyly. Right after Sherlock rolls his eyes, that is.)

AC: And then something happened. (reigning everyone in again) I almost didn’t notice it. It was the smallest of movements. They were sitting together on a sofa and, while he was talking, without the slightest giveaway, John slowly angled his leg until his knee touched Sherlock’s.

I could see the warmth spiraling from that single point, filling both men with comfort. At that moment, the meeting changed. John and Sherlock both eased back into the sofa and relaxed. Sherlock was still pretty skeptical, but he was willing to listen and talk.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. John’s always keeping the peace, making sure Sherlock behaves himself, (Sherlock lifts his chin and gives her a haughty look) but it’s more than that. John brings Sherlock peace. And Sherlock does the same for John.

The more I met with them, the more I realized that they were both restless and incomplete before they met one another. Neither was happy. Something was missing. After every solved case, after every battle or patient, something was always missing.

And then, one touch, one look changed everything. ‘May I borrow your mobile?’ … ‘Here, use mine.’

(Mike can’t help but puff up with pride.)

AC: Both minds stopped. Quiet at last. John and Sherlock have both referred to that moment as the beginning. The moment each knew he could find what he’d always been missing. And as time went on, they each began to realize there was more than friendship between them. A thousand looks while their backs were turned, lingering just a little too close for a little too long, and finally…that first kiss.

(Amber pauses. The silence is broken only by quiet sniffling. Molly rivals Mrs. Hudson for the wettest eyes.)

AC: I wish I could say it has all been smooth sailing from that moment on, but it has not. What it has been is life, and one that John and Sherlock would never exchange. One that they are overjoyed. Ecstatic. To live together.

(Sherlock and John meet eyes, both nearly giddy. The detective reaches for his blogger’s hand and squeezes it warm with his fingers. A quiet giggle passes through John’s lips. Sherlock’s silver eyes sparkle at the sound.)

AC: Gentleman, please face each other and join hand. (Sherlock glances at her with a cock of his brow and she smirks.) Well, what do you expect? You’re always one step ahead.

(There are a few giggles as Sherlock faces John fully and accepts John’s hand when he reaches for him. John straightens his shoulders, grinning at his detective. A shiver runs down his spine. His whole body is tingling with anticipation. In mere minutes, Sherlock will be his husband. He will be Sherlock’s husband. He will be Dr. John Holmes Watson.)

J: Sherlock, I’ve been thinking.

(Sherlock narrows his eyes, honing in on his fiance.)

S: John, I will not let you see my vows and it is not because I haven’t yet written them.

J: (pausing) You haven’t written your vows yet?

(The taller man straightens his spine and looks away stubbornly.)

S: I’m not going to write them down. I know what I want to say. (looking at John and pursing his lips) I have thought about it a great deal.

(John blinks slowly and exhales loudly. John Watson Number 10: The ‘What the fuck’ face.)

J: Fine. Forget it. I was actually talking about my name.

S: Your name?

J: Yes, I’d like to change my name once we’re married.

S: To something other than John? No. I do not approve. I will still call you John.

J: Not my first name, you git. Hamish. I want to change Hamish. (he pauses and his tone softens) I want to change it to Holmes.

(Sherlock’s defiant expression melts into one of shock. His mouth opens and closes a few times before he can finally find the words.)

S: John Holmes Watson. You want to take my name?

J: Yes. (He wipes a tear from Sherlock’s cheek and looks into his shining eyes.) It’s ironic, don’t you think? That my middle name already begins with an H.

S: It is. More than you know. (clearing his throat) I intended on changing William to Watson.

J: (huffing a short laugh) Watson Sherlock Scott Holmes?

S: (sighing) I will also alter its position.

J: (laughing and pecking Sherlock’s delicious lips playfully) Sherlock Watson Holmes… I like it.

AC: At this time, our grooms would like to exchange vows before all of you, their family and friends.

(Amber nods to Sherlock. He smiles and looks at John, meeting his deep blue eyes. When he begins to speak, his rich baritone wavers, but quickly evens out without losing any of its sincerity.)

S: John, when I first met you, I thought you were like everyone else. As easy to read as a book with no cover. You moved into the flat. We worked our first case. And you did what no one has done. You surprised me. As I sat in the back of an ambulance, wrapped in that infernal orange blanket, I watched you. I met your eyes and knew at that moment that I must learn everything about this miraculous man called John Watson.

I knew I cared for you almost immediately, but did not realize just how much until you and Sarah were taken during The Blind Banker. It quickly became clear to me that, in spite of myself, my feelings ran deeper than friendship. Much deeper. And I was terrified. I had spent my life ignoring, suppressing, denying my emotions in favor of what I thought was a higher level of existence. One devoid of sentiment and the difficulties that come with it. I tried to push it down, hide my feelings away until they faded completely. But they didn’t fade at all. They grew stronger.

Then that night by the pool… (shaking his head and stepping closer) When I tore off that coat and the Semtex, I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to hold you in my arms and feel our bodies touch over every inch. I wanted so much to tell you everything. Every thought, every feeling, everything I suddenly knew I could never suppress again. (shrugging) But I couldn’t find the words. Sherlock Holmes, who knows all, sees all, who misses nothing, had not the words to express his deepest emotions.

So I hid it from you. I watched you date, sabotaged your relationships, wondered with mind-numbing curiosity when you stopped dating, not daring to hope it was because you felt something for me. It wasn’t until Scandal in  Belgravia that I even knew what to call my feelings, and then I hadn’t the voice. She threw it in our faces again and again, challenging me. But I walked away. I could not bring myself to say the words for fear of failure, or disappointing you…losing you. Even after you confessed your feelings for me, even now, I avoid saying it in the presence of others. So, I say it now.

I love you. I love you. I love you. (By the third time, every muscle in his body that was tense has relaxed. His face is peaceful and a smile dances across his lips.)

I love you more than the universe is wide - 100,000 light years side to side. (Stunned, John looks at his groom with surprised eyes. His jaw drops, the corners of his mouth curling.) It bulges in the middle, 16,000 light years thick. It’s 3000 light years wide by the Earth. I know it all now. The universe, our solar system. I memorized it for you, John. I’m still uncertain why this knowledge is so necessary to you, but what is important to you is of the utmost importance to me. (flashing a grin, his brows rising) You, it’s always been you. You keep me right.

You, John Watson, are my sun, my conductor of light, and I will orbit you for all time.

(The garden is dead silent, as if even the wildlife stopped to listen. A tear rolls down John’s cheek and drips off his chin when he smiles up at Sherlock adoringly. A breathless Sherlock watches, quietly marveling at his beautiful John, memorizing every detail of the doctor’s face in this moment.

Amber smiles at the detective and then nods the go-ahead for John. He inhales deeply and swallows hard. Sherlock can tell what he’s thinking as if he were saying it to him. How can I possibly follow that?The detective smiles tenderly and squeezes John’s hands. The doctor meets his eyes. Don’t worry. It will be perfect. John smiles and wets his lips, inhaling deeply once again before he begins.)

J: Sherlock, you amaze me. Although, (he grins mischievously, eyes bright) after our first few words, I might have thought amazingly rude. (Quiet titters float about the garden and even Sherlock cannot help the grin that spreads over his own lips. How different they were then.) And then you said Afghanistan or Iraq, and I was hooked. (John shrugs his shoulders and affects John Watson Number 202: adorable, honest, vulnerable, content.)

You see everything. You know everything about everyone in a single look and I thought, after that first case, that there was absolutely no way you didn’t see right through me. Every look, every movement, every stolen glance. (still grinning, but looking sheepish) I tried to be…subtle about it because I knew I’d never be able to stop and I was afraid to hear your opinion on it, your deduction. I’d even look at your ass when your back was turned, for Christ sake. (more chuckles, tutting from a teary Mrs. Hudson) But I could never keep my eyes off your lips. And I couldn’t even hope to hide it.

(John pauses and his eyes drop before he can stop them. Both men wet their lips without thinking, looking into the other’s eyes.)

Amazing. In my mind, there was no way you didn’t know and no chance you had any interest. Not in an ordinary, broken army doctor like me. Also something I learned during that first case - that you were married to your work.

So I dated and I denied. If I’m honest, I wasn’t annoyed that people thought we were a couple as much as I was that we weren’t. I wanted so badly to be everything to you, but knew I never would be. As the years passed, so much happened between us and…I gave up. (Sherlock cocks a brow, so John clarifies.) I gave up dating. I wanted you, and only you. I’d grown to love you so completely. And I thought, it’s fine. It’s fine if he doesn’t want me, as long as he’s in my life.

(John dips his chin, embarrassed once again, and raises his eyes to gaze at the taller man.) I didn’t know what to do after New Year’s Eve. Our first kiss. I can still feel your lips on mine - gentle, tentative. It was the first time I dared to think you might feel the same. That maybe I could be more than your best friend.

S: (in his silky baritone) And then, the dinner.

J: (smiling) Yes, dinner. You were prodding me about spending so much time with Mycroft, like you were jealous, and…and I just said it. (His hand raises to cup the detective’s cheek lightly) God, I love you, Sherlock. You give of yourself so fully, so completely. And not just to me. To everyone you care about, whether it’s easy or the hardest thing to do.

(biting at his lip) It has been hard for us. But every time I’ve been so frightened and empty, you’ve brought me back. You take me in your arms and hold me tightly to your warmth, your life. Just like you did when we met. (John meets Sherlock’s silver eyes and swallows down a sob. Tears pricking at the corners of his own, even as he blinks to hold them back.) I was so alone and you gave me so much. Time and time again. Now, I… (his voice hitches, but he presses on) I will spend my life giving you all I have. Everything I have in my heart, everything you deserve. I’ll hold nothing back. Not anymore. You are a good man. The best man. And I will do my best to be worthy of you..

(A tear falls from John’s sparkling, deep blue eyes. He suddenly feels Sherlock’s hand at his nape, bowing his head, their foreheads pressing together. John closes his eyes and more tears fall. He tries to slow his rapid breaths and steady his heart. Sherlock sighs and then inhales John’s scent deeply, whispering gentle words to him alone.)

S: You are, John. You are.

(Sherlock raises his head and kisses the smaller man’s forehead. They take a step back from one another and lock eyes. Sherlock has never seen John so vulnerable. He shivers, even as John does the same, seeing the same expression on Sherlock’s face. Their hands slip away from necks and cheeks until they find one another again, long and short fingers holding tight. A small smile sparks on Sherlock’s lips. A wide grin plays across John’s in response.

Amber clears her throat and steps closer to the couple.)

AC: Sherlock Holmes, do you take John Watson to be your lawfully wedded husband. To give him your whole heart and keep his for the whole of your lives, and as long as your souls live beyond.

S: I do.

AC: John Watson, do you take Sherlock Holmes to be your lawfully wedded husband. To give him your whole heart and keep his for the whole of your lives, and as long as your souls live beyond.

J: God, yes. I do.

(John raises a brow when Sherlock visibly shivers. The taller man does not break eye contact, nor does he acknowledge that anything unusual happened at all. John’s lips begin to curl, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes, which momentarily lose their focus. He has the oddest feeling of deja vu, as if he and Sherlock have done this before, not once but many times. The words ‘I do’ falling from his lips. A shiver running through Sherlock’s slender body.

The sound of Amber clearing her throat draws John’s attention, his eyes focusing on Sherlock once again. He wears a quizzical expression, a hint of concern in his silver eyes. John’s mouth curves upward in reassurance and comfort. It seems his message is received when Sherlock returns the smile.)

AC: At this time, John and Sherlock have chosen to exchange rings as a symbol of their love and commitment to one another. Greg, Mike, if you please.

(Mike and Greg each step up and place a wedding ring on the small, purple notebook she holds in her hands. She nods at them in turn with a broadening smile at Greg, mouthing ‘All done’ at him. He beams back at her.)

AC: Thank you. (looking to John and Sherlock) Gentlemen, please take these rings.

(Both men pick up a ring and then return gazing at one another. Their bodies are tingling. John actually feels like his lips might be numb. He tips up onto his toes for a second and drops back down again. Sherlock’s brows shoot up and down, and he grins at his groom like a complete idiot.)

AC: Sherlock, if you please.

(Sherlock lifts John’s left hand and begins sliding the textured platinum ring onto his finger as he speaks, his words rising into the air like a prayer.)

S: When I was young, my mother used to tell me that at a very few times in life, if I was lucky, I might meet someone who is exactly right for me. Not because he is perfect, or because I am, (his eyes lift slowly to meet John’s) but because our combined flaws are arranged in a way that allows two separate beings to hinge together. I have, for the first time, found what I can truly love. I have found you.

AC: (looking to the misty-eyed doctor) John, if you please.

(John sniffles quietly and gently raises Sherlock’s left hand. He speaks in a hushed voice as he glides the smooth band of tungsten carbide he revealed to Sherlock only moments ago on his long finger.)

J: You are sunlight falling through trees. You are laughter that breaks through my sadness. You are a cool breeze on a day that is too warm. You are clarity in the midst of confusion. You are all that is good in the world, my world. If love was a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches. And we would be in the center of them all.

(Amber takes a step back and nods. The two men join hands, each noticing as the other’s ring brushes against his skin. Silver and blue meet across a short expanse and the grooms whisper together reverently.)

S & J: With this hand, I will lift your sorrows. Your cup will never empty, for I will be your wine. With this candle, I will light your way in darkness. With this ring, I ask you to be mine.

AC: (triumphantly) May what has been declared here today last for all time and may no man put asunder. John Holmes Watson, Sherlock Scott Watson Holmes… You. Are. Married.

(Spontaneous applause fills the garden and echoes over the meadows. Amber leans in and taps Sherlock’s arm, catching the hyper-observant man’s attention immediately.)

AC: Kiss your husband.

(Sherlock doesn’t need to be told twice. Without even blinking, he drops John’s hands and closes the distance between them, pressing his body solidly against the shorter man and enveloping him in his long arms. Sherlock’s lips cover John’s swiftly. He takes full advantage of his height, and John’s surprise, tipping his new husband’s head back and twisting his tongue around John’s. In spite of himself, the doctor tilts his head back even more and dances his own tongue along Sherlock’s, reveling in the way they fit perfectly.

The garden erupts in applause again, along with cat calls and whistles led by Greg and Wiggins. It does not let up when their lips part. They look into one another’s wide eyes, warm breath against their parted lips, everyone else falls away.

Breathless and a little dizzy, John senses Sherlock’s thumb delicately brushing away a tear he was unaware he had shed. The corners of his mouth curl.)

S: (whispering) Don’t cry…husband. (sighing and cupping John’s face in his big hands) I have waited to call you husband for so long.

J: (hands on that slim waist) Wait no longer. Husband.

(Grins break over both of their faces and they kiss again. Chaste and quicker this time, but with no less passion.

Amber holds up her arms to quiet everyone as she speaks loudly.)

AC: (playfully) All right, all right. We still have a few things to tend to, so save it. (to the crowd) It is now my honor and privilege to congratulate Sherlock and John, husbands at last.

(Another cheer rises up. Mrs. Hudson and Bertie rush forward, each embracing one of the men in a bone crushing hug. They quickly swap places before Sherlock or John can escape and only let the other guests have a go when they are satisfied that all the stuffing has been squeezed from both men.

The rest of the crowd gathers around, bestowing more hugs and claps on the back. Words of congratulations and well wishes float through the air and, although John and Sherlock hear them all, they aren’t entirely focused on the people around them. Their eyes constantly come back to one another, full of excitement each time. That is, until about ten minutes have passed and John notices the strain on Sherlock’s face. He steps through the crowd to his husband and turns to them all, beaming from ear to ear.)

J: Why don’t we all go through the trellis to the reception. Come on, everyone.

MS: Capitol idea, John. Come! Let’s all take our seats and start the celebration. Cake to eat, speeches to give. Eh, Greg?

(Everyone laughs at Greg’s nervous nod and begins heading for the trellis. John moves to the side and pulls Sherlock over with him. The man looks restless, brimming with anxiety. John slowly strokes his thumb over the back of Sherlock’s hand.)

S: How long must we wait before making them all leave?

J: Just calm down, babe. It’s only a wedding reception and all these people are our friends.

S: How long do they typically last?

J: Um…four or five hours, maybe.

(Sherlock stares at John, his mouth opening and closing without a sound. John just grins and gives him that look that says ‘you really are so precious’.)

S: (incredulous and seething) Five hours?? Intolerable.

J: Okay, okay.

(He presses a gentle kiss to Sherlock’s lips. It’s a longer kiss than John might normally do in the presence of others, but the calming effect of his nibbles is more on his mind than embarrassment over public displays of affection.

He can feel the tension melting out of his husband’s muscles the longer he plays with his lips. A hand resting instinctively on Sherlock’s waist gives him a little squeeze. John opens his eyes as he pulls away, still feeling Sherlock’s warm breath on his mouth.)

J: You’ll be fine. I’ll be with you the whole time. (Sherlock frowns with those delectably full lips and John sighs.) I promise we’ll stay in for a whole week if you want. And turn away anyone who comes to visit.

S: Anyone?

J: Anyone.

(Sherlock’s hands glide up and down John’s back. His eyes momentarily drop to John’s lips hungrily and then rise up again innocently.)

S: And if I want to spend the week in our bedroom?

J: (laughing) Then that is where we will be.

S: Promise?

J: Yes, I promise.

(Sherlock studies him for a moment in mock suspicion and then kisses him softly.)

S: (smiling against his lips) Shall we then? It is our reception, after all.

(John returns the kiss and leads his new husband under the trellis into the applause of their friends patiently waiting on the other side.)

[distant-rose]

Seal of Fate Ch. 5 (6/8)

Notes: I’m gonna ask you to trust me for this chapter and the next. Like it’s going to be a roller coaster from here. A lot of craziness happens and some of it is painful but I promise its worth it. In any case, thanks to @cssns​ for a wonderful event. Thank you to @shireness-says​ and @katie-dub​ for being amazing cheerleaders on this fic. And a special thank you as always to my beta @aerica13​ - without you, I would just weep over a blank page. Summary: Emma Swan is looking for only one thing - answers. Abandoned outside a police station in Menemsha, Martha’s Vineyard, Emma has dedicated her life to finding out where she comes from and why she was given away. She finds an unlikely partner in Killian, a selkie she inadvertently summons in a fit of frustration over her cold case. Word Count: 5,100+ AO3: [LINK] Chapters: Prologue | One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Epilogue Rating: T+

Emma couldn’t stop running her fingers over the soft fur of the pelt on her lap. Every time she tried to take her hand away from it, an almost anxious feeling would take hold of her. It was a compulsion that frightened her but she couldn’t stop touching it.

Granny watched her intently, fiddling with her whiskey glass. There were thousands of questions that were swimming in her head and she couldn’t figure out which one to ask first. So much had been revealed in the past five minutes that Emma felt whiplashed. “My parents...” She swallowed, finding her throat dry. “They’re...they’re gone aren’t they?” “I’m sorry.”

Emma squeezed her eyes shut, fingers curling into the pelt. She had considered the possibility that if she ever found who her parents were that they might be dead but now that the possibility was a reality, she felt crushed. The connection that she had been so desperate to find her entire life was now impossible. “You knew them?” “I did...their names were David Nolan and, well, your mother’s name we could never pronounce but we called her Mary-Margaret...they were wonderful people and good friends with my Anita. I thought of them as my own.” “Good people, huh?” She tried not to sound bitter but she could feel the hollowness in her own words. “The best people.” “Then why did they leave me at the police station?” “Oh honey, they didn’t leave you there,” Granny said, putting her glass down and reaching across to place her hand on top of Emma’s. “I did.” The blood in her veins froze as an icy feeling took hold. She didn’t move, too stunned at first, but as soon as she fully grasped what the other woman had told her, she pulled away. Everything inside her was screaming. “Why?” The question came out like a curse. “Because I needed to get you off the island and fast,” she replied, looking at her with a mixture of regret and irritation. “You don’t know how much danger you were in, Emma. I had lost two dear friends of mine to that...that man...and I would have never forgiven myself if he got you too.” “By that man....you mean Gold, don’t you?” Granny didn’t say anything, merely sipped her whiskey. The silence between them was heavy and it was during this moment that Emma realised with stunning clarity that the jar of teeth upon the mantle in Gold’s house could potentially contain some that belong to her parents. Cold feeling inside her grew, clawing into her chest and squeezing her heart. She wanted to throw up. “When I came here...did you know who I was?” “Not at first but I had my suspicions. You looked so much like your mother that I couldn’t help but suspect. It wasn’t until your boyfriend came around asking questions about who found you that I knew for sure.” “But you suspected.” “I did.” “And you didn’t feel the need to say anything to me, to anyone?” “Emma.” Granny’s voice was now sharp. “This isn’t something you can just tell anyone about. You’ve been on the island long enough to know that we don’t work the same way you do on the mainland. You can’t just go to the police or the papers or anything. Fishing is God here and Gold owns the fishing, the paper and the majority of the fish markets in Chilmark and Tisbury. No one goes against him unless they want to be out of work or have someone they love be out of work…I have Ruby to think about. She’s the only thing I have left.”

“At least you have something,” Emma replied bitterly. “I have nothing.”

“Oh? Not even that young man of yours? Imagine how you feel if he was in danger.”

“I don’t need to imagine,” she snapped. “Killian is...he’s like me.”

“You’re both selkies,” Granny whispered in horror. “You need to leave. Now. You should have never come here.”

“I’m not leaving. I’ve been alone all my life and wondered why...why I was never wanted...why anyone would be so cold as to leave me like that. I want answers and I’m not leaving until you give them to me.”

Neither of them said anything for a moment, too busy locked in a staredown; Emma glaring at her and Granny looking back in annoyed exasperation. Emma’s fingers curled so tightly around the pelt that she was almost afraid she would tear it apart. It was the only thing keeping her together at the moment and from giving in to the maelstrom of emotion inside of her.

It was Granny who turned away first, grabbing for her whiskey glass again. Emma briefly wondered if the older woman was trying to get herself drunk before eight o’clock.

“I watched David grow up. The Nolans never had it easy. Their father Robert went to the same school as me and even in high school, he was a mean drunk and worked on the old sheep farm over by Katama...that has since turned into a llama farm and the sheep were sold to Allens in Chilmark...anyway, he drowned in boating accident off of Gay Head and left Ruth alone with the two boys…”

“Two boys? I have an uncle?”

“Had. James died long before you were even born. Car crash in high school. In Chappaquiddick. Like Ted Kennedy but not so lucky.”

“Not sure Mary Jo Kopechne would call that lucky.”

“You know what I mean,” she replied, waving her hand as if she was swatting the comment away. “Went off that same bridge. Poor bastard was 17.”

“Jesus,” Emma muttered under her breath, finally picking up her own glass and taking a sip. She coughed as the alcohol burned her throat.

“Ruth didn’t have a lot of luck but she was a tough woman and worked as a seamstress and a damn good one too. All those fancy parties at Blue Heron? The Kennedys? The Clintons? Your grandmother did the fitting for all of their dresses.”

“Holy shit.”

“She also did my daughter’s christening, first communion and wedding dresses. Could have charged me an arm and a leg, she was that talented but never did. I wanted her to do Ruby’s too but she was too sick by then.”

“Was this before or after my father died?”

“After,” she replied quietly. “I have two regrets in life, Emma. Putting you in the sanctuary box and not telling your grandmother what truly happened to your father. I couldn’t and she suffered for it. She spent all of her time and energy trying to find him, refusing to believe he was gone.”

“You’re a coward,” Emma replied frostily, fingers trembling with cold rage.

“Perhaps I am but I’m alive and my granddaughter is alive. And frankly that’s more than what can be said to those who go against Robert Gold. I’ve watched so more than my share of brave souls go against him and lose….including your father.”

“I thought you said you loved him like a son.” Emma scowled at her over the rim of her glass.

“I did. David was a good man. Hardworking. Intelligent. Handsome. He could have done anything he wanted in life but he chose to stay here and look after his mother. Gave up university so she could keep the house and became the island handyman...sinks, cars, boats, you name it, he could fix it….That’s how I think he met your mother.”

“You think?”

“Well, I don’t know the whole story with them, to be honest. I know the story they spun. That she was a fisherman’s daughter from one of the Carolinas.  I knew that was bullshit from the beginning. She was far too beautiful to be spending weeks on end without bathing.”

“So she was the selkie?”

“I think that ball of sealskin in your hands answers that question more clearly than I ever could,” she replied sardonically.

“What was she like? Aside from pretty.”

“Smart. Feisty. Fierce. She loved the living hell out of your father. The legends always talk about how selkies ensnare humans but I think she was just as head over heels for him as he was for her.”

“How did you find out that she was a selkie?”

“Because when you’re young and in love, you do stupid things. Like meet up in public places like the beach out back. I caught her shedding that skin of hers. And honestly, it was pretty gross. That don’t come off gracefully.”

Emma couldn’t help but pet her pelt defensively in response to that. She didn’t know why but Granny’s words felt insulting to her. The other woman didn’t seem to register her bristling however.

“They tried to play it off like it was some kind of wetsuit but I’ve never been a fool a day in my life,” she continued. “I almost didn’t believe them when they told me the truth but I couldn’t deny what my eyes had seen...I grew up on stories about selkies. My Nan used to whisper about them…Seal wives taken by fishermen and the dangers of selkie men and their kisses….”

“What did you do when you found out?”

“Nothing. I didn’t say a word. I let her stay up in the loft and she shared a room with Anita. Like sisters the two of them. Anita wasn’t the same after it happened. She died eight years after them.”

“What happened?”

Granny pursed her lips. “I’ve lived in this village my entire life and as long as I’ve known Robert Gold, he’s been obsessed with hunting seals. It wasn’t always illegal, you see. And before he completely took over the fishing market, he owned a sealskin business. Expensive, durable and sleek. They were all the rage on the Canadian market and he made the majority of his money off sealskin.”

“You mean he made the majority of his money off slaughtering selkies,” Emma replied, looking down at her pelt as a wave of nausea took hold again.

“I don’t know. When I was a young woman, I didn’t think much about it. I don’t know what came first, whether it was the hunting of seals or selkies. I was never close enough to the man to ask...all I know is rumour.”

“Rumour?”

“That his wife ran off with a selkie man and drowned herself.”

“The rumour mill knows about selkies?”

“No, that’s just my theory but she did run off and came back in a closed coffin. Their son wasn’t the same and he ran off himself after high school. No one has heard from him since. Smart kid. It’s the best thing he could have done for himself rather than be stuck here.”

“And what’s this got to do with my parents?”

Granny eyed the bottle of whiskey that was now down to its last dregs. She reached for it but Emma was quicker, reaching across and snatching it. She held the bottle just out of reach, shaking it violently.

“Answer me.”

“See, this is what I mean when you’re just like them,” Granny scowled. “You don’t think before you act and go around irritating the wrong sort of people. Not ones for tact, your family.”

“What happened to my parents?” Emma asked, unfazed. “You’ve spent the last ten minutes rambling about everything other than what happened. Just tell me.”

“It’s just as I said. They, specifically your father, went around irritating the wrong sort of people. David didn’t take kindly to bullies, especially not Gold. You see, David was a handyman around the island but he wasn’t Gold’s handyman…You see, he had his own guys, and the people renting out his houses were only supposed to use those services...Gold would charge you your soul if he could to have his men snake your pipes. Lots of people couldn’t afford their repairs and they were living in shacks that were expensive enough as is.”

“Jesus, that man is the Devil.”

“No, the Devil is kinder. David got on his bad side by going to the houses and making repairs free of charge. As you could imagine, Gold wasn’t happy about that. They often were at each other’s throats and it wasn’t uncommon to hear them threatening each other...and it wasn’t too long after Gold threatened to sue him that David disappeared.”

“How did you know it was Gold that got him?”

“I didn’t at first,” Granny replied. “I thought perhaps he went to the mainland to find a lawyer and just forgot to tell anyone. It’s wasn’t until Mary-Margaret that I knew what had happened…”

“What happened?”

“Three days after David disappeared, Mary-Margaret came back...with you.”

“Where did she go?”

“Home, I imagine. She would stay for awhile and leave for months on end. She loved your father but I don’t think she could stay away from the ocean for too long. She would get this look when she saw the waves and it was like a compulsion at times. David never begrudged her for it as he seemed to always know she would be back...he would miss her terribly and lord, he would play that Brandy song non-stop. I had to break into that goddamn jukebox myself and remove the record to get him to stop.”

A lump formed in Emma’s throat at this information. She had parents; parents who honestly loved each other. None of this was what she expected. She had half-expected her parents to be teenagers who made a mistake and couldn’t deal with the consequences. Instead, they were something out of a fairytale. She didn’t know which was worse.

“How long had she been gone?”

“Emma, I honestly don’t remember but it had been a while. I didn’t know she was pregnant. Shocked the hell out of me to see her crawl up the beach with you, all swaddled in that pelt. You were cuter than any newborn had the right to be. New babies are supposed to look like aliens. It’s an unwritten rule in the book of humanity...you were perfect.”

“What happened?” She sounded like a broken record at this point but she needed to know. There were still so many questions. She was afraid of the answers but knowing was better than being left in the dark like Ruth, searching blindly and left with nothing but fear and speculation.

“She went looking for him. She left me with you, believing it would take only a matter of hours before she would be back and you would get to meet your father...The hours went by and then  days and then I woke up the one morning to your mother’s pelt on the god awful rack alongside your father’s shirt. Both were covered in blood....Anywhere else in the world, the police would have questioned him about David’s shirt being on that rack...they never brought him in for even questioning.”

The chill from earlier returned. This time it was more condensed, like a ball of dry ice in the pit of her stomach. She had a feeling this was how the story would end. There was a sick poetry to it. Her parents were the stuff of fairytales and a fairytale ending they got, not the sanitized Disney endings that Emma had fallen in love with as a child but the Grimm brothers’ endings with stepsisters cutting their feet to fit a glass slipper and Rapunzel left alone and wandering in the wilderness without her prince.

“Why did you leave me at the police station?”

“I already told you. You were in danger. He killed your parents. It was only a matter of time before he figured out who you were.”

“Why the police station? Talk me through the logic of leaving me there.”

“The police station was close to the diner and it had a sanctuary box...I’m not sure they’re a common thing on the mainland...sometimes they’re called safe haven boxes or baby hatches. In the 1960s, we had issues with abandoned babies. The women from the boats...living at sea is no life for a child, let alone a newborn and they would leave them out in the cold. The St. Andrews Church in Edgartown started the sanctuary boxes in order to give these women a place to put them where no one would ask questions and the children would survive...I figured it was the easiest way to get you to somewhere safe, somewhere far away.”

“You never thought to give me to Ruth?”

“The thought had crossed my mind but that meant telling her what I knew. And she would have thought I was crazy. You weren’t going to be safe, not with me, not with Ruth, I thought I was giving you your best chance.”

Over the course of her life, Emma had gotten good at hiding her emotions, placing a wall between herself and the rest of the world. Before she came here, she could count on her fingers the amount of times she had cried on a single hand. She had cried when she had been arrested, when she found out she was pregnant, when she gave her child away, when she was released from prison and Neal wasn’t there and finally when she first saw her foundling papers.

The walls she had built with trauma and heartbreak had been crumbling over the past few weeks. The bricks had started falling since that first police report, then with Killian and then with each dead end they had encountered. Now, she was left with nothing, not even a foundation.

She didn’t realize she was crying until Granny had reached over to give her a tissue. Emma snatched it quickly, settling as far into her chair as she could to keep distance between them, feeling incredibly raw and vulnerable. Granny seemed to understand her need for space and tentatively grabbed Emma’s forgotten pelt off the floor with the tips of her fingers before placing it carefully on her lap and backing away. She wiped at her face briskly before cradling her pelt to her chest like it was a lifeline.

“I would ask if you were alright but I feel like that’s a waste of breath.”

“No shit,” Emma snapped.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry...for everything.”

Emma didn’t want her apologies and she opened her mouth to make that fact known but as soon as she did, she found the words stuck in her throat. She shut her mouth abruptly, jaw clicking and teeth clanking loudly. It was a waste. All of it was a waste. 

“I need to leave...to think…” Emma said, getting up abruptly.

“You have a lot to process,” Granny nodded in understanding.

“I…” she sucked in a breath. “I’m not sure if I can forgive you.”

“I don’t expect you to. Just know that I tried to do what was right by you and it was never my intention to cause you or anyone else pain.”

She couldn’t respond to that, at least not without lashing out.  Instead, she gave the older woman a curt nod before heading back downstairs. She ignored Ruby’s questions as she walked out of the diner, completely forgetting to pick up the coffee and donuts on the breakfast bar.

She had solved her case. It was a realization that hit her as she was walking up the street and she was so stunned by it that she stopped in her tracks. She had spent her whole life trying to find out why she had been abandoned and who her parents were. It had been her one goal as long as she could remember. And now that it was over. She didn’t know what to do. Not with the information. Not with herself. She never thought past finding the truth because honestly, she never expected to find it. Two weeks in Menemsha and the search that had become her life’s mission was over. What the fuck was she going to do. “Emma…” She broke out of her reverie to see Killian standing in front of her with a tentative expression on his face. She blinked in surprise, taking in her surrounds. She was standing on the beach where she had met him. She didn’t even remember walking here. “Emma…Are you alright?” It was a question she had been asked a thousand times before in life by foster parents, social workers, doctors, nurses and even by the police officer who had arrested her. The question had never felt sincere before, obligatory almost with perhaps a mild surface interest in the answer. Until now. There was a deep furrow in Killian’s brow and her fingers twitched in a sudden impulse to run across the play of folds. His lips were twisted in a small frown as he took a few steps forward into her personal space. The genuine concern in his question reflected in his eyes and she couldn’t stop herself from launching at him, the snow white pelt she had been carrying since Granny’s falling into the sand.

He took it in stride, outstretching his arms and allowing her to fall into them as he curled them around her. She buried her face into his neck in order to hide the quiet sob that came boiling up to the surface again. He didn’t say anything about the sudden wet patch on his shirt, merely held her while swaying them both back and forth. He murmured nonsense into her hair and placed a soft kiss there. Emma just closed her eyes and allowed herself to be comforted, taking in both his scent and the salt of the ocean coming off the breeze.

“I wish you waited for me before going there. I didn’t want you to go on your own…”

“I didn’t want you to be disappointed if it was nothing.”

“I’m assuming it wasn’t.”

“No. It was the opposite of nothing. It was...everything.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked softly, soothing small circles into her back.

“No.”

He nodded, resting his head lightly on top of hers and just continued rocking them back and forth. Emma couldn’t help but feel grateful that he hadn’t pushed her on this. Neither of them spoke for a minute.

“You forgot the donuts.”

She couldn’t help but laugh at that, whacking him in the shoulder. More tears leaked from her eyes but this time they held more mirth.

“Oh my god, you would!”

“You promised me donuts, Swan,” he teased, lifting up his thumb and wiping her cheeks. “Donuts and coffee, I believe your note said.”

“Yeah, well, I got a little preoccupied.”

“I noticed,” he said gently before pulling away.

She felt bereft for a moment from the loss of contact until she realized he was picking up her pelt. Something akin to panic jolted through her as he gingerly took it into his hands, his thumb running over it gently. He looked up at her with almost mournful expression before holding it out to her. She snatched it out of his grasp faster than neither of them could blink, hugging it to her chest.

“That,” he spoke so softly that Emma almost missed the anger in his voice, “is an abomination.”

“What?” She looked at him in horror, completely taken aback by his words. She clutched it closer to her, as if trying to shield it from him.

“It is an abomination,” he repeated. “To take a pelt from a pup.”

“I didn’t take it,” she hissed. “It’s mine!”

“I know it’s yours,” he said, meeting her eyes. “I’m not angry at you, love. I’m angry for you. You have no idea what has been stolen from you. It’s really no wonder you felt so lost and alone all of your life...you said you felt like something was missing all of your life...and it was...but it wasn’t your parents...it was you.”

Emma flinched at his words, looking away from him and down at the soft pelt in her arms.

“How did you know it was mine?” she asked slowly.

“Because I know you,” he replied quietly. “And you aren’t the type to do such a thing...and because I already suspected.”

“You already suspected what?” She looked up, narrowing her eyes at him.

“I suspected that you might have selkie heritage,” he admitted.

“How long?”

“Since the first night if we’re being honest,” he replied. “When you pushed me away.”

“You suspected I was a selkie because I wouldn’t sleep with you?” She spat.

“Selkies can’t seduce selkies, Emma.”

“You knew,” she whispered in disbelief. “You knew all along and you never told me!”

“Knowing and suspecting are entirely different things! I didn’t want to believe that you were because I knew it would mean this!” He said, shaking his head. “I kept hoping it wasn’t true and I allowed myself to believe that because you’re blonde, maybe you were just human after all.”

“What the fuck does hair color have to do with anything?”

“Seals are dark, Emma. Our adult pelts are dark, so in human form we tend to have brown, black or gray hair.”

“My father was a blond!” she shot back.

“Emma.” His voice was strained. “If you have a pelt, you were born in the water. You weren’t born human, you were born a seal. Human genetics don’t apply here.”

She didn’t reply; couldn’t think of anything she could say in response to that. How did one respond to finding out they weren’t necessarily human? She didn’t know and a part of her wished there was some sort of manual - a How to Come to Terms With Being a Different Species for Dummies.

“The only reason for you to be so light is shedding your pelt as a newborn. That pelt you’re holding, we only have for three weeks, Emma. You were less than three weeks old when you shed your pelt. I can’t think of any reason why a mother would allow you to shed so young!”

“She wanted me to meet my father,” she replied softly.

“Your father was human then?”

“Oh, you didn’t suspect that too?” she asked bitterly.

“You’re not being fair.”

“No!” she hissed at him. “You do not get to talk to me about fair! Fairness doesn’t exist! If the world was fair, I would have had parents! I would have had a home! I would have had my son! Nothing, absolutely nothing, is fair!”

He stepped away from her. “I’m not the one you’re mad at, love.”

“Really? Because I’m pretty sure you’re the asshole who withheld the fact that I’m a fucking seal!”

“Selkie,” he corrected. The word seemed to fly out of his mouth automatically.

“Oh fuck you!”

“Calling yourself a seal is derogatory, Em-”

“I really don’t fucking care,” she cut him off. “I don’t. I really just don’t.”

His lips formed a tight thin line and Emma could tell he wanted to argue with her but he remained silent. There was a long pregnant pause and Emma wanted nothing more to be away from him, from everyone.

“I don’t know what to say to make this better,” he said after a moment, licking his lip. “You’re right. What happened to you isn’t fair. I don’t know what she told you or what exactly happened but I can only imagine that it was something horrible.”

“They’re dead…”

“I figured as much.”

She debated telling him about Gold but decided against it. Killian would do something with that information, something bad and much worse than trespassing onto Gold’s property. She knew he would murder the man with his bare hands if given the opportunity and though Emma was angry about what had happened to her parents, Gold’s death would not bring them back. The only thing it could do is potentially take Killian away from her.

“Is there anything you don’t know?” she asked bitterly.

“You make it seem like I know everything. I don’t. I just know that I’ve spent the last two weeks with you and that the only way someone in their right mind would have left you is if they couldn’t come back.”

“Tell that to the eleven foster homes I went to,” she replied bitterly. “Tell that to fucking Neal.”

“I think the key phrase there is ‘in their right mind.’ Which they weren’t. Couldn’t possibly have been.”

“I…” she sucked in a breath, feeling some of her anger leaving her. “I just...Thank you.”

“It’s just the truth, love.”

She couldn’t handle it. It was just too much between Granny, what had happened to her parents and the revelation that she was actually a selkie. Adding Killian and his goddamn sincerity and emotions on top of it was overwhelming.

She needed to get away.

“Listen, thank you,” Emma mumbled. “I just…I think I need to go grocery shopping.”

Killian blinked, looking lost and horribly confused.

“What?”

“I need to go grocery shopping,” she repeated.

Killian opened his mouth to reply but seemed to think better of it. He looked at her in something that looked suspiciously like understanding and Emma had to avert her eyes. She fiddled with her pelt nervously.

“Okay,” he said softly. “It’s okay. I get it. You need those bloody Poptarts.”

“Yes,” she laughed uneasily, as she walked . “You hate them.”

“They’re absolutely disgusting,” he replied with a tight smile.

It wasn’t until she was in the car that she remembered that Killian had done the grocery shopping yesterday. And he had bought the Poptarts. Cursing under her breath, she turned off the main track and went onto North Road, heading west. There were only two Stop & Shops on the island, one in Vineyard Haven and the other on the outskirts of Edgartown. She reasoned to herself that trekking thirty minutes to the other side of the island would be worth it if she was able to pick up a few things that wouldn’t be available in the village market.

It would also look like she hadn’t completely run off on him.

“The market doesn’t have Cinnamon Toast Crunch,” she mumbled aloud, trying to reason with herself.

There were only three cars parked in front of Stop & Shop but Emma still parked near the back of the lot, trying to keep distance between herself and anyone else. A large black sedan parked right next to her, dashing her strategy but she paid it no mind as she walked over to the trunk of her car to collect her plastic shopping bags, willfully ignoring the car and its driver.

That was a mistake on her part.

As she closed the trunk, there was a sharp pain in the back of her head and suddenly everything was black.

[maidenofsophia]

Thoughts on Mary Magdalene (2018)

Here is my completely non-professional review of Garth Roberts’ film ‘Mary Magdalene’:

....Meh.

Okay, to be fair, I watched this on New Years Day when I was slightly hungover so I probably owe it a rewatch with my full attention. But here are my initial thoughts. There really isn’t much to spoil but, for what little is ‘original’ on this take....Spoilers Ahead!

The Good.

- I enjoyed the scenes with Mary’s family. I think the shift to making her a midwife made a lot of sense and reminded me a little of the Red Tent (which, like this movie, also has a squicky scene that reminded me why I never want to give birth, but that’s another point). But I like the connection she had with her....sisters in law, I think? Possibly even a stepmother? To be honest, they don’t do too well establishing who these people are or if it’s just a community sharing a house. The jist I got was that Mary’s blood relatives were her brothers and her dad, who I did like. They were patriarchal and traditional, but they weren’t painted as villains. Even when they try to ‘cleanse’ her, you can see how torn up about it they are, and believe what they’re doing is out of love.

- I especially liked Mary’s dad. Most Magdalene legends always have him as an asshole who just views his daughter as chattel to sell off, but you could tell this dude adores her and stops his sons from almost drowning her, and he holds her throughout the night, clearly wracked with guilt. The scene where he tearfully lets Mary go to join Yeshua was really well done and I’m kinda sad we don’t see him for the rest of the movie. This is mostly a personal thing but I just personally prefer the idea of Mary being close with her father, as something of a mirror to Yeshua and his mother.

- Joaquin Phoenix is a very different Jesus than what I’m used to seeing and I’m glad about that. I can’t say he’s my favourite (that’s still Ralph Fiennes), and yes it’s another sad case of white washing a Palestinian Jewish man. But that aside, I thought he brought a vulnerability to Jesus that you don’t usually see, unless it’s during scenes like the Passion which mostly take place off screen here as it’s all through Magdalene’s POV. Like you see Jesus become overwhelmed and drained by healing people and, like Mary, I did feel like I just wanted to get him away and somewhere safe, even though Peter and the others kept encouraging people to come to the Messiah.

-  As I mentioned before, Mary is given a different backstory here than the penitent prostitute. She’s also not given the ‘madness’ of being possessed by any actual, or implied, demons. It’s more that she’s trapped in a life she doesn’t want and feels depressed, which is definitely relatable, now as much as back then for a lot of people; women especially. So I thought Yeshua’s scene of ‘healing her’ being less of a “Begone demon!” and more him comforting and consoling her, reassuring her of God’s love, was pretty sweet.

- Similar to Mary, this movie follows a bit of a ‘Gnostic’ trend, on its take with Judas as well. He’s given a more personal motivation, as he’s not just out for bloody revenge on the Romans, it’s more that he wants the prophecy to be fulfilled so he can see his late wife and daughter again. Other than her tense relationship with Peter, he’s the disciple that Mary talks to most and they have a close connection to the end. And the movie implies that Judas’ betrayal was ‘part of the plan’ or what needed to kick things into motion....or at least he believed that was the case. It wasn’t just a case of selling his rabbi out for silver.

- Mary baptising the women. Honestly it was seeing gifs of this scene that made me want to see the movie and it didn’t disappoint. It was just a nice moment. Also how they bookended the movie with the verse on the mustard seed and the woman who tended to it tying into Mary helping to grow the kingdom. Also, I LOVE that the focus of her is that she is a spiritual woman in her own right. While she clearly loves Yeshua, it is not even implied to be sexual. Romantic, possibly, but could also be just as much platonic. The two have decent chemistry for what their bond is - SHE IS NOT HIS WIFU. Thank you, movie! Also the scene of her washing his feet followed by sitting at his side at the Last Supper with the shot being framed with her as his right hand girl. Nice little touches that just showed this movie cared about wanting to do the image of Magdalene justice.

Right, now the....Not So Good.

- Anyone familiar with the Gnostic gospels knows that Peter doesn’t always get shown in the best light, especially in his and Mary’s relationship. So, other than the Romans etc, he’s the closest this movie has to an antagonist, in that he’s the one who is most opposed to Mary in the group. And while his character isn’t terrible, he’s not even technically a bad guy, there’s something annoying about how they white washed everyone else but had the antagonist played by a black man. It just annoys me when movies and tv do that, like; “see, we have diversity! The heroes might be white but the guy you’re meant to be against is a poc!” BBC are apparently doing a similar thing with their latest retelling of Les Mis.

- If you’re going to tell a Jesus story through the eyes of Mary Magdalene, how about take advantage of the source material. There’s a pretty good scene where Mary helps Jesus speak to women in a village before she baptises them and he speaks about forgiveness etc and it’s a fine speech. But I feel like opportunities were missed to see Mary involved in canon scenes of Jesus interacting with women; like the woman who touches his cloak in the crowd, or raising Jairus’ Daughter or the Canaanite Woman’s child, or the woman at the well, or the ‘cast the first stone’ woman who is often wrongly said to be Magdalene. The movie also forgets that Yeshua had other women followers besides his mother, who also doesn’t get as much screen time as she deserves. There’s no sign of the younger Mary, or Martha, or Salome etc who we could have seen Mary interact with or even preach to. At the end we get a bit of a cool shot where, after the men have dismissed Mary’s vision, it’s the women who gather to her - but it’s very brief and feels too little too late.

- I wouldn’t be too miffed at them cutting out scenes from the Bible if they were going to replace them with anything interesting and unique, but the movie just...doesn’t. There’s a sort of side quest plot where Peter and Mary go to a village to preach and find a load of people dying and at first I thought the point was that it strengthens their friendship...but in the end it didn’t and I didn’t really understand the point other than to show Mary was compassionate and Peter kind of short-sighted which was already pretty clear. Maybe use that time to establish more why Peter has something against Mary other than just the implication that he’s...jealous, I guess. The movie is almost two hours long and between Mary leaving her family and them coming to Jerusalem, I can barely tell you what happens in that hour or so.

- I get the feeling that this movie wanted to focus more on Mary’s time with Jesus before the Passion, which are scenes we’ve already seen focused on enough times, and I’m all for that. But how the Passion, Crucifixion and Resurrection scenes are handled feel very rushed. She’s absent through most of the crucifixion until the very end, the scene of her witnessing the resurrection is pretty badly juxtaposed (and there’s no “do not touch me” moment) that I had to watch it twice to see if it was really there or a different ‘vision’. And her being the actual Apostle to the Apostles feels like it was trying to mix in the disciples rejection of her from the Gospel of Mary and I felt like you could have had that be two separate scenes. Basically the key moment Magdalene is celebrated, whether in Orthodox or mystic Christian circles, is barely present in the movie centred around her.

- And the biggest criticism I have with the movie is sadly Mary herself. Most of this might be subjective but one of the most captivating traits of Magdalene’s character is her passion. Her energy. It contrasts her to the mild and patient Virgin Mother. This Mary is very quiet and collected, which doesn’t make her a bad character, but it just doesn’t feel very Magdalene-y. And I think you can still have her be passionate while still taking away the ‘mad whore’ stereotype she’s been wrongly given for so long. The Red Tent, again, managed to do a wonderful job having Dinah as a strong, no-nonsense heroine. There didn’t seem to be anything that really made Mary stand out from any other woman around her. She starts off with a bit of a Disney Princess trope of not wanting to get married and wanting more than is expected of her, but given her surroundings and the women she meets later on, that also doesn’t make her stand out all that much. The actress does okay with what she’s given, but - other than some key scenes between her and Yeshua - I just don’t really my Magdalene there.

But, to the movie’s credit, I do feel like it was trying to show THEIR Magdalene, which is fair enough. And just like Yeshua, there really is no one right way of seeing her. I prefer to see her as a loud, loving, somewhat eccentric passionate spiritual teacher and leader, but this movie wanted to show her as something different from what we’ve seen before; brave but restrained, caring and understanding, and definitely enlightened as much if not more than the male disciples. And it did a pretty good way of showing that, even if I think it could have been done better with an improved overall narrative.

Overall; I just kind of found the movie dull. I respect it for trying to show the Magdalene in a better light and almost as an example for women as leaders in the Church. But I hope this can also be done in a more entertaining movie someday. Again, my favourite Magdalene depiction is still from the Miracle Maker. Yes, it begins with following the ‘repentant mad prostitute’ story, but that’s pretty quickly resolved in a powerful scene and she remains throughout the rest of the film at his side and her meeting him outside the tomb always gets me teary eyed. Similar to Prince of Egypt, I enjoy biblical movies more when they don’t shy away from the drama and character conflict, rather than trying to focus on pushing the story we already know. We can all just read the Bible to get that but the point of a movie is to make us feel like we are there and invested and, for lack of a better word, entertained. Animated movies allow more of the drama to get expressed than live action actors can. It’s a shame they are both written off as ‘childrens versions’ because I think both PoE and MM feel more adult and handle their stories with more depth than the live action versions.

Would I recommend this film though? I guess if you’re a die-hard Magdalene fan like me, you’ll get something out of it with seeing a story where she isn’t turned into a prostitute, and getting to see her baptise people and get across how she understood Yeshua’s message. Just don’t be expecting anything amazing. Kind of annoyed there wasn’t a rental option on Amazon Video because I definitely don’t think it’s worth a buy, but hey ho.

[addictedtojohnandsherlock]

Chapter 65

**It’s finally time!!**

(A perfect autumn evening, just at sunset. The garden is full of turning leaves and vibrant flowers. Amber Chandler, licensed celebrant, stands under the trellis with a smile on her face, ready to preside over the ceremony. She has become very well acquainted with John and Sherlock over the last few weeks. She likes to know as much as she can about the people she marries and, as a result, asked them to meet with her six times at regular intervals leading up to the wedding. John had agreed straight away, no doubt expecting such a request. Sherlock had glowered immediately, eyeing her and then John in turn.)

S: Will this be considered premarital counseling?

AC: If you like.

S: (curling his lip in disapproval) I do not believe we are in need of such counseling.

J: (quietly) Sherlock.

AC: (unfazed) Then don’t think of it that way.

S: (cocking a brow) I fail to see its relevance.

AC: Fair enough. I’d really like to get to know you both a little before I bind you together.

(Sherlock looked at John triumphantly and John had face palmed. They had obviously discussed this at length prior to the meeting.)

S: So you can inform us we were not meant to be.

AC: No. (laughing) So I can tailor the ceremony to your specific relationship and personalities. (The suspicious detective narrowed his eyes and studied her intently. She just smirked, already liking this cantankerous character.) It’s not a trick, I promise. If I do say something that seems like counseling, it isn’t going to be anything you don’t already know and you don’t have to listen. You don’t have to care. Fair enough?

S: (still very skeptical) Acceptable.

AC: Great. When are you both free next? Couple days? Afternoon work? And don’t worry. (winking at Sherlock) The ropes don’t chafe.

(It all proceeded from there. Amber learned a great deal about both men in that first conversation and every meeting after also provided a wealth of information. She liked to think the two men learned more about one another too, but never expected it of any couple she married. She truly did not lie when she told Sherlock he didn’t have to care about a word she said.)

(Amber smiles to herself as she looks out at the small crowd of people seated before her. A diverse group to be sure. Friends from the surgery, a handful from John’s army days, and a few of the Yarders. Sally Donovan being one of the most animated, judging by the grin on her face. Sarah, her husband, and their daughter Madeleine are all seated close by, beaming from ear to ear. Billy Wiggins and a small troupe of Sherlock’s homeless network, who blend in quite well with everyone else, are at hand too. 

Amber’s grin broadens as her eyes hover over the guests in the front rows. Each of them holds a special place in John and Sherlock’s hearts. They are the family on which these men depend, whether they admit it or not.)

(Bertrum Smythe, Sherlock’s tailor, a man who has known him since he first moved to London and has loved him like a son from the beginning.

Mrs. Martha Hudson, the matriarch, who essentially adopted Sherlock when he moved into 221B and who did the same with John when he joined the detective. She is secretly credited with bringing them together, leading them in the right direction with her hints and suggestions, both subtle and obvious.

Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock’s older brother and general pain in his ass. While Mycroft certainly takes pleasure in annoying the younger Holmes, he honestly does do it because he worries constantly. He has considered Sherlock his responsibility and not simply his brother since the day their parents died.

Molly Hooper, friend and colleague to both men, and Mycroft’s wife. How such a sweet woman came to know these men so well is still a mystery to Amber, despite the explanations she has received. Molly’s effect on each of them speaks volumes to her quiet strength.

A short laugh slips passed Amber’s lips as her eyes rest on the best men. Standing before her, nervously smiling at one another, are Greg Lestrade and Mike Stamford. Each a long-time friend to one of the grooms and both overjoyed.

Mike stands to Amber’s left. Bursting with excited energy, he can’t stay still and shuffles his feet this way and that, a grin plastered across his face. Greg, on the other hand, stands stalk still to Amber’s right. His eyes are wide, but unseeing. His face is a paper-white mask of panic.)

AC: (whispering) Greg.

(He snaps immediately from his stupor, eyes focusing on her. She leans forward a skosh and motions him over with a quick snap of her chin. He takes a step closer and leans in, an uneasy look on his face.)

AC: What is it? You lose the ring?

G: What? No. (hand settling over his chest with a gentle pat, breast pocket lying beneath) I have it.

AC: Then relax. (She smiles sweetly.) This is supposed to be a happy occasion. Let’s not bicker and argue about who killed who.

(A quiet laugh pops from his lips. Her smile broadens and she taps his shoulder lightly.)

AC: There ya go. You don’t even have to do anything.

G: Right. (exhaling slowly) Right.

(Greg steps back again and relaxes his shoulders. Amber huffs a short giggle as the music changes to signal that the ceremony will start soon. Greg’s body stiffens again, brown eyes darting to Amber. She just continues smiling and shakes her head, thoroughly amused.

Jane Eaglen’s “The Dreame” drifts across the garden, elegant stringed instruments augmenting her perfectly clear soprano.

Or scorne, or pity on me take,

I must the true relation make.

I am undone tonight;

Love in a subtle dreame disguised

Hath both my heart and me surprised.

(From her seat in the front row, Molly smiles brightly and looks around wistfully. Her acute examiner’s eyes take in every detail of the scene. The full blooms on the trellis in radiant fall colors, the crimson rose petals scattered throughout the grass, the wade pool with blood orange flowers floating delicately on its waters. Sighing happily, she turns her head toward her husband, intending to kiss his lips lightly, but her brows furrow ever so slightly and head tilts in question when she sees his thoughtful frown. Taking her hand in his, he puts voice to his concerns before she can.)

M: You regret not having this. That we were married in secret.

MH: (smiling at him, love and honesty in her eyes) I regret nothing about that day. Or about you, love.

(Mycroft’s worried expression gives way to adoration and he squeezes her hand. She tips forward to press her lips briefly against his smile and then leans close, their arms touching.)

AC: Will you all please rise?

(Everyone stands and turns to face the isle cutting through the center of the crowd. The music changes again to a recording of Sherlock playing an abbreviated version of a piece he composed for John. The perfect notes swell victoriously and drop down to near silence, telling the very soul of their story with its glory and tragedy.)

(After a full minute, the two grooms appear in the glass doors that lead into the house. The doors flutter open as if by magic and the men step out into the garden, arm in arm. They walk slowly down the short isle, beaming at each of their friends as they pass. Bertie sniffs quietly and brushes a wet eye when Sherlock’s gaze meets his. Mrs. Hudson has been misty since “The Dreame” began and she smiles softly as her boys walk by.

When they reach the front, John and Sherlock take their places in between the best men and unlatch their arms. Everyone has turned and all eyes face Amber. She smiles kindly and begins as the music fades away.)

AC: Please be seated. (The crowd complies. She looks at the four men standing before her.) Not you, I’m afraid. You all have to tough it out.

(Mike chuckles, Greg just tries to breathe, and Sherlock rolls his eyes. John keeps smiling and exhales deeply, letting everything sink in.)

AC: When I first met John and Sherlock, I had certain expectations. I read John’s blog. We all do, whether or not we choose to admit it. (glancing at Mycroft) I like to think I had some idea of their personalities going in, and that first meeting did not prove me wrong.

Sherlock was rude and suspicious and studied me with such intensity that I felt stripped of all secrets and pretenses. Defenseless to the onslaught of deduction that was surely coming. I immediately knew that if I were to hire him for a case, I would receive the nothing but the best work and a speedy conclusion.

John was stern and calm and quick to laugh. Very polite, but with a temper lurking beneath. A good soldier and a good doctor. I immediately knew I would receive only the best care, far better than even my expectations, if I was a his patient.

Now, we all know these two men work well together and they are clearly best friends. The proof of both is in the blog. But what would draw them together into something more? Two men who seem polar opposites. They’ll drive each other mad, I thought. Why aren’t they insane already? It must be the sex.

(The smiles and quiet chuckles in the garden give way to real laughter when Mrs. Hudson, of all people, lets out a burst of jocularity at that. She glances around at the other guests, a hint of pink on her cheeks, but with no other indication of embarrassment.)

Mrs. H: They are quite noisy.

(Everyone laughs heartily. John tucks his chin to his chest and smiles, his cheeks crimson. Sherlock bites his lip to keep from grinning and angles his face to catch a glimpse of his groom.)

M: (in a low mischievous tone) Allow me to sound proof the building, Mrs. Hudson.

(More laughter fills the air. The grooms catch each other’s eye and smile shyly.)

AC: And then something happened. (reigning everyone in again) I almost didn’t notice it. It was the smallest of movements. They were sitting together on a sofa and, while he was talking, without the slightest giveaway, John slowly angled his leg until his knee touched Sherlock’s.

I could see the warmth spiraling from that single point, filling both men with comfort. At that moment, the meeting changed. John and Sherlock both eased back into the sofa and relaxed. Sherlock was still pretty skeptical, but he was willing to listen and talk.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. John’s always keeping the peace, making sure Sherlock behaves himself, (Sherlock lifts his chin and gives her a haughty look) but it’s more than that. John brings Sherlock peace. And Sherlock does the same for John.

The more I met with them, the more I realized that they were both restless and incomplete before they met one another. Neither was happy. Something was missing. After every solved case, after every battle or patient, something was always missing.

And then, one touch, one look changed everything. ‘May I borrow your mobile?’ ... ‘Here, use mine.’

(Mike can’t help but puff up with pride.)

AC: Both minds stopped. Quiet at last. John and Sherlock have both referred to that moment as the beginning. The moment each knew he could find what he’d always been missing. And as time went on, they each began to realize there was more than friendship between them. A thousand looks while their backs were turned, lingering just a little too close for a little too long, and finally...that first kiss.

(Amber pauses. The silence is broken only by quiet sniffling. Molly rivals Mrs. Hudson for the wettest eyes.)

AC: I wish I could say it has all been smooth sailing from that moment on, but it has not. What it has been is life, and one that John and Sherlock would never exchange. One that they are overjoyed. Ecstatic. To live together.

(Sherlock and John meet eyes, both nearly giddy. The detective reaches for his blogger’s hand and squeezes it warm with his fingers. A quiet giggle passes through John’s lips. Sherlock’s silver eyes sparkle at the sound.)

AC: Gentleman, please face each other and join hand. (Sherlock glances at her with a cock of his brow and she smirks.) You’re always one step ahead.

(There are a few giggles as Sherlock faces John fully and accepts John’s hand when he reaches for him. John straightens his shoulders, grinning at his detective. A shiver runs down his spine. His whole body is tingling with anticipation. In mere minutes, Sherlock will be his husband. He will be Sherlock’s husband. He will be Dr. John Holmes Watson.)

J: Sherlock, I’ve been thinking.

(Sherlock narrows his eyes, honing in on his fiance.)

S: John, I will not let you see my vows and it is not because I haven’t yet written them.

J: (pausing) You haven’t written your vows yet?

(The taller man straightens his spine and looks away stubbornly.)

S: I’m not going to write them down. I know what I want to say. (looking at John and pursing his lips) I have thought about it a great deal.

(John blinks slowly and exhales loudly. John Watson Number 10: The ‘What the fuck’ face.)

J: Fine. Forget it. I was actually talking about my name.

S: Your name?

J: Yes, I’d like to change my name once we’re married.

S: To something other than John? No. I do not approve. I will still call you John.

J: Not my first name, you git. Hamish. I want to change Hamish. (he pauses and his tone softens) I want to change it to Holmes.

(Sherlock’s defiant expression melts into one of shock. His mouth opens and closes a few times before he can finally find the words.)

S: John Holmes Watson. You want to take my name?

J: Yes. (He wipes a tear from Sherlock’s cheek and looks into his shining eyes.) It’s ironic, don’t you think? That my middle name already begins with an H.

S: It is. More than you know. (clearing his throat) I intended on changing William to Watson.

J: (huffing a short laugh) Watson Sherlock Scott Holmes?

S: (sighing) I will also alter its position.

J: (laughing and pecking Sherlock’s delicious lips playfully) Sherlock Watson Holmes... I like it.

AC: At this time, our grooms would like to exchange vows before all of you, their family and friends.

(Amber nods to Sherlock. He smiles and looks at John, meeting his deep blue eyes. When he begins to speak, his rich baritone wavers, but quickly evens out without losing any of its sincerity.)

S: John, when I first met you, I thought you were like everyone else. As easy to read as a book with no cover. You moved into the flat. We worked our first case. And you did what no one has done. You surprised me. As I sat in the back of an ambulance, wrapped in that infernal orange blanket, I watched you. I met your eyes and knew at that moment that I must learn everything about this miraculous man called John Watson.

I knew I cared for you almost immediately, but did not realize just how much until you and Sarah were taken during The Blind Banker. It quickly became clear to me that, in spite of myself, my feelings ran deeper than friendship. Much deeper. And I was terrified. I had spent my life ignoring, suppressing, denying my emotions in favor of what I thought was a higher level of existence. One devoid of sentiment and the difficulties that come with it. I tried to push it down, hide my feelings away until they faded completely. But they didn’t fade at all. They grew stronger.

Then that night by the pool... (shaking his head and stepping closer) When I tore off that coat and the Semtex, I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to hold you in my arms and feel our bodies touch over every inch. I wanted so much to tell you everything. Every thought, every feeling, everything I suddenly knew I could never suppress again. (shrugging) But I couldn’t find the words. Sherlock Holmes, who knows all, sees all, who misses nothing, had not the words to express his deepest emotions.

So I hid it from you. I watched you date, sabotaged your relationships, wondered with mind-numbing curiosity when you stopped dating, not daring to hope it was because you felt something for me. It wasn’t until Scandal in  Belgravia that I even knew what to call my feelings, and then I hadn’t the voice. She threw it in our faces again and again, challenging me. But I walked away. I could not bring myself to say the words for fear of failure, or disappointing you...losing you. Even after you confessed your feelings for me, even now, I avoid saying it in the presence of others. So, I say it now. 

I love you. I love you. I love you. (By the third time, every muscle in his body that was tense has relaxed. His face is peaceful and a smile dances across his lips.) 

I love you more than the universe is wide - 100,000 light years side to side. (Stunned, John looks at his groom with surprised eyes. His jaw drops, the corners of his mouth curling.) It bulges in the middle, 16,000 light years thick. It’s 3000 light years wide by the Earth. I know it all now. The universe, our solar system. I memorized it for you, John. I’m still uncertain why this knowledge is so necessary to you, but what is important to you is of the utmost importance to me. (flashing a grin, his brows rising) You, it’s always been you. You keep me right.

You, John Watson, are my sun, my conductor of light, and I will orbit you for all time.

(The garden is dead silent, as if even the wildlife stopped to listen. A tear rolls down John’s cheek and drips off his chin when he smiles up at Sherlock adoringly. A breathless Sherlock watches, quietly marveling at his beautiful John, memorizing every detail of the doctor’s face in this moment.

Amber smiles at the detective and then nods the go-ahead for John. He inhales deeply and swallows hard. Sherlock can tell what he’s thinking as if he were saying it to him. How can I possibly follow that? The detective smiles tenderly and squeezes John’s hands. The doctor meets his eyes. Don’t worry. It will be perfect. John smiles and wets his lips, inhaling deeply once again before he begins.)

J: Sherlock, you amaze me. Although, (he grins mischievously, eyes bright) after our first few words, I might have thought amazingly rude. (Quiet titters float about the garden and even Sherlock cannot help the grin that spreads over his own lips. How different they were then.) And then you said Afghanistan or Iraq, and I was hooked. (John shrugs his shoulders and affects John Watson Number 202: adorable, honest, vulnerable, content.)

You see everything. You know everything about everyone in a single look and I thought, after that first case, that there was absolutely no way you didn’t see right through me. Every look, every movement, every stolen glance. (still grinning, but looking sheepish) I tried to be...subtle about it because I knew I’d never be able to stop and I was afraid to hear your opinion on it. I’d even look at your ass when your back was turned, for Christ sake. (more chuckles, tutting from a teary Mrs. Hudson) But I could never keep my eyes off your lips. And I couldn’t even hope to hide it.

(John pauses and his eyes drop before he can stop them. Both men wet their lips without thinking, looking into the other’s eyes.)

Amazing. In my mind, there was no way you didn’t know and no chance you had any interest. Not in an ordinary, broken army doctor like me. Also something I learned during that first case - that you were married to your work.

So I dated and I denied. If I’m honest, I wasn’t annoyed that people thought we were a couple as much as I was that we weren’t. I wanted so badly to be everything to you, but knew I never would be. As the years passed, so much happened between us and...I gave up. (Sherlock cocks a  brow.) I gave up dating. I wanted you, and only you. I’d grown to love you so completely. And I thought, it’s fine. It’s fine if he doesn’t want me, as long as he’s in my life.

(dipping his chin, embarrassed once again, and raised his eyes to gaze at the taller man) I didn’t know what to do after New Year’s Eve. Our first kiss. I can still feel your lips on mine. It was the first time I dared to think you might feel the same. That maybe I could be more than your best friend.

S: (in his silky baritone) And then, the dinner.

J: (smiling) Yes, dinner. You were prodding me about spending so much time with Mycroft, like you were jealous, and...and I just said it. (His hand raises to cup the detective’s cheek lightly) God, I love you, Sherlock. You give of yourself so fully, so completely. And not just to me. To everyone you care about, whether it’s easy or the hardest thing to do. 

(biting at his lip) It has been hard for us. But every time I’ve been so frightened and empty, you’ve brought me back. You take me in your arms and hold me tightly to your warmth, your life. Just like you did when we met. (John meets Sherlock’s silver eyes and swallows down a sob. Tears pricking at the corners of his own, even as he blinks to hold them back.) I was so alone and you gave me so much. Time and time again. Now, I... (his voice hitches, but he presses on) I will spend my life giving you all I have. Everything I have in my heart, everything you deserve. I’ll hold nothing back. Not anymore. You are a good man. The best man. And I will do my best to be worthy of you..

(A tear falls from John’s sparkling, deep blue eyes. He suddenly feels Sherlock’s hand at his nape, bowing his head, their foreheads pressing together. John closes his eyes and more tears fall. He tries to slow his rapid breaths and steady his heart. Sherlock sighs and then inhales John’s scent deeply, whispering gentle words to him alone.)

S: You are, John. You are.

(Sherlock raises his head and kisses the smaller man’s forehead. They take a step back from one another and lock eyes. Sherlock has never seen John so vulnerable. He shivers, even as John does the same, seeing the same expression on Sherlock’s face. Their hands slip away from necks and cheeks until they find one another again, long and short fingers holding tight. A small smile sparks on Sherlock’s lips. A wide grin plays across John’s in response.

Amber clears her throat and steps closer to the couple.)

AC: Sherlock Holmes, do you take John Watson to be your lawfully wedded husband. To give him your whole heart and keep his for the whole of your lives, and as long as your souls live beyond.

S: I do.

AC: John Watson, do you take Sherlock Holmes to be your lawfully wedded husband. To give him your whole heart and keep his for the whole of your lives, and as long as your souls live beyond.

J: God, yes. I do.

(John raises a brow when Sherlock visibly shivers. The taller man does not break eye contact, nor does he acknowledge that anything unusual happened at all. John’s lips begin to curl, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes, which momentarily lose their focus. He has the oddest feeling of deja vu, as if he and Sherlock have done this before, not once but many times. The words ‘I do’ falling from his lips. A shiver running through Sherlock’s slender body.

The sound of Amber clearing her throat draws John’s attention, his eyes focusing on Sherlock once again. He wears a quizzical expression, a hint of concern in his silver eyes. John’s mouth curves upward in reassurance and comfort. It seems his message is received when Sherlock returns the smile.)

AC: At this time, John and Sherlock have chosen to exchange rings as a symbol of their love and commitment to one another. Greg, Mike, if you please.

(Mike and Greg each step up and place a wedding ring on the small, purple notebook she holds in her hands. She nods at them in turn with a broadening smile at Greg, mouthing ‘All done’ at him. He beams back at her.)

AC: Thank you. (looking to John and Sherlock) Gentlemen, please take these rings.

(Both men pick up a ring and then return gazing at one another. Their bodies are tingling. John actually feels like his lips might be numb. He tips up onto his toes for a second and drops back down again. Sherlock’s brows shoot up and down, and he grins at his groom like a complete idiot.)

AC: Sherlock, if you please.

(Sherlock lifts John’s left hand and begins sliding the textured platinum ring onto his finger as he speaks, his words rising into the air like a prayer.)

S: When I was young, my mother used to tell me that at a very few times in life, if I was lucky, I might meet someone who is exactly right for me. Not because he is perfect, or because I am, (his eyes lift slowly to meet John’s) but because our combined flaws are arranged in a way that allows two separate beings to hinge together. I have, for the first time, found what I can truly love. I have found you.

AC: (looking to the misty-eyed doctor) John, if you please.

(John sniffles quietly and gently raises Sherlock’s left hand. He speaks in a hushed voice as he glides the smooth band of tungsten carbide he revealed to Sherlock only moments ago on his long finger.)

J: You are sunlight falling through trees. You are laughter that breaks through my sadness. You are a cool breeze on a day that is too warm. You are clarity in the midst of confusion. You are all that is good in the world, my world. If love was a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches. And we would be in the center of them all.

(Amber takes a step back and nods. The two men join hands, each noticing as the other’s ring brushes against his skin. Silver and blue meet across a short expanse and the grooms whisper together reverently.)

S & J: With this hand, I will lift your sorrows. Your cup will never empty, for I will be your wine. With this candle, I will light your way in darkness. With this ring, I ask you to be mine.

AC: (triumphantly) May what has been declared here today last for all time and may no man put asunder. John Holmes Watson, Sherlock Scott Watson Holmes... You. Are. Married.

(Spontaneous applause fills the garden and echoes over the meadows. Amber leans in and taps Sherlock’s arm, catching the hyper-observant man’s attention immediately.)

AC: Kiss your husband.

(Sherlock doesn’t need to be told twice. Without even blinking, he drops John’s hands and closes the distance between them, pressing his body solidly against the shorter man and enveloping him in his long arms. Sherlock’s lips cover John’s swiftly. He takes full advantage of his height, and John’s surprise, tipping his new husband’s head back and twisting his tongue around John’s. In spite of himself, the doctor tilts his head back even more and dances his own tongue along Sherlock’s, reveling in the way they fit perfectly.

The garden erupts in applause again, along with cat calls and whistles led by Greg and Wiggins. It does not let up when their lips part. They look into one another’s wide eyes, warm breath against their parted lips, everyone else falls away.)

(Breathless and a little dizzy, John senses Sherlock’s thumb delicately brushing away a tear he was unaware he had shed. The corners of his mouth curl.)

S: (whispering) Don’t cry...husband. (sighing and cupping John’s face in his big hands) I have waited to call you husband for so long.

J: (hands on that slim waist) Wait no longer. Husband.

(Grins break over both of their faces and they kiss again. Chaste and quicker this time, but with no less passion.

Amber holds up her arms to quiet everyone as she speaks loudly.)

AC: (playfully) All right, all right. We still have a few things to tend to, so save it. (to the crowd) It is now my honor and privilege to congratulate Sherlock and John, husbands at last.

(Another cheer rises up. Mrs. Hudson and Bertie rush forward, each embracing one of the men in a bone crushing hug. They quickly swap places before Sherlock or John can escape and only let the other guests have a go when they are satisfied that all the stuffing has been squeezed from both men.

The rest of the crowd gathers around, bestowing more hugs and claps on the back. Words of congratulations and well wishes float through the air and, although John and Sherlock hear them all, they aren’t entirely focused on the people around them. Their eyes constantly come back to one another, full of excitement each time. That is, until about ten minutes have passed and John notices the strain on Sherlock’s face. He steps through the crowd to his husband and turns to them all, beaming from ear to ear.)

J: Why don’t we all go through the trellis to the reception. Come on, everyone.

MS: Capitol idea, John! Come. Let’s all take our seats and start the celebration. Cake to eat, speeches to give. Eh, Greg?

(Everyone laughs at Greg’s nervous nod, heading for the trellis. John moves to the side and pulls Sherlock over with him. The man looks restless, brimming with anxiety. John slowly strokes his thumb over the back of Sherlock’s hand.)

S: How long must we wait before making them all leave?

J: Just calm down, babe. It’s only a wedding reception and all these people are our friends.

S: How long do they typically last?

J: Um...four or five hours, maybe.

(Sherlock stares at John, his mouth opening and closing without a sound. John just grins and gives him that look that says ‘you really are so precious’.)

S: (incredulous and seething) Five hours?? Intolerable.

J: Okay, okay.

(He presses a gentle kiss to Sherlock’s lips. It’s a longer kiss than John might normally do in the presence of others, but the calming effect of his nibbles is more on his mind than embarrassment over public displays of affection.

He can feel the tension melting out of his husband’s muscles the longer he plays with his lips. A hand resting instinctively on Sherlock’s waist gives him a little squeeze. John opens his eyes as he pulls away, still feeling Sherlock’s warm breath on his mouth.)

J: You’ll be fine. I’ll be with you the whole time. (Sherlock frowns with those delectably full lips and John sighs.) I promise we’ll stay in for a whole week if you want. And turn away anyone who comes to visit.

S: Anyone?

J: Anyone.

(Sherlock’s hands glide up and down John’s back. His eyes momentarily drop to John’s lips hungrily and then rise up again innocently.)

S: And if I want to spend it the week in our bedroom?

J: (laughing) Then that is where we will be.

S: Promise?

J: Yes, I promise.

(Sherlock studies him for a moment in mock suspicion and then kisses him softly.)

S: (smiling against his lips) Shall we then? It is our reception, after all.

(John returns the kiss and leads his new husband under the trellis into the applause of their friends patiently waiting on the other side.)

[timeflies1007-blog]

Doctor Who Reviews by a Female Doctor, Season 3, p. 1

Previously on Doctor Who: The stellar first season was followed by a pretty subpar second one, but this second outing did give us a chance to meet David Tennant’s quirky, charming Doctor. The show struggled to land on a consistent storyline for the Tenth Doctor and Rose, but it did embrace the joy and energy that both characters brought to their travels. That joy ended in tears, though, as Rose was trapped in the parallel universe with her family, leaving the Doctor once again on his own.

         As this season begins, he is still very much in a state of grief over his separation from Rose, and this heightens his general sense of loneliness. The seasonal arc highlights this lonely state, as it relies heavily on his awareness that he’s the last of his species. The meticulously-planned Master plot works exceedingly well in bringing out this side of the Doctor, or at least it does until the last episode turns everything into nonsense. The Doctor’s obsession with his own aloneness doesn’t exactly help his relationship with his smart new companion Martha, though, as he tends to treat her like she’s getting in the way of his lamentations over his lost favorite. The Doctor can feel alone even with Martha standing right next to him, which is a good indication of the Doctor’s state of mind but is understandably frustrating for her.

        In general, this season is erratic in terms of episode quality; the first couple of episodes are solid, then there’s a lengthy slide into mediocrity, then we get five great episodes in a row, and finally everything crashes and burns in the finale. On the whole, I like more of this season than I did of the last one, but the brilliant, thoroughly unappreciated Martha feels mostly like a missed opportunity, and that prevents this from reaching the heights that Davies’s first and fourth seasons attain.

The Runaway Bride: Some viewers find Donna annoyingly screechy in this episode, which I think is a bit harsh. She’s picked up at her wedding and flung onto the TARDIS without warning, which is enough to make anyone do a lot of shouting. To be fair, the episode occasionally encourages an uncharitable reading of Donna; the Doctor’s long list of reasons why she’s a surprising target, including the notion that she’s not special or powerful, is uncharacteristically mean, and the sequence in which she tells the Doctor of Lance’s insistence on their wedding while the camera cuts away to her begging Lance to marry her is especially unfunny. Still, to me she’s already a likeable presence, and her oversized personality feels appropriate for an extremely fast-paced and frequently ridiculous episode. Her efforts to pull the Doctor away from some of his “big picture” thinking also make a decent case for taking her at least somewhat seriously. The beautiful last scene mostly makes up for the mean-spirited jokes; Donna’s right, the Doctor does need someone to stop him sometimes, and the fact that she is the quickest to challenge him is one of the reasons why I see Donna as the Tenth Doctor’s best companion. This is definitely not her best episode, but we get plenty of glimpses of the marvelous character who will return in Season Four.

        The other controversial element of this episode is the silliness of the plot, which is intensely goofy even by Doctor Who standards. The first third of the show, in which robot Santas kidnap Donna, is silliness done well. The car chase, which features the TARDIS pulling up alongside a Santa-driven taxi, is an especially fun sequence, and the two delighted children watching from the back of a nearby car make it even better. The Empress of Racnoss, however, is silliness done badly. She’s not quite as awful a monster as last season’s Absorbaloff, but she’s bad enough that I’m physically uncomfortable watching her scenes largely out of embarrassment for the actress playing her.  It’s like the director told her “Do a bunch of different random goofy evil laughter things, and then we’ll pull the best ten seconds and cut the rest” and then they forgot to cut anything. We keep cutting back to this poor woman, covered in a giant spider costume, wriggling about and making weird sounds, until finally she shrieks “My children!!!!” about twenty times and then she dies. It’s completely cringeworthy, and I spend the whole scene just waiting for it to be over.

         The serious side of the episode takes the form of the Doctor’s grief over Rose, which is generally very effective here. His memories of her from “New Earth” that are set off when he watches some dancing at the reception seem a bit random, but these moments are otherwise integrated believably into the story, and they reflect a form of grief that seems plausible for the Doctor’s personality. He’s clearly sad, but he hasn’t lost hold of his belief in Rose, and his assertion that she is “so alive” as he convinces Donna to leap into the TARDIS is a lovely display of his continuing love for Rose even in the midst of his sorrow. His angry response to the harm done by the Torchwood Institute is still very present, though, and his destruction of the Racnoss children just about makes sense in light of his devastation about losing Rose. The Doctor tends to get very self-righteous about the destruction of other species, even when they are trying to end the world, so it’s always jarring when he goes so definitively against his own principles like this. (Giving the Empress the choice to leave doesn’t really absolve him of all responsibility here in the way that he suggests, since he couldn’t give a similar choice to her children.) However, if we look at this as a release of the rage and sadness he’s been burying throughout the episode because he’s had a lot of crazy nonsense to take care of, I can understand why he would indulge in violence as much as he does here.

        This is a pretty uneven episode; some of the humor works fantastically well, but other pieces of it fall completely flat. I do think that it’s the best portrayal of the Doctor’s sense of loss this season, as the episode gets across his distress without making him treat Donna with the fairly dismissive approach that he later extends to Martha. In the end, this is a significant episode mainly because its events give Donna a reason to go looking for the Doctor later on, something for which the Doctor and everyone else should be exceedingly grateful. B+/B

Smith and Jones: The first twenty minutes or so of this episode are an absolutely sensational debut to the regular season. We get a very charming glimpse of the Jones family dealing with an ordinary minor crisis, we watch rain going the wrong way, a hospital gets relocated to the moon, the Doctor is somehow even more charismatic than usual, and Martha keeps her head to an impressive extent in spite of being whisked away from Earth without warning. And then the Rhinoceros Police turn up! (I know that they’re called Judoon, but there’s hardly ever an opportunity to say Rhinoceros Police, so I’m not passing up the chance just for the sake of getting the right name.) It’s a glorious setup, both for Martha herself and for this story.

           The rest of the episode doesn’t quite match the beginning, but it’s still a fun story, although the moon itself is disappointingly dull. I enjoy the Plasmavore, who calmly commits murder with a straw. The contrast between the hospital staff, who panic loudly, and the Judoon, who methodically catalog everyone with a cross on the hand, is also pretty funny. The Doctor gets a lot of comedic material in this episode, most of which works. There’s a tedious scene in which he hops around trying to get rid of radiation for what seems like half an hour, but his shouting about “Rhinos! On the moon!!” in an attempt to look human is adorably hilarious. Most importantly, Martha gets a lot of opportunities to show her scientific knowledge, probably more so here than in any other episode. She immediately impresses the Doctor with her understanding of how air would work on the moon, she makes a complicated machine work by reading the manual, she figures out what the Doctor has done to the Plasmavore, and she revives the Doctor when he seems to be dead. She is clearly excited to see the surface of the moon, but she’s much calmer than Rose, and she’s thinking more carefully about what she sees rather than just reacting emotionally. She’s definitely very different from her predecessor, and while she doesn’t quite have Rose’s immediately captivating presence, it’s exciting to see a companion who responds to a crisis by reading the operator’s manual.

           I do think that the ending of the episode is a letdown in several respects. The Doctor’s supposed death gives Martha a chance to put her medical knowledge to use, but is still one of the dullest fakeout deaths we’ve seen on this show. Both the business with the scanner and the last-minute return to Earth as the hospital runs out of air fall pretty flat for me, and Martha’s family gets reduced to silly squabbling instead of the much more engaging tensions that we saw in their earlier scene. The Doctor’s effort to prove that he’s a time traveler by going back to that morning and taking off his tie is a fabulous moment, but Martha’s actual TARDIS entrance is pretty underwhelming. The camera seems to be going for a pan of the control room, but somehow lands on jumping into a corner of the ceiling and staying there, which doesn’t exactly support Martha’s “bigger on the inside” moment. Once she gets into the TARDIS, the Doctor suddenly decides to stop being the lovely, charming figure he’s been all episode in favor of treating Martha like an intruder. I can understand that he might feel conflicted about inviting another woman into the TARDIS after losing Rose, but I’m not sure if the Doctor has ever shown quite this much resentment toward the new companion at any point in the show’s 50+-year history. (I guess he’s a bit annoyed with Jo at first because she’s not a scientist and she ruined an experiment, but he has an immediate change of heart, so it plays very differently.) It’s wonderful to see the first black companion on the show, and I’m thrilled that she gets a generally very strong debut episode, but it’s unfortunate that the first companion of color is the only one to be told “You’re not replacing her!” as she comes on board. Then she awkwardly flirts with him as a scowls at her, and I’m just left wondering if there’s a parallel universe out there in which the Doctor didn’t kiss Martha in his attempt to elude the Rhinos and this whole unrequited love plot was never set in motion. A full season of awesome, science-knowing Martha would have been much better than watching sad, mopey Martha wait for the Doctor to fall in love with her, and the origins of that storyline make for an irritating end to this otherwise great episode. Still, the most important thing for this episode to accomplish is the establishment of Martha as an interesting individual, and in spite of this unfortunate interaction with the Doctor, I would say it succeeds very much in that regard. A-

The Shakespeare Code: This marks the second installment of “The Doctor and Companion meet a dead writer in circumstances that resemble that writer’s works,” something that was nearly an annual tradition during Davies’s time on the show. The portrayal of Shakespeare is not as good as Simon Callow’s work as Charles Dickens two seasons ago, but he’s an enjoyable presence, and while the script sometimes goes obnoxiously overboard with the references, it’s fun watching the Doctor quote Shakespeare to the man himself. (A lot more than 57 academics would have punched the air if they saw Shakespeare flirt with the Doctor, though. Like, really a lot more.) As in “The Unquiet Dead,” the portrayal of the writer himself is better than the rather awkward incorporation of characters who resemble his own creations; the witches are entertaining enough, I guess, but keeping them for most of the episode as two clichéd hags and a generic attractive woman is not exactly an imaginative approach to these characters.

       The story does pick up, though, when it focuses on the power of words, which is both a nice individual storyline and a good piece of foreshadowing for the season finale. The Doctor’s explanation of why words hold so much power is especially lovely: “a theatre’s magic, isn’t it?...Stand on this stage, say the right words with the right emphasis at the right time. Oh you can make men weep, or cry with joy. Change them. You can change people’s minds just with words in this place.” Martha’s observation that the theater is like the TARDIS, containing power that exceeds its apparent dimensions, is smart enough that the Doctor manages to be impressed with her in spite of his unappreciative behavior elsewhere in the episode. The climactic scene, in which Martha helps to banish the Carrionite by realizing that “Expelliarmus!” is the perfect rhyme that Shakespeare needs, is an absolute delight, made even better by the Doctor’s jubilant exclamation of “Good old J.K.!” I love that this Shakespeare-focused episode finds so much joy in language and performance, and this scene encapsulates that joy perfectly.

       It’s a shame that this, probably their most appealing interaction, is placed into an episode that otherwise makes it difficult to enjoy them as a Doctor/Companion pairing. The previous episode ended on an unpleasant note, but featured a lot of great moments between them before that. This episode solidifies the problems, including the Doctor’s completely oblivious approach to racism. It makes sense to me that the Doctor might not quite grasp some of the nuances of Martha’s identity as a black woman; he’s seen so many species and been to so many times and places that I can imagine it would be difficult to keep track of exactly what power structures are in place at a particular moment in Earth’s history. Still, he’s spent a lot of time on twentieth and twenty-first century Earth, so his complete lack of awareness of her fears feels like a step too far. Responding to Martha’s concerns about slavery with the quip that “I’m not even human!” and the advice to “walk around like you own the place” is startlingly tone deaf—he may not be human, but he looks like an attractive, well-dressed white man, and that gives him an ability to swagger around that isn’t as available to Martha. It’s completely worth pointing out that there are more people of color in sixteenth-century England than we tend to see in movies, but using two extras with no lines to make this point, and then returning to Martha’s race only as a joke about the Shakespearean-era terms constituting “political correctness gone mad” is not the way to do this. The Doctor’s inability to quite grasp certain human things is worth exploring, but having him come across as completely unaware of the existence of racism just makes it look like he hasn’t been paying attention at all in his travels on Earth. The dynamic between these two gets even worse as the Doctor continues to treat Martha like a downgrade from Rose. It’s entirely possible to write a good unrequited love story; one-sided romantic feelings happen, and I don’t think that portraying a character as having these feelings necessarily weakens that character in any way. Framing an unrequited love story around jealousy of another woman is almost always going to go badly, though, and the Doctor’s unkind remark that “Rose would know what to do” sets in motion Martha’s understandable resentment toward her predecessor. During their interactions with Shakespeare, both characters show themselves to be wonderful, charming, witty people, but this episode does such a terrible job of setting up the relationship between them that it’s difficult to get excited about watching the two of them together. B

Gridlock: New Earth wasn’t very exciting to me the first time we saw it, but at least that episode had Tennant and Piper doing Lady Cassandra impressions (and Lady Cassandra herself being entertaining) to distract from the dullness of the planet. That’s gone here, in favor of “floaty vans get stuck in traffic.” It’s not a completely unworkable premise, but if I have to spend much of an episode trapped in an unmoving vehicle, I at least want to be trapped with interesting characters, and Martha and the Doctor manage to land in vehicles driven by the blandest beings of New Earth. Some of the other vehicles seem to contain more memorable individuals—I particularly liked the elderly lesbian couple keeping a close watch on the motorway’s many vehicles—but the four main minor characters are almost completely devoid of personality. The most interesting trait that I can think of to describe them is “child-bearing,” which is enjoyable only in the brief moments when we get to look at some kittens. Novice Hame doesn’t make much of an impression either, as I barely remembered her from “New Earth,” so her redemption didn’t mean anything to me, and the whole theme of “drugs are baaaaaaad” creates an awfully lukewarm center to the story.

       The Face of Boe scenes make more of an impression, but I have trouble making sense of them, given the revelations later in the season. If this really is Captain Jack, as is strongly hinted at later in the season, why does this particular secret have such significance for him? If a character has a final truth that they need to tell before their death, I expect it to be something that’s meaningful to them, or at least to the person being told. Here, though, Jack spends his final moments giving the Doctor an unintelligibly vague clue about the existence of the Master, which the Doctor doesn’t really understand at this point and is going to find out about very shortly anyways. After everything that Jack’s been through in his life, the Doctor’s encounter with the Master later in the season doesn’t seem like something that would be resonant enough to Jack to form the center of his last moments before the death that finally sticks. It’s an interesting moment for the audience, as we are left wondering what the Face of Boe’s words mean, and it serves as an important clue to Yana’s identity in “Utopia,” although the Doctor could probably have pieced things together on the basis of the drumbeat and the watch. As the possible death scene of a beloved character (albeit one who was still alive and kicking on his very own spinoff) it just seems unsatisfying to frame it around the confession of a secret that doesn’t have a lot of personal significance to Jack and is too vague for the Doctor to understand.

       Pieces of this story are somehow duller than actually being stuck in traffic, but the redemptive final minute prevents this from being a total disaster. As the people of New Earth sing a beautiful hymn, Martha convinces the Doctor to open up to her a bit, and he gives her a heartfelt description of his grief over the loss of his planet. He does genuinely seem to realize that she deserves better than the halfhearted welcome she’s gotten from him so far, and so the scene both lends a sense of specificity to New Earth that otherwise eludes it in this episode and gives us one of the best interactions between the Doctor and Martha. One scene can only do so much to improve a generally weak episode, but at least Martha’s first trip into the future ends on this stunningly hopeful note. C+

Daleks in Manhattan: The first time I watched this episode, I assumed that the TARDIS had somehow landed Martha and the Doctor in some parallel universe or a future era that was trying to reconstruct Depression-era New York, and that the climactic reveal would be their realization that they weren’t where they thought they were. The performances and production values are just so unconvincing that I figured there must be some sort of plot twist explaining them, but this is, in fact, just a poorly-realized story. It’s unfortunate because it’s the debut episode for writer Helen Raynor, the first woman to write for the reboot and, sadly, the only woman to write for the first eight seasons. Her script is mostly unimpressive here, but it’s made far worse than necessary by the completely incompetent direction. Doctor Who frequently deals with trying to do special effects without enough money, but most directors have either managed to somehow make the episodes look good, or to use the low-budget feel to create a sort of charming, B-movie atmosphere. Season One’s “Dalek” looks particularly low-budget, but the director makes it work amazingly well. The classic series had even more struggles with money, and while sometimes this results in disaster (i.e. “Underworld”), most of the time the cheap sets create a lovely, whimsical world for the Doctor and his friends. (“Invasion of the Dinosaurs” features dinosaurs that look like an elementary school art project, and it’s still one of my very favorite classic episodes.) Here, it looks like the director tried to film the episode on about 10% of the necessary budget and did nothing to account for the lack of money, and everything just looks shoddy. The acting is also weaker than usual here; the minor characters come across as forced attempts at campy humor, and the comedy just looks so effortful that it’s never actually funny. Worse, this two-parter is the one story in the reboot in which the Daleks don’t scare me even a little bit. Even in “Victory of the Daleks,” where we get the stupid color change, they are at least frightening in the earlier scenes of the episode. There is usually some sort of magic that makes Daleks terrifying in spite of being big pieces of metal with plungers and whisks attached, but here they actually come across as harmless and ineffectual as that description sounds.

           The problems don’t lie entirely with the direction, as Raynor’s script has plenty of clunky moments. We begin with the Doctor’s efforts to explain the concept of homelessness to grown woman Martha Jones, and then we meet Obvious Moral Man, who pontificates on subjects like “I learned in the war that it’s important to stick together” and “It’s confusing that some people have money while other people don’t have money.” He’s not wrong, but the show usually manages to get across life lessons with a little bit less sledgehammering. Throughout the episode, the dialogue is pretty bad, weighed down by misguided attempts at 1930s colloquial speech and even worse attempts at irony (like Tallulah’s observation that men are pigs, but not her Laszlo, who has been turned into a pig. Yikes.) We also get some more attention to Martha’s unrequited crush on the Doctor, although at least it’s pretty brief here. As this first part draws to an end, everything is terrible, and there is still another half of the story left to go. D

Evolution of the Daleks: This one is not quite as bad as the first part, although it’s pretty close. We have to sit through the Human-Dalek, which delivers stilted dialogue in the most grating voice imaginable. We have to watch more of Tallulah, who is pretty much the pinnacle of blandness. We have to endure the Doctor shouting aggressively at the Daleks while thumping on his chest in what is arguably Tennant’s worst performance in his entire run on the show. (It reminds me, somehow, of the scene in The West Wing in which Josh starts shouting at the Capitol Building—a moment similarly grounded in an apparent desire to just throw lots of ANGRY! at a talented dramatic actor and hope it works out.) We have a plot that seems awfully reminiscent of the Dalek being corrupted by Rose’s DNA in season 1 but that is worse in every way. We have to hear another entry in the list of Martha’s laments about how the Doctor liked Rose better than her. We have to listen to Andrew Garfield’s terrible accent. And, in the end, it’s all for an experiment in linking Dalek and human DNA that makes them look utterly ridiculous and doesn’t properly work, resulting in the destruction of the whole project. After sitting through two whole episodes of the Daleks putting together this plan, it’s an awfully underwhelming conclusion, and calls into question whether it was worth trotting out the Daleks just to have them engage in this poorly thought-out adventure. There are a couple of nice moments, especially Martha weaponizing lightning against the pig people, but on the whole the story is a major disappointment. D+

[theaterwit]

Last rehearsals with Martha

I had offered a role to Martha Lavey in 2016 as one of the pre-recorded performers in 10 out of 12. The show was intended as a spiky love letter to Chicago theater and I wanted her in it, especially since the script was written so that four of the characters were pre-recorded. Like many in our community, I had been horrified to hear about her stroke shortly after stepping down as Steppenwolf's Artistic Director. I knew she had been looking forward to focusing on her stage work. The stroke resulted in speech and physical issues which seemed to preclude her performing ever again. It was tragic. 10 out of 12 offered not only a unique opportunity to include to one of our city's greatest artists, but echoed a complex and painful truth about an art form that often takes as much as it gives from its practitioners.

I decided I wouldn't would talk about that aspect publicly. I believed that Martha would be able to rise to the occasion. That—with a little judicious editing—the audience would never know she had had a stroke. I dropped off a script and a cover letter in the fall.

I remember being very nervous. How would she take this offer? I was headed up to her room when I saw her in the lunchroom. I stopped by her table and just got the first sentence of my pitch out, "I'm directing Anne Washburn's new play, and it has a part that I think you'd be terrific in—" and she burst out "Yes! Absolutely!" Then she paused. "But Jeremy I can't--- I have---" I could see her groping for the word. Aphasia.

"It's prerecorded. You'll be playing the Lighting Designer. You and I will rehearse separately, and we'll just record until we get a take you like." (I of course had no idea if this was possible) She looked doubtful, but I asked her to read the script and I would come by to talk about the project in a week. She was grinning like crazy as I left.

And that was the start of one of the strangest and most wonderful rehearsal experiences I've ever had in my life.

The following week, I came for a one hour meeting. It lasted four. We talked about the play, about Steppenwolf, about her stroke, about my theater, my family, our mutual friends, plays we'd loved, the job description of an Artistic Director. She was so crazy smart and insightful. Not being able to verbalize easily was a constant frustration to her.

She didn't think she could read dialogue aloud. I asked her if she'd tried since the stroke and she said no. She tried. Tentatively. Froze. Tried again. And, amazingly, the bulk of her aphasia disappeared.

But it was a complicated mind/text relationship. When she tried to put interpretation on the line, her speech centers would engage differently and the aphasia would return. Sometimes odd phrase inversions would occur and she couldn't shake them. We'd have to move on to a different section. We worked for maybe 15 minutes. At the end, Martha looked at me, questioning. Her self-doubt was painful. I told her that the only difference I could see in her since the stroke was that now she didn't *believe* she could do it. I told her she was hired, that she was doing this play and that she should start working on the text. I'm not doing a play about the Chicago theater without you in it.

We met a few additional times before rehearsal started. For lunch, for coffee. She wanted to analyze the play, to discuss its aesthetics, to talk about what lighting designers were like. We were having fun (which was disconcerting for me, since I had previously only viewed her with awe.) And the better a time she was having and the more invested she was in the conversation, the lighter the aphasia. Never gone, but eased. She was working, building a relationship with me, with the world of the play. I asked her if she was rehearsing the text. She said, not yet. She wanted to hear the play. "How?" I asked. She asked me to come by and read it to her. Solo. Those of you who know Martha will be unsurprised, but she stated this request as factually and casually as if she had asked me to get her a Coke Zero.

Now... 10 out of 12 is a 2 1/2 hour play that takes place with a tremendous amount of simultaneous dialogue and action. The action of the play is embedded in a variety of sound sources for the audiences. Each audience member would hear dialogue from the stage, from four different point sources in the house, from the overhead speakers, from backstage and over headsets. I was fairly sure that a table read would be impossible to follow, let alone a solo performance by a beleaguered director playing 14 parts. But MARTHA FREAKING LAVEY asked me to do this for her, so I showed up and performed *every word* of the play (along with stage descriptions) for a solid three hours with one 5 minute break. At one point the nursing staff came in to see who was yelling at Martha. She waved them away happily. "We're working."

Rehearsals began. Martha attended the first two table reads: first read-thru (we used a substitute reader for her because she didn't want to slow the reading down), and a subsequent table work rehearsal for her sections. I could see her mouthing the lines from the page along with the assistant director who was reading in for her. She and I wanted to hear the other actors against her so we weren't recording/performing in a vacuum.

The third company rehearsal was for music. 10 out of 12 ends with an enormous choral rendition of a painful hymn to tech and the theatre. The previous week I had casually asked Martha, "Do you sing?" "I don't know. I used to. I haven't tried. Let's try." Martha, Barbara Robertson, John Mahoney rehearsed their choral parts for an hour and we then shifted over to space Steppenwolf had donated to record the show, courtesy of Martha Wegener and Rob Milburn.

We were scheduled to record in small pieces (30-60 minutes a day) because she wanted to keep her concentration sharp. The first day we recorded for four hours. It was hard going. Martha was stuck alone in a sound booth and was frustrated when she wouldn't be able to get a phrase out. She hated doing the text in single sentence attacks. She wanted to act freely, but couldn't quite manage it. We ended up postponing whole pages and doubling back. There were sections where she had to speak in rhythm, to get the timing right for a joke, to juggle all the different audio focuses the Lighting Designer would have in rehearsal (over the headset, to the Stage Manager in the house, to an actor on the stage, to the board programmer next to her, etc.). And large chunks of her lines were very detailed technical programming instructions with a ton of channel numbers and light levels that were very specific to the action.

We stopped for a Coke on the way home. She was tentative about the session. I thought that we were way ahead of the game, since I expected to be recording for a full week with her. I told her we'd listen to it and then come back and plug in the gaps where we didn't have quite the right take after we could rehearse it against the live performers for a few days.

When Joe Court, the sound designer, and I listened to the outtakes, it was apparent that almost none of them would suffice. Martha's voice was weak so we'd turned up the gain on her mic, but now the recording didn't match the other audio performers. The readings were thin and didn't seem to have the hard edge of someone really focused on her task. And that was my fault, since I had been so focused on getting clean recordings with good diction that I had neglected the environment of the play. I asked Martha if she could rehearse again with me and Joe at her place that weekend. "Just a few bits we need to tune up," I told her. Joe brought a recorder to the room in case we could capture anything useful for rehearsal.

I brought diagrams of the room so she should see where every cast member she was talking to was located in proximity to her speaker location. We talked about the situational time pressures, the efficiency required of a light designer in tech. Then she started reading against me, and it was... substantially better. Just having someone to talk to directly helped but so did the specificity of action. We grabbed a few bits of recorded text to use in rehearsal for the weekend and scheduled another recording session at Steppenwolf.

The third session was a revelation. Martha asked me on the way over if we had to re-record everything and I told her it wasn't that bad. What I didn't share at the top of the day was that we had to do about 90% of the material again. And that rehearsal was ...

Amazing.

It was a different process. We took down the blanket that covered the window so she should talk to (or at least, toward) me. Her voice was strong and directed. She took a few moments before each section to run through it sotto voce, then made a strong clean attack. She clearly had a picture of the environment in her head. Her character was full of purpose and energy... fearless, running against the clock, in control.

We finished recording in one hour. The entire part. From scratch. One to three takes per line. Full paragraphs. Every number, every channel and level. Word perfect.

I didn't ask her if she had been practicing the lines independently. I don't think she had. I think she had managed, in just two short weeks, to reroute her actor self in parallel to some of the damage her stroke had done. I kissed Martha goodbye and told her I'd see her on the other side of tech. I was sad about our rehearsals ending, but Martha was glowing with pleasure. I think she felt she had a really great day as a professional actor.

I met Martha after she saw the show three weeks later. She was so thrilled with it (as was I). In that theater, every night was a full-on Martha Lavey performance: a little wry, occasionally grim, often amused. I don't think anyone who didn't know Martha's history could have guessed about her stroke. It was obliterated in the face of her interpretation. Martha's health condition wasn't mentioned in a single review. No audience member ever asked me about it. The show just had Martha Lavey in the ensemble.

We spent about three hours hanging out talking about the show, the audience, the responses, and the technical process. In the interim, she grilled me about the theater's goals for next season. When I left, I told her how much I loved working with her and she said, "promise me we'll keep working together. On whatever." I promised.

I had missed seeing her one last time last Wednesday by less than an hour. I had dropped by her place to drop off a replacement for her final paycheck. I knocked but she wasn't there. I left her check in her mailbox and figured I'd catch up this week. We had spent about 50 hours together total since that first pitch and I had a new confident and mentor. I thought we'd maybe attend closing together.

Just before our final weekend of 10 out of 12, we heard the news that Martha Lavey, our cast mate, had a second severe stroke on Wednesday afternoon. On Friday, I told the cast that she had moved into hospice.

Attending that final performance on Sunday wrecked me. I was with a small group, none of whom knew that Martha was in hospice care at the moment. I didn't tell them. I wanted their experience of Martha's last performance to be untainted by her personal extremity. I wanted them to just enjoy the performance. Which they did.

But I was crying as I listened to Martha's last line and heard her voice in the choral mix at the end. Fierce. Transcendent. Luminous.

Thank you Martha. You were a gift.

-- jeremy

[destroying-stongholds]

Good Mood, Bad Mood, by Charles D. Hodges, M.D.

I’ve been wanting to pull together my favorite things I learned from this lovely book into one spot, because this book so thoroughly expresses all my frustrations that drove me toward Biblical counseling. I want to start by saying Dr. Hodges is not an anti-science Bible thumper.  He is a medical doctor dedicated to practicing evidence-based medicine, and every critique of medicine he writes is backed with a scientific study.  He treats his patients with psychotropics, but knows that the meds do not treat core heart issues.  

In the first third of the book, Dr. Hodges talks about how insufficient the medical treatment of moods is. In the middle third, he talks about the Biblical view of moods and how sadness can be useful.  In the last third, he talks about the sufficiency of the Bible for treating moods.  In case you don’t catch on, the italicized parts are from me, not him.  

The insufficiency of the psychiatric view of moods:

1.     The criteria for diagnosing Major Depressive Disorder are flawed.  (A)They are subjective, and do not include an objective test that confirms the presence of disease.  There is no way to differentiate people with a chemical imbalance from people without a biologic basis for their sadness.  (B)The criteria do not rule out NORMAL situational sadness that is proportionate to the level of real life suffering the person is experiencing. (C)The standard for diagnosis has been changed/ lowered multiple times over the years.   New change since this book was written: Grief is no longer excluded from the MDD diagnosis.  Adjustment Disorder with Depression diagnosis still exists as an alternative to MDD, but is still used to call normal sadness a disorder.

2.     Doctors ignore the criteria, and prescribe medication for patients who do not meet criteria.  I have even seen doctors prescribe antidepressants prophylactically to prevent their patients from becoming sad.

3.     The meds don’t even work that well.  A study showed that the SSRI class of antidepressants does not actually perform any better than placebo.  This study came out when I was in PA school, and it was a royal bummer.  Studies show the only people that receive much benefit are the most severely depressed patients, not the ones with ordinary sadness.

4.     The most accepted physiologic theory behind depression, that low serotonin levels in the brain causes depression, has not actually been clearly substantiated with scientific evidence.  

I want to note that in spite of the lack of scientific evidence to back SSRI use, I see cases where the meds have successfully pulled people far enough out of their severely dark rut so that they could see their hope in Christ again, and lean on Him to pull them the rest of the way back into the light.  I’ve seen meds help with the neurophysiologic changes that occur secondary to prolonged severe depression, such as cognitive and psychomotor slowing.  I prescribe the meds, but I understand their limits—they cannot transform lives for the better on their own.  Unfortunately, I also see cases where the meds help pull people far enough out of their rut so that they do not recognize their need for a savior to pull them the rest of the way toward true joy. Dr. Hodges pulls from both secular sources and the Bible to describe positive useful purposes of sadness that we loose when we treat normal sadness as an illness: 1.  Sadness draws social support to the sufferer. When the body of Christ is functioning correctly, sadness should be a cue to fellow members that they need to offer emotional, spiritual, and physical assistance to a sufferer.  That support is a blessing to both the sufferer and the ones providing the support.   2.  Sadness and the decreased energy associated with it can lead us to quit fighting for lost causes that have no positive benefit. My take: This can be dangerous if you use the sadness as an excuse to give up on causes the Bible tells you to continue to fight for. Thankfully, the Bible itself addresses that in Joshua 1:9, as well as 100 other places.

3.  Sadness can motivate you to take deliberate steps to change your life for the better.  Biblical repentance can fall under this category.   When sadness comes from personal sin, grief over sin can drive a person to repentance, which causes a change in direction from life-destroying sin to salvation and healthy/ righteous deeds.  (2 Corinthians 7:8-11.)

4.  Hodges uses the story of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus in John 11 to make a smorgasbord of points about Jesus suffering over our grief and how He points toward hope. Our ability to be sad is one of the characteristics of God that we are blessed to share with him.  My favorite quote from the book is “I don’t think we are medically capable of banishing sadness and depression from our lives, but if we were, should we want to do it?  Is there anything to lose by doing so?  Would we be giving up a part of our humanity, intended by God to be used the same way it was for Martha, Mary, and Lazarus?  Could it be that never being sad would lave us spiritually impoverished?” Dr. Hodges uses a case study of a depressed young Christian woman to teach techniques for treating depression with the Bible.  In this case, the woman’s normal grief over her uncertain medical situation soured into a host of unbiblical attitudes and choices, including: hopelessness, bitterness at God, apathy, neglect of responsibilities, poor self-care, and self-medication.    

1. He started by teaching about the Apostle Paul’s thorn of the flesh.  (2 Corinthians 12:7-10).  Paul was intentionally given a physical ailment from God to keep him from exalting himself, and to keep him depending on the grace of God for sustainment.  God did not remove this ailment when Paul asked him to, because God knew the ailment was the best remedy for Paul’s soul.  I don’t know if he immediately gut-punched with those rougher aspects of the story in the first counseling session or not. It looks like he definitely started by using it to show the woman that God did indeed care about her suffering. He taught her how in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Paul says God comforts us in our affliction so that we can comfort others.

2.  He used the Lazarus story to show how Jesus listened to her cry, and how he had a better plan for her.  His plan to raise Lazarus from the dead was so much better than Martha’s plan for Jesus to simply heal Lazarus’s ailment while he was alive.  

3.  He used 1 Corinthians 10 to teach her about how her overwhelming desire for good health mirrored the Israelites desire to worship anything other than the God who saved them.  The classic 10:13 taught her about temptations common to man, so that she would know she was not alone with a unique problem.  10:31 taught her that she still needed to choose to glorify God in the midst of her suffering.  She had to align her desires with God’s, so that she desired to glorify Him more than she desired good health.  

4.  They worked on the great command to love and obey God. (Matthew 22:37-39)

5.  He asked her whether she was willing to commit to obeying the Bible if it told her what she was doing was wrong.  

6.  He assured her that her ability to change was rooted in her connection with Christ, and that she would not be growing alone.  (John 15:4-5)  He taught her to pray to God for the grace she needed to grow.  (Hebrews 4:15-16).  

7.  He used Isaiah 48 to teach about the connection between emotions and actions, and how that can turn into disaster. 8.  He used the story in John 13:12-17 of Jesus washing the feet of His disciples to teach “the only way to have happiness or joy in this life is found in serving Jesus and others instead of serving self.”  I’ve heard Hodges recommend serving others as a treatment modality for other issues, such as PTSD.  It works, people!

9.  To Do’s:  He gave her assigned practical tasks to get her back in motion and reengaged in her life, such as reconnecting with friends and family.  He gave her a daily Bible reading plan, assigned her Bible verses to memorize, told her to go to church and take notes on the sermons, and told her reengage with the body of Christ by joining a small group.  The activity level that resulted from completing all these tasks helped elevate her mood.  

10.  They tackled repentance, which I already mentioned up in the section on the usefulness of sadness.   I am flabbergasted by how seasoned counselors like Dr. Hodges are able to pull weapons from all over the Bible to combat the worldly lies we tell ourselves.  There’s heaps more in the book, but I’ll close with my other favorite quote from it:  “When we choose to see sorrow the way God intends, we do not sorrow as those who have no hope.  Godly sorrow leads to changes in our mind’s perspective and our heart’s priorities.” I wish my day-job patients were more open to hearing words like this.  Their suffering could be transformed into something beautiful.